Margaret Long on Colorado

mnsss194 Margaret Long Papers, 1893-1954 Finding Aid Finding aid prepared by Amanda Izzo. Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College

Northampton, MA

2005

Finding aid encoded in NoteTab Pro. Encoded by Jennifer Smar. 2005-11-14 Finding aid written in English Sophia Smith CollectionSmith College Margaret Long Papers, 1893-1954 Finding Aid MS 95 Amanda Izzo 2004

Collection Overview Long, Margaret, 1893- Margaret Long Papers1893-1954 MS 95 2 boxes (1 linear ft.) English. Sophia Smith Collection

Smith College Northampton, MA

Physician, Travel writer, Historian. Includes correspondence, a 10-year journal (1897-1907), short manuscript sketches and reminiscences. Closely related to the papers of Dorothy Reed Mendenhall and Florence Sabin who were both medical students at Johns Hopkins with Long. Also documents the year of her internship at the New York Women's Infirmary and her first years of epidemiological research in Denver, CO. 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.

Organization of the Collection

This collection is organized into three series:

I. BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIALS II. CORRESPONDENCE III. PUBLICATIONS Information on Use Terms of Access and Use

The papers are open to research according to the regulations of the Sophia Smith Collection without any additional restrictions.

Permission to publish reproductions or quotations beyond "fair use" must also be obtained from the Sophia Smith Collection as owners of the physical property.

Preferred Citation

Please use the following format when citing materials from this collection:

Margaret Long Papers, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, Mass.

History of the Collection

The Margaret Long Papers were donated to the Sophia Smith Collection by Mary A. Goodman (Smith, 1896) and Dr. Elsie Seelye Pratt (Smith, 1895) from 1959 to 1960.

Processed by Amanda Izzo, 2005.

Search Terms Female friendship--United States--History--Sources Physicians--United States--Biography--Sources Trails--West (U.S.)--History--Sources Women authors, American--20th century--Biography--Sources Women medical students--United States--History--Sources Women physicians--United States--Biography--Sources Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine--History--Sources Smith College--Students--History--Sources Mendenhall, Dorothy Mabel Reed, 1874-1964--Correspondence Long, Margaret, 1873- Long, John Davis, 1838-1915 Additional Information SERIES I. BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIALS 1 1 Obituaries, 1957 1 2 Reminiscences, n.d. 1 3 Diary: line-a-day, kept by Long and Dorothy Reed, 1897-1907 SERIES II. CORRESPONDENCE

[see detailed list in reading room]

1 4 Goodman, Mary from Long, 1895-96, 1941-54, n.d. 1 5 Griswold, Louise to Long, 1929-30 1 6-12 Mendenhall, Dorothy Reed to Long, 1893-1929 SERIES III. PUBLICATIONS 1 Enchanted Desert by Margaret Long, 1942 (2 copies) 2 The Journal of John D. Long, edited by Margaret Long, 1956 2 The Journal of Zadoc Long, edited by Peirce Long, introduction by Margaret Long, 1943 2 The Naja Haje Letters and Other Writings by Peirce Long, 1887-1941, edited by Margaret Long, 1943 2 The Smoky Hill Trail, by Margaret Long, 1947