[Yale]

Engravings, Lithographs and Autographs collected by Wm. R Webb, Class of 53, Yale [New Haven: 1853]

Thi🎀ck 8vo (258 x 175 mm) 123 engraved portraits (often from daguerrotypes) of Yale students and faculty, including one mounted salt print photograph, numerous engraved views of the campus, interleaved with autograph sentiments from the class of 1853; scattered foxing. Original pictorial extra gilt morocco with depiction of Yale gilt-stamped to upper and lower covers, edges gilt; covers detached, some rubbing, spot of loss under✃ last raised band on the spine. An elaborate production.

One of the earliest Yale Yearbooks. Prior🔯 to 1852 students would excha𓆉nge daguerrotypes and use their own autograph albums. For the present yearbook, they were asked to provide engraved portraits (though one student used a salt print photo).

Notables herein include Andrew D. White, co-founder and president of Cornell University, ambassador to Germany; George Shiras, ꧅Jr., ✅Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court; Cornelius Hedges, lawyer, miner, explorer of the area known as Yellowstone National Park and Yung Wing.

Wing was the first Chinese student to graduate from an American university. He returned to China, a dedicated reformer and supporter of the court 🌼of the Taiping rebels in Nanjing, brokering deals with Europe and the United States ꦏ;to build an arsenal comparable to those of the West.

His later career included being a founder of the Chinese Educational Mission, sending over 100 students to N🐻ew England for higher education. His views on political reform in China resulted eventually on a large bounty, the equivalent of over $💦1,000,000 today, and the fled to Hong Kong from Shanghai.

He was able to return to Yale ꦬat the end of his life to see his sons graduate from his alma mater.