Richard Frothingham Collection

Richard Frothingham Jr. was a historian, journalist, and politician. He was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts on January 31, 1812. He attended several schools in Charlestown and Boston and worked as a writer for a brush factory and a merchant’s clerk before entering the field of journalism. Frothingham was proprietor and managing editor of The Boston Post. He served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives and as the second mayor of Charlestown. He was a delegate to the 1851, 1852, and 1876 Democratic National Conventions. 

Frothingham took great interest in historical research and published multiple books, pamphlets, magazine articles, and addresses, including, History of Charlestown (1848), Life and Times of Joseph Warren (1865), and The Rise of the Republic of the United States (1871). He was a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society, the American Antiquarian Society, the New England Historic Genealogical Society, and a trustee of the Boston Public Library. For his literary achievements, Frothingham was granted honorary degrees from Harvard and Tufts Universities. He worked as lecturer in the History department at Tufts from 1866 to 1872, as the treasurer of the college from 1868 to 1876, and served on the Tufts Board of Trustees from 1850 until his death on January 29, 1880. After his death,  Frothingham's children donated much of his literary collection to Tufts, and his daughter Mary, later Mrs. Thomas A. Goddard, gave Tufts its chapel and first gymnasium.