1955 & 1956 A&M Annuals

25-Character Title 1955 & 1956 A&M Annuals (23) Alternates: 2 A&M Redskin Yearbooks (23) 1955-56 Redskin Yearbooks (25) 1955 Vol 46 & 1956 Vol 47 (25) HiBid DESCRIPTION TWO OKLAHOMA A&M COLLEGE YEARBOOKS - THE REDSKIN, 1955 VOLUME 46 AND 1956 VOLUME 47, STILLWATER, OKLAHOMA A fourth pair from this run of Stillwater yearbooks, both from the final A&M years just before the college was renamed Oklahoma State University in 1957. The 1955 volume is bound in bright pumpkin-orange cloth with a large white-embossed Oklahoma A&M class ring, the ring bezel reading OKLAHOMA A AND M COLLEGE around a center stone with 1891 below, and white-embossed lettering reading 1955 OKLAHOMA A&M COLLEGE above a heavy raised REDSKIN, with the spine lettered REDSKIN 1955 VOL. 46 OKLAHOMA A&M COLLEGE. The 1956 volume is bound in cream boards printed with a loose ink-and-watercolor painting of a red brick clock-tower campus building in blue wash and green foliage, titled REDSKIN in black, with the spine reading 1956 REDSKIN OKLAHOMA A&M COLLEGE VOLUME 47. The 1956 volume is heavily signed on the endpapers with long handwritten farewell messages to a student named Rita, which some buyers will consider the best part of the book and others a defect. Companion lots to the 1935, 1936, 1937, 1947, 1959, and 1960 Redskin volumes offered separately in this sale. Sold as a lot of two hardbound volumes. Description The 1955 Redskin, Volume 46 - orange cloth hardcover with a large white-embossed A&M class ring design and raised white lettering reading 1955 OKLAHOMA A&M COLLEGE and REDSKIN. Spine reads REDSKIN, 1955, VOL. 46, and OKLAHOMA A&M COLLEGE on a printed white panel. Interior pages photographed include a double-page blue-toned aerial campus photograph across the endpapers, a baseball spread headlined Aggies Take Valley Title, Gain NCAA Baseball Berth with a 1954 BASEBALL RECORD score table and team photographs, and a home economics and industrial arts feature headlined WIDE CHOICE OFFERED with captioned photographs of students at looms, sewing machines, printing presses, and shop equipment. The 1956 Redskin, Volume 47 - cream pictorial hardcover with a watercolor and ink campus building painting. Interior pages photographed include tinted chapter divider pages reading CHAPTER 1, Campus Views and CHAPTER 7, Athletics with large display initials and small inset illustrations, a night campus photograph of a student under a streetlight, a sports feature headlined Win or Lose - Memories Treasured, Sports and Spectators, and a sorority section for Alpha Delta Pi with a feature headlined An Aggie Stargazer Wins Trophy facing a full grid of member portraits with printed name keys. The 1956 volume has both front endpapers and the facing pages filled edge to edge with handwritten ink signatures and multi-paragraph farewell notes, most addressed to Rita, with legible signatures including Carolyn, Jo Shifflet, and Bonnie Crawford among others, the kind of period signing that dates and personalizes the copy. Each volume measures approximately 12 inches tall by roughly 9 to 9-1/2 inches wide per the tape-measure photographs. In the height photographs the tape is laid on top of the closed book and in the width photographs the hook plate is resting on the carpet off the edge of the book rather than hooked on it, so all figures are close estimates. Bidders should verify all dimensions from the photographs. Both are thick, heavy, sewn-and-cased hardbound volumes. Attribution note Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College at Stillwater, founded in 1890, was renamed Oklahoma State University in 1957, which places both of these volumes in the last years under the A&M name and makes them the earlier bookends to the 1959 and 1960 OSU-era volumes in this sale. The annual was published under the title The Redskin for roughly eighty years, a name the university has since retired and publicly addressed as reflecting the racial stereotyping of its era, as documented by the Stillwater History Museum, and library cataloging records for the series reproduced at the Internet Archive show the title carried across both the A&M and OSU periods. Athletic teams at the college were known as the Aggies in this period, consistent with the baseball headline printed in the 1955 volume. Identification, dating, and the reading of the handwritten names are offered as the consignor's photo-based opinion and are not guaranteed. Bid on the items as pictured. Condition Used, roughly seventy-year-old books in fair to good structural condition for their age, sold as-is. The 1956 cream pictorial cover is the more vulnerable of the two and shows overall soiling and finger-grime, gray smudging across the light background, edge and corner rubbing with the board showing through at the corners, and wear along the spine ends. The 1956 spine and lower cover edges show darkened handling marks and light chipping of the printed surface. The 1956 endpapers carry extensive ink writin