Letter to Isabella Stewart Gardner from Boston
correspondent
Henry Lee Higginson
(New York, 1834 - 1919, Boston)
Date6 March 1883
Place MadeBoston, Massachusetts, United States, North America
MediumInk on paper
ClassificationsManuscripts
Credit LineIsabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
Accession numberARC.001775
eMuseum ID727197
Other NumberU3e68
EmbARK ObjectID28492
TMS Source ID12084
Last Updated8/9/24
Status
Not on viewWeb CommentaryThis note from Henry Lee Higginson, founder of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, to Isabella Stewart Gardner thanks her for her donation of $200 to the “Annex” where women could receive private instruction from Harvard professors. The Annex was probably where Isabella took the classes from art historian Charles Eliot Norton that would spark her interest in Dante and the Italian Renaissance. The Annex was a pioneering advancement in women's education and grew into Radcliffe College, the former women's college of Harvard University.
In this letter Higginson wrote: “If anything is needed in this world, it is education—if men object to educated women as wives, they had better marry cows or big dolls.”
In this letter Higginson wrote: “If anything is needed in this world, it is education—if men object to educated women as wives, they had better marry cows or big dolls.”
BibliographyNotesDiana Seave Greenwald, "Back to School with Isabella at Radcliffe College," Inside the Collection (blog), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 28 September 2021, https://www.gardnermuseum.org/blog/back-school-isabella-radcliffe-college
