WESTERN AMERICANA from Downtown Brown Books, ABAA

Salem, OR: Capital Printing, 1898. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. A standard source for the history of the Oregon Coast in the 19th century. [4], 468, 103 (biographical appendix) pages, plus [32] pages of halftone plates and a frontispiece portrait of the author. First edition (first printing). A very good copy in the original blue cloth binding,… Read more about this item

Mountain Home, TX: Y-O Press, 1980. First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine/Very good. 192 pages. 8-1/2 by 11-1/4 inches. Illustrated by Joe Beeler. A history of the YO Ranch. Profusely illustrated. The author is best known for his mystery and science fiction novels. First edition (first printing). Near fine in a very good dust jacket that has… Read more about this item

Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2008. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Near fine. This book reproduces 148 tintype portraits by Kendrick of modern cowboys who look like they walked off the range 150 years ago. Essay by Marianne Wiggins. Afterword by photographer Jay Dusard. Published as volume 22 of the M. K. Brown Range Life series. 232… Read more about this item

Mountain Home, TX: Y-O Press, 1980. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. An exceptional copy of this classic of modern Texas books. Long Days is an anecdotal and oral history of the YO Ranch, which was started near Kerrville by Charles Shreiner in 1880. The book is profusely illustrated with halftone photographs and drawings. The author is best… Read more about this item

Hartford: American Publishing Company, 1876. First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine. A well-meaning and self-serving account of the Modoc War, one of the last major battles between the US military and a Native American tribe. The Modocs, who holed up in the lava beds in far northeastern California and southeastern Oregon were finally defeated and forced to relocate to… Read more about this item

San Francisco: Abe Yuka, 1968. First Edition. Trade paperback. Fine. A collection from Abe Toyoji's (1880-1946) "Shadow of Time" newspaper column which was the most widely circulated Japanese column in the United States in the 1930s (see Shin Sekai Asahi Shinbun, January 24, 1937). He completed the manuscript for this book in early 1941 but its publication was… Read more about this item

Tokyo: Nihon Tosho Shuppan, 1921. Hardcover. Very good. A book divided into two parts. The first looks at the political and military significance of the Pacific area, the importance and role of the Hawaiian Islands, the American national character, the American economy, and finally U.S.-Japanese trade relations. The second half provides a summary of the economic and social… Read more about this item

Los Angeles: Hakubundo Shoten, 1932. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. Part history, part literary anthology, this large volume by an Issei historian devotes chapters to the Japanese exclusion laws, the history of Japanese American farming, particularly in California, and Japanese language schools. The bulk of the book is an anthology of Japanese American poetry (in Japanese) and first-person… Read more about this item

Tokyo: Rokko Shuppanbu, 1943. First Edition. Trade paperback. Very good. A very scarce wartime history of the Japanese in California that argues that the internment of Japanese and Japanese Americans was a symptom of the same pervasive anti-Japanese attitudes among Americans that had contributed to the Second World War. The author, according to Yuji Ichioka writing in… Read more about this item

West Seattle, WA: F. F. Martin, 1907. Ephemera. Very good. Photograph of Asian and Anglo men apparently involved in fish processing in West Seattle, Washington. The photograph measures 8 by 6-1/4 inches on a larger (9 by 11 inches) dark gray mount with the photographer's ink stamp in the upper left corner, "F. F. Martin | West… Read more about this item

San Pedro, CA: Nanka Mie Kenjinkai [Southern California Mie Prefectural Society], 1922. First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine. A very scarce Japanese-American history and Who's Who printed in Los Angeles in the Taisho era. Many Japanese immigrants to the US participated in organizations centered around their family's native prefecture. This book was published by the Mie Prefectural Association,… Read more about this item

Tokyo: Bunseisha, 1935. First Edition. The deluxe issue of this record of the Japanese in Hawaii, bound in brilliant purple cloth and housed in a paper clamshell case and a wooden box. "A standard prewar history of the Japanese in Hawaii with sections on history, demography, print media, finance, commerce, agriculture, religion, education, and community organizations. Includes… Read more about this item

San Francisco: Hongwanji Hokubei Kaikyo Honbu, 1936. First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine. A chronological history of the North American Hongwanji Mission. Provides a chronology of important events from 1898 to 1935, brief descriptive histories of each church under the mission, and outline of the Y.M.B.A. [Young Men's Buddhist Association] League of North America, and resolutions of ministerial conferences."-A… Read more about this item

Tokyo: Tobei Kyokai, 1906. Trade paperback. Very good. Third edition. "An updated and expanded guide to America which has information on employment, the Texas Japanese rice colony, and a special section on women. The 54-page appendix consists of basic English."-A Buried Past, 118. This is one of many guides to studying and immigrating to the United… Read more about this item

Los Angeles: Zaibei Miyagi Kenjinshi Hensan Jimusho, 1933. First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine. A history of the Japanese from Miyagi Prefecture. Contains a short background on emigration from this prefecture, some population statistics, and a list of Japanese from Miyagi living in Southern California. Also includes brief histories of the Southern California Miyagi Prefectural Association and the Northern… Read more about this item

Tokyo: Daigakukan, 1906. First Edition. Trade paperback. Very good. A little known Meiji-era novel narrated by a young Japanese immigrant in the United States. The narrator seems to have come from the class of poor young people with knowledge of the modern world but little chance of advancement in tradition-bound Japan. He offers opinions and philosophical musings… Read more about this item

Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1946. First Edition. Trade paperback. Very good. The final report on the relocation, internment, and incarceration of Japanese immigrants and of Japanese Americans following the Japanese Navy's attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. While the book's chronology begins in January 1942, the chapter called "The Price of Prejudice"… Read more about this item

Tokyo: Hakubunkan, 1905. First Edition. Trade paperback. Very good. A general treatment of the Japanese in America by a Waseda University professor and a Christian socialist. He views the exclusion movement as rooted in racial prejudice, looks for more emigration from Japan, and anticipates that the Pacific Coast will become the meeting ground for the East and West.… Read more about this item

Sakata, Japan: Sakata Nihon Kirisuto Kyokai [Sakata Japanese Christian Church], 1928. Hardcover. Good. A short travelog of a Japanese Christian minister's visit to the United States to attend the World Sunday School Convention, in July 1928. Miura gives a brief report on the convention and then details his travels, visiting cities and natural landmarks, as well as Japanese… Read more about this item

[Tokyo]: Gaimusho tsushokyoku daisanka, 1920. First Edition. A bilingual pamphlet detailing the origins of and the official Japanese response to the 1913 Alien Land Law passed in California. The law prohibited foreigners who were not eligible to obtain citizenship from purchasing land or entering into leases longer than three years. It applied almost entirely to Asian immigrants, who were… Read more about this item