Blackwell family papers, 1831-1981 (MC 411)This collection contains correspondence, financial records, photographs, writings, and other papers of four generations of the United States branch of the Blackwell family, assembled by George Washington Blackwell and his descendants. They record family activities, travel, professional work, and civic and reform involvements of a physically far-flung but emotionally close-knit family. Of particular interest are the descriptions of medical education and practice in the letters of Elizabeth and Emily; the accounts of Anna's freelance newspaper work; and the records pertaining to George and Howard's real estate businesses. There are also accounts of school-teaching in the letters of Elizabeth, Emily, Emma Lawrence Blackwell, and her mother Sarah Stone Lawrence. Lucy Stone's activism against slavery and for woman's suffrage, as well as her Oberlin College experience, are mentioned. Phoebe Stone Beeman describes life as a member of the first class of women at Wesleyan University (1876). The bulk of the collection centers on George and Emma Lawrence Blackwell and their children: Howard Lane, who married Helen Thomas, and Anna, who married Charles Belden. These papers illustrate family relationships, household management, club and reform activity, and social life in Orange, New Jersey, and Cambridge, Massachusetts.