02.01.2016

Elizabeth Bacon Custer

February 2016

By Adriene Galindo

All Americans know the story of Custer’s Last Stand. What they may not know is that this is in part due to efforts by Custer’s wife to exonerate and immortalize him as an American hero. As they say, behind every great man is a great woman.

Elizabeth Bacon Custer was born in Monroe, Michigan in 1842. She faced tragedy early on, losing three siblings before age eight and her mother at 12. But “Libbie” had an adaptable and resilient nature, which would prove advantageous while marching with her husband’s troops years later. After her mother died, Elizabeth moved to Grand Rapids to live with her aunt. She returned to Monroe to attend boarding school at the Young Ladies’ Seminary and Collegiate Institute, and continued her schooling at the Young Ladies’ Institute in Auburn, New York, graduating valedictorian.

While other recent graduates of the Young Ladies’ Institute may have been considering potential suitors, Libbie was an independent spirit and not particularly inclined to marry: “If no one ever comes that I love then I shall be a ‘spinster,’ but to be one from necessity and one from pleasure are different things.” Even after the young George Custer made his interest in her quite clear, she did little to encourage him and felt he was too persistent. Romance soon developed, however, and they married in 1864.

With the Civil War still ongoing, the early stages of their marriage saw them frequently apart. When Custer was away, Elizabeth devoted her time to singing his praises to military officers, senators, and President Lincoln himself, but found accommodations near his campsites when she could. George Custer “found it hard,” he wrote his sister Lydia Ann, to keep her away from camp, for “she likes the army as well as I do.” He soon asked Libbie to join him at camp and found her equal to roughing it with army soldiers.

Sensing that the men resented her presence and determined not to show weakness on these long marches, Elizabeth adhered to the same grueling standards as the men. She even elected to live in a tent when proper housing was offered to her. She considered this time a learning experience, and took the opportunity to improve her riding skills. George Custer wrote to her father: “She thinks nothing of mounting upon a girthless saddle upon a strange horse and setting off at such a gait that even some of the staff officers are left behind.” This was a remarkable achievement since she rode sidesaddle. In fact, she was the only army wife to accompany the cavalry. Libbie delighted in the adventure the army provided; upon seeing a former suitor, she remarked, “What a humdrum life I had escaped by not marrying him…”

The adventures they shared together ended all too soon, however. News of Custer’s death arrived in June of 1876, but Elizabeth refused to fall victim to her grief. Despite coping not only with the loss of her husband but with accusations that he disobeyed direct orders, she knew she “had to live—a hero’s widow—to the end of my appointed time, worthily.” She spent the time immediately following Custer’s death by volunteering at the hospital and tending to the wounded. Adding to her burden, she soon became the sole caretaker of her poor and elderly in-laws. At the same time, payment on the property she had owned with Custer was due, along with an $8,500 loan. Perhaps as a testament to the kindness and charity Libbie was known for, fellow veterans chipped in to alleviate her financial strain, as well as that of other army wives.

In 1877, determined to move past her grief and start a new life for herself, Elizabeth set off for New York City, where she found a position as a secretary for the Society of Decorative Arts. Two years later, plans were being made to commission a statue of Custer that would stand at West Point. At no point in the planning stages was she consulted. She was dismayed that the widow of a war hero should be ignored, and found fault with a statue that bore little resemblance to the Autie she knew. She did not attend the unveiling ceremony. Her message was received loud and clear by all in attendance. In 1884, she succeeded in having the statue permanently removed. Shortly after, she finally began work on her own memorial to the General, her book Boots and Saddles. As in life, Elizabeth continued to defend her husband’s actions even after his death; the book answered Custer’s detractors who blamed him for the events at Little Bighorn.

Although some critics argued the book was more hero-worshipping than factual, most found the book entertaining and admired Elizabeth’s spirit and devotion to her husband. For her, more important than the reviews were the letters she received from other army wives and widows. Her book “made my country feel that I belong to them.” Her second book, Tenting On the Plains, also contained glowing descriptions of Custer’s deeds and received similar praise. Elizabeth’s final book was published in 1890. The narrative focused on Custer’s encounters with the Indians of the West prior to the fatal battle of Little Bighorn. Her biographer Shirley Leckie describes Elizabeth’s treatment of the Indians in Following the Guidon as heavily prejudiced: “Elizabeth presented Indian women as beasts of burden, exploited by their husbands. By contrast officers were romantic, chivalrous, and affectionate…” The Custers’ former black servant Eliza also featured in the story, depicted as having become more civilized and appreciative since working for the family.

All the publicity Libbie received from writing about life with her famous husband afforded her the opportunity to take her stories on the road. She began a lecture circuit in Concord, Massachusetts the same year her final book was published. She often faced unsympathetic audiences (like those in Cambridge), but regularly won them over with her good humor and charm.

Elizabeth’s sense of adventure and devotion to her husband never waned in the 57 years after his death. She continued writing articles and stories about Custer’s life and traveled to such far-off places as Switzerland, Japan, Germany, India, Egypt, France, China, and Russia. Libbie died in 1933 just before her ninety-first birthday.

Her problematic idealization of her husband and their life together aside, Elizabeth showed the country that women could hold their own, and that their support was valuable to the war effort. In the words of an unnamed contemporary of Custer, “…I am satisfied she was the best General of the two.”

References
“Elizabeth Bacon Custer is born in Michigan,” history.com,
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/elizabeth-bacon-custer-is-born-in-michigan

Leckie, Shirley A. Elizabeth Bacon Custer and the Making of a Myth. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993.

12.18.2015

Liz Covart

January 2016

By Amanda McSweeney-Geehan and Liz Covart

Your background, personal and academic?

I am a native New Englander and a historian of early America. I am a Bostonian by birth and I spent most of my childhood in Bedford, New Hampshire. After high school, I moved west to State College, Pennsylvania, where I attended Pennsylvania State University (B.A. History with honors and distinction). In 2004, I moved further west to Davis, California to study early American history with Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Alan Taylor at the University of California, Davis (M.A. and Ph.D. History).

After Davis, I lived in Albany, New York for five years so I could research and write my dissertation, “Collision on the Hudson: Identity, Migration, and the Improvement of Albany, New York, 1750–1830.” My dissertation (and first book project) explores how the people of Albany, New York created first Dutch, then British, and finally American identities.

Honestly, I went to grad school with the thought that my dissertation topic would center on New England. Instead, I investigated the post-Revolution New England migration into New York State (1783–1830) in an effort to answer a question I posed to Alan (a Maine native) during my second week in California: Why does everyone outside of New England assume that New York is part of the region? The short answer: 700,000 to 800,000 New Englanders migrated to New York after the Revolution and built new, New England towns on the lands they settled. Culturally, much of New York resembles New England.

In 2012, I returned to Boston with my partner Tim Wilde and our two mini-schnauzers Thatcher and Sprocket. We reside in the South End.

What drew you to focus on early American history?

I attribute my love for early American history to four factors:

First, as a New Englander, I grew up surrounded by vestiges of our early American past.

Second, my parents took my brother and me on cultural vacations. We spent many school vacations visiting museums and historic sites around New England and the United States.

Third, I read a lot of nonfiction. My parents gave my brother and me an allowance in books instead of cash. Many of the books I purchased, or borrowed from the library, centered on early American history. I remember thinking in high school that I would one day read beyond the revolutionary and early republic periods of United States history, and I have, but those early periods are still my favorite. They are the periods I keep coming back to and the eras I will spend my career researching and writing about.

Fourth, my ancestors helped forge the United States. Some of them settled in New Netherland during the seventeenth century and several fought in New York and New Jersey regiments during the War for Independence. My ancestry doesn’t drive my research, but knowing I had ancestors who lived through the tumultuous and exciting times of the revolutionary and early republic periods makes my research more interesting to me.

What brought you to the Athenæum and how has working here affected your scholarship?

The Boston Athenæum has a reputation for being a great and inspiring place to work. I joined because of that reputation and because I needed a library with great interlibrary loan services. My study of early American history often leads me to request obscure antiquarian and specialist titles or borrow microfilm from historical societies and research libraries. The Athenæum always procures the records I need. In fact, Kristen, the ILL specialist, saved me an expensive trip to the New York Public Library by locating the records I needed at a different institution with interlibrary loan privileges.

What differences have you found in presenting your work in a digital format as opposed to print?

I believe that people love history and that if historians grant them convenient access to our scholarly world then people will take an interest in our work and become advocates for it. This is the reason I started tweeting and blogging about history and why I created Ben Franklin’s World: A Podcast About Early American History. Social media and podcasts provide the convenient access to history that non-historians seek.

There are many advantages to presenting scholarly history in a digital format; two stand out.

First, well-researched history can reach more people if presented through social media than if offered in a book or academic article. For example, many historians publish their work through academic presses. On average, those presses publish 400–450 copies of a history book during its first print run. It takes many historians months to sell out their first print run. Alternatively, when historians present the ideas contained in their books and articles on Ben Franklin’s World, people download and listen to their ideas 3,000–4,000 times in the first week their episode airs and that number is growing.

Second, podcasts and social media humanize historians. The intimacy of podcasts and the egalitarian nature of social media encourage people to reach out and connect with historians when they wouldn’t otherwise.

Most podcast listeners listen to their favorite shows on the go. Listening involves placing earbuds in their ears or connecting their smartphones to their car stereo systems. For the next 25–60 minutes, it’s just the listener, their favorite podcast host, and the host’s guest. This intimate listening experience allows listeners to form a relationship with podcasters even if the listener and host have never met. Listeners e-mail hosts, connect with them on social media, and as a result historians get to engage with their fellow history lovers and have real conversations about history, historical thinking, and life.

The only disadvantage I have found in presenting scholarly history digitally is that to do it well takes time away from my book projects. I don’t regret this tradeoff. I will finish my books, many of which will be written and refined at the Athenæum.

The future of the relationship between social media and academics, as you see it?

We will see universities and their departments producing more podcasts, digital magazines, and curated social media feeds. We may even start to see university-sponsored digital networks wherein a group of schools partner to produce and promote high-quality articles, podcasts, and videos based on the work of their scholars. The value of this, especially for government-funded institutions, is that this digital and mobile content will enrich people’s lives and add to their knowledge. In turn, those who consume university-produced media will become advocates for scholars’ work and help schools overcome funding cuts.

Right now academia is fixated on repurposing lecture content for Massive Open Online Courses or MOOCs. This content is not native to the web and social media. With so much content on the internet, there is a movement by digital companies and internet entrepreneurs to curate high-quality content for their customers. A good example of this would be Slate or Amazon. These companies provide video, news, music, and podcast content of reliable quality to their users in exchange for a yearly membership fee—Slate Plus and Amazon Prime. Academic and academic-like institutions will eventually come around to this model because it is a powerful way to enrich the knowledge of society and foster respect and advocacy for particular institutions. Of course, I am a historian. My expertise is in the past, not the future, so I may be wrong.

What are some of your favorite podcasts or social media accounts to follow? (Historical or otherwise)

Aside from Ben Franklin’s World, I like to listen to a lot of different podcasts, most of which have nothing to do with history. I love Serial, the podcasts from Gimlet media (Start-Up, Reply All, and Mystery Show), and I like a lot of independent podcasts in the business, podcast, and tech categories. Among my favorites: Podcast Junkies, Exponent, The Feed from Libsyn, ShePodcasts, and the BizChix podcast.

In terms of social media accounts, I love Twitter. I follow individual historians and the accounts of my favorite history blogs and organizations. If you love early American history, you should check out The Junto: A Group Blog on Early American History (@thejuntoblog), Boston1775.net (@Boston1775), the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture (@OIEAHC), the African American Intellectual History Society (@AAIHS), Borealia: A Group Blog on Early Canadian History (@earlycanada), The Way of Improvement Leads Home (@JohnFea1), and the Massachusetts Historical Society (@MHS1791).

Take us through the process of creating an episode of Ben Franklin’s World.

Much more than people think. New episodes of Ben Franklin’s World release every Tuesday. Each week, I have three shows in production. Each episode takes between 12 and 20 hours to produce; the difference in time depends on whether the episode will feature a discussion about a book.

After I invite an historian to be a guest on the show, I read their book or article, or research their historic site or institution, prepare questions, interview the historian, listen to the raw interview and make edits and notes for my audio engineer, draft show notes and a custom intro and outro for the episode, record the custom intro and outro, listen to the final version of the episode to ensure high-quality sound and that the episode doesn’t require additional editing, tag the episode with metadata, upload the episode to my audio hosting service (Libsyn), edit and post the show notes or blog post for the episode, create a custom graphic to advertise the episode, and then promote the episode on social media when it releases.

I read every book discussed on the show cover-to-cover. Preparation for book-based episodes takes almost as long as the interview and post-production work combined. The prep time is worth it, though, because it allows me to have a great, in-depth conversation with an author about the history and ideas in their book. This in-depth approach is part of why Ben Franklin’s World has been so successful.

Favorite Athenæum memory?

Drinking whiskey in the Henry Long room. As someone who appreciates and frequents libraries and archives, drinking whiskey in the Athenæum felt like a forbidden activity. Yet, it was fun.

12.04.2015

Staff Book Suggestions Winter 2016

Emily Anderson

Tales by H.P. Lovecraft
(Library of Congress Classification PZ3.L9417 Tal 2005)

“Bear in mind closely that I did not see any actual visual horror at the end,” but I can recommend curling up by a fire with some cocoa, and chilling oneself through reading. Explore the well-known streets of New England in these short stories, and enjoy the possibility of never looking at those streets the same again.

Elizabeth Borah

Birds of the Boston Public Garden: A Study in Migration by Horace Winslow Wright

(Cutter Classification L9Z64 .W93)

It’s not exactly up-to-date or enthralling subject matter, but this little record of birds encountered in the Public Garden may prove of interest to those looking to examine the changes to Boston’s urban avian population in the past century. As the author states in introducing the volume, published in January of 1909, “It may be said that should the records herein set forth lead others to obtain future records and continue the study of migratory life within the Garden […] the pursuit will be all pleasure and the result so much gain.” Happily, for ease of access by modern birdwatchers, it’s available for free online in full (both web-view and e-book) via Google Books.

Further reading: for urban wildlife enthusiasts whose interests extend to mammalian histories, I highly recommend these two articles on the social and somewhat experimental impacts of the eastern gray squirrel.

Will Evans

Madame Bovary: Provincial Ways by Gustave Flaubert; translated with an introduction and notes by Lydia Davis.
(Library of Congress Children’s PZ3.F618 Ma 2010)

A sure antidote to the numbing effects of winter! In Lydia Davis’s translation Flaubert’s verdant pastures and dusty roads of provincial France come alive, as does Madame’s hunger for the good life and fiery passions. A Gallic workout for the senses.

James Kraus
Purity by Jonathan Franzen
(Library of Congress NEW PZ4.F841 Pu 2015)

Some folks despise Jonathan Franzen’s face. Some despise his voice. Others despise his face and his voice. There are those who find his constructs and characters insufferable, and still others who claim he is a misogynist. But Franzen’s latest novel, Purity, is his finest work to date. He exacts laser-sharp social analysis in a tale that rolls out invitingly slow and builds to a bullet-train’s pace for a touching finish. When I finished, I missed the characters. Self-admittedly his most reworked and reedited novel, Franzen’s prose is clear and smooth and resolves both a reader’s and reviewer’s criticisms of his prior novels. I may stand alone, but Purity gets my vote for favorite book of 2015.

Judith Maas
The Great Fortune by Olivia Manning
(Library of Congress PZ3.M3213 Gr)

The Great Fortune is Book I of Olivia Manning’s Balkan trilogy, published between 1960 and 1965 and drawn from Manning’s own experiences as a young married woman and British expatriate in southeastern Europe during World War II. The novel is set in Bucharest in late 1939 and early 1940, the period known as the “phony war.” Manning’s subject is not the privations of war, but its forebodings: she explores the day-to-day lives of her characters amidst uncertainty as newsreels, propaganda displays, and radio broadcasts create a sense of impending disaster.

The main characters are British newlyweds Guy and Harriet Pringle and their circle of acquaintances. Guy, a teacher, revels in sociability; he is a friend to all, happiest when in a group. The novel’s point of view belongs mostly to Harriet, lonely in her marriage, ill at ease in a foreign country, and cool and appraising in her observations.

Manning creates characters from many different worlds and backgrounds, and charts the strains and intrigues in their relationships. As a onetime painter, she has a great gift for describing places—her images of city and countryside are not just background, but add to the novel’s sense of menace and unease.

Elizabeth O’Meara
Brand Luther: How an Unheralded Monk Turned His Small Town into a Center of Publishing, Made Himself the Most Famous Man in Europe—and Started the Protestant Reformation by Andrew Pettegree
(Library of Congress NEW CT1098.L88 P47 2015)

The title of this book pretty much says it all! It lets you know immediately the author’s premise that without the new technology of printing, Luther’s message of reformation of the Catholic Church would never have ignited the movement that ultimately resulted in Protestantism.

We are introduced to the sixteenth century world where Luther lived and worked. The author does an excellent job of illustrating the impact of Luther’s writing on the fledgling printing industry, and of showing how printers (and Luther) began to understand the usefulness of highlighting Martin Luther’s name and developed a recognizable ‘brand’ of his pamphlets that would stand out in the book-selling market.

Having just finished the book Gutenberg’s Apprentice, I was drawn to this book and was not disappointed. It’s thoroughly engaging, well written, and nicely illustrates the impact and development of printing that allowed Luther’s message to spread.

Mary Warnement

Life is Meals: A Food Lover’s Book of Days by James and Kay Salter; with illustrations by Fabrice Moireau

(Library of Congress TX631 .S225 2006)

I haven’t finished this book and do not plan to anytime soon because I want to savor it a page (or two, or three) at a time. This pretty volume—with brightly striped endpapers and built-in ribbon bookmark—sits among cookbooks in my kitchen on a bracketed wooden shelf made for me by my father (coincidentally a Korean War veteran like Salter, whose first novel, The Hunters, explores the experiences of a pilot in that overlooked war-that-wasn’t-named). There are recipes, but this is not a cookbook; it’s more like a conversation with Salter and his wife Kay, also a professional writer. Almost as if they’ve invited you to a dinner party. There are snippets of history, literary references, and of course advice (how to become a “regular” or how to bring your own bottle of wine to a restaurant). Both were known to friends as great hosts, and this is an enjoyable, charmingly illustrated glimpse into a life of shared conviviality. Don’t worry: I bought my own copy. The Athenæum’s copy is available. If you need to keep it longer than two months, we’re happy to renew it. Just keep in mind you must return it someday.

11.23.2015

John Phillips Marquand

December 2015

By Alyssa True

John Phillips Marquand (1893–1960) ultimately became known for his satires of the New England upper class and their traditions. He spent adulthood trying to regain his place among the deeply rooted and financially comfortable that he felt he lost early in his life. Many of his novels featured characters based on himself or relatives from Newburyport, including Wickford Point, H.M Pullham, Esquire, and the Pulitzer Prize winner The Late George Apley. He wrote about Boston for LIFE in 1941, “[I]ts past and its present make a perfect unity, I believe, than has been achieved by any other city in America.”

He, however, was born in Delaware. His father, Phillip Marquand, had a job as a civil engineer at the American Bridge Company in Wilmington. His mother, Margaret Fuller, was the niece of the transcendentalist writer of the same name. Marquand did not have much respect for this branch of the family, commenting later: “Like many other Fullers including her father, she was an intellectual snob, imbued usually with a Puritanical self-righteousness, and utterly devoid of humor.” Instead, Marquand was most influenced by his father’s maternal branch, The Curzons. Once Phillip Marquand lost most of his fortune in 1907 and euphemistically “engaged in various lines of work” across the continent for the next six years, John Phillips Marquand was left in the care of his maiden Curzon aunts in Curzon’s Mill in Newburyport. The shy, solitary Marquand carried scars from this disruption throughout his life.

Harvard simultaneously accepted and rejected Marquand, a middle class boy from a middlebrow public school. Though he originally paid for boarding school in New York, Marquand’s father’s later unemployment exiled his son to Newburyport High School, where Marquand languished as he repeatedly failed Harvard College’s entrance exams. Once Marquand matriculated, both literary and final clubs snubbed him and the Harvard Crimson declared him out of the “competition because he does not know how to write.” His rejection by the literary Signet Society still pained the future best-selling novelist enough that his characters in 1939’s Wickford Point are similarly rejected from the Vindex Club, with his unconnected Joe Stowe predicting, “Yes, they’ll be sorry someday.” Marquand found a home on the staff of the Harvard Lampoon,yet the young man’s continuing misery drove him to finish Harvard in three years.

His fiscally unstable adolescence led Marquand to pursue the most practical path: “I selected writing because it was the only lucrative endeavor in which I was any way qualified.” He first embarked on a career in journalism (beginning at the Boston Transcript, then the New York Tribune), then in advertising (at J. Water Thompson), ultimately switching to fiction at the Saturday Evening Post. Success came almost immediately. From 1922 to 1940, Marquand sold around 100 short stories. His spy series for the Post about a Japanese detective named Mr. Moto turned into a popular series of novels and several movies starring Peter Lorre. Apley became a play and a feature film. Despite gaining some prestige through his satirical novels, Marquand never earned the same recognition as the “greatest” writers of the Lost Generation. Continuing to write for the rest of his life, Marquand’s already strong sense of bitterness increased. His insecurity was not unfounded: many of his novels, though best-sellers and Book of the Month Club selections in their time, were out of print by the beginning of the twenty-first century.

Though he had a steady income, Marquand, like his father, was unable to be a steady presence in his children’s lives. Marquand’s marriages to Christina Sedgwick (1922–1935) and Adelaide Hooker (1937–1958) ended in divorce. Himself an only child, Marquand had five children with his two spouses. His desire to distance himself from his wives strained his relationships with the younger Marquands. The last line of his last novel Women and Thomas Harrow is especially telling: “In the end, no matter how many were in the car, you always drove alone.”

The author’s relationship with the Athenæum extended almost half of his lifetime. He became a proprietor of the Athenæum in 1928 when he was joining clubs in Boston as a somewhat successful writer and Sedgwick in-law. Marquand references the Scruples Room of the Athenæum in Apley when the title character reacts to his daughter’s dinnertime discussion of Freud by planning to suggest the controversial psychoanalyst’s works “be put into the Locked Room.” John Phillips Marquand owned share number 459 until his death in 1960.

References

Bell, Millicent. Marquand: An American Life. Boston: Little, Brown, 1979.Hamburger, Philip. J.P. Marquand, Esquire, a Portrait in the Form of a Novel. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1952.Marquand, J.P. “My Boston: A Note on the City by its Best Critic.” LIFE. March 24, 1941, 68–70.Spaulding, Martha. “Martini-Age Victorian.” The Atlantic. May 1, 2004. Accessed November 24, 2015. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/05/-martini-age-victorian/302954/.Warren, Charles. Harvard College, Class of 1889: Fiftieth Anniversary Report. Cambridge, MA: 1939.Wendorf, Richard. The Boston Athenæum: Bicentennial Essays. Boston: Boston Athenæum, 2009.Yardley, Jonathan. “John Marquand, Zinging WASPs With a Smooth Sting.” The Washington Post. February 23, 2003. Accessed November 24, 2015. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32907-2003Feb19.html.

Selected Works

11.03.2015

Christopher Morgan

November 2015

By Mary Warnement

Orchestra Morphing
Chronograph Mitres
Reprograms inch hot
Charter romps ho
Monograph retch sir
Preaching storm rho
Resorting march hop

Christopher Morgan would never need to resort to an online anagram generator as I did to create the above list of nonsensical re-orderings of the letters of his name. An avid puzzle-maker, he has enjoyed travelling the world for the International Puzzle Party and his upcoming lecture at the Athenæum, Alice in Wonderland and Lewis Carroll’s Games and Puzzles: The Surprising Connection, showcases his strengths in untangling twisted literary, biographical, and gaming problems.

Morgan fondly recalls that in the late 1950s and early 1960s he would go to his high school library before school started to read Scientific American, in particular the recreational mathematics columns of Martin Gardner, “who made math fun.” In 1960, Gardner also published the first edition of his annotation of both Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass (which has been translated, reprinted, and appeared in new editions), another delight for the young Morgan who gobbled up Alice’s Adventures in one day when he was about eleven. Morgan was born in Glasgow, and his parents immigrated to the United States when he was five. (He has no accent except when he visits Scotland, although he admits the locals are not fooled.)

He received a BS in Electronics Engineering from Manhattan College and an MS in Computer Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. His career began in high tech; he got his start in aerospace doing design at Pratt & Whitney. In the 1970s, he became interested in computer-generated music just as a friend of his sold a couple articles to BYTE, a magazine about computers. He pitched an idea to them for a new magazine; instead, they offered him the position of senior editor.

Morgan recalls meeting Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak when he went to Silicon Valley to interview them upon the release of Apple I, which he recalls cost the memorable price of $666.66. They tried to convince him to buy one for himself; of course he would have had to supply his own keyboard, monitor, and cassette. Morgan declined. The Henry Ford Museum recently purchased one for its collection at a cost exceeding $900,000. Now, of course, Morgan wishes he had said yes.

He had done technical writing in his previous jobs, but embarking on a new career in publishing was a big change. This occurred as the field of computer science, his magazine’s subject, was on the brink of explosive growth, and his bibliographic interests have only grown too.

What Morgan loved most about Lewis Carroll’s fiction were the crazy creatures inhabiting a bizarre, intriguing world that was not a friendly place. The irrational character of the books (and characters) have a randomness that appealed to him. In Looking-Glass in particular, Morgan said, “the rules are insane and make no sense.” Both books are games: in Adventures, it’s cards; in Looking-Glass, chess. Lewis Carroll himself was a living paradox; he did not want to be recognized by his given name Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. He was mischievous but proper. Three years ago, after seeing him perform magic tricks, the Lewis Carroll Society approached Morgan about editing volume five Games, Puzzles, and Related Pieces of its series The Pamphlets of Lewis Carroll. Institutions across the world are celebrating the one hundred fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Alice in Wonderland: to name a few, the British Library, New York University, the Morgan Library, New York Public Library, Grolier Club, and the University of Texas at Austin. Morgan has spoken at those last two; he is a member of the Grolier Club in New York, “a fellowship of men and women devoted to books and the graphic arts.” Morgan’s collection of books and puzzles includes a miniature Alice. He belongs to the Ticknor Society in Boston, “a fellowship of book lovers,” and this group introduced him to the Boston Athenæum. His training grounded him in proper research methods. For instance, Morgan spent time in special collections looking through many issues of the magazine Punch while researching an illustration Carroll asked John Tenniel to create for a puzzle book. He has also enjoyed many serendipitous moments in the stacks at the Athenæum; while perusing James Atherton’s book on James Joyce, he discovered another fan of Carroll’s puzzles, for Finnegan’s Wake is full of word games. Once, he brought family from Ireland to visit and after walking through the Drum they did not wish to leave. Morgan cherishes the ability to browse the circulating collection at the Athenæum. The fifth-floor reading room is a favorite spot for him to write, but he also loves the periodical tables on the second floor, which offer both browsing and study space.

Morgan considers himself a generalist, a proud jack of all trades. He hopes to address this, somehow, in his next book project. Like the pleasures and advantages of browsing, he promotes the benefits of letting ideas gestate. Researching and then letting the brain rest, allowing the subconscious to work in the background. Then, you are ready to create. Morgan loves writing because it looks as if you are doing nothing, yet that is deceptive. The same sort of paradox, perhaps, that he sees in Lewis Carroll, if not an outright puzzle. Morgan shared a delightful puzzle involving a bookworm with me; I will not include a spoiler by sharing it now. He speaks here later this month and, I am sure, could be persuaded to repeat it.

References

Christopher Morgan, ed. Games, Puzzles, and Related Pieces vol. 5. The Pamphlets of Lewis Carroll. New York: Lewis Carroll Society of North America, 2015.Christopher Morgan. Wizards and their Wonders: Portraits in Computing. New York: ACM, 1997.

09.29.2015

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

October 2015

By Amanda McSweeney-Geehan

Though he is most strongly associated with Massachusetts, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was actually born in Portland, Maine in 1807. The second oldest of eight children, he was known as a bright child and an avid learner. From early on, he dreamed of becoming a professional writer and created various writing projects with a childhood friend. He semi-anonymously published his first poem in the Portland Gazette at the age of 13 and was heartbroken when he overheard his father ridicule it in conversation with another man. But that didn’t prevent him from continuing to strive to be a poet.

As a teenager, Longfellow attended Bowdoin College alongside his older brother Samuel and fellow future-Athenæum member Nathaniel Hawthorne. The three graduated in 1825 and in 1826 Longfellow began a three year trip through Europe in order to acquaint himself with its literary masters and cultures. His time there allowed him to become fluent in seven different languages and absorb the influences of a wide range of European literature, from the classics to the modern. Though his passion remained literary, his mastery of foreign languages prepared him for what would be his first career: professor of foreign languages first at his alma mater, Bowdoin College, and later at Harvard University. Though he loathed his situation at Harvard, he remained at the position for 15 years as his literary career took off.

About a year after starting at Harvard, Longfellow, his wife Mary, and some friends traveled to Europe. The trip turned tragic when Mary suffered a miscarriage and died while overseas. Longfellow had her body sent home for burial and remained in Europe, hoping to find some solace. He seemed to find it in the company of the Appleton family, Boston Brahmins whose daughter Fanny would become his second wife years later.

Fanny’s initial rejection of Longfellow’s love is seen as a potential catalyst for the bulk of his most productive period. He’s known for both his poetry and prose, with his most famous works including the autobiographical novel Hyperion and poems including “Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie” and those collected in Tales of a Wayside Inn. He took inspiration from sources ranging from cosmopolitan Europe to the most rural and unknown parts of America. His poetry was beloved internationally and Longfellow became a celebrity while still working full time at Harvard.

Hyperion is among Longfellow’s earliest works and is based on his experiences in Europe. It tells the story of a young man traveling through Germany after the death of a dear friend. The main character, Paul Fleming, is a thinly veiled Longfellow and the object of his unrequited love is a clear stand-in for Fanny Appleton. Fanny herself noticed this and was unimpressed. Many reviewers were equally unimpressed with the book for various reasons, but it remains an essential part of Longfellow’s canon.

After seven years of persistent wooing, Fanny finally relented and married Longfellow. They had six children together, five of whom survived into adulthood. The family lived in the now-iconic Craigie house in Cambridge and by all accounts were very happy, with Longfellow’s group of intellectual friends and confidants gathering there and Longfellow becoming more and more celebrated in both literary and mainstream circles.

Tragedy struck in 1861, however, when Fanny was killed in an accident at home. While sealing envelopes with hot wax, she set fire to her dress and was severely burned. Longfellow tried to use his own body to put out the flames without success. Fanny died the next day and Longfellow had permanent scarring on his face, which he later kept covered with his famous beard.

Longfellow was never quite the same after Fanny’s death. His creative output slowed significantly and he began focusing his energy more on translations than original works. He primarily worked on translating Dante’s The Divine Comedy and published his version in 1867. However, some of his most famous poems come from this era of his life. Among these are the poems in the collection Tales of a Wayside Inn.

Tales of a Wayside Inn is strongly reminiscent of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. A group gathers at an inn in Sudbury, Massachusetts on a crisp autumn night. There, they trade stories in the form of poems. Like he did with Hyperion 20 years earlier, Longfellow based the characters on existing people, including the American poet Thomas William Parsons and famed Norwegian violinist Ole Bull. The inn is also a real place, situated about 20 miles from Longfellow’s home in Cambridge. The characters tell their stories by firelight, with occasional interludes. As with Longfellow’s previous works, the topics of the poems are drawn from a variety of historical sources. By far the most famous of the collection is “The Landlord’s Tale,” also known as “Paul Revere’s Ride,” a romanticized depiction of a then little-known Revolutionary War figure.

Despite his partial retreat from public life, Longfellow remained beloved by the people of Cambridge and beyond. It was during this time that he was an active member of the Boston Athenæum. His home became a tourist destination and he often greeted visitors personally. For his seventy-second birthday in 1879, the children of Cambridge presented him with a chair carved from the tree depicted in his poem “The Village Blacksmith.” The tree had been cut down and rather than let the wood go to waste, it was used to honor the poet.

Longfellow died about three years later after a brief illness. The nation went into mourning, with bells chiming in Cambridge and tributes coming from esteemed members of the literary world. However, after his death, his reputation took a hit with critics coming forth to condemn his works and style. Despite these attacks, he remained an integral part of popular culture and his influence has continued to be felt over the years. In 1892, the owners of the How Inn in Sudbury, the basis for Tales of a Wayside Inn, renamed their inn Longfellow’s Wayside Inn, which remains its name to this day. Longfellow also has a bust in Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey, the only non-British figure to be honored in this way. And in more recent times, he has been the subject of postage stamps, songs, and novels. It seems that, despite whatever changes have and will come to American literature, Longfellow will always remain an essential figure.

References

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Maine Historical Society. http://www.hwlongfellow.org/

Inn History at a Glance. Longfellow’s Wayside Inn. http://www.wayside.org/

LONGFELLOW. (1882, Mar 25). Boston Daily Globe (1872–1922) Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/492437309?accountid=35416

09.14.2015

Staff Book Suggestions Autumn 2015

Emily Anderson

A Backward Glance by Edith Wharton
(Cutter Classification 65 .W55 .b)

After using the reciprocal benefits of Athenæum membership to visit Edith Wharton’s house in Lenox, The Mount, I was inspired to learn more about the author. And who better to tell her story than Mrs. Wharton herself? While lacking in much information on her books, personal life, or dates, A Backward Glance offers humorous and breezy memories from an otherwise very private person. It can read as a who’s who of friends and family loved most by the author (emphasis on Henry James), but Wharton fans and newcomers alike will easily forgive this and lose track of themselves in her beautiful writing.

Elizabeth Borah
Future Boston: The History of a City, 1990–2100 edited by David Alexander Smith
(Library of Congress Classification PZ1.F99 Fu)

While this selection was written during the 1980s and published in 1995, Future Boston rings eerily of global warming issues facing Boston today: case in point, our Boston: Sink Or Swim panel this autumn.

Created collaboratively by eight Bostonian authors, Future Boston centers on environment change themes as a basis for an anthology of speculative science fiction tales where a changing Boston itself is the strongest protagonist. Structurally, the book is a “chronological” series of loosely-linked stories of the citizens of Boston dealing with the slow reclamation of the Hub by the forces of nature: namely, the sea’s influence on the harbor, and the arrival of otherworldly visitors, for both communication and commerce.

Sometimes somber, sometimes charming, and always utterly Bostonian, this collection is an engrossing read. All the stories are gripping, and though separate, work extremely well as a complete “history” from all walks of Boston life. For modern citizens of this historic city built so near (and over) water, this book hits close to home, but also entertains and brings to life a number of familiar locales.

Kristin Cook
The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman
(Library of Congress Children’s PZ7.P968 Ru 2000)

Before writing the beloved His Dark Materials trilogy, Philip Pullman wrote the Sally Lockhart mystery series, beginning with The Ruby in the Smoke.

Set in Victorian London and following the fortunes of the orphaned Sally Lockhart, schooled in math and pistol shooting and not much else, The Ruby in the Smoke opens on an October morning when murder is afoot. A mysterious letter received upon her father’s death quickly exposes Sally to more than her father’s world of shipping, teaching her about the opium trade and early photography, as well as making her question how those around her view women’s rights. Sally’s strength as a character is that she exhibits pride and fear in a relatable way. As the number of her friends grow, so too does the number of her enemies, and to find out the truth about her father’s death and her own past, Sally has to both advocate for herself and make sacrifices.

I only picked up my used copy of this book recently, despite having it for years. I always wait until the time seems right to start a book, and this one didn’t disappoint. If you enjoy this book, there are two others in the series, and one other considered a “Sally Lockhart Mystery” though only minor characters from the series are involved. Because of the graphic opium use in The Ruby in the Smoke, I suggest it is suitable for older young adult audiences.

Judith Maas
The Last Amateur: The Life of William J. Stillman by Stephen L. Dyson
(Library of Congress NEW CT275.S853 D97 2014)

William J. Stillman (1828–1901) would have had trouble answering the proverbial “What do you do?”question. He worked in and pioneered many different fields and learned his trades as he went along. Born in Schenectady, N.Y., he began his career in the 1850s as a landscape painter and co-founded and edited The Crayon, a journal of arts criticism. When he retired in the 1890s, he was covering Rome and the Balkans for the The Times of London. In between he served as American consul in Rome and Crete, where he developed an interest in archæology and photography; he would become well known for his photographs of Athens and its monuments. Writing for American and British magazines and newspapers, he covered the arts, society, and politics. He was a memorable character, both idealist and curmudgeon, and threw himself into the controversies of his times. Dyson recounts Stillman’s zigzag career path and describes his varied pursuits, from creating a philosophers’ camp in the Adirondacks to sailing along sites associated with the Odyssey.

Carolle Morini
The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante
(Library of Congress PZ4.F356 Sto 2015)

Elena Ferrante’s The Story of the Lost Child, final book in the Neapolitan novels. Need I say more?

[ed.] Nope.

Kaelin Rasmussen
Book Collecting: A Modern Guide edited by Jean Peters
(Library of Congress Z987 .B68)

Published in 1977, this collection of essays on the subject of book collecting and book history is a classic of scholarship of the last quarter of the twentieth century. While its publication date may lead one to suspect it of being slightly outdated (or rather, pre-Internet!), it is still considered one of the foundational works on the subject of bibliographical history—a field of study that has grown immensely in the last hundred years or so. This book is an excellent introduction to the history, practice, and study of book collecting. It has essays on collecting, buying, preserving and appraising antiquarian books, spotting fakes, and bibliographical scholarship. Though not outwardly evocative of fall, this book does remind me of things scholarly, fitting for the start of a new school year.

Blackout by Connie Willis
(Library of Congress NEW PZ4.W734 Bl 2010)

All Clear by Connie Willis
(Library of Congress NEW PZ4.W734 Al 2010)

If thoughts of encroaching winter trouble you, try a little escape into history! It was with real pleasure that I recently cataloged these two books (well, one book in two parts) by Connie Willis, one of only four female science fiction “Grand Masters,” for the Athenæum’s collection. Almost ten years in the writing, Blackout and All Clear are the American author’s superbly researched, expertly plotted take on England, mostly London, during World War II. Willis makes splendid use of the time travel trope to bring us an immersive work of both historical fiction and science fiction. The basic premise begins in the not-so-distant future, where time travel technology has been developed and used at Oxford University to further the study of history. Oxford historians no longer merely read and write history—they travel back into the past to observe it first hand! Three young historians, Polly, Michael, and Merope, travel back to different points of World War II on routine research trips: Polly as a shopgirl on Oxford Street in London to observe the first few weeks of the Blitz; Michael to document acts of heroism in the evacuation at Dunkirk; and Merope to study evacuee children in the English countryside. They have always operated on the assumption that the timeline protects itself, that they cannot affect the outcome of pivotal moments in history. But a sudden malfunction in the time travel technology leaves them stranded, stuck trying to survive in wartime England, and an increasing number of small historical discrepancies leave the three friends wondering if their very presence might alter the outcome of the war. The story is less about the actual mechanism of time travel and more concerned with the question of how small actions and ordinary people impact the great events of history. With her understated, often humorous style, Willis touches on myriad aspects of the war in England, large and small: from Dunkirk to VE day, from the Queen’s beloved dogs to Alan Turing’s bicycle to naughty Whitechapel urchins. Excellent characters and a suspenseful storyline complete the package. Absolutely no previous science fiction experience necessary!

Suzanne Terry

H is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald

(Library of Congress NEW QL696.F32 M33 2014)

Still grieving her father’s recent death, British university professor Helen MacDonald decides she will train a goshawk. This book contains some of the most lyrical nature writing I’ve ever read. You will also learn all about the rudiments of falconry and the sad life of the author T.H. White, an austringer as well.

Mary Warnement

Berlin Now: The City After the Wallby Peter Schneider

(Library of Congress DD881.3 .S36 2014)

A year ago, we commemorated the fortieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Mary Elise Sarotte published The Collapse: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall and spoke at the Athenæum on the chaos of November 9, 1989, and the months leading to the bloodless fall. The translation of Wall Jumper: A Berlin Story appeared in 1984, written by Peter Schneider, political activist turned author, who wrote: ”It will take us longer to tear down the Wall in our heads than any wrecking company will need for the Wall we can see.” Berlin Now is a journalistic and anecdotal account of what has happened since the Wall fell and leaves the reader to decide to what extent any divide remains between east and west in Berlin.

Silver Leyby Adrian Bell

(Library of Congress PZ3.B41142 Si)

I usually insist on reading in chronological order, but here I recommend the second volume of Bell’s fictionalized trilogy of his own life as a Londoner turned Suffolk farmer. Autumn calls to mind the harvest, even for those of us not engaged in agricultural endeavors. In this volume, his family leaves London to join him for the romantic country life; though they were not prepared for what would come, it was not fad. They stick it out six years and become committed to the life. He leaves his tiny cottage, where his man Walter and Walter’s wife move in, to join his family in Groveside, a larger home where he lives more as a gentleman farmer. Until his family moves on, and he easily decides to return to his simpler life—though I wondered at the callous mention of turning out Walter. But he also describes the many empty farms and poor conditions for agriculture in the 1920s so perhaps there were many available cottages. His turn of phrase is exquisite, although the last few pages, where he describes politics and his love interest, made him seem less sympathetic to me. His narrative is informed by a line from Seneca that was emblazoned on his gymnasium’s wall: res severa est verum gaudium, true joy is a serious thing.

08.19.2015

David McCord

September 2015

By Amanda McSweeney-Geehan

“In Boston when it snows by night/ They clean it up by candlelight./ In Cambridge, quite the other way./ It snows and there they leave it lay.”—David Thompson Watson McCord, 1940.

Poet and essayist David Thompson Watson McCord was born in New York City in 1897. He spent the first part of his childhood in Princeton, New Jersey, then moved to Oregon at the age of 12. There, he lived outside Portland on his uncle’s farm. The farm was on the edge of the wilderness and it was there, as he says, he learned “poetry is rhythm, just as the planet Earth is rhythm; the best writing, poetry or prose—no matter what the message it conveys—depends on a very sure and subtle rhythm.” Through his interactions with nature and a routine of Bible reading with his grandmother, McCord developed a love of rhythm and language.

As a young man, McCord returned to the East Coast in order to attend Harvard University. He concentrated in physics and intended to become a physicist. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1921 and a Master in Chemistry in 1922. Though his focus shifted toward writing, he always kept his passion for physics and astronomy and it was visible in his work. After graduating from Harvard, he remained connected with the school, first becoming editor of the Harvard Alumni Bulletin. Then, beginning in 1925, he spent the next 40 years as the executive director of the Harvard Fund Council, where he became famous for his skill at fundraising. He raised millions of dollars for Harvard, building a web of friendships and intricate networks over the years. In return, Harvard awarded him their first honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters in 1956.

Upon retiring from the Fund in 1964, McCord began to focus primarily on his writing. He wrote numerous books in a variety of styles and subjects, but was best known for his children’s poetry. He taught some courses at Harvard and traveled to schools around the Boston area, teaching young children about poetry. When he passed away in 1997, at the age of 99, tributes and memorials poured out of every corner of America’s press and literary scene. This was particularly true of his adopted home in Boston.

Part of what makes McCord’s poetry—especially his children’s poetry—fresh and funny despite the years is his absolute refusal to talk down to his audience. When asked about his work, McCord is quoted by the New York Times as saying, “Whatever may be said about this small but graceful art, three things should be remembered: good poems for children are never trivial; they are never written without the characteristic chills and fever of a dedicated man at work; they must never bear the stigma of I am adult, you are child.” This belief is reflected in several collections of verses featuring the many trials and triumphs of childhood. His works were nominated for a number of prestigious awards, with two collections (The Star in the Pail and One at a Time, the latter of which is a part of the Athenæum’s collection) nominated for the National Book Award in 1976 and 1978. Several of his poetry collections are available in the Athenæum’s Children’s Library.

While McCord is best known as a poet, he is also celebrated for his essays. Among the highlights in the Athenæum’s holdings of McCord’s work is his collection About Boston: Sight, Sound, Flavor & Inflection. Originally published in 1948, then reissued in 1964, About Boston contains essays detailing Boston past and present. McCord’s eye for detail makes each essay a charming snapshot of life in Boston during the time in which it was written. The topics vary from the natural history of the Charles River to classical music in Boston and each piece provides a brief, friendly immersion.

Among his many local memberships and fellowships, David McCord was a longtime member and trustee of the Athenæum, which he claimed “combines the best elements of the Bodleian, Monticello, the frigate Constitution, a greenhouse and an old New England sitting room.” His contributions to American poetry are vast and unforgettable, as is his connection here.

References

Burns, M. (1997). ‘The last hello and the first goodbye’: David McCord, 1897-1997. The Horn Book Magazine.David McCord, Fundraiser, Poet, Dies at 99. (1997, April 17). The Harvard University Gazette.McCord, D. (1964). About Boston: Sight, Sound, Flavor & Inflection (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Little, Brown, and Company.A Periodic Celebration. (1998). The College Pump.Van Gelder, L. (1997, April 16). David McCord, 99, Prolific Poet Who Won the Hearts of Children. The New York Times.

07.20.2015

Nathaniel Bowditch

August 2015

By Adriene Galindo

More than 200 years after its initial publication, The New American Practical Navigator is still considered by many to be “the seaman’s bible.” Affectionately nicknamed “the Bowditch” for its original author Nathaniel Bowditch, the guide revolutionized navigation techniques, which at the time were complex and often ignored by less skilled mariners—much to their detriment. Bowditch’s approach corrected many errors to the book’s predecessor The New Practical Navigator by John Hamilton Moore, added information, and simplified Moore’s language so even sailors with minimal education could understand it.

Bowditch, whose likeness looks out over the second-floor Long Room (read about the sculpture here), was born in Salem, Massachusetts on March 26, 1773 to parents Mary and Habakkuk, a cooper. The family was not wealthy, and Bowditch was forced to leave school at the age of ten despite his obvious interest in and aptitude for mathematics. Once withdrawn from school, Bowditch began an apprenticeship at Ropes & Hodges (a company that sold shipping supplies and equipment) where he worked as a clerk. Though he wasn’t formally enrolled in school during that time, he managed to teach himself algebra, calculus, physics, and Latin.

Having finished his apprenticeship, Bowditch set off for the first of five voyages, completing his final expedition as shipmaster. During these journeys between 1795 and 1803, Bowditch began developing his own methods for determining longitude, the skill taught in Hamilton’s Practical Navigator, the skill necessary for sailors to learn. Bowditch’s own methods improved upon Hamilton’s, and as he taught his techniques to his fellow shipmates he began revising Hamilton’s standard text. The first two revised editions were published in 1799 and 1800, and The New American Practical Navigator, which markedly deviated from the original, was published in 1802 by Edmund Blunt of Newburyport, Massachusetts.

After Bowditch’s last voyage to Sumatra, he settled down at the age of 30 to married life with his second wife—he had become a widower while at sea and returned home to marry his cousin Mary—and took up the post of president of the Essex Fire and Marine Insurance Company of Salem until 1823. He then worked as an actuary for Massachusetts Hospital Life Insurance Company of Boston, where he remained until his death in 1838.

Though his feet remained planted firmly on land for the rest of his life, Bowditch continued his revisions of the Navigator and wrote extensively on the subject of celestial mechanics. He was offered professorships many times but refused, preferring to remain in the insurance industry and study independently. In recognition of his many contributions to the field, Harvard College presented the legendary navigator with an honorary Master of Arts, and in 1816 made him an honorary Doctor of Laws. In 1867, the U.S. government purchased the rights to “the Bowditch” and continues to publish the title, revising to accommodate technological advancements.

Bowditch’s eulogy, given by the Salem Marine Society, affirms what both admirers of Bowditch the man and followers of Bowditch the book still know to be true: “As long as ships shall sail, the needle point to the north, and the stars go through their wonted courses in the heavens, the name of Dr. Bowditch will be revered as of one who helped his fellowmen in a time of need, who was and is a guide to them over the pathless ocean, and of one who forwarded the great interests of mankind.”

Nathaniel Bowditch is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge. His Salem home is a National Historic Landmark.References

Bowditch, Nathaniel. The New Practical American Navigator: An Epitome of Navigation. (Bethesda: Paradise Cay Publications, 2002).

Britannica School, s.v. “Nathaniel Bowditch.” http://library.eb.com/levels/youngadults/article/317889 (accessed June 20, 2015).

Kalkstein, Molly E. “The World According to Bowditch.” Naval History 17, no. 2 (April 2003): 42. America: History and Life with Full Text, EBSCOhost (accessed June 20, 2015).

Lardas, Mark N. “The Navigator.” American History 37, no. 5 (December 2002): 22. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed June 18, 2015).

Thornton, Tamara Plakins. “The ‘Intelligent Mariner’: Nathaniel Bowditch, the Science of Navigation, and the Art of Upward Mobility in the Maritime World.” New England Quarterly 79, no. 4 (December 2006): 609-635. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed June 18, 2015).

USS Constitution Museum. “The American Practical Navigator, by Nathaniel Bowditch.”http://www.ussconstitutionmuseum.org/proddir/prod/496/56/ (accessed 18 June, 2015).

06.17.2015

Susan Playfair

July 2015

By Arnold Serapilio

Overview

New York Stock Exchange. Groundfishing in New England waters. Sculpture. Contract interior design. Arbitrage. Cranberries. When I think of my conversation with Susan Playfair, what strikes me is just how eclectic is her curriculum vitae. Cranberries, she writes in her newest book, America’s Founding Fruit: The Cranberry in a New Environment, “can be boiled in sauces, baked in a pie, frozen in sorbet, dried in cereal or salads, pulverized in capsules, even served smoked.” I will have to fight the urge to metaphorize Susan’s professional versatility into a tart red berry. The facts are more compelling anyway.

Experience

New York Stock Exchange, Wall Street1965–1968

Worked for a semi-retired financier in an office on the 53^rd floor of 40 Wall St, “with views of both rivers. It was quite palatial.” The boss specialized in arbitrage—the process of buying and selling stocks priced unequally in different markets for profit—and in working as his assistant, learning the ropes was inevitable.
Lived in New York City, decided it was not a good long-term fit: “I’d been in the city for five and a half years at that point. New York, when you’re in your early twenties, is very exciting, and I had this café society strange group of creative friends. But, five years, for me—suddenly I just realized I was ready for a different quality of life. It was summer, and my commute down to Wall Street was always in hot hot hot subways, and these men in their business suits would try to push me out of seats, and I thought, ‘This stinks. This is crazy, I could be by the water, or swimming. What am I doing here?’”
Unconsciously prepared for next foray into finance. Of unplanned study of arbitrage: “I suddenly had this niche understanding. When you’re younger you haven’t planned to move from this career to that career but suddenly it makes sense.”

Goodbody & Company, Boston1970–1971

Became the first female registered financial broker at the fifth largest stock brokerage in the country. “I began calling these brokerage firms and ask if they would consider me for a training program. Most of them, I never even got past the secretary. But this particular firm put me in touch with the manager. I said, ‘Would you consider hiring a woman for your training program?’ He said, ‘Absolutely not.’ Which could never be said today, but he felt totally free saying that.” Tenacious, insisted on leaving contact information, and sure enough, days later received a phone call from Goodbody’s top producer (i.e., the employee most profitable to the company) who was based in Boston and needed an assistant. “Only if I can get in the training program,” was her response, and in that manner it was decided.
What was it like being the only woman broker in the office? Was she regarded as an interloper in this Boys’ Club? Constantly kept outside the entrance to the treehouse? Not quite. “It was sort of a game for him, I think. He was very supportive, and the younger brokers thought, ‘This is sort of a lark. We don’t have any women brokers in Boston, so why not?’”
The industry was, at this point, pre-computerization, so all records of trades had to be taken down by hand and physically kept track of. Without efficient infrastructure in place to manage the ever-increasing volume of trades, the work grew increasingly expensive. For some firms, conditions were untenable, and they collapsed. Goodbody was one of those firms.
Though the firm (and the family who started it) went out of business, the customers did not. “At that time, a clear understanding existed among brokerage firms that they had a duty to protect the public in order to maintain the integrity and existence of the stock market. Without a feeling of confidence in the market, the public wouldn’t invest in it.”

Gloucester Engineering, Gloucester MA1971–ca.1974

Designed and supervised construction for the interior of the new offices the company was building.
Served as Director of Public Relations after aforementioned project was completed.
Received gift membership to the Boston Athenæum from Boston architect and family friend Ed Bullerjahn. Instantly fell in love with the space and to this day misses the exotic plants that used to adorn the fifth floor, found them beautiful and inspiring.

Interaction, Cohasset1982–1999

Again putting to good use skills acquired from previous employment, co-founded a design collaborative. An architectural firm and a space planning firm were the other interested parties.
Took over as sole owner

Vanishing Species: Saving the Fish, Sacrificing the Fisherman1999–2003

While making plans to renovate a barn in Cohasset (the first floor of which was being used to run Interaction as a sole proprietorship), stumbled upon a man up on a ladder at a nearby house doing construction. Told him about her own project and what she was hoping to accomplish. “About two weeks later someone walked in my house out of the blue. I heard this big belly laugh and this person saying ‘I never thought I’d be in this building again.’” It turns out the man had pitched hay in that barn, growing up. He helped with the renovation. The whole thing’s pretty Flannery O’Connor.
He was also a retired fisherman, and on lunch breaks would fondly recall stories of his fishing heyday. When his son—who at the time was a co-owner of one of the last fishing boats to fish out of Boston—arrived to do some painting, “he [the son] began talking about this incredibly—as he saw it—over-regulated industry where he couldn’t do anything. So here were these diametrically opposed stories” from one generation and the next.
Intrigued by both the stories she’d been told and the reading she’d done about the disappearance of the fish, needed to know more. The men introduced her to fishermen in other ports and soon she was going out on boats and getting words on the page; the research had begun in earnest.
What were the great joys of writing this first book, the great struggles? “The most arduous part is trying to find a publisher. Trying to find a publisher is a nightmare. But I really enjoyed both the writing and the interviewing, and with both these books I’ve really liked the people that I’ve been interviewing. I gain a lot of respect for them. Meeting them, getting to know them better, getting to know the industry better.”

America’s Founding Fruit: The Cranberry in a New Environment2008–2014

Walked, as a child, the cranberry bogs that great-grandfather owned. “In the town where I grew up [Duxbury, though she was born in a hospital in Plymouth, MA – ed.] we had quite a few people who worked for Ocean Spray, who lived around us, so I got used to this world of cranberries.”
Started, as an adult with connections to scientists through husband’s work, thinking about the future of the cranberry as it related to global climate change, and as with her first book, wanted to learn more.
How do you summon the discipline from within yourself to complete a book? “Something that was very helpful to me was, Toni Morrison gave a talk, and [to this point] she said you start by looking at how your particular body works within a day. What’s your diurnal cycle? When are you at your best? Are you at your best at five in the morning? Are you at your best at midnight? I thought, ‘I’m really at my best at about three in the afternoon. So I’ve found that if I can just discipline myself to at three o’clock have done whatever I have to do that’s essential that day, from then on I give myself three hours, and I can work within that three hours without buying groceries, doing laundry. That’s the only way I find anything gets written.”

Education

Bard College, Red Hook NY1958–1962

Attended Bard expecting to study writing under Ralph Ellison. Due to scheduling conflicts, however, Ellison turned out not to be available, so she left the writing major and took up sculpture, graduating with a degree in fine arts.

She also spent two years studying at Parsons School of Design.

Skills

Insuppressible curiosity that stretches in many directions; moxie; design savvy; total commitment to a project; focus; enthusiastic conversationalist and professional communicator; writing that is descriptive and delectable, like this, from her latest: “The temperature is seventy-three degrees. Morning clouds have disappeared to allow the sun to highlight a wash of red berries on indigo blue water.”

The take-away

To live well is to learn everything you can. To stay mindful, curious, and focused on a task until the job is done. Susan Playfair lives well. I have my inspiration.ReferencesPlayfair, Susan.Vanishing Species: Saving The Fish, Sacrificing The Fisherman. Hanover: University Press of New England, 2003.Playfair, Susan. America’s Founding Fruit: The Cranberry In A New Environment. Lebanon: University Press of New England, 2014.http://www.susanplayfair.com/