HUB History - Our Favorite Stories from Boston History

In February 1879, Jennie Clarke’s body was found jammed into a leather trunk on the bank of the Saugus river on her 20th birthday. Every detail of the case reveals yet another tragedy in the life of Jennie Clarke, who died after attempting to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, and it reveals the unexpectedly permissive approach of Massachusetts law to abortion in the mid-1800s.

Please check out the transcript and full show notes at: http://HUBhistory.com/169/

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• The medical examiner’s report on the Jennie Clarke case
• 1845 abortion law in Massachusetts
• 1847 law restricting advertisements for abortion
• Commonwealth v Isaiah Bangs (1812)
• Commonwealth v Luceba Parker (1845)
• An act negating archaic statutes targeting young women (NASTY Women Act, 2018)
• An 1860 publication of the American Medical Association arguing for stronger abortion bans
• Boston Globe Articles
  • The body is discovered
  • Jennie Clarke’s burial
  • Goodrich and Kimball arrested
  • Trial
  • Retrial
  • Verdict
  • Sentencing
  • 1879 ad for MacClellan’s Female Pills
  • 1889 ad for “ladies who are in trouble and require skillful medical or surgical treatment”
• Wire service stories
  • Suspects identified
  • Sentencing

This week’s Boston Book Club pick is a 43 minute long documentary film made in 1957 and narrated by longtime local news anchor Jack Chase. It introduces us to The MassPike, which was a brand new wonder of technology and transportation planning at the time. Big thanks to Max Finkel of Jalopnik for sharing the film earlier this month.

The Gibson House museum in the Back Bay has long been a fairly obscure museum, but it’s enjoying a moment in the sun after being featured in the recent Little Women movie. Longtime listeners will recognize it as our featured historic site of the week back in episode 58. The museum is a unique time capsule of Victorian Boston, as it was built in 1860, only very minimally updated since then, and left completely untouched since its last owner died in 1954.

That last owner was Charles Gibson, Junior, who grew up in the house, and then moved back in after his father’s death in 1916. He cultivated a persona as the ultimate Boston Brahmin, a throwback to an earlier era. A later profile in the Boston Herald described him as “a Proper Bostonian whose Victorian elegance puts modern manners to shame,” and “a small man…with a nimble, if sometimes cantankerous physique…He strolls around with a sort of swagger stick with a silver tip out of deference to the fact that gold would be too vulgar.” He affected an English accent and was always quick to mention his ties to the elites of Boston, London, and Paris.

Charles Junior maintained his eccentric ways right up until the end. Into the 1950s, he kept up a habit of walking to the Ritz Carlton Hotel every night, where he would take his dinner in a full tuxedo and tails, top hat, and a raccoon coat in cold weather. His neighbors would call him Mr. Boston.

At the time that we featured the house, we tiptoed around questions of Charles Junior’s sexuality. He was a lifelong bachelor, and he wrote a book of love sonnets that never mention a woman, but at the time, museum curators were happy to respect his privacy and deflect those types of inquiries. That attitude has changed, and the museum is embracing their founder’s personal history with a series of house tours on three upcoming Fridays. Called “Charlie Gibson’s Queer Boston,” here’s how the Gibson House website describes the tour:

Explore the Gibson House and early-twentieth-century Boston through Charlie Gibson’s eyes! The story of the museum’s founder is one of legacy and family history; of the fading grandeur of Victorian-era Boston; and of the role gay men, like Charlie, had in the historic preservation movement. This unique specialty house tour is not to be missed!

The tour will be held at 4pm on January 31, February 28, and March 27. Tickets are available at the door for $10, or $8 for students.