Here is Frank's biography from Workers in America.
Here's a link to Foster's biography in Wikipedia, which mentions that he was a trustee of the Boston Public Library (hooray!).
Sunday, March 20, 2016
Frank Keyes Foster, Son-in-Law of Calvin Palmer Ladd and Polly Harmon
Our ancestors Calvin Palmer Ladd and Polly Harmon had a total of eight children before Polly's death in 1861 (Calvin would have one more child later in life with his second wife, Charlotte Welsh). We descend through Calvin and Polly's second child, Elizabeth Ladd, who married into the successful Bulmer family of Montreal. Elizabeth's youngest sister, Lucretia Ella Ladd, born in 1853 when Elizabeth was thirteen, had quite a different type of husband. In 1879 Lucretia Ella married Frank Keyes Foster, American trade unionist. The book Workers in America: A Historical Encyclopedia, Volume 1 by Robert E. Weir (2013, ABC-Clio publications) has quite a bit of information about his career. A journalist, activist and would-be politician, life in the Foster home must have been very stimulating. I am left wondering what the relationship between the Bulmers and the Fosters would have been like--did politics create a divide between the sisters? By the time Lucretia married Frank, her mother Polly had passed away. Her father Calvin died in 1880, so could not have known his radical son-in-law for long.
Here is Frank's biography from Workers in America.
Here's a link to Foster's biography in Wikipedia, which mentions that he was a trustee of the Boston Public Library (hooray!).
Here is Frank's biography from Workers in America.
Here's a link to Foster's biography in Wikipedia, which mentions that he was a trustee of the Boston Public Library (hooray!).
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This column is helpful to a local history project I am researching. Thank you for an informative piece!
ReplyDeleteDear Claire, these are all my direct ancestors. Foster, Ladd and Harmon all have published 19th century genealogies too (I have copies in my library); as part of that anti-immigrant New England establishment families period. I teach architectural history (I'm an architecture professor) and talk about the Crystal Palace, 1851 London Exposition, and my 3rd great grandfather's contribution. It's a study in mass production and standardization of the Industrial Revolution. And Foster's contribution in collective labor fits the narrative of the end of the 19th century as a social reaction to the Industrial Revolution. Harmon's story is fascinating too and I did the Wiki pages many years ago on him and Frank Keys Foster. I've added your blog to my genealogy webpage at: https://betzja.wixsite.com/genealogy.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Joe Betz, Stony Brook, NY