Papers of Annie Ware Winsor Allen, 1818-1993

When received by the Schlesinger Library, the papers of Annie Ware Winsor Allen were in no particular order. Four series were created: I. Personal, II. Professional, III. Family, and IV. Photographs. Series III constitutes the bulk of the collection, consisting of correspondence among Ware and Winsor family members; the strength of the collection lies here. Parent and sibling relationships in a New England family over a century are documented in letters, journals, and diaries. While three of these family members were founders and directors of secondary schools, only Allen's career as headmistress of the Roger Ascham School (RAS) is fully documented (Series II). Because the correspondence is so voluminous, letters have been sorted by year but not by month or day.

Personal and family correspondence and papers concerning the Roger Ascham School dated 1928 or later are closed until 1996 except with the written permission of the donor.

Materials received in 2011 and 2019 were added to the collection in June 2019 and can be found in folders #725-757.

Series I, Personal, 1843-1960, consists of biographical material, diaries, journals, personal writings and scrapbooks, school papers, records of social activities, household and other financial papers, and personal correspondence of Allen.

A. Biographical papers, diaries, etc., 1874-1956. The diaries and journals span the years 1883-1944 but are not a complete run; most were written between 1883 and 1898 and concern travel, college life, romantic attachments, and club, social and daily activities. The notes, personal writings, and poetry, 1895-1958, offer insight into Allen's thoughts on family, education, philosophy, and religion, some of which were later developed for publication. Of particular interest are her writings on old age, written between the ages of 74 and 90 and reflecting her frustration with unnecessarily prolonged life and increasing incapacitation.

The scrapbooks contain clippings, programs, and other printed material documenting her college career and years as an instructor at the Brearley School. Early school compositions are followed by student papers from the Harvard Annex, which reflect Allen's college activities and her views on Harvard professors.

Papers concerning her involvement with the Social Reform Club and the People's Choral Union, ca.1885-1905, consist mainly of printed announcements, Social Reform Club records also including minutes of meetings and correspondence with officers. The financial papers include detailed household task lists, presumably for the domestic staff or possibly for the Allen children. Of special interest is a group of letters from applicants for a domestic position in the household.

B. Personal correspondence, 1878-1960, n.d., includes letters from LeBaron R. Briggs, Leonora O'Reilly, and John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Topics include family, social and club activities. Much of the 1890s correspondence concerns the Social Reform Club and other reform activities in New York City; later correspondence concerns Allen's views on education and child-rearing.

Series II, Professional, 1887-1953, covers Allen's professional activities from the late 1880s to the last years of her retirement in the 1950s. A small portion of the Roger Ascham School papers is closed until 1996, except with the written permission of the donor. The professional papers are divided into five sub-series.

A. Brearley School. This is an incomplete record of Allen's eleven years as a teacher at a private girls' school in New York City. Although she retired from the school before her marriage in 1900, there is some later correspondence discussing her continuing ties to the school.

Not long after she left the Brearley School Allen became involved with the New York State Training School for Girls. The single folder of records from this school (#166) contains copies of material about various students; the names have been removed and the originals are closed to research.

B. Roger Ascham School. Allen founded the Roger Ascham School in 1907 and directed it until it closed in 1933. All papers pertaining to the school and dated 1928 or later are closed until 1996, except with the permission of the donor. These are not the official records of the school but Allen's personal records, reflecting her perceptions of the school's goals and development, and her major areas of interest and concern during the years the school existed. The administrative and financial records are incomplete but do reveal some of the problems Allen encountered in trying to run a high-quality progressive school with no endowment and low tuition, problems that eventually forced the closing of the school. Allen's concern for the quality of education at Roger Ascham School is revealed through extensive instructions to teachers and students; the school's fine reputation is clear from the many grateful and admiring letters from staff, parents, students, and parents of prospective students. An interesting aspect of school history, Allen's insistence on a less restrictive admissions policy than that of many contemporary private schools, is found in #174 and #256, which include papers on the school's Jewish student quota. Also of interest is the comparison of the salaries of male and female teachers in #198. Folder #235a for which original restrictions have expired was added to the collection in November 2009.

C. Writings consists of books and articles, both published and unpublished, that Allen wrote during a period of fifty years. Some of the writings by Marion Sprague (#309-311), Allen's pseudonym, may be partly or wholly autobiographical. The unpublished articles are especially revealing. #315-318 contain Allen's painstaking analysis of the nature of family and intimate relationships, with emphasis on adolescent sexual behavior. #321 is essentially a complement to Allen's published work; some of its contents may be notes for her books. Also notable is #319, in which Allen ruminates at length on the character of anti-Semitism in the 1920s. This subseries contains excellent documentation of Allen's wide-ranging interests and of her efforts to apply a scientific attitude to such varied subjects as contemporary politics, the nature of the soul, Freudian psychology, and male and female roles.

D. Correspondence. Part of this subseries concerns Allen's relationship with various publishers and her efforts to get her books published; the rest gives some idea of her professional contacts in the education field and in other areas. Notable correspondents include Sigmund Freud, William James, and Marion Park (see index).

E. Speeches. These further elaborate Allen's interests as described in IIC. Writings.

Series III, Family Papers, 1818-1993, is divided into five subseries, A-C arranged by family members in order of birth. Most letters are to Allen. Letters to other family members are interfiled by correspondent.

A. Ware-Winsor Family Papers, 1818-1957, consist of biographical and other papers concerning, and correspondence among, members of these two families, the bulk being letters to Allen from the Winsor family. Several mother/daughter and sister relationships are well documented, particularly those between Allen and her sisters, Mary Pickard Winsor and Elizabeth Ware (Winsor) Pearson ("Diddie"), and with her mother, Ann Bent Ware (subsections 1 and 2). Included are early nineteenth century letters from Kingsley and Lovell family members.

Papers of the children of Mary Lovell Pickard Ware and Henry Ware, Jr., include journals, writings and correspondence of Ann Bent Ware Winsor; letters from her sister and from her brother, William R. Ware; the almost weekly correspondence (1890-1907) between Ann Bent Winsor and Allen; and letters from Harriet Ware to Ann Bent Winsor discussing the former's position as a teacher of freed slaves in South Carolina following the Civil War.

Papers of the children of Ann Bent Ware Winsor and Frederick Winsor, Sr., 1869-1955, consist mainly of letters from (and between) three of the Winsor daughters: Mary Pickard Winsor, Allen, and Elizabeth Ware Winsor Pearson. These letters concern daily and social activities as well as the teaching and school-directing careers of Allen and Elizabeth Ware Winsor Pearson. Of particular interest are World War I letters, 1917-1918, from nephews Philip Winsor and Robert Winsor.

B. Allen Family Papers, 1847-1960, are mainly letters from Eugenia Sophie Teulon Allen to her daughter-in-law, Allen, and the personal and professional papers and family correspondence of her son, Joseph Allen, Sr. Included in his papers is correspondence concerning the development of the Allen's Maine property and about his role in the American Association of University Professors.

C. Children of Annie Ware Winsor Allen and Joseph Allen, Sr., 1901-1993, consists of school papers and personal and family correspondence of Dorothea Teulon Allen Treadway, Annie Winsor Allen ("Nancy") and Joseph Allen, Jr. ("Jay"). Nancy Allen's correspondence discusses her career as director of the Girls' Latin School in Chicago. The correspondence of all three children reveals the close, lifelong ties between them and their parents.

D. General family correspondence, 1881-1956, n.d., includes letters to and from Allen, and a few to her and Joseph Allen, from cousins and more distant relatives, most on the Ware/Winsor side. In some cases the recipient is unnamed and has been assumed to be a relative.

E. Clippings, 1895-1955, are mainly about family members, with some about others and a few letters to the editor, etc. by family members.

Series IV, Photographs, 1861-1956, n.d., is arranged in the same order as comparable papers in Series I-III. Allen and her siblings are well documented photographically. Later photographs, of Allen and Joseph Allen's children and their families, are mostly snapshots.