Papers
name: label: Collection Creator
content: Smith, Myron Bement, 1897-1970
setName: label: See more items in
content: Myron Bement Smith Collection
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives
identifier: label: Identifier
content: FSA.A.04, Series 1
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: The papers of Myron Bement Smith (MBS) contain some materials about his family, military service and early employment as an architect, but better document his subsequent scholarly career as an expert on Iran and Islamic architecture [Subseries 1.1 and 1.2]. MBS kept notebooks, journals and personal diaries irregularly from his youth until his death in 1970 [Subseries 1.3]. He corresponded extensively with friends, colleagues and many others whom he met in the course of his professional and private life. The early correspondence comprises mainly letters he received, but in the 1930s and especially while in Iran he kept copies of his outgoing letters as well [Subseries 1.4]. MBS published several articles on Italian and Islamic architecture based on his field research in Italy in the 1920s and Iran in the 1930s but little else [Subseries 1.5]. Most of his scholarship resulted in lectures and photographic exhibits. MBS planned to revise his doctoral dissertation on the vault in Persian architecture for publication but had not completed it when he died in 1970. The collection includes some materials from his undergraduate research project in Italy [Subseries 1.6] and more extrensive information on logistics, staffing issues and daily life during his fieldwork in Isfahan, Iran, in the 1930s [Subseries 1.7]. The papers of Katharine Dennis Smith, consisting mostly of her correspondence from the 1930s and later, are included with those of her husband [Subseries 1.8].