Collections : [Rare Book & Manuscript Library]

Books and Reading through the Lens of the Picture Postcard: The collection includes printed postcards, real photo postcards, cyanotypes, sepia tones, undivided backs, divided backs, full bleed borders, white borders, lines and chromes, and largely encompasses the full range and style of printing processes used for modern postcards from approximately 1900-1960. It is arranged by author and title, subjects, and genres and constitutes 1,027 cards. One of the genres reflects a unique phenomenon which illustrates portrait studio and reproduction photography postcards of individuals and groups reading books. The collection includes women reading books, men reading books, women reading books to children, grandmothers reading with kids, children reading books and all the variations. There are also risqué postcards, nudes reading books, etc. Other topics include books publishers, bookseller cards, librarians, and bookmobiles. There are beautifully illustrated postcards featuring some of the leading artists: Howard Pyle, N.C. Wyeth and Frank Schoonover. The post cards are organized in 4 series: 1. Publishers/ Book Store Advertizing Postcards (with Authors and titles); 2. Reading Books; 3. Scenes of Reading; 4. Reading: Mixed Groups of Men and Women Reading. (A detailed list of all the postcards is kept within each series binder).

This collection consists of letters, manuscripts, documents, clipings, photographs, and printed items. The most significant part of this collection is the letters to Cecile Rose Lehman (Seligman) from her mother, as well as the letters from Harold Lehman to his grandfather. There are interesting items regarding Cecile's education and a variety of items having to do with the extended family. There is a album, compiled by Cecile of celebrated actors and musicials, and a odd volume titled "Thru the Rye with the Harold Lehmans" chronicling the before and after effects of alcohol (humorous).

About half of the collection is material related to Harriet Korn Lehman. This small amount of material relates to her time at the Lincoln School, an experimental school founded in the early 20th century by Progressive education theorists at Columbia University's Teacher's College. These include her graduation excercises as she finished Elementary school, as well as a collection of writings by Lincoln School elementary students. Also with the material in the year book is a high school literary journal, and the high school year book from the 1926 Lincoln School class. Also included in the collection is a scrap book and a common-place book from the 1870s belonging to Isidore S. Korn, presumably the father of Harriet Korn Lehman. The scrap book consists mostly of cartoons, poems, and advice columns (such as he daily or weekly written by Henry Ward Beecher) clipped from newspapers and pasted into an old account book. The Common Place book is a collection of noteworthy quotes or selections from plays, poems, novels, and non-fiction works, hand-copied by the young Isidore. At the end of the common place book are two award winning essays Isidore wrote during his years at Columbia, one on the origins of the Roman Republic and another on the Philosophy of History.