A collection of material related to L. Averill Cole, American bookbinder.

Louise Averill Taylor Cole (1880-1971) was born in Elmira, New York, the first child of Frank Taylor and Lillie Bramhall Taylor. The Taylor family moved to San Francisco, California, around 1883; soon after arriving in California, Frank and Lillie Taylor divorced and Louise was sent to live with her paternal grandmother in Elmira. Louise moved from New York in about 1890 and, after an unhappy stay with her father in Washington State, moved back to San Francisco in the mid-1890s; her mother had married Charles Melvin Cole in 1888, and Louise took the name Louise Averill Cole. In the late 1890s, Louise traveled and studied in Europe as she decided on a career in fine bookbinding. She studied first in Germany, and then was accepted as a student in Brussels by Louis Jacobs and Joseph Hendricks. Louise left Brussels in 1906 for London, where she taught bookbinding to various titled ladies; she returned to the United States in 1908 to work for Houghton Mifflin, in charge of the Riverside Press division for fine bindings. Louise Averill Cole married Gerald Shephard Howland on October 31, 1913, in Belmont, Massachusetts; he was a printer by trade. During the years of raising their two daughters Louise retired from her work as a bookbinder. The couple lived in various Massachusetts towns before retiring to Santa Barbara, California, in 1948.

1.83 Linear Feet (2 boxes)

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