Lement harris (1 Ergebnisse)

Zustand: Near Fine. Oblong folio (13 ¼" x 9 ¾"). Bound in gray cloth over boards with original string ties, front cover with one gelatin silver print onlay, "Album" embossed in gold, and calligraphic manuscript title painted in gold in Cyrillic: 'Rabkoop 12let Oktiabria. Sprigorodnymi khoziaistvami st. Verbliud.' = "Verbliud" Workers' Co-operative and satellite farms: 12 years of the October [Revolution]. The album contains 33 gelatin silver print photographs (4 ¼" x 3"), artistically mounted on the rectos of 15 thick card leaves with accompanying calligraphic captions painted in black, in Russian. Light wear to the edges of the covers, the card leaves are a little wavy with light toning at the edges, near fine, all of the prints are sharp images in superb condition. A unique pictorial record of the earliest phase of the Verblud state farm (sovkhoz), compiled in 1929 by one of its resident workers as a souvenir to commemorate the 12th anniversary of the October Revolution. The photographs include a general view of the granaries, view of the general store, interior of the bookshop, view of the vegetable storage facility, interior of the factory kitchen, food preparation, the dining room, the children's dining hall, view of Satellite Farm Number One, specially bred (American) farm horses, sheep, interior of the cowshed, making butter, (American) prize breeding bulls "Denis" and "Gold", interior and exterior views of the piggery, prize (American) pigs "Champion Boy" and "Turk" and their offspring, view of Satellite Farm Number Two, the diesel engine for water supply and view of field irrigation, interior of the greenhouse, vegetable gardens, poultry, and a workers' brigade on the way to a satellite farm. Verblud (which means "camel" in Russian, and is more correctly transliterated as "verbliud" or "verblyud") was located near Rostov-on-Don in the north Caucasus. It was one of the first state farms established at the very beginning of the great Soviet agrarian collectivization experiment of the 1920s, and quickly became a "show farm" for foreign journalists and visiting experts. What is not widely known, although it is well documented, is that the success of Verblud, and of the Soviet agrarian experiment in general, was dependent on American expertise, machinery, and livestock. These contributions enabled Verblud to become the largest fully-mechanized wheat farm in the world. The American involvement in the development of Soviet collective farming was spearheaded by a controversial figure, the agriculturist Harold Ware (1889-1935), a diehard communist who had arrived in Russia at the start of the 1920s to provide expert assistance in alleviating the effects of the famine that was ravaging large parts of the Soviet Union. By the second half of the 1920s numerous other Americans with qualifications in agriculture, agrarian economics, engineering and industry had followed in Ware's footsteps. This American contingent helped found Verblud, and remained there to oversee its first phase: it included Harvard graduate Lement Harris, Kansas farmers Bob Robertson and George G. McDowell (the first American to be awarded the Order of Lenin), Guy Riggin, Harry Minster, M. W. Thatcher, and Leonard J. Fletcher. The Verblud experience had a profound and lasting impact on the Americans who participated in the experiment, on Lement Upham "Lem" Harris (1904-2002) in particular. Harris had graduated from Harvard University in 1926, and then worked on a farm in Pennsylvania for three years. Harold Ware invited Harris to Russia in 1929, when he was helping to establish the Verblud sovkhoz. Convinced of the superiority of the Soviet system over the Western social model, Harris joined the American Communist Party on his return to the United States. He dedicated the rest of his life to protecting the interests of rural workers and remained politically active until his death. Both Harold Ware and Lement Harris appear to be present in the final photograph in the album, pictured among four men by a car. A compelling and historically unique pictorial record of American and Soviet cooperation in the early years of the Bolshevik revolution.…