Collections : [Hill-Stead Museum]

The Whittemore collection of photocopied letters at Hill-Stead Museum numbers 1562 items, a mere fraction of the material held by the Whittemore family at the Harris Whittemore, Jr. Trust offices in Naugatuck, CT, and not accessible to the public. Judicious selection of documents worthy of photocopying, given resources at Hill-Stead, winnowed the selection to selected items pertaining to Alfred Pope's Malleable Iron business in Cleveland, Ohio, and elsewhere in the mid-west, the Pope family's activities, Alfred Pope's art collecting, and the construction of the Pope's Euclid Avenue house in Cleveland [mid 1880's], Hill-Stead in Farmington [1898-1901], Westover School [1908-9] and the Halle Bros. department store building in Cleveland [1911-13], a joint real estate venture by Alfred Pope and J. H. Whittemore. All letters written by Alfred's wife, Ada, or daughter, Theodate, are also included. Alfred Pope is best known at Hill-Stead as the collector of French Impressionist masterpieces that are the hallmark of the museum's holdings. However, an understanding of Pope's business life is important to understanding him, therefore, archivists selected letters that marked important moments in the growth of his companies or that summarized activity, problems, or plans, yielding insight into Alfred Pope's general thought process, and personality. Business matters and art-related topics are intertwined within various correspondences. Lengthy business letters include brief asides about art and vice versa. Business-related correspondence outnumbers art-related correspondence, yet combined the letters reveal much about the patriarch of the Pope family, and without whose collection Hill-Stead Museum would not exist.

The Pope-Riddle family papers collection includes letters, diaries, genealogical information, family Bibles, and other documents and material generated by, or pertaining primarily to, Theodate Pope Riddle, her parents, Alfred Pope and Ada Brooks Pope, and Theodate's husband, John Wallace Riddle.

The Pope-Riddle family photographs collection represents a variety of photographic formats. They depict Pope and Riddle family members, particularly members of Ada Brooks Pope's family, friends and business associates of Alfred Pope, local and international friends of Theodate Pope Riddle and scenes of her 1910-1915 travels to Europe and England. Images of architecture viewed during Theodate's travels as well as of Hill-Stead 1902-1930 are well-represented. A number of photographs, primarily stereographs, were taken by Theodate Pope Riddle. The collection also includes photographs by Gertrude Käsebier and Karl Klauser.