American Historical Ephemera and Photography Online

Typed travel journal housed in brown leather-covered boards, 53pp, 1p index, 8 1/4 x 10 1/2 in. (wear to boards and spine, pages toned). Gold embossed identification on front cover "Europe / S.R.B. / 1892." Inscribed on interior page "To my youthful friend. / Master H. Bert. Lewis with musical recollections of our European journey, and my New Years greeting. / S.R. Bingham / Chicago Jan. 1894."

Journal includes daily entries describing a trip to Europe spanning 21 July - 17 September 1892 with a party of four that included Henry M. Lewis, Frederick H. Lewis, H. Bertram Lewis, and the author of the journal, Stillman R. Bingham. Cities visited include Berlin, St. Petersburg, Dresden, Paris, London, and Edinburgh. Journal describes visits to landmarks, personal reflections of the author on the locations and their inhabitants, and other anecdotes of the journey.

Stillman Rockwell Bingham was the manager of the first dental supply house opened in Chicago, and a prosperous businessman with close ties to the Illinois State Dental Society. He was also apparently closely tied to Henry M. Lewis, the business manager of the S.S. White Dental Manufacturing Company which by the mid nineteenth century had become the largest manufacture of dental instruments in the world. Lewis inherited management of the company (along with two others) following the death of Samuel Stockton White (1822-1879), and supervised commercial dealings. The typed and bound journal was presented as gift to Lewis's son, Henry Bertram Lewis (1877-1962).