Congratulatory address by the assistants' committee of Viennese joiners for Laurenz Widholz.

Oblong folio (ca 470 x 344 x 75 mm). 14 heavy double leaves of cardboard, edges gilt, gilt-edged mats with 27 original photographs (albumen prints, mostly ca 185 x 280 mm). Contemporary buff-coloured calf with metal and and coloured enamel applications, covers elaborately gilt; large central ornament on upper cover monogrammed "LW"; gilt fillets and four bosses on lower cover. Moirée silk pastedowns and cardboard endpapers. All edges gilt. Splendid, perfectly preserved gratulatory album, dedicated by his co-workers to the joiner and social-democratic politician Laurenz Widholz (1861-1926) "in commemoration of your twenty years as chairman of assistants and as an activist in free organizing" (as the calligraphic title in black, red, and gold reads). The photographs, captioned in letterpress, show Widholz, the Vienna committee of joiner assistants, and agitation committees of the various districts of Vienna, of the machine workers, builders, crate carpenters, and the joiners' choir. - Laurenz Widholz, a pioneer of workers' insurance, chairman of the Viennese joiners' health fund and of the Association of Lower Austrian Co-operative Health Insurers, was the first social democrat to win a direct seat in the parliament (for Vienna's Simmering district in 1907); he would remain a member until his death. In 1919/20 he served as deputy governor of Lower Austria. His name is commemorated in Simmering by the Widholzgasse street and by the residential building "Widholzhof", which was heavily damaged during the Austrian Civil War of February 1934. The present congratulatory address thus represents an interesting document of the history of Austrian socialism. - A fine example of the remarkable workmanship practised by the Viennese bookbinding concern F. W. Papke, founded in 1841 and located at the Mozartplatz in the 4th district.