Wonderful California
Date
Format
- Book 1156
Printers
Publishers
Media
- paper 2352
- ink 599
- chromolithograph 7
Techniques
- offset lithography 713
- lithography 251
- photography 171
- printing 1040
Dimensions
Printed Pages
Locations Made
- United States 1085
- Chicago 103
- Illinois 138
Wonderful California is an 80 page picture book made in photogravure and bound in softcover with spool, originally published and printed in Chicago in 1916 by Curt Teich & Co. (C.T. & Co.) for the Van Noy-Interstate Company. The photogravures are printed in a sepia color palate.
Curt Teich & Co operated from 1898-1978 and was known for popularizing the color postcard in the United States. This book was made with the same printing and lithographic techniques as other products produced by the firm, which were called "CT Photochroms", though the technique would be borrowed from German lithography processes at the time. Photographs would be treated and retouched by hand, then re-photographed onto two separate plates of zinc and copper respectively. This would produce a finer detail to all elements of the photograph, as well as preserving the original perspective and depth. The companies' technique would be imitated by others, though the process itself, Curt Teich concluded, was too cumbersome to patent.
This book was printed with the express purpose to advertise the state of California and its railways to the rest of the United States for tourism. The price, $1.50, would be equivalent to about $47.00 in 2026.
This particular print is different from most archived prints by having a unique cover illustration with textured black, white, and gold ink. The 80 pages of material do not differ from other versions of the book. This particular copy was found by the uploader in an antiques shop in Aberdeen, Washington, about 2-3 years ago. Subsequent scanned images come from a similar copy of the book with exact matching photographs, digitized by the Getty Research Institute.
Sources:
https://calisphere.org/item/28c957cdce414b3e60fde1b0233f3cc8/
https://www.madeinchicagomuseum.com/single-post/curt-teich-postcards/
https://primo.getty.edu/permalink/f/19q6gmb/GETTY_ALMA21122990240001551
https://archive.org/details/gri_33125014415505/page/n1/mode/2up
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curt_Teich
https://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:80444/xv98712
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=gri.ark:/13960/t4rj8z15q&seq=3