BOLDLY PRESENTED AND SIGNED BY EDISON: SCARCE VINTAGE PHOTOGRAPHIC PORTRAIT, PRESENTED TO A SUFFRAGETTE

EDISON, Thomas Alva. Photograph signed. No place, circa 1920. Vintage silver print, measures 6-1/2 by 8-1/2 inches, mounted on heavy card, mount measures 10 by 12 inches; framed, measures 12 by 14 inches. $9200.

Very scarce vintage photographic portrait of Edison seated in a library, inscribed and signed by him with a bold flourish on the mount: "To Mrs. Blauvelt, from a believer in woman suffrage, Thos A Edison."

This scarce vintage photographic portrait of Thomas Edison is an especially splendid portrait of "the patron saint of electric light" (Stross, Wizard of Menlo Park 1:284). The "father of many new industries, including phonograph and sound recording; dictating machines; electric lighting and associated electric utilities; electrical manufacturing; and motion pictures… Edison stands tall among the pantheon of American heroes" (ANB). Recipient Adele Picot Wilson Blauvelt (1867-1938) lived in Syracuse, NY, where her husband worked as a metallurgist. In the summer of 1918, Mrs. Blauvelt was as yet unaffiliated with any particular party. At a Republican party convention that July, she made the following statement, "Like many thousands of other New York women, I am waiting to see the platform statement of the different parties on national suffrage for women, and will decide my party allegiance by their stand on that issue." Blauvelt's daughter, Adele Blauvelt Barnes (1893-1995), was also a supporter of women's suffrage and a 1916 graduate of Radcliffe College.

Light wear to upper corner of mount only, print fine, inscription and signature bold.