Description:
Photo album depicting the Frary House and events related to the 1892 ball hosted by Miss C. Alice Baker (1833-1909), which is enclosed in a half-brown morocco case with five raised bands and the spine embossed "Ball - Frary House. E.A.C. / 1920." When C. Alice Baker purchased the Frary House in 1890, she dreamed of restoring the home in order to hold a colonial-style ball in the tavern ballroom on the second floor. On August 25, 1892, she organized a ball which requested guests to dress in early 18th-century costume. Historic Deerfield owns a few photographs of the ball (HD 69.1347-1349), but no one knew that a scrapbook of the event had been assembled. Within its pages are an invitation to the ball, letters of acceptance and refusal, typed descriptions of the ball, and 65 plainum and silver matte collodion photographs of Frary House exteriors, interiors, guests at the ball, John Putnam - the ball's fiddler, servants, and a table display of 18th-century shoes. It is assumed that some of the photographs were taken by Emma Lewis Coleman (1853-1942), one of Baker's two lifetime companions. The ball's guests were asked to come back the next day so that they could pose before her camera in their costumes. Who assembled the scrapbook is still a mystery to be solved by further research.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2009.5 |
