1865-1957
Guide to the Collection
Restrictions on Access
The Arthur Asahel Shurcliff papers are stored offsite and must be requested at least two business days in advance via Portal1791. Researchers needing more than six items from offsite storage should provide additional advance notice. If you have questions about requesting materials from offsite storage, please contact the reference desk at 617-646-0532 or reference@anasaziadventure.com.
Abstract
This collection includes journals, diaries, genealogical accounts, family papers, published and unpublished writings, biographies, and the autobiography of Arthur A. Shurcliff, a Boston landscape architect. There is also correspondence, both personal and pertaining to professional work, including Metropolitan District Commission (Boston) projects, Colonial Williamsburg, Old Sturbridge Village, Plymouth Rock, and Quabbin Reservoir (Mass.), as well as private estate work. Correspondents include his father Asahel M. Shurtleff, his brother Rev. Alfred D. K. Shurtleff and sister Gertrude H. Shurtleff, Alexander and William James, Langdon Warner, Jacques Barzun, Albert B. and J. Cheney Wells, Joseph G. Deering and Nelson A. Rockefeller.
Biographical Sketch
Arthur Asahel Shurcliff (1870-1957) was born Arthur Asahel Shurtleff in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1930, he changed his name to Shurcliff to conform to the old English spelling. He pursued engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and graduated in 1894. After conferring with Charles Eliot and Frederick Law Olmsted, he enrolled at Harvard University to do graduate work in landscape architecture. When he graduated in 1896, he went to work for the Olmsted firm in Brookline, Massachusetts. In 1899, he and Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. formed the first four-year course of landscape architecture in the country at Harvard. In 1905, he married Margaret Homer Nichols, daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Arthur Howard Nichols of Boston and Cornish, New Hampshire. In that year, Shurcliff also established his own landscape practice in Boston.
Shurcliff served as president of the American Society of Landscape Architects from 1928-1932. His work included major work for the Metropolitan District Commission and the Metropolitan Planning Board in Boston in the fields of town planning, engineering, and landscape and park design. He was the chief landscape architect for the restoration at Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, from its inception in 1928 until 1941. He also served on the Boston Arts Commission.
He practiced landscape architecture, designed and built furniture (with his wife Margaret), painted and sketched and invented various labor-saving devices until within a year of his death in 1957.
Collection Description
The Shurcliff collection consists of 11 record cartons of papers. A portion of it is devoted to family history, records, photographs, and personal correspondence. Several boxes contain his correspondence with his sister Gertrude Hope Shurtleff and with his brother Rev. Alfred D. K. Shurtleff. Also included in his correspondence are exchanges with his two friends Alexander and William James (sons of the philosopher William James) and with Langdon Warner, professor of Asian art at the Fogg Museum, Harvard University.
Correspondence with J. G. Deering and Nelson Rockefeller reflects his work for them. With Albert B. Wells and J. Cheney Wells, the letters combine his personal relationship with them, his work on their private estates, and his work on their restoration/reconstruction village, Old Sturbridge Village. Several boxes contain general correspondence which runs from personal interchanges to professional dealings.
Correspondence also reveals aspects of his work at Plymouth Rock, Plymouth, Massachusetts, and at Williamsburg. Included in the Williamsburg material is a book called "Southern Places," which is a portion of the large tome he produced for the Williamsburg Corporation to aid in the restoration process. His work for the Metropolitan District Commission, specifically at the Quabbin Reservoir, is also revealed through correspondence.
Represented in the collection are samples of his writings, published and unpublished, including the process of writing and publishing two of his books.
One of the chief sources of his personal and professional activities is found in his diaries spanning the years 1922-1956. Personal and agency accounts are preserved in the collection.
Acquisition Information
Gift of Alice W. Shurcliff, Sidney N. Shurcliff, William A. Shurcliff, John P. Shurcliff, Mrs. Francis P. Lowell (Elizabeth Shurcliff), and Mrs. Franz J. Ingelfinger (Sarah P. Shurcliff), May 1969.
Restrictions on Access
The Arthur Asahel Shurcliff papers are stored offsite and must be requested at least two business days in advance via Portal1791. Researchers needing more than six items from offsite storage should provide additional advance notice. If you have questions about requesting materials from offsite storage, please contact the reference desk at 617-646-0532 or reference@anasaziadventure.com.
Detailed Description of the Collection
Journals of Asahel M. Shurtleff, made in the office of Arthur A. Shurcliff, April 1949
Bound typescripts.Landscape work: Williamsburg
Landscape work: Metropolitan District Commission, Boston
Preferred Citation
Arthur Asahel Shurcliff papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.
Access Terms
This collection is indexed under the following headings in ABIGAIL, the online catalog of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related persons, organizations, or subjects should search the catalog using these headings.
Persons:
Organizations:
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Photographs Removed from the Collection
Photographs and glass plate negatives were removed from the collection to the MHS Photo Archives.