CANTIDAD:

1000

RESUMEN

Elizabeth ‘Mimi’ Russell Lyman (Nov. 2, 1836 – Nov. 17, 1911), philanthropist and traveler, was born Elizabeth Russell in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to George Robert Russell, a merchant in the East Indies trade and philanthropist, and Sarah Parkman Shaw Russell, both from notable New England families. In 1858, Elizabeth married Theodore Lyman III, a son of a former Boston mayor. was at that time one of the fifty wealthiest men in the city. After graduating from Harvard College in 1855 he continued at his alma mater, doing graduate work with Professor Louis Agassiz at the Lawrence Scientific School.

As newlyweds, the Lymans lived in Theodore’s Brookline home for two years before embarking on a great tour of Europe’s capitals just before the outbreak of the American Civil War.
During this trip, their first child, Cora Lyman, was born in 1862 in Florence, Italy. Thanks to Theodore’s wealth and Mimi’s own inheritance of $27,000 from her father, the couple spent lavishly. Lyman collected specimens and donated money for Agassiz’s Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard, and recorded that Elizabeth was “flying around Paris violently ordering dresses for self and friends." (Taylor, 379).

While in Europe, Mimi corresponded with her first cousin, Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, the commander of the famous 54th Massachusetts Infantry, the first regiment to recruit African Americans, with the latest news from the Civil War. In one letter Shaw wrote, “The conscription bill has passed so I advise Theodore not to come home, lest he be drafted,” (Lawson and Shaw, 130). Theodore wished to serve, however, and the Lymans returned to the United States in May 1863. He attended Harvard commencement and resumed study with Agassiz, but after the deaths of many Harvard friends, including Robert Gould Shaw in July, Theodore joined the war effort as an aide-de-camp to Meade in September 1863. He served until April 20, 1865. In 1869, Elizabeth and Theodore’s only daughter, Cora, died of a brain fever. In 1874, Elizabeth gave birth to her first son, Theodore Lyman IV, and in 1878, a second, Henry Lyman. Theodore served one term as a U.S. Congressman from Massachusetts, 1883 – 1885, but from 1887 suffered from a debilitating nervous condition. He gradually lost use of his limbs and was unable to continue working.

After her husband died on September 7, 1897, Mimi carried on the family’s charitable efforts, including the donation of $1000 to the Harvard Summer School for Cuban teachers in 1900. She had close family and personal connections to other donors to the Summer School, including Pauline Agassiz Shaw, the daughter of Louis Agassiz, her husband’s mentor at Harvard, and the wife of Quincy Adams Shaw, Mimi’s maternal uncle.

Elizabeth ‘Mimi’ Russell Lyman died on November 17, 1911, in Cambridge aged 75 years old, and is buried in the city’s Mount Auburn Cemetery


Further Reading

1. Lawson, Brenda M. and Robert Gould Shaw, “The Letters of Robert Gould Shaw at the Massachusetts Historical Society,” Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Third Series, Vol. 102 (1990): 127-147