Ragdale Scrapbook

• Early Ragdale
• The Garden; Early Development
• Second Generation Children
• Evelyn's Ragdale Ring
• Sylvia's Ragdale; 1940-1976
• Ragdale Blueprints
• Manville Grange and other theatrical productions

Description

The Ragdale Scrapbook is a thick three ring binder holding archival family and Ragdale photographs.  The photos are labeled in Alice Hayes's handwriting with short captions.  There are also some articles, copies of architectural plans and a late 1930s planting plan for the ca. 1912-created Howard and Frances Shaw garden. Along with the Scrapbook, the library has large black and white photograph of a plan of the Ragdale estate by students of the Foundation for Architecture and Landscape Architecture.

The Ragdale Scrapbook grew out of two events: Alice Ryerson Hayes' effort in the late 1980s to develop a guidebook to Ragdale (published 1990), and her decision to move out of the house into the nearby cabin in the 1990s.  She put the scrapbook together following the order in which material appeared in the guidebook, and conveyed it to Arthur Miller when he was her immediate successor as president of the Ragdale Foundation in the early 1990s. 

In the early 2000s, Lake Forest College student Sharon Milroy (Reid) and Arthur Miller met with Mrs. Hayes and went through the scrapbook to flesh out from her memory more about the photos and other items.  These recollections were transcribed by Sharon, and a new list of the Scrapbook contents was prepared then.

This online exhibit includes high-resolution images of every item in the Ragdale Scrapbook, together with cataloging descriptions based on the finding aid prepared by Sharon Milroy.

Thanks to LIT student workers Stephen de Wolff, Manu Kottoorazhikam, Paulius Kuprys, and Kelsey Small.

Credits

David Levinson, Systems Librarian; Arthur Miller, Archivist and Librarian for Special Collections

Exhibit created by David Levinson, Systems Librarian and Academic Technologist