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Woodrow Wilson’s Sterling Shoe Horn

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:1,000.00 - 1,200.00 USD
Woodrow Wilson’s Sterling Shoe Horn

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Auction Date:2014 Sep 17 @ 11:00 (UTC-5 : EST/CDT)
Location:236 Commercial St., Suite 100, Boston, Massachusetts, 02109, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
President Wilson’s personally-owned and -used elegant sterling silver shoe horn, measuring 6? long, with a gently sloped design featuring an ornately patterned rolled lip around the top edge, expertly` engraved in an elaborate font with his initials, "T. W. W., 1913." The reverse is stamped with a Galt & Bro. sterling silver maker’s mark with the numbers "3" and "27" below. The date on this beautiful presentation piece corresponds with the first year of his presidency, and is unusually engraved with the full initials for his given name, Thomas Woodrow Wilson.

Includes a detailed letter of provenance on White House letterhead from best selling author Lillian Rogers Parks, who was a housekeeper and seamstress at the White House for over 30 years, from Hoover through Eisenhower. In part: “I would like to write this letter by hand. But, after working at the White House with my ‘Mama,’ Maggie Rogers, from the time of President Taft until President Eisenhower, the arthritis in my hand hurts a lot. The striking sterling silver shoe horn was given to President Wilson by either First Lady Edith Axson Wilson, who died of Brights Disease…or First Lady Edith Galt…My Mother, who was the First Maid of the White House…could not recall which Mrs. Wilson gave the president his 'Galt Co.' sterling silver shoe horn…This lovely sterling silver shoe horn was owned and used by President Wilson in the White House, and given to my 'Mama,' Maggie Rogers." It seems safe to assume that this was given to Wilson to celebrate the first year of his presidency, which would mean that it was given to him by his first wife, Ellen Axson Wilson. What is most interesting about this piece is its serendipitous association with President Wilson's future. Ellen passed away in August 1914, and in February of the following year he would meet his eventual wife, the widowed Edith Bolling, whose first husband was Norman Galt—the owner of Galt & Bro., from whom she had inherited the company after he passed in 1908. As such, this is not only a personal gift from a first lady to a president, but a wonderful association piece between first ladies from the same administration and an eerie prediction of what was to come. Condition is near pristine. An exemplary relic of the highest form befitting the most advanced collector or institution.