US UCLA Charles E. Young Research Library Department of Special Collections, A1713 Young Research Library, Box 951575, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575. E-mail: spec-coll@library.ucla.edu. Phone: (310)825-4988
Description
Ward Blackburn, seated in front of a barrister bookcase. He was the stepbrother of May Otis Blackburn, who founded the cult called the Divine Order of the Royal Arms of the Great Eleven in the 1920s. May and her daughter Ruth Angelina Wieland Rizzio believed they were high priestesses who were charged by Angel Gabriel to write two books that would "reveal all the mysteries of life and death and heaven and earth." The cult was investigated for the death of a child Willa Rhoads and the disappearance of some of the cult's members. All of these investigations were started by a complaint made by Clifford R. Dabney, who charged that he gave Blackburn $40,000 to finish writing the books but the books never materialized. Photo appears with the article "Cult "Queen" Tells of Being Chained Two Months to Bed Post...," Los Angeles Times, 11 Oct. 1929: A2. Text from negative sleeve: Blackburn, Ward. Cults. 1929
Type
image
Format
b&w glass negative
Identifier
uclamss_1429_b3694_G469 ark:/21198/zz0002nfsv
Language
No linguistic content
Subject
Cults--California--Los Angeles Blackburn, Ward Sitton, 1901-1975
Source
Los Angeles Times Photographic Collection OpenUCLA Collections
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