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This collections contains the professional research, writing, publications, and correspondence produced and collected by Rattner through her study of the architect James Renwick, Jr. The bulk of Rattner's research addresses the life and works of Renwick, but other research topics represented in her papers range from the Renwick family genealogy to the institutional architecture of New York City. Types of research material include personal research notes (in notecard format, both typed and holograph), correspondence (1963-2001), newspaper and magazine clippings, Xerox copies of archival material and secondary sources, transcribed articles and correspondence, brochures from historic sites, photographs and slides of buildings and sites, sketches, historic structure inventory forms, landmark nomination forms, landmark designation reports, and postcards.

Drawings are primarily for residential commissions in and around New York City, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Some manuscript and photographic materials are also included in the collection.

Files of the company, 1911-1920, much of which consists of unsucessful architectural bid documents, each noting the architect, building, and location, as well as estimated costs, sketches, and related correspondents. These bid documents represent commissions not awarded to NYATCC, and do, in some cases, indicate the outcome of the bid. Architects represented include McKim, Mead & White; Cass Gilbert; George Post; D.H. Burnham & Company; Warren & Wetmore, Schwartz & Gross, and many others. Also includes correspondence and office memoranda, including some describing the formative years, 1911-1914, of the National Terra Cotta Society, trade catalogs, and job photographs. Also, two albums containing photographs of sample pieces of terra cotta, and month by month construction records for three buildings, including the American Theater (42nd Street, New York, 1892) by Charles Coolidge Haight; the Renaissance Apartments (Brooklyn, N.Y., 1889) and the Imperial Apartments (Brooklyn, N.Y., 1890) both by Montrose Morris.

Collection consists of hundreds of albumen prints mounted on linen. The prints are of historic monuments and architectural and decorative details in European countries such as Italy, France, and Spain. These types of study prints were commonly found in many architectural firms during the late 19th and early 20th century. Though it is unclear how this particular collection of albumen prints was amassed by the office of G.A. and H. Boehm, Architects, it is possible that either brother purchased the prints while traveling in Europe during the 1890s-1900s. Many of the prints in the collection are from the core of historic images of art historical monuments. The majority of the prints are from the Italian firm Fratelli Alinari. In 1852 Leopoldo Alinari established a studio in the Via Nazionale in Florence. Two years later, his brothers Giuseppe and Romualdo (1830-1891) joined him in the venture which they then named "Fratelli Alinari, Fotografi Editori." Giuseppe and Romualdo managed the business while Leopoldo traveled, photographing monuments in Rome, Florence, Naples, Pompeii and elsewhere in Italy. By the 1860s the business expanded to a portrait studio and then publishing firm.