Finnie (Anne Ackerman) family papers, 1899-1981

Anne Ackerman Finnie (1911-1995) was the daughter, and second child, of Louise Sloss Ackerman (1888-1982) and Lloyd Stuart Ackerman, Sr. (1882-1968). Louise was the eldest child of Bertha Greenewald Sloss (b. 1868) and Leon Sloss, Sr. (1858-1920). Louise and Lloyd were married in 1909. Anne’s brothers were Lloyd, Jr. (1910-1946) and James (1919- ). Anne married Lester Sawyer in the 1940s and had four children: Janet, Christopher, Timothy and Pamela. The Sawyers divorced in 1957 and Anne married Richard S. Finnie in 1965. Anne Ackerman Finnie co-founded the Emeritus College at the College of Marin, served as Executive Director of the San Francisco Suicide Prevention Center, helped establish Huckleberry House, a center for runaway children and teens, and served on the St. Francis Hospital Auxiliary. She also served on the boards of the Marin Child Development Center in Tiburon and Planned Parenthood. Anne Finnie wrote plays, short stories and poetry. She was also actively interested in the history of the Sloss Family, including their involvement in the Alaska Commercial Company and her father’s involvement with the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. Louise Sloss Ackerman, Anne’s mother, was an artist as well as a patron of the arts and Anne continued the family support of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art whose Fine Arts Library was named after her mother. Anne’s brother James became an architectural historian. Lloyd Ackerman, Sr. was a Yale graduate and a successful lawyer and his father J.H. Ackerman was involved in a number of retail ventures.

The collection consists of family papers, diaries, scrapbooks, and photographs relating to Anne Ackerman Finnie, her parents, Louise Sloss and Lloyd Ackerman, and her grandparents, Bertha Greenwald and Leon Sloss, Sr. Among the materials in the collection relating to Louise Sloss and Lloyd Ackerman are Louise’s travel diaries from 1905-1906, two wedding scrapbooks (1909), and a wedding certificate. The collection also includes a scrapbook kept by Louise Sloss about her father Leon Sloss, Sr. and research materials and essays by and on various Sloss family members. Among the photographs are portraits of Anne Ackerman and her siblings, Lloyd Jr. and James (including some by Dorothea Lange, William Dassonville, and William Mortensen), portraits of Louise Sloss and Lloyd Ackerman around the time of their wedding in 1909 (done by Arnold Genthe), photographs of Louise Sloss’ and Lloyd Ackerman’s 1909 wedding at the Sloss estate in San Rafael, California, and an oversize photograph of Bertha and Louise Sloss (1899). The collection also includes a drawing of 1818 California Street, San Francisco (by Stanton Keeney), a 1975 print depicting the corner of California and Franklin Streets (by J. A. Kendall), San Francisco, and a Testimony of Appreciation from the White House to Leon Sloss, Sr. for his work in the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.