Margaret Long Papers, 1893-1954
General International Standard for Archival Description
Sophia Smith Collection Smith CollegeNorthampton, MA
Finding aid encoded in NoteTab Pro. Encoded by Jennifer Smar. 2005-11-14
Encoded Archival Description
Encoded Archival Description (EAD) Version 2002
collection
Margaret Long Papers
Creation of Margaret Long Papers
Time of Creation of Margaret Long Papers
Long, Margaret, 1893-
Biographical History for: Margaret Long Papers
Biographical Note Margaret Long was born in 1873 to Mary Woodward Glover and John Davis Long, a politically ambitious lawyer who practiced in Hingham, Massachusetts. John Long was elected to the Massachusetts General Court in 1874 and from there embarked on a career with the Republican Party, serving as governor of Massachusetts from 1880 to 1883 and secretary of the Navy in President William McKinley's cabinet from 1897 to 1902. Mary Glover Long died in 1882; John Long remarried Agnes Peirce in 1886 and had a son, Peirce, in addition to Margaret and her sister, Helen, from his first marriage. The family lived in Hingham, Massachusetts and owned a vacation property in Buckfield, Maine. Margaret Long entered Smith College in 1891. Among her fellow students were Florence Rena Sabin, class of 1893, and Dorothy Reed (Mendenhall), class of 1895. At Smith, she and Reed lived in Wallace House and belonged to a tongue-in-cheek social club, the "Anti-Matrimonial Alliance." After Long's graduation in 1895, she traveled and studied in Europe, undertook preparation for medical school at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and entered the Johns Hopkins Medical School three years behind Reed. Reed, Sabin, and Long came to distinguish themselves as graduates of the new medical school and pioneer researchers and activists in medicine and public health. Long was awarded a M.D. in 1903, and in 1905, she moved to Colorado to recover from tuberculosis, from which her sister had died in 1901. Anticipating the public health work of Florence Sabin, who left a position on the Johns Hopkins faculty to implement a public health program in Colorado in the 1940s, Long became active in the fight against tuberculosis. In addition to her epidemiological research in Denver area hospitals, she helped found the Sands House Sanatorium and served on its board for many years. After her retirement in the 1940s, Long took an interest in the history of the West. She had a passion for the trails of the pioneers and published her reconstructions and research of their paths in several travel-oriented works, including The Shadows of the Arrow (1941), The Smoky Hill Trail (1953), The Oregon Trail (1954), and The Sante Fe Trail (1954). She also published a book of poetry, The Enchanted Desert (1942), and edited volumes of family papers. Her edition of her father's journal, published in 1956, remains a significant source for research into one of the primary administrators of the Navy during the Spanish-American War and a party to Theodore Roosevelt's controversial and imperialistic tenure in the Department of the Navy. Margaret Long's later years were spent among a community of bachelor women in Denver, which included her long-time companion, Elsie Pratt, and sisters Florence and Mary Sabin. Long died in 1957.
Scope and Contents of the Collection The Margaret Long Papers document her friendship with Dorothy Reed Mendenhall at Smith College and Johns Hopkins University as well as her later years and historical avocation in Denver, Colorado. The small collection dates from 1893 to 1954 and consists of correspondence, notes, and her published books. The first series consists of obituaries; brief, undated reminiscences about her youth and Smith classmates; and a line-a-day diary completed by Long and Reed from 1899 to 1907, some time of which they lived together in Baltimore. SERIES II. CORRESPONDENCE makes up the bulk of the collection and consists of letters from Dorothy Reed to Margaret Long, nicknamed "Patsy." It documents their friendship at Smith and Johns Hopkins and the early years of Reed's medical career, first at the New York Infirmary for Women and Children and then at New York City's Babies' Hospital. It becomes more sporadic after Reed's marriage to Charles Mendenhall. The letters illuminate student life at Smith and Johns Hopkins as well as the early career of a preeminent woman physician. Later letters from Mendenhall trace the enjoyment and difficulties of raising children, particularly for an ambitious professional. Other correspondents include Louise Griswold and Smith friend Mary Goodman. Long's letters to Goodman in the 1940s detail her research techniques and growing interest in the history of white settlement in the West. SERIES III. PUBLICATIONS consists of six volumes of family history, travel writings, and poetry.
Female friendship--United States--History--Sources
lcsh
Trails--West (U.S.)--History--Sources
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine--History--Sources
Smith College--Students--History--Sources
Mendenhall, Dorothy Mabel Reed, 1874-1964--Correspondence
lcnaf
Long, Margaret, 1873-
Long, John Davis, 1838-1915
Physicians--United States--Biography--Sources
Women authors, American--20th century--Biography--Sources
Women medical students--United States--History--Sources
Women physicians--United States--Biography--Sources
series
SERIES I. BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIALS
Obituaries, 1957
Reminiscences, n.d.
Diary: line-a-day, kept by Long and Dorothy Reed, 1897-1907
SERIES II. CORRESPONDENCE
Goodman, Mary from Long, 1895-96, 1941-54, n.d.
Griswold, Louise to Long, 1929-30
Mendenhall, Dorothy Reed to Long, 1893-1929
SERIES III. PUBLICATIONS
Enchanted Desert by Margaret Long, 1942 (2 copies)
The Journal of John D. Long, edited by Margaret Long, 1956
The Journal of Zadoc Long, edited by Peirce Long, introduction by Margaret Long, 1943
The Naja Haje Letters and Other Writings by Peirce Long, 1887-1941, edited by Margaret Long, 1943
The Smoky Hill Trail, by Margaret Long, 1947