Jessie Southard Parker journal and scrapbook

These nine volumes are a journal and scrapbook kept by Jessie Southard Parker of Belmont, Massachusetts, from 1899 to 1916. Parker wrote extensively about her social and family life, thoughts on current events, and belief in Christian Science, supplementing her entries with theatrical programs, photographs, newspaper clippings, and other pieces of ephemera.

Parker began the first volume of this nine volume set in 1899, but notes that she completed a journal three weeks earlier in Milton, Massachusetts. She started Volume 1 in April 1899 with a critique of the new Boston musical comedy, A Runaway Girl, and ended Volume 9 on June 9, 1916 with a description of Henry Ford’s peace mission to Europe, noting that he brought “upon himself the ridicule of the nations.” Parker was a keen observer of daily life, as well as local, national, and international events. In addition to discussing bridge parties, concerts, and her children’s schooling, she remarked on national politics, wars, natural disasters, and technological innovations.

Parker’s journal documents the recreational and cultural pastimes of the Massachusetts middle class in the early twentieth century. She often went to Harvard football games; attended and performed in local theatrical productions; frequented popular entertainments such as Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, the P.T. Barnum Circus, and band concerts led by John Philip Sousa; and regularly participated in local choral groups. Her journals routinely featured critical plot synopses and commentaries on the novels, essays, and spiritual books she read. Parker also recorded social calls, games with her bridge club, Sunday visits to different churches, and various luncheons hosted and attended. The Parkers regularly visited Torrance’s parents in Ellicottville, New York, spending summers visiting Niagara Falls and taking walks in the countryside.

Jessie Southard Parker was a Christian Scientist and strongly influenced by the work of Mary Baker Eddy. Parker noted at the end of Volume 1 that “we are all so much happier & better than we were a year ago--& every bit of our present happiness comes from our trying to meet the daily problems with Christian Science.” Parker attributed the quick and easy birth of her daughter, Katherine, to Christian Science, and hoped that her children would never need to see a doctor. It appears that Parker’s immediate family practiced Christian Science, but that her father had many doubts about its efficacy. When her mother’s heart trouble remained unresolved despite the ministrations of several Christian Scientists, Parker’s father declared that “science was a fraud & that he was not going to have anything more to do with it.” Parker later criticized her father’s reliance on will-power to overcome illness and anxiety, believing it was “no rod of support.” The Parkers frequently attended the First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, and Jessie took classes with prominent Christian Scientists. In Summer 1903, she visited Mary Baker Eddy’s house in New Hampshire.

Parker often commented on national and international events. She provided a detailed account of the assassination of President William McKinley, the schism between Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, and Woodrow Wilson’s diplomatic efforts in Europe. Parker gave her thoughts on the end of the Boer War, the peace negotiations of the Russo-Japanese War, and the causes of the Great War, concluding that Europe had gone “war mad.” She closely followed the race to the North Pole, the coronation of two English kings, and the devastation of the 1906 earthquake and fire in San Francisco. Parker was well aware of the extraordinary technological achievements of her age, observing that “we are a marvelous people in the way we adapt ourselves to wonder. Flying machines, wireless telegraphs, wireless telephones, automobiles & even electric cars have come into the experience of people of my age. And also important discoveries of unexplored countries. And the North Pole. And we take each thing as it comes as easily as though it was an old told story.”

Parker devoted a large portion of her journals to the growth and habits of her children. She noted important milestones in their lives, including first steps, first words, and first haircuts. Parker suggested at several points that she was keeping her journal for her descendants, especially her daughter Katherine. Parker had difficulty “using Science” with Katherine, fretting that she could not “get at the root of her constant straining away from goodness as expressed in orderliness, attentiveness & obedience.”

The journal entries are supplemented by a remarkable array of material, including programs from musical and theatrical performances, advertisements, calling cards, photographs, greeting cards, playbills, menus, ticket stubs, postcards, newspaper clippings, and other colorful ephemera. Parker often provided descriptions of these materials, commenting on the quality of plays she saw, identifying people in photographs, and noting what was served for lunch on the scorecards from her bridge parties. The number of programs show that Parker and her husband attended hundreds of theatrical and musical performances and acted in dozens of productions as well.

Each of the volumes is bound with blue or blue-green cloth over boards. The name “JESSIE S. PARKER” is gilt-stamped on the front of each volume’s cover with the inclusive dates of her journal entries stamped beneath it. Most of the volumes also feature a rectangular label with beveled corners on the spine with the journal dates in type. The journals contain leaves of lined, wove paper.