Old Vault Letters and Litterst Dixon Photographs - Elaine Patton, 5/6/2013

Today I reviewed the letters Michelle worked on previously, MSS0113-b01f13-01, -b01f15-02 , and -b01f15-03. Not much for me to add (though I think I actually had to add some misspellings to the second letter!). The second and third letters are part of the correspondence between Eliza Fannin and her family (-b01f13-01 dated 2 years after -b01f15-02). Her education was obviously paying off-- such a difference in style and spelling between her letter and the one from her father!

(He charmingly refers to influenza as "influenzy" a couple of times in his letter: )

The Litterst Dixon photographs were great, though one image was mislabeled. MSS1248-2910 was supposed to have been the Preston Hotel but was instead a duplicate of MSS1248-2911.

Just for fun, another comparison photo with modern/historic Houston. As near as I can tell, this is the same area on Main Street (the red flag possibly being where the movie theaters had been in the first modern photo; where the Kirby theater had been and looking from the opposite direction in the second modern photo), 1930 vs 2011:

 

(A 1961 postcard photo is shown on this page about the theaters.)

Litterst Dixon Collection, Old Vault Letters - Elaine Patton, 4/29/2013

Today I entered metadata into ContentDM for photos from the Litterst Dixon Collection MSS1248. Several of the photos had two entries (one in each of the two databases/spreadsheets associated with the collection), but they generally supplemented each other. A couple initially seemed to have conflicts but were easily resolves: e.g., a building was said in one to be at Main and Franklin while the other said Main and Travis. Both street sets frame the same block, so it wasn't the conflict it initially seemed to be.

Neat photos! I can't get over how...small Houston appears to be/is in this one:

MSS1248-3652

For comparison, a modern picture with 2 of the recognizable buildings pointed out (the Gulf Building, now JP Morgan Chase Building, just right of center (orange arrow below), and the domed Courthouse, at left above (green arrow below):

What was the tallest (apparently) building on the skyline is dwarfed and scarcely stands out.

Also of note: a photo of people at Luna Park, an amusement park that opened in 1924 (nowadays part of its property is occupied by I-10 and I-45), and based on fashion alone, I would have never guessed the picture was taken in 1925.

MSS1248-2988 (cropped)

Today's Old Vault Letters: MSS0113-b01f12-08, -b01f15-01, and -b01f15-05. All were pretty clearly written and there weren't any particularly mysterious bits, save for a name here and there, though there are a few tears that obscure some words in the second two. The first letter is largely one big run-on listing of properties being transferred with very little in the way of punctuation, either between individual lots (e.g. ...one two three four six eleven...) or to connect numbers like 'fifty-five.' Whew. Easy to read and write, but also easy to lose your place.