Celebrating the Bicentennial of the Birth of Charles Sumner
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on fellow ous ulletin Volume No. A Newsletter of the Friends of the Longfellow House and the National Park Service December Celebrating the Bicentennial of the Birth of Charles Sumner anuary , marks the th year since In January at the African diately afterwards the First Jthe birth of Massachusetts politician Meeting House Prof. John Parish Church in Cam- crusader for abolition and civil rights and Stauffer chair of Harvard’s bridge will host a program Longfellow’s closest friend – Charles Sum- History of American Civi- with lectures on Sumner as ner. Although Sumner was one of the most lization program will speak well as recitations by Cam- prominent U.S. senators and reformers of on Sumner and his Beacon bridge schoolchildren. his time many people today know little Hill roots. Henry Longfel- During the year walking about the man whom citizens chose to low’s annual February birth- tours will explore sites such honor with memorial statues in Boston and day celebration at Mount as Sumner’s Beacon Hill Cambridge and name a street for in Port- Auburn Cemetery will also where he was born and grew au-Prince Haiti. include a tribute to his best up and Mount Auburn To inform the public about and com- friend. In late spring at the Cemetery where he and memorate the remarkable life and work of re-dedication of Anne many of his abolitionist Charles Sumner the National Park Service Whitney’s statue of Sum- friends are buried. Longfel- has joined with the Museum of African ner in Harvard Square low House where Sumner American History the Boston African Ame- Cambridge Mayor David Charles Sumner spent much of his adult life rican National Historic Site Mount Au- Maher will issue a proclamation recognizing will offer special theme tours as well. burn Cemetery and Harvard University to Sumner’s contributions to civil rights and his For details about these programs call offer a series of tours lectures and events. importance to the city of Cambridge. Imme- -- or visit: www.nps.gov/long. The Poet and the Politician: The Lifelong Friendship of Longfellow and Sumner hen Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Mr. Sumner might have a fugitive slave “Their temperaments seemed in many Wworked in his study he often sat somewhere about him and a mulatto girl ways almost diametrically opposed ” ob- beneath the portrait of his best friend and whom he befriended and brought to see us served Longfellow’s grandson Harry Dana most frequent visitor to the House Charles was an object of tremendous interest.” “the severity and vehemence of Sumner the Sumner. Although the two men chose gentleness and serenity of Longfellow.” vastly different careers and had con- The poet and the politician first met at trasting personalities they shared many Harvard University in March , interests and a deep concern for the while Longfellow age thirty was in his rights of all people. first year of teaching modern languages “Charles Sumner was perhaps the and Sumner was a twenty-six-year-old oldest and nearest of [father’s friends] ” law student.Well-versed in the classics Alice Longfellow the poet’s oldest Sumner wrote scholarly articles and he daughter reminisced circa . “Their filled in at the Harvard Law School mutual fondness for literature and art when his mentor Supreme Court Jus- drew them together in the beginning tice Joseph Story was away. and then their intense hatred of slav- When Sumner left for Europe the ery and their belief and interest in the year after they met Longfellow intro- cause of abolition.... All through his duced and described him to his friend public life Mr. Sumner wrote con- GeorgeWashington Greene in a letter on stantly to my father sharing with him August , : “You will not fail to make all his cares and perplexities receiving “The Politics and Poetry of New England ” carte de visite much of [Charles Sumner] as Nature has in reply most heartfelt sympathy and Charles Sumner and Henry Longfellow in Washington D.C. done before you; for he stands six feet advice.... There was always a sense that Photograph by Alexander Gardner (continued on page ) A Tale of Two Statues: Memorials to Charles Sumner n the year after Charles Sumner towards sculpture. She studied anatomy in died the Boston Art Committee held a New York where she also spent time with I national competition for the design of a Lucy Stone suffragist and abolitionist and memorial statue of the beloved reformer in Elizabeth Blackwell the first American Friends of the Longfellow House the Public Garden. According to the rules woman to earn a medical degree. Back again Board of Directors all sculptors entered their small-scale mod- in Boston she learned much from sculptor- Heather S. Moulton President els anonymously.When the painter William Rimmer. Elizabeth F. Potter Clerk judges discovered they had In Whitney moved Robert C. Mitchell Treasurer Annette Benedetto awarded the commission to to Rome and sculpted for Peggy Blumenreich a woman Anne Whitney the next four years. After Hope Cushing they chose Thomas Ball’s she returned to the U.S. Diana Der-Hovanessian entry instead. she established a studio in Edward Guleserian The socially conservative Boston and gained an inter- Barclay Henderson presumably all-male Boston national reputation. Sarah B. Jolliffe Art Committee believed Always an avid aboli- Linda Almgren Kime that “no woman should tionist and advocate of Laura Nash attempt to model a man’s women’s rights Whitney Lynne Spencer legs; it was indelicate and addressed issues of equal- Advisory Board would never be successful.” ity for all in her poetry and Ruth Butler Thomas Ball an emi- sculpture. In plaster mar- LeRoy Cragwell nent Boston sculptor was ble and bronze she chose Diana Korzenik already known for his to portray people who Richard Nylander statue in the Public Garden Thomas Ball’s statue of Sumner worked for social justice – Stephen D. Pratt of George Washington on horseback. such as Samuel Adams William Lloyd Gar- Marilyn Richardson Although the committee had specified that rison Toussaint L’Ouverture (with expertly Marc Shell Sumner’s likeness be seated “To make the executed male legs) Harriet Beecher Stowe Charles Sullivan decision the more unjust to all the other and Lucy Stone – as well as the allegorical Lowell A. Warren Jr. concurrents ” James Jackson Jarves wrote in figures “Africa” and “Roma.” Administrator the NewYorkTimes December , “Mr. Whitney had been delighted to enter the J.L. Bell Ball’s model was set aside Sumner statue competi- entirely and he was given tion: Charles had been not Newsletter Committee permission to make a only a family friend but Glenna Lang Editor, Writer & Designer standing figure of Sum- also a hero to her. When James M. Shea ner instead.... It is to be the Boston Art Commit- hoped that finally Miss tee rescinded the commis- Whitney will be invited sion Whitney was out- by the citizens of Boston raged but resilient. “Bury National Park Service to put into bronze or your grievance ” she wrote Myra Harrison Superintendent marble her sitting figure to her family “It will take James M. Shea Museum Manager/Curator of the illustrious Sumner more than a Boston Art Lauren Downing, Administrative Officer that Bostonians may see Committee to quench me.” Nancy Jones Education andVisitor Services for themselves which is For almost a quarter Anita Israel Archives Specialist the better effigy of the century the plaster model David Daly Collections Manager two and which displays Whitney had created for Lauren Malcolm MuseumTechnician the better knowledge of the competition re- Scott Fletcher, Facility Manager the male figure.” mained in her studio. In Beth Wear Management Assistant Anne Whitney was Anne Whitney’s statue she secretly resumed one of the few successful American women the project producing a full-size statue Printed by Newprint Offset Waltham Mass. sculptors of her time. Born into a well-to- cast in bronze by a foundry in Chicopee do family in Watertown Massachusetts in Massachusetts.With the support of several and raised in Cambridge Whitney Harvard professors in her memorial received a solid education. At age twenty- to Charles Sumner begun in was five she started and ran a school in Salem installed in Harvard Square now a traffic All images are from the Longfellow National Historic for two years and she published poems in island between Harvard Yard and the Old Site collections, unless noted otherwise. the Atlantic Monthly and Harper’s Magazine. In Burying Ground. This imposing work was a collection of her poems appeared in the last major sculpture thatWhitney com- a volume called simply Poems. pleted before her death in at the age of Her interest however veered largely ninety-three. Interview wit a Friend … Beverly Morg n-Welch, Museum Director Since Beverly Morgan-Welch has He was a leader in the black community were calculated actions by a community with been the executive director of the Museum and a very close neighbor to Sumner. the knowledge that the person bringing the of African American History in Boston LH: Do you think living in this neigh- suit or standing forward had to have a means and Nantucket. Located on Beacon Hill in borhood might have influenced Sumner’s of financial support. Suing the city of the Abiel Smith School and African Meet- societal and political views? Boston means that you’re going to have the ing House buildings the museum is dedi- BMW: It had to have had something to Anti-Slavery Society buying printing services cated to the contributions of African do with how he saw the world. If you look from you. So Benjamin Roberts brought a Americans in New England from the colo- at the Abiel Smith School and African suit against the city of Boston.