Materials received from Dick Gackenbach between 1977 and 1985.
Non-circulating; available for research.
This collection is protected by the Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17, U. S. Code). Reproductions can be made only if they are to be used for "private study, scholarship, or research." It is the user's responsibility to verify copyright ownership and to obtain all necessary permissions prior to the reproduction, publication, or other use of any portion of these materials, other than that noted above.
Dick Gackenbach was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania on February 9, 1927 and spent his childhood on a farm in the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch country. He attributes his adult interest in children's books to the fact that, because of his family's poverty, he had no books of his own as a child. Nevertheless, he remembers his childhood years as happy ones despite the hardships of the Depression.
Upon graduating from high school in 1944, Gackenbach joined the Navy and was stationed near San Francisco. The big city exposed him to the world of books and culture that had been denied him as a child, and before his military duty was finished he had already decided to become a professional artist. After his Navy service, Gackenbach attended art school in Washington, D. C. with the intention of becoming a fashion artist. Finding he was not cut out for that particular vocation, he transferred to the Jameson Franklin School of Art in New York City, where he studied graphic design for two years.
Once his art education was completed in 1950, Gackenbach worked as a paste-up artist for the J. C. Penney Corporation. This first job developed into a twenty-five year long career in advertising, and before Gackenbach left the company he had become one of the corporation's three creative directors. It was during his years at J. C. Penney that Gackenbach began to collect children's books. He also unsuccessfully submitted his own children's book for publication during this period.
By 1972 Gackenbach had grown tired of his life as a corporate executive, so he retired to his weekend retreat of Washington Depot, Connecticut, where he had already owned a house for the past ten years. He again tried his hand at making books for children and in 1974 his first successful effort, Claude the Dog: A Christmas Story, was published. He has since written and illustrated thirty of his own books for children and has illustrated more than a dozen books by other authors. His book Hattie Rabbit (1976) won the 1979 Garden State (New Jersey) Children's Award for the easy-to-read category, and McGoogan Moves the Mighty Rock (1981) made the New York Times Outstanding Books list for the year of its release. Many of Gackenbach's titles have also been Junior Literary Guild selections.
In 1987, Gackenbach still made his home in Washington Depot. Apart from making and collecting children's books, his interests include gourmet cooking, classical music, and gardening.
Sources:
The collection contains materials related to six books illustrated by Dick Gackenbach, four of which he also wrote. These materials are arranged alphabetically by title of the book, and within each title according to the probable order in which the materials were generated. In this way it is hoped the researcher may trace Gackenbach's steps in the creation of a book, from his hand-drawn and -lettered dummy pages and dust jackets, to typescripts, to galleys, to original color separations, and so on to the final stages of production.
The Dog and the Deep Dark Woods (1984), written by Gackenbach, is a fable about a dog who is laughed out of the forest by the other animals when he tells them what he knows about a ridiculous make-believe creature called "man." For this title the collection contains dummy pages, a dummy dust jacket, a typescript, galleys, color separations, an unbound proof, and a printed dust jacket. Hattie Be Quiet, Hattie Be Good (1977) is a book for young children which contains two stories about Hattie Rabbit, whose good intentions often inadvertently get her into trouble. This title is repre- sented by negative galleys, color separations, a blueprint, an intermediate proof, and a final proof.
For I Hate My Brother Harry (1983), Crescent Dragonwagon's story of a little girl who has mixed feelings about her older brother, there are dummy pages, original color separations, and one set of filmed color separations. McGoogan Moves the Mighty Rock (1981) is a gentle fantasy about the friendship between McGoogan, master guitar player and singer of songs, and a huge rock whose fondest wish is to see the sea. For this title the collection holds dummy pages, an edited typescript, galleys, and color separations. In Mr. Wink and His Shadow, Ned (1983) we learn what happens when a man and his shadow have an argument and decide to part company, the man to look for a new shadow and the shadow to look for a new person. For this title there are dummy pages, a typescript, galleys, color separations, and a dust jacket. What's in a Map? (1976), the only non-fiction book represented in the collection, is a children's introduction to the concepts of maps, map-making, and geography. For this title the collection holds dummy pages, color samples, and color separations.
The Sally Cartwright Papers (DG0159) contain a typescript and galleys for What's in a Map?
Box/Folder
THE DOG AND THE DEEP DARK WOODS by Dick Gackenbach
(New York: Harper and Row, 1984).
1/1 Dummy pages, marker, with holograph text, pp. i-30.
Dummy, dust jacket.
1/2 Typescript, edited and marked for typesetter, 12 pp.
Galleys, edited, 4 pp.
1/3-1/4 Color separations,
1/3 pp. i-20;
1/4 pp. 23-30, dust jacket.
1/5 Proof in 2 signatures, unbound.
Dust jacket.
HATTIE BE QUIET, HATTIE BE GOOD by Dick Gackenbach
(New York: Harper and Row, 1977).
1/6 Illustrations, ink, pp. 20, 21, 32.
Negative galleys, 3 pp.
1/7-1/8 Color separations,
1/7 pp. 1-15;
1/8 pp. 16-32.
1/9 Blueprint, corrected.
Intermediate proof, corrected, unbound.
Final proof, unbound.
I HATE MY BROTHER HARRY written by Crescent Dragonwagon,
illustrated by Dick Gackenbach (New York: Harper and Row, 1983).
2/1 Dummy pages, marker, with holograph text, pp. 1-32.
Memorandum from Barb Fitz to Nick Marotta, both at Harper and Row,
12 October [19]83, 1 p.
2/2-2/3 Color separations,
2/2 pp. 1-17;
2/3 pp. 18-32, dust jacket.
2/4 Filmed color separations, pp. 26/27.
McGOOGAN MOVES THE MIGHTY ROCK by Dick Gackenbach
(New York: Harper and Row, 1981).
2/5 Dummy pages, ink and watercolor, with typescript and typeset text, pp.
1-40.
2/6 Typescript, edited and marked for typesetter, 15 pp.
Note with attached galleys, edited, 5 pp.
2/7-2/8 Color separations,
2/7 pp. 1-21;
2/8 pp. 22-40, dust jacket and flaps.
MR. WINK AND HIS SHADOW, NED by Dick Gackenbach
(New York: Harper and Row, 1983).
3/1 Dummy pages, marker, with holograph text, pp. i-30, dust jacket.
Typescript, edited and marked for typesetter, 7 pp.
Typescript, front matter, 6 pp.
Galleys, edited, 5 pp.
3/2-3/3 Color separations,
3/2 pp. i-15;
3/3 pp. 16-30, dust jacket.
Dust jacket.
WHAT'S IN A MAP? by Sally Cartwright, illustrated by Dick
Gackenbach (New York: Coward, McCann and Geoghegan, 1976).
3/4 Dummy pages, marker, with holograph text, pp. 1-32.
Dummy, graphite, dust jacket
Color samples, 3 items.
3/5-3/6 Color separations,
3/7 pp. 1-17;
3/7 pp. 18-31, dust jacket.
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