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Photograph Album from Charles F. Lummis to Susanita Del Valle: Finding
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photCL 504
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Title: Photograph Album from Charles F. Lummis
to Susanita Del Valle
Dates (inclusive): 1888
Collection Number: photCL 504
Creator:
Lummis, Charles Fletcher,
1859-1928
Extent:
83 cyanotype photographs in 1 album; album 13 x 21.5 cm. (5.25 x 8.5
in.)
Repository:
The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.
Photo Archives
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, California 91108
Phone: (626) 405-2191
Email: reference@huntington.org
URL: http://www.huntington.org
Abstract: An album of 83 cyanotype photographs by American journalist,
author, and ethnologist Charles F. Lummis given as a gift from Lummis to Susanita
Del Valle in 1888. (Susanita was a nickname for Susana Carmen Del Valle
(1871-1907)). The majority of photographs depict Rancho Camulos in Ventura County,
California, as well as members of the Del Valle family, who owned the rancho. Lummis
included several self-portraits as well as scenes that invoke a romantic view of
19th century California ranch life. In addition, there are two original poems
inscribed by Lummis to Susanita Del Valle.
Language of Material: English
The Huntington Library does not require that researchers request permission to
quote from or publish images of this material, nor does it charge fees for such
activities. The responsibility for identifying the copyright holder, if there is
one, and obtaining necessary permissions rests with the researcher.
Photograph Album from Charles F. Lummis to Susanita Del Valle. The Huntington
Library, San Marino, California.
Purchased from the heirs of the Del Valle family in 2011 with funds provided by
the Studier family in memory of Carol Jackson Cook and Donald Wrentmore Cook.
Due to the fragility of the album, access to the original item is granted only by
advance permission of the Curator of Photographs. Open to qualified researchers by
prior application through the Reader Services Department. For more information,
contact Reader Services.
In 1884, Charles Fletcher Lummis (1859-1928) walked from Cincinnati, Ohio, to Los
Angeles, California, in a public relations gambit to announce his new job as city
editor of the
Los Angeles Times. The provocative New Englander went
on to become an outspoken and influential promoter of California and the American
Southwest. Lummis wore many hats during his illustrious forty-year career:
incendiary journalist; editor of
Out West magazine; Los Angeles city
librarian; presidential advisor; patron of artists and writers; and cultural
preservationist. In addition, Lummis was a talented photographer, producing
thousands of photographs between 1885 and 1920. Lummis started making photographs in
1885, soon after his arrival in Los Angeles. He favored the cyanotype process which
was popular among amateur photographers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The cyanotype, notable for its blue tone, is made by bringing sensitized paper into
contact with a negative in direct sunlight. The print is then washed in a solution
of distilled water.
The album,
Views of Camulos, which Lummis gave to Susanita Del Valle,
is one of the earliest and most comprehensive albums produced by Lummis. In
American Character: The Curious Life of Charles Fletcher Lummis and the
Rediscovery of the Southwest
(Arcade Publishing, 2001), the author
explores Lummis’s relationship with the Del Valle family that led to the creation of
the gift album, noting that “Lummis had paid his first visit to Camulos soon after
reaching Los Angeles and had fallen in love with the place. The Del Valles became
lifelong friends” (Thompson, 123). The album makes clear Lummis’s infatuation with
life at Rancho Camulos in its many photographs of the landscape, daily activities,
and the Del Valle family. An inveterate womanizer, the married Lummis developed a
romantic attraction to the sixteen-year-old Susana Carmen Del Valle (1871-1907), the daughter of Susana Avila and Juventino
Del Valle (1841-1919).
Between 1887 and 1888, Lummis wrote numerous letters to Susanita which discussed,
among other things, his plans for a divorce that would enable him to marry her.
Apart from his interest in Susanita, Lummis may also have seen commercial potential
for his Rancho Camulos photographs. Helen Hunt Jackson visited Camulos in 1882 and
including observations about ranch life in her bestselling-novel
Ramona (1884). Lummis’s publication of
Home of Ramona:
Photographs of Camulos, the Fine Old Spanish Estate Described by Mrs. Helen Hunt
Jackson as the Home of “Ramona”
(1888) was the first publication to link
Rancho Camulos to the Helen Hunt Jackson novel. The gift album provides a unique and
expanded set of photographs that Lummis used to champion Camulos as the original
home of the fictional character Ramona.
Sources used in the creation of this finding aid include: Autry National
Center. “Braun Research Library.” Accessed February 2013.
http://theautry.org/research/braun-research-library
Dawson, Michael. Appraisal Report Prepared by Michael Dawson for The
Huntington Library, July 2011.
Thompson, Mark.
American Character: The Curious Life of Charles
Fletcher Lummis and the Rediscovery of the Southwest.
New York:
Arcade Publishing, 2001.
Scope and Content of Collection
The photograph album chronicles Charles F. Lummis’s time with the Del Valle family
at Rancho Camulos in Ventura County, California, from 1887 to 1888. There are many
photographs of the Del Valle family, particularly the Del Valle daughters, with whom
Lummis is shown playfully interacting. Family gatherings include a local Catholic
priest, couples dancing, and young women playing instruments. Views of Rancho
Camulos, the surrounding landscape, and architectural features such as the placita,
the chapel, and the south veranda, are also prominently featured.
The front cover of the photograph album bears the embossed title of “Susanita Del
Valle,” while the spine’s title says, “Views of Camulos.” An inscription on the
third page reads: “Susanita Del Valle, with the best wishes of Chas. F. Lummis—Feb.
3, 1888.” Some of the pictures appear in
The Home of Ramona: Photographs of
Camulos, the Fine Old Spanish Estate Described by Mrs. Helen Hunt Jackson, as
the Home of "Ramona,"
by Charles F. Lummis, published in Los Angeles in
1888. The Huntington Library holds a copy of this book (RB 35644) as well as a
second edition (RB 252770). Both copies are illustrated with original cyanotypes by
Lummis, many of which are in
The Home of Ramona.
Related materials in the Huntington Library
- C. F. Lummis Photograph Collection (photCL 72)
- Lummis family portrait photographs used as Christmas greeting cards (photCL 90)
- Papers of Reginaldo F. Del Valle
Alternative Form of Materials Available
Visit the
Huntington Digital Library: Photographs
to view the digitized album.
Coronel, Antonio Franco -- Photographs.
Del Valle, Reginaldo F. (Reginaldo Francisco), 1854-1938
-- Photographs.
Lummis, Charles Fletcher, 1859-1928 -- Photographs.
Adobe houses -- California -- Ventura County -- Photographs.
Dance -- California -- 1880-1890 -- Photographs.
Indians of North America -- Fiction -- Photographs.
Ranches -- California -- 1880-1890 -- Photographs.
Rancho Camulos (Ventura County, Calif.) -- Photographs.
Del Valle family -- Photographs.
Ventura County (Calif.) -- Photographs.
Cyanotypes.
Photograph albums.
Photographs.
Self-portraits.