Michael Bartholomew Mahony memorandum book

This collection consists primarily of a memorandum book kept by Philadelphia merchant Michael Bartholomew Mahony between 1879 and 1883. Mahony recorded observations on the weather, local and international news, household activity, financial transactions, and the deaths of friends, family members, and acquaintances. The collection also contains two photographs and a number of loose receipts, newspaper clippings, and other pieces of paper ephemera.

In his memorandum book, Mahony focused primarily on the daily activities of his household, recording information about the health of family members, the movements of servants, and financial transactions made by himself and his son. In the margins and the entries themselves, Mahony frequently commented on the weather and provided multiple temperature readings each day. Mahony also kept close watch on river and oceanic travel in Philadelphia, with a particular emphasis on the movement of steamboats into and out of the region.

Perhaps due to his advanced age, Mahony frequently recorded the deaths of friends, family members, and acquaintances. He pasted short newspaper obituaries in several places throughout his memorandum book. Mahony also recorded local, national, and international news, including steamboat explosions, election results, the death of President James Garfield, and the assassination of Czar Alexander II of Russia. This memorandum book, with these scraps and random copied data, may be considered a hybrid scrapbook and commonplace.

Mahony’s son Charles began making entries in the memorandum book during the summer of 1882, when his father became too ill to do so. Charles Mahony recorded his father’s activities as well as snippets of local and global news, including the possibility of a comet hitting the earth in September 1882. Following the elder Mahony’s death in May 1883, Charles Mahony wrote an extensive obituary. M.B. Mahony’s wife, Jane, and his daughter, Anna Rutter, each made one entry in the memorandum book.

This collection consists of one bound volume, two black and white photographs on cardboard backings, and twenty-one newspaper clippings, loose receipts, and other pieces of paper ephemera. The volume is bound in black cloth over boards. It has a black leather spine and corners with gilt-tooled decoration. There is a three-cent United States postage stamp and a multi-colored paper image of a wing affixed to the front cover. The volume contains wove paper pastedowns and flyleaves. Inside the front cover there is a stationer’s ticket that reads “James Hogan/Blank Book Manufacturer/Stationer and Printer/No. 339 Chestnut St./Philadelphia.” in blue print. Also pasted inside the front cover is a printed list of names with the text “voted the above names Nov. 8, 1881” handwritten in black ink. Below this there is a printed list of the various Philadelphia wards. The volume contains seventy-eight leaves of wove paper with handwritten text in black ink and occasional annotations in pencil. The two photographs show men in military uniforms on horseback. On the back of one of the photographs, they have been identified in handwritten black ink as “Lieut. Rutter R.Q.M.” and “Lieut. Packard Asst. Surg.”