Tokens of love

Long-saved Valentines in Bowman family papers, 1815-1972
 (Manuscripts Collection 175, Box 1, Folder 8) 

The Bowman family papers include a wide variety of subjects and types of archival items which had been collected over most of two centuries.  The family kept handwritten and typed correspondence, post cards, Valentines and other greeting cards, telegrams, diaries, legal and financial documents, diplomas, certificates, a railroad map, medical papers, life insurance documents, a 1918 passport of Ruth Green Bowman, French World War I rationing stamps for bread, American Red Cross papers, poetry, sheet music, church programs, calling cards and other items of social ephemera including mounted flowers and plants, a pipe, photographs, negatives and contact prints, newspaper clippings and other printed items. An 1815 letter concerns the Battle of New Orleans.  Some text is in French, and typed transcriptions accompany some documents, which always helps with legibility. Photographs in the collection depict scenes from World War I; the Alaskan photographs include portraits of Native Americans; the volume holds uncaptioned candid group photographs dated 1972.

Bowman family members lived in Baltimore and New Orleans from the early nineteenth to at least the late twentieth century. Ruth Green Bowman attended New Orleans public schools at the turn of the century; during World War I, she worked with the American Red Cross in France. In the 1910s, Hullin S. Mott went on a Canadian Arctic Expedition and an Alaskan Polar Bear Expedition. Ruth Bowman later married Hullin S. Mott. Ruth Mott attended a literary workshop in 1954. Other individuals and families represented in this collection include: Cottman, Hoffman, Gumbel, Springer, Kenner and Woodruff.

Images of items in the Louisiana Research Collection may not be re-published without permission.

Posted by Susanna Powers