Mar 22, 2018 - Sale 2470

Sale 2470 - Lot 22

Price Realized: $ 281
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 400 - $ 600
BARTON, CLARA. Autograph Letter Signed, "C.B.," to "Dear Roscoe and Harriette," confessing that she may have been mistaken concerning some "papers" [leaflets?] to be distributed, apologizing for some behavior incited by feelings of animosity toward [her rival on the executive board of the Red Cross Mabel] Boardman, expressing appreciation for her supporters in Boston, and, in a postscript written vertically on first page, stating that she must go "to tour." 4 pages, 8vo, written on a folded sheet. Glen Echo, MD, 15 May 1906
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". . . [T]hese especially Red Cross days (of San Francisco) are made to bear a little heavily on me . . . . Their spades are full of earth just now to ignominiously bury the poor old Red Cross: You will realize that it is not restful for me to feel Miss Boardman visiting in the families, and talking to the people of the city of my home, who have always been so willing to let me go on and do the hard things they could not do themselves; and when . . . all accept her with honor and confidence, you will not wonder so much that I recoiled against asking those same people to show me favor. . . .
"The R[ed] C[ross] here is steering very hard in these last weeks to both justify and magnify itself. They are not yet succeeding to the full measure of their hopes. . . ."
Mabel Thorpe Boardman (1860-1946) was an American philanthropist who, beginning in 1901, served on the executive board of the American Red Cross and whose criticism of the autocratic leadership style of Barton helped to force Barton's resignation from the Red Cross in 1904.