Not about the election

I ran across this article while idly looking for information about Mary Frances Isom, esteemed former director of our Central Library. There’s not a lot about her, except that she was apparently “very anxious to discuss socialism with the boys,” but the article is a neat snapshot of the art scene in Portland in the early 20th century, through the lens of Helen Lawrence Walters’ diaries. My favorite bit is where Walters, describing a commissioned piece that she was working on and loathing, says she was “working all afternoon on Mrs. Adam’s masterpiece. It is certainly awful enough to suit her now.” I also learned that Emma Goldman spoke at Central Library on July 21, 1914, on “Intellectual Proletarians.” Who knew?