Archives West Finding Aid

The Margaret Alden Biddle Scrapbook is comprised predominately of materials relating to music, dance, and theater performances held in Portland, Oregon between 1914 and 1917. Included are programs and playbills, reviews, advertisements, and images clipped from newspapers. In the mid-1910s Biddle attended numerous dramatic productions from professional touring companies such as the Lambardi Grand Opera Company, the Liebler Company, the Chicago Grand Opera Company, the Whitney Opera Company, the Stratford-Upon-Avon Players, the Drama League of America, and the Pavlova Imperial Ballet Russe. Performances included numerous productions of Shakespeare's work (Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Twelfth Night, King John); well known operas and literary dramas (Carmen, Lucia di Lammermoor, Madame Butterfly, Little Women); and contemporary works (The Chocolate Soldier, Disraeli, Shameen Dhu, Excuse Me, Peg O' My Heart, The Firefly, The Poor Little Rich Girl, Quality Street, Milestones, Kitty MacKay). Many of these performances featured renowned actors (E. H. Sothern, Margaret Anglin, William Faversham, and Johnston Forbes-Robertson) and dancers (Anna Pavlova, Adeline Genee, Ruth St. Denis).

Biddle also attended performances featuring world-class musical ensembles (the New York Symphony Orchestra and the Barrere Ensemble of Wind Instruments), vocalists (Emilio de Gogorza, Geraldine Farrar, John McCormack, Johanna Gadski, Maggie Teyte, Olive Fremstad, Alma Gluck, Clara Clemens, Teresa Carreno), and instrumentalists (Efrem Zimbalist, Constance Piper, Eugene Ysaye, Fritz Kreisler, Jean Gerardy, Mischa Elman, Ossip Gabrilowitsch, Rudolph Ganz). Of particular note is a series of programs for the Portland Symphony Orchestra (1912-1916) and the Portland Museum of Art's chamber music series (1914-1915). These events were held at many of the most popular venues in Portland including the Baker Theater, Christensen's Hall, the Mac Dowell Club, the Portland Museum of Art, the Orpheum Theater, the Multnomah Hotel, and even the Portland Masonic Temple. However most of the performances attended by Biddle were held at the Heilig Theater, one of the city's newest and most respected performing arts theaters, located on the corner of Broadway and Taylor Street in downtown Portland.

Other Portland-area events represented in the scrapbook include a lecture by Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan, motion picture showings (George Kleine's Quo Vadis, Capt. Scott and Animal Life in the Antarctic, Lyman Howe's Travel Festival), and several local productions including Maxtla: An Aztec Pantomime from the School of the Portland Art Association and a dance performance by the pupils of Edith Varney held at the Eleventh Street Playhouse. Also included is ephemera from several performances in which the Biddle family participated: Margaret Alden Biddle portrayed Jane Bennett in a 1914 production of Pride and Prejudice by the dramatic class of Miss Catlin's School; her brother, Billy Biddle, performed a piano recital at the Multnomah Hotel; and Mrs. Margaret Biddle is listed as a patron of Reed College's production of Everywoman's Road.

Many of the playbills and programs present in this collection include numerous local area advertisements for retailers, restaurants, and service providers and offer a snapshot of the advertising environment in 1910s Portland. Also included are newspaper clippings and advertisements for concerts and theatrical events not attended by Biddle.

The Biddle Scrapbook also contains a miniature scrapbook, also created by Margaret Biddle, titled "On board S.S. "Arabic". The scrapbook dates from a 1910 voyage to Norway and Holland, and is filled with images of the Arabic, scenes from northern Europe, and a menu and music program from the ship. Also included is an official souvenir program from the 1914 Round-Up in Pendleton, Oregon; a souvenir packet from J. Forbes-Robertson's "Farewell to America" tour; and items from the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, including an official view book, an organ recital program, a camera license, a postcard from the Steamship "Great Northern", and programs from productions of Iphigenia in Aulis at the University of California and The Birth of a Nation at the Cort Theatre in San Francisco. The scrapbook also contains two photographs of three unidentified young women; several sketches, newsclippings pertaining to a car accident involving violinist Susie Fennell Pipes; and numerous clippings featuring famous artwork and historical figures.