by Anastacia Markoe, Library Assistant

The life experiences of Hilda Chase Foster (1891-1974) ran the gamut—from the social minefield that was Boston high society to service as a Red Cross Nurse in the European theater during both World Wars. The Hilda Chase Foster Papers, held as a collection by the Massachusetts Historical Society, are comprised primarily of Hilda’s extensive correspondence with various family members. They are supplemented by photographs and film records of her family’s homes and her own global travel during the 1920s–1950s and ephemera related to her personal experience of the defining geopolitical events of the first half of the twentieth century.

It is a remarkable collection, both in terms of its content and, in a more metatextual sense, its insight into the role of the MHS as a repository of historical records.

The wealth of the collection’s contents is relatively self-evident. The photographs and ephemera range from Hilda Chase Foster’s formal portrait in Court Dress (worn for her presentation to George V and Queen Mary at Buckingham Palace) to her Massachusetts-issued ration card from World War II. The breadth of the material, chronologically and geographically, creates an extraordinarily comprehensive portrait of the privileged lifestyle enjoyed by a particular portion of Boston society.

What excited my particular interest, though, is this collection’s demonstration of the intersection between that very rarified societal existence and the great socio-political upheavals of the era. In an account of her experiences in “the Great War,” Hilda writes:

“So many girls were going overseas and were not sticking to their jobs or were hunting up their husbands that the Red Cross wanted me to go before a Notary Public to promise three things: that I was not married (I couldn’t go if I was married); that if I married over there I would come straight home; that if I had a brother over there in the service I would not hunt him up. (At first no girls could go over that had brothers in Europe, but they had to rescind that because practically everybody had a brother in the service.)”

Foster’s description of evolving bureaucratic regulations might have been written by any of the thousands of young women who served as Red Cross nurses during the War. Less universal, perhaps, is her recollection of how she and her family navigated them:

“Father always made a fuss. . . .Finally Father said, ‘You’ve got to go see Dr. Edsell. I don’t think you’re strong enough. You’re too thin!’ Dr. Edsel was the top man at Massachusetts General, and Father was a trustee.”

Hilda’s tone is casual and familiar, but to pass off her writings as insignificant would be a disservice to the material.  In just a few sentences of personal reminiscence, Hilda provides us with information that may be conceived of as equally fascinating to those with an interest in social, medical, or military history, to say nothing of chroniclers of local Bostonian institutional history. This collection serves as a reminder that insightful sources are to be found in what may usually be relegated to the margins of the historical record, and that to adhere too firmly to a rigid division between historical subfields is to miss out on a wealth of material.

Acknowledgements:

The materials that comprise the Hilda Chase Foster Papers were given to the Massachusetts Historical Society by Anne Farlow Morris (grandniece of Hilda Chase Foster) in 2001, with an addition given in 2014. Anne Farlow Morris compiled the materials during her research in the late 1970s for a book entitled The Memoirs of Hilda Chase Foster. The memoir was privately printed by the MHS in 1982, and a copy is held in the MHS print collection.