| Creator | Fields, Annie, 1834-1915 |
| Title | Annie Fields papers |
| Dates | 1870-1899 (bulk 1870-1880) |
| Identification | MS 87 |
| Quantity | 0.5 linear feet (1 manuscript container) |
| Collection Abstract | Collection contain correspondence, financial records, advertisements and clippings. The majority of the materials relate to Fields's support and promotion of coffeehouses known as the Holly Tree Inns. Correspondence and financial records reflect her involvement in renting rooms for the coffeehouses, hiring staff, fixing costs and raising funds. There are several progress reports from coffeehouse stewards or managers. Newspaper clippings report the opening of the Holly Tree Inns; the opening of German Volks-kuchen or people's kitchens; and items of general charity interest. |
| Historical Abstract | Annie Adams Fields (1834-1915) was an author, literary hostess and social welfare worker. Born in Boston, she was a daughter of Dr. Zabdiel Boylston Adams, a Boston physician, and Sarah May (Holland) Adams, a descendant of Henry Adams of Braintree. |
| Language | Material in English. |
| Location | Collection may be stored offsite. Please contact Archives staff for more information. |
Collection is open.
Copyright for materials resides with the creators of the items in question, unless otherwise designated.
Please contact the College Archivist with requests to publish any material from the collection.
[Identification of item: description and date], Annie Fields papers, MS 87, Simmons College Archives, Boston, MA, USA.
Majority of material donated by Donald W. Moreland. One item found in a book in the Simmons College Historical Book Collection.
Accession number: 88.011, 88.028
A letter dated January 31, 1899 from social worker Mary Richmond was accessioned separately; the letter to Fields was found in a copy of Richmond's Friendly Visiting Among the Poor (1899) in the Simmons College Historical Book Collection.
Processed by Megan Sniffin-Marinoff, College Archivist, January 1989.
This collection guide was encoded as part of the LEADS project by Meghan Poepping, February 2013.
Annie Adams Fields (1834-1915) was an author, literary hostess and social welfare worker. Born in Boston, she was a daughter of Dr. Zabdiel Boylston Adams, a Boston physician, and Sarah May (Holland) Adams, a descendant of Henry Adams of Braintree.(1) Marrying Boston publisher James Thomas Fields thrust Annie Adams Fields into the literary world. The couple's Charles Street home was a salon for such notable literary figures as Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry James.(2) Social welfare work was Field's late blossoming interest. She was a principal founder of the Associated Charities of Boston in 1879, serving as director (1879-94) and vice-president (1894-1906). Prior to her involvement with the professional organization of charity work and workers, she promoted and supported "coffeehouses" in working-class neighborhoods in Boston and throughout the United States; aided the homeless after the Boston fire of 1872; and helped organize the Cooperative Society of Visitors among the Poor.(3)
Left alone and childless when her husband died in 1881, Fields continued her literary activity. She began to publish her poetry such as Under the Olive (1881) and her literary reminiscences such as Whittier: Notes of His Life and of His Friendship (1893). In addition, she published How to Help the Poor (1883), a handbook for charity workers.
In her last years Fields served as a companion to Sarah Orne Jewett and Louise Imogen Guiney. She died at the age of eighty of myocarditis and arteriosclerosis.(4)
The Annie Fields papers contain correspondence, financial records, advertisements and clippings. The majority of the materials relate to Fields's support and promotion of coffeehouses known as the Holly Tree Inns.(1) Correspondence and financial records reflect Fields's involvement in renting rooms for the coffeehouses, hiring staff, fixing costs and raising funds. There are several progress reports from coffeehouse stewards or managers. Newspaper clippings report the opening of the Holly Tree Inns; the opening of German Volks-kuchen or people's kitchens; and items of general charity interest.
Most of the correspondence contains inquiries about the operation of coffeehouses. Letters were sent by representatives of temperance societies, the clergy and a variety of prominent citizens from across the country. A complete set of incoming correspondence, from original inquiry to the opening of a coffeehouse, can be found in letters to Fields from Charles Wendte of Chicago, Illinois in 1872. With little exception, correspondence is incoming and is arranged chronologically. Some of the correspondence appears to have been dated by Fields. Aside from the subject of coffeehouses, correspondence relates to a variety of charity interests.
Notable correspondents in the collection include: William H. Baldwin (1826-1909, merchant and community organizer); Henry I. Bowditch (1808-92, physician and abolitionist); Henry Morgan (1825-84, Methodist clergyman); Robert Treat Paine (1835-1910, philanthropist); Josiah Philips Quincy (1829-1910, author and historian); Whitelaw Reid (1837-1912, journalist and diplomat); Charles W. Wendte (1844-1931, Unitarian clergyman and hymn-writer); and Alfred Tredway White (1846-1921, pioneer in housing reform).
These and related materials may be found under the following headings in online catalogs.
Collection is arranged into 2 series:
Box 1
Box 1
