The Home For Outcast Women, Boston Version

Thanks to the Massachusetts Historical Society, and the Schlesinger Library at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies at Harvard University, I've been able to recover enough of the records of the organizing committee for Emma's attempt, in Boston, to found a home for outcast women -- the Female Horticultural Institute -- to be able to say something reasonably coherent about this period of her life (roughly, late 1859 until her departure for California in late 1863).

First, and perhaps most interestingly, Emma's explanation for the failure of her Boston-based initiative is born out by the records of the organizing committee -- her venture failed in the face of the start of the Civil War, and her backers' concern for other, more pressing matters (in the case of the Boston initiative, the equipment of the Massachusetts soldiery).

Emma was remarkably successful in winning over financial backers: some 50 people joined her "solicitation committee" from the greater Boston area, including a few folks of national and international stature.

As far as the records go, they suggest both that Emma acted with probity -- footing the miscellaneous expenses of the organizing committee herself -- and that she was the ultimate beneficiary of the fund-raising activity: when the Boston organizing committee realized that it was improbable that the Institution would ever float in Boston, they released the funds raised for the Institution -- some $3000 in 1861 dollars -- to Emma herself.

Updated Edition of Robertson's Noble Pioneer

An updated version of James Robertson's essay on EHB, Noble Pioneer, is now available from the Archive. Kudos to Paul Gaunt of Psypioneer for discovering the original version of the text, and sparking the update.