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Guide to the Carr Family Collection, 1870-1936
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Table of contents What's This?
  • Descriptive Summary
  • Administrative Information
  • Biographical Note
  • Scope and Content

  • Descriptive Summary

    Title: Carr Family Collection,
    Date (inclusive): 1870-1936
    Origination: Carr Family
    Extent: 1 Box
    Repository: Pasadena Museum of History
    Pasadena, California 91103-3594
    Language: English.

    Administrative Information

    Access

    Collection is open to the public for research. Use is restricted by rules intended to protect and preserve the materials in good condition for the future. For additional information please contact the Pasadena Museum of History.

    Publication Rights

    Use of the materials is governed by all applicable copyright law. The Pasadena Museum of History reserves the right to restrict any materials from reproduction at any time. Property rights reside with the Pasadena Museum of History. Literary rights are retained by the creators of the records and their heirs. The Museum's physical ownership of the materials in its collection does not imply ownership of copyright. It is the user's responibility to reslove any copyright issues related to the use and distribution of reproduced materials. For permission to reproduce or to publish, please contact the Pasadena Museum of History.

    Preferred Citation

    Suggested citation of these records: [Identification of item], Carr Family Collection, Research Library and Archives, Pasadena Museum of History.

    Biographical Note

    After a career in academics, Dr. Ezra Slocum Carr (1819-1894) was elected State Superintendent of Public Instruction for the State of California in 1875 or 76. His wife, Jeanne C. Carr (-1903) was Assistant Superintendent of Education and a writer. They had two surviving children: Edward C. (1848-1929) and Albert Lee (1857-1937).
    In 1880, the Carrs retired to Pasadena with the intention of raising orange and fruit groves on their property, named Carmelita. Carmelita stretched from Orange Grove to Fair Oaks along Colorado Boulevard (the present day site of the Norton Simon Museum). Jeanne Carr is credited with being the first person to package and market oranges for shipment to the East and Europe. However, while their orchard flourished the Carrs' financial venture failed. So to capitalize on Pasadena's growing tourist trade, the Carrs built a boarding house, which was said by historians to have been the cultural center of all Southern California during the 1880s. Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Muir, William Keith, the artist, and Helen Modjeska, the Polish opera singer, were among those who stayed with the Carrs. Supposedly, Helen Hunt Jackson wrote part of her famous novel, Ramona in a cabin on the grounds of Carmelita.
    Financial problems forced the Carrs to sell the house and property to Mr. and Mrs. Simon Reed (founders of Reed College in Oregon) in 1892.
    Helen Gilloon, 1977

    Scope and Content

    The Carr Family Collection (1870 - 1936) includes family papers, legal papers (including deed for Carmelita), correspondence, sketches, photographs, Trail of Yesterday transcript (by A.L. Carr) with paste-up of illustrations and some original photographs.