by Mia Levenson, Tufts University, Andrew W. Mellon Research Fellow
John Van Surly DeGrasse’s medical account book
By the serendipitous combination of the pandemic’s limitations and a mislabeled folder, I found myself with scans of John Van Surly DeGrasse’s medical account book, located in the DeGrasse-Howard papers. At first glance, a medical account book seemed like an opaque collection of names, services, and charges. However, I found his records to be filled with nuggets of information about how medicine plays a role in people’s lives, both patient and physician. Through a careful excavation process using census data and city directories, I was able to find bits and pieces about the ways in which one of the first African American physicians educated in the United States served his community.
There has been little written on DeGrasse and his life, but what we do know is that alongside another student of color, he was one of the first Black graduates of the Maine Medical School at Bowdoin College in 1849. DeGrasse practiced in Europe and New York City before coming to Boston in 1852. Two years later, he became a member of the Massachusetts Medical Society and was the first Black physician to be admitted into a medical society anywhere in the nation. His medical account book, which records his services rendered from 1852 to 1857, offers fascinating insight about his practice as the first Black physician in Boston from the very beginning through the contentious years before the Civil War.
While DeGrasse’s account book notes the monotony of his day-to-day work – most of the entries are simply charges for “visit and prescription” – there are also references to the kinds of treatments he would administer. Bloodletting, for example, was a common practice in nineteenth century medicine and DeGrasse similarly used cupping and leeches on several patients. DeGrasse also inoculated many of his patients, particularly in 1854, which corresponds with a massive smallpox epidemic that year. In the mid-nineteenth century, vaccination was a contentious debate, so it is notable that DeGrasse not only believed in its efficacy but administered vaccines to the marginalized communities he served.
While only a few diagnoses are included in his records, what DeGrasse chose to include provides insight into the kinds of diseases he encountered. One John Henry Garrison passed away during a minor cholera outbreak in 1854. Two of DeGrasse’s patients, Mr. H and Lloyd McCabe, were treated for venereal disease. It is unclear why their diagnosis was remarked upon while others were not. Perhaps it noted a potentially chronic issue. Or maybe it explained why they were charged significantly more for their treatment (for instance, for McCabe, DeGrasse charged him $15 for a visit and prescription rather than the usual $1).
Genealogical research gives a closer look into the communities DeGrasse served.[1] Operating out of Poplar Street, he primarily treated patients living in the Fifth and Sixth Wards, a once historically Black neighborhood that is now known as Beacon Hill and the West End, respectively. DeGrasse began his practice treating mainly his in-laws, the well-known Howard family. Interestingly, he treated his wife’s nephew, Edwin Clarence Howard, who would later go on to be Harvard Medical School’s first Black graduate. Peter Baldwin also appears in DeGrasse’s records as one of his first non-relative patients. A noted abolitionist, his daughter, Maria Louise Baldwin, would become a leader of Black education in Cambridge. DeGrasse’s records thus reveals how he served an emerging African American middle class in Boston that was intricately linked to nineteenth-century activism.
Among DeGrasse’s patient base were also a number of African Americans who were born in slave states. One such patient, Benjamin C. Gregory, who was a regular of DeGrasse’s, was born in North Carolina. Historians can only imagine what it must have meant for a formerly enslaved person—whose experiences with physicians were exclusive to plantation doctors who viewed them as chattel rather than people—to be treated by a Black physician.
DeGrasse did not only serve Boston’s African American community. While census data does not always provide information on race, he had multiple patients who were born in Ireland, like William Mellen and Ellen Marshall. While a contemporary physician of color, James McCune Smith in New York City, has been noted as having a multi-racial patient base, it has yet to be acknowledged that DeGrasse had one as well.[2] During his time as an assistant surgeon in the Union Army, DeGrasse continued to serve both white and Black soldiers. After the War, he returned to Boston and continued with his medical practice until his death in 1868.[3]
As historians continue to pan for golden flakes of information about nineteenth-century life, DeGrasse’s medical account book gives small but marvelous glints of one of the nation’s first Black physicians. His medical practice, the illnesses he encountered, and the communities he served offer glimpses into how DeGrasse’s groundbreaking work fit into the constellation of Boston society. His records have been a wonderful reminder for me that the archive is filled with these treasures if only we pause to look.
[1] All genealogical research was done using the 1850 and 1860 U.S. Federal Census and the 1855 Massachusetts State Census, all accessed via AncestryLibrary.com
[2] John Stauffer, The Black Hearts of Men, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002), 66.
[3] Franklin A. Dorman, Twenty Families of Color in Massachusetts: 1742-1998, (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1998), 155-7.
This October, current events dictate that we must keep our tricks and treats indoors. Fortunately, working at the MHS provides more opportunities to get scared than one might think. Read on for some short glimpses into the more macabre side of the MHS and its collections.
Close Encounters of the Winthropian Kind
Detail: John Winthrop, Governor of Massachusetts. Miniature portrait, oil on porcelain attributed to Paul Moschowitz, [19–].John Winthrop’s journal has long served as a cornerstone of Massachusetts historical scholarship. In it he diligently recorded the events of his life, along with the trials and tribulations of the people of the Massachusetts Bay Colony during the first 19 years of its existence. These stories run the gamut between the mundane and the fantastic and even include accounts of the paranormal—for example, two of the earliest recorded UFO sightings. The first, which occurred in 1639, was relayed to Winthrop by “sober, discreet man” James Everell and two others. It describes a strange light in the sky above the Muddy River:
“When it stood still, it flamed up, and was about three yards square; when it ran, it was contracted into the figure of a swine: it ran as swift as an arrow towards Charlton, and so up and down about two or three hours.”
The three men, who were in a boat at the time, had been paddling downstream when they saw the strange light. After it vanished, they inexplicably found themselves “carried quite back against the tide to the place they came from.” The second event occurred a few years later, in 1644, when three men approaching Boston in a boat at night saw two lights rise from the water, coalesce into the form of a human figure, and walk south. A week later, the lights returned:
“Sometimes they shot out flames and sometimes sparkles… About the same time a voice was heard upon the water between Boston and Dorchester, calling out in a most dreadful manner, boy, boy, come away, come away: and it suddenly shifted from one place to another a great distance, about twenty times.”
Winthrop offers no explanation of the first account, but of the second he postulates that the disembodied voice is that of a man involved in the explosion of a ship in that same area of the bay. Before he died, the man “professed himself to have skill in necromancy.” After the ship burned, his body was the only one that was not recovered.
Another Creepy-Crawly Diary Entry
John Quincy Adams’ lifelong diary is similarly touted as an invaluable account of life in early America as part of a prodigal family. JQA covers a wide range of topics with a uniquely vivid voice. This description of a spider’s nest in his bed is positively shiver-inducing:
“IV: I passed the night without closing my eyes, under a perpetual irritation of the skin over my face and almost every part of the body, which I supposed to be the effect of what is called prickly heat— But on changing my linen this morning I discovered it was caused by a nest of Spiders just from the egg-shell, so small that most of them were perceptible only by their motion. It was like the continual titillation of a feather passing over the skin at a thousand places at once— It was a night of exquisite torture without pain— My linen and body were covered with them. I immediately stripped, changed all the clothes I had been wearing, and took a warm bath at Burnside’s. How this horrible creeping Nation got upon me, I could not exactly ascertain— They had already produced a cutaneous inflammation, and almost an eruption in various places…”
Portrait of a Serial Killer
Detail: Thomas W. Piper scrapbook, 1875-1876. Compiled by Walter L. Sawyer.
On 7 May 1876, Thomas W. Piper, the well-respected sexton of Boston’s Warren Avenue Baptist Church, confessed to the murder of 5 year-old Mabel Young in the belfry of his church. Under the pressure of two days’ worth of intense questioning, Piper also confessed to several cases of arson as well as two earlier crimes; the assault of prostitute Mary Tyner with a blunt object, and the murder of domestic servant Bridget Landregan. Known for his high level of literacy and his trademark flowing black cloak, Piper was spotted fleeing the scene of Mabel Young’s murder by a man identified in the case notes as “Glover.” Later on, when Glover heard the news of the murdered girl, he connected the two events and took the information to the police. Throughout the trial and confession, Piper retained an air of detached apathy, only becoming nervous once he was convicted. He was hanged for his crimes on 26 March, 1876.
Walter L. Sawyer, one of the witnesses to the trial, compiled a scrapbook of drawings, photographs, and newspaper accounts immortalizing the man who would come to be known as the “Boston Belfry Murderer.”
Poor Rebeccah
There’s no scary story behind this item, but several MHS-ers insisted that she belongs on this list. In fact, her provenance is quite idyllic. “Rebeccah Codman Butterfield” is a doll, likely made by a member of the Codman family, part of the Transcendentalist community Brook Farm of West Roxbury, Massachusetts. A note pinned to her petticoat, penned by her donor’s mother, reads:
“My name is Rebeccah Codman Butterfield. I was born in 1841. My mother made me and I was the darling of the Brook Farmers & their children. Brook Farm was called The Transcendentalists. I grew up with the Alcotts, George Ripley, John S [Dwight], Margaret Fuller, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Thoreau, William Ellery Channing, Elizabeth Peabody & Nathaniel Hawthorne–no wonder I look a bit cracked! I was the doll for all the Butterfield children & a beloved member of that brilliant colony.”
How sweet! One of our Reference staff, also a member of the group who suggested Rebeccah for this list, fondly remembers retrieving artifacts under her watchful eye while she was living in the stacks.
Detail of doll belonging to members of the Codman and Butterfield families
Hallowed Halls
The MHS’ vast archival collections notwithstanding, our building at 1154 Boylston Street has weathered its fair share of history. Although this is the society’s seventh location since its founding in 1791, we have resided in the current space for over 120 years. A large addition was built onto the MHS in 1970, expanding the office and collection storage space by filling in the middle of the original, L-shaped building. As many in the archives field can attest, old buildings packed with decades of personal papers carry with them an innate weight—a sense of presence. Below, MHS employees recount unexplainable occurrences within our building.
Independently of one another, two MHS veterans mentioned the clear sound of footsteps from the stacks. One recalled conversations with past Operations staff, who swore they heard “measure footsteps back and forth” while they cleaned the building after hours. The other described how the wooden floors (now concrete) used to creak and groan near the areas where the new addition connected to the original building. The footsteps, he said, sounded like an echo of his own as he walked the aisles. He wondered if the sound could be attributed to the previous owners of our various collections, trailing behind the remnants of their legacies. Or perhaps, after nearly 230 years, MHS founder Jeremy Belknap still felt the need to act as steward to his treasured collection.
Stories like this tend to pile up when speaking to Operations staff and other employees who often find themselves in the building at night. Several people remember an event in the early 2000s, when an arm of the crystal chandelier hanging in the lobby crashed to the floor in the dead of night. The CCTV camera footage from just before the arm fell showed the chandelier swinging back and forth as if pushed by an unseen force—the only movement in a completely dark, silent room. When asked, the Art and Artifact Curator had a perfectly sound explanation; after a faulty repair job, “the weight of the crystal beyond the pin and cement join proved too heavy and failed and slowly separated from the end plugged into the chandelier base. The shifting weight was enough that the finely balanced chandelier to start swinging and when the arm fully separated and fell, that made the swinging wider.” As to what caused the arm to separate on that day specifically, there is no answer.
Book stacks
The other group that probably deals with the bulk of experiences like this is the Reference staff—in other words, the ones who most frequently delve into the stacks. Anyone who has spent time in library stacks can attest to their eeriness. Cold air and row after row of floor-to-ceiling shelving, interspersed with portraits, busts, and mannequins, greet anyone stepping into the MHS stacks. One Reference staff member remembers working one winter, during which she spent long hours completely alone in the stacks:
“For the most part it was just eerie. Being superstitious means I have always kind of viewed the collections as alive to a certain extent, and I just try to treat them with as much respect as possible. Several times while in the stacks I would hear random sounds—sometimes wall tapping or sometimes banging sounds. I recall one time I’d gotten particularly on edge, and I said out loud, “Unless you’re going to come out here and help me with this, give it a rest.” Nothing came out to help, but the noise subsided for a while. And I’m sure I don’t have to tell you about the intense feeling of unease I would get every time I was close to that rocking bassinet. One time I thought I saw it moving. That thing has always given me the creeps. Otherwise not much happened, just a mixture of eerie silence and varied clanging sounds.”
The staff member quoted above would often talk with another staff member about that cradle, but research into it has yielded overwhelmingly normal results. However, the former staff member remembers another encounter:
On a dark, rainy Saturday, she received a paging request from one of the few researchers in the building that day. The requested pamphlet described the 1850s construction of the Hoosac Tunnel, a project so fraught with accidents that the tunnel was nicknamed the “Bloody Pit.” Over the course of the 20+ year construction, a total of 196 workers died in explosions, cave-ins and floods. Haunted by the surprising content of the volume, the staff member ventured to find the pamphlet, tucked with others like it at the very end of a row of rolling high-density shelves. She wheeled the shelves apart, slipped between them, and followed the call numbers to the back wall. There, on an envelope—“The Hoosac Tunnel Disaster.” In spite of herself, she stopped to scan the shelf, choosing another volume and opening it to read a few pages. Accounts of cave-ins and suffocating workers nearly distracted her from the moving shelf behind her, closing by itself due to uneven flooring, until it had nearly crushed her. The uneven flooring argument makes sense, of course, but this was first time the shelves had done this in her several months of work.
Wishing everyone a safe and happy Halloween!
References
John Winthrop’s Journal, “History of New England,” 1630-1649. Pg. 154, 294.
As the cold winter months are rapidly approaching, I have found myself with the desire to knit all things warm and cozy. And luckily there is a booklet in the collections of the MHS to assist me on this endeavor. “Comforts for the Men” was published in 1917 by Columbia Yarns and provided patterns for garments suggested by the American Red Cross and the British Relief Committee. The booklet gives instructions for the garments, and of course, suggestions for which Columbia brand needles and yarn you should purchase to knit them.
Comforts for the Men, Published by Columbia Yarns, 1917. Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
This type of booklet was common during World War I. There was a large demand for socks and other knitted items for soldiers overseas, leading the American Red Cross to publish patterns for garments and encourage citizens to “knit their bit”. The Red Cross provided knitting materials as well, so long as leftover yarn was returned to prevent any wool from being wasted.[i] Yarn companies used this as a chance to advertise their own products and published their own books with patterns for similar garments. Knitting became a popular pastime in the United States, many people hosted knitting parties and clubs for their communities. The popularity of knitting likely emerged because it gave Americans a hobby that contributed to the war effort and connected them with others affected by the ongoing war.
Our boys need sox – knit your bit American Red Cross. United States, [NY: American Lithographic Co., between 1914 and 1918] Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/00652152/.Making a garment from this book was a bit of a challenge due to the vast differences in how knitting patterns are described today. In this pattern book, the yarn suggestions are from Columbia Yarns, which no longer exists. Also, the language for describing how thick the yarn should be in the early 20th century was not universal. And, needle sizes were not universal either. There is no suggested gauge or final sizing details, most old patterns did not provide this information. If the gauge was given, it would be easier to figure out what yarn and needles to use but that is not possible. All of this to say, I was going to have to wing it for this pattern.
Because I had to knit this without any concrete information on gauge, final sizing, or yarn, I decided it would be best to pick something simple. While I always enjoy a knitting challenge, considering the lack of information on materials and the vague directions, I was positive any attempt would yield disastrous results. I decided to try out the knitted wristlets. These wristlets are a ribbed rectangle sewn up the side with some space left for the wearer’s thumb.
Page 34 of Comforts for the Men.
The directions for the wristlets call for a No. 4 celloid or bone knitting needle and Columbia Worsted Knitting Yarn. The material that the needle is made of is important because the diameter of bone and plastic needles used to increase as the number increased, while steel needles got smaller as the number increased. I checked a few different resources about old knitting needle sizing, and most agreed that a No. 4 knitting celloid or bone needle would equal about a US 4 today. The name of the yarn suggested that it is a worsted weight. I decided to use some leftover worsted weight wool yarn from a previous garment I made. I thought it would be fitting to use up some scrap yarns for this project, using up every bit of good wool was of the utmost importance during the wartime years.
Wristlet prior to being sewn up
As per the instructions, I cast on 50 stitches. After knitting a few rows, I realized that these were going to end up far too wide for my hands. These wristlets were probably designed for someone with larger hands, but even with that in mind they seemed pretty big. It is possible they were ending up wide because of the thickness of the yarn I was using; the suggested yarn in the original pattern may have been lighter than modern than worsted weight yarn. This would make sense because a US 4 needle for worsted weight yarn is a smaller needle size than what most modern patterns would suggest. I tried again and reduced the stitch count to 40, and they ended up fitting really well. I worked on these over about three days but it only took a few hours all together to make. While these wristlets are not perfectly accurate to the pattern considering the materials and changes I made, I learned a lot making them. Also I think amateur knitters like me would have put their own creative spins on these patterns back in 1917 as well. I think this is a great project for any knitter looking to add a bit of historical inspiration into your crafting, and I highly recommend trying out old patterns and seeing what comes of it.
Finished product
[i] Lovick, E., Brodnicki, J., Loven, P., & Doyle, E. (2014). Knitting in WW1. In Centenary stitches: Telling the story of one WW1 family through vintage knitting and crochet (pp. 9-11). Orkney, Scotland: Northern Lace Press.
This is the second installment of a five-part series on the Jarrett family letters at the Massachusetts Historical Society. Click here to read Part I.
Three weeks ago, I introduced you to the Jarretts, a Black family living in Shiloh, Ga. during the first decade of the twentieth century. The MHS holds a small collection of five letters from members of the family to Homer C. Jarrett (1882-1959). The first letter, which I discussed in my last post, was written by Homer’s brother Claud. The second came from his mother Julia.
Letter from Julia Jarrett to her son Homer, 28 Dec. 1905
Running to eight pages, this letter is the longest in the collection, and I think you’ll see why. The Jarretts had had a very eventful Christmas. Below is a complete transcription. I will retain misspellings but add sentence and paragraph breaks for readability.
Shiloh. Harris Co. Ga.
R.F.D. #2 Box 37 –
Dec. 28.- 1905.
Mr. Homer Jarrett
Muskingum St. Indianapolis I.
My Dear son
Yours has ben durely received and contents noted. Glad to hear from you and to know that you are well and hope you remains ditto. We are all well at present and have had a good time and a bad time to. I received your Xmas give O.K. It was just as niece and sweet as it could be and I also received yours regeristered letter and contents therein $20 Twenty dollars and for this I send you many thanks. Thank that I cannot express to you as I wish to.
Each one and all sends their love and best rgards to you. Santa Claus come to see me this time brought me a niece parlor water set and a pretty glass pitcher. He or she would have brought more but the boys got in fuss there in Shiloh on Christmas Eve. I Charlie & Wilson had to do around and sturabout to settle it. The way it was Robbert Amos and Grandpa. Robert was drinking about half drunk and Grandpa was the same. He & Robert met bhind Fullers store. Chas & Fletcher J. was already around there and from one word to another Robert grasp Grandpa stick and bgin to shake him and snatch him and jeck him about and cursed him once a twice and the boys spoke to him and he didnt pay any attention to them and Claud come up and spoke to him. He asked Claud who was he talking to. Claud told him he was talking to him and from one word to another he snatched out his knife at Claud and cursed him. Chas and Fletcher grab him and made Claud go away from around there. He did so and after awhile Claud seen him agin and begin to talk with him about it and begin to curse him and catched him in the collar and draw his knife on him. He grasp his arm and snatched alooce from him. Robert grasped a rock in one hand and knife in the other and told him goddam you Ill kill you and started towards him. Claud jumped and grab him and aim to shoot him. He knocked the pistol down and one ball went in the ground by his foot. He grab Robert and snatched him and shot him through the wright side across his back about a inch deep and set him afire. He staggard backwards holding his side saying you have don shot and killed me. I am dying. I am dying. Dont shoot me any more. In that time since Chas & Feck Hawkins & [Square] J. among them made him go on out of Shiloh and afterwards John McDaniel threw a gun on Chas J. and arrested him for curseing and thought he had a Pistol consealed but he did not have no pistol at all.
Aunt Jane & uncle Hawkins is here now sends there best regards to you and says you must write to them. They are well and spent one day with me in the Christmas. Aunt Sallah say thats all wright you didnt send her any santa Claus but she hope [eate] that you did send.
Homer I wish I could send you a SantClaus that I thought you needed. I enjoyed the last of the Xmas very well I but the first to or three days I was barthered up so I couldnt enjoy the Xmas no way I could do. The boys spent the Christmas every where through the settlement.
Close for this time. I will ans yours other letter now in short.
Bye bye yours mother
Julia Jarrett
Eagle-eyed readers of the Beehive may notice, from the image above, that the handwriting of this letter matches that of the last. I assume this means the letter was dictated by Julia but written by Claud. Other letters indicate Julia’s children read correspondence aloud to her. Born into slavery in the 1850s, it’s likely she had never been taught to read or write.
The story told by Julia is a little hard to follow without knowing the identities of all the people involved. “Grandpa” was probably her father Benjamin Jarrett, who was still alive in 1905 but would have been about 90 years old, according to online genealogies. Benjamin and another man, Robert Amos, had both been drinking and got into an argument that turned physical, whereupon Julia’s sons—Charles, Fletcher, and Claud—stepped in to defend their grandfather. The argument escalated as weapons were drawn, culminating in Claud shooting Robert with a pistol.
We don’t get much detail from Julia about the aftermath of the incident, and the sequence of events is unclear to me. It seems Robert Amos survived and was run out of Shiloh. The law descended on the Jarretts in the person of John McDaniel, but it was Claud’s brother Charles who was arrested. Unfortunately, the money spent to “settle” the dust-up meant a meager Christmas for the family.
One of the things I enjoy about doing deep dives into individual items like this is the chance to follow leads and just see where they take me. Here are a few details I turned up:
The initials “R.F.D.” at the head of the letter refer to “rural free delivery,” a postal service for residents living in remote locations. Rural free delivery was still in its infancy at this time, its first routes only a few years old.
Young Homer moved around a lot (in fact, each of the five letters in the collection is written to him at a different location), but he eventually settled in Boston. Most historians put the starting date of the Great Migration, in which millions of Black southerners settled in northern cities, a little later than 1905, but I think it’s fair to call Homer an early part of this wave. This letter is addressed to Homer at Indianapolis, specifically 412 Muskingum Street. There’s a parking lot there now, but what about 115 years ago? I uncovered references to rooms for rent at this address in the Indianapolis Recorder, a long-running African American newspaper.
Historical currency converters online tell me $20 in 1905 would be something in the neighborhood of $600 today!
“Aunt Jane” was Janie Jarrett Hawkins (1858-1916), wife of J. G. Hawkins and Julia’s younger sister. She is buried at the Bethel C.M.E. Church Cemetery in Harris County, Georgia.
Stay tuned to the Beehive to hear more about the Jarrett family!
Three days before her second birthday, Abigail Adams 2d, or “Nabby,” received the perfect birthday present—a little brother named John Quincy. As she remembered it, the love was instant, and history is on her side. The first mention of John Quincy Adams in the Adams Family Papers is an account given by Abigail of a two-year-old Nabby rocking a two-month-old JQA to sleep, singing, “Come pappa come home to Brother Johnny.”
During the next decade the siblings lost two little sisters, gained two brothers, and lost their father to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. Yet, in the midst of revolution and war, they still found time to be children—trading books, going fishing and ice skating, taking long walks, and gossiping about their cousins. Then in February 1778 their father was sent to Paris, and he decided to take ten-year-old John Quincy with him.
Over the next six years, Nabby felt the loss of John Quincy’s company severely. Nabby wrote to her brother, “I cannot bear the idea of growing into life strangers to each other,” adding, “Indeed, it sometimes seems to me as if you were lost.” To her cousin Elizabeth Cranch, Nabby admitted, “I do not talk upon the subject, but there is not a day passes over my Life but this subject occupys my thoughts, and disbelieve it if you please, I can seldom reflect upon it without tears.”
Miniature of Abigail Adams Smith
After years of waiting, Nabby and her mother set sail for London to reunite with John Quincy. On 30 July 1784, nineteen-year-old Nabby was in the middle of a letter to her cousin when she wrote, “This moment a servant tells me that my Brother has arrived and has stoped at the next house to dress. Why has he done this. He knowns not the impatience of his sister.” Abigail later related: “His sister he says he should have known in any part of the World,” and added, “Were I not their Mother, I would Say a likelier pair you will seldom see in a summers day.”
Less than a year later, JQA had to return to the United States to prepare for Harvard. Nabby lamented, “He is gone—alas to my sorrow—for I lost in him all the Companion that I had—and it is not possible his place should be supplyd.”
Determined to be “life strangers” no more, John Quincy and Nabby kept up their correspondence, writing uncommonly long letters to each other in which they covered all topics—particularly gossiping about the people with whom they came into contact, royalty included. Nabby and John Quincy shared a somewhat snarky sense of humor, and their letters were considered too candid even for John and Abigail’s eyes. Abigail wrote to her son, “Your Sister has written you so many pages that I suppose she has not left me any thing material to write to you but. . .I am very rarely honourd with a sight of any of them.”
Nabby told JQA of her daydream that she would settle in New York near her husband’s family “and have you one of these Days come as a Member from the Massachusetts to Congress. We should be quite at home again.”
A shifting capital dashed Nabby’s daydream, but John Quincy and Nabby never became strangers again. JQA was a devoted uncle to Nabby’s children, and Nabby nursed John Quincy’s wife through bouts of illness and difficult childbirths.
Their 46-year friendship confirmed Nabby’s prediction that she made in the same letter where she fretted they were becoming strangers: “There is no higher pleasure, no greater happiness, than a family bound by the ties of love, and cemented by the bonds of affection, where each for the other feels more than for himself, and where the chief end and aim is to render each other happy: this I wish may be our situation; it will; and the advantages arising will be mutual.”
Though the MHS remains closed to the public due to the ongoing COVID-19 epidemic (learn more), our library staff has been able to provide various reference services. Below, several Reader Services staff members offer insight into what it is like to work–both in the building and remotely–during the pandemic.
How has the MHS adjusted and continued to serve its researchers?
Elaine Heavey, Director of the Library, and Dan Hinchen, one of our Reference Librarians, describe how operations in the Library Reader Services department were amended to accommodate the restrictions posed by COVID-19:
In the aftermath of the state-wide shutdown in mid-March, the library reader services (LRS) staff had to develop new ways to serve our researchers. Of course, as a manuscript repository holding one-of-a-kind materials, serving researchers without direct access to our collections proved difficult. Still, the LRS staffers worked from their various remote locations to provide as much access as possible to those we serve.
In the early stages of the pandemic, we tackled a project to locate digital versions of every title in the Dowse Library and compiled the links so that we could easily share them with researchers. The LRS staff also created a Reference Services During Covid-19 Closure page, providing links to various print publications in digital format, MHS online resources and collection highlights, and a list of commercial databases that feature MHS content ,all in one place.
In addition to concerns about collection access, communication became more challenging. Although e-mail remains our primary method of contact with remote researchers, we found we had lost the ability to work with remote researchers in the moment via telephone. To meet that challenge we sought new means of communicating with researchers. Through our Virtual Reference and Chat Services page researchers can ask questions instantly via chat (Mon., Wed., Thurs., Fri. 10AM to 4PM; Tues.1PM to 7PM), or request a research consultation with a member of the library staff via Zoom. Now, anyone interested in speaking an LRS staff member “face-to-face” has that option.
In July, when our library staff regained access to the building, we began tackling the sizable backlog of reproduction and reference requests that accumulated over the four months we were away from 1154 Boylston. Of course, in keeping with the trends of life this year, staff use of collection material became more complicated when we found ourselves navigating the creation of new collections handling polices aimed at mitigating the health risks of working with shared materials. Determining best practices around issue like quarantine times, thinking about how to safely quarantine materials, and adjusting our workflows to allow for quarantine between uses, proved to be a moving target as new information about Covid-19 transmission and the time Covid-19 lives on library materials (especially those that cannot be sanitized) became available. We recently extended our quarantine times based on new industry findings, but we will not let that slow us down.
Despite the difficulties the shutdown threw at us, our library staff has worked hard adapting to the situation and strives to continue providing our researchers the best possible remote service until we are able to welcome them back into the library again.
How has the COVID19 state of emergency impacted your work as an archivist and how did you overcome the challenges presented?
Anna Clutterbuck-Cook, one of our Reference Librarians, not only found ways to overcome the restrictions imposed by remote work and COVID19, but also found ways to assist fellow archivist during this difficult time:
As a reference librarian who works in a special collections library, moving first to an all-remote work environment in March and now a partially-remote, partially-on site (but still with no patrons in the building) work environment this fall really impressed upon me how much of my job is having conversations with people. All day long, I engage in conversations with my colleagues and with researchers about the work we are doing together or the work they hope to undertake using our collections. And those conversations can take place, and be fruitful, whether I am at the reference desk or at my dining room table.
I have also been acutely aware of the way that COVID-19 has impacted archival workers unevenly. Those already precariously employed in our field (part-time, contract, student, grant-funded, etc.) have often been the first to see their hours cut or their positions eliminated. During March, a group of archival workers – including myself — came together to establish the Archival Workers Emergency Fund, currently administered by the Society of American Archivists Foundation, which issues cash grants to archival workers in financial crisis due to COVID-19. As of September 15th we have disbursed over $130,000 to over 150 archival workers who are struggling to pay the bills. This has been a major part of my involvement with the wider archival community since March, and gave me something concrete to do to address the suffering that people across the country are experiencing because of the pandemic.
Hannah Elder, our Reproductions Coordinator, saw her role expand as reproductions became the sole source of collection access for undigitized collections:
While working from home, I managed the incoming reproduction requests; contacting the researchers, keeping track of their requests, and helping them find already digitized materials when available. I also worked with my colleagues to develop temporary reference reproduction policies and pricing that enables us to provide our researchers with the resources they need. Find those new policies here! (http://masshist.org/library/reproductions/photocopies)
Now that the staff have some access to the building, I spend my time at 1154 Boylston Street in a flurry of activity, scanning items, photographing volumes, and going through microfilm. I spend my time at home processing the images the reproductions team and I made in the building and sending them off to researchers, while also managing incoming requests, staffing the chat services, and planning for my next rotation through the building.
We will continue to share stories with you throughout Archives month and look forward to answering your questions through our virtual reference and chat services.
It’s that time of year when leaves start to turn, there is a chill in the air, and the days get shorter, which can only mean one thing…It’s Archives Month!
What exactly is Archives Month, you ask? It is a month to learn about, connect with, and explore archives and the archival field. Take some time and talk to an archivist this month and you’ll learn about an exciting field of work that may be even more interesting than you thought.
Here at the Massachusetts Historical Society we usually take this opportunity to introduce you to our team of archivists so that you can learn more about what they do on a daily basis, and share their interests and specialties. However, this year is unlike any other as the coronavirus pandemic alters our lives and work. Archivists across the country and, indeed, the globe are facing challenges brought to the field in the wake of Covid-19.
Therefore, this year we want to share with you the experiences of our staff as they find innovative ways to work remotely and connect researchers to our collections. We will also illustrate the challenges of the job when we cannot physically access and interact with our collections.
For a sample, we asked our Nora Saltonstall Preservation Librarian, Kathy Griffin:
How has the Coivd-19 shutdown impacted your work as an archivist, and how have you overcome the challenges it presents?
KG: “Since so much of my work is hands-on work with collections, my work has been greatly affected by the coronavirus restrictions, particularly in the early months of the pandemic. I can attend meetings and programs via Zoom and other online meeting formats, but I cannot arrange and preserve collections material. We even had a water leak which I could not respond to, a leak which affected some of our publications, our building itself, and some supplies stored in the basement. I did work at home for other types of projects – digital projects and marketing, but this work did not fill my at-home days. I also worked on volunteer projects for the Boston Public Library and the Dedham Historical Society. At present, we are divided into two teams and we work two weeks in the building and two weeks out of the building. I still do not fill my work days at home. I am very grateful to have a job, and I am most happy when I can come into the building and work on the collections. The MHS has been a very conscientious and thoughtful employer over these troubling times.”
Tune in next week when we will be sharing more of the thoughts and experiences of our staff during the shutdown.
#AskAnArchivist Day is on 7 October
And on Wednesday, 7 October, we will take to social media for #AskAnArchivist Day! Prepare your questions and find us on Twitter @MHS1791 and @MHS1791_Ref where our archivists will respond to all of your questions, from the practical to the whimsical. Remember to include the tag #AskAnarchivist! You can also send in your questions via e-mail, or check out our live chat.
Tucked away in the stacks of the Massachusetts Historical Society is a small but fascinating collection of letters of the Jarrett family, a Black family living in Shiloh, Georgia. The collection dates from 1905 to 1909 and consists of five letters written to Homer C. Jarrett, who moved frequently but eventually settled in Boston. Each letter contains so many interesting details that I’d like to discuss them individually in a series here at the Beehive.
Letter from Claud Jarrett to his brother Homer, 2 Sep. 1905
The first letter in the collection was written by Homer’s brother Claud Jarrett at Shiloh. Below is a complete transcription. I will retain misspellings but add sentence and paragraph breaks for readability.
Saturday Eve Sep 2/05
Mr. Homer Jarrett
French Lick, Ind.
My dear brother
Yours to hand and contents carefully noted. Glad to hear from you. I and all the rest of the family is well. Mama is well and is at Church today.
The peoples had fine times dureing the Association. We was there on the last day. They had the Heigh-shaff and marshall and three or four depertised White men from Hamilton out there. It was a hundred gal. of whiskey drinked or more and just thousands of peoples were there and not a cross word among them no way. We had one deligate that was Mr. [Elax] Joes of Columbus Ga. the richest negro so said to be in Columbus.
The babe of Wilson that died it was onely 7. seven months old. It was unhealthy and sickely from its birth untill it died. Born Feb. the 11- 1905.
Yes I re’cd the paper you sent me from St. Lewis mo. It was O.K. That train was running sum before it rected. They need not do all that. If I should live and can restore good health I am going to fire the lard out of sume locomotive Engine some day before long.
I have just quit picking cotton. We have out a bale and a half. Sold one bale last saturday at 10 1/8 percts weight even 500 lbs. [illegible] is here now come friday before the third Sunday and is now working with Buck and aunt Sallah. Our little big [hed?] Burt is in Ala. some whare. I re’cd a letter from him the first of the year. He was in Curtisy Ala. I dont know if he is there now or not.
Grandpa and lizzie is well. She is in School now. We have an Independent School now for two 2 months. She is progressing very fast in her studies come home from School ever evening and pick a handle Basket full of cotton. I ben averign too hundred for the last three or four days. It is now field time and I must go.
By by yours brother
Claud Jarrett
The envelope is addressed to Homer at French Lick, Indiana, specifically the “French Lick Hotel D. room,” which probably means Homer worked in the hotel’s dining room. French Lick, known for its sulfur springs, was a newly booming resort town in southern Indiana. In fact, according to census data, the population of the town increased seven-fold between 1900 and 1910, from just 260 people to 1,803.
Sadly but unsurprisingly, it’s been difficult to find a lot of information about the Jarrett family. The matriarch, Julia Jarrett, was born into slavery in the 1850s, and it’s likely many of the people mentioned in this letter were her children. My research indicates she may have had as many as 16. Among them were Homer, born in 1882; Claud, born in 1885; Wilson, the one who lost his child; and Elizabeth, or “Lizzie,” about seven years old when this letter was written.
It’s also been difficult to identify many of Claud’s references. Because the collection contains only five letters, often with large gaps of time in between, I don’t have a lot of context to help. The best I can do is make educated guesses.
First, the Jarretts farmed cotton, so the “Association” was possibly the Southern Cotton Association, an organization established in 1905 to regulate the production (and therefore raise the price) of the cotton crop. The association held state conventions across the South, and it was probably one of these conventions that Claud was describing.
I hoped to identify the man Claud called “the richest negro so said to be” in Columbus, Georgia, delegate to the association, but I’ve hit nothing but dead ends. The name is difficult to discern. I also couldn’t find the newly opened “independent school” Lizzie attended. These two details have been particularly frustrating, but I’ve been in touch with archivists and historians in Georgia and will update the Beehive if I learn anything more. Feel free to leave a comment if you have any leads!
This letter is the only one from Claud in the Jarrett family letters; the other four are from Julia. When he wrote to his brother, Claud was 20 years old and apparently had dreams of becoming a railroad engineer. I like the way he put it: “I am going to fire the lard out of sume locomotive Engine some day before long.”
I hope you’ll come back to the Beehive to read more about the Jarrett family in the coming weeks. If you get a taste for more, the University of Georgia holds a collection of Homer C. Jarrett letters written between 1888 and 1948.
Many things have served as symbols of status, political leanings, and wealth throughout United States history. One of the most iconic symbols of status is alcoholic beverages. The history of early America and British North America is littered with empty bottles and full glasses. Ale flowed freely in taverns full of sailors and artisans. Rum was often cheap and plentiful in New England, the runoff product of sugar manufacturing made possible by the labor of enslaved persons. Failed vineyards could be found all over the British North American colonies in the 1600s and 1700s.[1]
However, one drink that holds a special place in colonial and American history is Madeira wine. Commonly referred to as “Madeira,” this Portuguese red wine has endured throughout the centuries. In the 1700s, it was consumed by people from different social classes and regions of North America. Madeira was popular because of its international origins (European goods were in high demand at that time), but also because it was an economical choice. Its unique creation process allowed it to survive transatlantic trips easily and remain unspoiled for long periods after purchase.
Wine shipped from Madeira was diluted with “neutral grape spirits,” then packed away in the bottom of ships. In his book Colonial Spirits: a Toast to Our Drunken History, Steven Grasse discusses how the “sweltering conditions” of transatlantic travel acted as an integral part in the Madeira creation process, which required an oxidization process in high heat.[2] This heating and oxidation process made it possible for Madeira to stay unspoiled and palatable for long periods of time. In addition, Madeira was imported tax free to the British North American colonies, a result of a long-standing political agreement between Portugal and England.[3] Thus it was the perfect practical choice—an imported wine with no taxes and a long shelf life, perfect for merchants and consumers alike.
Madeira is a significant example of the economic, social and political ties which linked the British colonies and Europe. “The invention of Madeira wine was both an economic act—carried out in response to commercial motives—and a social act—not invented by a solitary “genius” but by an Atlantic network of producers, distributors, and consumers in intense conversation with one another.”[4]
At the end of the 1700s, Madeira became more than just a symbol of transatlantic trade, but a symbol of the American Revolution. Madeira was one of the products that British authorities attempted to collect expensive import taxes on in 1768. When a ship packed with the wine was seized by customs officials, its owner, John Hancock, refused to pay. The ship was later burned by colonists in an act of defiance.[5] This incident, and several other events related to taxation contributed to the socio-political upheaval in Boston. Madeira never lost its cultural significance. By the 1800s it served as one of the ultimate signifiers of socioeconomic status, the choice of powerful politicians, wealthy elites and influential socialites. Madeira thus was the one of the only beverages which mixed science, transatlantic shipping, privilege and coincidence.
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Megan Watts is a second-year history M.A. student at Simmons University. Megan enjoys researching anything related to history. However, her most recent research has focused on colonial America- particularly American slavery. This past summer, she completed an internship with the Digital Team at MHS. During this internship she worked with the Harbottle Dorr newspapers and created metadata for some of the organization’s online resources. Currently Megan is completing another internship at the Gibson House Museum in Boston and working at the Paul Revere House.
Sources
Grasse, Steven A. “Wine.” Essay. In Colonial Spirits: a Toast to Our Drunken History, Being: a Revolutionary Drinking Guide to Brewing and Batching, Mixing and Serving, Imbibing and Jibing, Fighting and Freedom in the Ruins of the Ancient Civilization Known as America, 69–86. New York: Abrams Image, 2016.
Hancock, David. “Commerce and Conversation in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic: The Invention of Madeira Wine.” The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 29, no. 2 (1998): 197–219. https://doi.org/10.1162/002219598551670.
[1] Steven Grasse, Colonial Spirits: a Toast to Our Drunken History, New York: Abrams Image, 2016. 69-71.
[4]David Hancock, “Commerce and Conversation in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic: The Invention of Madeira Wine”, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 29, no. 2 (1998): 197–219. https://doi.org/10.1162/002219598551670. 199.
[5]Steven Grosse, Colonial Spirits: a Toast to Our Drunken History, Being: a Revolutionary Drinking Guide to Brewing and Batching, Mixing and Serving, Imbibing and Jibing, Fighting and Freedom in the Ruins of the Ancient Civilization Known as America (New York: Abrams Image, 2016), 76
by Olivia Chickering, Caroline Johnson, and Kate Melchior
Every year, the MHS selects one or more high school students for our John Winthrop Student Fellowship. This award encourages high school students to make use of the nationally significant documents of the MHS in a research project of their choosing. Students perform historical research and create a project (usually an assignment for class) using materials at the MHS, both in our archives or digitized online. This project can be something assigned in a class, a National History Day project, or something of the student’s invention! Both student and teacher receive $350 to support their research. Applications for the 2021 student fellowships are due on February 18, 2021. Learn more and apply!
This year, John Winthrop Student Fellows Olivia Chickering and Caroline Johnson, as well as their teacher Dan Ritchie of Marblehead High School, have been researching the evolution of Boston medical practices and the city’s response to epidemics throughout history. Here they explain their plans for their research project and what they hope to find in the MHS archives.
John Winthrop Student Fellows Caroline Johnson and Olivia Chickering
Hello members of the historical community, we are Caroline and Olivia and we are honored to be one of the recipients of the John Winthrop Student Fellowship. The John Winthrop Fellowship offers students the opportunity to conduct research using historical documents found at the Massachusetts Historical Society. Before we begin explaining our topic of research, we’d like for you to get to know us a bit more! We are both rising seniors at Marblehead High School that share a passion for history. We are also intrigued by the development of medical practices over time. With both of these interests in mind, we decided to focus our research on the evolution of medical practices used in Boston throughout the centuries.
Today Boston is highly regarded as one of the best cities for medical care. Mass General and Boston Children’s Hospital are both top tier institutions that attract patients from all over the world. Initially, we intended to focus our research on how Boston’s history has contributed to its current position as a leading city in the medical field. However, this topic was far too broad as there are so many various types of doctors and medicine. This topic would have required extensive research in order to connect every single medical development and historical event. We decided to narrow our topic and focus our research on something more specific. The recent global outbreak of COVID-19 has led us to look more specifically at Boston’s response to pandemics and epidemics throughout history. The state of the world right now is one that many people are not acquainted with. Never before in our lives have we experienced a health crisis that has caused such drastic changes in all ways of life. Using our own experiences, recent sources, and the archives at the MHS, we will be able to research Boston’s response to the smallpox outbreak and the Spanish Flu of 1918. Then we will be comparing the city’s responses to these earlier pandemics to the current response to COVID-19.
The MHS has a wide selection of documents in their archives that we are very excited to use while conducting our research. Using ABIGAIL, the library catalog for the Massachusetts Historical Society, we have been able to select some sources that we would like to use. The first of which is an anonymous letter written by an individual living in Boston during the smallpox epidemic. This document will give us an idea of what epidemic life was like during the eighteenth century. Another source we’ll be exploring is a smallpox statistic for Boston to determine how many people were infected, and how many of those infected people died. We will also be using a medical advisory from a Health Commissioner on the prevention of the influenza virus, written during the 1918 outbreak. This source will allow us to compare the prevention methods used in 1918 to the methods used today to slow the spread of COVID-19.
While we will not be conducting this research exactly how we initially intended, we are looking forward to exploring the digitized archives and learning about pandemics while in the midst of one. Hopefully, we will be able to uncover information about how the outbreaks of the past shaped Boston’s response to the current health crisis.
