The Widow

There was a humor magazine called The Cornell Widow published by students at Cornell University between the 10s and 60s. I had never heard of this mag until suddenly Cam hauled 700 pounds of printing blocks used in issues of The Widow into our workshop.


It was a strange offer, difficult to refuse, and the "project" of owning these treasures/out-casts is still undefined for us. We went through three boxes and found a variety of blocks. Some skillful, absurd illustrations simply make no sense without the comedic text they were created for. Other images are so simple, like the moths, they've become icons for us already.

The caricatures are great and maintain abundant personality.



So far, the plan is to print the ones that stand out for us and maybe post scans on flickr. The call is being raised to "get the Widow off the floor!" I'm hoping that we'll get to some 1920s content somewhere in the pile like this great cover courtesy of the ephemera assemblyman.