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COLLECTION Identifier: A-115

Papers of the Ellis Gray Loring family, 1824-1925

Overview

Correspondence, diaries, notebooks, etc., of Ellis Gray Loring, lawyer and abolitionist, from Boston, Massachusetts, and of family members.

Dates

  • Creation: 1824-1925

Creator

Language of Materials

Materials in English and German.

Access Restrictions:

Access. Collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Copyright. Copyright in the papers in the Ellis Gray Loring Family papers is in the public domain.

Copying. Papers may be copied in accordance with the library's usual procedures.

Extent

2.5 linear feet (6 file boxes)

Collection contains genealogical information, poems, and over 700 letters of three generations of Loring family correspondence, including Ellis Gray Loring, his wife Louisa Gilman Loring, and their daughter Anna Loring. Also included are more than 150 letters from Lydia Maria Francis Child (1802-1880) to the Lorings, correspondence of John Glen King and his children with the Lorings, and correspondence of Loring friends in the anti-slavery movement; Boston society; as well as literary figures and European musical personages.

This collection also contains the correspondence of Otto Dresel, his wife Anna Loring and their children Louise and Ellis; much of the Dresel family correspondence is in German (#154-184). Also found in this collection are diaries and notebooks of Ells Gray Loring, many of which include reading notes and copies of poetry; notebooks of Louisa Gilman Loring and Anna Loring Dresel containing reading notes, copies of poetry and letters; and scrapbooks assembled by Louise Loring Dresel during her trip to the United States, 1907-1908.

Additional material received in 1985 (accession number 85-M152) was added to the collection in July 1985 and is found in #141. Additional material received in December 2015 (accession number 2015-M211) was added to the collection in February 2016 and is housed in #191-201v. All other files remain in the same order. Folders are listed in intellectual, not numerical, order.

BIOGRAPHY

Ellis Gray Loring was a Boston lawyer, an organizer of the New England Anti-Slavery Society, and an abolitionist who helped enslaved men and women who escaped captivity. He married Louisa Gilman (1797-1868) in 1827. Their daughter, Anna Loring Dresel (1830-1896), was vice president of the Boston Sanitary Commission during the Civil War and president of the Vincent Memorial Hospital in Boston's West End. She married Otto Dresel (1826-1890), a German pianist and composer in 1863; they had two children: Louisa Loring Dresel (1864-1958) and Ellis Loring Dresel (1865-1925), a lawyer.

For more information, see Loring Genealogy, Pope and Loring; Cambridge, 1917.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Accession numbers: 165, 420, 85-M152, 2015-M211

Acquired in July 1960 from Goodspeed's; in March 1961 from Paul Richards; and in December 2015 from Lorne Bair Rare Books. Accession number 85-M152, one photocopy of an inscription was made from a book in the Schlesinger Library, was added to the collection in July 1985. Accession number 2015-M211 was added to the collection in February 2016.

Related Material:

There is related material at the Schlesinger Library; see Ellis Gray Loring Papers, 1809-1942 (A-160).

CONTAINER LIST

  1. Box 1: Folders 1-93
  2. Box 2: Folders 94-145
  3. Box 3: Folders 146-190
  4. Box 4: Folders 191-197
  5. Box 5: Folders 198-200
  6. Box 6: Folders 201v

Processing Information

Updated and additional materials added: February 2016

By: Anne Engelhart

The Schlesinger Library attempts to provide a basic level of preservation and access for all collections, and does more extensive processing of higher priority collections as time and resources permit.  Finding aids may be updated periodically to account for new acquisitions to the collection and/or revisions in arrangement and description.

Title
Loring, Ellis Gray, 1803-1858. Ellis Gray Loring family Papers, 1824-1925: A Finding Aid
Author
Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women
Language of description
eng
EAD ID
sch00150

Repository Details

Part of the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute Repository

The preeminent research library on the history of women in the United States, the Schlesinger Library documents women's lives from the past and present for the future. In addition to its traditional strengths in the history of feminisms, women’s health, and women’s activism, the Schlesinger collections document the intersectional workings of race and ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class in American history.

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