This Week @ MHS

By

Here is a look at events taking place at the Society in the week ahead as the calendar turns another page:

– Monday, 26 February, 6:00PM : Starting things off this week is an author talk with Pual Finkelman of Gratz College. Supreme Inustice: Slavery in the Nation’s Highest Court examines the careers of three important antebellum Supreme Court Justices: John Marshall, Roger B. Taney, and Joseph Story, who all upheld the institution of slavery in multiple rulings. Finkelman establishes an authoritative account of each justice’s proslavery position, the reasoning behind his opposition to black freedom, and the incentives created by his private life. This talk is open to the public, registration required with a fee of $10 (no charge for MHS Fellows and Members, or EBT cardholders). Pre-talk reception begins at 5:30PM, followed by the speaking program at 6:00PM. 

– Tuesday, 27 February, 5:15PM : This week’s seminar is part of the Modern American Society and Culture series and is a panel discussion. In “Capitalism and Culture,” Jonathan Cohen of University of Virginia and Davor Mondom of Syracuse University examine the reaction against welfare state capitalism in the mid-20th century U. S., looking at two companies that promoted themselves as bastions of free enterprise or as a solution to high state taxes. Sven Becker of Harvard University provides comment. 

Seminars are free and open to the public; RSVP required. Subscribe to receive advance copies of the seminar papers. To RSVP: email seminars@masshist.org or call (617) 646-0579.

– Thursday, 1 March, 6:00PM : MHS Fund Giving Circle members are invited to Dinner with Dolley, a festive evening with good food, fine wine, and lively conversation inspired by Dolley Madison. During dinner, MHS President Catherine Allgor, who is known for her published work on Dolley Madison, will provide history and fun facts about dining with Mrs. Madison. 

This event is open only to MHS Fund Giving Circle Members. Join a Giving Circle today at www.masshist.org/support/mhsfund. 

– Saturday, 3 March, 10:00AM : The History and Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society Tour 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: Yankees in the West.

Posted in This Week @MHS

“He has been the great landmark of my life”: CFA on JQA’s death and legacy.

By Gwen Fries, Adams Papers

On a drizzly February morning in 1848, Charles Francis Adams, son of John Quincy Adams, walked into his Boston office. As he reached his desk, Adams noticed a telegraph that communicated that his father “whilst in his seat at the House of Representatives at half past one o’clock was taken in another fit of paralysis and that it was not thought he could survive the day,” CFA wrote in his diary. Adams was on the next train south.

Charles Francis Adams, Photogravure, from “Portraits of American Abolitionists,” MHS.

 

Delays prevented Adams from making his connection to Philadelphia. As he waited for the next train, Adams began reading the book his wife had sent with him, Jane Eyre. That night, February 23rd, he anxiously read a newspaper that had reports from 11 p.m. on the 22nd that John Quincy “lingered.”

The next morning, while on the train to Baltimore, Charles Francis opened that day’s paper.

The first thing I saw was the announcement that at a quarter past seven last night my father had ceased to breathe. . . . Here then it is in all its reality— I have no longer a Father.

After another short layover in Baltimore, Charles Francis reached his parents’ home in Washington, D.C. He went straight upstairs to comfort his mother, Louisa Catherine. Charles Francis sat with her until it was time to go to bed.

She then told me she had no place to put me in but his room— And I went to it, just as he had left it on Monday morning: Yes there was his table and chair, his papers and writing materials, his bed and all his materials for his late sick life. And the animating spirit was not there and I was.

Charles Francis got little sleep.

The next day, his mother was “in a low, fainting state all day, and utterly unable to say any thing.” After a morning of greeting acquaintances and thanking them for their condolences, Charles Francis traveled to the House. He was ushered through crowds to the coffin, where he was left alone. “And here I was to take my last look upon one to whom for forty years I had been looking for support and aid and encouragement!” Charles Francis studied his father’s face through a glass pane and considered his future responsibilities. Poignantly, Adams reflected that he was “alone in the generation,” as his two older brothers and younger sister had all already passed away. He shed a few tears before returning to the committee room to discuss arrangements “until every nerve in me quivered.”

His mother being too unwell to attend, Charles Francis represented his family at the funeral. As he stood on the steps of the Capitol waiting for his carriage, he felt acutely the curious eyes of gawkers and resolutely stared ahead, reflecting on his father’s influence. “He has been the great landmark of my life,” Charles Francis wrote. “My stay and companion.” As he descended the stairs and climbed into the carriage, Adams prepared himself to become the Adams patriarch. “For the future I must walk alone and others must lean on me.”

 

Posted in From Our Collections

This Week @ MHS

By

The Society is CLOSED on Monday, 19 February, for Presidents Day. 

It is a holiday-shortened week but there is still plenty of action happening here at the Society. Below are details for what we have on tap.

– Tuesday, 20 February, 6:00PM : Kendra Field’s epic family history, Growing Up with the Country, chronicles the westward migration of freedom’s first generation in the 50 years after emancipation. Fields traces the journey of her ancestors out of the South to Indian Territory, where they participated in the development of black towns and settlements. When statehood, oil speculation, and segregation imperiled their lives, some launched a back-to-Africa movement while others moved to Canada and Mexico. Interweaving black, white, and Indian histories, Field’s narrative explores how ideas about race and color powerfully shape the pursuit of freedom. 

This talk is open to the public. Registration is required with a fee of $10 (no charge for MHS Members and Fellows or EBT cardholders). Pre-talk reception begins at 5:30PM, followed by the program at 6:00PM. 

– Wednesday, 21 February : All K-12 educators are invited to register for Yankees in the West, an all-day teacher workshop. Using the Society’s current exhibition as a guide, participants will investigate how writers, artists, and photographers sensationalized the frontier experience for eastern audiences and conceptualized the West for Americans who increasingly embraced the nation’s manifest destiny. 

Registration is required for this program with a fee of $25 per person. 

– Wednesday, 21 February, 12:00PM : “Billets & Barracks: The Quartering Act & the Coming of the American Revolution” is a Brown Bag talk with John McCurdy of Eastern Michigan University. The arrival of British soldiers in the 1750s forced Americans to ask “where do soldiers belong?” This project investigates how they answered this question, arguing that it prompted them to rethink the meaning of places like the home and the city, as well as to reevaluate British military power.

This talk is free and open to the public. 

– Thursday, 22 February, 6:00PM : After the Civil War, artists and writers from Boston faced a question that haunted America: what’s next? For cultural leaders like Charles Eliot Norton and Isabella Stewart Gardner, Reconstruction left them feeling directionless and betrayed. Shunning the Whig narrative of history, these “Boston Cosmopolitans” researched Europe’s long past to discover and share examples of civil society shaped by high ideals. “For the Union Dead: Bostonians Travel East in Search of Answers in the Post-Civil War Era” is a public talk with Mark Rennella.

This program is open to all, free of charge, though registration is required. Click on the link and look for the Register button. 

– Saturday, 24 February, 9:00AM : The second teacher workshop this week examines how the personal and political philosophies of Justices John Marshall, Roger B. Taney, and Joseph Story influenced their proslavery positions. In “Slavery & the U.S. Supreme Court,” Paul Finkelman, President of Gratz College, will discuss why these three influential justices upheld the institution of slavery and continued to deny black Americans their freedom. Participants will connect these federal rulings to local court cases, as well as antislavery and abolitionist efforts to undermine these unpopular decrees. 

This program is open to all K-12 educators. Registration is required with a fee of $25 per person. 

 

There is no public tour this week.

Posted in This Week @MHS

When the Harlem Renaissance Meets Jim Crow

By Susan Martin, Collections Services

Your reference to the southerners regard, or rather, disregard of the Negro [–] I experienced a rather amusing incident a few weeks ago.

 

 

 

This passage comes from a letter written by African-American artist Meta Warrick Fuller on 5 January 1928 and recently acquired by the MHS. Fuller’s correspondent was Marion Colvin Deane, a white Canadian woman who worked at Virginia’s historically black Hampton Institute. Deane was an avid collector of autographs, particularly those of famous black writers, artists, educators, intellectuals, and activists. She wrote to Fuller, W.E.B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, Walter F. White, and many others soliciting autographs for her collection.

Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller (1877-1968) was an accomplished and acclaimed black sculptor associated with the Harlem Renaissance, though her work spanned the decades both before and after that era. Born in Philadelphia, her early artistic promise was nurtured by her family, and she studied art in Philadelphia before traveling to France in 1899 to attend the Académie Colarossi and the École des Beaux-Arts. In France, she met and was mentored by Auguste Rodin. Her work was exhibited alongside older and more established contemporaries like John Singer Sargent and Mary Cassatt, and she would go to win many commissions and awards over her lifetime.

In 1928, when Marion C. Deane wrote to her, Fuller was living in Framingham, Mass. with her husband Solomon Carter Fuller and their three sons. She worked in her own private studio behind the house.

Fuller began her reply to Deane by apologizing for her handwriting and thanking Deane for “the kind interest and regard – may I be worthy of them.” Then, in response to a comment by Deane on Southern racial animosity, she described a recent “amusing incident” on a Framingham bus. Returning from a shopping trip and finding the bus crowded, Fuller opted to sit in the back, although for her this was “contrary to custom.” From there, she overheard “a youngish sort of woman”—a white woman presumably visiting from the South—talking to a friend.

I could still hear the conversation – she spoke of how strange it seemed to see colored people mingling with white people – in schools – restaurants and the like – she would go out if one sat down at a table with her – it didn’t seem right.

 

And what was Fuller’s reaction? Maybe not what you’d expect.

It all impressed me as very funny – and mischief got the better of me – I wrote on a slip of paper ‘God made man of one flesh[.]’ I rolled it up, and as I passed on my way out dropped it in her lap. I was convulsed at the expression of surprise when she saw what I had done, but I left the car before she had time to read it. I have not since seen the woman with whom she was talking but I am curious to know what she did after reading it.

 

The MHS currently holds no other papers of Meta Warrick Fuller, so this letter is a very welcome addition to our collection. It’s also a fascinating record of racial attitudes in the years between the Plessy v. Ferguson “separate but equal” decision and the height of the civil rights movement in America.

 

Posted in From Our Collections

Barbara Hillard Smith’s Diary, February 1918

By Lindsay Bina, Intern, and Anna Clutterbuck-Cook, Reader Services

Today we return to the 1918 diary of Newton teenager Barbara Hillard Smith. You may read our introduction to the diary, and Barbara’s January entries, here:

 

January | February | March | April

May | June | July | August

September | October | November | December

 

We will be following Barbara throughout 1918 with monthly blog posts that present Barbara’s daily life — going to school, seeing friends, playing basketball, and caring for family members — in the words she wrote a century ago. Here is Barbara’s February, day by day.

 

* * *

 

FRI. 1                          FEBRUARY

School. Took care of sonny. Gas froze. Pegs over night.

SAT. 2

Worked. Took care of Polly Godfrey. Seminary with Mother

SUN. 3

Sunday School. Hung around

MON. 4

School. Dentist. Dr. Ashland engaged.

TUES. 5

School. Bitterly Cold, “Sick.” Rosa Allen’s

WED. 6

School. Took care of sonny

THUR. 7

School. Rosa Allen’s. Took care of sonny

FRI. 8

School. Took care of sonny.

SAT. 9

Got my dress. Burton Holme’s Lecture. Sailor’s Dance. Met Mr. Wood

SUN. 10

Church. Sunday School. Aunt Mable’s. Met Sailor at the Station

MON. 11

School. Took care of sonny

TUES. 12                    LINCOLN’S BIRTHDAY

School. Basket Ball. Mother went to New York

WED. 13

School. Took care of Sonny

THUR. 14

School. Mrs. Moody to Basket Ball. Mother came home

FRI. 15

School. Took care of Sonny. Swimming

SAT. 16

Hung around. Over to Pegs. Plays at the Seminary

SUN. 17

Sunday School. Dr. Scott teacher. Studied

MON. 18

School. Took care of the Baby.

TUES. 19

School. Basket Ball. Papa sick. Sessions with the Doctor

WED. 20

Stayed to look after papa. Mrs. Reed’s

THUR. 21

Took care of papa. Took care of sonny. Red Cross play.

FRI. 22                                    WASHINGTON’S BIRTHDAY

Mrs. Reed’s in the morning. Home in afternoon. Masquerade

SAT. 23

Babys in the morning. In town in the afternoon

SUN. 24

Helped Mother. Studied

MON. 25

Toothache. Dentist. He goes to hospital soon. Married probably in Aug. Papa better. Sonny.

TUES. 26

Toothache again. Dentist can’t do anything about it. Mrs. Reeds.

WED. 27

Got class pins. Subscribed to Newtonian. Mrs. Reeds. Papa out. Tooth still at it.

THUR. 28

School. Basketball. Papa seems much better.

* * *

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. The catalog record for the Barbara Hillard Smith collection may be found here.

 

 

Posted in Uncategorized Tagged ,

This Week @ MHS

By

At the Society this week, we’ll be talking about capitalists and fishermen, as well as hosting our building tour. Read on for more information. 

– Tuesday, 13 February, 5:15PM : Francis Sargent was a Cape Cod fisherman-turned-public servant. In his positions as Director of Fisheries, head of Public Works, and eventually, governor of Massachusetts, Sargent bridged the gap between working-class fishers and government. The seminar this week comes from the Environmental History series and is called “Governor Francis W. Sargent: Fisheries Manager.” This paper, presented by Benjamin Kochan of Boston University, examines Sargent’s ability to speak directly to fishermen, arguing that his post-1974 disengagement from public life robbed fishermen of an ally who might have soothed tensions created by late-1970s federal regulations. To RSVP: email seminars@masshist.org or call (617) 646-0579.

Seminars are free and open to the public; RSVP required. Subscribe to receive advance copies of the seminar papers.

– Thursday, 15 February, 6:00PM : Brahmin Capitalism: Frontiers of American Wealth & Populism in America’s First Gilded Age is the title of a recent work authored by Noam Maggor of Queen Mary University, London, and is the subject of this author talk. The work explores how they moneyed elite of Boston mobilized to reinvent the American economy in the aftermath of the Civil War, traveling far and wide in search of new business opportunities following the decline of cotton-based textile manufacturing and the abolition of slavery. They found these opportunities in the mines, railroads, and industries of the Great West, leveraging their wealth to forge transcontinental networks of commodities, labor, and transportation leading the way to the nationally integrated corporate capitalism of the 20th century. 

This talk is open to the public and registration is required with a fee of $10 (no charge for MHS Members and Fellows or EBT cardholders). A pre-talk reception begins at 5:30PM, followed by the speaking program at 6:00PM. 

– Saturday, 17 February, 10:00AM : The History and Collections of the MHS is a 90-minute docent-led tour through the public rooms here at the Society. The tour is free and open to the public with no need for reservations for individuals or small groups. If you would like to bring a larger party (8 or more), please contact Curator of Art Anne Bentley in advance at 617-646-0508 or abentley@masshist.org. 

While you’re here you will also have the opportunity to view our current exhibition: Yankees in the West. 

Please note that the Socety is CLOSED on Monday, 19 February, for Presidents’ Day. Normal hours resume on Tuesday, 20 February. 

Posted in This Week @MHS

Fetched from the Stacks : “Every breed of dog known”

By Daniel Tobias Hinchen

Well, maybe that title is a little bit ambitious. But, in recognition of the 142nd annual Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show – taking place this weekend – today we are looking at collections items featuring canines, particularly images of dogs that are in the stacks here at the MHS (the images, not the dogs). 

In 1845, Sir John Franklin, English rear admiral and explorer, led an expedition in search of the Northwest Passage. However, his journey met with disaster and, three years later, the remains of he and his crew were found in the Canadian Arctic.1 Of the several search and rescue missions put together to find Franklin and his men, one was carried out by the H.M.S. Enterprise and included some four-legged crew members.

“Daddy,” the Esquimaux dog of H. M. S. “Enterprise,” sent in search of Sir John Franklin.

According to a bit of text that is alongside the above image

The intelligence of the Esquimaux dogs, and their utility, is well known. The portrait of “Daddy” represents a faithful companion of Captain Collinson, who accompanied him 2000 miles, and of whom many anecdotes might be narrated; but one of the most interesting attaches to a dog of Capt. Penny, “Sultan,” who saved the life of one of Sir John Ross’ men who had indulged too freely on a visit to the Felix, when in winter quarters. The man alluded to was found by Sultan floundering in the snow at midnight, and, by his repeated intimations of something having occurred, induced some of the men to leave the ship and follow him to the spot. A few minutes more and life would have been extinct.

 

The following images have much less information to go along with them, but you can click on the links to see what we know.

Boxser. [graphic]

 

High life : from the picture in the Vernon Gallery [graphic] / E. Landseer, R. A. painter ; H. Beckwith engraver

 

Dog [graphic]

 

Fox-hunting, p. 1 / [graphic] Howitt in et f.

 

First aid / [graphic] Diana Thorne

 

Finally, we can connect all of this to another recent post published here on the Beehive. A few weeks ago we learned a bit about the famed showman P. T. Barnum, his lavish estate called Iranistan, and how he managed to attract the Swedish Nightingale, Jenny Lind, to perform in America. [See: “No Mere Adventurer…”]

Today, we probably associate Barnum most closely with the rise of the traveling circus, but did you know he also dabbled in dog shows? 

 

Small broadside advertising “A Great National Dog Show.”

 

As manager of Boston’s Aquarial Gardens, Barnum arranged for a six-day show, “including every breed of dog known,” with prize money going to the top two or three finishers in each category. Those who did not finish in the top tier were given “elegantly engraved Diplomas” as evidence of the quality of their canines. Among the various breeds and classes to be judged at this event were Newfoundlands, Pointers, Coach Dogs, and Esquimaux Dogs (just like “Daddy”). Below is an example of a prize diploma. 

An elegantly engraved Diploma, “Awarded by the judges to S. Hammond Esq. for his Blenheim Spaniel.”

 

Based on the information provided in the advertisement above, Mr. Hammond stood to win $10 for his best-specimen spaniel. However, the last page of the three-page ad also lays out some stipulations from Mr. Barnum. To wit: 

Should the Manager desire to retain the Cash Premium Dogs on exhibition from and including June 23rd until and including Saturday June 28th, he shall have the right to do so, he continuing to provide the proper care, food and water for the Dogs FREE, and continuing to admit exhibitors of said dogs free during the time above specified.

Ever the entrepreneur and showman, it makes sense that Barnum would retain the right to attract more viewers for these prize-winning dogs. Cash paid is cash earned, I suppose. 

 

These are just a few examples of animal illustrations available here at the MHS. Try searching our online catalog, ABIGAIL, to see what else you can find, then consider Visiting the Library to work with material in our reading room!

*****

1. “Sir John Franklin,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, Accessed 2018-02-10 at https://www/britannica.com/biography/John-Franklin

 

Posted in From Our Collections

MHS Programs Explore Aspects of African American History

By Gavin Kleespies, Public Programs

This past November, Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Maria Tatar spoke at the MHS about their new book The Annotated African American Folktales. This publication presents nearly 150 African American stories, among them familiar Brer Rabbit classics, but also stories like “The Talking Skull” and “Witches Who Ride,” as well as out-of-print tales from the 1890s’ Southern Workman. Professor Gates’ reflections on how folktales weaved into his own personal history made the power of these stories very real, while professor Tatar helped place these stories in historical context and as a part of the American literary tradition.

Both Gates and Tatar are faculty members at Harvard University. Professor Tatar is the John L. Loeb Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures. She chairs the Program in Folklore and Mythology, where she teaches courses in German Studies, Folklore, and Children’s Literature. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. He is an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker, a literary scholar, a journalist, a cultural critic, and an Overseer and long term friend to the MHS.

For the audience, it was a captivating opportunity to hear new tales and revisit some familiar stories. These folktales are so full of wisdom, humor, whimsy, and intelligence that anyone who reads or hears them must understand that they should hold a prominent place in the Western literary canon. However, the personal stories of when these tales were first heard or memories of them being shared made the evening truly special.

Kicking off African American History Month, we have made this program available to all on our website. Over the course of the month we are hosting several programs that explore aspects of African American history.

 

February 8 – 6:00 pm

Thunder at the Gates: The Black Civil War Regiments that Redeemed America with Douglas Edgarton (Le Moyne College)

One of the most treasured objects belonging to the Society’s collection is the battle sword of Robert Gould Shaw, the leader of the courageous 54th Massachusetts infantry, the first black regiment in the north. The prominent Shaw family of Boston and New York had long been involved in reform, from antislavery to feminism, and their son, Robert, took up the mantle of his family’s progressive stances, though perhaps more reluctantly. In this lecture, historian Douglas R. Egerton focuses on the entire Shaw family during the war years and how preceding generations have dealt with their legacy.

$10 (free for MHS members)

 

February 20 – 6:00 pm

Growing Up with the Country with Kendra Field (Tufts University)

Following the lead of her own ancestors, Kendra Field’s epic family history chronicles the westward migration of freedom’s first generation in the fifty years after emancipation. Field traces their journey out of the South to Indian Territory, where they participated in the development of black towns and settlements. When statehood, oil speculation, and segregation imperiled their lives, some launched a back-to-Africa movement, while others moved on to Canada and Mexico. Interweaving black, white, and Indian histories, Field’s narrative explores how ideas about race and color powerfully shaped the pursuit of freedom.

$10 (free for MHS members)

 

February 26 – 6:00 pm

Supreme Injustice: Slavery in the Nation’s Highest Court with Paul Finkelman (Gratz College)

The three most important Supreme Court Justices before the Civil War—Chief Justices John Marshall and Roger B. Taney and Associate Justice Joseph Story—upheld the institution of slavery in ruling after ruling. These opinions cast a shadow over the Court and the legacies of these men, but historians have rarely delved deeply into the personal and political ideas and motivations they held. In Supreme Injustice Paul Finkelman establishes an authoritative account of each justice’s proslavery position, the reasoning behind his opposition to black freedom, and the incentives created by his private life.

Posted in Uncategorized Tagged ,

This Week @ MHS

By

Welcome back to another events round-up! Here is what is happening at the Society in the week ahead:

– Tuesday, 6 February, 5:15PM : Join us for an Early American History seminar with current MHS-NEH Fellow Laurel Daen, and commenter Cornelia Dayton of the University of Connecticut. Between 1790 and 1840, Americans deemed to be cognitively disabled lost the right to vote, marry, immigrate, obtain residency, and live independently. “‘We all agree to exclude…those of unsound mind’: Disability, Doctors, and the Law in the Early Republic” charts these legal developments in Massachusetts as well as how disabled people used the courts to negotiate these contraints. Seminars are free and open to the public; RSVP required. Subscribe to receive advance copies of the seminar papers. To RSVP: email seminars@masshist.org or call (617) 646-0579.

– Wednesday, 7 February, 12:00PM : This week’s Brown Bag talk is titled “John Winthrop, Benjamin Martin, & Worlds of Scientific Work.” Pierce Williams of Carnegie Mellon University relates how Benjamin Martin was regarded by natural philosophers of his age as a showman and peddler of pseudo-scientific trinkets. At the same time, John Winthrop was working to elevate the North American colonies in the topography of learned culture. This project attempts to understand Winthrop’s puzzling choice of Martin to refurbish Harvard’s scientific instrument collection after the college laboratory burned to the ground in 1764. This talk is free and open to the public. 

– Wednesday, 7 February, 6:00 PM : In “Reconsidering King Philip’s War,” two historians reexamine the narrative of one of colonial America’s most devastating conflicts. Lisa Brooks, Amherst College, recovers a complex picture of war, captivity, and Native resistance during the “First Indian War.” Christine DeLucia, Mount Holyoke College, offers a major reconsideration of the war, providing an alternative to Pilgrim-centric narratives that have dominated the histories of colonial New England. The program will include short presentations by both scholars followed by a conversation. This talk is open to the public, registration required with a fee of $10 (no charge for MHS Members and Fellows, and EBT cardholders). We have exceeded the seating in our main room. Audience members registering on or after February 1st will be seated in overflow seating.

– Thursday, 8 February, 6:00PM : The second author talk this weak features Douglas Egerton, Le Moyne College, and his recent work Thunder at the Gates: The Black Civil War Regiments that Redeemed America. One of the most treasured objects belonging to the Society’s collection is the battle sword of Robert Gould Shaw, the leader of the courageous 54th Massachusetts infantry, the first black regiment in the North. The prominent Shaw family of Boston and New York had long been involved in reform, including antislavery and feminism, and their son, Robert, took up the mantle of his family’s progressive stances, though perhaps more reluctantly. In this lecture, historian Douglas R. Egerton focuses on the entire Shaw family during the war years and how following generations have dealt with their legacy. This talk is open to the public, registration required with a fee of $10 (no charge for MHS Members and Fellows, and EBT cardholders).

– Saturday, 10 February, 10:00AM : The History and Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society Tour 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: Yankees in the West.

 

Posted in This Week @MHS

History by the Numbers: A Gomes Prize Ceremony conversation between 2017 recipient Tamara Thornton and MHS President Catherine Allgor

By Alexis Buckley, Research Department

In 2016, the MHS founded the Peter J. Gomes Memorial Book Prize, awarded annually for the best book on the history of Massachusetts. The prize honors the memory of the Reverend Professor Gomes, a Harvard scholar and a respected and beloved Fellow of the Massachusetts Historical Society for almost thirty-five years. Peter Gomes believed in the transformative power of engaging with the past, and held an especial fondness for the history of his native state. He extolled the role of the imagination in creating a better world.

About two centuries earlier, another Massachusetts native himself set out to create a better world. His name was Nathaniel Bowditch, and above all he believed in the power of numbers. Thus it’s only fitting that the 2017 Gomes Book Prize was awarded to historian Tamara Plakins Thornton for her biography, Nathaniel Bowditch and the Power of Numbers: How a Nineteenth-Century Man of Business, Science, and the Sea Changed American Life. Thornton brings to life the Atlantic-facing maritime world of Bowditch’s hometown, the bustling port of Salem. She also reveals Bowditch’s role in creating the numbered and sorted bureaucratic society familiar to us today, from creating navigational tables, to organizing the collections of Salem’s East India Marine Society—now the Peabody Essex Museum—and the Massachusetts Hospital Life Insurance Company, to introducing a numerical grading system at Harvard. As Thornton demonstrates, Bowditch took his faith in numbers and transformed the world.

Thornton joined us at the Society on Thursday, Jan. 25, to receive the 2017 prize. Like any good historian, she came in early to spend the day in our reading room, diving into the research for her next project. (Not to mention using collections well numbered and sorted! Our library staff would make Bowditch proud.) Come evening, after Ellis Hall had been transformed for the award ceremony, she received her award check and a certificate beautifully framed and matted with century-old French endpaper. She then took to the stage to commence a conversation on what it means to be a historian and a biographer.

Who better to join Thornton in this conversation than our new president, Catherine Allgor, another historian cum biographer? Allgor’s biography of Dolley Madison followed her work Parlor Politics, on the founding women of the early republic, much as Thornton’s biography of Bowditch followed her monographs on handwriting and the making of country life by the nineteenth-century Boston elite.

Fortunately for those too far away—or too cold!—to attend the program, the conversation was filmed and is now available for you to watch online. Allgor and Thornton spoke about transitioning from writing monographs to writing biographies, and the advantages they had in having already written books that made them familiar with their subject’s world: in Dolley Madison’s case, it was Washington D.C. and all its politicking; for Nathanial Bowditch, it was the surprisingly cosmopolitan city of Salem. More specifically, Bowditch lived in a world of merchants and shipping, where—instead of the Latin and Greek needed for Harvard—young men bound for occupations as clerks and navigators learned math and penmanship. Of course, Thornton and Allgor continued, writing biography also means considering the role of inborn personality and temperament in relation to the influence of the subject’s era.

MHS President Catherine Allgor and Gomes Prize recipient Tamara Thornton, in conversation.


Thornton and Allgor also discussed their efforts to find points of familiarity with their subjects while keeping in mind that the past remains a foreign country. Allgor enjoyed taking a fresh look at Washington politics in its infancy through Dolley Madison, and considering how the politics we know today are contingent on so many nineteenth-century choices that people such as Madison made. Thornton described the uncategorized society that Bowditch transformed, with numbers and forms, into the world we live in today.

And, of course, the two biographers discussed Bowditch’s love of numbers. He was inspired by the rules and regularity of the solar system, and sought to recreate that wherever he could. He saw the world, Thornton said, in “pluses and minuses.” He loved the certainty of numbers. If you were incorrect, inaccurate, immoral, wrong: all of these things were the same to him.

There is more to be heard on the video, about finding sources and excluding them, about Bowditch’s views on the places he sailed to around the world, and about strange and unexpected discoveries in the archives! But I will keep this entry short enough to fit on one of Bowditch’s blank forms, and merely suggest that you watch the video, then pick up Tamara Thornton’s award-winning book and take your own trip to Nathaniel Bowditch’s ordered world.

If you’ve published a book on Massachusetts history copyrighted in 2017, we invite you to submit your work for consideration to receive this year’s Gomes Prize, and we look forward to telling all of you what the 2018 competition brings!

 

Posted in Uncategorized Tagged ,