Contents

Collection Overview

Biographical Note

Scope and Contents of the Collection

Organization of the Collection

Search Terms

Martha J. Lamb Papers, 1838-1969

Finding Aid

Finding aid prepared by Amy Hague.

Encoding funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

2003

Biographical Note

Martha J. Nash was born in Plainfield, Massachusetts on 13 August 1826, the third of the four children of Arvin Nash and Lucinda Vinton. Her mother died when Martha was a child and her father remarried and with his second wife had two more children. Martha Nash was educated at several schools in Massachusetts: in Goshen, at the Williston Seminary in Easthampton (1844-45), and at the Northampton High School. She did especially well in mathematics and taught that subject at schools in Newark, New Jersey and Maumee, Ohio.

On 8 September 1852 she married Charles A. Lamb in Maumee. He was a mechanic who had two daughters from an earlier marriage. The Lambs moved to Chicago in 1857 and Martha became involved in charity work. She was a founder of the Home for the Friendless and the Half-Orphan Asylum. In 1863 she served as secretary of Chicago's first Sanitary Fair, held to raise money for soldiers' relief.

Shortly after the Civil War, Martha Lamb's marriage ended in divorce and it became necessary for her to support herself financially. She moved to New York City after 1866 and acted upon her belief that a woman "with any brains or any sort of intellectual capacity" should work at a significant occupation. She decided to follow her literary aspirations (first manifested in 1847 when she published an article in her local newspaper, The Daily Hampshire Gazette, Northampton, Massachusetts) and published a series of children's stories in 1869 and 1870. In the 1870s she also wrote Spicy, a romance novel featuring the Sanitary Fair and the Chicago Fire; several Christmas annuals; and articles on a wide array of subjects for Harper's and other periodicals. She also edited The Homes of America. In the course of this writing she realized writing history was her true calling and she began extensive research for History of the City of New York: Its Origin, Rise, and Progress. The first volume on the colonial period was published in 1877; the second volume appeared in 1880. Although she was not trained as a professional historian and favored a narrative rather than analytical approach, her work was praised by the renowned contemporary historian, George Bancroft. In 1883, Lamb purchased the Magazine of American History, a financially struggling monthly founded in 1877. She devoted herself to editing the magazine for the last decade of her life, producing over fifty signed articles and more that were unsigned. She also published articles by others, original documents, book reviews, and other standard components of a professional historical journal at a time when there was little precedent for such an endeavor. The magazine ceased publication shortly after her death in 1893.

Lamb was a fixture in New York social circles; she had connections with many of the old families she chronicled in her historical writings. She also belonged to numerous historical and patriotic societies. She was twice invited to the White House: President Grover Cleveland gave a dinner in her honor in 1886; in 1889 President Benjamin Harrison recognized her contributions to the centennial celebration of Washington's inauguration with an invitation.

Martha Lamb died of pneumonia in January 1893. Her funeral service was held at the Madison Square Presbyterian Church and she was buried in Spring Grove Cemetery in Florence, Massachusetts.

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Scope and Contents of the Collection

The Martha J. Lamb Papers are related to both her personal and professional lives. They consist of biographical and genealogical material, scrapbooks, memorabilia, extensive personal and some professional correspondence, diaries, copies of Lamb's major articles and fifteen volumes of her published books, research notes and reviews for History of the City of New York, and organization files. The biographical and correspondence series contain considerable material related to her family, especially the family of her sister, Maria Nash Whitmarsh, because Maria's daughter, Martha P.Whitmarsh, originally collected the Papers and donated them to the Northampton Historical Society.

The bulk of the papers date from 1862 to 1893, primarily related to Lamb's years in New York City, but there is also a significant amount of material generated by her family in Western Massachusetts during these years, as well as some correspondence and biographical material from the late 1830s through the 1840s. There is very little material from her years in Maumee, Ohio, and Chicago during the 1850s and early 1860s. Topics addressed in the papers include New York City history and social life, children's literature, late-nineteenth century historiography, and daily life in rural Western Massachusetts in the last-half of the nineteenth century.

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Search Terms

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Organization of the Collection

This collection is organized into four series:

• I. Biographical Material
• II. Correspondence
• III. Writings
• IV. Organization Files
• Oversize Materials

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SERIES I. BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIAL (1840s-1969) 1.5 linear ft.

This series provides an overview of Martha J. Lamb's life, as well as the genealogy and activities of her family in Western Massachusetts. Susan Lyman's Lady Historian Martha J. Lamb (1969), which is a comprehensive summary of her life, draws upon these papers as well as professional papers of Lamb at the New York Historical Society. There are also numerous articles about her life and career. Scrapbooks and a few other items represent her early life in Massachusetts, but the bulk of this material reflects her career in New York. Images of Lamb and her family are almost exclusively portraits, including a few daguerreotypes. There are also a few items about her family members, most notably, a diary kept by Lamb's sister, Maria Nash Whitmarsh from 1848 to 1849 while she was a teacher.

SERIES II. CORRESPONDENCE (1838-1915) .5 linear ft.

This series is organized into two subseries: Family and Friends and associates. The bulk of the Family subseries is from the period during which Lamb lived in New York; there is also correspondence between family members ("Third party"), notably courtship letters from Jacob Whitmarsh to Lamb's sister, Maria Nash. The Friends and associates subseries includes a few well-known correspondents, such as Louisa May Alcott, Presidents Hayes and Theodore Roosevelt, and John Jay, almost all of it related to Lamb's public life; there are also letters to Lamb's family members, mostly condolences upon her death.

SERIES III. WRITINGS (1847-91, n.d.) 1.8 linear ft.

This series includes diaries, copies of Lamb's major articles and published books, research notes and reviews for History of the City of New York and correspondence with publishers and others related to her writings. Many of the articles are about various historical topics, but there are also writings related to women's rights, social reform, politics, and her reminiscences. There are also copies of her books for children.

SERIES IV. ORGANIZATION FILES (1863-88) .75 linear ft.

The organizations in this series range from those to which Martha Lamb belonged and had some significant involvement, to those with which she apparently had minimal involvement. Most of the folders, arranged alphabetically, contain only a few items. Types of material include correspondence, annual reports, receipts, membership certificates, invitations, programs, and membership lists. It appears that for many of these organizations only a token number of items were saved, including the Northwestern Sanitary Fair (Chicago 1865) for which Lamb was an organizer and secretary; a few others, such as the Huguenot Society of America, have slightly more extensive material.

SERIES I. BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIAL (1840s-1969)

SERIES II. CORRESPONDENCE (1838-1915)

SERIES III. WRITINGS (1847-91, n.d.)

SERIES IV. ORGANIZATION FILES (1863-88)