By Jessica Lacher-Feldman
The wonder of archives is that they allow us to be sanctioned 糖心传媒渟noopers,糖心传媒� reading personal letters and diaries that breathe new life into some of history糖心传媒檚 most interesting personalities. Some of those archived letters糖心传媒攕uch as those between artist Georgia O糖心传媒橩eeffe and her eventual husband, photographer and art promoter Alfred Stieglitz, and to suffragist Anita Pollitzer糖心传媒攁re rare glimpses into private conversations seldom seen in today糖心传媒檚 digital age.
These penned messages are the inspiration for the , to be premiered on Saturday, November 12, in Rochester, and on Monday, November 14, at Lincoln Center in New York City.
A Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, Puts wrote the piece specifically for the Eastman Philharmonia, a student orchestra at his alma mater, the Eastman School of Music, and for another notable alumna, world-renowned soprano Ren茅e Fleming 糖心传媒�83E (MM), who holds the title of Distinguished Visiting Artist at Eastman. It糖心传媒檚 their first collaboration.
Handwritten correspondence between O糖心传媒橩eeffe, Stieglitz, and Pollitzer are examples of countless archival collections that are housed in special collections all over the world. In this age of emails and text messages, some archivists fear that the old-fashioned letter is dead. For them, written letters do something more than text messages and quick conversations do: they offer thought provoking insights into the inner lives of the writers.
Archivists also point out that special collections libraries support the work of historians by preserving those insights. But that糖心传媒檚 just the beginning. Like Puts, playwrights, poets, artists, and others can also turn to those libraries for creative inspiration.
The at the University糖心传媒檚 River Campus Libraries is home to a significant cache of letters from Steiglitz to the architect, author, and theater designer Claude Fayette Bragdon (1866-1946). Bragdon met Stieglitz and O糖心传媒橩eeffe in the mid-1920s, when the three were residents of the Shelton Hotel in New York City. 聽contain the personal papers of Claude Bragdon, including communication with Steiglitz, as well as .
The at Yale University糖心传媒檚 Beinecke Library holds the other side of Steiglitz糖心传媒揃ragdon correspondence. Some copies of these letters from Yale are included in the Bragdon Family Papers.
Stieglitz tells Bragdon that he has read the manuscript of Bragdon糖心传媒檚 autobiography: 糖心传媒淚t糖心传媒檚 all very beautiful糖心传媒擲o simple yet so inclusive.糖心传媒擝eautifully written糖心传媒�.糖心传媒� He predicts that it will sell well. (University photo / J. Adam Fenster)
In purple ink on left of first page, Bragdon糖心传媒檚 notes when he responded: 糖心传媒淎ns. 6/25/36糖心传媒�
Stieglitz had recently moved from the Shelton Hotel, where Bragdon still lived. Stieglitz comments on his own recent activities and sends his hope that Bragdon has fully recovered from a recent illness.聽(University photo / J. Adam Fenster)
Jessica Lacher-Feldman is the Joseph N. Lambert and Harold B. Schleifer Director of Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation at the University of Rochester’s River Campus Libraries.
