Carriel, Mary Turner and Henry Frost Papers, 1853-1927 | Illinois History and Lincoln Collections

This collection contains the personal papers of Mary Turner Carriel and photographs of Henry Frost Carriel. Materials include personal correspondence, speeches and essays, photographs, and Mary Turner Carriel's presentation materials from the Sorosis Club.

Mary Turner Carriel (1845-1928) was the daughter of Jonathan Baldwin Turner (1805-1899), an educational activist and leading voice in the social movement that produced land grant universities. He was especially involved in establishing Illinois Industrial University, now the University of Illinois. She was the first woman to serve on the University of Illinois Board of Trustees, a position which she held from 1897 to 1903. Mary was also the wife of Dr. Henry Frost Carriel (1830-1908), Superintendent of the Jacksonville State Hospital.

Dr. Henry Frost Carriel was Superintendent of the Illinois Central Hospital for the Insane in Jacksonville, Illinois (now the Jacksonville Developmental Center) from 1870 to 1893. Dr. Carriel's work began as the apothecary at the insane asylum located at Hartford, Connecticut. He was Assistant Physician at both the Hartford Retreat and for the Asylum for the Insane in Flushing, New York before entering and subsequently obtaining his Doctor of Medicine from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City. After graduating Dr. Carriel accepted a position as Assistant Physician of the New Jersey State Asylum where he remained until 1870, when he left to become Superintendent of the Illinois Central Hospital for the Insane.

The collection is arranged in two series: the papers of Mary Turner Carriel and the photographs of Henry Frost Carriel.

The Mary Turner Carriel series primarily reflects her involvement in Jacksonville women's organizations. Materials include meeting minutes and notes for her presentations on literary, art history, and travel topics which document her activity in the local Sorosis Club. In addition, the series contains the constitution, rules for exhibitors, and her speech relating to her work in organizing the Women's Columbian Exposition Club in Morgan County. Materials documenting her work at the University of Illinois include programs for the Alumni Association and 1912 Commencement as well as her quotations for the frieze of the College of Agriculture.

Mary's papers also include travel diaries that record her trips through Europe in 1910, and South America in 1912-1913. The bulk of Mary's correspondence documents her preparation and marketing of her biography on her father, The Life of Jonathan Baldwin Turner (1911). In addition, the series contains memorial newspaper articles about Jonathon Baldwin Turner. The collection also contains a brief diary kept by her son, Rev. Charles A. Carriel, documenting his work with the YMCA in South Dakota and Chicago in 1908.

The Henry Frost Carriel series contains miniature portraits of both Henry Frost Carriel and Mary Turner Carriel, as well as a portrait of Henry Frost Carriel from 1862.

In 1939, Mary Turner Carriel's son, Rev. Charles A. Carriel, donated the collection to the Library, which was then transferred to the Illinois Historical Survey, the predecessor of the Illinois History and Lincoln Collections Unit. The material in this collection was formerly in the Survey's Jonathan Baldwin Turner collection until 1973, when it was separated and placed under the newly formed Mary Turner Carriel collection. Both Mary Turner Carriel's diary and the materials in the Henry Frost Carriel series were purchased prior to 2005. In 2017, the Mary Turner Carriel Papers and the Henry Frost Carriel Papers were combined to create the current collection.