Book Collection of Charles S. Greene | Collections | The Huntington

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Visual Materials

Book Collection of Charles S. Greene

Description: Charles Greene had a large collection of books that reflected his interests in art, architecture, furniture, pottery, landscape gardening, Asian art and culture, ancient history, and photography. Many of his books were donated to the University of California at Berkeley; about 70 of the finest books were sold at the California International Book Fair in 1993. The collection includes 10 boxes of books, including a few on Japanese and Indian art, as well as a collection of novels by Lafcadio Hearn.
Type: Visual Materials(Opens in new tab)
Date: 1842-1938
Call number: Subseries L.
Provenance: Gift of The Gamble House Conservancy, July 2021. In 1968, the Greene and Greene Library (later the Greene and Greene Archives) was established to bring together drawings, photographs, and other records of the Greenes' work. The core of the initial collection was the gift by David and Mary Gamble of drawings and photographs of The Gamble House. Subsequently more than 400 donors contributed to the collection, most importantly the families of Charles and Henry Greene, who donated personal correspondence, family photographs, drawings and sketches, and numerous other materials. Besides the Greene and Gamble families, other clients and later owners of Greene and Greene buildings gifted drawings and other records. The Greene and Greene Collection also contains a research collection on Greene and Greene, comprised of copies of original materials from other institutions and other secondary materials. The Greene and Greene collection has physically resided at The Huntington Library since 1987. However, during that time it remained the property of and was administered by the Greene and Greene Archives of The Gamble House, School of Architecture, University of Southern California until 2019 when ownership was transferred to the Gamble House Conservancy. In July 2021, The Huntington acquired the collection from the Gamble House Conservancy.

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Box 41
Visual Materials
Hearn, Lafcadio. Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan. Vols 1, 2, Boston, 1894 Hearn, Lafcadio. Kokoro: Hints and Echoes of Japanese Inner Life. Boston, 1896 Hearn, Lafcadio. Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things. Boston, 1904 Hearn, Lafcadio. Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation. New York, 1905 Hearn, Lafcadio. In Ghostly Japan. Boston, 1905 Hearn, Lafcadio. Shadowings. Boston, 1905 Hearn, Lafcadio. Some Chinese Ghosts. Boston, 1906 Gould's Blue Book for the City of St. Louis. Vol IX, 1891
archGreene
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Charles S. Greene Photograph Collection
Visual Materials
Contains Charles Greene family photographs, including children, parents, sisters of Alice Gordon White Greene, and members of Henry Greene's family. Boxes 14 and 15 contain photos taken by Charles in Europe (1901) and England (1901, 1909). Flat File Folder 39 (Series III.A.)contains 2 panoramic photographs of attendees at the 1911 AIA meeting in San Francisco, and 3 prints of a photograph of attendees at the 1948 AIA dinner honoring the Greenes in Los Angeles.
Subseries F.
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Book Collection of Greene And Greene
Visual Materials
Three books from the office library of Greene and Greene
Subseries K.
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Charles S. Greene Business Correspondence
Visual Materials
At the end of Box 3 and continuing into Box 4 is a series of letters, announcements, and advertisements of a professional or business nature, organized alphabetically. These include communications with stockbrokers and banks, orders for books or subscriptions to periodicals, invoices from Hall Manufacturing Co. for furniture, pamphlets, guides, and other ephemera.
Subseries C.
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Charles S. Greene Notes, Diaries, Writings
Visual Materials
At the end of Box 4 are three notebooks, two dating from the 1890s and one from the 1930s, and 2 diaries (appointment books) from the 1940s. Continuing in Box 5 are folders containing fragmentary writings and notes, both prose and verse, various scratchpads with notes and sketches, and the typescript of Charles' novel Thais Thayer (c. 1916), as well as a typescript of an essay entitled "Symbolism" (1932).
Subseries D.
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Scrapbooks: Greene and Greene, Charles, Henry
Visual Materials
The Greene and Greene Collection contains a wide variety of materials, from Greene and Greene ancestor, architect/engineer James Sumner's "Memo of the Timber wanted for the Steeple in Providence," dated 1775, and a diary of a European grand tour from 1829 to 1931 by an English ancestor of Charles Greene's wife, Alice, to drawings and photographs of Greene and Greene works from the time of construction through the close of the 20th century. The bulk of the collection dates from 1889 to 1975. Photographs comprise most of the records documenting their architecture. There is a small number of architectural drawings; most of the firm's drawings are housed at the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library at Columbia University, New York City, with a smaller collection of drawings from the estate of Charles Greene at the Environmental Design Archives, University of California, Berkeley. The collection is organized into four series: I. Personal papers, II. Office records, III. Job (project) records (including furniture), and IV. Related research materials. In general, the papers and records of both brothers have been kept together for the periods in which they were living together as students and young men, and for the period when they were partners in the firm of Greene and Greene. Within each series, the organization follows the separate lives and works of each brother from the dates at which they diverge. Although the collection has been assembled from many different sources, most items have a unique accession number identifying the donor, so that the researcher can easily identify the source of most documents.
Subseries H.