Mary Elizabeth Kennedy Sandford
name: label: Collection Creator
content: Gilman, Georgiana Sandford, 1887-1982
label: Collection Creator
content: MacDowell, Helen Sandford, 1889-
label: Collection Creator
content: Pease, L.F.
label: Collection Creator
content: Prince, Georgiana K., 1861-1915
label: Collection Creator
content: Sandford, Frank S., 1853-1924
label: Collection Creator
content: Sandford Greeting Card Company
label: Collection Creator
content: Sandford, Mary Elizabeth, 1852-1936
label: Collection Creator
content: Sandford, Ruth, 1879-1972
setName: label: See more items in
content: Sandford Greeting Card Company and Family Papers
label: See more items in
content: Sandford Greeting Card Company and Family Papers / Series 2: Sandford Family Papers
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1868-2003, undated
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives Center, National Museum of American History
identifier: label: Identifier
content: NMAH.AC.1252, Subseries 2.2
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: Contains the papers of the founder of the Sandford Card Company. Mary Elizabeth Kennedy Sandford, known as Libbie, Libby, Lib, Liz, MLK and MES was born in August 6, 1852. She taught school for ten years before her marriage to Frank Sherman Sandford in 1878.  In 1880, Mary Elizabeth wrote to PT Barnum offering to write verses for his advertisements.  It is unclear if he accepted her offer. She honed her artistic skills from painting china before going into the card business. Sandford runs the company with the assistance of her husband Frank and their daughters.  

Materials include essays and writings, photographs which correspond to the diaries; with one diary covering the 1876 Centennial in Philadelphia.  Another diary contains information about her trip to a Women's Christian Temperance Union convention in Scotland.  A memoir of early teaching life handwritten and typed, and correspondence dating from 1876-1910 is also found among the materials.  The materials are arranged first by type and then in chronological order.