The folding paper fan with wooden sticks and guards is American made, and would have been given away as a promotion. Advertising fans were at the height of their popularity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Many Americans at this time valued sentiment and prized keepsakes. Fans were often handed out at restaurants or as souvenirs of memorable events including balls, fairs and voyages. They frequently advertised specific products as well as places.

This advertising fan belonged to Nannie Lee Calhoun Mardis, whose parents, John Washington Calhoun and Sarah Margaret Henderson Calhoun, were Sonoma County pioneers. The fan was donated to the Museum by Nannie’s niece, Mary Calhoun Graham in 1989. Research at the Museum recently connected us with Sarah Lee Calhoun, Nannie Lee’s only surviving niece, who today lives in San Francisco. We are grateful to Sarah Lee who revealed valuable historical information about the Calhoun family and her aunt Nannie Lee.

In 1850, J. W. Calhoun traveled across the country from Virginia to California in search of gold. On his way he passed through Independence, Missouri, where the Hendersons, the family of his future wife, lived. Mining, however, did not appeal to Calhoun. Fortunately, he had made enough money in the goldfields to purchase a ranch on the Russian River where he had settled in 1852. The Henderson family eventually moved from Missouri to Sonoma. J. W. Calhoun and Sarah Margaret Henderson were married in September of 1864, and had five children.

The eldest of the Calhoun children, Nannie Lee was born on July 12, 1866, on the family’s Russian River ranch centered at the intersection of Eastside Road and Windsor River Road. She grew up on the ranch, and later moved to San Jose where she attended "San Jose Normal" teaching school. Initially Nannie Lee taught school in San Jose, but returned to live on the Calhoun ranch and taught school in Healdsburg. When her mother, Sarah Margaret, died in 1923, Nannie returned to Missouri to visit her Henderson relatives. While in Missouri she met Jefferson "Jeff" Mardis, a widower with grown children, whom she married on June 29, 1923. The couple returned to California, where they made their home in Santa Rosa. When Nannie Lee Calhoun Mardis died on January 27, 1943, she had survived all of her siblings, and her husband.