Jessie Trefethen Papers

The papers of Jessie Trefethen document her twenty-one years of teaching practical art at Oberlin College, her career as a water artist, her views on the teaching of art at Oberlin College, and her personal history in the last few years before her death in 1978. Except from one letter from Trefethen to her mother, there is essentially no information about her family, or her life before coming to Oberlin.

The collection is organized into four record series: I. Biographical Files; II. Correspondence; III. Files Relating to the Oberlin College Fine Arts Department; and, IV. Printed Matter. Within each series, files are mostly arranged chronologically, though in the case of the correspondence file, the files are arranged alphabetically by the recipient of the letters, and chronologically within each folder.

The biographical papers are not extensive, containing only a document written by Charles James Wright about Trefethen's career in art (1970), an obituary (1978), five articles (1926, 1946-47, 1949) and a copy of a will of a distant relative, Henry Trefethen (undated). Correspondence with Herbert E. Ward documents Trefethen's artistic and medical history from 1968 to 1975, including her lengthy hospitalization in 1972 and 1973 due to heart problems. Also documented, in the only letter to her mother, Elizabeth Mank, is Trefethen's pleasure trip to France in the summer of 1925.

Trefethen's interest in the teaching of art is illustrated in her writing about the history of the Oberlin College Art Department (1836-1947), which includes many key names of the practical art department such as Antoinette Brown Blackwell (private drawing teacher, 1850) and Georgiana Wyett (1855-87). Trefethen wrote at length in this manuscript, contained in Series III, about the department from its inception in 1836 until the time at which she taught. Also noteworthy are the reports which Trefethen wrote to the President of the college, Ernest H. Wilkins (1880-1966), in which she described the condition of the fine arts program year by year (1927-1933), as well as the supplies needed to pursue her methods of teaching.

Finally, the collection includes printed matter (Series IV) consisting of many brochures detailing the exhibits at which her paintings were shown. Many of the brochures include small prints of the paintings, most of which concern landscapes along the rocky coast of Maine. Also included are invitations to gallery openings.