Overview
Original drawings and watercolors by Henry Richards for the children's book by Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards, Sketches & scraps.
Dates
- Creation: 1881 and 1941
Conditions Governing Access
Collection is open for research.
This collection is shelved offsite at the Harvard Depository. Retrieval requires advance notice. Readers should check with Houghton Public Services staff to determine what material is offsite and retrieval policies and times.
Extent
.3 linear feet (1 box)63 original pen and ink and watercolor drawings, some with autograph manuscript text (in unidentified hand) for the children's book of nonsense verses: Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards. Sketches & scraps; with pictures by Henry Richards. Boston: Estes & Lauriat, 1881. Lacks drawings for cover, p. 21, and p. 59.
Also includes a 1941 clipping concerning the publication of this book.
Biographical / Historical
Laura E. Richards (1850-1943) was the daughter of Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, founder of the Perkins School for the Blind, and Julia Ward Howe, social reformer and lyricist of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." In 1871 she married Henry Richards (1848-1949; Harvard College A.B. 1871), architect and industrialist. In 1876 they moved to Gardiner, Maine for Henry to manage the family paper mills. Laura Richards wrote more than ninety works, mostly in the fields of children's literature and biography. One of her early publications was a book of nonsense verses, Sketches & scraps (1881) that was illustrated by her husband Henry. Laura Richards won the Pulitzer prize for Biography in 1917 with her sister Maude Howe Elliott, for Julia Ward Howe.
Arrangement
Organized into the following series:
- I. Drawings
- II. Clippings
Physical Location
Harvard Depository
Immediate Source of Acquisition
*46M-237. Gift of Miss Rosalind Richards, Gardiner, Maine; received: 1947 Mar. 6.
Processing Information
Processed by: Bonnie B. Salt
- Title
- Richards, Henry. Drawings for Sketches & scraps: Guide.
- Author
- Houghton Library, Harvard College Library
- Language of description
- und
- EAD ID
- hou00173
Repository Details
Part of the Houghton Library Repository
Houghton Library is Harvard College's principal repository for rare books and manuscripts, archives, and more. Houghton Library's collections represent the scope of human experience from ancient Egypt to twenty-first century Cambridge. With strengths primarily in North American and European history, literature, and culture, collections range in media from printed books and handwritten manuscripts to maps, drawings and paintings, prints, posters, photographs, film and audio recordings, and digital media, as well as costumes, theater props, and a wide range of other objects. Houghton Library has historically focused on collecting the written record of European and Eurocentric North American culture, yet it holds a large and diverse number of primary sources valuable for research on the languages, culture and history of indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania.
Houghton Library’s Reading Room is free and open to all who wish to use the library’s collections.
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