Frances Clifford Brown Prescott albums

Collection

Identifier: Coll. 4307

Staff Only

Scope and Content note

This collection contains family and travel albums compiled by Frances Clifford Brown Prescott. The family albums contain photographs of her four children, family properties, and extended family members. The travel albums document Frances Prescott’s annual trips to Europe, usually accompanied by her three daughters. Contents of travel albums include photographs, postcards, prints, travel stubs and receipts, published guides, train schedules, correspondence, visiting cards, ocean liner passenger lists and ephemera, news clippings, and pressed flowers.

Dates

Creation: 1889 - 1914

Creator

Prescott, Frances Clifford Brown (Person)

Access

Unrestricted

Copyright

Access to collections at Maine Historical Society is not an authorization to publish. Rights and reproduction requests may be submitted in writing to the MHS Image Services Coordinator or Research & Administrative Librarian, subject to format.

Biographical note

Frances Clifford Brown Prescott was born in Portland, Maine, in 1859, to Philip Henry Brown and Hannah Frances "Fanny" Clifford Brown. Philip Brown was the oldest son of John Bundy Brown and Ann Greely Brown, and brother to John Marshall Brown. One of six children who survived to adulthood, Frances Clifford Brown Prescott grew up in the family home on Vaughan Street. The Brown family were involved in a variety of business ventures in Portland, including the Portland Sugar Company, J.B. Brown & Sons, and real estate and railroad investments.

Frances Clifford Brown married Linzee Prescott in 1887, and the two lived in Boston, Mass., with their four children: William Brown Prescott (1888-1940), Edith Clifford Prescott (1891-1971), Frances Linzee Prescott (1895-1969), and Augusta Peabody Prescott (1897-1930). They spent time at various family properties, including Belle Haven, Conn., Glen Cove, NY, Pepperell, Mass., and Cape Elizabeth, Me. Frances Prescott took her three daughters to Europe annually from 1904-1914. They were in France in August 1914 when Germany declared war on Russia and France, as documented in the collection’s final travel album (Vol. 34).

Frances Clifford Brown Prescott died in 1940.

Extent

6 Linear Feet (34 volumes)

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Arrangement

The collection is arranged in two series.

1. Family albums, 1889-1903
2. Travel albums, 1904-1914

Provenance

Gift of W. Russell MacAusland, April 2, 2024 (acc. nos. 2024.023 and 2024.161).

Related Materials

The MHS Brown Library holds the following related collections. Note that John Marshall Brown was Frances Clifford Brown Prescott’s uncle, and Fanny Clifford Brown was her mother.

John Marshall Brown collection, Coll. 2145
Fanny Clifford Brown photographs and valentine, Coll. S-7554

Processing note

Albums were arranged into two series based on subject-matter and organized chronologically. Interleaving sheets were inserted between pages with pressed plants or in places bearing evidence of image transfer. Loose inserts were enfolded in archival paper and tucked between pages where they were found. Albums with damaged or detached covers or pages were tied with archival string.