American Historical Ephemera and Early Photography, including The Larry Ness Collection of Native American Photography

A collection of 25 autograph letters signed by Susan Walmsley to her friend Mary Caroline "Carrie" Wilson (1842-1900). Various locations, incl. "Byberry," "Philadelphia," 'West Wood," and "Ercildoun B.S. [Boarding School]," 1861-1867 (bulk 1861-1865). A fascinating letter archive written by an engaged and passionate Quaker woman, with interesting content throughout particularly related to the ongoing Civil War. Notably, Walmsley also makes reference to her work for a Philadelphia photographer, which served as a prelude to opening her own photographic studio in Philadelphia years later with her sister.

The first letter in the archive provides the context through which Susan Walmsley and Carrie Wilson are acquainted; the two were previously students together at Ercildoun Boarding School for Girls, in Chester County, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia. Writing from Philadelphia on 17 March 1861, Walmsley tells Wilson about her new place of employment: "I am now boarding here [in Philadelphia] with a family by the name of Packer and have a situation in Reimer's Photography Gallery....I like it very much indeed. My duty now is principally writing. I am writing up an Index book which is a list of all the persons who have Card photographs taken, with their residences the time when they were taken. I also have the cards to number, and the envelopes to direct and sometimes the whole sized pictures to wrap up and direct....I write all day from morning till night .... Sister Agnes [Agnes Walmsley, Susan's older sister] has been in the Gallery for some months, or rather weeks. She is one of the artists. See learned to color photographs only a few weeks before she came here....we have a nice little room curtained off in one end of the gallery where she paints and I write...." A later letter indicates that Susan has, like her sister, begun to paint cased images along while maintaining her writing responsibilities.

Walmsley's letter of 2 May 1861, the first in the archive after the start of the war, seems to show her conflict between support of the Union war effort and Quaker sentiment against violence of any sort: "I declare I am beginning to be almost scared I am getting so bloody. A short time since I should almost have shuttered at the idea of hanging any person but I pretty nearly feel sometimes as if I could stand and see some of of those traitors such as Jeff Davis and Mason strung right up by the neck or heels I don't care which...." Though she has no brothers, her letters trace the enlistment of a friend, "Landrum" who enlisted with the 104th Pennsylvania regiment. Her letters also discuss interesting Philadelphia area war-related events such as Governor Curtin visiting troops at Doylestown and presenting a regimental flag. attending the Sanitary Fair, visiting the encampment of the 28th Pennsylvania Regiment and witnessing instruction in Zouave tactics, a group of Byberry women who sew for soldiers, attending a lecture given by a reverend who was also a former Confederate prisoner of war, the October 1864 Pennsylvania state election, and attending a meeting of the 1st Battalion Soldiers Union Campaign Club. Her letters have regular commentary on the ongoing war, and the commanders leading it.

A particularly interesting letter written from Byberry on 26 September 1862 relates to Lincoln's preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, and the conscientious objections of some men to serving in the war: "Oh Carrie, I am so rejoiced and scarcely know which end is up. I am in good humor with the whole world in general and Abraham Lincoln in particular....Well what does thee think of the President's proclamation? I think it is just what we wanted only that it may be just off a little too long. If he had said the 1st of October instead of the 1st of January it would have been better.... The President has been the recipient of many blessings since his Proclamation for besides doing an act of justice to a downtrodden race and making glad the hearts of four million of bondsmen he has sent a thrill of joy throughout this broad land....Oh to think what he has done for this country for with the great curse which he has retarded here progress this far entirely removed she will become what no nation on earth ever had or ever will become....There is one thing I came very nearly to forgetting to tell thee and that is about our very 'conscientious and disabled' young men who have joined the glorious army of the exempts. Nearly all the young men around here went to get exempted and some of them took the conscientious oath that I know are not the least bit conscientious. Perjured themselves because they are cowards. A glorious set of young men are they not? Ca not go to to defend their country and yet enjoy all her privileges and blessings. They should be deprived of their right to vote and never again be considered as citizens....one thing I will say and that is our men are not half so good as our women (that is the generality of them for there are some gone from Byberry) for they do first rate in our society much better than I expected....)

Excerpts provided are a small sample of Walmsley's detailed and engaging correspondence. She is patriotic, passionate, well-written, and descriptive in her letters, providing a fascinating window into a young Quaker woman's experience of the Civil War.

One of four daughters of Charles and Tacy Walmsley, Susan Walmsley was born in Philadelphia to a Quaker family, and attended the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. Quaker records identify her as part of the "Hicksite" Quakers.

The Walmsley sisters' friend, Landrum LaRue can be located in HDS, which indicates that Landrum LaRue of Bucks County, PA, enlisted on 9/12/1861 as a Corpl. and mustered into "F" Co. Pennsylvania 104th Infantry. He was Mustered Out on 8/25/1865 at Portsmouth, VA.

Benjamin Franklin Reimer (1826-1899), operated Reimer's Photographic Gallery which advertised in the Philadelphia newspaper The Press, 7 September 1859, offering "the newly invented Life-size Photographs in Oil." The studio also was notable for making "no distinction as to color, or between rich and poor, but treats all with the same graceful and natural consideration." Walmsley worked here with her sister, and it seems this may have proved to be the training ground on which they honed their skills as photographers. The Philadelphia Inquirer, 7 June 1871, article about the "National Photographic Association - Grand Display of Pictures" held in the city identifies among the exhibitors "Walmsley & Co., Philadelphia." The 5 May 1874 edition lists "Walmsley & Co., photo" under lists of businesses required by the city to take out a license. Susan Walmsley is also identified as an "Artist" in the 1879 and 1884 Philadelphia City Directory. In 1888, her death was recorded by the Green Street Monthly Meeting, noting her death at the age of 46 and burial at "cemetery at Tallahassee Florida." She seems to have traveled to Florida with her sister, Agnes Walmsley Harper (1840-1910), wife of Alvan S. Harper, a photographer who had a special interest in photographing the Tallahassee African American community. Almost certainly, Susan and Agnes - who had operated their own photography studio in Philadelphia - would have been working with Harper in his photography studio, though their contributions seem to be undocumented.

Mary Caroline Wilson was born in 1842 in New Jersey, and as of the 1860 US Federal Census was a resident of Franklin, Hunterdon, New Jersey. She married in 1866