Elaine Clark travel papers

This collection consists of the personal letters of Elaine Clark, written home to her family at 269 Alexander Street in Rochester, New York, while she was away on various trips.

Most of the letters here were written in 1928 while she was travelling to and staying in the Philippine Islands, and afterwards as she continued on a trip around the world. There are 44 letters concerning this trip, from March 7 to August 30. There is also one letter, dated November 6, from her friend Charlotte Massey, a missionary, nurse and school teacher in the Philippines. Miss Massey, a lifelong friend of Miss Clark's, was a Deaconess in the Episcopal Church. She had returned to the Philippines, and Miss Clark had accompanied her.

Miss Clark traveled aboard the steamer SS President Lincoln from San Francisco. The trip took her to cities in Japan and China, then Hong Kong, and finally Manila, where she disembarked. Letters indicate her fascination with the Oriental cities, how clean they seemed to be, how many people there were, and how friendly they all were. Leaving Manila on March 26, she, Charlotte, and several others (mostly native men as guides) traveled by train, car, truck, and horseback through the towns and jungles. They arrived in Balbalasang, Kalinga, on April 1, where she stayed for about 7 1/2 weeks. Her letters home tell of her experiences with the native people and customs, as well as her contact with the few Americans there. She writes in her letter of May 11 that an American Army officer has informed her that she was the first person ever to use a movie camera in the Philippine mountains, an honor she unknowingly took away from him.

She left Balbalasang on May 24, and by June 2 she had returned to Manila and boarded the SS President Cleveland for the next part of her trip. She stopped for a while to visit friends in Paris and London before sailing for New York in mid-August. Again she wrote home with descriptions of her adventures, fascinated by the sights and people.

There are also some 17 later letters, from 1932 to 1947, primarily concerning her work with the Girl Scouts. Included are 3 letters sent while travelling with 4 girls to Switzerland for a camp-out/get-together with Scouts from several other countries. Also included is a photocopy of a 1942 letter from Douglas MacArthur to Charlotte Massey's brother, J. Albert Massey, whose sister had been taken prisoner during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines.

One folder contains 1 or 2 typed copies of several of her 1928 letters. There are 3 collections of typed excerpts from some of those letters also. The last folder contains a few souvenirs of her trip. Included are photocopies of three newspaper clippings about a hurricane her ship had encountered, and a Western Union telegraph code book for travelers. Also, several picture-post cards may be found in her letters of March 19 and August 12, 1928.