Alice Bache Gould Photographs ca. 1850-1997; bulk: 1868-1934 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

Mathematician and historian Alice Bache Gould was born in Cambridge, Mass. in 1868, the daughter of astronomer Benjamin Apthorp Gould (1824-1896) and Mary Apthorp Quincy Gould (1834-1883), and granddaughter of Josiah Quincy (1802-1882). As a young child she lived with her family in Córdoba, Argentina where her father was the head of the Argentine National Observatory. Alice returned to Cambridge in 1871 to live with relatives while her family stayed in Argentina. In 1885 she began her education at the Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women in Cambridge (later Radcliffe College). She then attended Bryn Mawr College from 1886-1889, where she received her A.B. in mathematics and physics as a member of the school's second graduating class. She continued her study of mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Newham College in England from 1890-1893.

Upon her return from England, Alice taught mathematics for a year at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota and began her graduate studies at the University of Chicago in 1894. She received a fellowship from the University in 1895 for her PhD thesis on Brodian geometry under the guidance of mathematician E.H. Moore. The death of her father on Thanksgiving in 1896 and the loss of her fellowship in 1897 put a strain on Alice's health and she returned to Cambridge, Mass. before completing her thesis.

In 1897 Alice established an endowment at the Academy of Science in her father's name. She spent the next several years looking for work and occasionally lecturing on mathematics. She attempted to complete her studies in Chicago but returned to Cambridge to recover from poor health. In 1900 she began research for her monograph on Louis Agassiz which was published by her cousin-in-law Mark A. De Wolfe Howe in 1901 as part of the Beacon Biographies of Eminent Americans series. In 1903 Alice traveled to Puerto Rico to recover from the flu and from 1905-1907 was instrumental in establishing the "Porto Rico Teachers' Fund" that raised money for a nursing school.

During her early visits to Puerto Rico, Alice became interested in the early colonization of the new world, especially Columbus' fist voyage. In 1911, she traveled to Spain where she spent most of the rest of her life researching in Spanish archives, most notably the Archivo de Simancas. In July 1919 she published a story in the Atlantic Monthly entitled "The Adventure of the Missing Fortnight" that described some of her experiences researching in Spain.

During World War I Alice worked as a volunteer in the espionage office of the United States embassy in Spain and led an effort to send female clerical workers to the embassy to help with war work. She returned to the Chicago Ensign School at the Municipal Pier. During this time she began research for essay on Great Circle Sailing, a navigational technique that calculates points along a great circle route.

In 1926 Alice returned to Spain to continue her research on Columbus and became involved in public education measures and the establishment of local schools in Simancas. The outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 forced her to return to Boston but after the war she returned to Spain. She lived the remainder of her life in Simancas where she died in 1953.

Collection Description

The Alice Bache Gould photograph collection contains 274 photographs in two volumes (one disbound), two boxes of loose photographs, and one box of oversized photographs. The photographs were taken primarily between 1868 and 1934 and chronicle the life of Alice as well as her family and friends.

One volume contains Gould and Quincy family portraits, as well as portraits of Alice's friends and classmates from Bryn Mawr College. Individuals depicted in the album include Alice Bache Gould, Benjamin Apthorp Gould, Mary Apthorp Quincy Gould, Josiah Quincy, and Helen Francis Huntington Quincy, among others. The second volume (disbound) contains photographs of Alice's travels in Puerto Rico, the Danish West Indies, and Spain.

Most of the photographs in this collection are portraits of Alice Bache Gould and her family and friends. Subjects include her parents, Benjamin Apthorp Gould and Mary Apthorp Quincy Gould; brother Benjamin Apthorp Gould Jr.; sisters Susan Morton Quincy Gould, Lucretia Goddard Gould, and Mary Quincy Gould Thorndike; and her cousin Francis Huntington Quincy Howe. Also included among the loose photographs are photographs Alice Bache Gould's trips to Puerto Rico, as well as photographs of various places in England, France, the Danish West Indies, and Spain. In addition, there are photographs of Benjamin Apthorp Gould's home in Boston, Mass. and the Gould house and observatory in Córdoba, Argentina.

This collection contains cartes de visite, cabinet cards, stereographs, and tintypes. There are also two daguerreotypes and an opalotype, which have been separated from the collection and are stored by format in Daguerreotype collection (Photo. Coll. 1) and Miscellaneous glass photograph collection (Photo. Coll. 5). See the Detailed Description of the Collection for more information.

Photographers represented in the collection include Hinkle of Germantown, Pa., Allen & Rowell, Josiah Johnson Hawes, John Adams Whipple, John Higue Garo, Southworth & Hawes, all of Boston, Mass., and George Kendall Warren of Cambridgeport, Mass., among many others.

Related Materials

The Massachusetts Historical Society (MHS) holds the following collection related to the Alice Bache Gould photographs:

Alice Bache Gould papers, 1809-1939. Ms. N-1309. Finding aid available at: http://www.masshist.org/findingaids/doc.cfm?fa=fa0207.

Acquisition Information

This collection was removed from the Alice Bache Gould papers (Ms. N-1309). The donor of the collection is unknown.

Organization of the Collection

The collection is organized into the following series:

Detailed Description of the Collection

Preferred Citation

Alice Bache Gould photographs, Photo. Coll. 166, 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.