Amy M. Sacker, Artist

In a recent post, I wrote about the Boston 1905 census data on working women. In this and some future posts, I will focus on specific working women from that year.

My first subject is an artist named Amy M. Sacker. She was born in Boston in 1872 and studied at the School at the Museum of Fine Arts (which was then located in the basement of the Museum, in its Copley Square location).

She won numerous prizes for her work at the School, and upon graduation began teaching decorative design at the Cowles Art School. When that school closed in 1900, Amy put plans in place to found her own school (The Miss Amy M. Sacker School of Design and Interior Decoration) the following year. She remained affiliated with the school for another 40 years. One measure of her school's appeal is the huge number of society weddings, announced in the pages of The New York Times and other newspapers, that listed the bride as a graduate of Sacker!

When the Society of Arts and Crafts was founded in Boston, Amy showed her book covers, bookplates, and illustrations at their first exhibit in 1897 (what is believed to be the first professional crafts exhibit in the U.S.). She remained affiliated with the SAC throughout her career. (The SAC is still active to this day, with a gallery on Newbury Street in Boston.)

Amy was a prolific book cover designer in the golden age of book cover design--the late 1890s and the first decade of the 20th century (after which paper jackets largely superseded the cloth covered bindings as a design element). She designed thousands of book covers during her career, and in 1905 she was designing for Little, Brown and L.C. Page in Boston (though she would move to Houghton Mifflin in 1907). Among her 1905 designs are the book covers shown throughout this post. Amy executed the popular floral designs of the Arts and Crafts movement, as well as heraldic designs, but she was one of the first to put figurative designs on book covers, as in two of these examples.

In 1905, her studio/school were located at 8 Beacon Street in Boston.

In addition to her school, and her book design work, she was also teaching at Simmons College in Boston by 1911, traveling to Europe to study, and creating pieces for exhibits.

She exhibited her work throughout her life; this photo shows her at an exhibit of her portrait work in 1949, when she was 77 years old!
Illustration Credits and References

All of the illustrations in this post, and much of the information about Amy Sacker, are courtesy of Mark Schumacher's terrific treasure trove on the website of the library of the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, which includes biographical information researched by Anne O'Donnell.

Amy Sacker's designed The Breath of the Gods and Under the Lilacs for Little Brown; and The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation for L. C. Page.

Postscript: Bell and Keller

In a previous post I wrote of a letter from Alexander Graham Bell to Helen Keller in April, 1905. I recently discovered a copy of the actual letter in the Library of Congress collection of the Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers, and wanted to share it with you!

The Diary: July 4, 1905

Cynthia had returned from Boston to Cape Cod on June 17 to get the house ready for her parents (who were still at sea). She'd had a busy few weeks unpacking, airing out the house, washing and ironing curtains, and baking beans. There had been a graduation to attend on June 30, and she'd stayed up all night talking to Ben after the reception.

Here is her entry for July 4th, which sounds just like an entry that could have been made today! (Long Pond is the largest pond on the Cape, covering over 740 acres and split between the towns of Brewster and Harwich.)

Went up to Long Pond on picnic. Stayed and saw fireworks at night.

On July 5th, she would make the following entry:

Ben very cool to me now.

Not sure what happened between the pre-dawn hours of July 1, and four days later....

Illustration Credits and References

Photo courtesy of the Long Pond Watershed Association website.

Groton Redux

In exploring the history of The Groton School in a recent post, I discovered that there were two well-documented punishments that the 6th form boys (the seniors) would administer to younger boys when they were considered to have broken the Groton code. These punishments were not officially sanctioned by Rector Peabody, but certainly allowed to go on without interference from him or the faculty.

One of these was called "boot boxing", where the offender was forced into his boot locker (a short locker for outdoor boots), and made to stay there, doubled up, for what might be hours.

The second was called "pumping". The miscreant was bent back over the edge of a trough in the laboratory, face up, and water was poured in his face from an open spigot to simulate drowning. There was a 10-second limit to the torture, but it could be conducted more than once on any given occasion.

Little Teddy Roosevelt, Jr., a few weeks before his father was inaugurated as Vice-President, was pumped for being “fresh and swell-headed.” Half-drowned but still spouting defiance after two immersions, he escaped being put under for a third time: the boys admired his pluck. Malcolm Peabody, the rector’s own son, was pumped because the older boys didn’t like his “tone.”[1]

These punishments were certainly still occurring in 1905, and for some years after that. No wonder waterboarding seems like a fine technique to men from the "old families". It was part of their prep school experience. . . .

Illustration Credits and References

The photo of the Roosevelt family was taken in 1903; young Teddy (several years after his "pumping") is standing just behind his father. Credit: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, reproduction number LC-USZ62-113665.

[1]Kintrea, Frank. "'Old Peabo' and the School." American Heritage Magazine. 31.6 (1980).

The Groton School and the Foreign Policy of FDR and Truman

Early in 1905, Franklin Roosevelt took time away from his law studies at Columbia to pose for this photograph in Rhinebeck, New York. He and Eleanor were married on March 17 (Uncle Ted came up from DC to give the bride away) and after the school year was over the young couple spent the summer honeymooning in Europe. At the same time, many of the teenage boys who would later become instrumental in the formation and execution of American foreign policy during World War Two and its aftermath were studying at The Groton School, 40 miles west of Boston.

FDR was the old man of the group--23 by the date of his wedding. He'd graduated from Harvard in 1904, and Groton in 1900.

Francis Biddle (a senior at Groton in the spring of 1905, and a freshman at Harvard that fall) would go on to become FDR's wartime Attorney General (1941-1945) and was later appointed by Truman to serve as a judge at the Nuremberg Trials.

Dean Acheson arrived at Groton in the fall of 1905 as a twelve-year-old; he would go on to serve as Secretary of State under Truman from 1949-1953. He played a central role in the creation of many important institutions, including Lend Lease, the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, NATO, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank, and the early organizations that later became the European Union and the World Trade Organization. (HIs Groton claim to fame was finishing last in his class; Groton Rector and Headmaster Endicott Peabody repeatedly criticized Acheson's school performance. Purportedly, Peabody told Acheson's mother that he could not make a "Groton boy" out of her son, and Mrs. Acheson replied, "Dr. Peabody, I didn't send Dean here to have you make a 'Groton boy' out of him. I sent him here to be educated. . . . I will leave him here as long as I think you can succeed, though you give me considerable doubt.")

Sumner Welles was a year ahead of Acheson at Groton, where Eleanor Roosevelt's brother Hall was his roommate. He would take a break from his studies in March of '05 to travel to NYC and carry Eleanor's train at her wedding; Endicott Peabody was the minister at that happy occasion. Welles would become a foreign policy advisor to FDR and serve as under secretary of state from 1937-1943.

Averell Harriman was a year ahead of Welles. He would serve as a special envoy to Europe under FDR, and as Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1943-1946. He would continue to serve future presidents (JFK and LBJ) including a stint as the chief US negotiator at the Paris peace talks on Vietnam. (Harriman is famous at Groton for having, at the age of 13, communicated to his father, rail magnate E.H. Harriman, that Endicott Peabody "would be an awful bully if he weren't such a terrible Christian.")

It's hard not to think that something was in the air in the hills of Massachusetts in those first years of the new century that called all of those young men to public service. "If some Groton boys do not enter political life and do something for our land," said Rector Peabody, "it won't be because they have not been urged." And urge he did. Franklin Roosevelt said of Peabody, "As long as I live his influence will mean more to me than that of any other people next to my father and mother." Peabody would remain Headmaster at Groton until 1940, and live to see Roosevelt win all four presidential elections.

Illustration Credits and References

The photo at the top of this post is from the FDR Presidential Library and Museum.

The story about Endicott Peabody and Mrs. Acheson is reported in a number of sources; I have used the version in James Chace's 1998 book, Acheson: The Secretary of State Who Created the American World.

The communication from Averell Harriman to his father is quoted in Rudy Abramson's 1992 book Spanning the Century: The Life of W. Averell Harriman 1891-1986.

Working Women, Part 2

The employment of Boston women in 1905 was the subject of a recent post, with an emphasis on the broad range of work available to them. There were, however, a number of job categories which included NO women employees, and I've aggregated them below.

Government Mandate

There were obviously no women soldiers, sailors, or marines!

Building Trades

These jobs formed the largest block of professions not available to women in 1905. They included contractors, carpenters, plasterers, paperhangers, roofers, electricians, plumbers, copper workers, and masons. There were six brave women who listed their profession as painter/glazier/varnisher, and 26 women in miscellaneous woodworking jobs (though these could have been artisans rather than builders).

Work Involving Horses

Women rode or drove horses in 1905, but apparently work involving horses was not considered appropriate. There were no women grooms, stable workers, livery stable keepers, or harness and saddle makers/repairers.

Seafaring Work

While women went to sea in this era with their husbands (Cynthia's mother was often at sea with Cynthia's captain-father), and went fishing privately (or canoeing with their boyfriends), they did not work in sea-related jobs. So there were no women fishermen (or oystermen!), boatmen, steamship employees, or vessel builders/repairers. Certainly, the seafaring jobs were subject to the same cultural restraints as military work--with resistance from the men themselves as well as from their wives.

Alcohol-Related Work

Women were apparently too pure and sensitive to work in alchohol-related professions. So there were no women brewers/maltsters or bartenders. (A number of women, however, were restaurant and saloon-keepers--apparently that was OK as long as you didn't get behind the bar!)

Other Work Considered Too Dangerous, Dirty, or Physical for Women

In this category I've included heavy duty manufacturing (carriage and wagon factory workers and steam boiler makers), transportation/telecommunications work (railway engineers, street railway employees, telegraph/telephone linemen, wheelwrights), and metal and machine workers (blacksmiths, gunsmiths, locksmiths, bellhangers, machinists, and mechanics). There were no women "porters and helpers (in stores, etc.)", since presumably this involved heavy lifting. There were also no women butchers or coopers (barrel makers).

Cultural Barriers

There were no women working as engineers and surveyors or as model and pattern makers (though there were a handful of women architects, designers, and draughtsmen). This work may have seemed more suited to the male "logical" mind, and certainly there would have been a barrier to the engineering work done as part of the building trades. It's probably also true that relatively few women were prepared mathematically for professions like these (a problem that unfortunately still persists in some forms today).

There were no women piano tuners. This seems surprising because of the large number of women working as musicians and music teachers.

A Modern Footnote

Some of the employment areas discussed above are still the most difficult for women to enter. Only 10-12% of engineers in the US are women. Only 3.5% of telephone linemen in Canada are women (couldn't find a US statistic, but I assume it's comparable). In the building trades, only 3% of jobs are held by women.

Illustration Credits and References

Census data from Census of the the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1905. Volume 2: Occupations and Defective Social and Physical Conditions.

The photographs were all taken in greater Chicago in 1905, and are from the Chicago Daily News Negative Collection. They are part of a wonderful collection of Chicago Daily News photographs that are accessible on the Library of Congress American Memory website. I'm assuming there are comparable Boston area photos--if you're aware of any, please let me know!

FIrst photo: Mrs. F. W. Hedgeland driving a car down a neighborhood street in Chicago with two women in the backseat. Credit: SDN-003345, Chicago Daily News negatives collection, Chicago Historical Society.

Second photo: Women on horses at the Onwentsia Horse Show in Lake Forest, Illinois. Credit: DN-0002809, Chicago Daily News negatives collection, Chicago Historical Society.

Third photo: Full-length portrait of Mrs. E. B. Bartholomew, Michigan, fly fisher, demonstrating casting in a park, in Chicago. Credit: SDN-003372, Chicago Daily News negatives collection, Chicago Historical Society.

Fourth photo: Club women standing in a train station in Chicago. Credit: DN-0002306, Chicago Daily News negatives collection, Chicago Historical Society.

Boston Museum of Fine Arts - John Singer Sargent

In May, 1905, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston acquired John Singer Sargent's painting, An Artist in His Studio. The work had been painted the year before in a hotel room in the Italian Alps occupied by Sargent's friend Ambrogio Raffele. Raffele was working on a bucolic landscape in this makeshift "studio". Due to the cramped quarters, Raffele has propped his work-in-progress on the bed and desk, in lieu of an easel. And imagine that Sargent is also in this same small space with his paints and easel--capturing Raffele at work.

This painting was the first non-portrait of Sargent's to be purchased by an American museum. The MFA paid $1,039.53 for it! It would be the first of many, many landscapes and other non-portraits of Sargent's purchased by the Museum. If you're in Boston, you can view it in the Susan Morse Hilles Gallery of American Impressionism.

Illustration Credits and References

The image of the painting, as well as the information on the MFA's purchase, courtesy of the John Singer Sargent Gallery website and the MFA website.