licknor Georger William FirstSearch: WorldCat List of Records Page 1 of 3 OC LC FirstSearch SOUTHERN NEW HAMPSHIRE UNIV WorldCat List of Records Click on a title to see the detailed record. Click on a checkbox to mark a record to be e-mailed or printed in Marked Records. WorldCat Hot Topics: Select a topic to search: Staff View My Account Options Comments Exit Home Databases Searching Results Hide tips List of Records Detailed Record Marked Records Go to page WorldCat results for: (su= "Ticknor, WorldCat Sort Related Related Limit E-mail Print Export Help George,") and su= "1791-1871.". Subjects Authors (Save Search) Records found: 109 (English: 93) Rank by: Number of Libraries 1 Prev Next All Books Archival Visual Articles 109 92 10 5 2 Limit results: Any Audience Any Content Any Format Search 1. George Ticknor and the Boston Brahmins Author: Tyack, David B. Publication: Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1967 Document: English : Book Libraries Worldwide: 698 More Like This: Search for versions with same title and author I Advanced options See more details for locating this item 2. Literary pioneers; early American explorers of European culture, Author: Long, Orie William, 1882- Publication: Cambridge, Mass., Harvard university press, 1935 Document: English : Book Libraries Worldwide: 321 More Like This: Search for versions with same title and author Advanced options See more details for locating this item 3. Life, letters, and journals of George Ticknor. Author: Ticknor, George, 1791-1871.; Hillard, George Stillman,; Ticknor, Anna Eliot,, and others Publication: Boston, J.R. Osgood, 1876 Document: English : Book Libraries Worldwide: 196 More Like This: Search for versions with same title and author Advanced options See more details for locating this item 4, Life, letters, and journals of George Ticknor Author: Ticknor, George, 1791-1871.; Hillard, George Stillman,; Ticknor, Anna,, and others Publication: London : Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, 1876 Document: English : Book : Microform Libraries Worldwide: 144 More Like This: Search for versions with same title and author Advanced options . See more details for locating this item http://firstsearch.oclc.org/WebZ/FSQUERY?sessionid=sp07sw02-55046-e0jms15a-qxwhfd:entit.. 10/20/2004 FirstSearch: WorldCat List of Records Page 2 of 3 5. Catalogue of the Spanish library and of the Portuguese books bequeathed by George Ticknor to the Boston public library, together with the collection of Spanish and Portuguese literature in the general library. Author: Ticknor, George,; Whitney, James Lyman, Corp Author: Boston Public Library., Ticknor Collection. Publication: Boston, By order of the Trustees, 1879 Document: English : Book Libraries Worldwide: 105 More Like This: Search for versions with same title and author Advanced options . See more details for locating this item 6. Life, letters, and journals of George Ticknor / Author: Ticknor, George, 1791-1871.; Hillard, George Stillman,; Ticknor, Anna Eliot,, and others Publication: Boston : New York : J.R. Osgood, Johnson Reprint Corp., 1968, 1876 Document: English : Book Libraries Worldwide: 89 More Like This: Search for versions with same title and author I Advanced options See more details for locating this item 7. George Ticknor's Travels in Spain / Author: Ticknor, George, 1791-1871. Publication: Toronto : University of Toronto Press, 1913 Document: English : Book Libraries Worldwide: 59 More Like This: Search for versions with same title and author Advanced options See more details for locating this item 8. Life, letters and journals of George Ticknor Author: Ticknor, George, 1791-1871.; Hillard, George Stillman,; Ticknor, Anna Eliot,, and others Publication: London : Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, 1876 Document: English : Book : Microform Libraries Worldwide: 57 More Like This: Search for versions with same title and author Advanced options See more details for locating this item 9. Biographical and critical miscellanies. Author: Prescott, William Hickling, 1796-1859. Publication: Boston, Phillips, Sampson and Co., 1859 Document: English : Book Libraries Worldwide: 47 More Like This: Search for versions with same title and author Advanced options See more details for locating this item 10. George Ticknor, Author: Ticknor, George, 1791-1871.; Doyle, Henry Grattan, Publication: Washington, D.C., 1937 Document: English : Book Libraries Worldwide: 38 More Like This: Search for versions with same title and author Advanced options See more details for locating this item Clear Marks Mark All WorldCat results for: (su= "Ticknor, http://firstsearch.oclc.org/WebZ/FSQUERY?sessionid=sp07sw02-55046-e0jms15a-qxwhfd:entit. 10/20/2004 George Ticknor Page 1 of 4 Harvard University Harvard@Home Post.Harvard HARVARD The Harvard Store at Ivysport ivysport.com MAGAZINE Home Class Notes Classifieds Back Issues Contact Harvard Magazine Advertise Subscribe HARVARD January-February 2005 Search Features More features Next Search Vita Restoriog Elm George Ticknor Brief life of a scholarly pioneer: 1791-1871 Article To by Warner Berthoff E-mail this In This Issue Download F January-February By today's standards, Harvard College before the Civil War 2005 Contents was a provincial academy, competent (judged Henry Adams) at preparing students to become "respectable citizens," but George E-mail Updates effectively indifferent to the advances in knowledge beginning to shape the modern world. Yet one early member of its teaching Join our e-mail list faculty stands as a signal exception. George Ticknor-invited in to receive Editor's Highlights! 1816 to become Smith professor of the French and Spanish languages and literatures-may be called the first Harvard scholar who would be warmly welcomed into the University faculty of 2005, just as he was the first (outside the traditional fields of divinity and rhetoric) to hold a named chair in the humanities. Not himself a graduate of the College, Ticknor had followed his father, a Boston merchant, to Dartmouth in 1805, though of his two college years he remarked late in life, "I learnt very little." Back in Boston, his education began in earnest. He took up the serious study of Latin and Greek with the Reverend John Gardiner of Trinity Church and subsequently read for the law. But his heart remained in humane learning and, with his father's approval, he proposed to consolidate his studies at a European university: with Napoleon's downfall in 1815, the continent was once again open to American visitors. By then Ticknor had read with excitement Mme. de Staël's momentous book De l'Allemagne, with its report of dramatic advances in German philosophy and literature, as well as a pamphlet describing the University of Göttingen's revolutionary system of study. These http://www.harvardmagazine.com/on-line/010543.html 4/5/2005 George Ticknor Page 2 of 4 revelations, augmented by an Englishman's account of the treasures in that university's library, convinced Ticknor to make Göttingen his destination. But before leaving for Europe, he broadened acquaintance with his own country. Traveling south, he dined with President Madison and journeyed to Monticello, where Thomas Jefferson reflected on his own years in Europe and offered letters of introduction to surviving friends in France. As a result, when Ticknor did reach Paris, he was greeted as the newest representative of the upstart American republic and what it signified to European liberals. Mme. de Staël herself, though seriously ill, was eager to see him and declared with animation about the United States, "You are the vanguard of the human race, you are the future of the world." Twenty months at Göttingen, however, taught Ticknor something different: in humane learning, America was well in the rear. He found his Greek tutor, only two years his senior, far beyond him in breadth and precision of knowledge. "What a mortifying distance there is," he wrote his father, "between a European and an American scholar. We do not yet know what a Greek scholar is; we do not even know the process by which a man is to be made one." Reflecting on his experience of German academic discipline, Ticknor resolved to apply its methods at Harvard. For President John Kirkland he wrote out a comprehensive plan for a full-scale departmental program on the German model, including lectures in the prescribed languages. When he found that the prevailing conditions of instruction at the College stood in his way, he set about promoting an across-the-board reform of the entire academic program. "A great and thorough change must take place in its discipline and instruction" to make sure, he added-with an asperity not likely to endear him to colleagues-that the College would at least "fulfill the purposes of a respectable high school." President Kirkland acknowledged the need for reform and was sympathetic to Ticknor's proposals, but the http://www.harvardmagazine.com/on-line/010543.html 4/5/2005 George Ticknor Page 3 of 4 faculty at large was not. "The resident teachers," Ticknor told a friend, "declared themselves against all but very trifling changes." The Harvard he envisioned and for which he had prepared himself would begin to materialize only under President Charles William Eliot, a half- century later. Ticknor never really settled into A formal carte de visite photograph of Ticknor. the still provincial Such images were popular for publicity Harvard purposes and personal use. community. Photograph courtesy of the Harvard University Archives Scrupulous about his duties, he offered courses on Dante and Shakespeare as well as on his appointed French and Spanish subjects. (His services are commemorated by Ticknor Lounge in Boylston Hall, the present home of Romance language studies.) But he chose to reside in Boston rather than Cambridge; his elegant townhouse at the corner of Park and Beacon became the setting for a life closer to that of a prosperous patrician than of a dry-as-dust pedagogue. What he lived for, most of all, were his return visits to Europe. In preparing his monumental History of Spanish Literature, published in 1849, he assembled an extraordinary library of books and documents, rescuing many from slow disintegration in neglected archives and vaults. He maintained cordial relations with scholars, intellectuals, and cultivated aristocrats in several countries who shared his interests. Although he resigned from Harvard in 1835 to concentrate on his History, he remained hopeful about the College's future. Writing http://www.harvardmagazine.com/on-line/010543.html 4/5/2005 George Ticknor Page 4 of 4 in 1859 to the eminent British geologist Charles Lyell, he declared that, with "the best law school in the country, one of the best observatories in the world, a good medical school...[and] the Lawrence Scientific School, [we can become] a true university, and bring up the Greek, Latin, mathematics, history, philosophy, etc., to their proper level. At least I hope so, and mean to work for it." Warner Berthoff is Cabot professor of English and American literature emeritus. More features. Next.. January-February 2005: Volume 107, Number 3, Page 48 Copyright © 01996-2005 Harvard Magazine, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Home Class Notes I Classifieds I Back Issues Contact Us I Advertise Subscribe Donate Search I Report an Error I Contact the Webmaster I Staff Page http://www.harvardmagazine.com/on-line/010543.html 4/5/2005 5/26/2016 Harvard Magazine Your independent source for Harvard news since 1898 HARVAR MAGAZINE Log-In Register Remaking the Mosquito The of malaria HARVARD MAGAZINE a Search ARTICLES CURRENT ISSUE ARCHIVES CLASS NOTES CLASSIFIEDS DONATE YOUR SUPPORT makes Harvard DONATE Magazine possible. FEATURES George Ticknor Brief life of a scholarly pioneer: 1791-1871 by WARNER BERTHOFF JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2005 B y today's standards, Harvard College before the Civil War was a provincial Commencement academy, competent (judged Henry Adams) at preparing students to become "respectable citizens," but effectively indifferent to the advances in knowledge 2016 Click Here to read our online coverage sponsored by beginning to shape the modern world. Yet one early member of its teaching faculty the Harvard Alumni Card and stands as a signal exception. George Ticknorinvited in 1816 to become Smith the Harvard Alumni Association professor of the French and Spanish languages and literaturesmay be called the first Harvard scholar who would be warmly welcomed into the University faculty of 2005, just as he was the first (outside the traditional fields of divinity and rhetoric) to hold a On Readers' Radar named chair in the humanities. Not himself a graduate of the College, Ticknor had followed his father, a Boston merchant, to 1. Rashida Jones '97: "Don't Just Follow Dartmouth in 1805, though of his two college years he remarked late in life, Ilearnt very the Rules" little." Back in Boston, his education began in earnest. He took up the serious study of Latin and 2. Sarah Jessica Parker Speaks at Greek with the Reverend John Gardiner of Trinity Church and subsequently read for the law. Harvard Law School Class Day 2016 But his heart remained in humane learning and, with his father's approval, he proposed to consolidate his studies at a European university: with Napoleon's downfall in 1815, the 3. Live Life to Its Fullest, HBS Class Day continent was once again open to American visitors. By then Ticknor had read with excitement Speakers Urge Mme. de Staèl's momentous book De l'Allemagne, with its report of dramatic advances in 4. Madeleine Albright Urges Graduates German philosophy and literature, as well as a pamphlet describing the University of to Look Beyond America's Borders Göttingen's revolutionary system of study. These revelations, augmented by an Englishman's account of the treasures in that university's library, convinced Ticknor to make Göttingen his 5. Harvard's 2016 Honorary-Degree destination. Recipients But before leaving for Europe, he broadened acquaintance with his own country. Traveling south, he dined with President Madison and journeyed to Monticello, where Thomas Jefferson reflected on his own years in Europe and offered letters of introduction to surviving friends in France. As a result, when Ticknor did reach Paris, he was greeted as the newest representative of the upstart American republic and what it signified to European liberals. Mme. de Staël herself, though seriously ill, was eager to see him and declared with animation about the United States, "You are the vanguard of the human race, you are the future of the world." Twenty months at Göttingen, however, taught Ticknor something different: in humane http://harvardmagazine.com/2005/01/george-ticknor.html 1/3 5/26/2016 Harvard Magazine learning, America was well in the rear. He found his Greek tutor, only two years his senior, far beyond him in breadth and precision of knowledge. "What a mortifying distance there is," he INVEST IN HARVARD wrote his father, "between a European and an American scholar. We do not yet know what a AND YOUR Greek scholar is; we do not even know the process by which a man is to be made one." FINANCIAL FUTURE Reflecting on his experience of German academic discipline, Ticknor resolved to apply its methods at Harvard. For President John Kirkland he wrote out a comprehensive plan for a full- Learn more about planned gift strategies scale departmental program on the German model, including lectures in the prescribed languages. When he found that the prevailing conditions of instruction at the College stood in HARVARD UNIVERSITY PLANNED GIVING his way, he set about promoting an across-the-board reform of the entire academic program. "A great and thorough change must take place in its discipline and instruction" to make sure, he addedwith an asperity not likely to endear him to colleaguesthat the College would at least "fulfill the purposes of a respectable high school." President Kirkland acknowledged the need for reform and was sympathetic to Ticknor's proposals, but the faculty at large was not. "The resident teachers," Ticknor told a friend, "declared themselves against all but very trifling changes." The Harvard he envisioned and for which he had prepared himself would begin to materialize only under President Charles William Eliot, a half-century later. Ticknor never really settled into the still provincial Harvard community. Scrupulous about his duties, he offered courses on Dante and Shakespeare as well as on his appointed French and Spanish subjects. (His services are commemorated by Ticknor Lounge in Boylston Hall, the present home of Romance language studies.) But he chose to reside in Boston rather than Cambridge; his elegant townhouse at the corner of Park and Beacon A formal carte de visite photograph of Ticknor. Such images were popular for publicity purposes became the setting for a life closer to that of a and personal use. prosperous patrician than of a dry-as-dust Photograph courtesy of the Harvard University pedagogue. What he lived for, most of all, Archives were his return visits to Europe. In preparing his monumental History of Spanish Literature, published in 1849, he assembled an extraordinary library of books and documents, rescuing many from slow disintegration in neglected archives and vaults. He maintained cordial relations with scholars, intellectuals, and cultivated aristocrats in several countries who shared his interests. Although he resigned from Harvard in 1835 to concentrate on his History, he remained hopeful about the College's future. Writing in 1859 to the eminent British geologist Charles Lyell, he declared that, with "the best law school in the country, one of the best observatories in the world, a good medical school...[and] the Lawrence Scientific School, [we can become] a true university, and bring up the Greek, Latin, mathematics, history, philosophy, etc., to their proper level. At least I hope so, and mean to work for it." Warner Berthoff is Cabot professor of English and American literature emeritus. http://harvardmagazine.com/2005/01/george-ticknor.html 2/3 Anna Ticknor Papers, 1835 - 1837: Full Finding Aid Page 1 of 4 Manuscript MS-1249 SeriAnna isicknor Papers, 1835 - 1837 Box: 1. Dates: 1835-1837 Manuscript MS-1249 FULL FINDING AID Title: Anna Ticknor Papers, 1835-1837 - Call Number: Manuscript MS-1249 Collection Dates: 1835 - 1837 Size of Collection: 1 box (1.5 linear ft.) Abstract: Anna Ticknor (1800-1885), wife of George Ticknor. The collection consists of eight diaries of her travels through Europe with her family from 1835-1837. Note: Is there overlap- Access to Collection: Unrestricted. or interaction-between USE & ACCESS that of Sanual g. Ward ? The materials represented in this guide may be accessed through the Rauner Special Collections Library at Dartmouth College. Rauner Library is located in Webster Hall. The materials must be used on-site and may not leave Rauner Library. Rauner Special Collections Library is open to the public and in most cases no appointment is necessary. The exception is in the case of materials stored off site for which there may be a delay of up to 48 hours in retrieval. Please consult the Access to Collection statement below or contact Rauner Reference. Rauner Library Hours Rauner Library Patron Information ACCESS TO COLLECTION Unrestricted. USE RESTRICTIONS Permission from Dartmouth College required for publication or reproduction. https://ead.dartmouth.edu/html/ms1249_fullguide.html 4/27/2018 Anna Ticknor Papers, 1835 - 1837: Full Finding Aid Page 2 of 4 Manuscript MS 124 INTRODUCTION TO THE COLLECTION Ser Containsies glit the documenting Anna Ticknor's European travels from 1835-1837. The Box: Dates: 1835-1837 diaries contain detailed descriptions of activities, including stagecoach rides, booksellers' dinners, and visits to artists' galleries and factories. Anna's first diary begins on May 25th, 1835 and the eighth concludes on December 13, 1837. No detailed entries exist after this date, though a rough outline of events from December 12, 1837 to January 3, 1838 includes the names of friends who called, theaters they attended, and the arrival of letters. BIOGRAPHY Anna Ticknor was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts on September 23, 1800. Anna was the daughter of wealthy Boston merchant, Samuel Eliot, and the wife of the American academic and Hispanist, George Ticknor. The couple had four children, two of whom died in early childhood. Anna died on February 14th, 1885 in Boston, Massachusetts. Series, Box & Folder List SERIES 1, DIARIES, 1835-1837 Europe, 1835-1837. ACCESS RESTRICTIONS Unrestricted. BOX: 1, DATES: 1835-1837 ACCESS RESTRICTIONS Unrestricted. BOX CONTENTS Folder: 1, Volume I, May - September 1835 Anna Ticknor describes how it feels to make a long sea voyage which nearly ends in catastrophe. She gives her first impressions of Liverpool, Birmingham, and London. She is horrified by examples of poverty and degradation, while enchanted by examples of wealth and luxury. She meets Maria Edgeworth, Mary Russel Mitford, the Wordsworths, and the Southeys. Folder: 2, Volume II, September - November 1835 https://ead.dartmouth.edu/html/ms1249_fullguide.html 4/27/2018 Anna Ticknor Papers, 1835 - 1837: Full Finding Aid Page 3 of 4 on daily life at several English country houses and long passages on Series 1, Diaries, the 1835-1837 York Music Festival, the Doncaster races, Wentworth House, and the Fitzwilliam Box: 1, Dates: fan5H1837 Folder: 3, Volume III, November 1835 - May 1836 Contains general impressions of the Continent, but also detailed and informative accounts of life in Dresden, where the Ticknors resided during the winter of 1835-36. Along with her husband Anna attends balls and befriends aristocrats and members of the royal family, including the future king of Saxony. Anna provides descriptions of scenes at court, as well as her response to works of art. The volume ends with her comments on the journey from Dresden to Berlin. Folder: 4, Volume IV, May - August 1836 Report on three cities - Berlin, Vienna, and Munich. In each, Anna visits museums, galleries, and institutes. Among the highlights of this volume are Anna's first meeting with Alexander von Humboldt; several dinners in different cities which allow her to comment on various styles of formal entertainment; and visits to a large number of churches and monasteries on the way from Vienna to Munich. Anna recalls a happy stay at the castle of Count and Countess Thum of Howenstein. Folder: 5, Volume V, August - December 1836 The family begins in Munich and ends in Rome. From Munich they go to Bern; they travel through the Swiss Alps, enter Italy by way of the Simplon Road, spend a week in Turin, a week in Milan, several days in quarantine at Castel Franco, and then nearly a month in Florence. Anna tells a story of the ascent of Righi by horseback and a nighttime storm at the summit, and rumors of cholera and the squalid condition of people in various parts of northern Italy. In Milan, at the Scala, Anna is enchanted by the opera, but puzzled at the ballet. The Ticknors continue to keep in touch with important people, including the Grand Duke in Florence. Folder: 6, Volume VI, December 1836 - March 1837 This volume is devoted almost exclusively to the Ticknor family's stay in Rome. They arrived in early December, and stayed in spacious quarters on the Pincio. Mrs. Ticknor's remarks are largely focused on the art world and cultural treasures she found there. However, Anna was unenthusiastic about Roman society, especially Italian female aristocrats. Folder: 7, Volume VII, March - July 1837 https://ead.dartmouth.edu/html/ms1249_fullguide.html 4/27/2018 Anna Ticknor Papers, 1835 - 1837: Full Finding Aid Page 4 of 4 Manuscript Thestipknors head north toward Paris. This volume deals with their final months in Series 1, Diaries, Rome 1835-1837 and the family's travels to Perugia, Florence, Genoa, Venice, and the Box: 1, Dates: Alps. Anna Ticknor chronicles days filled with art and language lessons, visits to museums and galleries, and tours of Rome. By the end of this journal, the family visits La Spezia and travels along the mountains of Italy's north. Folder: 8, Volume VIII, July - December 1837 In this volume of her journal, Anna Ticknor displays her interest with the Italian and Swiss Alps, the Rhine River Valley, and the botanical gardens of Liège and Paris. Her entries reveal her sharp eye for native costume, peasant crafts, and rural architecture. At the Bellagio, near the Splugen Pass, she finds comfort in lounging and drinking in the natural world around her. https://ead.dartmouth.edu/html/ms1249_fullguide.html 4/27/2018 WIKIPEDIA Anna Eliot Ticknor Anna Eliot Ticknor (Boston, Massachusetts, June 1, 1823 - October 5, 1896) was an American author and educator. In 1873, Ticknor founded the Society to Encourage Studies at Home which was the first correspondence school in the United States. ¹ She is attributed as being a pioneer of distance learning in the United States, and the mother of correspondence schools. [2][3] She served as one of the original appointees to the Massachusetts Free Public Library Commission,4 which was the first of its kind in the United States. [5] Contents Family Author The Society to Encourage Studies at Home Death and legacy References Anna Eliot Ticknor External links Family Anna Eliot Ticknor was the oldest child of George Ticknor and Anna (Eliot) Ticknor. She was born on June 1, 1823. Her siblings were George Haven Ticknor, who died during his childhood at age 5; Susan Perkins Ticknor, who died in infancy; and Eliza Sullivan (Ticknor) Dexter (1833 -1880). [6][7] Her paternal grandfather was Elisha Ticknor who was the impetus for the system of free primary schools in Boston, and one of the founders of the first savings bank, Provident Institution for Savings in the Town of Boston, in the United States. [8] Her father was a Harvard University professor. [1] Her mother was a writer. [1] Her maternal grandfather was Samuel Eliot, a Boston merchant. Her mother's brother, Samuel A. Eliot was the treasuror of Harvard College. [6] Author In 1896, Ticknor wrote a children's book, An American Family in Paris: With Fifty-Eight Illustrations of Historical Monuments and Familiar Scenes. George Ticknor The Society to Encourage Studies at Home In Boston, Massachusetts in 1873, Ticknor founded an organization of women who taught women students through the mail. 9 [[10] Her society was the first correspondence school in the United States, and an early effort to offer higher education to women. ¹ [9] To assist the student in obtaining the needed study materials, in 1875 a lending library was established. The collection gradually grew to contain several thousand volumes. The purpose of the study varied between the different students with some people being young women with minimal schooling and others being educated women seeking an advanced learning opportunity. Lending library in Ticknor's family Death and legacy residence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Eliot_Ticknor 4/27/2018 Anna Ticknor died on October 5, 1896. [1] After her death, the Society to Encourage Studies at Home released a history of the organization as a tribute to her. The book contains letters exchanged between Ticknor, students, and other people associated with the organization and gives an overview of the workings of the Society and the impact that it had on its students. The Society ceased operating after her death, and the Anna Ticknor Library Association was formed to circulate the former Society's books, photographs, and other materials to a larger group of interest learners.11[[11] References 1. Society to Encourage Studies at Home https://openlibrary.org/books/OL23472361M/Society_to_Encourage_Studies_at_Home_Founded_in_1873_by_Anna_Eliot_Ticknor_... Cambridge: Riverside Press. 1897. Retrieved 9 July 2011. 2. Holmberg, Börje (June 1995). "The Evolution of the Character and Practice of Distance Education" (http://www.c3l.uni- oldenburg.de/cde/found/holmbg95.htm). Open Learning: 47-53. Retrieved 9 July 2011. 3. Bower, Beverly L.; Hardy, Kimberly P. (Winter 2004). "1". From Correspondence to Cyberspace: Changes and Challenges in Distance Education(http://www.qou.edu/arabic/researchProgram/distanceLearning/changesChallenges.pdf)(PDF). Wiley Periodicals, Inc. pp. 5 -12. Retrieved 9 July 2011. 4. Massachusetts Librarian of the State Library, ed. (1897). Public documents of Massachusetts, Volume 8, Part 2 https://books.google.com/books?id=xdMWAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PA7&dq=Anna+Eliot+Ticknor#v=onepage&q=Anna%20Eliot% 20Ticknor&f=false). Boston: Wright & Potter, State Printers. p. 7. Retrieved 9 July 2011. 5. Paula Watson. "Valleys without sunsets: women's clubs and traveling libraries." In: Robert S. Freeman, David M. Hovde, eds. Libraries to the people: histories of outreach. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2003 6. National Federation of Modern Language Teachers Associations, Federation of Modern Language Teachers Associations, Association of Modern Language Teachers of the Central West and South, and National Federation of Modern Language Teachers. 1916. The Modern language journal. Madison, Wis. [etc.]: National Federation of Modern Language Teachers Associations. 7. Mott, Wesley T. 2001. The American Renaissance in New England Third series. Detroit: The Gale Group. 8. Lance Edwin Davis and Peter Lester Payne. From Benevolence to Business: The Story of Two Savings Banks. Business History Review, Vol. 32, No. 4 (Winter, 1958), pp. 386-406. 9. Bergmann, Harriet F. "The Silent University": The Society to Encourage Studies at Home, 1873-1897 in The New England Quarterly. Boston: September 2001. Vol. 74 No. 3. pp 447-77 10. Good Housekeeping. 1885. New York, etc: s.n. pages 45, 70. 11. Abbott, Lyman, Hamilton Wright Mabie, Ernest Hamlin Abbott, and Francis Rufus Bellamy. 1893. The Outlook. New York: Outlook Co. page 941 External links The Ticknor Society (http://www.ticknor.org/index.htm#about) Works by or about Anna Eliot Ticknor(https://archive.org/search.php?query=%28%28subject%3A%22Ticknor%2C%20Anna% 20Eliot%22%20OR%20subject%3A%22Ticknor%2C%20Anna%20E%2E%22%20OR%20subject%3A%22Ticknor%2C%20A%2E% 20E%2E%22%20OR%20subject%3A%22Anna%20Eliot%20Ticknor%22%200R%20subject%3A%22Anna%20E%2E%20Ticknor% 22%20OR%20subject%3A%22A%2E%20E%2E%20Ticknor%22%200R%20subject%3A%22Ticknor%2C%20Anna%22%20OR% 20subject%3A%22Anna%20Ticknor%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Anna%20Eliot%20Ticknor%22%20OR%20creator%3A% 22Anna%20E%2E%20Ticknor%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22A%2E%20E%2E%20Ticknor%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22A%2E 20Eliot%20Ticknor%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Ticknor%2C%20Anna%20Eliot%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Ticknor%2C 20Anna%20E%2E%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Ticknor%2C%20A%2E%20E%2E%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Ticknor%2C% 20A%2E%20Eliot%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Anna%20Ticknor%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Ticknor%2C%20Anna%22% 2A%2E%20E%2E%20Ticknor%22%200R%20title%3A%22Anna%20Ticknor%22%20OR%20description%3A%22Anna%20Eliot% 20Ticknor%22%20OR%20description%3A%22Anna%20E%2E%20Ticknor%22%20OR%20description%3A%22A%2E%20E%2E% 20Ticknor%22%200R%20description%3A%22Ticknor%2C%20Anna%20Eliot%22%200R%20description%3A%22Ticknor%2C% 20Anna%20E%2E%22%20OR%20description%3A%22Anna%20Ticknor%22%20OR%20description%3A%22Ticknor%2C%20Ann 22%29%20OR%20%28%221823-1896%22%20AND%20Ticknor%29%29%20AND%20%28-mediatype:software%29)at Internet Archive Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anna_Eliot_Ticknor&oldid=798478787" This page was last edited on 2 September 2017, at 06:01. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Eliot_Ticknor 4/27/2018 The Research Libraries of The New York Public Library /All Locations Page 1 of 2 The New York Public Library CATNYP: The Research Libraries Online Catalog ACCESS Card My CATNYP Account Help CATNYP Classes Archives & Manuscripts LEO, The Branch Libraries' Catalog Start Over Save Record Return to List Another Search (Search History) AUTHOR Ticknor, George, 1791-1871. Entire Collection Search Record 35 of 37 Record: Prev Next Call # *Z-2978 Author Ticknor, George, 1791-1871. Title The travel journals of George & Anna Ticknor in the years 1816- 1819 and 1835-1838. Imprint [v.p., 1816-1838] URL for this record LOCATION CALL # STATUS Humanities- Microforms *Z-2978 Division Humanities- Microforms Descript 26 V. illus. Note Microfilm by University Microfilms, 1974. 5 reels. Original material at Dartmouth College Library. Vol. 1 includes: A guide to the microfiche edition of the European journals of George and Anna Ticknor, edited by Steven Allaback and Alexander Medlicott. Hanover, N. H., Dartmouth College Library, 1978. vi, 101 p. Subject Europe -- Description and travel. Add'l name Ticknor, Anna Eliot, 1800-1885. Allaback, Steven. Medlicott, Alexander. Dartmouth College. Library. http://catnyp.nypl.org/search/aTicknor%2C+George%2C+1791-1871./aticknor+george+17.. 2/25/2007 6/4/2020 Remember Jamaica Plain?: 2009 Resources: Followers (37) Next Backhouse, Constance. "The Heiress versus the Establishment: The First Female Litigator Before the Privy Council." POSTED BY MARK B. AT 8:55 PM 1 COMMENT: LINKS TO THIS POST a A THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2009 William D. Ticknor - Publisher HITCOUNTER ANALYTICS Offices of Ticknor and Fields (Old Corner Book Store). William D. Ticknor was born in Lebanon New Hampshire August 6, 1810 on the family farm. In 1827 he left for Boston to work in the brokerage house of his uncle Benjamin. By 1832, he had partnered with John Allen to form the publishing company Allen and Ticknor, which was housed in the now-famous Old Corner Book Store building. As partners came and went, the company named changed, with Ticknor and Fields being perhaps the best remembered. From the Old Corner Book Store, they published many of the leading literary lights of New England, such as Emerson, Hawthorne, Thoreau, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., as well Harriot Beecher Stowe and Horatio Alger At a time when 6/4/2020 Remember Jamaica Plain?: 2009 international copyright was not upheld, in 1842 they paid Alfred, Lord Tennyson a royalty for publishing his work, an early act of fair play in a business in which pirating of books was a common complaint on both sides of the Atlantic. While at the Old Corner Book Store, they also published the Atlantic Monthly. (For an extra credit nugget, I found a single sentence 1841 newspaper advertisement for De Quincey's Confessions of an Opium Addict). Eventually, the outgrew the location and moved to Tremont street. Over time, partners and name changes came and went, and the company eventually became part of Houghton, Osgood and Company, which later became Houghton Mifflin. Burroughs street, 1874. Ticknor house, Burroughs street. In 1854, Ticknor bought land between Pond and Burroughs streets in Jamaica Plain, and built a house on the Burroughs street side. We can imagine friends like Hawthorne traveling out of the city and visiting the 6/4/2020 Remember Jamaica Plain?: 2009 speaking tour, Ticknor was his host, and perhaps he might have visited 3 Burroughs street as well. [Note: I've just learned that Caroline Ticknor related a story of Dickens visiting the Ticknor house in Jamaica Plain. After the great man left the house, a shy relative followed him outside, and made a copy of the impression his foot left in the soft gravel.] In 1862, William Ticknor journeyed south to Washington D.C. with his friend Nathaniel Hawthorne, where they met President Lincoln. In March of 1864, they set out to Washington again, in hopes that the milder weather would aid Hawthorne's poor health. During the trip, it was Ticknor's health that took a turn for the worse, and he died at the Continental Hotel in Philadelphia with his friend by his side. Hawthorne returned to Concord, but in a month he would be dead as well. Ticknor and his wife, Emeline Staniford Holt had five surviving children, including three sons who went to Harvard. Howard Malcolm, Benjamin Holt and Thomas Baldwin Ticknor all went into the business. Before joining the firm, Benjamin first enlisted in the army during the Civil war, and at one time was in charge of recruiting at the Readville training camp. Howard Ticknor lived in the family house through at least the 1880s . The 1874 map above shows the house still owned by the estate of William D. Ticknor. Son Benjamin stayed in Jamaica Plain as well, buying a lot on Harris avenue from Captain Charles Brewer. The 1874 map shows Benjamin H. Ticknor at 13 Harris avenue. Unlike his father's house, Benjamin's home still stands today as number 15. The small, twentieth century house that sits to the right of it was added to the same property, and now carries the address 13A. 6/4/2020 Remember Jamaica Plain?: 2009 Harris avenue, 1874. Benjamin's household was in interesting one. The 1880 census lists his wife, Caroline daughters Caroline, aged 13, and Edith, aged 11, as well has sister Elinor, aged 35 and brother Thomas, aged 30. To that, we can add four female domestics and one coachman. Although only two of five servants were Irish-born, two others had Irish parents, the other woman being from Newfoundland. So four women to care for six people, including the woman of the house. I think we can say that the Irish were nineteenth-century Jamaica Plain's version of labor-saving devices. Benjamin's daughter Caroline went on to have a career as a writer and editor. She wrote Hawthorne and His Friend (the friend being her grandfather William D. Ticknor), May Alcott, A Memoir, and Glimpses of Authors (cited above), and edited Holmes's Boston, with Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., and numerous books. In 1925, Caroline and sister Edith were still living at the house on Harris avenue POSTED BY MARK B. AT 12:01 AM NO COMMENTS: LINKS TO THIS POST TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2009 Thanksgiving At The Zoo Boston Daily Globe November 30, 1923 Animals in Zoo Given Thanksgiving Dinner Codliver oil and garlic may not sound like the average person's idea of a real Thanksgiving dinner, but they were two of the most popular dishes at the Franklin Park Zoo yesterday. Deputy Park Commissioner William P. Long, following the custom of some years, ordered a Thanksgiving dinner for the birds and beasts at the Jamaica Plain institution, and last night every one was happy, even Mutt, the hyena. The codliver oil was for the two Polar bears Pasha and Fatima, and the big beasts lapped the dishes dry and begged for more. As for the garlic it is Tony's, the youngest elephant's idea of white meat and fixin's. Curiously enough Waddy, the other elephant, will not touch garlic, but ate the regular dinner of hay, bread and carrots with relish. The other inmates received the "eats" which they love best. There was fruit of various sorts for the monkeys, mutton for the brown, black and grizzly bears, and SO on down the long list. POSTED BY MARK B. AT 6:37 PM 2 COMMENTS: LINKS TO THIS POST LABELS: FRANKLIN PARK, ZOO Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record Page 1 of 2 Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record (If noted, names of Supplemental delineators and date of Material creation are found on drawings b&w photos data pages the drawings.) Amory-Ticknor House 9 Park Street, Boston, Suffolk County, MA Drawings 1 through 6 of 20 NEXT GROUP For a larger reference image, click on the picture or text. Bibliographic information I Start Over in the Catalog AMORY-TICKNOR - HOUSE DOENER of PARK AND BACON STREETS o C Bibliographic information I Start Over in the Catalog http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=pphhsheet&fileName=ma/ma0800/ma0898/s 1/2/2006 MA0898 Page 1 of 2 P&P Online Go to P&P Catalog Start NEW SEARCH HELP ABOUT COLLECTION Reading Room Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record/Historic American Landscapes Survey Supplemental Material 19 drawings 13 b&w photos 1 data pages How to obtain copies of this item TITLE: Amory-Ticknor House, 9 Park Street, Boston, Suffolk County, MA CALL NUMBER: HABS MASS,13-BOST,15- REPRODUCTION NUMBER: [See Call Number] MEDIUM: Measured Drawing(s): 19 (18 X 24 in.) Photo(s): 13 (8x 10 in.) DATE: Documentation compiled after 1933. CREATOR: Historic American Buildings Survey, creator RELATED NAME(S): Amory, Thomas Gore, Gov. Christopher Dexter, Samuel Ticknor, George NOTE: Survey number HABS MA-175 Building/structure dates: 1804 initial construction Building/structure dates: 1885 subsequent work See also HABS MA-2-11-B for additional documentation. http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/S?pp/hh:@field(TITLE+@od1(Amory-Ticknor+House,... 1/2/2006 MA0898 Page 2 of 2 SUBJECTS: MASSACHUSETTS--Suffolk County--Boston COLLECTION: Historic American Buildings Survey (Library of Congress) REPOSITORY: Library of Congress, Prints and Photograph Division, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA DIGID: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/hhh.ma0898 CONTENTS: Photograph caption(s): 2. Historic American Buildings Survey (a) Ext--General view from N.W. (Old Photo taken about 1885, owned by Miss Rose Dexter, Boston) 3. Historic American Buildings Survey, (Old Photo taken about 1885) owned by Miss Rose Dexter, Boston (e) Ext-General view Part St. Front 4. Historic American Buildings Survey, Arthur C. Haskell, Photographer. 1935. (b) Ext- General View from Northwest. 5. Historic American Buildings Survey, Arthur C. Haskell, Photographer. 1935. (c) Ext-View of West Front, from Northwest. 6. Historic American Buildings Survey Arthur C. Haskell, Photographer October, 1934 (d) TICKNOR HOUSE LAMP STANDARD AND RAILING FROM NORTHWEST 7. Historic American Buildings Survey, Arthur C. Haskell, Photographer. 1935. (d) Detail, Old Entrance Porch. (West) 8. Historic American Buildings Survey Arthur C. Haskell, Photographer October, 1934 (e) DETAIL VIEW OF TICKNOR HOUSE STANDARD AND STEPS FROM N.W. 9. Historic American Buildings Survey. Old Photo taken about 1885. (g) Int-Front Entrance from Vestibule, 9 Park St. (Original owned by Miss Rose Dexter, Boston) 10. Historic American Buildings Survey. Old Photo taken about 1885. (f) Int-Front Staircase, Entrance Hall, 9 Park St. (Original owned by Miss Rose Dexter, Boston) 11. Historic American Buildings Survey, (Old Photo taken about 1885.) (h) Int-Archway and Recess, Rear Parlor, First Floor. (Original owned by Miss Rose Dexter, Boston) 12. Historic American Buildings Survey, (Old Photo taken about 1885) (j) View Library, South Side Ticknor House, 2nd Floor. (Original owned by Miss Rose Dexter, Boston) 13. Historic American Buildings Survey. (Old Photo taken about 1885) (i) Int-Detail Library Mantel, Ticknor House, 2nd Floor. (Original owned by Miss Rose Dexter, Boston) 14. Historic American Buildings Survey. (Old Photo taken about 1885) (k) Int-Mantel, Mrs. Ticknor's Room, 2nd Floor. (Original owned by Miss Rose Dexter, Boston) CARD #: MA0898 P&P Online Go to P&P NEW SEARCH HELP ABOUT COLLECTION Catalog Start Reading Room http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/S?pp/hh:@field(TITLE+@od1(Amory-Ticknor+House,... 1/2/2006 Page 1 of 1 Photo N.W. Display LOC Boston) by Miss 3 2. Historic 1885, owned taken HABS 161K bytes) - 19397K bytes) 1/2/2006 PS 1881 A4 LETTERS OF any 1881 1910 144 1910 V. . . HAWTHORNE TO WILLIAM D. TICKNOR 1851-1864 / Hartherne, 1804-1864 260636 VOLUME I 2 UN 30 1970 NEWARK NEW JERSEY Copyright, 1910, by THE CARTERET BOOK CLUB THE CARTERET BOOK CLUB 1910 C CLA268380 HARVARD REMINISCENCES BY ANDREW P. PEABODY, D.D., LL.D. PREACHER TO THE UNIVERSITY, AND PLUMMER PROFESSOR OF CHRISTIAN MORALS, EMERITUS BOSTON TICKNOR AND COMPANY 211, Tremont Street 1888 iv PREFACE. which embrace fifty-six years of college-age, from 1776 to 1831 (inclusive). To these biographical notices, I have appended a chapter containing some of my reminiscences of CONTENTS. Harvard College as it was during my novitiate as a student. PAGE AARON DEXTER 1 HENRY WARE 2 ISAAC PARKER 8 JOHN THORNTON KIRKLAND 9 STEPHEN H1GGINSON 17 JOSIAH QUINCY 20 LEVI HEDGE 37 JOHN SNELLING POPKIN 40 FRANCIS SALES 47 JAMES JACKSON 50 ASAHEL STEARNS 51 JOHN COLLINS WARREN 54 JOSEPH STORY 56 SIDNEY WILLARD 60 JOHN GORHAM 67 BENJAMIN PEIRCE 68 CHARLES SANDERS 68 JOHN FARRAR 70 ANDREWS NORTON 73 JACOB BIGELOW 79 THOMAS NUTTALL 80 GEORGE TICKNOR 81 WALTER CHANNING 83 EDWARD TYRREL CHANNING 84 JONATHAN BARBER 90 EDWARD EVERETT 91 JOHN WHITE WEBSTER 97 HENRY WARE 97 CHARLES FOLSOM 100 JOHN WARE. 104 THADDEUS WILLIAM HARRIS 105 V vi CONTENTS. PAGE GEORGE OTIS 106 JOHN GORHAM PALFREY 107 PIETRO BACHI 115 CHARLES FOLLEN 116 CHARLES BECK 124 FRANCIS MARIA JOSEPH SURAULT 126 OLIVER SPARHAWK 128 JOHN HOOKER ASHMUN 128 HARVARD REMINISCENCES. JOHN FESSENDEN 129 GEORGE RAPALL NOYES 130 WILLIAM FARMER 134 JAMES HAYWARD 135 JOHN PORTER 138 AARON DEXTER. NATHANIEL GAGE 138 (1776.) WILLIAM PARSONS LUNT 139 GEORGE RIPLEY 140 THIS was the only name on the catalogue in my BENJAMIN BRIGHAM 141 SAMUEL KIRKLAND LOTHROP 143 college days that bore the then rare and almost mys- ALLEN PUTNAM 145 terious title of Emeritus, which Dr. Dexter retained JOHN LANGDON SIBLEY. 146 ALANSON BRIGHAM for thirteen years, after having filled the chair of 154 HERSEY BRADFORD GOODWIN 155 Chemistry and Materia Medica for thirty-three years. GEORGE WASHINGTON HOSMER 157 In his time chemistry was almost an unknown terri- GEORGE PUTNAM 159 OLIVER STEARNS 163 tory, while the field of materia medica was immeas- EDMUND CUSHING 167 urably large; drugs and called) specifics having CORNELIUS CONWAY FELTON 168 SETH SWEETSER been not only in more ample use, but employed in a 176 GEORGE STILLMAN HILLARD 177 very much greater variety, than in the practice of HENRY SWASEY MCKEAN 178 the present day. Dr. Dexter was chosen to office JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE. 178 BENJAMIN ROBBINS CURTIS 179 in 1783, - the year after the formation of the Medi- SAMUEL ADAMS DEVENS 179 cal School. His professorship was unendowed until JOEL GILES 179 1790, when William Erving, moved by affection for BENJAMIN PEIRCE 180 CHANDLER ROBBINS 187 Dr. Dexter, his physician and friend, left a thousand THOMAS HOPKINSON 192 pounds, the income thereof to be applied to the CHARLES EAMES 194 SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER 196 increase of the salary of the Professor of Chemistry. Hence the name of the Erving Professorship now held by Professor Cooke. In 1816 Dr. Dexter ten- 1 80 HARVARD REMINISCENCES. GEORGE TICKNOR. 81 the high classical culture which, in his latter years, struction by him to those who wanted it: but I never Dr. Bigelow was wont to depreciate. He lingered to heard of his having a pupil. Some of us had acquired a late old age, wise, genial, and kind, beloved and a working knowledge of the Linnman system, and admired, with loss of sight, but with no failure in the with the aid of Bigelow's Flora Bostoniensis" gath- keenness of his mental vision; and the only sugges ered and identified plants in the then flower-rich tion of second childhood that he gave his friends was region of alternating swamp and woodland on what his doubling upon his track as to the classic tongues, is now Kirkland Street; and we had heard a rumor returning to the nursery, and making translations of Jussicu's Natural Orders as an obtrusive inno- from Mother Goose into Greek lyrics of classic dic- vation on classes and orders that seemed to us too tion, faultless prosody, and melodious rlyythm. fundamentally "natural to be ever set aside. Mr. Nuttall published several works of the highest merit, THOMAS NUTTALIA -treatises on botany and geology, "A Manual of (Hon. A. M. 1826.) the Ornithology of North America," and records of DRAKE, in his 'Dictionary of American Biogra- scientific travel in California and in the Mississippi phy," substituting what ought to have been for what Valley. Nn Englishman by birth, a printer by edu- was, says that Mr. Nuttall was Professor of Botany cation, he returned to England to take possession and Natural History from 1822 to 1834. In point of an estate devised to him on condition that he of fact, on the death of Professor Peck, in 1822, the should live upon it. college found itself, and remained for twenty years, too poor to maintain a professorship in this depart- GEORGE TICKNOR. ment. Mr. Quincy, in his "History," says that Mr. (Dartmouth, 1807.) Nuttall was appointed Curator of the Botanical My readers well know how eminent a place Mr. Garden in 1822. In the Triennial Catalogue the ap- Ticknor filled in the world of letters and in society. pointment is said to have been made in 1825. His With a grace of address and manners commensurate name was mythical to the members of college. We with his elegant culture, with conversational gifts used to hear of him as the greatest of naturalists; equally ample and versatile, and with the prestige but I never knew of his being seen. He lived in the house belonging to the Botanic Garden, in a 1 The Azalea viscosa used to grow there in such profusion as, in its season, to pervade that entire quarter of the town with its then remote quarter of the town, which we seldom fragrance. The Linnaea borealis, which has but few localities in New explored. I think that the catalogue promised in- England, used to be found there. 82 HARVARD REMINISCENCES WALTER CHANNING. 83 of a reputation early won, and still earlier deserved, might have had an audience more fully conversant he was the first of the three men of cosmopolitan with the literatures of which he was master. fame that have filled the Smith Professorship of the Mr. Ticknor deserves special commemoration for French and Spanish Literature and of Belles-Lettres, his services in the promotion of liberal culture and his only successors having been his friends, Long- the advancement of knowledge. II was chief among fellow and Lowell. There is no need of my giving the founders of the Boston Public Library. Still a sketch of his life, for his Memoir has been gener- more, he was generous as to the use of his own ally read; and I must confine myself for the most library, which, in all departments stocked with the part to personal reminiscences. I doubt whether he best authors in the best editions, was in his own ever did any class-work : he certainly did not while department the richest and most valuable in the I was in college. But he delivered, in alternate country. IIc never refused to lend a book, however years, courses of lectures on French and on Spanish precious; and his loans were SO frequent as to require Literature, the last of these forming the substance special registration as a guaranty against loss. I of the first edition of his great work, the 'History remember, that, when a young fellow-tutor of mine, of Spanish Literature." These lectures had all the not particularly intimate with him, wanted to write qualities of style and method which fitted them for a lecture on the "Ireland Forgeries," Mr. Ticknor an academic audience. We knew that they were of lent him the entire set of publications relating to transcendent worth, and we listened to them cagerly them, probably the only set in the country, and con- and attentively. They were appreciated as highly, sisting in part of facsimiles and privately printed yet not SO intelligently, as they would have been a monographs, which could not have been replaced. few years later. They covered, for the most part, I knew not a few instances of similar kindness, a then unknown territory. Spanish literature was indicating, no doubt, a broader charity than large known mainly by translations of the few world- pecuniary gifts would have implied. famous authors; and, though the capacity of reading French was not rare, there were very few French WALTER CHANNING. books to be had, and those few, the works of the (1808.) great writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- DR. WALTER CHANNING filled for about forty turies, not the current literature of the time. But years an important professorship in the Medical Mr. Ticknor did much toward awakening curiosity, School, and survived his graduation no less than and creating the condition of things in which he sixty-eight years. He had no connection with the A COLLECTION ANALYSIS OF THE TICKNOR AND FIELDS COLLECTION OF THE RARE BOOK COLLECTION AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL by Ronald Laven Leach A Master's paper submitted to the faculty of the School of Information and Library Science of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Library Science. Chapel Hill, North Carolina April, 2004 Approved by: Charles B. McNamara 1 Table of Contents Introduction p. 2-4 Collection Analysis Project-Principles p. 5-7 Methodology p. 7-12 Historical Overview of Ticknor and Fields p. 12-18 Collection Analysis Process p. 18-20 Results and Findings p. 20-32 Desiderata List-Principles p. 33-34 Desiderata List p. 35-41 Bibliography p. 42-43 Ronald L. Leach. A Collection Analysis of the Ticknor and Fields Collection of the Rare Book Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A Master's paper for the M.S. in L.S. degree. April, 2004. 45 pages. Advisor: Charles B. McNamara This study is an analysis of the Rare Book Collection's holdings and desiderata list for the Ticknor and Fields' collection and historical overview of the Ticknor and Fields publishing house. The purpose of this collection analysis is to assist the curator in collection development, to serve as a guide to researchers using the collection, and to assist librarians and catalogers who will continue to describe, catalog, and arrange the collection. This study is limited primarily to publications issued by Ticknor and Fields during the period of 1849 to 1853. The paper contains information on methodology and results and findings. It contains an overview of high spots of the collection and list of desirable first editions and selected later editions of items not currently in the Ticknor and Fields collection of the Rare Book Collection. Headings: Ticknor & Fields Collection development/College and university libraries--Rare books Publishers and Publishing/History 2 Introduction In 1987 the Rare Book Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (RBC) acquired a collection of books and other materials emanating from one of the premier publishing houses operating in mid-nineteenth century America--namely, the house known as Ticknor and Fields. 1 This was no ordinary collection from the publisher's archives; it was rather the result of a lifetime of book collecting by John William Pye, who, after starting collecting books while a student in college, found that "the name of Ticknor, Reed, and Fields [had] cast a spell on me." He goes on to describe his self-guided mission as follows: After several years of being hopelessly engulfed in the pursuit of old books, I decided to specialize in the collecting of everything that had been published by the Boston firm of Ticknor and Fields, and their predecessors. This has been no small task, for besides publishing the majority of work of [Longfellow, Lowell, Emerson, Hawthorne and Whittier] the firm also published Henry David Thoreau, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Julia Ward Howe [of the Battle Hymn to the Republic fame], Oliver Wendell Holmes, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Charles Kingsley, Charles Dickens, Robert Browning, and Bert Harte. And these are only the well-known authors; my collection includes the likes of Forsythe Wilson, Jonathan Barrett, Mary Bartol Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, and Theodore Winthrop. 2 As a result of Pye's collecting efforts, the RBC acquired approximately 7,850 volumes (based upon the estimate of the RBC cataloger who processed and cataloged the 1 As will be discussed later, Ticknor and Fields, which began its existence in 1832 as Allen & Ticknor, went through seven name changes over the course of its existence; for purposes of this paper the firm will be primarily referred to as Ticknor and Fields, the name most commonly associated with the firm. 2 John W. Pye, The 100 Most Significant Books by Ticknor and Fields, 1832-1871: A Guidebook for Collectors (Brockton : John William Pye Rare Books, 1995) 3. 3 collection) consisting of approximately 2,600 titles, 190 pieces of ephemera (letters, manuscripts, broadsides, advertisements, royalty checks) and 54 bound volumes of periodicals (including the renowned Atlantic Monthly series, which Ticknor and Fields acquired in 1858 for the apparently bargain price of $10,000, for Fields had submitted this bid for $10,000 expecting it to be rejected as too low). Another 200 transfers from Davis Library enhanced RBC's Ticknor and Fields collection. The RBC did not just acquire nearly the entire output of a representative nineteenth-century American publishing house. For the publishing house of Ticknor and Fields has been characterized in fact as "the most prestigious literary house in the United States during the mid-nineteenth century"3; or in the words of the indefatigable scholar of the Ticknor and Fields house, Michael Winship, "the preeminent publisher of belles- letters, especially poetry, in the United States of the mid-nineteenth century ,,4 The RBC therefore has a veritable American treasure trove with its Ticknor and Fields collection. It has received prominence in part through a Hanes Lecture delivered by the afore-mentioned Ticknor and Fields scholar, Michael Winship, in which he examined the business practices of the firm. 5 And with the increasing interest in the study of the history of the book in American society and culture, especially the study of literacy and of the book as a cultural and tangible object, along with book publishing history in general, the thoroughness and comprehensiveness of the RBC's Ticknor and 3 Jeffrey Groves, "Judging Literary Books by their Covers: House Styles, Ticknor and Fields, and Literary Promotion," in Reading Books: Essays on the Material Text and Literature in America, eds. Michele Moylan and Lane Stiles (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1996) 77. Michael Winship, American Literary Publishing in the Mid-Nineteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995) 7. 5 Winship, Ticknor and Fields: The Business of Literary Publishing in the United States of the Nineteenth Century (Chapel Hill: Rare Book Collection/University Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1992). 4 Field's collection should serve as a major source for research into the reading habits, audiences, and interests (whether popular, juvenile, literary, political, religious, intellectual, all genres or modes of thought represented by the books published by the firm). In an article entitled "Publishing in America," Winship asserts the untapped need to pursue research in the subject of publishing history in America; in particular, to discover and identify publisher's lists in advertisements, catalogues, and records and thereby compile imprint lists to use for further research into book history. "We must," Winship notes, "complete the work of establishing the record of the published output of the American book trade for our period This work will also involve discovering and identifying publications that have not yet been recorded or described but, are listed in publishers' advertisements, catalogues, and records.' ,,6 In view of the wealth of advertisements inserted in many of the volumes published by Ticknor and Fields from as early as the late 1830s with their often effusive praises lavished on the books, the RBC's collection offers the willing researcher a bountiful primary source "to interpret how the published output reacted to or affected a whole range of intellectual, political and cultural movements.' ,,7 (emphasis added) And fortunately for the researcher the Ticknor and Fields collection is thoroughly cataloged with four shelf list drawers in call number order and in the online catalog at the RBC in main entry order. 6 Winship, "Publishing in America," in Needs and Opportunities in the History of the Book: America, 1639-1876, eds. David D. Hall and John B. Hench (Worcester: American Antiquarian Society, 1987) 96. 7 Ibid., 97. 5 Collection Analysis Project-Principles Once a major collection such as the Ticknor and Fields collection has been acquired by a library, it becomes essential in time to appraise the collection from the standpoint of its completeness, potential deficiencies, its "high spots," and other key elements of the collection. As a result of such analysis the current state of the collection can be determined and attention given to filling the holes, assessing what materials are present that may, in light of changing or evolving research interests, deserve special emphasis and promotion in scholarly literature and other promotional sites, such as the RBC's web site, SO as to communicate the mine of sources available for its exploitation by interested scholars. Ultimately, collection analysis assists the librarian or curator who needs to be apprised of the lineaments of the collection in his or her constant effort to provide access to the collection through collection development and cataloguing. Though, as intimated SO far, the Ticknor and Fields' collection at the RBC is as nearly comprehensive a collection as can be gathered in one institution, there are a few gaps in the collection whose remedying will thereby improve the comprehensiveness of the collection and its value as a source for the study of the history of the book and book culture in mid- nineteenth century America. Roderick Cave in his book, Rare Book Librarianship, sets out his view of collection analysis as one of the principal methods for pursuing collection development in a special collections arena: A collection can be built up in [a] haphazard way provided time is not of importance and the material is not also being sought by other libraries or collectors, but a purposeful and coherent acquisitions policy will demand that other methods also be 6 employed. At the core of this policy must lie the desiderata list, the record of those books which the institution knows it needs for the systematic development of the collection. The list will be built up in a number of ways, of which the principal will be the examination of the present collection by the rare books librarian and other experts in the subject field This review will be undertaken in terms of the general policy for its growth, to reveal those key books and editions. which are not yet in its stock, and are necessary to round it out. 8 (emphasis added) Cave pertinently focuses on the construction of a desiderata list--the record of those books or other materials needed for the comprehensive development of the collection as a key element of the library's acquisitions policies. Where the desired goal of acquiring a collection is to acquire, ideally, the entire output of an author or in this case, the entire output of a major publishing house, the desiderata list becomes a central tool in assisting the curator to meet that goal. Such lists should identify in descending order the "musts" or "vitals" worthy of acquiring at any price, those items that are very desirable if the price is "right" and those useful items where monies are readily available such as unspent monies at the end of a budget year. These lists will then be furnished to appropriate book dealers to search on behalf of the library, or in the current Internet era, such lists can be used by in-house librarians charged with acquisitions to search directly the preeminent online rare book dealers' web sites, such as Abebooks.com, Bookfinder.com, or the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America's (ABAA) web site, to name just a few. These online dealers enable the librarian to truly search the globe as web sites like Abebooks and Bookfinder are similar to electronic-based bibliographic utilities like OCLC by bringing together the catalogs or records of dealers from around the world into one searchable source--a major advancement in book 8 Roderick Cave, Rare Book Librarianship, Second rev.ed (London: Clive Bingley, 1992) 53. 10 number of the particular edition. Below the heading are recorded the date, details and cost of paper, composition, printing, binding, royalty payments (denominated as "copyright" or just "copr" in the Cost Books), and other illustrative details as appropriate. Finally the date of publication and production cost per copy are noted along with trade and retail prices (thus revealing the discount offered to the retailer). A typical example of a Cost Book entry is the entry for The Scarlet Letter (A173a) reproduced as follows: [A173a] 1850 2500 The Scarlet Letter 2500 By Nathl Hawthorne 16 Mo. 324 pps. Metcalf & Co. 57 4/20 Reams. 18 1/2 X 29. 33. 4.75 268.30 320.586 ms. [ems] @ 43cents 130 11 115 Tokens. 75. 86 75 Ext Corrections 9 50 Copt. on 2400 @ 15% 270 00 Binding 10 250 00 Cost Sheets 32. clo 42. Trade 75 1/4[discount] Published Mar. 1850. Hawthorne, Nathaniel, The scarlet letter, a romance 1 vol. 16mo [iii]-iv,322pp. Copyrighted by N. Hawthorne, 1850. Ticknor, Reed and Fields, 1850. The right-side figure of "2500" refers to the total number of volumes in an edition; the left-side figure of "2500" refers to the total number of sets in an edition. The two would differ only when the title is in two or more volumes. Metcalf & Co., printers to the University [Harvard], became a staple printer for Ticknor and Fields during the period from 1845-1858. The paper line refers first to the quantity (57 reams) used for the printing, the size of the paper (18 1/2 x 29), pounds per ream (33), cents per lb. (4.75) and 11 extended costs for the quantity of reams used. The "ems" line identifies the number of ems used in setting up the book for type, which number when multiplied by the cents per em, gives the $130.11 total recorded above. The editors of the Cost Books note that the presence or absence of the ems entry is significant as it may indicate that type was set up anew for a particular edition of a book. For the second edition of The Scarlet Letter (A179a) shows 303.930 ems, which reflects a different quantity from that used in composing the A173a copy set out above, even though the first edition was published only a month before the second. The reference to "Tokens" relates to the presswork; a token was 500 impressions from one form; and the product of the 115 tokens figure and 75 cents yields the $86.75 total. The term "Copt" or "copyright" was used for what today would be deemed royalties paid to the author; in this case paid only on 2400 of the 2500 copies printed, as the 100 copies for which royalties were not paid may have been review copies or extra copies provided to the author as royalties were paid only on copies actually sold. The cost of the binding for this edition can easily be computed by multiplying 2500 for the number of copies printed by the $10 figure to arrive at the $250 figure. Finally, it appears from the Trade Cost information that 25% discount was offered on a 75 cent trade price. The editors give a concise summary of the published record of the Ticknor and Fields house for the period of 1832 through 1858 covered by both Cost Books A that bears repeating: For the period covered by Cost Books A and B, approximately 550 new titles and 760 new editions were recorded; five new titles published under a double imprint and one such new edition are also recorded. The total number of new titles and new editions equals about 1,316 items. Additionally, the editors supplied 125 new titles 12 and 33 new titles with a double imprint from titles omitted from the Cost Books that the editors were able to nonetheless provide, for an additional total of 158 books. In sum, for the new titles and editions listed and those not listed but supplied by the editors, the grand total is about 1,474. And based upon running totals throughout the Cost Books relating to the number of volumes issued up to March 1854 the editors were able to compute a total number of volumes issued from 1832 to 1854 of 996,394 and the cost of publishing those volumes to be $205,027.61. These are fascinating details which the editors were able to reconstitute especially as they reveal the strengths and extent of reach of one of the great publishing houses in mid-nineteenth century America. Historical Overview of Ticknor and Fields From its founding in Boston in 1832 as the firm of Allen and Ticknor to its eventual merger into Houghton, Osgood & Company in 1878, the predecessor to the present-day Houghton Mifflin Company, Ticknor and Fields earned the reputation as the pre-eminent publisher of belles-lettres in mid-nineteenth century America. Their renown as publishers emerged because of the enormous energy and creativity of its partners, especially James T. Fields, who, in some respects, single-handedly helped to shape the modern day publishing industry. The creative marketing and promotion of books, the nurturing of strong professional and personal relationships with their authors, the somewhat novel notion of paying adequate royalties to its authors, even in cases, such as with its foreign authors, where none may have been required, and the respect it had for the quality of the book as a material object as well as for its content-- these were the distinguishing attributes of the firm of Ticknor and Fields; and it was these qualities that led SO many of its authors to recount how indebted they were to the 13 publishing efforts of the firm--as one of its notable authors, Ralph Waldo Emerson, was to say to Fields, it was "your brilliant advertising and arrangements which have made me SO popular. ,,10 1810-64 William Ticknor (born in 1810 in Lebanon, New Hampshire and died in Philadelphia in 1864) and John Allen founded the firm in 1832 by acquiring the retail bookselling operations of Carter & Hendee and just as significant, by soon purchasing the Old Corner Bookstore at the corner of Washington and School Streets in Boston-- their place of operations for over 30 thirty years and a landmark in American publishing history. In 1834, Allen left the firm and Ticknor carried on the business under his own name--William D. Ticknor. James T. Fields (born in Portsmouth, New 1817-81 Hampshire in 1817 and died in Boston in 1881), started as a junior clerk with Carter & Hendee, and continued with the firm after it was acquired by Ticknor. Recognizing the indispensable value of Fields' literary savviness and keen eye in judging the literary worth of existing and budding authors, Ticknor made him a partner in 1843 at the youthful age of 26. Fields was to be critical to the success of the firm by steering it in the direction of publishing of fine literary works in addition to their retail bookseller operations. Initially the firm focused on publishing authors from England including, for example, various works by De Quincy and Tennyson. In 1843 Ticknor also reorganized the firm as William D. Ticknor & Company--the "Company" referring to Fields and another (silent) partner, John Reed. It was during the 1840's and 1850's that the firm truly began to take off as a formidable literary publisher of English and presently American authors. Under the Ticknor, Reed, & Fields imprint (the name it took on in 1849), not only great English 10 W.S. Tryon, Parnassus Corner: A Life of James T. Fields (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1963) 199. 14 poets like Robert Browning and Lord Alfred Tennyson were being published but also eminent American poets like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and James Russell Lowell. The firm's real coup came in 1850 when Fields personally secured the rights to publish Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, which sold nearly five thousand copies within the six months of its publications. With this astounding beginning in publishing the great authors of mid-nineteenth century America (and England), Ticknor and Fields, the name it finally assumed in 1854, was set to burnish its reputation as the most important publishing house for belles-lettres in mid nineteenth century America. In addition to Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables, the firm published many of the poetical works of Longfellow, including his Song of Hiawatha, Thoreau's Walden, Horace Mann's Lectures, and the poetry and prose of John G. Saxe as well as becoming Charles Dickens's "authorized" publisher in America. What was critical to the success of Ticknor and Fields was above all Fields' creative efforts at promoting and distributing books nationwide in an industry or trade that had hitherto been dispersed and predominantly local-oriented. Fields' tactics included securing book reviews of the firm's books in newspapers around the East and Mid-West by inducing friends of the authors to write reviews or even writing them himself. By this network of promotion and distribution he developed, he contributed directly to the forging of a national marketplace and commerce both for Ticknor and Fields' publications and indirectly for the book trade industry in general. And he 15 showed great foresight and prescience in knowing what to publish and in nurturing his 'stable' of authors SO that they felt legitimately devoted to the firm. One innovation the firm made was in the extensive use of descriptive catalogues that they inserted or tipped into their books. The practice began with Whittier's Lays of My Home (1843, Cost Book A49b) when the author failed to send in enough material to fill up the last four blank pages and the firm decided to fill those pages with advertisements for the firm's publications. This then turned into a major source of promoting the firm's publications especially with their skilled and modern use of what the publishing industry now refers to as 'blurbs.' For example, note the following somewhat effusive examples of such blurbs promoting the sale of The Scarlet Letter that appeared in the expansive 48-page catalog appended to the 1850 edition of Tennyson's In Memoriam (Cost Book A183b): In the deep tragedy of Hester Prynne's experience, we are borne through the pages, as by an irresistible impulse It is indeed a wonderful book, and we venture to predict that no one will put it down before he reaches the last page of it, unless it is forcibly taken out of his hands.-Salem Gazette Though we cannot do him justice, let us remember the name of Hawthorne, deserving a place second to none in that band of hum- orists whose beautiful depth of cheerful feeling is the poetry of mirth. in ease, grace, delicate sharpness of satire,--in a felicity of touch which often surpasses the felicity of Addison The brilliant atoms flit, hover, and glance before our minds, but the remote sources of their ethereal light lie beyond our analysis.. -E. P. Whipple Ticknor died in 1864 and Fields succeeded as senior partner to direct and manage the operations of the firm, keeping the name of Ticknor and Fields as the firm's imprint, but moving the firm from its historic home at the Old Corner Bookstore to more palatial surroundings uptown at 124 Tremont Street. Ticknor's 16 son, Howard, entered the firm in 1864 as partner following his father's death. Fields and Ticknor's son never really got along and eventually the son was forced out in 1868. The firm then changed its name to Fields, Osgood and Company; Osgood being a "brilliant but unstable" editor and senior partner. By 1871, Fields had had enough and retired after a 40 year career with the firm, having started as an apprentice with Carter and Hendee (the predecessor to the first incarnation of the firm as Allen and Ticknor) in 1831 at the incredible age of 14. With the retirement of Fields, Osgood became senior partner and for the first time the imprint no longer carried either original partner's name; instead it was called James R. Osgood and Company. The Cost Books note, however, that the original names were not totally neglected as the title pages of this newly-named firm still added in parenthesis "late Fields, Osgood & Co., and Ticknor & Fields." Osgood soon ran into financial difficulties not helped by the great Boston fire of 1872 or the Panic of 1873. Unable to meet certain financial commitments, he was forced to merge with Henry O. Houghton's Riverside Press in Cambridge and its publishing subsidiary Hurd & Houghton. The new partnership known as Houghton, Osgood and Company managed this uneasy alliance for only two years when finally in 1880 Osgood was forced out. 1880 The firm then became the well-known Houghton, Mifflin and Company still in operation today. Houghton Mifflin even revived the Ticknor & Fields imprint in 1979 only to cease its use as an independent imprint in the early 1990s. Besides their contributions to the flowering of American literary publishing in the nineteenth century, the firm was instrumental in fostering an image or a 'house brand' as we would say today, by developing uniform house styles of binding for their 17 publications. The first of the firm's two classic styles of binding was the famous chocolate brown fine vertical-ribbed cloths binding whose covers were blind-stamped with a central, ornately stylized floral pattern and whose spine was divided into panels by blind-stamped double rules, with the title and author's name gold-stamped in the second panel from the top. This cover design and binding came to suggest, in the words of one Ticknor and Fields scholar, Jeffrey Groves, "gravity, elegance, and good taste" and remained "eminently identifiable on a retailer's shelf." Its success is seen in its imitation by other contemporary publishers, including C.S. Francis & Co., several of whose publications reproduce certain elements of the brown cover style exactly and thereby attempting to endow its work with the status and quality associated with Ticknor and Fields' prestigious house bindings and publications. The other classic cover was the Blue and Gold series. Deep blue cloth, gilt edges, gold-stamped spine, wavy diagonal pattern for the cloth (instead of the fine- ribbed pattern of the brown cloth), these were pocket-sized editions with intricate floral designs framing the title and author's name on the spine, and with an identifiable blind-stamped design on the front and back covers. This style was SO successful that several of the firm's own authors couldn't resist singing its praises in poetic fashion. One example is from the poet George S. Hillard: When your new Tennyson I hold, dear friend Where blue and gold, like sky and sunbeam, blend,-- I feel fresh truth in the old saying wise, That greatest worth in smallest parcel lies. The hand may clasp it, and the pocket hold;-- A casket small, but filled with perfect gold. Perhaps Henry James should have the last words on this great firm and its commanding figure of James T. Fields. In a 1915 Atlantic Monthly article entitled DAVID B. TYACK GEORGE TICKNOR AND THE BOSTON BRAHMINS Kegina Uhmay Rivier Cologo Nashua, it. H. HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS 1967 CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS RIVIER COLLEGE 196 i 934670000548420a I The Formative Years To a man of mere animal life, you can urge no argument against going to America but that it will be some time before he will get the earth to produce. But a man of any intellectual enjoyment will not easily go and immerse himself and his posterity for ages in barbarism. Samuel Johnson1 In the spring of 1814 George Ticknor, a young lawyer of Boston, decided to transform his avocation into his vocation. A zealous scholar, he began to chart and justify a career devoted to his chief pleasure, literature. Clearly he foresaw the reefs of his course. Instinc- tively he agreed with the opinion of his townsmen that anyone "who is not believed to follow some useful business, can scarcely acquire or retain even a decent reputation." Reputation was all-important to Tick- nor, and he realized that he could achieve his ambitions only by obeying the dictates of his community. Still he believed that America had men of affairs in abundance, but few men of letters. Would his land be a second Carthage, prospering for a time but leaving no trace of its existence? Or might Ticknor witness "the dawn of our Augustan age, and contribute to its glory?" 2 In the meantime he knew what his mission would be. Although Ticknor became a pioneer New England intellectual, he shared throughout his eighty years the universe of habits and morals of his father's generation. His parents inculcated convictions and traits of AOD character which never wavered. The Boston of his youth its social character, its political and religious contests, its literary coteries, its moral and intellectual assumptions - shaped his decision to become a scholar. This eighteenth-century education never ceased to direct his role and his response to the transformation of America during his life- time. Like Henry Adams, he was trained to live in a world which was to dissolve before his eyes, yet to the end Ticknor's character retained the cast given it during the formative years. 136 George Ticknor and the Boston Brahmins The True Uses of Literature 137 the last stage of decline had begun, and that literature was completing Empire," a progression from primitive society through a pastoral scene, the ruin of France? The Smith Professor of French and Spanish Litera- to a state of sybaritic and ominous civilization, and finally to a bar- ture had spoken, and his students had dutifully listened. On May 2, barian invasion which destroyed the city and left it in silent ruin. 1821, Emerson made the following entry in his journal: America was still a land without ruins, but the ruins of the Old World evoked nostalgia and uneasy foreboding in many Americans. Through Mr. Ticknor has finished his course of lectures. French literature is a con- fined literature of elegant society, therein distinguished from all others which much of the popular and serious writing of the day there ran a grim have appeared, for all others are national; the results of the feelings, situation, theme of apocalypse. 15 circumstances, & character of the whole people which produced it. But in To Ticknor Spanish literature, like the nation itself, was "a broken France, from the Court of Louis XIV went out the rules & spirit to which all column - a ruin before the building was completed." From his first its classics conform, & must continue to do so. acquaintance with Spanish culture Ticknor had been more interested Professor Ticknor named six characteristics of the Body of French Lit- erature. in Spanish literature than in French. The history of French literature, 1. Such a conventional regularity Ticknor believed, had "been SO often examined, that most of the pos- 2. So little religious feeling sible results of its combinations [of interpretations and facts] have been 3. Such a false character in the expression of love already discovered." For the critic and bibliographer Spain was newer 4. So little deep sensibility ground. 16 Thus when Ticknor resigned from Harvard at the age of 5. Such an ambition of producing a brilliant effect 6. So remarkable a restriction of success to those departments which will forty-four, he decided to devote his scholarly career to exploring the give some kind of entertainment. 13 meaning of Spain. His Harvard lectures filled three large manuscript volumes; for the next fourteen years he continued to develop the themes Later a Boston grande dame would put the matter more bluntly: and outline of his lectures into the three volumes of his History of "The French are a low lot. Give them two more legs and a tail and Spanish Literature.17 there you are! I think they have an original nastiness that beats original Like his fellow historians and scholar-princes of Boston, Ticknor sin." Ticknor's story of French degradation was history teaching by assembled a superb library to support his research. He had a genuine horrible example. His desire to interpret France and French literature passion for books and displayed the shrewd instincts of a Yankee allegorically clouded his literary perception. His moral pronouncements trader in ferreting them out. During a second voyage to Europe in and his desire to fit all to his "philosophical notions" had quite obscured 1835-1838 with his family he combed the bookstores and libraries of the writers themselves. The rigidity with which he distorted French Europe for rare Spanish books. His Spanish library was probably the literature betrayed his distaste and his anxiety. The quicker done with best private collection in the world, and perhaps as valuable as any France the better. Spain was a more alluring subject. 14 public one. 18 Ticknor housed his books, eventually numbering over fourteen thou- sand, in a spacious and bright room in his house at Nine Park Street, 2. A Broken Column which he had bought in 1829. In this library he sat at his writing desk as the morning sun began to stream in the large windows, or talked After reading Ticknor's History of Spanish Literature, Ticknor's with Prescott as the sun set behind the Brookline hills. The house was friend and biographer George Hillard announced that the book would at the corner of Park and Beacon Streets, opposite the State House, high appeal to readers with "an enlightened curiosity as to the causes which on Beacon Hill where the Ticknors could see Boston Harbor and smell have raised Spain SO high and brought her so low." Enlightened or not, the east wind coming in with the tide in the summer or, in the winter, Americans of the day were fascinated by catastrophe. They flocked to watch the snow falling on the elms lining the mall of the Boston Com- see Thomas Cole's panoramic canvases depicting "The Course of mon. Books in rich leather bindings crowded the mahogany shelves, 156 George Ticknor and the Boston Brahmins Gentleman of Letters 157 if not very deep, nature. His very defects - the worst of which were getting world, who takes an interest in my peculiar pursuits, as well as lack of imagination and lack of humor - served him in conventional in myself." 5 society. He could take it all as much in earnest as if he had been born When Ticknor first turned to a literary career, every Bostonian was with a title and an entail." 3 Still, Ticknor knew full well that the tenor expected to have some useful occupation. Justifying a literary career of American society and institutions was antiaristocratic. He realized continued to be perplexing, for the scholar was expected to prove to that the United States lacked the long tradition, stemming from feudal merchants his industry, to ministers his piety and morality, and to states- times, which gave European aristocracy its distinctive coloring. men his sound political influence. If the gentleman of letters cared at all A patrician in a democratic age, he helped to shape one of the most about the opinion of those outside the professions, he had somehow to exclusive social groups in mid-century America, the Brahmin caste of show that he was not a drone. Perhaps the best defense for the literary New England. Wealth, family, occupation, education, social connections, man was offense: "in this bustling, money-getting world" the gentleman political and religious views, morality, and cultivation merged to define of letters could stand at the door of the social inner sanctum, certifying the "gentleman," though uniformity in these respects was not requisite the culture of those who passed within. Such a high priest of the Brahmin to the Brahmin life-style. Ticknor the latter-day Federalist agreed with caste was George Ticknor. James Hillhouse that America "should have a class performing the func- tions of an Aristocracy, without its intolerable appendages." "Politics and the Love of Money control our hearts, and direct our energies with 1. The Autocrat of Nine Park Street an exclusiveness not elsewhere found," Hillhouse warned. American society "must and can be convinced that our greatest want is the want Charles William Eliot, president of Harvard, once recalled that Tick- of an order combining superior means with illuminated minds; and that nor, his uncle, thought it "unseemly for Samuel A. Eliot [Charles's the two especial testimonies, required by their country, at the hands of father] to sing in the little King's Chapel choir and to invite its humbler the opulent, are, - building towers of light to preserve rational liberty members to practice in his own house." 6 Times had changed since Tick- amidst the fogs and shallows of democratical fanaticism; and bequeathing nor relished his rough trip with contrabandists in Spain, sharing their to [America] sons equipped, either for public or private life, by a food and talking late in the evening under the cork trees. Boston was consummate education." 4 changing, and Ticknor with it. As time went on, Ticknor became increasingly aware of the conse- Ever since Ticknor's return from Europe in 1819 his fellow citizens quences of his decision to become a man of letters. As a professor, he had found him a force to be reckoned with socially as well as intellec- found it simple to justify his career, for college teaching was a recog- tually. When famous persons came to Boston, Ticknor was one of the nized profession (though often considered second-rate), and Harvard attractions of the city to be displayed along with the State House and was a revered Boston institution. After he resigned his professorship, he the Common. On Lafayette's triumphal tour in 1824, "Ticknor gave came to realize that the scholar in America was usually a solitary figure, a supper party which had quite a foreign grace about it," Josiah one like the senior Dana or Hillhouse; he came to understand why the Quincy recalled. "A likeness of Lafayette, engraved upon a bright red first New Englander who attempted to be a professional writer - Dana paper, was found under the glass by the side of each plate. As the guests -sardonically entitled his journal The Idle Man. Without an established seated themselves at the table, everyone, except the General, took up the profession of letters, with few colleagues to encourage and criticize him, picture and pinned it upon some part of the dress, where it looked like without the vast resources of European cultural centers, the American the decoration of some noble order." Naturally when the Prince of Wales man of letters often felt isolated. Even the popular Prescott once ex- came to Boston, it was Ticknor who escorted him to Harvard.7 claimed that Ticknor was "the only friend I know in this bustling, money- The city was growing rapidly and becoming conscious of its power and 158 George Ticknor and the Boston Brahmins Gentleman of Letters 159 position. We Bostonians "all carry the Common in our heads as the a whole the city struck visitors as unusually prosperous and attractive. unit of space," Holmes wrote, "the State House as the standard of archi- It was not until the heavy immigration of the Irish in mid-century that tecture, and measure off men in Edward Everetts as with a yardstick." extensive slums and wide-spread poverty appeared. In 1829 all Boston The population had jumped from 43,000 in 1820 to 61,000 during the had only twenty-four policemen. A visitor to Boston was surprised to next decade, and by 1842 it had passed 100,000. The huge wharves of note that at a large public gathering on the Common no police were the waterfront were jammed with ships whose spars and rigging made a present, and when the crowd dispersed, no litter had been left behind. vast spiderweb. The 1830's was the great decade of sailing ships, when One reason for the small police force was the persistent spirit of watch almost 1500 vessels a year tied up to Boston docks. Soon Donald McKay and ward which Timothy Dwight had applauded. Francis Grund, a witty would build his beautiful clipper ships across the harbor in East Boston. Viennese immigrant who came to Boston in 1827, reported that "I have Men from Cape Cod, from the interior towns of Massachusetts, from heard it seriously asserted that there are no better policemen than New Hampshire, from seaport villages north of Boston flocked to the the ordinary run of Bostonians; and that, as long as their natural in- city to make their fortunes in commerce, banking, insurance, real estate, quisitiveness remained, there was no need of a secret tribunal; every and other Yankee ventures. Gradually, investments shifted from shipping citizen taking on himself the several offices of spy, juryman, justice, and and foreign trade to manufacturing, and spindles began humming in the - vide Lynch law - executioner. This is by some called the wholesome towns along the Merrimac River. By 1850 the "Boston Associates" were restraint of public opinion." 10 consolidating an empire of finance, manufacturing, and transport which All over town new wealth produced new buildings: square business included the new railroads fanning out from the cities. The Lawrences, blocks of Quincy granite, the Tremont House - a hotel that was "the Sears, Lowells, Appletons, Cabots, Eliots and others grasped the levers crack house of the place" - the massive Quincy Market, and the new of economic power. brick mansions that rose on the quiet old pastures on Beacon Hill. In Merchants rose early and went to their countinghouses and offices on 1829 Ticknor bought the southeast portion of one of the first houses Central Wharf or India Wharf or on State Street. They continued the built on the Hill, the enormous and handsome four-story Federal man- eighteenth-century custom of gathering about one o'clock near the Old sion built by Thomas Amory in 1804, then called "Amory's folly" be- State House to discuss the affairs of the day before going home to the cause of its size. He had previously lived in rented rooms, but this house "formidable rite" of the mid-afternoon dinner. Although they might at Nine Park Street was to be his home for the rest of his life. have a puritan distrust of the other pleasures of the flesh, the Boston elite The entrance to Nine Park Street was a fine curved staircase with did not stint on food and drink. A fashionable young lady exclaimed in wrought iron railings; a small tree on the right of the door and thick exalted tones that "we admire roast beef and dote on oysters." Tocque- wisteria vines climbing on the left blended with the soft patina of the ville found that Bostonians "have but a single fault, which is that of bricks. The large door, flanked by sidelights and a fanlight, opened into drinking too much," and admitted that he had trouble keeping pace with a marble hall and a broad staircase which led to the inner sanctum, the their toasts. The ruddy portraits of proper Bostonians of the day reveal library on the second floor. The decor of the library mixed chaste clas- the rich tones of claret and burgundy more than the blueness of their sicism - white marble statuettes, a frieze under the mantel, pilasters on blood. For years a favorite topic of conversation was the quality and the bright mahogany bookcases - and overstuffed Victorian -a clutter price of Madeira; penurious old Ward Boylston used to say to his dinner on the mantel, ugly bulbous hanging lamps, tablecloths with ornate guests that "this wine, adding compound interest to its cost, is worth a fringes. It was an eclectic period in taste in interior decoration as in crown a glass." 9 literature. Presiding over the scene was a portrait of Sir Walter Scott, Although Boston was rapidly becoming a large city, it still retained who, Anna Ticknor wrote George Bancroft, sits "in his own oaken chair, some of the atmosphere of the overgrown town Ticknor had known in in a green coat, buff waistcoat, and black cravat, and looks very much his youth. West Boston and some other sections were run-down, but as as, if you waited a moment, he would nod his head, and begin one of George Ticknor and the Boston Brahmins Gentleman of Letters 161 160 his best stories." The big room, with its easy chairs and couches, was cravat in more composedness than amid this vulgar din of affairs." made quite as much for society as for study, and here for decades George Many years after Ticknor's death, when the scholar was a legend- and Anna Ticknor held court. 11 instead of the institution he had been during his lifetime - Oliver Allston Hawthorne described an interview with Ticknor in this library. He wrote thus of an encounter with an old gentleman: "As he addressed found Ticknor in his slippers, sitting at his writing desk; Ticknor rose to me in his affable manner, his eye descended over my person, taking in receive Hawthorne "with great distinction, but without any ostentatious the cut of my clothes, the quality of my handkerchief and necktie, even flourish of courtesy." the polish on my shoes - twice, the while he maintained his well-bred conversation, discreet in every gesture and accent, but as if to assure Mr. Ticknor has a great head and a queer face, with a nose the reverse of aquiline, though not exactly a pug or snub; his hair is gray or grizzly; he has himself that I was 'all right.' So might George Ticknor have surveyed a a comfortable roundness of person. You recognize in him at once the man stranger in Boston, ninety years ago." 13 In his youth Ticknor had de- who knows the world; the scholar, too, which is probably his more distinctive ferred to his elders and had been the earnest inquirer and listener; as he character, though a little more under the surface He is not, I appre- grew older he became more and more dogmatic. hend, one of the highest or profoundest of men, but a man of great cultivation To the world Ticknor seemed as foursquare as his mansion. "No man, and refinement, and with quite substance enough to be polished and refined, without being worn too thin in the process. Fond of good dinners; apprecia- we imagine, was ever less troubled with self-dissatisfaction," commented tive of the quality of wine; a man of society. There is something peculiar in one of his contemporaries. "He felt the limits of his faculties and qual- his manner, and odd and humorsome in his voice; as one who knows his own ities, if he felt them at all, only as useful and secure defenses." Through- advantages and eminent social position, and so superimposes a little oddity out his life Ticknor conformed to a rigid morality, a strict code of upon the manners of a gentleman.12 12 manners, and stern standards of taste. His strong will condemned any In a less than reverent tone, Theodore Parker, a Unitarian minister whom laxness in himself or others; his severity of judgment bred anxiety. He Beacon Hill thought radical, commented that "no man could consider was impatient with weakness or vacillation. "His love of truth and right himself of any account in the world, if he was not admitted to Mr. Tick- being so often shocked, his hatred of baseness or corruption, and dis- nor's study." As in his days at Harvard, Ticknor continued to serve as trust of fanatics and demagogues, so often roused," commented his counselor to scholars, book lender to the American republic of letters, daughter Anna, these very virtues sometimes gave him the appear- patron and friend of artists and writers, and genial host to his fellow ance of intolerance or loftiness." His earnestness and resolution seemed gentlemen and scholars. to blind him to the fact that others, of equal zeal and high intentions, To those outside the magic circle he often appeared cold and haughty. could disagree with him in good conscience. For him life was a set of William Cullen Bryant believed that Ticknor "had his own set of people self-evident duties, not a calculus of pain and pleasure.1 and seems to have looked down on everyone else." Ticknor's minister, Despite an outwardly successful and privileged life, Ticknor suffered Ezra Gannett, admitted that Ticknor was abrupt with anyone coarse in from an increasing sense of alienation as he grew older. His work at speech or conduct, and that he "might be misunderstood by those who Harvard failed to realize his hopes. His History of Spanish Literature confound a quiet self-respect with an indulgence of aristocratic temper." was an authoritative work, but his published writings stopped far short Even Ticknor's closest friend, Prescott, in composing a letter introducing of his ambitions. Above all, he became increasingly despondent about Ticknor as a man distinguished by "social position," "cultivation," and the destiny of the nation. On first acquaintance the perceptive Longfellow "warmth of heart," changed his mind and crossed out the "warmth of thought Ticknor an "exceedingly affable" man, but in time con- heart." In 1823 when Ticknor was only thirty-two, Emerson thought it cluded that "he is disappointed in many things." Ticknor's daughter a formidable undertaking to ask Ticknor for letters of introduction for Anna admitted that he was "often disposed to be anxious," but added his brother, writing to William Emerson that "as to Mr. Ticknor, I have that he deemed it a duty to cultivate cheerfulness "as part of the require- not yet been, counting on some future day to possess my senses and ments of manliness and kindness, as well as of religion." 15 162 George Ticknor and the Boston Brahmins Gentleman of Letters 163 Hawthorne, a student of character through portraits, might have seen personal and social pleasures; while the kind and degree of improvement a grim transformation in the interpretation of Ticknor by G. P. A. Healy which has been made in women's education, has made them in some degree in 1848, a year of revolutions that profoundly depressed Ticknor. In an capable of being his companion in ideas and mental tastes. 17 earlier portrait painted by Sully Ticknor sits in a relaxed pose, his eyes Agreeing with Thomas Arnold that "the very idea of family life" de- large and expressive, with a sunlit landscape in the background. Light manded a "peculiar sense of solemnity," Ticknor regarded his home as predominates in Sully's portrait; it conveys an airy, somewhat dreamlike a haven from the turmoil of business and politics around him. image. In Healy's painting all this has changed: now one looks at Tick- Ticknor's maiden daughter Anna - plump and plain with frizzled nor from below, whereas in Sully's portrait he was on the same level as black hair, cultivated and earnest carried on her father's pioneer the viewer; instead of looking face on, he now sits stiffly and looks from efforts to educate women. From headquarters in the library at Nine Park the side, with half his face in shadow; his jaw and mouth are hard-set, Street she marshalled an army of over two hundred Boston ladies, in- and his eyes are frosty and penetrating. The sunlit landscape of Sully's cluding such talented people as Elizabeth Cary Agassiz, to liquidate painting has given way to a dark background which blends SO indistinctly ignorance and promote taste among her countrywomen. With fellow with Ticknor's dark suit and black curly hair that one can hardly tell Brahmins as teaching staff she organized the Society to Encourage Stud- where Ticknor leaves off and the darkness beyond begins. Although the ies at Home, an adult education project which taught, by correspondence, features, the dark, ruddy skin, are the same, the public image of the history, English literature, science, art, and foreign languages. In the man, the conception of the artist, perhaps the man himself, are now cause of culture, Anna proved to be as well-organized and public-spirited different. A harshly realistic bust of Ticknor as an old man, executed as her father. Through her letters she became "a friend of many a lonely by Martin Millmore in 1867, carries still further Healy's somber inter- and baffled life," giving advice to Negro schoolteachers in the south, tell- pretation. 16 ing women how to decorate their houses, and dispensing Victorian Ticknor found refuge from his anxieties in his family life. He was a morality. model Victorian husband and father. He encouraged his wife's intellec- In a children's book called An American Family in Paris, published tual and artistic pursuits. He was devoted to his four children: Anna anonymously in 1869, Anna painted a delightful vignette of life with Eliot, the oldest daughter; Susan Perkins, who died in 1825 when only father. The kindly autocrat of this family, Mr. Lewis - a thinly dis- a few weeks old; George Haven, born in 1829; and Eliza Sullivan, who guised portrait of George Ticknor - is a pedantic parent, a walking later married William Dexter. In that age when women were becoming guidebook who gives his children lectures on manners, history, art, and better educated and were entering more actively into social and intel- literature. The family at times gently ridicules his Olympian manner. lectual life, Ticknor often gathered around the fireplace with his daugh- Once when his wife asked a simple question, Mr. Lewis retorted in ters and their friends to study literary classics. The salons of the Ticknors offended omniscience: were models of the changing pattern of Victorian social life described by John Stuart Mill: "I did not know that you needed lessons in history! Allow me to remark that Francois I. followed his cousin Louis XII.; then Francois I.'s son and three The association of men with women in daily life is much closer and more of his grandsons tried their hands at being kings, but all had a very short complete than it ever was before. Men's life is more domestic. Formerly, their chance at it. Their cousin Henri IV. came in, his son Louis XIII. followed, pleasures and chosen occupations were among men, and in men's company: and Louis XIV. was his son." their wives had but a fragment of their lives. At the present time, the progress "There, there, that is enough," said Mrs. Lewis, laughing; "goodness, what of civilization, and the turn of opinion against the rough amusements and a long lecture! I am quite out of breath. If I had not known it all before convivial excesses which formerly occupied most men in their hours of relaxa- (except of course I forgot the last little bit), do you suppose I should have tion - together with (it must be said) the improved tone of modern feeling learned much by your rattling off such a list? Fanny, did you hear your father as to the reciprocity of duty which binds the husband towards the wife - teaching me history?" have thrown the man very much more upon home and its inmates, for his "Yes, mamma; I am glad you did not know it all." 19 164 George Ticknor and the Boston Brahmins Gentleman of Letters 165 Fanny learned "how charming really high-bred people are." When and keeps the mind fixed too exclusively on the outward." Two years Fanny asked her mother what it meant to be "well-bred," Mrs. Lewis later he cautioned Ticknor again not to "look upon yourself as author- replied that a person with "high-bred" manners was "desirous to please ized to spend years of your life in literary and elegant leisure." Ticknor's without being obsequious," one who didn't loll in a chair, or talk loudly, daughter felt compelled to say that her father "always, to the end of his or laugh too heartily. Just like the Parisian aristocrats we are living with, life, regarded the years he passed in Europe as being in some degree said her mother: " 'They're not a bit stiff; do you think they are?' 'Oh, sacrificed." 22 Bostonians still needed to prove that pleasures - like the no, not a bit,' answered Fanny, 'they don't frighten me half SO much as grand tour - were really duties, just as they tried to convince them- old Mrs. Jones does at home; and she's polite half the time and not selves that duties - like hot oatmeal in the morning were pleasures. polite the other half.' 20 The sacrifice this time was considerably less Spartan. Ticknor's family In 1834 Ticknor experienced the greatest personal sorrow of his life. accompanied him. Never did he experience the despondency and home- His five-year-old son, George Haven, died. To a man who tried to force sickness that had beset him previously in Europe. He also had a large himself to be cheerful as a religious duty, the anguish and mystery of acquaintance in England and on the continent, and now could travel death was especially bitter and perplexing. In words resembling those of in elegant style rather than "in the manner of a clergyman." Indeed, this Emerson, who also lost a beloved son and found little explanation or trip resembled a triumphal return more than a pilgrimage. Now he rode compensation in his religious beliefs, Ticknor wrote to a friend, "I am over Europe in a luxurious private coach pulled by four horses called a S.G. sad, very sad because I can no longer see his bright smile or hear berlin, and had three servants. a postillion, a courier, and a maid. Tick his glad voice; because I turn my head suddenly at some familiar sound, nor's young American friend Samuel Ward, who accompanied them on Ward and he is not there; because I listen and it is not his light step." For his the continent, was delighted with such regal transport: "Naturally with wife, already ill, this loss was crushing. "The human frame cannot al- this train and with the interested help of Peter the courier, when we ways be braced to bear what the will demands of it," she later wrote. arrived at night we were led to the princes' apartments, the princes being Ever since Ticknor's decision to resign from Harvard they had con- mostly absent, and fared sumptuously. All day we could be poets and templated a European trip. Now, burdened with grief and eager to leave artists, and aristocrats all night.'L the scene of their sorrow, they left for the Old World to allow Anna to By the middle 1830's, as Ticknor was shrewd enough to recognize, regain her health and "to go through as vigorous a course of improve- American tourists were no longer SO exceptional as in 1816, and could ment as we can, by an industrious use of the advantages we may be able no longer capitalize SO easily on the newness of their symbolic value. to enjoy." 21 In Brahmin Boston a European trip provided many a pil- Thus the outward signs of status - the traveling coach, the sword and grim with a pedigree by association. Ticknor's second tour would fortify gold-buckled shoes, fastidiousness in obtaining and presenting letters of the social and scholarly position he had already won and would make introduction, observance of courtly formality - were becoming impor- him more than ever a mediator between the elite society of the Old and tant keys to unlock the inner chambers of European society. As one dis- New Worlds. enchanted observer said, Americans abroad were trying now to "impress all with whom they came in contact with the belief that, although the spirit of the American constitution recognizes no nobility, such an order 2. The Grand Tour of society nevertheless exists de facto; and that they themselves belong to the 'few select' of that 'large Augean stable.' " 24 As Ticknor was beginning his second trip to Europe, William Ellery Through the pages of Ticknor's journals of his second trip marched, Channing wrote him a warning letter echoing Elisha Ticknor: "There like puppets, a succession of kings, princes, dukes, counts, viscounts, are some moral dangers in travelling of which it is well to be aware. marquesses, and barons. His diction became more lordly, full of words It often deprives us of the arm of religion, breaks in on our good habits, like "recherché," "ultra," "noble," and "vulgar." Ticknor seemed to be 172 George Ticknor and the Boston Brahmins Gentleman of Letters 173 all just as it was left the last time Roman hands and Roman piety sealed plainly with because he means sincerely." But Americans should not it up, little thinking who would open it up, or how it would be visited. seem too forward: "laissez-aller is eminently the rule in London. It is It is one of those spots, in which you are entirely satisfied." 37 rarely safe for a stranger to make any advance to an Englishman." The Ticknors spent the winter of 1837-38 in Paris. Again Ticknor The most important advice he gave Sumner was to stay in Europe until attended the salons and met the respectable literary men of the day, he had seen and done all, "for otherwise you will want to go back among them the historians Guizot and Thierry, talked with Lamartine, again, and that is a most disagreeable disease. I never had it and have and once more saw Chateaubriand. But "popular" writers, like Hugo, no fear of it, - but I have witnessed it more than once, and it is, like a Balzac, and George Sand, were beneath notice. The character of the relapse - much worse than the original complaint." 39 theater was even more reprehensible than twenty years before; contem- Alienation and nostalgia were chronic diseases of the traveler. When porary French drama "contains hardly any indecorous phrases or allu- Ticknor returned to Boston in June of 1838, after a last tour of England sion," Ticknor observed, "but its whole tone is highly immoral." "I know and Scotland, he found it hard to settle down. He confessed to Sumner nothing that more truly deserves the reproach of being immoral and de- that it was hard to move back to Nine Park Street, "for, having lived moralizing," said Ticknor, "than the theatres of Paris and the popular eight years in Hotels, I prefer the vagabond life, and eschew the re- literature of the day." sponsibilities and weariness of housekeeping. Mrs. Ticknor contra- Society had become even more political in temper, but now Parisians abuses me for such unsuitable tastes." But no more than George Apley were less hopeful about republicanism. Even though Thierry still con- could Ticknor be a vagabond; Boston would not allow it. His daughter sidered himself liberal, he thought that the people would not "choose wrote, apropos of his return in 1838, that "his love of home, his pride the most elevated minds for the most important places." How could in his country, and his preference for a regular, domestic life, always Ticknor gainsay him when America had just elected Van Buren? Guizot, made him regard his absences as periods taken out of his legitimate worried about American mobs and slavery, told Ticknor that he had life." 40 "ceased to believe in the stability of our popular institutions." 38 Poised between two worlds, Ticknor was neither expatriate nor Ticknor took seriously his duty of instructing his countrymen in the chauvinist. To the end he remained provincial in outlook but patriotic ways of the Old World. Whatever its moral or political limitations, by conviction, a mediator between the ominous ripeness of the Old Europe was still a good place to round off social angularities, as World and the happy but raw estate of the New. Ticknor's daughter showed in her book, An American Family in Paris. Ticknor knew to perfection the proper social forms; "no one has been more successful in creating among foreigners a just appreciation of the 3. The Brahmin Caste of New England intelligence and refinement that may be found in the best social circles of America," commented a fellow Brahmin. Charles Sumner, who had Macaulay was astonished that Prescott, after the "most brilliant visit been one of Ticknor's best students at Harvard College, plied him for ever made to England by an American citizen not clothed with the advice and letters of introduction to use on his European pilgrimage. prestige of official station," should have returned to Boston of his own "Like the continent"-Ticknor wrote him, "love Italy,-trust Germany. free will. Prescott appreciated his reception in England, but after All is unlike England." With or without Ticknor's help, Sumner con- describing the Ascot races, a dinner at Sir Robert Peal's, and a con- cluded that Paris "is a perfect Sodom without religion and without any versation with the Duke of Wellington, he asked his wife, "Is this not morality between the sexes." When the Duc de Broglie failed to ac- a fine life? I am most sincerely tired of it and would not exchange knowledge the letter of introduction Ticknor had written for Sumner, my regular domestic and literary occupations in the good old Puritan Ticknor advised the American to visit the duc at his home and told him town for this round of heedless, headless gayety, - not if I had the what to talk about, assuring him that Broglie "is a person to be dealt fortune of the Marquis of Westminster, the richest peer in England." 174 George Ticknor and the Boston Brahmins Gentleman of Letters 175 He wrote Ticknor from London that "I am quite sure, having once grew up in the 1840's: "Down to 1850, and even later, New England had this experience, nothing would ever induce me to repeat it. As I have society was still directed by the professions. Lawyers, physicians, pro- heard you say, it would not pay." 41 fessors, merchants were classes, and acted not as individuals, but as Why did the Boston elite prove to be so attractive to Ticknor and though they were clergymen and each profession were a church." Prescott? What were the qualifications and aspirations of Ticknor and Although expanding economic ventures drew young Brahmins into his fellow patricians? In her novel of manners, The Barclays of Boston, banking, manufacturing, and other avenues of business, the learned Mrs. Harrison Gray Otis, Jr., told how difficult it was to speak of professions continued to attract - and create - patricians and re- stratification: "Now how shall it be written? That the Bartons were mained the chief source of social and political leadership. Eminent not of the same rank as the Barclays, - no such word as rank in lawyers, especially, constituted an untitled elite. "If I were asked where democratic America. Not of the same class, - that will never do I place the American aristocracy," commented Tocqueville, "I should The fact is, and the truth must be told, it is very hard, indeed, to de- reply without hesitation that it is not among the rich, who are united scribe certain things in America." The rollicking "widow Otis," - a by no common tie, but that it occupies the judicial bar and bench." plump and plain woman who later contributed to the Civil War effort Not only did successful professional men maintain high esprit de by selling kisses at five dollars apiece - had been generous in her corps and severe intellectual standards within their guilds, but they definition of the elite. She once had a party which included "President also aspired to broad cultivation. Oliver Wendell Holmes, a doctor who Fillmore, Lord Elgin, and an Indian chief." Boston thought Mrs. Otis was also poet and essayist; Joseph Story, the learned constitutional rather irreverent toward sacred things - like its Brahmin caste. 42 commentator and littérateur; William Ellery Channing, preacher and During his visit to New England Tocqueville did not hesitate to give literary critic - these were but outstanding examples of a host of other Ticknor and his friends the supreme compliment: "Society, at least the Boston professional men who gave Latin toasts at their clubs, who society in which we have been introduced, and I think that it is the wrote local history, who read Thackeray and Milton. Such men, to- first, resembles almost completely the upper classes of Europe." Ticknor gether with cultured businessmen, were the core of Brahmin society. 44 and many of his friends had grown up in a Federalist Boston which Of the many determinants of social rank, wealth was the most had little patience with social democracy. Respect for authority, pro- tangible and the most significant in the long run. "There is nothing in priety of manners, and severe standards of morality were hallmarks of New England corresponding at all to the feudal aristocracies of the that society. These traits persisted and were apparent to Tocqueville. Old World," commented Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. "What we mean Henry Adams observed that by 'aristocracy' is merely the richer part of the community, that live The Boston to which Mr. Ticknor returned in 1838 had a physiognomy quite in the tallest houses, drive real carriages (not 'kerridges'), kid-glove its own Its characteristic quality was perhaps provincialism, but pro- their hands, and French-bonnet their ladies." Fortunes made in the vincialism based on Puritanism, stirred within fixed limits by great activity of professions, commerce, banking, insurance, manufacturing, and trans- mind, and lit up, though hardly enlightened, by some notable men. The logical social results of republican institutions had not yet worked themselves port bought the outward symbols of high social position, leisure time out. Lingering tradition and close-woven associations seemed solid and sure to enjoy or at least display wealth, assured handsome dowries to magnify to continue. There were leaders in Israel, - people whose natural vocation the attractions of daughters, and provided education and a family it was to decide on important questions, - and who took the crown of the business for sons. causeway in things intellectual as surely if not as consciously as any red- Yet wealth alone was not apt to create a cohesive and lasting social cloaked Glasgow merchant of the old days.43 group. While the sons of shopkeepers, farmers, and mechanics were The traditional leaders in Federalist Boston had been ministers, becoming rich, a few families that had been wealthy for two or more lawyers, judges, merchants, doctors, and professors. Henry Adams generations were losing their fortunes, either by subdivision or faulty said that professional men continued to dominate the community as he management. Holmes contended, with some exaggeration, that the 176 George Ticknor and the Boston Brahmins Gentleman of Letters 177 "trivial and fugitive fact of personal wealth does not create a permanent alone could redeem a commercial bourgeoisie. Even the most earnest class one does not need to live a very long life to see most of self-made men were apt to be green fruit culturally. When Abbott the rich families he knew in childhood more or less reduced, and the Lawrence accepted his diplomatic post as Minister to England, Prescott millions shifted into the hands of the country-boys who were sweeping confided to Bancroft that his businessman son-in-law felt "some natural stores and carrying parcels when the now decayed gentry were driving mistrust as to taking an office in which he is obviously deficient. their chariots." I thought he must feel this the other day at dinner, for the conversation Rags to riches to rags was a familiar fear in Boston before the took a literary turn." 47 Civil War. One of Boston's favorite charities was the support of indi- If wealth alone was too impermanent and the pursuit of riches too viduals reduced "by the Providence of God from Affluence to Penury." narrowing to produce a class of gentlemen, then what other attributes In The Barclays of Boston, a patrician lady confessed that her "deepest would designate the socially elect? "There is in New England sympathies are not aroused for merely the poorly poor; they incline an aristocracy, if you choose to call it so," wrote Holmes the Autocrat, vastly towards the class that has seen better days The head that "which has a far greater character of permanence" than the wealthy. was once uplifted as high as any in the land, now fallen by the adverse This "aristocracy," which he called the "Brahmin caste of New England", fortunes of commercial ventures, fills my heart with compassion, and was a group of scholars, generally of moderate wealth, which had per- many a one there is." Recurrent financial panics harassed the well-to-do; petuated itself through several generations. Perhaps it was cultivation the very possibility of financial ruin, with all it entailed, aroused an and good family that marked the true gentleman and created a "harm- anxiety out of proportion to probable disaster. 45 less, inoffensive, untitled aristocracy" which could leaven the republican The impermanence of wealth was not the only source of anxiety. mass. Tocqueville sensed the influence of Holmes' "caste." In Boston From all sides came criticisms that the pursuit of wealth was becoming the manners of the upper class "are distinguished," he said, "their con- a low passion, that Boston was becoming a town of Scrooges. George versation turns on intellectual matters, one feels oneself delivered from Hillard described the results of worshipping Mammon in his lecture to those commercial habits and that financial spirit that render the society young businessmen, The Dangers and Duties of the Mercantile Pro- of New-York SO vulgar. There are already in existence in Boston a fession: "Every power, every affection, every taste, except those which certain number of persons who, having no occupation, seek out the [the merchant's] particular occupation calls into play, is left to pleasures of the spirit." 48 starve. Over the gates of his mind he writes in letters which he who The idea of distinguished heredity, of a cultivated and influential runs may read, 'No admittance except on business." The result: "In family perpetuating itself through several generations, appealed to Bos- time he reaches the goal of his hopes; but now insulted Nature begins tonians, to whom genealogy was a sacred science. Holmes declared to claim her revenge The spring of his mind is broken. He can "that, other things being equal, in most relations of life, I prefer a man no longer lift his thoughts from the ground He cannot purge his of family." A "man of family" was the descendant of "four or five voice of its fawning tone, or pluck from his face the mean, money- generations of gentlemen and gentlewomen; among them a member of getting mask." 46 William Ellery Channing complained to Ticknor of his majesty's Council for the Provinces, a Governor or so, one or two "the mournful effects of the infinite, intense thirst for gain and accumula- Doctors of Divinity, a member of Congress, not later than the time of tion here. It takes so much the form of insanity, that one may on that long boots with tassels." His heredity would show itself in his features: account charge on it the less immorality This people will find out "Money kept for two or three generations transforms a race," Holmes at length that money is not the supreme end of the social compact, that commented, I don't mean merely in manners and hereditary cul- republican institutions in particular have liberty and improvement and ture, but in blood and bone." 49 the development of human nature for their objects." This notion of hereditary yet untitled gentility was attractive but for Something more than wealth was needed; benevolence and cultivation one consideration: it bore little relation to reality. Wistfully, Ticknor 178 George Ticknor and the Boston Brahmins Gentleman of Letters 179 appreciated the importance "of good kith and kin I have lived biography aimed at giving a marmoreal polish to the earthy founder long enough to believe a good deal in such matters." But heredity and a sense of family solidarity and tradition to his descendants, present could threaten as well as comfort. James Russell Lowell wrote to a and future. Some patricians, like Prescott's father, even entailed their friend of a retort Thackeray made to Ticknor: "Ticknor was telling him estates. After his marriage, Prescott continued to live with his parents. that one mark of a gentleman was to be well-looking, for good blood Susan Prescott, the historian's wife, lived for twenty-seven years of her showed itself in good features. 'A pretty speech,' cries Thackeray, 'for married life in a household which her mother-in-law administered; at one brokennosed man to make to another.' All Boston has been secretly the age of eighty Catherine Prescott finally wrote her son that "it is tickled with it." And once an Englishman singled out Wendell Phillips proper that your wife should be the mistress of your family. Your and Edmund Quincy, who had been disbarred from polite society for children should consider her the head to direct and guide in every their abolitionist views, as "the only men I have ever seen in your thing." It was common for extended families to live together in the country who look like gentlemen." 50 large mansions which symbolized their rank. Harrison Gray Otis built Handsome appearance, then, could be an embarrassing criterion of a house on Beacon Street roomy enough for himself and three of his gentility. So, too, genealogy. Ticknor's friend James Savage was a diligent married children, and complete with a floor for joint entertaining. pioneer in the pious craft - or crafty piety - of genealogy, but Ticknor Clearly, though, it was difficult to create a sense of family continuity dismissed his researches as a "vain" quest. How many Bostonians could through time either backward or forward. Through intermarriage, the profess to be men of family as Holmes defined the breed (a definition social equivalent of the financial directorate, the Boston Associates, it doubtless made with tongue in cheek)? Ticknor's own grandfather was was possible to develop a sense of lateral genealogy, to consolidate a a poor farmer, probably barely literate, and his father a grocer and family's social position, wealth, power, education, and cultivation during school teacher. Webster's father was an impoverished farmer in the one or two generations. The Ticknors were related by marriage, for wilds of New Hampshire. Ticknor and Webster typified the patrician example, to the Eliots, Dwights, Dexters, and Nortons; the Prescotts to clan of Boston more than the handful of persons who could, like Dana the Amorys, Dexters, Lawrences, and Peabodys. Intermarriage created and Robert Winthrop, claim illustrious forebears in the colonial period. an interlocking Brahmin directorate. 52 Most of Ticknor's friends were descended from sturdy yeomen like A severe code of sexual morality also protected the extended patrician Prescott's ancestors: "men of strongly marked character but small family. Francis Lieber, a German scholar who had emigrated to Boston, estates, and devoted to mechanical or agricultural pursuits, - circum- told Tocqueville that the morals of the elite "are as perfect as it is stances which fitted them as nothing could so well have done for the possible to imagine them. I don't believe that there is a single intrigue trials and labors incident to their settlement in this Western wilderness." in Boston society. A woman would be lost." Even the location of bed- No genealogical alchemy could transform such ancestors. Until the rooms frustrated romantic liaisons. The women of Boston were co- influx of immigrants most Bostonians could claim equal ancestral dis- quettes "because they know that they cannot go beyond a certain point, tinction. The rapid social rise of the patricians - the Cabots, Eliots, and that no one believes that they overstep that bound. After all, I like Grays, Perkins, Storys, Appletons, Lawrences, Bowditches, Dexters, still better our women of Europe with their weaknesses, than the glacial Wards, Forbes, and the rest - testified to the possibility of acquiring and egotistical virtue of the Americans." Tocqueville and Beaumont high social position without a distinguished family tree.5 51 enjoyed flirting with the young ladies of Boston: "the faces are always Very early, Bostonians developed a sense of reverence for the family new, and I think, God pardon me, that we always tell them the same founder, commonly a merchant who established the fortunes of the things, at the risk of complimenting a brunette on the whiteness of her family in the years following the Revolution or the early decades of skin, and a blond on the ebony of her hair. But that is a bagatelle and the nineteenth century. The sons started a school of filio-pietistic occupies but a very small place in the lives of two young men of politics, 180 George Ticknor and the Boston Brahmins Gentleman of Letters 181 utterly devoted to speculations of the most elevated order." Their learned visited Boston, Josiah Quincy, Jr., noticed that he "seemed to have investigations disclosed that Lieber was right. "American morals are a full understanding of the value of money, and said many things which the purest existing in any nation," Tocqueville decided. showed that his possessions were by no means equal to his rank. He This purity he attributed to religious conviction, preoccupation with asked some questions about Stuart's paintings, and added, 'Is he very making money, the American "physical constitution" (as characteristic dear?" Quincy smiled at Everett's pomposity in addressing the Duke of "a northern race"), early marriage, and the "rational" education of as "Your Highness" in "a reverence of voice which appeared to me, girls. He reported the opinion of a southerner that "the young blood to say the least, superfluous. I suppose Mr. Everett wanted to show of the city frequents" prostitutes, but added that "the evil stops there, that he was accustomed to the manners of Europe." 55 without ever crossing the domestic threshold or troubling the families." The close association of Brahmin Boston with Harvard also helped Prudery had its roots as much in prudence as in smugness. Amid the to define the Boston elite, especially the members of the second genera- fluctuations of wealth, the maelstrom of politics, the worries of a group tion. True, some of the patricians were self-educated, and some had consolidating its position, sexual purity was a bastion of the family and gone to other colleges. But the great majority of proper Bostonians went the family a bastion of the patrician class.53 to Harvard, as Henry Adams said, "because their friends went there, One avenue to social eminence was pedigree by foreign association. and the College was their ideal of social self-respect." Harvard offered The pedigree by association was important especially for bachelors, an extra-curricular course in the Brahmin life-style. This style, as Adams like Charles Sumner. Henry Adams commented that "social success in described it, was "quietly penetrating and aggressively commonplace; England and on the Continent gave to every Bostonian who enjoyed it free from meanness, jealousies, intrigues, enthusiasms and passions; not a halo never acquired by domestic sanctity." Tocqueville noticed that exceptionally quick; not consciously sceptical; singularly indifferent to all the men of the "first society" of Boston had been to Europe, but display, artifice, florid expression with not much humor few had been SO successful there socially as Ticknor. The mere fact of negative to a degree that in the long run became positive and trium- being entertained at a British country seat or being presented at a phant their judgment a sort of gravitation." Harvard even foreign court imparted glory. Frederick Marryat, a Tory observer of taught the Bostonian to hold his liquor - "though the mere recollection American follies, snorted that "it will be a curious anomaly in the made him doubt his veracity." 56 of [his drinking] history of a republic, that, fifty years after it was established, republicans Since in a sense Harvard was a social extension of the Brahmin should apply to the mother country whose institutions they had abjured, family, Ticknor had been especially concerned about the morals as to obtain from her a patent of superiority, so as to raise themselves well as the cultivation of the students. A prime purpose of higher educa- above that hated equality which they profess." Americans did tion, Ticknor believed, "consists in adjusting a young man, during the not wish to be reminded that their "aristocracy" was merely a bour- most flexible part of his life, to his place among the associates who can geoisie in European eyes. 54 best help him onward." Ticknor and his fellow Brahmins had no desire Still, there were pitfalls in the pedigree by association: it exaggerated to make Harvard a closed corporation for the wealthy, only a patrician cultural and social provincialism. And provincialism was not entirely a finishing school. They admired the poor rustic scholar, "the large un- welcome fact even in Boston. "Everett thinks of London too much," combed youth" as Holmes put it, who startled the "hereditary class Prescott wrote to George Bancroft in 1847. "His wife and daughter leaders by striding past them all." Ticknor also wanted the Boston talk of it a good deal don't stay abroad long enough to lose one's Public Library to help people raise themselves culturally by their boot- relish for home." "After all, there is nothing more silly," Longfellow straps. It was only right, however, that the Brahmin clan should establish commented, "than this aping of foreign nations; - the love of foreign the tone and direction of such institutions.57 nobility." Obsequiousness to nobility seemed pretentious and absurd Ticknor's friend Sir Charles Lyell wrote that the mingling in Boston to many Bostonians of high standing. When the Duke of Saxe-Weimar "of the [Harvard] professors, both literary and scientific, with the eminent Gentleman of Letters 183 182 George Ticknor and the Boston Brahmins lawyers, clergymen, physicians, and principal merchants of the place of the nation. Henry Adams observed that "it was the old Ciceronian forms a society of a superior kind; and to these may be added several idea of government by the best that produced the long line of New Eng- persons, who, having inherited ample fortunes, have successfully de- land statesmen." A number of Ticknor's circle were active in Whig voted their lives to original researches in history and other departments." politics: Daniel Webster, Edward Everett, Robert Winthrop, Abbott The existence of a group of respectable professors and gentlemen of Lawrence, Rufus Choate, and Nathan Appleton. Webster, in particular, letters, the influence of Harvard and a refined clergy, the prominence was a Brahmin idol until the slavery contest, and his defense of the of men of affairs with literary tastes - these increased the intellectual fugitive slave law split the patrician group into warring factions. density of Boston society. Especially in the 1840's and 1850's when The nature of American partisan politics, especially on the national the social arteries were hardening, "the social arbiters of Boston - stage, made it difficult for the Brahmins to translate their economic, so- George Ticknor and the rest" - were able to convince many people cial and intellectual authority into political power. From this fact that a gentleman must be cultivated as well as rich, polished as well as stemmed Ticknor's ambivalence towards politics and the ambiguity of powerful. Indeed, scholarship, a pedigree by association, genteel man- the patrician's political role: the people often did not want "the best" ners, and a reverential attitude might admit a man like George Hillard to lead them. Consequently Ticknor and a number of his conservative to the "caste" even though he had neither wealth nor distinguished friends sought to bypass parties and legislatures and to influence the family.58 course of the nation in other ways. They sought to control institutions Lyell thought that the literary tone of Boston high society was wel- schools, churches, libraries, the legal system, the republic of letters - come in a country "where the public mind is apt to be exclusively which would stabilize society. "What force can now unclench the giant absorbed in politics." Ever since the fall of Federalism Ticknor had grasp of the People?" asked James Hillhouse. "The young Titan has displayed an ambivalent attitude towards politics, as had many of his risen up Though he cannot be deprived of his power, may not fellow Brahmins. Ticknor affected disdain for the daily machinations his eyes be enlightened, his heart be refined, his purposes and aims be of politicians: in his biography of Prescott he praised his friend for made more beneficent and wise? Therein lies our hope!" Gentlemen of dealing "with political discussions only when they related to events letters might carry out this task of enlightenment and refinement, "per- and persons at least two centuries old." A fellow patrician ridiculed the forming the functions of an Aristocracy, without its intolerable ap- country bumpkins who represented the sovereign state of Massachusetts pendages." Such was Ticknor's goal. 60 in the General Court - "members who advocate 'mackerel inspection," cider presses, fences, raising potatoes, and brewing small beer." "The positive fact is," said another to Francis Grund, "that few of our rep- 4. High Priest resentatives are gentlemen." Tocqueville, as usual, had an explanation: "the rich frequently abandon the lists, through unwillingness to con- The literary critic Edwin Whipple wrote that Ticknor's social posi- tend, and frequently to contend in vain, against the poorer classes of tion "was SO assured that one of his friends, Nathan Hale, pleasantly their fellow citizens. As they cannot occupy in public a position equiv- suggested that the name of Boston be changed to Ticknorville. In New alent to what they hold in private life, they abandon the former and York, and other cities, the good society of Boston was long regarded give themselves up to the latter; and they constitute a private society as the select circle of ladies and gentlemen in which Ticknor moved, in the state which has its own tastes and pleasures." Tocqueville's de- and to which he almost gave the law." Ticknor took seriously his ob- scription aptly characterized Ticknor's stance: he chose not to do battle ligation to civilize Boston. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., called Ticknor's in the political arena. ¹ library the "headquarters of scholarship and hospitality." "You may This disdain for partisan politics hardly meant that Ticknor and his well believe that the influence of this amiable and accomplished family fellow Brahmins were uninterested in statesmanship or in the destiny has been most salutary on our little society," Prescott wrote to a Pa- 278 Notes to Pages 158-170 Notes to Pages 171-184 279 8. Morse, Letters of Holmes, II, 157; Morison, Maritime History, 225-240; 34. MSJ, VI, Jan. 27, Feb. 7, and March 4, 1837. Shlakman, Factory Town, 37-45; Stromberg, "Boston," 591-598. 35. MSJ, VI, Jan. 24, 1837; Dec. 10, 1836. 9. Grund, Aristocracy, 169; Pierson, Tocqueville, 391; Pierce, Sumner, III, 2; 36. Mrs. Ticknor, MS Journals, VII, April 9 and Jan. 2, 1837. Gardiner, Recollections, 11. 37. MSJ, VI, Jan. 19, 1937; Dec. 21, 1836. 10. Stromberg, "Boston," 591-598; Grund, Aristocracy, 162. 38. Life, II, 140; MSJ, VIII, Dec. 22 and Oct. 6, 1837. 11. Whitehill, Topographical History, 60-67, 142-144; Winsor, Boston, III, 39. Gannett, "Christian Scholar," 520; Ticknor to Sumner, April 12, 1839, HL; 232-233; Lawrence, Old Park Street, 81-82; Anna Ticknor to Bancroft, March Donald, Sumner, 48; Ticknor to Sumner, April 10, 1838, HL; Ticknor to Sumner, 15, 1825, MHS. The Boston Athenaeum and the Dartmouth Archives have Dec. 3, 1839, HL. pictures of the interior and exterior of 9 Park St.; in Ticknor's will the mansion 40. Ticknor to Sumner, April 22, 1839, HL; Life, II, 184. was valued at $82,000 (Suffolk County Probate Records, vol. 308, 52). 41. Life, II, 269n; Ticknor, Prescott, 339, 305, 312. 12. Stewart, ed., Hawthorne's American Notebooks, 246-247. 42. Otis, Barclays, 210; Wecter, Society, 321-322. 13. Hart, Ticknor, 2; Godwin, Bryant, II, 372; Gannett, "Christian Scholar," 43. Pierson, Tocqueville, 364; Adams, "Ticknor," 213. 520; Prescott to Mary La Bouchère, June 13, 1856, MHS; Rusk, ed., Letters of 44. Adams, Education, 32; Tocqueville, Democracy, I, 288; Hillard, Dangers Emerson, I, 136; Brooks, Allston, 66. and Duties; Calhoun, Professional Lives, 178, 194-195. 14. Perry, "Ticknor," 631; Life, II, 495. 45. Holmes, Venner, 1-2; Otis, Barclays, 128; Amory, Proper Bostonians, 171. 15. Thompson, Young Longfellow, 82; Longfellow, MS Journal, Jan. 3, 1840, 46. Hillard, Dangers and Duties, 41-42. HL; Life, II, 496. 47. Channing to Ticknor, April 22, 1837, DCL; Prescott to Bancroft, June 19, 16. The Sully and Healy portraits are in the Baker Library at Dartmouth; the 1849, MHS. Milmore bust is in the Boston Public Library. 48. Holmes, Venner, 3-4; Pierson, Tocqueville, 364-365. 17. Life, I, 387-395; Houghton, Victorian Mind, 342; Grund, Aristocracy, 213. 49. Holmes, Autocrat, 20, 260. Even in informal letters to close friends Ticknor normally referred to his wife as 50. Ticknor to Charles Daveis, April 13, 1843, MHS; Howe, ed., Letters of "Mrs. Ticknor" and it is hard to realize that Anna Ticknor and her daughter Lowell, I, 71; Higginson, Contemporaries, 271-272. wrote the reticent and impersonal narrative sections of the Life. 51. Life, II, 420; Ticknor, Prescott, 449. 18. Houghton, Victorian Mind, 343. In 1897 a group of Miss Ticknor's col- 52. Crawford, Famous Families, and Winsor, Boston, contain a wealth of bio- leagues in the Society to Encourage Studies at Home edited a volume describing graphical information on Boston families; Saveth, "Patrician Class," indicates the the work of the Society and including Anna's correspondence with students and rich mine of information available to historians interested in the American elite. eulogies by Samuel Eliot and Elizabeth Cary Agassiz - Society to Encourage Prescott, Papers, 248; Amory, Proper Bostonians, 38; Grund commented that Studies at Home, Founded in 1873 by Anna Eliot Ticknor. Yankees "in the absence of a law of primogeniture, preserve their wealth by 19. Anna Ticknor, American Family, 167. marrying cousins" (Aristocracy, 169). 20. Anna Ticknor, American Family, 275. 53. Pierson, Tocqueville, 378, 364, 365; Welter, "Cult of True Womanhood," 21. Life, I, 398-399, 401. 154-158. 22. Channing to Ticknor, May 29, 1835, and April 22, 1837, DCL; Life, I, 54. Adams, Education, 30; Marryat, Diary, II, 170-175, 185; Martineau, So- 402. ciety, III, 36-37. 23 Ward, Ward Papers, 137. 55. Wolcott, ed., Correspondence of Prescott, 627; Longfellow, MS Journal, 24. Grund, Aristocracy, 48. June 2, 1840, HL; Quincy, Figures, 138-139. 25. Wolcott, ed., Correspondence of Prescott, 498. 56. Adams, Education, 56-59. 26. Life, I, 403-404. 57. Life, II, 410; Holmes, Venner, 5; Life, II, 417-418. 27. Mrs. Anna Ticknor, MS Journals, I, July 25, 1835, DCL; Life, I, 402-450, 58. Lyell, Travels, I, 106-109; Winsor, Boston, IV, 293; Adams, Education, 30. II, 144-183; Ticknor to Thomas W. Ward, Sept. 22, 1835, MHS; Mrs. Ticknor to 59. Lyell, Travels, I, 109; Ticknor, Prescott, 335; Grund, Aristocracy, 140- Willard Phillips, May 17, 1838, MHS. For a discussion of the landed aristocracy, 143; Tocqueville, Democracy, I, 187. For the "decline of the gentleman" in see Thompson, English Society. politics during this period see Hofstadter, Anti-intellectualism, 154-171. 28. MSJ, III, Nov. 20, 1835, to May 4, 1836; Ticknor to Thomas W. Ward, 60. Adams, Education, 32; Hillhouse, Works, II, 123, 129-130; see part VI Jan. 28, 1836, MHS. below and Saveth, "Patrician Class" (249-252), for further discussions of the 29. MSJ, IV, June 24 and July 1, 1836. patrician's role in politics. Donald (Lincoln Reconsidered, 19-36) points out that 30. MSJ, III, July 1, 1836. displaced members of the gentry, "educated for conservative leadership," also 31. MSJ, III, July 1, 1836; Life, II, 20 (translated from the French); MSJ, entered the abolitionist crusade in large numbers. III, June 26, 1836. 61. Whipple, "Ticknor," 456; Hart, Ticknor, 2; obituary in the Boston Post, 32. Life, I, 480-481; Ticknor to Dana, Feb. 22, 1837, MHS. Jan. 26, 1871; Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., to Ticknor, Dec. 19, 186?, DCL. 33. Ticknor to Dana, Oct. 28, 1837, MHS. 62. Crawford, Romantic Days, 317; Otis, Barclays, 62; Morse, Lee, 346. Harvard in 1828 Ticknor's library 80 Harvard in 1821 Park Street in 1858, with Ticknor's house in foreground