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Creator
Patten, Grace Bigelow
Call number
JPB 06-51
Physical description
26.9 linear feet (22 boxes)
Preferred Citation

Mrs. William Patten Papers, JPB 06-51. Music Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

Repository
Music Division
Access to materials
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The Mrs. William Patten Papers are comprised mainly of unbound scrapbook leaves containing press clippings and other materials relating to musicians active during the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century. It is probable that the materials were compiled by Grace Bigelow Patten, the wife of the editor William Patten (1868-1936). She wrote at least one of the stories which appeared in the ten-volume Junior Classics series edited by her husband and is also is known to have published magazine pieces.

Biographical/historical information

Grace Bigelow Patten was the wife of the editor William Patten (1868-1936). Patten was the son of William Swift Patten, a probable relative of the civil engineer, Joseph Gardner Swift (1783-1865), who was the brother-in-law of George Washington Whistler (who, with his second wife, Anna Matilda McNeill, were the parents of the artist James McNeill Whistler). William Patten became an art editor for Harper and Brothers at the age of twenty-three, serving from 1887 to 1890, when he went to Paris to continue his art studies. After returning to the United States, Patten began a long association (1904-1913) with the publishing house P. F. Collier and Son, where he was instrumental in the development and publication of Charles W. Eliot's landmark Harvard Classics series. Patten also edited the Junior Classics series and his wife wrote at least one of the stories (The Wooden Horse), which appeared in Tales from Greece and Rome (1912), volume three in the ten-volume set. Grace Bigelow Patten also is known to have published magazine pieces, including A "Bonne-a-toute-faire" (1927), an article for New Outlook. The Patten family resided in New York City for many years, but also maintained a summer home in Rhinebeck, New York, to which the couple moved following Patten's retirement, several years preceding his death in 1936. In 1940, Grace Bigelow Patten donated a collection of 155 manuscript letters by George Washington Whistler, William Henry Swift, Mary McNeill, and others to the New York Public Library.

Scope and arrangement

The Mrs. William Patten Papers are comprised mainly of unbound scrapbook leaves containing press clippings and other materials relating to musicians active during the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century. It is probable that the materials were compiled by Grace Bigelow Patten. The leaves were found in no discernible order, but have been organized by the processor alphabetically within several major categories, including composers, conductors, instrumentalists, and opera singers. The majority of individual items are articles and reproductions of photographs taken from unidentified publications, but there are a few original items of note as well, which include a handbill advertising a performance in 1801 by the English soprano, Elizabeth Billington, a handbill for a Covent Garden performance in 1816 of a work by George Frideric Handel, a probable transcription of a letter dated 1829 from George Washington Whistler (the father of the painter, James McNeill Whistler) in which he writes of Madame Catalini and other contemporary singers, and an original 1840 letter from a Swift family member to his sister regarding performances by Giula Grisi and other Italian opera singers in Paris. The collection also contains five folders of ephemera, including loose clippings, pamphlets (probable source materials for clippings), and a single unidentified photograph, which may be of Mrs. Patten's husband, the editor William Patten.

The Mrs. William Patten papers are arranged in two series:

  • Series I. Scrapbook Leaves, and
    1801-1950
    21 boxes

    The Scrapbook Leaves series is comprised of loose leaves which primarily contain clippings of articles and images from newspapers, magazines, books, and other publications. The leaves may have been intended to be post bound into albums, but were found loose and in no clearly discernible or consistent arrangement scheme. They have been grouped alphabetically into several categories. The majority of the material relates to the history of opera and to singers who performed with the Metropolitan Opera. There also is a significant amount of material documenting instrumentalists; these leaves contain a few original programs (or parts of programs) for performances by notable pianists, including Teresa Carreño, Cécile Chaminade, Raffael Joseffy, Adele aus der Ohe, and Moriz Rosenthal. While some leaves occasionally contain a single item (such as a letter or an original handbill) that date from the early nineteenth century, the bulk of the dated material is from the 1920s and 1930s.

  • Series II: Ephemera
    1 box

    The Ephemera series consists of five folders of loose clippings that had not yet been affixed to any scrapbook leaves, pamphlets (that may have been intended for cutting up), and a photograph of an unidentified young man in an art studio, possibly William Patten.

Administrative information

Processing information

Processed by Helice Koffler; Machine-readable finding aid created by Helice Koffler.

Using the collection

Location

Music Division
New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center
40 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023-7498
Third Floor

Conditions Governing Use

For permission to publish, contact the Chief, Music Division.