Genevieve Estelle Jones and the Baltimore Oriole

We're in Massachusetts, so why is Maryland's state bird, the Baltimore Oriole (plate 12), on display in our Audubon case? The answer is that we are using it to promote the work of Genevieve Estelle Jones, who is sometimes referred to as the "other Audubon," for Women's History Month. Not to mention that the blooms of the tulip tree, where the orioles are perched, is a welcome reminder that spring is on its way.

Genevieve Estelle Jones was born in 1847 in Circleville, Ohio.  Her interest in ornithology started as a young child, when she was drawn to identifying the nests and eggs associated with different birds, and it was seeing the nest of the Baltimore oriole that first caught her attention. As a adult, Jones saw a display of Audubon prints when she visited Philadelphia's Centennial Exhibition in 1876, and noted that the prints did not usually include a depiction of nests or eggs. [Interestingly, the Baltimore Oriole is an exception to this, as the unusual hanging pouch-like nest is featured prominently in this print.] After identifying this omission, Jones was inspired to produce drawings of nests and eggs, which was ultimately published as Illustrations of the Nests and Eggs of Birds of Ohio, and can be seen as a companion piece to Audubon's Birds of America. Sadly, Jones only completed five of the drawings before she succumbed to Typhoid fever and died in 1879. Her parents and her brother continued the project after her death, and the two-volume set was completed in 1886. Like Birds of America, it was published by subscription

Genevieve Estelle Jones is not as well-known an artist or ornithologist as John James Audubon, but we're glad for the opportunity to use the print of Baltimore Oriole to tell a little bit of her story. We don't have a copy of Illustrations of the Nests and Eggs of Birds of Ohio in our collection, but you can view it in its entirety through the Internet Archive.

Be sure to visit us from March 11 through April 8 to see the Baltimore Oriole on display. And revisit our Audubon from last March's Women's History Month display, when we shared the blue bird and explained its significance to the Massachusetts Women Suffrage Association.

Elizabeth Roscio

Preservation Librarian

On Display: The Influence of Woman

Happy Women’s History Month! In March, we try to find an item to share in our Collection Spotlight case to highlight Women’s History, and this year we are excited to display a two-page print entitled The Influence of Woman, as printed in Harper’s Weekly in 1862. Harper’s Weekly was a weekly periodical with a masthead that proclaimed it as a “journal of civilization” covering national and international news and politics, art and sciences, literature, wit, and fashion. It was published in New York from 1857 through 1916, and our Special Collections holdings include a full run of the print publication. Harper’s Weekly was especially popular during the Civil War, when this print was published, and often featured prints of battlefield engravings by Winslow Homer and photographs by Mathew Brady.

The original engraving of The Influence of Woman is attributed to Winslow Homer, and it depicts the many pivotal ways that women contributed to the wartime effort during the Civil War. The image was printed on the entirety of two pages in the September 6, 1862 edition of Harper’s, and a column of text on the next page provided further explanation of the image. Under the heading “Our Women and the War” was the following text:

Our artist has entitled the large picture which we publish on pages 568 and 569 “The Influence of Woman.” It illustrates, in effect, what women may do toward relieving the sorrows and pains of the soldier. In one corner will be seen that exquisite type of angelic womanhood, the Sister of Charity, watching at the bedside of a dying soldier, ever ready to relieve his wants and minister to his desires. On the other side a lady-nurse is writing, at the dictation of a poor wounded fellow, a letter to the friends far away, which shall relieve their terrible anxiety. Above, a group of young ladies are busily engaged, with needle and sewing-machine, in making clothing for the troops, and especially those comfortable garments which even our prodigal Government does not deem it necessary to supply. One can almost see the fairy fingers fly along the work. Last of all, honest Biddy, who has probably got a lover or a husband or a brother at the war, is doing her part in helping the soldiers by washing for them. The moral of the picture is sufficiently obvious; there is no woman who can not in some way do something to help the army.

In the Crimean War glory and fame awaited the charitable efforts of Florence Nightingale and her noble band of lady-nurses. This war of ours has developed scores of Florence Nightingales, whose names no one knows, but whose reward, in the soldier’s gratitude and Heaven’s approval, is the highest guerdon woman can ever win.

"Miss Clara Barton -
Photographed by [Mathew] Brady,
Washington, D.C."

The actions shown in the print are not a comprehensive representation of the ways that women supported soldiers during the Civil War, but it does highlight several actions that women took to contribute. The text also refers to Florence Nightingale and her work training nurses during the Crimean War, but had this print been published a little later in the Civil War, it might have instead mentioned the work of Clara Barton. Throughout the Civil War, Barton solicited and delivered supplies to battlefields and tended to wounded soldiers; she was often referred to as the “angel of the battlefield.” Though she began providing aid to soldiers as early as 1861, her work expanded as the war progressed, and in 1864, she was named the head nurse for General Benjamin Butler’s units (sidenote: Benjamin Butler later served as Massachusetts Governor, 1883-1884). Massachusetts can claim a connection to Barton, as she was born in North Oxford, Massachusetts in 1821, and one of the ways that she received much needed supplies for nursing was by placing advertisements in Massachusetts newspapers. You can read more about Clara Barton, including her founding of the American Red Cross and her role in women's suffrage, on the National Women’s History Museum website. Shown here is her portrait, published in the July 21, 1866 issue of  Harper’s Weekly.

The Influence of Woman is on display in our reading room from March 4 through April 1, so stop by to take a look. If you’d like to read about a few of our previous Women’s History displays, check out the links below:

“The Nonsense of It: Short Answers to Common Objections Against Woman Suffrage” (1870) and the 1917 edition of The Woman Suffrage Year Book

Why Women Should Vote, published by the National American Woman Suffrage Association 

Elizabeth Roscio

Preservation Librarian

On Display for Women's History Month

March is Women’s History Month, and in honor of that designation, our Collection Spotlight case features two items related to women’s suffrage. Visit us throughout the month to see “The Nonsense of It: Short Answers to Common Objections Against Woman Suffrage” and the 1917 edition of The Woman Suffrage Year Book on display in our reading room.

"The Nonsense Of It" was a circular published circa 1870 and written by Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823-1911). Among his many roles, Higginson was an abolitionist, author, Unitarian minister, and for two years, a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives representing the 1st Middlesex District. Beginning in the 1850s, he was also one of the leading male advocates for women’s suffrage. The displayed publication shows us a glimpse into his views. The circular is presented in a list format with 16 reasons why women should not vote, followed by Higginson’s rebuttal of those reasons. A few are transcribed below:

3. “The polls are not decent places for woman.” No place is decent from which women are excluded. Shall we exclude women from the railroad cars, because the smoking-car is apt to be a dirty place? When a man takes his wife daughters into the cars, their presence brings decency. It will be the same at the polls.

6. “Women would only vote as their husbands or fathers do.” Many women have no husbands and no living fathers. If they have, and vote as these men do, there will be no quarrel. If they vote differently – as they are very likely to do on questions of temperance, religion, and the right to control their own property or their own children, – then this objection falls to the ground.

10. “I should not wish to hear my wife speak in Town-meeting.” Nor would she like to hear you, unless you said something better worth saying than most of the talk against Woman Suffrage. But you are often willing to pay other men’s wives to sing in public, and if a woman may properly uplift to sing nonsense, why not to speak sense?

12. “Women are too busy to vote.” Why not say, “Men are too busy to vote?” Men are apt to claim that their own day’s work is harder than that of their wives.

This circular presents rather progressive views for the 1870s! And it is also important to note that women didn’t receive the right to vote until the passage of the 19th amendment in 1920, so this circular was produced fifty years prior to women achieving the right to vote. 

The other displayed item was published in 1917, only three years prior to 19th Amendment. Displayed together, these two items emphasize just how long it took for suffrage to pass. The Woman Suffrage Year Book was published by the National Woman Suffrage Publishing Company and was compiled to provide an accurate and up-to-date recording suffrage statistics. The yearbook is displayed open to the Massachusetts page in the section titled “The Progress of Woman Suffrage Measures in State Legislatures.” It tracks all of the suffrage measures from the first petition presented to the legislature in 1849 to the Suffrage Amendment being passed in the House and Senate in 1915 (before it was submitted to referendum and defeated).

These two items will be on display in our reading room through March 28. And while you’re here, be sure to check out the two other cases in the library that are displaying materials highlighting women’s history, including some resources related to the Irish “Mill Girls” of Lowell. And for even more women’s history content, check out this previous blog post on a 1900s pamphlet titled, “Why Women Should Vote.”

Elizabeth Roscio

Preservation Librarian