Margaret Alden Biddle was born to Margaret and William Shepard Biddle in 1898 in Portland, Oregon. During her teen years, she was a pupil at Miss Catlin's School and an active theater-goer, attending numerous performances in the Portland area. In 1916, she enrolled in the University of Oregon where she was a member of the university symphony. Biddle wed noted architect Jamieson Kirkwood Parker in 1923 and the couple had three children. She was a member of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), a board member of the Oregon Roadside Council, a fourth-generation Portlander, and descendent of Thomas Frazar, the founder of the first Unitarian church in Portland. Margaret Alden Biddle Parker died April 8, 1987 in Milwaukie, Oregon.
The Heilig Theatre, designed by E. W. Houghton, opened in 1910 and was managed by Calvin Heilig. It seated 1,500 people and, for a time, was Portland's premiere performing arts theater. In 1929, the theater transitioned to cinema and was operated as a movie theater until 1990. The building was demolished in 1997.
The Margaret Alden Biddle Scrapbook is comprised predominately of materials relating to music, dance, and theater performances held in Portland, Oregon between 1914 and 1917. Included are programs and playbills, reviews,
advertisements, and images clipped from newspapers. In the mid-1910s Biddle attended numerous dramatic productions from professional touring companies such as the Lambardi Grand Opera Company, the Liebler Company, the
Chicago Grand Opera Company, the Whitney Opera Company, the Stratford-Upon-Avon Players, the Drama League of America, and the Pavlova Imperial Ballet Russe. Performances included numerous productions of Shakespeare's work
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Biddle also attended performances featuring world-class musical ensembles (the New York Symphony Orchestra and the Barrere Ensemble of Wind Instruments), vocalists (Emilio de Gogorza, Geraldine Farrar, John McCormack, Johanna Gadski, Maggie Teyte, Olive Fremstad, Alma Gluck, Clara Clemens, Teresa Carreno), and instrumentalists (Efrem Zimbalist, Constance Piper, Eugene Ysaye, Fritz Kreisler, Jean Gerardy, Mischa Elman, Ossip Gabrilowitsch, Rudolph Ganz). Of particular note is a series of programs for the Portland Symphony Orchestra (1912-1916) and the Portland Museum of Art's chamber music series (1914-1915). These events were held at many of the most popular venues in Portland including the Baker Theater, Christensen's Hall, the Mac Dowell Club, the Portland Museum of Art, the Orpheum Theater, the Multnomah Hotel, and even the Portland Masonic Temple. However most of the performances attended by Biddle were held at the Heilig Theater, one of the city's newest and most respected performing arts theaters, located on the corner of Broadway and Taylor Street in downtown Portland.
Other Portland-area events represented in the scrapbook include a lecture by Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan, motion picture showings (George Kleine's
Many of the playbills and programs present in this collection include numerous local area advertisements for retailers, restaurants, and service providers and offer a snapshot of the advertising environment in 1910s Portland. Also included are newspaper clippings and advertisements for concerts and theatrical events not attended by Biddle.
The Biddle Scrapbook also contains a miniature scrapbook, also created by Margaret Biddle, titled "On board
The collection is open for research.
Margaret Alden Biddle Scrapbook (MSS Biddle), Oregon State University Libraries Special Collections & Archives Research Center, Corvallis, Oregon.
The OSU Special Collections & Archives Research Center holds numerous scrapbooks dating from the early 1900s including the
The Oregon Historical Society holds additional content relating to the Biddle and Parker families including oral histories recorded with Margaret Biddle in