This collection is available for use by appointment in the Department of Drawings & Archives, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University. For further information and to make an appointment, please email avery-drawings@library.columbia.edu.
The collection includes 1134 images (photographs and postcards, with some duplicates) of approximately 60 buildings, including some earlier photographs, plans, and renderings that Morris copied to add context to her own contemporary photographs. Of properties with identified architects, the great majority were designed by Alexander Jackson Davis, with a few examples of the work of Richard Upjohn, James Renwick, and several other lesser-known architects. Major sites depicted include Lyndhurst, Tarrytown, N.Y.; Fonthill Castle, Bronx, N.Y.; Lovat, Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y.; Hurst-Pierrepont, Garrison, N.Y.; Belvoir, Yonkers, N.Y.; Beechwood, Yonkers, N.Y.; Mount Ida, Troy, N.Y., Llewellyn Park, Orange, N.J.; and Malbone, Newport, R.I. Some 18th-century buildings, and one 17th-century building (the Christopher Billop House, near Tottenville, Staten Island, built circa 1699), are also depicted.
Also included is correspondence to Morris about her research from Emma Clifton Austin; J. J. Champenois; John Mead Howells; Cornelius G. Kolff; Grace M. Mayer (Museum of the City of New York); Renwick, Aspinwall & Guard; Robert B. Sterns; and Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes; as well as several published articles and Morris' own research notes. Lastly, of special interest are nine photographs of the official opening of the George Washington Bridge in 1931.
N. B. Numbers in parentheses indicate quantity of duplicate prints.
Series 2: Ringbound Photographs, All images date from 1933.
Two binders, A and B, were compiled by Morris and contain 170 individual black and white photographic prints and black and white and color postcards of varying sizes, cornered in pages, with brief descriptions of the properties, architects, and owners. In addition to Morris's own photography, images include views, renderings, and plans from other sources. Many photographs and views are dated.
Items are gelatin silver photographic prints, unless otherwise noted.
This collection is organized in four series: Mounted Photographs; Ringbound Photographs; Loose Images; and Papers.
This collection is available for use by appointment in the Department of Drawings & Archives, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University. For further information and to make an appointment, please email avery-drawings@library.columbia.edu.
Permission to publish must be obtained in writing from the Director, Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, 1172 Amsterdam Ave., MC 0301, New York, NY 10027.
Nathalie Bailey Morris photographs of American Gothic Revival architecture. Dept. of Drawings & Archives, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York, N.Y.
See also the Alexander Jackson Davis architectural drawings and papers, the Richard Upjohn and Richard Michell Upjohn architectural drawings, and the Leslie O. Merrill Collection of Greek Revival in Syracuse held in the Department of Drawings and Archives at the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Libraries.
Gift of Elizabeth M. Smith, pre-1978. (1000.055)
Source of acquisition--Gift of Elizabeth M. Smith, pre-1978. Accession number--1000.055.
Columbia University Libraries, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library
This collection was processed by Annemarie van Roessel, Archivist, Dept. of Drawings & Archives, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, in January 2008.
2007-11-14 File created.
2009-07-23 File revised.
2019-05-20 EAD was imported spring 2019 as part of the ArchivesSpace Phase II migration.
Alletta Nathalie Lorillard Bailey Morris (1883-1935) was born to a socially prominent New York City family and in her adult life was active in civic and charity work. She was also an amateur architectural historian and photographer, particularly dedicated to documenting works of 19th-century American Gothic Revival architecture in the Mid-Atlantic and New England states. Her interest may have been spurred in part by the summer house she and her husband, Lewis Gouverneur Morris, owned in Newport, Rhode Island. A large villa in the Gothic Revival style"Malbone" was designed in 1848-1850 by noted American architect Alexander Jackson Davis. From the 1910s through the early 1930s, Morris was driven by her husband or chauffeur to many notable sites of Gothic Revival architecture so that she could photograph extant conditions.
The subject headings listed below are found in this collection. Links below allow searches for other collections at Columbia University, through CLIO, the catalog for Columbia University Libraries, and through ArchiveGRID, a catalog that allows users to search the holdings of multiple research libraries and archives.
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