{"id":423,"date":"2024-12-08T18:22:40","date_gmt":"2024-12-08T18:22:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/historyofthebook2024\/?p=423"},"modified":"2024-12-20T02:25:32","modified_gmt":"2024-12-20T02:25:32","slug":"an-almanack-afterlives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/historyofthebook2024\/2024\/12\/08\/an-almanack-afterlives\/","title":{"rendered":"An Almanack: Afterlives"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Figure 1
The signatures of Hatty and Alice B. French<\/p><\/div>\n

In my previous post<\/a><\/span><\/span>\u00a0on <\/span><\/span>An Almanack, <\/span><\/span>I<\/span>\u00a0determined <\/span>that this book is not an<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>almanac by any means.<\/span> The book does not <\/span>contain<\/span> meteorological predictions, <\/span>but rather the children’s literacy pamphlet <\/span><\/span>The New England Primer<\/span><\/span>. <\/span>However, in understanding this book to be a children’s <\/span>text the inclusion of <\/span>owner’s names helps <\/span>determine<\/span> the afterlife of the present copy of <\/span><\/span>An Almanack<\/span><\/span>.<\/span> Although difficult to read due to the combination of foxing and <\/span>the writing being in <\/span>pencil,<\/span> the inside cover <\/span>has the signatures of sisters Hatty and Alice B French<\/span> (<\/span>fig<\/span>.<\/span>1<\/span>)<\/span>. <\/span>I <\/span>u<\/span>sed<\/span> <\/span>Ancestory.com<\/span><\/span> for <\/span>much of<\/span> the information I was able to collect on the sisters, <\/span>who thankfully provided New Hampshire as their residency as \u201cN.H.\u201d<\/span> (<\/span>fig<\/span>.<\/span> 1<\/span>)<\/span>. <\/span>Including their residency made finding them much easier on <\/span><\/span>Ancestory.com, <\/span><\/span>I was able to narrow down the search results and i<\/span>t helped to ensure that I had the correct people while I was looking through documents. <\/span>Hatty and Alice were the youngest of <\/span>9 siblings and the daughters of Stephen and Sarah Stevens French. Harriet \u201cHatty\u201d Augusta French was born <\/span>on<\/span> April <\/span>19<\/span><\/span>th<\/span><\/span>, <\/span>1848,<\/span> and <\/span>passed away<\/span> on November 8<\/span><\/span>th<\/span><\/span>, 1888<\/span>. <\/span>Little is known about Hatty as she never married and did not have any children. <\/span>There <\/span>is, however,<\/span> a wealth of information about her younger sister Alice that contributes to the <\/span>concept<\/span> of <\/span>how <\/span><\/span>An Almanack<\/span><\/span> was <\/span>intended to be <\/span>read and <\/span>its <\/span>value by the church.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Figure 2 The New London Literary and Scientific Institution record<\/p><\/div>\n

Alice Bird French- Mills was born on August 25<\/span><\/span>th<\/span><\/span>, 1851, and <\/span>passed away on May 20<\/span><\/span>th<\/span><\/span>, <\/span>1912. <\/span>There <\/span>are records<\/span> of Alice attending the New London Literary and Scientific Institution<\/span> in 1871<\/span>, <\/span>and Boston University in 1877<\/span> (<\/span>fig<\/span>.<\/span> 2<\/span>)<\/span><\/span>.<\/span><\/span> Alice is attributed the title Doctor, which was <\/span>rare for women in the late 1800s, with approximately <\/span>2,432 women practicing as doctors<\/span> according to Hobart and William Smith Co<\/span>lleges<\/span>. Dr<\/span>. Alice Bird French married her husband <\/span>Dr. <\/span>Henry Mills in <\/span>April of 1880, the same month she earned her degree. <\/span>Henry had previously been married twice, both wives passed away along with the three children he had fathered with them. He <\/span>was 78 when he <\/span>married Alice<\/span>, <\/span>while <\/span>Alice <\/span>was only<\/span> 29<\/span>. The two did not have any children but rather conducted work together <\/span>at their sanit<\/span>o<\/span>rium until Henry<\/span>\u2019<\/span>s death in 1897. <\/span>S<\/span>anatoriums <\/span>in 1880 <\/span>as<\/span> isolated environments used to trea<\/span>t tuberculosis<\/span> (Harvard Library)<\/span>. The exact sanatorium the two worked at is unknown but <\/span>sanatoriums were common in New York, the residence of the couple following their marriage.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

On February 19<\/span><\/span>th<\/span><\/span>, <\/span>1900,<\/span> Alice applied for a passport<\/span> which she was granted. The passport allowed for her to travel Syria and Palestine for a year when she returned in 1901<\/span> <\/span>fig 3<\/span><\/span>. <\/span>There is however no record of this trip<\/span>, apart from the dictation of such on <\/span><\/span>Ancestory.com<\/span><\/span>.<\/span> After her return to <\/span>the <\/span>country,<\/span> she <\/span>began<\/span> to preform medical missionary work<\/span> as part of the Presbyterian church. <\/span>The Womans Board of Home Missions was the organization s<\/span>he worked for <\/span>in the <\/span>Appalachian Mountains. <\/span>She lived out the rest of her life in <\/span>West Vi<\/span>rginia, doing missionary work in Coal River, <\/span>Dry Creek, <\/span>and <\/span>Raleigh County<\/span>. S<\/span>he passed away in New Jersey.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Figure 3
The passport application of Alice B. French<\/p><\/div>\n

The information <\/span>learned<\/span>\u00a0about Dr. Alice Bird French- Mills <\/span>explains <\/span>how <\/span><\/span>An Almanack<\/span><\/span> was used in 1850. Raised in a religious household<\/span>,<\/span> Alice and her siblings, especially Hatty <\/span>due to her birth and the publication being four years apart<\/span>, would have <\/span>likely learned<\/span> to <\/span>read<\/span> the <\/span><\/span>New England Primer<\/span><\/span> within the almanac<\/span>. <\/span>English<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>was taught through a religious lens, including the <\/span>alphabet<\/span> taught in relation to biblical stories<\/span>, with images and brief references<\/span>.<\/span> Even the introduction of <\/span><\/span>An Almanack<\/span><\/span> makes the claim that the book was held in such regard that it would be placed next to the <\/span>B<\/span>ible on a bookshelf. Alice becoming highly educated as w<\/span>ell as a missionary supports the idea of the Primer <\/span>as a tool <\/span>to educate <\/span>children in <\/span>English<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>and religion.\u00a0<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Figure 4 & 5 The religious stories used to teach letters, and the introduction describing the importance of the primer<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Works Cited<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

AncestryLibrary<\/span><\/i>. Ancestry.com, ancestrylibrary.com. Accessed 2 Nov. 2024.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“Contagion: Historical Views of Diseases and Epidemics.” <\/span>Curiosity Collections<\/span><\/i>, Harvard Library, curiosity.lib.harvard.edu\/.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Justin, Meryl S. “The Entry of Women into Medicine in America: Education and Obstacles 1847-1910.” <\/span>Hobart and William Smith<\/span><\/i>, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, <\/span>www.hws.edu\/about\/history\/elizabeth-blackwell\/entry-of-women-into-medicine.aspx#:~:text=By%201880%20there%20were%202432,by%201900%20there%20were%207387.&text=The%20first%20medical%20society%20openings,of%20acceptance%20for%20female%20practitioners<\/span><\/a>. Accessed 8 Nov. 2024.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

New Hampshire State, General Court, Assembly, Census. Assembly Document. 15 June 1860. <\/span>Ancestry Library Edition<\/span><\/i>, ancestrylibrary.com. Accessed 8 Nov. 2024.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Newman, H. (1843). <\/span>An almanack containing an account of the Coelestial Motions, Aspects, &c. For the year of the Christian Empire, 1691<\/span><\/i>. Ira Webster.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“Passport Request.” 15 Feb. 1900. <\/span>Ancestry Library Edition<\/span><\/i>, ancestrylibrary.com. Accessed 8 Nov. 2024.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

U.S., School Catalogs, 1765-1935<\/span><\/i>. <\/span>Ancestry Library Edition<\/span><\/i>, ancestrylibrary.com. Accessed 8 Nov. 2024.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In my previous post\u00a0on An Almanack, I\u00a0determined that this book is not an\u00a0almanac by any means. The book does not contain meteorological predictions, but rather the children’s literacy pamphlet The New England Primer. However, in understanding this book to be a children’s text the inclusion of owner’s names helps determine the afterlife of the present […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5527,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afterlives","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/historyofthebook2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/historyofthebook2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/historyofthebook2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/historyofthebook2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5527"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/historyofthebook2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/historyofthebook2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/historyofthebook2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/historyofthebook2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/historyofthebook2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}