FIRST LADY MAMIE DOUD EISENHOWER - BOOK SIGNED CO-SIGNED BY: PERLE MESTA, YOUSUF KARSH, GENERAL OMAR N. BRADLEY, MARJORIE MERRIWETHER POST - HFSID 266131

MAMIE DOUD EISENHOWER, PERLE MESTA, YOUSUF KARSH, OMAR N. BRADLEY, MARJORIE MERRIWETHER POST
This guestbook is a fascinating piece of American political history. It belonged to Washington, DC philanthropist Rebecca Pollard "Polly" Guggenheim Logan and contains 13 years of signatures - collected between 1962 and 1975 - of many important politicians, artists, military leaders and other Washington glitterati.
Guestbook signed "Mamie Doud Eisenhower", "Perle Mesta", "Marjorie Post" (also twice as "Marjorie Post-West"), "Estrellita and Yousuf Karsh" and "Omar N Bradley", along with many others. With pencil notations on many pages in unknown hand. 104 pages including title page, 10¾x8¼, bound with six gold-colored rings in 11½x9 red leather covers. Front cover is imprinted with "Polly and Jack Logan" in gilt. "Polly Logan" possibly refers to Rebecca Pollard Guggenheim Logan - also known as "Polly" - who died in 1994 at age 90. Logan was an important Washington, DC hostesses and philanthropist who entertained government officials, artists, military leaders, fellow philanthropists and Supreme Court justices from between the 1940s and 1970s at Firenze House, one of Washington's most lavish estates. The signatures in this book are dated between April, 24, 1962 and April 26, 1975 and cover 13 years of American political history. On July 1, 1916, 19-year old Mamie Geneva Doud (1896-1979, born in Boone, Iowa) married 25-year-old 2nd Lieutenant Dwight D. Eisenhower in Denver, Colorado. They had two sons: Dwight Doud Eisenhower (1917-1920) and John Sheldon Doud Eisenhower, born in 1923. As an Army wife for 37 years, Mamie grew accustomed to entertaining groups of influential people, a talent she drew on as the White House hostess. On July 1, 1966, the Eisenhowers became just the third presidential couple to have celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. John and Abigail Adams and John Quincy and Louisa Adams were the other two. On December 22, 1968, three months before the former President died at the age of 78, Dwight and Mamie's grandson, Dwight David Eisenhower II, married Julie Nixon, the daughter of Eisenhower's Vice President. Mamie, who survived "Ike" by ten years and 218 days, died in Washington, D.C. on November 1, 1979, at the age of 82. MESTA (1889-1975, born Perle Skirvin in Sturgis, Michigan) was known as Washington, DC's "hostess with the mostest" for her lavish parties that attracted the capitol's glitterati. The wife of steel manufacturer George Mesta, she inherited his fortune when he died in 1925 and moved to Washington, DC in 1940. Mesta was a part of the National Woman's Party and was an early supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment and Harry S. Truman. Her support of the latter earned her an ambassadorship to Luxembourg. Irving Berlin fans may recognize her as the inspriation for his musical Call Me Madam, which starred Ethel Merman. Portrait photographer KARSH (1908-2002, born Hovsep Karsh in Mardin, Armenia, now Turkey) grew up during the Turkish massacres in Armenia and eventually fled to Canada. For more than sixty years his remarkable photographs captured the essence of famous and powerful people, including Churchill, Einstein, Hemingway, Frank Lloyd Wright, Picasso, Eleanor Roosevelt and George Bernard Show. His works are coveted by the world's great art museums. Beginning with Faces of Destiny (1946), he published collections of his portrait photos. BRADLEY (1893-1981, born near Clark, Missouri) took command of the First Army in January 1944, which, constituting the Allied right wing, landed at Utah and Omaha beaches, Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944. In August 1944, he became the Commander of the 12th Army Group, the largest force ever commanded on the field. Bradley served as the first Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1949 to 1953, being promoted to Five-Star General of the Army in 1950. Lacking the arrogance and ostentation of some other generals, Bradley became known as "the soldier's general." POST (1887-1973, born in Springfield, Illinois) was an American socialite and once the richest woman in the United States, with a fortune of around a quarter of a billion dollars. She was the daughter of C. W. Post and inherited her father's Postum Cereal Company when she was 27. Postum branched out into other foods under her supervision, including frozen foods. Her company acquired patents for packaging frozen food from Clarence Birdseye in 1929 and founded the Birds Eye Frosted Foods Company, which later became General Foods Corporation. Post was also a philanthropist. Among her charitable works were donations to build field hospitals in France during World War I, which earned her France's Legion of Honor. Pages are lightly toned, stained, soiled, waterspotted and creased. Nicked edges. Covers are heavily damaged, scratched, scuffed and creased and with torn and chipped edges. Leather top has completely separated from cardstock backing. Spine and hinge are repaired with black electrician's tape. Otherwise in fine condition.