1939 WESTERN TRAVEL PHOTO ALBUM & HANDWRITTEN DIARY
Item #864
A wonderfully documented photo album and handwritten diary from a trip from Monson, MA to California and back in 1939. Over 11,000 miles were covered in the three months that Erdix W. Capen and his ward, Millard traveled, as they visited sites and friends along the way. Erdix was a theatrical mask maker, who worked in the theaters of Boston, and during his travels, visited others interested in masks. He was also friends with W. Allen Cushman, who was a well know western photographer based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Hollywood. He was known for posing many of his subjects in Native American attire, like Edward Curtis. He is mentioned in the diary and photo album, and there is a photo that he took of Erdix in the Arizona desert and several photos of Millard in “authentic Indian costume.” There are also several photos from Cushman’s home in Hollywood, California.
The annotated photo Album measures 7.5” x 11.25” and is complete with 231 snapshots held to the page with corner tabs. In the beginning of the album, there are eight photos from Monson, Massachusetts from 1927 and four shots of the Hurricane of 1938, and in the back of the album, there are about 70 snaps from the 1939 NY World’s Fair, New York City, and Maine. The rest of the photos are from the road trip and show images from Texas, Grand Canyon, San Ildefenso Pueblo, Native Americans, San Diego, Hollywood, Los Angeles, Carmel, Laguna Beach, California missions, the Golden Gate International Exposition, Yosemite, Lake Tahoe, cherry blossoms in DC, etc.
The looseleaf diary measure 4.75” x 7.25,” and has about 145 pages of the trip across country, with another 24 pages of a 1940 trip to Canada, with some other pages telling about a mask making course he was giving and some of his drawings. This bulk of the diary details a road trip from Monson to California in 1939, when he was 30 years old. He traveled with a young man named Millard, who I believe was a teenager that he was helping, and they visited a few colleges along the way. (There is a letter included thanking Erdix for caring for Milliard). They stayed with friends in California for a bit and the trip lasted 3 months, starting on January 3, 1939, and returning on April 6th, and they traveled a total of 11,148 miles. Places visited included St. Louis, Kansas, the Great Plains, New Mexico, Laguna Beach, Hollywood, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Big Sur, San Francisco, Golden Gate exposition, Yosemite, Lake Tahoe, Salt Lake City, Washington DC, etc. His writing is very detailed, and the diary reads like a book. A few passages include:
We saw adobe for the first time. Santa Fe was full of real ones and cement reproductions. We drove into Santa Fe and found the El Fidel Hotel and drove up to the curbing and there was Allen looking at us. We at with him and the Mexican Waiters trumped a mince pudding in my lap. Got myself clean though. Then we started for San Vldepenso ……We met a lot of the Indians and they are very nice pleasant people. Louis and Juanita and Adelphia are swell people. I was of course surprised at the comfort and convenience of these pueblos……
….In the night, Allen woke me up so I could listen to the buffalo and antelope out in the hills making cries. Very nice…..Allen says they do that often at night anyway. He has promised me a coyote and I haven’t heard it yet. …..
…There was some of themes beautiful mountain backgrounds and color I ever hope to see. Also some of the most formidably bleak mountains. We crossed the Colorado Pines into California and Pacific time. At the border, we were searched like returning from Europe. Most unpleasant. We continued through the desert. Back at Salome Ariz, there was one lone palm tree, the first I ever saw. There were a lot at Blythe. The desert seemed endless……..
Peter, Millard and Went to see Cassie Loftus do her “Impersonations.” They were swell, especially Beatrice Lillie, and Ethel Barrymore, which was rather cruel. It was a very good program…….
Peter had made a date for us to go and see Kenneth MacGowan’s house to see his collection of masks. Since 20th Century Fox has been paying him well, he has started collecting masks and now has his study hung with them and they are spilling out into the hall. He has them all catalogued, and it took me over two hours to look at them. Some beauties. I was able to hold many of them in my hands for the first time……
The road was rather narrow and very winding. Around one mountain and then around another. We could hear the ocean below us. We expected to hit a place to stay, but we went 63 miles into the dark and fog till we got to Big Sur. There was a lodge in the redwoods, and we got a cabin. Very nice. We were very much aware of the smells in the night. Various flowers, the damp sagebrush, the ocean……
It was nearly noon before we started for the fair. When we got there, we went to the (?) building together, then we separated. I did the things I missed the other day. We met for lunch and afterwards went to the Administration building to watch Mrs. Roosevelt come out. Had two swell views of her. One I was flat up against a sound truck and the other in a ice in the wall of the garden of the moon. Both time within 5 feet of her and no one in front of me. I didn’t take a picture but probably I should have…….
There are some blank pages between some sections, though his writing is legible, and it is easy to figure out.
Neither the photo album nor the diary has his name written inside, though the diary has a letter addressed to him, and these items came from his estate.
A wonderful collection that makes you feel as if you were along for the ride.
Price: $1,500.00