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Accession Number: HC 4
William Goodell Family Papers
Papers, 1780-1892
Bulk dates: 1820-1878
6.2 linear feet
Online Catalog Record (BANC)
Overview
Series Description
Series I - William Goodell Documents - Overview
Series II - Goodell Family Papers -Overview
Access and Use
Provenance: Following his mother's death in in Berea in 1899, William
Goodell Frost, third president of Berea College, placed the Goodell family
papers in the Berea College Library (some had already been donated to Oberlin
College while he was a faculty member there.). His mother, Maria Goodell
Frost, was the daughter of William and Clarissa Goodell
and
sister
to
Lavinia
Goodell.
Access: All of the archival materials described below may be accessed online through
the portal entitled "Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice: 1490-2007," hosted by Adam Matthew Digital and available through participating libaries. There are no restrictions on the collection other than federal copyright regulations.
Preferred Citation: The William Goodell Family Papers,
Berea College Special Collections & Archives,
Berea, KY.
Related Archives
- HC
03 - The Antislavery Collection
- RG 1 - Founders & Founding, BCA
- RG 3.03 - William G. Frost Papers
- William Goodell Family Papers (RG 30/29), Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio.
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Overview
The William Goodell Family
Papers consist of correspondence, writings, sermons and addresses, diaries,
and biographical material of abolitionist editor, writer, and speaker William
Goodell (1792-1878), his wife Clarissa, and his two daughters,
Maria Goodell Frost (1826-1899) and Lavinia
Goodell
(1839-1880). Like their parents, the Goodell daughters supported the temperance
and antislavery movements, but also sought equal rights for women and, in Lavinia's
case, prison reform. Lavinia Goodell is noteworthy as the first woman to gain
recognition as a lawyer in the state of Wisconsin.
History
William Goodell, a native of New York, was a prominent 19th century abolitionist
and temperance reformer. He either edited or published such reform-minded publications
as The Investigator and General Intelligencer, Friend
of Man, Christian Investigator, and Principia. Although
never ordained, he
founded a church in Honeoye,
New York, in 1842, based on the principles of emancipation, prohibition and
church reform. Goodell was among those who organized the American Missionary
Society and the National Prohibition Party.
In 1870 he and his wife, Clarissa Cady Goodell, removed to Janesville, Wisconsin,
home of their two daughters, where he remained until his death. The collection
includes over 380 of Goodell's sermons and addresses; correspondence with family,
colleagues, and such prominent abolitionists as Gerrit Smith, Lewis Tappan,
Henry Stanton, Lysander Spooner, Charles Torrey, and Henry Stanton; and various
writings. Included in Goodell's writings are manuscripts of Moral Excellence:
The Highest Good; Moral
Right, The
Highest Law; The Theology of Jesus Christ; and Congregationalism,
which were never published. Also present are smaller writings on anti-slavery
and temperance,
as well as many poems.
Clarissa Maria Goodell Frost, eldest daughter of William and Clarissa Goodell,
was the mother of Berea College's third president-William G. Frost. Like her
father, Maria was an advocate of both abolitionist and temperance reform. She
was also
active in the women's suffrage movement. Included in the collection are Mrs.
Frost's personal diaries of the years 1874, 1877, and 1879-1884; an unpublished
manuscript on the life of her sister, Lavinia Goodell; a Temperance Essay;
and an article entitled "Ten Reasons Why Women Should Vote." Correspondence
includes letters to and from Mrs. Frost's husband, Rev. Lewis Frost; her son,
Lewis
Clayton
Frost; other family members; and her publisher.
Rhoda Lavinia Goodell, the younger daughter of William and Clarissa Goodell,
became, in 1874, the first woman lawyer admitted to the Wisconsin bar. Her
papers include
6 personal diaries (1873, 1874, 1876, 1877, 1878, 1879, 1880) which document
her day-to-day activities, and extensive correspondence with family and friends.
Also present is a brief Miss Goodell presented before the Wisconsin State
Supreme Court, an essay, "The Responsibility of the North for Slavery," and
other miscellaneous writings.
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Series Description
19 Manuscript Boxes, 9 linear feet
Box List
| Series
II |
Goodell
Family Papers - Overview |
Box 12-17 |
This series consists primarily of personal records of Maria G.
Frost and Lavinia Goodell, as well as the more personal letters
and an autobiography by William
Goodell. Writings by the Goodell sisters are collected here.
| Sub-Series
II.A |
Personal
and Biographical Documents |
Box 12 |
Most of these are small diaries kept by Maria Frost and Lavinia
Goodell.
Box 12 - Diaries
- William Goodell—Journey 1824-25
- Maria Goodell Frost—Diary 1874
- Maria Goodell Frost—Diary 1877
- Maria Goodell Frost—Diary 1879
- Maria Goodell Frost—Diary 1880
- Maria Goodell Frost—Diary 1881
- Maria Goodell Frost—Diary 1882 and Lavinia Goodell—Diary 1880
- Maria Goodell Frost—Diary 1883
- Maria Goodell Frost—Diary 1884
- Maria Goodell Frost—Diary 1886
- Maria Goodell Frost—Diary 1888
- Maria Goodell Frost—Diary 1889
- Maria Goodell FFrost—Diary 1890
- Maria Goodell FFrost—Diary 1891
- Maria Goodell Frost—Diary 1892
- Maria Goodell Frost—Diary 1894
- Maria Goodell Frost—Diary 1895
- Maria Goodell Frost—Diary 1897
- Lavinia Goodell—Diary 1873
- Lavinia Goodell—Diary 1874
- Lavinia Goodell—Diary 1876
- Lavinia Goodell—Diary 1877
- Lavinia Goodell—Diary 1878
- Lavinia Goodell—Diary 1879
Box 13
- Papers from Maria G. Frost's Diary, 1881
- Genealogy
- Portraits and Photographs
- Wills
- William Goodell Autobiographies
- Clippings
- “Wisconsin Then and Now” - Article on Lavinia Goodell
- Officer's Commission for Zachariah Goodell
- In Memoriam (for William Goodell)
- Lavinia Goodell Obituaries
- Miscellaneous
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| Sub-Series
II.B |
Correspondence
of Lavinia Goodell and Maria Frost
|
Box 13-14 |
Much of Maria's correspondence with her husband Lewis Frost,
her sister, parents, and children, is preserved here. Lavinia's personal
correspondence is also preserved, mostly with family members and friends.
Box 13, continued
- n.d.
- 1815
- 1820-1822
- 1838-1839
- 1842-1845
- 1846-1847
- 1848-1849
- 1850
- 1851-1852
- 1853
- 1853
- 1854
Box 14 - Correspondence
- 1855
- 1856
- 1857-1858
- 1859
- 1860
- 1861
- 1862
- 1863
- 1863
- 1864
- 1865
- 1865
- 1866
- 1866
- 1867
- 1868
- 1868
Box 15 - Correspondence
- 1869
- 1870
- 1870
- 1871
- 1871
- 1872
- 1873
- 1874
- 1874
- 1875
- 1876
- 1877
- 1877
Box 16 - Correspondence
- 1878
- 1879
- 1880
- 1881-1885
- 1886-1892
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| Sub-Series
II.C |
Writings
of Lavinia Goodell and Maria Frost
|
Box 16 |
A historically signficant document, Lavinia's brief for presentation
to the Wisconsin Supreme Court makes a compelling argument, and its
acceptance sealed her efforts to see women lawyers recognized.. Maria's
account of her sister's life and her statement on women's suffrange
are also of great interest.
Box 16, continued
- Manuscript of Life of Lavinia Goodell (by Maria G. Frost)
- Life of Lavinia Goodell (Fragments)
- Brief Biography of Lavinia Goodell (by Maria G. Frost)
- Ten Reasons Why Women Should Vote (by Maria G. Frost)
- Temperance Essay (by Maria G. Frost)
- Miscellaneous (by Maria G. Frost)
- Brief for Wisconsin State Supreme Court (by Lavinia Goodell)
- The Responsibility of the North for Slavery (by Lavinia Goodell)
- The Underground Railroad (by Lavinia Goodell)
- Articles by Lavinia Goodell - Clippings
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| Sub-Series
II.D |
Notes
on Lavinia Goodell by Elizabeth Peck
|
Box 17 |
Elizabeth Peck, who started teaching at Berea in 1912, wrote a book-length
manuscript about Lavinia Goodell that was never published. She transcribed
some of Lavinia's letters and diary entries from the William Goodell Family
Papers in the process of her research. The categories she used to arrange
her typed notes and transcriptions is preserved in this box. Some folders
are empty (Pictures), some have only a few lines, while others are more
extensive. Elizabeth Peck's use of this material may be traced in the
earlier draft of her manuscript on Lavinia Goodell in the Berea College
Archives, and in the final version, in the Berea Collection, entitled, So
Life is Learning.
Box 17
- Lavinia's play as a child
- Lavinia's health as a child
- Familyness in youth
- Rusticating for health
- Self-examination
- Childhood with Maria
- Childhood with father
- Childhood Ways
- Teaching in Williamsburg
- Working for father and publishing business
- Glimpses of Civil War
- Negroes
- Growing religion
- Life with German family
- Travel sights
- First visit to Janesville
- Lavinia and Maria: Adult relationship
- Temperance Work
- Lavinia and Dress
- Women's Rights Issues
- Jail boys
- Women's Congress
- Goodells move to Janesville
- Writings
- Moods
- Important people met, not literary
- Going into law
- As Notary Public
- On women in politics
- Health in 1870s
- Law Studies
- Father in Janesville
- A woman as lawyer
- Experience in public speaking
- Law office
- Law office in Janesville
- Admission to Wisconsin Bar
- Law practice
- Work on State Legislature of Wisconsin
- Interest in Prison Reform
- Letters (typed excerpts from selected letters from 1854-1879)
- William Goodell
- Settles in Madison
- Closing Weeks
- Will
- Pictures
- Closing operations and struggle for recovery
- Dorothy Thomas
correspondence
- E. Peck Notes
- William Goodell, Peck notes
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