31 December 1881 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: NPV, UCCL 02131)
Take good care of the enclosed photograph; don’t let it get injured, as I have no duplicate. Ask Mr. Bierstadt where to find this artotype company; then go & see if they can reproduce this picture of Jean (without the or negative to do it from); & what they will charge me for a hundred copies. Osgood says he will heliotype a hundred for me at 5 cents apiece, if I will send the negative. Well, as our photograph bill reaches $80 a year, I should simply meet with a refusal if I tried to buy or borrow the negative. If the artotype company can reproduce without the original negative, at a cheap rate, I shall want them to duplicate several more of our nega photos for us. Don’t lost lose the P. O. Artotype—I want it back.
Type-founders keep on hand a variety of cuts suitable for mercantile advertisements in country newspapers, which they duplicate & sell at low rates. Why should not you do likewise? Your artists could get up a list of such designs which would be more artistic & striking than the sterile inventions of the type-founders; & 25 or 50 of them, printed on a circular might bring you a lot of trade which would be nine-tenths f profit. Good way for the artists to put in idle time.
I enclose a music-store cut, taken from Courant.
MS, Jean Webster McKinney Family Papers, Special Collections, NPV. The enclosed photograph of Jean Clemens does not survive with the letter. The photograph provided below is from CU-MARK, and "Jean Clemens 16 months" has been inscribed on the back, making it a candidate for the enclosed photo or a similar photo from a series of photos.
The enclosed clipping from the Hartford Courant for 31 December 1881, 4, likewise does not survive with the letter.
MicroPUL, reel 2.
See McKinney Family Papers in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.