Gilmore Daisy (2 results)
A Serendipitous Summer
Quarterly, KissMet; Spellman, Laurie B.; Liles, Adele; Shaffer, Tamara; Langevin, Suzy; Gracyn, Desirae; Landish, Daisy; Bracken, Michael; Fitzgerald, Katie; Gilmore, Elise
- Softcover
- Print on Demand
Seller: California Books, Miami, FL, U.S.A.California Books
Contact seller4-star sellerCondition: New
US$ 20.00
Free ShippingShips within U.S.A.Quantity: Over 20 available
Condition: New. Print on Demand.
Norton, Jessie; Gilmore, Daisy; Bennet, Elsie; Lahman, Laura; et all. Photo Album Combining Vernacular and Studio Photographs, Documenting the Lives, Performances, and Student Culture of Women at Mills College, Oakland, California. Ca. 1889-1891.
NORTON, Jessie; GILMORE, Daisy; BENNET, Elsie; LAHMAN, Laura; et all.
Seller: Globus Rare Books & Archives, San Francisco, CA, U.S.A.Globus Rare Books & Archives
Contact seller5-star sellerNone. Condition: None. Oblong quarto, ca. 28.5 × 38 cm (11¼ × 15 in.). Contemporary cloth album, front cover with the generic gilt-lettered title "Photographs." 25 stiff card leaves. With 233 mounted gelatin silver photographs, ranging from ca. 16 × 21 cm (6¼ × 8¼ in.) to ca. 8 × 10 cm (3⅛ × 4 in.), the majority measuring approx…imately 15 × 21 cm (6 × 8¼ in.) or 12 × 9.5 cm (4¾ × 3¾ in.); two larger photographs measure 28 × 12 cm (11 × 4¾ in.; panorama) and 20 × 26 cm (7⅞ × 10¼ in.). Together with two loosely inserted gelatin silver photographs, one torn into two pieces. Most photographs captioned in ink beneath the images, many with lengthy manuscript captions, including a two-page memorial essay by Jessie Norton. The album opens with two pen drawings and a pressed botanical specimen arranged around a photograph of two of the compilers leaning affectionately against one another. Occasional fading to several photographs; edges of a few leaves scuffed with scattered foxing. Three photographs have the face of one student ("Nell") deliberately abraded, apparently reflecting a later personal falling-out. Block of the album is shaky. Overall a substantial and well-preserved album with strong, well-composed photographs. Photographic record of student life at Mills College during the years immediately following its transformation from Mills Seminary into a degree-granting women's college. While documenting the expected aspects of campus life—classes, friendships, excursions, athletics, music, and domestic interiors—the album is distinguished by its sustained interest in theatrical performance, artistic self-fashioning, and staged photography. Throughout the volume, the students repeatedly assume roles, costumes, and fictional identities, revealing a campus culture in which amateur theatricals, tableaux vivants, literary performance, and photography were closely intertwined. Among the images are two photographs documenting the college production of Sappho (1891), identifying the performers as Daisy Gilmore, Jessie Norton, and Maude Cone. Although classical dramas were regularly staged at American women's colleges as exercises in literature, elocution, and aesthetic education, the choice of Sappho is noteworthy. During the late nineteenth century, the poet of Lesbos was increasingly reinterpreted not merely as a classical author but as a symbol of female artistic genius, emotional intensity, and communities of women. Whether the Mills production reflected these broader contemporary interpretations cannot be established, but the photographs document an early American collegiate staging of a work already acquiring meanings beyond its classical origins. This emphasis on performance continues throughout the album. A formal group portrait identified as the "T.C.C.D. Club" (initials uncertain) shows five students posed in classical drapery before a studio backdrop in a composition strongly recalling the tableaux vivants, or "living pictures," that formed a popular feature of dramatic and artistic education at American women's colleges. Another photograph records "Our Cast at College Hall, Mills," with every participant identified in manuscript except for one student whose image has later been deliberately scratched away. Also is a series of humorous group portraits depicting a costumed student troupe identified throughout the album as the "Pearl Sisters." Wearing identical theatrical costumes with tall pointed caps, the participants appear in a succession of comic tableaux—including synchronized processions, mock devotional poses, exaggerated expressions of grief ("Alas!!"), and a portrait captioned "The long and the short of the 'Pearl Sisters,'" pairing the tallest and shortest members of the troupe. A group portrait captioned "Serenade Society at Mills" depicts a nine-member student ensemble equipped with guitars and banjos, every performer identified by name, illustrating the importance of amateur musical performance alongside theatrical productions. The album.
