By Jeremy Dibbell

The Massachusetts Historical Society sponsors four seminar series, each addressing a diverse range of topics including: Early American History, Environmental History, Immigration & Urban History, and the History of Women & Gender.  Seminars are open to everyone.

Seminar meetings usually revolve around the discussion of a pre-circulated paper. Sessions open with remarks from the essayist and an assigned commentator, after which the discussion is opened to the floor. After each session, the Society serves a light buffet supper. We request that those wishing to stay for supper make reservations in advance by calling 617-646-0540.

We are now offering seminar papers in PDF format at a password-protected web page. Subscribers will receive instructions for accessing the essays when we receive their payment. Annual fees for seminar subscriptions are as follows:

Boston Early American History Seminar: $25 (online)   
Environmental History Seminar: $15 (online)    
Immigration & Urban History Seminar: $15 (online)

Visit our website to purchase an on-line subscription: http://www.masshist.org/events/attend.cfm

(Visit the Schlesinger Library to subscribe to the History of Women & Gender seminar: http://www.radcliffe.edu/events/calendar.aspx)

For questions or registration assistance, contact the Research Department: seminars@masshist.org or 617-646-0557.

The fall seminar season begins on 1 October, and all seminars appear in the MHS Events Calendar as well as in each week’s This Week @ MHS blog post.

By Anna Cook

Last Wednesday (9 September), long-term NEH-MHS fellow, April Haynes, gave a brown bag lunch presentation here at the MHS titled “Riotous Flesh: Gender, Physiology, and the Solitary Vice, 1830-1860.” April described for us the way in which nineteenth-century female reformers embraced physiology – the “glamour science” of the 1800s – as a way of speaking about human sexuality and establishing their right to act, as embodied individuals, in the public sphere. Specifically, she focused on the lectures given by nineteenth-century radical Sylvester Graham during the 1830s on “the science of human life.” In these lectures, Graham spoke about the virtue of sexual self-restraint and particularly about the dangers of “solitary vice” (masturbation) which, he argued, could adversely affect the nervous system of both men and women. 

When Graham offered these lectures to women-only audiences as a “lecture to mothers” in cities up and down the Northeast from 1833-1837 riots broke out, with male protesters alleging that Graham was a “mass seducer” of his female audience, and that the content of the lectures were inappropriate for women’s ears. In response, Women, many of whom were active in other reform movements such as the anti-slavery movement, resisted the protesters and asserted their right to attend the lectures – at times even bringing adolescent daughters in tow. In 1840 a group of women founded the Ladies Physiological Society, a sister-society to the American Physiological Society, for the promotion of physiological science.  Women’s societies across the East and Midwest enthusiastically sought out lecturers and literature on physiology, bringing Grahams ideas from metropolitan centers into “into the hinterlands.” Eventually, the language of physiology and its moral framework for thinking about human sexuality made its way from the margins into established spaces such as schools and hospitals. During her stay here at the MHS, April has been using the records of the New England Female Medical College, records from girls’ schools, and the correspondence of women’s organizations with missionaries and missionary societies in order to track the ways in which women may have carried the language of physiology from reform movements into these institutional settings. 

In the conversation that followed April’s presentation, attendees posed questions about the link between Graham’s movement and temperance activism (Graham’s roots as a reformer were in the temperance crusade), the religious dimension of his physiological theories (Graham himself was Presbyterian, but his ideas had wide appeal across religious lines), and the ways in which Graham’s concept of “solitary vice” re-framed the question of masturbation as concern for women as well was men (since the problem was no longer non-procreative sex, but rather a broader lack of self-restraint).  April suggests that Graham’s new framework provided women with a way of “reworking embodiment,” affirming the reality women’s bodies and sexuality while simultaneously offering them a path to bodily respectability: self-restraint. By “abjecting one particular behavior” (masturbation) possibilities were opened up for women to imagine themselves as sexual beings who would remain pure as long as they stayed within the boundaries virtuous sexual activity. We also spoke about the striking lack of dissenting voices, even from the free-thinking radicals who, as April put it, “could think their way out of marriage!” yet did not question the danger of the solitary vice. 

Many thanks to April for sharing some of the fruits of her research with us. I, for one, look forward to reading the project in published form.  Best wishes to her as she moves on to a fellowship at the American Antiquarian Society.

By Kathleen Barker

The Massachusetts Historical Society is partnering with the Paul Revere House, Old South Meeting House, and the Boston African American National Historical Site to deliver an engaging and informative teacher workshop this fall. “Struggle towards Freedom: Slavery and Abolition in Massachusetts” will explore the development of slavery in the colony/commonwealth and the lives of individual slaves in Boston and nearby communities. We will also examine the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts and the consequences of abolition for our state and the nation.

Participants will have the opportunity to visit all four sites (the Revere House and Old South on the 26th; MHS and the National Park on the 3rd). The cost of the workshop is $50. Participating teachers can earn 12  Professional Development Points after attending both days’ events and completing a lesson plan. (Graduate credit is also available for an additional fee and some additional lesson planning.) Please visit our web calendar (www.masshist.org/events) or contact the Education Department for more information: education@masshist.org or 617-646-0557.

For more on the event and for registration directions, please see the PDF flyer.

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.