I was looking for something in the Land Deeds and Sundry Contracts collection this afternoon and look what turned up–the bill for President Lovett’s office furniture, including the table that’s now in the Woodson. We paid $195 for it and I think we got our money’s worth:
I went back and looked at the picture of his office and sure enough you can see most of the things on that list. And by the way, the shades on the window were green linen. I found the bill for those also:
Dr. Edgar Odell Lovett’s presidential office in Lovett Hall (Administration Building), Rice Institute
Bonus: The carving on the desk is even more ornate than that on the Woodson’s table. If I recall correctly this desk is now in President Leebron’s office in Allen Center.
Took me a couple minutes to track down the Wm Ross and Co factory in East Cambridge, but I got there eventually. It’s an old industrial part of the city that has been substantially rebuilt in recent years. I used to work nearby (in the old Davenport building, home to the factory that made, well, “Davenports”) so was able to figure it out despite the name change. Bridge St, which leads to the bridge over the Charles River that the Museum of Science now sits upon, is now the Msgr. O’Brien Hwy, and has been for decades.
The “Atlascope” service of the BPL is pretty cool. See a historical overlay of the current map here: https://atlascope.leventhalmap.org/#view:share$base:000$overlay:39999059015667$zoom:18.00$center:-7912483.145137454,5216944.609332725$mode:glass$pos:476
Probably chosen because of Cram, Goodhue, and Ferguson.
$3,848! In 1912 that was a heck of a lot of money. An inflation calculator I check says this would be the equivalent of almost $100,000 today.