Reflecting the world when my grandparents were born
/I recently browsed 12 books by Clifton Johnson in Internet Archive and realized that the years when they were published (1893 to 1915) were just prior and during the years my grandparents were born (1901-1912). My grandparents were born in Oklahoma and Texas; these places were not direct subjects of any of the books, but I thought my grandfather born in 1901 might have walked down a dusty road in Texas kicking up dust…dressed in overalls and a hat…just as pictured in The Farmer’s Boy. I couldn’t tell whether the boy in the picture had shoes or not; my grandfather talked about not wearing shoes when he was a child if it was warm enough because they always fit poorly and there was never enough money to buy new ones that fit. In the picture of “a schoolgirl at home” in Highways and Byways of the South – the bonnet reminds me of the type one of my grandmother’s wore when she was working outdoors for the duration of her long life.
Johnson used both drawings and photographs to illustrate his books. The majority on this list are travel type books…but there are some fairy tale books too! According to the Wikipedia entry about him, he treated photographic prints as a “rough draft” – a challenging decision in pre-Photoshop days! He lived most of his life in the northeast of the US but travelled broadly…recording what he saw.
Highways and Byways of California
Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes
Highways and Byways of the Rocky Mountains
The Country School in New England
The book of country clouds and sunshine
Highways and Byways of the South
A book of fairy-tale bears; selections from favorite folk-lore stories
Enjoy the sample images (one from each book)!
