145 Lincoln Rd #102a
Lincoln, MA 01773
USA
To the extent that she is remembered today, Mabel Loomis Todd is known either as Emily Dickinson’s first editor or as Austin (Emily’s brother) Dickinson’s lover. Her daughter, Millicent Todd Bingham, is mostly relegated to footnotes for her work on Dickinson’s poetry. But both women have another important legacy as conservationists.
This talk by Lincoln resident Julie Dobrow will explore the untold stories of the influences that led Mabel and Millicent to make major land purchases in both Massachusetts and Maine, and their efforts to have the land preserved in perpetuity. There are many Lincoln connections, including early contact with Henry David Thoreau, Louise Ayer Gordon’s gift of her home and 215 acres to the Mass Audubon Society, and even Paul Brooks’s work to publish Rachel Carson’s seminal work, Silent Spring. These and other influences give insight into these two trail-blazing women, and also into the way that the nascent environmental movement in this country developed.
Dobrow teaches in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development, and in the Environmental Studies and Film and Media Studies Programs at Tufts University.
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