Garrison Family Papers, 1694-2005 (bulk 1830-1950): Scope & Contents of the Collection

Scope and Contents of the Collection

The Garrison Family Papers consist of 117.75 linear feet of material and contain thousands of primary sources that document three families' involvement in most of the major reform movements of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The collection spans the years 1694 to 2005, but the bulk of the material dates from 1830 to 1950. Types of material include correspondence, diaries, writings, speeches, legal documents, photographs, journal and newspaper articles, memorabilia, and a wide variety of printed sources.

Included are the papers of two families who married into the Garrisons: the Wrights (Ellen Wright married William Lloyd Garrison (1838-1909)) and the Stephensons (Edith Stephenson married William Lloyd Garrison (1874 -1964)). The Wright family includes the Coffins (Ellen's mother was Martha Coffin Wright) and the Mott family (Ellen's aunt, Martha's elder sister, was Lucretia Coffin Mott) and their descendents. These papers trace the activities of the Garrison, Wright and Stephenson families and their friends and associates in England, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New York, among other places.

Although there is unique correspondence, biographical material, printed material, and memorabilia related to William Lloyd Garrison (1805-1879), the largest part of the collection relates to his son William Lloyd Garrison (1838-1909) and WLG's (1838-1909) wife, Ellen Wright Garrison, and their descendents. The influence of patriarch William Lloyd Garrison (1805) can be seen as each generation took its place in the reform movements of its time. These include abolition, anti-imperialism, anti-vaccination, conservation, free trade and tariff reform, immigration reform, pacifism, race, single tax, and temperance. The papers are an especially important source for the suffrage and women's rights movements because they include the correspondence of Martha Coffin Wright and Lucretia Coffin Mott with other leaders of the movement; as well as correspondence, printed material and ephemera of Eleanor Garrison, who was an organizer for the Empire State suffrage campaign under Carrie Chapman Catt. Major correspondents on abolition, women's rights, and other reforms include Susan B. Anthony, Alice Stone Blackwell, Henry B. Blackwell, Carrie Chapman Catt, Lucy Conant, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Henry George, Lucretia Coffin Mott, Emmeline and Sylvia Pankhurst, Theodore Parker, Wendell Phillips, Parker Pillsbury, Louis Prang, Caroline Severance, Anna Howard Shaw, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone, Booker T. Washington, Theodore Dwight Weld, Frances E. Willard, and Marie Zakrzewska.

Because the Garrisons were a close-knit family, in addition to a wide view of reform, the papers offer a look at two centuries of intimate family life, inter-generational dynamics, and social history. There is extensive correspondence between parents and children, siblings, husbands and wives, cousins, aunts and uncles. They also had a wide circle of friends and associates and an extensive social network, especially in and around Boston.

For the purposes of this project, Garrison family members have been defined as original Garrisons and their direct descendants and anyone who married into the family. In order to differentiate between the various William Lloyd Garrisons, they have been identified by initials and birth dates: i.e. WLG (1805); WLG(1838); WLG (1874), and WLG(1902). It is not always clear which WLG some of the material relates to. The same holds true for the three generations which contain a Benjamin Turner Stephenson in the Stephenson family. Married women are located under their married names.

Since the Garrisons and Wrights were involved in so many reform movements, their letters are full of references to noted people and related activities. Although incomplete, there are two ways this information can be accessed. One is via the card catalog in the Sophia Smith Collection, a second via letter indexes. Approximately one-half of the Garrison Family Papers were indexed by subject for inclusion in the card catalog. Although the box numbers are now outdated, the information contained on the cards is a valuable tool. Over the years, family members, especially Frank Wright Garrison, indexed large portions of the Garrison and Wright family correspondence. These indexes are filed separately at the end of the collection. They are arranged by author and then somewhat randomly by date and consist of detailed notations on the contents of each letter. Although they are somewhat difficult to use, these indexes represent an extraordinary body of information.