Ade and Deutch, Noted Chicagoans

Last Saturday's mail brought my latest book acquisitions, two rare and quite lovely titles from Powell's. The first:

This is a first edition of In Babel, a 1903 collection of pieces by George Ade, the renowned Chicago journalist. This volume is quite nice, with an imprinted cover so typical of the era, and other than a slight split in the front endpaper is in mint condition. I'm a huge fan of Ade (largely due to the tireless efforts of Ron Evry, who has been podcasting readings of Ade's works for quite some time) and I'm really looking forward to diving into this one. Here's Ade's wry preface to the book:

These little stories and sketches have been rewritten from certain daily contributions to the Chicago Record, now the Chicago Record-Herald. They have been assembled into this volume in the faint hope that they may serve as an antidote for the slang which has been administered to the public in such frequent doses of late. They are supposed to deal, more or less truthfully, with every-day life in Chicago.

The second is a first edition of Stephen Deutch, Photographer: From Paris to Chicago, 1932-1989, a 1989 monograph of the unappreciated photographer.

Viewing this rather hideous cover, you might take issue with my calling this a "lovely title" above. True, that cover does look like a cheap elementary school workbook from 1973, but the photographs collected inside convincingly negate the editors' dubious design preferences. Deutch was fairly unique in that he was simultaneously renowned for his commercial work, such as this 1950 image commissioned by Evans Furs...

...as well as for his documentary and street photography work, including this image taken on Clybourn Avenue near Division Street, also from 1950:

The book also includes numerous wonderful portraits of celebrities, including Nelson Algren (who was best of friends with Deutch), Joe Louis, Mahalia Jackson and Dave Garroway. Deutch got his start in photography in Paris in the 1930s, after marrying his wife Helene who was already running a studio at the time and subsequently taught him the art. Although the Deutches found themselves in one of the world's great artistic cities during its creative heyday, they didn't at all run with the in crowd. Deutch is quite tellingly quoted in the introduction:

"We didn't get invited to Gertrude Stein's salons. Jean-Paul Sartre didn't ask us to have coffee with him. We were just proletarians of the business. We had name recognition in a certain circle but certainly not in the literary or artistic ones. Life was the same way as it is for any working person. We had to be very diligent, put in lots of hours, and we enjoyed being successful. Bohemians we were not."

And though the Powell's listing didn't indicate as such when I made my purchase, the title page bears what very much appears to be Deutch's handwritten signature. Deutch was still alive at the time of the book's release, so it seems very plausible that this is indeed his signature. If so, it's a pleasant surprise which makes me treasure this find even more.