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This collection contains correspondence related to the family of Elizabeth Ellery Sedgwick Child, granddaughter of politician Theodore Sedgwick and wife of Harvard professor Francis James Child. The collection also includes several photographs and printed items.

This collection (1 linear foot) contains correspondence related to the family of Elizabeth Ellery Sedgwick Child, granddaughter of politician Theodore Sedgwick and wife of Harvard professor Francis James Child. The collection also includes several photographs and printed items.

The Correspondence series, which comprises the bulk of the collection, contains letters the Sedgwick family wrote to and received from family members and friends, as well as several poems. From 1826-1842, Robert Sedgwick, his wife Elizabeth, and their daughter Elizabeth ("Lizzie") corresponded with family members including Catherine Maria Sedgwick of Stockbridge and Lenox, Massachusetts, and Jane Minot Sedgwick of New York City. Most of the early correspondence pertains to the writers' social lives and family news, and to travel around New York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania. Catharine Maria Sedgwick also reported on acquaintances such as the actress and writer Fanny Kemble, whom she deemed "fated to suffer" (May 27, 1834), and the writer and social theorist Harriet Martineau (November 2, 1834).

The bulk of the remaining correspondence is dated 1855-1885 and pertains to the relationship between Lizzie Sedgwick and her husband, Frank James Child. Child wrote to Sedgwick from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Paris, France, and received letters from Sedgwick and others. The couple's other correspondents included at least one writer in Italy who commented on their relationship and health, family news, and the Civil War. Postwar correspondence includes letters to Susan Ridley Sedgwick Butler. Three late postcards to Mrs. G. A. Stanger of Springfield, Massachusetts, concern her son Herb's experiences in Georgia while serving in the armed forces during World War I.

The Photographs series (5 items) contains 3 photographs of Helen Child (later Sargent), a photographic print of Elizabeth Sedgwick Child, and a photograph of the Child family's home in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Printed Items (9 items) include a certificate regarding Francis Child's qualifications as an instructor of Greek at Harvard University (September 22, 1846), 2 illustrated Christmas cards (1881 and undated), a copy of the Boston Daily Advertiser (August 1, 1884), an obituary for Francis Child from The Nation (September 17, 1896), and copies of the poems "From My Arm-Chair" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and "The City of the Living" by Elizabeth Akers Allen. The series also includes a biography of Oliver Wendell Holmes that George B. Merrill presented to the Harvard Club of San Francisco on October 18, 1894, and an advertisement for the Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women.

The Florence Gould photograph album primarily contains pictures taken during the Gould family's stay at "Pinelands," their summer home in Topsfield, Massachusetts, in September 1896. The photographs show room interiors, members of the Gould family, and the house and its surroundings. Pictures from May 1897 and April 1902 show the Gould family and scenes in and around a home in the Maplewood neighborhood of Malden, Massachusetts.

The Florence Gould photograph album (22cm x 17cm) contains 110 photographs of the Gould family, mostly taken at "Pinelands," the family's summer home in Topsfield, Massachusetts, in September 1896. Much smaller groups of photographs were taken at the Gould family's home in the Maplewood neighborhood of Malden, Massachusetts, in May 1897, and at an unidentified location on April 19, 1902. The three pictures from 1902 are cyanotypes, and the remaining photographs are primarily silver gelatin prints. Florence Gould presented the album to her brother, George L. Gould, and his family at Christmas in 1896.

The largest group of photographs pertains to the family's life at Pinelands in September 1896, including exterior views of the house and grounds and candid and posed group photographs taken on the home's porch. Various members of the Gould family, particularly Rosamond and Bertram Gould, appear in the pictures, as do some of the family's pets, and at least three photographs show people sleeping. Rosamond Gould is the subject of many photographs, which show her playing with a doll, sitting with her sister Miriam in their shared bedroom at Pinelands, and riding bikes with her brother Bertram near their Maplewood home. The photographer also accompanied Bertram and others on an excursion to a golf course in Topsfield. Members of the family are also pictured riding in a horse-drawn carriage in the mid-1890s and preparing to embark for Topsfield in April 1902. The album also includes many interior views of the Gould family's homes in Topsfield and Malden, including shots of sitting rooms, dining areas, staircases, and bedrooms. One vanity's mirror reflects another mirror sitting across the room, which in turn reflects the first mirror.

The Woman's Hunting and Camping photograph album contains pictures taken during a camping trip in upstate New York and exterior views of homes and municipal buildings in western Massachusetts. Many of the camping pictures feature women.

The Woman's Hunting and Camping photograph album (34cm x 25cm) contains 68 photographs taken in upstate New York and western Massachusetts around the turn of the 20th century. The green cloth cover has the words "Colgate & Co's Toilet Soaps and Perfumery" on the front in thin gold letters. Most of the photographs, which are pasted three to a page, have brief captions.

The first group of photographs pertains to a camping trip around Lewey Lake, Mason Lake, and Indian Lake in northern New York, including many views of woodland scenery and pictures of male and female campers. People are shown carrying and paddling in canoes, relaxing and posing around log cabins and campsites, and riding in open horse-drawn carts. The album includes two portraits of a woman dressed in a hunting outfit posing with a rifle and a portrait of a baby taken on his or her first birthday. One group of pictures concerns a logging camp and loggers. The final pages contain photographs of homes and other buildings in Hatfield, Northampton, Amherst, and Hadley, Massachusetts, including the compiler's girlhood home, a mill, the Northampton library, and the municipal halls of Northampton and Amherst. People can be seen relaxing in front of some of the dwellings.