Manuscripts & Archives, Yale University
We know Emily Dickinson today because Mabel Loomis Todd possessed the intellect, energy, and ability to guarantee that Emily’s poems were published.
Join us on Saturday, June 1st to experience Mabel Loomis Todd’s Amherst–from her earliest residence at the Amherst House hotel to her final resting place in Wildwood Cemetery. This extended tour given from Mrs. Todd’s perspective will be narrated by Dr. Julie Dobrow as we travel in motorbus comfort with stops at the Homestead and Evergreens, the Observatory, and Wildwood Cemetery. Be prepared to learn about the artistic and literary achievements that made Mabel extraordinary in her own time, and a fascinating person to study today. The tour will start at 1pm and go until 5pm.
Dr. Dobrow’s presentation will draw on her extensive research for “After Emily:
The Untold Tale of the Women Who Introduced Emily Dickinson to the World”, her celebrated biography of Mabel Loomis Todd and Millicent Todd Bingham, which can be ordered here. Her narrative will be enhanced by period maps and photographs leading us to the homes and haunts of Mrs. Todd. When David Peck Todd was appointed astronomy professor at Amherst College, his alma mater, and the Todds arrived in Amherst, Mabel was anything but an ordinary professor’s wife. Witty, artistic, and charming, she left her mark on Amherst, her home for almost forty years.
While today Mabel is best known for her complicated relationships with the Dickinson family — her pivotal role in getting Emily Dickinson’s poetry published and her long-term affair with Austin Dickinson — she had a multi-faceted life in Amherst and beyond. Mabel’s Amherst legacy lives today in the civic organizations she founded—the Mary Mattoon Chapter of the D.A.R., the Amherst Woman’s Club, and the Amherst Historical Society.
General tickets are $65. With a $100 benefactor ticket, you receive first choice of seats on the bus and a copy of Mabel Loomis Todd: Her Contributions to the Town of Amherst by Millicent Todd Bingham. This tour requires physical ability to get on and off the bus, navigate steps and to walk several hundred yard distances over rough ground. Funds raised from these tours will support the mission of the Amherst Historical Society.
We are grateful to our tour sponsor: the Amherst BID
About the Speaker
Though much of Julie Dobrow’s research and writing has focused around issues of children and media, for the past several years most of her efforts have been focused around researching the fascinating lives of Mabel Loomis Todd and Millicent Todd Bingham. She teaches in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development, and in the Environmental Studies and Film and Media Studies Programs at Tufts University. She is a Senior Fellow at the Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts, and also serves as the Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies. Dobrow graduated from Smith College with an AB in anthropology and sociology, and received her MA and Ph.D. from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.
Tickets:
$65.00 General
$100.00 Benefactor This option includes recognition in the program, preferred choice of seat on the trolley, and a copy of “Mabel Loomis Todd, Her Contributions to the Town of Amherst” by Millicent Todd Bingham.
This tour requires physical ability to get on and off the trolley, navigate steps and to walk several hundred yard distances over rough ground.
These are all entries under the letter “C” in the book Amherst A to Z, written by Elizabeth Sharpe. The book is illustrated with pictures of artifacts from the Amherst History Museum, historic images from the Jones Library’s Special Collections, as well as photographs of our town and the folks who live here.