The American Woods

Romeyn B. Hough, The American Woods, Exhibited by Actual Specimens and with Copious Explanatory Text, Lowville, N.Y., 1888-1910, v.1-v.11; each part consists of descriptive text and 75 sections of wood mounted on 25 plates. (Call Number:  Zc10 888ho;  more sample pages:  The American Woods).

More sample pages: The American Wood

Now We Are Three

In honor of the third anniversary of the launch of the Room 26 Cabinet of Curiosities…

Mabel Dodge Luhan, Frieda Lawrence, and Dorothy Brett on Mrs. Lawrence’s porch, near Taos, 1938

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Photograph of Richard Wright in Ghana with George and Dorothy Padmore

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Margaret Anderson, Louise Davidson, and Mme. Georgette LeBlanc aboard the “Ile de France”

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Paul Robeson with Anna May Wong and Mei Lanfang

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H. D., Norman H. Pearson, and Bryher in front of Sterling Library, Yale University

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Jessie Fauset, Langston Hughes, and Zora Neale Hurston at Tuskegee, 1927

Bicycle fever

“The New Bicycle Fever.-The four days’ bicycle contest for the Championship of the World, recently held in Boston. Harry Etherington, W. Cann, and C. Terront, the professional bicycle team now visiting the United States.” in: Frank Leslie’s boys and girls weekly; an illustrated record of outdoor and home amusements. New York, Frank Leslie. Vol. 27, No. 687 (December 20, 1879)

Practical Ostrich Feather Dyer

The Practical Ostrich Feather Dyer / by Alexander Paul; revised and corrected by Dr. M. Frank. Philadelphia: Published by Mrs. Dr. M. Frank, “Textile Colorist,” 1888. Includes dyed feather samples; manuscript notes laid in.

Villa Lewaro

Photographs of the Villa Lewaro, A’Lelia Walker’s country estate in Irvington-on-Hudson, New York, no date.

A’Lelia Walker was well known during the Harlem Renaissance for throwing lavish parties at her brownstone apartment in Harlem and at the Villa Lewaro; she was also the hostess of The Dark Tower, Harlem’s premier literary salon of the period. Walker’s mother, Madam C. J. Walker, said to be the the first African American millionaire, was an entrepreneur who created a wildly successful line of hair straightener, skin lightener, and other beauty products for African-American women.

From the James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection Clippings Files.

Close Up

Photographs and film stills used to illustrate the pioneering film magazine  Close Up (1927-1933), edited and published by writers and filmamkers Kenneth Macpherson, Bryher (Annie Winifred Ellerman), and H. D. (Hilda Doolittle).  A complete description of the collection can be found online: Close Up Magazine Photograph File YCAL MSS 337.

The Three Penny Opera, 1931

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Hattie McDaniel and Marlene Dietrich in Blonde Venus, 1932

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King Vidor and actors from Hallelujah!, 1929

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Aiko Takatsu in Habari (Skylark), 1927

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Sergei Eisenstein and Gregori Alexandrov, 1932

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(MM)

Fireworks

“Better be meek than be fragments in trying to be fireworks” – Marianne Moore

Lyrics in Grey

Etching by Walworth Stilson from “Sonnets,” a bound volume of 224 manuscript poems drafted by Stilson, circa1930-1945 , with annotations and tipped in engravings; includes series “Sonnets from Lyrics in Grey” and “Sonnets: The West.”

William Walworth Stilson (1874-1962) was a Connecticut artist born in New Milford and a resident of Bridgeport and Shelton. He illustrated several books, including Willard Nelson Clute, Our Ferns in Their Haunts (1901); William Cullen Bryant, Thanatopsis (1909); and Hamilton Wright Mabie,The Writers of Knickerbocker New York (1912). (MM)

Walworth Stilson Papers,  Yale Collection of American Literature, (YCAL MSS 333)