This collection contains information and materials relating to Milton Thomas Garvin, his department store and the Garvin Lecture Series. The scrapbooks were complied by him through the years of 1899-1936. Other items in this collection include letters to family and business partners, several pamphlets from the Garvin Lecture Series, M. T. Garvin & Co. store information, receipts, invoices, banquet programs, and a sampling of financial records from the store.
Admin/Biographical History
Milton Thomas Garvin was born in Fulton Township around 1860. In 1874, at the age of fourteen, Garvin quit school and moved to Lancaster City. He worked various odd jobs before he was hired to work as an errand boy for R. E. Fahnestock's dry goods store in December of 1874.
At the age of sixteen, Fahnestock promoted Garvin to a salesman for the store. He continued to work there through his adolescent years and was promoted to manager at the age of twenty-one, when Fahnestock was in failing health. Garvin assumed that responsibility for twelve years and then bought the store when Fahnestock was ready to retire. Garvin renamed the store M. T. Garvin & Co.
Over the next ten years, Garvin bought the rest of the building and several surrounding buildings to expand his store to a four story and three lot property. He prospered in business and was a philanthropist throughout Lancaster County.
Other than a prominent businessman, Garvin served as a board member, trustee, director or president of the following organizations: The Shippen School for Girls, Lancaster General Hospital, Lancaster Chamber of Commerce, Meadville Theological Seminary, A. Herr Smith and Mechanics' Libraries, Lancaster Charity Society, Joseph Priestly Conference, and People's Octoraro Meeting House.
Top left: Ida M. Weaver, "Taken Oct. 4th in Calumet School (1927)." Top center: "Miss Anna Hubert with whom i taught at Calumet terms 1926-1927 & 1927-1928". Top right: "Pearl Tinkey, pupil 1926-1972, Calumet #1". Bottom: "Girls of boarding house in State College July and Aug. 1928. Left to right, Margaret Price, Luella Martin, Ethel Young, Mrs. Duck, Laura Rossbach, "Jerry" Thomas, Agnes Bowie, Anna Williams.
This scrapbook consists of photographs, postcards, newspaper clippings and other ephemera glued to pages of a 6.5 x 8.25 inch composition notebook with lined pages. Not all pages are used. Cover is grey and is labeled "Roberts & Meck's Seaboard Composition Book, 36 Leaves Writing Paper, Roberts & Meck, Harrisburg, Pa."
Credit
Courtesy of LancasterHistory, Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Newspaper clipping about a retreat of ministers of the Allegheny district of the Methodist Episcopal Church, no date. Newsprint photo of Rev. L. E. Bair. Newsprint photo of Rev. S. H. Dietzel, Ph.D. Photograph of Ida Miran Weaver taken Dec. 5, 1934. Photograph at bottom right: "Mr. Charles Kline and I at his home, Manheim, Pa., June 1930".
This scrapbook consists of photographs, postcards, newspaper clippings and other ephemera glued to pages of a 6.5 x 8.25 inch composition notebook with lined pages. Not all pages are used. Cover is grey and is labeled "Roberts & Meck's Seaboard Composition Book, 36 Leaves Writing Paper, Roberts & Meck, Harrisburg, Pa."
Credit
Courtesy of LancasterHistory, Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Top: Newspaper ad with image of a baby. "Loos so much like Virginia Momeyer when this age." To the side: Photograph of a young woman with dark hair pasted over a cloth piece with boughs of holly. "Above is Ellen Welty Long". Bottom: "Catharine, Tillie, Rowena, Mrs. Merkle, Anna & !, taken at their home."
This scrapbook consists of photographs, postcards, newspaper clippings and other ephemera glued to pages of a 6.5 x 8.25 inch composition notebook with lined pages. Not all pages are used. Cover is grey and is labeled "Roberts & Meck's Seaboard Composition Book, 36 Leaves Writing Paper, Roberts & Meck, Harrisburg, Pa."
Credit
Courtesy of LancasterHistory, Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Four photographs. Top left: Man standing next to a convertible. Top right: Two women standing in front of a house and porch. Bottom left: Man and two women. Bottom right: Three women. Written below: "John Konn with his car and Ida Lee with Anna and me taken Sept. 1936 and rest taken Sept. 4, 1937. (Last two in Sept. 1936 Roger & Ida Lee's visit.)"
This scrapbook consists of photographs, postcards, newspaper clippings and other ephemera glued to pages of a 6.5 x 8.25 inch composition notebook with lined pages. Not all pages are used. Cover is grey and is labeled "Roberts & Meck's Seaboard Composition Book, 36 Leaves Writing Paper, Roberts & Meck, Harrisburg, Pa."
Credit
Courtesy of LancasterHistory, Lancaster, Pennsylvania
