Visual Materials

Robinson Jeffers family photograph collection

Description: A collection of photographs of American poet Robinson Jeffers, his family and friends, and his home he called Tor House, in Carmel, California. The bulk of the images date from approximately 1919 to 1940 and are chiefly black-and-white prints, 8 x 10 inches and smaller, of Jeffers, his wife, Una, their twin sons Donnan and Garth, and a few friends: George Sterling, C.E.S. Wood, and Blanche Matthias. The photographs belonged to Matthias, and are mostly personal, informal images taken at or around Tor House, the distinctive stone house Jeffers built on an open stretch of coast. Other items in the collection are: four color snapshots of Jeffers' grandchildren, the latest dated 1969; two copies of sketched portraits of Jeffers by M. A. Werboff; and a keepsake folder about Tor House from the series "Homes of California Authors" (Book Club of California, 1967), with an essay by Theodore M. Lilienthal.
Type: Visual Materials(Opens in new tab)
Production date: 1919-1969
Call number: photCL 257
Creator: Matthias, Blanche(Opens in new tab)
Provenance: Gift of Blanche C. Matthias, 1983.
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.
Associated people: Lilienthal, Theodore M. (1893-1972.)
Associated organization: Book Club of California.
Find out more: View in the Library catalog(Opens in new tab)

Robinson Jeffers family photograph collection

Visual Materials

A collection of photographs of American poet Robinson Jeffers, his family and friends, and his home he called Tor House, in Carmel, California. The bulk of the images date from approximately 1919 to 1940 and are chiefly black-and-white prints, 8 x 10 inches and smaller, of Jeffers, his wife, Una, their twin sons Donnan and Garth, and a few friends: George Sterling, C.E.S. Wood, and Blanche Matthias. The photographs belonged to Matthias, and are mostly personal, informal images taken at or around Tor House, the distinctive stone house Jeffers built on an open stretch of coast. Other items in the collection are: four color snapshots of Jeffers' grandchildren, the latest dated 1969; two copies of sketched portraits of Jeffers by M. A. Werboff; and a keepsake folder about Tor House from the series "Homes of California Authors" (Book Club of California, 1967), with an essay by Theodore M. Lilienthal.

photCL 257

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Robinson Jeffers Tor House roof shingle

Manuscripts

Roof shingle from Robinson Jeffer's Tor House in Carmel, California. With note from "Mary" to Blanche Matthias giving her the shingle as a gift.

mssHM 84213

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Benjamin Davis Wilson family photograph collection

Visual Materials

A collection of photographs of Benjamin Davis "Don Benito" Wilson (1811-1878) and family members, and a few photographs of his Lake Vineyard residence in the San Gabriel Valley, California. The majority of photographs are studio portraits of individuals and family groups, approximately 1860s-1917, many of which are cabinet cards and cartes-de-visite. The primary subjects are Wilson, his second wife, Margaret S. Hereford (d.1898), and Wilson's children from his two marriages: Maria de Jesus "Sue" Wilson (Shorb), John B. Wilson (1846-1870), Ruth Wilson, and Ann ("Nan" or "Annie") Wilson. Others pictured in the collection are: Medora ("Dora") Hereford; Edward Sublette Hereford; Thomas Hereford; Mary Stone, Victor Yorba, Don Bernardo Yorba (photograph of a drawing), and a young man named [A. S.?] Johnston Jr. (photograph of a drawing). Of particular note in the collection is a post-mortem photograph of Maria de Jesus "Sue" Wilson Shorb, 1917. There are a few portraits of unidentified women, including an [African American?] woman in a photograph by George W. Sittler (Springfield, Missouri). Members of the Wilson and Shorb famillies are seen on the porch of the Lake Vineyard house, approximately 1875, and there are two views of furnished rooms in the house. Photographers represented are the Elite Gallery (Payne, Stanton & Co.), Frank G. Schumacher, James D. Westervelt and Valentin Wolfenstein (Los Angeles); and Bradley & Rulofson, G. D. Morse, and Louis Thors (San Francisco).

photCL 283

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Letchworth family photograph collection

Visual Materials

This collection consists of pages of a disbound photograph album containing 32 various-sized snapshots related to travel by the Letchworth Family in Southern California in 1906. The images, accompanied by handwritten captions, include views of Eagle Rock, Pasadena, Las Casitas in Ventura, and the Miramar Inn in Santa Barbara, California, as well as four images of "Mr. Howard and his Burrows coming from Death Valley." The images include landscape views of Southern California canyons, hillsides, and ranch lands; horseback riding, hotel buildings, and two Native Americans. The images are mounted on seven disbound scrapbook pages from a photograph album. 15 of the images are 3 3/4 x 12 inch panoramas. The collection also contains one loose 6 x 8 inch gelatin silver print showing members of an audience in a grandstand during a March 1906 horse show in Pasadena (Item 33).

photCL 540

Image not available

Letchworth family photograph collection

Visual Materials

This collection consists of pages of a disbound photograph album containing 32 various-sized snapshots related to travel by the Letchworth Family in Southern California in 1906. The images, accompanied by handwritten captions, include views of Eagle Rock, Pasadena, Las Casitas in Ventura, and the Miramar Inn in Santa Barbara, California, as well as four images of "Mr. Howard and his Burrows coming from Death Valley." The images include landscape views of Southern California canyons, hillsides, and ranch lands; horseback riding, hotel buildings, and two Native Americans. The images are mounted on 7 disbound 10 x 12 inch scrapbook pages from a photograph album. 15 of the images are 3 3/4 x 12 inch panoramas. The collection also contains one loose 6 x 8 inch gelatin silver print showing members of an audience in a grandstand during a March 1906 horse show in Pasadena (Item 33).

photCL 540

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Gervaise Purcell family photograph collection

Visual Materials

A collection of approximately 200 photographs related to the life and family of Gervaise Purcell (1844-1925), engineer, surveyor, and owner of Rancho Las Tunas, San Gabriel, California. Purcell and his wife, Helen Augusta (Pope) Purcell, and their seven children all appear in portraits, as do a few other Purcell and Pope relatives. There are carte-de-visite photographs of Gervaise Purcell's family in Dublin, and images of the Purcells in Japan in the 1870s, such as baby Hugh G. Purcell on the lap of his Japanese nurse or "amah," Noe Fuchizawa (1850-1936), and a portrait of Gervaise Purcell by photographer Baron Raimund von Stillfried of Yokohama. Views in San Gabriel include the Purcell House, also known as the Las Tunas adobe, on Rancho Las Tunas, showing the house and grounds (1880-1920s); Hotel San Gabriel interiors and exteriors (1890s); an artesian well on Titus Ranch, San Gabriel; and girls at school in Sunny Slope (1896), with names written on verso. Other subjects include construction of the Outer Harbor Dock & Wharf Company in San Pedro (1910), for which Gervaise Purcell was engineer, and a travel scrapbook that belonged to Thomas Purcell, brother of Gervaise, containing snapshots from around the world prior to 1871, including scenes in Africa, Singapore, Alexandria, Egypt, and Malta. The collection also contains clippings and some correspondence related to the Purcell family and the history of Rancho Las Tunas, and a few pencil sketches of Japan by Helen Purcell, 1877.

photCL 179

Robinson Jeffers family photograph collection

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