Women's Education
Home Page		 Colonial Heritage Female Curriculum Student Life Teaching Religion, Race, Culture Academies & Seminaries Clements Library
Home Page
Inventory of Exhibit Sources

Letter from Salem Seminary, May 14, 1853

Reed-Blackmer Family Papers

This collection of letters consists of correspondence between the dispersed Reed and Blackmer families. This letter was written from "Salem," probably Salem, Massachusetts. It describes a private school that specialized in music. Note the writer's intent to persevere with her studies in order to lose her "country" gawkiness. This student, raised in a rural area, was self conscious of her lack of social skills. An education provided an opportunity to see, think, and develop these skills before marriage and motherhood.

The letters are transcribed literally to duplicate punctuation and spelling, except when to do so would obscure the meaning.

Letter from academy in Salem, May 14, 1853
Salem Letter, May 14, 1853, page 1

[Reed-Blackmer: Salem, May 14, 1853, page 1]

Salem May 14, 1853

Dear Hattie,

I have this day received your very welcome letter and as I felt somewhat lonely tonight I concluded to scribble a few lines "just by way of amusement. Vacation commences next week or some [unclear word] and will last two weeks.

The girls have been leavng for two or three days and our numbers have now become very much reduced, there being only some eight who will spend the vacation here.

I do not intend to practice very much myself, as I am pretty well used up with the six months past; indeed I have had serious thoughts of leaving my studies this spring for a while at least till I felt more able to prosecute them. I hope a couple of weeks of rest will enable me to commence again with new life. It would be very

[end of page 1; writing in the margin follows the last page and concerns mutual friends.]
Return to Top
Salem Letter May 14, 1853, page 2

[Reed-Blackmer: Salem, May 14, 1853, page 2]

hard to leave now. I do not think myself that my progress in a musical way is so very remarkable, but that you will excel me in playing when I return. You need not make very tall calculations, taking me for a basis. You have taken music lessons long enough to begin to know how much labor they require and of course will have some charity for me if I do not astonish the critics with any extraordinary feats. I pretended to commence answering your letter and write what comes uppermost in my mind without regard to order.

[letter continues about schoolmates.]
Return to Top
Salem Letter May 14, 1853, page 3

[Reed-Blackmer: Salem, May 14, 1853, page 3]

[more about school friends]

I was very tired having been washing in the morning and ironing in the afternoon; but the pile of clean collars handkerchiefs and stockings will repaid (?) me for all that trouble. [more about daily events]

Return to Top
Salem Letter May 14, 1853, page 4

[Reed-Blackmer: Salem, May 14, 1853, page 4]

[more about school friends]

[describes spring weather] I thank you for your advice and think very strongly of following the plan you recommended I think a certain "Sem" of which you spoke, will put the Finishing "polish" upon country gawkins like myself most completely. At least I think so "judging from the wonderful penetration of some of its members who seem to see intuitively "things afar off."how else could she have seen away down to Salem

[this page continues about mutual friends as does the writing around margins of each page and is not transcribed.]

Return to Top
Reading Between the Lines

Do you think the writer feels obliged to learn music?

This letter describes the self-consciousness one student felt about her rural background. Do you think music, painting and writing was 'urban' compared to 'country gawkishness'? Did these urban fashions dominate some more authentic 'rural' culture? If so, could we expect to find representations of women's rural culture in books or print published by urban presses?
Return to Top