Contents

Collection Overview

Biographical Note

Scope and Contents of the Collection

Organization of the Collection

Search Terms

Mary Sheldon Barnes Papers, 1857-1948

Finding Aid

Finding aid prepared by Susan Boone.

Encoding funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

© 2003

Biographical Note

Mary Downing Sheldon was born in Oswego, New York, on September 15, 1850, the oldest of five children of Frances Stiles and Edward Austin Sheldon, founder and principal of Oswego State Normal and Training School. She was educated in the public schools of Oswego until age sixteen, finishing at the Normal School in 1869. She taught there for two years. In 1871 Sheldon enrolled at the University of Michigan in a classical course, graduating in 1874. She returned to Oswego Normal to teach history, Latin, Greek and botany. In late 1876 she was invited to teach history at Wellesley College where she remained for two and one half years. Her teaching methods, unorthodox for the time and later called the source method, included the use of primary sources, discussion, and problem solving. Because of internal conflicts at Wellesley and poor health she resigned in 1879 and spent a year resting and then two years traveling abroad. She returned to Oswego Normal in 1882 where she wrote her groundbreaking work Studies in General History. It was published in 1885.

On August 6, 1885, she married a former student, Earl Barnes, who was eleven years her junior. Barnes, a teacher of history and psychology, was appointed head of the department of education at Stanford University in 1891. Mary joined the Stanford history department in March 1892 as assistant professor. She taught nineteenth-century European history and the history of the Pacific Slope. Together the they wrote Studies in American History which was published in 1891 and 1896. Mary subsequently published Studies in Historical Method. It was directed toward teachers and nonhistorians who wanted to understand and apply the historical method.

Both Mary and Earl Barnes resigned their posts at Stanford in 1897 to travel and write in Europe. Mary Sheldon Barnes died of heart disease in London, August 27, 1898. According to the author of Barnes' biography in Notable American Women, "[her importance] in American educational history rests chiefly upon her often misunderstood source method. She intended that students should study the primary sources in an 'independent and solitary' way using her questions as guides to problem solving...in order to develop the student's abilities to observe, to weigh evidence, to generalize and to exercise creative historical imagination....This was a more progressive approach than many teachers of her time or later could understand or apply....The source method hastened the improvement of more conventional history textbooks. Critical thinking came to characterize some of the better general education courses a half century later." (Robert E. Keohane in "Mary Sheldon Barnes," Notable American Women, 1607-1950, Cambridge, Belknap Press, 1971)

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Scope and Contents of the Collection

The Mary Sheldon Barnes Papers consist of eight linear feet of correspondence, creative and professional writings, artwork, juvenilia, line-a-day diaries, notes, teaching materials, memorabilia, scrapbooks, and photographs. The material dates from 1857 to 1948 (bulk dates 1880 to 1898). Although Barnes did not work directly with women's history, her papers provide a particularly interesting insight into the personal and professional life of an academic woman historian of the late 19th century and the relationship between two academic scholars. They also are a valuable source of information on historiography.

There are additional Mary Sheldon Barnes papers housed at Penfield Library, Special Collections, State University of New York at Oswego. Earl Barnes' papers, the Sheldon Family Papers, and faculty papers of Mary's four siblings are also in the Penfield Library.

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Search Terms

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Organization of the Collection

This collection is organized into four series:

• I. Biographical Material
• II. Correspondence
• III. Writings
• IV. Photographs and Memorabilia

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SERIES I. BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIAL (1885-1948) .25 linear ft.

This series contains two subseries: Mary Sheldon Barnes and Earl Barnes.

The Mary Sheldon Barnes subseries contains obituaries and miscellaneous writings about her death in 1898. Related material can be found in condolence letters to Earl Barnes in SERIES II. CORRESPONDENCE. There are also miscellaneous writings about her in this subseries as well as notes by donor Betty Barnes about Mary Sheldon Barnes and the Barnes Papers.

Although the bulk of Earl Barnes' papers, including a run of his dairies, are housed at Oswego, the Earl Barnes subseries contains two diaries: 1885 and 1898. The former contains entries about his courtship and marriage to Mary Sheldon and the latter about their time in Europe just prior to and including her death in August 1898. This subseries also contains a biographical sketch of Barnes by Edward Howard Griggs written in 1935.

Additional biographical material in the form of clippings and articles can be found in SERIES IV. PHOTOGRAPHS AND MEMORABILIA Scrapbooks.

SERIES II. CORRESPONDENCE (1867-1899) 2 linear ft.

This series is divided into three subseries: Mary Sheldon Barnes, Earl Barnes, and Third party. The first two subseries are divided into outgoing and incoming.

Of particular interest in the first subseries are outgoing letters to family. These include letters Mary Sheldon wrote home to her parents from the University of Michigan between 1872 to 1874. These, along with her journals in SERIES III. WRITINGS, reflect the coming of age and academic life of a young woman in the second half of the nineteenth century. Her experiences at Wellesley College, both positive and negative, are reflected in letters from 1877 to 1879, and she describes her travels in circular letters home from Europe, 1880 to 1882. Also of interest are letters to Earl Barnes (1880-97) written during their courtship and marriage. Among the outgoing letters to friends there are three folders of letters (1871-1888) written to Mary Alling which provide a valuable insight into female friendships of that period. Incoming letters include letters from her parents (1872-96), various Sheldons and Stiles (1859-97), and friends and colleagues. These include letters from Katherine Lee Bates (1881-82), George Lincoln Burr (1895-96), Henry Bernard Carpenter (1885-88), Martin Luther D'Ooge (1875-80), James Johonnot (1879), Herman Krusi (1881-98), Henry Fowle Durant (1876), E. Cuthbert Nunn (1882, n.d.), Lucy Maynard Salmon (1898), Calvin Thomas (1894), Moses Coit Tylor (1874-80), and Andrew Dickson White (1888). These reflect her connections with the academic world and fellow historians, and her employment experiences. There is also a folder of correspondence with publishers (1883-85).

Of particular interest in the Earl Barnes subseries are five folders of letters (1884-97) to Mary Sheldon Barnes from before and after their marriage. There are also letters from the Sheldon family (1885 and 1898), letters to him from his brother and father, and condolence letters written to him from friends and colleagues when Mary died in 1898. These include letters from Annie Peck, Lucy Salmon, and Katherine Lee Bates.

There is a small amount of third party correspondence which relates specifically to Mary Sheldon Barnes.

There are typed copies of many of the letters and many also contain penciled notations by the papers' donor, Betty Barnes, daughter-in-law of Earl Barnes and his second wife. There is also correspondence, including letters between Mary and Earl and to Mary's parents, in the scrapbooks located in SERIES IV. PHOTOGRAPHS AND MEMORABILIA.

SERIES III. WRITINGS (1860-1899) 2.25 linear ft.

This series is divided into two subseries: Journals and Miscellaneous writings.

Although they are incomplete, the journals which date from 1863 to 1898, provide an intimate insight into Mary Sheldon Barnes' inner thoughts and feelings from age thirteen to just before her death.

The Miscellaneous writings, arranged by date, include early essays, published and unpublished articles (many on historical methodology), lectures, songs, poetry, and notes. Also included are manuscripts and published versions of Studies in American History, (which the Barnses collaborated on), and Studies in General History. The former includes accompanying Teachers' Manuals.

Writings and journal entries are also contained in scrapbooks in SERIES IV. PHOTOGRAPHS AND MEMORABILIA

SERIES IV. PHOTOGRAPHS AND MEMORABILIA (1857-1898) 3.5 linear ft

This series contains two subseries Photographs and Memorabilia.

The former contains circa seventy-five photographs of Mary Sheldon Barnes (circa 1864-1891), Mary and Earl Barnes (n.d.), Earl Barnes (1890), and miscellaneous (both identified and unidentified).

The latter consists of autograph albums, a book catalogue, household accounts, marriage and wedding items, sketches and watercolors, and miscellaneous memorabilia. In addition there are sixteen volumes of scrapbooks. These are of particular value because they not only contain memorabilia, but also correspondence, writings, sketches, watercolors, and photographs.

SERIES I. BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIAL

SERIES II. CORRESPONDENCE

SERIES III. WRITINGS

SERIES IV. PHOTOGRAPHS AND MEMORABILIA