The private journals of C.W. Mowll: family, politics and power in mid-nineteenth century Boston
Date
2006
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
Charles Wills Mowll’s Private Journals cover less than three years of an English immigrant’s life in mid-nineteenth century Boston. His ruminations may be minor compared to well-known diarists or journal keepers of the time, but in such everyday things, history lives. Mowll’s story is presented thematically around his family, church, work, living standards, civic life, powerful friends and health matters. His is a valuable story about hopes for success and the reality experienced by an immigrant aspiring to a genteel life in his adopted home. ☐ Mowll came from a line of noted English mariners, but in 1849 he chose to bring his family to America. His efforts to be accepted by Boston middle-class society came at a time when industrialization, political turmoil over slavery, financial hardships, and health issues worked against him. Despite support from his religious community and hopes for social mobility and economic opportunity, Mowll struggled in a city filled with immigrants and American country folk reaching for the same American Dream. ☐ Mowll’s paymaster experience in the Royal Navy Slaver Fleet qualified him for a white-collar bookkeeper position with Littell publishers in Boston, but the Bank Panic of 1857 brought difficult economic times. Mowll also served as sexton at his church in East Cambridge, but his sexton’s pay was slow due to the financial hard times. Powerful people helped but also created heartaches for the Mowlls. The Reverends E. N. Kirk and J. W. Chickering, Mrs. Ann Eliza Safford and former Maine governor William George Crosby all assisted the Mowlls through guardianships, job procurement, and financial assistance. The Mowlls were indebted to them, but their charity weighed on Mowll family independence. ☐ As the bad economic situation continued, Mowll’s position at Littell weakened. Continuing health issues, probably resulting from his bout of yellow fever in the Royal Navy, were onerous and possibly affected his employment, which was terminated 17 April 1860. On 30 September 1862, Charles Wills Mowll, at age forty-six, died from consumption. His employment at death was laborer. Mowll’s story and his family’s testify to the contingencies affecting social change within an ideology of optimism.