Winfield Scott Lovecraft, dead in his 45th year

A rare find on the 'net. This is from the Newport News.




The News - - Newport, Thursday, July 21, 1898.
...
LOVECRAFT - In Providence, 19th, inst., Winfield S. Lovecraft, in the 45th year of his age.

7 year old Lovecraft and Jack in the Beanstalk?

This is not dated in the text, but the seller declares it to be 1898. The date begins Monday, 31 December - which does match.


Would 7 year old Lovecraft have enjoyed this production? Mixed thoughts - it was a"kids' show, but he was a kid. He was into all sorts of fantasy, and it did have a bit of the Arabian Night thievery to it.

Such a rare treasure, to have a 112 year old clipping preserved, it must have impressed someone to have held this clipping for so many years. A memory, now cast out to the Ebayeum.

At 7-1/2, I think this would have been tempting for the Phillips - considering Robert Morror lived across the street - to take young Howard, but we shall never know. It warms my heart to think of Howard watching this folderol fantasy, and so I will let that out weight my analytical thoughts and say yes.

Read the details!! (click and it should expand into a new window).



This Robert Morrow has long been misprinted as "Mr Manow" in some HPL letter transcriptions.

Some probable estimates about Lovecraft's 1898-1899 class

SCHOOL ATTENDANCE IN RHODE ISLAND: 1899

Mr Thomas B Stockwell Commissioner of Public Schools of Rhode Island … in his annual report for 1899 printed … Thirtieth Annual Report of the State Board of Education of Rhode Island (pp 67)

The census … of pupils { between ages of 5 and 16 years old} last year was 79,825 or 526 more than for the previous year. The greater part of this increase is reported to have attended the Catholic schools, the public schools having lost a small number and the army of non attendants having gained. Perhaps this increase in absentees may be more than offset by the fact that the number of those who had attended school less time than the minimum required by law has fallen off more than a fifth or the actual loss in the number of these short timers is nearly three times as large as the increase in the number of those not going to school at all. …

The regularity of attendance has deteriorated during 1899 … with the large number of non attendants is regarded as largely due to the prevalence of childhood sicknesses and to the increasing precautions taken to prevent their spread by contagion.

p. 199, 200 American Statistical Association, Publications of the American Statistical Association, Volume 7, 1900

Elsewhere, statistics show in yearbooks of the same number, 79,825 students in the system, with an average enrollment of 46,087. This is 58% attendance. If one takes the reported number of teachers – 1913 – and schools – 534 – one comes up with an average school attendance of 86 students per building. As most buidings other than high schools were small, each with a few rooms, Lovecraft's Slater Avenue could be estimated of perhaps 75 students in all grades at Slater Avenue. Each school had about 3 or 4 teachers, and primary and grammar school most likely three, as high schools would have more teachers. Thus, three listed teachers in the Providence year books for 1898-1899 is spot on the average - and maybe a few student teachers supplemented by the Normal training system.

Educators were livid at the level of truancies – most due to children being employed at factories, so new legislation was forced that factories could not hire a student-age child without a school authorized work permit. This would not have affected Lovecraft, but it would have created turmoil among immigrant enclaves that desperately needed the children's extra incomes.

All in all, Lovecraft would have been in a very quaint, small school house filled with about 80 children spanning 5 "grades". It would have been stuffy, and the desks somewhat stilted and antiquated. He would have had one-on-one contact by Principal Abbie Hoffman and her assistants in a way that would probably astonish us today. (By 1902, the school system would be enormously expanded.) After morning rituals, and a general class lecture, Lovecraft would probably have been shunted off in a corner to do self-regulated study so the teacher could work with those who needed extra help.

The teachers would have attenpted to keep things clean, but without a doubt numerous childhood diseases would have quickly swept through the kids - not much different than today's day cares.

For more on his school, see this record from the Providence City Records

More on Abbie A Hathaway and some revelations

As readers of this blog know, Abbie A Hathaway was the long term principal of Slater Avenue School. Originally it was a Primary School, and later it opened into a Grammar School. Through a set of school manuals, I traced back and found that Miss Hathaway's family seemed to have lived at 97 Blackstone Boulevard as early as 1891, and probably much before that. One may assume she lived there for many, many years afterwards, and thus why HPL would sometimes bump into her, as they were somewhat neighbors in her later years.

I can find no evidence she ever married.

Her father, assumed, was a carpenter and the home owner, while his wife was a milliner.



Abbie was the Principal of the 2nd Ward Primary School Slater Avenue Schhol. It was one of three, the others being Mantague Street School and Thayer Street School.

Abbie as principal was headquartered in Room 1, and had grades 5A, 4B, and 4A in 1898-1899. Casually reading the biographies, one presumes she might have taught Lovecraft then.

At this time, students left kindergarten and entered primary school at about 4-1/2. There were 5 years or grades of primary, four years or grades of grammar school and then a four year course of High School. This would all change dramatically for the start of the 1902-1903 year). Therefore we can set up a little chart.

4.5- 5 yrs old, grades 1A, 1B
5.5- 6 yrs old, grades 2A, 2B
6.5- 7 yrs old, grades 3A, 3B
7.5- 8 yrs old, grades 4A, 4B
8.5- 9 yrs old, grades 5A, 5B
(Lovecraft was almost 8 yrs, 1 month old on Monday 12 September 1898)

Lovecraft, due to his precociousness, was advanced to the highest primary grades for monitoring of his progress. The same would happen in 1902-1903 at the higest level of grammar school. He may have been ill in those intervening years, but it seems more an artifact of the Providence school system interfacing with Lovecraft's private tutoring than other reasons.


The assistant at Slater Avenue was Sabrina P. Prouty, headquartered in room 4 and being in charge of grades 3B, 2B, 2A, 1B, and 1 A in 1898.

Sabrina was sister of another teacher, Gertrude P. Prouty (another school) and they both lived at 39E George Street. This location seemed to be a conclave of teachers. Another group of sisters were teachers near here - at 36E George Street - and were Katherine M, Helen J., Lucy L., and M. Eliza Hurley.

Providence was in those lazy days (although it was beginning to burst at the seams) a clositered, calm world where many women still found work and careers through the Normal teaching schools.

A few other tid bits one might consider. One assumes that at this time HPL met his peer Chester Munroe, and his youger brother Harold Munroe (younger by roughtly 2 years). It seems that they also knew Manton Mitchell, the future war hero, who was 2 years old than HPL. Other than that, it's difficult (yet) to reconstruct things precisely.

Back to Katherine M. Hurley, she was lsited in 1898 as a third teacher (and only three are listed in the manual) and supposes she was an assistant as well, and the system probably used newly minted teachers to do fill ins, substitutions, and otherwise to gain experience.

Hurley lived at 39E George Street with (presumably) sisters Helen J., Lucy L., and M. Eliza - all teachers in the school system.

Lovecraft didn't attend a one room school house, but from all appearances the school was rather small by today's standards, and even small compared to its later expansion (by 1902) to accomodate Grammar School.

Records show that Sabrina Prunty and Abbie Hathaway worked together at least as early as 1894 and so probably from when the school was constructed. Prunty was still present in 1902, and perhaps beyond.

School Vacations in 1898-1899

For those of you (like Chrispy) trying to maintain a more detailed chronology of Lovecraft's life. Here were his school holidays, 1st year of school attendance.

How did Lovecraft get to Slater Avenue?

Chrispy isn't sure, but saw this blurb ...



... in Directory of the public schools ... By School Committee of the City of Providence, p. 97, 1898.

So he could have ridden to school by carriage (with his Grandfather?), or by trolley, but unlikely did he walk unaccompanied unless warm weather.

Also, fyi, here was the school calendar:





Providence had a two term system, and graduated students in each term. That cnagnged by the time HPL went back in 1902.

Slater Avenue School in 1898

[To Kleiner 16 November 1916]"It was in 1898 that I first attempted to attend school. I entered the highest grade of prmary school ... it was in dear old Slater Avenue ... that I made my only shildhood friendship - that with Chester and Harold Munroe..."
_____

In the "Providence City Documents of 1897, Vol. 1" there are notes about Lovecraft's school.

For several years past the buildings of the city have been neglected and in many instances were suffering from such neglect Early in the year a careful inspection of all buildings was made their defects noted and reported to the Committee on City Property who from time to time gave orders for the renovation of the property But it was not until the summer vacation that any large amount of work was made possible The work of renovating and repairing the several buildings was commenced early in July and was completed during the last week of the school vacation thus enabling the schools to commence the first day of the fall term ...

... Curbing has been set and concrete sidewalks built on the street sides at the Slater avenue school estate the yard graded slopes concreted and fences lowered on the University avenue side. ... The following named school buildings were painted outside viz ... Slater avenue State street ...

Curbing around school estate Slater avenue $148. 98

{Scholls in every era had .. um ... imteresting things happen. Read on:} In the first annual report of the work of the department the attention of the City Council was called to the existing conditions in the public school buildings Complaints were frequently made by teachers of nauseating odors which permeated the atmosphere in the school rooms These complaints came from buildings where dry closets were used and where the ducts being connected with the school rooms made it possible for the fecal odor to be carried into the the rooms under certain conditions

The matter was taken up by the School Committee and the Committee on Hygiene was directed to investigate 1 visited some of the buildings where the Smead system was used at the request of this committee and in a report presented last April the chairman of the committee stated that owing to the close connection of the sanitary system with the ventilation as it exists in the Smead system there is a possibility of a back draft carrying the fecal odor into the school rooms

At the request of the Superintendent of Public Buildings I looked over the needs in some of the buildings and suggested changes and during the vacation season the Mott Automatic Washout Closets were substituted for the Smead system ... and new deep seal non siphon traps replaced the old S traps in the following school buildings ... Slater avenue ,,,

J Frank Read & Co
sewer {contract}
Slater avenue school estate
$30.00

The City of Providence is daily enforcing the law requiring owners of property to connect their estates with sewers and remove the unsightly outhouses and yet in some of the school yards outhouses are to be found This question of school sanitation was fully considered by a competent committee appointed by Mayor Quincy in Boston last year After a thorough investigation the committee reported that without doubt the loudest complaints proceed from the condition of the detached privies and urinals which once the best things which could be afforded are inheritances of the past and should be condemned Attempts have been made.

_____

And there you have what Lovecraft experienced on his first trip to public school.

More on Robert Morrow

Credit: Here is a historic photo of the Povidence Opera House.
posted by Gerald A. DeLuca on Apr 3, 2005 at 1:45pm

Dave Goudsward was kind enough to look this data up:

Morrow was manager until his death in 1898, when he was replaced by Felix R. Wendelschaefer. Mary Morrow died in 1917.