Untitled (card to Irene’s friend Harriet)

Dear Harriet, this little book

     May help a bit, mayhap;

May you become an artist great,

     But not an artist Jap!

                                                    Joe Cone  

Aug. 17, 1914

       written to Harriet Allen, on her

     birthday, and inscribed in a copy 

     of “Japanese Art”.

Saybrook, Aug. 7, 1914

May each birthday be one more step

     On your artistic climb;

May you win fortune with pigments bright,

     I’ll try the same with rhyme.

           

Harriet Allen 1920          

NOTE – I’ve left what are often inappropriate or even racial terms and or descriptions as written. They are rare, and probably weren’t seen as objectionable within even New England society at the time. More importantly, they exist, and editing them out would be dishonest. Things were what they were. Still, including them, as I have done, remains awkward for obvious reasons, including personal taste and the harmfulness of their use. Hopefully, doing so will at least present an accurate picture of how ingrained some prejudices, or at least callousness to them, still were at the time, even among some of the more progressive people of the era.