woodruff

Mary Condon & Mrs. T. Woodruff (LOC)

from The Library of Congress

• Wystan said:

  The photo was taken at a reception for New York Bull Moose candidate for Governor Oscar Straus and Mrs. Straus, at the Port Washington, Long Island, home of Bourke Cockran (a Bull Moose candidate for Congress) on September 28, 1912 --- kicking off the Bull Moose (Progressive Party) campaign in Nassau County. Straus had served as Secretary of Commerce and Labor in the cabinet of President Theodore Roosevelt, who in 1912 was running for another term under the Progressive Party's banner. Story in The New York Times, September 29, 1912: query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9F04EFD9113AE6... Other Bain/LOC photos of the Lawn Fete for Oscar Straus:

• Thomas Francell said:

  Thank You very much, Wystan, for finding this info, I'm a Straus family cousin and have been wondering about where these pictures were taken for months, so you finding this NYT article is a great help. I'll pass this info on to my relatives at the Straus Historical Society.

• Wystan said:

  @tfrancell -- the Straus Historical Society probably has seen Naomi W. Cohen's 1969 biography, "A Dual Heritage; The Public Career of Oscar S. Straus." On page 212 she writes, "The Progressive candidate for governor of New York began his public stumping on September 28 at a garden party in Long Island tendered by Bourke Cochran, a Progressive candidate for Congress." (If anyone needs a copy, with dust jacket, I have one available.) [As we know, Straus lost the New York governorship to the Tammany (Democratic) candidate, William Sulzer, in a three-way race with the GOP -- but Sulzer's incumbency was a brief one: he was promptly impeached by his enemies in the New York State Capitol.]