August 10 Friday – In Elmira Sam wrote to John White Alexander (1856-1915), artist and one-time illustrator for Harper’s Weekly. Although little-known today, he once ranked as a premier American painter of women, portraying leisure class women in interior settings. During his career he was a member of both the Munich and Vienna Secession, associated with Art Noveau style. He would move to Paris in 1889 for three years, where he began to work with the Symbolists as well as painting portraits of literary greats like Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Joseph Jefferson, Parker Godwin, John Burroughs, Alphonse Daudet, Auguste Rodin, Alexander Hamilton Stephens, and Robert Louis Stevenson [New York Times, June 2, 1915 p.13]. See also “Art and the Feminine Muse: Women in Interiors by John White Alexander” by Julie Anne Springer, Woman’s Art Journal, Vol. 6, No. 2 (Autumn, 1985 – Winter, 1986), p.1-8.

I am with you in the sense of relief, & satisfaction in it. We could have defied those people, no doubt, but to do it would have been questionable wisdom, as long as they wanted to compromise.

I enclose the required detail, & pronounce it authentic [MTP]. Note: The subject of this letter was not discovered.

Sam also wrote to Franklin G. Whitmore, advising that since no money would be coming in from Sheridan’s book (he thought they’d publish it in Sept., so evidently had not seen the notice Webster & Co. put in the N.Y. Times about publishing Dec. 1) so advised Whitmore to borrow against securities, specifically St. Paul Roller Mills, and Medlicott.

b’George, I wonder if the machine is really going to be finished some time or other, after all [MTP].