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Mary A. Livermore Collection
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Held at: Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division [Contact Us]
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
Overview and metadata sections
Mary Ashton Rice Livermore (1820-1905) of Boston, Massachusetts, was an American suffragette and reformer. In 1845 she married Reverend Daniel Parker Livermore, and together they co-edited the New Covenant, a church periodical, from 1857 to 1869. Livermore was a proponent of the temperance cause and an activist in the women's suffrage movement. For a number of years, she was president of the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association and honorary president of the Massachusetts Woman's Christian Temperance Union. Her philanthropic work with such groups as the Boston Women's Educational and Industrial and the Woman's Relief Corps was lauded by her contemporaries. Founder and editor of The Agitator and the Woman's Journal (1869-1872), Livermore became a spokesman for woman's suffrage. Twice she was selected as a delegate to the Massachusetts State Republican Convention, where she presented temperance and suffrage resolutions which were incorporated into the party platform. As a lecturer at the Redpath Lyceum Bureau in Boston, she spoke regularly for audiences of "mothers, teachers, and clergymen."
The Mary A. Livermore Collection was formed by combining two separately acquired groups of material. The "Writings by Mary A. Livermore and Others" file group consists of autograph notes, drafts, typescripts, and reprints of several lectures, articles and short stories by or pertaining to Mary Livermore together with manuscripts of poetry by Hezekiah Butterworth and Lillie J. Davis.
Materials collected by Adelaide Witherington Boynton, a family member of Livermore, include correspondence (to, from, and about Mary Livermore, together with letters of the Witherington family), two memoranda books belonging to Mary Livermore, financial records, and other miscellaneous documents. The majority of the material in this part of the collection, however, consists of early or finished autograph drafts of Livermore's lectures and addresses on various historical topics, woman's suffrage, temperance, religion, and anthropology. Also included are some periodicals, pamphlets, and clippings pertaining to, written and/or collected by Livermore, as well as photographs and glass plate negatives of family portraits and pictures from Livermore's European travels.
Additional Source: Livermore, Mary A., The Story of My Life (Hartford, Conn.: A. D. Worthington and Company, 1899)
This collection was formed as a result of a departmental practice of combining into one collection material of various accessions relating to a particular person, family, or subject.
Original processing information unknown.
Some revisions to the finding aid were made by Kelly Bolding in February 2020.
No appraisal information is available.
People
Subject
- Lectures and lecturing -- United States -- 19th century
- Suffrage -- Religious aspects -- Christianity
- Temperance
- Temperance and religion -- United States -- History -- 19th century
- Women -- Suffrage -- United States -- 19th century
- Women's rights -- United States -- 19th century
Occupation
- Publisher
- Manuscripts Division
- Finding Aid Date
- 2002
- Access Restrictions
-
Collection is open for research use.
- Use Restrictions
-
Single photocopies may be made for research purposes. No further photoduplication of copies of material in the collection can be made when Princeton University Library does not own the original. Inquiries regarding publishing material from the collection should be directed to RBSC Public Services staff through the Ask Us! form. The library has no information on the status of literary rights in the collection and researchers are responsible for determining any questions of copyright.
Collection Inventory
Consists of manuscripts, reprints, and printed material by or pertaining to Mary Livermore.
Arranged by material type.
Physical Description1 box
Consists of short stories (such as "The Live-Long Sacrifice" and "Lost and Found"), lectures (such as "Our Mother Land" and "The Story of Chicago" ), and articles (such as "The Mission of Sorrow" and "Abraham Lincoln") written by Mary A. Livermore.
Physical Description1 box
1 folder
1 folder
1 folder
1 folder
1 folder
1 folder
1 folder
1 folder
Consists of manuscripts of "The Bowl of Albemarle" by Hezekiah Butterworth and five poems by Lillie J. Davis.
Physical Description1 box
Typescript with autograph markings.
Physical Description1 folder
Autograph manuscripts of "Alone," "Appledore, Isles of Shoals," "Autumn," "A Soul's Errand," and "To My Mother."
Physical Description1 folder
Consists of a group of autograph manuscripts, photographs, clippings, pamphlets, magazines by or pertaining to Mary A. Livermore, collected by Adelaide Witherington Boynton.
Arranged by material type.
Physical Description8 boxes
Consists of correspondence (46 pieces) of Mary A. Livermore as well as of Miss Adelaide Witherington Boynton and others of the family.
Arranged by genre of material.
Physical Description1 box
4 letters.
Physical Description1 folder
8 letters.
Physical Description1 folder
4 letters.
Physical Description1 folder
30 letters.
Physical Description1 folder
Consists of a notebook of copied prose and memoranda book.
Physical Description1 folder
Consists of ten check bank books, possibly of Adelaide Witherington Boynton, as well as a baptism certificate of Harriette Livermore and several other miscellaneous family documents.
Physical Description1 box
10 books.
Physical Description2 folders
Miscellaneous family documents, including a baptism certificate for Harriette Livermore (1823), a typescript transcription of a bill of sale for an enslaved man named Cato from Lydia Loring to Thomas Loring (Plymouth County, Massachusettes, 1768), a typescript copy of a letter certifying Samuel C. Wright's service during the American Civil War (circa 1865), a letter regarding pensions for United States Army nurses (1905), and some unidentified anthropological sketches.
Physical Description1 folder
Early or finished drafts (51 pieces). Most are not dated but from the hand appear to represent the late period of Livermore's lecturing.
Arranged alphabetically by title.
Physical Description3 boxes
1 folder
1 folder
1 folder
1 folder
1 folder
1 folder
1 folder
1 folder
1 folder
1 folder
1 folder
1 folder
1 folder
1 folder
1 folder
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1 folder
1 folder
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1 folder
A miscellaneous collection of notes, studies; incomplete and brief works.
Physical Description1 folder
1 folder
1 folder
1 folder
1 folder
1 folder
1 folder
1 folder
1 folder
1 folder
1 folder
1 folder
1 folder
1 folder
1 folder
Consists of three issues of The Arena, 1889-1892, nine of Worthington's Illustrated Magazine, 1893-1894; about a hundred newspaper clippings; extracts from magazines or pamphlets; either those collected by Mary Livermore for her information, or those of her published writings or articles about her.
Physical Description1 box
Consists of portraits of Mary Livermore, family portraits, photographs of houses, and travel photographs taken in Europe. There are both photographic prints and glass plate negatives.
Arranged by subject matter.
Physical Description3 boxes
2 folders
Consists of photographs and some illustrations of buildings and landscapes in Europe, including many locations in Italy, and some unidentified locations.
Physical Description1 folder
Consists of a composite group portrait of twelve American women writers: Mary A. Livermore, Sara[h] [Orne] Jewett, Grace A. Oliver, Helen Hunt [Jackson], Nora Perry, Lucy Larcom, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Louise Chandler Moulton, Louisa M. Alcott, Julia Ward Howe, and Harriet Beecher Stowe. The print is damaged around the edges, and the border has been cut away.
Physical Description1 box
Consists of 31 5x8" and 3 4x5" glass plate negatives depicting family portraits, houses, and nature scenes.
Physical Description1 box