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Women's Guild of Arts records, 1902-1949 and undated 0.2 Linear Feet — 88 items
Collection comprises primarily 81 letters from 29 members of the Women's Guild of Arts between 1902 and 1949. There are 7 additional documents, including draft resolutions, certificates, lists, and notes. Three letters predate the founding of the organization in 1907. The primary topic of the letters is the crisis within the Guild regarding its women-only status, an argument regarding how restrictive the Guild should be. Pamela Colman Smith wrote to May Morris (22 January 1913) that the reason she joined the Guild was that it made a point of asking its members not to exhibit at women-only shows, as it lowered the standard of work and that the Guild was never intended to be a purely woman's affair. Other letters on the subject come from Evelyn de Morgan, Feodora Gleichen, and Ethel Sandell. Gleichen's letter was circulated to members, and the collection contains a list of those who agreed with her; several letters are marked up to indicate a position on the matter. There is also a draft resolution welcoming any move to widen the scope of the Guild "such as stimulating and interesting lectures not only from our own members but from men and women outside....It is with this in view that we supported the resolution passed at the recent Annual Meeting, inviting as Honorary Associates a few people with whose work we are in sympathy..." (22 January 1913). Other topics in the letters include the role of the president, exhibitions, lectures, and the work of the organization, along with the William Morris Centenary Commemoration in 1934.
"Woman: the World Over": a lecture to accompany a series of 54 photographic transparencies for the optical lantern, 1901 49 items — 1 box; 1 pamphlet binder — 48 glass lantern slides; one printed booklet — Slides measure 3 1/4 x 3 1/4 inches — 48 glass slides; 1 printed booklet.
Collection consists of a nearly complete lecture set of 48 hand-colored glass lantern slides published in England. The original printed booklet accompanying the set bears the full title, "Woman: the world over. A lecture to accompany a series of 54 photographic transparencies for the optical lantern." The price appearing on the booklet is sixpence.
The booklet lists 53 slides in this set, and contains detailed lecture-format captions which would be read aloud as the slides were projected. The series is incomplete: numbers 28, 47, 48, 51, 53, and 54 are not present. Titles are also printed along the mount edges of each slide but are obscured in a few cases by black repair tape. All titles are original, as is the slide order. The titles and lecture script contain historical terms and language that may be offensive to modern-day audiences. The slides measure 3 1/4 inches square (83 x 83 mm).
The slides and lecture notes were originally arranged in six series, retained in this description: Woman in Society; The Domestic Woman; Woman in Subjection; Emancipated Woman; Woman the Breadwinner; and Angelic Woman.
The women in the portraits represent races, cultures and nations around the world, among which British Guiana, China, Iceland, India, Japan, Netherlands, the Philippines, Russia, Switzerland, Tonga, Tunisia, and the U.S. There are portraits of women with high social status, married women, and women in courtship; there are women depicted in their homes, women with children, and in roles of subjugation which the lecture suggests are little more than slaves. A few images include men.
The series "Woman the Breadwinner" includes agricultural, craft, and industrial scenes, and a slide of women nurses attending to patients. The "Emancipated Woman" series includes an actress, a group of nurses, and women mountaineering. There is one slide of the Women's Temple in Chigago, headquarters for the Women's Christian Temperance Union from 1892 to 1926. Titles are present on the edges of most of the glass slide mounts, and are listed in full in the booklet.
The booklet's lecture notes refer to problematic social conditions for women, particularly regarding marriage, as well as changing social norms as the 20th century begins. The series ends with romantic images of ideal women, chiefly through the lens of courtship and beauty. Most of the missing slides are from this group.
The set held by the Rubenstein is numbered 1239 in the lecture booklet. There is no date on either the slides or the booklet, but the Women's Temple in Chigago, completed in 1892, provides the earliest date. A slide entitled "Wife of the Khedive" helps provide the latest date: the Egyptian title "Khedive" was last used in 1914. The Lucerna Magic Lantern Web Resource (viewed online November 8 2017) gives the publisher as the Riley Brothers of Bradford, Yorkshire, England, and the publication date as 1901.
Acquired as part of the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture and the Lisa Unger Baskin Collection at Duke University.
Collection comprises materials relating to the women's suffrage movement in the United States and United Kingdom, including pins, medallions, buttons, textiles, card sets, stamps, photographs, and printed materials and ephemera. The majority of the collection's items express pro-women's suffrage sentiments. Organizations present include the Woman's Peace Party, Catholic Women's Suffrage Society, Women's Freedom League, National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, Cymeric Suffrage Union, Men's League for Women's Suffrage, Women's Social and Political Union (W.S.P.U.), Women's Christian Temperance Union, and the Woman's Suffrage National Aid Corps. Examples of messages conveyed include: "Votes for Women," "Vote No on Women's Suffrage," "Women's Equality. Women's Lives." Some items include portraits of women suffragists, including Susan B. Anthony and Inez Milholland. Several items reference voting to repeal the 19th amendment. Also includes three sets of "Panko or Votes for Women: The Great Card Game Suffragists v. Anti-Suffragists," published in 1909 by Peter Gurney with illustrations by E.T. Reed, from Punch magazine. Postcards and photographs include both caricatures and real-photo images of suffragists, suffragettes, and their allies, as well as items mocking or opposing the woman's suffrage movement. The collection contains some 1910s banners, scarves, and sashes in yellow and white, and others in green and purple fabric, with text reading "Votes for Women"; there are also a variety of printed handbills, handouts, fliers, and ephemeral materials circulated and distributed to the public for suffrage campaigns in different states, including Massachusetts, New York, and Maine.
Warren G. Harding letter to Harriet Taylor Upton, 1917 February 11, 1917 February 11 0.1 Linear Feet — 1 item
The collection consists of a single autograph typescript letter on Senator Warren G. Harding's United States Senate letterhead dated 1917 February 11. Senator Harding writes to suffragist Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton of Warren, Ohio, "I beg to acknowledge your telegram of February 4. By reason of my former experience as a member of the Senate of Ohio General Assembly, I would be reluctant to advise Senator Murrell of Clinton County as to his ultimate action on the suffrage matter." Murrell was a member of the Ohio General Assembly. By 1917, Senator Harding was prepared to vote in the affirmative on the issue of women's suffrage. Harriet Upton was was hoping to leverage his influence to generate similar support in their home state of Ohio.
Vita Sackville-West papers, 1953-1961 and undated 0.1 Linear Feet — 7 items
The collection consists of five typescript letters, one photocopied Encyclopedia Britannica article regarding Sackville-West's book "Afara Behn" in the "Representative Women" series, along with a poem. The first letter, one page addressed to Sackville-West, dated 1953 May 22, signed "A. Purvis," discusses the birthplace and date of Aphra Behn. A photocopy of the Encyclopedia Britannica article on Behn is included. A typescript note dated 18 July, 1961, signed V. Sackville-West on Sissinghurst letterhead, was written in response to a letter from Sylvia Haymon about Aphra Behn, and Sackville-West's article on Behn in the Encyclopedia Britannica. Included are copies of three letters, all dated 1961, sent to Sylvia Haymon, two to Sackville-West, and one to Miss J. Parfitt, Acting Editor of the Women's Page of The Times in London. The topics of the undated, one-page "Diary-Poem" have to do with Sackville-West's loss of her given name upon her marriage to Harold Nicolson in 1913, and the loss of Knole, her family's estate in Kent, in 1928 because of patriarchal inheritance laws.
Virginia Woolf's oak writing desk, between 1904-1907 2.5 Linear Feet — 67.4 x 126 x 87.7 cm; 26.5 x 49.5 x 34.5 inches
Writing desk at which one would stand, designed and owned by Virginia Woolf. The sloping top of the desk features a central panel in two pieces, with hinges at the top. The panel lifts to reveal a storage compartment underneath.Two drawers are located below the storage area, one on each side of the desk. There are metal pulls on each drawer. The left-hand drawer pull surrounds a flower medalion; the medalion on the right-hand drawer is missing. The drawers and desk top each feature a metal lock, but no keys are present. Quentin Bell painted the figure of Cleo holding a trumpet on the top of the desk. He painted the rest of the desk, except the back, in grays with black accents. There are random spatters of paint present on all surfaces.
Vera Brittain letter to John Middleton Murry, 1946 September 13 0.1 Linear Feet — 1 item
Consists of a single typescript letter from Brittain to the critic and editor John Middleton Murry dated September 13, 1946. Single-page, with text on front and back written on letterhead reading "2 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea S.W.3." Brittain comments on the revival of Murry's The Adelphi, and on strategies to finance such literary magazines. The second part of the letter discusses her opinions on methods of pacifist activism, particuarly as related to nuclear war. The postscript discusses the forthcoming publication of John Hersey's 1946 book Hiroshima. She comments, "If only the world could read it, the 'next war' would move much further off." It is signed "Vera."
Thomas Smith deed of manumission, 1803 July 19 1.0 Linear Foot — 1 item
Deed of manumission of "negro Sue," more commonly known as Susannah Mallory, former property of Charles King Mallory, of Elizabeth City County, [Va.?], by Thomas Smith in the Court of Norfolk County, Va., on 1803 July 19. In the document Smith makes it clear that the sixty dollars he paid for her purchase from Charles King Mallory was advanced entirely by Sue and that he acted only as her "Friendly agent" in the matter, with no interest in holding her as a slave. The deed is witnessed by Richard Henry Lee and R. C. Archer.
Sybil Thorndike letter to Elizabeth Robins, 1922 September 21 0.1 Linear Feet — 1 item
The collection consists of a single autograph typescript letter from Sybil Thorndike to Elizabeth Robins at Rounton Grange, Northallerton in North Yorkshire. In the letter, Thorndike thanks Robins for sending her a piece of heather from Rounton Grange. Thorndike writes, "I am sure it is going to bring us luck, and I love having something from Rounton on my dressing table. How lovely to think of you up there among the peacocks and the glorious moors! I really think the play is going to be a success." The letter is signed "yours affectionately, Sybil" with a manuscript postscript asking Robins to give her love to Lady Bell, and to thank Lady Bell for her support. The letter is composed on Thorndike's own letterhead stationery, "Miss Sybil Thorndike" at the address of the New Theater, London and listing her husband, Lewis Casson, as Director. The play in production Thorndike refers to is Shelley's The Cenci, in which she played the lead, Beatrice. With stamped, postmarked envelope.
Susan P. Parrott account book, 1839-1846 0.1 Linear Feet — 1 item
Collection comprises an handmade account book with paper covers (35 pages, some blank, with an additional 5 leaves excised) maintained by Susan P. Parrott from 1839-1846, mainly to track her payments to at least 30 women she hired to work for her from one day to several months at a time. It is not clear in what capacity she hired the women, although one, Martha Brackett, was a seamstress. A few entries are accompanied by notes on the women: Martha White was African American, and on 1842 July 1, Parrott noted that she engaged Bridget(t) O'Boyle "to stay two months from this date--and to behave herself better." Other payments were recorded for tobacco, cider, gin, pills, medicine, bonnets, dresses, corsets, slippers, ribbons and a lace collar, cloth, gloves, crockery, and letters. Parrott also recorded cash entries.
Susan B. Anthony collection, 1870-1900 0.1 Linear Feet — 13 items
Collection comprises seven letters from Susan B. Anthony to various correspondents, one postcard written to her, a printed item, and a letter by S. J. S. Holden that mentions Anthony, Stanton, and the 1874 National Woman Suffrage Association (N.W.S.A.) convention. In June 1870, Anthony wrote two letters to Edwin A. Studwell, who became her business manager, regarding payment for lectures in which she participated with Elizabeth Cady Stanton; her need to sell her serial, The Revolution, and plans for its continued success; competition with suffragists in Boston; her life insurance policies; and her general need for ready funds. There is also a Dec. 1873 letter from Anthony to Judge Henry R. Selden requesting copy for his argument made on Anthony's behalf regarding the Rights of Women in the U.S. District Court of New York, to be published in time for the upcoming N.W.S.A. convention. The postscript to this letter was written upon a flyer for a mass meeting of the New York Woman's Suffrage Society. Collection includes a copy of the final, printed version of Selden's argument, "Rights of women under the late constitutional amendments."
In 1894, Anthony wrote two letters to a suffragist concerning problems in Kansas; she wished to identify the Republican, Progressive, or other person responsible for "stirring things up," for the Republicans failed to include suffrage in their platform. On 1900 April 24, Anthony wrote to Rachel [Foster Avery?] regarding several publications in process, including forms for letters to the national conventions of the prohibition, Populist, Democratic, and Republican parties; a "memorial;" an appeal to the Ecumenical Council; along with other work to be shared by the suffrage leadership. A letter from Anthony 1900 July 22 was written to an unnamed suffragist who likely requested an autograph, "Yes indeed--you shall have my pen tracks--not only--but also my wish that you both believe in work for the protection of women in the crowning right of citizenship--the right to vote--and so help to hasten the day when ours shall be a true republic in practice as it now is in theory."
Collection also includes a postcard written to Anthony from Mary L. Lathrop in Jackson, [Miss.?] in 1874 regarding Lathrop's inability to send more money following Anthony's successful speaking engagement there; the money went toward advertising for the event. Another letter, from S. J. S. Holden to Rachel [Foster Avery?], in 1874 describes attendance at the N.W.S.A. convention, the speeches of Anthony and Elizabeth Cay Stanton, and other pastimes in Washington, D.C. Several of the letters in the collection are written on N.W.S.A. or National-American Woman Suffrage Association letterhead; Anthony's 1894 letters are stamped with the ownership mark of the Daughters of the Pioneers of Washington library. Collection includes dealer transcriptions for two of Anthony's letters.
Summons, 1785 May 31 0.1 Linear Feet — 1 item
Collection comprises a manuscript summons from the Court of Oyer and Terminer and General Gaol Delivery in New York City dated 1785 May 31 for Doctor Charles M. McKnight, James J. Beekman, Sarah Conolly (Conoly), and Ann McClean (McClain) to serve as witnesses the following day against the African American prisoner Hannah, who was indicted for "Murder of a Bastard Child."
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee photographs, 1960s 0.1 Linear Feet — 5 items
Sophia Foord letter to Robert Adams, 1843 May 8 1 item — 1 folder
Three-page letter from Sophia Foord of Northampton, MA to Robert Adams of Pawtucket, RI regarding the Northampton Association of Education and Industry. Abolitionists Lydia Maria Child and William Lloyd Garrison are also mentioned, as is the Underground Railroad. A section is missing from the top of the first leaf, affecting text on the second page.
Sarah Orne Jewett letters, 1877 June 15-circa 1890s 0.1 Linear Feet — 2 items
Collection consists of two autograph manuscript letters written by Sarah Orne Jewett. The first is addressed to a Mr. Sawyer, the editor of a new journal, declining to send him anything to print in his first issue, as she has been ill and doesn't wish to write something in a hurry. She sends him "hearty good wishes for the success of his magazine," asks him to send her a prospectus, and "suppose[s] that, like all editors, you have more verses than you wish to print." The letter is on a single sheet of folded paper with writing on three pages dated 1877 June 15 and written from South Berwick, [Maine]. The second letter is a sympathy note written on mourning stationery and addressed to Miss [Lucy] Coffin dated 26 December, but lacking a year. A Boston address appears at the top. Jewett expresses sympathy for the loss of Miss Coffin's father from both her and her companion Mrs. Field, and reminisces about a day they had spent together in Newburyport. Jewett references John Greenleaf Whittier, who was a student of Lucy's cousin Joseph while at Dartmouth College. The Coffin Family was prominent in New England and lived in Newbury, Massachusetts for many generations.
Sarah J. Hale letter to Mathew Carey, 1823 March 9 0.1 Linear Feet — 1 item
The collection consists of a single signed autograph letter with text on one side from Sarah J. Hale to the Philadelphia publisher Mathew Carey. Hale thanks Carey for his subscription to her charity, the Seaman's Aid Society and Mariner's House of Boston for the year 1822-1823. Hale also inquires about local interest in a Philadelphia organization that teaches needlework as a means of economic empowerment to poor women.
Sarah J. Ewing diary, 1868 December 17-1869 July 17 0.1 Linear Feet — 1 item
Sarah Grand autograph statement and letter, 1898?-1908 0.1 Linear Feet — 3 items
Includes a signed statement and a letter, both written from Tunbridge Wells. In the statement (approximately 1898), Grand notes that it is in the condition of the hope and lives of the masses that sets the tone for a nation. She calls on all right-thinking people in power to work for the elevation of the masses and a universal federation that will make patriotism obsolete. The letter (1908) to writer Miss [Matilda] Betham-Edwards includes descriptions of Grand's recent activities, and notes that she is enclosing an almanac and a card. Includes an attempted transcription of the letter.
Sarah Brown Capron letter, 1865 December 26, December 28. 0.1 Linear Feet — 1 item
Collection comprises a copy of a letter (10 pages) written by Sarah B. Capron in Mana Madura, India, to unidentified recipients on 1865 December 26 and 28. Sarah was in southern India, with her two daughters, practicing medicine and treating residents of the town, although her medical training was minimal. She stated that "more knowledge of medical services would save me a vast amount of care.... when I go to America, I must have some Hospital experience & practice, somehow" (page 1). She then narrated a typical day for her, telling of the various patients she treated, including a man with stomach pain, a woman with knee pain, a young boy who was gored by a cow, a man with ear discharge, a woman with eye pain, children with dysentery, a beggar with sores, and an infant with lung congestion.