Gilman, Arthur.

[Immense Scrapbook Compiled by the Founder of Radcliffe].

[Massachusetts]: 1853-1869. 11¼” x 8¾”. Quarter leather, marbled paper over boards. Pp. 150 with approximately 575 clippings (including 72 clipped art, prints or plates), 4 publications and 30 items of ephemera (most pasted down; 1 item and 16 clippings laid in). Good: boards detached; pages wavy and edge worn. Contents better, though with evidence of water damage and adhesive seep-through, sometimes affecting readability; a few loose; minor creasing and spotting.

This is a monumental scrapbook covering a range of topics not limited to religious, moral and secular education, farming in New England and lesser-known wars worldwide. It was compiled by Arthur Gilman, credited as the organizing founder of Radcliffe College.

Arthur Gilman was born into a wealthy family in Alton, Illinois in 1837. In 1857 he joined his father's New York banking firm but soon retired due to his poor health. He moved to Massachusetts, where he became connected with the Cambridge Riverside Press, and by 1871 was an editor with the American Tract Society in Boston. In 1876 Gilman and his wife founded Private Collegiate Instruction for Women, familiarly known as the Harvard Annex, which reorganized first as Society for the Collegiate Instruction for Women and then as Radcliffe College (where Gilman served as regent until 1895). He also founded and directed Cambridge School for Girls (now the Cambridge School of Weston) and wrote a number of educational and historical works.

This book is brimming with clippings: moral and religious tales and poems, psalms and hymns, musings on “Anger,” “The Way to Get On in the World” and why and how to “Be Kind To Your Wife.” One-line adages to multi-page articles concern “School Boy Literature,” “Modern Conveniences and First-Class Houses,” conventions of New England agriculturalists, “New Publications,” “Female Education” and the Emancipation Proclamation. Several pieces from the Illinois State Chronicle show authorship by “Dick,” noted here as Gilman's alias, covering news and politics in New York, the First Italian War of Independence, Second Opium War in China, Crimean War and “Troubles with the Indians in Florida.” Dozens of beautiful prints and plates show portraits of U.S. presidents, the Collegiate Institute for Young Ladies at Union Square, a small map of Africa, large folded plate of “The New Home of the Capitol at Washington” and several buildings in New York, such as the “Bible House,” Institute for the Blind and Odd Fellows Hall. There is a great set of opposing sketches from noted British weekly Punch: one asks, “Who Will Serve The Country?” as women march with signs for “Women's Work”: “We'll Serve The Shop.” Other clippings show London business news, missionary reports, ads for water wheels, portable steam engines and “Coal, Coal, Coal.”

Additional ephemera include Gilman's ticket to the World's Industrial Exhibition of 1853, as well as an annual catalog and several small ads for Samuel U. Berriman's “Boarding-School for Young Gentlemen” in Rye, New York. We see Gilman's involvement with the Lee (Massachusetts) Farmers' Club and the American Institute of Instruction. Some of his many printing ventures are also revealed, through announcements as well as full issues, none of which were found in OCLC.

An exhaustive exposition of New England and international news compiled by the founder of Radcliffe. Good. Item #7472

Price: $750.00