california history - California Historical Society
Share Embed Flag
Download ePaper

california history - California Historical Society

california history - California Historical Society california history - California Historical Society

californiahistoricalsociety.org
from californiahistoricalsociety.org More from this publisher
13.07.2015 Views

n o t e sGertrude Van Rensselaer Wickham, ThePioneer Families of Cleveland 1796–1840, vol.2 (Cleveland: Evangelical Publishing House,1914), 629. Maurice Joblin, Cleveland, Pastand Present: Its Representative Men (Cleveland:Maurice Joblin, 1869), 149. Julius P.Bolivar MacCabe, First Directory of Clevelandand Ohio City, for the Years 1837–38 (Cleveland,OH: Sanford and Lott, 1837).8 Dewsnap, The Severance Genealogy, 194.Judith Raftery, “Caroline Marie [CQ] SeymourSeverance: Activist, Organizer, andReformer,” in The Human Tradition inCalifornia, ed. Clark Davis and David Igler(Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources,2002), 102; see also James Skinner SeymourVertical File, Seymour Public Library,Auburn, NY(hereafter cited as SeymourVertical File). “Caroline Maria SeymourSeverance Biographical Sketch,” The WomanQuestion, Connecticut History on the Web,http://www.connhistory.org (hereafter citedas CS biographical sketch). Ruddy, TheMother of Clubs, 55.9 Seymour Vertical File.10 Raftery, “Caroline Marie Seymour Severance,”102. Unless otherwise noted, thequoted remarks and the descriptions of theprivate life of Caroline Severance are fromher unpublished autobiography, “My OwnStory,” contained in the Papers of CarolineMaria Seymour Severance 1830–1980, box 5,folder 19, Huntington Library, San Marino,California (hereafter cited as SeverancePapers, CSS).11 Joan M. Jensen, “Caroline Maria SeymourSeverance,” in Notable American Women,1607–1950: A Biographical Dictionary, ed.Edward T. James, Janet Wilson James, andPaul S. Boyer, vol. 2 (Cambridge: HarvardUniversity Press, 1971), 265.12 Tittle, The Severances. Ruddy, Mother ofClubs, 59.13 Elbert J. Benton, A Century of Progress:Being a History of the National City Bank ofCleveland from 1845 to 1945 (Cleveland, OH:National City Bank, 1945), 3. Severance, “MyOwn Story.” Ruddy, Mother of Clubs, 58, 108.14 CS biographical sketch.15 Ruddy, Mother of Clubs, 135. For descriptionsof the public life of Caroline SeymourSeverance, see Raftery, “Caroline Marie SeymourSeverance”; Jensen, “After Slavery”;Hubbell and Lothrop, “The Friday MorningClub”; and Trustee Biographies—John L.Severance, Cleveland Orchestra Archives,Severance Hall, Cleveland, OH (hereaftercited as Trustee Biographies). GeorgeMcKenna, The Puritan Origins of AmericanPatriotism (New Haven: Yale UniversityPress, 2007), 4. See Kenneth Stampp, ThePeculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-BellumSouth (New York: Alfred A. Knopf,1967).16 “Caroline Severance,” Dictionary of Unitarianand Universalist Biography, http://www25-temp.uua.org (hereafter cited as CSdictionary entry). Ruddy, Mother of Clubs,21–22.17 CS dictionary entry. Jeanette E. Tuve, OldStone Church: In the Heart of the City since1820 (Virginia Beach, VA: The Donning Co.,1994), 17. CS biographical sketch. Jensen,“After Slavery,” 75.18 CS biographical sketch. Parton et al., EminentWomen of the Age, 379–82.19 Hubbell and Lothrop, “The Friday MorningClub,” 287.20 Parton et al., Eminent Women of the Age,379–82. Severance, An Autobiography, 5.Hubbell and Lothrop, “The Friday MorningClub,” 287.21 Severance, An Autobiography, 5. Partonet al., Eminent Women of the Age, 379–82.“More Women’s Rights Conventions,”National Park Service Women’s Rights History& Culture, http://www.nps.gov/wori/historyculture.22 Severance, An Autobiography, 6.23 Ruddy, Mother of Clubs, 21. Severance,“My Own Story.”24 Benton, A Century of Progress, 5. JohnLong Severance to Mary Long Severance,July 22, 1846, SFR.25 Benton, A Century of Progress, 3–6. JohnE. Vacha, “My Money or Your Life: TheCanal Bank Failure of 1854,” Timeline(Mar.–Apr. 2001): 40. Workers of ProjectNo. 14066, Annals of Cleveland, 1818–1935:A Digest and Index of the Newspaper Recordof Events and Opinions in Two Hundred Volumes,vol. 34 (Cleveland, OH: WPA Administrationof Ohio, 1937), 102.26 Harlan Hatcher, The Western Reserve: TheStory of New Connecticut in Ohio (Indianapolis:Bobbs-Merrill, 1949), 129. Vacha, “MyMoney or Your Life,” 37.27 Jensen, “After Slavery,” 74. Severance, AnAutobiography, 10. Trustee Biographies. Raftery,“Caroline Marie Seymour Severance,”103.28 Hubbell and Lothrop, “The Friday MorningClub,” 283. Raftery, “Caroline MarieSeymour Severance,” 104; Ruddy, Mother ofClubs, 24.29 Raftery, “Caroline Marie Seymour Severance,”104. “Mother of Women’s ClubsDead,” New York Times, Nov. 11, 1914.30 Unless otherwise noted, informationabout Caroline and T.C. and their sons’activities in California, as well as biographicaldetails about the sons, are from Severance,An Autobiography.31 James S. Severance to T.C. Severance,Feb. 17, 1873, box 47, folder 4, SeverancePapers.32 Mark Severance to T.C. Severance, Sept.17, 1873, box 47, folder 4, Severance Papers.33 James to T.C., Aug. 28, 1863, box 47,folder 4, Severance Papers. In the early1860s, Dr. Lewis had founded in Boston anormal school for training physical educationteachers, whose graduates spread outacross the country and helped to assure aplace for physical hygiene and exercise inthe curriculum of the public schools. Carolinehad invited the crusading educator, afellow native of Auburn, NY, for an extendedstay in the Severance home in West Newton.Dr. Lewis insisted that everyone in theSeverance household run a mile beforebreakfast. Apparently, unlike his eldest son,T.C. had not taken to the new regimen. Hewas still muttering about the damnable Diolong after his youngest child had left home.In the mid-1870s, Mary Severance senther brother-in-law an issue of a Clevelandnewspaper called the Leader that was “quitegiven up to Dr. Lewis & his movement inOhio.” The lavish coverage afforded his oldnemesis rekindled T.C.’s pique. T.C. passedalong to his traveling wife (who had taught“practical ethics” at Lewis’s normal schoolfor a time after the Civil War) the news thather reformer friend had recently held a publicmeeting in Cleveland to stir up interestin exercise and temperance, adding sarcastically,“& his cloven foot hung out all the waythro”; T.C. to Caroline, Feb. 14, 1874, box 52,folder 16, Severance Papers; Clark Davis andDavid Igler, eds., The Human Tradition inCalifornia, 103.34 Caroline to James, n.d., box 36, folder24, Severance Papers. The tactics Carolineemployed to persuade her son to stop drinkingreveal her skills as a rhetorician. First,she assured Seymour that she did not blamehim for his past failings, noting consolinglyCalifornia History • volume 88 number 1 2010

that “thousands of the brightest & best menfall under the habit of stimulants.” Thenshe tried to beguile him: “Now my darlingS. you have sworn off for two weeks, then ifyou can do it so brief, why not for longer?Why not give up the harmful dangeroushabit altogether. Can it be as hard to say toothers that you do not drink (the poison) asto do it.” Perhaps fearing that her tone hadbeen too soft, she next administered the verbalequivalent of a slap: “You are too muchof a man my dear S. and have too good abrain to be so idiotic.” Finally, she resortedto pleading: “And now, before will & memory& reason are too far weakened, make themanly resolve to save yourself from all thesefearful risks that lie before you, I beg you,I implore you, to do this, to use your bestreason on the matter. It is all summed upin the admirable sentence which I quoted toyou. If it is easy to do[,] do it for the sake ofthose who love you & depend upon you. Ifhard—do it at once, for your own safety.”35 James to T.C., Feb. 17, 1873.36 James to T.C., Jan. 28, 1873, box 47, folder4, Severance Papers.37 James to T.C., Feb. 17, 1873.38 James to T.C., Jan. 28, 1873.39 Severance, An Autobiography, 71.40 Mark Severance to Pierre Severance, 1872,box 50, folder 9, Severance Papers.41 James to T.C., Feb. 17, 1873.42 T.C. to Caroline, Feb. 16, 1874, Mar. 5,1875, box 52, folder 16, Severance Papers.Severance, An Autobiography, 26.43 James to T.C. , Feb. 17, 1873; Caroline toT.C., July 28, 1875, box 37, folder 26; T.C. toCaroline, Mar. 10, 1875, box 52, folder 16,Severance Papers.44 Severance, An Autobiography, 13–14; Raftery,“Caroline Marie Seymour Severance,”103. Caroline to T.C., July 28, 1875. Tittle,The Severances, 107. CS biographical sketch.45 Caroline to T.C., July 28, 1875.46 T.C. to Caroline, Feb. 14, 16, 17, 1874.47 Severance, An Autobiography, 82. MaryLong Severance to Caroline, Oct. 17, 1877;Mark to Pierre, 1872; Solon Severance toCaroline, Mar. 24, 1875, box 51, folder 5, SeverancePapers. Severance, “My Own Story.”48 Severance, “My Own Story.” Hubbell andLothrop, “The Friday Morning Club,” 288.49 Caroline Severance, “Reminiscences,” box5, folder 32, Severance Papers.50 Sibley, An Autobiography, 85; Severance,“Reminiscences.” The orchard becameT.C.’s pride and joy. He often importunedClevelanders on business in Los Angeles totake some of his delicious citrus fruit backto his relatives; Solon to T.C., June 14, 1879,box 52, folder 10, Severance Papers. “Mme.Caroline Severance,” newspaper article, n.p.,n.d, SFR.51 Julia Severance Burrage to T.C., June 9,1889, box 39, folder 4; James to T.C., Feb.25, 1878, box 47, folder 4, Severance Papers;Scrapbook, vol. 112, Pasadena [California]Historical Society (hereafter cited as Scrapbook).Severance, “My Own Story.” El Nidowas razed in 1950 to make way for the newheadquarters of the John Tracy Clinic, thecountry’s first preschool for the hearingimpaired, located at the corner of WestAdams and Severance streets. The clinic wasfounded by actor Spencer Tracy’s wife andnamed in honor of their son, who was deaf;Cecilia Rasmussen, “Actor’s Wife a Star inAiding Deaf Children and Their Families,”Los Angeles Times, Nov. 14, 2004.52 Judith Rosenberg Raftery, Land of FairPromise: Politics and Reform in Los AngelesSchools, 1885–1941 (Stanford, CA: StanfordUniversity Press, 1992), 22; see also GloriaRicci Lothrop, “Nurturing Society’s Children,”California History 65, no. 4 (Dec.1986): 274–83.53 Raftery, Land of Fair Promise, 22–27 and“Los Angeles Clubwomen and ProgressiveReform,” in California Progressivism Revisited,ed. William Deverell and Tom Sitton(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University ofCalifornia Press, 1994), 149–51.54 Jensen, “After Slavery,” 79. Lothrop, “NurturingSociety’s Children,” 278.55 Trustee Biographies. Jensen, “After Slavery,”79–80.56 Jensen, “After Slavery,” 79–80. KevinStarr, Inventing the Dream: California throughthe Progressive Era (New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1985), 96. Raftery, “LosAngeles Clubwomen,” 148. Lothrop, “NurturingSociety’s Children,” 278. Hubbell andLothrop, “The Friday Morning Club,” 294.Cecelia Rasmussen, “L.A.’s Leading, NowForgotten, Suffragette,” Los Angeles Times,June 7, 1998. Dwindling resources forcedthe sale of the Italian Renaissance buildingin 1977, but according to Rasmussen, theclub’s twenty active members continued togather twice a month as late as 1998.57 Muscupiabe was a variant of the nameof a Serrano Indian village, Amuscupiabit,meaning “place of little pines.” T.C.and Caroline’s investment in the ranchwas probably modest. Although Carolineasserted in her unpublished autobiography,“My Own Story,” that parents and sonsowned Muscupiabe “in common,” MarkSibley made no mention of the elder Severances’participation in the purchase in hisautobiography. Perhaps the elder Severancescontributed what they could toward themortgage payments.58 Mark to T.C., May 31, 1879, box 50, folder9, Severance Papers.59 James to T.C., Feb. 27, 1880, box 47,folder 5, Severance Papers. After ten yearsin Salt Lake City, Sibley and Annie hadbeen lured back to Los Angeles by Carolineand T.C.’s offer of a home lot sliced fromtheir West Adams property in what was fastbecoming the city’s wealthiest neighborhood.The usually broadminded Carolinehad dangled this bait because she did notregard Salt Lake City, where she had witnessedMormon women “walking like petdogs behind their much-married husbands,”as a fitting environment for her two granddaughters;Severance, “My Own Story.”60 Before his death at eighty-seven in 1931,Sibley also donated land to the San Bernardinocampus of California State University;“John Randall Munn Jr. ’38,” obituary,Princeton Alumni Weekly, Dec. 6, 2000.61 D. E. Parker to Mary Long Severance, May19, n.y., SFR. Solon to T.C., Sept. 28, 1892,box 52, folder 10; Mary Long to T.C., Feb. 15,1886, box 51, folder 6, Severance Papers.62 “Death of T.C. Severance,” obituary, n.p.,n.d., SFR. Severance, “My Own Story.” T.C.to Caroline, Sept. 17, 20, and 22, 1890, box52, folder 17, Severance Papers.63 T.C. to Caroline, Sept. 17, 1890.64 Jensen, Notable American Women, 267 and“After Slavery,” 80–81.65 Hubbell and Lothrop, “The Friday MorningClub,” 290.66 “Caroline M. Severance,” Historical Societyof Southern California, www.socalhistory.org/bios.67 Scrapbook.7

n o t e sGertrude Van Rensselaer Wickham, ThePioneer Families of Cleveland 1796–1840, vol.2 (Cleveland: Evangelical Publishing House,1914), 629. Maurice Joblin, Cleveland, Pastand Present: Its Representative Men (Cleveland:Maurice Joblin, 1869), 149. Julius P.Bolivar MacCabe, First Directory of Clevelandand Ohio City, for the Years 1837–38 (Cleveland,OH: Sanford and Lott, 1837).8 Dewsnap, The Severance Genealogy, 194.Judith Raftery, “Caroline Marie [CQ] SeymourSeverance: Activist, Organizer, andReformer,” in The Human Tradition in<strong>California</strong>, ed. Clark Davis and David Igler(Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources,2002), 102; see also James Skinner SeymourVertical File, Seymour Public Library,Auburn, NY(hereafter cited as SeymourVertical File). “Caroline Maria SeymourSeverance Biographical Sketch,” The WomanQuestion, Connecticut History on the Web,http://www.conn<strong>history</strong>.org (hereafter citedas CS biographical sketch). Ruddy, TheMother of Clubs, 55.9 Seymour Vertical File.10 Raftery, “Caroline Marie Seymour Severance,”102. Unless otherwise noted, thequoted remarks and the descriptions of theprivate life of Caroline Severance are fromher unpublished autobiography, “My OwnStory,” contained in the Papers of CarolineMaria Seymour Severance 1830–1980, box 5,folder 19, Huntington Library, San Marino,<strong>California</strong> (hereafter cited as SeverancePapers, CSS).11 Joan M. Jensen, “Caroline Maria SeymourSeverance,” in Notable American Women,1607–1950: A Biographical Dictionary, ed.Edward T. James, Janet Wilson James, andPaul S. Boyer, vol. 2 (Cambridge: HarvardUniversity Press, 1971), 265.12 Tittle, The Severances. Ruddy, Mother ofClubs, 59.13 Elbert J. Benton, A Century of Progress:Being a History of the National City Bank ofCleveland from 1845 to 1945 (Cleveland, OH:National City Bank, 1945), 3. Severance, “MyOwn Story.” Ruddy, Mother of Clubs, 58, 108.14 CS biographical sketch.15 Ruddy, Mother of Clubs, 135. For descriptionsof the public life of Caroline SeymourSeverance, see Raftery, “Caroline Marie SeymourSeverance”; Jensen, “After Slavery”;Hubbell and Lothrop, “The Friday MorningClub”; and Trustee Biographies—John L.Severance, Cleveland Orchestra Archives,Severance Hall, Cleveland, OH (hereaftercited as Trustee Biographies). GeorgeMcKenna, The Puritan Origins of AmericanPatriotism (New Haven: Yale UniversityPress, 2007), 4. See Kenneth Stampp, ThePeculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-BellumSouth (New York: Alfred A. Knopf,1967).16 “Caroline Severance,” Dictionary of Unitarianand Universalist Biography, http://www25-temp.uua.org (hereafter cited as CSdictionary entry). Ruddy, Mother of Clubs,21–22.17 CS dictionary entry. Jeanette E. Tuve, OldStone Church: In the Heart of the City since1820 (Virginia Beach, VA: The Donning Co.,1994), 17. CS biographical sketch. Jensen,“After Slavery,” 75.18 CS biographical sketch. Parton et al., EminentWomen of the Age, 379–82.19 Hubbell and Lothrop, “The Friday MorningClub,” 287.20 Parton et al., Eminent Women of the Age,379–82. Severance, An Autobiography, 5.Hubbell and Lothrop, “The Friday MorningClub,” 287.21 Severance, An Autobiography, 5. Partonet al., Eminent Women of the Age, 379–82.“More Women’s Rights Conventions,”National Park Service Women’s Rights History& Culture, http://www.nps.gov/wori/<strong>history</strong>culture.22 Severance, An Autobiography, 6.23 Ruddy, Mother of Clubs, 21. Severance,“My Own Story.”24 Benton, A Century of Progress, 5. JohnLong Severance to Mary Long Severance,July 22, 1846, SFR.25 Benton, A Century of Progress, 3–6. JohnE. Vacha, “My Money or Your Life: TheCanal Bank Failure of 1854,” Timeline(Mar.–Apr. 2001): 40. Workers of ProjectNo. 14066, Annals of Cleveland, 1818–1935:A Digest and Index of the Newspaper Recordof Events and Opinions in Two Hundred Volumes,vol. 34 (Cleveland, OH: WPA Administrationof Ohio, 1937), 102.26 Harlan Hatcher, The Western Reserve: TheStory of New Connecticut in Ohio (Indianapolis:Bobbs-Merrill, 1949), 129. Vacha, “MyMoney or Your Life,” 37.27 Jensen, “After Slavery,” 74. Severance, AnAutobiography, 10. Trustee Biographies. Raftery,“Caroline Marie Seymour Severance,”103.28 Hubbell and Lothrop, “The Friday MorningClub,” 283. Raftery, “Caroline MarieSeymour Severance,” 104; Ruddy, Mother ofClubs, 24.29 Raftery, “Caroline Marie Seymour Severance,”104. “Mother of Women’s ClubsDead,” New York Times, Nov. 11, 1914.30 Unless otherwise noted, informationabout Caroline and T.C. and their sons’activities in <strong>California</strong>, as well as biographicaldetails about the sons, are from Severance,An Autobiography.31 James S. Severance to T.C. Severance,Feb. 17, 1873, box 47, folder 4, SeverancePapers.32 Mark Severance to T.C. Severance, Sept.17, 1873, box 47, folder 4, Severance Papers.33 James to T.C., Aug. 28, 1863, box 47,folder 4, Severance Papers. In the early1860s, Dr. Lewis had founded in Boston anormal school for training physical educationteachers, whose graduates spread outacross the country and helped to assure aplace for physical hygiene and exercise inthe curriculum of the public schools. Carolinehad invited the crusading educator, afellow native of Auburn, NY, for an extendedstay in the Severance home in West Newton.Dr. Lewis insisted that everyone in theSeverance household run a mile beforebreakfast. Apparently, unlike his eldest son,T.C. had not taken to the new regimen. Hewas still muttering about the damnable Diolong after his youngest child had left home.In the mid-1870s, Mary Severance senther brother-in-law an issue of a Clevelandnewspaper called the Leader that was “quitegiven up to Dr. Lewis & his movement inOhio.” The lavish coverage afforded his oldnemesis rekindled T.C.’s pique. T.C. passedalong to his traveling wife (who had taught“practical ethics” at Lewis’s normal schoolfor a time after the Civil War) the news thather reformer friend had recently held a publicmeeting in Cleveland to stir up interestin exercise and temperance, adding sarcastically,“& his cloven foot hung out all the waythro”; T.C. to Caroline, Feb. 14, 1874, box 52,folder 16, Severance Papers; Clark Davis andDavid Igler, eds., The Human Tradition in<strong>California</strong>, 103.34 Caroline to James, n.d., box 36, folder24, Severance Papers. The tactics Carolineemployed to persuade her son to stop drinkingreveal her skills as a rhetorician. First,she assured Seymour that she did not blamehim for his past failings, noting consolingly<strong>California</strong> History • volume 88 number 1 2010

logo

products

Resources

Company

Terms of service
Privacy policy
Cookie policy
Cookie settings
Imprint
Change language
Made with love in Switzerland
© 2024 Yumpu.com all rights reserved

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!