Regina Shober Gray by [Edward L.] Allen, ca. 1860. Courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society, Item PP231.236Regina Shober Gray[1] was an energetic and well-educated woman of her time. Her diary abounds with visits to the theater and to commercial art galleries (the precursors of museums), so I thought it might be interesting and valuable to dip into her reading material, often left to the end of the day and for the benefit of her young children.
61 Bowdoin Street, Boston, Massachusetts
Tuesday, 14 February 1860: Have finished “Hodson’s Twelve years in India”[2] – a most interesting book but, oh, so painful. Must the world and life always be so crowded with “oppression and deceit, of unsuccessful and successful war”! But he was truly a noble fellow – one of “Arnold of Rugby’s”[3] men – said to be the “Scud East” of School Days at Rugby.[4] Oh, that terrible, terrible Indian mutiny – how it mowed down the best and bravest, fair women and innocent babes. Continue reading ‘What a wonderful experience’→
For the last few months I have been working with Judi Garner of the Jewish Heritage Center, here at NEHGS, on an exhibit of twentieth-century Jewish photographers and their subjects, and we are finally finished. The photos are framed and hung; the labels have been written, proofed, and attached to boards; a short show catalogue has been created; and my lecture has, largely, been written…
Tonight I will speak here in Boston on the show and its subject: Mitzi Hajos (pron. Hoy-uss), a Broadway chorine who became a one-name star along the lines of Cher or Madonna. Through photos of Mitzi, and the images taken by contemporary photographers of Broadway and Hollywood stars, we can trace the changing aesthetics of theatrical portraiture and the growing influence of the flickers – the photoplay – the movies that were, increasingly, produced in California. Continue reading Let’s put on a show!→
[Author’s note: This post concludes the series of excerpts from the Regina Shober Gray diary which beganhere.]
Regina Shober Gray by [Edward L.] Allen, ca. 1860. Courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society, Item PP231.236Mrs. Gray’s[1] summer was winding down, and while autumn impended she could still write with exaltation of her summer visit to New Hampshire:
Plaisted House, Jefferson, N.H., Monday, 30 August 1880: Early this morning a heavy cloud – we should call it a fog-bank on the sea-shore – blotted out the world; but gradually out of it arose the great peaks – and it has lifted now – in a blaze of sun shine & beauty.
Last evening we had the most glorious sunset, with lurid red & pink clouds over head, on which was flung a blazing rainbow, all its colours transmuted into “something rich and rare” by the red Sunset glow. Low in the western sky, a sea of green – that inimitable tint, which comes only in sunset skies; then, bars & banks of gold and purple and crimson; then, deep indigo blue fading up into the paler sky where floated the ragged mass of fleecy cloud across whose red glory this rainbow, like a flaming sword, was flung! A glorious sight! Continue reading ‘Veiling mists and disguising clouds’→
“Boy, did they ever embarrass me right after that [picture] was taken. That’s Don and Rosser doing the honors.” (7 September 1944)My photography collection recently took a decided step into new territory when I started acquiring vernacular photographs – images characterized, generally, by their lack of provenance and offering limited opportunities for identifying the subject. When I bought one large lot, though, I was surprised and pleased to find quite a lot of information on the reverse of the prints, enough that I am hopeful more can be learned about the people shown.
For starters, the (presumably female) scribe who wrote neatly on most of the prints dated them precisely: most are from 3 September 1944, with one or two from four days later. The focus of her interest is clear: Wayne Ehler, whose gymnastic endeavors she much admires. Two photos are marked in another hand, and perhaps this one is male, since he subtly denigrates Wayne and boasts of his own comparable accomplishments (not shown). Continue reading Friendly rivalries→
Over the centuries, families have kept their own records of their history – by writing it in family Bibles; by sewing it into samplers and other needlework; by having it engraved onto objects; and sometimes by writing it into preprinted family registers. NEHGS has launched a new database of family registers that have one thing in common: all were originally engraved by English-born Richard Brunton, who lived in New England in the years during and after the Revolution. Continue reading Richard Brunton’s family registers→
I have sometimes mentioned how much stuff I inherited from my mother and her family. Mother left it all to me with the cheerful instructions that I was to figure out what to do with it.
For years, decades, I have intended to catalog and arrange, describe, and account for everything, but enthusiasm for sitting down and making lists and logs was always lacking. Recently I have been watching YouTube videos about drawing and painting, and it struck me that visual learning is definitely more fun. Continue reading Aunt Alicia’s videos→
[Author’s note: This series of excerpts from the Regina Shober Gray diary beganhere.]
Regina Shober Gray by [Edward L.] Allen, ca. 1860. Courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society, Item PP231.236By the third week in August 1880, Mrs. Gray[1] was comfortably settled in New Hampshire, where she had evidently not lost her discerning eye for nature or the capacity to translate her views into prose.
Plaisted House, Jefferson, Sunday, 22 August 1880: We came here yesterday, having had a comfortable ride up – part of it, along the shores of Winnisquam & Winnipesaukee, and very beautiful. We found more change of the leaf than we expected so early in the season; but in low lying, moist grounds, the young maples, swamp alders, sumach &c blazed out into flaming crimson, scarlet and orange colours, like tongues of living fire against the dense, solid greens of the summer foliage; and the banks and wild pastures were carpeted with bloom – the golden-rod & yellow tansy, the white yarrow that “heals the wounded heart,” and every variety of pink spireas and purple asters & immortelles, and rich red cardinal flowers that made a glory whenever they nodded to the breeze, and great beds of night-shade, with their gay, rank, poisonous-looking blossoms of orange and purple. Continue reading ‘Blazing out into flaming crimson’→
[Author’s note: This series of excerpts from the Regina Shober Gray diary beganhere.]
Regina Shober Gray by [Edward L.] Allen, ca. 1860. Courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society, Item PP231.236In 1880, Regina Shober Gray[1] became a grandmother (in January) and a widow (in February). The Gray family was probably already considering the sale of their Beacon Hill house – they would later move to Mount Vernon Place – as time wrought its changes on the family’s composition.
1 Beacon Hill Place, Boston, Friday, 20 August 1880: Morris [Gray][2] left us last Wednesday in the 6 p.m. train (Aug 18th) to go round the world! He was to stop a few hours at Niagara; a few, at Chicago; and then take the train across the Continent, getting out at Lathrop [California], to visit the Yo Semite[3] &c, which requires three days, and he expected to reach San-Francisco in time to sail in the Oceanic, Sept. 1st, for Yokohama, Japan; thence by China, visiting Pekin, and getting a sight of the great wall and the seaports; thence to Singapore, Batavia, Calcutta, across Hindoostan to Bombay, visiting en route Benares, Agra, Delhi, Lucknow &c; thence by the Red Sea to Suez & the Nile. Continue reading ‘As if my home were shattered indeed’→
[Author’s note: This series of excerpts from the Regina Shober Gray diary beganhere.]
Regina Shober Gray by [Edward L.] Allen, ca. 1860. Courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society, Item PP231.236With the end of the summer in sight, I thought I would finish up this review of the Gray diary between 1860 and 1880 with several August entries from the latter year. Dr. Gray[1] had died in February 1880, and his widow was visiting her Gray in-laws before retreating to New Hampshire for a stay at a hotel.
East Milton, Massachusetts, Sunday, 8 August 1880: I left Beverly on Monday last, and came out here the same afternoon – Sallie [Gray][2] having sent me word the barouche would call for me after leaving Isa Loring[3] at the Eastern Depot, on her way to Beverly Farms. I was very glad to drive out comfortably, instead of hurrying to the [train] cars. The place is very lovely in its quiet secluded way; the house is surrounded by fine woods, oaks, elms, beeches, maples, and evergreens, the aromatic piny odors of wh. last are very delightful. Continue reading ‘Is that kind of imitation high art?’→
[Author’s note: This series of excerpts from the Regina Shober Gray diary beganhere.]
Regina Shober Gray by [Edward L.] Allen, ca. 1860. Courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society, Item PP231.236In August 1879, the Grays[1] were back in Massachusetts after their lengthy European sojourn, and Mrs. Gray’s diary listed a fatiguing (if doubtless engaging) social round. The Grays’ adult children were in and out of the house: daughter Mary and sons Frank, Sam, Rege, and Morris, along with Sam’s wife Carrie, who was expecting their first child.[2] On the dates of these diary entries, Dr. Gray was in reasonably good spirits, but he remained in chronic pain:
Beverly Farms, Sunday, 3 August 1879: It seems to me I never suffered more with heat than yesterday & today; blazing, breathless, sultry August weather, without the delicious sea change, which has heretofore given us such refreshment daily at 11 a.m. – the thermom at 93 & 4 for hours – and even at 5 p. m. up to 87! There is some promise of thunder gusts by & by, which may cool us off a little. Continue reading A modern Wolsey→
