AUTOGRAPH LETTER TO EDUCATOR HAROLD RUGG SIGNED BY MODERN DANCE CHOREOGRAPHER AND AVANT-GARDE THEATER DIRECTOR JEAN ERDMAN.

- Letter penned in blue ink and filling 1-1/4 sides of a sheet of her 11-inch high by 8-3/8-inch wide personalized letterhead with her name & address printed at the top. Signed "Jean Erdman". The corners of the letter are lightly creased with a pinhole in the top left corner & the top right corner slightly darkened. Folded twice for mailing. Very good. Erdman writes regretting that she is unable to attend Rugg's Wednesday Luncheon Forums at Teachers College of Columbia University. "I wish that I could manage to control my activities so that I would be free to participate in such interesting-sounding gatherings. When I talked with Mr. [Nik] Krevitsky a few weeks ago, I thought that my schedule would allow me to come, but since then I have discovered that Wednesdays must needs be used up in rehearsals with my dance company."The two greatest influences on dancer and choreographer Jean Erdman [b. 1916] were Joseph Campbell and Martha Graham. She married Campbell in 1938 and became a principal dancer in Martha Graham's company. She later toured the U.S. with her own company, and as a solo artist toured India and Japan, the first dancer to do so since World War II. In 1962 she began what was to become her best-known work, "The Coach with Six Insides", an adaptation of James Joyce's "Finnegan's Wake'".Harold Rugg [1886-1960] was a professor of education at Teachers College of Columbia University. A civil engineer, he became interested in how students learn and pursued a doctorate in education. He was responsible for producing the first series of school textbooks from 1929 until the 1940s.…