Call Number:

M1

Repository:

Bryn Mawr College

Extent:

10.75 linear ft. (13 boxes)

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Cite as: Caroline Wells Healey Dall papers, Special Collections Department, Bryn Mawr College Library.

Date:

1811-1945 (inclusive) and 1845-1912 (bulk)

Creator:

Dall, Caroline Wells Healey

Abstract:

Caroline Wells Healey Dall (1822-1912) was a writer, lecturer, and women's rights advocate, especially in education. Some of her most well-known works include Margaret and Her Friends (1895) and Transcendentalism in New England (1897), which were greatly influenced by Margaret Fuller, and one of her many lectures, "The College, the Market, and the Court, or Women's Relation to Education, Labor, and Law" (1867). When her husband Charles Henry Appleton Dall, a Unitarian minister, left the United States for missionary work in Calcutta, India in 1885 until his death in 1886, Dall became even more active in women's rights by contributing to women's rights conventions in Boston. Dall was a founding and active member of the American Social Science Association.

Caroline Wells Healey Dall, a writer, lecturer, and women's rights advocate, especially in the area of education, was born on 22 June 1822 in Boston, Massachusetts to Caroline Foster Healey and Mark Healey, who was a merchant and bank president. Dall was the oldest of eight children and attended a private girls' school in Boston run by Joseph Hale Abbot. She taught Sunday school, was a relief worker, and ran a nursery for the children of working women in Boston. In 1841, at the invitation of Elizabeth Peabody, Dall attended Margaret Fuller's weekly "Conversations" and, based on these sessions, later published Margaret and Her Friends (1895) and Transcendentalism in New England (1897). From 1842 to 1844 Dall was vice principal of a girls' school in Georgetown. While in Washington, D.C., she was also involved in efforts to provide schooling for African-Americans and contributed to an anti-slavery publication, The Liberty Bell.

On 24 September 1844, Dall married Charles Henry Appleton Dall, a Unitarian minister who was a graduate of the Harvard Divinity School. They moved from Baltimore to Boston in 1845, where their son, William Healey Dall, was born that year. Their daughter, Sarah Keene Healey Dall (Munro) was born in 1849. William Healey Dall became a naturalist at the Smithsonian Institution who also worked for the U.S. Coast Survey of Alaska and the U.S. Geological Survey and published extensively on mollusks. He married Antoinette Whitney, and their son, Charles Whitney Dall, married Emily Maurice. The son of the latter couple was Charles Whitney Dall, Jr.

After one year working as a pastor in Portsmouth, New Hampshire and two years in Needham, Massachusetts, Charles Dall held a Unitarian pastorate in Toronto for four years. During that time, Caroline Dall was corresponding editor of Una, a women's journal. In 1854, the Dalls returned to Boston, and in 1855, Charles went alone to Calcutta, India as the first American Unitarian foreign missionary. He remained there, except for occasional visits to the United States, until his death in 1886.

In her husband's absence, Caroline Dall became more active in issues involving women's rights. She helped Paulina Wright Davis organize the woman's rights convention in Boston in 1855, and then in 1859, she organized and was one of the principal speakers at the New England Woman's Rights Convention in Boston. Dall was an active lecturer and teacher, and published some of her lectures, including "The College, the Market, and the Court, or Woman's Relation to Education, Labor, and Law" in 1867. Her other writings include biographies of women, a children's book (Patty Gray's Journey to the Cotton Islands), and several autobiographical writings. She was a founding and active member (librarian, director, and vice president) of the American Social Science Association, serving on its executive committee until 1905.

In 1879, Dall moved to Washington, D.C., where her son lived, and continued writing and teaching until her death on 17 December 1912.

This collection is organized into three series.

Series I, Correspondence is organized into three subseries: Caroline Wells Healey Dall Correspondence, William Healey Dall Correspondence, and Third Party Correspondence. In the Caroline Wells Healey Dall Correspondence, the outgoing letters are mainly to family members and are primarily about family matters. Dall's letters to Elizabeth P. Peabody are regarding a dispute between Caroline Dall and Elizabeth Thompson. The letters to James Freeman Clarke address topics such as women's rights and anti-slavery activities, and theological subjects. Dall's letters to her attorney, Wilfred S. Hutchinson are regarding legal matters. The incoming correspondence includes social and personal letters from friends and family, as well as business letters from her attorneys and others. Additionally, there are four folders of letters regarding the death of Dall's husband.

Series II, Photography and Art, is organized into two subseries: Photographs and Art. The photographs are mainly scenes of places, including Burma, Egypt, India, and Scandinavia, and San Francisco after the earthquake and fire of 1906. The Photographs of people include Caroline Wells Healey Dall, Charles Darwin, and Barbara Fritchie. There is also a photograph of the burial of the burial Wendell Phillips in 1886 and other photographs of paintings. The art includes two original pieces by Annie I. Crawford, a plaster silhouette of Dall, other works that are mainly prints by unidentified artists; there is one watercolor of a floral arrangement.

Series III, Other Papers, is organized into three subseries: Writings by Caroline Wells Healey Dall, Materials Regarding Caroline Wells Healey Dall, and Materials Regarding Other People. The Writings include materials about two of her books, The College, the Market, and the Court; and Patty Gray's Journey. There is a journal that she wrote in 1866 that mentions anti-slavery, female preachers, and other topics, notes that she took for an autobiography, and also some poems and a short article. The materials regarding Dall include legal documents, a biographical article, a catalog of the books in Dall's library, and a list of the speeches that she gave from 1856 to 1904. The materials regarding other people include a letterpress copybook from the Office of the Secretary in Dakota Territory from 1872 to 1874, which includes the outgoing letters of Edwin Stanton McCook and of Oscar Whitney. There is an address book of Charles Henry Appleton Dall, postcards collected by Emily Maurice Dall, a notebook of poems written by William Healey Dall, and volumes of poems copied by Helen M. A. Watkins and sent to Charles Whitney Dall, Jr.