Knolle family papers

LaRC Manuscripts Collection 370, Knolle family papers, 1892-1971, contains personal papers of members of the Knolle family and allied families of New Orleans.  Items in the collection are a sample of keepsakes such as handwritten correspondence, post cards, greeting cards, certificates, school papers, programs, a banquet menu, receipts, poems, essays, tickets, invitations, autographs of school friends, calling cards and other items of social ephemera, ribbons, medals, a small red sock (probably a party favor rather than an article of personal clothing), scrapbooks, baby books, numerous family photographs and negatives, several carved linoleum blocks and prints, newspaper clippings and other printed items. Families represented in this collection include Knolle, Friedrichs, Oehmichen, and Kunz.

The Knolle and Friedrichs families became allied with the early twentieth-century marriage of Dr. Wilkes Adams Knolle (1894-1971) and Helene Oehmichen Friedrichs Knolle (1896-1981). Helene Friedrichs attended Newcomb College and studied art-- she seems to have been the primary self-archiving genealogist and collector, but the donation was made in 1972 by Mrs. Georgia White.  

Researchers in New Orleans history and arts will be particularly interested in the linoleum blocks and the resulting prints, and will appreciate the wide array of formal and informal personal photographs in this collection, many originating in New Orleans studios and others taken outdoors by amateur photographers.  Other LaRC collections featuring linoleum blocks and/or prints are Miriam Levy papers (Collection 710) and New Orleans art schools' calendars (Collection 522). 

Captions: "Canal Street Home of Mr. Gustaf Oehmichen, Marie Helene Oehmichen Friedrichs and Helene Friedrichs (Knolle) on the veranda, as a child of 4 (in the 1890's)" [added later in ball point pen and pencil]; studio photographs featuring Helene as a child: "H. O. Friedrichs, Art 1917, Newcomb College, 17 months, N.B. Please don't destroy."; "Helene Oehmichen Friedrichs" age 5; two uncaptioned open air shots, on the veranda, and school friends; hand-carved linoleum blocks showing remnants of ink color, and a printed Christmas card, "Best Wishes, Dr. and Mrs. Wilkes Adams Knolle." box 5 [block for this print is not in the collection].    Images of items in the Louisiana Research Collection may not be re-published without permission.

Posted by Susanna Powers