Peggy Bacon papers, 1893-1973, bulk 1900-1936

Correspondence includes letters written by Peggy Bacon, her husband, Alexander Brook, her parents, and various other family members, friends, and associates. Peggy Bacon's letters from 1913 and earlier are mostly correspondence with schoolmates, parents, and other family. Beginning around 1914, Bacon wrote regular, detailed letters to her mother about her life as an art student and artist at Port Jefferson, Long Island (1914), at the Art Student's League in New York City (1915-1920), summers in Provincetown, Massachusetts (1915-1917), and the Woodstock artists' colony (1919-1927). Letters also describe her time living in England and France (1920-1921), and her early years in New York City (1920s-1930s). Letters received by Bacon include letters from the artist Lucia Fairbanks Fuller (1903-1909) her teacher Jonas Lie (circa 1915), and her friends and fellow artists Catherine Wiley, Dorothy Varian, Katherine Schmidt, Anne Rector, and others (circa 1914-1919). Letters are occasionally illustrated.

Alexander Brook's letters to his mother-in-law, Elizabeth Bacon, span the early years of his relationship with Peggy Bacon, recounting family and career matters during their Woodstock years, their travel abroad, and their early years in New York City.

Letters written to Bacon's father, Charles Roswell Bacon, include letters from the artists Jules Adler, Rudolph Bunner, Ira Remsen, and Charles Downing Lay. The rest of the correspondence series consists mainly of family correspondence and Elizabeth Bacon's personal and business correspondence.

This series is arranged by correspondent and/or recipient. Undated correspondence is filed either by approximate date derived from the content of the letters, or at the end of the folder series. Under folder headings with multiple correspondents, undated letters are alphabetized by their authors.

Additional correspondence can be found with Personal Business Records.