Collections Quarterly - Fall 2014 

The Giddings-Hollingsworth Edition 


In This Issue
New Accession
Archives Feature
Collections Feature
Fenyes Feature
New Accession

Artwork by Jae Giddings Carmichael

Carmichael, Jae Giddings (1925-2005). Untitled. Acrylic paint on paper, 25 x 19 inches (2013.007.006). Gift of Rosemarie Zaragoza.

Jae Giddings Carmichael was the artist of the family. She began her education at Mills College in the 1940s. She received a B.F.A. from the University of Southern California (1951), a M.F.A. from Claremont Graduate School (1955), and a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California in art history and cinematography.  Over her decades-long career, she played instrumental roles at several arts organizations and educational institutions.

Carmichael produced watercolors, sculptures, murals, oil paintings, independent films, and more. Our new collection of Jae Giddings Carmichael artwork reflects her interest in a variety of media. The works in the Museum's collection are done in watercolor paint, acrylic paint, pen and ink, wood blocks, and even dot matrix printing-with many works being mixed media. There are also sketches that Carmichael did for stained glass window projects. The roses in these sketches are similar to the roses in the stained glass that she produced for Mountain View Cemetery, which was founded by the Giddings family.

Carmichael was an active member of Pasadena Museum of History. She was instrumental in the Giddings-Hollingsworth Collection coming to the Museum, and she designed the Pasadena history quilt in the Museum's collection.
  
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About the Collections

 

PMH maintains the area's largest and most comprehensive collection of documents and artifacts relating to the history of Pasadena and neighboring communities.  

 

The ever-expanding collection spans the years 1834 to the present and contains well over one million historic photographs, rare books, manuscripts, maps,  architectural records, art, costumes and textiles, and objects.  

 

The Mission of the Museum is to promote an appreciation of history, culture, arts, and sciences relevant to Pasadena and adjoining communities.    

The Collections Quarterly, sent out four times a year, features new acquisitions and loans as well as select items from the Archives, art and artifacts collection, and the Fenyes-Curtin-Paloheimo collections. 
Archives Feature

Giddings-Hollingsworth Special Collection 

     


 
A collection of papers and objects from the Giddings-Hollingsworth family is an important and highly valued part of the Archives' special collections. Both families arrived in Pasadena in the 1870s and are considered members of the city's founding "Pioneers." Jennie Hollingsworth Giddings (1857-1955) came to Pasadena with her parents from Iowa when she was only eighteen years old. She married Joshua Reed Giddings (d. 1938) in Pasadena, where they raised four daughters and two sons. Her children also raised their families in Pasadena. Her granddaughter, Jae Carmichael (see New Accession), was an artist and founding director of Pacific Asia Museum. All of the generations of this family were very active in Pasadena society. Evidence of that, and their interaction with other pioneer families, is scattered throughout this marvelous collection. This collection has letters (including love letters), photographs, postcards, calling cards, diaries, ephemera, and memorabilia covering years from long before the American Civil War up to the 1980s.

 

If you would like to view this interesting and exciting collection, please visit the Research Library & Archives. We are open from Thursday to Sunday,1:00 to 4:00 p.m. No appointment is necessary. 

 

 

Image: Giddings-Hollingsworth family in front of their home, 1884. Those pictured are listed on the back of the photograph: "Grandmother Hollingsworth standing under the Oak Tree; Grandfather Hollingsworth; Joshua Reed Hollingsworth; Jennie H. Giddings; Lawson Giddings; Levi Giddings beside the buggy; Joe Giddings in the buggy; And Mac the dog." (Giddings-Hollingsworth Family Papers, GID 1.36.6)

 

Collections Feature

Jennie Hollingworth's Wedding Gown             

 

Among the treasures of the Giddings-Hollingsworth Collection are several historic garments worn by various generations of the family. This wedding dress was worn by Jennie Hollingsworth when she married Joshua Reed Giddings in 1880 at the Pasadena Methodist Church. She carefully preserved her gown and wore it again on her twenty-fifth (1905) and fiftieth (1930) wedding anniversaries.
 
The gown, along with several of the gifts Jennie received on her wedding day, were exhibited in Part I of I Do! I Do! Pasadena Ties the Knot, 1850 to 1950 in 2013. Also on display  in that exhibition was the 1909 wedding gown of Blanche Giddings, who was Jennie and Joshua's daughter. 

 












Images: Top:
Jennie and Joshua Giddings' twenty-fifth anniversary with family, 1905 (Giddings Collection); bottom: Wedding gown, 1880. Silk faille, lace, cording, fringe, netting, mother of pearl buttons (98.12.1). Gift of Mrs. Jae Giddings Carmichael. Photo by Aaron Gil, www.fotonuova.com

 

 
Fenyes Feature
 
The Giddings Connection

 

The "Giddings-Hollingsworth Theme" chosen for this issue of Collections Quarterly challenged the "Fenyes Feature" contributor with the difficult task of finding an artifact, a document, anything linking the Giddings or Hollingsworth names with the Fenyes, Curtin, or Paloheimo names. Our Museum's rich and varied Fenyes family collections rarely fail the researcher, and so as anticipated, the Giddings name did pop up. In Eva Fenyes' financial records, neatly written on a scrap of paper clipped to three Pasadena city tax receipts are the words, "J. R. Giddings Subd. Green Street Lot." Around 1928, Eva Fenyes bought portions of three vacant lots where Green Street had been extended through the Giddings Subdivision to Hill Street. A remote connection between the families, but informative. Eva Fenyes, who started investing in Pasadena real estate the moment she arrived in 1896, continued to expand her profitable Pasadena property ventures until her death in 1930. In 1928 the "Green Street Lot" was assessed at $5000 with a city tax of $61.40, and by 1930 the assessed value had increased to $7350 with a tax of $90.11.

 

 

Image: Tax bills, 1928-1930. (FCP.18.1a)