No Such Thing as a Bad Question

By Rakashi Chand, Reading Room Supervisor

As the leaves begin to turn and the air grows crisp, it can only mean one thing: American Archives Month is here! Although #AskAnArchivist Day officially falls on October 16th, we asked our own staff what questions they are asked most often to help demystify and amplify archives and archival work. Read on as we celebrate American Archives Month and get answers to frequently asked questions! 

Objects on a table including a manuscript box, book cradle, cloth gloves, latex gloves, and a magnifying glass.

Brandon McGrath-Neely, Library Assistant II:

The question I get the most, other than white gloves, is: So who actually uses an archive? It’s exciting to be able to answer: ANYONE! Many people don’t know that the archives are free and open to the public – you don’t have to be a professor or author!

Stephanie Call, Curator of Manuscripts:

I often get asked by potential donors “why do you want this stuff? My family wasn’t (wealthy, important, famous, etc.)” And that’s the point—how else would historians and students of history know how the average person or family lived in specific time periods or during historical events? That’s how we relate to history—not through the extraordinary, but through the ordinary, everyday experiences of people who were just living their lives.  So, people shouldn’t be afraid to contact an archive about their family papers! They could be more interesting and historically relevant than they think.

Hannah Elder, Assistant Reference Librarian of Rights and Reproductions:

Q: What are personal and family papers? 

A: According to SAA, personal and family papers are records created by an individual or group of individuals closely related, relating to their personal and private lives. Some examples common at the MHS are letters, journals and diaries, recipe books, account books, and scrapbooks. 

Samantha Couture, Nora Saltonstall Conservator and Preservation Librarian:

“What is the letter you are working on about?”

Answer: I only know what’s in the catalog record- I don’t get to read the documents, but I need to make sure they are able to be handled safely by researchers who will read every word!

Nancy Heywood, Lead Archivist for Digital & Web Initiatives:

How do you decide what to digitize?

The MHS needs to consider the condition of the collection, the size of the collection, and the capacity and schedule of the digital production team as we determine which items get into the digitization queue. The  MHS usually requires some funding (either from grants, or projects) to take on larger projects (either full collections, or selected series, for example, a set of diaries or volumes).  The  MHS does have some capacity to work on digitization projects in support of events, or anniversaries, or themes that would benefit from additional digitized content on our website.  Digitization includes lots of detailed workflow steps relating to preparing the original materials, reviewing existing metadata and descriptions, creating master and derivative images, creating metadata for the delivery system, and loading and testing the digitized content on our webserver.

Rakashi Chand, Reading Room Supervisor:

Questions that I am asked often include

Why don’t I need to wear gloves to handle this letter?

Answer: We have found that the loss of dexterity can lead to a tear on a delicate page, so the best way to handle manuscripts is with clean hands and care.

Why can’t I use flash to take a picture of this letter?

Answer: Flash and direct sunlight can damage manuscripts, art and artifacts.

Where do you keep all of these documents?

Answer: We store all our material in temperature and humidity-controlled stacks. 

Are there any risks involved in being an archivist?

Paper cuts, sharp Hollinger box corners, poisonous 19th century book pigment, lifting heavy boxes on a daily basis, red rot on our clothes, and ladders… lots of ladders. 

Susan Martin, Senior Processing Archivist:

Probably the question I get the most (aside from the one about gloves) is: 

Can just anybody come in to do research there? Do you need to pay or be a member?

I tell them no, it’s free—all you need to do is register and provide a photo id.

Another one I’ve gotten is: Do we just collect the records of famous people?

I explain how historians are interested in the lived experiences of people from all walks of life. People are also surprised we collect up to the present day.

Sometimes I get asked what’s the weirdest thing I’ve found while processing.

Hands down, it was a piece of wedding cake from 1919. It was wrapped up and hard as a rock.

Grace Doeden, Library Assistant II:

Q: Are the stacks haunted?

A: I can neither confirm nor deny…But I often catch an ominous feeling on the 5th floor. Wait, is that Jeremy [Belknap]’s spirit in the cage? Oh, no, it’s just Peter [Drummey, MHS Chief Historian].

Posted in Uncategorized Tagged ,

Neighbors in the Northeast

by Elizabeth Hines, 2024-5 NERFC Fellow

When is it the right time to make war on one’s neighbor? The colonies in New England and New Netherland debated this question in the early days of European expansion, just as countries do today. The Massachusetts Historical Society’s collection contains material that sheds light on a little-known almost-war between neighbors on North America’s shores: the time New England’s planned attack on New Netherland was cancelled by news of a peace treaty. The MHS is one of the most important archives historians can use to trace this dramatic story.

The Dutch colony of New Netherland was located to the east and south of the New England colonies, in what is now New York.

illustrated map depicting Manhattan
Vingboons map of Manhattan, 1639: a facsimile from the Library of Congress
From the New York Public Library

In Europe, England and the Netherlands declared war against each other in 1652, in what would later become known as the First Anglo-Dutch War. In North America, the copy of John Hull’s diary held by the Massachusetts Historical Society provides wonderful commentary on the growing tensions between New England and New Netherland at this time. The English colonists accused the Dutch of plotting against them with Indigenous groups. Hull, the Massachusetts Bay Colony mintmaster, described the visit of two commissioners from New England to New Netherland to discuss these accusations as “something that might further clear the righteousness of the war, or prevent it.” He was clear about the motivation of the visit, as many English colonists were clamoring for war with New Netherland.

The Endicott Papers contain a letter of instruction to those commissioners that reflects previous frustrations. The letter insists that that “delays, slow and unsatisfying treaties… may not be admitted” from the Dutch. One of the signatories of the letter was John Endecott, the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony:

Portrait showing man in black cap with white beard against a black background
Portrait of John Endecott
Massachusetts Historical Society

Endecott also wrote to John Winthrop, Jr., one of the magistrates of the Connecticut Colony, about New Netherland. Other letters to Winthrop are transcribed in the Winthrop Family Transcripts. John Haynes, the Governor of the Connecticut Colony, wrote to Winthrop with news of English naval victories over the Dutch forces in Europe. The painting below shows one of the major naval battles of the war:

Painting depicting many sailing ships in a battle at sea with a stormy sky behind them
“The Battle of Terheide, 10 August 1653,” Jan Abrahamsz. Beerstraten
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

By 1654, the government in England responded to the desires of some colonies and decided to extend the war to North America. They sent ships of officers and soldiers to New England to plan an attack on New Netherland. Hull recorded in his diary that they were there “to root out the Dutch if they would not submit to the power and government of England.” The officers aimed to recruit 500 colonists to join their forces. However, in the middle of their planning and recruiting, a ship arrived with news from Europe: England and the Netherlands had signed a peace treaty, and the First Anglo-Dutch War was over. The attack on New Netherland was cancelled, and the English and Dutch colonies would remain neighbors for another decade.

Since the English colonists would take over New Netherland in 1664, why does their aborted attack in 1654 matter? It was a first step toward the eventual absorption of New Netherland into English North America. It provides an early example of colonial outposts becoming part of strategy in European wars. And the discussions among the colonists and the administrators in England about territory and sovereignty would contribute to their developing conceptions of empire. The Massachusetts Historical Society’s collection helps us to understand this story better and to see how it expands our view of early imperial history.

Posted in From Our Collections, Research fellow

From Medicine to Mysticism: The Life and Times of Dr. Gertrude Van Pelt

by Susan Martin, Senior Processing Archivist

I was recently encoding the guide to the William Minot III papers, a collection processed back in 2007 by another MHS archivist, when a unfamiliar name caught my eye: Dr. Gertrude Van Pelt. A female physician in the late 19th century understandably piqued my curiosity. Little did I expect what I would find.

Gertrude Wyckoff Van Pelt (1856-1947), originally from New Jersey, was a physician with degrees from Holyoke College, Cornell University, and the Women’s Medical College of Philadelphia. She interned at Boston’s Women’s Hospital and studied medicine in Paris and Vienna. Her papers form part of this particular collection because her sister married William Minot III, a Boston lawyer.

But today I’d like to tell you about Van Pelt’s decades-long work in the Theosophical movement.

Theosophy, founded by Helena Blavatsky in 1875, is defined at the website of the Theosophical Society in America as “a body of knowledge that tells us about our place in the universe and why the world is the way it is.” Blavatsky called it “the ancient Wisdom-Religion,” a search for eternal truths and universal brotherhood.

Van Pelt joined the Theosophical Society in Boston in 1893 and soon became a prominent figure in the movement. She published articles, delivered speeches, and, in 1900, was recruited by Theosophist leader Katherine Tingley to relocate to Lomaland, a Theosophical enclave on the Point Loma peninsula of San Diego. There Van Pelt served in Tingley’s cabinet and as superintendent of the Raja Yoga School and Lotus Home. She remained a Theosophist until her death in 1947 at the age of 91.

Black and white screenshot of a print advertisement. The top half is a photograph depicting several buildings of various sizes on a hill in the background, some with domed roofs, and a road in the foreground leading to the buildings through a gate. The bottom half reads: “Raja Yoga Academy (Unsectarian) for Boys & Girls. Address Gertrude Van Pelt, M.D., Directress, Point Loma Homestead, Point Loma, California.”
Advertisement for the Raja Yoga Academy in New Century Path, a Theosophical magazine published at Point Loma, 1905

I found literally hundreds of references to Van Pelt in old newspapers, but most of them center around one incident. In November 1902, Van Pelt brought eleven Cuban children into the country via New York to study at the Raja Yoga School. It was not her first trip for this purpose, but this time the group was stopped, interrogated, and detained at Ellis Island for over a month. American officials weren’t concerned about potential trafficking or the implications of imperialism and racial paternalism. No, they feared these “possible objectionable aliens” might become public charges.

The incident became a media firestorm, as historian Jacqueline D. Antonovich explains in her excellent Ph.D. dissertation. The takes came fast and furious; most newspaper articles cast doubt on the motives and teachings of the Theosophists. Meanwhile, Albert G. Spalding—a former professional baseball player, founder of the Spalding sporting goods company, and fellow member of the Theosophical Society—visited Van Pelt at Ellis Island and wrote his version of what happened.

In the end, the children were cleared to stay in the country and taken on to Lomaland. I love this picture of Van Pelt and the children.

Black and white photograph of a white woman with dark hair and eleven Cuban children of various ages in various positions on the front steps of a large building. Four of the children are seated at the front, and the rest are standing. All of them wear dark clothing. At the right of the image is a large white pillar, and at the back is the door into the building. The caption at the bottom begins with the heading: “Safe in California.”
Photograph of Dr. Gertrude Van Pelt and eleven Cuban children after their detention at Ellis Island, taken at Point Loma, California, published in Out West magazine in January 1903

Unfortunately, Van Pelt’s letters in the William Minot III papers predate her move to Point Loma in 1900 and don’t really discuss her Theosophical work. The Garrison family papers contain the only first-hand account of Lomaland that I could find in the MHS collections. Anna Percy lived there at the same time as Van Pelt and described it in great detail in correspondence to her family; one letter is 20 pages long.

Van Pelt’s correspondence does, however, include interesting remarks on her medical studies in Europe and on the artwork of her companion Susan Mary Norton (1855-1922). And the letters she wrote to her 15-year-old niece Katharine (later the wife Henry Morse Channing) are very endearing.

To investigate MHS holdings related to any of these individuals and/or subjects, search our online catalog ABIGAIL or the MHS website.

Posted in From Our Collections