The Roger Ward Babson Museum
| "I tell students...there are three really important days in their lives -- namely (1) the day when they select their ancestors; (2) the day when they select their wives or husbands; and (3) the day when they select their life vocations." |
Babson, Roger W.,
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The Roger Ward Babson Museum shows, through family artifacts, photographs, and other memorabilia, how Roger Babson's upbringing influenced his business practices and personal philosophy.The Museum connects personal circumstances and private memories, such as Roger Babson's struggle with tuberculosis and the drowning of his younger sister, to his future business endeavors.
A genealogical display traces the family from Elizabeth Tilley Howland, a voyager on the Mayflower, to the Reverand John Rogers, fifth president of Harvard College, and Isabel Babson, a practicing midwife, who was the first Babson in America.
The Babson Family Papers, document twelve generations of the Babson family in the Gloucester and Wellesley, Massachusetts area. Included in this collection are the personal and business papers of Roger Babson, documenting his career as an investment banker and his role as founder and president of the Babson Statistical Organization, a clearinghouse for data and analysis on financial investments and business conditions.
The Babson collection also contains materials related to Roger Babson's work with the Open Church Door Movement; the building of the Great Relief Map; his 1940 candidacy for President of the United States on the New Prohibition Party ticket; his founding of Webber College in Florida and Utopia College (later the Midwest Institute) in Eureka, Kansas; his funding of the Gravity Research Foundation; his building of the Babson World Globe; and his interest in the theories of Sir Isaac Newton.
The Babson Historical Society has a website which includes a 1997 genealogy.
The Dogtown Stones have been a source of controversy since these "irratics" were first carved. There is a recent effort to document their locations with photographs.
