Encyclopedia Project

By kate on January 19th, 2002

I am generally fascinated by how morals are omnipresent in everyday media. (I own a CD-ROM of old educational, industrial, and promotional films from the 1930s-60s called Ephemeral Films. They’re incredibly humorous and interesting at the same time. Hundreds of them are online at the Internet Moving Image Archive.) You can see pictures of the sort I mean at The Institute of Official Cheer.

Anyway, that’s an interest of mine, so I occasionally buy old encyclopedias from a thrift store. I have bought family medical tomes, a “Home Handyman” series, and regular encyclopedias; all from the fifties and sixties. I’ve been cutting out interesting text and illustrations. You’d be surprised how many good ones there are – I have a big envelope of interesting clippings. I’m still looking for good ideas for what to do with them all.

CONTROL

This is one of my first clippings, from the article “Floods”. It is a map of the United States, with the major rivers shown. Superimposed on the map were the words “Flood Control.” However, when you cut out the map from the page, only the word “Control” remains, ominously written over the US map.

Last Christmas, I made magnets for my friends and family, with cutout pictures juxtaposed with cutout text. I have included some of my favorites below, for your entertainment (apologies for the bad scans):