By Susan Martin, Collection Services

A recent acquisition by the MHS details the harrowing trans-Atlantic voyage of the packet ship Thomas P. Cope in 1846 and, like so many other manuscripts in our collections, touches on several other fascinating subjects at the same time. The seven-page account was written by passenger Walter Cran on 10 January 1847, shortly after the events described. I wasn’t able to learn much about Cran, but he was apparently a Scottish immigrant living in St. Louis, Missouri. He, his wife, and their three young daughters were sailing to Scotland on the Thomas P. Cope, but they never arrived at their destination.

Our story begins a little earlier, though, on 5 October 1846, when the Cran family boarded the steamboat Colorado at St. Louis. As they made their way along the Ohio River, they saw what Cran called “novelties” and “Peculiar things,” including boats that carried sign-painting and glass-blowing establishments and even “a floating saw mill.” Cran also described this chilling sight: “We Passed a steamboat, that had on it a great number of Negros, 8 or ten being chained together like horses, going to Market.” It’s interesting to note that just five years earlier, Abraham Lincoln himself traveled on one of these boats. The MHS holds the letter Lincoln wrote to his friend Joshua Fry Speed on the subject:

In 1841 you and I had together a tedious low-water trip, on a Steam Boat from Louisville to St. Louis. You may remember, as I well do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio, there were, on board, ten or a dozen slaves, shackled together with irons. That sight was a continual torment to me; and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio, or any other slave-border.

In Cincinnati, Ohio, on 11 October, Cran witnessed another notorious American cruelty: “Saw the soldiers, escorting above 200 of the Miama Indians, to the same boat, for transportation to the west.” What he was watching was the forced removal of members of the Myaamia (Miami) Nation from their ancestral home in Indiana, and by all accounts the number actually exceeded 300.

The Crans traveled on, met with some logistical and financial difficulties in Pennsylvania, then boarded the Thomas P. Cope at Philadelphia and sailed for Liverpool. Cran may have thought his hardships were behind him, but the worst was still to come. Late on 29 November, the ship was struck by lightning. Cran described a dramatic series of events:

In a sudden, a loud crack, or crash, was heard like that of a cannon, and a man runs down stairs, crying the ship’s on fire, when Immediately, the smoke rushed so on us, as it darkend the lamp light. I hurridly took hold of my two Eldest Children, & rushed them up stairs, & my Wife brought the baby, naked as they were, and we beheld the main mast and riggin, all in a blaze. A widow woman was halooing, my Child, my Child is below. I attempted to go down for her, but a sailor would not let me. The hatches was Imediately closed for to smother out the fire, for the Lightning had struck the main Mast, went down its centre, into the hold between Decks. […] O the confusion of Capt & sailors, hurring, of the boats over the ship, the women screaming; what a strange feeling I had Putting my family under the low deck of the forcastle, among ropes & blocks, chains &c., for to save them from being killed by Pieces falling from the riggen.

The ship’s main and mizzen masts were lost, and the Cope floated helplessly in the storm. The sea was so turbulent that the first rescue boat lowered over the side was immediately swallowed by the waves, so the frightened passengers and crew decided to stay onboard and try to contain the blaze until sighted by a passing ship. By morning, Cran wrote, some women “laying on the quarter Deck […] had their hair froze to the deck.” His own family huddled in the bow: “Hard times they had, for when the waves broke over, they were wet, and the sails of the fore mast, taring to ribbons, cracked over their heads, like thorns, a blazing, the snow & the hail attending.”

Amazingly, the passengers and crew managed to contain the fire and avoid sinking for almost a week. On 5 December, the Thomas P. Cope was spotted by a ship sailing from Liverpool—the Emigrant. Its crew effected a daring rescue, transferring passengers from ship to ship on small boats in the rough seas. Safe onboard the Emigrant, Cran and the others watched the Cope disappear in “a perfect cloud of smoke.” All but one of its passengers had survived—the widow’s six-year-old daughter trapped below deck in the initial chaos.

The Emigrant was sailing in the opposite direction, back to North America, and took their new passengers with them. With the help of that ship and another called the Washington Irving, the Cran family made it to Boston on 20 December 1846. Unfortunately, they had lost all their money and belongings. Walter Cran acquired some supplies from philanthropic individuals and societies, probably including the Scots’ Charitable Society (the MHS holds some material related to that organization). But the devastation of recent events caught up with him, and he wrote that he “could not help washing my face with my tears.”

Cran finally made contact with another Scottish immigrant, the wealthy merchant Robert Waterston. Waterston and his stepsisters, “the Misses Ruthven,” invited the penniless family to their home in Boston’s Fort Hill neighborhood. Cran described their hospitality with gratitude: “When we arrived, the first words the Ladies said to us, was; your welcome here. They set us by a large fire, and gave us breakfast, Plenty of water to wash with, and clean clothes to put on.” The Crans stayed there a week, until the Waterstons found Walter a job and put him “in a fare way, for to Provide for my Family again.”

By Anna Clutterbuck-Cook, Reader Services

Today we return to the 1917 diary of Gertrude Codman Carter. You may read the previous entries here:

Introduction | January | February | March | April

The entries for May 1917 are more extensive than the first few months of the year, beginning with May 3 and ending on May 31 with only one extensive gap in the middle of the month. In these brief entries we catch glimpses of Gertrude ever on the move between family, society, and artistic obligations — nursing her young son in bed with a cold, regular trips to Ilaro where building was still underway, the arrangement of a “very successful” dinner party followed by an evening at the theater to see a play about German spies in Southeast England during World War One (at this point still raging in Europe). 

Gertrude makes several reference in May to “Self Help” meetings. The Women’s Self-Help Association (or Society) was a charitable organization that she and a group of other Barbadian women founded in 1907 — and which, according to the Barbados Museum & Historical Society, only ceased operations in 2011. The organization arranged for what today we might consider a “fair trade” shop in Bridgetown, Barbados, where women could sell handicrafts and artwork to tourists as a means of adding to the family income. Edward Albes of the Pan-American Union wrote approvingly of the shop upon visiting Bridgetown in 1913:

In the salesroom of the association may be found picture postals, photographs, curios, Indian pottery, lace, embroidery and fancy needlework, homemade jellies, cakes, pies, light lunches, delicious ices, etc., and all at remarkably low prices. The association…is maintained by the ladies of Barbados, and is a splendid example of practical benevolence.

Not everyone saw “practical benevolence” of upper-class women as so splendid, of course. Writing shortly after the war, in 1920, women’s rights activist Maria Moravsky sniffed in The Suffragist:

The members of these organizations occupy their time mostly by reading sentimental ‘colonial’ novels, eating ice cream, selling their old jewelry and making crochet — in order to help their families. Hand-craft — sewing babies’ caps, making embroidery and laces — is considered less humiliating by the old-fashioned Barbadian gentlewomen than salesmanship or clerical work.

This passage hints at the tension that may have existed between Gertrude — an upper-class woman seeking to put her own professional skills and resources to work in support of women’s industry — and a new generation of activists critical of labor they deem “humiliating” and “old fashioned” compared to the twentieth-century pink collar opportunities opening up for (some, white) working class women in department stores and offices. As we have seen in already in the first quarter of the year, even Gertrudes spare records of her daily life can offer an opportunity to explore the complex — and not always easy — gender, class, and racial politics of her particular life, opportunities, and actions.

* * *

3 May.
Somerset House Team Tournament.
[illegible] went.

4 May.
Circus 2-10.

The Lewistons.

Also Brazilian ambassador & his [illegible] sent by the Perkins.

5 May.

Circus again. A great success particularly the [illegible] which [illegible].

6 May.

Headache from curtain lights of last night.

7 May.

More headache.

Carrolls to tea (?) [or (!)]

4.30 Mrs. Lew.

8 May.

House.

Made cement baskets under dreary room windows.

Swimming party at the Lewistons.

9 May.

Self Help meeting.

Jon had a cold & kept him in bed.

17 May.

Swim with John who [illegible] all right again.

12.45 Improvement Society which just asked me on its committee.

Pachu & Lew in P.M.

18 May.

Band Hall stone work.

Eve. I gave a dinner party for the Harold Leightons. I made special cards & had a short dinner – [illegible] theater. But excellent. The Whytes. Dr. Wm. Pilgrim, Mrs. South, Mrs. Fell, Mrs. Da Costa, Laddie [illegible], Miss [illegible] (who did not go to the theater), Mr. [illegible] Carpenter.

Went to “The Man Who Stayed at Home” (Clifton Whyte in the name part).
A very successful evening.

19 May.

11. Mrs. Collyum about Self Help difficulties. She was so nice.

Cook very ill had to be sent home.

4.30 Batting party.

20 May.

Walked to Illaro with Mrs. Fell.

Afternoon [illegible] with the Pils.

Eve wrote letters.

21 May.

Early to Ilaro

Auction in town.

Called Lewistons.

22 May

[illegible] auction

23 May

8 a.m. Public Buildings with Miss Packer.

10.30 Self Help.

1. [illegible] meeting.

P.M. Burtons tea party. Miss Burton sang “Buffalo Gals come out to play – come to play by the light of the moon.” John also sang charmingly.

31 May

Bathing party at Mrs. Harold Whytes. John had a find romp with Edna.

* * *

As always, if you are interested in viewing the diary or letters yourself, 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.

By Katherine Green, Reader Services

In March, Brendan Kieran from Reader Services wrote a blog post about industrial labor unions in Boston. This month, while browsing through ABIGAIL, I happened upon echoes of a very different kind of union history: that of the Western Federation of Miners and the Colorado Labor Wars of 1903-1904. The WFM, formed in 1893, sought to bargain for the rights of miners whom they felt were being exploited by rich mine owners.

The Massachusetts Historical Society collections, despite our East Coast location, is connected to the mines and miner strikes of Southwestern Colorado through the journals of Robert Livermore. His personal papers include a collection of neatly penned memories decorated with photographs and original pen-and-ink drawings.  

Robert Livermore surveying in Colorado

Livermore, who grew up in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts and attended Boston Latin School, Harvard University, and MIT, journeyed out west in the early 1900s to travel and to work for the mines owned by his brother-in-law, Bulkeley Wells. Livermore arrived at Camp Bird Mine in Ouray, Colorado on 27th June 1903 to survey and sample the rock formations.

A sketch of Camp Bird drawn by Robert Livermore

In his journal, he describes the combination of “luxury and wilderness” Camp Bird Mine boasts:

We live in a great wooden building with baths, hot water, and electric lights, the best of wholesome food and fresh creamy milk, and all around us is the great wilderness of spruce forest and jagged peaks as it was since time immemorial.

Livermore’s brother-in-law Bulkeley Wells, whom he affectionately refers to in his diary as ‘Buck,’ was a businessman and manager/owner of Smuggler Mining Company in Telluride. Between his mine in Telluride and Camp Bird Mine in Ouray, there was much unrest among miners, mine labor unions, and mine owners. Wells himself was often at the forefront of anti-unionist attacks. According to a Daily Sentinel article, Wells led a mob of townspeople to ransack buildings to find and force out union members.

Meanwhile, Livermore seemed to enjoy his work in and around the mines, though he makes numerous observations of men who were killed or maimed in the harsh working conditions. “Yesterday Jessey, the shift boss was caught in a cave-in, in 327 stope but luckily escaped with only a broken leg.” (A stope, according to Merriam-Webster, is “a usually steplike excavation underground for the removal of ore that is formed as the ore is mined in successive layers.”)

Livermore himself suffered injuries from his work:

On Saturday the 18th, my eye became very much inflamed from a piece of steel or rock which had lodged in it while sampling. I went to Ouray and had it looked to by the local doctor. He could find nothing in it at first, but that day discovered the substance in the middle of the pupil and extracted it, supposedly.

In an entry dated 21st August 1904, Livermore describes an army of hundreds of anti-unionists descending upon Cripple Creek:

I never saw a more impressive sight than these hundreds of quiet, determined Americans, with their dinner buckets in hand, each with a revolver on his hip, making no display but resolved to suffer no more from the murderous gang who have tyrannized over them so long.

Livermore details the army’s actions of overpowering the union store and marching its members out of town. Later that evening, the union store was destroyed by a mob – an act which Livermore questions in his diary. Perhaps he did not share the sentiments of Buck, who seemed to relish the power and force he could exert over the unionists.

In his writings, Livermore appears fiercely attached to his sister and, by extension, his brother-in-law. Besides this loyalty to the anti-unionist Buck, and in spite of the fact that he uses a phrase like “murderous gang” to describe the union members, Livermore appears to be a passive observer in these conflicts.

“Today I was commissioned and sworn in as a ‘special deputy sherrif’ [sic] under Bell, which entitles me to carry a gun.”

This changed in September 1904. Under Adjutant General Sherman Bell, Livermore was appointed “special deputy sheriff” in Colorado’s government-backed anti-union forces. In one journal entry, he celebrates that he’ll be allowed to “carry a gun” and that he is “likely to see some fun if the unionists try to come back.” Perhaps his brother-in-law’s influence won out in the end.

A photograph of Livermore’s “Deputy Sheriff” insignia

After the strikes ended at the close of 1904, Livermore would go on to invest in and run numerous mining companies. He retired to Boxford, Massachusetts and died in Boston in 1959.

If you would like to learn more about Robert Livermore and his life, you can visit our library. You can also find related materials at the University of Wyoming American Heritage Center.

By Daniel Tobias Hinchen, Reader Services

We here in the Library Reader Services department at the MHS concern ourselves with the user/researcher side of our collections. This job allows us to continually sharpen the skills of reference librarians: catalog searching, materials handling, patron interactions, and the like. Unfortunately, this being a full-time job, there is a chance that some of our other library skills can atrophy. Thankfully, we occasionally get the opportunity to flex those other muscles by taking on projects in other areas.

Recently, I started a cataloging project in which I create bibliographic records for entry in our online catalog, ABIGAIL. The print material that I am cataloging all comes from the George Frisbie Hoar papers, a voluminous collection that contains a heady mix of manuscript material, printed matter, and even some images. This is a valuable project for me because it allows me to get a much better sense about some of the topics on which the collection is informative. It also results in a great deal more description for a researcher about what is contained in the collection, at least as far as the printed matter is concerned.

Much of the project consists of copy-cataloging. That is, using catalog information already created by other institutions and made available via the Online Computer Library Center, or OCLC. This method of cataloging saves us from recreating the wheel for every single object, though we still need to add information about the specific copy in our holdings. For instance, in every catalog record I create for ABIGAIL, I need to note that it is stored offsite with the rest of the collection, a note not needed by other libraries.

When there is no record freely available through OCLC, then original cataloging is required. This entails adding into a form all of the bibliographic data necessary for making the item discoverable by researchers. So, we had the basic stuff like author, title, and publisher (when known), but also things like subject headings which provide another means of discovery. When the project is finished, a researcher working on a project about currency will now be able to find several publications in the Hoar papers about bimetallism, for example.

The project is also well-timed as we are seeing a very dramatic upswing in requests for material from this collection. In the last twelve months there were over 170 requests for the collection! Not only are people very interested in the large amount of manuscript material – over 100 record cartons simply of correspondence – but also in the wealth of print material that Hoar collected. Most of this related to various topics with which Hoar and his congressional colleagues wrestled during the latter-half of the 19^th century, some of which are gaining renewed relevance today: immigration, American imperialism, election laws and controversies, bankruptcy and anti-trust legislation, and Supreme Court matters, to name a few.

In the end, this project is a classic Win-Win-Win scenario: I get some practice using my cataloging skills, our cataloger has one less project to worry about, and the researcher gets better information about what we hold in our collections.

Interested in learning more about this collection? You can find an online collection guide to the George Frisbie Hoar papers on our website, then, learn about Visiting the Library. 

By Susan Martin, Collections Services

Today is the 242nd anniversary of the battles of Lexington and Concord, the first battles of the American Revolution. The MHS holds some terrific letters and diaries containing first-hand accounts of that famous day, not to mention related books, pamphlets, maps, and artifacts. We’ve also digitized select items over the years, and they’re available on our website with full transcriptions. My favorites are the letters of two refugees, Sarah Winslow Deming and Hannah Winthrop.

Sarah Winslow Deming (1722-1788) wrote to her niece Sally Coverly, possibly sometime in June, two months after the battles. In her 12-page journal-style letter, she recounted her harrowing flight from Boston after that “fatal” and “dreadfull” day. Early the following morning, she was told that British troops had closed all roads to carriages and that she was essentially “Genl Gage’s prisoner.” Nevertheless she persisted.

I then determined to try if my feet would support me thro’, tho’ I trembled to such a degree, that I could scarce keep my feet in my own chamber, had taken no sustenance for the day, & very sick at my stomack. […] ah! can any one that has not felt it, know my sensation? Surely no.

Learning that some carriages had gotten out, she, her husband John, and others borrowed a chaise and managed to pass through the British checkpoints without incident, but with no idea of their final destination.

We had got out of the city of destruction; such I lookt upon Boston to be, yet I could not but lift up my desires to God that he would have mercy upon, & spare the many thousands of poor creatures I had left behind. […] I was far from being elated with my escape. I remember my sensations but cannot describe ‘em.

Along the way, the Demings encountered other refugees, including many women and children.

A lad who came out of Boston wth us […] run up to our chaise wth a most joyful countenance & cry’d, Sir, Sir; Ma’m, here are the cannon – Our cannon are coming […] The matter of his joy was terror to me […] We met little parties, old, young, & middle aged, some with fife & drum, perhaps not an hundred in the whole, a kind of pleasant sedateness on all their countenances. We met such parties all the way, which gave me the Idea of sheep going to the slaughter.

Drenched from a downpour of rain, they stopped at the house of Rev. William Gordon in Jamaica Plain, a man they barely knew but who immediately offered them accommodation. As Gordon told Sarah Deming, “all things are in common now.” Deming’s husband rode off to return the chaise, which was needed to rescue other stranded residents, and she was terrified she’d never seem him again.

Read about the rest of her narrow escape here.

The letter from Hannah Fayerweather Winthrop (1727?-1790) to her friend Mercy Otis Warren was written around May 1775 and forms part of our online exhibit of their correspondence. In this letter, Winthrop described her flight from Cambridge the day of the battle, first to a house a mile outside of town.

What a distressd house did we find there filld with women whose husbands were gone forth to meet the Assailiants, 70 or 80 of these with numbers of Infant Children, Crying and agonizing for the Fate of their husbands. In adition to this scene of distress we were for Some time in Sight of the Battle, the glistening instruments of death proclaiming by an incessant fire, that much blood must be shed, that many widowd & orphand ones be Left as monuments of that persecuting Barbarity of British Tyranny.

The next day, in the aftermath of the battles, Winthrop and others were forced to move again, which she compared to Eve’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden. But while Deming was making her way south, Winthrop fled north to the town of Andover, “alternately walking & riding.” The sights she saw along the way were gruesome.

What added greatly to the horror of the Scene was our passing thro the Bloody field at Menotomy which was strewd with the mangled Bodies, we met one Affectionate Father with a Cart looking for his murderd Son & picking up his Neighbours who had fallen in Battle, in order for their Burial.

Like Deming, Winthrop found asylum with a “very obliging” family. Her rural refuge in Andover was peaceful, a surreal juxtaposition with the historical moment in which she lived. Read the rest of her letter here.

For more information on the battles of Lexington and Concord and the people who experienced them, search our online catalog ABIGAIL or our website.

By Anna Clutterbuck-Cook, Reader Services

Today we return to the 1917 diary of Gertrude Codman Carter. You may read the previous entries here: 

Introduction | January | February | March

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “paleography” as “the study of ancient writings and inscriptions.” This practice however, and the word to describe it, are increasingly used to refer to the practice of deciphering handwritten manuscripts in an age when typescript is what many of us encounter on a daily basis beyond the scribbled shopping list or note to self in one’s planner — unless you, like many of us, have abandoned the print version in favor of Google calendars or a planner-like app. The art of slow reading, when making sense of a densely-handwritten letter might take the better part of a day in the archive’s reading room — and often an intimate familiarity with the writer’s hand — is a skill that we must increasingly practice with intent rather than one that we develop passively through everyday exposure.

Gertrude’s diary and letters are no exception to this rule, and in the spirit of this rough-and-ready transcription project I have undertaken for the year, I often find myself inserting [illegible] in the place of partially or wholly impenetrable words that by the end of a year spent in Lady Carter’s company might well seem perfectly understandable. Another solution to [illegible] manuscripts, one that we are often called upon to assist with in the MHS reading room, is crowdsourcing: enlisting a second, or third, or an entire list of social media followers to cast their eyes over the scribblings that befuddle a researcher and see what we can decipher as a group.

In the spirit of demonstrating the labor of paleography, I offer in this month of April the rough-and-ready transcription of Gertrude’s scattered April 1917 entries alongside the phrases that confounded me at first and second pass. Think you have an idea of what a word may be? Leave a comment below or let us know on Twitter @mhs1791!

* * *

2 April.

Paid bills.

3 April.

[left blank]

4 April. Great day!

10.30 Meeting at the [illegible] Road.

11.30 Theater meeting with the model. Everyone pleased. A splendid meeting.

[Pilgrims?] at home.

President Wilson’s grand speech. America enters the war.

Mr. Fell rang to tell me how pleased he was to hear it.

Here the diary skips to April 19 and continues on.

19 April.

[illegible] stonework.

G[odettes?] to dinner & Mr. Fell. He sang a heartrending little song called “Somewhere in France”. How terrible it must have been for Mrs. [Water?]worth.

20 April.

Band at the Savannah Club

Had an offer for 501 which was depressing & yet I don’t dare refuse $18,000 ($15,000 on mortgage at 4 ½ %). I cabled 5% or $20,000 which was very clever (so Charlie said in his letter) – I got the 5%. This was some time ago.

21 April.

I [damaged text] sale of 501.

4.15 Dinner party at [illegible]. An amusing chat with Laddie. He can be quite fun.

22 April.

To church.

To Erdiston in the afternoon.

23 April.

Consul again.

4 Miss Packer re: Savannah beautification

Later Mr. Carpenter. Jolly chat.

24 April.

8.30 Miss Packer

Laddie Challum motored me out to Caledonia. He has a nice little Ford car, a ripper at hills.

25 April.

Swim

[illegible] to auction

Procession of Civic Circle around its various outposts & then meeting.

Here ends the April 1917 entries remaining in the diary.

* * *

If you are interested in viewing the diary or letters yourself, 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.

By Daniel Tobias Hinchen, Reader Services

If you are like me then you were unaware until this morning that today is National Beer Day in the United States. And just like that, you learned an important fact on a Friday afternoon.

On 13 March 1933, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt drafted a memo which read:

To the Congress:

I recommend to the Congress the passage of legislation for the immediate modificaiton of the Volstead Act, in order to legalize the manufacture and sale of beer and other beverages of such alcoholic content as is permissable under the Constitution; and to provide through such manufacture and sale, by substantial taxes, a proper and much-needed revenue for the Government. I deem action at this time to be of the highest importance. ¹

According to the folks at that National Constitution Center, on 22 March 1933, Roosevelt signed the Cullen-Harrison Act, a piece of legislation that amended the Volstead Act of 1919. The Cullen-Harrison Act went into effect on 7 April 1933 and was met with celebration around the country. Happily for many, the CHA did not stick around long; it was voided upon ratification of the 21st Amendment to the Constitution in December 1933.²

In commemoration of the Cullen-Harrison Act of 1933, here are two recipes from the collections of the MHS to brew your own beer and spruce beer:

To brew Beer

     Take 3 pints of malt, a double handful of Hops, as much of bran or shorts, boil these in ten gallons of soft water for two hours. then strain it, and when cold, add half a pint of molasses a half a pint of yest and work it well. To colour it add a handfull of roasted barley whilst it is boiling. The yest of this beer put in a bottle with water, & kept in a cool place, will serve to make Bread.__

Spruce Beer

          Take half a pint of Spruce. boil it two hours in five gallons of soft water, a quart of molasses. When cold work in a large tea cup full of good thick yest. let it work 24 hours & then bottle it off. it will be pleasant Beer without the Spruce.__ ³

While it is too late to brew and sample today, you have a full year to practice your brewing and have a homemade batch for the next National Beer Day. I, for one, look forward to reader submissions to see who creates the best brew.

Cheers!

***

^{1. Franklin D. Roosevelt: “Message to Congress on Repeal of the Volstead Act.,” March 13, 1933. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=14551. Accessed 7 April 2017.}

^{2. National Constitution Center, “The constitutional origins of National Beer Day.,” April 7, 2017. Constitution Daily. https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/the-constitutional-origins-of-national-beer-day/. Accessed 7 April 2017.}

^{3. From an Anonymous recipe book, ca. 1800.}

By Alex Bush, Reader Services

The Pemberton collection, a compilation of materials from several New England families connected by marriage, includes a few artifacts from Mary Channing Eustis of Milton, Massachusetts. A dedicated recorder of recipes and what we now lovingly refer to as “life hacks,” Eustis filled two commonplace books with directions for the making of everything from plum cakes to stomachache cures. After recently rediscovering Emilie Haertsch’s 2012 blog post on Ben Franklin’s milk punch (http://www.masshist.org/blog/838), I figured another experiment with a vintage recipe was long overdue. Should this post instill you with further curiosity about Massachusetts’ cooking-related past, consider attending the MHS public program series “Cooking Boston.” The next installment (2 of 6) is scheduled for the 27^th of April.

With that, let us explore Mary Channing Eustis’ recipe for bread pudding. Since I’d been planning to attempt a bread pudding anyway, I was quite excited to find this recipe. To my untrained eye it looked like the perfect choice—easy, simple, and delicious.

 “Boil 3 pints of milk sweeten it with half a pound of sugar put in half a pound of Butter – when tis melted pour it over Eleven ounces of [of] Bread – when cold put in 10 eggs well Beat – glass of wine – glass of Brandy little salt – spice to your taste & Currants or raisins as you Choose—”

The photo and transcript above represent the recipe in its entirety. It is vague at best, with some decidedly odd proportions. In order to accommodate my lack of a kitchen scale as well as my unwillingness to sacrifice 10 eggs, I halved the recipe and converted each measurement into its approximate equivalent in cups. Pictured below is the full array of ingredients as well as a bag of flour, which I was almost positive the recipe included despite having read it multiple times. Milk was also included in the recipe, but is not pictured here. Obviously the baking nerves were already setting in.

First, Eustis indicates that the milk should be boiled and sweetened with sugar. However, due to her disinclination toward comma usage, I was unsure whether she meant that the sugar should be added right away or after the milk was boiled. I was also unsure as to whether boiling milk is ever a good thing to do. Instead, I put the milk in a pot over medium heat and brought it to just before boiling, adding sugar gradually until it dissolved. As the milk heated, I chopped the bread into cubes (despite the recipe not specifying that I should do so) and put it into a bowl. After this, the recipe calls for an off-putting amount of butter to be melted into the milk before the whole mixture is poured over the bread.

 “Speak softly and melt a big stick of butter.” -Theodore Roosevelt, (Historical note: Theodore Roosevelt did not, in fact, say this.)

Honestly, this was the recipe at its best. You might as well stop reading right here. Even so, at this point my sweetened bread and dairy concoction was likely pretty far from what Mary Channing Eustis would have had. I used skim milk, while Eustis almost certainly would have used whole milk or even cream, considering the fact that skim milk was not sold in U.S. stores until around World War II. The same goes for the overall differences in quality between my Stop n’ Shop rolls and whatever delicious, probably homemade bread Eustis had on hand. I am also fairly certain that Eustis had never heard of Craisins, which I added later on.

A festival of health.

Eustis’ recipe instructs that the above mixture should chill before the next steps can be taken. While chilling, my bread absorbed most of the milk mixture and became incredibly soggy. This made the next step in the recipe especially painful. To the bread and milk, the (halved) recipe instructs that five well-beaten eggs must be added. This made the eggs to milk ratio almost equal, creating what can only be described as a sweet, uncooked bread omelet.

There are no words.

The recipe then calls for one glass each of wine and brandy. Nowhere is it specified how much a “glass” is supposed to be, so I estimated by adding half a standard-sized wine glass of each. At this point, I figured, adding a little alcohol would only make things easier for everyone. I also added a few handfuls of Craisins to substitute for currants, and spiced the pudding “to my taste” with vanilla, nutmeg, cinnamon, and a pinch of salt. All in all, the uncooked pudding did not look half bad. It looked fairly similar to other bread puddings I’d seen previously, and the spices and wine made it smell quite lovely! With nothing in the recipe indicating how long or at what temperature the pudding should be baked, I was forced to guess. I cross-referenced a few other bread pudding recipes and came up with 350 degrees for 40 minutes. With an inflated sense of optimism, I placed the pudding into the oven to bake.

Before.

After.

Admittedly, the pudding looked very handsome at the end of its bake. My apartment was filled with the fragrant scents of cinnamon and butter, the top of the pudding was beautifully brown, and it appeared that most of the liquid had been absorbed. However, the sheen of butter grease coating the surface did not inspire confidence, nor did the fact that my first spoonful of the pudding revealed a pale and wobbly interior beneath the crust. The sad result of this experiment was a bread pudding that resembled a sweet frittata more closely than anything else. The spices, sugar content, and baking time were spot on. Had the proportions been slightly more even, this probably would have turned out well. However, the sheer amount of butter and eggs in this recipe coupled with the comparably small amount of bread made for a greasy, breakfasty mess.

There are many reasons why this could have turned out as badly as it did. First of all, Mary Channing Eustis likely compiled this book of recipes for herself, her family, or her peers. All of those people undoubtedly had some background in the cooking techniques needed for these recipes, including knowledge of typical oven temperatures or a sense of how many eggs is too many eggs. Second, as I mentioned before, it was impossible to recreate the dish with complete accuracy given the supplies, skills, and hardware I had on hand. Finally, it may just be the case that eggy puddings were in vogue back in the 1840s and 50s, and that this egg purgatory was inescapable. While I personally cannot see the appeal, Eustis obviously could, given the fact that this book is absolutely full of similar recipes. Any avid egg-eater is welcome and encouraged to attempt this recipe and share the outcome.

Despite the eggy result, this was a fascinating experiment and a great look into an older take on a still-popular dish. I certainly look forward to revisiting Eustis’ recipe book for more questionable recipes in the future. Perhaps I’ll look into her home cure for an upset stomach first.

By Susan Martin, Collections Services

Elizabeth Elliot Mixter was born in Boston on 24 January 1913. She was the oldest child and only daughter of renowned neurosurgeon William Jason Mixter and his wife Dorothy (Fay) Mixter. Like other young women hailing from the elite Brahmin families of Boston, coming of age meant a “debut” into society at around the age of 18. Elizabeth’s debut took place in the fall of 1932, in the depths of the Great Depression.

The MHS collection of Fay-Mixter family papers contains a large scrapbook of newspaper clippings, programs, invitations, photographs, and other papers documenting Elizabeth’s ”Coming Out Year 1932-1933.”

Elizabeth made her official debut on 9 November 1932 at a tea held in her honor by her grandmother, Elizabeth Elliot (Spooner) Fay, at 330 Beacon Street. Pourers at the tea included other young ladies from the so-called “smart set.” Many of their names are recognizable—for example, Polly Binney, whose family’s papers are located right here at the MHS, just a few shelves away from Elizabeth’s. Another pourer was Abigail Aldrich, none other than the niece of John D. Rockefeller, Jr.

Elizabeth’s cousin Anne Mixter, also one of that year’s debs, couldn’t make it to the tea because of an emergency appendectomy. Neither could “plucky” 17-year-old Frances Proctor, who’d been mugged just two days before and apparently punched in the mouth when she refused to surrender her car keys. Frances’ story is told in a newspaper clipping entitled “Society Girl Is Beaten by Holdup Man.”

According to the Boston Evening Transcript of 4 June 1932, more than 150 debutantes were formally presented in the 1932-33 season in Boston, an “unusually large” number. After coming out, a deb’s life became a whirlwind of parties, dinners, concerts, costume balls, charity events, etc. Elizabeth was invited to join exclusive clubs like the Junior League of Boston and the Vincent Club. She took part in theatrical performances and studied cooking and home economics.

A deb was photographed, or “snapped,” around town, and the society pages detailed her clothing and appearance. For example, on their way to a luncheon, two young ladies were “nicely turned out in their new fall costumes, so modishly trimmed with fur.” Polly Cunningham was described as “the luscious, rounded type with golden curls and merry blue eyes, beautifully poised and magnetic.” And here’s what one article had to say about a roller skating party: “One of the prettiest of the skaters was Miss Elizabeth E. Mixter of Brookline. Like many others, she took dainty falls but enjoyed the frolic.” Another writer used the word “pulchritudinous.”

Amidst the high-society gossip and fashion tips are a few hints of the tough economic times then plaguing the country. One page of the scrapbook contains a re-written version of Psalm 23 that begins: “The politician is my shepherd – I am in want / He maketh me to lie down on park benches.” Also included is an article entitled “Depression Debutantes,” from the 12 November 1932 Saturday Evening Post, which makes the argument that “coming out” prepares a young woman not just for marriage, but also for work. Perhaps most revealing, Elizabeth filled out an elaborate budget sheet, probably as part of her home economics coursework, detailing how to save money on clothing purchases over three years.

As for the uncomfortable premise of the whole debutante phenomenon—the marketing of young women of a certain social standing as eligible marriage prospects—Elizabeth’s scrapbook has that covered, too. It includes a column from the gossip magazine Tatler and American Sketch by an anonymous author, aptly named “Audacious.” In the column, Boston debs are sorted into “grades” based on, well, the blueness of their blood.

Grade A includes Abigail Aldrich and Polly Cunningham, as well as Misses Appleton, Coolidge, Hallowell, Holmes, Jackson, Lawrence, Loring, Peabody, Perkins, Saltonstall, Shaw, Winthrop, and others. Elizabeth, her cousin Anne, and Polly Binney are all listed in Grade B. “Plucky” Frances Proctor rates Grade C, though I would argue she deserves much higher!

The mercenary nature of these rankings shocked some contemporary journalists. When the Tatler and American Sketch went out of business in January 1933, editor John C. Schemm, outed as the author of the column, said: “I meant that department to be a constructive force, but it can’t be done. No matter how intelligently you strive to do the job, or how constructively, you cannot avoid creating hard feelings.”

Elizabeth E. Mixter married Dr. Henry Thomas Ballantine, Jr. in 1938, and the couple had two children. She died in 1998.