Martha Usher Osgood papers

Description

The majority of items in Martha Usher Osgood Papers consist of personal correspondence addressed to Mrs. Martha Hooper (Usher) Osgood from Annie Fields (Mrs. James T. Fields) between 1857 and 1900 (97 items). Many references are made to Mrs. Osgood's frequent gifts of flowers from her Maine garden, especially her annual gift of spring mayflowers which she sent to Boston. For students of the life of Annie Fields or of her husband, there is some mention of their activities and whereabouts, particularly those connected to her relationship with author Sarah Orne Jewett. Of special interest is a letter written by Mrs. Osgood to her sister Rebecca Usher describing the Fields's house on Charles Street, its furnishings, and the luncheon Mrs. Osgood enjoyed there. In the small number of letters (9 items) written by Sarah Orne Jewett to Mrs. Osgood, she writes about her literary efforts in the 1880s. Both Sarah Orne Jewett and Annie Fields make reference to their tastes in literature in the reading lists they provided to Mrs. Osgood. Folder 10 contains two items from James Russell Lowell that allude to Mrs. Osgood's floral gifts and to several of his personal problems. Folder 11 includes a letter to Mrs. Fields from Charles Eliot Norton, in which he discusses a slanderous attack on James Russell Lowell following his death.