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A remarkable surviving piece of 1970s Rhode Island counterculture, craft-community and mail-order ephemera.
Offered here is an original 1973 Fantastic Umbrella Factory Coloring Book and First Mail Order Catalogue, produced by the legendary Fantastic Umbrella Factory in Charlestown, Rhode Island. Far more than an ordinary sales catalog, this wonderfully eccentric publication combines a mail-order catalog, coloring book, illustrated history, storybook and portrait of life at the early Fantastic Umbrella Factory.
The Fantastic Umbrella Factory was established in 1968 by Robert Bankel on an old Charlestown farmstead. It began in a small early-19th-century building with penny candy and unusual gifts and expanded into a community of craftspeople and shops. Rhode Island's historic survey describes the early Factory as a community of farmers, craftsmen and shopkeepers; its artisan/countercultural character became part of the identity it retains today. Despite the name, it never actually manufactured umbrellas.
This catalog dates to just five years after the Factory was established, making it an unusually early document from its formative period.
What makes this example especially appealing is its wonderfully homemade character. The pages contain hand-drawn illustrations, whimsical lettering and descriptions of the Factory's beginnings and inhabitants, including its original farm animals, alongside illustrations of crafts, furnishings and merchandise that could be ordered by mail. There are candles, mirrors, decorative objects, pottery and other handmade goods, with individual catalog numbers incorporated directly into the coloring-book drawings.
Even the Factory's history is presented as a fairy tale, beginning “Once Upon a Time” and describing the place as a magical kingdom tucked between the ocean and the hills of southern Rhode Island. Other pages introduce the people and animals associated with the farm and tell the story of how the unusual enterprise developed.
Also included is the original Fantastic Umbrella Factory promotional leaflet, advertising the property as a community of craft shops and studios in a 19th-century fantasy farmyard in Charlestown. The leaflet lists stained glass, blown glass, wooden and stuffed toys, pottery, dried floral arrangements, an import gallery, clothing, camping and craft supplies, a coffee shop and the farm's flowers, stone walls, rail fences, chickens, ducks, goats and geese.
The book concludes with its original mail-order form directing orders to The Fantastic Umbrella Factory, P.O. Box 254, Charlestown, R.I. 02813 — a particularly nice piece of evidence of its original purpose.
DETAILS & CONDITION
Original 1973 publication. Approximately 11 x 8½ inches. 28 leaves/pages, printed on both sides (56 printed sides if counting each side individually).
The coloring book and catalog portions appear completely unused — no coloring or writing observed. The original separate Fantastic Umbrella Factory promotional leaflet is present.
The paper has developed overall age toning/discoloration, entirely consistent with a cheaply produced publication now more than fifty years old. One of the original staples has partially pulled/popped out of the cover; please see the close-up photograph. The other binding and condition details are shown in the photographs.
An unusual survivor from the early years of one of Rhode Island's enduring alternative craft communities — part catalog, part coloring book, part illustrated institutional history, and very much a product of the handmade, back-to-the-land aesthetic of the early 1970s.
Please examine all photographs carefully; they form an important part of the condition description.
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