This panoramic photograph, approximately 3 feet wide, captured the 400 men, women, and children attending the tenth annual convention of the Moorish Science Temple of America in 1937. Members traveled from Illinois, New York, Wisconsin, Indiana, Connecticut, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.

10th Annual National Convention of The Moorish Science Temple of America Incorporated. September 18th, 1937. Prophet Noble Drew Ali founder (Chicago: Photograph taken by Burke & Koretke, 1937). Gelatin silver print. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2021- in process

The Moorish Science Temple http://msta1913.org/ was founded and developed by Noble Drew Ali between 1913 and 1925, combining Islamic tenets and elements from other major religious and spiritual traditions to provide inspiration to the African-American communities in the United States. Ali argued that Black people were descended from the Moabites, were thus Moorish, and also “Asiatic,” a term Ali used to describe all people of color to distinguish them from Europeans.

The organization was based in Chicago, where they held the first annual convention in 1928. The convention pictured above in 1937 also took place in Chicago. The closest Temple to Princeton is located in Newark: https://moorishsciencetempleofamerica.org/ . They hold an institutional archive and open one item each month online: https://moorishsciencetempleofamerica.org/archives/

Wikipedia offers an earlier conference, without credit

The Moorish Science Temple of America (a religious corporation) was founded by our Divine Prophet Noble Drew Ali in 1913 A.D. We have consistently demonstrated plans for the betterment of mankind, teaching those things that make our people better citizens. In our missionary work, we encourage those through example that our social, moral and economic condition can be better.We are Moslems who have accepted the religion of our Ancient forefathers (Islamism). Our nationality is Moorish American, and our Divine and National Principles are Love, Truth, Peace, Freedom and Justice. By proclaiming our nationality and divine creed we have met the constitutional standards of law of the United States of America, therefore having and enjoying a political status in our Government. https://moorishsciencetempleofamerica.org/about/

April 16, 2021

Paul Hyslop and Raymond Mortimer

Architect Charles Geddes Clarkson Hyslop (1901-1988) and his companion, journalist and critic Raymond Mortimer (1895-1980) lived for most of their 40 year relationship in a restored 18th-century home at 5 Canonbury Place, Islington, London. For business, Hyslop signed his drawings “Geddes Hyslop,” but to his friends he was simply known as Paul.

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired an album owned by Hyslop, including 111 photographs documenting his life from childhood to old age, ending a few years before Mortimer’s death.  Princeton already holds a rich collection of material by Raymond Mortimer C0271, including correspondence, notebooks, photographs and albums. Perhaps the dearth of material concerning Hyslop stems from the fact that they were together for so long, there was no need to correspond on paper. Regardless, this new album will add significantly to the story of their lives, their friends, and their homes.

E. S.W. (Eddy Sackville-West), Knole, 1927(?)

 Many photographs were made at Knole, home of the Sackville family, now part of the National Trust: https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/knole

“Knole has many strong and significant literary links, starting with Thomas Sackville who bought Knole at the beginning of the 17th century (a well-respected poet, playwright and linguist as well as lawyer and courtier). Thomas arranged the marriage between his grandson (Richard, 3rd Earl of Dorset) to Lady Anne Clifford – it was not to be a happy union, and Lady Anne went on to document her deteriorating relationship with her unfaithful husband and vivid descriptions of life at Knole in her surviving diary.

Charles Sackville (6th Earl of Dorset) patronised many significant literary figures of his day such as Alexander Pope, John Dryden and Matthew Prior. The latter was to prove fertile historical fodder for Knole’s most famous literary link: Orlando (1928) was written by Virginia Woolf about her lover, Vita Sackville-West, and Vita’s love for her childhood home. Her inability to inherit Knole due to the law of primogeniture saw the house passing to her cousin, Eddy Sackville-West, whose novel ‘The Ruin’ is similarly set at a fictional house based on Knole called Vair.”

P.13 Eddy (Sackville-West), Raymond (Mortimer), Clive (Bell)’; Eddy (Sackville­ West) c.1924

Both Mortimer and Hyslop maintained a close association with a circle of artists and literary figures known as the “Bloomsbury Group,” and Hyslop’s album includes photographs of Lytton Strachey, Dadie Rylands, Adrian Stokes, Basil Long, Eddy Sackville-West, Tom Lowinsky, Clive Bell, Gerald Haxton, Valerie Taylor, Anna May Wong, John Banting, William Somerset Maugham, William Hayter, General Paget, Roger Senhouse and of course, many of Mortimer.

During World War II Major Hyslop saw service in North Africa, where he headed up the Antiquities Department of British forces in 1944–45. For more information on this, see The Monuments Men Foundation https://www.monumentsmenfoundation.org/hyslop-capt-paul

For more about the Mortimer collection read Maria DiBattista, “Mortimer and Company: Virginia Woolf, Nancy Mitford, and Other Moderns in the Raymond Mortimer Collection,” The Princeton University Library Chronicle 67, no. 1 (Autumn 2005): 60-67.

Joy and Geddes and Doctor’s Children c.1908

‘1917’ (Paul Hyslop with his parents)

Paul Hyslop and Raymond Mortimer 1970

Note, this album will require extensive conservation before it can be digitized.

After Samuel Broadbent, Lucretia Mott, circa 1849. Quarter plate daguerreotype. Purchased thanks to funds from the Manuscript Collection and the Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2021- in process

An abolitionist, Quaker, and fierce advocate for women’s rights, Lucretia (Lucy) Coffin Mott (1793-1880) believed that women and men should be treated equally and spent her adult life fighting for these causes. In 1833 she was among the women who established the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society and served as a delegate to the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention in London. Although she was a powerful speaker, Mott was surprised to find she was not allowed to participate. Together with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and others, they organized the First Woman’s Rights Convention in 1848. Her address Discourse on Woman was delivered at the assembly buildings in Philadelphia on December 17, 1849 and published by T.B. Peterson in 1850 (Miriam Y. Holden Collection HQ1423 .M9). These are only a few of her many accomplishments, which continued until her death in 1880.

Notice the glare on the left side of this portrait. This might indicate that the daguerreotype now at Princeton is a copy daguerreotype, the shine a result of the reflective copperplate being rephotographed. If this is true, it tells us a great deal about the celebrity and admiration for Mott at the time, as well as the collecting habits that warranted additional portraits. See a few of her many portraits below.

We teach the daguerreotype as a ‘one-of-a-kind’ but there may have been an active business for daguerreotype reproductions. While the earlier daguerreotype with this image has not been located yet, we will list the portrait as ‘after Samuel Broadbent.’ The case has not been opened at Princeton (it just arrived) but the dealer notes “The hallmark, a hexamerous figure 40 was usually seen in the mid-to-late 1840s; also use of wax on the reverse copper side of the plate, as seen here, was generally ended by the advent of the 1850s. The edges of the original double elliptical mat that was used to frame the portrait can be seen on the naked plate.”

Samuel Broadbent (1810-1880), Lucretia Mott, ca. 1855. Quarter plate daguerreotype. Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc. Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

Even without this mark, Samuel Broadbent Jr. (1810-1880/01) is a good guess given his other portraits and similar painted backdrops. A different daguerreotype portrait of Mott was made by Broadbent around 1855 [above] and a CDV published by Broadbent and Phillips (Henry C. Phillips) around 1865. Sarah Weatherwax has given us a record of his studios:

Working primarily as a portrait photographer for almost four decades, Broadbent entered into a number of different partnerships, including with female daguerreotypist Sally [Sarah] Garrett Hewes, Henry C. Phillips, William Curtis Taylor, and fellow painter Frederick A. Wenderoth. He worked in a variety of photographic mediums and produced images utilizing a number of different processes. His daguerreotypes frequently employed a painted landscape background or centered the sitter within a window frame adorned with large leafy vines along one side. In addition to daguerreotypes, the Broadbent studio also produced ambrotypes and tintypes and successfully made the transition to paper photography. After Samuel Broadbent’s death in 1880, two of his sons continued his photography business until 1905. A Broadbent photography studio remained in Philadelphia until 1920.”–Sarah J. Weatherwax, Curator of Prints and Photographs, The Library Company of Philadelphia, 2013.

William Henry Furness (1802-1896), Lucretia Mott, 1858. Oil on canvas. Swarthmore College Friends Historical Library

Reproduction of a daguerreotype portrait of Lucretia and James Mott sitting together, original photograph by William Langenheim, 1842. Location of original unknown.

Marcus Aurelius Root, Lucretia Coffin Mott, 1851. Half-plate daguerreotype. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.