Stout Family Photographs ca. 1840-1966 Guide to the Photograph Collection

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

Collection Summary

Biographical Sketch

Langdon family

Abigail (Nabby) Robbins (1783-1842) was the daughter of Stephen Robbins (1758-1847) and Abigail Winship (1759-1850) of Lexington, Mass. In 1809, she married Col. James Hooker Langdon (1783-1831) of Montpelier, Vt., and their son was James Robbins Langdon (1813-1895). He married Lucy Pomeroy Bowen (1814-1921) in 1836, and they had two daughters: Elizabeth W. Langdon (b. 1846) and Lucy Langdon (1841-1921). Lucy married Charles Francis Schroeder (1814-1886) in 1868.

Schroeder family

Charles Francis Schroeder (1814-1886) was the son of Valentine Henry Schroeder (1787-1870) and Henrietta Maria Ghequiere (1790-1871). When he was young, he dropped his first name and was referred to as "Francis" or "Frank." Francis attended the famous Round Hill School in Northampton, Mass., under the tutelage of its principal, Dr. Joseph Cogswell, and entered Harvard at age 15. He was employed in a variety of positions during his life, including civil engineer, Charges d'Affaires under President Zachary Taylor, diplomat to Sweden, and superintendent of the Astor Library in New York. In 1847, he married Caroline Seaton (1824-1855), and the couple had two sons: Francis Ghequiere Seaton (b. 1847) and Seaton Schroeder (1849-1922). In 1855, Caroline Seaton Schroeder died, and Francis married his second wife, Lucy Langdon (1841-1921) in 1868. The couple had four children: James Langdon Schroeder (1869-1949); Lucy Langdon Schroeder (1870-1948); Henrietta Maria Schroeder (1875-1942); and Henry Schroeder (1879-1952).

Stout family

In 1831, Sarah Ann Secor (1814-1875) married John G. Merrell (1806-1872). The couple had four children: Honora Frances Merrell (1836-1920); Isabel Merrell; Emily Virginia Merrell, who married Charles Anson Nash; and William S. Merrell. Honora married Charles Stout (1815-1889), and the couple had two children: Charles Herman Stout (1864-1928) and Frances Augusta Stout, who married William Howe Morrison.

Charles Hermann Stout (1864-1928) was president of the New York Trust Company. In 1899, he married Henrietta Maria Schroeder (1875-1942). The couple made their home, called "Charlecote," in Short Hills, N.J., a planned community created by developer Stewart Hartshorn. Henrietta was the author of The Amateur's Book of the Dahlia (1922) and kept a prize-winning garden at "Charlecote."

Merrell Langdon Stout (1903-1964) was the only child of Charles Herman Stout and Henrietta Maria Schroeder Stout. Merrell received his A.B. from Harvard in 1925 and an M.D. from Harvard University in 1931. He lived and practiced medicine in Baltimore, Md., where he became director of the Hospital for Women of Maryland in 1937, a position he kept until 1954. Merrell Langdon Stout married Helen Scarlett (b. 1903), and the couple had two children: Charles Langdon Stout (b. 1931) and Merrell Langdon Stout (b. 1936).

For more biographical information on the Stout and Schroeder families, see Hermann Heinrich Schröder, 1764-1893: The Bicentennial Celebration of His Arrival in America, October 12, 1783 in the Stout family papers (Ms. N–66).

Collection Description

This collection contains 811 photographs, including duplicates, in 8 boxes, 3 oversize boxes, and 2 volumes. These photographs were collected by the Charles Herman Stout family of Baltimore, Md.; they span the years ca. 1840-1966.

Most of the photographs in this collection are loose portraits of various members of the Stout family, as well as the related Bowen, Langdon, Merrell, and Schroeder families. Subjects include Charles Herman Stout, Helen Scarlett Stout, Henrietta Maria Schroeder Stout, and Merrell Langdon Stout (1903-1964), among many other family members, friends, and American public figures. The collection also contains loose photographs of views of various places of importance to the Stout family, especially of "Charlecote," the Charles Herman Stout family home in Short Hills, N.J., and Henrietta Maria Schroeder Stout's gardens on the premises. Some of the photographs of the gardens were taken by two celebrated American photographers, Jessie Tarbox Beals and Herbert Wendell Gleason, as well as Cora L. Hartshorn, the daughter of Stewart Hartshorn, developer of the Short Hills community. These views also contains photographs of ancestral family homes in Baltimore, Md. and Lexington, Mass., among other place. The loose photographs in this collection also contain photos of deep-sea fishing tournaments taken by LeRoy H. Dorsey of Chicago, Ill. in 1953 that were probably collected by Merrell Langdon Schroeder (b. 1931), as well as photographs of Helen Scarlett and Merrell Langdon Stout's wedding in 1929 and reproductions of portrait artwork of members of the Langdon, Schroeder, and other family relatives.

There are also two volumes of photographs in this collection. One volume contains carte de visite and tintype portraits that depict various members of the Langdon, Schroeder, and Stout families, taken ca. 1860-1910.. The other volume is a scrapbook that was kept by Lucy Langdon Schroeder on a tour of Europe in 1889-1890. The volume contains photographs and postcards of various places visited by her on her tour, including England, France, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, and possibly Germany. Many of the photographs in this volume were probably taken by Lucy Langdon Schroeder.

This collection contains carte de visite, cabinet cards, tintypes, one color slide, film photonegatives, and paper-based photographs. There are also several glass and cased portrait photographs of members of the Bowen, Langdon, Merrell, Schroeder, and Stout families, which are stored apart from the collection by format. These photographs include daguerreotypes (stored in Daguerreotype collection, Photo. Coll. 1), ambrotypes (stored in Ambrotype collection, Photo. Coll. 2), and opalotypes and one autochrome (stored in Miscellaneous glass photograph collection, Photo. Coll. 5). See the Detailed Description of the Collection for more information.

Other photographers represented in this collection include Bachrach, Floride Green, Harlow of Montpelier, Vt., Louise Greene of Morristown, N.J., and W. Burden Stage of New York, N.Y., among many others.

Related Materials

The Massachusetts Historical Society (MHS) holds the following collection related to the Stout family photographs:

Stout family papers. Ms. N–66.

Acquisition Information

This collection was removed from the Stout family papers (Ms. N–66).

Organization of the Collection

The collection is organized into the following series:

Detailed Description of the Collection

Preferred Citation

Stout family photographs, Photo. Coll. 63, 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.