My hometown
Perpetually hard up for money, toward the end of his life, Mikulec sold the autograph book to Philadelphia businessman Samuel Robinson, whose grocery store chain would later become ACME Markets. The book stayed in the family for nearly a century, until they recently sold it to Raab.
Now Croatia is taking it back.
“We must bring it home,” said Viktor Šimunić, the mayor of Oroslavje. On behalf of the town, he bought the book from Raab for nearly a quarter-million dollars. Last week, he came to Ardmore, Pennsylvania, to pick up his prize.
“We saw this as an opportunity for our city, for tourism,” he said. “This is not only city heritage. It’s national.”
Šimunić plans to build a museum in Oroslavje to honor a man he only learned about a couple of years ago, whom he now regards as a national hero.
Mayor of Oroslavje Viktor Šimunić hopes to collect at least three more signatures before returning to Croatia, those of the mayors of New York, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia. (Emma Lee/WHYY)
Lucky town
In his day, Mikulec was a rabid self-promoter. Whenever he arrived in a town, the first thing he would do was go to the local paper and try to get some press for his eccentric project. Most of the time, he got it. Šimunić says he has over 800 press clippings about Mikulec and his book.
Mikulec was also featured in silent film newsreels. In 1922, he showed off his book of signatures in a Pathé reel, sandwiched between a segment about the election of Pope Pius XI and shots of the U.S. secretary of state taking a Caribbean vacation.
Some found Mikulec’s self-promotional antics annoying. A recent article in the Smithsonian Magazine cites a newspaper reporter in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, circa 1914, relieved that the outbreak of World War I had curtailed Mikulec’s travels: “At least Mr. Mikulec will not get to Lancaster and pester us for free advertising about his remarkable but foolish performances.”
But to Croatians living in America, Mikulec was a hero.
“When Croatian newspapers wrote, every time they say, ‘Our big Croatian guy,’” Šimunić said. “Every Croatian in America knew our Joseph Mikulec.”
But his fame was fleeting. Šimunić admits that, until Raab put the book up for sale in 2022, he had never heard of Mikulec. Since then, he has wasted no time building a national hero. Last year, his town erected a statue of Mikulec, and now the autograph book will be the centerpiece of a planned museum.
The 34-year-old mayor calls Mikulec the world’s first “influencer.”
“This book is like Facebook of that century,” Šimunić said. “People wrote messages. If people were artists, they draw. If a musician, make some notes and songs. It is very similar like today.”
Mikulec did not fill the entire book. Its last several dozen pages are blank. Šimunić is hoping to carry forward Mikulec’s international vision by asking current mayors of major American cities to sign the historic book, including Cherelle Parker in Philadelphia and the mayor of New York City.