Henry Lee Higginson (New York, 1834 - 1919, Boston)
Letter to Isabella Stewart Gardner from Boston, 6 March 1883
Ink on paper
General admission for children 17 years and under is always free
Blue Room
Commentary
This note from Henry Lee Higginson, founder of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, to Isabella Stewart Gardner thanks her for her donation of $200 to the “Annex” where women could receive private instruction from Harvard professors. The Annex was probably where Isabella took the classes from art historian Charles Eliot Norton that would spark her interest in Dante and the Italian Renaissance. The Annex was a pioneering advancement in women's education and grew into Radcliffe College, the former women's college of Harvard University.In this letter Higginson wrote: “If anything is needed in this world, it is education—if men object to educated women as wives, they had better marry cows or big dolls.”