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Archives For November 30, 1999

35mm slides

By mchughck
Posted on 22 October 2014 | 8:56 am — 

The Gertrude Sanford Legendre collection boasts nearly 13,000 35mm color slides. Most of these slides are of Gertrude’s travels in North America, Africa, Europe, Asia, Oceania, and to islands in the Atlantic. Though many printed pictures of her expeditions are showcased in her scrapbooks and photo albums, there is much more to be found in the slides! Below are some images of the cataloging and rehousing process, equipment used to view slides, and well as photos of some of the images on the slides.

 

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Pana-Vue Automatic slide viewer

 

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Natives with downed elephant, French Equatorial Africa, 1952

Natives with downed elephant, French Equatorial Africa, 1952

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Robert F. Kennedy on the campaign trail, 1968

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Robert F. Kennedy on the campaign trail, 1968

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Barn kitten, undated

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Medway Plantation (SC), undated

The life of Gertrude Sanford Legendre is more like that of a fictional character in a Hollywood film than reality: socialite, heiress, world traveler, spy, game hunter, and philanthropist. In fact, it has been said that Mrs. Legendre inspired Katharine Hepburn’s character in the 1938 film Holiday. Certainly, she was not the average 20th century American woman…”

Read the full article in the fall 2012 issue of Discovery, the newsletter of the College of Charleston Friends of the Library.

 

Gertrude’s youngest daughter, Bokara, recounts her haunting experiences at Medway Plantation. Read the full article here.

“In 2000, Bokara Legendre, an artist and a stage performer, inherited her family’s plantation in the Lowcountry of South Carolina. She promptly set about making the place her own, redecorating the antebellum mansion with abstract paintings and a pastel color scheme. But this seemed to unsettle the house. The first night Legendre spent in her redone bedroom, there was a problem with the fireplace, and the chamber filled with thick black smoke. As a member of the plantation staff put out the fire, he glimpsed an apparition: the late mistress of the house, Legendre’s mother, Gertie. She was not pleased with the changes…”

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Image credit: Katherine Wolkoff for The New York Times

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