Overview
Correspondence, photographs, genealogical material, etc., of the Hammond, Gorham, and Brannan families collected by Mary Gardner Marshall.
Dates
- Creation: 1795-1957
Language of Materials
Materials in English.
Access Restrictions:
Access. Collection is open for research.
Conditions Governing Use
Copyright. Copyright held by the donors has been transferred to Radcliffe College for the Schlesinger Library.
Copying. Unrestricted.
Extent
1.67 linear feet ((4 file boxes) plus 1 folio+ folder, 10 photograph folders, 4 folio photograph folder)The papers consist mainly of correspondence among family members but also include photographs; legal, financial, and genealogical documents; and such miscellaneous items as a wedding book, a diary, and a commonplace book. Of particular interest for social history are the courtship correspondence between Julia Gorham Brannan and Joseph Doddridge Brannan and between Elizabeth "Elsa" Brannan Hemenway and Courtenay Hemenway, letters between parents and children (especially between mothers and daughters), descriptions of travel and summer holidays, and Joseph Doddridge Brannan's letters to his wife after their marriage, in which he discourses on her good qualities, her shortcomings, and the duties and qualifications of a wife. Frank Doddridge Brannan's letters to his mother, Julia Gorham Brannan, can also include letters to his father Joseph Doddridge Brannan. Much of the correspondence in this collection is between family members in Biddeford Pool, Maine, Cincinnati, Ohio, and elsewhere.
In October 2019, this finding aid was updated, the collection assigned a new call number, and the folder numbering was changed to reflect current practice at the Schlesinger. Folders remain in the same order as the previous finding aid; #1-76 was renumbered as #1.1-4.10, PD.1z-PD.76. The arrangement of the papers is largely that of Caroline Bain, who put the collection in order before donating it.
HISTORY
These papers document members of the Brannan, Doddridge, and Hemenway families. Elizabeth Hammond Gorham (1822-1910) was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the daughter of Daniel and Sally (Stoddard) Hammond. She married Francis Gorham in 1845 and lived in Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts, where her only child, Julia Gardiner Gorham (1848-1925), attended Berkeley Street School.
In 1875 Julia Gardiner Gorham married Joseph Doddridge "Dodd" Brannan (1848-1930; AB Harvard 1869, LLD 1872) of Cincinnati, Ohio. Except for summer 1883 to summer 1885, when she lived in Europe with Julia Gorham Brannan and the Brannan children, Elizabeth Hammond Gorham lived with the Brannans in Cincinnati, Ohio, from the time of their marriage until 1898, when Joseph Doddridge "Dodd" Brannan returned to Harvard as Bussey Professor of Law. The family thereafter lived at 3 Berkeley street in Cambridge, Massachusetts,. The Brannans had two children: Frank Doddridge (1876-1955; AB Harvard 1899); and Elizabeth "Elsa" Hammond Brannan (1882-1970), who attended Berkeley Street School, studied music, participated in the Vincent Club (Boston). Elizabeth "Elsa" Hammond Brannan married in 1912 Courtenay Hemenway, a teacher at Choate School in Wallingford, Connecticut, and later gave piano recitals.
Elizabeth Hammond Gorham built Rockledge, the house in Biddeford Pool, in 1885; the family had stayed in hotels and boarding houses there beginning in 1873 or earlier.
Physical Location
Collection stored off site: researchers must request access 36 hours before use.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Accession number: 91-M62
These papers, which were inherited and kept by Mary Gardner Marshall (AB Radcliffe 1925), were given to the Schlesinger Library by Caroline Bain and Sherwood Bain, who bought the house in Biddeford Pool, Maine, in which the papers were kept, in April 1991.
Processing Information
Preliminary inventory: May 1991
By: Eva Moseley and Doreen Drury
Subject
- Gorham family (Family)
- Harvard University--Faculty (Organization)
- Harvard University--Students (Organization)
- Title
- Marshall, Mary Gardner. Collection of Mary Gardner Marshall, 1795-1957: A Finding Aid
- Author
- Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America
- Language of description
- eng
- EAD ID
- sch00719
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.