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     MANUSCRIPTS and ARCHIVAL MATERIAL

Dr. Jennie Lizzie Hoit-Hoyt friendship album and mathematical fraktur (Addition 12) 2023-0130, 1866, 1871

 File — Box: 3, Folder: 9

Scope and Contents

This addition 12 of MSS 16758, The University of Virginia Collection on the History of Childhood, Parenting, and Family Building, contains a friendship album of Jennie Lizzie Hoit (Dr. Jane Elizabeth Hoyt) made between 1866 and 1871 and a Pennsylvania German Mathematical Fraktur made in 1808 for Elizabeth Urban.

The friendship book belonging to Jennie is small (3 X 5 inches), about 60 pages, and contains compliments and well wishes from her family... members and friends.

The collection also contains a Pennsylvania German Mathematical Fraktur presented to a schoolgirl, most likely Elizabeth Urban. Fraktur is a Germanic tradition of decorated manuscripts and printed documents noted for its use of bold colors and whimsical motifs. The page contains a Multiplication Table and Pence Table, dated September 15, 1808, inscribed "Miss Urban, I have the honour to be your humble servant," signed A.G. Lees, Conestoga Township, Lancaster County. Initials EU appear in the intersecting hearts. The page is decorated with birds and flowers. The student was likely Elizabeth Urban, born on July 22, 1795. The table was probably presented by her tutor or teacher, possibly Alexander Lees, residing in nearby York County from 1779 to 1781, or Abraham Lees, in York County in 1785.

Jennie was born in Concord, Massachusetts, in 1860 and later changed her last name to Hoyt. She became a doctor, working as a Second Assistant at the New York Infant Asylum, as a physician at both Lasalle Seminary and Pillsbury Hospital, and as an intern at the New England Hospital for Women and Children. Jennie married George Washington Stevens in 1907.

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Dates

  • Creation: 1866
  • Creation: 1871

Conditions Governing Access

The collection is open for research use.

Biographical / Historical

Jane Elizabeth "Jennie" Hoyt-Stevens was born in Concord, Massachusetts to Sewell Hoit (1807-1875) and Hannah Elizabeth Hoyt, in 1860 and later changed her last name to Hoyt. She became a doctor, working as a Second Assistant at the New York Infant Asylum, as a physician at both Lasalle Seminary and Pillsbury Hospital, and as an intern at the New England Hospital for Women and Children. Jennie married George Washington Stevens in 1907.She encouraged... a younger generation of women in their medical careers, including Mary Runnells Bird, and donated her family home, ("impressive mansion"), to the use of the New Hampshire Congregational Conference, reserving "a small upstairs apartment" for her own use.

In 1906, she represented the New Hampshire Medical Society as a delegate to the International Medical Congress in Lisbon, and traveled in Spain and North Africa during that trip. She met Gandhi during an extended visit to India, and published writings about her impressions of him in 1931. She adopted a son in Spain, named Abelardo Linares. She died in 1933, in Concord, New Hampshire, at the age of 72

The mathematical fraktur may have belonged to Elizabeth Urban as a gift from her tutor, A. G. Lees in Conestoga Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Elizabeth Urban was born on July 22, 1795 in Conestoga to George Urban (1740-1843) and Barbara Keagy (1743-1828). Educational frakturs are very rare.

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Extent

0.04 Cubic Feet (one legal size folder. Little album needs housing)

Language of Materials

English

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