Brattlecast #186 - The Japanese Album

Today in the studio we have another unusual travel souvenir: an album of large, hand-tinted photographs of Japan in the 1880s, only decades after the country was first opened to Western tourism. Bound in illustrated lacquered covers, these photos—of temples, landscapes, and people in traditional dress—have remained exceptionally sharp and clear, offering us a window into the tumultuous Meiji period. We’ll also discuss the improvements in postal service that caused lavish souvenir albums to fall out of fashion, the influence that Japanese art had on turn-of-the-century painting movements in Europe and America, and a popular new TV series that might spur interest in an item like this.

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Brattlecast #85 - Brattle on the MTA

Boston’s MBTA—iconic, idiosyncratic, and frequently vexing—features the oldest subway system in the United States, and probably the only one to have inspired a hit folk song about its fare hikes. Today we’ll take a look at MBTA ephemera, a big box of which has just arrived in the shop, and at train-related collecting in general. Collectors seek out antique subway signs, lovely frameable maps, evocative timetables of the vanished bus lines of their youth, and much more. Plus we’ll ask, in a time of looming climate change and increased social unrest around fare evasion, should public transportation be free?