January is a popular time to get away on the East End, and in the early 20th century many prominent residents also spent the winter months in warmer areas. The artist Thomas Moran (1837-1926) and his daughter Ruth Bedford Moran (1870-1948) were among our early local winter snowbirds, and this photograph shows Ruth seated on a wicker “sleigh” in San Diego in 1915.
At the time, Thomas was in his late 70s, and Ruth was 45. The father-daughter duo spent the winter of 1915 in Pasadena, a brief chapter before they made Santa Barbara their winter home. After her mother died in 1899, Ruth became her father’s main travel companion, accompanying him on his trips west.
This photograph was taken at the Panama-California Exposition, which was inspired by international World’s Fair-style expositions and intended to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal. Held in the first American port of call north of the recently opened passage, it ran year round for two years, and many of the buildings that make up the El Prado Historic District of San Diego’s Balboa Park were built for the exposition.
According to the San Diego Public Library’s special collections manager, Matthew Nye, Ruth sits where the Plaza de Panama meets the park road known as El Prado, and it is probably the destroyed Indian Arts Building (now rebuilt as the House of Charm) visible in the background behind her.
The image is part of a series of six photographs that also show Thomas Moran in the same wicker sleigh. The Morans additionally appear with pigeons in the Plaza de Panama with what Mr. Nye identified as the now-destroyed Sacramento Valley Building behind them. Today, the San Diego Museum of Art stands in the same place.
Thomas Moran died in Santa Barbara barely a decade after the images were taken. He was buried in the South End Burying Ground here. Ruth donated the contents of her father’s East Hampton studio to the Long Island Collection after his death.
Andrea Meyer, a librarian and archivist, is head of collection for the East Hampton Library’s Long Island Collection.
