Francis Parkman Photographs ca. 1840-1910 Guide to the Photograph Collection

Table of Contents Collection Summary Biographical Sketch Collection Description Related Materials Acquisition Information Organization of the Collection Detailed Description of the Collection Preferred Citation Access Terms

Collection Summary

Biographical Sketch

Francis Parkman (1823-1892) was born in Boston, Mass., the son of Rev. Francis Parkman (1788-1852), minister of the New North Church in Boston, and Caroline Hall Parkman (1794-1871). He was a historian famous for his works on the Oregon Trail, Pontiac’s Conspiracy, the Jesuits and the Indians of North America, and the history of the struggle between the French and English over the continent, specifically their role in Canada (New France) and Florida. Parkman was educated at Harvard College, where he studied history under Professor Jared Sparks and graduated in 1844; he later received his law degree from Harvard in 1846, though he never practiced. His historical works include The California and Oregon Trail (1849), History of the Conspiracy of Pontiac (1851), Pioneers of France in the New World (1865), The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century (1867), LaSalle and the Discovery of the Great West (1869), Montcalm and Wolfe (1884), and A Half-Century of Conflict (1892), among other publications. During his lifetime, Parkman was a member of the Saturday Club and of the Massachusetts Historical Society, where he served as president from 1875 to 1878; a founder and president of the St. Botolph Club (1880-1886); a founder of the Archaeological Institute of America; and an Overseer of Harvard College. Despite his active scholarly and social endeavors, Francis Parkman was also plagued by illness throughout his life, including a debilitating loss of eyesight, insomnia, and arthritis of the knees.

In 1850, Francis Parkman married Catherine Scollay Bigelow (1825-1858), daughter of physician and botanist Jacob Bigelow (1786-1879) and Mary Scollay (1793-1882), and the sister of Dr. Henry Jacob Bigelow (1818-1890). Francis and Catherine had three children: Grace Parkman (1851-1928), who married Charles P. Coffin; Francis Parkman III (1854-1857); and Katherine Scollay Parkman (1858-1900), who married John Templeman Coolidge (1856-1879) in 1879. In 1852, after Rev. Francis Parkman’s death, the Parkmans bought a summer house on Jamaica Pond in Jamaica Plain, Mass., where Francis Parkman maintained an extensive garden to pursue his interest in horticulture. During the winters, the Parkman family lived at 8 Walnut Street in Boston with Parkman’s widowed mother. In 1858, Parkman’s wife Catherine died. Parkman and his children moved their winter residence to 50 Chestnut Street, Boston, and after his mother’s death in 1871, his sister Eliza also moved in and lived with Parkman until his death in 1893.

Francis Parkman's siblings included: Caroline Hall Parkman (b. 1825), who in 1852 married John Cordner (1816-1894); Mary Agnes Parkman (1827); Mary Brooks Parkman (1830-1866); Eliza Willard Shaw Parkman (1832-1905); and John Eliot Parkman (1834-1871). He also had two half-siblings, Samuel Parkman (1816-1854) and Sarah Cabot Parkman Atkinson (b. 1818), who were the children of Rev. Francis Parkman and his first wife, Sarah Cabot (d. 1818).

Collection Description

This collection contains 665 photographs in 4 boxes, 8 volumes, and 3 oversize boxes. Most of these photographs were collected by Francis Parkman and his descendants; they span the years ca. 1840-1910.

Four boxes and three oversize boxes contain loose photographs. Many of these are portrait photographs of Francis Parkman, his daughters, and other Parkman family members, as well as his friends and colleagues. There are also a large number of views of various places in the United States, Canada, and Europe. These include photographs of the Minnesota frontier; camping and canoeing the waterways of Maine, taken ca. 1867-1879 by James C. Stoddard; views of cities and wilderness in Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia taken by various Canadian photographers; and Francis Parkman’s homes at 50 Chestnut Street in Boston and on Jamaica Pond in Jamaica Plain, Mass. The loose photographs also include some portraits of Native Americans, collected by Parkman; photographs of Parkman’s camp on the Batiscan River in Quebec with Charles Haight Farnham in 1886; and other miscellaneous photographs, including photographic reproductions of European artwork.

There are also eight volumes of photographs in this collection. Four volumes contain portrait and snapshot photographs of various members of the Parkman, Cordner, and Coolidge families and their descendants, taken ca. 1860-1910. Another volume contains cartes de visite collected by John Eliot Parkman, brother of Francis Parkman, that include portraits of Civil War soldiers, taken ca. 1860-1864. Other volumes contain cartes de visite of American and European public figures, as well as portraits of Native Americans collected by Francis Parkman.

This collection contains tintypes, cartes de visite, cabinet cards, stereographs, and other paper-based photographs. There are also four daguerreotypes and one ambrotype, which are stored apart from the collection by format in the Daguerreotype collection (Photo. Coll. 1) and the Ambrotype collection (Photo. Coll.). See the Detailed Description of the Collection for more information.

Photographers in this collection include both American and Canadian commercial photographers, among others. Some of the American photographers are Allen & Rowell, James Wallace Black, and John Adams Whipple of Boston, Mass.; Benjamin Franklin Upton of St. Anthony, Minn.; Whitney’s Gallery of St. Paul, Minn.; and James C. Stoddard, among many others. Canadian photographers include Alexander Henderson and William Notman of Montreal, as well as Livernois & Bienvenu of Quebec, among others.

Related Materials

The Massachusetts Historical Society (MHS) library holds to the following materials that relate to this collection:

Francis Parkman papers, Ms. N-645.

Daguerreotypes of Francis Parkman, Photos. #1.305-306, Massachusetts Historical Society Photo Archives.

Daguerreotype of Caroline Hall Parkman, Photo. #1.307, Massachusetts Historical Society Photo Archives.

Daguerreotype of Henry Chatillon, Photo. #1.380, Massachusetts Historical Society Photo Archives.

Acquisition Information

The Francis Parkman photographs were removed from the Francis Parkman papers, a gift by Francis Parkman to the Massachusetts Historical Society in several installments between the Civil War and his death in 1893. Additions to this collection were made to the Society by Elizabeth P. Cordner in Apr. 1928 and Oct. 1942, and by Mrs. John Forbes Perkins in Feb. 1956.

Organization of the Collection

The collection is organized into the following series:

Detailed Description of the Collection

Preferred Citation

Francis Parkman photographs, Photo. Coll. 170, Massachusetts Historical Society Photo Archives.

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.