Shaw-Wells family papers (11 linear feet) consists of correspondence, diaries, articles, poems, short stories, plays, clippings, mementos, estate documents, and other family papers of Chicago author Frances Wells Shaw and her husband, architect Howard Van Doren Shaw, and of their parents, daughters, other relatives, and ancestors. Correspondents include Shaw’s daughter, sculptor Sylvia Shaw Judson [Haskins].
Wells-Shaw family photograph collection (5 albums of photographs, 96 photographs of various sizes, and other graphic material) consists of cartes de visite albums including portraits of Chicago area residents, members of the Wells, Shaw, and Searls families; photoprint albums showing a house party for Martha Wells at Lake Geneva (Wis). The collection also includes snapshots of Howard Van Doren Shaw family, presumably taken in the Chicago area. Loose photoprints are primarily portraits of members of the Wells and Shaw families plus friends, Ragdale estate in Lake Forest, and Howard Shaw's living quarters as a student at Yale (circa 1890). A large rolled photograph shows a panoramic view from the veranda of the Mountain Meadows Inn in Asheville (N.C.). Nitrate negatives depict a Canadian camping trip. One photonegative has a portrait of Frances Wells Shaw. The ink drawing is a page decoration for a book.