Alford Q Collins 1897 framed cigar art and the firmament a willing

and the firmament a willing accomplice

The word Late does the heavy lifting here

like the Confederacy itself

its postcards trading longhorn dust for the gleam of Stearman biplanes

all riveted spires and zigzag crowns reaching skyward in the manner the Chrysler and Empire State taught a generation of draftsmen to draw

Alford Q Collins 1897 framed cigar art and the firmament a willingAlford Q Collins 1897 a studio portrait fixed in the late Gilded Age, the kind of formal likeness commissioned when a man wished his name and bearing entered into the civic record, the year inked beneath him like a small claim against forgetting. About the Source Bella Frye sources artifacts from the great American historical archive the Library of Congress, the National Archives, regional historical societies, and the lithographic publishers (Currier