Signed photographs from the Washington Naval Conference
Lot 205PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF AMBASSADOR J. WILLIAM MIDDENDORF II

Signed photographs from the Washington Naval Conference

Warren Harding, et al, 1922

Closed15 October 2021

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USD 3,500

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Signed photographs from the Washington Naval Conference
Warren Harding, et al, 1922
WASHINGTON NAVAL CONFERENCE — A period scrapbook documenting the 1921 Washington Naval Conference, featuring 26 signed photographs from the principal delegates including Warren G. HARDING (1865-1923) signed as President, Florence Kling HARDING (1860-1924) signed as First Lady, Charles Evans HUGHES (1862-1948), Elihu ROOT (1945-1937), Henry Cabot LODGE (1850-1924), John J. PERSHING (1860-1948), and others, [Washington], [November 1921]-February 1922.

Housed in a three-ring scrapbook in decorated leather boards, together with an additional 28 photographs, some loose, others mounted to album pages (some with later inked identifications on mount and/or emulsion). Photographs primarily by Underwood & Underwood as well several by Harris & Ewing.

Anna Sumner Bird's album from the first international conference on arms limitation. Born Anna J. Child (1850-1942), she married Massachusetts industrialist and politician Charles Sumner Bird in 1880. A prominent suffragist, she became the first woman from Massachusetts to serve on the Republican National Committee, and in 1921 the Massachusetts Republican State Committee appointed her to lead a committee to mobilize public support for the upcoming arms limitations conference in Washington which resulted in several major international treaties. Other signed photographs in the album include Oscar UNDERWOOD, Arthur James BALFOUR, as well as delegates from Canada, Australia, Italy, France, Japan and China. Additional unsigned photographs range from group portraits from the conference (including one with an image of Winston Churchill who also attended the conference) as well as images of the conference (two of which include Mrs. Sumner Bird) as well as several candid photos from the conference.

[Also with:] Review of the Conference on Limitation of Armament -- In Connection with the Pacific and Far East questions Part One July 1921, to December 8, 1921. [Boston:] Boston Evening Transcript, [1922] – a typed memorandum, [Boston,] 12 October 1921. A press release announcing that Mrs. Charles Sumner Bird had been appointed as "Chairman of a Committee on Limitation of Armaments" by the Republican State Committee of Massachusetts.