Alice Clarke and the Boston Female Asylum

by Susan Martin, Senior Processing Archivist

Since July, I’ve been introducing you to individual members of the remarkable Clarke family of Boston, whose papers I recently processed. Next up is Alice de Vermandois (Sohier) Clarke. Alice was the daughter of lawyer William Sohier and Susan Cabot (Lowell) Sohier. In 1878, she married Eliot Channing Clarke, the only son of Rev. James Freeman Clarke, which is how her papers came to be here at the MHS.

For this post, I’d like to focus on eleven folders of manuscripts in the Perry-Clarke additions documenting Alice’s work with the Boston Female Asylum.

Some sources refer to the Boston Female Asylum as an orphanage, but that isn’t strictly true; the asylum also accommodated girls with living parents who couldn’t support them. Bacon’s Dictionary of Boston (1886) has a good summary of the organization.

No. 1008 Washington Street. Established 1800; incorporated 1803. Receives destitute girls between three and ten, preference being given to orphans, though others are sometimes admitted; teaches them common-school branches, sewing, and domestic service; places them in families by indenture until 18, a few being always retained during their minority to serve in the asylum. Full surrender of a child is required on admission…

I was excited to see this material. Dating from 1894 to 1900, the papers consist primarily of correspondence between members of the asylum’s board of managers, including Alice; women in whose homes girls had been placed; superintendent Eliza J. Ross, who worked as a liaison for placements; and, most importantly, two of the girls themselves.

The managers really seemed to try to find the right placement for each girl. Alice’s notes mention some of them by name: for example, Leila Johnson was “small” and “easily led,” but a “good girl & worker.” Margaret Woodleigh was “very reliable,” but “cold distant no friends.” And Lizzie Alcott was “backward” and “cross at times” and needed a home with “(no men).”

I only have the space to discuss two individual stories very briefly, but I encourage you to come and look at the material yourself.

Edith Turner

Color photograph of two pages of a letter, written in red ink and signed “Yours Truly Edith L. Turner.”
Letter from Edith L. Turner to Alice Clarke, 20 November 1896

Edith was living with the Hanscom family in Lawrence, Mass., but wrote to Alice begging for a new place: “Everything is quiet just now but only for a day or so an[d] then it will be war again so please get me away as soon as possible.” Sure enough, the following morning Edith and Mrs. Hanscom had an argument, and Hanscom slapped her. The desperate girl wrote to Alice again, saying “I cannot an[d] will not stand what I have to any more” and threatening to run away.

The collection also includes a letter from Winifred Hanscom with her side of the story. She didn’t deny what happened, but described it as “discipline.” She called Edith “high spirited and independant and […] saucey [sic].”

Edith was eventually placed with Abby F. Solberg of Melrose, Mass., an “intelligent rather artistic” woman with a physical disability and two young children. Superintendent Eliza Ross wrote, “Mrs. Hanscom [was] not very well pleased to part with [Edith]. I fancy she did a good deal of work.”

Grace Smith

Color photograph of two pages of a letter, written with black ink on pink paper. The letter is addressed from East Manchester, N.H. on December 16, 1900, and begins “Dear Mrs. Clark.”
Letter from Grace Smith to Alice Clarke, 16 December 1900

Grace wasn’t happy, either. The 15-year-old was living with the Dockrill family in Manchester, N.H., where she was responsible for most of the housework, including sweeping, cleaning carpets, washing dishes, emptying slops, making beds, cleaning bathrooms, washing floors, etc. But Mrs. Dockrill said Grace was careless and lazy, and both of them wrote Alice asking for a change.

Carrie Dockrill was kinder to Grace than Hanscom had been to Edith. She said Grace had “good qualities” and thought she might enjoy placement at a farm because she loved the outdoors. Superintendent Ross called Grace “rather a peculiar and unbalanced girl,” but argued that of course “it is hard to change one’s nature wholly.”

Grace, for her part, promised “to turn over a new leaf and make something and somebody of myself.” After Mrs. Dockrill’s death a few months later, the girl was placed with a Mrs. Gould, also in Manchester. An undated note in the collection, in Alice’s handwriting, reads: “Grace Smith successful.”

I hope you’ll join me for my next post about the Perry-Clarke additions.

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“We are not this hemisphere’s only experts”: Gerry Studds on War and Peace

by Meg Szydlik, Visitor Services Coordinator

In my previous blog posts here and here, I examined Massachusetts Congressman Gerry E. Studds as a gay man and environmental activist. In this post, I want to look at his antiwar stance, which focused on the violence in Vietnam, and later in South and Central America. While there is less on this in his collection at the MHS than I had hoped, there are still tantalizing glimpses of the antiwar convictions that pushed him to run in the first place.

Prior to his election to Congress, he campaigned for Senator Eugene McCarthy (not to be confused with the anticommunist senator Joseph McCarthy) during his 1968 run at the Democratic presidential nomination. McCarthy’s stance against the Vietnam War attracted Studds. Studds himself then ran for the House of Representatives and was elected on an anti-Vietnam War platform in 1972. The Vietnam War was a civil war between the communist North Vietnam, backed by China and Russia, and anticommunist South Vietnam, backed by the US and France.  US involvement in the war, including troops, bombs, and Agent Orange sprays, ended in 1973, then the war officially ended in 1975 with a North Vietnamese victory. The wildly unpopular and casualty-heavy war was captured through photojournalism and news reports that inspired years of peace protests across the country which ultimately resulted in American withdrawal from the conflict. Studds’ election was part of this wave of discontent.

small black and white image of a white man with thinning hair wearing a white shirt with a dark tie. He is wearing large glasses on his face and is frowning
Gerry E. Studds, from the Congressional Archive.

Studds did not only care about the war in Vietnam, however. He was also a strong opponent of the violence in Latin America, including El Salvador’s civil war and Reagan’s support of the Contras in Nicaragua, which culminated in the Iran-Contra affair. The twentieth century was a period of great unrest and revolution in South and Central America, with many previous “banana republics,” dealing with the repercussions of living under exploitation for so long. The Reagan administration supported the Salvadorean government in their civil war, but Studds called for a real inclusion of the revolutionary forces in the negotiations for peace and reform and for the United States to provide support in the negotiated settlement. The extreme human rights violations of the Salvadorean government and its military arm, which was responsible for killing thousands of its own citizens, did not stop the US government from offering billions of dollars in aid to the anti-communist leadership over the course of the war. Studds sought to stop that flow of aid and violence and instead support peace. He expressed that US leaders were “not this hemisphere’s only experts on democracy, social justice, the fair treatment of indigenous populations, or human rights. There are many other supporters of these concepts in Latin America.”

Letter from Gerry Studds and Silvio Conte to other congressional representatives in support of a resolution to support peace talks in El Salvador that would hopefully end the hostilities.
An example of the kinds of letters Gerry signed to encourage support of antiwar efforts.

In addition to these examples, Studds also supported nuclear disarmament, another point of conflict between him and President Ronald Reagan. Much of his time as Congressman in the 80s was spent opposing Reagan’s agenda. While a lot of that involved working to protect the rights of lesbian and gay individuals and fund research and support for those suffering from HIV/AIDS, things Reagan famously did not particularly care about, Studds’ environmental activism and anti-war sentiments also clashed with Reagan’s pro-business and Cold War focus. He was far from the only representative to have these positions, but his drafts and letters to other legislators help paint a picture of the movement’s efforts. If you are in Boston, I highly recommend checking out the Gerry E. Studds Papers. Just be sure to request it ahead of time!

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A Revolutionary President

by Sara Georgini, Series Editor, The Papers of John Adams

John Adams was nervous. Readying for his 4 March 1797 presidential inauguration, Adams flashed back to his days as a suburban schoolteacher, revolutionary lawyer, and self-taught statesman.  The United States, born in the “Minds and Hearts of the People,” did not exist when Adams started out over forty years earlier. Neither did the shiny new role of president. Was he up to the job? “I never in my life felt Such an awful Weight of obligation to devote all my time, and all the forces that remain, to the Public,” he reassured Elbridge Gerry on 20 February 1797.

A portrait of John Adams in olive green suit with ceremonial sword, standing at desk and pointing to open book. On exhibit at Adams National Historical Park.
John Adams, by William Winstanley, 1798. Adams National Historical Park.

Brimming with international intrigue, domestic drama, and sly cabinet maneuvers, Volume 22 of The Papers of John Adams provides an insider’s tour of Adams’s tumultuous first year in office. This 59th volume published by the Adams Papers editorial project includes 304 documents that chronicle John Adams’s work from February 1797 to February 1798, revealing a new profile. Of the presidency, Adams vowed in his inaugural address: “It shall be my Strenuous Endeavour.” The popular narrative of Adams’s presidency is that he sidelined an inherited cabinet and chose to set major policy solo. This volume offers a richer and more complex history of a veteran statesman struggling within the bounds of the federal structure that he co-created.

Adams enjoyed just a few celebratory weeks on the job, before a wave of crises hit. Operating within the global upheaval of European war, the second president faced a set of hard trials. French privateers preyed on neutral American commerce. Yellow fever afflicted the federal seat in Philadelphia. Adams labored with Congress to shift money and resources for military preparedness. He drove the point home in his 28 Nov. 1797 note to the Senate: “A mercantile Marine and a military Marine must grow up together: one cannot long exist, without the other.”  The Quasi-War loomed. Yet John Adams’s letters reveal an administration stubbornly bent on pursuing a policy of strategic peace—even at great personal and political cost.

Running the nation’s highest office presented fresh challenges for the lifelong public servant. From a glance at his overflowing desk, it seemed like everyone wanted something right now from the new chief: a job, a pardon, some patronage to float a book idea or to fund an invention. “The friends of my youth are generally gone,” Adams lamented to Joseph Ward on 6 April 1797. “The friends of my Early political Life are chiefly departed—of the few that remain, Some have been found on a late occasion Weak, Envious, jealous, and Spiteful, humiliated and mortified and duped Enough by French Finesse, and Jacobinical rascality to Shew it to me and to the world, Others have been found faithful and true, generous and Manly.” Beyond his wife Abigail, whom did he trust? Volume 22 sketches Adams’s widening networks, as he brokered relationships with a cabinet comprised of Charles Lee, James McHenry, Timothy Pickering, and Oliver Wolcott Jr.

Painting of vessel in turbulent ocean cove, cornering another ship near rocky cliffs.
Thomas Buttersworth, “An Armed Revenue Cutter on Patrol with a Potential Quarry Sheltering below the Cliffs,” ca. 1802.

Overall, the urgent question of France dominated Adams’s mind. Shipping losses mounted. The country’s small fleet of revenue cutters worked mightily to defend American interests, but Adams knew that it was hard to safeguard the economy without the protection of a professional navy. He strained to salvage a tattered alliance and hold off war. “Commerce has made this Country what it is; and it cannot be destroyed or neglected, without involving the People in Poverty and distress,” Adams told Congress on [22 Nov.] 1797, adding: “I should hold myself guilty of a neglect of Duty, if I forebore to recommend that We Should make every exertion to protect our Commerce, and to place our Country in a Suitable posture of defence, as the only Sure means of preserving both.” The French threat sharpened Adams’s focus on the need for a real navy, with a six-frigate fleet under construction. When the winter froze French cruisers’ chances, Adams mobilized money and congressional support for a major military buildup. Volume 22 supplies a 360-degree experience of how cabinet members debated the future of Franco-American policy.

John Adams sensed his first steps into the presidency marked a final turn in his extraordinary life of service to the American people. “Their Confidence, which has been the Chief Consolation of my Life, is too prescious and Sacred a deposit ever to be considered lightly,” he told the Senate on [15 Feb. 1797]. He was no George Washington, but Washington’s America was changing too. John Adams’s Federalist ideology of tripartite government shaped his policymaking and his popularity; understanding how to preserve liberty while defending the people was his challenge. That history unfolds next in Volumes 23 and 24 of The Papers of John Adams, now underway.

The Adams Papers editorial project at the Massachusetts Historical Society gratefully acknowledges the generous support of our sponsors. Major funding for the Papers of John Adams is provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, and the Packard Humanities Institute. All letterpress Adams Papers volumes are printed by Harvard University Press.

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Count Rumford, Rumford Baking Powder, Rumford, NH, Rumford, RI, and the Rumford Professor at Harvard University, Part 3: This Collection Keeps Drawing Me In

by Heather Rockwood, Communications Manager

While perusing the MHS’s Rumford collection for juicy nuggets about the count’s ill-fated, later-life love story (described in Part 2), as well as connecting the dots between a Bavarian Count and baking powder manufactured in Rhode Island (Part 1), I also felt the love a person can feel for the tactile experience of going through archival documents. The joy of reading their words, even the ones in French (which I can’t read), looking at the stamps once used, smelling that old paper smell, and always finding surprises.

During my Rumford search, the first thing I noticed was the count’s and his daughter’s beautiful penmanship. I still write lists and short notes by hand, but mostly everything I communicate is online, and my penmanship lacks the beauty trained in the past. Thus, I’m in awe when I see a document by a person who had to write by hand and did it so beautifully, including their signature. The other items that made me smile were the leftover wax on a few of the letters, a stamp with George Washington on it, and a barely noticeable watermark on one sheet of paper.

Several color photographs with close-up views of aspects of old letters. From left to right: Two letters on top of each other, the top reads, " Your Excellency's Most Obedient Humble Servant Rumford," and the bottom reads "Your obliged S. Rumford," to the right is a letter addressed to Sarah Rumford with red wax at the top and bottom of the page, to the right is a red stamp with George Washington's side profile, and last, to the right is a hard to see watermark.
From top left down, then right: Count Rumford’s signature, Countess Sarah “Sally” Rumford’s signature, red wax on an opened letter, a stamp with George Washington’s face on it, and a sheet of paper with a watermark on it.

One of the more surprising pieces that turned up was a sheet of paper folded into a little square. No other sheet of paper was folded like this in the files, so it stood out right away. Curious, I carefully unfolded it, and I’m glad I was so careful, because it contained hair! On the outside of the square was written, “Hair of My own 9 Dec Concord 1848,” but the words didn’t mean anything to me until I almost jumped out of my chair seeing the hair inside.

Two color photographs side by side, both backgrounds are a handwritten letter in black ink on white paper. The image on the left is a piece of paper folded into a box. This piece is darker than the one below and has writing on the top that reads, "Hair of My own 9 Dec Concord 1848." On the right is that folded piece of paper half opened revealing dark hair inside.
On the left, the outside of the folded paper, on the right, the hair inside.

With my experience reading the archival letters between the Adamses, which were from the same time frame as the Rumford letters, I expected these letters to be in English, but many were in French. Not being able to read the language put me at a disadvantage, but nevertheless, I took some pictures of the French language documents, and I’m glad I did, for something I had not noticed in one of them now led to an interesting discovery—it was a birth certificate for Charles Francis Robert Lefebvre de Rumford, our Count Rumford’s son. At the top of the document was a handwritten note in English, “Birth of the natural Son of Count Rumford.” Charles was born in Passy, France, in 1813, one year before Count Rumford died at age sixty-one. Charles’s mother was Victoire Joseph Lefebvre (1786–1853), and she was twenty-seven when she gave birth to him. However, he is not mentioned in most online biographies of Count Rumford, such as his Wikipedia page. In fact, I only found full mention of him on genealogy websites and the Rumford Family Collection, held by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS). So please give a moment of thanks to genealogists!

Color photograph of an official document with a round stamp in the top left and under that a round watermark.
A close-up of the birth certificate of Charles Francis Robert Lefebvre de Rumford with the handwritten note at the top that reads, “Birth of the natural Son of Count Rumford.”

The AAAS’s page documented that Charles was illegitimate but carried the “de Rumford” name, as his father Count Rumford bequested it. He used “de Rumford” in the style of a French courtesy title, as “Count” is not a noble title in France, and because the count’s daughter, Sarah Thompson, Countess of Rumford, was his legitimate heir. In the following names, you may notice other courtesy titles towards the ends of names. Charles married Marie Louise Pauline Both de Tauzia and they had two children, Amédée Joseph Lefebvre de Rumford and Jeanne Marie Louise Sarah Lefebvre de Rumford. Amédée had two children, Marie Lefebvre de Rumford and Charles Lefebvre de Rumford. Marie had a daughter, Jacqueline de Freslon, who married her uncle Charles in 1923. Charles died in 1951, the last of the de Rumford line.

I hope you enjoyed this surprising journey that began with the Rumford files in the MHS’s George E. Ellis Papers. I found so much to savor while looking through it and afterward, sifting through my many photographs! It kept drawing me back to it.

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Pirate Talk

by Rakashi Chand, Reading Room Supervisor

Today is ‘Talk like a Pirate Day’ which I adore because my kids and I are big fans of the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ film franchise as well as any pirate-themed movie, restaurant, or minigolf course. But, as a historian, I feel an impulse to find pirate speak in the archives of the Massachusetts Historical Society. There is a robust record of the ‘last and dying words’ of pirates, or pyrates, in Boston, Massachusetts. Boston was once known as the ‘Port where Pirates hang,’ so Boston may be the one place where—if you are a pirate—you should perhaps not speak like one, because from what I found in the archives, we cracked down on piracy with the same efficacy as we now order Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. 

Let’s look at a few items from the collections that have captured the actual words of convicted pirates—at least we know they are the real deal!  

To begin, look at The Last Words of S Tully. Who was executed for piracy, at South Boston, December 10. 1812.  

In this broadside, Tully is recorded as saying, 

“As a man and criminal now going out of this world, I do think it my duty to acknowledge that I have been guilty of taking, and assisting to take, the property which is mentioned in the first indictment; but the murder, which was charged in the second indictment, I do not see that I am any ways guilty of, although it was plead so hard against me, and I have reason to believe was the means of my being condemned…”  

A color photograph of a broadside with the image of the active hanging of a man occurring at the top.
The Last Words of S Tully. Who was executed for piracy, at South Boston, December 10. 1812.

Next, is the 1704 Proclamation by Thomas Povey Esq. Lieutenant Governour, and Commander in Chief, for the time being, of Her Majesties Province of Massachusetts-Bay in New-England. 

“WHEREAS John Quelch, late Commander of the Briganteen Charles, and Company to her belonging, Viz. John Lambert, John Miller, John Clifford, John Dorothy, James Parrot, Charles James, William Whiting, John Pitman, John Templeton, Benjamin Perkins, William Wiles, Richard Laurance, Erasmus Peterson, John King, Charles King, Isaac Johnson, Nicholas Lawson. Daniel Chevalle, John Way, Thomas Farrington, Matthew Primer, Anthony Holding, William Rayner, John Quittance, John Harwood, William Jones, Denis Carter, Nicholas Richarson, James Austin, James Pattison, Joseph Hutnot, George Peirse, George Norton, Gabriel Davis, John Breck, John Carter, Paul Giddins, Nicholas Dunbar, Richard Thurbar, Daniel Chuley, and others ; Have lately Imported a considerable Quantity of Gold dult, and some Bar and Coin’d Gold, which they are Violently Suspected to have gotten and obtained, by Felony and Piracy, from some of Her Majesties Friends and Allies, and have Imbezeld and Shared the lane among themselves, without any Adjudication or Condemnation thereof, to be lawful Prize…” 

“..And all her Majesties Subjects, and others, are hereby strictly forbiden to entertain, harbour or conceal any of the laid persons, or their Treasure: Or to convey away, or in any manner further the escape of any of them, on pain of being proceeded against with utmost Severity of Laws as accessories and partakers with them in their Crime.” 

Color photograph of a broadside printed in black ink on paper discolored with age. At the top is the Royal King of England seal with a lion and unicorn surrounding it.
1704 Proclamation by Thomas Povey Esq. Lieutenant Governour, and Commander in Chief, for the time being, of Her Majesties Province of Massachusetts-Bay in New-England

It sounds like the authorities were very good at pirate talk, perhaps more than the pirates themselves. The Proclamation of May 1704 seemed to have worked, even though Quelch had already escaped once. 

In June the Arraignment, Tryal and Condemnation of Capt. John Quelch And Others of his Company takes place under Joesph Dudley, who is now the “Captain-General and Commander in chief and over her Majesty’s Province of the Massachusetts-Bay, in New England, in America, &c.” 

“Captain John Quelch, And Others in his Company, &c. For Sundry Piracies, Robberies and Murder, Committed upon the Subjects of the King of Portugal, Her Majesty’s Allie, on the Coast of Brazil” 

(My thought: Wait! Brazil? Wow, Puritan New England will hunt you down even if you are stirring up trouble in Brazil!) 

So, what did Capt. Welch have to say for himself?  

“‘This Court is now ready to hear what you have to offer for Yourself.’

Quelch ‘My Council informs me, that he hath sundry matters of the Law to offer to Your Excellency on my behalf.’“

Not as pirate-like as I had hoped, but a well thought out response. 

Quelch then goes on to counter-question the witnesses and the evidence and is informed by the Court that he is not able to counter-question the evidence. Quelch is smart, logical and uses his lawyers like a modern crime-boss. (Grabbing my popcorn for more.) 

Color photograph of black ink printed text on paper discolored with age.
Arraignment, Tryal and Condemnation of Capt. John Quelch And Others of his Company, June 1704

Finally, the last page of the Quelch Trial lists the names, ages, and places of birth of each pirate in Quelch’s crew. This is a fascinating look at who joined Quelch, men coming from different countries and ranging in age from adventurous young fifteen-year-olds to stalwart fifty-year-olds. The opportunity offered in Piracy appealed to so many to free themselves from their station in life. 

Color photograph of black ink printed text on paper discolored with age.
Arraignment, Tryal and Condemnation of Capt. John Quelch And Others of his Company, June 1704

And lastly let’s look at the June 30, 1704, broadside, An Account of the Behaviors and Last Dying SPEECHES of the Six Pirates, that were executed on Chrles River, Boston side, on Fryday June 30th 1704 Viz. 

The six pirates were Capt. John Quelch, John Lambert, Christopher Scudamore, John Miller, Erasmus Peterson, and Peter Roach.

Of Capt. John Quelch I have a newfound respect. 

“The last words he spoke to one of the Ministers at his going up to the Stage, were,  I am not afraid of death, I am not afraid of the Gallows, but I am afraid of what follows; I am afraid of a Great God, and a Judgement to Come. But he afterwards seemed to brave it out too much against that fear; also when on Stage first he pulled off his Hat, and bowed to the Spectators, and not Concerned, nor behaving himself so much like a Dying man as some would have done.” 

Color photograph of a broadside with black ink letters printed on paper discolored with age.
An Account of the Behaviors and Last Dying SPEECHES, 30 June 1704

At last we have our pirate talk! Whatever you may take that to mean, other than mere repentance, it was a warning to all pirates ‘Beware in New-England!’  

Enjoy a day of Speaking like a Pirate and keep our many pirate testimonies and writings in your thoughts! Search our online catalog, Abigail, for the subject heading ‘pirate’ and you too will find many items to research! 

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Count Rumford, Rumford Baking Powder, Rumford, NH, Rumford, RI, and the Rumford Professor at Harvard University, Part 2: He Loves Her, He Hates Her

by Heather Rockwood, Communications Manager

In Part 1: How did a middle-class Massachusetts boy become Count Rumford? I described how Count Rumford received his title and how he was connected to Rumford Baking Powder. Now, in Part 2, let’s look Count Rumford’s items in the MHS’s George E. Ellis Papers.

Color photograph of three and more sheets of paper all with black ink handwriting on it in various shades of white. The top two sheets of paper are the envelope towards the top and note paper at the bottom for a note. On the envelope is a red stamp depicting George Washington's profile with a black ink stamp "Concord June" over it. The bottom sheet is addressed "Dear Friend" and dated 21 June 1852.
Short note from Countess Sarah Rumford to James Fowle Baldwin, 21 June 1852

The Count Rumford papers in the George E. Ellis Papers consist mainly of correspondence between Count Rumford’s adult daughter, Sarah Thompson (Countess Rumford), and James Fowle Baldwin (1782–1862), a civil engineer and Harvard classmate of Count Rumford. According to the finding aid for the Baldwin Family Papers at the Winterthur Library, Baldwin named his last born son George Rumford. The Rumford-Baldwin letters are sweet and friendly and mostly copies of Sarah’s own letters that she kept. She addresses Baldwin as “Dear Friend” and asks after his wife and family, then asks for favors. Several letters inquire about a house he’s building, then later when it’s finished, her wish to visit and see the house. The letters show a sincere and lovely friendship between the writers.

The item I found most interesting, as I do love good historical gossip, was the handwritten account in a half-empty journal titled Sketches of the Late Count Rumford. Countess Sarah recounted a period of her father’s life and transcribed letters he had written her before his death in 1814. She extolls his virtues and mentions several times his mindfulness in having a daughter, but also describes his marriage to a French woman in 1804, which followed the death of his first wife, Sarah, in 1792. Starting in 1799, after leaving Bavaria, Rumford split his time between France and England, establishing the Royal Institution of Great Britain and continuing his scientific research. While in France, he met, courted, and later married Marie-Ann Lavoisier, the widow of the French chemist Antoine Lavoisier.

Two color photographs side by side. On the left is a closed journal with a red binding and purple and black dyed thick paper. On the right is lined journal paper with very neat cursive handwriting on it.
Sketches of the Late Count Rumford, by Countess Sarah Rumford, 1851

Rumford ‘s letters to his daughter Sarah, describe his new love interest in France, which Sarah includes in her Sketches:

“…a widow without children…about my own age—has a handsome fortune, at her own disposal, enjoys a most respectable reputation, keeps a good house, which is frequented by all the first Philosophers and men of eminence in science and literature of the age, or rather, of Paris. And what is more than all the rest is goodness itself.

The excerpted letters continue: “She is very clever… she has been very handsome in her day, even now at forty-six or forty-eight, not bad—of a middling size, but rather on en bon point than thin. She has a great deal of vivacity, and writes incomparably well.”

A color photograph of a lined journal page with very neat cursive handwriting on it. The quote above is towards the bottom of the page.
The Count’s opinion of Madame Lavoisier, as recounted by his daughter, Countess Sarah Rumford, in Sketches of the Late Count Rumford, 1851

Several of the loose letters father and daughter wrote to each other were in French, which I do not know, so I relied on Sarah’s translated English versions in the book.

Lavoisier loved entertaining, dining, and company above all other activities, and Rumford was the opposite. He took pleasure in research and science and had little taste for company and dining. He preferred plain food and did not relish the joys of French cuisine. The couple divorced after three years.

Rumford wrote to Sarah on 12 April 1807: “I have the misfortune to be married to one of the most imperious, tyrannical, unfeeling woman, that ever existed, and whose perseverance in pursuing an object is equil to her profound cunning and wickedness in framing it.” Sarah noted right after this, “What a contrast between former descriptions!” Further in the same letter, her father wrote, “Do you preserve my letters, you will perceive a very different account I give of this woman, for lady I cannot call her.”

Color photograph of a lined open journal with very neat cursive handwriting in black ink. The quote above is in the first paragraph.
On Rumford’s later opinion of his second wife, Madame Lavoisier, Sketches of the Late Count Rumford, by Countess Sarah Rumford, 1851

If you speak French, or just want a little more of this fun historical gossip, I recommend visiting the MHS to read these first and second-hand documents. Keep your eye out for Count Rumford, Rumford Baking Powder, Rumford, NH, Rumford, RI, and the Rumford Professor at Harvard University, Part 3: This Collection Keeps Drawing Me In

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“Every Patient Is Your Sister”: Lilian Freeman Clarke

by Susan Martin, Senior Processing Archivist

Today I’d like to continue my series on the Clarke family by telling you about Lilian Freeman Clarke (1842-1921), whose papers can be found here at the MHS in the Perry-Clarke collection and additions, as well as two smaller collections of correspondence and Sturgis-Hooper family papers. Lilian has made a few appearances at the Beehive, most recently in a funny post written by my colleague Hilde Perrin last December.

Lilian was the oldest daughter of Anna Huidekoper Clarke and Rev. James Freeman Clarke of Boston. She was a social reformer and translator. I’ll be focusing on the former in this post.

Two quick clarifications: First, you’ll find her name spelled “Lillian” in many secondary sources, but she and her family consistently used “Lilian,” so that’s what I’m going with. Second, she was actually christened Lilian Rebecca Clarke, but like her aunt Sarah, she adopted the middle name Freeman. This was undoubtedly a nod to her Freeman ancestors, probably especially her step-great-grandfather (great-step-grandfather?) James Freeman, the first ordained Unitarian minister in the United States and an important influence on her father James.

The Perry-Clarke additions, the collection I recently processed, contains family correspondence, personal correspondence, and other personal papers of Lilian F. Clarke. Included is a ledger containing detailed accounts of some of her charitable work between 1895 and 1900.

Color photograph of two pages of an open volume with the heading “May 1896” showing accounts written on both pages.
Lilian Freeman Clarke account ledger, 1895–1900

In 1873, Lilian was concerned about the lack of resources available to new mothers living in poverty. Noticing that “there was in Boston no charity intended to care for infants which did not involve the separation of the mother and child” (from a 1913 report), she and two other women decided to provide direct assistance to these mothers that would allow them to retain custody of their children.

The group was variously known as the Charity (or Society) for Aiding (or Helping) Destitute Mothers and Infants. The two other founders were Dr. Susan Dimock, resident physician at the New England Hospital for Women and Children, and Elizabeth “Bessie” Willard Greene. Tragically, in May 1875, both Dimock and Greene were killed in the wreck of the S.S. Schiller off the coast of England. Lilian was left to shoulder the bulk of the work, though she found a willing and able partner in Mary R. Parkman.

This volume lists expenses for room and board, medicine, milk and food, travel fares, etc. Included are the names of women receiving assistance, as well as Lilian’s charitable partners. For example, Johanna (Pelger) Denecke appears frequently; she was a German immigrant and a widow who apparently boarded many of the mothers and children at her home.

I was impressed by the group’s ability to zero in on a gap in traditional social services, not to mention the individual attention paid to each recipient. Two things were especially important to Lilian: that they worked without institutional bureaucracy, and that they made no distinction between married and unmarried mothers.

Lilian supported various causes during her lifetime. Her obituary in the Boston Globe described her as “a member of almost every organization for the protection of children, and enthusiastic in every movement for the humane treatment of animals.” She also worked with the U.S. Sanitary Commission during the Civil War. She was a suffragist and an anti-vivisectionist. And she donated to victims of the Armenian massacres in the 1890s and the Armenian genocide.

But based on her papers, she devoted the majority of her time and energy to her work with mothers and children in Boston. She was the primary driving force behind the Society for Helping Destitute Mothers and Infants from its founding in 1873 to 1918, when she had to resign because of physical disabilities. The organization disbanded a year later due to lack of funds.

The MHS holds several of the charity’s reports printed between 1875 and 1919. And Lilian herself described its work, particularly the role of Susan Dimock, in “The Story of an Invisible Institution,” published in 1906 in The Outlook magazine. In that article, she emphasized Dr. Dimock’s philosophy: “Think that every patient is your sister. Imagine that you see your own sister in that bed before you.”

On September 25, 2024, join us for a virtual program, Women & Children First: The Trailblazing Life of Susan Dimock, M.D., with author Susan Wilson, and former president of the Dimock Community Health Center Jackie Jenkins-Scott. Register to attend online.

Posted in From Our Collections

If You Give a Librarian a Cookie… (You’ll Get a Blog Post)

by Lauren Gray, Reference Librarian

From your grandmother’s kitchen to a well-stocked Girl Scout table, there’s something about cookies. Cookies make your taste buds dance and your fingers reach out to steal just one more from the jar. They are the quintessential American treat, encapsulating all that is quick and convenient: they mix easily, they bake quickly, they don’t require wrappers or refrigeration, and they taste wonderful. But cookies tell us more about ourselves than what we read on the label: they are a glimpse into family rituals and cultural traditions, sometimes passed down over generations. Every beloved cookie has a story.

Americans are a nation of prodigious cookie eaters (we eat on average about 200 cookies a year)[1]. The most famous American cookie of all? The chocolate-chip cookie, of course. It is arguably the best and certainly the most popular. We like chocolate chippers so much we’ve even made a cereal out of them. Surprisingly, however, they are a relatively new invention. First mixed, scooped, and baked by Ruth Wakefield at her Toll House restaurant in Whitman, Massachusetts, the recipe was originally published in 1938 as the “Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookie.”[2] Nestlé soon swooped in for the rights to the cookie, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Chocolate-chip cookies soon became America’s darling, a sweet bite amidst the Great Depression. Just a few years later, they appeared in care packages to New England troops sent abroad during the Second World War. By the 1950s, copycat chocolate-chip cookies popped up in supermarkets across the U.S., produced by companies like Pillsbury and Nabisco. Variations appeared, some with margarine, others with macadamia nuts; a few with white chocolate, others with M&Ms. Ben and Jerry’s put cookie dough in ice cream in 1984, and their Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream remains one of their most popular flavors.[2] As Jon Michaud posited in his New Yorker article on the history of the cookie, “In its ability to absorb such a heterogeneous list of ingredients and still retain its identity and appeal, the chocolate chip cookie is representative of the aspirations of the country for which it has become the preferred treat.”[2] The chocolate-chip cookie quickly became as American as apple pie.

Graphic image of black text on a white background titled "Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookies" with a recipe underneath and to the right.
Original Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookie recipe from Ruth Wakefield’s Tried & True Recipes, image from HathiTrust

Chocolate “chippers” (our family’s probably unoriginal nickname for them) were a steady favorite in our house during the 1980s and ‘90s. My mom baked them so often that my aunt bought her a special cookie-making bowl made of heavy beige ceramic and decorated with thick blue stripes. My aunt was clearly on to something, because I’m pretty sure I’ve seen versions of that bowl in antique stores across the country.

Probably like many Americans, we followed the recipe on the back of the Nestlé Toll House 12oz bag of semi-sweet morsels, which was adapted from Mrs. Wakefield’s original recipe. The ingredients and measurements are the same as the original, with a couple notable exceptions. For example, Nestlé no longer sells semi-sweet chocolate by the bar for you to chop into “pea-size pieces” (which Mrs. Wakefield swore by). She also instructed you to dissolve the baking soda in hot water before mixing it intermittently with the flour.

In my family, we used butter, but the omnipresent ‘80s Crisco occasionally made an appearance. I remember waiting ages for the butter to soften, impatiently pressing the back of my fork into the hard stick, its pliable metal tongs yielding against my thumb (I ruined more forks that way). Creaming the butter and sugar was the hardest part – even when I had begged to be allowed to make the cookies, my mom always ended up creaming the butter, bowl squeezed under one arm, her right hand steadily working the butter into the sugar. As an adult, I’m lazy and use a hand mixer, but my mom was a fork-purist. I wonder if that’s how she achieved the perfect texture and spread every time, not too greasy, not too cakey.

We used a mix of white sugar and light brown sugar in equal parts (the dark brown sugar was too reminiscent of molasses, though Mrs. Wakefield didn’t specify which type in the original recipe), and we always added the eggs together instead of beating them in one at a time (or beaten together prior to going in, as in the original). Then came the vanilla. My mom was heavy-handed with the McCormick – she tipped the bottle over the teaspoon and let it run over the edge for a solid 1-1000. She never seemed to worry about an imbalanced liquid to dry ingredient ratio.

If memory serves, mom would switch out the fork halfway through mixing in the flour. She had a designated oversized and sturdy ‘cookie spoon’ that we only used for baking, and it was always on hand to do the final mix of dough and chocolate chips. The recipe calls for a ludicrous amount of chips, and this is where we deviated from the measurements. We are parsimonious chip people, even today – the elegant simplicity of the chocolate chip cookie is in its rich vanilla dough to chip balance. Too much dough and it gets monotonous; too many chips and it may as well be dough-flavored fudge. We poured the chips by sight, occasionally just a small squeeze of the bag. We gently folded them in, careful not to overmix the flour. In the original recipe, Mrs. Wakefield also called for nuts, and the Nestlé bag lists them as “optional.” In our house, they were “optionally” excluded. Once mixed, we would take a small spoon from the drawer and measure out equal-ish balls of dough, putting them on the gray metal baking sheet, three to a row at alternating angles. (Mrs. Wakefield’s recipe called for ½ teaspoon balls, gently formed by moist fingers, which look ludicrously small to modern eyes.)

Baking time was our only real disagreement. My mom loved the soft middles and squishy centers, when cookies came out just shy of underbaked. And I appreciated that – at first. Then my dad’s genes kicked in. I quickly developed an appreciation for crunchy brown edges and stiff, unyielding crusts. The over-caramelization of sweet dough melted on my tongue. So, we compromised. One sheet went in for 9-10 minutes, the next sheet for 12-13. There’s no crying over cookies. (The original recipe called for the ½ tsp. size balls to be baked at 375 degrees for 10-12 minutes. Modern ovens must run hotter, because the only thing you get at the end of that are burned little hockey pucks. I suggest checking them at six minutes.)

Mrs. Wakefield baked her cookies to accompany ice cream, which perhaps accounts for the small size. We baked ours to eat, hot and crumbly from the oven, snatching them off the rack before they had time to set. It was in the kitchen that I learned the best lessons from my mom, which she in turn had learned from her mom. Baking cookies connected me with the grandmother I never knew. When Mrs. Wakefield dedicated her first cookbook to her own mother, “whose encouragement and confidence have meant more than mere words can express,” I think she was hoping that her recipes would bring families together.

Growing up, neither my mom nor I knew that the original chocolate chip cookie originated in Massachusetts. When doing research for this blog post, I was sad to learn that the original Toll House restaurant, which the Wakefields ran from 1930 to 1967, was lost to a fire in 1984. I was equally sad to find that the MHS doesn’t hold her original recipe book, published in 1931, or any of the revised editions published thereafter, which include the famous cookie. If anyone has a copy, let us know, we’d be glad to take it off your hands.[3] We’ll bake you a batch of cookies for it. Having tested a batch of her original Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookie, I can confirm, they are pretty darn tasty. I even liked the nuts.

Two modern color photographs side by side. On the right is a close up of a chocolate chip cookie resting on a pile of more cookies behind and underneath it. Behind the pile is a glass of milk. On the right are chocolate chip cookies in a single layer cooling on a wooden cutting board. The closest cookie to the viewer has a bite taken out of it.
From the Test Kitchen: Mrs. Wakefield’s Original Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookie

P.S.

If you want to try your hand at a batch of the original “Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookie,” you can find the recipe in several places. The 1940 version of Ruth Wakefield’s Toll House Tried and True cookbook is available online for free through HathiTrust. In 2018, the New York Times published a short obituary on Mrs. Wakefield, including the original recipe, in their “Overlooked No More” column, which documents the stories of remarkable but historically overlooked people.[4]

[1] https://wror.com/2023/08/07/how-many-cookies-does-the-average-american-eat-each-year/

[2] “Sweet Morsels, A History of the Chocolate-Chip Cookie” by Jon Michaud, The New Yorker

[3] The MHS has plenty of other cookbooks, both published and unpublished. Visit our catalog, ABIGAIL, to learn more.

[4] “Overlooked No More: Ruth Wakefield, Who Invented the Chocolate Chip Cookie,” by Sam Roberts, New York Times, originally published March 21st, 2018.

Posted in From Our Collections Tagged

Count Rumford, Rumford Baking Powder, Rumford, NH, Rumford, RI, and the Rumford Professor at Harvard University, Part 1: How Did a Middle-Class Massachusetts Boy Become Count Rumford?

by Heather Rockwood, Communications Manager

Growing up close to the Rhode Island border in Massachusetts, I was familiar with Rumford Baking Powder, created by Eben Horsford (1818–1893), Rumford Professor at Harvard University, and how it was the most popular product manufactured in Rumford, RI. So, when I came across “Count Rumford” in the MHS archives under the George E. Ellis Papers, I connected the two and thought they were related. I was wrong, but also right.  

Count Rumford, or Benjamin Thompson Jr., was born in Woburn, Massachusetts, on 26 March 1753. He went to school in Woburn and Byfield and attended Harvard classes, apprenticed to a doctor for a short time and to a merchant. During his apprenticeships he gained refinement and an interest in science. In 1772, he married Sarah Rolfe, a rich and well-connected widow. Her late husband left her property in Rumford, New Hampshire (now Concord), but after marrying, the couple moved to Portsmouth and had a daughter two years later, whom they named Sarah.

Color photograph of a painting of an older white man in military court clothes from the 18th century. He wears a gray wig and is looking to the viewers left.
Moritz Kellerhoven (1758–1830), Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count von Rumford, National Portrait Gallery, London, UK

When the American Revolution started, Thompson was a loyalist, and although his wife’s connections got him an appointment as a major in the New Hampshire militia, he acted as a British intelligence agent and recruiter for the British army. His activities became known, and a mob attacked his house. He escaped, abandoning his wife and child. For the rest of the war, he led the king’s American Dragoon’s on Long Island and conducted scientific experiments on gunpowder. The results of his work were published in 1781, in Philosophical Transactions, solidifying his early scientific acclaim. When the war ended in 1783, he left the United States, never to return. In England, King George III knighted him, and in 1785 he moved to Bavaria where he undertook projects for Prince-elector Charles Theodore, including cultivating the potato and creating the Englischer Garten park that still exists today. He also continued his scientific research, for which he was made an Imperial Count, Reichsgraf von Rumford, named for the New Hampshire town of his marriage.

Count Rumford spent eleven years in Bavaria conducting scientific research, the most important of which was a contentious theory that heat was not caloric but caused by motion. His research on this topic helped to later create the law of the conservation of energy in the 19th century.

So, how was Count Rumford connected to Rumford Baking Powder? He endowed the Rumford Chair and Lectureship on the Application of Science to the Useful Arts at Harvard, under which Eben Horsford was employed. Eben Horsford also built statues to Leif Erikson, but that’s a different blog.

What happened to Count Rumford’s wife and daughter? And where did he go after those eleven years in Bavaria? Stay tuned for part 2, where we connect this story to the MHS’s archival documents.

Count Rumford, Rumford Baking Powder, Rumford, NH, Rumford, RI, and the Rumford Professor at Harvard University, Part 2: He Loves Her, He Hates Her

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A Battery of Historic Knowledge | Architecture at the MHS (Part 3)

by Brandon McGrath-Neely, Library Assistant

This is Part Three of a three-part series on architecture at the MHS. You can find Part One here and Part Two here.

As you approach 1154 Boylston Street today, you’ll find the Massachusetts Historical Society tucked nicely between similarly sized buildings on both sides. Its strong, stone appearance blends into the Berklee College of Music buildings throughout the surrounding streets. But if you had arrived just after the building’s completion in 1899, you would see the MHS standing out from the fewer, smaller buildings around it.

A black and white photo of the large, sturdy Massachusetts Historical Society building. A few small buildings are visible in the background.
The MHS at 1154 Boylston Street, August 1899.

Designed by Edmund March Wheelwright, the physical structure emphasizes strength and scale with beautiful exemplars of the Georgian Revival movement. A quick tour of the exterior of the MHS highlights these architectural elements, which can be found on buildings throughout Boston and the United States.

The building is visually divided into three sections: the ground floor, the upper floors, and the roof. The ground floor is distinguished by the large, stone construction of its façade. This form of masonry, common in Georgian and Georgian Revival structures, is known as ashlar, meaning large, precisely cut stone blocks. Ashlar masonry emphasizes strength and simplicity in its appearance and recalls the monumental stone temples of classic civilizations.

The upper floors adopt more modern stylings, a transition from classic to contemporary (at the time) common in Georgian Revival buildings. The stone ashlar masonry transitions to brick masonry, and the height of the building is accentuated with white fluted pilasters (which we learned about in Part Two of this series). Above the windows, flat arches provide structural support, but some of the arch components—known as voussoirs—alternate in size, drawing attention to the windows by breaking the repetitive, consistent placement of the bricks beside and below. The flat arch, white in color, also provides visual contrast from the red bricks surrounding it. The use of bricks and flat arches recalls the Federal Style, an American architectural movement from the early Republic and famously utilized on the Massachusetts State House.

The Georgian period pulled not only from Classic structures (in its use of ashlar) and Federal structures (in its use of symmetrical brick façades) but also heavily pulled from Renaissance architecture, as seen in the balconettes, sometimes called Juliet balconies. These features are too small to actually serve as balconies but help make the exterior seem more refined. Balconettes have existed since the earliest architectural movements, but it was the Italian Renaissance which truly utilized the balconettes as varied, decorative flourishes. Though earlier periods used stone or wood balconettes, the Georgian Revival was unique in its introduction of wrought iron or metal balconettes, like those seen on the MHS.

A modern photo of the western side of the Massachusetts Historical Building, with a stone exterior on the ground floor and brick exterior for upper floors. It is decorated with pilasters, windows, and balconettes.
The western façade of the MHS. Note the ashlar and brick masonry, pilasters, balconettes, semi-Palladian windows, and fanlights.

The third-story windows on the western façade of the building likewise pull from the Italian Renaissance. The Italian architect Andrea Palladio, one of the most influential Renaissance architects, popularized a style of visual organization in which one large element (in his case, an arched opening) is flanked by two thin elements on either side (in his case, two columns). This “Palladian style” was quickly adopted throughout Europe and later, the Americas. Now that you know about Palladian style features, you’ll begin to see them everywhere. The ground floor windows at the MHS are somewhat Palladian (one large central window flanked by two narrower windows), but the third-story windows on the western façade are even more Palladian, with a fanlight  (or half-circle window, also known as a lunette) spanning over all three sections and recalling Palladio’s arches.[1] These windows exemplify a design philosophy on display throughout the building’s exterior: clean and simple symmetry.

The final portion of the building is also inspired by Palladio: The MHS boasts a flat roof, bordered by a balustrade—a broad, low railing made of molded and flat features. [2] The balustrade was popularized as a decorative feature during the Renaissance and became an important feature in both Federal and Georgian styles. Flat roofs were used by American founders and recalled the palaces of Renaissance Italy. (See how it contrasts with the sloped roof of the Boston Conservatory next door!) Once again Wheelwright used architecture to connect with idealized pasts and a simple but strong visual identity.

As with Ellis Hall, there is far more one could consider in regards the architectural choices present throughout the Massachusetts Historical Society’s exterior: the pedimented entryway could be the subject of a blog post all its own. Now that you’ve read the article, stop and take an extended look at our building the next time you’re doing research. If you’re not in the area, take a trip on Google Maps! Consider how Wheelwright emphasizes strength and precision in his design, and how those choices create an atmosphere of historical permanence and accuracy.

A black and white photo of the Massachusetts Historical Society building in 1932. Pedestrians and old cars pass by in the foreground.
The MHS at 1154 Boylston Street, 1932.

When the building opened in 1899, the Boston Herald remarked, “The place will be known as one of the surest storage batteries of historic knowledge in the city.” [3] Three years later, Charles F. Adams, president of the MHS, remarked that the beauty of the building lay in its “severe simplicity.” [4] Today, it is neighbored by other gorgeous buildings with styles and design choices all their own. 1154 Boylston Street simultaneously represents a number of Georgian Revival buildings in and around Boston yet stands out from other styles in a city overflowing with architectural movements and periods. Despite all that has changed on Boylston Street, in Fenway, and in Boston, I think the MHS building still stands out as an expertly designed symbol of how the past influences the present, and how the present is always reinterpreting the past.

[1] The third-floor window on the northern façade of the building, visible in the first image, is even more Palladian! Quintessential Palladian windows, such as the one installed by George Washington at Mt. Vernon, feature two narrow windows on each side of one large, arched window. Palladian windows are sometimes called Venetian windows.

[2] Below the balustrade, the cornice of the building includes a distinctive feature described in Part Two. Can you find it?

[3] Boston Herald, March 9, 1899. As cited in Tucker, Louis Leonard. 1995. The Massachusetts Historical Society: A Bicentennial History, 1791-1991. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 226.

[4] Charles F. Adams to Edmund M. Wheelwright, June 6, 1902. As cited in Tucker, 224.

Posted in From Our Collections Tagged