Anita was the daughter of Cyrus Hall McCormick, the inventor of the mechanical reaper. His farm innovations helped revolutionize farming around the world and made the McCormick family a fortune. She was a major stockholder of their farm implement company, which later became International Harvester.
More on Anita McCormick Blaine can be found on her Wikipedia page and other online biographies:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_McCormick_Blaine
http://www.accuracyproject.org/cbe-Blaine,AnitaMcCormick.html
A few items of note:
- The purchase price was $60, which is around $900 in today's dollars.
- The shipping address was 101 E. Erie Street in Chicago. That was Anita's home until her death. The mansion no longer there. It was demolished in the late 1950's for the new headquarters of the Kiwanis and that was later demolished for a modern building that now houses a Conrad hotel.
- Charles F. Biele and Sons was located at 379 & West 12th Street in the Greenwich Village area of Manhattan. They later moved a street over to Bethune Street.
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Receipt for a Biele vitrine for Anita McCormick Blaine |
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Mansion at 101 E. Erie Street in Chicago before demolition |