An Archive of Hand-Decorated Cards, Letters and Envelopes

A collection of approximately 120 large format, handmade and heavily hand-decorated postcards and letters, mostly with envelopes. Various dates from 1967-1975, all by Mrs. Brightman of Akron, Ohio to Ned Osthaus of Scranton, Pennsylvania. The content and accompanying art are highly eccentric, very entertaining, and occasionally slightly addled. Many are patriotic or moralistic in tone. Virtually all of the cards and letters are heavily painted, as are most of the envelopes. Several of the envelopes are made from busily patterned wrapping paper, some of which are additionally embellished. Minor wear at the edges, else fine. The hand-illustrated correspondence displays a unique confluence of patriotic fervor, Biblical observance, political opinion, and boundless artistic energy. Many of the cards are in commemoration of holidays be they real (Christmas, St. Patrick's Day, Thanksgiving, Bastille Day, Passover, Columbus Day, Easter, July 4th) and/or obscure or imagined (Kent State Massacre Memorial Day, Mayflower Day, Law Day, Our Martyred United States of North American Mr. and Mrs. President's Day, St. Bartholomew's Massacre Day, Ten Commandments Day); others are dedicated to a theme: the Holy Grail, the Boer War, the Watergate Hearings, the Vietnam War, the Constitution, certain types of plants. In a July 4th card she explains her many names: "Note: During my early public career I was known as Margaret Quincy. During my later public career I was known as Margaret Stanton. Margaret Zenie was given to me at my birth and oddly, the Negroes in the South called me 'Ladybird.' I performed a High Swan Dive for them, especially, every Saturday Night whenever I played in the South." And in one card she explains her family lineage, after having read *Profiles in Courage*: "I was surprised to find Secretary of War Stanton still labeled 'a villain". in fact, he is my great grandfather. [his] wife. was an Allen. and she owned almost all of New York City, which my Grandfather Alexander Stanton inherited, and lost to the Astors." Our research indicates Brightman was born Margaret Zenie Stanton in Massachusetts in 1897 and died in 1978. She appears to have worked from an early age as a player for the pioneering and prolific American film studio Kalem Company that was based in New York and produced more than 1700 films. While performing at their summer facility in Jacksonville, Florida she met Thomas Qunicy, a high diver at the nearby Johnny J. Jones Circus. By 1912 she had learned the high dive act and toured the South performing at various fairs and parks, which she references in one letter: "I was a professional athlete for 14 years." Later she married Ralph Weston Brightman and settled in Akron, Ohio. Her journey from high diver to housewife remains obscure but subsequent communications with a descendent confirms most of these facts, but adds one shocking detail. According to her relative, Margaret Brightman was having an affair with a married doctor. When she threatened to reveal the affair to the doctor's wife, the doctor ordered her medicated and eventually had her committed to an institution, which coincided with the beginning of this highly idiosyncratic correspondence. In the correspondence Brightman expresses a deep interest in culture, and a recurrent and not so subtle dislike for the British, and especially the Royal Family. In a letter dated in 1974 she decries the state of literacy in the country: "It is not difficult for me to understand why you are having trouble trying to buy the book you wish to send me. For I have long been troubled about our book stores, and libraries. about a week ago the 'To Tell the Truth' program on television had a man on their program who was from Great Britain, and who stated 'he owned the largest second hand book store in the world.' And this man stated that 'he had been buying millions upon millions of our books, classics included.' And to prove what this man had to say our largest second hand bo.…