Date Range
1870-1954

Bulk Dates
1900-1940

Creator
Gibson House Museum 

Extent
25 linear feet 

Language
English

Acquisition Information
The Gibson Family Papers were given to the Gibson Society, Inc., along with the house at 137 Beacon Street and its contents, in 1957. Parts of the Mary Ethel Gibson and Freeman Allen sub-series were subsequently donated by their descendants.

Access Restrictions
None

Copyright
Gibson House Museum

Materials Removed from the Collection
​Eleven letters between Freeman Allen and his grandmother, Harriet Beecher Stowe, were turned over to the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center (Hartford, Conn.) in 2013. 
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ABSTRACT
This collection consists of the papers of the Gibson family of Boston, Massachusetts, in particular Mary Ethel Gibson Allen, daughter and Boston socialite, her husband, Freeman Allen, doctor and grandson of Harriet Beecher Stowe, and their son, Henry Freeman Allen; and Charles Hammond Gibson, Jr., poet and Gibson House Museum founder.

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SCOPE AND CONTENT
The Gibson Family Papers Collection includes correspondence, manuscripts, journals, and ephemera belonging to the immediate Gibson Family members as well as other relatives. The collection provides insight into the late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century social and cultural history of Boston’s Back Bay. The strength of the collection is found in the Charles Hammond Gibson, Jr. series, which offers context for such varied topics as literary history; the relationship between Boston and summer communities, like Nahant, Mass.; and the LGBTQ experience between 1870 and 1940. The Mary Ethel Gibson Allen and Dr. Freeman Allen Correspondence subseries is another strength of the collection, and sheds light on the history of mental health and addiction.