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on fellow ous L g ulletinH e Volume No. A Newsletter of the Friends of the Longfellow House June Longfellow Archives Throw NewB Light on Japan’s Meiji Period n May , , Henry Wadsworth OLongfellow wrote to his elder son, Charley, “Uncle Tom has returned, says he saw you in New York; and wonders why you want to go to Japan when you can go yachting in the Alice!” That month, Charley sailed from San Francisco, arriving in Yoko- hama in July. He did not think it would be a long visit, but, in fact, he stayed a year, and then a second year. He even built an “expensive” house in Tokyo (a project for which he dipped into his inheritance from his Appleton grandfather). During the past year, at the Longfellow House, Christine Laidlaw, an art historian who recently finished a Ph.D. dissertation for Rutgers University entitled “The Amer- Charley Longfellow in Japan, : after descending Mt. Fuji, in photo on right, Charley is second from left. ican Reaction to Japanese Art, -,” more than photographs from the trip finding “women suckling bear cubs, fatten- and her husband, Angus, have been editing found in the Longfellow House. Many of ing them, worshipping them, and then eat- and annotating the details of Charley the photographs were taken by the finest ing them.” (letter of Sept. , ). Longfellow’s visit to Japan in the early s. photographers of that time in Japan. The In the upcoming months the fascinating With the assistance of Lauren Malcolm photographs document Charley’s visits to results of this work, including a large num- and Jim Shea, curator and manager of the Kobe, Nagasaki, Osaka, Hokkaido, Kyoto, ber of the photographs, will be published House, they have transcribed his letters and as well as climbing Mt. Fuji and going out and made available through the Friends of those of the family to him in Japan, stud- to meet the people of the Ainu country, the Longfellow House, funded by the Jean ied his journals, and culled through the where Charley (mistakenly) anticipated S. and Frederick A. Scharf Foundation. New High-School Curriculum Features Charles Longfellow harles Longfellow, the poet’s elder son, An innovative new curriculum for high Kelly Fellner, Education and Visitor Ser- Cwas the adventurer in the family. In school students is being developed at the vices Coordinator at the Longfellow when he was nineteen, he ran Longfellow House based on these National Historic Site, said there is a lack away from home to enlist as a materials and Charles Longfel- of curriculum units using primary sources private in the Union Army. low’s Civil War experiences. Ten- for high school students. She is developing He suffered typhoid and tatively titled Coming of Age in a this pioneering project with the help of malaria, and was wounded Time of Turbulence the curricu- NPS staff Liza Stearns and a local teach- in the back at Mt. Hope lum will encourage students ers’ advisory board which includes Carolyn Church, Virginia, after to make use of primary Kemmett, a student in the graduate pro- which his father and sources such as Charles’s jour- gram of museum studies at Tufts Univer- brother went to Washing- nals, his letters home, scrap- sity; Margaret Von Gonten, Curriculum ton to bring him home to books, photographs, as well as Coordinator for the Cambridge Public recuperate. Upon his return his uniform, swords, and guns. Schools; Mary Page and Lorie Taylor, Cam- home, Charles created a Civil War The curriculum will also include let- bridge School of Weston; Larry Metzger, room in the house featuring his uni- ters from his sisters as a way of examining Winsor School in Boston; and Frances form, swords, guns, and photographs. different gender roles in wartime. continuued on next page Interview with a Friend. Meet Stanley Paterson ሖሗመ by Ruth Butler Friends of the Longfellow House n a cold, sunny March day I drove to Board of Directors Nahant to interview Stanley Paterson, Diana Korzenik, President O Joan Mark, Vice-President treasurer of the Friends of the Longfellow Lynne Spencer, Clerk House. I knew the way. Long ago I looked Charlotte Cleveland, Treasurer for a house in Nahant, and in the process Frances Ackerly became curious about a large yellow house Gene A. Blumenreich with fine classical detail on the water’s edge. Edith Hollmann Bowers To my surprise, the trip today was to sat- Ruth Butler isfy that old curiosity. As Stanley and I LeRoy Cragwell talked in a small nineteenth-century salon Barclay Henderson modeled on an earlier room in the Derby Diane der Hovanessian House of Salem, we took occasional breaks Arthur Loeb to look at Stanley’s own architectural cre- Stanley Paterson, Maura Smith ations: a ballroom with a round-headed Charles Sullivan window copied from Mt. Vernon which Catherine Vickery framed the sea and the North Shore S.P. No, but it’s been my hobby for more beyond to perfection, a room decorated than forty years. For the Nahant book, I Advisory Board with cast plaster friezes and ceiling coffers, was inspired by a plaque in the Nahant Timothy Anglin Burgard Dennis J. Carlone works of Stanley’s own making. Then there church to the founders of the church. I Francis Duehay was the dining room with decorations after would sit there every Sunday and look at Margaret Henderson Floyd Robert Adam. I rapidly understood at least that thing, and there were all the names of Justin Kaplan one reason Stanley Paterson has been the great families of Boston. I thought it Florence Ladd drawn to the Longfellow House. would be fun to learn more about them. Leslie A. Morris Ruth Butler: I know that you were one There were probably about a dozen Ap- Richard Nylander of the founders of the Friends group. Why pletons, so off I went to the Boston Stephen D. Pratt was that; how did you find Longfellow? Athenaeum and I just got sucked in. Then Mark Shell Stanley Paterson: A colleague, Carl eventually I went to the Mass. Historical Judith Tick Seaburg, and I have been working together Society, and finally to Houghton Library Lowell A. Warren, Jr. for a long time. First we wrote a biography at Harvard. It was convenient that Eileen Woodford of the Boston merchant and philanthropist Houghton had published Longfellow’s let- Newsletter Committee Thomas H. Perkins, published by Harvard ters. The incoming letters, which are also at Ruth Butler, Editor in . We’ve done other things too, and Houghton, are not published, but they are Joan Mark in , we brought out a big book on the indexed. It has , correspondents in it, Virginia Wadsworth history of Nahant, published by the and there are probably , letters. Glenna Lang, Designer ᳚ Nahant Historical Society. And, of course, Charles Sumner alone wrote Longfellow National Park Service Longfellow summered in Nahant for years. over letters. And there are the jour- Rolf Diamant, Superintendent So we had to look at Longfellow. nals–I think about forty volumes. B. J. Dunn, Administrative Officer R.B. I begin to see a path that could have R.B. How was his handwriting? James Shea, Director led you to Brattle Street. S.P. Excellent. Apparently there was a Michele Clark, Museum Specialist S.P. Well, not exactly, because the bulk movement at Harvard to publish the jour- Kelly Fellner, Education and Visitor Services of Longfellow’s own papers are at Harvard. nals, but the project never got off the Coordinator R.B. You mean the letters? ground. So I thought that would be kind S.P. Also the diaries, as well as the let- of fun. I’ve been working on it for about ማሜምሞ ters to Longfellow. But we also went over four years. to the Longfellow House— must have R.B. That is a wonderful project. How been ten years ago or more—we wanted to many years do the journals cover? continued from previous page look at Fanny Appleton’s papers. We ended S.P. Oh, the journals go from his Ackerly, a distinguished educator and a up with more than a chapter in the book on youngest days to his death. But I’m only Friend of the Longfellow House. Longfellow. working from the period when he began his According to Kelly, the curriculum is R.B. I would love to see the book–[a affiliation with Harvard. I pick the journals now in the planning stage, with funding, request easily fulfilled and which produced a thick, up about , and right now I’ve finished development, and promotion to follow richly illustrated volume full of those particulars of them up to the time of Fanny’s death in soon. She is exploring a possible collabora- an old and rich resort that forever fascinate]. Stan- . But I’ll go to the end of his life. I tion with one of the southern Civil War ley, this is a very serious work, but some- intersperse his writing with material from sites in the National Park Service. how you don’t strike me as a historian. the journals of the people with whom he Washington-Longfellow Birthday Celebration was meeting. It begins to look like a three- n February , Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s th birthday was celebrated in volume project. Okeeping with an annual tradition: a wreath was solemnly laid upon his grave in Mt. R.B. How much of your work have you Auburn Cemetery. In order that as many people as possible might witness the ceremony, it done in the House? took place on the Saturday preceding Longfellow’s actual birthday, February .