The Good That Flowers Do: A Gift from the Teachers and Scholars of the Warren Street Chapel,
Boston: Dutton and Wentworth, Printers, Congress Street, 1847, May. Wraps. 16mo (6 1/8” x 3 13/16”); 17, [1]pp; plain green wrapper; border and vignette on title page; one additional engraved vignette.; light wear to wrapper else fine. Fine. Item #1558
This small pamphlet was produced by the teachers at the Warren Street Chapel with an appeal for participation in the annual Floral Procession. The Warren Street Chapel was a charity for impoverished children founded in 1826 by Dr. Tuckerman. The Chapel building was erected in 1835/6 and the charity was supported first by the American Unitarian Association and then by the Benevolent Fraternity of Boston churches. In Gleason’s Pictorial Drawing Room (1856), Rev. Luther Farnham is quoted as saying that this era was the “children’s age” when society turns to the “moral instruction of the rising generation.”
The call for a gathering of “Bouquets, Baskets, Banners, and Decorations of every kind—Branches and Wreaths of Evergreen—Moss and dried Grass” went out to schools and churches for the July 4th annual procession through the streets of Boston. The little tract-style pamphlet exhorts participation through biblical, historical, and anecdotal references.
The chapel seems to have had a racist history as Henry Ingersoll Bowditch (1808-1892), an American physician and abolitionist, withdrew his support for the Chapel because of their “policy of serving only white children.” See the website for the Emmanuel Church in the City of Boston: Emmanuel Boston (dot) org.
Price: $150.00