Hannah Mather Crocker’s “Reminiscences”: Lunch Talk Recap

On Wednesday, 20 January, Eileen Hunt Botting from the University of Notre Dame spoke about her current project: a scholarly edition of Hannah Mather Crocker’s Reminiscences and Traditions of Boston, written between 1826-1829 shortly before Crocker’s death. Botting describes Reminiscences as “tripartite” in structure: two versions of Crocker’s history of Boston and an appendix of primary source material, including more than one hundred poems, often political in nature, authored by Crocker, some of which were published during her lifetime. The first, and longer, version of Crocker’s history is organized geographically and thematically, focusing on the people and places Crocker knew from a lifetime living in Boston. The second version is a shorter, edited version that Botting theorizes may have been drafted with publication in mind – possibly in the MHS Collections. 

Botting opened her talk with a brief biographical sketch of Crocker herself, a descendent from both the Mather and Hutchinson families of Boston. What little is known of Crocker suggests that she strongly identified with the Mather side of her family and was also deeply affected by her experience as a young woman coming of age in the midst of the American Revolution. As a daughter of the new Republic she saw herself as the “female heir” of the Mather tradition of ministry, writing persuasive poetry and in 1818 the first American-authored book-length tract on women’s rights, “Observations of the real rights of women, with their appropriate duties, agreeable to Scripture, reason and common sense.” Crocker was, Botting argues, the American equivalent of Mary Wollstonecraft, although her work was derided by later nineteenth-century feminist leaders as too conservative in her political demands. 

Reminiscences is the largest repository of Crocker’s extant writing and drew upon the Mather family library as well as Crocker’s personal connections to the Massachusetts Historical Society and the American Antiquarian Society. Crocker also draws upon oral remembrances shared among her circle of family and friends, providing valuable first-hand accounts of Boston during the Early Republic.   

Conversation among attendees at the presentation centered around Crocker’s methodology as a writer of history, particularly in the context of other female historians of her day (such as Hannah Adams and Mercy Otis Warren). There was also discussion about her religious ties (Botting describes her as a “an open-minded Congregationalist”) and speculation about the financial pressures that may have led her to begin writing and publishing after her husband’s death in the 1790s when she was left with about three hundred dollars to her name and seven surviving children (out of ten pregnancies!) to support. 

We look forward to the forthcoming Reminiscences and Traditions of Boston as a valuable addition to Boston and American women’s history, and hope it will be of use to future generations of scholars in a variety of fields.

"The Case of the Slave Child, Med": Lunch Talk Recap

Last Wednesday (16 December), MHS research fellow Karen Woods Weierman gave “concluding remarks” about the research that has brought her to a second fellowship here at the MHS: an examination of the 1836 legal case Commonwealth vs. Aves, or “the case of the slave-child Med” as it was commonly referred to. Med was a seven-year-old enslaved girl brought by her Southern owners to Boston when they came North to visit family. Anti-slavery activists discovered Med’s status and brought suit against the family claiming that since Med was on free soil it was unlawful to keep her enslaved, even though the family was only “in transit.” Judge Lemuel Shaw, who heard the case, ultimately decided in favor of freeing Med, and the case remained an influential legal decision until the Dred Scott decision of 1857.   

Karen Weierman’s work at the Historical Society this fall was comprised of four parts. She built on her work at the Boston Public Library, which holds the records of the Boston Female Anti-slavery Society (BFASS); she attempted to piece together the involvement of the Boston African-American community in Med’s case – a process that has involved a lot of archival detective work!; she delved deeper into the legal history of the case, with its cast of “usual suspects” who appear time and time again in slave transit cases of this period; and finally, she hopes to consider the literary dimension of the case – including the role played by such literary and abolitionist figures as Maria Chapman and Lydia Maria Child.

Her time at the MHS, Karen reported, has been helpful in clarifying what will be framed in the lens of her book project. Currently, she is hoping to maintain a tight focus on Med’s case and the surrounding decade, starting with an 1832 case that was the first slave-child case and ending with the 1842 Latimer case, which shifted the nation’s focus from slave transit cases to fugitive slave laws in the lead-up to the Civil War. While the case of Med has not gone entirely un-examined in the historiography, the attention it has received this far has been minor and no one has yet done an interdisciplinary study that seeks to combine local, Boston history, legal scholarship, and literary scholarship: this is a gap that Karen is hoping to fill with her work.

During the Q&A period, several audience members questioned what Med’s owners were thinking bringing a slave North to a city like Boston, which was known for its abolitionist activities. There was also a great deal of discussion about the way that the discourse of motherhood was shared by both the pro- and anti-slavery sides: those who argued for Med to remain with her owners suggested that anti-slavery activists would be ripping Med’s family apart by keeping her in the North while her mother remained enslaved in Louisana; abolitionists countered by pointing out that Med’s family was already torn apart by slavery and that it was the duty of the owners to free Med’s mother who could travel North to be reunited with her daughter. Both sides, in other words, were positioning themselves as “protectors of children” and the family.

Sadly, Med died before her eighth birthday in an orphan home, set free but with her custody remaining murky. The reason for her death remains unclear, but her story vanishes from the antislavery discourse given its less-than-triumphal end.  I look forward to seeing how Karen brings her back from obscurity and re-directs our focus toward this legal and social turning-point in the history of anti-slavery law.

Holiday Closure Notice

The MHS, including the library, will be closed this Thursday through Saturday (26-28 November) in observance of the Thanksgiving holiday. We will resume regular hours on Monday, 30 November.

Additionally, the MHS website, including this blog, will be unavailable between 8-10 a.m. on Tuesday, 24 November for a hardware upgrade. We hope to be back up and running as soon as possible. Should you need to access the ABIGAIL online catalog during that time, please use this link.

"The Letters of the Presidents" Lunch Talk Recap

On 4 November, Assistant Reference Librarian Tracy Potter and intern Sarah Desmond (Endicott College), gave a progress report on their project to survey the presidential papers held at the MHS. This project, funded by a generous donation from MHS trustee Dennis Shapiro (in attendence), has as its goal the preparation of a web-accessible subject guide to letters written by U.S. Presidents within the collections of the MHS. The finished guide will document all known correspondence, located through bibliographic research and a survey of staff members, and list the MHS holdings by president and then collection and subject matter. The only type of correspondence omitted will be straight-up autographs (i.e. signed commissions), which contain no substantive writing by the individual themselves. There will be a particular emphasis on documents from the presidential years, although other items will also be included as known. Sections on "other materials" and "related material" (items not held at the MHS which may be of interest) will add further value to the finding guide.

Hundreds of letters have so far been identified and itemized, including a twenty-eight page list of letters from Theodore Roosevelt, twenty-seven pages of letters from George Washington (including 173 letters to Timothy Pickering alone), and forty-nine letters from John F. Kennedy, mostly located in the Leverett Saltonstall autograph collection. Letters from every single President have been found in our collections, with the exception of the two most recent individuals to hold the office: George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Tracy and Sarah shared some of their favorite finds, including a letter from Richard Nixon in the Leverett Saltonstall papers in which Nixon relates his enthusiasm over a Fig Festival in California.

Conversation during the audience question and comment period focused on the methodology for locating the correspondence, questions about the intended audience for the finding guide, and suggestions for future uses of the information that will come out of this project, (such as a web-based exhibition highlighting the presidential papers held here at the Society).  Peter Drummey shared one of his own favorite items from a U.S. President: a preserved bird found in a letter from Theodore Roosevelt to a bird-watching friend during Roosevelt's college days. 

We congratulate Sarah and Tracy on the work they have already put in and wish them luck as they forge ahead.