Moral Education Association of Boston records, 1873-1882.

0.42 linear feet (1 box)

English

In English.

Purchased from Carmen D. Valentino on the Edwin J. Beinecke Book Fund, 2007.

The Moral Education Association of Boston was founded in 1873 by a group of progressive women including Lucinda B. Chandler and Caroline Maria Seymour Severance, the organization's first president. Its stated purpose was to "endeavor to instill a respect for the general principles of morality in every department of life, and to seek after and to disseminate, especially among mothers and young people, a knowledge of the divine laws that should govern human life in the relation of the sexes." In press reports it was often called the Moral Education Society of Boston.

The records consist of four bound volumes of minutes, annual reports, treasurer's reports, and clippings related to the group's meetings and activities. One volume contains minutes of the association's general meetings held between February 1873 and June 1882, along with treasurer's and annual reports presented, and occasionally transcriptions of lectures such as "Modern methods of dealing with prostitution," by Elizabeth M. Bruce (December 1875). Two volumes hold minutes of the association's executive board between March 1873 and April 1881. The fourth volume is a commercially made scrapbook which was hand titled "Book of Printed Reports" and holds clippings about meetings and lectures presented between 1873 and 1882, as well as published reports issued by the association. Topics addressed at meetings included marriage, women and their place in the home, childrearing, prostitution, dress reform, personal purity and beauty, and moral education in the public schools; presenters include Amos Bronson Alcott and William Henry Channing, among many others. Also in the scrapbook is similar material from organizations such as the Massachusetts Moral Education Association, the Radical Club of Boston, and the Moral Education Society of Philadelphia. All volumes contain their original indexes.

February 14, 2011

Moral Education Association of Boston Records. General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

Moral Education Association of Boston Records. General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.