JF Ptak Science Books LLC   Post 162 and a quarter

My old friend Jeffrey Donlan, who  is in charge of what must be a top 1% highest-elevation library in the U.S. (at 7000+ feet) in Salida, Colorado, sent me a playful pinch, asking about what ever happened to the History of Blank People (which I posted about a few months ago)

Well, it isn’t easy coming upon these images of people being made to disappear and/or people being “filled up” (you’d better see the post), but within a day after his contact and within a day of Jeff’s visit, I stumbled upon one (looking of course for an image of matchmakers, as in Lucifer Sticks).  It spilled out of the pages of Harpers Weekly for 1871, and was part of a caricature of the selection process for folks becoming a member of the The Independent Order of Odd Fellows. The work is a strong attack upon the fellowship, with this section showing a possible member being stripped of all his sins and foulnesses and various other transgressions, all of which are taken from his body and applied to a blank manikin. 


Instead of burning the sin-laden manikin, though, the unnamed caricaturist contends that the society of Odd Fellows keeps the maikin, as it might come in handy for them later.  In any event, it is a rare occurrence of finding a Blank Person, weirder still that it was found after someone actually/kinda/sorta/not really asked for it.