CORRESPONDENCE

Summary: When Edna Netter decided in 1926 to set out on her own as an antiques dealer, she began an alphabetically arranged filing system for her correspondence. Netter continued to use this simple system into the 1950s. Netter’s correspondence files retain her original arrangement, and no attempt has been made to correct or improve on her filing. However, all loose unfiled business correspondence found in the collection, mostly dating from the 1950s and later, has been integrated into Netter’s alphabetic arrangement. Folder inclusive dates have been adjusted accordingly.

The correspondence folders contain incoming and outgoing correspondence, as well as invoices, notes, and other related documents. All letters of the alphabet are represented in the correspondence files. However, not all letters are complete. For example, the C files begin only in 1936. The earlier folder does not appear to have survived.

Most letters of the alphabet are contained in multiple folders, and there is much overlap in inclusive dates among these folders. Users should check all related folders when searching for a particular person, even when a separate folder for an individual was also created.

In some instances, Netter created folders for specific individuals when their correspondence became extensive. Examples include Mrs. J. Amory Haskell, Miss Julia Barricklo Fouché, and Mrs. Alice R. O. Paul. In addition, Netter created folders on special items or projects with which she was involved. These include historic houses such as Bow Hill near Trenton, the Boudinot Mansion (Boxwood Hall) in Elizabeth, and the Dey Mansion in Wayne. She also created a separate folder for an important self portrait of Charles Willson Peale which she sold to the New-York Historical Society.

There are no letters in the collection for the surname Conover or Covenhoven although Netter was known to have conducted business with members of this large extended family in Monmouth County and elsewhere. She may have grouped letters for the Conovers in a separate folder that does not survive in the collection.

Although the original folders have been replaced with acid-free archival folders, many of Netter’s titles and annotations have been retained and can be found tucked inside the new folders. Her original titles were then applied to the archival folders. A number of Netter’s original folder fragments contain annotations for items that she removed from them. Only a handful of such removed items turned up in the batches of loose unfiled correspondence received as part of the collection.

The carbon copies of Netter’s outgoing letters were made on a very poor grade of pulp paper which has darkened considerably, and which has become quite fragile. Some of these letters are not easily readable, especially when the carbon paper was not changed more frequently. Readable images of the nearly illegible letters can be made by imaging the documents and manipulating them in Photoshop or other similar software.

The names of correspondents included in the folder list are only a selection of the people, businesses, or institutions with whom Netter exchanged letters. Those so highlighted represent important contacts in the antiques, rare books, and manuscripts trade. There are literally hundreds upon hundreds of other correspondents represented in the collection who are not mentioned by name in this finding aid.