Scrapbook
Title
Scrapbook
Description
Scrapbook compiled by Philadelphia socialite Minnie Campbell Wilson (neé Harris) primarily containing ephemera from luncheons, suppers, university class days, and other high society social events. Events attend by Harris include dances and recitals at Wissahickon Inn; receptions, club socials, and a gymnastics exhibition at Princeton University; class days at Harvard, Brown, Princeton, and University of Pennsylvania (1885-1891); a Cricket Ball (1888); Authors Dance for the benefit of the School of Industrial Art and Pennsylvania Museum (1890); U.S.S. New York launching at Cramp's Shipyard (1891); and "supper at the Stratford after seeing [Sarah] Bernhardt given by Charles Lea, Feb. 1891." Ephemera includes programs, invitations, menus, and place, dance, holiday, and tally cards. Majority of the cards are printed, with some designed by hand. Holiday cards often depict religious, sentimental, and genre imagery, including children, animals, flowers, landscapes, and costumed and historical figures., Scrapbook also contains ribbons; die-cut tokens, including girl-shaped calendars and the story "Rosy Cheeks"; newspaper clippings, including Semple-Watson, Philler-Winsor, and Frothingham-Harris wedding announcements; correspondence to Harris from her father while abroad in San Francisco, New Zealand, and Hawaii (1870-1872) and from her brother while visiting their grandmother in New York (1870?); Harris's 1878 "American School Diary" of her grades; a striped tissue paper coverlet; a needle work sampler stitched "Susy"; a watercolor marine view "by Arthur Hoff '89"; a telegraph message envelope; a family group portrait photograph; and trade cards and advertising circulars and booklets. Trade cards and advertisements promote "The Philadelphia Weekly Press" (designed as a miniature edition); "The History of Jumbo"; Enoch Morgan’s Sons Co . Sapolio soap (authored by Bret Harte); the Church Book Store (Philadelphia), Ballard House Exchange Hotel (Richmond, Va.), and Higgins German Laundry soap., Inscribed on verso of front cover: M. C. Harris. January 1892. Scrap book., Provenance and date of some contents identified by brief inscriptions., Printers include New York firms Donaldson Brothers, E. P. Dutton & Co., and Frederick A. Stokes Company; Boston firm L. Prang & Co.; and Berlin firm W. Hagelberg., Cataloging funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (PW-506-19-10), 2010-2012., Housed in phase box., Gift of Elizabeth McLean., Inventory available at repository., Mary Campbell Harris (known as Minnie), daughter of U.S. Naval Commander Thomas Cadwalder Harris (1826-1875) and Mary Louisa Bainbridge Jaudon (1835-1914), was born in New York on December 27, 1862. Descended from Commodore William Bainbridge and Thomas Harris, the first surgeon-general of the United States Navy, Harris and her family resided in Philadelphia by 1866. In 1893, she married John L. Wilson (b. 1850), later treasurer of Coal Land Corporation and the couple resided in the Rittenhouse Square neighborhood. Harris was active in the Sedgely Club and often attended and held card parties, teas, and luncheons noted in the local press. Harris spent her later years residing in Bryn Mawr where she died circa 1948.
Creator
Wilson, Mary Campbell Harris, 1862-ca. 1948
Date
ca. 1876-ca. 1892
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department albums - Harris [P.9682.2]