Beausoleil Oscar

Oscar Beausoleil is a author and editor of guides of Vulgarisation for the craftsmen and the handymen: Yellow Books .

Marcel Rouche (1902 - 1992), alias Beausoleil Oscar, was born with Rouvray, in Burgundy. Put at work very early, it became made with the Editions Baillères (medical editions), with Paris, where worked already his/her father and one of his uncles.

In 1922, with the military service, it was versed in the transmissions, with Toul, from where it was sent to follow a training course of telegraphist to Nancy. Its taste of the radio was some reinforced. A witness of this time thus tells his first meeting with Marcel Rouche in their common barrack room: “After a few months, one changed me barrack room. I went, with the upper floor, in encumbered an enough part… Là, I met Rouche, that whose friendship, after seventeen years remained to me so invaluable. He was blue like me. Oh! a little different from Rouche today: thin, the white face, too broad pants, a too short jacket, large shoes with the feet, which composed a silhouette to him which allured me immediately. And already, it was had by the love of do-it-yourself, and an overflowing activity. I spoke to him about T.S.F., mechanics, of mathematics, and that formed a face where our spirits met. In his case, one found thousand things whose unpacking, like that of the parcelling of Robarot, excited general curiosity.” (Roger Bundle, “Memories of youth”, not published, 1939)

Its insatiable curiosity for all that was technical, its dynamism, its creativity, and also the medium of the edition in which it bathed since its childhood, gave him very quickly, shortly after the military service, the idea to create popularizing works. He consulted many technical guides of the various craft industries; he found them exaggeratedly complex and unusable for the handyman average and in a hurry. He wanted that the user can have, in his pocket, permanently, a small stuffed handbook of drawings, very simple but effective. All in all, one can say of Marcel Rouche who it was all at the same time a precursor of the book to the pocket format, good market, and a propagator of popular education. “He wanted that Beausoleil is synonymous with popularization, that on any subject, one says oneself: There is Beausoleil! …” (R. Ballot, Newspaper, 1945)

It began really the drafting of its first guides “Electricity”, at the beginning of 1937 and made it appear. The day before the war, the following: “Masonry” was ready; it appeared in 1940, and the second edition of “Electricity” was deposited with the Registration of copyright. Then, the war stopped the publication, which begun again in 1945. In 1950, four guides had left. Mr. Rouche was not only author, but editor; as of the end of the war, it created “the technical Editions Oscar Beausoleil”. It bought its paper, carried it to the printer, ensured the distribution and the diffusion. Its problem was, at the beginning, publicity; it démena without hoping to try to interest the State education in its company. Without much success, it should be said. But the word of mount was effective. The French-speaking Africa, which missed of all in this field, became the important customer. The “yellow books” came to play an essential part, while giving, for a modest sum, techniques, simply written, precise and illustrated, on subjects touching with the material life of the every day; and the author collected African letters, touching, who thanked it for this rendered service. Lastly, these small handbooks were available, not only in bookstore, but also in the stores of do-it-yourself. The ray hardware, with the basement of the Bazaar of the Hotel-of-City, sold much of it. They were also sold on the catalog of Manufrance. At the end of the years 1960, the O.Beausoleil editions joined the editions of the Day (Montreal) for the publication in Canada of a “Handbook of the handyman”.

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