By Jeremy Dibbell
This just in from our web developer, Bill Beck:
“After months of planning, consulting, designing, and general tweaking, we are very excited to present a new look for the MHS homepage! Our main goal is to help visitors get at the content they need with fewer clicks. We believe we’ve created a much-improved entry to our vast online offerings, one that’s at once more streamlined and yet highlights our content in an eye-catching, contemporary way.”
We all hope you like it!
By Jeremy Dibbell
Please note: The reading room will be closed on Saturday, 5 September and Monday, 7 September for the Labor Day holiday.
By Jeremy Dibbell
Our September Object of the Month is a commission signed by John Brown, making Aaron Dwight Stevens a captain in the “army Brown hoped to raise under a provisional antislavery constitution for the United States.” The document was signed the night before Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry, in which both he and Stevens were captured (both were later executed).
Brown’s provisional constitution, drawn up in a secret May 1858 meeting, would have outlawed slavery in the United States. You can read more about the constitution, Brown, and Aaron Dwight Stevens here.
To commemorate the 150th anniversary of John Brown’s attack on Harpers Ferry, the Historical Society will present an exhibition of personal papers, photographs, engravings, and artifacts that document the 1859 raid and Brown’s trial and execution later that year, together with evidence of continuing arguments about the morality and meaning of Brown’s actions ever since. The exhibition will be open to the public from 1:00-4:00 PM, Monday-Saturday, from 12 October – 23 December 2009.
By Jeremy Dibbell
As September dawns, we find John Quincy Adams and our other intrepid travellers mid-voyage; two hundred years ago at the start of this month they were about halfway between the southeast coast of Iceland and the northwest coast of Scotland (map). Mr. Adams’ reading continues apace, mostly with more Plutarch and Massillon as begun in August (see the August post for a full rundown of that month’s reading and some background on the reading lists). As I did for August, I’ll update this post every few days to provide links (where possible) to digital copies of the works JQA’s reading, for any who wish to follow along.
Following the entry for 31 August in his long diary, JQA made some notes about how he tended to spend his time aboard ship, and his feelings about life at sea. The entry reads: “I rise about six o’clock, often earlier. Read ten or fifteen chapters in the bible. We breakfast about 9. Spend half an hour afterwards upon deck. At noon sometimes take the observation by the Quadrant, read or write in the Cabin untill 2. Dine. After dinner read or write again; occasionally visiting the deck for a walk untill 7 in the Evening. Sup. Read or play at cards untill 11 or 12, when we all retire to bed. There is much time for study and for meditation at sea, and when the weather is as moderate as we have generally had it hitherto upon this passage, a person capable of useful application may employ his time to as great advantage as on shore. The objects which excite attention are concentrated without the bounds of the vessel; the rest of mankind for the time seem to be inhabitants of another planet. The prosperity of the voyage consists in the paucity of incident, and the less there is to be told the more there is to be enjoyed. This life is not tedious to those who can make for themselves occupation. Buts its uncertainties, its perpetual changes, its anxieties, and its concentration of interest upon the fluctuations of wind and wave constitute its principal hardships.”
9/1/1809: Nicias and Crassus. See entry for 8/8. Scanned copies of Plutarch’s biographies of Nicias and Marcus Crassus.
9/2/1809: Sertorius and Eumenes. See entry for 8/8. Scanned copies of Plutarch’s biographies of Sertorius and Eumenes. The Eumenes sketch concluded the third volume of Plutarch, as JQA noted in his long diary entry.
9/3/1809: Prayers, and two Sermons of Massillon: Prayer, and Confession. See entry for 8/6. Scanned copy of the Confession sermon. In his long diary entry (manuscript image, partial transcription), JQA adds “I read the second sermon of Massillon upon prayer, and that upon Confession, which finishes the first volume of the Lent sermons. That upon Confession is one of the best in the volume – the figurative application of Scripture very ingenious. The divisions drawn with excellent discrimination, the sources of inadequate confession traced with keen satirical severity, and very close inspection of human nature and its operations. But it might be termed a sermon against Confession. He repeatedly expresses at least a doubt whether the institution does not produce more evil than good in the Church, and a Protestant might turn the whole of the Bishop’s Artillery against the catholic cause. There is a passage upon the baseness of the mere terror of Hell, corresponding much with sentiments which I have expressed before I had read this sermon.”
9/4/1809: Agesilaus and Pompey. See entry for 8/8. Scanned copies of Plutarch’s biographies of Agesilaus and Pompey. In his long diary entry, JQA adds that he also read Plutarch’s comparison of the two (scanned copy).
9/5/1809: Alexander. See entry for 8/8. Scanned copy of Plutarch’s biography of Alexander the Great. In his long diary entry, JQA mentions that he was “quite unwell all the afternoon & evening. Read only the life of Alexander in Plutarch.”
9/6/1809: Julius Caesar. See entry for 8/8. Scanned copy of Plutarch’s biography of Julius Caesar.
9/7/1809: Phocion. Cato of Utica. See entry for 8/8. Scanned copies of Plutarch’s biographies of Phocion and Cato the Younger.
9/8/1809: Agis and Cleomenes. See entry for 8/8. Scanned copies of Plutarch’s biographies of Agis and Cleomenes. In his long diary entry, JQA notes that these biographies conclude the fourth volume of his set of Plutarch.
9/9/1809: T. and C. Gracchus. See entry for 8/8. Scanned copies of Plutarch’s biographies of Tiberius and Caius Graccus. In his long diary entry, JQA adds that he also read “the parallel between them and Agis and Cleomenes” (scanned copy).
9/10/1809: Massillon [on] Prosperity, Impenitence. See entry for 8/6. In his long diary entry (manuscript image, partial transcription), JQA records “I read two sermons of Massillon – 2d volume of Lent, on the dangers of Prosperity and on final impentence. After reading them I attempted to make an abstract of them, as a trial of memory; but without success. I was obliged constantly to recur again to the book. I still find that of all my reading at sea, the memory takes hold scarcely of anything. There are so many things on board which distract attention, that it exceeds all my powers of volition to apply the mind to objects of study. I also read part of Paley’s Horæ Paulinæ.” This latter is William Paley, Horæ Paulinæ; or, the truth of the scripture history of St. Paul evinced, by a comparison of the epistles which bear his name with the acts of the apostles, and one with the other. An 1801 London edition is available via the Internet Archive here.
9/11/1809: Demosthenes and Cicero. See entry for 8/8. Scanned copies of Plutarch’s biographies of Demosthenes and Cicero.
9/12/1809: Demetrius & Antony. See entry for 8/8. Scanned copies of Plutarch’s biographies of Demetrius and Antony. In his long diary entry, JQA notes that he read only part of the Antony biography.
9/13/1809: Antony and Dion. See entry for 8/8. Scanned copies of Plutarch’s biographies of Antony (begun the day before) and Dion. In his long diary entry, JQA adds that he also read the parallel of Demetrius and Antony (scanned copy).
9/14/1809: Brutus and Artaxerxes. See entry for 8/8. Scanned copies of Plutarch’s biographies of Brutus and Artaxerxes.
9/15/1809. Aratus. See entry for 8/8. Scanned copy of Plutarch’s biography of Aratus. You’ll see in JQA’s long diary entry (manuscript image, partial transcription) that this was a busy and stormy day aboard ship. Observation of land allowed them to correct their earlier longitude readings, and with a fair wind they passed Rona Island in the morning and came within view of the Orkneys by the late afternoon. In the evening a storm came up, and JQA records that he was up “almost the whole night.”
9/16/1809: Galba and Otho. finished Plutarch. See entry for 8/8. Scanned copies of Plutarch’s biographies of Galba and Otho.
9/17/1809: Two Sermons of Massillon. See entry for 8/6.
9/18/1809: Anacharsis. Jean Jacques Barthélemy, Voyage de jeune Anacharsis en Grèce, first published at Paris in 1788. It was soon published in an English translation as Travels of Anacharsis the Younger in Greece (London: G.G.J. and J. Robinson, 1790-91). The first six volumes of John Adams’ copy of the 1790 Paris edition in seven volumes (now at the Boston Public Library is available via the Internet Archive (Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3, Volume 4, Volume 5, Volume 6. An 1800 London edition in English is available via Google Books here. In his long diary entry (manuscript image, partial transcription), JQA records “The rolling of the vessel in the forenoon made it impossible for me to write; or to read to any purpose, and I gave it up.” In the afternoon, once they reached calmer seas, he adds “I read something in the first volume of the Voyage d’Anacharsis.”
9/24/1809: Two Sermons of Massillon. See entry for 8/6.
In the final days of the month, JQA doesn’t mention his reading, either in the line-a-day diary or his long entries. On the final day of the month, he writes in his long diary: “The three first weeks of the month, like the last month. Since we made the land of Norway, I have had no regular course of life to pursue – Every day has been altogether different from every other; and this unsettled state still continues.”
Continue with the October post.
By Jeremy Dibbell
Please join us on Wednesday, 2 September at 12 noon in the Dowse Library for a brown-bag lunch with short-term research fellow Matthew Hale, assistant professor of history at Goucher College. Hale will speak on “The French Revolution and American National Identity.”
By Jeremy Dibbell
The Society joins the world in mourning the loss of Senator Ted Kennedy, an MHS Fellow since 1968 and a close friend to the organization and our mission. Read more here.
By Jeremy Dibbell
Last but certainly not least in our survey of MHS departments is the Adams Papers editorial staff, the diligent group responsible for overseeing the publication of the papers of several generations of members of the Adams family. The project, begun in 1954, has produced some 42 volumes to date (published by Harvard University Press), with many more scheduled (the cutoff date for the project is 1889, with the death of Abigail Brooks Adams). The editors do not edit the words written by the Adams family members; “rather, they continue the search for Adams documents, select the material to be included in the edition, provide a faithful transcription of the manuscripts, and supply annotation.”
As their website notes, “The Adams Papers was funded originally by Time-Life Inc. and the Ford Foundation. At present funding is provided primarily by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission and the National Endowment for the Humanities, with additional funding from the Lyn and Norman Lear Fund, the Packard Humanities Institute, and private donors. Over the years, these supporters have included The J. Howard Pew Freedom Trust, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and The Charles E. Culpeper Foundation through the Founding Fathers Papers, Inc.”
The MHS’ collection of Adams Family papers forms the core of the publication project, but more than 27,000 documents held by other institutions or individuals have also been gathered for inclusion in the published editions.
Portions of the Adams Family papers are now available digitally through the MHS website; see the Guide to Adams Resources for more information.
The Adamses are ever-present here at MHS, and the work done by the supremely able staff of the Adams Papers editorial team is vital in allowing us to answer questions and provide information and context about the lives and works of the family members. We couldn’t do it without them!
Adams Papers staff members include: Editor in Chief C. James Taylor; Senior Editor Gregg Lint; Editor Margaret Hogan; LCA Diary Series Editor Judith Graham; Associate Editors Robert Karachuk and Hobson Woodward; Assistant Editors Mary Claffey, Beth Luey, Sara Martin, and Sara Sikes; Transcribers James Connolly and Amanda Matthews. Full contact information is available here.
By Jeremy Dibbell
Many of those following John Quincy Adams on Twitter have asked for additional information about his extensive shipboard reading, so without further ado, here is the first in a series of posts which will track, and (where possible) link to digital copies of the books Adams reads during his journey, so that if the urge strikes you to follow along, you may do so. I cannot vouch for the external links (they all are working as of the time I am writing); if one’s not working, feel free to let me know (beehive@masshist.org) and I’ll do my best to find an alternate.
Like all of us, JQA was very careful about the books he chose to take with him on his journey – of course a two-month sea voyage and then a long period away from home meant that he had to be even more choosy about what books travelled with him. Early in the voyage he reflects on this: in his long diary entry for 7 August (just two days after setting sail), JQA writes: “The afternoon I pass’d in reading Chantreau’s Travels in Russia – I find that after all the pains I had taken to have l’Evesque’s history of Russia [Pierre Charles Levesque, Histoire de Russia (Hambourg: 1800)] with me, it has been packed up, if at all, in one of the boxes which I cannot open on the passage. Before I sailed I felt uncertain what kind of books I should most incline to – I now find that it is those relating to Russia, and I have nothing but Chantreau.”
Nothing but Chantreau specifically relating to Russia perhaps, but JQA’s shelves were by no means bare. As those reading his daily short entries on Twitter have noticed, he notes his reading almost every day; and in his longer entries he often offers further comments and thoughts about the selections he’s studied that day. Beyond the readings listed here, JQA noted in an entry following 31 August in his long diary that he “read ten or fifteen chapters in the bible” each morning.
This post will include those readings for August, and I’ll create a new post for September’s reading list.
8/6/1809: Massillon’s Carême Sermons 2 & 3. Jean-Baptiste Massillon, Sermons de M. Massillon, évêque de Clermont … a carême. Also published in English: an 1807-1808 edition, Sermons for every Sunday and festival of the year, chiefly taken from the sermons of M. de Massillon, Bishop of Clermont (London: Keating, Brown & Keating) has been digitized by Google Books: Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3.
8/7/1809: Chantreau’s travels. Pierre Nicolas Chantreau, Philosophical, political and literary travels in Russia, during the years 1788 and 1789. (Perth: Printed by R. Morison, Junior, for R. Morison and Son, Booksellers, Perth; and Vernor and Hood, Birchin-Lane, London, 1794). A scanned copy of this title is available via the Internet Archive: Volume 1, Volume 2. As mentioned above, JQA wished he had packed more books pertaining to Russia so that he could access them during the voyage.
8/8/1809: Langhorne’s Life of Plutarch, and began with Theseus. Plutarch’s Lives, translated from the original Greek: with notes critical and historical and a new life of Plutarch. In six volumes … by John and William Langhorne. An 1804 edition (Worcester: Isaiah Thomas, Jun.) is available via the Internet Archive: Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3, Volume 4, Volume 5, Volume 6. You can also just read the life of Plutarch, or the biography of Theseus. In his long diary entry, JQA adds “In the evening a little of Chantreau.”
8/10/1809: Plutarch’s life of Romulus. See entry for 8/8. Scanned copy of Plutarch’s biography of Romulus. In his long diary entry, JQA provides a bit more: “I read some chapters in the Bible, Plutarch’s life of Romulus, and some of Mrs. Grant’s letters from the Mountains (Scotch Mountains).”
8/11/1809: Mrs Grant’s Letters. Anne McVicar Grant, Letters from the mountains: being the real correspondence of a lady, between the years 1773 and 1807. An 1809 edition (Boston: printed by Greenough and Stebbins) is available via the Internet Archive: Volume 1, Volume 2. In his long diary entry, JQA writes “I employed much of [the day] in reading Mrs. Grant’s letters, which I find more interesting than Plutarch. I return to them of choice, but Plutarch is a task, and a heavy one. I never could read him through. I find it especially hard to read him after a sleepless night; after two harder still.”
8/12/1809: Lives of Lycurgus and of Numa. See entry for 8/8. Scanned copies of Plutarch’s biographies of Lycurgus and Numa. In his long diary entry, JQA adds that he also read Plutarch’s comparison of Lycurgus and Numa (scanned copy), and says further “But with a cabin about 20 feet square, between seven persons and a child, which is the eating room, and bed chamber of all the company, I find the power of self-abstraction, fails.”
8/13/1809: Two Sermons of Massillon; and made minutes from Plutarch. See entries for 8/6 and 8/8. In his long diary entry (manuscript image, partial transcription) JQA offers his thoughts on the Massillon sermon, those treating the forgiveness of injuries and preaching.
8/14/1809: Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus. See entry for 8/12. In his long diary entry (manuscript image, partial transcription), JQA makes reference to additional readings: “I made minutes of the two sermons of Massillon, which I read yesterday; and on Plutarch’s life of Lycurgus. Read also his life of Solon (scanned copy). I find amusement in these occupations, and our weather is mild and sea so smooth that I can employ more time in reading and writing than I ever could at sea before. Yet it seems to me that I do not employ my time to the best advantage. My thermometer is an amusement. A celestial globe would also be an agreeable companion. And de Lapede’s Natural History of Fishes, Pinkerton’s Geography, and Mavor’s little collection of Voyages and Travels.
8/17/1809: Lives of Themistocles and Camillus. See entry for 8/8. Scanned copies of Plutarch’s biographies of Themistocles and Camillus.
8/18/1809: Pericles & Mrs. Grant’s Letters. See entries for 8/8 and 8/11. Scanned copy of Plutarch’s biography of Pericles. JQA notes in his long diary entry that he finished Mrs. Grant’s letters and the first volume of Plutarch. He calls the Pericles biography “as interesting as any in the volume.”
8/19/1809: Fabius Maximus. See entry for 8/8. Scanned copy of Plutarch’s biography of Fabius Maximus.
8/20/1809: Two Sermons of Massillon. See entry for 8/6. JQA was less positively inclined toward these two sermons (on the certainty of a future state and on the reverence to be observed in churches), writing in his long diary entry (manuscript image, partial transcription) “They pleased me less than those of the last week.”
8/21/1809: Life of Alcibiades. See entry for 8/8. Scanned copy of Plutarch’s biography of Alcibiades.
8/22/1809: Life of Coriolanus. See entry for 8/8. Scanned copy of Plutarch’s biography of Caius Marcius Coriolanus. In his long diary entry, JQA adds that he also read Plutarch’s comparison between Alcibiades and Coriolanus (scanned copy).
8/23/1809: Timoleon and Paulus Æmilius. See entry for 8/8. Scanned copies of Plutarch’s biographies of Timoleon and Paulus Æmilius. In his long diary entry, JQA adds that he also read Plutarch’s comparison between the two (scanned copy).
8/24/1809: Life of Pelopidas. See entry for 8/8. Scanned copy of Plutarch’s biography of Pelopidas. In his long diary entry, JQA complains that he “suffered so much weariness that I could neither write nor read with satisfaction.”
8/25/1809: Marcellus- Absalom & Achitophel. For Marcellus, see entry for 8/8. Scanned copy of Plutarch’s biography of Marcellus. Second book is John Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel: A poem (first published at London in 1681). An annotated digital edition is available here. In his long diary entry, JQA adds that he also read Plutarch’s comparsion between Pelopidas and Marcellus (scanned copy), and makes comments on Dryden’s text.
8/26/1809: Aristides and Cato the Censor. See entry for 8/8. Scanned copies of Plutarch’s biographies of Aristides and Cato the Censor. In his long diary entry, JQA adds that he began reading “something of the life of Mahomet, introductory to Savary’s french translation of the Koran.”
8/27/1809: Two Sermons of Massillon, on Relapses and Prayer. See entry for 8/6. JQA adds comments about the sermons in his long diary entry.
8/28/1809: Philiopoemen and Flaminius. See entry for 8/8. Scanned copies of Plutarch’s biographies of Philopoemon and Titus Quinctius Flaminius. In his long diary entry, JQA adds that he also read Plutarch’s comparison between Philopoemon and Flaminius, completing the second volume of Plutarch.
8/29/1809: Pyrrhus and Caius Marius. Savary’s Mahomet. For Pyrrhus and Caius Marius, see entry for 8/8. Scanned copies of Plutarch’s biographies of Pyrrhus and Caius Marius. Second book is one of several editions of the Koran as translated into French by Claude Etienne Savary (with the life of Mohammed appended; see entry for 8/26). A scanned copy of the biography, from a 1786 Amsterdam edition of the Koran, is available here via Google Books.
8/30/1809: Lysander and Sylla. See entry for 8/8. Scanned copies of Plutarch’s biographies of Lysander and Sylla. In his long diary entry JQA writes that he did not complete the sketch of Sylla’s life.
8/31/1809: Cimon and Lucullus. See entry for 8/8. Scanned copies of Plutarch’s biographies of Cimon and Lucullus. In his long diary entry, JQA reports “leaving the latter [Lucullus] unfinished.”
See the September post for a continuation of JQA’s reading list.
By Jeremy Dibbell
The MHS has received a $160,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The funds will enable us to develop and present two one-week Landmark Institutes for eighty high school teachers from across the country in partnership with Minute Man National Historical Park. The workshops, “At the Crossroads of Revolution: Lexington and Concord in 1775,” will take place from 18-23 July and 1-6 August 2010. Jayne Gordon and Kathleen Barker of the Society’s Education department will be the project co-directors. Among the scholars lined up for the institutes are William Fowler, Robert Gross, Brian Donohue, and Ray Raphael.
More information on the NEH’s Landmark Institutes program is available here.
By Jeremy Dibbell
Due to the high level of interest in the John Quincy Adams Twitter project, our wonderful digital team has created a new web page to provide an entry-point into the project (with links to the Twitter page and the scans of the manuscript diaries, background information, and other information). We’ll be including some of the media coverage here too, so watch for changes as we move forward. Mr. Adams continues to attract new followers at a fairly good clip as he makes his way across the ocean – as of this morning he’s just passed the 13,000-mark.