Scope and Contents
The Love Family Papers consist primarily of letters to Lucy Cleveland Prindle Love (Mrs. Edward Gurley Love) and a lesser amount to her daughter, Helen Douglas (Love) Scranton, written during the early and middle years of the twentieth century. Many of the letters are from theatrical personalities and authors as Dame Sybil Thorndike, Kate Douglas Wiggin and Ben Greet (Sir Philip Ben Greet, 1857-1936), and comment on various cultural activities in New York City and America. Mrs. Love was the wife of Edward Gurley Love, a chemical engineer who held a Ph.D. from Columbia University. A graduate of Hamilton College (1822), he received the Ph.B. from Columbia in 1876 and the Ph.D. in 1876. In 1877, he was appointed to the newly created post of gas examiner for New York City. During World War I, Mr. Love worked for the U.S. Government and constructed a large plant for the recovery of toluol from the gas used for city lighting, the product being used for the manufacture of TNT.
The Loves lived on the East Side of Manhattan and their interest in the arts is evident in this collection of Mrs. Love's correspondence, much of which concerns a production of PARSIFAL given in 1904 which she supported. Her daughter, Helen, was Secretary of the Society of the Friends of Music and most of her correspondence is related to the placing of subscriptions by prominent social personalities of the day such as William Lyon Phelps. Helen (Love) Scranton was the second wife of William Dowd Scranton, an 1897 graduate of Sheffield Scientific School, Yale University, and later lived in Madison, Connecticut. Historically, the papers would be of greatest interest to the student of theater history. The Ben Greet correspondence is the largest file in the collection and at one time Mrs. Scranton considered writing a biography based in part on these papers. These papers would also furnish source material for the social historian interested in the development of New York City as a leading cultural center of the world during the early part of this century. The Love Family Papers were left to the Yale University Library by the estate of Helen (Love) Scranton in 1969.
Dates
- 1872-1958
Creator
Conditions Governing Access
The materials are open for research.
Conditions Governing Use
Copyright status for collection materials is unknown, though much of the material in this collection is likely in the public domain. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.) beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owners. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Gift of the estate of Helen Douglas Love Scranton, l969.
Arrangement
I. Correspondence. II. Miscellaneous. III. Printed Materials. IV. Photographs.
Extent
3.5 Linear Feet (5 boxes)
Language of Materials
English
Catalog Record
A record for this collection is available in Orbis, the Yale University Library catalog
Persistent URL
Abstract
Correspondence, printed materials, theater programs, photographs and other papers of Lucy Cleveland Prindle Love and Helen Douglas Love Scranton, wife and daughter, respectively, of Edward Gurley Love and active in New York social and cultural life in the early 20th century.The correspondence is chiefly from theatrical personalities and writers and concerns cultural life in New York City. Prominent among the correspondents are Pearl S. Buck, Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Alva Edison, Clara Clemens, Helen Keller, Kate Douglas Wiggin Riggs, Jules Verne and Alexander Woollcott.
Separated Materials
Autograph letters removed from Lulu C. Prindle autograph album and dispersed among Manuscripts and Archives collections:
Botta, Anne Charlotte (Lynch) 1815-1891 (Miscellaneous Manuscript Collection - MS 352)
Brace, Charles Loring 1826-1890 (Miscellaneous Manuscript Collection - MS 352)
Britten, Harriet G. [?] (Miscellaneous Manuscript Collection - MS 352)
Brooks, Phillips 1835-1893 (Miscellaneous Manuscript Collection - MS 352)
Cash, James l839-1909 [?] (Miscellaneous Manuscript Collection - MS 352)
Chandler, Charles Frederick 1836-1925 (Miscellaneous Manuscript Collection - MS 352)
Cleveland, Grover, Pres. U.S. 1837-1908 (Miscellaneous Manuscript Collection - MS 352)
Conkling, Roscoe 1829-1888 (Miscellaneous Manuscript Collection - MS 352)
Cooper, James Fenimore 1789-1851 (Morse Family Papers - MS 358)
Curtis, George William 1824-1892
Custman, Charlotte [?] (Miscellaneous Manuscript Collection - MS 352)
Dana, James Dwight 1813-1895 (Dana Family Papers - MS 164)
Fay, Theodore Sedgewick 1807-1898 (Miscellaneous Manuscript Collection - MS 352)
Garrison, William Lloyd 1805-1879 (Miscellaneous Manuscript Collection - MS 352)
Godwin, Parke 1816-1904 (Miscellaneous Manuscript Collection - MS 352)
Guyot, Arnold Henry 1807-1884 (Miscellaneous Manuscript Collection - MS 352)
Harte, Bret 1836-1902 (Miscellaneous Manuscript Collection - MS 352)
Hayne, Robert Young 1791-1839 (Morse Family Papers - MS 358)
Hicks, Thomas 1823-1890 (Miscellaneous Manuscript Collection - MS 352)
Hillard, George Stillman 1808-1879 (Miscellaneous Manuscript Collection - MS 352)
Holmes, Oliver Wendell 1809-1884 (Misc. Mss-2 letters - MS 352)
Ingelow, Jean 1820-1897 (Miscellaneous Manuscript Collection - MS 352)
Kimball, Richard Burleigh 1816-1892 (Miscellaneous Manuscript Collection - MS 352)
Kirkland, Caroline Matilda (Stansbury) 1801-1864 ( Misc. Mss)
Lanman, Charles 1819-1895 (Miscellaneous Manuscript Collection - MS 352)
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth 1807-1882 (Miscellaneous Manuscript Collection - MS 352)
MacDonald, George 1824-1905 (Miscellaneous Manuscript Collection - MS 352)
Mehloef, Anna [?] ( Misc. Mss)
Morse, Samuel Finley Breese 1791-1872 (Morse Family Papers - MS 358)
Phelps, Elizabeth Stuart 1844-1911 (Miscellaneous Manuscript Collection - MS 352)
Porter, Samuel 1810-1901 (Miscellaneous Manuscript Collection - MS 352)
Porter, Sarah 1813-1900 (Miscellaneous Manuscript Collection - MS 352)
Sands, Henry Berton 1830-1888 (Miscellaneous Manuscript Collection - MS 352)
Seebach, Marie (Miscellaneous Manuscript Collection - MS 352)
Sheriden, Philip Henry 1831-1888 (Miscellaneous Manuscript Collection - MS 352)
Silliman, Benjamin 1816-1885 (Silliman Family Papers - MS 450)
Taylor, Bayard 1825-1878 (Miscellaneous Manuscript Collection - MS 352)
Terhune, Mary Virginia Hawes 1830-1922 (Miscellaneous Manuscript Collection - MS 352)
Tupper, Martin Farquhar 1810-1889 (Morse Family Papers - MS 358)
Wilson, Augusta Jane (Evans) 1835-1909 (Miscellaneous Manuscript Collection - MS 352)
(plus 4 unidentified letters in Misc. Mss folder "Unidentified")
- Buck, Pearl S. (Pearl Sydenstricker), 1892-1973
- Carnegie, Andrew, 1835-1919
- Clemens, Clara, 1874-1962
- Dodge, Mary Mapes, 1830-1905
- Edison, Thomas A. (Thomas Alva), 1847-1931
- Families
- Garland, Hamlin, 1860-1940
- Gray, Asa, 1810-1888
- Greet, Ben, Sir, 1857-1936
- Grenfell, Wilfred Thomason, Sir, 1865-1940
- Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, 1823-1911
- Howells, William Dean, 1837-1920
- La Farge, John, 1835-1910
- Love family
- Love, Lucy Cleveland Prindle
- Music
- New York (N.Y.) -- Social life and customs
- New York (State)
- Phelps, William Lyon, 1865-1943
- Photoprints
- Porter, Noah, 1811-1892
- Reid, Whitelaw, 1837-1912
- Scranton, Helen D. Love (Helen Douglas Love), 1879-1968
- Theater
- Theater -- New York (State) -- New York -- History
- Thorndike, Sybil, Dame, 1882-1976
- Villard, Oswald Garrison, 1872-1949
- Wiggin, Kate Douglas Smith, 1856-1923
- Woollcott, Alexander, 1887-1943
- Yurka, Blanche
- Title
- Guide to the Love Family Papers
- Status
- Under Revision
- Author
- Compiled and edited by Catherine Buckwalder under the supervision of Francis Radvonovsky
- Date
- September 1969
- Description rules
- Finding Aid Created In Accordance With Manuscripts And Archives Processing Manual
- Language of description note
- Finding aid written in English.
Part of the Manuscripts and Archives Repository
Yale University Library
P.O. Box 208240
New Haven CT 06520-8240 US
(203) 432-1735
(203) 432-7441 (Fax)
beinecke.library@yale.edu
Location
Sterling Memorial Library
Room 147
120 High Street
New Haven, CT 06511