By Rakashi Chand, Reader Services

Chinese in Boston, 1870-1965 by Wing-Kai To and the Chinese Historical Society of New England (Charlestown, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2008), part of the Images of America Series, tells the story of the Chinese experience in New England with a focus on Boston, MA through historic photographs with captions. The book is divided into seven chapters, which range from the first arrivals of Chinese immigrants in New England to the Settlement of Boston’s Chinatown, to various other topics until finally arriving at the modern experience of the Chinese in Boston. The text is brief as the photographs are the main source of history and context in this book.

The images come from a variety of sources ranging from the Bostonian Society to the Peabody Essex Museum to the Chinese Historical Society of New England, which was founded in 1992 to document the coherent and vibrant culture of Chinese Americans in New England. The book features the first Chinese owned business, notable members of the Chinese community, and photographic evidence of cultural assimilation as well as cultural preservation carried out in New England. The photographs are well presented and illustrative of the Chinese American experience in New England.

This book is useful for people trying to familiarize themselves with the Chinese history in New England and due to its length and format, can be read/viewed easily and quickly. It is hard to research the history of immigrant groups or minorities who were often not affluent and therefore not the subject of art, photography or historical records, making this book a rare source of an under-represented topic of New England History. This book begins circa 1870 with the first (known) photographic evidence of Chinese immigrants in New England and concludes with present day imagery.

Related Collections:

For more general history of Chinese immigrants in America the library of the Massachusetts Historical Society offers there secondary sources:

The Chinese in America: A Narrative History by Iris Chang (New York: Viking, 2003).

Asian America: Chinese and Japanese in the United States since 1850 by Roger Daniels  (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1988).

Nothing Like It in the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad, 1863-1869 by Stephen E. Ambrose (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000).

For the Chinese Exclusion Act we offer:

The Chinese Exclusion Act, Known as the Geary Law: Speech of Hon. Elijah A. Morse, M.C., of Massachusetts, in the House of Representatives, Friday, October 13, 1893 (Washington : [s.n.], 1893).

Amendment of the Chinese Exclusion Act. Speech of Hon. William Everett, of Massachusetts, in the House of Representatives, Saturday, October 14, 1893 (Washington: s.n., 1893).

Chiang Yee: The Silent Traveller from the East: A Cultural Biography by Da Zheng; foreword by Arthur C. Danto. New Brunswick (N.J. : Rutgers University Press, 2010).  

An Anglo-Chinese calendar for the year …: corresponding to the year for the Chinese cycle era (Canton : Office of the Chinese Repository).

Circular letter, signed C. L. Woodworth, regarding the Associations efforts with Chinese immigrants, Indians and African Americans. [Boston : s.n., 1880]

The library of the Massachusetts Historical Society houses a rich collection of China Trade papers and resources:

“Manuscripts on the American China trade at the Massachusetts Historical Society” by Katherine H. Griffin. Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, v. 100 (1988), p. 128-139.

Researchers on site also have access to the Adam Mathew database of primary source materials China, America and Pacific: Trade & Cultural Exchange.

By Rakashi Chand, Reader Services

It is ‘Leaf Peeping’ (fall foliage viewing) season in New England, so here are a few inspired leaves of thought…

Looking through our collections I came across an intriguing broadside, having read about the once opulent Hotels that dotted the New Hampshire Countryside in the mid nineteenth century. The [Dinner menu and wine list for Sunday September 12], no doubt, would serve as a glimpse into the grandeur of the majestic New Hampshire Resorts.

This unique Broadside attests to the lavish dinners served at the Crawford House, located in Crawford Notch New Hampshire. The most fascinating feature of this broadside is the material on which it is printed, a lovely piece of Birch bark. Birch trees are known for their beautiful lenticel marked white bark and can be seen throughout the forests of the White Mountains.

The single page pamphlet is printed on both sides and folded in half conveniently presenting the day’s fare and other pieces of information for hotel guests. For those intrigued by gastronomical history this is a fascinating specimen. Examining what was served on Sunday, September 12th 1875, one can truly note the changes in our collective palate and food culture over 150 years.

Finally, the last page features an extensive wine list, after all, how else would one be on a proper vacation? Modern coinsures will be intrigued by the Hock (German White wine) and Sauternes (French sweet wine) being such popular categories, but otherwise the list is quite familiar. Moet et Chandon champagne was a full $4.00 (The equivalent of $86.96 modern currency) proving that some things never change!

The first Crawford House was built in 1850. Described as having “a three and a half story central pavilion with a fine Greek Revival portico, identical five-bay, two and a half story wings, topped by pitched roofs with dormer windows.”  By 1852 there was such a high demand for rooms, that the owners of the Crawford House expanded, to create 200 sleeping rooms, by enlarging each wing by “eight bays”. Unfortunately the first Crawford House succumbed to fire, although within two days plans for the new Crawford House were already underway. Cyrus Eastman and his partners utilized a workforce of 175 men and 75 oxen and horses to complete the fastest hotel construction 1859 had ever seen.   Opening night was July 13th when 40 guests were received for dinner and 100 were entertained for the night, and the press noted that it was “the most spacious hotel about the mountain”.  In Eastman’s words “The Crawford House is a large and new edifice, very commodious and agreeable for a summer hotel. There are pleasant piazzas on the outside, and five halls, much used in the evening for promenading, run the entire length of the house within. The parlor is large and well furnished, the dining room ample in its proportion, and its tables always supplied with the delicacies of the metropolitan markets, as well as such substantial articles of mountain production, as delicious berries, and the richest milk and cream. The office is situated in the central part of the house… Here also is the post office of this wild region. Portraits of two of the Crawfords, patriarchs of these mountains, adorn the wall. The lodging rooms of the house are well furnished, and pleasant, especially those which have windows toward the Notch. Connected with the hotel are a bowling-alley for rainy-day and evening amusement, and extensive stables, furnished with a large number of horses… Last summer two tame bears afforded guests much amusement.” http://balthazaar.masshist.org/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?DB=local&BBID=129906

Bostonians have always flocked to the White Mountain of New Hampshire to enjoy the striking natural beauty, although we in the modern era will never experience the grandeur met there by our predecessors.  A great transformation came to the region in the 1850s, the beginning of a huge tourist Industry, prompted by the laying of railroads, and later fueled by the Industrial Revolution which created a surplus of wealth in eastern cities. In the 1820s and 30s, the mountains and lakes were home to only a few highway taverns and Inns that provided rest for the weary stagecoach traveler on the harrowing passage north. After 1850, the region that had only been visited by a few hundred, started to see tens of thousands of tourists. This was the heyday of the White Mountain Resorts and Hotels. Rising up from scenic valleys, construction began on the grandest hotels in America in the mid-nineteenth century. These hotels were famous for their luxurious lodging, exquisite dinning, and state of the art facilities such as gas lighting. Travelers came from Europe to admire the grandeur of these Hotels, and to admire the beauty of the White Mountains, which, according to some European Newspapers, rivaled that of the Alps. Each of these hotels could accommodate 200-500 or more guests, offering extensive entertainment, numerous excursions, exquisite gardens, elegant parlors and dining halls serving the finest cuisine. Some of these Hotels had their very own railroad stations, conveniently bringing guests from Boston, Portland and New York directly to their doors and promising a scenic journey through the mountains before arriving at the their lavish lodgings. These hotels were The Crawford House, the Fabyan House, the Profile House, the Maplewood, and the Waumbek.

Unfortunately, the grand Hotels of New Hampshire were all built of wood, and almost all perished in fire. The Appalachian Mountain Club Highland Center sits on the site of the former Crawford House. The last of the majestic hotels built in the region was the Mount Washington Hotel, the grandest and largest, which still remains, a testament of the elegance and luxury of a bygone era and the largest wooden structure in New Hampshire.

The Massachusetts Historical Society lists 153 titles under the heading ‘Menu’ in our catalog. For this broadside, or to search for other broadsides in our collection, please use ABIGAIL, our online catalog. Visit the library of the Society to research more culinary history!

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Next up:

Nineteenth Century Travels through New Hampshire

(Burrage, Mary Greene Hunt. Letter to Margaret Howe (Cotton) Hunt [transcript] [1854} in Miscellaneous Manuscripts 1854)

Followed by:

The first map of the White Mountains done by none other than our very own Jeremy Belknap!

By Susan Martin, Collection Services

The Civil War diary of Joseph Warren Phinney, a recent acquisition of the MHS, is a small unassuming leather volume. Probably fewer than half the pages are covered with smudged pencil entries dated 13 July 1864-22 April 1865, as well as miscellaneous memoranda. But even a cursory look into its contents reveals fascinating details.

Phinney hailed from Sandwich, Mass. and served with the 5^th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, Company A. His diary complements our other holdings related to this regiment, which include the papers of Charles Bowers, William Wallace Davis, Benjamin Newell Moore, and George L. Prescott. But it was Phinney’s entry of 8 October 1864 that piqued my interest. It begins: “To-day I was detailed to go with a squad to protect the Polls in a small town on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.” October was too early for the presidential election, but Phinney didn’t provide any context, so I consulted Alfred S. Roe’s 1911 history of the regiment to learn more.

Phinney was, in his small way, taking part in a momentous day in Maryland’s history. The Emancipation Proclamation had freed slaves in the Confederacy nearly two years before, but Maryland had never seceded and so was still a slave-holding state. In fact, its 1851 Constitution explicitly outlawed “any law abolishing the relation of master or slave.” October 1864 saw Marylanders voting to ratify a new constitution which would, among other things, abolish slavery in the state. (It ultimately squeaked by with a tiny majority of 375 votes.)

The 5^th Massachusetts Infantry sent several squads from Baltimore’s Fort McHenry down the Chesapeake Bay to protect polling places along the Eastern Shore. Phinney’s squad was detailed to the small town of Trappe in Talbot County. They were quartered there for about a week, first in a schoolhouse and then a church.

But this 19-year-old bachelor wasn’t thinking about his place in history. He wrote: “We received many favors from the inhabitants and lived high on sweet potatoes and johnny cake brought in by them. The boys had plenty of liberty and improved it by seeing all they could and tasting all they saw.”

If you sense a certain tone to his words, you’re not imagining things. After his return to Baltimore, Phinney elaborated: “How much I enjoyed my visit at Trappe I can’t well express, but a long letter, containing three closely written sheets of good sensible sized note paper seems to tell me that I wan’t the only one who remembers with pleasure my visit to the ‘Eastern Shore.’” His correspondent was someone named either Emma or Erma—I can’t quite make out his handwriting. Whoever she was, he called her “darling” and “a good sweet little dear” and cherished her “token of love and friendship more than I shall dare to express here.”

I won’t keep you in suspense: as far as I can tell, Phinney and the young lady in question never saw each other again. But she wrote to him six months later, prompting him to reflect, in the only other entry he wrote about her: “Who would imagine that she would remember me enough to write such a letter after such a time since we met has elapsed. I am sure I didn’t when we enjoyed ourselves so pleasantly on the Eastern Shore of ‘Maryland, My Maryland,’ – as she used to sing so sweetly.” But she lived too far away, and he was a “wandering vagabond” and “scallawag” who couldn’t provide for a family. So he concluded: “I guess it will be best policy to let them all slide Nettie, Emma, and Lizzie, the whole boodle of them.”

Phinney didn’t let the whole boodle slide, however, at least not permanently. He married in 1869 to Susan Jane Turner, with whom he had two children before she died 13 years later. Phinney then married Priscilla Chase Morris and had four more children.

Other entries in Phinney’s diary are interesting, funny, or just plain cryptic. He had a tendency to scribble down random thoughts, financial memoranda, aphorisms, etc. He also sometimes vented his frustration. After his promotion to sergeant of the guard, he wrote: “Hullo, Sergeant Phinney? Your three stripes look better than two. How mad Walsh was that he didn’t get the warrant. I don’t give a damn!”

And here’s an excerpt from his description of the day Abraham Lincoln died, which stretches for several pages: “This has been a day of sorrow and mourning for the nation. […] On the opening of the telegraph office there was an immense crowd gathered in front of the entrance, awaiting, with intense anxiety, something definite in regard to the matter. Alas! The news was too true, for the wire confirmed what we had before hesi[ta]ted to believe. We cannot depict the horror and grief that seized our community.”

The MHS also holds a copy of Catch ’ems?, a beautiful two-volume compilation of the letters of Phinney’s daughter Ellis Phinney Taylor, published in 2004 by other members of the family. Although the letters date from the early 20^th century, Catch ’ems? gave me my first glimpse of Joseph Warren Phinney and the Phinney family.

Phinney was born in 1845, the only son and youngest child of Warren and Henrietta J. (Smith) Phinney. His mother died just a few months after his birth, and his father a few years later, so young Phinney was raised by his maternal grandparents. After the Civil War, he became a printer and type founder and designed several typefaces. He died in 1934 at the age of 89.