Scope and arrangement
The Cochran family papers are arranged according to the family member to whom they pertain and listed alphabetically under each personal name. Photographs are grouped separately, since they pertain to numerous individuals.
Materials pertaining to sisters Adele and Vota Cochran's musical career are filed together and consist of posters and programs for their childhood performances in Seattle, Vancouver, and Port Gamble, Washington Territory from 1886 to 1887.
Aso-Neith Cochran's papers consist of clippings, correspondence, diaries, notebooks, Bahá'í texts, and extensive occultist writings. The clippings generally pertain to occultist topics and contain several newspaper articles about Aso-Neith's cryptograms and numerological readings of names. Correspondence is with various individuals, including actress Mary Pickford and Eva Casanova Tellegen, wife of actor Lou Tellegen. Aso-Neith kept the diaries in this collection during European travels with her daughter, Vota, and the diaries include many photographs. Several of her notebooks pertain to specific devotees, for whom she gave individual spiritual readings: Anna Dodge McCullough (whom Aso-Neith named Vahdah) and a Mrs. Baruch, presumably Annie Baruch. Aso-Neith's writings include two unpublished manuscripts, 1,001 Dreams and their Interpretations and The Effect of Music on Human Life, as well as many of her self-published cryptograms (formally titled The Aso-Neith Cryptogram of Numbers and Letters and Their Significance) and writings which appear to be spiritual readings for individual clients and devotees.
Papers pertaining to John Webster Cochran include an annotated book, The Evidence of Prophecy, genealogical papers, a legal document concerning his case before the Minnesota Supreme Court, and materials concerning his pension as a veteran of the American Civil War.
Vota Cochran's papers are primarily composed of astrological readings, correspondence, school materials, and scripts. Correspondence comprises the bulk of her papers and includes letters to and from Dr. Edward C. Getsinger, Anne Morgan, Felix J. Frazer, Katherine S. Dreier, Maxwell Stewart Simpson, as well as extensive correspondence with two individuals: Japanese scholar Shutaro Tomimas and Arfa-Es Sultaneh, A. M. Khan de Farrokh, the first Iranian student in the United States and a professor at the University of Tehran. Sultaneh's letters to Vota are romantic in nature and span much of her adult life.
Among the photographs is a pristine 1891 family photograph album which holds photographs of the young Cochran sisters playing their musical instruments. There are also personal photographs of Vota Cochran with family and friends, including Shutaro Tomimas, as well as inscribed portraits of the following actors, musicians, and artists: Georgette Leblanc, William Farmum, Michel Barroy, Robert Taylor, Ted Shawn, Mary Pickford, Ruano Bogislav, Fritz Kneisler, Arthur Hartman, Robert Schmidt, and Homer Davenport. There are also several photographs taken at the Baruch estate on Long Island, "Bagatelle," in 1930.
Arrangement
The Cochran family papers are arranged according to the family member to whom they pertain and listed alphabetically. Photographs have been grouped together and follow the personal papers.