Miriam Reed
Turn back time to 1908, when two boys on the verge of becoming young men visited Japan, China and Korea. Miriam Reed, author of three books on their journey —Korea 1908: David B. Gamble & Family Reach Korea, Japan 1908: The Adventure of Fourteen-Year-Old Clarence James Gamble and China 1908: Sidney D. Gamble & Brother Clarence Discover China — gives a virtual lecture on “The Gambles in Asia” at 2 p.m. Saturday, Oct 10.
“It’s a story that’s told through diaries and photographers,” said Jennifer Trotoux, Gamble House director of collections and interpretation. “It’s not just what those places were like, but what they were like for two particularly talented and precocious teenagers. It’s a personal perspective.”
The lecture is part of a virtual series sponsored by The Gamble House. The house was designed by Greene & Greene in that very year, 1908, for the boys’ father, David Berry Gamble, a second-generation member of the Procter & Gamble Company in Cincinnati.
After retiring in 1895, David and wife Mary began spending winters in Pasadena. Their eldest son, Cecil, was already working. Sidney was about to start at Princeton. So David and Mary took their two younger sons, Sidney, 17, and Clarence, 14, on a tour of China, Korea and Japan. The Gambles went on to commission the Greene brothers to incorporate Asian style in their residential design.
Sidney would again make extended trips to Asia from 1917–1919, 1924–27 and 1931–1932. He took 5,000 photographs of his travels, which are now archived at Duke University. In 1908, he was still developing his style, Reed said. His photographs of China show him to be “empathetic,” even at 17. The youths were “very aware of people as people” and had “an honest curiosity.”
Lecturer Reed, who holds a Ph.D. in comparative literature from UCLA, actually met one of David Gamble’s grandchildren — Sally Gamble, Clarence’s eldest child — and wrote about Sally’s father. From there Reed wrote about Procter & Gamble before venturing into the Asian excursion.
Lectures like this form the bulk of Gamble House programming due to pandemic restrictions, Trotoux said. And Reed seemed like a natural choice to participate, Trotoux said, “having worked with her to show her the objects that the Gambles had brought back, as well as what kind of physical evidence we had of the trip in our collections.
“She’s got all this terrific information that people haven’t seen unless they’ve read the books.”
Speaking from her home in Ashland, Oregon, with her beloved elderly border collie, Marnie, snoozing contentedly on the floor beside her, Reed, who is also an actress, is disappointed she’ll be lecturing via Zoom instead of in person. Earlier this year, Covid-19 restrictions led to cancellations of her celebratory one-woman show on Susan B. Anthony. “I do miss in-person interactions,” she said. “I think we should all miss the in-person interaction!”
Reed says that when she performed solo plays about historic women like Susan B. Anthony, she always enjoys the Q&As which, she says, are “very inspiring to me and gave me new things to think about.”
“The Gambles in Asia” lecture by Miriam Reed will run from 2 to 3 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 10. on Zoom. Tickets cost $20 ($15 for members). If you miss it, ticket holders will still be able to watch the recorded lecture. Ticket holders are also eligible for a $10 discount toward the purchase of Korea 1908: David B. Gamble & Family Reach Korea (available at shop.gamblehouse.org). Click here for more information and ticket purchase.
