Charles S. Greene Family and Personal Correspondence
Description
Box 3 contains letters to and from the Greene family, including correspondence and ephemera documenting Charles' marriage to Alice Gordon White in 1901 and their honeymoon trip to Europe. Also included are scattered letters from Thomas Sumner Greene; from Alice's sisters, Martha and Jane; from Henry Mather Greene, and from the children of Alice and Charles. There is also a series of letters from Alice and the children to Charles while he was on visits to Pasadena in 1918 and 1919. A small group of letters is addressed to Alice Greene from friends and family (1901-1960), as are a few to eldest son Nathaniel Patrickson Greene, and one to daughter Bettie Greene. Several of the letters in this family group concern disposition of Charles' papers after his death.
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.
Restrictions
Open for use by qualified researchers and by appointment. Please contact Reader Services at the Huntington Library for more information.
Rights
The Huntington Library does not require that researchers request permission to quote from or publish images of this material, nor does it charge fees for such activities. The responsibility for identifying the copyright holder, if there is one, and obtaining permission rests with the researcher.
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.
Box 1 contains letters from their parents, Lelia Mather Greene and Thomas Sumner Greene from 1889, when the brothers were in Boston attending MIT and apprenticing in architectural firms, to 1893, when they joined their parents in Pasadena. Although the envelope is usually addressed to Charles, the salutation is most often to both sons. The last few folders in the box contain letters from Thomas Sumner Greene to Charles, dating from 1900-1917.
Organized alphabetically by the name of the correspondent, Box 2 contains correspondence from friends and family during the Boston years, again mostly addressed to Charles, but often including Henry. Social invitations give the flavor of the social life of the young men, while letters from cousins living nearby tell of family gatherings and family relations. The last few folders contain copies of examinations from MIT and ephemera from the Boston years and early Pasadena years.
Box 192 (1829-1900) contains correspondence, diaries and financial documents from the White and Storey families (1829-1900), especially George Storey White and his wife Jane, parents of Charles Greene's wife, Alice Gordon White Greene. They document their life in England, immigration to the United States as well as land purchases and business activities in Virginia. Also included are two volumes of a journal (1829-1831) entitled "T[homas] White's Travelling Companion through France, Switzerland, Italy," as well as a diary from 1858 "Thomas White, Engineer's Office, Calçada, Balua, Brazil," documenting Thomas White's work as a land surveyor in Brazil.
Box 193 (1919-1983) contains papers from Henry Greene's family, especially correspondence to his sons, Henry Dart Greene and William Sumner Greene, as well as family photographs.
This series includes letters from their parents while the Greene brothers were living in Boston, as well as correspondence from friends and relatives, usually addressed to both brothers. Following their marriages (1899, 1901), the personal lives of the brothers diverge. Charles's personal papers continue with family letters, especially from his wife and children, as well as correspondence with banks, stockbrokers and others. A large group of notes and writings, including the typescript of a novel and an essay are also in this series. Henry's personal papers contain correspondence, notes and records, most notably concerning his marriage and a trip to the East coast in 1912-1913. Family photographs of both families, as well as of ancestors and descendants, comprise the largest group in this series.
Both brothers kept scrapbooks and sketchbooks. The earliest of these, started in 1890, was a joint scrapbook of images collected to serve as inspiration for their work. In addition to scrapbooks and sketchbooks, there are groups of loose drawings and photographs of architecture by Henry and Charles, as well as a small office library and the book collections of Charles (including an extensive periodicals collection) and of Henry. Photographs and postcards documenting Charles' two trips to Europe are also in this series.
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.
Box 6 contains materials regarding the marriage of Henry to Emeline Dart in 1899, scattered correspondence (1912-1954), and notes, records and ephemera documenting Henry's trip to the East coast in 1912-1913. There is also a notebook, two personal account books (1899-1903 and 1911-1917), and award certificates from the AIA in 1948 and 1952. At the end of Box 6 are family materials of the Greenes, including the "Memo of the Timber wanted for the Steeple in Providence 1775" by Thomas Sumner, a typescript account of Thomas Sumner Greene's experiences in the Civil War and records of the Greene family.
