PBA Galleries

Two autograph letters signed, two pages and one page, on 4-page lettersheets of lined paper, both written the same day. 22x12.7 cm (8x5").

Letters involving a dispute between Duncan and Ralston, bankers and businessmen with competing interests. In the first letter Duncan reprises an earlier conversation between the two, in part: "You said - 'I will give you $5,000, $10,000, not to raise the building.' I replied, 'Mr. Ralston, I think I have as good a business reputation as any one, and I do not buy buildings to black-mail my neighbors.' You answered - 'You buy them to make money, do you not?' I replied - 'Yes, legitimately by rents, not otherwise. If I have no right to raise the building I require nothing more..." The second letter refers to the first, insisting that Duncan's recollection of the conversation was accurate. Isadora Duncan was born three or four years later, and a few years after that J.C. Duncan was exposed in illegal bank dealings, and the family became extremely poor.