Details - Jane Loring Gray correspondence - Biodiversity Heritage Library

Jane Loring Gray correspondence

Title

Jane Loring Gray correspondence

Title Variants

Alternative: Papers of Jane Loring Gray, 183?-189? (inclusive)

External Resources

Collection guide: Jane Loring Gray correspondence, 1848-c.1895. Harvard University Botany Libraries

By

Gray, Jane Loring, 1821-1909 , correspondent

Type

Collection

Material

Archival material

Publication info

Notes

The collection consists of letters to Jane Gray from her family and others and one letter from Jane to a relative. It also contains a small notebook of biographical sketches about Asa Gray.

Jane Lathrop Loring was born on August 27, 1821, to Charles Greely Loring, a prominent Boston attorney, and Anna (Pierce) Brace Loring. Though the family lived in Boston Jane spent a good deal of time with her mother's family in Litchfield, Connecticut. After her mother's death in 1836 Jane ran her father's house in Boston. She married Harvard botanist Asa Gray on May 4, 1848 and lived with him at a house in the Harvard Botanic Garden in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Jane suffered from poor health for most of her life. She and Asa never had children, but she took an active interest in her husband's work and accompanied him on most of his voyages, chronicling their travels in letters to her family. While living in Cambridge she was a member of the Female Humane Society of Cambridge, which was founded to assist indigent women. She also corresponded with many botanists and their families. After Asa's death in January 1888, she devoted herself to memorializing him, preparing his letters for publication and contributing funds toward the establishment of the Asa Gray Professorship. She continued to live at the Botanic Garden until her death in 1909.