Scope and Content Note
The papers of the Pierce-Aiken family span the years 1797-1903, with the bulk of material dating from 1830 to 1870. The collection consists largely of correspondence between members of the Pierce, Aiken, Appleton, Mason, and Means families, principally of New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Contained in this correspondence are letters from Jane M. Pierce (1806-1863) and her husband, Franklin Pierce (1804-1869), fourteenth president of the United States. Photographs and genealogical material are also included.
The family correspondence is arranged by generation and alphabetically therein by name of correspondent. The correspondents' family relationship to Jane Pierce is identified in the container list below. Four generations of Jane Pierce's family are represented, including her grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles, her own generation of siblings and cousins, and her nieces and nephews. Topics include antebellum New England family life, religion, politics, War of 1812, slavery, and events related to Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, which Jane Pierce's father, Jesse Appleton, served as president between 1807 and 1819.
Jane Pierce's letters, 1822-1860, include accounts of social life in Washington, D.C., during her husband's congressional years between 1835 and 1842 and during their first year in the White House in 1853. Much of her correspondence, as well as family correspondence about her, reveals her struggle with depression following the deaths of her three children. The papers include six letters written between 1850 and 1868 by Franklin Pierce, largely to his wife's sister, Mary M. Aiken. In one of these letters, written in 1856, Pierce discussed the likelihood that he would not be nominated for a second presidential term.