Collection of Autograph Letters, signed, to Hope Smith.
[V.p., Pasadena, Madison, etc: ca. 1924-1931].
Price: $1,500.00
About the item
Eighteen letters. Pen and ink on letterhead, eleven with original envelopes. Occasional red ink highlights and pen doodles. Very Good. Old folds, newsprint clippings in one envelope toned with age.
Item #317907
Frederick Jackson Turner (1861-1932) was a native of Wisconsin, and professor at the University of Wisconsin and Harvard, later lived in Pasadena, California. Turner died in 1932 in San Marino, California, where he had been affiliated with the Huntington Library.
Turner is best remembered for his substantial essay, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History," published in the Proceedings of the Forty-First Annual Meeting of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin in 1894.
Comprising ten letters in original envelopes addressed to "Miss Hope Smith," six hand-written letters lacking envelopes, and one typed letter lacking its envelope; with anenvelope containing newspaper clippings. The letters are on a variety of types of letterhead, and bear postmarks from Pasadena, Boston, and Madison, Wisconsin.
This collection of letters, largely social in nature, range from expressions of Turner's delight in receiving news from Miss Smith, comments on her progress in painting and congratulations on successful shows, his wife's comments on also reading Miss Smith's letters, and a sometimes wistful reminiscence of time spent in the summer and fall (but not winter!) in Maine. A later letter requests that Miss Smith come visit, as he does not think himself likely to leave California for the East Coast again.
