COLLECTION GUIDES

1813-1998; bulk: 1840-1940

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Portions of this collection are available as color digital facsimiles (see links below). Where available, use of the originals is restricted.


Collection Summary

Abstract

This collection consists of the papers of the Allen family of West Newton, Mass., primarily those of educator Nathaniel Allen; his wife, Caroline Bassett Allen; and their daughters Fannie Bassett Allen, Sarah Allen Cooney, and Lucy Ellis Allen. Also included are the records of organizations affiliated with the Allen family: the Model Dept. of the State Normal School at West Newton; the West Newton English and Classical School and its Alumni Association; and the Misses Allen School.

Biographical Sketches

Nathaniel Topliff Allen was born in Medfield, Mass. on 29 Sept. 1823, the son of Ellis Allen (1792-1875) and Lucy Lane (1793-1889) and the brother of William C. Allen (1815-1909), George E. Allen (1817-1888), Joseph A. Allen (1819-1904), Lucy Allen Davis (1821-1900), Fanny Lane Allen (1825-1831), Abby Allen Davis (1828-1896), and James T. Allen (1831-1900). He attended public schools in Medfield and Waltham, the school of his uncle, Joseph Allen, in Northboro, and the Northfield Academy. Having chosen teaching as a profession, he graduated from Bridgewater State Normal School in 1846 and continued his studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y.

In addition to his studies, Nathaniel worked at the Waltham Cotton Mill during part of the year from the ages of 10 through 13, and worked on farms in the summer. His early teaching positions included schools in Mansfield (1842-1843), Northboro (1843-1844 and 1847-1848), Northfield (1844-1846), and Shrewsbury (1846-1847). In 1848, Horace Mann appointed Nathaniel as principal of the Model Dept. of the State Normal School at West Newton, a position he held until the school relocated to Framingham in 1853. He served as principal of the West Newton English and Classical School (familiarly known as "the Allen School") from 1854 until his retirement in 1900. He also spent 1869 to 1871 in Europe as an agent for the U.S. Commissioner of Education, publishing a report on German secondary schools and educational systems. A progressive reformer, Nathaniel was active in the anti-slavery movement, the Underground Railroad, woman's suffrage, temperance, and the education of women and African Americans. He served as an officer of the American Peace Society and the Society of Garrison Abolitionists; president of the West Newton Anti-Slavery Society; president of the Newton Woman Suffrage League; and a member of the Unitarian Club of Boston. He was also the first president of the board of directors of the Pomroy Home for Orphans in Newton, a position he held for thirty years.

Nathaniel married Caroline Swift Bassett on 30 March 1853, and the couple lived in West Newton with their four children, Fanny Bassett Allen (1857-1913), Sarah Caroline Allen Cooney (1861-1897), Nathaniel Topliff Allen (1864-1865), and Lucy Ellis Allen (1867-1943). He died in August 1903 at the family's summer home in Linekin, Maine.

Caroline "Carrie" Swift Bassett Allen was born on Nantucket on 16 Oct. 1830, the daughter of James Nye Bassett (1801-1884) and Rebecca Fessenden Freeman (1805-1839). After graduating from Nantucket High School, Carrie attended the State Normal School at West Newton in 1849, studying under Cyrus Peirce. Here she met her future husband, Nathaniel Allen, who was principal of the Normal School's Model Dept. After teaching in Nantucket from 1849 to 1852, she married Nathaniel on 30 Mar. 1853. She worked with her husband at the Allen School from 1854 until 1903, creating an enriching home life for hundreds of students who boarded in their home. After Nathaniel's death in 1903, she continued working with students at the Misses Allen School, founded by her daughters Fanny and Lucy. Carrie was active in the woman's suffrage movement and was an advocate for women's educational reform. She co-founded the West Newton Women's Educational Club, was a member of the New England Women's Club of Boston (with Caroline Severance and Julia Ward Howe), and the Browning Clubs of Boston and West Newton. A published essayist, she traveled twice to Europe as well as to the western United States and Cuba. She died on 13 April 1915 in West Newton at the age of 84.

Fanny Bassett Allen was born in West Newton on 21 Feb. 1857, the daughter of Nathaniel Topliff Allen and Caroline Bassett Allen. After beginning her education at the Allen School in 1862, she accompanied her family at the age of twelve on their two-year stay in Europe, where she studied at the Conservatory of Music in Geneva and learned French and German. She later took art classes at the Mass. Institute of Technology with an interest in architecture, but was unable to continue her studies since women were not admitted to the program. Fanny taught French and German at the Allen School from 1878 to 1884 and from 1887 to 1889. In 1904, after her father's death, Fanny and her sister Lucy began their own school, the Misses Allen School for Girls, in their home in West Newton. She founded the Lucy Jackson Chapter of the Daughters of the American Republic in Newton in 1896 and was its regent for nine years. Fanny traveled extensively, making three voyages to Europe, including a 1908 trip to visit her friend Pauline Odescalchi, Princess of Hungary. She died in West Newton on 14 October 1913.

Sarah Caroline Allen Cooney was born in West Newton on 12 Apr. 1861, the daughter of Nathaniel T. Allen and Caroline Bassett Allen. Beginning her education at the Allen School in 1864, she studied in Europe from 1869 to 1871. She initially prepared to study at Vassar, but decided to study kindergarten teaching with her former Allen School instructor Louise Pollock, graduating from the Froebel Normal Kindergarten Institute in Washington D.C. in 1881. From 1881 to 1895 she taught at the Allen School, where she was in charge of the younger boys housed separately at the Annex. Sarah married attorney Patrick Henry Cooney (1845-1916), a former Allen School student, on 12 Sept. 1895 and the couple settled in Natick. She became active in the Leonard Morse Hospital, the Women's League, the Lucy Jackson Chapter of the D.A.R. (founded by her sister Fanny), and the Woman Suffrage Association. Discovering the lack of a Unitarian Society in Natick, she organized Unitarian ministers to give sermons at her home, and later at the Universalist Church and the Red Men's Hall. After her death in childbirth on 4 November 1897, the Sarah Allen Cooney Memorial Committee built a church in Natick in her honor, dedicated in Jan. 1903 by Edward Everett Hale and Samuel A. Eliot. Sarah was briefly survived by a daughter, Sarah Caroline Cooney, who died two days after her mother.

Lucy Ellis Allen was born in West Newton on 3 May 1867, the daughter of Nathaniel T. Allen and Caroline Bassett Allen. She traveled to Europe with her family from 1869 to 1871, attending kindergarten classes in Germany. She began her studies at the Allen School in 1872 and received her A.B. from Smith College in 1889. Lucy taught at the Allen School from 1889 until her father's retirement in 1900. In 1904, she founded the Misses Allen School for Girls with her sister Fanny in the family's West Newton home, serving as its principal until about 1942. Lucy was the fifth regent of the Lucy Jackson Chapter of the D.A.R., vice-president and director of the Boston College Club, an officer of the Woman Suffrage Association and the Twentieth Century Club, and secretary of her Smith College class. Lucy traveled widely throughout the United States, made over twenty trips to Europe, and toured Japan, Alaska, Hawaii, and the Middle East. She lectured throughout Massachusetts on education, travel, and social welfare, and wrote numerous historical essays. Her companion, Ruby Margaret Keefer, was a Radcliffe graduate who taught with Lucy at the Misses Allen School and shared her home from 1917 until Lucy's death in Nov. 1943.

Edwin and Gustaf Nielsen were the sons of Lars Nielsen (b. 1843) and Thora Engebredson Nielsen (1857-1897), Norwegians who emigrated to the Isles of Shoals near Portsmouth, N.H., and later Churchs Ferry, N.D. The couple had five children: Edwin Bjorne (1876-1958); a son (1879-1894); Olaf (ca. 1880-1903); a daughter (1885-1981); and Gustaf Arnold (1888-1960). By 1894, Lars had died and Thora was living in the Episcopal Church Home in Boston with her daughter and Gustaf. Shortly thereafter, Thora moved back to Churchs Ferry and remarried, leaving her youngest two children at the home. Her daughter was adopted by Moritz and Josephine Richter of Portsmouth who renamed her Ellnora. Since Edwin was currently a student at the West Newton English and Classical School, Thora begged the Allen family to take in Gustaf, her youngest son. Both boys became an integral part of the Allen family, described in Caroline Allen's 1915 obituary as "two former wards, now as sons to the family."

Edwin Bjorne Nielsen was born on the Isles of Shoals on 24 Sept. 1876. He attended the Allen School from 1890 to 1895 and received a degree from Harvard Medical School in 1899. Traveling to Great Britain in 1900 and 1901 to learn medical procedures in British hospitals and clinics, he returned to open his medical practice in Boston. Edwin served as a private in Company D, First Corps of Cadets in the Mass. Volunteer Militia in 1905 and 1906, and during World War I, served as a major and surgeon with the 101st Engineer Battalion of the U. S. National Guard. On 7 July 1917 he married Lucia Amalia Schueg, a member of the Bacardi family of Cuba and a former Misses Allen School student. The couple had four children: Edwin Henry Nielsen; Henry Louis Nielsen; Joan Nielsen; and Janet Nielsen. Edwin died at his home in Brookline on 3 July 1958.

Gustaf Arnold Nielsen was born on 26 Dec. 1888 in Churchs Ferry, N.D. In 1894 and 1895, he lived with his mother in the Episcopal Church Home in Boston. After his mother returned to North Dakota, the poet Celia Thaxter, an acquaintance of his mother's, implored the Allen family to adopt Gustaf. Although he was never formally adopted, Gustaf became the Allens' ward and Nathaniel Allen's godson. After attending the Allen School, Gustaf studied at the Harvard School of Agriculture and Horticulture from 1904 to 1905; Massachusetts Agricultural College (then part of Boston University) from 1907 to 1911; and the Harvard Graduate School of Applied Science from 1911to 1912, specializing in forestry and botany. During World War I, Gustaf served in the 2nd Co., 17th Provisional Training Regiment in November 1917, and became a 2nd lieutenant in the Aviation Section of the Signal Officers Reserve Corps in March 1918. After the war, he traveled to Alaska and San Francisco on forestry assignments. He died on 24 August 1960 in Vancouver, Washington.

Organizational Histories

Model Dept. of the State Normal School at West Newton (Model School)

Due largely to the institutional reforms of Horace Mann, the first secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education, the first normal school in North America opened in Lexington, Mass. in 1839 with Charles Peirce as its principal. Designed for the education of teachers, it moved to West Newton in 1844 when financial help from Josiah Quincy enabled Mann to purchase the old Fuller Academy. The Model Dept., more commonly known as the "Model School," was created to allow student teachers to practice their new educational techniques on children of the West Newton school district. In 1848, Mann appointed 25-year-old Nathaniel Allen as principal of the Model School. He was assisted by the Normal School students, who each spent three weeks teaching Model School children under his direction. Due to its popularity and national attention, the State Normal School at West Newton was forced to expand and relocate to Framingham in 1853, later becoming Framingham State Teacher's College and, in 2010, Framingham State University.

West Newton English and Classical School (Allen School)

When the State Normal School at West Newton moved to Framingham, Horace Mann encouraged Nathaniel Allen to remain in West Newton, and with the assistance of educator Charles Peirce, open his own private school in the old normal school building. The West Newton English and Classical School, familiarly known as the "Allen School," opened in 1854 with 38 students, but quickly grew. Three of Allen's brothers, and later his three daughters, an uncle, nieces, and cousins, taught at the school and provided homes for the boarding students. The socially progressive school conducted co-educational classes, enrolled African American students, and was one of the first to include physical education as part of its curriculum. In addition to their academic studies, students attended classes in ethics, dancing, music, and art, and attended lectures given by guests including Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Lloyd Garrison, and Theodore Parker. In 1863, Allen recruited Lucy Pollock from Germany to open one of the first kindergartens in the United States based on the Froebel method.

During its 50-year history, over 5000 students attended the Allen School, representing almost every state in the United States as well as Europe, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Central and South America, Cuba, and Hawaii. In the 1870s, the first Japanese students to study in the United States attended the Allen School, including a nephew of the emperor. African American students included children of several Reconstruction officials including P.B.S. Pinchback and C.C. Antoine of Louisiana, and Robert Smalls of South Carolina.

After 46 years as principal, Allen sold the school in 1900. Moving to a new building in West Newton, it became a boys-only institution in 1904 with Albert E. Bailey as its headmaster. In 1917, Rev. Thomas Chalmers purchased the school and reorganized it as a military preparatory school for boys, operating as the Allen-Chalmers School until about 1922.

The Misses Allen School

In 1904, after the sale of the Allen School and its transformation to an all-boys institution, Fanny Bassett Allen and Lucy Ellis Allen, the daughters of Nathaniel Allen, opened the Misses Allen School for Girls in their family home in West Newton. It later added an annex to accommodate a classroom, as well as an assembly hall. Offering a college preparatory curriculum, the school had a maximum enrollment of forty girls, including ten boarding students. Lucy Allen served as principal, also teaching classes in history, literature, and art. The school was discontinued after Lucy's death in 1943.

Sources

An Illustrated Biographical Catalogue of the Principals, Teachers, and Students of the West Newton English and Classical School, West Newton, Massachusetts: 1854-1893. Boston: Rand Avery Printing Co., 1895.

Greene, Mary Anne. Nathaniel T. Allen: Teacher, Reformer, Philanthropist. Privately printed, 1906.

Stanton, Judith. "Nathaniel T. Allen: Social and Educational Activist," Bridgewater Review, 11 (1), 1993.

Collection Description

The Nathaniel T. Allen papers consist of thirty-one document boxes, three card files, ten cased volumes and two oversize folders of manuscripts and printed material spanning the years 1813 to 1998, with the bulk dating from 1840 to 1940. The collection has been divided into four series: Allen family papers; School records; Allen School and House Preservation Corp. records; and Oversize material. Materials in the collection consist of family, personal, and professional correspondence, personal papers, writings, financial and legal records, diaries, scrapbooks, school administrative records, and printed material.

Allen family papers are primarily those of educator Nathaniel Topliff Allen; his wife, Caroline Bassett Allen; and their three daughters Fanny Bassett Allen, Sarah Allen Cooney, and Lucy Ellis Allen. Family correspondence and personal papers reflect the family's deep interest in education and social reform. Of note is Nathaniel Allen's personal correspondence describing his involvement with abolitionism, educational reform, and woman's suffrage, including letters from William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglas, Horace Mann, Charles Sumner, Wendell Phillips, and Lucy Stone. Nathaniel Allen's descriptive diaries of his mission to Europe from 1869 to 1871 for the U.S. Commissioner of Education give insight into the German educational system as well as European social and cultural life of the period. Fanny Allen's correspondence, writings, and diaries richly depict her 1908 trip to visit her friend Princess Pauline Odescalchi at her palace in Zsambok, Hungary. Also of note are the writings of Caroline Allen and her daughter Lucy Allen, which reflect their activism in women's education and suffrage. The series also contains the papers of Edwin Bjorne Nielsen and Gustaf Arnold Nielson, wards of the Allen family, and the correspondence of Ruby Margaret Keefer, longtime companion of Lucy Ellis Allen.

School records include those of the Model Department of the State Normal School at West Newton, where Nathaniel Allen taught from 1848 to 1853; the West Newton English and Classical School, familiarly known as the Allen School, where Nathaniel Allen served as principal from 1854 to 1900, teaching alongside his uncle, brothers, cousins, and daughters; and the Misses Allen School for Girls, where Lucy Allen served as principal from 1904 to 1942. Although records for each school are incomplete, they include administrative and financial records, lectures, papers related to school curricula, records of individual students, Lyceum records, advertising circulars, and school catalogs. Of particular interest are Allen School diaries kept by students as part of their class assignments to describe their daily lessons, school activities, and educational progress. Included are the nine diaries of Mary Tileston Lambert, which she kept from 1854 to 1860; the diary of Mary Chisholm, kept from 1864 to 1865; the diaries of Fanny Allen, kept between 1868 and 1873; the diary of Lucy Allen, kept in 1885; and the diaries of Edwin Nielsen, kept from 1893 to 1895. (Fanny, Lucy, and Edwin's diaries can be found in Series I, Allen family papers.) Also in this series are the records of the West Newton English and Classical School Alumni Association, including a comprehensive biographical catalog of the school's students and teachers from 1854 to 1895.

The Allen School and House Preservation Corporation records comprise a small series that documents the efforts to preserve the Allen family home in West Newton as well as the family's papers. Largely the records of director Helen Levy, this material includes correspondence, legal papers, meeting minutes, and research.

Acquisition Information

Gift of the Allen School and House Preservation Corporation as a condition of sale of the real estate by the corporation to the Newton Cultural Alliance, February-March 2013. Lucy Ellis Allen additions: acquired by purchase, December 2017.

Restrictions on Access

Portions of this collection are available as color digital facsimiles (see links below). Where available, use of the originals is restricted.

Other Formats

Portions of this collection are available as color digital facsimiles.

Detailed Description of the Collection

Expand all

I. Allen family papers, 1813-1980Digital Content

This series consists primarily of the papers of Nathaniel Allen, his wife Caroline "Carrie" Bassett Allen, and his daughters, Fanny Bassett Allen, Sarah Allen Cooney, and Lucy Ellis Allen. It contains family correspondence, personal papers, writings, financial papers, diaries, scrapbooks, and memorials. Also included is the personal correspondence of Ruby Keefer, longtime companion of Lucy Ellis Allen; the correspondence and personal papers of Edwin and Gustaf Nielsen, the wards of the Allen family; the writings of Nathaniel Allen's mother, Lucy Lane Allen; and papers of Carrie Allen's sister, Sarah Bassett Wheeler.

Close I. Allen family papers, 1813-1980Digital Content

II. School records, 1842-1941Digital Content

This series consists of the records of the Model School, part of the State Normal School at West Newton where Nathaniel Allen taught from 1848 to 1853; the West Newton English and Classical School, familiarly known as the Allen School, where Nathaniel Allen served as principal from 1854 to 1900; and the Misses Allen School for Girls, where Lucy Ellis Allen served as principal from 1904 to 1942. Although these records are incomplete and contain many gaps, they include administrative and financial records, papers related to school curricula, records of individual students, and student diaries. Also in this series is a record book containing lists of Nathaniel Allen's students from his earliest days of teaching in 1842 through 1866 as well as records of the West Newton English and Classical School Alumni Association.

Close II. School records, 1842-1941Digital Content

III. Allen School and House Preservation Corporation records, 1962-1998

The Allen School and House Preservation Corporation was formed in April 1977 under the direction of Helen Levy to preserve the house and papers of Nathaniel Allen's family and associated schools. Upon her death in 1943, Lucy Ellis Allen left her house at 35 Webster St. in West Newton to her companion, Ruby Margaret Keefer. Keefer bequeathed the house in equal parts to Smith College, Radcliffe College, Trinity Church in Boston, and the West Newton Unitarian Church when she died in 1975. Through the efforts of Levy and the Newton Historical Commission, the house was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in January 1978, and grants were obtained for the purchase and preservation of the property, which was acquired by the corporation in December 1978. The family papers and school records were later deposited in the archives of Historic Newton, Inc. In 2013, the house was sold to the Newton Cultural Alliance and the Allen papers were donated to the Massachusetts Historical Society.

Records in this series document the preservation of the house and its related papers, as well as the historical research and activities supported by the organization. They include correspondence, legal papers, meeting minutes, research reports, newspaper clippings, and other printed material.

Close III. Allen School and House Preservation Corporation records, 1962-1998

Preferred Citation

Nathaniel Allen papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.

Access Terms

This collection is indexed under the following headings in ABIGAIL, the online catalog of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related persons, organizations, or subjects should search the catalog using these headings.

Persons:

Allen, Caroline Bassett, 1830-1915
Allen family.
Allen, Fanny Bassett, 1857-1913
Allen, George Ellis, 1817-1888
Allen, James Theodore, 1831-1900
Allen, Joseph Addison, 1819-1904
Allen, Lucy Ellis, 1867-1943
Allen, Lucy Lane, 1793-1889
Allen, Nathaniel T. (Nathaniel Topliff), 1823-1903
Allen Phineas, 1801-1885
Chisholm, Mary Jane, 1848-1937
Cooney, Sarah Allen, 1861-1897
Fay, Eugene Francis, 1840-1910
Keefer, Ruby Margaret, 1887-1975
Lambert, Mary Tileston, 1842-1865
Nielson, Edwin Bjorne, 1876-1958
Nielson, Gustaf Arnold, 1888-1960
Odescalci, Pauline de Szerem, 1826-1953
Wheeler, Sarah Bassett

Organizations:

Allen School and House Preservation Corporation.
Daughters of the American Revolution--Lucy Jackson Chapter (Newton, Mass.)
First Unitarian Society in Newton (West Newton, Mass.)
Misses Allen School (West Newton, Newton, Mass.)
Nathaniel Topliff Allen Homestead (Newton, Mass.)
Pomroy Home for Orphan Girls (Newton, Mass.)
Smith College--Students.
State Normal School at West Newton--Model School Department.
West Newton English and Classical School.
West Newton English and Classical School Alumni Association.

Subjects:

Abolitionists.
African-American children--Education.
Education--Aims and objectives.
Education--Curricula.
Education--Germany--19th century.
Education--Massachusetts--19th century.
Educational innovations--Massachusetts.
Family history, 1850-1899.
Family history, 1900-1949.
Historic buildings--Conservation and restoration.
Kindergarten--History--19th century.
Moral education.
Private schools--Massachusetts--West Newton.
School management and organization.
Schools--Massachusetts--West Newton.
Teachers--Massachusetts--West Newton.
Voyages and travels--Diaries.
Women--Education.
Women--Societies and clubs--Massachusetts.
Women--Suffrage.
Women travelers--Diaries.
Berlin (Germany)--Social life and customs.
Cuba--Description and travel.
Dresden (Germany)--Social life and customs.
Europe--Description and travel.
Geneva (Switzerland)--Social life and customs.
Germany--Description and travel.
Hungary--Description and travel.
San Francisco (Calif.)--Social life and customs.
West Newton (Mass.)--Social life and customs.
Zsambok (Hungary)--Social life and customs.
Zurich (Switzerland)--Social life and customs.
Diaries, 1845-1914

Materials Removed from the Collection

    • Photographs from this collection have been removed to the Nathaniel T. Allen Photographs, Photo. Coll. 247. Collection guide available at: http://qrud.yueziqi.com/collection-guides/view/fap055.
    • Two volumes from this collection have been cataloged separately:
      • Nathaniel Ordway account book, 1724-1920. Ms. N-2485 (XT)
      • Jonathan Smith day book, 1804-1838. Ms. N-2486 (Tall).
    • The following artifacts have been removed to the MHS artifacts collection:
      • Track and field medal awarded by Mass. Agricultural College at Amherst to Gustaf A. Nielsen for 30 yard dash, 15 January 1910.
      • Misses Allen's School, dance cards: 1910, 1911, 1912.
      • Undated dance card.
      • Embroidered portfolio cover, maker unknown. Silk threads on linen.
      • Sewing sample book, scrapbook with 12 examples of fine sewing, with instructions on facing pages, ca. 1897.
    • Currency, largely Confederate, European, and Japanese, has been removed to the MHS currency collection. See Reference Librarian for a complete list.
    • Some printed material, largely related to education and women's suffrage, has been removed and cataloged separately. See Reference Librarian for a complete list.

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