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© 2003 Smith College. All rights reserved.
Mary Hunt's course card for "Obstetrics & Diseases
of Women and Children," 1862
Mary Olive Hunt, M.D. (1819-1908) graduated from New England Female Medical College in 1866-67 and had an active practice as a physician in Manchester, New Hampshire. Her niece by marriage, Elizabeth ("Bessie") Bisbee Hunt (1844-1919) was born in Derby, Vermont and was a leader in the New Hampshire and national woman suffrage campaign. No additional biographical information is available.
This small collection of Hunt Family Papers consists of one box of correspondence, biographical materials, and memorabilia. The papers of Dr. Mary Olive Hunt relate primarily to her medical career and include cards of matriculation and registration in courses of the New England Female Medical College, 1861-63, and certificates of attendance signed by Dr. Marie E. Zakrzewska and other women professors; licenses to practice in Manchester, New Hampshire; newspaper clippings advertising Dr. Hunt's services as a physician to women, and an article celebrating her as the oldest living doctor holding a license to practice medicine in New Hampshire, 1908. There are also two letters to Dr. Hunt from suffragist Lucy Stone.
Elizabeth ("Bessie") Bisbee Hunt's correspondence include letters and notes written in the 1880s from Oliver Wendell Holmes and Charles Dudley Warner relate to her writings. Letters from Susan B. Anthony, Harriet Stanton Blatch and Julia Ward Howe, written in the years 1897 to 1903 when she was a leader in the New Hampshire woman suffrage campaign, include warm recollections of their work together in the earlier national suffrage battle. There are over twenty long and personal letters from her school friend, Rose Hawthorne Lathrop (daughter of Nathaniel Hawthorne). Most were written from New London and relate to her activities in giving readings before women's clubs, a visit to her brother, Julian Hawthorne, in Jamaica, and a report of the performance of the opera based on The Scarlet letter with words by her husband and music by Walter Damrosch. A few later letters, written after her conversion to the Roman Catholic religion, describe her work for the free hospital for needy incurable cancer patients which she founded in New York City, and of her religious life at Rosemary Hill Home.
The collection is open to research according to the regulations of the Sophia Smith Collection.
The copyright owner of this collection is unknown. It is the responsibility of the researcher to identify and satisfy the holders of all copyrights. Permission to publish reproductions or quotations beyond "fair use" must also be obtained from the Sophia Smith Collection as owners of the physical property.
Please use the following format when citing materials from this collection:
Hunt Family Papers, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, Mass.
The Hunt Family Papers were donated to the SSC by Mary Hunt Clough Russell (Smith class 1930), Elizabeth Clough Marston (class 1929), and Constance Clough McWhinney (class 1932), all granddaughters of Elizabeth Bisbee Hunt.
Finding aid revised in 2002 by Brook Hopkins, intern.