[Guestbook and Photograph Album]: 1940s Los Angeles Boarding House Owned and Operated by Women.

Los Angeles: 1941-1948.

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Hardcover. Leatherbound album with leather-covered wooden boards. Quarto. Measuring approximately 9” x 10”. Clean and sound with minor wear, very good or better. Album cover titled: “GUESTS. 623 No. Sycamore.” Over 60 heavy brown paper pages filled with greetings, thank-you notes, well-wishes, dedications, drawings, and other sentiments as well as 12 glued-in gelatin silver photographs and two mounted cards (one business and one religious) contained in the header of the title page reads: “Birth of Sycamore Inn” illustrated with a color drawing of a moving truck with furniture being unloaded, and a photograph of a woman being lifted by three men captioned “Thelma Blank, the Boss. May 24-31, 1941.” A number of other pages have fully illustrated color headers as well.

From the various inscriptions, it appears that this boarding house near the corner of Melrose and North La Brea in Hollywood was owned and operated by the women of the Blank, Heath, and Hamblin families and that Sarah Heath was the primary hostess. Clearly the boarders enjoyed their stays, especially the meals, and many seem to have returned years later for reunions. Most of the signers seem to have been temporary guests, often soldiers and travelers. Some of the more interesting entries include a series of get-well wishes for a lodger who had broken her leg and a poem by a visiting British aviator with a later note that reveals he had been killed while piloting a Lancaster bomber over Mannheim, Germany.

And interesting and intimate view of a 1940s-era Los Angeles boarding house.


Item #413633

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Item #413633 [Guestbook and Photograph Album]: 1940s Los Angeles Boarding House Owned and Operated by Women.
[Guestbook and Photograph Album]: 1940s Los Angeles Boarding House Owned and Operated by Women.
[Guestbook and Photograph Album]: 1940s Los Angeles Boarding House Owned and Operated by Women.
[Guestbook and Photograph Album]: 1940s Los Angeles Boarding House Owned and Operated by Women.
[Guestbook and Photograph Album]: 1940s Los Angeles Boarding House Owned and Operated by Women.
[Guestbook and Photograph Album]: 1940s Los Angeles Boarding House Owned and Operated by Women.
[Guestbook and Photograph Album]: 1940s Los Angeles Boarding House Owned and Operated by Women.
[Guestbook and Photograph Album]: 1940s Los Angeles Boarding House Owned and Operated by Women.
[Guestbook and Photograph Album]: 1940s Los Angeles Boarding House Owned and Operated by Women.
[Guestbook and Photograph Album]: 1940s Los Angeles Boarding House Owned and Operated by Women.
[Guestbook and Photograph Album]: 1940s Los Angeles Boarding House Owned and Operated by Women.
[Guestbook and Photograph Album]: 1940s Los Angeles Boarding House Owned and Operated by Women.
[Guestbook and Photograph Album]: 1940s Los Angeles Boarding House Owned and Operated by Women.
[Guestbook and Photograph Album]: 1940s Los Angeles Boarding House Owned and Operated by Women.