USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Metropolitan Boston; a modern history; Volume III > Part 16
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Early Boston Artists-John Singleton Copley (1737-1815) was the first of the native born Boston painters. Of Irish parentage, he was born July 3, 1737, and seemingly inherited the artist's temperament. Under the tuition of his father, Copley very early became adept in art. His portraits, full of color, in which extreme attention was paid to the details of costume, seem to make a person of high breeding of every sit- ter. He became, naturally, the fashionable portrait painter of his time. In 1769 he married Susan, the daughter of Richard Clarke, the rich Boston merchant. Successful, he became the owner of what he called "The Farm" which happened to be quite a large section of that part of the city on the west side of Beacon Hill, his studio facing Beacon Street near the present location of the Somerset Club. In 1774, Copley went to England from whence he never returned. His Boston work consists of probably 250 oils, besides many miniatures and crayons. "Almost every great name of the day was numbered among his sitters."
Gilbert Stuart, because of his portraits of Washington, is probably the most famous of the early Boston artists. He was born in Rhode Island in 1755, was taking orders for portraits when he was thirteen, going to England for further study when seventeen. Here he became a pupil of West, attended Reynolds' lectures, and studied anatomy. By 1785, he had a studio of his own and began to meet with extraordinary success. Returning to America in 1792, after trying his luck in most of the large cities of the day, he finally settled in Boston where he lived for twenty years until his death in 1828. He was probably Boston's most noted portrait painter, and many of his works are collected in the Mu- seum of Fine Art.
Washington Allston (1779-1843) was one of the best known painters of historical subjects, his unfinished "Belshazzar's Feast" being one of the most notable of his works in the Museum.
Museum of Fine Arts-The first attempt to form an art gallery was made in 1823 when the Boston Atheneum opened to artists its col- lection of works of art. In 1827, the first regular exhibition of art was opened to the public and was continued as an annual event until the establishment of the Museum of Fine Arts in 1870. The Athenæum art galleries were among the best of that period. The exhibition of art held for four decades in this institution is held to have done more than any other single factor to foster the art spirit in Boston. Augustus Thorndike had given the institution a large and valuable set of casts of the celebrated statues of antiquity. As early as 1826, artists were en- couraged to come and make use of these casts in their work. Many of these casts are now in the Art Museum on Huntington Avenue, but little the worse for their century of service.
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In 1842, the Boston Artists' Association was organized with Wash- ington Allston as its first president. In 1852 came the New England Art Union, formed under the leadership of Edward Everett, Franklin Dexter and others. The Boston Art Club, with a membership of only twenty, mostly artists, was founded in 1854. All of these organizations gave exhibitions with the intention of encouraging artists and promoting art. The first free school of drawing was that of the Lowell Institute, opened in 1850, and was the first art school that we know of to adopt the method of drawing exclusively from real objects. William Hollings- worth was for more than twenty-five years the head and inspiration of this school. In 1879 it was changed to the School of Drawing and Paint- ing in connection with the Museum of Fine Arts.
Boston Artists-Edwin M. Bacon, writing in 1914 his "Fifty Years' Recollections of Boston" gives an illuminating group of names of the artists he recalled who made up the "Artists Colony" for the half cen- tury. Condensed slightly, it runs as follows :
"Of the notable artists coming forward in the 'sixties and later in the 'seventies and 'eighties, I recall with pleasant memories: William Mor- ris Hunt, who came to Boston in 1863; Walter M. Brackett, dean of the Boston artists, painter of fine game fish, still painting when ninety-five, an original member of the Boston Art Club; John J. Enneking, the famous landscape painter, who established himself in Boston in 1864 or 1865, and whose completion of fifty years of 'talented and conscientious work as a Boston painter' was celebrated in 1915 by a complimentary dinner given him by the artists of the city. Among other landscape painters were: Thomas Allen, F. Childe Hassam, John B. Johnson, D. Jerome Elwell, J. Appleton Brown, H. Winthrop Peirce, A. H. Bickwell, J. Foxcroft Cole, George Fuller. Landscape painters who also excelled as painters of animals: F. W. Rogers, Alexander Pope, Scott Leighton, Thomas Robinson, Albert Thompson. Marine paint- ers : W. F. Halsell, George S. Wasson, W. E. Norton. Painters of fig- ures and genre : I. M. Gaugengigl, Clement R. Grant, George R. Basse, Jr. Portrait painters : Frederick P. Vinton, J. Harvey Young, George Munzing, Edgar Parker, Otto Gruntmann, Mrs. Sarah W. Whitman, Rob- ert W. Vennoh. Sculptors: Thomas Ball, in the 'sixties modelling his great equestrian statue of Washington, in the Public Garden; Martin Milmore, in the latter 'sixties at work on his Army and Navy Monument on Boston Common, completed and dedicated in 1877; Truman H. Bart- lett, later Bartlett's son, Paul ; Daniel C. French; Miss Anne Whitney, the sculptor of the Samuel Adams statue in Adams Square, set up in the 'eighties, of Harriet Martineau, and of "Leif, the Norseman," the latter at the junction of Commonwealth and Massachusetts avenues. Water
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colorists : Ross Turner, T. F. Wainwright, C. W. Sanderson, T. O. Lang- erfelt, Charles Copeland, Philip Little, Miss Elizabeth Boot, Miss Ellen Robbins, S. P. R. Triscott. The sculptors : Bela L. Pratt, Frederick Mac- Monnies, Cyrus E. Dallin, and the Kitsons-Henry H. and his wife Alice Ruggles Kitson-Charles H. Woodbury, the distinguished marine painter, Miss Grace Geer, miniatures, portraits, and landscapes, are of the 'nineties and the opening twentieth century."
The Art School-The Boston Museum of Fine Arts, even without the Art School in connection with it, is after all the greatest educational institution of art in the city. Its founding in 1870 was the longest step taken by Boston in the popularization of art. The first building in which it was quartered was on Copley Square, the first section of which was finished in July, 1876, and opened to the public. Always since then the endeavor has been to teach the people to realize that it is a public insti- tution and to encourage the public to become acquainted with what it has for them. The museum was dependent ever on the liberality of indi- viduals, although the city donated the land upon which the first museum was erected. It is managed by a board of thirty trustees, upon which are represented the Boston Atheneum, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Harvard University. Also members ex officiis are the mayor of the city, the superintendent of public schools, a trustee of the Lowell Institute, the president and the trustees of the public library, and the secretary of the State Board of Education.
The museum was moved bodily into newer, larger and better build- ings in 1909 on Huntington Avenue, Back Bay. Guy Lowell was the architect of the second museum, its general scheme embodying the re- sults of three years' study of the museums of Europe and modern muse- ology by an advisory board composed of a number of architects and art- ists in connection with the director of the museum staff. It is a simple structure of classical style, with a very dignified front on Huntington and an even more beautiful face looking out over the Fens. This exten- sion at the rear, the gift of Mrs. Evans, was added in 1913. The museum is said to be one of the richest in this country, and some of the collections housed there are thought to be unsurpassed in the world.
LIBRARIES.
Books, either privately owned or collected, were and are an important adjunct of education. In the early schools, one textbook, a speller, was practically all that a pupil had or needed. Perhaps the Bible and Psalter should be included as textbooks, since it was the "reader" usually used. But books were too few and too precious to be placed in the hands of children, or passed around in a careless way. Public free libraries,
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or even circulating libraries, were unknown. At the death of its first benefactor, Harvard had the foundations of its library laid by the bequest of 320 volumes. The Mather family evidently collected many books, some of which may have passed into the Harvard library, disappearing, as did many other priceless volumes, in the destruction of the Harvard collection by fire in 1764. There are vague references to a library in the Boston Town House as early as 1674. Various organizations had col- lections of books, to which access could be had by a fortunate few, but of anything approaching the idea of books which the public might use freely and free, there was nothing. Only a year or two more than two centuries ago, a donor to the Harvard Library was insisting on the chaining of books to their places lest some be tempted to take them to their homes.
First Libraries-Two hundred years ago, 1725, Allan Ramsey, in Edinburgh, founded the first circulating library ; a few years later, 1731, the Bostonian Franklin established the earliest subscription library in this country. Not until thirty years later did Boston have anything like the Franklin institution, when, in 1764, the Scotsman, John Mein opened a circulating library of twelve hundred volumes. Mein's scheme was copied during the next half century by many another man or firm, but all of these libraries were money-making affairs and placed their books only in the hands of those who could pay. Exception should be made of the various collections of books which might be called technical libraries, or special collections to be used as auxiliaries to education. To Boston must go the credit for starting the first of this class of libraries "intended mainly to help the self-education of the younger members of commercial classes." The Boston Mercantile Library, begun in 1820, antedated like foundations in New York and Philadelphia. This library was absorbed by the present Public Library in 1877, forming the nucleus of the South End Branch.
The first third of the eighteenth century saw the formation of many libraries, but of free libraries there were none. As early as 1825 schemes of cooperation were proposed by which all the libraries in Boston should be united under one roof, but nothing came of the agitation, except that there was a taking account of stock which made clear just what Boston had for its readers. Taking all the libraries, large and small, the newly chartered city had ten circulating, thirty-six social and fifteen school libraries. In these various organizations there were 114,683 volumes, many of which were duplicates no doubt. But, including the Harvard collections, Boston was well in advance of all other American cities in its library facilities.
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Public Libraries-By an odd twist of fate, Boston owes its present free public library to a Frenchman and a London banker. Alexander Vattemare, a strange individual to figure in such a movement, came to New York in 1839 to preach his scheme of building up libraries through the international exchange of books. He had been successful abroad, and upon his second visit to this country in 1840 had managed, through the aid of Abbott Lawrence, to introduce his idea to Congress. John Quincy Adams sent him on to Boston, April, 1841, where he managed to get a hearing by the citizens and officials of the city. Two meetings were held, the first public expression of an interest in a public library by Boston. Shortly after, Vattemare sent the city fifty volumes as the gift of the city of Paris.
A committee was appointed at the second meeting to consider the establishment of a public library, but there were many delays before the General Court, 1851, passed an enabling act, authorizing the city to form a library for the use of its inhabitants. "This was the first statute ever passed authorizing the establishment and maintenance of a public library as a municipal institution supported by taxation." The Boston institu- tion was not, however, the first public library to be established in Mas- sachusetts, for the town of Orange had one in 1846; Wayland, through the beneficence of President Wayland, of Brown College, formed one in 1850, and it is likely that there were others antedating the Boston organ- ization. But as one writer has remarked: "The public library of the City of Boston was the first large city library to be established as a municipal institution upon the plan identical with that of public libraries today. It rests upon special legislation which antedated the general laws, and its founders exhibited a breadth of views which justly entitles them to be called the fathers of the library movement." It is worthy of note that in October, 1926, the only town among the 355 towns and cities in the Commonwealth not having a public free library dedicated such an institution, making Massachusetts the only State in the Union having a free library in every one of its civil divisions.
Vattemare and the Boston Library-It is one of the anomalies of history that Nicholas Alexandre Marie Vattemare, a "charlatan, a con- jurer and an impersonator with talent as a ventriloquist" should have been so prominent in the establishment of a free public library system. He evidently was no ordinary person. Whatever may have been his profession, he stood high in it. His powers of imitation made him wel- come all over Europe, and it is said of him that he was "feted by three emperors and quite a rabble of kings." Under the stage name of Alex- andre, he is said to have given impersonations of forty characters in an evening, and that in the pursuit of his hobby for establishing libraries,
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he was not above returning to the man he wished to influence as another person if he failed at first to accomplish what he desired at the earlier interview. His own explanation of his interest was that, traveling as he had over much of the world, the greatest lack he had found was libraries to which he could go when in search of information and find it.
After Vattemare's gift of fifty books from Paris, others came, not- ably a collection of state papers and other works from Edward Everett. A fund of $1,000 was presented as a testimonial to Mayor Bigelow, to which the city council added a like amount. By January I, 1852, it was reported that "the library now numbers scarcely less than 4,000 vol- umes." In that same year, steps were taken to make the library avail- able to the public. A librarian was appointed, and a board of trustees appointed under the act passed four years before. Edward Everett was the first president of the board, which was composed of men of practical common sense and far-sighted views. It was to this board, its president and George Ticknor, his successor, that the successful organization of the library was due.
The first report of the board of trustees, by a happy chance being included with some city documents sent abroad in connection with negotiations for a water loan sought by Boston from the great banking firm, the Barings, came to the attention of Joshua Bates, an American member of the concern. Mr. Bates was a native of Weymouth, Massa- chusetts, who at the age of fifteen had entered the counting house of William R. Gray of Boston. After a rather uneventful career on this side of the water, he had gone abroad, eventually being admitted to the house of the Baring Brothers, London, of which, before his death, he was its senior member.
Joshua Bates' Benefactions-On October 1, 1852, he wrote to the mayor of Boston, saying in effect that in so liberal and wealthy a com- munity as Boston, the recommendations of the library report would, of course, be carried out ; but in order to hasten the desired day, he made the immediate gift of $50,000 for the purchase of books. The condi- tions attached to this gift were that the library building should be an ornament to the city and should contain a room large enough to accom- modate from 100 to 150 persons at reading tables. A letter written at this time reveals the impulse behind the gift. "My own experience as a poor boy," he said, "convinced me of the great advantage of such a library. Having no money to spend and no place to go to, not being able to pay for a light or fire in my own room, I could not pay for books, and the best way I could spend my evenings was to sit in Hastings, Ether- bridge & Bliss's bookstore and read what they kindly permitted me to." Bates Hall, the main reading room of the central library, is a fitting
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memorial to the man who was the first large donor to the Boston Library. Joshua Bates gave a second $50,000 to the library in the form of books.
So much for the foreign founders of the Boston Library. There was no niggardliness about the support given the organization by those of the city. Jonathan Phillips, in 1859, had drawn a will bequeathing $20,- 000 "to the maintenance of a free public library," but in 1853 gave $10,000 as an immediate gift, the $20,000 coming later. Abbott Lawrence, the merchant prince and captain of industry, willed $10,000. Charlotte Har- ris also gave $10,000. A list of donors to the library during the early years include the names of many of the notables of the city, such as : Josiah Quincy, Edward Everett, George Ticknor, Mary P. Townsend, Henry L. Pierce, Samuel A. Green, Arthur Scholfield, and many others.
Without making any invidious comparisons, it is only fair to note that the gifts of books, particularly collections of volumes, have been of even greater importance than money, for many of the libraries given to the institution have been such as money could not purchase, being the results of years of search and selection by those whose greatest intel- lectual interests were centered on one thing, and whose zeal could not be bought. Where could the library have secured such a collection as George Ticknor's Spanish and Portuguese Library, which he had gath- ered for the purpose of writing the history of Spanish literature, in all about 4,000 volumes ? These were received under his will ; he had, during his life, given almost as many books as were in this collection. The library acquired by the most famous of all nautical mathematicians, Nathaniel Bowditch, numbering 2,542, was given by his children. Theo- dore Parker bequeathed 16,900 rare and valuable volumes. The library of Reverend Thomas Prince, who began its collection when he entered Harvard College in 1703, was bequeathed by him to the deacons of the Old South Church as a collection to which persons approved by the deacons might have access, "but that no person shall borrow any book or paper therefrom." The library consists of 1,970 rare and curious vol- umes, which are deposited with the Boston Public Library. The famous Barton Shakespearean collection of literature was purchased in New York in 1873.
The First Library Building-We are getting a bit beyond our story, however. So hearty had been the response of Boston to the cry for a public library, on March 20, 1854, a reading room was opened in Mason Street, and on May 2, a library connected with it began the loaning of books. The inadequacy of the provisions made for readers and books, led to the planning of a larger structure than the Mason Street school- house. The first library building was dedicated January 1, 1858, on Boylston Street, its cost amounting to $363,000. Charles Coffin Jewett
PUBLIC LIBRARY
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was appointed librarian, or superintendent as the office was then called, and it was under his skilled supervision that the lusty but youthful library grew in usefulness and size during the next ten years. "Mr. Jew- ett added to a careful bibliographical training, an inventive mind and great industry ; and under his care the library developed a system suited to a large circulation, with all the attendant and necessary complexity of checks which could render the circulation safe while being free. It was not long before the library became the center of experience, the most valuable for all charged with similar duties, far and near."
Upon the sudden death of Mr. Jewett, January 9, 1868, Justin Winsor received the appointment. Mr. Winsor served for nearly a decade be- fore becoming the librarian of Harvard University. During his term of office, a number of branch libraries were formed, the first in East Boston in 1871, and the number of volumes in the central organization increased from 144,000 to 320,000 ; its circulation from 209,000 to nearly 1,200,000; the daily average issue from 754 to 4,000.
In August, 1878, Mellen Chamberlain, a former judge of the munic- ipal court was elected librarian, the name having been changed from superintendent during that same year.
The Boylston Street building, with the additions made to it, had been considered large enough to supply the needs of the city for at least a century, but proved inadequate within a quarter of that time. In 1880, a new building was recommended by the mayor, Frederick O. Prince, although he advocated retrenchment in the spending of the city funds. But the year 1880 not only marked the beginning of a period of pros- perity, but also of the 250th anniversary of the settlement of Boston. Many of the things considered luxuries by other municipalities were thought of as necessities by Boston, and this period was marked by the completion and the beginning of many of the city's projects, such as a sewer system, park construction on Back Bay, the enlargement of the water-works, and the erection of new buildings for the English High and Latin schools. Looking ahead, plans were laid for public parks in dif- ferent parts of the city, a new courthouse, and another public library home.
The Present Boston Public Library-A site was secured for the latter on Copley Square at a cost of $200,000. A sudden depression in business delayed the beginning of any construction until 1886. The building planned was expected to cost about $800,000, but only half of this could be secured. Not until 1894 could affairs be arranged and a library fin- ished. The edifice cost more than three times the original estimate ($2,450,000). The completed structure, which from its inception to com- pletion was under the supervision of a board of five trustees, of whom
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the president, Samuel A. B. Abbott was the directing spirit, proved worthy of its cost and the effort made for its perfect completion. No better motto could have been chosen to blazon across its noble façade than the one that decorates it, "Built by the people and dedicated to the advancement of learning." Over the entrance are the words, "Free to all."
The granite edifice approached by a broad low flight of steps is too well known, visited as it is by folk from all over the world, to need any description in detail. Given the time, every visitor to Boston goes to see its many artistic features. In the vestibule is the splendid bronze figure of Sir Harry Vane by MacMonnies. Beyond are the six bronze doors by D. C. French. On the floor of the entrance are the seal of the library and the signs of the zodiac ; and on the ceiling are the names of eminent Bostonians. Half way up the wide stairway are two great marble lions by Louis St. Gaudens. The mural decorations along the stairs and upper corridor are by Puvis de Chavannes. The delivery room on the left is finished in rich oak, framing Abbey's paintings of Sir Galahad and the legend of the Holy Grail. In other sections are the notable paintings and decorations of John Sargent, and John Eliot's "The Tri- umph of Time." Bates Hall is the dominating room of the library, 218 feet long by 421/4 feet wide, with a beautiful vaulted ceiling, semi-domed at the ends. It is in this room that the reference work of the institution centers. There are seats for 330 readers and about 10,000 reference vol- umes. The children's room contains several thousand books on open shelves for the use of the little folk. On the third floor are many of the special libraries containing many rare and valuable books, pamphlets, photographs and the like. The special libraries comprise the fine arts department, the Allen A. Brown library of music, the Barton-Ticknor collections, the Barlow, Prince, Lewis, Bowditch and other collections. In the teachers' reference room is the precious private library of Presi- dent John Adams. On the ground floor are the newspaper and periodical departments; the former, with the aid of the Todd Fund, supplies to its readers regularly 267 newspapers. The library possesses a large col- lection of bound newspapers for reference. The periodical department receives about 1,600 current magazines, while in rooms nearby are more than 25,000 volumes of bound periodicals. These are but the more im- portant parts of the library divisions, the major evidences of the system that is circulating nearly a million volumes. In one year the people of Boston borrow in excess of 600,000 books from the Central Library. The remainder of the three millions of volumes circulating annually is carried on through the thirty-one branch organizations scattered through- out the city.
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