"Our Distinguished Guests": Exhibit Overview

Bob Joly created this comprehensive overview of the first thirty years of guests for Athenaeum Hall and St Johnsbury as a whole -- the scope of the town's hunger for interaction with the wider world is amazing.

Our Distinguished Guests: Exploring the First 30 Years of Athenaeum Hall

This summer the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum will host, for the 17^th year, our series called Readings in the Gallery. These readings by noted poets and writers will take place this year, due to work in the art gallery, in the second floor space known officially as Athenaeum Hall.  This series, as well as the First Wednesday lectures, the Osher Life Long Learning Series, and the many other readings and performances held throughout the years,  are a continuation of the long tradition of free public events held here since Athenaeum Hall opened in 1871.  

This exhibit highlights some of the distinguished speakers and visitors who graced this building, in the earliest years of its operation.  It does, as well, situate the Athenaeum within the history of public lectures held throughout St. Johnsbury since the early 19^th Century, and within the tradition of public education in the lyceum and Chautauqua movements.

St. Johnsbury Lecture Halls

St. Johnsbury had a vibrant lecture and public debate tradition before the Athenaeum was added as an additional venue for such gatherings.  In The Town of St. Johnsbury --  A Review of One Hundred Twenty-Five Years to the Anniversary Pageant of 1912, Edward Fairbanks lists over a dozen different halls in existence between the opening of the new Town Hall in 1856 and the opening of the YMCA building in 1885.   Of particular note for their capacity were: the Music Hall which seated over 1100, the New Academy Hall with a capacity of 1250, and Howe’s Opera House with a capacity of 1500.

Athenaeum Hall was one of the smaller halls but has the distinction of being intended to be used for educative purposes only, without expense to the public (Fairbanks, p. 341.). 

The largest halls were filled by ticket holders who bid for the best seats, ticket sales providing the revenue to bring in the most renowned speakers available.  The practice of paying speakers to travel to an area is very much in the style of the lyceum movement.  Large, enthusiastic crowds and popular speakers made a modern functional hall a necessity.  Lack of such, in pre-1856 St. Johnsbury, is noted by Fairbanks in this unattributed quote, likely an editorial comment from the Caledonian Record:

September 8 1855 It is like enduring the tortures of the Black Hole to stay in the low unventilated dungeon of our Town Hall at the Center Village the air nauseated with smoke and exhalations from 700 pairs of lungs so that even the lamps go out for want of oxygen to keep them burning More than any necessity for County Buildings is our need of a new wholesome capacious Town Hall

The New Town Hall answered the call for such a facility beginning in 1856.  Many noted speakers and dignitaries, two presidents even, were feted at Athenaeum Hall when it became available in 1871.

Lyceum and Chautauqua Movements in St. Johnsbury and New England

The great capacity of the largest halls in St. Johnsbury indicates a ravenous appetite for the public lectures, debates, and entertainment in the tradition of the lyceum movement, a 19th-century American system of popular instruction of adults by lectures, concerts, and other methods.  The Lyceum movement was popular through out New England.  

This was a public education movement that began in the 1820s and is credited with promoting the establishment of public schools, libraries, and museums in the United States. The idea was conceived by Yale-educated teacher and lecturer Josiah Holbrook (1788-1854), who in 1826 set up the first "American Lyceum" in Millbury, Massachusetts. He named the program for the place-a grove near the temple of Apollo Lyceus-where the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 b.c.) taught his students. The lyceums, which were programs of regularly occurring lectures, proved to be the right idea at the right time: They got under way just after the completion of the Erie Canal (1825), which permitted the settlement of the nation's interior, just as the notion that universal, free education was imperative to the preservation of American democracy took hold. The movement spread quickly. At first the lectures were home-grown affairs, featuring local speakers. But as the movement grew, lyceum bureaus were organized, which sent paid lecturers to speak to audiences around the country. By 1834 there were approximately 3,000 in the Northeast and Midwest.  In their heyday the lyceums contributed to the broadening of the school curricula and the development of local museums and libraries.  After the Civil War (1861-65), the educational role of the lyceum movement was taken over by the Protestant-led chautauquas.

(http://www.answers.com/topic/what-was-the-lyceum-movement)

The Chautauqua Movement sought to bring learning, culture and, later, entertainment to the small towns and villages of America during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Pre-Civil War roots of the effort existed in the lyceum movement, which paid prominent personalities handsomely to give speeches on religious, political and scientific topics to gatherings in the hinterlands. This was an approach to adult education that underscored the values of an era in which common people were expected to stay close to job and family. Enlightenment, if any, had to be taken to them. Travel and vacations were the preserves of the wealthy

Social changes occurring in post-war America included the emerging democratization of education. During the 1870s, the Methodist Episcopal Church held summer training sessions for its Sunday school teachers and other church workers. At the annual assembly of 1874, held at Lake Chautauqua in western New York State, it was decided to broaden the curriculum's frankly religious nature to include the arts, humanities and sciences. As the years passed, more emphasis was placed on singing groups, oompah bands, theatrical presentations and magic lantern shows. The advent of the railroads and their cheap fares had made it possible for working-class families to attend the sessions. The Chautauqua gatherings became a blend of a county fair and revival meeting. 


By the turn of the century, many communities had formed their own “chautauquas,” unrelated to the New York institution, that paid lecturers and performers to participate in their local events. Following World War I, the availability of automobiles, radio programming and motion pictures eroded the Chautauqua Movement's appeal. Independent local activities died out, but the national organization has continued on a reduced scale to the present day.  (http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1202.html)

The St. Johnsbury Lecture Tradition

In The Town of St. Johnsbury Fairbanks describes the activities of The St Johnsbury Literary Institute beginning in 1850.  (It) was composed of citizens with a principal design of providing courses of lectures for public entertainment. In this the Institute was very successful and for several years courses of a high order of merit were maintained. There were lectures on history, literature, travel, invention, applied science, and kindred topics that filled the meeting house with interested listeners.

In 1851 the course was fourteen lectures, in 1854 there was a course of eleven lectures total expense $312.36.  Some years later the work of this Institute was taken up by the YMCA whose annual Lecture Course, maintained for forty years, became justly famous.

The Lecture Course inaugurated by the YMCA in 1858 and re-established in 1867 brought in an annual series of lectures and concerts of exceptional merit and distinction. It has been repeatedly remarked by non-residents that no other town of its size in New England has had so many distinguished speakers and musicians as this little village among the hills. Thro the generous patronage of citizens it was possible to secure talent of the first order.  This was true during the years when churches and Town Hall were the only places of assembly.  After the acquisition by the Association of Music Hall in 1884 there was a rising tide in the popular interest, every seat in the Hall being taken. Preliminary sales of course tickets were held at which premiums were paid for the choice of seats.

The following partial list of speakers in St. Johnsbury indicates the acclaim of the YMCA lecture series:  Henry Ward Beecher, Robert Collyer, John B Gough, Edward Everett Hale, Lyman Abbott, Booker Washington, Henry M Stanley, George Kennan, Robt E Peary, Gen Lew Wallace, Gen Jos Hawley, Russell H. Conwell, Gen Joshua Chamberlin, Gen Gordon of GA., Horace Greeley, Frederick Douglass, Jacob Riis, Bayard Taylor, Thomas Nast.

Fairbanks also notes the public events of the St. Johnsbury Woman’s Club.  Among public entertainments provided by the Woman's Club, not to speak of many musical ones, have been addresses or readings by Mrs. General Custer, Julia CR Dorr, Sallie Joy White, Kate Gannett Woods, Alice Freeman Palmer, Mabel Loomis Todd, Katherine Lee Bates, Isobel Strong, Frances Dyer, with now and then an interesting man on the rostrum for variety.

The Opening of Athenaeum Hall

The public opening of the Athenaeum was preceded by three addresses on successive evenings delivered in the Hall which was filled to its utmost capacity.  The first by Andrew E. Rankin Esq was on the educational importance of the library as a school of learning and culture.  The second by Lewis O Brastow, then pastor of the South Church, on the dignity and worth of refined literature.  The third by Edward T Fairbanks was a colloquy in which Bion Mago and Quelph talking together while inspecting the alcoves and dipping into the pages of the books gave an outline description of the treasures here stored for the use of the people.

The Athenaeum Hall was intended to be auxiliary to the educative use of the library. Series of popular lectures of special interest were provided.   Dr John Lord gave ten which are now included in his Beacon Lights of History.  Prof John Fiske gave a course on American History.  Prof WD Gunning a series on the Life History of our Planet. Lectures and concerts have been given under auspices of our home institutions The Hall was designed to serve the public benefit only and no entertainment for personal profit has ever been admitted. 

Among the most distinguished guests in Athenaeum Hall was the 23^rd President of the United States Benjamin Harrison.  He spoke from the now-gone front balcony on August 26, 1891.

While not all of the individuals named in this exhibit delivered talks here at the Athenaeum, may of the most well known were in all likelihood feted here with a reception.  In the late 19^th century the Fairbanks family and its namesake company was at the peak of its power and influence.  Erastus Fairbanks was, among many other roles, Governor of Vermont in 1852-1853, and again in 1860-1861, and his son, Horace, founder of the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum, was Governor in 1876-1877. 

The St. Johnsbury Caledonian has this to say regarding the Athenaeum in its December 1, 1871 issue:

The present week has been a proud one for St. Johnsbury. The long-cherished plan of one of our honored citizens, of erecting a Free Public Library and presenting it to his native town, has this week been consummated….  As announced in the last Caledonian, a short course of lectures was commences at Athenaeum Hall, on Thursday evening Nov. 23^rd, preliminary to the opening of the library to the public.  At the hour appointed the hall  was filled solid full with an audience of about six hundred our four citizens, attracted together with the treble thought of hearing the lecture, seeing the new hall, and doing honor to the giver.  The audience was surprised at the outset by a flute trio, after which Mr. Horace Fairbanks welcomed those assembled in a few choice words, expressing his gratitude at their attendance, and introduced the lecturer for the evening, Mr. A. E. Rankin.

Thus began the tradition of free public lectures in Athenaeum Hall that continues to this day.

The Exhibit Takes Shape ...

Here's today's glimpse of the "exhibit in progress" as Athenaeum expert Bob Joly mounts images and displays books; in the glassed case are also the Athenaeum guest book with President Harrison's signature proudly displayed, and the handwritten pages of the (very long indeed!) lecture that Horace Fairbanks gave at the opening of the Athenaeum.

A Pictorial Glimpse of the 1880s: Underclyffe

Theses images, from the archives held by the Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium (one of the collaborators with the Athenaeum in the St. Johnsbury Archives), show the family of Franklin Fairbanks at the family home, Underclyffe -- and a wider view of the mansion itself, with its "hothouses" (greenhouses). Franklin was the younger brother of Horace; Horace, as pictured in the right-hand column, was the Fairbanks who gave the Athenaeum and its original collections to the town.

Visualizing Underclyffe (now gone) helps in picturing the arrival of distinguished guest coming to speak in St. Johnsbury. Not only can we see the family's appearance and the large scale on which they experienced and built cultural assets, but we know that one pattern for welcoming guests would have been to meet them at the railroad depot at the foot of the town (near the river), take them in a carriage along the loveliest and most prosperous roads, and end up at Underclyffe for a meal, before heading to the Athenaeum or one of the adjacent halls (Y.M.C.A., music hall) to give a public lecture.

Underclyffe was designed by architect Lambert Packard; elements of its design are also found in the Athenaem, as shown in the right-hand column.

Horace Greeley Versus Thomas Nast: Docent Sheet

Battle of Opinions: Horace Greeley and Thomas Nast

            In the 1800s, America’s most famous journalist was Horace Greeley, founder of The New York Tribune. The nation’s leading cartoonist – often referred to as the first real editorial cartoonist – at that time was Thomas Nast. And both of these giants of the public press would visit St. Johnsbury, Vermont.

            Horace Greeley was born in Amherst, New Hampshire, the son of poor farmers. He left school at age 14 and apprenticed in Poultney, Vermont, as a printer at The Northern Star. After moving to New York City when he was 20, he went on to found a weekly digest of other magazines’ news, The New Yorker. His great fame would come after 1841, when he merged his newspapers into The New York Tribune (which would last, in some form, until 1967). Determined to make his paper different from the tabloids of the time, Greeley created modern American journalism by combining “energy in news gathering with good taste, high moral standards, and intellectual appeal” (Nevins, Dictionary of American Biography, 1931). Already a lecturer himself, he featured the lectures of others.

            In 1854 the new Republican Party was founded, and Greeley spoke for it with the Tribune – especially by opposing slavery and slave owners. During the Civil War, he demanded that Lincoln take a stand for emancipation. But after the Civil War ended, he seemed to soften his views, arguing for release of former Confederacy president Jefferson Davis and saying the South had already changed far enough.

            German-born cartoonist Thomas Nast, who came to America at age 16 and whose cartoons in Harper’s Weekly through the 1860s supported the Civil War’s Union forces and the post-war Reconstruction, also successfully used his talents toward the downfall of corrupt New York City politician Boss Tweed of Tammany Hall. In general, his cartoons supported American Indians, Chinese Americans, and the abolition of slavery, and opposed segregation, the violence of the Ku Klux Klan, and the ignorance of voters who supported corruption (he included Irish Americans in this).

            When Horace Greeley ran against Ulysses Grant for the US. Presidency in 1872, Nast mounted a relentless campaign of ridicule against the newspaper owner and his views, labeling him as a killer of black Americans. The cartoonist’s campaign was so merciless that not only did Greeley’s campaign fail, but Horace Greeley suffered a complete mental and physical breakdown, and died just weeks after the election.

            Greeley’s visit to St. Johnsbury was surely during his campaign in 1872. Nast toured the United States in 1873 and again in 1885 and 1887, and his visit to St. Johnsbury included discussion of his cartoons, which were described with delight by the Caledonian-Record at the time.

President Abraham Lincoln’s Letter to Horace Greeley, a year into the Civil War:
 
Executive Mansion,
Washington, August 22, 1862.

Hon. Horace Greeley:
Dear Sir.

I have just read yours of the 19th. addressed to myself through the New-York Tribune. If there be in it any statements, or assumptions of fact, which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here, argue against them. If there be perceptable in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right.

As to the policy I "seem to be pursuing" as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.

I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free.

Yours,
A. Lincoln.

Alice Freeman Palmer: Draft for Docents

Alice Freeman Palmer, First Woman as President of a Noted American College

Alice Elvira Freeman’s father was a farmer when his daughter was born in 1855, but saw that he needed a better career and enrolled in medical school when Alice was six years old. He completed his M.D. in three years, and Alice followed his example by deciding to attend college herself, eventually entering the University of Michigan and excelling there. She had barely started her teaching career at age 22 when her father’s bad mining investment plunged him into bankruptcy. Alice became the support of her family, even as she rose to become principal of a high school in Saginaw, Michigan.

Henry Durant had founded Wellesley College in Massachusetts in 1870, and by 1877 he had noticed Alice Freeman’s work. It took him two years to persuade her to joint the faculty at Wellesley as head of the history department, where she quickly became a favorite with students. In October 1881, she was named vice-president and acting president of the college, and at Durant’s death she was elected its president.

She was only 26 years old, and was the first woman to head a nationally known college. The University of Michigan awarded her an honorary Ph.D. to go with her new and controversial position – many people then didn’t think women should even go to college at all!

When Alice Freeman met George Herbert Palmer, the pair fell in love and soon became secretly engaged to marry. Alice dared not wear a ring or otherwise announce the engagement, because it would mean the end of her position. A woman leader at Wellesley was not expected to take the secondary role to a man that marriage would demand. But word slowly leaked out, so with her marriage in 1887, she resigned, leaving a legacy of stronger academics and a broad curriculum in liberal arts.

The new University of Chicago recruited her, even though married, and in 1892 she became dean of its women’s department. For three years she stayed in Chicago, but her husband had refused to leave Cambridge, so Alice at last resigned and came home.

Tragically, a surgical operation to repair a problem with her liver ended her life in 1903. She had put so much into her 48 years! A service at Harvard University commemorated her and was attended by college presidents and others of note.

Along with her development of the two colleges, Alice Freeman Palmer also founded the American Association of University Women. It is likely that her visit to St. Johnsbury, arranged by the local Women’s Club, was in the late 1890s. After her death, in 1920 she was elected to the Hall of Fame for Great Americans, and in World War II the United States Liberty ship SS Alice F. Palmer was named in her honor.

* * *

from WHY GO TO COLLEGE? an Address by Alice Freeman Palmer, circa 1898

To a largely increasing number of young girls college doors are opening every year. Every year adds to the number of men who feel as a friend of mine, a successful lawyer in a great city, felt when in talking of the future of his four little children he said, "For the two boys it is not so serious, but I lie down at night afraid to die and leave my daughters only a bank account." Year by year, too, the experiences of life are teaching mothers that happiness does not necessarily come to their daughters when accounts are large and banks are sound, but that on the contrary they take grave risks when they trust everything to accumulated wealth and the chance of a happy marriage. Our American girls themselves are becoming aware that they need the stimulus, the discipline, the knowledge, the interests of the college in addition to the school, if they are to prepare themselves for the most serviceable lives. …
While it is not true that all girls should go to college any more than that all boys should go, it is nevertheless true that they should go in greater numbers than at present. They fail to go because they, their parents and their teachers, do not see clearly the personal benefits distinct from the commercial value of a college training. I wish here to discuss these benefits, these larger gifts of the college life,—what they may be, and for whom they are waiting.
It is undoubtedly true that many girls are totally unfitted by home and school life for a valuable college course. These joys and successes, these high interests and friendships, are not for the self-conscious and nervous invalid, nor for her who in the exuberance of youth recklessly ignores the laws of a healthy life. The good society of scholars and of libraries and laboratories has no place and no attraction for her who finds no message in Plato, no beauty in mathematical order, and who never longs to know the meaning of the stars over her head or the flowers under her feet. Neither will the finer opportunities of college life appeal to one who, until she is eighteen (is there such a girl in this country?), has felt no passion for the service of others, no desire to know if through history or philosophy, or any study of the laws of society, she can learn why the world is so sad, so hard, so selfish as she finds it, even when she looks upon it from the most sheltered life. No, the college cannot be, should not try to be, a substitute for the hospital, reformatory or kindergarten. …
Pre-eminently the college is a place of education. That is the ground of its being. We go to college to know, assured that knowledge is sweet and powerful, that a good education emancipates the mind and makes us citizens of the world. No college which does not thoroughly educate can be called good, no matter what else it does. No student who fails to get a little knowledge on many subjects, and much knowledge on some, can be said to have succeeded, whatever other advantages she may have found by the way. It is a beautiful and significant fact that in all times the years of learning have been also the years of romance. Those who love girls and boys pray that our colleges may be homes of sound learning, for knowledge is the condition of every college blessing.

A Visit from the Author of Ben Hur: Docent Material

Lew Wallace, Author of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

Maybe you’ve seen the 1959 version of the film Ben-Hur starring Charlton Heston – and marveled at the movie’s most famous scene, the chariot race. The movie is based on an 1880 novel by General Lew Wallace, and in December 1896, General Wallace came to visit St. Johnsbury and deliver a talk on “Turkey and the Turks, with glimpses of life in the palace and harem.” But the Caledonian-Record was clear about what really made this man famous: “Gen. Wallace will attract the attention of our people, who already know him as the author of Ben-Hur,” said the local newspaper.

Thank goodness for this authorship, which came along just in time to rescue Wallace from his depressing military reputation. During the Civil War, he led his division in a fiasco at the Battle of Shiloh – possibly because General Grant hadn’t been specific in his orders. Regardless of whether the division’s location was Wallace’s mistake or Grant’s, it meant that the reserves arrived too late to prevent horrible casualties that day. And when word of the disaster reached civilians, the Army chose to blame Wallace, calling him incompetent and removing his from his command.

In 1864, again commanding a large force of almost six thousand men, Wallace took part in delaying a Confederate advance on Washington, DC. Technically his forces were defeated, and again he was humiliated by being relieved of his command. But this time, he got it back again after Grant praised his work in delaying Confederate General Jubal Early, making it possible for Grant to pull together a defense for the capital city.

Later he became governor of New Mexico Territory from 1878 to 1881 and negotiated with the notorious outlaw Billy the Kid – and went on to be U.S. Minister to the Ottoman Empire (the Turks), for four years. Yet the blow of his war years still burned.

Writing Ben-Hur, which was the story of a young Jewish noble whose disastrous life is finally redeemed and set right through Jesus Christ, Wallace took the themes of friendship, betrayal, revenge, love, and redemption and, with passion doubtless from his own life, created a stirring novel that hasn’t ever gone out of print. It quickly became a play also, and then a short film, followed by an amazing Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film in 1925. The most exciting part of the film, the chariot race, was created by allowing stunt men to actually race chariots with horses in California – a Hollywood spectacle in the flesh. A cash prize was offered for the winning stunt driver. One chariot capsized, causing others to crash, and although no people were killed, seven horses had to be “put down” due to their injuries. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was outraged, but the reality of injuries and bloodshed helped make the film a blockbuster for its time, actually earning back the $4 million that M-G-M spent to make it.

Wallace died in 1905, so he never saw the film versions of his work. But when he arrived here in St. Johnsbury, the welcome he received as an author must have given some comfort to his shamed and wounded soul.

From Ben-Hur, chapter XIV, “The Race”:


WHEN the dash for position began, Ben-Hur, as we have seen, was on the extreme left of the six. For a moment, like the others, he was half-blinded by the light in the arena; yet he managed to catch sight of his antagonists and divine their purpose. At Messala, who was more than an antagonist to him, he gave one searching look. The air of passionless hauteur characteristic of the fine patrician face was there as of old, and so was the Italian beauty, which the helmet rather increased; but more-it may have been a jealous fancy, or the effect of the brassy shadow in which the features were at the moment cast, still the Israelite thought he saw the soul of the man as through a glass, darkly: cruel, cunning, desperate; not so excited as determined-a soul in a tension of watchfulness and fierce resolve.
    In a time not longer than was required to turn to his four again, Ben-Hur felt his own resolution harden to a like temper. At whatever cost, at all hazards, he would humble this enemy! Prize, friends, wagers, honour-everything that can be thought of as a possible interest in the race was lost in the one deliberate purpose. Regard for life even should not hold him back. Yet there was no passion on his part; no blinding rush of heated blood from heart to brain, and back again; no impulse to fling himself upon Fortune: he did not believe in Fortune; far otherwise. He had his plan, and, confiding in himself, he settled to the task never more observant, never more capable. The air about him seemed aglow with a renewed and perfect transparency.
    When not half-way across the arena, he saw that Messala's rush would, if there was no collision, and the rope fell, give him the wall; that the rope would fall, he ceased as soon to doubt; and, further, it came to him, a sudden flash-like insight, that Messala knew it was to be let drop at the last moment (pre-arrangement with the editor could safely reach that point in the contest); and it suggested, what more Roman-like than for the official to lend himself to a countryman who, besides being so popular, had also so much at stake? There could be no other accounting for the confidence with which Messala pushed his four forward the instant his competitors were prudentially checking their fours in front of the obstruction-no other except madness. …
     The rope fell, and all the four but his sprang into the course under urgency of voice and lash. He drew head to the right, and, with all the speed of his Arabs, darted across the trails of his opponents, the angle of movement being such as to lose the least time and gain the greatest possible advance. So, while the spectators were shivering at the Athenian's mishap, and the Sidonian, Byzantine, and Corinthian were striving, with such skill as they possessed, to avoid involvement in the ruin, Ben-Hur swept around and took the course neck and neck with Messala, though on the outside. The marvellous skill shown in making the change thus from the extreme left across to the right without appreciable loss did not fail the sharp eyes upon the benches: the Circus seemed to rock and rock again with prolonged applause. Then Esther clasped her hands in glad surprise; then Sanballat, smiling, offered his hundred sestertii a second time without a taker; and then the Romans began to doubt, thinking Messala might have found an equal, if not a master, and that in an Israelite! …
       "Down Eros, up Mars!" [Messala] shouted, whirling his lash with practised hand-"Down Eros, up Mars!" he repeated, and caught the well-doing Arabs of Ben-Hur a cut the like of which they had never known.
    The blow was seen in every quarter, and the amazement was universal. The silence deepened; up on the benches behind the consul the boldest held his breath, waiting for the outcome. Only a moment thus: then, involuntarily, down from the balcony, as thunder falls, burst the indignant cry of the people.
    The four sprang forward affrighted. No hand had ever been laid upon them except in love; they had been nurtured ever so tenderly; and as they grew, their confidence in man became a lesson to men beautiful to see. What should such dainty natures do under such indignity but leap as from death?

Our Distinguished Guests: Exploring the First 30 Years of Athenaeum Hall OVERVIEW DOCUMENT

Our Distinguished Guests:  Exploring the First 30 Years of Athenaeum Hall

(Color key:  Black highlight = docent sheet and picture for panels, Red = text sheets, photos, etc, to be mounted on panels, Blue = books, manuscript, etc. to go in large locked case in front of panels.  We’ll keep updating this as needed.)

This summer the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum will host, for the 17^th consecutive year, our series called Readings in the Gallery. These readings by noted poets and writers will take place this year, due to work in the art gallery, in the second floor space known officially as Athenaeum Hall.  This series, as well as the First Wednesday lectures, and the many other readings and performances held throughout the years,  are a continuation of the long tradition of free public events held here since Athenaeum Hall opened in 1871. 

This exhibit highlights some of the distinguished speakers and visitors who graced this building in the earliest years of its operation.  It does, as well, situate the Athenaeum within the history of public lectures held throughout St. Johnsbury since the early 19^th Century, and within the tradition of public education in the lyceum and Chautauqua movements.

St. Johnsbury Lecture Halls

St. Johnsbury had a vibrant lecture and public debate tradition before the Athenaeum was added as an additional venue for such gatherings.  In The Town of St. Johnsbury --  A Review of One Hundred Twenty-Five Years to the Anniversary Pageant of 1912, Edward Fairbanks lists over a dozen different halls in existence between the opening of the new Town Hall in 1856 and the opening of the YMCA building in 1885.   Of particular note for their capacity are: the Music Hall which seated over 1100, the New Academy Hall with a capacity of 1250, and Howe’s Opera House with a capacity of 1500.   Athenaeum Hall was one of the smaller halls but has the distinction of being intended to be used for educative purposes only, without expense to the public (Fairbanks, p. 341.). 

The largest halls were filled by ticket holders who bid for the best seats, ticket sales providing the revenue to bring in the most renowned speakers available.  The practice of paying speakers to travel to an area is very much in the style of the lyceum movement.  Large, enthusiastic crowds and popular speakers made a modern functional hall a necessity.  Lack of such, in pre-1856 St. Johnsbury, is noted by Fairbanks in this quote from ________

September 8 1855 It is like enduring the tortures of the Black Hole to stay in the low unventilated dungeon of our Town Hall at the Center Village the air nauseated with smoke and exhalations from 700 pairs of lungs so that even the lamps go out for want of oxygen to keep them burning More than any necessity for County Buildings is our need of a new wholesome capacious Town Hall

The New Town Hall answered the call for such a facility beginning in 1856.  Many noted speakers and dignitaries, two presidents even, were fated at Athenaeum Hall when it became available in 1871.

Lyceum and Chautauqua Movements in St. Johnsbury and New England

The great capacity of the largest halls in St. Johnsbury indicates a ravenous appetite for the public lectures, debates, and entertainment in the tradition of the lyceum movement, a 19th-century American system of popular instruction of adults by lectures, concerts, and other methods.

This was a public education movement that began in the 1820s and is credited with promoting the establishment of public schools, libraries, and museums in the United States. The idea was conceived by Yale-educated teacher and lecturer Josiah Holbrook (1788-1854), who in 1826 set up the first "American Lyceum" in Millbury, Massachusetts. He named the program for the place-a grove near the temple of Apollo Lyceus-where the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 b.c.) taught his students. The lyceums, which were programs of regularly occurring lectures, proved to be the right idea at the right time: They got under way just after the completion of the Erie Canal (1825), which permitted the settlement of the nation's interior, just as the notion that universal, free education was imperative to the preservation of American democracy took hold. The movement spread quickly. At first the lectures were home-grown affairs, featuring local speakers. But as the movement grew, lyceum bureaus were organized, which sent paid lecturers to speak to audiences around the country. By 1834 there were approximately 3,000 in the Northeast and Midwest.  In their heyday the lyceums contributed to the broadening of the school curricula and the development of local museums and libraries.  After the Civil War (1861-65), the educational role of the lyceum movement was taken over by the Protestant-led chautauquas.

The Chautauqua Movement sought to bring learning, culture and, later, entertainment to the small towns and villages of America during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Pre-Civil War roots of the effort existed in the lyceum movement, which paid prominent personalities handsomely to give speeches on religious, political and scientific topics to gatherings in the hinterlands. This was an approach to adult education that underscored the values of an era in which common people were expected to stay close to job and family. Enlightenment, if any, had to be taken to them. Travel and vacations were the preserves of the wealthy.
Social changes occurring in post-war America included the emerging democratization of education. During the 1870s, the Methodist Episcopal Church held summer training sessions for its Sunday school teachers and other church workers. At the annual assembly of 1874, held at Lake Chautauqua in western New York State, it was decided to broaden the curriculum's frankly religious nature to include the arts, humanities and sciences. As the years passed, more emphasis was placed on singing groups, oompah bands, theatrical presentations and magic lantern shows. The advent of the railroads and their cheap fares had made it possible for working-class families to attend the sessions. The Chautauqua gatherings became a blend of a county fair and revival meeting.
By the turn of the century, many communities had formed their own “chautauquas,” unrelated to the New York institution, that paid lecturers and performers to participate in their local events.Following World War I, the availability of automobiles, radio programming and motion pictures eroded the Chautauqua Movement's appeal. Independent local activities died out, but the national organization has continued on a reduced scale to the present day.

The St. Johnsbury Lecture Tradition

In The Town of St. Johnsbury Fairbanks describes the activities of The St Johnsbury Literary Institute beginning in 1850.  (It) was composed of citizens with a principal design of providing courses of lectures for public entertainment. In this the Institute was very successful and for several years courses of a high order of merit were maintained. There were lectures on history, literature, travel, invention, applied science, and kindred topics that filled the meeting house with interested listeners.

 In 1851 the course was fourteen lectures, in 1854 there was a course of eleven lectures total expense $312.36.  Some years later the work of this Institute was taken up by the YMCA whose annual Lecture Course, maintained for forty years, became justly famous.

The Lecture Course inaugurated by the YMCA in 1858 and re-established in 1867 brought in an annual series of lectures and concerts of exceptional merit and distinction. It has been repeatedly remarked by non-residents that no other town of its size in New England has had so many distinguished speakers and musicians as this little village among the hills. Thro the generous patronage of citizens it was possible to secure talent of the first order.  This was true during the years when churches and Town Hall were the only places of assembly.  After the acquisition by the Association of Music Hall in 1884 there was a rising tide in the popular interest, every seat in the Hall being taken. Preliminary sales of course tickets were held at which premiums were paid for the choice of seats.

The following partial list of speakers in St. Johnsbury indicates the acclaim of the YMCA lecture series:  Henry Ward Beecher, Robert Collyer, John B Gough, Edward Everett Hale, Lyman Abbott, Booker Washington, Henry M Stanley, George Kennan, Robt E Peary, Gen Lew Wallace, Gen Jos Hawley, Russell H. Conwell, Gen Joshua Chamberlin, Gen Gordon of GA., Horace Greeley, Frederick Douglass, Jacob Riis, Bayard Taylor, Thomas Nast.

Fairbanks also notes the public events of the St. Johnsbury Woman’s Club.  Among public entertainments provided by the Woman's Club not to speak of many musical ones have been addresses or readings by Mrs. General Custer, Julia CR Dorr, Sallie Joy White, Kate Gannett Woods, Alice Freeman Palmer, Mabel Loomis Todd, Katherine Lee Bates, Isobel Strong, Frances Dyer, with now and then an interesting man on the rostrum for variety.

The Opening of Athenaeum Hall

The public opening of the Athenaeum was preceded by three addresses on successive evenings delivered in the Hall which was filled to its utmost capacity.  The first by Andrew E Rankin Esq was on the educational importance of the library as a school of learning and culture.  The second by Lewis O Brastow, then pastor of the South Church, on the dignity and worth of refined literature.  The third by Edward T Fairbanks was a colloquy in which Bion Mago and Quelph talking together while inspecting the alcoves and dipping into the pages of the books gave an outline description of the treasures here stored for the use of the people

The Athenaeum Hall was intended to be auxiliary to the educative use of the library. Series of popular lectures of special interest were provided.   Dr John Lord gave ten which are now included in his Beacon Lights of History.  Prof John Fiske gave a course on American History.  Prof WD Gunning a series on the Life History of our Planet. Lectures and concerts have been given under auspices of our home institutions The Hall was designed to serve the public benefit only and no entertainment for personal profit has ever been admitted.  Among the most distinguished guests in Athenaeum Hall was the 23^rd President of the United States, Benjamin Harrison who spoke from the now-gone front balcony on August 26, 1891.

Conclusion, Activities today, etc

(TO BE COMPLETED BY BOB BEFORE 6/25)

Two paragraphs on Lyceum and Chautauqua tradition.

Three paragraphs on information taken largely from Edward Fairbanks’ The Town of St. Johsnbury.

·       History of lectures in Town Hall—quote on how decrepit old TH was, other Halls

·       Prominent lecturers in town during 40-year YMCA lecture series

·       Athenaeum founding and use—intended to be used for educative purposes only, without expense to the public (Fairbanks, p. 341)

One paragraph conclusion

·       Continuing tradition of lectures at Athenaeum

·       One of the last buildings in continuous use

·       Reiteration of main points

Acres of Diamonds: Russell H. Conwell (Docent Page)

Acres of Diamonds: The Multi-Million-Dollar Speech of Russell Conwell

A New England education in the nineteenth century meant that a young man could climb as far as he wanted – and Russell Herman Conwell, son of farmers in western Massachusetts, went all the way to Yale University. But like many other young men in 1862, he left school to enlist in the Union Army for the American Civil War. After the war he studied law and worked as an attorney, journalist, and lecturer, as well as writing campaign biographies of Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, and James A. Garfield. He would eventually become a Baptist minister, called in 1882 to the Grace Baptist Church of Philadelphia. By then he was already a gifted public speaker – but the best was yet to come.

Russell Conwell began to lecture publicly in 1863, while the war was still being fought. He spoke of battles and of life and death. After the war, giving a talk for reunion of the Forty-Sixth Massachusetts Regiment where he had been captain, he provided the first version of what became his “Acres of Diamonds” speech. A set of parables and tales drawn from life, the speech asserted that anyone could become rich – and that the process begins with seeing the riches in your own home town, on your own farm, in your own life.

Demand for the speech ballooned. Conwell gave it here in Athenaeum Hall, where working people and factory owners mingled. More than six thousand times, in America and around the world, he gave this popular lecture – and with it raised reportedly eight million dollars. He used his early lecture earnings as seed money for Temple College (now Temple University) and became its first president. Then he used the money for scholarships, as well as for growth of the university.

Like Henry Ward Beecher and Ralph Waldo Emerson, Conwell traveled for his lecture tours through the efforts of James Redpath, who founded a speaker’s bureau. Then one of Redpath’s employees, James Pond, branched off and formed another bureau, with speakers who included Henry Stanley, George Kennan, Bill Nye, James Whitcomb Riley, Thomas Nast, Mark Twain, Booker T. Washington, P. T. Barnum, George Washington Cable, Ellen Terry, Joseph Jefferson, and Henry Ward Beecher. Probably both of these lecture bureaus provided distinguished guests to St. Johnsbury.

The most controversial part of Russell Conwell’s “Acres of Diamonds” talk was its insistence that earning your way to wealth was consistent with the Gospels of the Christian Church. The portion of the lecture shown below shows how Conwell convinced his listeners by drawing from everyday family and community life.

For an unusual treat, you can actually listen to Conwell giving another part of this long talk – thanks to his living to 1925, into the era when sound recordings became common. At your home or library computer, listen in: http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5768
***
From "Acres of Diamonds"


My friend, you take and drive me—if you furnish the auto—out into the suburbs of Philadelphia, and introduce me to the people who own their homes around this great city, those beautiful homes with gardens and flowers, those magnificent homes so lovely in their art, and I will introduce you to the very best people in character as well as in enterprise in our city, and you know I will. A man is not really a true man until he owns his own home, and they that own their homes are made more honorable and honest and pure, and true and economical and careful, by owning the home.


For a man to have money, even in large sums, is not an inconsistent thing. We preach against covetousness, and you know we do, in the pulpit, and oftentimes preach against it so long and use the terms about “filthy lucre” so extremely that Christians get the idea that when we stand in the pulpit we believe it is wicked for any man to have money—until the collection-basket goes around, and then we almost swear at the people because they don’t give more money. Oh, the inconsistency of such doctrines as that!



Money is power, and you ought to be reasonably ambitious to have it. You ought because you can do more good with it than you could without it. Money printed your Bible, money builds your churches, money sends your missionaries, and money pays your preachers, and you would not have many of them, either, if you did not pay them. I am always willing that my church should raise my salary, because the church that pays the largest salary always raises it the easiest. You never knew an exception to it in your life. The man who gets the largest salary can do the most good with the power that is furnished to him. Of course he can if his spirit be right to use it for what it is given to him.



I say, then, you ought to have money. If you can honestly attain unto riches in Philadelphia, it is your Christian and godly duty to do so. It is an awful mistake of these pious people to think you must be awfully poor in order to be pious.
Some men say, “Don’t you sympathize with the poor people?” Of course I do, or else I would not have been lecturing these years. I won’t give in but what I sympathize with the poor, but the number of poor who are to be sympathized with is very small. To sympathize with a man whom God has punished for his sins, thus to help him when God would still continue a just punishment, is to do wrong, no doubt about it, and we do that more than we help those who are deserving. While we should sympathize with God’s poor—that is, those who cannot help themselves—let us remember there is not a poor person in the United States who was not made poor by his own shortcomings, or by the shortcomings of some one else. It is all wrong to be poor, anyhow. Let us give in to that argument and pass that to one side.


A gentleman gets up back there, and says, “Don’t you think there are some things in this world that are better than money?” Of course I do, but I am talking about money now. Of course there are some things higher than money. Oh yes, I know by the grave that has left me standing alone that there are some things in this world that are higher and sweeter and purer than money. Well do I know there are some things higher and grander than gold. Love is the grandest thing on God’s earth, but fortunate the lover who has plenty of money. Money is power, money is force, money will do good as well as harm. In the hands of good men and women it could accomplish, and it has accomplished, good.


I hate to leave that behind me. I heard a man get up in a prayer-meeting in our city and thank the Lord he was “one of God’s poor.” Well, I wonder what his wife thinks about that? She earns all the money that comes into that house, and he smokes a part of that on the veranda. I don’t want to see any more of the Lord’s poor of that kind, and I don’t believe the Lord does. And yet there are some people who think in order to be pious you must be awfully poor and awfully dirty. That does not follow at all. While we sympathize with the poor, let us not teach a doctrine like that.

Frederick Douglass, Henry Ward Beecher, Booker T. Washington

Guests Who Changed America

FREDERICK DOUGLASS

Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey) escaped from one of the most horrific forms of slavery in 1838 at age 20. Three years later, he attended a lecture by abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison and was himself unexpectedly asked to speak. After he told his story, he received encouragement to become a lecturer himself. His autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave” (1845), became a bestseller – and Douglass became a public figure. His official freedom came in 1846, when British supporters arranged to purchase his freedom from his “owner.” His voice resonated through the buildup to the Civil War and during it. Here is a telling excerpt from his current Wikipedia page:

At the unveiling of the Emancipation Memorial in Washington's Lincoln Park, Douglass was the keynote speaker. In his speech, Douglass spoke frankly about Lincoln, balancing the good and the bad in his account. He called Lincoln "the white man's president" and cited his tardiness in joining the cause of emancipation. He noted that Lincoln initially opposed the expansion of slavery but did not support its elimination. But Douglass also stated, "Can any colored man, or any white man friendly to the freedom of all men, ever forget the night which followed the first day of January 1863, when the world was to see if Abraham Lincoln would prove to be as good as his word?"
The crowd, roused by his speech, gave him a standing ovation. A long-told anecdote claims that the widow Mary Lincoln gave Douglass Lincoln's favorite walking stick in appreciation. Lincoln's walking stick still rests in Douglass' house known as Cedar Hill. It is both a testimony and a tribute to the effect of Douglass' powerful oratory.

After the Civil War, Douglass labored to counter the prevalent racism in labor unions, as well as to fight the Ku Klux Klan and to support giving the vote to women (which would not happen until long after his death).

His visit to St. Johnsbury probably took place on December 4, 1869, as expected when this St. Johnsbury Caledonian  article was published (thanks to Denise Scavitto for the article). This talk, which would have drawn a large audience, probably took place at the nearby YMCA building (since destroyed by fire), which hosted many lectures in its larger space.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Born in New England and schooled at Boston Latin School and Amherst College, this newly minted preacher became a public figure when he reached the new Plymouth Congregational Church in Brooklyn and became its minister in 1847. A friend to Mark Twain and Walt Whitman, sister of Harriet Beecher Stowe (who wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin), and an advocate of women’s suffrage (“the vote”) and Darwin’s theory of evolution, he was best known as a foe to slavery and bigotry of all kinds (religious, racial, and social).

Like Mark Twain, Beecher found the lecture circuits an ideal way to promote his moral convictions. His visit to St. Johnsbury, arranged through the Y.M.C.A., probably in 1880 when he also spoke in St. Albans, recalled an earlier visit to Brattleboro when he was only a junior in college, already lecturing on temperance – and was then paid the sum of ten dollars, an experience that turned him from student to dedicated public man. His noted lecture “Merchants and Ministers” included this:

… Education will lead more men to heaven than any high Church theology, or any other kind that leaves that out. What, then, are we going to do? It seems to me there are three things that must be done. In the first place, the household must do its work. The things which we learn from our fathers and mothers we never forget, by whichever end they enter. [Laughter.] They become incorporated into our being, and become almost instincts, apparently. If we have learned at home to love and hnor the truth, until we come to hate, as men hate filth, all lying, all double-tongued business – if we get that firmly ingrained, we shall probably carry that feeling to the end of life – and it is the most precious thread of life – provided we keep out of politics. [Laughter.]
Next, it seems to me that this doctrine of truth, equity, and fidelity must form a much larger part and a much more instructive part of the ministrations of the Church than it does today. … The Church should feed the hungry soul. …
Next, there must be a public sentiment among all honorable merchants which shall frown … upon all that is violative of truth, equity and fidelity. These three qualities are indispensable to the prosperity of commerce.

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Booker T. Washington was five years old when the Civil War began. A transplated Vermont woman, Viola Knapp Ruffner, supported his education in the hard years after the war, in West Virginia. He became the first principal for the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (now Tuskegee University), where black Americans learned to teach. Soon he was considered a spokesman for African Americans in the post-war nation, and his 1895 Atlanta Exhibition address was embraced as outlining the steps toward equal rights.

His visit to St. Johnsbury, arranged through the Y.M.C.A., may have been connected with his 1896 speech to Harvard Alumni, after which he received an honorary Master of Arts degree from Harvard University. The speech became known as “The American Standard,” from this portion:

If my life in the past has meant anything in the lifting up of my people and the brining about of better relations between your race and mine, I assure you from this day it will mean doubly more. In the economy of God, there is but one standard by which an individual can succeed – there is but one for a race. This country demands that every race measure itself by the American standard. … We are to be tested ion our patience, our forbearance, our perseverance, our power to endure wrong, to withstand temptations, to economize, to acquire and use skill; our ability to compete, to succeed in commerce, to disregard the superficial for the real, the appearance for the substance, to be great and yet small, learned and yet simple, high and yet the servant of all. This, this is the passport to all that is best in the life of our Republic, and the Negro much possess it, or be disbarred.

Greeting President Harrison: Handout for Docents

“Greeting the President: St. Johnsbury Pays Her Respects to Mr. Harrison – Handsome Decorations – A Fine Parade in Four Divisions”

That was the headline for the Caledonian-Record on Thursday August 27, 1891, the day after President Benjamin Harrison’s visit. Security wasn’t an issue in the town’s preparations for this Republican President and grandson of another President (William Harrison). Instead, the town focused on honor and celebrations, with committees working in advance to hang flags, create the largest parade outside of Bennington, even make the night-time town sparkle with fairy-lanterns. The newspaper descriptions of decorations along Main Street filled multiple columns, with details like draping at the court house, stores with fantails of bunting, and Chinese lanterns. A banner at Dr. Bullard’s read “Welcome to the President and the Old Veteran.”

Why did the President come to St. Johnsbury? He was surely drawn by the political power of the Fairbanks family (who created this Athenaeum), and maybe equally by E. & T. Fairbanks Company, the manufacturer of scales used around the world.

A reception committee met the President at Montpelier and came back to town on the rain with him. They all passed in carriages along Railroad Street, then fell in at the end of a procession of marching bands, veterans, Catholic societies, and police, to head up Eastern Avenue to Main Street, then to Mt. Pleasant, to Summer Street, then Central, Cliff, and finally to Underclyffe, the home of Colonel Franklin Fairbanks, official host. The President’s group included Secretary Redfield Proctor (a Vermonter who had invited the President), Secretary Halford, a number of colonels, the presidents stenographer, and four reporters (for the United Press, Associated Press, and Press News Association). About 250 students welcomed the President when he stopped at the school, presenting him with “a large floral key, emblematic of the granting of the freedom of the town.” The newspaper report continued:

Arriving at Underclyffe, the procession came to a halt until all the carriages had alighted, when the lines reformed and passed in review before the presidental party, St. Johnsbury band standing one side and furnishing music meanwhile. … The decorations in the interior of Underclyffe were very artistic and consisted of flags and bunting, while there were flags of all nations around the room. The picture of ex-Gov. Erastus Fairbanks in the library was draped with two silk flags, while in the bay window of the dining room was an old flag made by the ladies of St. Johnsbury when the war broke out. … Dinner … was an elaborate ten course banquet served by Carter Webber of Boston.

            Immediately after dinner the party was escorted to the Athenaeum.

The President’s speech, given from the balcony of the Athenaeum to about fifteen thousand people, focused on the love for the flag, as well as on its significance in a country still vividly remembering its Civil War. “After the speeches there was another season of hand-shaking at the Athenaeum, the interior of which had been handsomely decorated with cut flowers and plants; then the crowd enjoyed the fireworks given under the auspices of the committee, in the court house yard.”

[from President Benjamin Harrison’s speech, as described by Edward Fairbanks in his Town of St. Johnsbury, Vermont]

I am most happy to witness in this prosperous New England town so many evidences that your community is intelligent, industrious, enterprising, and your people lovers of home and of order. You have here manufacturing establishments whose fame and products have spread throughout the world. You have here public-spirited citizens who have established institutions that will be ministering to the good of generations to come. You have here an intelligent and educated class of skilled workmen; nothing pleased me more  as I passed through your streets today than to be told that here and there were the homes of the working people of St. Johnsbury, homes where every  evidence of comfort was apparent, homes where taste has been brought to  make attractive the abodes in which tired men sought rest, homes that must  have been made sweet for the children and comfortable for the wives whose  place of toil and responsibility is there. This is what binds men to good  order, to good citizenship, to the flag of the constitution; and I venture to  say that all our public policy, all our legislation, may wisely keep in view  the end of perpetuating an independent, contented, prosperous and hopeful  working-class in America.   

More from the President’s speech, this time from the newspaper report, revealing his connection with flags inside schools (something that wasn’t common before):

It occurred to me to suggest, at the centennial banquet [the nation had recently celebrated its 100th birthday], that the flags should be taken into our school houses. I rejoice to know that everywhere throughout the land, in all our patriotic towns and villages, movements have been inaugurated to display the American flag in our institutions of learning.

I have sometimes been brought into contact with incidents showing this love for the flag. I remember that when Hood was investing Nashville, and when that gallant, sturdy and faithful leader Gen. Thomas, [applause] was gathering the remnants of the army that he might confront his adversary, it ws assigned to me to intrench through the beautiful ground of a residence in Nashville. The proprietor was a Tennessee Unionist. While I was tearing up the sod of his beautiful lawn, he was bringing out his library and other valuables. Happening into his library, he opened a closet below the book-shelf and taking out a handsome flag asked me whether I had a garrison flag. I said no. “Well,” said he, “take this, Sir, I have never been without an American flag in my house.” I would be glad if that could be said by every one of our people. … Let us keep it thus in our hearts. … This is our compact; this the liberty which we offer to those who cast their lots with us – not a liberty to destroy, but to conserve and perpetuate.

Handout for Docents, "Mrs. General Custer"

 

“Mrs. General Custer”: Elizabeth Clift Bacon Custer to the Rescue

Elizabeth Bacon, granddaughter of Abel Page of Rutland, Vermont, was born in Monroe, Michigan, in 1842. Beautiful and intelligent, she graduated at the head of her girls’ seminary class in June 1862, and that autumn, she met a young soldier in the Union Army of the Civil War, George Amstrong Custer. The two connected right away, but Libie’s father refused to allow Custer into the Bacon home – he was from a poor family. But Custer was promoted to Brevet Brigadier just before the Battle of Gettysburg (where he won further acclaim) and Judge Bacon finally agreed to their marriage (Feb. 9, 1864).

The couple’s correspondence reveals the intensity of their relationship, along with a great deal of sexuality. And Libbie determinedly joined her husband as the army took him West after the Civil War, where his rank reverted to the Regular Army one of Lieutenant Colonel. So attached were the two that at one point George left the field of battle to be with his wife, adding a court martial to his uneven record.

The 1876 campaign against the Sioux could have rescued Custer’s career, but instead, his disastrous charge of the Seventh Cavalry against Sitting Bull, Crazy Hose, the Sioux, and the Northern Cheyenne – just as the tribal leaders had been willing to negotiate – ended with disaster, humiliation, and George’s death.

Libbie couldn’t bear the way the press and President Ulysses Grant blamed her husband, so she created her own campaign to rescue his reputation. She signed up with the lecture agents and toured the country, giving speeches. Her three books, Boots and Saddles, (1885), Following the Guidon (1890), and Tenting on the Plains, (1893) were brilliant pieces of propaganda aimed at glorifying her dead husband’s memory. And she was so successful in this that not only did she live in great comfort as a wealthy widow, supported by her literary efforts, but she confused American history of “Custer’s Last Stand” for as much as another hundred years.

Libbie’s biography Shirley A. Leckie gave evidence* of how effective Libbie could be in other areas, too, in describing her midlife summers spent at Onteora, New York, with a community of writers and artists in the Catskills. Duringn this time, Libbie made a visit to Saranac Lake and met there the great author Robert Louis Stevenson. She took him to task for not putting “a real woman” into his stories, a woman with depth. When Stevenson tried to claim he didn’t know enough about women, Libbie responded, “But you have some knowledge of women, surely! Why, you have been a married man these seven years!” Leckie says that Libbie continued, “The public expects it of you, and the feminine portion demands it! Come! When are we to be introduced to the Stevenson woman in fiction?” Stevenson’s serious promise to improve the women in his books was carried out, and Leckie cites the character of Catriona in David Balfour as being “attributed to the charming but tenacious Elizabeth Custer.”

Libbie’s visit to St. Johnsbury was courtesy of the St. Johnsbury Woman’s Club, a staunch ally of the Athenaeum’s role as library and cultural center.

[*Elizabeth Bacon Custer and the Making of a Myth, by Shirley A. Leckie, 1993]

[from Boots and Saddles by Elizabeth Custer]

"...we gave ourselves the privilege of a swift gallop... ...I never noticed the surroundings until I found we were almost in the midst of an Indian village, quite hidden under the bluff. My heart literally stood still. I watched the general furtively. He was as usual perfectly unmoved, and yet he well knew that this was the country where it was hardly considered that the Indian was overburdened with hospitality. ...
The next day the general thought I might rather not go with him than run the risk of such frights; but I well knew there was something far worse than fears for my own personal safety. It is infinitely worse to be left behind, a prey to all the horrors of imagining what may be happening to one we love. You eat your heart slowly out with such anxiety, and to endure such suspense is simply the hardest of all trials that come to the soldier's wife."

[more from Boots and Saddles, pp. 68-69]

It became the delight of my husband and the officers to chaff me about “Old Nutriment” [the soldier Burkman who took care of their horses – he had been coughing violently and Libbie took charge of his care], for such was the sobriquet they gave him, At last, even Mary began to narrate how he swept everything before him with voracious, convalescent appetite. “Why, Miss Libbie,” she said to me one day, “I thought I’d try him with a can of raw tomatoes, and set them before him, asking him if he was fond of them. And he just drawled out, ‘Always was,’ and the tomatores were gone in no time. His laconic answer passed into a proverb with us all, when invited to partake of anything we liked. …

            I had made some scarlet flannel shirts for my husband’s use on the summer campaign, and he was as much pleased as possible, beginning at once to wear them. Not many days’ march proved to me what an error I had made. The bright red color could be seen for miles, when the form itself was almost lost on the horizon. I had to coax to get them away again and replace them with the dark blue that he usually wore. Though I triumphed, I was met with a perfect fusillade of teasing when I presented the red shirts to Burkman. The officers, of course, hearing all the discussion over the subject – as no trifle was too small to interest us in one another’s affairs – attacked me at once. If I had been so anxious to protect the general from wearing anything that would attract the far-seeing eye of the vigilant Indian on the coming campaign, why should I be so willing  to sacrifice the life of “Old Nutriment”? They made no impression on me, however, for they knew as well as I did that the soldier, though so faithful, was not made of that stuff that seeks to lead a Balaklava charge.

            My husband and I were so attached to him, and appreciated so deeply his fidelity, we could not that the good-fortune enough that gave us one so loyal to our interests.

biographer Shirley A. Leckie’s comment about Elizabeth’s writing: “In short, by publishing her well-written book on her private life with ‘my husband,’ Elizabeth expanded her personal influence and infused her domestic role with power.”

Henry M. Stanley Handout for Docents

Henry M. Stanley, "Through the Dark Continent"

The explorer Henry Morton Stanley gave his famous talk "Through the Dark Continent" in St. Johnsbury in mid December 1886 (reported in the local paper on December 16), just two weeks after giving the same speech to the Lotos Club in New York City. An intrepid journalist, in 1869 he was assigned by the publisher of the New York Herald to go to Africa and search for the "missing" missionary David Livingstone. When Stanley asked publisher James Gordon Bennett how much he could spend on this effort, Bennett said, "Draw a thousand pounds now, and when you have gone through that, draw another thousand pounds, and when that is spent, draw another thousand pounds, and when you have finished that, draw another thousand pounds, and so on - BUT FIND LIVINGSTONE!"

So in 1871 Stanley traveled to Zanzibar and outfitted an expedition that included at least two hundred porters, for the seven-thousand-mile trek through tropical forest. The journey was a nightmare, with horses dying, carriers deserting, tropical diseases, and Stanley's own brutal flogging of the remaining carriers to keep them going (standard procedure at the time, and probably exaggerated in Stanley's reporting in order to enlist the emotions of his Victorian readers). After eight months, he found Livingstone in Tanzania and may have said to him the now-famous line "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" Because Stanley tore out the pages of his diary describing the actual meeting, we can't be sure. But the successful finding of Livingstone led to Stanley drawing other African exploration assignments, like mapping the River Congo.

In St. Johnsbury, Stanley drew 1200 people. The Caledonian-Record reported:

Those who had preconceived notions of how the traveller and author of "Through the Dark Continent" should look, found it rather difficult to imagine that the dapper little gentleman, who came forward in full dress suit, with ample shirt front and glistening diamonds, was Stanley, the man who found Livingstone and traced the Congo to its mouth, but such was the fact.

The lecture was exceedingly interesting, the narrative graphic, and in parts eloquent. ... Two maps were shown, the Africa which Stanley entered on his strange quest, and the Africa of today. With the help of these the traveller took his audience from Zanzibar to the interior, where, at Ujiji, occurred the dramatic meeting with Livingstone.

Little known then was Stanley's early history: Bastard child of a 19-year-old Welsh woman and an alcoholic, he was born John Rowlands and suffered from the shame of his birth, as well as family deaths that put him into a workhouse. However, he completed school and became a teacher. At age 18 he took passage to the United States and was more or less adopted by a New Orleans trader named Stanley; the youth adopted this kind man's name, served on both sides in the Civil War (first Confederate, then Union), and after the war began the career as a journalist that would lead to his fame.

[from Stanley's narrative:]

On the 21st of March, exactly seventy-three days after my arrival at Zanzibar, the fifth caravan, led by myself, left the town of Bagamoyo for our first journey westward, with "Forward!" for its mot du guet.  As the kirangozi unrolled the American flag, and put himself at the head of the caravan, and the pagazis, animals, soldiers, and idlers were lined for the march, we bade a long farewell to the dolce far niente of civilised life, to the blue ocean, and to its open road to home, to the hundreds of dusky spectators who were there to celebrate our departure with repeated salvoes of musketry.

Our caravan is composed of twenty-eight pagazis, including the kirangozi, or guide; twelve soldiers under Capt. Mbarak Bombay, in charge of seventeen donkeys and their loads; Selim, my interpreter, in charge of the donkey and cart and its load; one cook and sub, who is also to be tailor and ready hand for all, and leads the grey horse; Shaw, once mate of a ship, now transformed into rearguard and overseer for the caravan, who is mounted on a good riding-donkey, and wearing a canoe-like tepee and sea-boots; and lastly, on, the splendid bay horse presented to me by Mr. Goodhue, myself, called Bana Mkuba, "the "big master," by my people--the vanguard, the reporter, the thinker, and leader of the Expedition.

Altogether the Expedition numbers on the day of departure three white men, twenty-three soldiers, four supernumeraries, four chiefs, and one hundred and fifty-three pagazis, twenty-seven donkeys, and one cart, conveying cloth, beads, and wire, boat-fixings, tents, cooking utensils and dishes, medicine, powder, small shot, musket-balls, and metallic cartridges; instruments and small necessaries, such as soap, sugar, tea, coffee, Liebig's extract of meat, pemmican, candles, &c., which make a total of 153 loads.  The weapons of defence which the Expedition possesses consist of one double-barrel breech-loading gun, smooth bore; one American Winchester rifle, or "sixteen-shooter;" one Henry rifle, or "sixteen-shooter;" two Starr's breech-loaders, one Jocelyn breech-loader, one elephant rifle, carrying balls eight to the pound; two breech-loading revolvers, twenty-four muskets (flint locks), six single-barrelled pistols, one battle-axe, two swords, two daggers (Persian kummers, purchased at Shiraz by myself), one boar-spear, two American axes 4 lbs. each, twenty-four hatchets, and twenty-four butcher-knives. ...

We left Bagamoyo the attraction of all the curious, with much eclat, and defiled up a narrow lane shaded almost to twilight by the dense umbrage of two parallel hedges of mimosas.  We were all in the highest spirits.  The soldiers sang, the kirangozi lifted his voice into a loud bellowing note, and fluttered the American flag, which told all on-lookers, "Lo, a Musungu's caravan!" and my heart, I thought, palpitated much too quickly for the sober face of a leader. But I could not check it; the enthusiasm of youth still clung to me--despite my travels; my pulses bounded with the full glow of staple health; behind me were the troubles which had harassed me for over two months.  With that dishonest son of a Hindi, Soor Hadji Palloo, I had said my last word; of the blatant rabble, of Arabs, Banyans, and Baluches I had taken my last look; with the Jesuits of the French Mission I had exchanged farewells; and before me beamed the sun of promise as he sped towards the Occident.  Loveliness glowed around me.  I saw fertile fields, riant vegetation, strange trees--I heard the cry of cricket and pee-wit, and sibilant sound of many insects, all of which seemed to tell me, "At last you are started."  What could I do but lift my face toward the pure-glowing sky, and cry, "God be thanked!"