By Evan McDonagh, Library Assistant

In 1889, visitors to the present location of the MHS would find themselves confronted by a most unusual sight: a fairground adorned in towering white tents and colorful flags. A decade before the Society came to 1154 Boylston Street, this corner of the Fenway neighborhood of Boston hosted Phineas Taylor Barnum’s Circus. Barnum entertained his audiences with the absurd and created spectacle out of the strange.

For 19th-century Bostonians, the circus represented just one means of finding entertainment in spectacle. Anything outside the norms of American life – particularly people, animals, and objects that did not conform to notions of Western civilization and classification – could be exoticized and transformed into an exhibit. In the 1800s, naturalists toured the United States and charged Americans to view their curiosities and collections. The below broadside, saved by Boston resident Ezra S. Gannett in his 1845 diary, announced the presentation of a mastodon skeleton (“the antediluvian monster!”) by “an eminent Naturalist and Physician of [Boston]” for citywide enjoyment.

Naturalists and archaeologists similarly exhibited artifacts and items appropriated from imperialist ventures at home and overseas. The popular image of the mummy, a ubiquitous representation of Ancient Egypt and archaeology in modern times, has its roots in these 19th-century curiosity shows. In 1825, the New England Museum displayed three mummified Egyptian bodies, promising lurid sights with an additional 25 cent admission fee. Desecration accompanied exhibition as the museum removed the wrappings from these already disturbed bodies.

The unwrapping of a mummy could be a highly publicized affair. For instance, an 1850 event held by Boston naturalist Geo. R. Gliddon promised not only lectures on Ancient Egyptian embalming practices, but the unwrapping of a mummy before an audience and the submission of the body, wrappings, and its belongings for their inspection.

Popular fascination with absurd practices and bodies dovetailed with a growing fixation on spiritualism and the occult. Occultists like the below Professor Baron claimed access to secret knowledge and abilities beyond the pale of Western knowledge and science, often stemming from exoticized interpretations of non-Western cultures. The appeals of mysticism and otherworldly answers answered the popular appetite for spectacle.

The broadsides accompanying this blog post represent just some of curiosity shows and exhibitions that visited Massachusetts during the 19th century. They tell a story not just of contemporary entertainment, but also the commodification of those deemed absurd: prehistoric and unusual animals as well as artifacts, corpses, and beliefs of outside cultures. Part II of this blog post series will focus on people and the rendering of non-European bodies as curiosities.

By Susanna Sigler, Library Assistant

A confession: I spent way too long trying to come up with a catchy opener for this blog post. After several stops and starts, I came to the conclusion that sometimes you just want to talk about a cool item.

On the off chance that anyone has been following closely, my last few posts have been about WWII-related collections here at the MHS. This is no coincidence, as I’ve been gathering information about WWI- and WWII-related collection to start work on a subject guide to help future researchers. Read posts here, here, and here.

Rather than an account of overseas duty and combat, I wanted to look at something related to the home front and the experiences of civilians. Lydia Gutheim’s helmet, sitting in the “civilians” tab of my spreadsheet, seemed like a promising choice.

The term air raid warden might conjure images of WWII as it took place in Great Britain rather than the United States. While the contiguous United States never became the target of a sustained bombing campaign during the war, civilian defense preparations were widespread and organized by multiple government offices on the federal and state levels. Being an air raid warden was advertised as one way that civilians could contribute to the war effort. One booklet of instructions, digitized by the Museum of Flight, shows how air raid wardens and other neighborhood leaders were told to view themselves as being in an army, albeit one in civilian clothes.

In person, Lydia’s helmet is rather nondescript. Made of steel and painted white, it has a series of interior straps and fasteners meant to properly place the helmet on the head of the wearer. It is accompanied by a canvas belt with multiple pockets holding first aid supplies. Before looking at it, I assumed the helmet would have some kind of insignia, but it has no markings, aside from a dent near the top. Inside is a small slip of paper attached to one of the straps, bearing Lydia’s name and address in Cambridge, Mass.

My questions revolved around Lydia herself – who was she, and why did she volunteer to be an air raid warden?

The Boston Globe was able to help answer these questions. Lydia, in her mid-fifties by the time the war began, was married to Herman Gutheim, Fire Chief for the city of Cambridge. One clipping from 1942 conjures a strong image of wartime Boston, detailing Chief Gutheim’s orders for an upcoming practice blackout. Two years prior, he is named as organizing a new “Civilian Unit” at the Cambridge Fire Department “as part of the national defense.” It makes sense that Lydia, his wife, would herself take a role in this initiative.

While this information was illuminating, I didn’t feel any closer to knowing more about Lydia other than in relation to her husband. There was more available on her and Herman’s daughter, Dr. Marjorie Frye Gutheim. Among other accomplishments, Dr. Gutheim was an associate editor here at the MHS, transcribing the Winthrop papers and creating a guide to MHS proceedings.

I wondered how Lydia felt about her duties, and if she worried about having to put her training into practice. It might seem unthinkable now, the idea of blackout drills and preparations for enemy firebombs. Even though that probability decreased as the war went on, the fear was still very real. Lydia’s helmet is a reminder not just of how Boston mobilized during the war, but also how it affected the city on a civilian level. Lydia Gutheim, like many women, is unfortunately most often only mentioned in the context of her husband – “Fire Chief and Mrs. Herman Gutheim.” This helmet is a reminder of how she too is part of this history.

Lydia Gutheim’s air raid warden helmet can be viewed at the MHS.

Citations

Advance instructions to air raid wardens, block leaders, neighborhood leaders. Date unknown. 2014-00-00-20_text_010_01. Box 1, Folder 1. World War II Air Raid Warden Materials. Digital Collections. Museum of Flight. Tukwila, Washington. https://digitalcollections.museumofflight.org/items/show/48177#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=1&xywh=37%2C-9%2C713%2C534.

“Events in Greater Boston: Cambridge.” The Boston Globe, 2 December 1940.

By Hannah Elder, Assistant Reference Librarian for Rights & Reproductions 

Do you remember last month, when I told the blog that my family had visited and viewed some documents? Well, I have a story to tell about one of them that makes me appreciate it even more. But first, some back story.

The first time I came to the MHS, it was on a secret mission. In one of my graduate school classes I had been assigned to visit an archive as a researcher, use the collection without telling them I was studying library science, and report back on the experience. I chose the Massachusetts Historical Society, hoping to learn more about my family’s Massachusetts roots.

Looking through ABIGAIL before my visit, I was able to identify an item in the miscellaneous manuscripts collection that caught my eye: a telegram sent from Anna C. M. Tillinghast to Edith B. Wilcox, dated 1 November 1924. I knew there were Wilcoxs in my family tree, so I requested it. The day of my visit, I checked in, was cleared, and got an orientation on how to use the library from Rakashi, who is now a beloved colleague. In the reading room, I took this picture of the telegram:

The telegram reads:

Mrs Edith B Wilcox,

Don’t phone

Royalston, Mass.

               Congratulations for your splendid work. Republican victory on Election day now depends on you and your committee to get out the vote. We are fighting for the preservation of constitutional government. Request that the American Flag be displayed on Tuesday from homes and places of business as evidence of patriotism.

Anna Tillinghast

Chairman Women’s Division, Republican State Committee

After my visit, I told my family about the telegram, but we weren’t sure how its recipient, Edith Wilcox, was related to us. Once I started at the MHS I placed another request for the telegram, thinking I would look at it again and maybe research it further, but I never went back to it, caught up in the wonders of having so many documents at my fingertips.

Fast forward to last month, when my family came to visit. I pulled the telegram along with some other items that I knew they would find interesting. I retold the story of how I first viewed the telegram and we read it together, taking pictures of it before viewing other fabulous items.

A few weeks later, we were all at my parents’ house for the holidays and hosting my grandmother. We told her about the visit and showed her pictures of everything, including the telegram. When she saw the telegram, she said in surprise, “Edith? That’s my grandmother!” It turns out that the recipient of this telegram is my great-great-grandmother! Grammie shared stories of growing up across the street from Edith and it was a special moment of sharing family history across generations.

I’m not sure how the telegram ended up here at the MHS. According to our records, it was donated by Jane Smith in February of 2013, but we don’t know anything about the 89 years that transpired between its creation and its donation. Regardless, I’m happy we have it and happy that this object, just a single page among the millions in our collection, has gained many layers of meaning.

I encourage you to visit the library and show off your finds. You never know what you’ll discover! 

By Heather Rockwood, Communications Associate

Despite being discouraged from being commercially successful, women artists in the 19th century created wonderful works of art that are important. The MHS has some great examples of such work in the collection. My focus here will be on artists who painted portraits.

Susan Anne Livingston Ridley Sedgwick’s best-known work is a portrait of someone famous, an enslaved woman who sued for her freedom and won, thereby making enslavement illegal in Massachusetts. Elizabeth “Mumbet” Freeman then worked for the family of the lawyer who helped her. She eventually bought her own home and had her portrait painted, something rare at the time. Sedgwick, the daughter-in-law of the lawyer in Freeman’s case, wrote several children’s books and also painted. This portrait of Freeman is important in several ways. First, it is of someone who in that period wouldn’t normally have had their portrait made. Second, it demonstrates the special relationship between Freeman and the Sedgwicks. Finally, besides the portrait, the MHS also holds the jewelry that Freeman is wearing in the painting, confirming she owned and wore it during her lifetime.

Caroline Negus was born into a family of painters. She exhibited paintings at the Boston Artist’s Association, the National Academy, and the Boston Athenaeum. She was most famous as a portraitist, but her botanical artwork was published in the medicinal herb book The American Vegetable Practicein 1841. Her watercolor portrait of Catherine Sargent is important to abolitionist history. Sargent, who was born and lived in Gloucester, Massachusetts, was an abolitionist and friend of William Lloyd Garrison. Negus was known to be a realistic painter, and although realism was trending at the time in the United States, she exceeded the norm in her painting of Sargent. Of note is the detail in the lace cap and collar, as well as in Sargent’s dress, especially when compared to the plain stippled background.

Sarah Goodridge was a distinguished and prolific portrait painter in Boston between 1820‒1850. She had high profile clients such as Daniel Webster, US Congressman, Secretary of State, and a lawyer who argued over 200 cases before the Supreme Court, and Edward Everett, US Congressman, US Senator, 15th Governor of Massachusetts, Minister to Great Britain, Secretary of State, and President of Harvard University. The portraits of Webster and Everett in the Society’s collection share the same style as the previous two in their use of the three-quarter profile and plain background. However, less attention was paid to the sitters’ clothing and more to their facial likeness and expression. These paintings demonstrate that women found opportunities to paint important subjects and have a share of commercial success.

Jane Stuart’s story is a bit different, she was the daughter of Gilbert Stuart, considered to be one of America’s foremost portraitists. Jane grew up watching her father paint and helped him by grinding paints and filling in his paintings’ backgrounds. She learned to paint by watching him, and he considered her a great artist, better than he had been at her age. When Jane was 16, her father died, and she set up a studio to support her family with her artwork. Because she painted in her father’s style, most of her commissions were replicas of her father’s work, especially his painting of George Washington. The painting of Washington shown here, attributed to Jane Stuart, is held by the MHS. Throughout her career, Jane also finished many of her father’s unfinished paintings and exhibited her paintings at the Boston Athenaeum, the National Academy Museum and School, the Academy of Fine Arts, and the American Academy. Today, her paintings are collected and displayed at museums throughout the United States, not only for the importance of her subjects, but also for her talent as an artist.

By Susan Martin, Senior Processing Archivist

Today (30 January) marks the 185th anniversary of the death of Asi-Yahola, leader of the Seminole Tribe of Florida.

Asi-Yahola (Anglicized to Osceola) is a fascinating figure with a complex biography. His name was Billy Powell when he was born in 1804 in Alabama—at that time, part of the Mississippi Territory. He and his mother were members of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, but after the Creek Wars of 1813-1814, they fled to Florida, where they became members of the Seminole Tribe. When he reached adulthood, he was given the name Asi-Yahola. He is best known as a commander of the Seminoles during what is now called the Second Seminole War.

The only known reference to Asi-Yahola in our manuscript collections is a letter in the Howe-Fogg family papers written by Josiah Fogg, Jr.

In 1837, Fogg was 26 years old and working as a sutler at Fort Mellon (a.k.a. Camp Monroe) in present-day Sanford, Florida. A sutler was a civilian who sold goods to troops. Fogg left the fort on 4 May 1837 and traveled north “to purchase goods for the Florida trade.”

Somewhere along the route between Savannah and Charleston, on 12 May, he wrote to his parents at Deerfield, Mass. As you can see in the image above, the letter is torn and stained in several places, but Fogg’s writing is thankfully still legible. First he referenced the 8 February attack on Fort Mellon, in which “Capt Mellon was killed and fifteen wounded.” Then he name-dropped Asi-Yahola. (I’ll retain his misspellings.)

Between the 3rd & 6th of May 2200 warriers have come in at this Post [Fort Mellon]. O-Se-O-lah, with 400 under his command has come in for the first time since the war commenced. I saw him and became well aquainted with him. He traded with me to a considerable amount. He is a fine looking fallow as I ever saw for an Indian appears very friendly says he is ready to move west as soon as he can collect his men togather which are at present very much scattered through the country. […] It is my oppinion he is much the most active and smartest Indian in the nation. I always formed that oppinion by what I heard of him.

I found further context in The Book of the Indians, by Samuel G. Drake (1845), and The Indian Wars of the United States, by Edward S. Ellis (1892). Asi-Yahola had, in fact, brought his warriors to the fort at the beginning of May. According to Ellis:

The Indians professed their desire to make peace, and, during the month of May, there were assembled more than 3000 men, women, and children at Fort Mellon, Lake Monroe, to whom a thousand rations were issued. The chiefs came and went as they pleased, and it did begin to look as if the war was about over, for Osceola had slept in the tent of Colonel Harney. General Jesup was confident that the disgraceful conflict was closed, and the Indians would keep their pledge of departing without further opposition. (p. 269)

Fogg certainly thought the war was nearly over; “no doubt it is the case,” he wrote his parents. But while a minority of Seminole chiefs had consented, under certain conditions, to be removed west of the Mississippi River, Asi-Yahola decidedly had not. When Gen. Thomas Jesup started preparing to forcibly transport the Seminoles gathered at Fort Mellon, Asi-Yahola retreated with his people back into the woods.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before he found himself in the hands of the U.S. government anyway. On 21 October 1837, just a few months after he met Fogg, Asi-Yahola was captured under a flag of truce outside St. Augustine, Florida. The man responsible was none other than Gen. Jesup. He’d flouted the rules of engagement, and the Seminoles were outraged, but there wasn’t much they could do; Jesup had the support of the U.S. government.

After a short imprisonment at Fort Marion, Asi-Yahola was moved to Fort Moultrie outside Charleston, S.C., where he died of illness on 30 January 1838. He was (probably) 33 years old. He is buried on the grounds of Fort Moultrie.

Several towns, counties, and natural landmarks bear Asi-Yahola’s name, and commemorative statues and plaques have been erected in his honor. One statue in Silver Springs, Florida portrays him plunging his knife into a treaty, a depiction which has great symbolic resonance, but which may also, according to historian Donald L. Fixico, be literal.

By Jacob Savory, Processing Assistant

Predating the animal welfare organization of a similar title, the Humane Society of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was established in 1786 to rescue shipwreck survivors and ships in distress. The Humane Society existed functionally as a precursor to the United States Coast Guard for the shores of Massachusetts and would even reward individuals unaffiliated with the organization who saved others from shipwrecks. As the Humane Society moved through time, it would expand its efforts from lifesaving seashore tasks to financially supporting mental health care facilities and maternity care facilities. Eventually, its recognition of good deeds would transform into rewarding individuals for heroic personal rescues. 

These heroic personal rescues take the form of saving individuals from house fires, drownings, and a number of other scenarios, and those rewarded by the Humane Society would often receive medals and sometimes even financial compensation from the Society. The cover of each accident report, featured below, gives loose criteria, stating that only extraordinary acts of service qualify for recognition by the Humane Society. 

One of the first projects assigned to me as a member of the digital production team at the MHS was digitizing Case and Rescue Reports of the Humane Society of Massachusetts records. Spanning 1899 to 1909, the reports most frequently contain a formal accident report, detailed witness testimonies, accompanying newspaper articles, and on rare occasions drawings, pictures, or postcards of the scenario, ship, or location involved. 

Case No. 1025 stands out to me among the records, as its file’s contents contain one of those rare instances of an accompanying drawing, this one being written by the rescuer himself.

On 1 January 1909, twenty-one-year-old Boston College student Owen J. McGaffigan and friends were ice skating on the frozen Neponset River near the Mattapan neighborhood of Boston, Mass. In a passing glance, Owen saw the hands of a young boy, Albert F. Donahue, age six, sticking up from the icy river, the boy struggling to stay afloat. Though not knowing the boy, Owen immediately threw off his overcoat and dove into the water to his rescue. 

With this struggle, Owen was able to deliver Albert to safety thanks to the crowd ashore. Due to the weight of Owen’s skates, however, Owen found himself in the same dangerous position from which he had just saved Albert. Other young men playing hockey nearby fortunately came to McGaffigan’s rescue, successfully pulling him from the frigid waters.

The drawing Owen submitted to the Humane Society clearly depicts the scene, the depth of the waters, the movement of the current, and the danger of the situation. Though McGaffigan and the boy came out of the situation with their lives, McGaffigan wrote to the Humane Society that he was taken sick from Monday, 4 January until Wednesday, 20 January.

The case file also contains correspondence suggesting the other boys involved in pulling Albert to shore should be recognized and compensated, but ultimately the Humane Society deemed McGaffigan as the primary hero in this scenario, having risked his own life by jumping into the freezing water while wearing heavy skates and getting extremely ill for half a month’s time as a result. 

The Case and Rescue Reports of the Humane Society of Massachusetts records are almost entirely digitized and are freely available for online viewing through the collection guide. Due to the nature of these reports, it is extremely important to note the sensitivity of information the records contain – not every rescue produced positive results, and instances of mental health crises, tragic childhood deaths, devastating loss, and detailed descriptions of death permeate this collection. 

By Meg Szydlik, Visitor Services Coordinator

One thing I love about the collections at the Massachusetts Historical Society is the incredible range of different subjects contained within. So as the granddaughter of a particle physicist, I wanted to check out some science-based items and stumbled across The Mysteries of Time and Space, an astronomy book written by Richard A. Proctor in 1883. It promised diagrams and illustrations, and as someone who loves to learn about the stars and the universe, I thought it would be a promising choice for a blog post. I would never claim to be an expert on the mysteries of time and space, but perhaps that is precisely the right mindset to present this fascinating book to you.

The text itself was much less dry than I expected. Although there were many footnotes and lots of technical language, Proctor never had any problem slipping sly comments into his narration and that made the experience much more interesting than the content alone. One of my favorite pieces of commentary was in his section on comets and the end of the world, where he noted that “the year 1001 began, and still the world endured, with every sign of continuing.” His attitude towards astrology and predictions was interesting, because while he frequently raised an eyebrow at these beliefs, and he went through the process of breaking down any links between comets (commonly seen as harbingers of doom) and predicted events, he also seemingly acknowledged that astrology was not inherently wrong. This is a sentiment I have a hard time envisioning my own grandfather echo. It makes me wonder if he was alone in this, or if his contemporaries had similar views and if so, when they shifted.

Though it was clear to me that many advancements have been made since then, I loved reading through the thought process at the time and comparing it to what my understanding is. The creation of far more powerful telescopes, advanced imaging, and of course the launching of spaceships have all dramatically impacted our understanding of the universe in a way Proctor and other scientists of the 1800s could never have imagined in their wildest dreams. The diagrams and images in this book, as beautiful and interesting as they are, can hardly compare to the colorful photographs that were in my textbooks, even in elementary school. Proctor proposes theories about comets and the surface of the sun that I know the answer to! The intervening 140 years have radically changed what we recognize to be true, and yet the scientific process is roughly the same.

Despite the knowledge gap, I think that the spirit of The Mysteries of Time and Space is one I want to emulate. Proctor’s slight irreverence does not detract from his largely solid scientific inquiry. And certainly, as evidenced from the title, there was a sense of wonder at the universe and space that is really stunning and truthfully, a bit inspiring. To quote Proctor once again, “science tries to explain everything, and we must not be too precise in such matters.”