FAQ -- Reference & Research

First, unfortunately, we have almost no material in our collection either created by Ms. Hemenway or anything to do about her as a person. There seems to be a distinct lack of biographical information on her life, not just here at the MHS, but in general. This I find strange given that she was one of the Boston “elite” of her day and considering the contributions made by both her and her husband around the city. The same is true of primary source material, or original documents written by Ms. Hemenway. I looked a couple of our manuscript collections that I thought might have correspondence from Ms. Hemenway, but I did not find anything.

When I searched for her name using a site called ArchiveGrid, I found a couple of references to her in collections at the Schlesinger Library at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute, which specializes in the history of women in America. Specifically, her name shows up in the Papers of the Richardson family and in the Records of Radcliffe College President Elizabeth Cabot Cary Agassiz. [When you open up those links, hit Ctrl + F, then type in either Hemenway or Harriet to see where her name appears.] The Schlesinger may be able to point you to further biographical information if they have any.

Another manuscript collection that is out there and which might contain items written by Ms. Hemenway, or at least provide a glimpse into her life, is the Hemenway family papers held at the Phillips Library of the Peabody Essex Museum. This collection is primarily centered around Edward Augustus Holyoke Hemenway and his wife Mary Porter Tileston Hemenway, the parents of Augustus Hemenway. It is possible that the collection includes correspondence from Harriet Hemenway to her parents-in-law, but I cannot say for certain based on the information on the Phillips Library website.

The last suggestion I can come up with as far as original manuscript material that might be of relevance would be the papers of William Brewster, who served as the first president of the Massachusetts Audubon Society. I have to assume that he would have corresponded with Ms. Hemenway regarding the creation of the organization and his role as the first president. A collection of his manuscripts is held at the Ernst Mayr Library of the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology. You can see information about their special collections and archives here, or find contact information for their reference staff here.

Finally, I spoke with a colleague here who processed the Massachusetts Audubon Society records and she also discovered that there was very little information available about Ms. Hemenway.  One article that she found useful and which was published by the Audubon Society in the January/February 1996 issue of the Sanctuary, the Journal of the Massachusetts Audubon Society. While not a strict biography, it does go into some detail about the founding of the organization and also includes some photographs of Ms. Hemenway at various points in her life. You can find a link to the article on the Mass Audubon website (right-hand side, second item under Downloads).