JF Ptak Science Books   Quick Post

This is an extraordinary title page, what with so much information and narrative and data and salesmanship and so on, right there on the cover,conveying twists and turns and temperature and a challenge from the Dogs Days of New Orleans, all challenging the reader to open the pamphlet for a look inside. There are legions of examples of Title Pages of Enormous Complexity and Content that drive from the Renaissance on into the 19th century, but in my experience for the vast majority of them you actually have to open the book to get there.  Here the hear of the pamphlet is worn right on the sleeve–and once the pamphlet is opened it gets right down to business, dispensing with the title page entirely.  

The work is dedicated to propagandizing the highest qualities of the state of Louisiana–and New Orleans itself–in order to attract new people to come to the state, and doing so in a convention/conference. As stated on the cover, it is “The first one ever held in the history of the country; and which had for its object strictly and solely, to obtain data and statistics; and a statement from these new “Sons of Louisiana” giving their own personal experience ranging from 6 months to forty years of residence, regarding the health and climate of Louisiana, held at the very hottest season of the year during the “Dog Days” in New Orleans, La., August 7th and 8th, 1888, at Grunewald Hall and their invitation to their former neighbors.”  

It seems a not-so-calculating throw-of-the-dice to hold the meeting in New Orleans in August. True it doesn’t get Phoenix-hot, but then again there’s the 75-point difference in humidity that does make all the difference in the world.  After having suffered through two massive blizzards that year (in January and March, 1888), perhaps the prospect of 92/72 temp/humidity didn’t seem nearly as painful as frigid and 50 inches of snow.  

Full text here from Internet Archive.