Publisher's Binding

Wedgwood blue decorated cloth with design in silver, black, and gilt to front cover depicting onlookers at the Reflecting Pool, observing the huge white domed buildings of the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Spine has titles in bright gilt with a large ferris wheel in silver stamping- the ferris wheel made its debut at the Exposition. "In the 1880s and 1890s, the popularity of ‘silver’ stamping grew. Silver leaf had been used in tooling as early as the 15th century, but binders found that pure silver eventually would tarnish to black. Binders abandoned silver stamping altogether in the 1850s. However, by the 1880s, the look of silver stamping could be achieved by using a mixture of palladium and aluminum, which would not tarnish. Stamping with such substitute materials called white metal stamping became common."

World's Columbian Exposition