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COLLECTION Identifier: MS Thr 451

Sothern family papers

Overview

Photographs, scrapbooks, and correspondence relating to the theatrical careers of the Sotherns, an English family of actors.

Dates

  • Creation: 1832-1922, (bulk) 1861-1909.
  • Creation: Majority of material found in 1861-1909

Language of Materials

Collection materials are in English.

Conditions Governing Access

There are no restrictions on physical access to this material.

Extent

12 linear feet (11 boxes, 4 volumes, 1 portfolio folder)

Contains photographs (1861-1915) in 20 scrapbooks, as well as manuscript scripts, actors' sides, promptbooks, and correspondence. Includes galley proofs of E. H. Sothern's autobiography, The Melancholy Tale of Me (1916) and 73 drawings, and 8 sketchbooks by E. H. Sothern. Also contains playbills, programs and souvenir programs, engravings, posters, clippings, and miscellaneous material.

Biographical / Historical

The Sotherns were a family of actors active in England and the United States. This collection centers on Edward Askew Sothern and his sons, Edward Hugh, Lytton Edward, and George Evelyn Augustus T., known as Sam.

Arrangement

Organized into the following series:

  1. I. Photographs
  2. II. Scrapbooks
  3. III. Scripts
  4. IV. Playbills, programs, and souvenir programs
  5. V. Correspondence
  6. VI. Autobiography
  7. VII. Clippings
  8. VII. Pictorial material
  9. VIII. Miscellany

Physical Location

b, pf

Immediate Source of Acquisition

2003MT-152. Gift of E. H. Sothern; received: 1933 October 16; and Julia Marlowe Sothern, 1942 March.

Title
Sothern family. Sothern family papers, 1832-1922: Guide.
Author
Houghton Library, Harvard College Library
Language of description
und
EAD ID
hou01567

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.

Contact:
Harvard Yard
Harvard University
Cambridge MA 02138 USA
(617) 495-2440