opportunities of liberty & equality with men”. Elbi recalls meeting the Turkish president “on board his yacht & I wore my hat for the first time; but I must admit that many of us who were unveiled & wearing hats felt somewhat uncomfortable when veiled women looked down upon us with hatred”. This event was covered by the press. Elbi closes on both a positive and a negative, happy that newly gained freedoms mean better career opportunities for women, but sad that, despite demand, her Turkish contemporaries “do not seem to realize the importance of that humane endeavour to nurse the sick. Turkish girls love to imitate American & European girls in their freedom, but [are] unfortunately somewhat slow in appreciating the high ideals of philanthropic duties to humanity”. Three sheets of cream paper (294 × 230 mm), handwritten across rectos in black ink, signed at end. Written in English. Creased from folding into a small rectangle, three light marginal rust marks from paperclip sometime removed, tiny ink burn to first leaf affecting single letter: in very good condition. ¶ “Our First Nurse Safiye Hüseyin Elbi’s Life and War Memories”, Istanbul Gelisim University, 5 August 2019. £1,250 [152871] 59 EWING, Adah Margaret. The Girl Graduate’s Scrapbook. Portland, Oregon: c.1900–56 the life of a professional bookseller in oregon, lived “with, by, and through books” An exceptionally rich record of the life of Adah Margaret Ewing (1882–1971), charting her career from clerical assistant to her father to Head of the Retail Book Department of J. K. Gill & Co., which by the early 1920s was the largest book distributor in the region and one of the most important bookstores in the United States. The scrapbook is crammed with typed and autograph letters signed, shop correspondence, memoranda and greetings cards, flyers, manuscript notes, badges, photographs, etc. With it is Ewing’s reading journal, a small black leather-bound address book in which she has recorded all the books she read from 1906 to 1955. Notable authors include Frances Hodgson Burnett, Margaret Sidney, Anthony Trollope, Edith Wharton, Ida Tarbell, Charlotte Bronte, Jane Austen, G. K. Chesterton, Jerome K. Jerome, and Jack London. J. K. Gill & Co. was founded in Salem in 1867. Gill moved to Portland in 1871, and the company grew into a sprawling enterprise which, at its peak, employed over five hundred staff, had retail stores in four western states, and hosted appearances by celebrities like Duke Ellington and Nat “King” Cole in its flagship store. Ewing began her bookselling career with her father James Ewing (1860–1939) who, on his retirement from the trade in 1902, recommended her to Joseph Gill. In one letter here, Gill notes he is aware she is looking for a job and offers her “employment for at least several weeks”. Those few weeks turned into a lifelong career. She was appointed Head of the Retail Book Department in 1904, a position she held until 1945. Items relating to Ewing’s trade comprise the majority of the scrapbook, including an interesting mimeograph typescript letter from J. K. Gill to his staff concerning a
58
58 ELBI, Safiye Hüseyin. The Turkish Woman. [c.1950] türkiye’s first professional nurse and a leading advocate for women’s rights A signed manuscript draft for an article on female emancipation in Türkiye, written by the country’s first professional nurse. Elbi’s (1882–1964) grandfather served as a cavalryman aboard the ship that took Florence Nightingale to Crimea during the Crimean War, so she grew up “always listening to Nightingale’s life and stories. We even had her picture in our house. I’d look at her photo and dream of becoming a woman like her”. After the outbreak of the Balkan War, English-speaking nurses were in high demand. Elbi and her younger sister, Nesime, were among the first applicants when the Hilal-i Ahmer Society called for women from Istanbul to look after the wounded. “Then I forgot my house, my children, and focused on the patients” (ibid.). During the First World War, Elbi volunteered as head nurse on the Reşit Paşa Hospital Ship, the only Turkish nurse to do so. Afterwards, she inspected the conditions of Turkish prisoners abroad, established and served on the boards of various medical associations, and was also the first woman in the country to teach college-level medicine to girls. A popular public figure, Elbi was recognized many times over for her achievements. In November 1921 she was awarded the Florence Nightingale Medal from the International Committee of the Red Cross, the first Turkish woman to receive the honour. Elbi was also among early Republican Türkiye’s foremost public advocates for women’s rights. The present manuscript, written in Elbi’s distinctive hand, describes the “many phases” of women’s rights in Türkiye, touching on marriage, divorce, the çarşaf, and inheritance. She praises Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, “who [with his discouragement of headscarf use in public] unveiled the Turkish woman & gave her equal
customer who complained of being treated poorly in the shop “because he was a working man”. Gill reprimands his staff, reminding them that “either man or woman in working clothes is entitled to and must have the same degree of attention as the individual with a high collar, and expensive shirt, or the lady who drives up to the store in an automobile”. There are numerous memos and letters (both autograph and typed) signed from Gill to Ewing, and ephemera relating to events hosted by the company, including visits by writers Ava Milan, Anne Shannon Monroe, Elizabeth Lambert Wood, Edison Marshall, and Oregon Poet Laureate Edwin Markham. Ewing’s weekly radio show on KGW radio in Portland and her presentation of a paper at the American Booksellers convention in New York City are featured in newspaper clippings. There are business cards and letters of introduction from colleagues, and a full-page interview with Ewing from a section of a journal subtitled “The American Business Woman”. It paints a portrait of Ewing she evidently wanted to preserve, along with an image of her in her late 30s. “It was when I began to talk books that Miss Ewing’s face brightened as if lighted by some internal flame”, says the interviewer. “She says her life has been nothing but books. All her experiences have been with, by, and through books. I wonder if I can convey to you the peace and serenity that I found in her deep gray eyes as I sat there talking to her. They held a calmness that was almost an intensity, it was so deep, so high, so wide.
That calmness has no doubt been nurtured by the clear vision she has obtained in her world of books”. The domestic and familial aspects of her life are documented by missives from friends, siblings, and colleagues, including a telegram sent by her brother Cloyd B. Ewing from the 1934 Chicago World Fair which reads: “The crowds, the sights and the magnitude of the fair are too much for words. I wish you could see it too”. Together, the scrapbook and reading journal portray the fulfilling professional and personal life of an early 20th- century American bookseller. Two items. 1) Scrapbook. Thick oblong quarto (204 × 281 × 76 mm). Original brown cloth, front cover lettered in gilt “The Girl Graduate’s Scrapbook”, 98 pages, unpaginated, of thick brown paper, all but 6 leaves with mounted or laid-in ephemera. Extremities worn, covers rubbed and bowed from amount of inserted objects, toned with a few splash marks and stains, faint tidemark through the upper fore edge of many leaves, contents occasionally chipped and many creased from folding but in remarkably good condition. 2) Reading journal titled “Some books I have read”. Duodecimo, c .150 pages. Contemporary flexible pebbled black calf, manuscript title and signature on front free endpaper, unpaginated, ruled paper, with graduated thumb tabs at fore edges, edges gilt, manuscript text throughout in pencil and pen. Rubbed with wear to spine ends, else very good indeed. £2,750 [145817]
All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
LOUDER THAN WORDS
46
47
Made with FlippingBook Online newsletter maker