Power in Suffrage

This blog post is part of a series about the Gibson family and the lead-up to the 1920 presidential election, which promised "a return to normalcy" after many years of social upheaval. Read about Boston's experience of World War I here and Boston during the flu epidemic of 1918 here.

The first two decades of the early twentieth century saw huge social movements in the United States, most notably the suffrage movement. Women had been fighting for their right to vote for many years, but the movement gained more traction in the 1910s. Women across the country marched, protested, and rallied for suffrage. An anti-suffrage movement also existed, largely driven by white, upper-class women. These women, although still second-class citizens in the United States, possessed a degree of relative privilege due to their race and class. The Gibsons belonged to this group, and the Gibson women used their position to advocate against women’s suffrage. 

Mary Ethel, the oldest Gibson daughter, was an anti-suffragist. In 1914, she and many other Back Bay women sold red roses to the public just ahead of a suffrage parade. As red was the color of anti-suffrage, the women intended for the thousands of roses to make a “dignified protest” against the suffragists in Boston. She protested alongside other women from her social circle during this event. Mary Ethel may have also participated in other anti-suffrage events in Boston; her sister and mother may have felt similarly about the cause.

Boston Globe, October 17, 1915.

The upper-class culture of Beacon Street led to its becoming a center of anti-suffrage in Boston. In fact, suffragists in Boston called the street “enemy’s country” because of its large anti-suffragist population. These privileged women could not take part in governmental politics, but were able to be involved in and influence the social politics of their upper-class culture through their connections. 

Epidemic in the City

This blog post is part of a series about the Gibson family and the lead-up to the 1920 presidential election, which promised "a return to normalcy" after many years of social upheaval. Read about Boston's experience of World War I here and the Gibsons and suffrage here.

In the spring of 1918, in the midst of World War I, an influenza virus called Spanish Flu (or “Grippe”) because it was believed to have originated in Spain, spread through the United States. A lethal second wave began that summer in Boston. Much like the waves of the COVID-19 pandemic we are currently experiencing, the influenza of 1918 turned daily life upside down. 

Influenza cropped up in Boston in late August of 1918 at Commonwealth Pier, where sailors trained before going overseas. Like the rest of the country, Boston was fully immersed in wartime efforts. Over 100,000 male Bostonians between the ages of eighteen and forty-five registered to be drafted in early September. The federal government’s Liberty Bond campaign to offset the cost of war was in full swing, with Boston expected to raise 129 million dollars through the sale of bonds at Liberty Loan parades and drives. 

Boston Globe, September 2, 1918.

A “Win-the-War-for-Freedom” Labor Day parade held on September 2, 1918, consisted of 4,000 people; civilians, soldiers, and sailors from Commonwealth Pier mingled, spreading the virus among Boston residents. The parade wound around Boston Common, quite close to the Gibson family home at 137 Beacon Street. 

On the Occasion of the 250th Anniversary of the Boston Massacre

On March 5, 1770, a riot broke out on King Street (now State Street) in front of the Custom House in Boston. Soldiers fired into the crowd and killed five civilians. This dramatic event came on the heels of weeks of upset between colonists and British soldiers occupying the town. Its reverberations would be felt all the way through the American Revolution.

Red Study at the Gibson House Museum.

A copy of the famous print of the Boston Massacre, as the event would come to be known, hangs in the red study at the Gibson House. You might know the one I’m talking about. It shows a line of soldiers, in red coats with muskets, firing into a crowd. Three men in the foreground are seen shot and dying on the street. (This particular copy does not include Crispus Attucks, an African-American man born into slavery, and a well-known victim of the Massacre.) Well-dressed colonists look on in horror.

Paul Revere produced this illustration just three weeks after the event, titling it “The Bloody Massacre Perpetrated in King Street, Boston.” (He appears to have copied the image from the work of fellow printer, Henry Pelham, whose similar depiction was published around the same time.) The print became a famous, and important, piece of propaganda. It did much to inflame colonial sentiments against the British, even as it depicted an inaccurate portrayal of the actual event.

Why is there a copy at the Gibson House? This particular print was produced for the 1876 Centennial (purportedly on original plates from the archives of the Massachusetts Historical Society). It was first owned by Charlie Gibson’s uncle, Dr. John Collins Warren; Warren gave it to Charlie in 1904.

Faking the Family Tree

Dining room at the Gibson House.

A family crest hangs over the dining room fireplace at the Gibson House. The vivid red and gold shield on a bright black background is eye-catching. Dinner guests would be unlikely to miss its not-so-subtle implications about the importance of the family lineage. In a scroll along the bottom, the motto reads “In the name of Gibson.” 

The tradition of coats of arms (of which the crest is the top part) dates to the medieval period in Europe, where knights would carry shields with specific designs. The design elements were intended to convey the achievements of the person who carried the coat of arms. Later, families would take a coat of arms as the family logo.  Typically, only noble families were permitted to do this and so the coat of arms came to be associated with the aristocracy.