Gilded Age Collections

(Description ID: 594213)

Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library & Museums

 Mary Clemmer Ames 

GA-4 

Introduction
Biographical Sketch
Scope and Content
Inventory 

Introduction
This collection was acquired in August 1939.

Biographical Sketch
Mary Clemmer Ames, born Mary Estella Clemmer on May 6, 1821, in Utica, New York was the eldest of seven children of Abraham Clemmer and Margaret Kneale. On May 7, 1851, she married Reverend Daniel Ames. The couple had no children and would later divorce in 1874. On June 19, 1883, Mary married Edmund J. Hudson, a well-known Washington Journalist, but he died the following year on August 18, 1884, due to a cerebral hemorrhage.

Mary Clemmer Ames was a distinguished 19th-century female journalist, in a predominantly masculine occupation, with a widespread reputation as a Washington correspondent. She had served as a nurse in Union hospitals in Washington during the Civil War, where she developed close connections with Portus Baxter and Senator Justin S. Morrill, both representatives of Vermont. During her brief stint living with poets, Alice and Phoebe Cary, in New York in 1859 she was introduced to Horace Greeley and other editors leading her to a newspaper career following the end of the war.

On March 4, 1866, Ames’s published her first “Woman’s Letter” in the Independent. She would continue to write this column until her death in 1884. For a brief period of time, Mary Clemmer Ames wrote for the Brooklyn Daily Union (1869-1872) as well as the Cincinnati Commercial. Ames never used a pen-name for any of her published words preferring to use initials or her full name, unlike many other female colleagues. Mary Clemmer Ames used her platform to seek reform in politics and advocated for women’s suffrage while maintaining the traditional ideals and morals of a Victorian bred woman.

Scope and Content
This collection, spanning from 1859-1884, contains 166 pieces of personal and business correspondence, newspaper clippings, and a photograph relating to journalist Mary Clemmer Ames.

Inventory
Ac.61
166 Items

Folder 1: Papers, 1859-1866

-June 5, 1859 - Mrs. J.W. Palmer [Theodora] to Mary Clemmer Ames

-September 16, 1860 - [unsigned] to Mary Clemmer Ames

-August 27, 1861 - [unsigned] to Mary Clemmer Ames

-January 9, 1863 - Mary Clemmer Ames to Mr. Bonner

-July 15, 1863 - Justin Smith Morrill [Vermont Representative & Senator] to Mary Clemmer Ames

-September 12, 1863 - Schuyler Colfax [17^th Vice President of U.S.] to Mary Clemmer Ames

-November 7, 1863 - Justin Smith Morrill to Mary Clemmer Ames

-December 14, 1863 - Samuel Bowles to Mary Clemmer Ames

-February 27, 1864 - Schuyler Colfax to Mary Clemmer Ames

-June 1, 1864 - J.W.B. to Mary Clemmer Ames

-June 26, 1864 - Schuyler Colfax to Mary Clemmer Ames

-July 3, 1864 - Justin Smith Morrill to Mary Clemmer Ames

-August 22, 1864 - H.T.F. to Mary Clemmer Ames

-October 12, 1864 - Ellen Jewett Baxter to Mary Clemmer Ames

-May 10, 1865 - Ellen Jewett Baxter to Mary Clemmer Ames

-March 17, 1865 - Portus Baxter [Vermont U.S. Representative] to Mary Clemmer Ames

-April 10, 1866 - Schuyler Colfax to Mary Clemmer Ames

-August 12, 1866 - Justin Smith Morrill to Mary Clemmer Ames

-September 14, 1866 - C.G. Harquer to Mary Clemmer Ames

-September 28, 1866 - Justin Smith Morrill to Mary Clemmer Ames

-October 13, 1866 - Justin Smith Morrill to Mary Clemmer Ames

-October 14, 1866 - Schuyler Colfax to Mary Clemmer Ames

-December 30, 1860 - Oliver Johnson [Associate Editor, The Independent] to Mary Clemmer Ames

-January 3 - Mrs. C.A.C. Hadselle to Mary Clemmer Ames

-June 7 - Samuel Bowles to Mary Clemmer Ames

-July 9 - Mrs. Sarah Madeline Vinton Dahlgren [Anti-Suffragist] to Mary Clemmer Ames

-August 19 - H.T.F to Mary Clemmer Ames

-August 26 - Mrs. J.W. Palmer [Theodora] to Mary Clemmer Ames

-Unknown - Mary to Mary Clemmer Ames

-Unknown - Jane Cunningham to Mary Clemmer Ames

-Unknown - Eliza A. Conner to Mary Clemmer Ames

-Unknown - E.J. Brookings [endorsed by Theodore Tilton, Oliver Johnson, & Justin McCarthy] to Mary     Clemmer Ames (for The Independent)

-Unknown - Emma Janes to Mary Clemmer Ames

-Unknown - Zenobia to Mary Clemmer Ames

-Unknown - Zenobia to Mary Clemmer Ames

-Unknown - C.E.M. to Mary Clemmer Ames

-Unknown - S. R. Reiss to Mary Clemmer Ames

-Unknown - L.E. Dean to Mary Clemmer Ames

-Unknown - Mary Clemmer Ames to “Dear Child Winona”

-Unknown - F.H.T. to Mary Clemmer Ames

Folder 2: Papers, 1867-1870

-January 24, 1867 - Oliver Johnson to Mary Clemmer Ames

-February 4, 1867 - C.G. Harquer to Mary Clemmer Ames

-March 10, 1867 - Oliver Johnson to Mary Clemmer Ames

-April 8, 1867 - Oliver Johnson to Mary Clemmer Ames

-May 12, 1867 - Ellen Jewett Baxter to “Dear Polly” [Mary Clemmer Ames]

-June 12, 1867 - Schuyler Colfax to Mary Clemmer Ames

-July 13, 1867 - C.L. Hansen to Mary Clemmer Ames

-July 14, 1867 - Portus Baxter to Mrs. Ellen Jewett Baxter

-January 5, 1868 - Augusta Larned to Mary Clemmer Ames

-January 25, 1868 - Jenny M. Parker [Author] to Mary Clemmer Ames

-March 3, 1868 - Oliver Johnson to Mary Clemmer Ames

-May 10, 1868 - Oliver Johnson to Mary Clemmer Ames

-August 20, 1868 - Schuyler Colfax to Mary Clemmer Ames

-October 4, 1868 - Augusta Larned to Mary Clemmer Ames

-October 27, 1868 - Mrs. J. W. Palmer [Theodora] to Mary Clemmer Ames

-December 4, 1868 - Schuyler Colfax to Mary Clemmer Ames

-January 11, 1869 - Augusta Larned to Mary Clemmer Ames

-February 17, 1869 - Oliver Johnson to Mary Clemmer Ames

-February 26, 1869 - Henry Laurens Dawes [Massachusetts U.S. Senator & Representative] to Mary   Clemmer Ames

-January 23, 1870 - Mary Hayden Green Pike [Novelist] to Mary Clemmer Ames

-April 2, 1870 - Thomas Wentworth Higginson [Author, Reformer] to Mary Clemmer Ames

-December 17, 1870 - Sidney Andrews to Mary Clemmer Ames

-December 23, 1870 - Charles Sumner [Massachusetts U.S. Senator] to Mary Clemmer Ames

Folder 3: Papers, 1871-1874

-March 22, 1871 - Charles Sumner to Mary Clemmer Ames

-September 25, 1871 - Mary Louise Booth [Editor, Author] to Mary Clemmer Ames

-December 22, 1871 - Mrs. Nora Perry [Newspaper Correspondent] to Mary Clemmer Ames

-March 21, 1872 - Samuel Bowles to Mary Clemmer Ames

-June 24, 1872 - Schuyler Colfax to Mary Clemmer Ames

-December 23, 1872 - Richard Roger Bowker [Publisher & Columnist] to Mary Clemmer Ames

-January 13, 1873 - Hortense Share to Mary Clemmer Ames

-October 30, 1874 - Schuyler Colfax to Mary Clemmer Ames

-December 29, 1874 - George D. Wyman to Mary Clemmer Ames

-Unknown - Charles S. to Mary Clemmer Ames (5)

 Folder 4: Papers, 1875-1877

-January 16, 1875 - William Alexander Hammond [Military Physician & Neurologist] to Mary Clemmer   Ames

-February 11, 1875 - Murat Halstead to Mary Clemmer Ames

-March 26, 1875 - Mary Clemmer Ames to Miss Maren

-July 18, 1875 - Edward Lewis to Mary Clemmer Ames

-October 1, 1875 - Jed to “Dear Polly” [Mary Clemmer Ames]

-April 17, 1876 - Mrs. W. S. Carroll to Mary Clemmer Ames

-June 1, 1876 - Ann Eliza Young [Webb] to Mary Clemmer Ames

-October 28, 1876 - Mrs. J.E. Wallace to Mary Clemmer Ames

-August 10, 1876 - Horace Greeley to Mary Clemmer Ames

-April 15, 1877 - Charles Harding Loring [Naval Officer] to Mary Clemmer Ames

-May 18, 1877 - Albert G. Houghton to Mary Clemmer Ames

-May 19, 1877 - Henry Chandler Bowen [Founder of The Independent] to Mary Clemmer Ames

-May 29, 1877 - C.B. Waite to Mary Clemmer Ames

-July 7, 1877 - Clarence Winthrop Bowen [Publisher, The Independent] to Mary Clemmer Ames

-Unknown - E.J. Brookings to Mary Clemmer Ames [for The Independent]

-Unknown - Mary D. Bowles to Mary Clemmer Ames 

Folder 5: Photograph          

-Unknown - Mary Clemmer Ames

Folder 6: Papers  - Typed Copies

-June 1, 1876 - Ann Eliza Young to Mary Clemmer Ames

-June 14, 1880 - Mary Clemmer Ames to Mrs. Hayes (2)

-November 28, 1880 - Mary Clemmer Ames to Mrs. Hayes (2)

-December 10, 1880 - Mary Clemmer Ames to Mrs. Hayes 

Folder 7: Papers, 1882

-May 18, 1882 - Mary Clemmer Ames to [no name]

-November 1, 1882 - Mary Clemmer Ames to Clarence Bower 

Folder 8: Writings: Verse

-September 21, 1876 - “The Mountain Pine,” The Independent

-January 29, 1877 - "The Guest,” Cincinnati Commercial

-July 5, 1877 - The Cincinnati Commercial Article

-October 10, 1878 - “Nantasket,” The Independent

-May 10, 1879 - “To John Greenleaf Whittier,” Cincinnati Commercial

-December 29, 1881 - “Loss,” The Independent

-February 16, 1832 - “Life Threads,” The Independent

-August 31, 1882 - “Inadequacy,” The Independent

-November 8, 1882 - “Distance,” The Independent

-March 1883 - “March,” The Independent

-April 26, 1883 - “April,” The Independent

-October 25, 1883 - “Ballaugh,” The Independent

-October 25, 1883 - “The Isle of Man,” The Independent

-January 31, 1884 - “A Cathedral Window,” The Independent

-Unknown - “Something Beyond”

-Unknown - Misc. Poems (2)

-Unknown - Eirene, or a Womans Right (Book Review)