This Week @ MHS

By Dan Hinchen

As October begins so too does our heavy programming season. Strap in and see what’s on tap this week at the Society!

On Tuesday, 29 September, join us for our first Immigration and Urban History seminar of the season. Beginning at 5:15PM, Susan Eckstein of Boston University presents “Cuban Immigration and Exceptionalism: The Long Cold War.” In this project, Eckstein focuses on the complex roots of expanded benefits extended to Cuban refugee and immigrants over those from other Communist regimes, and the likely reform in Cuban immigraiton policy. Christine Thurlow Brenner of Univeristy of Massachusetts – Boston provides comment. Seminars are free and open to the public; RSVP required. Subscribe to receive advance copies of the seminar papers. Note that this session only will begin with a light supper at 5:15PM, and the program will follow at 6:00PM. 

Then, on Wednesday, 30 September, stop by at noon for a Brown Bag lunch talk with Gregg Lint, Series Editor for the Papers of John Adams: “Forty Years of Living with John Adams.” This talk is about the life and times of a young editor who grew old reading the mail of a man who always had something to say on almost every conceivable subject, and kept everything. This talk is free and open to the public. 

Also on Wednesday is a special film screening at the Society. Co-sponsored by the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, “Wilderness in America: A History of America & the Land From Conquest to Conservation,” looks at the legacy of conservation in America, unmatched anywhere else in the world. The film tells the story of four centuires of American history and the changing view of the land by leaders, writers, artists, photographers, teachers, and organizations, and the resulting environmental legislation of the last half-century. Registration is required at no cost. A reception begins at 5:30PM and the screening begins at 6:00PM.

On Thursday, 1 October, there is a special MHS Fellows and Members event for the unveiling of the Society’s next exhibition. “Terra Firma: The Beginnings of the MHS Map Collection Preview Reception” is a chance for our Members and Fellows to get a first peek at the upcoming public exhibition, Terra Firma. Stephen T. Riley Librarian Peter Drummey will provide remarks at 6:00PM while the reception and preview will begin at 6:30PM. 

And on Friday, 2 October, the Society opens two new exhibits to the public. First is the aforementioned “Terra Firma: The Beginnings of the MHS Map Collection.” This exhibit celebrates the beginning of one of the most diverse and interesting collections here at the MHS as we approach our 225th year. Also opening on Friday is “‘Always Your Friend’: Letters from Theodore Roosevelt to Henry Cabot Lodge, 1884-1918.” This exhibit highlights selections from a remarkable collection of letters from the extensive correspondence between these two friends and their spouses. Both of these exhibitions are open to the public, free of charge, until 9 January 2016. Galleries are open Monday-Saturday, 10:00AM-4:00PM.

Rounding out the week, on Saturday, 3 October, the Society is hosting a teacher workshop and a free tour. “Painless: A Survival Guide to the (Dreaded) History Project” uses the broad themes of “Exploration, Encounters, and Exchange in History” as a springboard to dive into the research process and discover how to use primary sources to uncover the nineteenth-century global adventures of Massachusetts men and women. The program is open to students, teachers, librarians, and archivists, and begins at 9:00AM. There is a fee of $10 (free for students and teachers accompanied by students) and registration is required; please RSVP. To register, or for more information, contact the education department at education@masshist.org or 617-646-0557.

Finally, at 10:00AM on Saturday, 3 October, is the return of our free tour. The History and Collections of the MHS is 90-minute, docent-led walk through the public spaces at the Society, touching on the art, architecture, history, and collections of the Society. The tour is open to the public with no need for reservations for small groups or individuals. Parties of 8 or more should contact Curator of Art Anne Bentley in advance at 617-646-0508 or abentley@masshist.org. 

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An American Woman in Egypt, 1914-1915: At the Cataract Hotel, Asswan

By Anna Clutterbuck-Cook, Reader Services

Today we rejoin our anonymous female diarist as she journeys down the Nile in the winter of 1914-1915. You can read previous installments of this series here (introduction), here (Cairo to Aysut), here (Aysut to Asswan), here (Asswan to Abu Simbel), and here (Wadi Halfa to Asswan).

 

 

Image from Cook’s Handbook for Egypt and Egyptian Sudan (1911), p. 723.

 

Having returned to Asswan and checked into the Cataract Hotel — a luxury hotel for foreign travelers — our anonymous diarist settles into a daily routine in the days before the Christian holidays. No longer constantly moving from location to location, our diarist’s daily routines still revolve around sightseeing, shopping, and socializing with fellow travelers.

 

Dec. 16. A.M. Went to bazar; bought [kimono?] & Miss. M. a blue stone. Also got post-cards. P.M. took a walk up on the hills of the desert beyond hotel & got fine view of the first cataract. Could see to the dam. Got back for sunset & watched it from terrace. Talking with the Brown’s [sic]. Wrote before dinner.

Dec. 17. A.M.Went to bazar again; bought some beads, cards, etc., & saw many pretty things in [illegible word] shop. P.M. had a shampoo, then went over to Hotel Lobby & had tea, but missed the sunset.

Dec. 18 A.M. Went to shops, I bought India scarf. P.M. took a boat and went over to the rock tombs first, then to Convent of St. Simeon & sailed about a little after-wards, getting back at 6.15.

Dec. 19. Took donkeys & rode out to granite quarries on the desert to see statue of Ramses laying in the sand. A 2 hour trip. P.M. Did some writing then at 4 we went out & walked up on the hill by the fort to see sunset. Wrote before dinner.

Dec. 20. Went to bazar for last time & bought some more charms & a few little things. P.M. tried to walk out along the road to Hotel [illegible] Palace but came to end of it & had to turn around. Sat on a seat in the Public Gardens & watched the sunset. In evening there was a small dance.

 

A contemporary description of the Monastery of St. Simeon, written for a tourist population, can be found in the 1911 Cook’s travel guide to Egypt:

 

On the western bank of the Nile, at about the same height as the southern point of the Island of Elephantine, begins the valley which leads to the monastery called after the name of Saint Simon, or Simeon. It is a large, strong building, half monastery, half fortress, and is said to have been abandoned by the monks in the thirteenth century, but the statement lacks confirmation; architecturally it is of very considerable interest. It was wholly surrounded by a wall from about 19 to 23 feet high, the lower part, which was sunk in the rock, being built of stone, and the upper part of mud brick; within this wall lay all the monastery buildings. (730)

 

You can read the full description in Cook’s Handbook for Egypt and the Egyptian Sudan (1911)   online at The Internet Archive.

In our next installment, we will get a glimpse of how our traveler celebrated Christmas far from home.

 

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This Week @ MHS

By Dan Hinchen

As we hurtle toward October and a full month of programming, we start to increase the offerings a bit this week. 

First up, stop by on Wednesday, 23 September, for a Brown Bag Lunch talk with Ben Vine of the University of Sydney. Join us at noon for “Class and War in Revolutionary Boston, 1776-80,” a talk that considers the state of class relations in Boston while the town was dealing with the trials of the Revolutionary War and explores how reconceptualizing class can illuminate greater complexities in the relations among Boston’s classes during the period. This talk is free and open to the public. 

Also on Wednesday is a public author talk. Please consider joining us for “Slavish Shore: The Odyssey of Richard Henry Dana, Jr.” In 1834, Dana left Harvard on a maritime journey to California as a common seaman and witnessed brutal floggings and other injustices on board. His account of the journey, “Two Years Before the Mast,” became an American classic. In “Slavish Shore,” author Jeffrey Amestoy, Harvard Kennedy School, tells the story of Dana’s unflagging determination to keep his vow to combat injustice in the face of nineteenth-century America’s most exclusive establishment: the Boston society in which he was born and bred. This talk is open to the public with a $20 fee (no charge for Fellows and Members). Registration is required, so please RSVP. There is a pre-talk reception beginning at 5:30PM with the talk beginning at 6:00PM.

And on Thursday, 23 September, all graduate students in American History and related subjects are invited to attend the MHS’ Graduate Student Reception. Attendees can enjoy refreshments, tour the various departments of the MHS, and learn about the range of resoruces available to support their work, including MHS fellowship programs. Refreshments and networking begin at 6:00PM and run throughout the evening. The program begins at 6:30PM. No charge to attend but RSVP is required by September 23. Email seminars@masshist.org or phone 617-646-0568 with your name and affiliation. Indicate whether you are a graduate student or faculty member.

 

 

 

 

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Making History: Boston’s Bicentennial

By Amanda M. Norton, Adams Papers

On September 17, 1830, Boston celebrated the bicentennial of its settlement. Such a noteworthy occasion would hardly be complete without the presence of one of the state’s leading families, particularly a former president. Thus, John Quincy Adams was invited to participate in the commemoration events held in Boston that day. Before meeting with the other members of the parade at the State House, John stopped by to see if his son Charles Francis Adams was in his Boston office and would join him. Charles, however, was not there but at his home in Medford. He reported in his diary entry for the day, “As this was the day destined for the Celebration of the Anniversary of the settlement of Boston, and about to produce a tremendous consequent fuss I thought it would be expedient for me to have nothing whatever to do with it. I have a great horror of Crowds, and if I make up my mind to attend public days always have cause to repent it.”

A grand procession of city and state officials as well as Boston residents marched through Boston Common and down Tremont and State Street to Old South Church. There the President of Harvard University and former Boston mayor, Josiah Quincy III, gave an oration that John Quincy Adams considered, “worthy of the subject and received with universal approbation” and a number of songs were sung in celebration of the city. The music included a rewrite of Great Britain’s “God Save the King” with new lyrics by Rev. John Pierpont and Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus.” The group processed back to the State House. That evening, fireworks were set off over the common and John Quincy attended a party hosted by Lieutenant Governor Thomas Winthrop.

The momentous occasion also included the first hints of a historic event on the horizon—Adams’s election to the House of Representatives. Before returning to Quincy for the evening, a number of gentlemen at the party approached Adams to discuss an article which ran in the September 6, 1830 issue of the Boston Courier, which suggested that Adams be nominated for the Plymouth congressional district of which Quincy was a part. John Quincy was initially dismissive of the idea: “As the Editor of the Paper has been uniformly hostile to me, I supposed this nomination was made with the same Spirit, and did not imagine it was seriously thought of by any one.” Serious it was though, and two months later, President John Quincy Adams was representative-elect Adams—the first and only president to serve in Congress after his presidency.

 

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This Week @ MHS

By Dan Hinchen

It is a quiet week here at the Society as far as programs go, with only two items on the calendar. 

First up, on Thursday, 17 September, is a talk given by author and historian Joseph Ellis of Williams College. In this Pauline Maier Memorial Lecture, Ellis discusses his book The Quartet. The talk is open to the public with a fee of $20 (no charge for Fellows and Members). There is a pre-talk reception at 5:30PM and the talk begins at 6:00PM. NOTE: This program will take place at MIT’s Wong Auditorium at the intersection of Amherst and Wadsworth Streets in Cambridge (map). This is a four minute walk from the Kendall Square MBTA station or there is street parking along Memorial Drive and a parking garage at the Marriot Hotel in Kendall Square. 

And on Saturday, 19 September, is the next installment of “Begin at the Beginning: Boston’s Founding Documents,” a program sponsored by the Partnership of Historic Bostons discussion group. This time around, the group discusses “What’s in a Name: From Boston, Lincolnshire to Boston, Massachusetts.” The illustrated presentation and discussion of readings is led by independent scholar and author Neil Wright of Lincolnshire, England, a member of hte Partnership of Historic Bostons. The talk begins on 1:00PM here at the MHS. Registration is required at no cost, so please RSVP.

 

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To Speak With the Hand — To Hear With the Eye.

By Kittle Evenson, Reader Services

The breadth of foreign-language materials in our collections often surprises me; we have English and French language conversation primers written in Italian, proverbs in Hebrew and Latin, and Chinese grammar books written in German. So it should not have surprised me, although it did, to discover several fascinating 19th century broadsides and pamphlets on manual languages hidden within our collections as well.

Two broadsides, Single and Double Hand Alphabet (c. 1856) and Charles Parker’s New Manual Alphabets (1856) depict a variety of manual hand and body alphabets, including narrative descriptions of their intended uses, audiences, and histories.

Both items show slight variations on a single-handed alphabet, a double-handed alphabet, and the numbers 1-10.

 

Single-Handed Alphabet


Double-Handed Alphabet

 

Charles Parker’s New Manual Alphabets also includes “The Indian’s Lettered Hand,” and “The Signal Alphabet.”

 

The Indian’s Lettered Hand



The signal Alphabet

 

“The Signal Alphabet” in particular, which looks similar to flag semaphore, caught my eye. Created by C. W. Knudsen Esq. and Professor Isaac H. Benedict, a deaf-mute individual and teacher at the New York Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, it was derived from a more complex alphabet called the “Brachial Alphabet,” which was published in 1852 by a former Bostonian, Captain Robert Jenks.

“There are many occasions when it could be used with great advantage,” the broadside advertises, “as in the case of ship-wreck . . . on the farm . . . and on the battle field [sic].” I was amused to find these logical implementations followed by the far more outlandish suggestion that “a pleasing and profitable use may also be made of it in schools, as, by requiring the pupils to spell words in concert, the teacher can unite callisthenic [sic] exercises with practice in orthography.”

 

 

A pamphlet, entitled Language for the Hand and the Eye and dating to a decade after the broadsides, proposes similar benefits for hearing students.

It was a favorite idea of Dr. Gallaudet (the pioneer in the work of deaf mute education in this country,) that the use of the manual alphabet by hearing and speaking children, would prove highly advantageous, by leading their attention to the written form of words, thus aiding them greatly in forming the habit of spelling correctly.

The use of this alphabet is also a pleasant diversion to children. It is an entertainment to them to find that they can produce language in a new form. (7)

 

 

The audience for this particular pamphlet is clearly a hearing one. In the postscript of the text, the author, who is unnamed, addresses the reader directly:

Kind reader: — Is there among your acquaintances a little one who has not the power of hearing and speaking — a deaf mute child, unable to acquire this wonderful, beautiful power of language that we all acquire so readily by the ear? If you know of such an one, will you not try to aid the child by teaching it this alphabet, or by inducing the parents, or brothers and sisters, or friends of the little deaf mute to teach it early to use this form of language, and thus save it from unneccessary [sic] ignorance? (10)

The author’s final proclamation makes clear one of the most intriguing aspects of these sources: while they were distributed to propagate a language originally created by the Deaf community, they are directed at hearing individuals with the opinions of deaf individuals filtered through their re-telling by hearing doctors and educators, if they are even included at all.

While some acknowledgement is made of the variations in manual languages between regions, there is no mention of the broader range of formal sign languages to represent and communicate concrete and abstract thoughts beyond the creation of letters. Also omitted is any substantive mention of Deaf culture, or the first-hand account of communicating as a deaf individual.

In addition to these items on manual languages, the MHS also holds a variety of manuscript and print materials pertaining to the personal experience of deaf and mute individuals in New England, as well as educators and doctors who worked with, studied, and taught them. Interested researchers are encouraged to stop by during our open hours to view these, or any of our other collections in person.

 

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The Shackles of Freedom: the Slave Trade in Colonial New England

By Zachary Hill, Nashoba Regional High School

Five weeks ago, I found myself playing chicken with the Green Line. My brush with death in Brookline was worth it.

As a high school student, my primary sources mostly come as nice, neat internet transcriptions. I never expected to be staring at a three hundred year old letter in which Hugh Hall, one of Boston’s prominent slave traders, complains rather vehemently of seasickness. The letter was written in big, loopy handwriting, the polar opposite of Hugh’s brother Richard’s cramped impossibility, on yellowed old paper that felt somewhat slimy.

For a moment, I was overcome by the idea that I was touching Hall’s DNA.

I was researching the development of the New England economy in relation to the slave trade. This rested chiefly on the shoulders of the exploits of early traders in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. I had first to establish the prominence and profitability of the trade, then track its influence, culturally and economically, as it inserted itself into the daily life of colonists. Slavery as a domestic institution was rather invisible in colonial Massachusetts, but the colony’s involvement in a booming international trade was not, and New England merchants grew rich by supplying Caribbean sugar plantations with slaves.

During this time I uncovered the most astounding stories. John Usher, later the Receiver General of the Dominion of New England, conspired with a group of London merchants and his friend John Saffin, to smuggle slaves into Rhode Island. At this time, the Royal African Company held a monopoly on all trade to “His Majesty’s Plantations” with Africa. Usher’s ship was nearly intercepted and had to be redirected to Nantasket, where the cargo was unloaded and sold (according to a bill of sale from 1681 in the miscellaneous manuscripts collection) three months later across New England.

These long-dead personages began to acquire personal characteristics. Richard Hall frequently wrote home to his children in Boston. Elizabeth Shrimpton, the grandmother of Shute Shrimpton Yeamans, who had inherited his father’s plantation in Antigua, sent him a letter in which she debated to herself whether he’d receive the Boston share of her will. With these personalities emerging, details that become almost tangible before the researcher, one finds it hard to imagine the sheer callousness of their commerce. Hall mentions slaves in the same breath as rum and turpentine. The Royal African Company frequently petitioned the King that New England smugglers were disrupting their quotas as to affect their quarterly margins, displeasing their Caribbean customers. I stood amazed that they trafficked in human beings, and that this “smuggling” and these “quotas” often decided the fate of hundreds of captive men, women, and children.

I made three visits to the Massachusetts Historical Society. In each I was awestruck by the sheer volume of resources available to me: original documents, collections, microfilm, and digitized materials. The staff was very helpful in my attempts to locate evidence, and I oftentimes would have been lost in a jungle of information had they not hacked through some vines. For those researching slavery and the slave trade, the John Usher sections of the Jeffries family papers have proved very useful, as has the account book of Hugh Hall, the Shrimpton family papers, the wills in the Dolbeare family papers, and certain sections of the Winthrop family papers. The Sir William Pepperrell papers are, despite the label on the collection guide, an impenetrable morass of personal correspondence mostly related to the Siege of Louisburg, so deceptively organized by the archivists of 1898 that there are indeed indices to indices. I finally stumbled upon a bit of clarity with the discovery of Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade to America, a collection of just the right sort of manuscripts by Elizabeth Donnan, conveniently stored at the Massachusetts Historical Society. Here I found the Charter of the Royal African Company, as well as several petitions in regards to said company, and the account of a certain Captain Moore, whose schooner, the William, was “taken and retaken again,” by her captives.

I have always wanted to be a historian. My time at the Massachusetts Historical Society obliterated any lingering doubts in that ambition. Words cannot describe the joy of these encounters with the past, an opportunity I will never forget.  With that in mind, I would like to thank all those at the Society who have aided me in my research, and for awarding me this tremendous opportunity.

 

–

**The MHS has awarded the John Winthrop Student Fellowship since 2013. This fellowship encourages high school students to make use of the nationally significant documents of the Society in a research project of their choosing.

 

 

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This Week @ MHS

By Dan Hinchen

Please note that the Society is Closed on Monday, 7 September, in observance of Labor Day. The Library remains Closed through Friday, 11 September, with normal hours resuming on Saturday, 12 September.

On Wednesday, 9 September, join us at noon for a Brown Bag lunch talk with Jared Hardesty of Western Washington University. Hardesty’s talk is titled “Constructing Empire: Fortifications, Politics, and Labor in an Age of Imperial Reform, 1689-1715.” The talk is free and open to the public so pack a lunch and stop by for some midday history!

There is no building tour on Saturday, 12 September.

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Boston by Broadside, part I: Prof. G. H. Boulet’s Gymnasium

By Dan Hinchen

Welcome to my new series here on the Beehive: “Boston by Broadside.” Here I will use examples from the MHS’ collection of broadsides to show various views of our fair city as it used to be. 

 

For the first foray out into Boston-that-was, we begin in Charlestown. This first stop is just to make sure that everyone is physically up to the challenge of navigating the city by broadside. So, let us begin on Washington Street at Prof. G. H. Boulet’s Gymnasium, Fencing, Sparring, and Pistol Academy.

While your intrepid guide considers himself to be in passable physical condition, he realizes that his training thus far is lacking in many elements, most notably the swordplay and precision with firearms. There will need to be more work done here in the future.

But now, onto the next stop! Check back soon to see where we land!

 

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