The Woman Behind the Socialist

The search for related materials started off to be a very promising one based on the Lilly’s extensive collections of manuscripts that could have possibly related to Ms. Hapgood and her ideas about social reform via the Sacco and Vanzetti trial, the Works Progress Administration, and more. We decided to delve into what might be the most fruitful of our searches first: the Sacco and Vanzetti trial. Knowing that this topic made up an entire manuscript collection by itself, we were able to go straight to the Lilly Library’s website to look up the manuscript collections list. Exploring the collection via the search tool under “The Collections: Manuscripts”, we found a collection to be entitled “Hapgood—Sacco-Vanzetti”. This looked promising as the online description mentioned it containing correspondence via letters between both Sacco and Vanzetti and Hapgood. From here we looked up the printed collection in the binders of manuscripts to see if there were any more details that might be of interest in the collection. Upon deciding to look at the collection, we requested the physical materials and were overwhelmed with all the items present.

It turns out that the Lilly Library had divided the collection into two parts: letters both written and printed, and newspaper/media about the trial. Both parts are extremely helpful and mention specifics about the trial, social reform, and Hapgood by name. It was fascinating to delve into the news articles about the Italians and the Mother Mary that they had in Hapgood. The articles became even more interesting when put in comparison with Hapgood’s own memoir, No Tears for My Youth. Within the text, Hapgood uses truly pathos-inducing speeches from Sacco and Vanzetti during the trial:

“‘I am suffering because I am a radical and indeed I am a radical. I have suffered because I was an Italian and indeed I am an Italian. I have suffered more for my family and for my beloved than for myself, but I am so convinced to be right that you can only kill me once, but if you would execute me two times and if I could be reborn two other times, I would live again to do again what I have already done. I have finished. Thank you’” (6).

However, the news does not create such a sympathetic view of the entire trial. Big-name news such as The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, and more all included articles about “Reaffirming the Sacco-Vanzetti Verdict” or about how “Boston Police Stop Meeting for Sacco”, all portraying the two Italians and all those who support them as the enemy. So, we began to see just what the public saw at the time when the trial was going on. We saw just what Hapgood was up against as she led radical social reform.

The second folder in the collection provided a very intimate look into the thoughts of Sacco, Vanzetti, and many supporters. This was also interesting to juxtapose with the public perception of the trial/aftermath. It is in these letters that many ideas and themes of social reform begin to come out. These letters also introduced us to a variety of other supporters of Sacco and Vanzetti that may have collaborated with Hapgood. For example, there is extensive correspondence between both Italians and a Ms. Alice Stone Blackwell, who clearly advocates her support for Hapgood’s efforts. Overall, this collection was a wonderful addition to our Hapgood research providing both public, and private looks into the well-known trial that our subject was so dedicated to.

Looking into Hapgood’s work with the Works Progress Administration in Indiana, we found an exclusive online exhibit from the Lilly Library. Like before, we simply used the search tool on the Lilly Library’s website to look for information on the WPA. One of the first results that the search yielded was this exhibit (http://www.indiana.edu/~liblilly/wpa/wpa.html). While it does not mention Hapgood specifically, we do know that she was directly linked to the Works Progress Administration in Indiana, so we can use this exhibit to further our general knowledge of Hapood’s goals and reasoning. The exhibit provides a multitude of descriptions of projects in the Indian area, and photographs of those projects. If the rest of the exhibit is found to be unimportant, at least it gives us a general knowledge of who was inspiring Hapgood, and of what some of her broad ambitions were.

Staff at the Lilly Library let us know that they have a manuscript collection entitled “Labor and Left Wing Related Collections”. Deciding that this could yield some good results, we looked into the collection. Again, returning to the Lilly Library’s website, we searched for “Labor and Left Wing”. Finding it to be the first search result, we clicked on the online manuscript description and found a multitude of collections. Each collection had a date range and a small description of generally what the collection was about. Using these two pieces of information under each collection, we narrowed our search to items that might be relevant to Hapgood. One very interesting collection ended up being the “Columbia Conserve Company MSS” collection. While this does not necessarily apply to Mary Donovan Hapgood directly, it has extremely important indirect affiliation with our subject. This collection tells all about the socialist workings of a cannery where Powers Hapgood (Mary Donovan’s spouse and cohort through the Sacco-Vanzetti trial) was a main stockholder with his two brothers. The collection is housed at the Auxiliary Library Facility and was not present for us to physically look at, but depending on where we decide to take our research, it could be of great benefit to put in a request at the Lilly Library to have the collection delivered there.

Sam and Belle