?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 5,000 - $ 7,500
WORLD WAR II'S "COMMANDO MARY" (BARLOW FAMILY.) Archive of papers of Ernesta Drinker Bullitt Barlow. 11 volumes and thousands of additional leaves, 1.8 linear feet. Various sizes and conditions; some of the diaries are worn, otherwise no general condition issues. Vp, mostly 1909-1962
Aimee Ernesta Drinker (1892-1981) was born into a prominent Pennsylvania family. Her first marriage in 1916 was to William Bullitt (1891-1967), who was later the first U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union, and co-authored a book with Sigmund Freud; they were divorced in 1923. Ernesta's second marriage, in 1928, was to composer Samuel L.M. Barlow II (see lot 36 above). She was a writer, artist, and intrepid traveler, but best known as a society hostess; a 1975 newspaper profile described her as "one of the last of the grande dames in the days when New York society meant elegance." Her papers include diaries, radio transcripts, personal letters, memoirs, essays, short story manuscripts, and more. Of great interest are 4 manuscript diaries written in 1916 while Ernesta traveled in Germany and Austria with her diplomat husband. The first World War was raging and the United States was supplying arms to Great Britain, so the Bullitts found a frosty reception, but her diary was one of the very few first-hand accounts of wartime Germany to reach an American audience. It was published in 1917 as "An Uncensored Diary from the Central Empire." The collection also includes 5 other volumes of travel diaries written in Europe, South America, Yugoslavia, India, Pakistan, Cambodia, and Tunisia, as well as 2 typed pages of her 1949 interview with the Shah of Iran. The collection also includes several letters reflecting Ernesta's eventful romantic history: a 1910 letter from a rebuffed Russian beau; a 1923 letter from husband William Bullitt, announcing that he was leaving her to marry Louise Bryant (the widow of the famed American Communist John Reed); and 5 Autograph Letters Signed from artist Rockwell Kent to Ernesta, 1924-1925. The first 4 Kent letters reflect a passionate romance, and the fifth was written after she had broken it off. In 1939, she also wrote an extended manuscript memoir of her childhood and her years with Bullitt. During World War II, Ernesta Barlow delivered weekly patriotic broadcasts on NBC Radio as "Commando Mary." The broadcasts often began with Barlow announcing crisply "Commando Mary reporting for duty, sir!", and were geared towards encouraging women to sign up for war work. Barlow also attempted to calm the fears of the husband who worried that after the war he would be left to "fry his own spuds, make his own bed, sew on his own buttons, while the old woman is out operating a steam shovel." Many segments featured interviews with women in the workplace. This collection includes a nearly complete run of unpublished mimeographed "Commando Mary" scripts from 10 May 1942 to 25 February 1945. This is a significant and unusual woman's archive, spanning the two world wars, high society, and the factory floor.
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