Guide to the Baker and Wells Families Papers,
1897-1990

Elizabeth Baker Wells researched the life and Albert W. Force and wrote Albert Force 1897-1970. She also researched and wrote Contributions to Cornell History: Portraits and Memorabilia, 1984.

Albert William Force was born in Waterloo, New York on February 26, 1897. He served with the Army Medical Corps in World War I, and in 1921 he received a B.S. in agriculture from Cornell University. He spent a year as a graduate student and assistant in Cornell's Department of Plant Pathology. He was known in Tompkins County, New York for his interest in local history and antique collecting, and was an authority on Henry Walton, the 19th century American painter. He lived in Forest Home, Ithaca, New York.

Research material on Albert W. Force includes his notes and drawings on mycology from a Cornell University course; photographs; biographical material; news articles; scrapbooks; and a photocopy of Force's will. Also, a carbon typescript draft and a published copy of Albert Force 1897-1970; letters from Elizabeth B. Wells inquiring about Force; and congratulatory letters to Wells on her book. Also copy of Contributions to Cornell History, 1984, a revised edition of her 1978 "Catalogue of Art Works at Cornell University," and "Addendum to Contributions to Cornell History," compiled and edited by Diane B. Nelson, 1990, with background documentation. Also papers of Professor Baker and his son-in-law John Wells, who taught geology at Cornell. Also papers of Elizabeth Baker Wells, who maintained a directory of campus art work.

Also, Correspondence, photographs, diaries, sketchbooks, and other material of William Charles Baker, the Baker family, Elizabeth Baker Wells, and the Wells family.

Additional W.C. Baker items including watercolor: Duplex views: Cayuga Lake above, Mountain with flat valley below; "catalog/price sheet" with miniature samples of views, colored with pencil and typical prices; conte crayon self portrait; pen and ink sketch of large oak tree; envelope with twenty one handmade oil color charts, 1955-1956 (possibly made to test colorfastness), and three published color chart brochures; one sketch book, January 1921, maily pencil rough sketches with notes, some pen, some green pencil, two watercolor; one pen sketch "Elizabeth's First Shoe."