DACS

]> Finding Aid for the Gove Family Papers, 1826 - 1911 Processed by: ; machine-readable finding aid created by: Jason Alston University Libraries, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro 2009 Machine-readable finding aid derived from XML authoring program. Date of source: ; Description is in English Finding aid was prepared using DACS Finding Aid for the Gove Family Papers, 1826 - 1911 University of North Carolina at Greensboro Descriptive Summary Dr. George Sullivan Gove (1828-1912) worked as a country doctor in New Hampshire. His wife Maria (1834-1912) ran the family farm, and their daughter Anna (1867-1948) became the director of the Department of Health at what is now the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. The Gove Family Papers date from 1826 to 1911 and contain family correspondence and business documents. Gove Family Papers, 1826 - 1911 Mss003 Gove, George Sullivan and family 1.668 Linear Feet, 4 Boxes University Archives and Manuscripts English Administrative Information Access Restrictions

Collection is open for research; however, one folder is restricted.

Copyright is retained by the creators of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], Gove Family Papers, University Archives and Manuscripts, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, NC, USA.

Acquisition Information

Gift of Anne Shamburger in 1948

Processing Information

Processed by archives staff,

Encoded by Jason Alston

Biographical Note

Dr. George Sullivan (1828-1912) and Maria Pierce Gove (1834-1912) married on 2 January 1855 and lived in Whitefield, New Hampshire. George Gove worked as a country doctor and house physician for several summer resorts. Maria ran the family farm while George was away in the summers. Their daughter, Anna Maria Gove (1867-1948), became the resident physician, professor of hygiene, and director of the Department of Health at the North Carolina State Normal and Industrial School (now the University of North Carolina at Greensboro) from 1893 to 1937.

Collection Overview

The Gove Family Papers date from 1826 to 1911 and contain chiefly correspondence and business documents. Correspondence consists of letters from George and Maria's daughter Anna, letters between George and Maria, and letters from various relatives and acquaintances, and is described in further detail below. Business documents include medical practice papers, stock certificates, and insurance policies.

The letters from Anna begin with scribblings on scraps of paper included in her mother's letters to her father, and move on to chronicle her college experiences and her early years at the State Normal and Industrial School. Most of these letters, however, document Anna's trip to study in Vienna from 1896 to 1897, including her overseas voyage; the places she stopped along the way (Gibraltar, Alhambra, Pompeii, Rome, Morocco, Spain and Italy); descriptions of diseases, operations, and hospital conditions; special events such as the visit of the German emperor and the Corpus Christi procession; Anna's thoughts about going into private practice upon her return to the United States; and descriptions of her travel through Europe (Austria, Switzerland, Germany, and England) on her way home. The remainder of these letters document summer trips in the United States, mainly to the homes of relatives and friends in the Midwest.

The correspondence between George and Maria Gove begins in 1872, with Dr. Gove's assessment of each town he visited while looking for a new place to settle in Massachusetts. Mrs. Gove's responses deal mainly with the details of family life as she prepared for the move, which never took place. Dr. Gove's later letters from the resorts where he worked as a doctor during the summers illustrate his medical routine, including his remedies for certain ailments, as well as his sense of humor: "My cases are all doing well and too soon get well for my success financially [sic]." (August 2, 1888) Maria, who was lame, responded by expressing her anxieties about running the farm by herself while he was away, and her concern that she not become a burden to her husband. The correspondence between George and Maria also includes letters from trips around the United States, such as Maria's visits to her parents and sisters in Janesville, Wisconsin, and Dunlop, Iowa, in 1875, and her visit to Anna at the New York Infant Asylum in 1893, as well as Dr. Gove's visits to California, New York and Chicago in the late 1880s and early 1890s.

The final section of the Gove Family correspondence consists of letters from various relatives and acquaintances, including Maria's sisters Mary Clark, a partly disabled spinster whose letters describe the psychological and material hardships suffered by an unmarried woman in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, and Ellen Clark Brace, who lived in Chicago and wrote about a street car strike and a diphtheria epidemic in 1888. Other letters document farm life in the 1870s and 1890s, including crop yields, insect damage, and the fear of sending children to school because of wolves.

Collection Arrangement

The collection is arranged chronologically by type of material.

Detailed Description of the Collection 1 Anna Gove Correspondence, 1878-1895 Anna Gove Correspondence, 1899 Anna Gove Correspondence, 1900-1909, undated George and Maria Gove Correspondence, 1872-1880 George and Maria Gove Correspondence, 1881 George and Maria Gove Correspondence, 1882 George and Maria Gove Correspondence, 1883 George and Maria Gove Correspondence, 1884 George and Maria Gove Correspondence, 1885 George and Maria Gove Correspondence, 1886 George and Maria Gove Correspondence, 1887 2 George and Maria Gove Correspondence, 1889 George and Maria Gove Correspondence, 1890 George and Maria Gove Correspondence, 1891 George and Maria Gove Correspondence, 1892 George and Maria Gove Correspondence, 1893 George and Maria Gove Correspondence, 1894-1895 George and Maria Gove Correspondence, 1896-1897 George and Maria Gove Correspondence, 1899 George and Maria Gove Correspondence,1906, undated General Correspondence, 1853-1855, 1860 General Correspondence, 1865-1869 General Correspondence, 1870-1873 General Correspondence, 1874-1875 General Correspondence, 1876-1879 General Correspondence, 1880 3 General Correspondence, 1881-1885 General Correspondence, 1886-1887 General Correspondence, 1888 General Correspondence, 1889 General Correspondence, 1890 General Correspondence, 1891 General Correspondence, 1892 General Correspondence, 1893 General Correspondence, 1894 General Correspondence, 1895 General Correspondence, 1896 General Correspondence, 1897 General Correspondence, 1898 General Correspondence, 1899 General Correspondence, 1900 General Correspondence, 1901-1905 4 Watercolor (restricted access) General Correspondence, 1906-1909 General Correspondence, 1910-1911 General Correspondence, undated Medical Practice Papers,1859-1860 Stock Certificates Insurance Policies Business Papers, 1850s Business Papers, 1859-1865 Business Papers, 1866-1869 Business Papers, 1870-1873, 1883, 1889, undated Business Papers--Libby, Gove and French, 1871-1872 Miscellaneous Papers, 1826-1887, undated Related Material