Sarah Gooll Putnam Diaries 1860-1912 Guide to the Collection Use of originals is restricted. Microfilm and digital facsimiles are available for use in the Reading Room. Consult reference librarian for more information.

Table of Contents Collection Summary Biographical Sketch Diary Description Acquisition Information Restrictions on Access Other Formats Detailed Description of the Collection Index to Photographs Preferred Citation Access Terms

Collection Summary

Biographical Sketch

Sarah Gooll Putnam, a Boston portrait painter, was born in 1851 to Harriet and John Pickering Putnam. Born into a wealthy family with old Boston ties, Putnam lived most of her life in Boston and in summer homes in Andover and Nahant, Mass. In her youth, Putnam moved into the newly filled Back Bay, where she lived for the remainder of her life.

As a young girl, Putnam did sketches and later progressed to more sophisticated work, including oils and watercolors. She studied art in New York, Munich, and Holland. She painted many portraits in oil of family, friends, and other Bostonians of her social standing. During her career, she exhibited her paintings to critical success in Boston, New York, and Chicago, including two shows at Boston's St. Botolph Club. In addition to oil portraits, Putnam used watercolor, pencil, and ink for landscapes, still lifes, cartoons, and sketches.

Putnam kept her diary from age nine until near her death at age sixty-one in 1912. From age fifteen until late in life, she traveled extensively, visiting the American south and west and Europe many times. Sarah Putnam never married.

Diary Description

Sarah G. Putnam kept her twenty-seven volume diary from 26 November 1860 until 10 April 1912. The diary contains both daily and monthly entries, some written in the form of letters sent home while traveling.

In addition to her diary entries, the volumes contain Putnam's artwork, beginning with sketches done as a child. The volumes are heavily illustrated with Putnam's watercolors, probably removed from a sketchbook. Some sketches and drawings illustrate specific entries, while other work has been pasted in without textual reference. Putnam numbered her illustrations in the first ten volumes.

Putnam also used the volumes as scrapbooks containing photographs, postcards, correspondence, place cards, magazine illustrations, fabric swatches, playbills, dinner party guest lists, and newspaper clippings.

At the end of each of the first several volumes, Putnam recorded books she had read and gifts received from family members for holidays and birthdays. Later volumes contain lists of sitters, dates of sittings, and prices for her portraits.

The final volume in the collection contains photographs of her portraits, including the catalogs of five exhibitions. The captions identify dates and subjects of most paintings. A ledger of her paintings from 1877 to 1911 can be found at the end of this volume.

Acquisition Information

This collection was a gift of Mrs. Harold Buckminster Hayden, May 1964.

Restrictions on Access

Use of originals is restricted. Microfilm and digital facsimiles are available for use in the Reading Room. Consult reference librarian for more information.

Other Formats

The 28 diaries of Sarah Gooll Putnam are available in their entirety in two other formats: microfilm and digital facsimiles. The volumes are located on microfilm (P-792) as follows:

Reel	Volumes
Reel 1	Vol. 1-8
Reel 2	Vol. 9-13
Reel 3	Vol. 14-16
Reel 4	Vol. 17-18
Reel 5	Vol. 19-22
Reel 6	Vol. 23-28

Digital facsimiles of the diaries are also available (DF-001). All pages containing color have been digitized in color and collated with grayscale images from the microfilm to create a complete digital copy of each volume. Loose pages from the volumes have also been digitized and included in their corresponding locations.

Use of the microfilm and digital facsimiles is restricted to the MHS Reading Room.

Five of Sarah Gooll Putnam's diaries (Vol. 2-6) are available online at the MHS website. Use the links in the Detailed Description of the Collection below to view these digital reproductions.

Detailed Description of the Collection

Index to Photographs

Preferred Citation

Sarah Gooll Putnam diaries, Massachusetts Historical Society.

Access Terms

This collection is indexed under the following headings in ABIGAIL, the online catalog of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related persons, organizations, or subjects should search the catalog using these headings.