It was good of artist Perkins Hafnly (“Interior America,” December 1982) to include a UCLA pennant over the piano in his 1910-11 painting of a California mission-style living room. However, that acronym was not created until 1929. The university opened in 1919 on Vermont Avenue, rather close to downtown Los Angeles, as the Southern Branch, University of California (SBUC). Ten years later, when the campus was moved to the Westwood area of the metropolis, the name was amended to University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA).
Harnly simply was nineteen years ahead of time. I know this for sure, as I was a student there during the move.
Robert M. Ritterband Los Angeles, Calif.
Triumph of the Camera
I have always thought Lincoln’s face uncanny—peculiarly appropriate to the camera and also peculiarly difficult for the artist to capture—both haunting and haunted. Your selection of portraits (February/March 1983) confirms my hunch. Compare John Henry Brown’s ambrotype—not bad—with Preston Butler’s, where the lidded eyes convey so much more Lincoln’s sense of tragedy and melancholy. The lids are half closed in Brown, too, but the ineffable expression is gone. Of all the portraits, I thought Healy’s good, though not reflecting the fire of the man, and the best, Barry’s crayon study. Thank God for photography—Lincoln’s face was too deep for all but the best artists! I can’t imagine having a sense of the man without the photographs.
James W. Davidson New Haven, Conn.
Paternity Puzzle
Peter Andrews’s interesting and informative article “The King of Pianists” (December 1982) touches on several of Louis Moreau Gottschalk’s amorous escapades, but I am disappointed that he does not mention Gottschalk’s love affair with the beautiful actress and journalist Ada Clare. The musician may well have been the father of Clare’s son Aubrey.
If Gottschalk was the “American Chopin,” Clare was the “American George Sand.” Though Gottschalk never mentioned her in his writing, their relationship is mentioned not only in her newspaper columns but also in columns and letters written by friends who knew them both and in Vernon Loggins’s biography of Gottschalk.
In my research for a biography of Ada Clare I am finding new evidence as I work and hope to be able to discover whether Gottschalk was Aubrey’s father. Gottschalk never claimed the child, but Aubrey, even as a boy, resembled Gottschalk, especially in the area of the eyes, forehead, and hairline. Aubrey was raised in New Jersey, and he may have been adopted by J. F. Noyes. He married Mabel Moulton about 1880, and they had a son, Frank, born in the 188Os. It would be helpful to find what happened to other descendants. Perhaps some family member has photographs or letters that would shed new light on this matter. I would appreciate any information I could get about these people.
Gloria Goldblatt 533 White Rose Lane St. Louis, MO 63132
Thanks!
In the long generation from its first issue until this winter day in 1983, the February/March issue of AMERICAN HERITAGE surely must be the finest, most nearly perfect of them all. For variety, literary excellence, the scope and scale of learning offered, the pleasure of reading, the graphics, the design—all, it seems to me, have come together in a memorable treasure of publishing. The work of that forgotten photographer and his San Francisco earthquake photographs; the essay on the Ouija boards of my childhood; the unbelievable but authentic manuscript of one family’s odyssey in Kansas in the 187Os; Jacques Barzun’s essay on William James; those touching paintings of artists in their studios, and all the rest left me enthralled, impressed, and nearly stunned with appreciation for this masterpiece of periodical production.
William Rodgers Centreville, Md.
Stamp News
Congratulations on a very clever and beautifully illustrated article about postage stamps (December 1982). I was especially impressed with the layout and the color reproductions.
The cover photograph offered an interesting and attractive possibility for a future Christmas stamp. And as a result of your suggestion, our Stamp Development Branch is researching the possibility of doing a similar stamp for an upcoming holiday issue.
The Postal Service receives thousands of suggestions for stamp subjects each year. I might also add that the United States is one of the few countries that actively solicits suggestions from the general public for stamp designs. The Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee has the difficult task of reviewing the ideas and recommending selected subjects to me for final approval.
However, there are certain specifications that any suggestion must follow to qualify for consideration, such as that a person must have been dead for at least ten years before being depicted on a stamp. An exception is made for Presidents, however, in that they can be represented in the year following their death. This rule explains why John F. Kennedy was honored the year after his death, but Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., had to wait ten years before being commemorated on stamps.
While I understand that only a representative sampling of the stamps we have issued could be portrayed in the article, I am somewhat concerned about the statement regarding insufficient attention to women, blacks, and Indians in our philatelic program. A woman was first portrayed on a stamp in 1893. Since then over sixty stamps have been issued portraying notable women, and several other stamps have included anonymous women in the design. Six stamps have been issued featuring various chiefs and tribes of American Indians, and at least twelve other designs have portrayed Indians or symbols of their culture, such as Pueblo Indian pottery. The Black Heritage Series was initiated in 1978, and five stamps have been issued to date with another scheduled for next year. However, blacks were also featured on stamps prior to the introduction of this series. In 1940, for example, Booker T. Washington became the first black American to be so honored.
William F. Bolger Postmaster General
Correction
In “A Postage Stamp History of the United States in the Twentieth Century” (December 1982) the following stamps were dated incorrectly: President McKinley stamp was issued in 1904, not 1902; Panama Canal stamp was issued in 1939, not 1913; Arizona stamp was issued in 1962, not 1961; Virgin Island stamp was issued in 1937, not 1938; President Hording stamp was issued in 1923, not 1925; President Roosevelt six-cent stamp was issued in 1966, not 1981; Eugene O’Neill stamp was issued in 1967, not 1981; Graf Zeppelin stamp was issued in 1930, not 1928; Puerto Rico stamp was issued in 1937, not 1949; George C. Marshall stamp was issued in 1967, not 1981 ; NA TO stamp was issued in 1952, not 1951; Ralph Bunche stamp was issued in 1982, not 1981; National Guard stamp was issued in 1953, not 1952; Peace Corps stamp was issued in 1972, not 1971; the American Woman stamp was issued in 1960, not 1961.
