“Out of Doors”: Attend a Nature Lecture by Opal Whiteley

Last week, New Yorker essayist Michelle Dean published a piece on the diaries of mystical nature writer Opal Whiteley, “Opal Whiteley’s Riddles.” Originally appearing in the Atlantic Monthly beginning in March of 1920, Opal’s diaries were both popular and controversial as a piece of literature. Whiteley presented the diaries as a product of her childhood spent in the Oregon wilderness;  skeptics were dubious that a six-year-old child could have developed such an distinctive voice and wide-ranging, fantastical vision.

Though Whiteley was born and raised in Oregon, the story of her diary has deep Boston roots in the patronage of Atlantic Monthly editor Ellery Sedgwick, a wealthy and influential Boston Brahmin, who supported Whiteley during a laborious editing process (the diary had survived only in fragments). Because of the disputed nature of Whiteley’s work, Sedgwick gathered extensive materials related to her life and writing which eventually became part of the Ellery Sedgwick Papers here at the Massachusetts Historical Society.  In addition to the Opal Whiteley materials in the Ellery Sedgwick papers, the Massachusetts Historical Society also holds a copy of the original 1920 edition of The Story of Opal: The Journal of an Understanding Heart (which can also be read full-text online at the Internet Archive) and a poster advertising one of Opal’s nature lectures, given in 1917.

Before traveling to Boston in search of a publisher, Whiteley – as the self-described “Sunshine Fairy” – put herself through the University of Oregon by giving public lectures on the natural world. It was these lectures – developed into a book she titled The Fairyland Around Us – which Whiteley initially approached Sedgwick about publishing in September of 1919, at the encouragement of Henry Chapman from The Youth’s Companion, a popular American children’s magazine. While Sedgwick declined Fairyland, in the course of their conversation he discovered Whiteley had kept a diary during her childhood and expressed interest in seeing this original source material.

Note: Those interested in consulting Ellery Sedgwick’s research material on Opal Whiteley should consult the finding guide and contact the library in advance of their visit, as the collection is in offsite storage.

The Idiosyncratic Index Subjects of Harbottle Dorr, Jr.

Part of the Harbottle Dorr, Jr. Annotated Newspaper project has been to transcribe and encode for presentation and searching at our website his interesting and detailed indexes. In the process, we took special notice of those subject headings that were quirky, weird, and--to our "modern" sensibilities--humorous.

There are four volumes, as you now know. (If you do not, read more about Dorr's newpaper collection here.) At the time of this post, three of these indexes have been completely transcribed and encoded for display on our website, and we are working feverishly on the fourth -- the last and longest volume. This is the first of two posts on Dorr’s idiosyncratic index terms in volumes one and two; a second post later this year will feature some entries from the third and fourth volumes.

In the Index examples below, we have kept true to Dorr's spellings and abbreviations, which, because he worked on the indexes while running his shop, can include "misspelt" words.  The general structure of the index is similar to that found in a book: index term(s) followed by a page number.

Volume 1
Eater a remarkable one yt had 3 Stomachs 21
Frost bitten person's Receipe for 10
Hutchinson Govr. censured by the House, as having a Lust of Ambition and Power 581
Irish Blunders of two that fought a Dad 13
Lunatic's sensible reply 13
North Carolina Men kill Beaver & make uneasiness 49
Printers on their bad Spelling 32
Prediction of Good News 279
Toms desire 174
Vampres (Vampyres) Account of 49
Vampres (Vampyres) Essay against 55

Volume 2
Address of the Lords To the young Ladies of Boston, desiring them to beware of bad Company. 386
Addresses, absurdity of them in general. 455
Anarchy better than Tyranny. 222. 759. 771.
Bleeding at the Nose a Remarkable Cure for it. 641
Dogs, Mad. 729. 778.
Mulberry Trees the methods of Cultivating them. &c. 194. 457. 580.
Pimps and Cooks appointed to Places in America 21.
Suns, or fixed Stars, their appearance continually encreasing, proves that there are millions of habitable Words 679. 702. 705
Toads, a Cure for Cancers. 211.

Some of these terms, no doubt, have relevance today. Some terms–if applied today in a news story–might even tender a person instant, though ultimately ephemeral, Twitter or YouTube fame.

In early 2013, MHS will present page images of all the annotated newspapers assembled by Harbottle Dorr and the index pages he created.  The images of the actual index pages that we will present in early 2013 should be clear enough to read as Dorr's handwriting is generally neat. However, the MHS will provide a transcription of Dorr's index pages, and in the transcription each of the page numbers will be hyperlinked, taking you directly to the page referenced.

The Death of a Soldier

Captain Richard Cary of the ^Second Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, the subject of the March 1862 feature in the MHS' online presentation Looking at the Civil War: Massachusetts Finds Her Voice, was shot in the leg on 9 August 1862 during the battle of Cedar Mountain in Virginia. Although Cary’s injuries were not immediately fatal, his company was unable to bring him to a field hospital as there were no ambulances available for transport. Cary died of his injuries on the battle field the following day.

In a letter dated 11 August 1862 contained in the Cary Family Papers III held by the MHS, Eugene Shelton, Richard Cary’s brother-in-law and fellow officer, wrote to his parents informing them of the circumstances surrounding Richard’s death. Eugene relates that as Richard lay dying in an area occupied by Confederate soldiers, “a rebel got a piece of old wood & placed it under Richard’s head for a pillow & gave him a mug of water.” However, he added that after his death the “rebels robbed him of everything & turned his pockets inside out.” A fellow soldier who also lay dying in the field persuaded the rebels to return his locket of his wife Helen (Eugene's sister) as well as his seal ring and Eugene reports those items would be forwarded home "as soon as teh express will take them. Eugene notes that while it is generally believed that Richard died from a loss of blood, “his countenance is perfect and he looks very pleasant” and closes his letter "Tell Helen, Richard died without a murmur & without pain."**

Coming forward to the 21st century, after reading all of Captain Cary’s correspondence and doing research for the contextual essay corresponding with the March 1862 feature, I became thoroughly enthralled with his tragically short life. My fascination with Captain Cary led me to visit his grave at the Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts where I brought him a spray of roses to thank him for allowing me the opportunity to read his charming, insightful, and thought provoking letters.

** For more insight into letters sent home to the family members of slain soldiers see Drew Gilpin Faust's This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008).

The Benefit of Hindsight

One of the things that makes working with original manuscripts so interesting is hindsight. We may have the advantage of knowing how historical events ultimately played out, but there’s nothing quite like reading the words of the people who experienced them first-hand. Sometimes their words are eerily prescient, other times wildly off-base.

The recently processed collection of Henry P. Binney family papers, on deposit at the MHS from the Mary M. B. Wakefield Charitable Trust, contains the papers of many members of the Binney family of Milton, Mass., including Florence Ethel Binney (1861-1944). In 1888, Florence, or “Flossy,” married Pietro Paolo Beccadelli di Bologna and became the Princess of Camporeale. She lived in Italy in the decades leading up to World War II, ran in elite social circles, and met many heads of state. The letters she wrote to her Boston cousin Alberta Binney have a light-hearted tone that  belies the increasingly serious conditions in pre-war Europe.

On 19 January 1923, just three months after Benito Mussolini’s coup d’état in Rome, Florence wrote from that same city:

Do you ever intend to come to, so-called, ‘Sunny Italy’? If so bring furs. We are having intensely cold weather (delicious I think) fountains frozen, and deep snow between Firenze and Bologna! I imagine that foreign newspaper[s] are exaggerating the occupation of Essen, etc. by the French, the complications in Turkey, and the possible effects on all Europe of these movements, as well as on the rest of the world. Meno male, that Italy has Mussolini to hold the reins of government with a firm hand!

 (According to a Boston Herald article from September of that year, Florence considered Mussolini the “saviour” of Italy and an “idol of the people.”)

 A decade later, Florence was still writing letters with this mix of carefree chattiness and political commentary:

This afternoon am motoring to a marvellous old castle, 2 hours distant from Rome, taking with me the Archduchess [of Austria] and my little grandson….When are you coming over again? From our papers it seems that MacDonald and Roosevelt have concluded nothing definite. Let us hope that Hitler in Germany, your Roosevelt, and our Mussolini here, will prove to be for the good of their respective nations. But I will not touch on the complicated present situation of the world, lest my letter would be endless!

Florence was later disappointed when a planned visit from Alberta’s daughter Polly was canceled. She wrote:

Too bad, for never was Rome more gay socially, or more fascinating in every way, than this spring. Evidently [Polly’s father] Harry let himself be influenced by the American newspapers greatly exaggerated reports of the European situation, and believed war imminent. May le bon Dieu spare us such a disaster, although the whole world is in a dangerously chaotic state.

 The date of this letter is 3 June 1939.

 For more information on the multi-generational papers of the Binney family, including papers related to the War of 1812, the Civil War, the Russian Revolution, the Great Depression, and World War II, see the guide to the collection.