Category: The History of the MBLC

Henry Stedman Nourse

By MBLC Preservation Specialist Jessica Branco Colati

Image of Henry Steadman Nourse
Henry Steadman Nourse, MBLC Commissioner 1890-1903

The Honorable Henry Stedman Nourse (April 9, 1831 – November 14, 1903), of South Lancaster, Lancaster, served as a founding commissioner of the Free Public Library Commission of Massachusetts from 1890 until his death in November 1903, soon after his appointment to a third term on the Commission. 

Nourse was a Harvard-educated civil engineer, educator, and historian who served in the Civil War and as a Representative and Senator in the Massachusetts State Legislature. In addition to being a founding Library Commissioner, he served on many state, regional, and local commissions, committees, and boards, including the Lancaster School Committee and the Thayer Memorial Library’s Board of Trustees, of which he sat on for more than forty years

Born in Lancaster, Massachusetts, in 1831, Nourse’s ancestors included Mayflower pilgrims John and Priscilla Alden, as well as Rebecca Towne Nurse, a victim of the 1692 Salem witch hunts. After graduating from Harvard in 1853, he joined the faculty of Phillips Exeter Academy as professor of ancient languages. Nourse soon returned to Harvard, completing a Master’s degree in 1856. He then worked for a time at Whitwell and Henck, an engineering company in charge of filling in Boston’s Back Bay.

At the start of the Civil War in 1861, Nourse volunteered with the 55th Illinois Infantry. He acted as adjutant to the commander (as Alexander Hamilton did for Gen. Washington during the American Revolution), then rose to the rank of Captain of the regiment’s Company H. He also served as commissary of musters for the 17th army corps during several Federal campaigns. The 55th Illinois Infantry fought in more than two dozen battles and sieges during the Civil War, including the Battle of Shiloh where Nourse was slightly wounded, the Siege of Vicksburg, the Third Battle of Chattanooga, and Sherman’s March to the Sea. In March 1865, a month before Lee’s formal surrender at Appomattox, Nourse mustered out. 

Ever the historian, Nourse was one of the authors of The story of the Fifty-fifth regiment Illinois volunteer infantry in the civil war, 1861-1865, published in 1887. Some years later, Nourse also participated in a Memorial Day ceremony recognizing Lancaster’s remaining Civil War veterans. 

Lancaster, MA remaining Civil War veterans

Nourse did not immediately return north to Lancaster after the war. He settled in Pennsylvania for nearly a decade, working as the construction engineer and superintendent of the Bessemer Pennsylvania Steel Works in Steelton, near Harrisburg. He married widow Mary Baldwin Whitney Thurston, also originally from Massachusetts, in 1872. The Nourses relocated back to Lancaster in 1875, following a year-long trip to Europe that they may have embarked on as an extended honeymoon.

After returning to Massachusetts, Nourse resumed his public service endeavors within and beyond Lancaster. He served as a state representative in the Massachusetts Legislature in 1883, and then as a state senator in 1885-86. Several Massachusetts library-related acts were passed during Nourse’s terms in office, including ones supporting municipal library incorporation, the purchase of books for a prison library, support for the State Library, and protections for library holdings and property. Nourse was also appointed as a trustee of the Worcester Insane Hospital and to the Massachusetts Board of Charity in addition to his positions in Lancaster’s local government. 

Nourse was appointed by Governor Brackett to serve as one of the first Library Commissioners in 1890. By all accounts, Nourse was a dedicated member of every body he served, including the Commission. He never missed a meeting during his thirteen years of service, despite living the farthest away from Boston. This dedication led to the poignant note in the Commission’s meeting minutes following his passing that his chair was empty “for the first time.”

A prolific historian, Nourse authored or edited several works, including a number focused on the history of Lancaster and its people. He compiled a bibliography and collected historic and contemporary pamphlets, notices, maps, drawings, invitations, programs, and other ephemera representative of daily life in the community, pasting each onto the pages of multiple volumes of “Lancastriana.” 

Nourse extensively annotated and extra-illustrated a copy of The History of the Town of Lancaster by inserting maps, drawings, and clippings into the text block in a process known as grangerizing.
Nourse extensively annotated and extra-illustrated a copy of The History of the Town of Lancaster by inserting maps, drawings, and clippings into the text block in a process known as grangerizing.

Nourse also extensively annotated and extra-illustrated a copy of The History of the Town of Lancaster by inserting maps, drawings, and clippings into the text block in a process known as grangerizing. In its expanded, three-volume form, with an additional volume of related items, Nourse’s version of the work is “the authoritative basis a student of Lancaster history requires to piece together a clear and lucid historical narrative.”

For 1899’s 9th Annual Report of the Free Public Library Commission, Nourse compiled a comprehensive history of the public library or libraries – or the lack of a public library – in each Massachusetts municipality. Anticipating strong interest in Nourse’s work, the Commission authorized an additional 2,000 printings of that year’s report. The encyclopedic resource is still referenced by MBLC staff when asked to share information about the origin of and early funding models for a particular community’s library.

Recognizing his passion for collecting and preserving local historical works and archival records, Nourse was elected to the American Antiquarian Society (AAS) in October 1883, joining fellow founding Commissioner Samuel Swett Green (Commissioner Caleb Benjamin Tillinghast would later be elected to AAS in 1907). He was later chosen to serve as AAS’s inaugural biographer. Nourse was also elected a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1889.

Nourse died suddenly on November 14, 1903, while at home reading and correcting proof sheets for an upcoming publication. He had very recently presented a paper on the topic of power looms at AAS and had attended the Commission’s October meeting in Boston a few weeks earlier. Joining the many tributes made by the numerous groups Nourse was connected to, the Commission drafted its own resolutions in response to Nourse’s passing at its November 1903 meeting held just a few days later. In addition to lauding his many acts of service to the Union, the Commonwealth, and Lancaster, Commissioner Tillinghast emphasized Nourse’s dedication to libraries and archives, stating, “He has the highest ideal of the public library as the fountain of popular intelligence and the treasure house of local history.”

Author’s Note: Several volumes held by the Thayer Memorial Library’s Special Collections were authored by, annotated, collected, and/or donated by Henry Stedman Nourse. He literally left his mark on the library’s collection development. We are incredibly grateful for the assistance of Victoria Hatchel, Special Collections Librarian, in combing Thayer Memorial Library’s reference files, archival holdings, and special collections stacks in support of compiling this blog post.

In 2018, the Thayer Memorial Library was awarded $30,000 in federal funds provided by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and administered by the MBLC to conserve and digitize the four volumes, allowing for them to be viewable and searchable online.

Get to Know the Founding Commissioners: Anna Eliot Ticknor

Anna Eliot Ticknor, MBLC Commissioner from 1890-1896

Anna Eliot Ticknor (of Boston, June 1, 1823 – October 5, 1896) was an educator, who launched the first correspondence school in the United States, and pioneered public libraries in Massachusetts. She was a founding member of the Massachusetts Free Public Library Commission, known today as the MBLC, and served from 1890 until her death in 1896.

  1.  How did Commissioner Ticknor champion libraries in Massachusetts?

“Her familiarity with the intellectual possibilities of the home and the best methods and means of stimulating and meeting them, her appreciation of the free public library as an educational force, together with her experimental knowledge of the practical results that can be accomplished by simple and direct methods, made her judgment of especial value in outlining and crystallizing the work of the commission.” (Meeting Minutes and Report of the Commission, 1896)  

  1. How did Anna Eliot Ticknor’s work challenge the cultural, social, or political norms of the early 1900s?

Anna Eliot Ticknor was passionate about educating women in a time when women faced many obstacles pursuing higher education and intellectual endeavors.  “… she was desirous to gratify, if possible, the aspirations of the large number of women throughout the country who would fain obtain an education, and who had little, if any hope of obtaining it.” (Samuel Eliot, 1897)

By providing women with the opportunity to pursue education via correspondence courses, Ticknor empowered women by expanding their intellectual horizons and challenging prevailing gender norms that confined women’s roles to domestic spheres.  Ticknor fostered a community of learning and intellectual growth that paved a path for the broader movement towards gender equality in education.  In fact, within two years of founding the Society to Encourage Studies at Home, Smith and Wellesley Colleges would be established (Bergman, 2011).


She and Elizabeth Sohier Putnam, another founding Commissioner, were the first women appointed to a United States public commission when they were appointed to the Massachusetts Free Public Library Commission in 1890.

  1. What personal experiences shaped Anna Eliot Ticknor’s tenure as a library Commissioner?

Ticknor was highly educated and believed it was her responsibility to share her advantages with others, with the free public library holding a pivotal role in adult education.  Her Society to Encourage Studies at Home was “designed to draw on the intellectual attainments of Ticknor’s leisured and wealthy friends to further the education of women throughout the country…Ticknor and her friends wanted to give away what men had long refused to allow women to buy: a liberal education.” (Bergmann, 2001)

  1. How does Anna Ticknor’s impact still resonate in today’s libraries, and what can we learn from her legacy? 

Ticknor’s work laid the groundwork for modern distance learning programs –  she and the Society are cited in some Library and Information Science textbooks – and emphasized the importance of accessible education for all. 

 Libraries today continue to draw inspiration from her legacy by offering diverse educational resources and learning opportunities, embracing her vision of inclusive and lifelong education.  From her and the Society’s legacy, we can learn the value of adaptability and the importance of creating learning opportunities that transcend traditional boundaries, ensuring education is available to everyone regardless of circumstances.

The literary interests of Anna and her father, George, also inspired the founding of The Ticknor Society, an organization of book collectors, booksellers, librarians, historians, archivists, conservators, printers, publishers, writers, and all lovers and readers of books that “recognizes that both father and daughter were instrumental in making books widely accessible in The Commonwealth of Massachusetts.”

  1. An MBLC Favorite Quote about Commissioner Anna Eliot Ticknor:

“It will be seen that she was a teacher, an inspirer, a comforter and, in the best sense, a friend of many and many a lonely and baffled life.” (Samuel Eliot, 1897)

Do you know a librarian that reminds you of Ticknor? The Anna Eliot Ticknor Award honors a Massachusetts librarian whose work has increased residents’ access to the wealth of resources held at libraries across the Commonwealth.  

Submit a nomination for the anna eliot ticknor commmissioner award by october 1

Learn more about Anna Eliot Ticknor and her pioneering spirit below!

The History of the MBLC Logo

Anna Eliot Ticknor, An Education and Public Libraries Pioneer

By MBLC Preservation Specialist Jessica Branco Colati

Anna Eliot Ticknor (June 1, 1823–October 5, 1896), of Boston, served as a founding commissioner of the Free Public Library Commission of Massachusetts from 1890 until her death in 1896. Ticknor was considered a “Boston Brahmin”, growing up in a prominent, well-traveled, highly-educated, and literary-minded family. She was an author and early proponent of distance learning, especially for women to continue their education while carrying out their wifely and motherly duties at home. She also gave voice to the role libraries could play in educating the public.

Anna was born in Boston in 1823 to parents George Ticknor, a Harvard professor of modern languages and one of the founders and early presidents of Boston Public Library. Her mother, Anna (Eliot) Ticknor, came from an extended family that included presidents of both Harvard and Trinity (CT) Colleges and poet and playwright T.S. Eliot. She regularly hosted her husband’s distinguished colleagues, literary figures including Charles Dickens and Henry David Thoreau, and other notable family friends, at the family’s Beacon Hill home or when traveling abroad.


Surrounded by books, artwork, academics, and authors from an early age, Anna wrote some volumes of her own, including a few articles, a biography of family friend, “Life of Joseph Green Cogswell as sketched in his letters”, and, in 1869, a travelogue for young(er) readers, “An American family in Paris; with fifty-eight illustrations of historical monuments and familiar scenes.”

The work that consumed most of her adult life was, however, Anna’s founding of the “Society to Encourage Studies at Home” in 1873.  She filled many operational roles for the organization simultaneously, championing its work and recruiting many of her Boston high society friends and connections to join her in its efforts.

The Society is considered to be the first correspondence school in the United States, consisting of a network of women teaching women a formal course of study by mail. Her purpose in founding the Society was for “the improving the character, increasing the resources of the home” by making available “an enlightened modern curriculum; a lending library; and a warm correspondence between woman teacher and woman learner.” 

Anna and the Society were true pioneers in American higher education for women, predating the founding of Smith College and Wellesley College by a few years. By 1896, the Society had remotely supported the continuing education of over 7000 students and engaged almost 200 instructors for its courses during its 23 years.

Anna was already 68 years old when she was appointed by Governor Brackett to be one of the first members of Massachusetts’ Free Public Library Commission. She was appointed to a one-year term to stagger the terms of the Commission’s board members, then reappointed for a full five-year term in 1891. She died on October 5, 1896, at her summer home in Newport, Rhode Island.

Author’s Note: While most of the sources for our expanded profile of Commissioner Anna Eliot Ticknor can be found online or in the MBLC Archives (follow the links in the text above to dive deeper into Anna’s many experiences and accomplishments!), the records of the Society to Encourage Studies at Home are held by the Boston Public Library and are not fully digitized. 

They are available to researchers by visiting BPL’s Archives and Special Collections or requesting materials be digitized for remote personal consultation.

The History of the MBLC is a new, recurring series of blog posts highlighting the people, organizations, initiatives, and events that have shaped the work of the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners and its impact on libraries across the Commonwealth since its founding in 1890. Posts are authored by Jessica Branco Colati, Preservation Specialist (in her role as agency archivist) and June Thammasnong, Communications Specialist, as well as other occasional authors. External links to primary and secondary sources accessible online are included in the blog posts. The first group of posts will highlight the founding Commissioners in the lead up to the agency’s 135th Anniversary.