By Anna J. Cook, Reader Services

Last week, New Yorker essayist Michelle Dean published a piece on the diaries of mystical nature writer Opal Whiteley, “Opal Whiteley’s Riddles.” Originally appearing in the Atlantic Monthly beginning in March of 1920, Opal’s diaries were both popular and controversial as a piece of literature. Whiteley presented the diaries as a product of her childhood spent in the Oregon wilderness;  skeptics were dubious that a six-year-old child could have developed such an distinctive voice and wide-ranging, fantastical vision.

Though Whiteley was born and raised in Oregon, the story of her diary has deep Boston roots in the patronage of Atlantic Monthly editor Ellery Sedgwick, a wealthy and influential Boston Brahmin, who supported Whiteley during a laborious editing process (the diary had survived only in fragments). Because of the disputed nature of Whiteley’s work, Sedgwick gathered extensive materials related to her life and writing which eventually became part of the Ellery Sedgwick Papers here at the Massachusetts Historical Society.  In addition to the Opal Whiteley materials in the Ellery Sedgwick papers, the Massachusetts Historical Society also holds a copy of the original 1920 edition of The Story of Opal: The Journal of an Understanding Heart (which can also be read full-text online at the Internet Archive) and a poster advertising one of Opal’s nature lectures, given in 1917.

Before traveling to Boston in search of a publisher, Whiteley – as the self-described “Sunshine Fairy” – put herself through the University of Oregon by giving public lectures on the natural world. It was these lectures – developed into a book she titled The Fairyland Around Us – which Whiteley initially approached Sedgwick about publishing in September of 1919, at the encouragement of Henry Chapman from The Youth’s Companion, a popular American children’s magazine. While Sedgwick declined Fairyland, in the course of their conversation he discovered Whiteley had kept a diary during her childhood and expressed interest in seeing this original source material.

Note: Those interested in consulting Ellery Sedgwick’s research material on Opal Whiteley should consult the finding guide and contact the library in advance of their visit, as the collection is in offsite storage.

By Peter K. Steinberg, Collection Services

Part of the Harbottle Dorr, Jr. Annotated Newspaper project has been to transcribe and encode for presentation and searching at our website his interesting and detailed indexes. In the process, we took special notice of those subject headings that were quirky, weird, and–to our “modern” sensibilities–humorous.

There are four volumes, as you now know. (If you do not, read more about Dorr’s newpaper collection here.) At the time of this post, three of these indexes have been completely transcribed and encoded for display on our website, and we are working feverishly on the fourth — the last and longest volume. This is the first of two posts on Dorr’s idiosyncratic index terms in volumes one and two; a second post later this year will feature some entries from the third and fourth volumes.

In the Index examples below, we have kept true to Dorr’s spellings and abbreviations, which, because he worked on the indexes while running his shop, can include “misspelt” words.  The general structure of the index is similar to that found in a book: index term(s) followed by a page number.

Volume 1
Eater a remarkable one yt had 3 Stomachs 21
Frost bitten person’s Receipe for 10
Hutchinson Govr. censured by the House, as having a Lust of Ambition and Power 581
Irish Blunders of two that fought a Dad 13
Lunatic’s sensible reply 13
North Carolina Men kill Beaver & make uneasiness 49
Printers on their bad Spelling 32
Prediction of Good News 279
Toms desire 174
Vampres (Vampyres) Account of 49
Vampres (Vampyres) Essay against 55

Volume 2
Address of the Lords To the young Ladies of Boston, desiring them to beware of bad Company. 386
Addresses, absurdity of them in general. 455
Anarchy better than Tyranny. 222. 759. 771.
Bleeding at the Nose a Remarkable Cure for it. 641
Dogs, Mad. 729. 778.
Mulberry Trees the methods of Cultivating them. &c. 194. 457. 580.
Pimps and Cooks appointed to Places in America 21.
Suns, or fixed Stars, their appearance continually encreasing, proves that there are millions of habitable Words 679. 702. 705
Toads, a Cure for Cancers. 211.

Some of these terms, no doubt, have relevance today. Some terms–if applied today in a news story–might even tender a person instant, though ultimately ephemeral, Twitter or YouTube fame.

In early 2013, MHS will present page images of all the annotated newspapers assembled by Harbottle Dorr and the index pages he created.  The images of the actual index pages that we will present in early 2013 should be clear enough to read as Dorr’s handwriting is generally neat. However, the MHS will provide a transcription of Dorr’s index pages, and in the transcription each of the page numbers will be hyperlinked, taking you directly to the page referenced.

By Susan Martin, Collection Services

One of the things that makes working with original manuscripts so interesting is hindsight. We may have the advantage of knowing how historical events ultimately played out, but there’s nothing quite like reading the words of the people who experienced them first-hand. Sometimes their words are eerily prescient, other times wildly off-base.

The recently processed collection of Henry P. Binney family papers, on deposit at the MHS from the Mary M. B. Wakefield Charitable Trust, contains the papers of many members of the Binney family of Milton, Mass., including Florence Ethel Binney (1861-1944). In 1888, Florence, or “Flossy,” married Pietro Paolo Beccadelli di Bologna and became the Princess of Camporeale. She lived in Italy in the decades leading up to World War II, ran in elite social circles, and met many heads of state. The letters she wrote to her Boston cousin Alberta Binney have a light-hearted tone that  belies the increasingly serious conditions in pre-war Europe.

On 19 January 1923, just three months after Benito Mussolini’s coup d’état in Rome, Florence wrote from that same city:

Do you ever intend to come to, so-called, ‘Sunny Italy’? If so bring furs. We are having intensely cold weather (delicious I think) fountains frozen, and deep snow between Firenze and Bologna! I imagine that foreign newspaper[s] are exaggerating the occupation of Essen, etc. by the French, the complications in Turkey, and the possible effects on all Europe of these movements, as well as on the rest of the world. Meno male, that Italy has Mussolini to hold the reins of government with a firm hand!

 (According to a Boston Herald article from September of that year, Florence considered Mussolini the “saviour” of Italy and an “idol of the people.”)

 A decade later, Florence was still writing letters with this mix of carefree chattiness and political commentary:

This afternoon am motoring to a marvellous old castle, 2 hours distant from Rome, taking with me the Archduchess [of Austria] and my little grandson….When are you coming over again? From our papers it seems that MacDonald and Roosevelt have concluded nothing definite. Let us hope that Hitler in Germany, your Roosevelt, and our Mussolini here, will prove to be for the good of their respective nations. But I will not touch on the complicated present situation of the world, lest my letter would be endless!

Florence was later disappointed when a planned visit from Alberta’s daughter Polly was canceled. She wrote:

Too bad, for never was Rome more gay socially, or more fascinating in every way, than this spring. Evidently [Polly’s father] Harry let himself be influenced by the American newspapers greatly exaggerated reports of the European situation, and believed war imminent. May le bon Dieu spare us such a disaster, although the whole world is in a dangerously chaotic state.

 The date of this letter is 3 June 1939.

 For more information on the multi-generational papers of the Binney family, including papers related to the War of 1812, the Civil War, the Russian Revolution, the Great Depression, and World War II, see the guide to the collection.

By Elaine Grublin

If you missed seeing it in person, Boston.com provides a short piece about yesterday’s historic sailing of the USS Constitution in Boston Harbor. The sailing marked the 200th anniversary of the ship’s victory over the British frigate HMS Guerriere during the War of 1812 and was the first time the ship has sailed on its own since 1997. It is estimated that thousands of spectators came out to catch a glimpse of the almost 215-year-old ship at sail.

This was by far not the first time the Constitution attracted a crowd in the Boston’s harbor. On 16 September 1797 Revolutionary War hero Henry Knox wrote to fellow veteran David Cobb stating:

As relates to Harry. He is well, and as busy as a devils needle, in preparing for the launch which is fixed for Wednesday the 20. The President of the United States, and all the eastern world will be here. From the probable crowd and indiscretion, it may be expected as many lives will be lost as in a small action. (David Cobb papers, reel 1, Massachusetts Historical Society.)

Indeed on 20 September 1797 crowds of spectators did gather to view the maiden voyage of the Constitution. Although he did not comment on it in his correspondence, newspapers reports indicate that President John Adams and his “suite” were indeed present for the launch. But that day the crowd left disappointed, as mechanical problems prevented the ship from getting out to the open sea. On a subsequent attempt, 21 October 1797, the ship completed her maiden sail. According to historian Justin Winsor, in his Memorial History of Boston (Boston: James R. Osgood & Company, 1881), the weather on the 21st was overcast and cold, keeping the large crowds at bay that day. 

The Constitution garnered much attention during the War of 1812, earning the nickname Old Ironsides. She remained in service for many years after that war. On the eve of the Civil War, the ship was again at sea. In our collections we have found at least two letters referencing the Constitution while the ship was near Annapolis in late April 1861.

Charles Bowers, a lieutenant in the 5th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Militia, wrote to his wife in Concord:

In the afternoon the young men about 170 in number were removed in the U.S. Sloop Constitution to Newport R.I. It was a sad sight. It was a great disappointment for them to leave, and almost all were in tears. They marched in a bevy to the wharf the splendid band of the Constitution offering musick. The thousands of troops lined their way, the feelings of the whole subdued in sympathy for the noble looking lads so suddenly separated from scenes and friends they loved. (Charles Bowers Letters, Massachusetts Historical Society.)

Another Massachusetts native, although a resident of New York at the time of the outbreak of the war and serving in a New York regiment,offers a slightly different perspective to his brother in Massachusetts:

So we kept up the bay, and at daylight on Monday morning, found ourselves off Annapolis with the Old Frigate Constitition alongside, and another steamboat something like ours aground in the harbor with Ben Butler again, and his men on board. … He [Butler] came to Annapolis on Saturday night, and found the Constitution lying near the Naval School Station and uable to get out, on account of her heavy guns, beside being short men. … General Butler took out of her half her guns and lightened her so much that he could tow her out beyond the reach of the shore; which he did, and afterward sent 100 of his own men (able seamen from Marblehead and thereabouts) to fill up her crew. (Charles Henry Dalton Correspondence, Massachusetts Historical Society.)

We will keep an eye out for other Constitution references in our collection, and hope that perhaps in the not too distant future, we can see her sail again.

By Amanda A. Mathews, Adams Papers

Earlier this week, the world received the exciting news of the NASA rover “Curiosity” successfully landing on Mars. The great questions of whether or not we are alone in the Universe, whether other life exists and what forms it might take call out to us for answers. But these are not merely the questions of this present “Space Age.” Both John and John Quincy Adams took great interest in questions of astronomy.

Sir William Herschel’s work with telescopes and writings on the Milky Way inspired John Adams to write, “Herschell indeed with his new Glass, has discovered the most magnificent Spectacle that ever was seen or imagined, and I suppose it is chiefly as a Spectacle that his Discovery is admired. If all those Single double, tripple quadruple Worlds are peopled as fully as every leaf and drop is in this, what a merry Company there is of Us, in the Universe? . . . Why are We keept so unacquainted with each other? . . . The Bishop of Landaff, has made the Trees, not walk, but feel and think, and why should We not at once settle it that every Attom, thinks and feels? An universe tremblingly alive all over.”

While John Adams was content to ruminate on such thoughts philosophically, John Quincy Adams put these questions to the federal government. “The voyages of discovery . . . at the expence of those [European] Nations,” Adams remarked in his first annual message to Congress on December 6, 1825, “have not only redounded to their glory, but to the improvement of human knowledge.” Now it was time for the United States to join in such pursuits by erecting an “Astronomical Observatory. . .to be in constant attendance of Observation upon the phenomina of the Heavens.” The United States had a “sacred debt” of “returning light for light,” but that was not possible as long as “the Earth revolves in perpetual darkness to our unsearching eyes.”

One can certainly imagine with what joy and fascination both these Adamses would greet our now ever searching eyes and await the discoveries and knowledge that “Curiosity” may bring to all mankind.

By Susan Martin, Collection Services

The MHS recently acquired a manuscript collection called the Russell-Cutter family papers (Ms. N-2866) that contains one particularly interesting item: a divorce agreement dated 30 April 1735. It reads, in part:

Know ye that James Smith of Boston in the County of Suffolk in New England Coachman and Hannah his Wife In Consideration of the want of mutual Love & Affection between them, and for sundry acts which they each of them acknowledge is the Strongest proof for any divorce in Law, Have Agreed and by these Presents do agree to and with each other to part and Seperate themselves Voluntarily, and never to molest or Disturb each other in any act or acts Business or Imployments whatsoever or even if Either of them should marry again, they will not prosecute each other but will Look upon themselves as though they had never marryd at all.

Not knowing much about divorce law in colonial America, I did a little digging and found that, although rare, divorce was by no means unheard of at the time. Massachusetts Bay granted the first divorce in the colonies in 1639. (The husband was a bigamist.) According to historian Peter Charles Hoffer, in Law and People in Colonial America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), the immigrants who settled in New England in the 17th century considered marriage a civil contract, not a religious sacrament. In fact, despite its Puritan beginnings, the New World had more permissive divorce laws than Anglican England. The laws varied from colony to colony and were generally more lenient in the north than in the south. Of course, social stigma would also have acted as a powerful deterrent.

Hoffer provides some helpful statistics:

In Massachusetts and in Connecticut, whose divorce practices were even more liberal than those of Massachusetts, there was rarely one petition per year in the seventeenth century. In the next century the number of petitions steadily increased. Between 1692 and 1785 the Massachusetts General Court heard 229 petitions for divorce, 101 of them from men, and granted 143. The Connecticut Superior Court would grant almost 1,000 divorces before 1800. (p. 108)

The most common reasons for divorce were adultery, cruelty, or desertion. The Russell-Cutter collection contains no clues to the unspecified “sundry acts” cited in this particular document, but it’s telling that, even in 18th-century Massachusetts, “the want of mutual Love & Affection” might be considered grounds for the dissolution of a marriage. I don’t know what happened to James or Hannah after 1735, but I like to think their divorce was a mutual and amicable one.