The Dark Side of Republican Motherhood

By Miriam Liebman, Adams Papers

In the period following the American Revolution, Republican Motherhood, or the civic virtue of raising good republican children to serve the new nation as engaged citizens, defined many American women’s roles in the early United States. During his presidency, John Adams received several letters from women embodying this role. While most historians of Republican Motherhood focus on the positive side to that role, the letters to John Adams highlight both a darker side and more complex understanding of this concept: mothers willing to sacrifice their children for the future of the nation.

In one such letter on 11 August 1798, Abigail Cunningham, of Lunenburg, Massachusetts, used examples from both Ancient Greece and the Bible to describe the sacrifice she would make as a mother for her beloved nation. As a mother, she raised her sons to go to the front lines explaining, “if they ware Calld to Action, in defence of their Country, to Count not their Lives Dear in Defience of Foreign influence, and Defence of their Countrys Cause.” And if they were to die fighting for the United States, she would respond like mothers in Ancient Sparta, “who suspended their Lamentations for the Loss their sons, or Husbands till thay examined their clothing, to see wheither the shot went in Behind or Before,” to learn whether they died fighting or retreating. She also proposed responding like Abraham in the Bible, “who Led his Beloved son to the Alter,” calmly and with composure.

Other women took a different approach from Abigail Cunningham. In the summer of 1798, Judith Sargent Murray, author and advocate for women’s rights, wrote to John Adams seeking a position in a government post for her nephew. For Murray, raising virtuous citizens meant actively participating in the government. In the early United States, elite women often wrote with patronage requests for their male relatives. Writing her nephew’s praises, she described him as having “attachment to regularity, good order, the laws and constitution of the United States is unequivocal.” It was also a way to have a steady career. While Murray wrote the letter with this patronage request, she left it to her husband to follow up when he planned to visit John Adams in a few days’ time. She wrote again in March 1799 to inquire further into her request for her nephew that she made the previous summer.

Some women wrote letters advocating on their own behalf and seeking a better life for themselves. For example, Adams also received a letter from Isabella McIntire seeking financial relief. She wrote, “the persuasion I have of your goodness and humanity has tempted me to apply to for a little assistance a Few Dollors will be a relief to a truely distressed Female.”

An excerpt from Margaret Smith’s letter to John Adams, 25 April 1799. The Adams Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.

From the opposite perspective, Margaret Smith of Kentucky, a widow, writing on 25 April 1799, decried President Adams’s desire to have a standing army. For her, a standing army was the opposite of republicanism. She called on him to join with her and others for “peace and good order and pray for the anihilation of the army that is already raised and that a stop may be put to such daring encroachments on the liberties of the people.” Her husband died fighting in the American Revolution. For her, raising her children to live as good, stable citizens who could provide for themselves was her version of being a good republican mother. She explained that her greatest wish for her children was that “they live vïrtuous eat and drink and enjoy the fruit of their own labor.” In her eyes, the only reason to have a standing army was for instituting an authoritarian government. She also decried the Jay Treaty with Great Britain and believed many who fought in the American Revolution on the side of the patriots have since become corrupted. She even planned to publish this letter to John Adams in the local newspaper if she did not hear from him by 1 August. The Kentucky Gazette does not appear to have published this letter. It is possible that Smith did not go through with her threat or that John Adams responded to her letter.

Among the many letters John Adams received over the course of his presidency, these are a few from women advocating for their visions, hopes, and wants for the new United States adding to our understanding of women’s experiences in the late 18th-century United States.

The Adams Papers editorial project at the Massachusetts Historical Society gratefully acknowledges the generous support of our sponsors. Major funding of the edition is currently provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, and the Packard Humanities Institute.

Posted in From Our Collections Tagged

New Year’s Resolutions: Lilian Freeman Clarke’s Extensive List

By Hilde Perrin, Library Assistant for Reproductions

Every time the new year rolls around, I find myself feeling the obligation to make a resolution. New Year’s resolutions are supposed to give us the chance to finally try things we always wanted to do or set lofty goals that will make our lives better. And yet, every year I find myself either failing to choose a resolution in the first place, or starting one, only to forget about it by the time we reach February (or earlier, if I’m being honest).

One person who was not afraid to set goals for the new year was Lilian Freeman Clarke (1842-1921), a Boston native and the daughter of James Freeman Clarke, a unitarian minister heavily involved in social reform, from the abolition movement to women’s rights. Following the example of her father, Lilian was actively involved in social reform, particularly working to establish and run the Society for Helping Destitute Mothers and Children. The MHS collections hold several documents from Lilian herself in both the Perry-Clarke Collection and the Lilian Freeman Clarke correspondence. One of these, from the Perry-Clarke Collection, is her pocket diary from 1864. Written when she was 18 years old, it contains entries of her daily activities, from visiting friends to attending church events, weather reports, and musings. On January 3, she recorded a list of resolutions for the new year. They are as follows:

Color image of an open journal showing lines of handwritten text.
Lilian Freeman Clarke Pocket diary, 1 Jan.-31 Dec. 1864, Perry-Clarke Collection, MHS

“Resolutions

  1. Not to speak sharply to any one
  2. Practice on the piano 2 hours a day
  3. Draw for two hours a day
  4. Read German one hour a day
  5. To walk out of doors 2 hours every day
  6. Exercise with dumb bells
  7. Eat no supper
  8. Not to speak evil of any one
  9. Rise at seven
  10. Read a sermon every day”

Her list is slightly imposing for people trying to come up with their own resolutions. How was she able to fit in her schedule two hours of piano, two hours of drawing, and an hour of German, and also stay active by walking and exercising with dumbbells? While some of her resolutions are admirable, and I would love to be able to also read German an hour a day and not speak sharply to anyone, I don’t think I would adopt the resolution to “eat no supper” and probably wouldn’t even attempt to devote two hours a day to practicing an instrument. Such a long list of resolutions makes me wonder whether she kept them up.

The very next entry in her diary records that she “rose about 7.30,” already breaking the resolution to rise at 7, if only by 30 minutes. While I was not able to find any more mentions of her list or updates on the resolutions in the diary, I think we can assume that she probably attained some of her resolutions and gave up on others. She kept up her diary entries regularly until about August–recording things like teaching her younger sister, visits to friends, and dreams she had–when she drops off and only includes a few entries here and there for the remainder of the year. Though “journal everyday” was not one of her resolutions, she did not keep up the habit. Whether she successfully completed a year following her New Year’s resolutions or not, we might be able to find inspiration in her list to create our own resolutions for the coming year.

Posted in From Our Collections

Crossed Letters, Crossed Eyes

By Susan Martin, Senior Processing Archivist

You hear a lot of discussion nowadays about whether schools should still be teaching students to write in cursive. Less than half of U.S. states require it, usually sometime between third and fifth grade. I don’t know about writing cursive, but reading it is certainly a requirement for my job. And sometimes it’s especially challenging.

One of the things we see in almost every manuscript collection here at the MHS is cross-writing. Your garden-variety cross-written letter looks something like this.

Letter of William B. Gerry, 16 June 1843

This is the first page of a four-page letter, written on folded stationery. As you can see, the writer got to the end of the fourth page and had a little more to say, so went back to the front, turned the paper on its side, and finished the letter there. The idea was to save paper and postage.

MHS archivists see pretty much every variety of cross-writing. The kind pictured above is very common. Here it is again in a letter from Margaret Fuller to Mary Peabody.

Letter of Margaret Fuller, 17 April 1836

Letter writers have also been known to snake their writing around the margins of a letter or even to turn a written page upside down and write in the gaps between the lines. Sometimes they’ll change the color of their ink for the cross-written portion to make it easier for their correspondent to read.

Then there’s this madness.

Letter of William B. Gerry, 17 August 1843

What you’re seeing here is a triple cross-written letter. It starts in the usual way, from top to bottom. The second pass goes from left to right, and the third is diagonal down the page. I don’t know about you, but trying to read this makes my eyes cross. With a lot of time and some fancy Photoshopping, I might be able to figure out what it says, but it would be tough!

This letter comes from the papers of William Blackler Gerry of Marblehead, Massachusetts. Gerry (pronounced “Gary”) was a master mariner in the China and India trade and commanded a number of ships, including the Charlotte, Beeside, Sappho, Farwell, Akbar, Cohota, and Noonday. The collection consists mostly of his correspondence with Mary Susan “Sue” Bartlett between 1841 and 1856, before and after their marriage. Included are letters written from Manila, Philippines; New Orleans; Liverpool, England; Pazhou (Whampoa) and Guangzhou (Canton), China; New York; Baltimore; Kolkata, India; Indonesia; and San Francisco.

If his surname sounds familiar, that’s because his grandfather’s brother was Elbridge Gerry, U.S. Founder, Congressman, governor, vice president, and inspiration for the word “gerrymander.”

William B. Gerry’s papers are chock full of cross-written letters. He even joked about it to Sue on 14 January 1843, when he wrote, “I fear your eyes will not like to behold a single letter now that you have been so used to those cross ones but I am afraid I shall have to close this without doing that for you.”

When it comes to reading handwriting, we all get better with practice. But every once in a while, something like this comes along to keep us from getting too confident.

Posted in From Our Collections

A Student’s Guide to the Galaxy

By Meg Szydlik, Visitor Services Coordinator

In a previous blog post I wrote about an astronomy book from the MHS collection called The Mysteries of Time and Space. I enjoyed that experience so much I decided to dig into another book to celebrate the winter solstice and clear winter skies. This time, I decided to tackle a children’s school primer called An astronomical and geographical catechism: For the use of children and selected the 2nd edition, published in 1796. I thought it would be interesting to compare it with what I learned in grade school in the early 2000s after over 2 centuries of exploration and advancement in both astronomy and geography.

cover page that reads “Astronomical and Geographical Catechism for the use of children/By Caleb Bingham, A.M./The Second Edition/Published by an act of Congress”
Cover page for Astronomical and Geographical Catechism

Despite being written in the 18th century, the astronomy section was shockingly similar to what I remember learning. Reading through the question-and-answer style text, I was thrown back to 4th grade, learning about stars and planets again. Precise measurements of the distance between the planets and the sun, the length of different planetary years, and even information about moons matched up with what I remember from my grade school days. The one thing that didn’t was the fact that there were 7 planets, indicating that Neptune (and Pluto) had not been discovered yet. The 7th planet, which we call Uranus today, was named but some quick googling told me that William Herschel discovered Uranus so presumably Caleb Bingham, the author of the text, just used his name. It was also so interesting to see Bingham encourage the possibility of life on the other planets in the solar system, as I was certainly taught that there was no life outside of earth. All in all, it was strikingly similar to what I learned as a child. I love knowing that while scientific discovery does grow and expand, that does not mean that all knowledge is new.

Page from Astronomical and Geographical Catechism from the astronomy section with information about planets

Geography, however, was a more complicated section. While there was certainly some overlap (I also learned that a peninsula is land mostly surrounded by water, for example), there were a lot of very 18th century, Early Republic aspects as well. Some of this is inevitable, since the borders of the world have changed substantially since 1796, including the introduction of 34 additional states, but some of it was a bit more surprising. When Bingham is talking about longitude, I was surprised to see no reference to the Prime Meridian which goes through Greenwich, England. It turns out that the Prime Meridian was not established until 1884, long after this book was published. Instead, Bingham says to count longitude “from a certain meridian.”

Page from Astronomical and Geographical Catechism from the geography section looking at state capitals

The section on continents was perhaps even more fascinating. Today of course, we consider there to be 7 continents–Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America. However the text only offers up 2 continents: the “eastern” continent with Africa, Asia, and Europe, and the “western” of North and South America. Australia makes a surprise appearance as “New-Holland” and a potential 3rd continent. And Australia is not the only place with a new name. There are references to Prussia and Persia, neither of which exist in the same form today. It was also really startling to realize that so many states in the U.S. moved their capitals at one point or another. While the capital of Massachusetts has always been Boston, 8/15 of the states had different capitals in 1796 than they do now. There was also an extreme bias in the descriptions of the states. There was a clear preference for the Northern states over the Southern, New England over other Northern states, and Massachusetts over other states in New England. No wonder we have multiple copies of this book here at the Massachusetts Historical Society! I loved the opportunity to take a peek into what students were learning over 200 years before I entered the classroom myself. So much was the same and even the things that were different were interesting windows into 18th century exploration.

The Mysteries of Time and Space
An astronomical and geographical catechism: For the use of children

Posted in From Our Collections

“What a Sweet Morsel”: Shared Meals and Affective Bonding among Massachusetts Provincials during the Seven Years’ War

By Russell L. Weber

You are what you eat.

Many of us have heard this common axiom at least once in our lives. For me, it was my grandmother’s constant teasing that one day I very well may transform into a “Sour Patch Kid” myself. But there is a more truthful version of this colloquialism that, if applied to historical research, unveils new avenues for the study of political gastronomy, popular culture, and identity. You bond with whom you eat.

Popular media has done an excellent job of illustrating the bonds of affection that emerge from sharing a meal – from the cacophonous, rowdy, politically charged feast held at New York City’s Life Café in Rent, to the quiet, somber dinner at The Royal Dragon, during which Matthew Murdock, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Danny Rand reluctantly formed an alliance to combat an ancient, apocalyptic evil in Marvel’s The Defenders. Such bonds, however, are not limited to modern fiction.

When I arrived at the Massachusetts Historical Society in July 2018 to research the relationship between affective rhetoric and political identity in revolutionary British America, I did not expect to be struck by the meals which Massachusetts provincials consumed during the Seven Years’ War.

As I combed through hundreds of pages of journals and diary entries, I found a common trend. Most Massachusetts provincials greatly detailed the violence which they participated in or witnessed (be it formal combat or traumatic episodes of corporal punishment, often overseen by British regulars), but otherwise many entries – such as those recorded in Samuel Greenleaf’s journal – contained a single, repetitive phrase which described the day’s events: “Nothing Remarkable.”[1]

Samuel Greenleaf’s Journal Entry: July 10, 1756. Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

Imagine my surprise when I came across Greenleaf’s entry for August 19, 1756, when he recounted a singularly important moment for himself and his fellow provincials: “we had a Very good huckleberry Pye of which I eat harty…”[2] As a shameless fan berry pies myself, this passage struck me as a meaningful expression of acute joy. Struggling to reconcile his incessant boredom with a chronic fear of impending combat with French soldiers and their Indigenous allies, Greenleaf experienced not simply physical gratification, but rather delightful comradery by devouring such a tasty dessert with his fellow soldiers. Despite his “I” statement, it is safe to assume that Greenleaf’s fellow provincials consumed their portions of huckleberry pie with equal heartiness and conviviality. As I read further into the experiences of Massachusetts’ Seven Years’ War veterans, I became aware that such collective pleasures formed combat communities, whose members felt a sense of intimate affection as deep as, if not deeper than, their allegiance to colony or empire.

Samuel Greenleaf’s Journal Entry: August 19, 1756. Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

The joy that arose from feasting on fresh bread, meat, or sweet treats provides a stark contrast to one of the greatest struggles and anxieties for Massachusetts provincials: food scarcity.  To avoid starvation the afternoon of February 8, 1758, Rufus Putnam and seventy other provincials reluctantly slaughtered a “large dog,” giving “every man his equal share.”[3] “None can tell what a sweet morsel this dog’s guts and feet were,” Putnam observed, “but those that eat them as I did…”[4] For only those provincials who had felt the desperation of hunger and the subsequent relief of its abatement, Putnam argued, might truly comprehend the deliciousness of such canine nourishment. Albeit a repulsive meal born from unimaginable struggle, this winter dinner only intensified the heartfelt wartime tethers of understanding, sympathy, and affection that Seven Years’ War veterans had developed for one another.

Rufus Putnam’s Journal Entry: February 8, 1758. Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

Through Putnam and Greenleaf’s journals, I realized that food – as much as rhetoric – was an essential tool to foster lasting, intimate bonds of both personal and political affection. By devouring such a “sweet morsel” – be it a dog’s feet, a slice of huckleberry pie, a plate of dumplings, or even “thirteen orders of fries” at New York City’s Life Café – strangers and friends alike had the opportunity to cultivate the affective sameness required for forging a shared political identity.

[1] Samuel Greenleaf, July 10, 1756, in “The Journal of Samuel Greenleaf,” MSS; Massachusetts Historical Society.

[2] Greenleaf, August 19, 1756, “Journal of Greenleaf.”

[3] Rufus Putnam, February 8, 1758, in Journal of Rufus Putnam: Kept in Northern New York during Four Campaigns of the Old French and Indian War, 1757-1760 (Albany: Jouel Munsell’s Sons, 1886), 56.

[4] Ibid.

Posted in From Our Collections, Research fellow

Massachusetts During the Great War: A Kass Teacher Fellowship Project (Part 1)

By Michael Khorshidianzadeh, Kass Teacher Fellow, and Kate Melchior, Associate Director for Educator Engagement and Outreach

Every year, the MHS awards the Kass Teacher Fellowship to a K-12 educator to offer them an opportunity to do a deep-dive into a research topic of their choice. Fellows spend 20 days researching in the MHS archives, receiving a stipend of $3,000 and delivering a final report on their findings. Applications for 2024 Teacher and Student Fellowships are now open: learn more and apply at www.masshist.org/teacher-and-student-fellowships! 

In 2023, Michael Khorshidianzadeh of the Victor School in Acton, MA was awarded a Kass Fellowship to pursue research into the Massachusetts home front during World War. Michael discovered so many amazing primary sources that we will share his findings in several blog posts. Read excerpts from Michael’s research experience and his findings at the MHS:

Massachusetts During the Great War: Pacifists, Activists, and People

A collection of record papers, diaries, journals, ephemeral memos, and a scrapbook meant to lend a hand to the future gathered together from the archives of the Massachusetts Historical Society all combined into a time machine for me during this research process. I felt part time-traveler and part detective. […] Knowing the larger story sometimes filled me with immense grief because I knew some of their hopes for the future would not come to fruition. Other times, I took joy in just reading about their daily lives as they happened.

Homefront Diaries

I explored 4 journals by Lady Gertrude Codman Carter and they are wonderful in terms of scope, detail, and arrangement. Lady Carter was an architect, artist, and feminist. She was born in Boston on February 6th, 1875 to a well-established moneyed Boston family and died there on November 12th, 1953.

The first journal I reviewed begins with newspaper articles from the beginning of the war. She clipped an article from the Daily Mail titled “General Nogi’s Prophecy” which states the war “will be the last in Europe for many a day, perhaps forever. German states will emerge from this so exhausted and so terrified that they will have no other object than to form some sort of condition that may in the future obviate the recurrence of any such catastrophe.” 

Lady Carter’s journals are full of heartfelt, humorous, and tragic observations about life in Massachusetts during the World War I era. Often she would draw her family in cartoon form to illustrate what she was writing about or feeling at the time[:]

Lady Carter attended many lectures to raise money for those who were impacted by the war.

A series of images of her family traveling to the cape. Her dog was named Mrs. Codman and she wrote she was a “Suffrage Dog” which indicates she was for the Women’s vote.

null

[Here Lady Carter] detail[s the] story of the death of Gilbert Carter. She states that his mother knew almost by telepathy before the message came that her son was hurt and that she also knew he was going to die soon. […] She wrote under the “In Memory” card “ To-day should have alas had a dark cloud had I known it for the war was to cast yet another shadow on our lives.

[Another woman,] Clara Currier’s diaries, provided me with a day-to-day account of what a seemingly everyday young woman experienced while living in Massachusetts. […] Currier spent a lot of time during the war canning vegetables and fruits and knitting or sewing for the Red Cross.null

I looked for when the war ended to see if she wrote anything […] The entry surprised me because it started simply “A pleasant day World War ended at 6 a.m and peace declared. Big celebration but couldn’t go out. Went to a bean shelling at Bert Merrills (sp?) and had a nice time. 40 were there and we had coffee, sandwiches, cake and pickles for treat. John+Mabel’s 10 wedding anniversary.” The next entry was about her crocheting. I don’t know what I was expecting […]  to some people, major historical events are just another Monday. She was glad the war was over and that was about it.”

Stay tuned for Part II of Michael’s research findings, where he explores competing advocacy for peace and military preparedness efforts, and how agencies collected supplies to assist those in need.

Citations:

Carter, Gertrude Codman Lady. 1914. “Lady Gertrude Codman Carter diaries, 1915-1920.” Call Number Ms. N-2246 Vol. 1.

Carter, Lady Gertrude Codman. n.d. “Lady Gertrude Codman Carter Diaries 1915-1920.” Call Number # Ms. N-2246 Vol. 2-3.

Currier, Clara E. n.d. “Clara E Currier Diaries, 1918-1932.” Call number # Ms. N-2570 3 Vols. in 1 narrow box.

Posted in From Our Collections, Research fellow

The Frances E. Willard Settlement in Boston

By Susan Martin, Senior Processing Archivist

When processing a collection, I almost always find interesting little pockets of material that I wasn’t expecting. It happened again recently while I was processing the Hill family papers and came across a few folders related to an early 20th-century settlement house in Boston.

Black and white photograph showing 20 people. All three rows. Most are wearing white tops and dark bottoms. A woman in a dark dress sits to the right side of the photo in front of a fireplace.
Residents of the Frances E. Willard Settlement, ca. 1910

One member of the family, Nellie Frank Hill, was very active in the settlement house movement. I couldn’t find a lot of biographical details about Nellie, but I know that she was born in 1876, the fifth of eight children of farmer and produce dealer Charles Henry Hill of West Groton, Mass.

Nellie’s portion of the Hill family papers relates primarily to the Frances E. Willard Settlement, a home for working women in Boston. Nellie served variously as vice president, secretary, head resident, and general manager of the organization and worked closely with its founder and president, Caroline Matilda “Tillie” Caswell.

The Willard Settlement began in 1894 in a tenement house at 422 Hanover Street, where three rooms were set aside for women who worked at local factories to relax and socialize. The organization grew over the years and was officially incorporated in 1903, later moving to 44 Chambers Street in the West End of Boston. Urban renewal in the mid-20th century dramatically changed the area, and the street doesn’t even exist anymore, but you can find it on this map posted by Historic New England.

Black and white photo of a 5-story brick building. The photo is taken at an angle. A rooftop garden can be seen at the top of the building.
44 Chambers Street, Boston, ca. 1910

The Willard Settlement’s stated mission was: “providing, maintaining and supporting a home or homes for young working women or women earning very low salaries or those training for self-support who need temporary aid, and helping in any possible way those who are strangers and need assistance.” You can learn a lot about what that assistance looked like by reading this 1910 pamphlet, which contains photographs and details about the organization’s membership, activities, finances, etc.

Women earning $5.00 a week or less paid $3.00 for room, board, and laundry. Meetings and classes for residents—and for others in the community—were held at the neighboring clubhouse. Two classes specifically mentioned in the pamphlet included cobbling (for boys) and housekeeping (for girls). The clubhouse had an auditorium, gymnasium, library, pharmacy, assembly hall, and “sloyd” (craft) room. There was even a camp in Bedford, Mass. for 12-to-20-year-old girls that was named after Nellie.

The settlement house also boasted a truly impressive rooftop garden, which is where I would undoubtedly have spent most of my time if I’d lived there.

black and white photo taken from within the rooftop garden at 44 Chambers Street. A woman dressed in a white shirt and long, dark skirt sits on a bench in the photo. There are 4 full columns visible holding horizontal beams (a pergola). Several plants are also visible.
Rooftop garden at 44 Chambers Street, Boston, ca. 1910

Of course, settlement houses and affiliated clubs had a darker side, as instruments for Christian proselytizing and “Americanization.” A 1911 book called Handbook of Settlements describes the Willard Settlement neighborhood this way: “A highly congested quarter of the West End. The people are largely Jews, with a sprinkling of Americans, Irish, Italians, and Negroes.” According to a 1919 issue of the Union Signal, published by the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), the settlement provided social services to a population that was “nine-tenths Jewish and one-tenth Italian.” The WCTU admitted that so-called Americanization was the “main work” of the movement.

The Willard Settlement was “avowedly temperance and Christian.” Daily prayers were mandatory for house residents, who were expected to maintain “good moral character.” Meanwhile, at the clubhouse, local immigrant and Jewish families—“neighbors of alien race and faith,” per the WCTU—could learn to speak and read English or improve their elocution (I presume to lose their accents). Their children were inculcated with “patriotism and loyalty.”

I couldn’t determine when the Willard Settlement officially closed its doors. I did find Nellie Hill and Tillie Caswell in the 1930 U.S. census. The two women were living together and running a health resort for women in Lake Maitland, Florida. After Tillie’s death in 1938, Nellie returned to Groton, Mass.

Posted in From Our Collections

The MHS Education Team is in Our Revolutionary Era 

By Heather Wilson, Assistant Director for K-12 Learning 

As we approach the 250th anniversary of the start of the Revolutionary War, we are excited to announce the launch of four new primary source sets on topics set in the 1770s on the History Source! We were thrilled to spend the summer working with scholars and K-12 teachers to breathe new life into these historical topics, and teachers can download all materials to use in their classrooms for free! These four new source sets were made possible with funding from the MA Society of the Cincinnati. Read on for a brief description of our new sets. 

Investigating Multiple Perspectives on the Boston Massacre

several ships waving British flags approach a densely settled port with a long wharf and many church steeples in the background
In 1768, Paul Revere portrayed his anxiety over the arrival of “British ships of war landing their troops” in Boston. This print is a reproduction from 1868. 

The arrival of British troops in Boston in the fall of 1768 – dispatched to protect customs officials tasked with collecting duties put in place by the Townshend Acts – is the catalyst for this primary source set on the Boston Massacre. With this context, students then analyze visual and written propaganda created in the wake of the night of 5 March 1770. Teaching activities use witness testimonies from a diverse array of Bostonians to help students understand that people’s accounts of that night conflicted with one another and could be influenced by their existing social relationships and politics.   

The Evolving Legacy of Crispus Attucks: 1770-1863 

black ink on yellowed paper shows a line of soldiers shooting at a crowd and a Black man falling. Text around it reads: “Crispus Attucks, March 5th 1770, the day which history selects as the dawn of the American Revolution”
Broadside advertising an 1863 event during which abolitionists gathered to commemorate Crispus Attucks as a martyr, and the Boston Massacre as the “dawn of the American Revolution.”

According to a Boston newspaper a week after the Boston Massacre, Crispus Attucks, a Black and Indigenous formerly enslaved man, had been born in Framingham and was passing through Boston “in order to go for North Carolina” in his work as a sailor. Instead, Attucks was one of five victims killed by British soldiers on the night of 5 March 1770. Attucks’ role that night was contested. Some portrayed him as the instigator and leader, while others claimed he was merely a spectator. In his defense of the British soldiers, John Adams blamed Attucks for the Massacre, using only select witness testimony as evidence. In the mid-19th century, the Black abolitionist and historian William Cooper Nell revived the public memory of Attucks. Like Adams, he portrayed Attucks as the leader of the event, but in the heroic role of a martyr standing up against tyranny.  

Attucks was not the only person of color present in the streets of Boston that fateful night, even though Revere’s famous engraving depicts only white people at the scene. Witness testimony and depositions from the trial of the soldiers also include the words of Andrew (last name once known), a literate man enslaved by a member of the Sons of Liberty, and Newton Prince, a free Black lemon merchant and pastry chef who ultimately left Boston for London as a Loyalist. 

Boston 1773: Destruction of the Tea 

shriveled brown tea leaves sit inside a glass bottle that is closed up with a cork; cursive handwriting in brown ink on a yellowed paper is inside the bottle
The label on this glass bottle filled with loose tea leaves reads, “Tea that was gathered up on the shore of Dorchester Neck on the morning after the destruction of the three cargo’s, at Boston, December 17, 1773.”

December 16th of this year marks the 250th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, or, as it was known at the time, the Destruction of the Tea. In this set, students explore broadsides, diary entries, artifacts, political cartoons, news articles and more to understand the wide variety of perspectives various stakeholders brought to the tea crisis. The set ends with the first three Coercive Acts, which Parliament enacted to punish and exert increased control over the rebellious colony. 

Massachusetts Loyalists: Revolution and Exile 

neat, large cursive handwriting on yellowed paper
On 29 September 1778, 11-year-old Eliza Byles wrote a letter to her aunts in Boston from Halifax, Nova Scotia, where her Loyalist family had fled in exile. Eliza was the daughter of Mather Byles, who had been the rector of Old North Church.

Following the end of the Seven Years’ War in 1763, British colonists in North America were proud to be part of such a vast empire. By 1775 – and following a series of protests against British tax policies – the first battles of the Revolutionary War had taken place in Massachusetts. However, not all colonists joined the Patriot cause. In this set, students explore who Loyalists were, why they maintained their allegiance to the British Crown, and what consequences they faced as a result.  

Many thanks to: Kate Bowen, Abigail Portu, G. Patrick O’Brien, PhD, Ben Remillard, PhD, J.L. Bell, and Serena Zabin, PhD, for their work as writing consultants and/or scholarly advisors on these source sets!

Check out all four sets on the History Source! 

Posted in From Our Collections, MHS News

Disability in the Archives: Fairies or Workers?

By Meg Szydlik, Visitor Services Coordinator

Content warning: use of outdated but period-typical language to describe disabled individuals.

With this post, I am returning to my old stomping ground in the archives. I have written three previous blog posts focusing on the presence of disability in our archives which can be found here, here, and here. I wanted to dive into some more collection materials on the topic.

Poster with an image in the center of two girls next to a piano. They are both very small compared to the piano, but are dressed in classic 1870s dresses for an older girl and a little girl. On either side, there are images of different adventures children might be interested in contained in circles. Written above the image in the center are the words “Cassie and Victoria Foster/The Fairy Sisters” and beneath the image is written “Cassie. Now 10 years old. Weighs only 12 pounds” and “Victoria. Now 3 years old. Weighs only 6 pounds.” Between the two is another image of the 2 sisters together on a chair and below that it reads “SMALLEST PERSONS IN THE WORLD”
Cassie and Victoria Foster, The Fairy Sisters : Smallest Persons in the World, Poster based on drawing by A. Briggs, [Boston]: Clear & Co., [1873]

While looking at our online collections, I came across this poster advertising the “Fairy Sisters” in 1873. The two girls, named Cassie and Victoria Foster, were little people and were billed as the smallest people alive. Whether or not that was true, that was their claim to fame, and later that of their brother, Dudley. Both of the girls died tragically young of infections Victoria at 3 ½ and Cassie at 11. Dudley lived to 17 before dying of a heart condition. Their lives, and the way some people still talk about these performers, demonstrate the tendency of others to romanticize the exploitation these children experienced. Personally, I’m not convinced that a 3 ½ year old should be working in any capacity and I’m even less convinced when the work consists of being gawked at by strangers for their disability. However, it would be many years after all three of these children’s deaths that legislators would even sign the Coogan Act, a law intended to protect child performers.

Left: paper contract that reads “Statement of Contract with the Agent of the Fairy Sisters. (space for date) 1873. The amount to be paid the undersigned by the Management of the Fairy Sisters Exhibition for (space to write) is to be (space) dollars and (space) cents.” Right: business card that says “Fred Pickering” in the center and then “Agent to the Fairy Sisters Exhibition” in the bottom left corner and then “P.O. Address, 35 Old State House, Boston, Mass.” In the bottom right corner.
Business card for the Fairy Sisters agent and contract to sign with him to engage them as performers

The 19th and 20th centuries were full of labor strikes and gains, including laws limiting and prohibiting child labor. The 1908 pamphlet shown below outlines some of the restrictions for girls and women in the workforce, including hour restrictions, school requirements, and access to workers comp if injured on the job. Their lives were certainly not easy, but there were at least some protections. Others took up the fight against child labor as part of the general battle for labor rights. It’s hard to read about all the child labor fights and not think about how different the lives of child performers would have been had they been afforded the same opportunities, limited as they were for the impoverished mill worker children these pamphlets were given to. In fact, the entertainment industry is still exempt from a lot of the same child labor laws that govern virtually every other industry and it shows in the current boom of podcasts from grown-up child stars

Pamphlet against a dark grey background. The pamphlet reads “To Women and Girls who work in Massachusetts/Some facts from laws with concern you…/October 1908/If you are under 14 years of age you cannot work at all in a factory, laundry, workshop, dressmaker’s, tailor’s, or milliner’s establishment, store, or restaurant. You cannot do any work for pay in public school hours, or after 7 o’clock at night or before 6 o'clock in the morning./If you are 14 years old but under 16 years of age you cannot work in a factory, laundry, workshop, dressmaker’s, tailor’s, or milliner’s establishment, store, or restaurant, until you have given your employer an “age and schooling.”
The first page of the 1908 pamphlet outlining the rights of workers

Both the mill children and child circus performers lived brutal lives, but there was little romanticization of mill workers’ lives. In contrast, there was (and still is) a romanticization of circus and sideshow life. The lights! The glamour! Life on the road! They were loved by millions! What could they possibly have to complain about? That perspective fails to account for the rampant abuse in the industry. Being on display is not something many people are comfortable with, especially when they are not demonstrating a skill. A gymnastics showcase is a bit different than staring at someone because something about their body is non-normative and usually specifically disabled, whether it is microcephaly, dwarfism, or giantism. The objectification is made even worse by how young some of the people in the sideshow were.

Eventually laws were signed to protect disabled children including the 1975 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Regardless, the Fairy Sisters and their brother should never have been sideshows as children. They should have been children and children only.

Posted in From Our Collections

Dickens the “literary Monster” comes to D.C.

By Gwen Fries, Adams Papers

In 1842, just shy of his thirtieth birthday, Charles Dickens undertook his first tour of America. He and his wife, Catherine, arrived in Boston in January. “I can give you no conception of my welcome here,” Dickens wrote on 31 January. “There never was a King or Emperor upon the Earth, so cheered, and followed by crowds, and entertained in Public at splendid balls and dinners, and waited on by public bodies and deputations of all kinds. . . . If I go out in a carriage, the crowd surround it and escort me home.”

Charles Francis Adams, son of John Quincy and Louisa Catherine Adams, concurred with Dickens’s summary, writing from Boston to his mother in D.C., “Society here is in a state of ferment at the appearance of Mr Dickens the celebrated Boz. He is lionized at a rate beyond the imagination of a moderate man to conceive.” Though his wife and children were ardent fans, Charles admitted, “I did not know before that Mr Dickens was so great a man but that is my fault in not keeping pace with the age.” He teasingly warned his parents to brace for impact because the whirlwind of Dickens was headed to Washington. (John Quincy seemed to do just that, cramming in a last-minute reading of The Pickwick Papers.)

Catherine Dickens, c. 1848 (NPG D35175)

Dickens stopped at New York City on his way south, where he made the acquaintance of prominent businessman (and host of the Knickerbocker group) Charles Augustus Davis. Davis enjoyed a twenty-year acquaintanceship with John Quincy Adams, and, at Dickens’s urging, he immediately set about laying the groundwork for an introduction.

Davis sent a flurry of letters to the Adams home pleading Dickens’s case: “I have seen much of him & I am charm’d with him— he is as delicate minded & pure in spirit as a Young Girl— I want him to know you & I will Esteem it a favor if you will allow me to give him a Letter to you— he will be most happy to make your personal acquaintance.” When this received no reply, he sent another, “He will take great pleasure in making your personal acquaintance and I am quite sure that you will find this pleasure mutual. for my own part I can only say that my intercourse with him is mark’d down as among the brightest & most agreable moments of my life.”

After Davis’s third imploring letter, Louisa responded that they should be glad to host Mr. Dickens and his lady.

On 10 March, his first morning in the capital, Dickens made it his mission to meet Adams. In his diary that night, Adams recorded, “Mr Charles Dickens and his wife called and left cards, and a Letter of introduction from Mr Charles A. Davis of New-York.” When Dickens found Adams was not home, he followed him to the House. “Mr Nathaniel Tallmadge one of the Senators from New-York, came into the house with Charles Dickens and called me out from my seat and introduced him to me.” The 30-year-old Dickens viewed 74-year-old Adams with a deep reverence—particularly for his abolitionist activities. In his Travels in America, Dickens not-so-subtly alludes to “An aged, grey-haired man, a lasting honour to the land that gave him birth, who has done good service to his country, as his forefathers did, and who will be remembered scores upon scores of years after the worms bred in its corruption are but so many grains of dust.”

Left: Charles Dickens, Frederic G. Kitton, 1842 (Bonhams)
Right: John Quincy Adams, Philip Haas, 1843 (National Portrait Gallery)

Louisa wrote to her daughter-in-law Abigail Brooks Adams to describe what happened next. Louisa invited the Dickenses “to take a seat in our Pew at Church and afterwards to dine with us sociably at 1/2 past 2. The invitation was declined; and I thought that I should see nothing more of the literary Monster. The day after; a Note was brought to me stating, that Mr. & Mrs. Dickens being very sorry that they were engaged out to dine; if it was agreeable to me they would come and take a Lunch at my Dinner, and thus have the honour to pay their respects to the family of Mr. Adams.”

John Quincy noted in his diary that, “They are so beset with civilities, and kind attentions, that they have not a moment of time to spare, and it was only by snatching an hour from other engagements that they could see us at all— Dickens’s fame has been acquired, by sundry novels and popular tales . . . more universally read perhaps than any other writer who ever put pen to paper— He came out in the January steamer to Boston, and his reception has transcended that of La-Fayette in 1824.”

The dinner was a success. Louisa wrote, “We had as pleasant an off hand dinner as you can well imagine— Dickens is an unpresuming lively and agreeable man, and seemed perfectly delighted with the coversation of his Host; and by the time they left us . . . you would have supposed we had been long acquainted.”

Dickens was equally impressed. To a friend in England, he wrote, “Adams is a fine old fellow—seventy-six years old, but with most surprising vigour, memory, readiness, and pluck.”

On their way out of the city, Charles and Catherine Dickens stopped to bid farewell to the Adamses. Catherine even asked John Quincy if he would write a poem for her, which he gladly did:

There is a greeting of the heart
Which words cannot reveal—
How, Lady, shall I then impart
The Sentiment I feel?

How, in one word combine the spell
Of joy and sorrow too;
And mark the bosom’s mingled swell
Of welcome!—and Adieu!

The Adams Papers editorial project at the Massachusetts Historical Society gratefully acknowledges the generous support of our sponsors. Major funding is provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, and the Packard Humanities Institute. The Florence Gould Foundation and a number of private donors also contribute critical support. All Adams Papers volumes are published by Harvard University Press.

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