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Robbins-Mills Collection of Herbert Wendell Gleason Photographic Negatives, 1899-1937 Concord Free Public Library — Special Collections |
Series II – Concord, Massachusetts, 1899-1937
Series II (379 glass, 351 film; arranged by date) consists of 730 Concord images taken during Gleason's numerous field trips to Concord, MA between 1899 and 1937. This series complements an earlier holding of 706 Concord images (the Robbins Collection of Concord Images purchased by the Concord Free Public Library in 1954) taken by Gleason during the same time period. A large proportion of negatives in each collection fall between the dates 1916 to 1918. The Robbins Collection contains the latest dated photograph taken by Gleason one week before his death-"Large black oak with Herbert Hosmer fig., September 28, 1937." (Herbert Hosmer was a major donor of the Thoreau collections in the Concord Free Public Library and nephew of Concord photographer Alfred Winslow Hosmer.)
Gleason's Concord images depict landscape features (natural and built), indigenous plants (common and rare), fauna (to a limited extent), natural phenomena, memorabilia, and portraits primarily connected with the life and writings of Henry David Thoreau. Names used by Gleason reflect place names mentioned by Thoreau in his journals. These place names can be located by using Gleason's 1906 map of Concord.
Among the bodies of water (brooks, ponds, rivers, swamps, etc.) represented are the Concord River (including the confluence of the Sudbury and Assabet Rivers), the Sudbury River (including Fair Haven Bay, Spanish Brook and surrounding area), the Assabet River (including Leaning Hemlocks and Dove Rock); Walden Pond (including various shores and coves, long views from surrounding heights of land, Thoreau's cave and cairn, and Walden Woods), Fairyland Pond and Woods, Goose Pond, White Pond, Andromeda Ponds, Bateman's Pond, Barrett's Mill Pond, Tarbell's Spring, Miles's Swamp, Clintonia Swamp, Kalmia Swamp, pools in Conantum, Spencer Brook, and Heywood Brook.
Natural phenomena include: clouds and cloud effects, floods, frost crystals, reflections, sand foliage, shell snowdrifts, and sunset images. Landscape features include: Annursnack Hill, Punkatasset Hill, Ball's Hill, Brister's Hill, Pine Hill (in Concord and in Lincoln), Fairhaven Hill, Curly Pate Hill, Strawberry Hill, Poplar Hill, Davis's Hill, Nashawtuc Hill, Mt. Misery (Lincoln), Emerson's Cliff, Conantum Cliff, Lee's Cliff, Bittern Cliff.
Other areas and landmarks of Concord: Conantum, Dugan Desert, Fairyland, Copan, Estabrook Country, old lime quarry, The Holt, Potter's Meadow, Nine Acre Corner, Thoreau's rock shelter, Ox Pasture, Great Fields, Great Meadows, Deep Cut, Clam Shell Bank or Hill, Barrett's Saw Mill, Hollowell Place, Baker Farm, Boiling Spring, Heywood's Meadow, Thoreau's boat landing, various roads and bridges (especially Hubbard's Bridge), and houses. Animals include: birds (American Bittern, White-winged crossbills, Swallows), evidence of animals including bird nests (Partridge, Vireo, Oven Bird), animal tracks (fox, mouse, rabbit), and muskrat house.
Portraits include: Herbert Wendell Gleason at Walden and Mrs. Gleason in Thoreau's cave at Lee's Cliff. Thoreauviana includes: Henry David Thoreau's walking stick and ruler, Thoreau surveys in the Concord Free Public Library (plans of Alcott property and Edmund Hosmer property), copy of painting of Thoreau's boat landing by J.H. Greenwood, John Thoreau diploma, Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association (1847), in the Concord Free Public Library, and Rowse's crayon portrait of Thoreau (from book).
Many of the Concord images were used to illustrate the twenty-volume 1906 Walden and Manuscript Editions of Thoreau's writings. One image (II.1918.19 FILM) was sold to the National Geographic Society. Included in the series is a copy of a print by Concord photographer Alfred Winslow Hosmer (II.1918.163 FILM).