Congratulations Cranbrook Kingswood Seniors! The following was printed in the 1931 The Crane as part of a farewell editorial to the senior class from Cranbrook School student Mark Beltaire ’33:
“The world is the only fitting arena for your triumphs, and we, who expect to follow say ‘Be brave, be honorable, and above all, be sincere!’ “
Kingswood School Commencement, 1983. Richard Hirneisen, photographer.
Cranbrook School Commencement, 1963. Harvey Croze, photographer.
The Archives to Launch Our Poster Collection Online!
Over the coming summer, Cranbrook Archives will release a brand new collection into its online digital database! While building our digital archive is a perpetual process, we are working steadily to upload images and manuscripts so that you, our remote users, can browse and search through our collections no matter where you live. This summer we will be celebrating a new addition: the Cranbrook Poster Collection!
Over the past eight months, my colleague, Laura MacNewman, and I collaborated to upload this collection for online access. The posters date back to the early 1900s with topics covering the scope of the entire Cranbrook Educational Community, emphasizing exhibitions from the Academy of Art and the Institute of Science, and theatrical performances from Cranbrook Kingswood Schools, St. Dunstan’s Guild, and the Summer Theatre.
Cranbrook Institute of Science poster, n.d. Courtesy Cranbrook Archives.
We created nineteen different series for the Poster Collection based on locations or departments on campus. We identified nearly 500 unique posters in our collection, and each one was given a distinct identifying number. Once the unique identifiers were established, we merged all the various poster inventories into one master inventory spreadsheet, and arranged them in chronological order by series.
The next step was sorting through the physical posters folder by folder in order to take a reference photograph of each one for the database, record their dimensions, and describe them in the master inventory spreadsheet. This was the longest stage of the process, lasting several weeks. After the data was entered into the spreadsheet, we renamed the individual images to match the posters’ unique identifiers in order to match the photograph.
Exhibition poster, 1973. Courtesy Cranbrook Archives.
While every step has been a learning process, my favorite part was working in Thornlea Studio and physically handling the poster collection for measurements and photographs. Laura and I were able to take a previously unorganized collection and make it discoverable online, which was rewarding and gave me a sense of accomplishment. I loved the huge diversity of the posters, too. Not only were they historically valuable, they were also aesthetically stunning. I can’t wait for the collection to be released for everyone to enjoy!
– Danae Dracht, Archives Assistant
Editor’s Note: Thank you Danae and Laura for your hard work on this project! Congratulations also to Danae who recently graduated from Wayne State University’s School of Library Science! We wish you all the best as you embark on the next journey of your archival career.
The Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research has officially launched our new logo! What follows is a description of where each of the letters comes from in the history of Cranbrook or the location on the campus!
The (first) C in Cranbrook is from the logo George Gough Booth created for the Cranbrook Press in 1901, three years before he and his wife Ellen established their estate in Bloomfield Hills.
The Cranbrook Press (1900-1902) was founded by George Booth in the attic of the Detroit Evening News Building. Booth emulated the work of William Morris and his Kelmscott Press, not just in design but also in the level of hand-craftsmanship.
I have had the pleasure of spending much of my time over the last year going through the Cranbrook Archives in search of information about Pewabic Pottery. This is in preparation for the upcoming exhibition Simple Forms, Stunning Glazes: The Gerald W. McNeely Pewabic Pottery Collection opening December 12. Through the Archives’ amazing resources, including inventories, architectural drawings, correspondence, receipts, historic photographs, and even meeting notes from the founding of Cranbrook School, one of the most awesome discoveries was regarding one of the Pewabic Pottery vases in our collection.
Cranbrook Educational Community Collection, CEC 276
Photographers: Tim Thayer and R. H. Hensleigh
Through inventories we can trace the placement of this vase from during its life in Cranbrook House. It was located in the Living Room in 1921, and by 1933 had been relocated to the Sunset Room. In 1937, George Booth notes the work by its size and a brief description, “14 inch vase- luster- Pewabic.” Cranbrook has 15 Pewabic works purchased during Booth’s lifetime which now reside between the collections of the Art Museum and the Cranbrook Educational Community. While I am still working to place the pieces of the puzzle together to see if we can do this for other work, it may not be possible as some of the receipts and notations are much more cryptic including only “Pewabic Vase” with no dimensions, or description.
It’s treasure hunts like these that make the Archives such a great place to spend my time as you never know what you might find and where it will take you!
–Stefanie Dlugosz-Acton, Collections Fellow, Center for Collections and Research
As the newest staff member at the Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research, I am on a HUGE learning curve. I knew, taking this position, that Cranbrook had a deep and rich history, and a long association with famous artists, designers, and architects. However, my first days here were spent touring campus, witnessing just what those associations created.
My first impressions of the cultural properties I will be working with are “Wow! What?! Cool.” I hope in the coming months to be able to share some of those moments on the Kitchen Sink, but here are my first three:
Wow: Green Lobby, Kingswood School.
Kingswood School Green Lobby, photographer George W. Hance, 1932. Cranbrook Archives.
What: The 319-acre campus was designated a National Historic Landmark on June 29, 1989 for its significant architecture and design – 319-acres full of cultural properties!
Cool: Thornlea – and I get to explore all the rooms.
Leslie S. Mio, Assistant Registrar, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research
I have a confession to make. The smell of library books, an afternoon at an independent book store, re-reading a favorite novel – these are my ultimate indulgences. I could spend hours reading book blogs, listening to author interviews, or pouring over book-related tchotchkes on Etsy. I am a book nerd. My (nearly) one year as an Archivist at Cranbrook has been heaven. I discover something new every time I have the opportunity to walk into George Booth’s personal library at Cranbrook House. I find profound satisfaction in creating a catalog record for a new book or discussing MARC records with colleagues.
One of my favorite collections at Cranbrook is the Cranbrook Press and Photo Department Records. While working on a Cranbrook Press request recently, I came across the work of the bookbinder, Jean Eschmann (1896-1961), hired by George Booth in 1929. Eschmann was hired to set up the bookbinding workshop in the Arts and Crafts Studios at Cranbrook, where he remained until 1933 when desperate financial times forced the closure of the studio.
English Fairy Tales, tooled leather. ca 1931. Cranbrook Archives.
Educated in Zurich, Eschmann traveled and studied in Austria, France and Switzerland. He came to the United States with his family in 1919. He was a member of the Society of Arts and Crafts in Boston and studied with Mary C. Sears. In 1929 George Booth hired Eschmann to create handmade bindings for the Art library and for his own personal library. Eschmann also taught bookbinding and hand-tooling classes to the community.
The First Published Life of Abraham Lincoln, tooled leather. ca 1931. Cranbrook Archives.
Eschmann’s work has been exhibited at various museums in the United States, as well as at the Book Workers Guild in New York. His bindings were included at the World Fair in Paris in 1937 and at the Golden Gate Exposition in San Francisco in 1939. In 1945 Eschmann received the emblem for Meritorious Service from the Civilian Awards Committee of the Surgeon General’s Office for his work in restoring thousands of rare books at the Army Medical Library during World War II.
Evidence of Eschmann’s beautiful leather and tooling work can be seen in several examples in the rare book collections here in the Archives, and also in the Academy of Art library. I hope you enjoy the examples in this post. They definitely make this book nerd swoon!
– Gina Tecos, Archivist
Courtesy Cranbrook Archives
This gentleman caught my eye as a colleague was browsing through a George G. Booth (GGB) scrapbook containing clippings of illustrations from magazines. The scrapbook was GGB’s “Dream Book” of art and architecture examples on which to model his new home at Cranbrook, and is part of his papers.
Amidst illustrations of terraces, statues and waterfalls was this Alpine dandy. Why is his picture there, and what is that contraption he’s sitting on? A search on the Internet revealed no information on this early 20th century, bladed “vehicle” for seated conveyance. If anyone out there knows more about it, I’d be delighted to know!
–Cheri Gay, Archivist
Good news! One of the Archives’ volunteers, Lois Harsh, spent a cold afternoon diligently searching the Internet and found this web site, www.ski-bike.org that identifies several versions of the ski bike. This particular version is from around 1914. Thanks, Lois!
Glass-etched Edison bulb from 1920, Cranbrook Cultural Properties Collection..
While browsing the historical writings of Henry Scripps Booth recently, I came upon the answer to a question that Collections Fellow, Stefanie Dlugosz, had posed late last year. As she prepared the Center for Collections and Research’s Holiday Tables exhibit (“Illuminate the Seasons” was the theme), which highlighted the early use of electricity in Cranbrook House, Stefanie had wondered what the source of electricity was, in 1908, for a relatively isolated place like Cranbrook. Efforts by several people could not turn up an answer. Until now.
“Although Caldwell’s electric fixtures had been installed about December 1, we still had to use candles and oil lamps for light because the private Edison line being installed from Highland Park to Cranbrook House was incomplete.” This was recorded during the 1980’s in Henry’s unpublished History (which relates the history of Cranbrook Educational Community and the Booth family between 1800 and 1987).
As the bill from Albert Kahn shows, George G. Booth spent $1863.48, around $49,000 in today’s dollars, on lighting fixtures in Cranbrook House. The order is itemized, room by room, on seven pages of legal-sized paper, in Booth’s papers.
George Gough Booth Papers, courtesy Cranbrook Archives.
Read the original blog for more information on the Caldwell lighting fixtures at Cranbrook House.
— Cheri Gay, Archivist
Gretchen in front of the North Gates before they head off to conservation.
As the end of the year approaches, it is with a heavy heart that the Center for Collections and Research is saying a fond farewell to our Associate Registrar Gretchen Sawatzki. After 2 years of working hard at Cranbrook cataloging and restoring cultural properties all over the campus, organizing the restoration of the North Gates, contributing to the blog, maintaining objects, coordinating loans, and much much more, Gretchen will be leaving Michigan. She has taken a position in California and will be driving out west in the new year! We couldn’t be happier for her and her new opportunity but she will be greatly missed here at the Center for Collections and Research, as well as at all over the Cranbrook Campus.
Please feel free to leave comments and well wishes to Gretchen as she begins this new chapter!
–Stefanie Kae Dlugosz, Collections Fellow, Center for Collections and Research
Italian laborers at Cranbrook, ca 1906/Cranbrook Archives
For many Americans, Labor Day’s most popular meaning is a “last hurrah to summer,” but its national significance is much greater than that. In 1894, Grover Cleveland designated the first Monday in September as a national holiday paying tribute to the contributions and achievements of the working force in America. The Italian laborers pictured here arrived at Cranbrook in 1905. Hired by George Booth, men with the last names of Angelosanto, DiPonio, Roselli, Soave, and Vettraino built roads and stone walls, dug ponds, contoured the land, planted, and cared for the property. In 1955 the Cranbrook Foundation Board of Trustees dedicated a plaza north of the Brookside School in appreciation of groundskeeper Michael Vettraino’s 50 years of service to the Cranbrook community. In his speech at the “Piazza Vettraino” dedication, Henry S. Booth said, “We acknowledge a debt to his native Italy, his affection for the world of growing things, his quest for beauty, his tireless hands and feet, and the part he has played as one of the many founders of Cranbrook today.”
Click here to listen to a clip from our oral history collection of Dominick Vettraino speaking about the work the Italians did on the grounds of Cranbrook.
– Gina Tecos, Archivist
Cranbrook Kitchen Sink 