Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Letters from Pharaoh's Land Part II: Aboard the S.S. Memphis, 1895



In a previous post (see “Letters from Pharaoh’s Land, Part I,” December 1, 2015), I outlined a brief history of tourism on the Nile River in the late nineteenth-century and indicated that Dr. Freeman Allen, future husband of Mary Ethel Gibson, took a cruise there in 1895. By the late decades of the nineteenth-century, American and European tourists regularly vacationed in Egypt, staying in luxurious hotels, visiting local markets, exploring archaeological sites, and—thanks to the services of businesses like Thomas Cook and Sons and the Thewfikieh Nile Navigation Company—cruising the Nile River. In this, the second part of a two-part post on Nile River cruises, we discuss Dr. Allen’s 1895 cruise—adding a more personal dimension to our story of late-nineteenth-century Egyptian tourism.

Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Letters from Pharaoh's Land Part I: Tourist Service on the Nile River



Cairo to Assouan: Map of the Nile River

 Twenty-one Days’ Trip from Cairo to First Cataract and Back, including the various Excursions as specified in the Itinerary, inclusive of Philae, donkeys (where required) to places visited on the river bank, provisions (wine excepted), and all the advantages in the Programme; FIRST-CLASS THROUGHOUT.

The above text, from an advertisement for the Thewfikieh Nile Navigation Company, appeared in the December 1895 edition of Gaze’s Tourists Gazette, the official publication of Henry Gaze and Sons, Ltd, a London travel agency. As the sole booking agent for the Thewfikieh Co., H. Gaze and Sons often advertised for the company, which provided tourist services on the Nile River. The same advertisement from which the above text is excerpted also outlined other important information, including price and the carrying capacity of the company’s fleet of steamships. In 1895, for the price of $171.50, a tourist could book passage on a steamship and spend three weeks on the Nile, soaking in the natural landscape and studying all the ancient ruins alongside the river.

Sunday, November 15, 2015

Tributes to Allied Leaders Part II: Winston Churchill

Churchill, Winston 


In a previous post (see “Tributes to Allied Leaders, Part I," November 1, 2015) I discussed Charles Gibson Jr.’s poetic tribute to President Franklin D. Roosevelt following Roosevelt’s passing, which Charlie sent to President Truman, Roosevelt’s successor. In this post, I will discuss Charlie’s ode to Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

Writing to the editor of the New York Times in late 1944, Charlie requested that his “To Winston Churchill” be published in both the Times of London and New York. The simultaneous publication, he wrote, could “make a complete international gesture.” As Charlie would later write to MIT Chairman Karl T. Compton, “one of my efforts has been Anglo-American, as well as world[,] fellowship.” Charlie certainly held a lifelong interest in international diplomacy and goodwill (in fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if he were a supporter of the United Nations when it was created after the Second World War). However, nothing came of Charlie’s plans for an “international gesture.” The Times rejected his poem for publication.

But 1949 presented a new opportunity for Charlie’s poem to be read and appreciated, and MIT Chairman Compton would prove vital in this respect. That year MIT held a convocation for members of the scientific community “to appraise the state of the post-war world, [and] to consider the progress of scientific enterprise.” The event’s keynote speaker was Winston Churchill.

Sunday, November 1, 2015

Tributes to Allied Leaders Part I: Franklin D. Roosevelt


bombing of london, hitler, lend lease program, 1941, britain, fdr, franklin d roosevelt, president roosevelt 

 
Visitors to the Gibson House will be familiar with the framed letters displayed in the dressing room on the third floor. When giving tours of the house, I always point out my two favorites. One is from Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and the other is from President Harry Truman. Both are short but serve to thank Charles Gibson, Jr. for poems he sent to them. Charlie wrote an ode to honor the English prime minister, which was read to him at a science convocation hosted by MIT. And after the passing of President Franklin Roosevelt, Charlie wrote a poem in his memory and sent it to Truman, Roosevelt’s successor.

Whenever I directed tour groups into the dressing room to show them the letters, I always wondered whether there were any existing copies of those poems and whether there were any way to find out why Charlie cared so much about having them read by these men. After all, couldn’t he simply have submitted the poems for publication in some newspaper? Fortunately, I was able to locate copies of these poems and related documents—including Charlie’s response to Churchill’s thank you note and the letter he sent to Truman with the FDR poem—in the museum archives.

In a two-part post, I want to share these poems and provide background information regarding their creation and why Charlie wanted to have them read by Churchill and Truman. This week I am focusing on Charlie’s poem on President Roosevelt, and in our next post, the one on Winston Churchill.

Thursday, October 15, 2015

To Senator H.C. Lodge: A Call for Reform in the Congo

Leopold II
King Leopold II of Belgium


Published in the Boston Daily Globe on January 12, 1907, the following letter expressed Charlie Gibson, Jr.’s support of a Senate resolution introduced by Massachusetts Senator Henry Cabot Lodge the previous year:

Hon. H. C. Lodge, Senior Senator from Massachusetts, US Senate:
            Dear Sir—I have learned with much gratification of the resolution which you have introduced in the senate, to empower this government to take such steps as may be possible to urge the government of the Congo to carry out, with some degree of effectiveness, reforms in the administration of that state.
            I have been cognizant, in company with many thousands of others in this state, for some years of the oppression and cruelties inflicted upon natives of the Congo by officials and others there.
            I believe there is a strong feeling upon the part of bankers and business interests, entirely apart from the religious movement, that in the cause of humanity such brutalities and oppression should, if possible, be stopped at the earliest moment.
            May I, therefore, in company with them, respectfully urge you to use every power at your command to induce the US senate to take such action as is desirable and at the present time. Believe me to be, with high regard, yours very truly,
            Charles Gibson.
            Boston, Jan. 5, 1907.

In writing the above letter in support of the senator’s resolution (full text provided below), Charlie added his voice to the growing international movement against the cruel and oppressive policies that Belgian King Leopold II inflicted upon the Congolese. 

Thursday, October 1, 2015

Charles Gibson Remembers Mark Twain





Travelling with members of the Boston Authors Club, including club president and “Battle Hymn of the Republic” author Julia Ward Howe, Charlie Gibson, Jr. attended the dedication ceremony of the Thomas Bailey Aldrich Memorial Museum (author Aldrich’s childhood home) in 1908. Held in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the event featured many distinguished speakers, including Mark Twain, who had been Aldrich’s close friend.

Nearly forty years later, Charlie wrote a short article on Twain’s tribute to Aldrich that day, which was published in late 1945 in the Mark Twain Quarterly, the official publication of the International Mark Twain Society. Entitled, “My Last Impression of Mark Twain,” Charlie wrote that Twain would “always remain the picture indelibly imprinted upon my mind, as he appeared on the stage” at the Aldrich Memorial. For Charlie, Mark Twain’s performance stood out as an example of the author’s great genius and extraordinary abilities.

Thursday, September 17, 2015

To the Heroes of the Sea



“The tremendous drama attending the tragedy of Warren’s going, the terrific explosion through the whole metropolitan area of New York, the blowing to atoms of the officers and crew, . . . whirled into the snow storm and melting with the snowflakes into the sea; its repercussions here . . . were calculated to stir the emotions to their depths, and I think they have.”

The above excerpt comes from a letter Charlie Gibson, Jr. wrote to his nephew Henry Allen after the death of Lt. Warren Winslow, another nephew, aboard the USS Turner, which exploded and sank off the coast off New York in January 1944 (see “The USS Turner Disaster,” August 7, 2015). Lt. Winslow, like most officers aboard, went down with the ship.

While there is little documentation to provide us with greater insight into just how deeply this bereavement affected Charlie, he did write a poem that could be read as an expression of grief. Entitled “Antinous,” it is an elegy “to the heroes of the sea who have given their lives during the war.” Select stanzas of the poem, which is quite long, appear below.

A few details concerning the poem’s classical references and central theme are necessary to make its meaning clearer. Although Charlie describes the poem as an elegy to American sailors killed in the war, like his nephew, he does not speak directly to them or Lt. Winslow. Rather, his poem is an elegy to Antinous, the lover of the Roman emperor Hadrian (76–138 CE). Antinous was universally admired for his youth and beauty. He met a similar and equally tragic an end as Lt. Winslow when he drowned in the Nile.

Charlie holds Antinous up as the “symbol of youth,” and this relates to the central theme of the poem, therefore explaining why it is Antinous and not Lt. Winslow whom Charlie addresses. As the “symbol of youth,” Antinous represents, for Charlie, all the young sailors killed in the war, and in a more general sense the poem expresses the sorrow over so many young lives cut short by war. Charlie does not write of war-time death in romantic or glorifying terms as Lord Tennyson did in “The Charge of the Light Brigade.” Rather, his lines speak only of pain and grief and the profound absence felt in Charlie’s family and so many others as a result of the Second World War.

Friday, August 7, 2015

The USS Turner Disaster

 
Recently during my summer internship with the Gibson House, archiving a collection of family manuscripts, I was surprised to discover evidence of yet another Gibson family member death at sea, that of Lieutenant Warren Winslow, the twenty-five-year-old son of Rosamond Gibson Winslow (“Little” Ros). (An earlier GHM blog post covered the death of John Gardiner Gibson, Jr. aboard the Lyonnais; see “History Repeats Itself,” January 1, 2015.) Lt. Winslow, a Harvard graduate called to service when he was attending Harvard Law School, was one of the 139 sailors lost when the USS Turner, a naval destroyer, sank to the ocean floor just a few miles northeast of Sandy Hook, New Jersey, on January 3, 1944.
A series of explosions aboard ship that morning completely wrecked the vessel and started fires that could not be effectively controlled. While the navy later could not determine the exact cause of the first explosion, an investigation turned up no evidence of enemy action or sabotage. The official report could only suggest that stored ammunition on board had something to do with the incident, as the first explosion occurred in an area containing ammunition meant for transfer later that day.
After a sixteen-day voyage on the Atlantic, the USS Turner had anchored a few miles off of Sandy Hook early on the morning of the third and had begun preparations to sail for Gravesend Bay, New York, to transfer its cargo of ammunition to Fort Lafayette in Brooklyn. The sky was overcast and snow was falling in the area. Nearby were other naval vessels, including the USS Stevenson and USS Thorn, which maintained a continuous underwater sound search. These sonar sweeps detected no enemy craft in the area.

So it came as a complete shock when, at about 6:17 a.m., a violent explosion rocked the USS Turner. 

Thursday, July 30, 2015

On Charlie Gibson



Something about Charlie Gibson fascinates. His many quirks, his devotion to preserving the past, the tragedy of his being born in the wrong era, his egoism, and his inflexibility are all what make him so very human. He also provides rich ground for the student of history as one peels back the layers of his personality. Recently, while digging around in the archives, I stumbled on a transcript of an interview with an acquaintance of Charlie's, Mr. Lester Beck. While I found the interview charming, it simultaneously reaffirmed and challenged what I thought I knew about Charlie. Here are some of my favorite bits:





"Q.: Mr. Beck, how did you meet Charles Gibson? 
L.B.: I had been living in Boston, and I read a Life magazine article about him. It was about 1939 or 1940. One day, I just stopped in--I just stopped at the house here and told him I was interested in old homes and such, and so he invited me in, and showed me around. At that time India’s separation from Great Britain was a big event, and Mr. Gibson was corresponding with Ghandi. 
[Editorial note: The Life magazine article mentioned was published in 1941 and was entitled "John Marquand's Boston." The image above is from that article. Charlie is sitting at the desk, while author John Marquand is on the right.]

L.B. [upon being brought by the interviewer into the dining room]: He still ate in the dining room by himself. I believe he always ate in this room. He didn’t seem to have many friends, particularly. He always had the table set with everything on it--much more, many more things than are set out now. He ate alone, here [to the right side of the table, upon entering]. He ate very sparingly. Very sparingly. He was cash conscious. He was also very class conscious. He said there were some people who had to do these things [indicating pantry area]. I don’t believe he ever had more than one servant, but he did always have one, a butler, or handyman, or whatever they called them. I remember once he had a butler--a young man--and one time the police came after him [the butler] for something, and Mr. Gibson complained that the police tracked [dirt] all over the carpets.
[Editorial note: It is highly unlikely that Charlie had a butler at this time, especially if he was so cash conscious. He more likely had a hired hand, a "man of all work" who did a variety of tasks.] 

L.B.: Mr. Gibson was always thinking that things weren’t what they once were. Boston was changing. Harvard admitted people who once would never have gone there, he said. He lived for this house. He lived for the old times. He was so fond of his mother. He was conscious of who he was. But he was very careful [of money]. I remember once when I came over he suggested that we go 'round to the Ritz Carlton bar for a drink. When we put on our coats to go out, he put on a raccoon coat with a big split up the sleeve. He wore it that way. We went to the bar, and after we had had drinks, and he had paid for them, the waitress stood by [waiting for her tip]. He waved her away, and said, “I’ll take care of you later.” He never did, though. He was very careful with money, and class conscious.
     No, he really didn’t want things to change. He was part of the old times, the formal times. He always shopped at Brooks Brothers. He was always dressed properly.
     I especially remember one thing about him: he was a chain smoker. He was always smoking, and of course there were ashes, so he carried everywhere in the house with him a little broom on a long handle. When he dropped the ashes, he would brush them into the rug and say it was good for keeping moths away."
What I find most striking about this interview is Mr. Beck's overall characterization of Charlie as someone who "really didn't want things to change." He mentions this several times, and this is what has always struck me as a mainstay of Charlie's personality. What Mr. Beck seems to have witnessed in many forms is that for Charlie Gibson, the passage of time was a painful ordeal.

by: Katie Schinabeck, Former Museum Guide

Sources: 

Beck, Lester. Interview with Gibson House Museum Staff Member. 29 October, 1988.

Thursday, July 9, 2015

Letters from Cuba: Fourteen Months as an Army Surgeon


“I am writing this letter from the camp of the 7th US Cavalry with two troops of which I have been out on a practice march since Jan’y 13th. . . . We are now in our third week and on our way home and we hope to reach Havana in about five days. I have a fine little horse that I have had for about 6 months and he is standing the march splendidly.”
These words Dr. Freeman Allen wrote from Cuba to future wife Mary Ethel Gibson in January 1901. The doctor had been in Cuba for a year by that point, hired on contract by the US Army as acting assistant surgeon in western Cuba. Altogether, the young army doctor spent fourteen months on the island as part of the American occupation force in the years after the Spanish-American War (Feb.–Dec. 1898).

Thursday, June 18, 2015

The Gibson Family in the Civil War: Part II

Today, we continue with Rosamond Warren Gibson’s recollections of her time in New Orleans during the American Civil War:

“We reached New Orleans on March 29th, and found that friends had secured a delightful little house for us in the Rue Conti, run by a madame and her daughter. The rooms were filled with flowers, and a delicious breakfast greeted us. Our visit was a curious and interesting one, as the city was filled with Northern officers and their wives, and the few Southern women remaining there drew aside their skirts as we passed. Governor N. P. Banks (formerly Governor of Massachusetts, but at that time Military Commander of New Orleans) was the reigning king, and Admiral Farragut the hero. One evening we went to a large reception at the Governor’s where I was introduced to the Admiral and walked about on his arm. When I begged him to give us a gunboat to go home by the Mississippi River, as our passage through the Gulf had been such a horrid one, he said, “Oh yes, you can have two. Just ask Admiral Palmer,” (James S. Palmer) who was a friend of Mr. Hammond’s. As the pilot of one boat arrived next day with the top of his head shot off by sharp-shooters, we decided we had better stick to the Gulf! There were many of our friends there from Boston, and others who were in and out all day long, bringing flowers and news of the fighting up the river. In the evenings we sat talking and singing with the windows open."

Thursday, May 21, 2015

The Gibson Family in the Civil War: Part I

Catherine Gibson and her son Charles moved into the Gibson House in 1860. One year later, the American Civil War began. Enquiring minds sometimes want to know: How was the Gibson family involved in the Civil War, if at all?


The answer is somewhat dissatisfying. We aren’t really sure. Charles didn’t enter the war. And that’s pretty much the extent of our knowledge. Years later, Charles married Rosamond Warren, who included some notes about the Civil War in her memoirs. She was born in 1846, so she was only about 15 when the war began. Here’s what she has to say:


“The war continued for four years, and it seemed to us as if it was going on forever. As we were so young, and had no immediate relatives concerned in it, I have no vital recollections in connection with it, save possibly a visit of General McLellan [sic] to Boston, and later a trip to New Orleans.

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

The Forty Steps

The Gibson House Museum's founder, Charlie Gibson, continued to spend time at his family's summer home in Nahant throughout his life. The home was called Forty Steps, because there were forty steps separating the home from the water. A few months after D-Day during World War II, Charlie wrote this poem, partly based on the fact that there had been guns placed near this place that had been a sanctuary for the Gibson family for generations.

                                                                                       
  The Forty Steps
             
I.
Once Forty Steps; now thirty nine – 
   And they in doubtful state,
Like ravished riches in decline,
                                        The blasting of the great.                                          

II.
Yet God has blessed the sacred spot,
   Now touched by time and war,
While echoing the cannon’s shot
   Beyond the ocean’s roar.

       III.
Once peopled by a stately throng,
   That bathed upon the shore,
Now to the poet still belong
   Their annals and their lore.

      IV.
O footprints of an age outworn
   By fickle time and tide,
Your hallowed dust lies all but gone,
   Its grandeur and its pride.

      V.
Today a soldier’s martial tread
   Guards what is now no more,
The gaiety from laughter bred,
   The peace – that led to war.


Although my tourees might note that I'm often fairly harsh when I talk about Charlie's poetry, I think this poem really captures a part of his personality. Here we find him remembering the Nahant of his childhood, and comparing it to what seems to be a desolate and laughless place during the war. Charlie had a hard time accepting that we live in an ever changing world- and for someone who lived through two world wars, can we really blame him?

by: Katie Schinabeck, Former Museum Guide

Sunday, March 15, 2015

Enduring Evenings


“The fact that our nineteenth-century forebears did not spend all their evenings speechlessly gazing at a moving version of their magic-lantern does not mean that they were as bored as we may be when deprived of the monotonous, habit-forming, visual diet that we accept as entertainment. Hopefully a happier and more enlightened generation of the future, having rediscovered that it is satisfying for man to do things for himself, may wonder how we endured entire evenings gazing at coloured lights.” 

I found the preceding quote maligning television as a form of entertainment in a book written in 1974 by Patrick Beaver entitled Victorian Parlor Games. Beaver was making the point that while we might sometimes look back on the Victorians and think they must have led incredibly stuffy and boring lives, they would not have thought so themselves. In his book, Beaver describes a collection of different parlor games played during the Victorian era that ,reveal that the Victorians  did actually enjoy having fun.  

Sunday, March 1, 2015

History Repeats Itself, Again


I think I can speak for many historians when I say that it’s the “Aha!” moment that drives us. Those seemingly endless searches in the archives can frustrate and lead to existential crises, and then you stumble across something that just “clicks.” The newly discovered connection leads to another connection, and suddenly your research has new life. A few months ago, the Gibson House had the pleasure of welcoming Dr. Mark Rockoff, who recently co-authored a paper on Dr. Freeman Allen, a Gibson relative. Dr. Rockoff took us on a journey through his own exciting research, in which he had the good fortune to encounter many “Aha” moments. Dr. Rockoff’s presentation not only enabled us to live vicariously through his many discoveries, but it also provided us with the opportunity to discuss why it all matters. Before I get to that, let’s start with the bulk of what Mark Rockoff’s research covered: Who was Dr. Freeman Allen? 

Sunday, February 15, 2015

Domestic Servants, Part II

George Goodwin Kilburne, Governess with two girls- 1873

Having servants was a status symbol in the Victorian era. Many households with a domestic servant only had one, who was expected to perform all of the tasks described in my last post. She cooked, cleaned, cared for children, stoked the fires, served meals, took callers, and served at the beck and call of the family. Domestic servants in these situations felt that it was too much work, and understandably so. Additionally, being the only servant could cause these domestics to feel incredibly lonely. Servants constantly searched for better household situations. More servants in a household meant a greater division of labor, which meant a more manageable workload for each servant. A position at the Gibson House, where there were sever servants, might have been quite coveted because there was an adequate division of labor. 

Sunday, February 1, 2015

Domestic Servants, Part I


In the twenty-first century, it can be difficult to grasp the very idea that the Gibson House had more servants than family members in 1880. It seems wildly luxurious— and with thirteen people sharing those back stairs,  really crowded! Today I’ll be looking at the servants of the Gibson family, and what their roles were. Records about the Gibson House servants are frustratingly scarce. The best records we have are the 1880 census and Rosamond Gibson’s memoir. By combining this documentation with general historical trends, we can piece together a picture of domestic servant life in the Gibson House. 

Thursday, January 15, 2015

The Japanese Leather Wallpaper

Visitors to the Gibson House Museum often first notice the wallpaper in the grand entryway. It has become the most iconic symbol of the Victorian Era home, which is why I used it as the background for this blog. In this post, I decided to explore the origins of the wallpaper, and the international political context in which it was imported to the United States. 

Japan closed itself off from Western trade in 1639. It wasn’t opened up again for another two centuries. The re-opening of Japan began in 1853, when American Commodore Matthew Perry entered Tokyo Harbor with an intimidating naval force. This action led to political negotiations between Japan and the United States. In the next few years, the Japanese government decided to open up trade willingly, in anticipation of being forced to do so anyway. This led to the Harris Treaty of 1858, the first commercial treaty between America and Japan. In 1868, a revolution in Japan put political power back in the hands of the emperor. Under this leadership, it became Japanese policy to assimilate to Western technology, so as to avoid being usurped by it. One result of this policy was the establishment of a factory for kinkarankaragami. 

Westerners first saw large quantities of Japanese goods in the London International Exhibition of 1862, which prompted a craze for them. Among the items displayed in the exhibition were wallpapers called kinkarankaragami (which translates to “golden foreign-origin leather paper”). We call this Japanese leather wallpaper, because the paper is meant to resemble leather. This effect is achieved by placing moist paper on carved wood, then beating it with a brush until the design is embossed. After the paper dries, it is then painted, gilded, and treated to render it waterproof. 

Thursday, January 1, 2015

History Repeats Itself




On November 1, 1856, the steamer Lyonnais left New York harbor en route to France with 150 persons on board. One of the 39 cabin passengers was John Gardiner Gibson, Jr., the oldest son of Catherine Hammond Gibson and brother of Charles Hammond Gibson (the first residents of what is now the Gibson House Museum). He was twenty-one years old.  

The next night, the ship Adriatic hit the Lyonnais, despite the Lyonnais’s having displayed its lights and sounded its whistle upon first seeing the Adriatic. The Adriatic kept going, not knowing it had done severe damage to the other vessel. The Lyonnais began rapidly taking on water through a hole in its side. The water put out the fires that would have kept the ship moving. Crew members and a few passengers tried to pump the water out, but cinders clogged the pumps so they resorted to using buckets. Excess cargo was thrown overboard to lighten the ship’s load, and mattresses were used to try to plug the hole. None of this was sufficient; water kept coming in. The crew guessed there was probably another hole on the bottom of the ship. 

The attempts to bail out the Lyonnais lasted for about seven hours. Meanwhile, a raft was built—out of such materials as masts, chicken coops, and doors—in case the ship had to be abandoned, because there weren’t enough lifeboats for all 150 people on board. By morning, it was decided to abandon the ship. More than 100 people  piled into the five lifeboats, and 40 boarded the raft. 

Only one boat was ever heard from again. It had been boarded by 18 people, and only 16 were still alive by the time it was rescued, six days later. During that time, they had faced freezing temperatures, a shortage of water, and snow and ice storms. Overall, more than 130 people died as the result of the shipwreck.