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Guide to the Hawthorne Family Papers,
ca. 1800-1926
Special Collections M0981
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Table of contents
Title: Hawthorne Family Papers,
Date (inclusive): ca. 1800-1926
Collection number: Special Collections M0981
Creator:
Extent:
2 linear ft.
Repository:
Stanford University. Libraries. Dept. of Special Collections and University Archives.
Language:
English.
None.
Property rights reside with the repository. Literary rights reside with the creators of the documents or their heirs. To obtain
permission to publish or reproduce, please contact the Public Services Librarian of the Dept. of Special Collections.
Purchased, 1998.
[Identification of item] Hawthorne Family Papers, M0981, Dept. of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford,
Calif.
Sophia A. Hawthorne [1809 - 1871]:
Sophia Amelia Peabody was born in Salem, Massachusetts, on September 21, 1809 to Elizabeth Palmer Peabody and Nathaniel Peabody.
She attended a school run by her mother and sister in Salem, Massachusetts and taught there for a short time. In December
of 1833, Sophia and her sister Mary traveled to Cuba where, it was hoped, the climate would improve Sophia's delicate health.
Her letters home were collected and circulated among friends by her mother as Sophia's "Cuba Journal." After returning to
Salem in 1835, Sophia, though still infirm, achieved a reputation as a copyist of artworks. Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864),
a neighbor of the Peabodys in Salem, met Sophia late in 1838; it was, Sophia would later say, love at first sight. A long
engagement followed, kept secret for some time in the hope that the families would believe Sophia strong enough to marry,
and while Nathaniel sought to establish himself as a writer. It had been expected that Sophia would never marry, but her days
as an invalid ended on July 9, 1842, their wedding day. As long as Nathaniel was alive, Sophia was strong and vigorous; only
after his death did her health begin gradually to fail. The Hawthornes began their married life in the Old Manse, in Concord.
Three children came of the profoundly happy marriage: Una in 1844, Julian in 1846, and Rose in 1851. In 1852, Hawthorne was
appointed U.S. Consul to England and the family moved to Liverpool. After the completion of his term of office, they traveled
about Europe, returning to Concord in 1860, where they remained until Hawthorne's death in 1864. In the seven years after
Hawthorne's death, Sophia edited his journals and published them as Passages from the American Notebooks (1868), Passages
from the English Notebooks (1870), and Passages from the French and Italian Notebooks (1871). Her own travel writings appeared
in 1870, as Notes in England and Italy . Sophia lived her last two years in London, where she died in 1871.
Rose Hawthorne Lathrop [1851 - 1926]:
Born in Lenox, Massachusetts, on May 20, 1851, Rose Hawthorne spent much of her childhood with her family in England and Europe.
In 1871, she married George Parsons Lathrop, an aspiring author and editor. A hasty, youthful marriage, it was never a happy
one. The Lathrop's one child, Francis, died young, and the couple separated in 1895. Lathrop died in 1898. Rose Hawthorne
Lathrop's first published work was a book of poems, Along the Shore (1888); in 1897 her Memories of Hawthorne appeared, following
its serial publication in The Atlantic Monthly. Having converted to Roman Catholicism in 1891, Rose Hawthorne Lathrop founded
the Servants of Relief for Incurable Cancer after her marriage dissolved. Known as Sister Alphonsa, she and her small religious
community nursed the poorest terminally ill cancer patients in New York City. In 1899, the Servants of Relief became a Dominican
Congregation and were able to open Rosary Hill Home in 1901. Rose Hawthorne, now Mother Alphonsa, lived and worked there until
her death on July 9,1926, her parents' wedding anniversary. Rosary Hill Home continues today as it did almost a century ago:
only those patients who are terminally ill and destitute are admitted for care by the Sisters.
Nathaniel's and Sophia's second child and only son, Julian was educated at home and then piecemeal in Concord and Europe.
He attended Harvard for three years, finishing training as an engineer in Europe after his father died. He went on to become
a prolific and popular writer of short stories, novels, essays, and memoirs. Although he felt encumbered always by his father's
accomplishments and reputation, he, like his sisters, was determined to keep his parents' memories alive. In 1884, he published
Nathaniel Hawthorne and His Wife and, in 1903, Hawthorne and His Circle. With a certain feckless naïveté, he involved himself
in a get-rich-quick scheme that resulted in a conviction for mail fraud and a year's incarceration. Freed in 1913, Julian
continued his writing career almost until his death in California in 1936.
Anna Cora (Ogden) Mowatt [1819-1870]:
Author of verse and romantic novels, playwright, and actress, Mowatt had a colorful and successful acting career in New York,
retiring to England after the publication of her Autobiography of an Actress in 1854.
The Hawthorne Family papers at Stanford consist of letters, manuscripts, journals, sketch books, and memorabilia of Sophia
Peabody Hawthorne, wife of Nathaniel Hawthorne, and of two of their children, son Julian [1846-1934] and younger daughter,
Rose [1851-1926], both writers themselves. The large majority of the papers are from the 1830s to the 1860s; from the last
years of the 19th century; and from 1913 through the 1920s. The mid-nineteenth-century papers are for the most part those
of Sophia Peabody Hawthorne, her family and circle of friends. Rose Hawthorne Lathrop's holograph manuscripts were written
before 1900, and from early in the twentieth century are letters and writings of Julian Hawthorne and letters from Rose Hawthorne
Lathrop, who was by then known as Mother Alphonsa. Also included are ca. 54 leaves of holograph notes and verse, and some
print material, of Anna Cora Mowatt, undated but probably from the 1850s.
Alcott, Amos Bronson, 1799-1888
Allston, Washington, 1779-1843
Bartlett, Josiah
Blodget, Mrs.
Bridge, Horatio, 1806-1893
Bright, Henry Arthur 1830-1884
Burchmore, H.L.
Burney, Susan
Channing, Ellen Fuller
Channing, William Ellery, 1780-1842
Channing, William Ellery, 1818-1901
Chorley, Henry Fothergill, 1808-1872
Clarke, James Freeman, 1810-1888
Clarke, Sarah
Emerson, Charles, d. 1836
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 1803-1882
Fields, James Thomas, 1817-1881
Foote, Mary
Fuller, Sarah Margaret, 1810-1850
Hall, Anna Maria Fielding, 1800-1881
Hall, Samuel Carter, 1800-1889
Hawthorne, Elizabeth Manning
Hawthorne, Maria Louisa, 1807-1852
Hawthorne, Una, 1844-1877
Hedge, Frederic Henry, 1805-1890
Hillard, George Stillman, 1808-1879
Hillard, Susan Tracy Howe
Hitchcock, Ethan Allen, 1798-1870
Hoar, Elizabeth
Hoar, Ebenezer Rockwood, 1816-1895
Hooper, Ellen Sturgis
Hosmer, Harriet Goodhue, 1830-1908
Kemble, Frances Anne (Fanny), 1809-1893
Lathrop, George Parsons, 1851-1898
Lowell, James Russell, 1819-1891
Lowell, Maria White, d. 1853
Mann, Horace, 1796-1859
Mann, Mary Tyler Peabody, 1806-1887
Martineau, Basil
Martineau, Edith
Melville, Herman, 1819-1891
Palmer, George
Peabody, Elizabeth Palmer, 1778-1853
Peabody, Elizabeth Palmer, 1804-1894
Peabody, George Francis, 1813-1839
Peabody, Nathaniel, 1774-1853
Peabody, Nathaniel Cranch, 1811-
Peabody, Wellington, 1815-1837
Pike, William B.
Putnam, Frederic Ward, 1839-1915
Rodman, Benjamin
Shaw, Anna
Shaw, Sarah B.
Smyth, Hildegard
Sturgis, Mary L.
Tappan, Caroline Sturgis
Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862
Ticknor, William Davis, 1810-1864
Very, Jones, 1813-1880
Weld, Theodore D., 1803-1895
Weston, Emma
Yates, the Misses