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Published periodically by the Massachusetts Historical Society Number 65 1154 Boylston Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02215 Fall 1996 |
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The Massachusetts Historical Society: A Bicentennial History, 1791-1991 When Jeremy Belknap and seven associates met in Boston on January 24, 1791, to establish the Massachusetts Historical Society, there was nothing like it anywhere in North America. Belknap, concerned that accident and carelessness were jeopardizing America's documentary heritage, proposed an organization to provide a secure repository for rare manuscripts and printed works and a publication program to multiply the copies of these valuable items. The Society that eight Boston gentlemen created that evening was the first institution anywhere for the collection and preservation of materials for a political and natural history of the United States. More than two centuries after the establishment of the M.H.S., it has its own historian--Louis Leonard Tucker, the Society's director. In The Massachusetts Historical Society: A Bicentennial History, 1791-1991 Tucker recounts the Society's story--from Belknap and the early years to the Society as a gentlemen's club during the 19th century to the modern repository it became under the inspiring leadership of Stephen T. Riley to the multi-faceted research institution it is today. A witty, droll, at times hilarious account of the transformation of a small social club of Boston gentlemen ( The Saints ) into a national institution for historical research, according to Professor Bernard Bailyn of Harvard, it is also a serious historical account by a distinguished historian of how a legacy of the Revolutionary generation reinvented itself again and again to reach its present eminence. The Massachusetts Historical Society: A Bicentennial History, 1791-1991 is available for $49.95 plus $3.75 postage for the first copy and $0.75 for each subsequent copy through the Society's distributor, Northeastern University Press, Box 6525, Ithaca, NY 14851. John Adams Reconsidered The last three decades have seen a growing interest in the political thought and public careers of America's Founding Fathers, that remarkable group of leaders who first declared and then won the nation's independence from Britain, wrote the Constitution, and established a national government. Scholars and the lay public alike now appear more deeply convinced than they have in many years that a fuller understanding of the Founders will lead to a keener appreciation of America's heritage and a more effective approach to some of its current problems. Central to this effort has been the reassessment of such major figures as Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and, most recently, John Adams. The Society's fall conference, John Adams and the Founding of the Republic, announced in earlier Miscellany issues, is the first public, collaborative effort to reconsider the career of this brilliant and controversial man. The conference, which will take place September 19-21, will highlight two approaches to Adams, biographical comparison and intellectual context, in a keynote address and five chronological sessions: 1. Adams as Lawyer and Citizen (1750-1774); 2. Adams the Diplomat (1776-1783); 3. Adams in Waiting (1789-1796); 4. Adams as President (1797-1801); and 5. John Adams's Political Thought. Biographical comparison is central to nearly every session: a portrait of Adams and Jefferson as young men, before they met (session 1), and again when both were in retirement (session 5); a consideration of Adams's provincial role models (session 1); an assessment of Adams and Franklin as diplomats (session 2); a discussion of Adams and his political rivals, Jefferson and Hamilton, in the 1790s (session 3); and finally, an exploration of Adams's relationship with the most important woman in his life, his wife Abigail (session 4). And the keynote address will be given by the Pulitzer-prize winning biographer David McCullough, who is currently working on a study of the 50-year friendship and rivalry between Adams and Jefferson. The intellectual context of Adams's policies and writings plays nearly as large a role in the conference as biography. It is vital to understanding the development of his concept of American diplomacy (session 2); and his struggle with the issue of freedom of the press, before and during his presidency (session 4). It plays an even larger role in session 5, devoted to the shaping of Adams's distinctive constitutional thought in the 1780s and 1790s, and to his survey of his nation's--and his own--history. A vital third element in reassessing John Adams cannot be described or predicted, but only named: the lively participation of the Society's active members and friends, and of many other scholars and Adams enthusiasts, who have already registered for this event. As of this writing, we still have several seats available, and we will register people at the door on Thursday, September 19, beginning at 1 P.M., for as long as we have room for more. See the Summer 1996 Miscellany for the full program and registration form, or call The Adams Papers, at (617) 536-4042. John Adams was a lively man who sought out the open exchange of opposing views, including those opposing his own strongest convictions. The Society hopes its members and friends will honor Adams in the way he most respected, through a candid expression of their own appraisal of his life and thought. Transient and Permanent: The Conference John Adams and the Founding of the Republic will open a busy year for conferences at the M.H.S. From Thursday, May 15, to Saturday, May 17, 1997, the Society will host a second major conference: Transient and Permanent: The Transcendentalist Movement and Its Contexts. The program, organized in collaboration with Professor Charles Capper of the University of North Carolina, will comprise a keynote address and nine working sessions--a total of more than 20 presentations. Individual sessions will address such topics as Transcendentalism and Society, Transcendentalism and the New England Religious Tradition, Individualism and Communalism, Transcendentalism and Gender, Transcendentalism and World Religion, Transcendentalism and European Thought, Transcendentalism and Literature, and the Legacy of Transcendentalism. Because we want to provide the maximum opportunity for discussion, all papers except the keynote address will be distributed in advance to everyone who preregisters. The papers will not be read aloud at the conference; program sessions will consist of brief statements by the essayists, remarks by assigned commentators, and discussion from the floor. The next issue of the Miscellany will carry detailed information on Transient and Permanent: The Transcendentalist Movement and Its Contexts including instructions on how to register. In the meantime, note the dates. Nurse Tribulation Periwinkle Reports There has been much recent publicity in newspapers and on television concerning the planned publication of Louisa May Alcott's earliest surviving literary manuscript, discovered among her papers at the Houghton Library of Harvard University. Here at the M.H.S., while processing the Curtis-Stevenson Family Papers, long deposited at the Society but only recently opened to researchers, we have located another Alcott item, a previously undescribed letter that sheds light on the publication that first brought her serious attention as a writer in 1863. During the winter of 1862-1863, Louisa May Alcott briefly served as a Sanitary Commission nurse at the Union Hotel Hospital in Washington, D.C. After only six weeks there she was invalided home, suffering from the effects of typhoid fever. In the spring of 1863, as Tribulation Periwinkle, she published a fictionalized account of her experiences in The Commonwealth , an emancipation weekly. When her pieces were separately published a few months later, Alcott respectfully dedicated Hospital Sketches to her friend, Miss Hannah Stevenson, a veteran nurse who had helped Alcott obtain a hospital posting. Less than two weeks after nurse Alcott's arrival, her ward filled with casualties from the Union slaughter at Fredericksburg, she described her experiences in a letter to her friend and mentor: Union Hospital Dec. 26th [1862] My Dear Miss Stevenson If I had not been sure that you knew better than I can tell you how little time one gets for letter writing in this big bee hive I should have reproached myself with broken promises, but as you probably have a very realizing sense of my employments I will make no apologies but tell what you were kind enough to express an interest in, viz How I like hospital life how I get on. If I had come expecting to enjoy myself I should have paraded home again a week ago as an all pervading bewilderment fell upon me for the first few days, when Miss Kendall calmly asked me to wash put clean clothes on some eight or ten dreary faced, dirty wounded men who came in last week I felt that the climax was reached proceeded to do it very much as I should have attempted to cut off arms or legs if ordered to. Having no brothers a womanly man for a father I find myself rather staggered by some of the performances about me but possessing a touch of Macawber's spirit--I still hope to get used to it hold myself ready for a spring if anything turns up . My ward is the lower one I perade [sic] that region like a stout brown ghost from six in the morning till nine at night haunting haunted for when not doing something I am endeavoring to decide what comes next being sure some body is in need of my maternal fussing. If we had capable attendants things would go nicely but sick soldiers being mortal will give out, get cross or keep out of sight in a surprisingly successful manner which induces the distracted nurse to wish she were a family connection of Job's. I have old McGee whom you may remember a jolly old soul he is but not a Mercury, my other helper is a vile boy who gobbles up my stores, hustles my boys , steals my money causes my angry passions to rise to such an extent that he was this morning deposed a mild youth much given to falling flat with soup bowls in his new broomish desire to do well reigns in his stead. My chief afflictions are bad air no out of door exercise, bad odours are my daily bread so to speak in the course of time I may learn to relish them, the other matter must take its chance if I get hopelessly stupid by being roasted stifled they must turn me out to pasture on the Heights, other people live without I must learn this also. I find Mrs Ropes very motherly kind, Miss Kendall the most faithful of workers, too much so for her own good. I take the liberty of thinking, but now that her friend is with her she sometimes consents to rest. The other people are all more or less agreeable friendly but they might be archangels I not know it as there is no time for conversation or merry makings of any sort. Our Christmas dinner was a funny scramble but we trimmed up the rooms tried to make it pleasant for the poor fellows they seemed to enjoy it after a fashion. This is a very hasty scribble but half a dozen stumps are waiting to be met my head is full of little duties to be punctually performed so I write to a sort of mental tune which goes on all day-- Skinner's broth, Marble's tea, Blister Swift, write for Lee, Something's wanting, go see. Everything here strikes me as very odd shiftless both within without, people, manners customs ways of living, but I like to watch it all am very glad I came as this is the sort of study I enjoy. If you find a minute in your busy life to send a few lines to the embryo nurse she will feel much honored for letters are our only excitement. Very truly yrs L. M. ALCOTT Please tell the sister who sent it that the pear was my water bottle all the way to Baltimore. Hannah Elizabeth Stevenson (1807-1887), an educator, reformer, and ardent abolitionist, served as a nurse at hospitals in Washington, D.C., and Maryland between 1860 and 1863. In 1865, under the sponsorship of the Freedmen's Bureau, she established schools in Richmond. The Curtis-Stevenson Family Papers include both her commonplace book and her Civil War letters, as well as the papers of her three formidable nieces: the Misses Stevenson --Martha Curtis, Frances Greely, and Annie Brace Stevenson--all energetic reformers and talented writers. Researchers should note that there is a large related collection of Curtis-Stevenson papers at the Schlesinger Library of Radcliffe College that also includes much correspondence of the various Misses Stevenson. For the Civil War period, the M.H.S. collection of Curtis-Stevenson family papers includes correspondence and official papers of Greely Stevenson Curtis, who trained a company of the 2nd Massachusetts Infantry at Camp Andrew (Brook Farm) before transferring to the 1st Massachusetts Cavalry. Before his distinguished service in the War, his marriage to Harriot Appleton, and the birth of their ten children, General Curtis could have served as the model for one of the heroes of Louisa May Alcott's blood-and-thunder romances, but that is another story. Jefferson Brought Up-to-Date Beginning in 1804, when Thomas Jefferson wanted to make a copy of one of his letters he often employed a polygraph--not a lie detector but a two-pen writing machine. Using this device, Jefferson could reproduce his words on a second sheet of paper as he wrote on the first, providing himself at one time with both a recipient's copy and a retained copy. Times have changed, and so has technology. Who uses a polygraph any more? Typewriters, xerox machines, and now digitized electronic imaging have made it obsolete. No one was more interested in the latest invention than the third president, so it seems appropriate that the Society's most recent high-tech venture involved some of its Jefferson holdings. As many know, the M.H.S. has the second largest collection of Jefferson manuscripts in any repository. Only the Library of Congress, which cares for the bulk of his public or state papers, has a larger collection than the Society, which has the most substantial holding of his private manuscripts. In collaboration with the University of Virginia, the Society recently created an electronic archive of its Jefferson architectural drawings. Through the initiative of Professor Richard G. Wilson, an architectural historian at UVA, the University had begun to create an electronic archive of its own Jefferson holdings several years ago. The M.H.S. became a part of the project late last fall. Under the supervision of Chris Steele, our curator of photographs, the Society took new pictures both in black-and-white and in color of each of the more than 400 drawings in our Coolidge Collection. UVA took the images and scanned them electronically, then added cataloguing data recently created by Joice Himawan, one of our conservators. Each drawing is now available in color in an electronic format both at the Society and at UVA. The next step will be to make them available through the World Wide Web, although it is not yet clear when on-line electronic browsers will have access to them. In the meantime, the project has resulted in a full new series of photographs of the Jefferson drawings. These are available for purchase both in black-and-white prints and in color slides. For publications, color transparencies may be rented. Contact Chris Steele at the Society for information.
From the Director Recently, one of the Society's friends, a prominent historian who is on the verge of retirement, asked for my advice on the disposition of his professional library. He wished to donate his books to a college or university and hoped for a tax deduction. I urged him to consider the M.H.S., but on the condition that we could sell or exchange whatever we did not need. In recent years, a few of our friends have given us their libraries on this condition. Lyman Butterfield bequeathed us his magnificent collection, which was extremely strong in bibliographic and reference works. William Bentinck-Smith gave us first refusal on his massive collection, which contained hundreds of recently published historical monographs; he never saw a history book he did not wish to own. Recently, I donated my own modest collection of history monographs to the M.H.S. I hope that more of our friends will emulate the examples of Messrs. Butterfield and Bentinck-Smith. There have been so many historical publications in the past half century and the price of these works has risen so dramatically that a small society like ours cannot possibly purchase all the books we desire. We have been forced to rely on gifts to keep up, and our friends are the most likely source of these donations. The founders of the M.H.S. began the practice of donating materials to our library. Two centuries later, may the current generation follow their lead. LOUIS LEONARD TUCKER DIRECTOR
Seminar Schedule Set Once again, the Society will host the meetings of the Boston Area Seminar in Early American History. Seven sessions will take place in Ellis Hall, our reading room. The Seminar brings together historians--college and university faculty, graduate students, and staff members from local cultural institutions--as well as other interested participants to discuss papers circulated in advance. Programs take place monthly between September and April, beginning at 5:15 P.M. Note that as an experiment, the meeting date has been changed from Thursday to Tuesday. The schedule for 1996-1997 will include papers by Peter Way (University of Sussex), September 10; Stephen A. Marini (Wellesley College), October 1; Jill Lepore (Boston University), November 12; Thomas Summerhill (Yale University), December 3; Jonathan Chu (University of Massachusetts--Boston), February 4; Laurel Thatcher Ulrich (Harvard University), March 4; and Lynn Lyerly (Boston College), April 2. For further information, or to reserve a place at the buffet supper the Society serves following each meeting, call Len Travers at the Society.
Society Awards 15 Fellowships When our fellowship committee met in late March it faced a serious problem: it had received nearly 90 applications, dozens of them very appealing, but had only 15 grants to award. Proposals covered the full breadth of the Society's holdings--from the 17th century to the 20th, from literature and the fine arts to material culture to political history to religious history and on and on. After close scrutiny of the applications, the committee chose to fund the following projects: W. B. H. Dowse Fellowships
Each fellow receives $1,500 for four weeks of research in our collections. For information on our 1997 competition, please see the announcement enclosed in this issue of the Miscellany . Moved to Offsite Storage Over the next few months we will move many of our post-1820 newspapers not printed in Massachusetts to offsite storage. The purpose of this movement is to add space for collection growth and to rationalize the arrangement of library materials stored in our 1154 Boylston Street building. In recent years we have moved several large manuscript collections to offsite storage. These collections are available to researchers, but require one-day notice to be returned for use in our reading room. We plan to provide similar service for newspapers stored outside our building. Some non-Massachusetts newspapers may not be available while they are being inventoried, boxed, and moved, but few of these titles are unique and many are available on microfilm. Through the end of 1996, researchers should contact the library staff before planning visits to the Society to use newspapers. We can be reached at (617) 536-1608; FAX: (617) 859-0074. A Note to Authors The Society's editorial staff is always on the lookout for suitable pieces to publish in the Proceedings . If you have prepared an article, note, or edited document and would like us to consider it for publication, please send your submission to the editor of publications at the Society. |
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