An American Collection is an exhibition which pays homage to a lady and presents some 200 fans conveying both the personal taste of an avid collector and an American fashion and way of life. It is on show at The Fan Museum - the privileged recipient of this lady’s collection totalling 450 fans - in Greenwich, London, from 24th September 2003 until 4th January 2004.

Born in Boyertown, a small town in Berks County, Pennsylvania in 1906, Esther Maurer Young graduated from Temple University, Philadelphia in 1927. She became a teacher and taught in Pennsylvania and New Jersey before marrying Harold H. Young, an investment banker from Laconia, New Hampshire in 1933. Mrs Young travelled extensively and one can picture her on her quest for a representative fan. In over thirty years, she and her husband travelled to all 50 States in the U.S. and to 85 countries outside! Wherever it was, be it a flea market in Paris or a tea ceremony in Tokyo, she found a fan. Travel also gave her the opportunity of acquiring airline and other travel fans.

She had an eye for advertising fans, most of which are American, but a rare and very well preserved Paquin fan designed by Barbier also found its way into this most personal of collections. In the 1950s and 1960s, Mrs Young was very active in voluntary work in the Bronx, New York and many of the fans came from charity shops. She appears to have had a very wide circle of friends in American “high society” who gave her fans which had belonged to their own families.

Mrs Young died in 1992 leaving two daughters, former State Senator and Casino Control Commissioner, Leanna Young Brown of Chatham, New Jersey and Lucinda Young Kelly of Seattle, Washington. There are five grandchildren and eight great grandchildren.

Mrs Young’s collection is well known to specialists in the US and The Fan Museum is privileged indeed to be the recipient of such a munificent gift. The Fan Museum thanks Mrs Leanna Brown and Mrs Lucinda Kelly for donating this exceptional collection and for so generously sponsoring the catalogue.

HELP US IDENTIFY A MYSTERY FAN. CLICK FOR IMAGES. If you know when and where this fan was made, please e-mail us at admin@fan-museum.org