Written by Beth Bayley, former Byzantine Archives Assistant (2012-2014) The Van Nices returned to Istanbul in June of 1946, a year after the European theater of World War II had ended. Robert Van Nice had spent the war years both in Cambridge, Massachusetts, working on drawings, and then in London, England, and Bern, Switzerland, working … Continue reading
Written by Beth Bayley, Byzantine Archives Assistant All the talk about the Monuments Men and the role that Dumbarton Oaks played in World War II (as illustrated in our blog post about Harvard’s American Defense Group) got ICFA staff thinking about what else might be in our archives from that era. The following is another … Continue reading
Written by Beth Bayley, Archivist Assistant We have previously mentioned William Emerson, the man who sponsored Robert Van Nice’s survey of Hagia Sophia, but who was he, really? Primarily, Emerson was an architect and the dean of the School of Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from 1919 to 1939. He was also Van … Continue reading
Robert Van Nice’s years of experience in Istanbul brought him to the attention of the O.S.S. (Office of Strategic Services) during the Second World War, and he served as an agent for the U.S. from 1944-1945. He was eager to help out in any way that he could, and was proud to be useful to … Continue reading
The first few boxes of the “General Correspondence Group” have been a bit of a mixed bag. There has been an array of material types: newspaper clippings, research notes, correspondence, and published works, but the third box in this set has started to even out a little bit in terms of organization. The folders are … Continue reading
Today started with Box 42, which appeared to be from the files of William Emerson, the professor who sponsored Van Nice’s project in Istanbul before it was supported by Dumbarton Oaks. Some clues were that the folders were labeled differently, all of the carbon copies of letters were from Emerson, and almost all of the … Continue reading
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