Widdison, Ruth SBiblio.com
WICKWIRE, Ruth and Henry Z UrbanBiblio.com
Photo album: Ruth Wickwire her husband Yale Graduate and Newspaper Publisher Henry Z. Urban and their Pets. Circa 1930s thru early 1940s
439355Hardcover. Near Fine. Octavo. Blue cloth ruled in gilt. Contain approximately 236 gelatin silver photographs. Various sizes. Perhaps a dozen images are lacking but a similar number are loosely laid in. A small number of color images made from 1940s vintage negatives but printed much later are laid in. A number of the images are nicely hand colored. Near fine with near fine images.<br /> <br /> Album probably kept by Ruth Wickwire and later her husband Henry Z. Urban Yale Class of 1943. Wickwire was the daughter of a prominent broker. Urban later became the publisher of the Buffalo Evening News.<br /> <br /> The album begins with photos of the young Ruth at her families very affluent home often posed costumed or stylishly dressed mostly in the yard with the families many pets: mostly dogs but with a few photogenic cats as well. One image seems to depict an Asian domestic holding one of the dogs. The album follows Ruth through her teenage years when she finally encounters Yale student Henry at which point the album's focus switches to their domestic happiness including a baby and co-ed deer hunting.<br /> <br /> Near the end of the album Urban is pictured in Yale photos playing baseball at college hunting in military uniform and with a military unit training on snow skies. The final image in the album is a terrific handcolored image in two parts depicts a schnauzer-type dog posed in the yard in front of a stuffed tiger and a stuffed Mickey Mouse. A pleasing documentation of the evolution of an affluent young woman her pets and her future husband with some charming images. hardcover
