This Week @ MHS

By Dan Hinchen

It’s August and it’s high time that you dropped by the MHS to get out of the heat and enjoy some history. Here is what we have on tap in the week ahead:

– Monday, 1 August, 12:00PM : We start the month with a Brown Bag lunch talk presented by Cassandra Berman of Brandeis University. “Motherhood and the Court of Public Opinion: Transgressive Maternity in America, 1768-1868” examines the figure of the transgressive mother in the United States during a period in which an indealized version of motherhood began to be seen as integral to the moral development of the nation. Berman’s research shifts the focus away from ideals and instead examines how the public judges those mother who either could not or would not conform. This talk is free and open to the public, so pack a lunch and come on in!

– Wedensday, 3 August, 12:00PM : Another Brown Bag! With “‘Missionary Nation’: Imagining America’s Role in the Post-Civil War World,” James Shinn of Yale  University examines how the struggle for the Union exercised a powervul and lasting–but deeply ambiguous–influence on the Republican foreign policy vision of the late 1860s and 1870s. This talk, also, is free and open to the public. 

– Thursday, 4 August – Friday, 5 August :  “Whaling in Nineteenth-Century Massachusetts” is a teacher workshop taking place here at the Society and at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. Using documents from the MHS and the Leventhal Map Center, the workshop explores the lives of sailors, whaling wives, and entrepreneurs, and traces the expanding geographical horizons afforded by the whaling industry. This program is open to educators and history enthusiasts. To register, or for more information, complete this registration form, or contact the education department ateducation@masshist.org or 617-646-0557. 

– Saturday, 6 August, 10:00AM : The History and Collections of the MHS is a 90-minute docent-led walk through our public rooms. The tour is free, open to the public, with no need for reservations. If you would like to bring a larger party (8 or more), please contact Curator of Art Anne Bentley at 617-646-0508 or abentley@masshist.org.

While you’re here you will also have the opportunity to view our current exhibition: Turning Points in American History.

Posted in This Week @MHS

Abigail’s Window

By Sara Georgini, Adams Papers

The First Lady was lost. Nine miles off the main road, Abigail Adams, 56, hacked her way through the thick woods bordering Baltimore and the “wilderness city” of Washington, D.C. Eager to join husband John in the new capital, Abigail had left Quincy in early November 1800 with two servants. By Saturday the 15th, they had fallen a few days off course. For two hours, a frustrated Abigail circled the same forest paths—a precious gulf of travel time gone, since they only rode in daylight, and local inns were scarce. Abigail (accurately) reckoned that 36 miles of rough and lonely land lay ahead. She forged on, “holding down & breaking bows of trees which we could not pass,” as she told sister Mary Smith Cranch, “untill we met a Solitary black fellow with a horse and cart. We inquired of him our way, and he kindly offered to conduct us.” Abigail hired him on the spot. Following his directions, by Sunday afternoon she reached her new home, “a Castle of a House…in a beautifull Situation” with a “romantic” view of the Potomac River.

Abigail Adams’ trove of letters, as national convention-watchers have recently reminded us, supply a unique view of slavery and of the African-American experience in the new republic. When First Lady Michelle Obama reiterated on Monday that slave labor built the White House, many viewers turned to founding-era papers, including those of the Adams family, for details. Enter Abigail. One of the second First Lady’s D.C. dispatches, back in popular circulation again this week, lists her candid observation of slaves at work outside the President’s House window. Here’s an extract of the 28 Nov. 1800 letter to Cotton Tufts that got Abigail Adams trending on Facebook and lighting up Twitter:

“The effects of Slavery are visible every where; and I have amused myself from day to day in looking at the labour of 12 negroes from my window, who are employd with four small Horse carts to remove some dirt in front of the house. The four carts are all loaded at the Same time, and whilst four carry this rubish about half a mile, the remaining eight rest upon their Shovels, two of our hardy N England men would do as much work in a day, as the whole 12; but it is true Republicanism that drive the Slaves half fed, and destitute of cloathing, or fit for May faire, to labour, whilst the owner waches about Idle, tho his one Slave is all the property he can boast. Such is the case of many of the inhabitants of this place.”

 

Such a public display of slavery in the nation’s capital distressed Abigail Adams, although a New England upbringing had not shielded her from its misery. Her father William Smith, a Weymouth clergyman, owned several slaves who were freed upon his death in 1783.“I wish most sincerely there was not a Slave in the province,” Abigail wrote to her husband in 1774, as demands for American liberty grew. A staunch antislavery advocate, Abigail was furious when the Declaration of Independence’s “most Manly Sentiments,” denouncing the slave trade, were, after debate, heavily struck from the final draft. Plain-spoken about the need for African-American freedom on paper, Abigail’s actions also merit a quick review. She employed her father’s former slave, Phoebe Abdee, to run the family farm. She educated African-American servants in her Quincy parlor. When a neighbor balked at Abigail sending one of her staff, James, to school, she argued for him in a letter to John: “The Boy is a Freeman as much as any of the young Men, and merely because his Face is Black, is he to be denied instruction? How is he to be qualified to procure a livelihood? Is this the Christian principle of doing to others, as we would have others do to us?” Then Abigail pivoted to quash James’ toughest critic: “Tell them Mr. Faxon that I hope we shall all go to Heaven together. Upon which Faxon laugh’d, and thus ended the conversation. I have not heard any more upon the subject.” The question of James’ education was settled in 1797. Three busy years later, Abigail set out for the President’s House.

Abigail, a hardy traveler, took advantage of every panorama and every person she met. Given a new window on the world, Abigail used it. Barely a month into her D.C. stay, Abigail accepted an invitation to visit Martha Washington, now the General’s widow, at Mount Vernon. The rooms she found “small and low,” and the “greatest Ornament” to the visitor’s eye, Abigail decided, was a long piazza that knit together the Potomac’s gauzy blue-grey with lush green lawn. Signs of decay, the New Englander wrote, now threatened parts of the plantation’s beauty. Abigail’s unique summit with her old friend and colleague is worth a ponder. What did the two First Ladies discuss? We know one topic for certain: Slaves. Specifically, Abigail wrote to her sister Mary Smith Cranch on 21 December 1800, the deepening anxiety that Martha, “with all her fortune finds it difficult to support her family, which consists of three Hundred souls.” With 150 Mount Vernon slaves on the brink of emancipation, Abigail wrote that Martha was “distrest” for the fate of “Men with wives & young children who have never Seen an acre, beyond the farm. are now about to quit it, and go adrift into the world without house Home or Friend.”

 

This rich letter, held in the Adams-Cranch Papers here at the Massachusetts Historical Society, contains Abigail’s description of plantation life and underlines her antislavery creed. “If any person wishes to see the banefull effects of slavery. as it creates a torpor and an indolence and a Spirit of domination,” Abigail wrote, “let them come and take a view of the cultivation of this part of the United States. I shall have reason to Say. that my Lot hath fallen to me in a pleasant place. and that verily I have a goodly Heritage.” Mount Vernon gave Abigail another President’s House window from which to see America’s slaves, and the thorny road ahead. 

Posted in From Our Collections Tagged

This Week @ MHS

By Dan Hinchen

The library is hopping lately at the Society, while things are a bit quieter in terms of programs. Here is what is on the calendar this week:

– Tuesday, 26 July: “Women in the Era of the American Revolution” is a three-day teacher workshop taking place here at the MHS, that is open to educators and history enthusiasts. However, this workshops is SOLD OUT. If you would like to be placed on a waiting list, please call 617-646-0557.

– Friday, 29 July, 2:00PM : “Augustus Saint-Gaudens Civil War Monuments” is a survey of the life and work of the influential sculptor, focusing on his heroic, yet compassionate 1887 “Abraham Lincoln: The Man” (or Standing Lincoln) as representative of his method, art, and time. This talk by Jack Curtis will give students an appreciation of Saint-Gaudens’ pioneering integration of architecture, landscape design, and monumental sculpture. This talk is free and open to the public. 

– Saturday, 30 July, 8:30AM : We end the week with another teacher workshop. Civil War Seminar is led by Joseph Fornier of the Rochester Institute of Technology and explores three themes: how the Union and the Confederacy justified secession and war; the idea of emancipation as a revolutionary form of war; and Lincoln’s proposals for reconstruction of the United States as the Civil War came to an end in 1865. This program is open to all K-12 educators and is co-sponsored by the Ashbrook Institute at Ashland University, with assistance from the Lincoln and Therese Filene Foundation. Contact education@masshist.org or 617-646-0557 for more information. 

Posted in This Week @MHS

Society and Scenery: The Travel Diary of Elizabeth Perkins Lee Shattuck

By Shelby Wolfe, Reader Services

In May I traveled to Europe for the first time, keeping a travel diary throughout the trip. It was probably the longest run at journaling I’ve managed to keep, partly because I felt this experience was more noteworthy than my regular routine. More importantly, I didn’t want to forget the details of what I experienced. Travel diaries, and diaries in general, allow us to record our daily lives, passing thoughts, and observations on any given day. Years from now, we can look back on what we wrote and experience that pesky yet pleasant sense of nostalgia (or, in the case of many a teenage-years journal, embarrassment).

To see how other travelers had journaled about the places I visited, I searched our online library catalog, ABIGAIL, to find women’s travel diaries of different kinds. Some are introspective; others read more like a daily log of events and observations. Many are text-only while others include drawings, watercolors, and ephemera. The travel diary of Elizabeth Perkins Lee Shattuck, for example, is accompanied by a sketchbook with scenes captured throughout the writer’s journeys between 1868 and 1870. Elizabeth Perkins Lee, daughter of Henry and Elizabeth Perkins (Cabot) Lee kept this diary during her travels in Italy, France, and England between January and May 1869.

 

In her diary Lee records daily activities, sights toured, and social visits. She takes particular interest in describing the art and sculpture in Rome, frequenting the Villa Borghese and the Sistine Chapel. Lee notes after a trip to the Vatican, “Michel Angelos’ Pieta grows up me each time I see it.” While in Rome she celebrated Carnival from a balcony trimmed with bouquets, met friends for tea, and attended the Apollo Theatre, which she describes as “quite jolly and funny.” After her time in Rome, Lee traveled by rail to Florence, then through Geneva, Lyon, and Dijon toward her final European stop of this travel diary, England. She toured Eton and spent time admiring the art at the National Gallery and the Royal Academy of Arts in London.

 

 

Among the individuals mentioned in the diary are members of the Longfellow family, including Thomas Gold Appleton, Ernest Longfellow, and Hattie Longfellow; Lee’s uncle Francis L. Lee; her cousins Edward Perkins, Mary Perkins, and Charles Callahan Perkins; her future husband Frederick Cheever Shattuck; George Bemis; Frederic Crowninshield; and members of the Warren, Paine, Forbes, Curtis, Sewall, and many other families. A few entries discuss freedmen in America and the West Indies; American grievances against the British after the Civil War; and the Fifteenth Amendment.

While a large number of diaries in the MHS collections focus on Western European travels, others highlight trips to Cuba, New Zealand, Canada, and the Midwestern United States. If you’re interested in learning more about nineteenth-century travel and society – of if you’re simply in need of a vicarious vacation – visit the library for a closer look at Elizabeth Perkins Lee Shattuck’s travel diary and sketchbook, as well as others:

(For a more complete list, see Women travelers—Diaries in ABIGAIL.)

 

Mary Gardner Lowell diaries, 1823-1853. Diaries of Mary Gardner Lowell of Boston and Waltham, Massachusetts, 1823-1853. Travel diaries describe a voyage to Cuba with her husband Francis Cabot Lowell and infant son George, 18 December 1831- 3 June 1832, including time spent in Havana, on the slave plantations of the Matanzas province. Entries describe travel conditions of the voyages and coaching, sights seen, social and cultural observations, friends visited, the weather, and social engagements.

Lorenza Stevens Berbineau diaries, 1851-1869. Three personal diaries kept by Berbineau, servant to the Lowell family, kept while on a trip to Europe with members of the family (1851-1852).

Anna Peabody Bellows travel diary, 1864. Travel diary of Anna Huidekoper Peabody (later Bellows), kept on a trip to England, France, and Switzerland, 16 March-14 August 1864. Entries describe the voyage via steamer from Boston, as well as sightseeing, shopping, social calls, and other activities in Paris and other cities and towns. Includes pencil sketches and watercolors.

Aimee Rotch Sargent travel diaries, 1874-1875. Diaries kept by Aimee Rotch Sargent, 1874-1875, while traveling from New York to England and through Europe with her husband, Winthrop Sargent, describe the ocean voyage, her constant seasickness, social gatherings and engagements with acquaintances, parks, museums, and other cultural institutions visited.

Ann Eliza Perkins Adams travel diary, ca. 1883-1884. Travel diary kept while on a trip by train from Boston to St. Louis and a voyage on the Mississippi River. Entries consist of short descriptions of sites seen from the train window; coach and carriage rides in St. Louis; and traveling on the Mississippi River, including sites seen from the boat, towns visited, events attended, and steamboats observed.

Jane Cummings diaries, 1902-1949. June-September 1911 travel journal records her voyage to Spain, Algiers, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, France, and England, describing cities visited, architecture, gardens, museums, cultural institutions visited, works of art, stories about fellow travelers, and the weather.

Martha A. Rapp travel diary, 1920-1921. Diary kept by Martha A. Rapp of Brockton, Mass. while on a voyage from Boston to New Zealand, 4 November 1920-7 May 1921. Martha traveled with her parents by train to Vancouver, British Columbia, then on the passenger ship Niagara to New Zealand. Her diary describes daily life at sea including games played with other passengers, storms; and various places visited in New Zealand.

 

 

Posted in From Our Collections

Madame Marie Depage in Boston

By Susan Martin, Collection Services

From 14-16 April 1915, Dr. Samuel J. and Wilhelmina (Galloupe) Mixter had a special guest at their home at 180 Marlborough Street, Boston. Madame Marie Depage was in town to drum up support for Belgian Red Cross field hospitals. She’d been traveling across America on a whirlwind fundraising tour, speaking about the suffering of the Belgian people after the outbreak of World War I. Dr. Mixter served as treasurer of Depage’s Boston fund, and the Fay-Mixter papers here at the MHS contain some fascinating papers related to the visit, including original correspondence from Depage.

 

 

 

Depage was a popular and high-profile guest. Her husband, Dr. Antoine Depage, was director of the Belgian Red Cross, past president of the International Congress of Surgery, and personal surgeon to King Albert I of Belgium. The king and queen had officially delegated Madame Depage, a Belgian nurse, to undertake this trip, and her comings and goings were covered extensively in American newspapers.

Americans had been generous in their aid to Belgian civilians living under German occupation, but medical care to soldiers in the field was sorely lacking. An article in the Rocky Mountain News quoted Depage as saying, “The conditions are so terrible you cannot imagine them. […] No men in the world can fight more bravely than the men of my country.” She wrote to the sympathetic Dr. Mixter, “You know what proper and urgent care means – one life saved, one limb saved means a family out of trouble after the war.”

 

I was particularly interested in Depage’s statements about wounded German soldiers. The Red Cross field hospitals she worked to establish treated injured allies and enemies alike. According to another newspaper article, she said, “When they were sick I never felt any different toward them than toward my own countrymen. They were simply poor, wounded men. It was only when they recovered and came to me in their gray German uniforms to say good-by that I felt it hard to treat them the same, but wounded men have no nationality.”

Depage used her personal charisma and professional connections to great advantage. She was unmistakably passionate, but pragmatic. She asked Dr. Mixter before her arrival, “Now can you tell me if a visit in Boston shall pay? I must put it in a very plain business way; you know this is not a pleasure trip and I may not think of what I should like or not like.” She thought smaller meetings in the private homes of wealthy Bostonians would be more lucrative than large gatherings. An individual visit, she knew from experience, would flatter her host into giving more: “I suppose Boston is a smart town where society leaders have a great deal to say. I have experienced that in Washington: if it was smart to go and listen to me the people came…and paid!”

Depage also had a personal stake in the cause. Her oldest son Pierre was a soldier in the Belgian army. When she heard that her second son, a teenager named Lucien, was going to the front, she decided to sail back to Europe to say goodbye. Unfortunately, the ship on which she booked passage was none other than the RMS Lusitania. She drowned when the ship was torpedoed by a German U-boat on 7 May 1915.

 

Depage had been euphoric about her fundraising success. On the morning of the Lusitania’s departure, she bragged in a letter to Wilhelmina Mixter, “I have altogether collected about $115,000.00 [in] contributions and about $50,000 in supplies. Are you not proud of America? I am! And specially of my Boston friends.” She was sorry that Mrs. Mixter hadn’t received an earlier telegram and protested “that you could believe for one minute that I forgot you! Please never do that, whatever happens for it can never be true.” In a previous letter, she’d called the Mixters “the best friends in the world.”

 

Wilhelmina Mixter was also very active in World War I work. She served on the general committee of the Special Aid Society for American Preparedness (SASAP), a women’s group that promoted military preparedness and national defense. The Fay-Mixter papers include meeting minutes and newspaper clippings documenting the activities of this group, which met just down the street from the MHS at 601 Boylston Street. In addition to the SASAP, Mrs. Mixter was involved with Emergency War Relief and sent care packages and supplies to soldiers. Some of my favorite items in the collection are these McCall sewing patterns for hospital clothing.

 

 

The MHS holdings include many papers related to World War I relief work, so we hope you’ll visit our library to learn more.

 

Posted in From Our Collections

This Week @ MHS

By Dan Hinchen

It’s a fairly quiet week-to-come at the Society. Here are the programs we have on tap:

– Wednesday, 20 July, 12:00PM : Stop by for a Brown Bag talk given by Craig Bruce Smith of William Woods University. “Atlantic Abolitionism and National Reputation: The Intersection of Ethics and Policy in the United States and Britain” frames the British movement to end slavery as a conscious effort to assert the country’s reputation and moral superiority over the United States in the aftermath of the Revolution. It advances that American abolitionism, in turn, became a direct response to the British challenge. This talk is free and open to the public. 

– Thursday, 21 July, 6:00PM : Boston Historical. The MHS is pleased to invite the public and representatives of local historical organizations for a change to mingle and share recent accomplishments or the great projects they are working on. Registration is required for this event at no cost. 

– Saturday, 23 July, 10:00AM : The History and Collections of the MHS is a 90-minute docent-led walk through our public rooms. The tour is free, open to the public, with no need for reservations. If you would like to bring a larger party (8 or more), please contact Curator of Art Anne Bentley at 617-646-0508 or abentley@masshist.org.

While you’re here you will also have the opportunity to view our current exhibition: Turning Points in American History.

Posted in This Week @MHS

Margaret Russell’s Diary, July 1916

By Anna J. Clutterbuck Cook, Reader Services

Today, we return to the line-a-day diary of Margaret Russell. You can read previous installments here:

January.

February.

March.

April.

May.

June.

One hundred years ago, the month of July was “very hot,” “close & hot,” and “fearfully hot,” broken occasionally by “very bad storm[s]” that turned the streets into rivers, thunder, and hail. Margaret Russell remained in Swampscott at the family estate, though her diary records nearly daily excursions throughout the region: North Andover, Revere, Lynn, Beverly, Arlington, South Natick, Nahant, Portsmouth, New Hampshire and Baldpate Mountain in Maine.

Aunt Emma will be a familiar figure in these diary entries to those of you who have been reading since January. On July 6th we learn that Aunt Emma is living in a “pleasant room” at a convent. A bit of digging in the diary reveals that the convent where Emma was located was in Arlington, and potentially the Episcopal order Sisters of St. Anne-Bethany, established in 1910.

 

 

“Mrs. Ward’s lectures” or “classes” have come up repeatedly in the diary and I did a bit of investigation on Mrs. Ward. Mary Alden Ward (1853-1918) was an author, lecturer, and leader in the women’s club movement in the Boston area and beyond. She wrote biographical sketches of historical figures such as Dante and Plutarch, as well as a book of New England history: Old Colony Days (1896). Mary Ward was married to William G. Ward, a professor of English literature at Emerson College. On a sad note, she was killed a mere eighteen months after this diary was penned, in January 1918, when an electric streetcar collided with the automobile in which she was riding to one of her speaking engagements.

 

* * *

July 1916*

1 July. Saturday – Lunched at N. Andover with the H.G.C’s. Lovely day. Miss McLuade gone on her vacation.

2 July. Sunday – Very hot. Walked to church and back. Rested after lunch. Edith & C. – only for dinner.

3 July. Monday – To town. Very close & hot. Very bad storm on Revere Beach coming home. Streets rivers & lots of hail. Saw Dr. Smith.

4 July. Tuesday – Stayed home all day. Rained. Telephone came that Richard had got home.

5 July. Wednesday – To town in the morning & back to lunch. Rested in P.M. dined at Beverly to see Richard.

6 July. Thursday – To see Aunt Emma at the convent. She seemed very happy & has a pleasant room.

7 July. Friday.

8 July. Saturday – Hot. Went to S. Natick for lunch with the H.G.C.’s. On to see Mrs. Hodder home by Weston & Waltham.

9 July. Sunday – Walked to church & back. Family to dine C. & R. both back.

10 July. Monday – Town for errands. Lunched with Marian. Went to Eye & Ear.

11 July. Tuesday – Nahant for Ward lecture.

12 July. Wednesday – Went to call on Miss Jewett at Nahant & on Mrs. Howe at Manchester. Very hot.

13 July. Thursday – Very hot. Went to Nahant to see F. Prince. Thunderstormed in. P.M.

14 July. Friday – Cool so went to town for E. & E. to see Dr. Washburn. Good Sam. & to Aunt Emma. Lunched at Chilton.

15 July. Saturday – Blais [illegible] so went with the H.G.C.’s to lunch at Baldpate & a drive. Lovely day.

16 July. Walked to church & back. Boat sailed race to Portsmouth & got 1st prize. Family to dine much pleased with day. Ellen & Nellie at Wareham.

17 July. Monday – Town for errands. Lunched with Marian. Home early.

18 July. Tuesday – Lynn errands in A.M. Mrs. Ward’s lecture. Sallie was brought over to see Mama.

19 July. Wednesday – Went to Hay Herbarium & home through Middlesex Fells.

20 July. Thursday –

21 July. Friday – Took Hattie L- over to call on Mrs. John Phillips.

22 July. Saturday – Went to Lawrence to call on Mary Parkman but did not see her. Then to N. Andover & lunched there. Hot & muggy.

23 July. Sunday – Raining hard. Walked to church & had a call from Margaret Swain afterwards. Family to dine – Monday [24 July] went to town.

25 July. Tuesday Mrs. Ward’s class. Miss A. came for me & went to Salem.

26 July. Wednesday – Marian & Sallie came down to lunch. I sent for [illegible] & sent them back. Walked with Miss A- to Phillip’s Marsh.

27 July. Thursday – To town to lunch with Susy Bradley who is in town working on M’s wedding announcements.

28 July. Friday – To Nahant to see F. P. after lunch Miss A- & I went for long drive hunting flowers with success.

29 July. Saturday – Lunched at Georgetown with the H.G.C.’s to Rowley afterward but did not find Paulie.

30 July. Sunday – Walked to church & home through the woods. Family to dine.

31 July. Monday – Fearfully hot. Took my trunks to town & spent night at Chilton. After thunderstorm comfortable night. Went to see Aunt E. in the P.M.

 

* * *

If you are interested in viewing the diary in person in our library or have other questions about the collection, please visit the library or contact a member of the library staff for further assistance.

*Please note that the diary transcription is a rough-and-ready version, not an authoritative transcript. Researchers wishing to use the diary in the course of their own work should verify the version found here with the manuscript original.

 

Posted in From Our Collections

This Week @ MHS

By Dan Hinchen

The busy summer research season is in full swing here at the Society. If you don’t want to come in and use the reading room, though, here are some public programs you can take in this week:

– Tuesday, 12 July – Thursday, 14 July : Teaching Three Centuries of History through MHS Collections is a three-day teacher workshop taking place here at the MHS. Participants will engage with items in the collections, learn from guest historians, and investigate different methods for using primary sources in the classroom. Educators in grades 5-12 are welcome to apply. For more information, including application instructions, contact education@masshist.org or call 617-646-0557. 

– Wednesday, 13 July, 12:00PM : Join us for a Brown Bag talk titled “The Great Peace of 1670 and the Forgotten Corner of the Iroquios Confederacy’s Eastern Door.” Evan Haefeli of Texas A&M University examines the origins of the treaty int he war against the Iroquois and the previously overlooked alliance between the Hudson Valley and New England Algonquians int he 1660s. This talk is free and open to the public. 

– Wednesday, 13 July, 6:00PM : Author Larry Tye peels away layers of myth and misconception to paint a complete portrait of a singularly fascinating figure in Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon. Come in on Wednesday evening for a talk with the author. This event is open to the public, though registration is required with a fee of $20 (no charge for MHS Fellows or Members). A pre-talk reception begins at 5:30PM and the talk commences at 6:00PM. 

– Saturday, 16 July, 10:00AM : The History and Collections of the MHS is a 90-minute docent-led walk through our public rooms. The tour is free, open to the public, with no need for reservations. If you would like to bring a larger party (8 or more), please contact Curator of Art Anne Bentley at 617-646-0508 or abentley@masshist.org.

While you’re here you will also have the opportunity to view our current exhibition: Turning Points in American History.

Posted in This Week @MHS

Fathers of the American Navy: John Paul Jones and John Adams

By Amanda M. Norton, Adams Papers

On July 6, 1747, John Paul Jones was born in Scotland. He is widely credited as the father of the American Navy for his successful campaigns as a captain during Revolutionary War. It would be fair, however, to say that John Adams might deserve a share in that title as well. From his role in drafting the original rules for the Continental Navy in 1775 to his organization of the newly created Department of the Navy as president in 1798, Adams had been a strong advocate of “Floating Batteries and Wooden Walls” as the primary system of war and defense for the young nation.

Jones and Adams got to know each other in the late 1770s while Adams was in Europe, and no one who is familiar with the Adamses will be surprised to learn that both John, and later Abigail, formed strong opinions about Jones.

John Adams noted his impression in his diary entry for May, 13 1779: “This is the most ambitious and intriguing Officer in the American Navy. Jones has Art, and Secrecy, and aspires very high. . . . Excentricities, and Irregularities are to be expected from him— they are in his Character, they are visible in his Eyes. His Voice is soft and still and small, his Eye has keenness, and Wildness and Softness in it.”

Abigail met Jones when she joined John in Europe after the war had ended, but he was nothing like she had imagined the naval hero to be: “Chevalier Jones you have heard much of. He is a most uncommon Character. I dare Say you would be as much dissapointed in him as I was. From the intrepid Character he justly Supported in the American Navy, I expected to have seen a Rough Stout warlike Roman. Instead of that, I should sooner think of wraping him up in cotton wool and putting him into my pocket, than sending him to contend with Cannon Ball,” she wrote. “He is small of stature, well proportioned, soft in his Speach easy in his address polite in his manners, vastly civil, understands all the Etiquette of a Ladys Toilite as perfectly as he does the Masts Sails and rigging of a Ship. Under all this appearence of softness he is Bold enterprizing ambitious and active.”

 

While they did not become close friends, John Paul Jones did offer JA his bust, and to the end of his life, JA remembered Jones as intelligent, a good letter writer, and “gentlemanly in his dress & manner.” As both men regarded the American Navy as central to the success of the nation, Adams never failed to respect Jones’ naval ability or the “glorious success” of Jones’ famous capture of the British frigate Serapis, for which the Continental Congress awarded Jones a medal, the first to commemorate a naval victory. A restrike of that medal is housed within the collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society. 

 

Posted in From Our Collections Tagged

This Week @ MHS

By Dan Hinchen

Please note that the Society is CLOSED on Monday, 4 July, in observance of Independence Day. Normal hours resume on Tuesday, 5 July. 

We’re back after a long holiday weekend and we’re ready to give you some more public programs! Here is what we have lined up this week:

– Wednesday, 6 July, 12:00PM : Join us for a Brown Bag lunch talk with David Faflik of the University of Rhode Island. The talk is titled “Passing Transcendental: Harvard, Heresy, and the Modern American Origins of Unbelief.” The project examines the idea of the transcendentalists of Boston in the 1830s, 1840s, and 1850s, as “infidels” in their day. Faflik also asks if the alternative faith that they articulated constituted not just a kind of unorthodoxy, but of outright unbelief. This talk is free and open to the public. 

– Wednesday, 6 July, 6:00PM : Bone Rooms: From Scientific Racism to Human Prehistory in Museums is an author talk featuring Samuel Redman of UMASS – Amherst. Redman unearths the story of how human remains became highly sought-after artifacts for both scientific research and public display. This talk is open to the public with a fee of $10 (no charge for MHS Members and Fellows). A pre-talk reception begins at 5:30PM and the talk begins at 6:00PM. 

– Saturday, 9 July, 10:00AM : The History and Collections of the MHS is a 90-minute docent-led walk through our public rooms. The tour is free, open to the public, with no need for reservations. If you would like to bring a larger party (8 or more), please contact Curator of Art Anne Bentley at 617-646-0508 or abentley@masshist.org.

While you’re here you will also have the opportunity to view our current exhibition: Turning Points in American History.

Posted in This Week @MHS