Correspondence
name: label: Collection Creator
content: Smith, Myron Bement, 1897-1970
setName: label: See more items in
content: Myron Bement Smith Collection
label: See more items in
content: Myron Bement Smith Collection / Series 1: Papers
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives
identifier: label: Identifier
content: FSA.A.04, Subseries 1.4
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents note
content: Myron Bement Smith (MBS) had an extensive list of friends and colleagues with whom he corresponded over the years. Correspondence from the 1920s provides a view into the cultural and social world of a "young man about town" in Rochester, N.Y., New Haven, Conn. and New York City. The voluminous correspondence from his mother, Ida Sargeant Capella, provides its own unique perspective on Rochester during the 1920s and 1930s. After 1930, when he joined the American Institute for Persian Art and Archaeology, MBS acquired many new friends and contacts within the world of Islamic and Near Eastern studies and among those associated with academic foundations and funding organizations. Extensive correspondence by both MBS and his wife Katharine Dennis Smith during their stay in Iran from 1933 to 1937 describes life in the expatriate community in Isfahan; contacts with foreign scholars and travellers; and interactions with Iranians. The earliest correspondence includes only letters written to MBS, but beginning in the 1930s, he and his wife kept copies of their outgoing letters as well. MBS' correspondence with his wife during their times apart contains more information about what he is doing and life around him than is included in his letters to others. Letters become fewer in the 1940s as MBS and his wife begin conducting more business and social interchange by telephone. The correspondence of Katharine Dennis Smith [Subseries 1.8] complements that of MBS. They corresponded with many of the same people and she often answered letters written to him. She frequently handled secretarial duties for the Islamic Archives and sometimes discusses its activities in her letters. The correspondence is arranged alphabetically by correspondent and years for which letters exist is noted. Both business and personal letters are included.