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Rose Cumming, Russell L. Cecil, and affiliated families photographs and papers

Call Number

PR 393

Date

1870s-2012, inclusive

Creator

Cecil, Russell L. (Russell La Fayette), 1881-1965
Cumming, Rose, 1887-1968

Extent

16 Linear feet in 13 boxes (7 record cartons and 6 flat boxes).

Language of Materials

English .

Abstract

Family photographs, letters, newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, and ephemera documenting the lives and careers of Australian-American sisters Rose Stuart Cumming (1887–1968), a groundbreaking interior decorator; Dorothy Cumming (1894–1983), a silent film actress best known for playing the Virgin Mary in Cecil B. DeMille's "King of Kings" (1927); and Eileen Cumming Cecil (1892–1982), a writer, advertising executive, and designer, who married noted rheumatologist and medical textbook author Dr. Russell LaFayette Cecil (1881–1965). Of note are the photographs of interiors decorated by Rose Cumming, a scrapbook of Florsheim Shoes advertisements by Eileen Cumming Associates, and a booklet of production stills from "King of Kings." The collection includes a small group of textile samples made by Rose Cumming Chintzes that reproduces some of Rose's original floral designs.

Biographical / Historical

This collection centers on the lives and intertwined careers of three talented Australian-American sisters, Rose, Eileen, and Dorothy Cumming, daughters of sheep rancher Victor Cumming and his wife, Sarah (Fennell) (Hughes) Cumming, who arrived in the United States during the second decade of the twentieth century.

The eldest, and perhaps best known, Rose Stuart Cumming (1887–1968), became an interior decorator on the advice of Vanity Fair editor Frank Crowninshield. After an apprenticeship Rose opened her own shop in 1921, and was based for a long time at 515 Madison Avenue in Manhattan before moving to 499 Park Avenue six years before her death. At a time in the 1920s, '30s, and beyond, when tastes ran towards Louis XV and English Georgian antique furniture, her unorthodox use of chinoiserie, smoked mirrors, lacquered surfaces, and self-designed chintz fabrics drew such celebrity clients as the actresses Marlene Dietrich, Mary Pickford, and Norma Shearer. Rose displayed her best merchandise in her shop windows, which she left illuminated at night, a trick of salesmanship she is credited with pioneering.

The second sister, Eileen Cumming Cecil (1892–1982), was also attracted by interior decorating, and wrote on the subject for Vogue and House Beautiful, among other publications, where she often profiled—and advertised—her sister Rose's work. Adam Gimbel, of the Gimbel Brothers department store chain, tapped Eileen to design an elegant image for his company's Saks Fifth Avenue venture. She headed her own advertising firm, Eileen Cumming Associates, and for three years, beginning in 1933, managed advertising for Bonwit Teller. After her sister, Rose, died in 1968, Eileen assumed the presidency of Rose Cumming, Inc., and continued the fabric and antiques business with her granddaughter, Sarah Cumming Cecil. In 1923 Eileen married Dr. Russell LaFayette Cecil (1881–1965), a founder and president of the American Rheumatism Association (now American College of Rheumatology) and author of the widely-used Textbook of Medicine, first released in 1927 and now past its 25th edition. Eileen and Russell Cecil had one child, the architect Russell Cumming Cecil (1926–2009).

Dorothy (Cumming) (Elliott) McNab (1894–1983), the youngest of the Cumming sisters, was an actress and playwright best known for her portrayal of Mary, the mother of Jesus, in Cecil B. DeMille's 1927 epic "The King of Kings." Her play, "The Woman Brown," ran for eleven performances in December 1939 at New York's Biltmore Theatre. She was married and divorced twice, first to Frank Elliott Dakin (a.k.a. Frank Elliott), a stage director by whom she had two sons (who used their mother's maiden name): Greville C. E. Cumming (1922–1944) and Anthony F. Cumming (1924– ). Her second husband was Duncan Allan McNab (a.k.a. Allan McNab), a British artist and designer. Dorothy shared her sisters' penchant for finery, and established a business, Dorothy McNab Ltd.—"Fabulous Fabrics, Feminine Fashions"—at her home in Montego Bay, Jamaica.

_______________

Information on the Cumming sisters and Dr. Cecil is drawn from material in the collection and from their obituaries in the New York Times: "Dr. Russell Cecil, Arthritis Expert" (June 2, 1965); "Rose Cumming, 81, Decorator of 'Ancestral' Interiors, Dead" (March 23, 1968); "Eileen Cecil, Interior Decorator" (September 9, 1982); "Dorothy C. M'Nab" (December 31, 1983). For more on the family, their work and activities, see the copy of Jeffrey Simpson's 2012 book Rose Cumming: Design Inspiration, which has been annotated and corrected by Eileen's granddaughter, Sarah Cumming Cecil, in box 1, folder 13.

Arrangement

The collection is organized in two series, each divided in four sub-series. Material within each sub-series is sorted alphabetically by document type or topic.

Series I. Cumming family photographs and papers, 1870s-2012
Sub-series I.A. Rose Stuart Cumming, 1890s-2012
Sub-series I.B. Dorothy (Cumming) (Elliott) McNab and husbands, 1915-1978
Sub-series I.C. Greville and Anthony Cumming (sons of Dorothy Cumming), 1920s-1970s
Sub-series I.D. Other Cumming and related families, 1870s-1943

Series II. Cecil family photographs and papers, 1872-2003
Sub-series II.A. Russell LaFayette Cecil, 1880s-1975
Sub-series II.B. Eileen Cumming Cecil, 1890s-1982
Sub-series II.C. Russell Cumming Cecil, 1920s-2003
Sub-series II.D. Other Cecil and related families, 1872-1986

Scope and Contents

The photographs, letters, newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, and ephemera in the present collection originated with four key, related individuals—the Cumming sisters Rose, Dorothy, and Eileen, and Eileen's husband, Dr. Russell L. Cecil. Eileen appears to have been the clan's unofficial record keeper, preserving material from her own and her husband's family. Although the collection spans the late nineteenth through the early twenty-first centuries, its coverage is woefully spotty. Diaries are fragmentary. Letters, especially those from Dorothy Cumming, are usually incomplete, lacking either their initial pages or subsequent sheets. Many photographs are unidentified and undated. The material overlaps from person to person in the way common to records of a close-knit family.

Of chief interest are the photographs of interiors decorated by Rose Stuart Cumming, a 1920s or '30s booklet advertising her specialties, and a guided tour/inventory of the contents of her residence at 36 West 53rd Street, which, like all of her homes, functioned as a showroom. Some youthful scrapbooks include doodles and more accomplished drawings, perhaps the beginnings of her artistic aspirations. Also present is a small group of textile samples, some with tags indicating they were produced by "Rose Cumming Chintzes," the company that succeeded Rose's business and reproduced her patterns. (See Sub-series I.A)

A booklet of publicity stills, and a number of photographs, show actress Dorothy Cumming costumed for her best-known role as the Virgin Mary in Cecil B. DeMille's 1927 silent epic "King of Kings." (See Sub-series I.B)

Letters and photographs from Dorothy's sons, Anthony "Tony" Cumming and Greville Cobbett Elliott Cumming document their time in the armed services during World War II, Tony in the U.S. Marines, and Greville in the King's Royal Rifle Corps of the British Army. Greville died, tragically, during the Battle of Anzio on February 28, 1944, when he was just twenty-one. A memorial booklet in the collection includes a biography of Greville by Vanity Fair editor Frank Crowninsheild. (See Sub-series I.C.)

The Cumming sisters' parents, Victor and Sarah (Fennell) (Hughes) Cumming, are represented by scattered letters, newspaper clippings, and photographs, as are Sarah's children by her first marriage, Marjorie (Hughes) Loney and Jack Hughes. (See Sub-series I.D.)

Beyond a few journal articles, and three folders of autobiographical material, the collection contains virtually none of Dr. Russell L. Cecil's professional writing. Most of his included letters and photographs are of a familial nature. Of interest to golf enthusiasts is a diary of Dr. Cecil's scores and performances kept between 1950 and 1963. (See Sub-series II.A.)

Similarly, the professional life of Dr. Cecil's wife, Eileen Cumming Cecil, is documented by a handful of items: tear sheets of interior decorating articles she wrote in the 1920s for House Beautiful and Vogue, and a miniature 1927 pamphlet entitled "The Place of the Fashion Magazine," which reprints the text of a lecture that she delivered for the Department of Fine Arts of New York University. A scrapbook gathers Florsheim Shoes advertisements publicized by her firm, Eileen Cumming Associates, probably in the 1930s. (See Sub-series II.B.)

Russell Cumming Cecil, son and only child of Dr. Russell L. and Eileen Cumming Cecil, was an architect, but the only item of professional interest among his scattered letters, photographs, and youthful school essays in the collection is a December 1972 House & Garden profile of a house he designed for Wilfred Cohen on Long Island Sound. Russell C. Cecil's son, Dr. Russell N. A. Cecil, corresponded in 1999 with Dr. James A. Pitman of the University of Alabama who was writing a paper on textbooks of internal medicine and sought to include information on Dr. Russell L. Cecil's 1927 Textbook of Medicine. (See Sub-series II.C.)

The extended Cecil family—Russell L. Cecil's parents, the Presbyterian minister Rev. Russell Cecil and his wife, Alma (Miller) Cecil; his siblings, John Howe Cecil Sr., James McCosh Cecil, Alma (Cecil) Cary, and Elizabeth (Cecil) Scott; and assorted nieces and nephews—are documented by scattered letters, photographs, and newspaper clippings. (See Sub-series II.D.)

Conditions Governing Access

Open to qualified researchers by appointment only. The collection includes one motion picture film (Box 4, Folder 22) and two reels of audiotape (Box 5, Folders 14-15). These are restricted until they have been preservation reformatted. In any case, N-YHS lacks the equipment required to play them.

Conditions Governing Use

Permission to reproduce any Department of Prints, Photographs and Architectural Collections holdings through publication must be obtained from:

Rights and Reproductions
The New-York Historical Society
170 Central Park West
New York, NY 10024

Phone: (212) 873-3400 ext. 270
Email: rightsandrepro@nyhistory.org

Preferred Citation

This collection should be cited as the "Rose Cumming, Russell L. Cecil, and Affiliated Families Photographs and Papers, PR-393, Department of Prints, Photographs, and Architectural Collections, The New-York Historical Society."

Credit line for exhibitions: "Sarah C. Cecil in memory of her father, Russell Cumming Cecil."

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Gift of Sarah C. Cecil, 2019 (accession no. PPAC.2019.029).

Related Materials

The Mattie E. Hewitt & Richard A. Smith Photograph Collection, PR-26, includes images of interiors decorated by Rose Cumming (see Box 5, Folders 92-95).

Collection processed by

Joseph Ditta

About this Guide

This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2023-08-21 15:48:09 -0400.
Using Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language: Finding aid written in English

Processing Information

Archivst Joseph Ditta arranged and described this collection in October-December 2019.

Repository

New-York Historical Society
New-York Historical Society
170 Central Park West
New York, NY 10024