Rare Books
Bobby Blake on an auto tour; or, The mystery of the deserted house
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Western Journey photograph album and travel narrative
Visual Materials
A volume of photographs accompanied by a typescript travel narrative by Thomas Recknagel, a Cornell University undergraduate, documenting his travels by automobile and railroad in the summer of 1938. The bound volume is titled "Western Journey" and begins with snapshots taken during a train trip from Ithaca, New York, through Chicago, to San Francisco, where Recknagel met his parents and family friends to travel by car. They headed north through Oregon to British Columbia, where their trip included a cricket match in Vancouver; Victoria; a boat trip around the Gulf Islands; and a visit to the University of British Columbia, where Arthur Recknagel had taken a visiting lecturer position. The group took a return train trip through the Rocky Mountains, the Great Lakes, and across Canada to Port McNicoll, Ontario. There are two appendices of photographs from Recknagel's parents' trip in the beginning of the year, with several snapshots of Yosemite. The back of the volume also has 20 commercial photographs (3.5 x 5-inches) of Vancouver and the Fraser River area in British Columbia. Notable in the album are a series of photographs and narrative of the rescue of a man who had attempted suicide by jumping into the sea in San Francisco.
photCL 660
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Samuel Frank Dexter papers
Manuscripts
Letters, diaries, essays, and other papers of Samuel Frank Dexter. The large portion of the collection consists of the letters that Dexter wrote to his children during the 1901 trip to California. Before moving to Los Angeles in 1902, Dexter and his wife took a trip to California in 1901 leaving their children in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. An expansive and consistent writer, his almost daily letters home to his children describe in minute detail their experiences and observations of various parts of California such as Alameda County, Bakersfield, Kern County, La Jolla, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Mount Lowe, Pasadena, Redlands, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Francisco, San Gabriel, San Pedro, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz County, and Santa Monica. Other places of interest that Dexter wrote about to his children include the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art, descriptions of the California coast, and accounts of a trip taken in North Mexico. He also wrote frequently along their railroad trip to California, describing such places as Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, and Iowa. A noted naturalist and authority on ornithology, Samuel Frank Dexter and his friend Anthony (Gideon Anthony) Hamilton traveled to Sequoia National Park, California, in 1902. Included in this collection is the diary that Dexter kept during their excursion. Other correspondence came from Mattie J. Chase, who along with her family, lived in Vienna, Austria and wrote to her sister Anna Fannie Dexter detailing their life there. In addition to being a prolific letter writer, Dexter wrote a couple of essays that describe and illuminate life in Charleston, South Carolina and Rhode Island.
mssHM 65822-65938
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L.L. Whitman correspondence
Manuscripts
The Whitman correspondence begins on May 28, 1903 in Pasadena, California. Whitman writes to his mother about a potential automobile trip from San Francisco, California to New York and introduces her to his driving partner, E.I. Hammond. The duo will be trailing several hundred miles behind E.T. Fetch and M.C. Krarup, another pair on their way to New York. Whitman writes that he has more faith in his 4.5-horsepower Oldsmobile than the 1903 Packard, which Fetch is driving. Postcards and letters concerning his trip east are sent from various locations including Lovelock and Elko, Nevada, Ogden, Utah, Rawlins, Wyoming, and Elwood, Nebraska. On the road, Whitman and Hammond face mechanical issues, rugged roads, and harsh weather conditions. In one letter, Whitman writes about frightening a lone Indian to death when they approached him in their "machine." In another event, they recruited the help of two cowboys, who used "their lassos to pull us up a bank some 15ft high..." (July 20, 1903). When driving through the country side, the undeveloped roads prove to be difficult: "The country is all mud, terrible. We can make but little progress. This mud is the black adobe like lard and dries hard as flint" (Aug. 13, 1903). In Detroit, Michigan, Whitman meets Ransom E. Olds and appears to be an honored guest at an automobile race with 10,000 people in attendance. Whitman speaks too soon when he writes "I don't want any more endurance runs..." because he dashes across the continent again in 1904, 1906, and 1910 at record-setting rates, which include breaking Fetch's record. Whitman reflects that his automobile trip "helps to season and spice the short life we stay on this earth" (Oct. 18, 1903)
mssHM 81903-82022
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Whitman, Lester L. (Lester Lee), 1861-1932 postcard to R.J. Whitman
Manuscripts
The Whitman correspondence begins on May 28, 1903 in Pasadena, California. Whitman writes to his mother about a potential automobile trip from San Francisco, California to New York and introduces her to his driving partner, E.I. Hammond. The duo will be trailing several hundred miles behind E.T. Fetch and M.C. Krarup, another pair on their way to New York. Whitman writes that he has more faith in his 4.5-horsepower Oldsmobile than the 1903 Packard, which Fetch is driving. Postcards and letters concerning his trip east are sent from various locations including Lovelock and Elko, Nevada, Ogden, Utah, Rawlins, Wyoming, and Elwood, Nebraska. On the road, Whitman and Hammond face mechanical issues, rugged roads, and harsh weather conditions. In one letter, Whitman writes about frightening a lone Indian to death when they approached him in their "machine." In another event, they recruited the help of two cowboys, who used "their lassos to pull us up a bank some 15ft high..." (July 20, 1903). When driving through the country side, the undeveloped roads prove to be difficult: "The country is all mud, terrible. We can make but little progress. This mud is the black adobe like lard and dries hard as flint" (Aug. 13, 1903). In Detroit, Michigan, Whitman meets Ransom E. Olds and appears to be an honored guest at an automobile race with 10,000 people in attendance. Whitman speaks too soon when he writes "I don't want any more endurance runs..." because he dashes across the continent again in 1904, 1906, and 1910 at record-setting rates, which include breaking Fetch's record. Whitman reflects that his automobile trip "helps to season and spice the short life we stay on this earth" (Oct. 18, 1903)
HM 81906
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Whitman, Lester L. (Lester Lee), 1861-1932 postcard to R.J. Whitman
Manuscripts
The Whitman correspondence begins on May 28, 1903 in Pasadena, California. Whitman writes to his mother about a potential automobile trip from San Francisco, California to New York and introduces her to his driving partner, E.I. Hammond. The duo will be trailing several hundred miles behind E.T. Fetch and M.C. Krarup, another pair on their way to New York. Whitman writes that he has more faith in his 4.5-horsepower Oldsmobile than the 1903 Packard, which Fetch is driving. Postcards and letters concerning his trip east are sent from various locations including Lovelock and Elko, Nevada, Ogden, Utah, Rawlins, Wyoming, and Elwood, Nebraska. On the road, Whitman and Hammond face mechanical issues, rugged roads, and harsh weather conditions. In one letter, Whitman writes about frightening a lone Indian to death when they approached him in their "machine." In another event, they recruited the help of two cowboys, who used "their lassos to pull us up a bank some 15ft high..." (July 20, 1903). When driving through the country side, the undeveloped roads prove to be difficult: "The country is all mud, terrible. We can make but little progress. This mud is the black adobe like lard and dries hard as flint" (Aug. 13, 1903). In Detroit, Michigan, Whitman meets Ransom E. Olds and appears to be an honored guest at an automobile race with 10,000 people in attendance. Whitman speaks too soon when he writes "I don't want any more endurance runs..." because he dashes across the continent again in 1904, 1906, and 1910 at record-setting rates, which include breaking Fetch's record. Whitman reflects that his automobile trip "helps to season and spice the short life we stay on this earth" (Oct. 18, 1903)
HM 81920
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Whitman, Lester L. (Lester Lee), 1861-1932 postcard to R.J. Whitman
Manuscripts
The Whitman correspondence begins on May 28, 1903 in Pasadena, California. Whitman writes to his mother about a potential automobile trip from San Francisco, California to New York and introduces her to his driving partner, E.I. Hammond. The duo will be trailing several hundred miles behind E.T. Fetch and M.C. Krarup, another pair on their way to New York. Whitman writes that he has more faith in his 4.5-horsepower Oldsmobile than the 1903 Packard, which Fetch is driving. Postcards and letters concerning his trip east are sent from various locations including Lovelock and Elko, Nevada, Ogden, Utah, Rawlins, Wyoming, and Elwood, Nebraska. On the road, Whitman and Hammond face mechanical issues, rugged roads, and harsh weather conditions. In one letter, Whitman writes about frightening a lone Indian to death when they approached him in their "machine." In another event, they recruited the help of two cowboys, who used "their lassos to pull us up a bank some 15ft high..." (July 20, 1903). When driving through the country side, the undeveloped roads prove to be difficult: "The country is all mud, terrible. We can make but little progress. This mud is the black adobe like lard and dries hard as flint" (Aug. 13, 1903). In Detroit, Michigan, Whitman meets Ransom E. Olds and appears to be an honored guest at an automobile race with 10,000 people in attendance. Whitman speaks too soon when he writes "I don't want any more endurance runs..." because he dashes across the continent again in 1904, 1906, and 1910 at record-setting rates, which include breaking Fetch's record. Whitman reflects that his automobile trip "helps to season and spice the short life we stay on this earth" (Oct. 18, 1903)
HM 81909