On 22 April 1790, John Adams and Congress learned of Benjamin Franklin’s death due to pleurisy, a lung condition. Upon learning of his friend’s death, Adams wrote an imagined conversation between four historical figures, as they waited for Franklin’s arrival in the afterlife. Adams then filed it away and more than two decades later came across it while searching “among a heap of forgotten rubbish for another paper….” In 1813, he added to the bottom of the work:
“Quincy Nov. 24. 1813.
This little thing, was written at Richmond Hill, or Church Hill, where I lived in New York in 1789, in an Evening after the News arrived of Dr Franklins Death, and after I had retired to my Family, after presiding in the Senate of U.S. The moment when it was written is the most curious Circumstance attending it.”
This style of writing—the imagined conversation—was popularized by the Syrian satirist Lucian of Samosata (b. ca.120 CE) and was utilized by the French writer Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle (1657–1757). The conversationalists in this imagined scenario were Charlemagne (747–814), the first Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire; Frederick II (1194–1250), another Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire; Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778), a French philosopher, originally from Switzerland, whose novels inspired the French Revolutionaries and the subsequent Romantic generation; and James Otis (1725–1783), a lawyer and politician from Massachusetts and a friend and mentor to John Adams, who also happens to be one of my favorite pre-Founding Fathers.
James Otis, Jr., by Joseph Blackburn, 1755. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
The conversation starts discussing Franklin and whether he had “passed the River,” perhaps meaning the River Styx, with Otis saying he had not and he cared not. Otis also says, “[Franklin] told some very pretty moral Tales from the head—and Some very immoral ones from the heart. I never liked him: so if you please We will change the subject. Populus Vult Decipi, decipiatur was his Maxim.” Populus Vult Decipi, decipiatur is noted to mean “The people want to be deceived, so let them be deceived.”
That sentence captures James Otis’s eloquence with words, as well as Franklin’s temperament. Perhaps John Adams should have been a writer, not a politician?
Then the speakers move on to flattering each other, then chastising each other for their faults. In turn, each repents, saying if he returned to earth, he would mend his ways and warn others against acting how he did the first time around.
Upon discovering this piece of writing in 1813, John Adams sent it to James Otis’s sister, Mercy Otis Warren, a playwright and historian. She wrote back, “The sketch in my hand in connection with some of the greatest actors who have exhibited their parts on this narrow stage of human action, is a proof of your correct knowledge of history and your capacity for comparing the ages of Charlemagne, Frederick the Great, Rousseau, and Otis, though in times so remote from each other, and drawing the results of their sentiments and transactions and the operation thereof on the moral conduct of mankind in our own age and in that of Posterity.”
In honor of Election Day tomorrow, I searched the MHS stacks for material related to elections. Unsurprisingly we have a lot! One collection I discovered tells the fascinating story of Charles N. Richards of Quincy, Massachusetts, who, in November 1864, traveled all the way home from Washington, D.C. to vote for Abraham Lincoln.
Diary of Charles N. Richards, 1864Photograph of Charles N. Richards from his obituary in the Washington Evening Star, 21 October 1918
Richards had served in the 13th Massachusetts Infantry during the Civil War, but was mustered out after an injury sustained at Antietam. (He was bayoneted in the jaw.) In 1864, he was 23 years old and working in D.C. at the Senate Stationery Room, the department responsible for supplies. He was a fervent Republican and looked forward to casting his first-ever ballot for Lincoln.
Apparently there was some disagreement over his eligibility to vote in his hometown of Quincy because his mother had been living in Dorchester when he came of age. But when the Quincy town clerk sent him the all-clear, Richards started packing. Unfortunately, though many states offered absentee voting, it was only available to active-duty soldiers. So Richards was going to have to cast an in-person ballot in Massachusetts…about 450 miles away.
He set off on 4 November, recording every step of the grueling journey in his diary.
First he tried to catch the 6:39pm train to New York, but couldn’t even get near it because of the crowds. Everyone seemed to be heading north for the election. Richards eventually boarded the 9:30 train, but at Baltimore, he was told his car would be re-routed back to Washington. He had to get out and walk to the President Street Depot, but just missed the train there.
Two or three hours later, he caught a 2:30am cattle car to Philadelphia. For part of the ride, he sat on a pine board with nothing to lean his back against, and the rest he spent on the crowded floor of a passenger car. The train reached Philadelphia in the wee hours of the morning in the middle of a snow and hail storm. Richards hopped on a streetcar to Kensington Depot (changing three times) and arrived in time to catch the 4:00am train to New York.
He ferried into New York at 11:30pm, quickly devoured a meal—his first since leaving Washington—and crashed at a hotel for the night. He was so exhausted that he slept through a fire in one of the other rooms!
The next day was Sunday. Richards had a steamboat ticket, but there were no boats leaving until Monday evening. Ever resourceful, he made friends with a hospital steward, who finagled him a spot in his car on the 5pm train to Boston. The steward was escorting a number of wounded soldiers home to vote. When asked who they were voting for, they replied that “they voted the same way they fought.”
After changing trains in Boston, Richards finally reached Quincy at 8:30am on 7 November. His trip had taken a total of 59 hours. Every step of the way, passengers and passersby had discussed, argued, cheered, and nearly brawled about the candidates.
Unfortunately, it turned out the question of Richards’s eligibility was unresolved. Contrary to what he’d heard, the town selectmen were still divided on the issue, and the canvassing committee advised him to play it safe and not vote. Richards took their advice, but was disappointed.
It was really a severe blow to me. It was with great reluctance that I gave up the chance to cast my first vote for such a cause as the Union & such a man as Abraham Lincoln. […] I knew no other home [but Quincy], nor never had, nor never wished to, and now to be deprived of the privileges of a citizen, and cut off from the place I loved & labored for was mortifying in the extreme to me.
In fact, Lincoln won the town of Quincy, surprising his supporters and detractors alike. On his return to Washington, D.C., Richards learned the “glorious” news that Lincoln had carried the day and that “thanks to a kind Providence, the Election passed off in quietude & in order.” He fell asleep “with a light heart.”
by Jordan T. Watkins, Associate Professor, Brigham Young University
The archive inevitably opens unseen roads of research, luring even the most focused historical travelers from their set paths of inquiry. In April of this year, when I again entered the Massachusetts Historical Society, and passed those columns that feel like portals to the past, I had some idea of where (and when) I wanted to explore. And in many ways, I followed the research course I had mapped out. I sought out nineteenth-century sources to include in a documentary edition on slavery and religion. Fairly quickly into my journey, I concluded that the volume would feature printed sources. By using the subject headings of the MHS’s library catalog, ABIGAIL, I compiled an extensive list of sources, which would show how religion was used in the debate over slavery. When I finished my month-long fellowship, I had read numerous tracts, pamphlets, books, and broadsides, made up of various genres, including meeting minutes, letters, declarations, constitutions, petitions, poems, addresses, sermons, personal narratives, and histories. I knew I would never cover the entire territory—even by using the unmatched time machine that is the MHS—but I had traversed a lot of ground, and so I began the selection process.
While I sought out printed sources, a few manuscript items caught my attention. The catalog proved instrumental, directing me to an 1836 antislavery sermon given by abolitionist Abijah Cross, pastor of the West Congregational Church in Haverhill. Susan Martin, Senior Processing Archivist at the MHS, mentioned the sermon in a 2021 post. I suspect that her processing work led to the helpful catalog explanation. As is often the case in my research journeys, I relied on a map created by someone else, which pointed out a historical curio that I would otherwise miss. In the sermon, Cross stated that “slavery in this country is a sin, a great sin,” a conclusion he tied to the biblical passage, “God has made of one blood all nations that dwell on the face of the earth.” Cross’s message corresponded with what I saw in printed antislavery sermons, in which ministers increasingly insisted on slavery’s sin and preached universal humanity based on New Testament teachings. The source served as a reminder that so many sermons never made it into print, even if the message of this particular sermon paralleled what I saw in published sermons.
Antislavery sermon given by abolitionist Abijah Cross, pastor of the West Congregational Church in Haverhill, Massachusetts, 1836
This was not the only manuscript source I read based on Martin’s processing efforts. I’d guess that Martin’s detective-like work also resulted in the cataloging of a letter written by Nancy Henderson Hubbard Kellogg to her brother Stephen Ashley Hubbard. Through Martin’s sleuthing, she identified the author of the letter, “Nanny,” a teacher who moved to Virginia, and her “Dear Brother,” a journalist in Connecticut. In the 1849 letter, Nancy worried that her brother had caught the disease of abolitionism. She wanted to know, was he “really an abolitionist, a thorough going, downright, abolitionist to the backbone!” The letter demonstrates that even as the antislavery ranks began to grow, many northerners nonetheless continued to view abolitionism as more problematic than slavery. It also shows how the issue of slavery created not only sectional, denominational, and political divisions, but also familial ones.
Nancy Henderson Hubbard Kellogg to Stephen Ashley Hubbard, 10 August 1849
Familial correspondence about slavery also appears in an 1852 letter written by a young woman to her mother, another source I found through the mapping provided in the catalog. In the letter, the daughter complained about a morning Sunday service in Worcester, Massachusetts. Writing that she was “more provoked than” she would “allow [herself] to admit,” she described watching the sexton escort a Black parishioner down the aisle to a seat near her. With heavy sarcasm, the young woman noted the honor “of sitting face to face with his majesty Mr. Black man.” To add insult to injury, she then had to endure “a scorching free soil discourse” on “American despotism[,] the cruel bonds of Slavery, the Southern States the Hell on earth, the scars and stripes on that young womans back, the infant cherub torn from its Mothers breast, the lamentable fact that theirs was not the privelidge to have a home or know its name; and a thousand other such like expressions, that,” she wrote, “at once provoked, annoyed, amused and disgusted me.” The fugitive slave cases of the early 1850s brought slavery closer to home, leading more northern ministers to inject their sermons with narrations of slavery’s horrors. But many of those in the pews rejected such visceral accounts. This 1852 letter is symptomatic of a wider phenomenon: many northern churchgoers opposed antislavery sermons due to racism and their belief that the subject of slavery rested outside the minister’s purview. The young woman much preferred the evening service, at which the minister delivered a more traditional sermon, devoid of “politics.”
Letter from an unidentified young woman to her mother, Worcester, Massachusetts, 5 September 1852
These manuscript sources help me see the historical terrain more clearly. In my time traveling, I found numerous printed sermons from the 1840s and 1850s in which more and more ministers attacked slavery. Many of the ministers felt the need to explain why they had chosen to talk about slavery, and many of them also challenged fellow ministers for failing to openly address the topic. After reading enough of these sermons, I began to wonder why so many ministers 1) opened their sermons with a justification for their chosen theme and 2) critiqued the pulpit for failing to address that theme. It seemed to me that the genre of the antislavery sermon was well-established by midcentury, so why all the justifications and critiques? After I spent several weeks reading antislavery sermons, their presence became magnified in my mind and threatened to crowd out other kinds of sources. The above manuscript sources checked this kind of historical mapping, which results from selective research and reading, and allowed me to see more of the nineteenth-century landscape. For all the ministers who addressed slavery, many more avoided the topic. And even if a minister held antislavery views, he likely worried about disapproving parishioners, such as the young woman who wrote to her mother, “Above all things I do dislike Abolitionism from the pulpit.” This 1852 letter, and other similar sources, indicate that anyone telling the story of the antislavery pulpit should attend to the voices in the pews.
My latest sojourn to the MHS archive on Boylston Street and into the nineteenth-century past highlights the value of wandering. It also taught me of another crucial lesson: the adventure of historical research can often feel like a solitary endeavor, but all of us rely on mappings and markings left by others. This should serve as a reminder that these temporal journeys are more communal than we sometimes imagine.
The MHS houses hundreds of photograph collections, mostly family photographs containing posed portraits and candid photos like this one. In some cases, a family member meticulously labeled every photo, letting us know whose images have been captured for future generations to see. Other collections are not so well documented, leaving us to guess who, where, and when.
Del and Helen Hay in front of tree without bow and arrow, Marian Hooper Adams, 1883.
Take this photo of two young children, maybe seven or eight years old. The hooded coats say it is a cool day—perhaps a mid-fall day like today. The image is a bit timeless. When was it taken—1890, 1920, 1950? Perhaps a fashion expert could guesstimate by examining the style of the coats, but I like to let my imagination run wild when looking at this photo. Who are these kids? Are they siblings, cousins, friends? Where were they and what were they doing on the day the photo was taken? And then I create a future for them—based on my musings on the first few questions.
This has long been one of my favorite photographs held in the MHS collection as it could be a captured moment of any two kids on any day—and I can tell myself a new story each time I look at it.
Yet as I thought about writing this post, I had to admit that in this case, we know exactly who the children are and when the photo was taken. So, I broke the spell and did some research. Thanks to a notebook kept by photographer Marian Hooper “Clover” Adams, we know she snapped this photograph of Helen and Adelbert “Del” Hay in Cleveland, Ohio on October 24, 1883.
Del and Helen were the two eldest of John and Clara Hay’s children. Clover and her husband Henry Adams were close friends of the Hay’s. On a visit to the Hay’s home Clover snapped this and other photographs of the Hay family. So, I now know who the kids were, that they were siblings, and that they were playing near their home in Cleveland on the day the photo was taken. But what was their future? That took a little more research.
Del’s story was tragically short. Following in his father’s footsteps he embarked on a diplomatic career upon graduating from Yale. He served as U.S. Consul in Pretoria during the Boer War, and shortly after his return to the United States was appointed assistant private secretary to President McKinley. He accepted the post, but he died on June 24, 1901, after falling from a hotel window in Hartford, CT, a week before his post was officially slated to begin. He was 24 years old.
Helen lived a long and active life. She published several volumes of original poetry; operated Greentree Stables, raising several hall-of-fame horses and winning twice at the Kentucky Derby, twice at the Belmont Stakes, and several other major races along the way; and engaged in several philanthropic endeavors, including the creation of the Helen Hay Whitney Foundation which supports post-doctoral research in bio-medical science. Helen Hay Whitney died at the age of 69 in 1944.
Even knowing all this now, I will still let my imagination create stories for the two kids in the photo each time I have a chance to view it. But I am grateful to Clover and her notebook for giving me the chance to uncover the true story as well.
by Samantha Couture, MHS Nora Saltonstall Conservator & Preservation Librarian
Welcome to Part 3 of our series on conservation at the MHS. Here, we will discuss a few of the conservation treatments that Samantha performs in our lab. The purpose of any conservation work is to reverse or repair damage to extend the useability and lifespan of the item or provide access for research or exhibition. The benefits of doing a treatment or repair are weighed against any potential risks to the item, the time involved, and the research value of the piece.
There are many variables that affect treatment and its effectiveness, such as the type of paper, kinds of inks and other media, the nature and extent of the damage, and any ‘inherent vice’ present in the paper or ink. Effective treatments can reduce dirt and pollutants that degrade paper and media, remove acids that cause embrittlement, remove tape and adhesives that stain and damage paper, flatten a document so that it can be framed or stored, and repair tears and fill lost areas to strengthen and stabilize the paper. There are some things treatments can’t do, like reverse brittleness of paper or leather, darken faded inks, or remove some types of discoloration.
One collection at MHS that needed a significant amount of attention is the Perry-Clarke family papers. When our processing archivists began to arrange and describe the family correspondence, they discovered significant amounts of soot and fire damage to the documents. Soot is acidic and sticky, and clings well to paper. Over time, it can cause the underlying paper to become stained and brittle. It’s also very easy to get soot from one document to another while handling. Additionally, some of the items were torn or in pieces, and unable to be handled by researchers.
Luckily, the paper of most of the fire damaged items was of good quality and was strong enough to mend. This letter, written by James J. Clarke on January 28, 1840, to Alfred, was badly damaged and in pieces. To allow the item to be handled, the sections, weakened areas, and tears were mended using Japanese paper pre-coated with adhesive. The pre-coated tissue was cut into the shapes of the tears and losses. Then the adhesive is reactivated with alcohol and attached to the area to be mended.
Left: James J. Clarke to Alfred, January 28, 1840, before treatment Right: After treatment
The MHS has several manuscripts by Mayflower passenger William Bradford. We looked at one of these in Part 2 when we examined Bradford’s “Dialogue.” The binding was beautifully made at the MHS in the nineteenth century, but it was difficult to see all the text, since the pages didn’t open fully. In 2023, one leaf of the pamphlet needed to go out on exhibit. We decided to remove the entire manuscript from the binding and after exhibition, mend and sew it into a paper cover, which is most likely what Bradford would have done originally.
Left: Bradford’s Dialogue before dis-binding Right: Bradford’s Dialogue after treatment
Another of our Bradford manuscripts, ‘Some observations of God’s merciful dealing with us in this wilderness, and His gracious protection over us these many years’ [fragment], had also been bound in the 19th century. The pages were attached along the spine to blank leaves making some of the text impossible to see. The manuscript was stained and too fragile to be used.
Bradford’s Observations before treatment
Because of the staining and acidity of the paper, Samantha decided to wash the manuscript. Washing refers to many types of water and solvent solutions used in paper conservation. Washing removes soluble acids, dirt, and can lighten stains. Removing acids makes the paper more flexible and less likely to break or tear. An added treatment done during the washing process neutralizes the iron in iron gall ink to prevent further corrosion. After washing, the pages were reinforced and lost areas filled with Japanese paper. After treatment the pages were digitized and then they were resewn into a paper cover.
Bradford’s Observations after dis-binding, washing, mending and re-binding
The MHS has a significant map collection. Like many, this hand drawn map of Naushon and the Elizabeth Islands made in 1836 was attached to a cloth backing, nailed to wooden dowels, and then rolled for many years. The new acquisition arrived with cracks, tears, water stains and was so tightly rolled it was impossible to keep flat.
Map of Naushon before treatment
First, the cloth and adhesive were removed from the back of the map. Then the pieces of the map were washed. To align the pieces of the map, it was first placed wet between mylar and eased into place. The mylar allows the map to then be turned upside down and lined with Japanese paper. The map was then dried between wool felt and weight. Now, the map is stored with the rest of the collection and is ready to be used by researchers.
Left: Map of Naushon during washing, Middle: during alignment, Right: during lining
Below is the finished treatment after drying and flattening.
Map of Naushon after treatment
There are many activities besides direct treatments that we do at the MHS that contribute to the preservation of our collections. In our next post, we will discuss the building environment, storage and handling practices, budgeting and time management, documentation, and disaster preparedness.
I sometimes say, “my art history degree did not teach me the history of art, it taught me how to look.” And by “look,” I mean that I have a background knowledge in symbolism, period, style, medium, subject, color, and composition. When I visit museums with friends, I try not to overburden them with interpretation, but perhaps I sometimes do. This skill of looking helps me in my work at the Massachusetts Historical Society. On our social media pages and in our e-newsletters, I am sharing stories from one of the most interesting and important Early Republic collections and archives in the United States. For example, I use my looking skill to find meaning behind the iconography used in art that is a language no longer taught or known to us, except within university classrooms. I thought that for October’s blog, I’d share my looking skills on how to see mourning iconography in the MHS’s collection and archive. Keep reading (or looking!) if you dare!
I would like to start with an interesting embroidery created by Lydia Young Little, circa 1803–1804. At that time, part of a girl’s education would have been embroidery, or another skilled art done while seated, such as quilling or shell-work. An embroidery created by a fourteen- or fifteen- year-old girl signaled that she was properly educated by prosperous parents. Lydia used silk thread and watercolor on silk to create this scene of mourning, which its symbols depict. The urn symbolizes both the corporeal remains of the body and the container of the body’s ashes. The urn is on top of a carved rock slab, which is most likely the grave’s headstone. The wreath relates to the wreath that was often hung on the door of a house in mourning. Even today, a wreath is a common gift to a family who has lost a beloved member. The willow tree, sometimes called a “weeping willow” because the leaves appear to be tears falling from the branches, is also a symbol of mourning. Besides these more obvious symbols are subtle ones, such as the fully closed house in the background. A home’s shuttered appearance was a traditional way to convey a house in mourning. The three children pictured are mourning, but only one, the girl on the left, is actively crying, as shown by her stance on her knees and her handkerchief in her hand. The other two are standing with one hand pointed towards the sky, symbolizing that a family member has passed on to heaven. The last two symbols refer to who has died—the children’s father. The girl on the right holds an anchor symbolizing his seafaring life, and the single ship in the harbor refers to the deceased’s position as a captain. In fact, this embroidery was made to mourn Captain James Little, Lydia’s father.
James Little mourning needlework, Lydia Young Little, circa 1803–1804.
The tale of the Battle of Bunker Hill and the loss of the handsome and charming Joseph Warren is a story I love to tell. This broadside contains an elegiac poem about the battle and an acrostic poem for Warren. Three rows of twenty caskets each illustrate the top of the page—an indication that the first poem is about the death of many individuals. At the bottom right of the page is Warren’s acrostic poem, illustrated by a casket with his initials and a skull and crossbones, the latter a popular symbol of death. Sometimes the skulls have angelic wings, indicating the deceased person has gone to heaven, as also shown in Lydia Little’s embroidery with the children pointing skyward.
An Elegiac Poem, Composed On The Never-To-Be-Forgotten Terrible And Bloody Battle Fought At An Intrenchment On Bunker-Hill, Printed and sold by E. Russell, 1775.
Now that you are familiar with mourning iconography, what are some of the symbols you see in the following images, and are there other symbols you see that we didn’t discuss? Have you learned how to look?
Since July, I’ve been introducing you to individual members of the remarkable Clarke family of Boston, whose papers I recently processed. Next up is Alice de Vermandois (Sohier) Clarke. Alice was the daughter of lawyer William Sohier and Susan Cabot (Lowell) Sohier. In 1878, she married Eliot Channing Clarke, the only son of Rev. James Freeman Clarke, which is how her papers came to be here at the MHS.
For this post, I’d like to focus on eleven folders of manuscripts in the Perry-Clarke additions documenting Alice’s work with the Boston Female Asylum.
Some sources refer to the Boston Female Asylum as an orphanage, but that isn’t strictly true; the asylum also accommodated girls with living parents who couldn’t support them. Bacon’sDictionary of Boston (1886) has a good summary of the organization.
No. 1008 Washington Street. Established 1800; incorporated 1803. Receives destitute girls between three and ten, preference being given to orphans, though others are sometimes admitted; teaches them common-school branches, sewing, and domestic service; places them in families by indenture until 18, a few being always retained during their minority to serve in the asylum. Full surrender of a child is required on admission…
I was excited to see this material. Dating from 1894 to 1900, the papers consist primarily of correspondence between members of the asylum’s board of managers, including Alice; women in whose homes girls had been placed; superintendent Eliza J. Ross, who worked as a liaison for placements; and, most importantly, two of the girls themselves.
The managers really seemed to try to find the right placement for each girl. Alice’s notes mention some of them by name: for example, Leila Johnson was “small” and “easily led,” but a “good girl & worker.” Margaret Woodleigh was “very reliable,” but “cold distant no friends.” And Lizzie Alcott was “backward” and “cross at times” and needed a home with “(no men).”
I only have the space to discuss two individual stories very briefly, but I encourage you to come and look at the material yourself.
Edith Turner
Letter from Edith L. Turner to Alice Clarke, 20 November 1896
Edith was living with the Hanscom family in Lawrence, Mass., but wrote to Alice begging for a new place: “Everything is quiet just now but only for a day or so an[d] then it will be war again so please get me away as soon as possible.” Sure enough, the following morning Edith and Mrs. Hanscom had an argument, and Hanscom slapped her. The desperate girl wrote to Alice again, saying “I cannot an[d] will not stand what I have to any more” and threatening to run away.
The collection also includes a letter from Winifred Hanscom with her side of the story. She didn’t deny what happened, but described it as “discipline.” She called Edith “high spirited and independant and […] saucey [sic].”
Edith was eventually placed with Abby F. Solberg of Melrose, Mass., an “intelligent rather artistic” woman with a physical disability and two young children. Superintendent Eliza Ross wrote, “Mrs. Hanscom [was] not very well pleased to part with [Edith]. I fancy she did a good deal of work.”
Grace Smith
Letter from Grace Smith to Alice Clarke, 16 December 1900
Grace wasn’t happy, either. The 15-year-old was living with the Dockrill family in Manchester, N.H., where she was responsible for most of the housework, including sweeping, cleaning carpets, washing dishes, emptying slops, making beds, cleaning bathrooms, washing floors, etc. But Mrs. Dockrill said Grace was careless and lazy, and both of them wrote Alice asking for a change.
Carrie Dockrill was kinder to Grace than Hanscom had been to Edith. She said Grace had “good qualities” and thought she might enjoy placement at a farm because she loved the outdoors. Superintendent Ross called Grace “rather a peculiar and unbalanced girl,” but argued that of course “it is hard to change one’s nature wholly.”
Grace, for her part, promised “to turn over a new leaf and make something and somebody of myself.” After Mrs. Dockrill’s death a few months later, the girl was placed with a Mrs. Gould, also in Manchester. An undated note in the collection, in Alice’s handwriting, reads: “Grace Smith successful.”
In my previous blog posts here and here, I examined Massachusetts Congressman Gerry E. Studds as a gay man and environmental activist. In this post, I want to look at his antiwar stance, which focused on the violence in Vietnam, and later in South and Central America. While there is less on this in his collection at the MHS than I had hoped, there are still tantalizing glimpses of the antiwar convictions that pushed him to run in the first place.
Prior to his election to Congress, he campaigned for Senator Eugene McCarthy (not to be confused with the anticommunist senator Joseph McCarthy) during his 1968 run at the Democratic presidential nomination. McCarthy’s stance against the Vietnam War attracted Studds. Studds himself then ran for the House of Representatives and was elected on an anti-Vietnam War platform in 1972. The Vietnam War was a civil war between the communist North Vietnam, backed by China and Russia, and anticommunist South Vietnam, backed by the US and France. US involvement in the war, including troops, bombs, and Agent Orange sprays, ended in 1973, then the war officially ended in 1975 with a North Vietnamese victory. The wildly unpopular and casualty-heavy war was captured through photojournalism and news reports that inspired years of peace protests across the country which ultimately resulted in American withdrawal from the conflict. Studds’ election was part of this wave of discontent.
Studds did not only care about the war in Vietnam, however. He was also a strong opponent of the violence in Latin America, including El Salvador’s civil war and Reagan’s support of the Contras in Nicaragua, which culminated in the Iran-Contra affair. The twentieth century was a period of great unrest and revolution in South and Central America, with many previous “banana republics,” dealing with the repercussions of living under exploitation for so long. The Reagan administration supported the Salvadorean government in their civil war, but Studds called for a real inclusion of the revolutionary forces in the negotiations for peace and reform and for the United States to provide support in the negotiated settlement. The extreme human rights violations of the Salvadorean government and its military arm, which was responsible for killing thousands of its own citizens, did not stop the US government from offering billions of dollars in aid to the anti-communist leadership over the course of the war. Studds sought to stop that flow of aid and violence and instead support peace. He expressed that US leaders were “not this hemisphere’s only experts on democracy, social justice, the fair treatment of indigenous populations, or human rights. There are many other supporters of these concepts in Latin America.”
An example of the kinds of letters Gerry signed to encourage support of antiwar efforts.
In addition to these examples, Studds also supported nuclear disarmament, another point of conflict between him and President Ronald Reagan. Much of his time as Congressman in the 80s was spent opposing Reagan’s agenda. While a lot of that involved working to protect the rights of lesbian and gay individuals and fund research and support for those suffering from HIV/AIDS, things Reagan famously did not particularly care about, Studds’ environmental activism and anti-war sentiments also clashed with Reagan’s pro-business and Cold War focus. He was far from the only representative to have these positions, but his drafts and letters to other legislators help paint a picture of the movement’s efforts. If you are in Boston, I highly recommend checking out the Gerry E. Studds Papers. Just be sure to request it ahead of time!
by Sara Georgini, Series Editor, The Papers of John Adams
John Adams was nervous. Readying for his 4 March 1797 presidential inauguration, Adams flashed back to his days as a suburban schoolteacher, revolutionary lawyer, and self-taught statesman. The United States, born in the “Minds and Hearts of the People,” did not exist when Adams started out over forty years earlier. Neither did the shiny new role of president. Was he up to the job? “I never in my life felt Such an awful Weight of obligation to devote all my time, and all the forces that remain, to the Public,” he reassured Elbridge Gerry on 20 February 1797.
John Adams, by William Winstanley, 1798. Adams National Historical Park.
Brimming with international intrigue, domestic drama, and sly cabinet maneuvers, Volume 22 of The Papers of John Adams provides an insider’s tour of Adams’s tumultuous first year in office. This 59th volume published by the Adams Papers editorial project includes 304 documents that chronicle John Adams’s work from February 1797 to February 1798, revealing a new profile. Of the presidency, Adams vowed in his inaugural address: “It shall be my Strenuous Endeavour.” The popular narrative of Adams’s presidency is that he sidelined an inherited cabinet and chose to set major policy solo. This volume offers a richer and more complex history of a veteran statesman struggling within the bounds of the federal structure that he co-created.
Adams enjoyed just a few celebratory weeks on the job, before a wave of crises hit. Operating within the global upheaval of European war, the second president faced a set of hard trials. French privateers preyed on neutral American commerce. Yellow fever afflicted the federal seat in Philadelphia. Adams labored with Congress to shift money and resources for military preparedness. He drove the point home in his 28 Nov. 1797 note to the Senate: “A mercantile Marine and a military Marine must grow up together: one cannot long exist, without the other.” The Quasi-War loomed. Yet John Adams’s letters reveal an administration stubbornly bent on pursuing a policy of strategic peace—even at great personal and political cost.
Running the nation’s highest office presented fresh challenges for the lifelong public servant. From a glance at his overflowing desk, it seemed like everyone wanted something right now from the new chief: a job, a pardon, some patronage to float a book idea or to fund an invention. “The friends of my youth are generally gone,” Adams lamented to Joseph Ward on 6 April 1797. “The friends of my Early political Life are chiefly departed—of the few that remain, Some have been found on a late occasion Weak, Envious, jealous, and Spiteful, humiliated and mortified and duped Enough by French Finesse, and Jacobinical rascality to Shew it to me and to the world, Others have been found faithful and true, generous and Manly.” Beyond his wife Abigail, whom did he trust? Volume 22 sketches Adams’s widening networks, as he brokered relationships with a cabinet comprised of Charles Lee, James McHenry, Timothy Pickering, and Oliver Wolcott Jr.
Thomas Buttersworth, “An Armed Revenue Cutter on Patrol with a Potential Quarry Sheltering below the Cliffs,” ca. 1802.
Overall, the urgent question of France dominated Adams’s mind. Shipping losses mounted. The country’s small fleet of revenue cutters worked mightily to defend American interests, but Adams knew that it was hard to safeguard the economy without the protection of a professional navy. He strained to salvage a tattered alliance and hold off war. “Commerce has made this Country what it is; and it cannot be destroyed or neglected, without involving the People in Poverty and distress,” Adams told Congress on [22 Nov.] 1797, adding: “I should hold myself guilty of a neglect of Duty, if I forebore to recommend that We Should make every exertion to protect our Commerce, and to place our Country in a Suitable posture of defence, as the only Sure means of preserving both.” The French threat sharpened Adams’s focus on the need for a real navy, with a six-frigate fleet under construction. When the winter froze French cruisers’ chances, Adams mobilized money and congressional support for a major military buildup. Volume 22 supplies a 360-degree experience of how cabinet members debated the future of Franco-American policy.
John Adams sensed his first steps into the presidency marked a final turn in his extraordinary life of service to the American people. “Their Confidence, which has been the Chief Consolation of my Life, is too prescious and Sacred a deposit ever to be considered lightly,” he told the Senate on [15 Feb. 1797]. He was no George Washington, but Washington’s America was changing too. John Adams’s Federalist ideology of tripartite government shaped his policymaking and his popularity; understanding how to preserve liberty while defending the people was his challenge. That history unfolds next in Volumes 23 and 24 of The Papers of John Adams, now underway.
The Adams Papers editorial project at the Massachusetts Historical Society gratefully acknowledges the generous support of our sponsors. Major funding for the Papers of John Adams is provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, and the Packard Humanities Institute. All letterpress Adams Papers volumes are printed by Harvard University Press.
While perusing the MHS’s Rumford collection for juicy nuggets about the count’s ill-fated, later-life love story (described in Part 2), as well as connecting the dots between a Bavarian Count and baking powder manufactured in Rhode Island (Part 1), I also felt the love a person can feel for the tactile experience of going through archival documents. The joy of reading their words, even the ones in French (which I can’t read), looking at the stamps once used, smelling that old paper smell, and always finding surprises.
During my Rumford search, the first thing I noticed was the count’s and his daughter’s beautiful penmanship. I still write lists and short notes by hand, but mostly everything I communicate is online, and my penmanship lacks the beauty trained in the past. Thus, I’m in awe when I see a document by a person who had to write by hand and did it so beautifully, including their signature. The other items that made me smile were the leftover wax on a few of the letters, a stamp with George Washington on it, and a barely noticeable watermark on one sheet of paper.
From top left down, then right: Count Rumford’s signature, Countess Sarah “Sally” Rumford’s signature, red wax on an opened letter, a stamp with George Washington’s face on it, and a sheet of paper with a watermark on it.
One of the more surprising pieces that turned up was a sheet of paper folded into a little square. No other sheet of paper was folded like this in the files, so it stood out right away. Curious, I carefully unfolded it, and I’m glad I was so careful, because it contained hair! On the outside of the square was written, “Hair of My own 9 Dec Concord 1848,” but the words didn’t mean anything to me until I almost jumped out of my chair seeing the hair inside.
On the left, the outside of the folded paper, on the right, the hair inside.
With my experience reading the archival letters between the Adamses, which were from the same time frame as the Rumford letters, I expected these letters to be in English, but many were in French. Not being able to read the language put me at a disadvantage, but nevertheless, I took some pictures of the French language documents, and I’m glad I did, for something I had not noticed in one of them now led to an interesting discovery—it was a birth certificate for Charles Francis Robert Lefebvre de Rumford, our Count Rumford’s son. At the top of the document was a handwritten note in English, “Birth of the natural Son of Count Rumford.” Charles was born in Passy, France, in 1813, one year before Count Rumford died at age sixty-one. Charles’s mother was Victoire Joseph Lefebvre (1786–1853), and she was twenty-seven when she gave birth to him. However, he is not mentioned in most online biographies of Count Rumford, such as his Wikipedia page. In fact, I only found full mention of him on genealogy websites and the Rumford Family Collection, held by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS). So please give a moment of thanks to genealogists!
A close-up of the birth certificate of Charles Francis Robert Lefebvre de Rumford with the handwritten note at the top that reads, “Birth of the natural Son of Count Rumford.”
The AAAS’s page documented that Charles was illegitimate but carried the “de Rumford” name, as his father Count Rumford bequested it. He used “de Rumford” in the style of a French courtesy title, as “Count” is not a noble title in France, and because the count’s daughter, Sarah Thompson, Countess of Rumford, was his legitimate heir. In the following names, you may notice other courtesy titles towards the ends of names. Charles married Marie Louise Pauline Both de Tauzia and they had two children, Amédée Joseph Lefebvre de Rumford and Jeanne Marie Louise Sarah Lefebvre de Rumford. Amédée had two children, Marie Lefebvre de Rumford and Charles Lefebvre de Rumford. Marie had a daughter, Jacqueline de Freslon, who married her uncle Charles in 1923. Charles died in 1951, the last of the de Rumford line.
I hope you enjoyed this surprising journey that began with the Rumford files in the MHS’s George E. Ellis Papers. I found so much to savor while looking through it and afterward, sifting through my many photographs! It kept drawing me back to it.
