Mary Baker was born in 1821 in Bow, New Hampshire to Mark
and Abigail Baker.&nbsp; She was sick a lot of
her childhood and rebelled the Calvinist doctrine she grew up on in favor of
simple prayer and scripture from the Bible.&nbsp;&nbsp;Eventually, she married George Washington Glover in 1843; however, he
died shortly after while she was pregnant with their son.&nbsp; Alone and unable to support her son alone,
Mary moved back home until her mother passed away in 1849.&nbsp; Mary grew ill again and sent her son to her
late husband’s family, unable to provide the best care herself.&nbsp; In 1853, she married Daniel Patterson who
left her in 1866 after years of infidelity; she was granted a divorce in 1873
on grounds of desertion.&nbsp;&nbsp;Illness
continued to haunt her throughout her life; she avoided 19th century
medicine in favor of homeopathy and spiritual healing.&nbsp; In 1862, Mary met famous physician Phineas
Quimby and found his mental/therapeutic treatments helpful.&nbsp; However, in 1866, Mary Baker found the most successful
treatment to be from her reading of the Bible and spiritual healing and she
began her development of Christian Science.&nbsp;
She researched, traveled, and taught her Christian Science principles around
the United States, where she met her third husband, Asa Gilbert Eddy who was extremely
supportive of her beliefs and education of others.&nbsp; She started her own church by establishing a
charter in 1879 and published several books and articles, including Science and Health with a Key to the
Scriptures and Church of Christ,
Scientists, and founded the newspaper Christian
Science Monitor. Mary Baker Eddy died in 1910, but her church continued to
grow.

Website

Video

The Mary Baker Eddy Library gives visitors the opportunity to “explore the life, ideas, and achievements of Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910), a remarkable nineteenth-century New England woman who overcame adversity to write a groundbreaking book on religion, health, and spirituality: Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” (“About”).  Eddy was a pioneer in several different fields, including “business, education, publishing, and founded The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts” (“About”); she was an author, teacher, and religious leader. 

The library offers several educational programs and exhibits; current feature exhibitions include Mapparium, Hall of Ideas, Quest Gallery, and Portraits of Global Caring.  The library’s Research and Reference Services is one of the largest collections that is both by and about an American woman.  

Mary Baker Eddy Library

Admin

This tour includes numerous historic landmarks, markers, and monuments that preserve and share the history of Boston women including their experiences and contributions.

<div>Maria Louise Baldwin (1856-1922) was the oldest daughter of Peter L. And Mary E. Baldwin. When she was five years old, she entered the Sargent Primary School, then attended the Allston Grammar School, and finally graduated&nbsp;the Cambridge High School in 1873.1 Baldwin was a prominent figure both domestically and internationally. She was a graduate of Cambridge City's teacher training school in 1857 and then began her career in Chestertown, Maryland. However, after a lot of persuasion and pressure from the local African-American community, she was hired by the Cambridge School Department in 1882.&nbsp; In 1889,&nbsp;Baldwin became promoted as the principal, and twenty-four years later&nbsp;as the Headmaster&nbsp;of the Agassiz Grammar School in Cambridge. This made her&nbsp;the only African-American, and one of only two women&nbsp;in New England to ever hold such a position. To improve the quality of education and encourage it among various communities in New England, she organized the first Parent-Teacher group, introduced new methods for mathematics, and began art classes at the school. All the hard work she put into improving the quality of education at this school paid off-- it was then considered as one of the best in the city. Children of Harvard professors and several of the old Cambridge families would exclusively attend Agassiz.</div><div>Moreover, she belonged to numerous civic and educational organizations. Baldwin held weekly reading classes at her home for Negro students attending Harvard University, honoring her the title "Man of the Month" by DuBois. All of her contributions earned her "the most distinguished position achieved by a person of Negro descendent in the teaching world of America."2</div><div> In 1917, a column titled, “Men of the Month,” appeared in The Crisis that mentioned,&nbsp;“Miss Baldwin, thus, without doubt, occupies the most distinguished position achieved by a person of Negro descent in the teaching world of America, outside cities where there are segregated schools.”3 Baldwin's career at the school was known and recognized by distinguished people such as Charles W. Eliot of Harvard, and William Monroe Trotter. Baldwin had another famous Cantabrigian pupil, poet E.E. Cummings. He stated, "her very presence emanated an honor and a glory... From her I learned that the truest power is gentleness."2 Moreover, he wrote of her in an auto-biographical reminiscence saying, "Never did any demi-divine dictator more gracefully and easily rule a more unruly and less graceful populace. Her very presence emanated an honor and a glory: the recognition of spiritual freedom—no mere freedom from—and the glory of being, not (like most extant mortals) really undead, but alive.4 </div><div>Baldwin died in 1922 and was deeply&nbsp;mourned by her followers. She was considered as an inspiration to people of all ages for generations together.&nbsp;A scholarship was proudly established in her behalf for Agassiz students, and the school's auditorium was also named in her honor. "On May 21st, 2002 the Cambridge School Committee unanimously voted to rename the Agassiz School to the Maria L. Baldwin School (baldwin.cpsd.us)." Finally, her house was named a National Historic Landmark in 1976.4 </div>

This 19th-century Cambridge duplex was home to Maria Baldwin when she served as the first female African African-American female principal in a Massachusetts school. The home was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1976 and remains a private family home. Baldwin lived here from 1892 to 1922. From 1916 to her death in 1922, she supervised an all-white teaching staff and a student population that was 98% white when she served as the headmaster of the Agassiz Grammar School. Her contributions were so significant that she is commonly referred to as the most distinguished educator of African descent in the early 20th century. 

The Maria Baldwin House 

Margaret Fuller was born on May 23rd, 1810 in Cambridgeport, Massachusetts. She was the eldest daughter of a lawyer named Timothy Fuller. Timothy facilitated her high-paced education which would allow her to become a prodigy by her teens but also caused her to experience a "hysteria which plagued her for the rest of her life" by age 10. The Fullers lived at the home at 71 Cherry Street until Margaret was sixteen. Throughout her twenties and thirties, Margaret moved several times making this home her longest held residence. Maraget's education allowed her to meet men as equals throughout her life adn she became familiar with Transcendentalists such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Bronson Alcott.In 1817, Timothy was elected as a congressman for Massachusetts and served until 1825. However, by 1833 he felt that his political aspirations had been unfulfilled and his law practice was shrinking so he moved to Groton, Massachusetts and began a family farm. Just two years later Timothy died of cholera without having written up a will. This caused Margaret, her mother, and her siblings to become dependent on the charity of her uncles. Margaret began working as a schoolteacher in order to support her family, and briefly worked at Bronson Alcott's school from 1836 to 1837. Margaret continued to be involved with other intellectuals at the time, including Elizabeth Palmer Peabody. In peabody's house, Margaret began holding what she called "conversations" -- discussion groups for women. She held these conversations for five years.Beginning in 1840, Margaret began writing for and editing the Boston Dial with Emerson and George Ripley. She published an essay entitled The Great Lawsuit in the Dial, which she would later expand into her famous book entitled Woman in the Nineteenth Century. Considered "the first major American exposition of feminism," the book featured a protagonist named Miranda who mirrored many aspects of Fuller's life including her father's commitment to education. Inspired by Transcendentalism, abolitionism, and Fourierism, Margaret argued for equal political and economic rights for women and challenged ideas related to prostitution, sexual customs, and marriage. Margaret eventually quit editing for Boston Dial because she hadn't received the payment she was owed. In 1844, Horace Greeley convinced her to move tot New York and work for the New York Tribune for which she wrote 250 articles. In 1846, Margaret moved to Europe and became Greeley's foreign correspondent. While in Italy, she became involved with revolutionary figures like Guiseppi Mazzini and Giovanni Angelo Ossoli. Margaret married Giovanni and they had a son together. When their son was two years old, the family decided to move to America even though Giovanni didn't speak English. Margaret was hoping to return to New York and write a book about the Roman Revolution. However, their ship's captain died of small pox on the way there and his inexperienced first mate had to take over. During a storm on July 19th, 1850, the ship wrecked on Fire Island. Because they couldn't swim and nobody made an effort to rescue them, Margaret and her family drowned. Her son's body eventually washed ashore, but she and Giovanni were never recovered. Among the items recovered from the wreck was Margaret's manuscript for her book on the Roman Revolution, which Thoreau found.

This historic house was constructed in 1807 by Timothy Fuller. His daughter Margaret Fuller, author of Woman in the Nineteenth Century was born at the house four years later and it became her home until the age of 16. The Fullers owned the house until 1844, but it became a tenement int he last half of the 19th cenutry. In 1902, the Cambridge YWCA turned it into one of the first settlement houses in the United States. At that time, the staff of the Margaret Fuller Neighborhood House organization worked to help women who had recently arrived in the United States with a variety of services. The organization began working to preserve the home in the 1940's. Today, the historic home is still operating programs that fulfill the vision of Progressive reformers with an emphasis on education and social services.

Margaret Fuller House

Born in Vermont in 1857, Lucy Wheelock always had a desire for education. She moved to Reading, Massachusetts at age 15 and attended high school there. Wheelock was determined to get to college and applied to the newly coeducational Chauncy Hall School in Boston after her graduation in 1874. There she hoped to prepare herself to apply to Wellesley College. However, she never applied to any college and instead found a passion for early childhood education after visiting a kindergarten.Lucy Wheelock enrolled in Mrs. Ella Snelling Hatch’s Kindergarten Training School to pursue her newly found passion in 1878. She learned from Elizabeth Palmer Peabody who is considered the founder of the kindergarten movement in America. A year later, she graduated from the school and returned back to Chauncy Hall to teach kindergarten. She followed Friedrich Fröbel’s methods but was not afraid to deviate from it when she saw it necessary. This gained her attention though it was not all positive. Some conversative kindergarteners called her a heretic and thought she was being too controversial. Her methods would eventually pay off as she was asked to teach a training class at Chauncy Hall when public kindergartens were permanently instituted in Boston.Wheelock’s class was so successful that by 1896, she was able to open up her own school known as the Wheelock Kindergarten Training School. She also was active in the national kindergarten movement. Wheelock became a leading voice within the International Kindergarten Union and served as its president from 1895 to 1899. Wheelock later chaired the IKU’s Committee of Nineteen. Their goal was to bridge the gap between the conservative and liberal members of the kindergarten community but they were unable to achieve this. Along with the IKU, Wheelock was involved with the National Congress of Mothers and even was appointed to the education committee of the League of Nations in 1929.Even as an active member of the kindergarten movement, Wheelock still served as director of her school until 1939. By that time, Wheelock School had expanded its curriculum to include primary and nursery courses while also integrating aspects of the arts and sciences into classes. A permanent campus was even established in Boston’s Fenway neighborhood in 1914. Wheelock School had approximately 350 students by the time Lucy Wheelock retired. Two years later, it officially became Wheelock College. Lucy Wheelock died in Boston in 1946. She was an influential member of the kindergarten movement in American and a champion of early childhood education. Her dedication and passion was and still is inspiring to many. Despite her critics, Wheelock remained heavily involved in education until late in her life. Her legacy lives on with her school which is now fully incorporated into Boston University as the Wheelock College of Education and Human Development.<div> </div>

Established in 1888 as a training school for kindergarten teachers by Lucy Wheelock, this school was known as Wheelock College between 1939 and 2018 when it merged with Boston University. Wheelock was a key figure in the kindergarten movement in America. Wheelock taught in kindergartens, toured internationally to lecture on the topic of early childhood education, and established a school that trained tens of thousands of teachers well after her death in 1946. Wheelock served on many committees including in the League of Nations through the years as well. Her legacy lives on as the namesake of Wheelock College of Education & Human Development, Boston University's school of education. 

Wheelock College (1888–2018)

Isabella Stewart Gardner was born in New York City on April 12, 1840 to David Stewart, a wealthy Irish linen tradesman and mining investor, and Adelia Smith. She was educated in New York and Paris and married her Paris school friend’s brother John “Jack” Lowell Gardner Jr. on April 10, 1860. The Gardner’s moved to Boston and in 1863, Gardner gave birth to a son, John L. Gardner III, who died 2 years later.  To try and cheer up his deeply depressed and ill wife, Jack took her to Europe where they traveled to many countries and Isabella developed her love for art. What started as simply purchasing pieces of art to decorate their home, traveling and art became the Gardner’s passion and they began amassing a beautiful and impressive art collection. Isabella Gardner followed her parent's passion for art. Upon her father's passing, she acquired a substantial inheritance with which she used to purchase her first painting, "The Concert" by Vermeer, in 1892. In 1894, she became the first American to own a Renaissance-period painting (a Botticelli). In 1898, Gardner purchased a piece of land, and in 1899, construction on Fenway Court (the original name of the museum) began. The museum opened to the public on January 1st, 1903. A few years after suffering a series of strokes, Isabella Stewart Gardner passed away in 1924 and left $1 million dollars to the museum, as well as additional money to several other charities.  Gardner stipulated in her will that could never be moved, and items could not be removed or added to the collection.The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s theft was the largest art heist in history, and it remains unsolved to this day. The theft, valued somewhere between $200 Million and $500 Million has resulted in widespread curiosity and speculation, since none of the paintings or artifacts have ever resurfaced, despite a widespread and continuous search, and a $10 Million reward.The theft occurred in March 18, 1990, over St. Patrick’s Day Weekend, with the thieves making off with 13 pieces of art. The robbers assaulted the museum guards after posing as Boston Police Officers in order to gain access to the museum. They bound the guards with duct-tape and handcuffed them in the basement, disarmed the security cameras, and then proceeded to spend two hours robbing the museum, cutting the paintings out of their frames. Many art experts have despaired over the method of the theft, believing that the paintings would have been damaged by the crude cutting method.The Museum has left their empty frames in place, symbolizing the mourning for the cultural artifacts, and their determination that one day, the objects will be recovered.The paintings stolen include three paintings by Rembrandt—Storm on the Sea of Galilea, A Lady and Gentleman in Black, and a self-portrait— as well as Vermeer’s The Concert, five sketches by Degas, a portrait by Manet, Flinck’s Landscape with an Obelisk, a Chinese bronze vessel, and an eagle that once topped a Napoleonic era flag.The statute of limitations ran out on the thefts in 1998.As a result of the thefts, the Gardner Museum has increased security, insured their collections (the paintings stolen were notably not insured at the time of the robbery), installed climate control measurements, and increased fundraising activity. They also saw increased visitation and press as a result of the robberies.Many people have been suspects or person of interests in the case, including members of the Irish Republican Army, James “Whitey” Bulger, a Boston crime boss and FBI informant, and Myles Connor Jr., who claimed the title of New England’s top art thief.The stolen artworks from the Gardner Museum have been featured in a variety of films, books, TV shows, and podcasts. The Simpsons shows The Concert in the possession of Mr. Burns, while Storm in the Sea of Galilea appears in The Blacklist and Venture Brothers. Steven Colbert facetiously claimed to be in possession of The Concert on the Colbert Report.

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum houses an impressive collection of fine and decorative art with over 2,500 paintings, sculptures, tapestries, manuscripts, and much more. The building itself is three stories tall and modeled after a 15th-century Venetian-style palace with a central courtyard. The museum features many works by famous artists such as Michelangelo, Raphael, Degas, and Sargent on display and also houses works by contemporary artists, musicians, and scholars. The museum’s art is the personal collection of Isabella Gardner, a prominent past Pennsylvania resident, art collector, and supporter of fine arts, music, literature, and dance. Gardner was a friend to many leading artists of the day including John Singer Steward and Henry James.

The Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum was the site of the largest, still unsolved, art heist in history. Taking place in 1990, the theft has been viewed as a wide-spread tragedy for the loss of cultural heritage, as well as the potential damage done to the still-missing paintings done over the course of the robbery. The robbery caused security overhauls both in the Gardener Museum, but also nation-wide. The paintings, which weren’t insured at the time of the robbery, are estimated to be worth $500 Million, and a $10 Million reward has been issued for the paintings’ safe return.

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Harriet Tubman,&nbsp; born as a slave in 1820 in Dorchester County, Maryland became a symbol for women and human rights in the fight for Civil Rights in the United States. She is most remembered for her appearance at the opening of the National Association of Colored Women in 1896 in Washington, D.C. where Tubman was the oldest member of this association.1Her name at birth was Araminta “Minty” Ross. Tubman fled slavery in 1849 and made it her mission to help others. Tubman believed it was her faith that guided her through life and gave her the courage to save so many slaves. Tubman became one of the most active members of the Underground Railroad, rescuing over 300 slaves.2 Furthermore, in just a short lapse of ten years, Tubman made 19 trips into the South.Tubman's passion for helping others started in her earliest years fo life. When she was in her early teens, she blocked a doorway to protect another fellow slave from a furious master. After the master discovered Tubman blocking his passage, he threw a two-pound weight which hit Tubman in the head. Sadly, she never fully recovered from the head trauma. She suffered from various side effects from the trauma, including hallucinations and sleeping spells which lasted through her entire life.1

Harriet Tubman married her husband, John Tubman, a free laborer at the estate where she was enslaved, in 1844. Five years later, Tubman managed to escape slavery with the help of a white woman. After various days of struggle, she finally made it to Philadelphia, where she found work and managed to save&nbsp;up some money. Tubman, then returned to Maryland in 1857 to rescue her sister and her sister’s children from slavery.3 When she went back to the South to save her brothers, she sadly found that her husband had found another wife.Nevertheless, Tubman became more motivated to rescue more slaves and make the Underground Railroad a success. In 1856, Tubman became a wanted woman for her reputation as a leading woman of the Underground Railroad. The reward for finding her was 40,000 dollars.4

At the end of the Civil War, Tubman nursed the sick and wounded Black soldiers and Union soldiers in Florida and the Carolinas for three years after the end of the war. After she completed her work&nbsp;taking care of wounded soldiers, she moved to Auburn, New York, to help Blacks pave their way to freedom and a good life. She financed herself by selling copies of her biography as well as giving speeches throughout the United States. She is most remembered for her appearance at the opening of the National Association of Colored Women in 1896 in Washington, D.C. Tubman was the oldest member of this association.3&nbsp;Tubman never lived in Boston, but she had ties to many abolitionist friends who lived there.&nbsp;Fern Cunningham created the statue in 1999, and its installation was marked by a citywide celebration.&nbsp;The whole park that it is located in is dedicated to Tubman. Fern Cunningham wanted the statue to capture Tubman’s unique spirit.4Boston proudly commemorates both the Union and women with this statue. On the reverse side of the monument is a vertical slab that tracks the route that Tubman took when accompanying passengers on the Underground Railroad. There is also a quote from Tubman on the memorial that reads,&nbsp; "There are two things I've got a right to, and these are death or liberty. One or another I mean to have. No one will take me back alive.”4

The next quote on the slab belongs to Frederick Douglass, who as well as Tubman, was a runaway slave. Frederick wrote an autobiography in the early 1800s about the cruelty and abuse he faced as a slave. He became another significant icon in the abolitionist movement. The quote from Douglass reads, “The midnight sky and the silent stars have been the witnesses of [Tubman's] devotion to freedom and of [her] heroism.”3

Nonetheless, the last quote in this memorial belongs to Sarah Bradford, the author of the first Tubman biography. Bradford also included various stories of Douglass into the biography in order to provide the book with more of a purpose than just the narration of life struggles of Tubman and instead made it more of an advocacy piece. Bradford’s quote reads, “She expected deliverance when she prayed unless the Lord had ordered otherwise.” 

The creator of the monument, Fern Cunningham,&nbsp;included these phrases because she made it her mission to ensure that the Black experience had a powerful presence in the city of Boston. Cunningham, a colored woman herself, who studied at Boston University and who sought more recognition for the Black community's past and impact in Boston.2 The memorial was standing powerfully as a symbol for the liberated and not just the liberator as well as representing strong women leaders who have shaped the history of Boston, and the United States.

Harriet Tubman was a runaway slave, born in 1820. During the Civil War, she was one of the leading abolitionists in the Underground Railroad, saving more than 300 slaves. Originally from Maryland, she moved to Auburn, New York after the war where she published her biography and aided newly freed slaves in beginning their lives. The statue depicts Tubman with a bible in her left hand leading freed slaves. It is located in the South End of Boston and was created in 1999 by Fern Cunningham, a graduate from Boston University. Boston proudly commemorates both the Union and women with this statue. On the reverse side of the monument is a vertical slab that tracks the route that Tubman took when accompanying passengers on the Underground Railroad.

Harriet Tubman Memorial

The Boston Women’s Memorial is dedicated to three Boston women who helped shape the history of late 18th and 19th century. All three of these women were born in Massachusetts and/or lived in the state. Abigail Adams (1744-1818) was born in the city of Weymouth and was the wife of John Adams, the second President of the United States. In 1776, Adams wrote a letter to her husband that said that husbands should not have unlimited power and that if the ladies do not get the attention they need then they will “form a rebellion and not hold themselves bound by any laws that do not give them a voice.”Lucy Stone (1818-1893) was born in Brookfield and was one of the first women in the state to graduate college. She was a prominent abolitionist, a respected orator, and an author. Stone founded the Women’s Journal, one of the leading early publications dedicated to women's rights at the time. In a speech, she gave in 1855 at the National Women’s Rights Convention, Stone describes about how much of a disappointed woman she has been throughout her life. She says “It shall be the business of my life to deepen this disappointment in every woman's heart until she bows down to it no longer.” Stone was also one of very few women who decided to keep her last name after marriage.Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784) was born in West Africa and was sold as a slave. She was kidnapped from her family as a child and was shipped to colonial Boston where she was sold as property. Wheatley's experience was not typical, as she was raised by a caring Quaker family who saw to her education so long as it did not interfere with her domestic duties in their home. Wheatley demonstrated talent and became a literature prodigy who published books of poetry. In 1773, she wrote Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, which was the very first book in America to be published by an African American. One poem she wrote was about imagination, describing it as an unimaginable thing. Another poem she wrote was about her experience of being sold as a slave, saying that she’d been snatched from Africa’s fancied happy seat. The bronze sculptures of the women, created by sculptor Meredith Gang Bergmann, were dedicated on October 25th, 2003 on the historic Commonwealth Avenue Mall in Boston. Instead of traditional statues that are set upon pedestals, the women are using the pedestals while leaning upon the blocks of granite rock beside them. This allows the statues to “invite” the people to interact with them. Bergmann modeled the statues to be this way in order to pay tribute to the women’s progressive ideas.

Dedicated in 2003, this memorial celebrates the lives of three of the most historically significant women in American history: Abigail Adams, Lucy Stone, and Phillis Wheatley. Each of the tree women honored by the memorial faced threats and opposition but were committed to social change. The authors of poetry, essays and books, each of these three women offered contributions that demonstrate the intellectual roots of the movements against slavery and for the civil and political rights of women. Each of the three women honored are shown in poses that reflect the use of their language as writers, essayists, and poets.

Boston Women's Memorial

The museum resides within the 4-story townhouse that Rose Nichols inherited from her father, Dr. Arthur Nichols. The historic house was built by Jonathan Mason in 1804 and became a public museum in 1961. The home is furnished with 18th and 19th century European and American furniture, ancestral portraits, American and European art, and Flemish tapestries. Highlights of the museum include exhibits about the life of Rose Standish Nichols, her father Dr. Arthur Nichols, and other prominent residents of this important Boston neighborhood. Visitors should also take time to enjoy works by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, America's foremost sculptor of the 19th century. Many of the sculptures to leading generals were made by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, including the popular local sculpture of Robert Gould Shaw that graces Boston Common. Rose Standish Nichols was born in 1872 and resided in the Nichols House from age thirteen until her death in 1960. During her lifetime, she became known for her work involving gardens. Her interest in gardening began when she was a child and her grandfather Thomas Johnston Homer "allowed her to cultivate a small corner of his garden in Roxbury." Rose's horticultural education continued in 1899 when her family visited a Cornish Colony in New Hampshire. Rose convinced her parents to buy a farmhouse in Cornish where she spent her summers learning about gardening. In Cornish, Rose tutored with an artist and architect Charles A. Platt. She also studied drafting in New York one Winter with Thomas Hastings who had an architectural firm called Carrere and Hastings. Rose went on to study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and in Paris. Although Rose is remembered as a landscape architect, she considered herself a writer and connoisseur rather than a designer. She wrote three books (English Pleasure Gardens, Spanish and Portuguese Gardens, and Italian Gardens and Villas) about historical gardens in England, Italy, and Spain. Rose's writing included several articles about historical gardens as well.Aside from being an accomplished writer, Rose became one of the earliest professional garden designers in the United States. Her first garden was at the family's house in Cornish. She went on to receive several commissions from across the United States. Her first professional commission was from her neighbor in Beacon Hill, Ellen Mason, who wanted help with her garden in Newport, Rhode Island. Rose's commissions from within New England included a few well-known Bostonians such as Mrs. Francis Peabody and Mrs. Philip Sears. Few of the gardens she designed have survived and have not been restored due to a lack of surviving plans, drawings, and correspondence with clients. After Rose died, the Nichols House became a museum at her request. The Nichols House Museum honors Rose Standish Nichols' life and legacy while also providing insight into the life of Beacon Hill residents during the 19th and 20th centuries.

The Nichols House Museum serves to educate visitors about the lives of women during the 19th and early 20th centuries and the history of the Beacon Hill district of Boston. Located in a townhouse that was built in the early 1800s and was home to Rose Standish Nichols from 1885 until 1960. Rose Standish Nichols was a suffragist and pacifist, as well as an accomplished landscape architect. The museum is open year round and offers an abundance of lectures, programs, special events, and tours.

Nichols House Museum

Designed
by Bostonian Alexander Parris, the Nathan Appleton House (also known as the
Appleton-Parker House) is a bowfront, Greek revival/Federal style row house
that was built in 1821. &nbsp;

















A great
financial mind and pioneer in New England industrialization,&nbsp;&nbsp;Appleton is best known, along with Francis Cabot Lowell and other business associates, as introducing the power loom to the manufacture of textiles in 1814. Appleton later become one of the founding members of the Boston Manufacturing Company as well as Lowell, a town built around textile mills that Appleton and his business partners owned. &nbsp;He later bought a water power plant in Pawtucket Falls and founded Mimmac Manufacturing and the city of Lowell, Massachusetts.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 














Born
in New Ipswich, New Hampshire to Isaac Appleton and Mary Adams, Nathan Appleton
was raised in a Calvinistic church and attended the New Ipswich Academy.&nbsp; He went to Dartmouth College in 1794, but
left school the same year to pursue the mercantile life and established a
partnership with his brother Samuel from 1800-1809. &nbsp;In addition to the
business world, Appleton was also involved in politics, serving in the general
court of Massachusetts in 1816, 1821, 1822, 1824, and 1827 and in the United
States House of Representatives from 1831-1833 and in 1842.&nbsp; &nbsp;Appleton married Maria Theresa Gold on April 13, 1806 and they had 5 children.&nbsp; After her death, Appleton remarried in 1839 to Harriot Coffin Sumner and they had 3 children together. &nbsp;Appleton's daughter Fanny Appleton married poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in&nbsp;1843. The ceremony occurred here in this home. From 1914 until 1992,&nbsp;these townhouses served as the&nbsp;headquarters for the&nbsp;Women's City Club, an organization&nbsp;known for their relief efforts in the wake of a number of fires and other disasters.&nbsp;&nbsp;By 1939, the club expanded and purchased the adjacent townhouse at 39 Beacon Street.&nbsp;&nbsp;The Club also maintained an active role in civic affairs, promoted charitable causes, maintained a library, and&nbsp;held lectures and other educational events.&nbsp;The club had as many as 5,000 members, but like many other women's clubs, membership began to&nbsp;decline during the changing social atmosphere of the 1960s. The club filed for bankruptcy in 1991 and sold these two buildings, which are now private condominiums.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

From 1821 until his death in 1861, the influential textile manufacturer and politician Nathan Appleton lived at this residence-a pair of nearly identical three-story brick townhouses. For most of the 20th century, these townhouses served as the headquarters for the Women's City Club, a social and civic organization that promoted charitable causes, mutual aid, and education.

Appleton-Parker House and Women's City Club of Boston 1913-1992

The Combahee River Collective is best known for an April 1977 statement&nbsp;that shaped the concept of identity politics and demonstrated the interconnections of between racial oppression and discrimination faced by women and homosexuals. The full text of the Combahee River Collective Statement of 1977 is available by clicking the link below.&nbsp;&nbsp;

On April 1, 1979, a crowd of between 500 and 1500 met at the Boston Common to protest a recent string of murders that left seven Black women dead in the Roxbury-Dorchester area. As the crowd memorialized the seven victims, news arrived that there was an eighth victim. The protesters updated their signs and marched from the Common to the state house. Within two months, the total number of women who had been murdered in a two-block radius had risen to thirteen, with all but one of the victims being African American.

The Combahee River Collective, a pioneering Black feminist group formed in 1974, later circulated pamphlets that challenged readers to think about the ways that perceptions of race and gender made Black women more vulnerable to violence. The pamphlet, along with letters from Audre Lorde and other radical feminists, asked whether the police would respond to the murder of white women or men in the same manner. The protests challenged many of the assumptions about the protection of women. For example, the Combahee River Collective suggested that many of society's ideas about the protection of women were not only misogynistic, but self-defeating. For example, the idea that men were the protectors of women failed to account for the fact that the men who stopped physical and verbal assaults against women were nearly always stopping an act perpetrated by another man. If men stopped devaluing women, especially Black women, the assumptions and conditions that led to assaults would no longer exist.

Combahee River Collective Leads Protest in Response to String of Murders in Boston, 1979

In 1633 Mary Dyer and
her husband William were married in England. In 1635 the couple emigrated to Boston where they joined the
Church of Boston. Over
the latter half of the 1630’s Boston became increasingly divided over the
separation of church and state. Governor John Winthrop restricted the creation
of new churches and took it upon himself to make clerical appointments, whilst
punishing those who spoke up against these practices.
 The prominent Englishman Henry Vane started an opposition party and eventually
was elected to governor, but ultimately was defeated by Winthrop and his
supporters. One
of Vane’s supporters was Anne Hutchinson, an outspoken critic of Winthrop and a
close friend of Mary Dyer.
As punishment for supporting the opposition, Winthrop ordered the exhumation of
Mary Dyer’s stillborn child, which was found to be grotesquely deformed. Winthrop and the other Boston leaders regarded&nbsp;the child’s deformities
 as the result of Mary’s deformed spiritual beliefs, which allegedly ranged from dissolute living to supernatural communication. After the exhumation, the Dyers left for Rhode Island with other 
persecuted individuals including Anne Hutchinson, who had&nbsp;been banished 
from Massachusetts. In the early 1650’s the Dyers returned to England 
where Mary joined&nbsp;the
 Quaker church.&nbsp; Despite the continuing persecution of Quakers in 
Massachusetts,&nbsp;the Dyers returned in 1657 and Mary began missionary work
 on behalf of the Quaker&nbsp;church. &nbsp;She was immediately imprisoned and 
subsequently&nbsp;expelled with the threat of execution if she returned. Mary risked execution by returning to Massachusetts in order to continue her missionary work on behalf of the Quakers. This time she was
sentenced to execution along with two other male Quakers.
At the begging of her son William the Governor granted Mary a reprieve, but once again expelled her from the colony. On her third and final return to Boston Mary was arrested and on June 1st, 1660 she was executed on the Boston Common.&nbsp; <div> </div><div>The sculpture that stands at the Massachusetts State House was created in 1959
by the Quaker sculptor Sylvia Shaw Judson.
Its creation was ordered by a bill of the General Court of Massachusetts that
called for the construction of a statue of Mary
Dyer to celebrate her commitment to her principles of free speech and conscience. Mary
Dyer is the only woman to have been executed in the United States for religious
reasons.


</div><div> </div>

This stone sculpture depicts the Quaker martyr Mary Dyer who was hung for her religious beliefs in June, 1660. The sculpture was ordered by a bill of the General Court of Massachusetts and was created by the well-known Quaker artist Sylvia Shaw Judson. It was dedicated in 1959 and stands at the corner of Beacon Street and Bowdoin Street in front of the Massachusetts State House. 

Mary Dyer Sculpture 

<div>Julia Elizabeth Harrington Duff was born on November 1859, in Charlestown, Massachusetts. Her father was from Ireland and her mother was born in America. She studied at&nbsp;Boston Girls’ School and graduated as an educator from Boston Normal School. Women who were teaching at schools in Boston were not permitted to continue to do so after marriage as a result of gender inequality that prevalent at that time.&nbsp;Consequently, Duff was forced to resign despite being a teacher for fourteen years prior to her marriage. </div><div>In December 1900, Duff ran for the Boston School Committee election and her victory made her the first woman from the Irish Catholic community. During those times, there were several laws and regulations placed in an order that forbid women from directly participating in state and municipal politics. Hence, Duff's&nbsp;election created a platform for change and can be understood within the larger movement for gender equality in politics and public life.&nbsp;While a member of the Boston School Committee, Duff advocated for equal rights for women and equal opportunities for all of the city's children. She worked to&nbsp;promote educational opportunity for women seeking teaching positions. With the help of other&nbsp;committeewomen, she supported and eventually&nbsp;succeeded in the establishment of kindergartens and schools for girls despite opposition. Even after&nbsp;losing her position at the committee when it was reduced from twenty-four members to only five&nbsp;members, Duff continued to advocate&nbsp;for more opportunities for women.&nbsp;</div>To commemorate her contribution to the society, her house is part of the Boston Women's Heritage Trail.&nbsp;She supported allowing girls into Latin School,&nbsp;the creation of kindergartens, and updated textbooks.&nbsp;Her house is now part of the Boston Women's Heritage Trail.&nbsp;<div></div>

This building was home to Julia Harrington Duff and her husband, Dr. John Duff's and is part of the Boston Women's Heritage Trail in Charlestown, Massachusetts in recognition of Julia Duff's accomplishments in education. Duff advocated for immigrants, especially Irish-Americans women who wanted to be given the opportunity to teach at the Public Schools in Boston. Duff also became the first Irish-American Catholic woman to serve as a community leader on the Boston School Committee. She served in this role from 1901 to 1905 and pushed for equal rights for women and equal opportunity for children of diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds.

Boston Women's History Trail

Mary Baker Eddy Library

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context

Sources

Additional Information