Letter to Camp Shriver counselor Ann Hammerbacher from Eunice Kennedy Shriver is typewritten on The Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation letterhead. The letter is dated May 8, 1964 and is addressed to Ann thanking her for volunteering for Camp Shriver and is signed by Eunice Kennedy Shriver. The original envelope is included.
Camp Shriver began in Eunice Shriver’s backyard at her Timberlawn estate in 1962. Shriver, the sister of President John F. Kennedy and Rose, an intellectually disabled sister, decided to hold a day camp for intellectually disabled kids from DC and Maryland. The high school age counselors were taught how to teach the campers different skills through play and introduced them to horseback riding, swimming, canoeing and group games, many of the campers experiencing these activities for the first time. Camp Shriver continued each summer until 1968 when the first Special Olympics Games were held in Chicago which has grown into the largest organization for intellectually disabled athletes in the world. Ann Hammerbacher (Buell) applied to be a volunteer at the camp through her parochial high school and worked there from 1962-1967.
From its beginnings as Camp Shriver in Eunice Kennedy Shriver’s backyard, to the first international games in 1968, Special Olympics has been about giving people with intellectual disabilities the opportunity to participate in sport. This participation builds confidence, provides emotional support and offers social opportunities for the athletes and their families. With state chapters and a global presence through its World Games, “Special Olympics is the largest sports organization for people with intellectual disabilities with 5 million athletes in 170 countries worldwide.”
Essentials of Teaching Reading is a comprehensive manual on the theories, mechanics, and methods of teaching reading. It also contains selections from British and American literary giants, as well as speeches from Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. There are handwritten poems on the inside cover pages. It’s interesting to note that the Morse Code for each letter of the alphabet was written on the back inside cover.
Co-author Eugene Buren. Sherman (1872-1963) was a prominent educator. He became the Superintendent of Schools in Columbus, Nebraska in 1901 and later served on the Nebraska State Board of Examiners for Education. Sherman went on to become the Mayor of Boise, Idaho in 1921.
Co-author Albert A. Reed (1866-1947) was an innovative educator and teacher. He graduated from the University of Nebraska with a B.A. (1898) and an M.A. (1912). After teaching in the public schools, Reed served as Superintendent of Schools in Superior, Nebraska from 1903-1907. He also served as a professor of secondary education at the University of Nebraska from 1908-1943. Reed introduced three courses that were unique to a state university at the time: adult-elementary work, high school correspondence work, and a program for disabled children.
The University Publishing Co. was a prominent publishing house from the last quarter of the 19th Century through the first quarter of the 20th Century. It specialized in children’s textbooks on reading, arithmetic, geography, and Latin grammar. Ezra D. Barker (1824-1903) was the President and General Manager of the University Publishing Company for 30 years. It was based in New York City, with offices in Chicago and Baltimore.
Instructions for participating in the Water Program given to Mary Hammerbacher (Manner) as a counselor at Camp Shriver, 1962.
Camp Shriver began in Eunice Shriver’s backyard at her Timberlawn estate in 1962. Shriver, the sister of President John F. Kennedy and Rose, an intellectually disabled sister, decided to hold a day camp for intellectually disabled kids from DC and Maryland. The high school age counselors were taught how to teach the campers different skills through play and introduced them to horseback riding, swimming, canoeing and group games, many of the campers experiencing these activities for the first time. Camp Shriver continued each summer until 1968 when the first Special Olympics Games were held in Chicago which has grown into the largest organization for intellectually disabled athletes in the world. Mary Hammerbacher (Manner) applied to be a volunteer at the camp through her parochial high school and worked there from 1962-1967.
From its beginnings as Camp Shriver in Eunice Kennedy Shriver’s backyard, to the first international games in 1968, Special Olympics has been about giving people with intellectual disabilities the opportunity to participate in sport. This participation builds confidence, provides emotional support and offers social opportunities for the athletes and their families. With state chapters and a global presence through its World Games, “Special Olympics is the largest sports organization for people with intellectual disabilities with 5 million athletes in 170 countries worldwide.”
Instructions for the a promotional pedometer for the radio program Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy and General Mills Wheaties cereal. The pedometer would clip onto a belt and record distances walked.
Jack Armstrong was a 15-minute serial centered around the adventures of a globe-trotting student athlete and his friends and family. Created by General Mills VP of Advertising Samuel Chester Gale, the show was used to promote Wheaties cereal. The syndicated program, airing from 1933-1950, featured actor Jim Ameche and others in the title role.
Armstrong was the subject of a 1947 film serial as well as novels, comic strips and comic books.
This was used by the donor in Schenectady, New York. She used the box tops from Wheaties cereal to acquire this pedometer although she did not like the cereal and fed it to the dog.
This comprehensive textbook was part of the Gray’s Botanical series of 10 items. It is an introduction to the plants, shrubs, herbs, and trees of the United States. This revised edition was adapted for use as a handbook for field study. The 1887 Preface notes this is a revision of an earlier work (Civil War period) and was designed for “competent teachers” who are incorporating the topic into their lectures. Apparently, the book inspired its young owner because the inside front cover page contains two handwritten stanzas from an Alfred, Lord Tennyson poem extolling the beauty of trees and flowers.
The American Book Company was an educational book publisher formed in 1890 and based in New York City that specialized in elementary school, secondary school and collegiate-level textbooks. The company was absorbed into D. C. Heath in 1981. Any remaining K-12 assets of the American Book Company were acquired by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 1995.
Each page of Bird Children: The Little Playmates of the Flower Children contains a four-line rhyming stanza that introduces a specific bird species. The color illustrations depict each bird with a child’s face and arms. The colorful, lithographed cover contains drawings of “bird” children and “flower” children on both the front and back.
Elizabeth Gordon was an author of children’s literature and pioneering female journalist. She was educated in the Maine public school system and attended the University of Minnesota. Gordon contributed articles to a variety of newspapers and journals, and was editor of the Children’s Tribune, Minneapolis, from 1901-1904. She was a member of the Illinois’ Women’s Press Association and the Southern California Women’s Press Club. She authored numerous illustrated children’s books, including the popular Bird Children and Flower Children series.
M.T. Ross was a successful American illustrator and cartoonist. He worked as a cartoonist for the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun during the post-World War I years. His notable children’s works include the Bird Children and Flower Children series which he illustrated. Ross moved to Southern California in 1926 to work for RKO and other studios as a set designer.
German-born Paul Frederick Volland founded the P.F. Volland Company in Chicago in 1908. Originally intending to publish greeting cards that would compete with the European dominated industry, by 1917 Volland had transformed the company into a nine-acre plant that issued calendars, and books for adults and children. Due to Volland's vision of publishing high quality, mass-produced books, his books for children were highly successful. The publisher is best known for its Raggedy Ann and Andy series begun in 1918 and still in print today. Volland was forced to abandon the book business in 1934 during the Great Depression. However, Volland’s children’s books remain highly collectible due to their high quality and rarity.
This vocabulary book for young readers presents lessons in the form of short stories. Characters are middle class white children and their families, as well as animals. The stories illustrate the daily life of privileged children in the late 19th Century. Some of the lessons also serve to shed light on common racial stereotypes. For example, Lesson 22 contains the character of Fred, an African-American boy of five who works informally as a servant. The text explains that Fred is the orphaned son of a “negro nurse” from the South, who took care of the children’s mother who is now the Southern-born lady of the house. The matriarch was fond of the nurse, the author explains, and so adopted her son Fred after his mother’s death and brought him up North.
Eben Harlow Davis (1840-1915) graduated from Harvard University and became a teacher and later Superintendent of Public Schools for Chelsea, Massachusetts. He authored and compiled a series of vocabulary books for young readers that presents lessons in the form of short stories. This Lippincott Series included The Beginner’s Reading Book through to The Fourth Reading Book.
Born in 1813 in New Jersey, Joshua Ballinger Lippincott became a bookseller shortly after he moved to Philadelphia at age 14. He purchased Grigg, Elliott & Co. in 1850, which was reputed to be “the largest book jobbing house in the country.” J. B. Lippincott & Co. continued to grow throughout the late 19th and early 20th Centuries and was known for having a comprehensive portfolio in a variety of genres, including religion, medicine, poetry, and Americana. By the 1940s the firm estimated it had sold 20 million books—not including millions of textbooks. Harper & Row acquired Lippincott in 1978.
