signed
1877 · Willimantic, Connecticut
Willimantic, Connecticut: D.G. Lawson, 1877. Very good. Spotting, water staining to envelope. Letter folds to one of the pamphlets.. Ephemera promoting Scottish Elocutionist and lecturer D.G. Lawson, with original handwritten note from Lawson himself promoting his lectures. Lawson voluntarily checked himself into the Connecticut State Insane Asylum in the 1870s "as a last hope to overcome an uncontrollable appetite for Rum", and made his living lecturing on the topic of temperance and his time at the asylum. Sadly, he did not stay sober long; an 1887 story in the Hartford Courant, shows that not a decade later he would fall victim again to his alcoholism: (truncated)