This collection includes approximately 300 letters written predominantly between 1890-1905 by a diverse group of Helen Blackmer's friends, family, and colleagues. Frequent correspondents include her three brothers, William, Ezra, and Alfred, who all moved from New York to Arizona in the early 1890s. Many of the letters discuss life in the West, particularly in Montana and Arizona, with career opportunities, lifestyle, weather, food, and illness depicted in these states. Many of the letters also contain material objects such as pressed flowers, cloth, or hair. Most letters have their original mailing envelope attached. Other documents within the collection include telegrams,newspaper clippings, show flyers, medicine informational pamphlets, and photographs.

Helen Blackmer was born in New York on July 31st, 1866 to Alfred Niram Blackmer and Caroline Petitt. She grew up as the oldest of eight children in a family of devout Methodists. She trained to be a schoolteacher, originally working in New York, before moving to Montana in 1890. She is listed as a principal of a school in Glendale, Montana in a 1892 publication, as well as a teacher at the Montana Wesleyan University in the 1896 city directory. She moved to Pasadena, Los Angeles, California by 1935 and is recorded to have moved to San Gabriel Judicial Township, Los Angeles by 1940. Helen Blackmer died on August 2nd 1950 in Los Angeles County where she had lived out the last years of her life.

1.25 Linear feet (3 boxes)

The Clark Library owns the property rights to its collections but does not hold the copyright to these materials and therefore cannot grant or deny permission to use them. Researchers are responsible for determining the copyright status of any materials they may wish to use, investigating the owner of the copyright, and obtaining permission for their intended publication or other use. In all cases, you must cite the Clark Library as the source with the following credit line: The William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, Los Angeles.

Collection is open for research.