?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 5,000
Eaton, Loretta Belle Tulian (1868-1956) Archive of Photo Albums and Travel Diaries.
Including seven photo albums; the first features approximately 290 photographs taken between 1905 and 1907 in Colorado Springs, Salt Lake City, Glenwood Springs, Woods Lake, Arizona, California, and the Grand Canyon, featuring many photos of women riding on horseback, camping and eating on the trail, fishing, and traveling across the desert between the places listed above; three smaller albums containing approximately 100 photos feature activities, people, landscapes and buildings in and around Woods Lake resort in Colorado, including images of women rock climbing, chopping firewood, eating in the woods, posing with camp dogs, riding horses, wading through water, camping, cooking, and more; an album labeled "Western Country" features approximately seventy photos of landscapes and mountains out west, including the Grand Canyon, with images of more riding, camping, rock climbing, log cabins, beaver activity and more; Eaton's daughter, Emma Goodman Eaton, married painter Allen Tupper True (1881-1955) on June 3, 1915, and their honeymoon trip is documented in one album, containing approximately sixty photos including images of New Mexico Pueblo dwellings, and surrounding countryside, and a few photos of the Fred Harvey hotel in Lamy, New Mexico called "El Ortiz," where the couple stayed; the final two albums contain more photos similar to those already described, along with images of children and travel.
[Together with] five handwritten travel diaries composed by Belle Eaton as she traveled between 1922 and 1930, including visits to Portugal, Spain, Italy, Turkey, Israel, Egypt, and France; Brazil, Argentina, and Chile; Japan and China; and additional trips to Europe.
The earliest photo album was compiled by Belle "Muddy" Eaton when her children were young. It documents her life in Colorado Springs with her husband Frank Miller Eaton (1866-1954), a successful banker and magnate in the steel industry, and their travels to other locations in the American West. Belle's daughter Emma Goodman Eaton (1894-1978) likely had a hand in assembling the photos in the other six smaller albums, that were put together circa 1910-1915. It seems unlikely that the newlyweds had a mother-in-law in tow on their honeymoon trip. According to True's diary, after the June third wedding in Colorado Springs, the couple took the Santa Fe railroad to Las Vegas, New Mexico, and from there drove to Lamy, NM, where they stayed at the Hotel Ortiz. He also mentions visiting "a beautiful Mexican village," before they continued on to Santa Fe. These activities are dutifully recorded in images in Emma's photo album.
Three of the seven albums are filled with photos of activities at Woods Lake, a folksy family camp of log cabins and a communal dining hall about ten miles northwest of Thomasville, Colorado. The Eatons spent much of their free time at Woods Lake, enjoying boating, fishing, hunting, riding, camping, and other outdoorsy activities. Allen True's family also spent summers at the camp, and as an adult, he built a studio there. True is pictured and identified several times in the album; in one shot he has a number of canvasses with him. A family album includes many photos of Emma and True's young children.
Because of her husband's affluence, Belle Eaton was able to travel the globe. Her five detailed travel diaries from the 1920s each document a different trip and include related ephemera, including tickets, maps, itineraries, and other mementos.
