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Home for Aged Men : Records, 1861-1916

Quantity

29 cartons, 3 file boxes, 4 oversize volumes

Provenance

The Home for Aged Men / Rogerson House collection was donated to the University of Massachusetts Boston Archives and Special Collection Department by Harvey Boulay, Executive Director of Rogerson House, on October 7, 1987.

History

The Home for Aged Men was incorporated in 1860 as a privately-funded residential home in Boston for "respectable aged and indigent men." The first home was on South Street in Boston. The home was moved to Springfield Street in 1870. In 1956 it was renamed Rogerson House in honor of a past president and director, Charles Edward Rogerson, and moved to Jamaica Plain, where it continues as a nursing home.

Moses Grant, William Ropes, and Albert Fearing were the founders and set up the home as a non-denomination but Christian institution. The clients of the Home were men who had been respectable members of society who had fallen on "hard times". They were required to pay an entrance fee to the Home and many were supported by family members if possible. The Home provided a home-like setting for its residents who had to comply with rules set by the Board and overseen by a superintendent or matron.

Scope and Content

The records of the Home for Aged Men/Rogerson House cover the years from its establishment in 1861, to 1977. The bulk of the records are for the years from 1861 to 1956. The collection is divided into three areas - corporate records, executive records, and client records - which reflect the organizational structure of the Home.

The corporate records include printed annual reports, and the minutes of the annual meetings of members of the society. The annual reports are incomplete with a gap from 1923 to 1940. The second group is executive records and consists of a variety of material. There are volumes of minutes of meetings of the Board of Directors and various Committees of the Board. Also included are reports and files reflecting the daily general business of the institution. Additionally, there are legal documents and records and papers of the Treasurer. Financial records for Rogerson House are found for the years 1960 to 1965. The bulk of the collection is the third group - client records. These include client files consisting of applications, correspondence and accompanying materials for the various men who were assisted by the agency. The files contain the complete records of the clients of the Home for Aged Men and for the earliest years of Rogerson House up to 1965.