If someone does want to compile a list of "future famous" government authors, it might make a good GODORT Occasional Paper. See guidelines at http://wikis.ala.org/godort/in...al_Papers.

Gwen, Thanks for sharing!

This might be a place to start: In v 6 n 2 of People, Land, and Water, there is an article called "Famous Formers," about people who used to work for the Dept of Interior. page 16-19. Authors include:
Edward Abbey
Rachel Carson
John Wesley Powell
Walt Whitman

I have a vague feeling Jack Kerouac worked as a fire spotter for the NPS, but he isn't on the list.

Classed Y 3.T 25:2 EL 2/12, Electricity is a handsome publication edited by Bill Sims ; designed and illustrated by David Macaulay for Tennessee Valley Authority and published in 1983. For anyone who likes David Macaulay's pen and ink illustrations, this is a handsome book. (I enjoyed his 1973 Cathedral: the story of its construction immensely!)

James A. McNeill Whistler worked for the U.S. Coast Survey for 2 months in 1854. He is credited as one of the engravers of the Anacapa Island sketch as J.A. Whistler. Reconnaissance of Smith's or Blunt's Island Washington (J No.3) and sketch of Anacapa Island in Santa Barbara Channel., DOC-TYPE: Serial Set Maps -- Digital Collection, SERIAL-SET-ID: 757 S.exdoc.10, map 51, December 22, 1854, Two maps, the second including a View of the eastern extremity of Anacapa Island from the Southward. The same map is repeated in 784 H.exdoc. 20.

He much later painted Arrangement in Grey and Black: the Artist's Mother better known as Whistler's Mother.

Add Will Eisner to the list of well known artist contributors of government documents. He was an internationally known leader in the field of sequential art (comics). His M-16 U.S. Army Rifle Maintenance Booklet (DA Pam 750-30) is an example of his work

I like the idea of compiling a list too. Another title to include could be "This is Ann--she drinks blood." This 1943 orientation booklet for the Army explained how to protect yourself from the mosquito who carries malaria. Famous writer -- Dr. Seuss (Theodore Geisel). It is already linked with a PURL to the GPO catalog. [Quick check on the internet showed this 36 page booklet is being offered for $1320. by a bookseller]

I think it would be really great to put together some kind of something (bibliography, exhibit, website) of folks who did work for the government before they became "famous". I am always reminded of some of the great American artists who started their careers doing sketches and drawings for the early railroad reports and expeditions now in the Serial Set. Everyone from Audubon to Ansel Adams did some work for the government.

I agree that it doen't seem to be depository, as it doesn't seem to be a GPO imprint. But how ironic is it that a mystery writer authored a fugitive federal document?

There are a lot of other "big names" out there, though. The only one that leaps to mind is the War Department's *This is Ann*, written and illustrated by Theodore Giesel, but I know I've seen others. Looks like a fun research opportunity for someone to start collecting these.

As a big reader/writer of mysteries I am delighted. How come no one has produced a digital copy of this yet? And what other big names are hiding in Sudoc-land?

A few years ago a professor of Environmental Science and asked us to give full cataloging to some old Interior documents with unexciting titles:
Food from home waters : fishes of the Middle West,
Fish and shellfish of the middle Atlantic coast,
Fish and shellfish of the south Atlantic and gulf coasts,
Food from the sea : fish and shellfish of New England.

I said I would be glad to, but why did he care so much about these four? Then he pointed out the author: Rachel Carson, fifteen years before Silent Spring. All are available digitally, by the way.

Rob Lopresti

How cool is that Gwen. How on earth did you discover that?