Between the Covers

Hardcover. Two volumes. Blue leather over stiff paper boards with gilt titles. Contains invitations, newspaper clippings, letters, and two photographs. Very good albums with worn edges and rubbing with about near fine contents with small tears and edgewear.

Two folio scrapbooks compiled by Madeleine Edison documenting her wedding to John Eyre Sloane in June of 1914. The albums include a plethora of ephemera from the event including letters, telegrams, newspaper clippings, magazine articles, invitations, and a few photographs. The scrapbook details the wedding from engagement through the ceremony including an invitation to Madeleine’s shower, notes for the reception, guest lists, and memos from a wedding planner. A handwritten schedule for the wedding weekend is included here listening a dance and dinner for the bridal party at Eagle Rock Casino, rehearsal, and the wedding itself which was held at the drawing room at Thomas Edison’s home, Glenmont. The album features announcements in various newspapers that Madeleine has affixed to the pages and captioned with the periodical name and date it ran. Most of the newspapers boast about the famous inventor’s daughter's upcoming nuptials with headlines reading, “Edison’s Daughter to be Afternoon Bride”; “Daughter of Wizard Edison in her Wedding Gown”; and “Inventor’s Daughter to Wed Aviator.” Many of the guests were famous people of the day and the well wishes and regrets seen throughout the album are from many of them. One of these is a regret note on White House stationary stating that “the President and Mrs. Wilson regret that they cannot have the pleasure of accepting the polite invitation of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas A. Edison to the marriage reception of their daughter and Mr. Sloane.” Another note is from the author Ida Tarbell regretting she cannot make the wedding. A later broadside is included here for a 20th anniversary of the couple where they held a film screening of their wedding at Glenmont in 1924.

Madeleine Edison was the first child from Thomas A. Edison’s second marriage to Mina Miller. Edison referred to her as his “pal” and according to biographers, “with her intelligence and sharp wit, she might well have been brought into the family business had she not been a female.” After attending Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania she married her childhood sweetheart John Eyre Sloane at the Edison family home of Glenmont. Sloane was involved in aviation and eventually opened one of the first airplane manufacturing plants in Long Island City, New York in 1912. Madeleine was the mother of Edison’s only grandchildren.

An extensive and interesting collection of ephemera documenting an important life event of a prominent American family.

Item #441610

Status: On Hold