Financial History Issue 120 (Winter 2017) | Page 11

CONNECTING TO COLLECTIONS

THE TICKER

By Sarah Poole, Collections Manager

In December, Morton and Connie Mazer donated to the Museum their collection of more than 200 stock and bond certificates, checks and other financial documents. While the size of the collection is impressive in its own right, even more significant is that each document is signed by an important historical figure. The signatories include US Presidents, entertainers, inventors, entrepreneurs and activists who have shaped American and world history. Highlighted here are two of my favorite documents from this collection:

The Proprietors of the Woman’ s Journal Stock Certificate Issued to Alice Stone Blackwell and Signed by Julia Ward Howe, 1891

Julia Ward Howe was a poet and author who is best known for writing the lyrics to“ The Battle Hymn of the Republic” in 1861, in support of the Union cause during the Civil War. Howe took advantage of the song’ s popularity and used her notoriety for social activism, particularly focusing on pacifism and women’ s suffrage. She was one of the editors of the Woman’ s Journal, founded in 1870 by Lucy Stone Blackwell and her husband Henry Browne Blackwell.

Howe was serving as the magazine’ s president when she signed this certificate. The Blackwells’ daughter, Alice Stone Blackwell, to whom the certificate is issued, began working for the Woman’ s Journal in 1883 and took over as editor after her mother’ s death in 1893. Alice Stone Blackwell became a prominent reformer in the American women’ s suffrage movement, working alongside Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Her signature is also included on the reverse of the certificate.

Houdini Picture Corporation Stock Certificate Signed by Harry Houdini, 1921

Erik Weisz, born in Budapest in 1874, immigrated to the United States with his family as a child. In America, the family changed their names to German spellings, and young Erik became Ehrich Weiss. At the age of nine, he began performing as the trapeze artist“ Ehrich, Prince of the Air.” Weiss became a professional magician in 1894, calling himself“ Harry Houdini,” inspired by the French magician Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin. Houdini became famous as an escape artist, and his performances featured stunts involving the magician freeing himself from handcuffs and sealed containers.

From 1909 – 1920, he starred in films for Pathé, B. A. Rolfe Productions and Famous Players-Lasky Corporation / Paramount Pictures. He then started his own production company called Houdini Picture Corporation, which produced only two films: Man From Beyond( 1921) and Haldane of the Secret Service( 1923). He left the movie business in 1923, declaring“ the profits are too meager.” Nevertheless, Houdini posthumously received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1975.

Additional certificates from the Mazer collection are currently on display in the“ Out of the Vault” exhibit. These documents feature signatures by US Presidents Andrew Jackson, William McKinley, Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge.

www. MoAF. org | Winter 2017 | FINANCIAL HISTORY 9