Among the colleagues who have supported or inspired this project, we would especially like to thank the librarians and staff at the Bibliothèque littéraire Jacques Doucet in Paris. At a time when the library was under-staffed and operating under reduced hours, they went above and beyond to accommodate our research, and they extended every courtesy. Our project posed new challenges, and everyone at BLJD met these challenges with grace and generosity.

We also wish to thank:

Suzette Robichon, the distinguished independent scholar of lesbian history and conservator of lesbian memory, who generously made herself available throughout the year that it took us to prepare this exhibit, who examined the handwriting in the BnF’s copy of Liane de Pougy’s Idylle saphique and provided photographs of Liane’s manuscript, and whose co-edition of Natalie Barney’s correspondence with Liane de Pougy has been crucial to establishing the timeline of Natalie’s whereabouts from 1898 to 1900;

Olivier Wagner, Director of Collections at the BnF and co-editor of Barney’s correspondence of with Liane de Pougy, who very kindly made the only known manuscript of Idylle saphique available to us;

Francesco Rapazzini, who has spent more time than anyone else writing about the life and literature of Natalie Barney, whose French biography of Elisabeth de Gramont effectively doubles as a biography of Natalie Barney, whose reprinting of Quelques Portraits-Sonnets de Femmes is an invaluable public service to scholars, translators, and enthusiasts, and whose edition of Renée Vivien and Natalie Barney’s letters offered the first clue that Natalie and Eva had stayed not at Bryn Mawr College but at the Shipley School;

Imogen Bright, ayant-droit of Renée Vivien, who helped us verify the timeline of Pauline Tarn’s travels in the United States, and whose tireless support of scholars, editors, and translators makes her a world-class literary executor;

Artemis Leontis, C. P. Cavafy Professor of Modern Greek Studies at the University of Michigan, the biographer of Eva Palmer Sikelianos, who answered our questions about Eva Palmer and who helped us track down an important unpublished letter from Natalie Barney to Eva Palmer held in the archive of the Center for Asia Minor Studies in Athens, Greece;

Suzanne Rodriguez, Diana Souhami, and Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, whose groundbreaking biographies of Natalie Barney and M. Carey Thomas first prompted us to ask the questions with which this project began;

Nicole Albert and Camille Islert, leading the world in their work on Renée Vivien, Natalie Barney, and their creative synergy, who have firmly established Renée Vivien’s place in the canon of women poets;

Cynthia Gensheimer, economist and independent historian, whose meticulous work on early Jewish students at Bryn Mawr has offered a model for our own research;

Kate Thomas, K. Laurence Stapleton Professor of Literatures in English at Bryn Mawr College, and Bethany Schneider, Associate Professor of Literatures in English at Bryn Mawr College, who encouraged us to find out more;

Allison Mills, Bryn Mawr College Archivist, and Marianne Hansen, Curator and Academic Liaison for Rare Books and Manuscripts at Bryn Mawr College, who strengthened our work with their excellent suggestions;

Jessica Bright, Digital Collections and Metadata Librarian at Bryn Mawr College, who found images of several key players in the Photo Archive Collection;

Ian Craig, Principal of the Shipley School, and Aly Mason, Director of Alumni Engagement at the Shipley School, who searched their in-house archives and beyond to answer our questions;

Erin Betley, Secretary of the Lower Merion Historical Society, who pointed us toward turn-of-the-century newspapers on the Main Line and kindly responded to our query about the Harriton cemetery;

Tad Bennicoff, Archivist, and the staff at the Smithsonian Institution Archives who digitized key images on short notice;

the archivists, curators, and staff at Princeton University’s Firestone Library, who epitomize professionalism in the field.

Finally, we would like to thank Marc Stein and Zachary Greenberg, for their careful attention in preparing the exhibit for publication.  

Disclosure

Suzanne Stroh is also the translator of Natalie Clifford Barney, I Remember Her (Sequim, WA: Headmistress Press, 2025), and the co-editor, with Artemis Leontis, of the letters of Natalie Barney and Eva Palmer. Samantha Pious is also the translator of Natalie Clifford Barney, Selected Poems (Headmistress Press, 2025) and Renée Vivien, A Crown of Violets (2015, revised 2017). Stroh and Pious receive royalties from their translations.

Rights and Permissions

The image of Natalie Barney’s marginal notes in Liane de Pougy’s manuscript (photograph by Suzette Robichon) was graciously provided by Suzette Robichon. Reproduced with the gracious permission of the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

All images of archival materials that the Bibliothèque littéraire Jacques Doucet, fonds Natalie Clifford Barney, reproduced with the gracious permission of the Barney family.

Cecilia Beaux’s portrait of Eva Palmer’s mother, Catherine Abbe, reproduced with the gracious permission of the Brooklyn Museum:

Cecilia Beaux (American, 1855–1942). Mrs. Robert Abbe (Catherine Amory Bennett), 1898–1899. Oil on canvas, 74 x 39 in. (188 x 99.1 cm). Frame: 86.5 x 51.5 x 0.25 in. (219.7 x 130.8 x 8.3 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. M. R. Schweitzer, 1999.113.

All images from the Bryn Mawr College Libraries, Special Collections, Photo Archives Collection, are reproduced with the gracious permission of Bryn Mawr College.

All images from the Shipley School Archives, reproduced with the gracious permission of the Shipley School.

The photograph of the Harriton cemetery (by Suzanne Stroh) was taken on the private property of the Harrison family. We accessed the cemetery via an easement that has been granted to Bryn Mawr College. The photograph was reproduced with the gracious permission of the Harrisons.

All images from the Smithsonian Institution Archives are reproduced with the gracious permission of the Smithsonian Institution Archives.

Permission to quote from an unpublished letter by Natalie Barney to Eva Palmer has been graciously granted by Eleni Sikelianos and Artemis Leontis, C. P. Cavafy Professor of Modern Greek Studies at the University of Michigan.