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This collection primarily contains original correspondence--including letters, telegrams, and postcards-- to California architect Robert D. Farquhar from Chester A. Aldrich. Also included is a small group of letters from Amey Owen Aldrich to Farquhar. Most letters are accompanied by envelopes; a very few contain photographs, clippings and other ephemera. Matters discussed in the correspondence vary widely from intimate personal subjects to observations and reports on the work of Carrère & Hastings and Delano & Aldrich, the American Red Cross and its work with soldiers in Italy during World War I, the rise of Fasicsm in Italy, economic hardships during the Depression, and the state of American and European architecture.

These albums contain mounted black-and-white photographic prints documenting historic sites and structures along the East Coast of the United States, from the South to New Hampshire, created and collected by architect and historian John Mead Howells. These albums appear to have been created as reference sources for Howell's publications LOST EXAMPLES OF COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE (New York, W. Helbrvn, 1931), THE ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE OF THE PISCATAQUA (New York: Architectural Book Publishing Company, 1937), and THE ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE OF THE MERRIMACK (New York: Architectural Book Publlishing Company, 1941). However, many additional images may be found in these albums than were used in these publications. The images were taken during the second half of the 19th-century and the early 20th-century of historic buildings and sites constructed during the 18th- and 19th-centuries. Most images have annotations and caption information in typescript or in Howell's own hand. Howells collected most of the images from a variety of sources, including the Frank Cousins image collection at the Essex Institute, the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, architect Ogden Codman, and the Historic American Buildings Survey. The remainder were taken by Howells himself.

This scrapbook includes correspondence, typescripts, printed materials, black and white photographs, postcards, and other ephemera relating to the life, work, and personal interests of William Adams Delano and his architectural partnership with Chester H. Aldrich.