By Peter Drummey

The release of the new George Clooney film, The Monuments Men, recalls a fascinating talk given at the Historical Society in December 1980, and published as “Remembrance of Things Past: The Protection and Preservation of Monuments, Works of Art, Libraries, and Archives during and after World War II” (Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, vol. 92, p.84-99). Our speaker was Mason Hammond, the Pope Professor of the Latin Language and Literature Emeritus at Harvard University. Professor Hammond, by then well into his seventies, was an enthusiastic member of the MHS (the man that the Adams Papers editors and other staff members turned to when a difficult Greek or Latin passage appeared in a manuscript), but until that day his fellow members probably saw him as a stereotypically tweedy academic historian. While his lecture was an overview of the quietly heroic effort of American and British curators, conservators, and art historians to save cultural treasures in wartime Europe, just enough of former Captain (later Lieutenant Colonel) Hammond’s own experiences enlivened his narrative to give his audience an inkling of the great adventure that he had participated in almost forty years before, and the remarkable role that he played as the first—and for a time the only—”Monuments Man.” 

In his MHS talk, Mason Hammond described his path to a key role in the Allied preservation effort first in Sicily and Italy, and later in Northern Europe as almost accidental. In 1943, the director of the Metropolitan Museum in New York was appointed the first Fine Arts and Monuments Officer of the Allied Military Government of Occupied Territories, but he was too fat to pass his physical, so Hammond, an intelligence officer at the Pentagon though not an art historian, was sent to North Africa in his place. Here Hammond was too diffident about his qualifications. He already had a lustrous career as a student and teacher at Harvard; had continued his studies of ancient art and archaeology at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar; and spent three years teaching at the American Academy in Rome.  In Sicily and then on the Italian mainland, he developed the pattern for the rescue work that followed. Inadvertently, he also may have given the “Monuments Men” their name. His Boston accent proved so challenging for his British colleagues (who heard him say “fine arts and monuments” as “finance and monuments”) that for the sake of clarity, they reversed the order of words in the title of his section to “Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives”—and hence the “Monuments” rather than the “Fine Arts” (or “Finance”) Men.

Mason Hammond’s role in the Second World War is not unknown. He appears in recent popular histories by Robert M. Edsel with Bret Witter, The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History (2009), and Saving Italy; The Race to Rescue a Nation’s Treasures from the Nazis (2013). If his own narrative is more measured than the breathless treasure hunt described in both books and the new film, it places the work of the Monuments Men in a larger context.

What would Mason Hammond have made of the new Monuments Men movie? We cannot really say, but in his talk he described the work of the monuments officers mostly in terms of architectural preservation and the restoration of museum and archival collections within their countries of origin, rather than the focus of the film—the hunt for art treasures looted from private collections in countries occupied by the Nazis. In fact, Hammond was extraordinarily fair minded in assigning responsibility for the accidental or deliberate destruction of architectural monuments and buildings, as well as the contents of museums and libraries. He thought that what he believed to be the worst cultural loss of the war, the destruction of the bulk of the collections of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin, probably had been an accident rather than the result of Nazi malevolence or Russian revenge. 

As a student of ancient history, Hammond probably was about the only person who could find a silver lining in the controversial Allied bombing of the Monastery of Monte Casino in Italy early in 1944 (this event is shown as leading to the creation of the Monuments Men in the new film, although Hammond had been in the field for almost nine months when the attack took place). As he noted, the Germans had removed the library of the Monastery to the Vatican before it was attacked. He thought the bombardment that followed had stripped away modern accretions to St. Benedict’s original structure, allowing its restoration in “a more suitable Romanesque style.”

Ironically, at the war’s end, Hammond found himself caught up in what appeared to be American-sponsored looting. He was serving in Berlin, the custodian of a bank vault filled with boxes labeled “Rembrandt” and “Rubens” that had been rescued from a phosphate mine in Thuringia. All the Monuments Men in Germany, regardless of rank (and by then Hammond was a senior officer in the detachment), signed a “most unmilitary” protest of a plan to remove works of art from Germany to the United Sates—a plan that the Monuments Men found too closely resembled the looting of cultural treasures by the Germans. While art works came to the United States and were stored at the National Gallery, in due course they were returned to Germany.

There is some presumption in claiming one of Harvard’s most faithful alumni and faculty members as the Society’s own “Monuments Man,” but Mason Hammond was an active member of the MHS for forty-four years, regularly attending MHS events until not long before his death in 2002, at the age of ninety-nine.

By Amanda A. Mathews

This past Sunday we may have celebrated the day of our national weather-groundhog with Punxsutawney Phil’s prediction of another six weeks of winter, but today we celebrate National Weatherperson’s Day as recognized by the National Weather Service. This date, 5 February, was chosen for to celebrate the anniversary of the 1745 birth of Dr. John Jeffries, a Bostonian who is credited as one of the nation’s first weathermen, flying a hot air balloon above the city of London to take scientific weather measurements.

This fascinating individual has an equally intriguing connection with the Adams family. A Boston physician, Dr. Jeffries first crossed paths with John Adams during the Boston Massacre Trials of 1770 as a witness testifying for the defense. As the surgeon attending to Patrick Carr, one of the townspeople shot by the soldiers, Jeffries had asked Carr questions about what had happened, and Jeffries relayed to the jury what he had learned. Carr, who died of his wounds ten days later, supported the defense account that the mob pelted the soldiers with more than just snowballs and helped instigate the confrontation. Jeffries became a loyalist as the Revolution broke out and eventually left Boston, becoming a doctor in the British Army first in Nova Scotia and later set up his practice in London.

It was in Europe that that Dr. Jeffries and the Adamses crossed paths once again. While dining with Benjamin Franklin in Paris on February 14, 1785, John Quincy Adams met Dr. Jeffries who described to the guests his voyage by balloon from Dover, England, to Calais, France, the first to cross the English Channel by air. John Quincy recorded in his diary, “Dined at Dr. Franklin’s with a great deal of Company, among the rest Dr. Jeffries who lately cross’d with Mr. Blanchard, from Dover to Calais. He is a small man: has not an agreeable address, but seems to be very sensible: he related his voyage: in which his intrepidity had well nigh been fatal to him: the balloon descended he says, 3/4 of a mile in 2. minutes: he and Mr. Blanchard were both of them obliged to throw almost all their cloaths in the water. At one time they were not more than 20 yards above the surface.”

Several months later when John Adams became the first American Minister to Great Britain and moved to London, Dr. Jeffries became the family physician. Abigail said of him in a letter to her sister, “Dr Jeffries is our family Physician, and is really an amiable benevolent Man tho formerly he took a different side in politicks.” In addition to treating the regular ailments of the family, Dr. Jeffries was present for the birth of John and Abigail’s first grandchild when their daughter Nabby gave birth to William Steuben Smith in April 1787.

If you would like to learn more about Dr. John Jeffries, his family papers are available at the MHS.

By Kathleen Barker

On 29 January, the Society hosted a special author talk for a very lucky group of middle-school students. The star of the show was none other than Cokie Roberts: MHS Fellow, journalist, political commentator, and author of the new children’s book Founding Mothers: Remembering the Ladies. The book, which is based on her 2004 bestseller Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation, chronicles the lives of the women who helped to found and nurture the United States. Abigail Adams is duly represented, as are Martha Washington, Phillis Wheatley, and Mercy Otis Warren. The book also introduces young readers to characters who might be less familiar: women like Deborah Sampson, the Massachusetts native who disguised herself as a man and fought in the Revolution, or Esther DeBerdt Reed, who raised more than $300,000 to purchase supplies for the underfunded Continental Army.

As the noon hour approached, nearly 120 pre-teen history enthusiasts from Lexington, Mendon, and Upton, Mass., filled the MHS Reading Room to learn more about Ms. Roberts, her book, and the documents that made it possible. After a brief overview of the book, Ms. Roberts opened the floor to questions from the audience. The students asked nearly every question imaginable (and several that no one could have seen coming) over the next 45 minutes. For example, which revolutionary lady would Ms. Roberts most like to hang out with? Sarah Livingston Jay, of course! Jay, the smart, funny, feisty wife of patriot John Jay, raised her family and managed her household with good humor while supporting her husband’s busy political career. Several students asked Ms. Roberts to connect women of the past to the ladies of the present. One clever young lady from Lexington asked if there were any current situations in which Americans needed to “remember the ladies.” As Ms. Roberts explained, several groups of Americans are still fighting for equality in our society today. Women in particular must still advocate for equal pay, and for more flexible working conditions that recognize women’s essential role as caregivers. (Keep fighting, ladies!)

The afternoon’s presentation was perhaps best summed up with a question asked by a young lady from Mendon: why didn’t women have rights from the very beginnings of colonial America? Well, it could have taken hours to debate that issue, but unfortunately, the students had to return to school. The program ended with Ms. Roberts signing autographs (and even a few hands!) while the students perused a small exhibit of MHS documents featured in Ms. Roberts’s works. The students had the opportunity to read Abigail Adams’s “remember the ladies” letter and Phillis Wheatley’s poems, along with a fascinating letter written by Paul Revere in support of Deborah Sampson’s request for a military pension.

Contact the Society’s education department if you are interested in bringing your students or colleagues to the MHS for a program or workshop. While we can’t promise that Cokie Roberts will make an appearance, we can guarantee that your students will have a great time learning about the past through MHS collections!