Historical Apocrypha
Dec. 16th, 2010 11:49 pm![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
troubleSo, there's this mythology about C. F. Fraser that I've seen repeated a few places: that he refused to be paid as a teacher or Superintendent at the Asylum for the Blind until such time as it was making enough money.
I know that Fraser was offered money when he started at the Asylum as a teacher, because I noted that he was offered more money as a male blind teacher than the former sighted female Superintendent was making. There's nothing in the Minutes of the Board of Directors saying he'd refused the payment. They do discuss having met with him, though. I was going through financial records today but was looking at the credits and not the debits, so I don't know if his wages are in there. I know he was paid for the Concert Tours he went on. (So was everyone else, including the students, which I found surprising.)
I haven't looked at any of Fraser's Obits yet, so it may be in one of them. So the earliest mention I have is from this little pamphlet-type book published in 1939 (and last signed out of the library in 1979). Fraser died in 1925.
I think I first read the claim in Reading Hands, which is... I had a long discussion with some people about some issues with the book. Reading Hands and The Blind Knight of Nova Scotia (that's the pamphlet of never being read) are oft-cited by people doing fast bios of Fraser for things about Blind education in Canada written by people who think archival records in Nova Scotia are way too much trouble to consult. *cough*
So I'm suspecting the story is apocryphal, although I should figure out how much money was being spent every year paying staff and that should cinch it.
I know that Fraser was offered money when he started at the Asylum as a teacher, because I noted that he was offered more money as a male blind teacher than the former sighted female Superintendent was making. There's nothing in the Minutes of the Board of Directors saying he'd refused the payment. They do discuss having met with him, though. I was going through financial records today but was looking at the credits and not the debits, so I don't know if his wages are in there. I know he was paid for the Concert Tours he went on. (So was everyone else, including the students, which I found surprising.)
I haven't looked at any of Fraser's Obits yet, so it may be in one of them. So the earliest mention I have is from this little pamphlet-type book published in 1939 (and last signed out of the library in 1979). Fraser died in 1925.
I think I first read the claim in Reading Hands, which is... I had a long discussion with some people about some issues with the book. Reading Hands and The Blind Knight of Nova Scotia (that's the pamphlet of never being read) are oft-cited by people doing fast bios of Fraser for things about Blind education in Canada written by people who think archival records in Nova Scotia are way too much trouble to consult. *cough*
So I'm suspecting the story is apocryphal, although I should figure out how much money was being spent every year paying staff and that should cinch it.
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Date: 2010-12-17 04:28 am (UTC)<3
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Date: 2010-12-17 09:51 am (UTC)It's not just not going to the archives and using primary printed sources: it's endlessly repeating something from much later secondary literature. Laura Doan's paper at the last Berks was basically a huge riff about the myths around the Well of Loneliness prosecution. Which just going to the newspapers of the day would correct.