Description
Daily Alaska Empire Print, Juneau, Published 1938. Wraps, 48 pp.; 20 cm; illustrated with black-and-white photographs and a map.
Rare, out-of-print & unusual books · Since 1997
112
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Catalog notes
Condition & notes
In acceptable condition. Small (5" x 7.5") brown illustrated paper covers have a few small nicks and creasing to the front cover, with mild overall shelf wear, age toning, and soiling. Cover is beginning to pull away from the stapled binding but remains attached; the remainder of the text block binding is solid. Previous owner's name in ink on the title page and an address in pencil on the inside rear cover. A few pages bear light colored-pencil markings. Otherwise pages are lightly toned with some age spotting and soiling.Marie Drake (1888-1963) was Assistant Commissioner of the Alaska Territorial Department of Education from 1934 to 1945, and edited the territory's School Bulletin. In 1935 she wrote a poem about the Alaska flag (designed in 1927 by Benny Benson) which was published in the October 1935 edition of the Bulletin; the poem was later set to music by Elinor Dusenbury, who composed her melody on the boat leaving Alaska "from pure unadulterated homesickness for Alaska" and in the summer of 1938 played the song for Drake at the piano in the Baranof Hotel in Juneau. In 1955 the territorial legislature adopted "Alaska's Flag" as the official song of the Alaska Territory, and it remained the official state song after Alaska achieved statehood in 1959. This 1938 pamphlet, written and published by Drake during her tenure as Assistant Commissioner and three years after her poem first appeared, surveys the geography, settlement history, and civic institutions of pre-statehood Alaska Territory, with separate sections devoted to "Alaska's Flag" and "Alaska's Song" alongside the town-by-town tour.Contents include: Discovery of Alaska; Kodiak, First Settlement; Cook Inlet Explorations; Seward-Fort Resurrection; Prince William Sound; Cordova and Vicinity; Valdez and Vicinity; Sitka; Wrangell-Fort Wrangell; Purchase of Alaska from Russia; Transfer of Alaska from Russia to U.S.; Juneau and Vicinity; Douglas; Skagway and Vicinity; Haines; Ketchikan; Petersburg and Vicinity; Nome and Vicinity; Fairbanks; Eagle; Yukon River; Unalaska and Dutch Harbor; Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes; Mount McKinley (Denali); Anchorage; Nenana; Matanuska Valley; Territorial Flower; Alaska: size, population, climate, resources, government; Alaska's Flag; Alaska's Song; Resources.