52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: #11 Martha J. Lamb, an Accomplished Woman

In 1858, John Adams Vinton, in The Vinton Memorial, Comprising a Genealogy of the Descendants of John Vinton of Lynn, 1648, described Martha Joanna Nash Lamb as “an accomplished woman.” At the time, she was the wife of Charles A. Lamb and living in Maumee City, Ohio. Still, she was only at the beginning of her life’s work, and neither Vinton nor his readers could have known just how accomplished she would become.

Martha was the daughter of Arvin Nash and Lucinda Vinton. Her paternal
grandparents were Jacob Nash and Joanna Reed. Joanna is #11 in my 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks series, where I am documenting the Reed family and related lines on my mother’s maternal side. Martha's father, Arvin, is #10.

Her name was sometimes written as 
Martha Joanna Reade Nash Lamb
or Martha J. R. N. Lamb

According to the family register shared in my last post, Martha Joanna Nash was born on 13 August 1826 in Plainfield, Hampshire County, Massachusetts. Her childhood was marked by both loss and change. Her older brother died when she was still very young, and in 1835, she lost her mother, Lucinda. In the years that followed, her father married and was widowed two more times, and the household grew into a large blended family with half-siblings, step-relations, and other family members living in the home.

Martha was well educated. In her early school years, she attended a school near her home in Goshen, and later studied at Williston Academy in Easthampton and at Northampton High School in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Marriage and Life in Chicago

Martha taught mathematics at a school in Newark, New Jersey, before accepting a teaching position in Maumee, Ohio, where she met her future husband. In 1852, she married Charles A. Lamb at the Congregational Church in Plainfield, Massachusetts. Charles, twice widowed and with five children, lived in Maumee, where he owned a furniture business.

Within a few years of their marriage, Charles’s business failed, and by 1860, Martha, her husband, and three of his children were living in Chicago. Charles supported the family through a sales position before joining the Union army. Martha’s years in Chicago were important. She was credited as a principal founder of the Home for the Friendless and Half Orphan and served as secretary of the Ladies’ Relief Society. She was also named secretary of the Great Sanitary Fair, placing her in the middle of one of Chicago’s most important Civil War relief efforts. 

This tribute to Martha J. Lamb appeared
in numerous newspapers nationwide. This
example was published in The Lansing Journal
and was found at Newspapers.com.

New York City: Building a Career and a Legacy

Martha left her husband in May of 1866. She returned to Massachusetts, where she taught mathematics for about a year at the Pollock Institute in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, before making her way to New York City.

Martha built a new life in New York City. There, she wrote children’s books, stories, and magazine articles before turning more fully to history. Her greatest work, History of the City of New York, established her as a serious historian and brought her wide recognition. In 1883, she became owner and editor of the Magazine of American History, a position that gave her a leading role in historical writing and publishing in the late 1800s.

Martha Lamb was well known in New York social circles. She belonged to many historical and patriotic societies and was the first woman member of the New York Historical Society. In this society, her paper on Mrs. Edward Livingston was the first by a woman presented at a Society meeting in 1871. In 1878, she became the first woman known to read her own work before the Society.

Her reputation extended beyond New York society. In 1886, President Grover Cleveland honored Martha at a White House dinner. In 1889, President Benjamin Harrison recognized her work for the centennial celebration of Washington’s inauguration.

The description below of Martha J. Lamb was written shortly before her death in A Woman of the Century: Fourteen Hundred-seventy Biographical Sketches Accompanied by Portraits of Leading American Women in All Walks of Life.

“She has earned her reputation of the leading woman historian of the nineteenth century. She is a middle-aged woman, a good talker and a most industrious worker in the historic and literary field. Recognition of her genius has been prompt and full. She has been elected to honorary membership in twenty-seven historical and learned societies in this country and Europe, and she is a life-member of the American Historical Association and a fellow of the Clarendon Historical Association of Edinburgh, Scotland.”

Martha J. Lamb died in New York on 2 January 1893 and was buried in Spring Grove Cemetery in Florence, Hampshire County, Massachusetts. She was a writer, editor, historian, and an accomplished member of the Reed family line.

More to Come

I am not finished writing about Martha J. Lamb. I have read some of her papers from Smith College and the New York Historical Society, but there are still family letters and photographs I have not yet accessed that may tell more of her story. When I began looking into Martha, I had hoped to find more about the Reed family in those collections, but so far, I have found little beyond the family’s awareness of a Mayflower connection through Martha’s grandmother, Joanna Reed. Even so, Martha’s life and papers seem well worth further study. Below are some of the resources I found most interesting while researching Martha J. Lamb. The full list of sources is at the end of the post. 

This Tribute, found in issue 29 of The
Magazine of American History confirmed
that Martha J. Lamb was a founder of the 
Society of Colonial Dames of America.

The Magazine of American history v.29 1893 has many nice tributes to Martha J. Lamb in this issue.  

A Woman of the Century: Fourteen Hundred-seventy Biographical Sketches Accompanied by Portraits of Leading American Women in All Walks of Life - Read the biographical sketch for Martha J. Lamb on page 444. Many interesting sketches for others are in this book, published in 1893. 

Mary Collins’s “The History of Martha J. Lamb: Her Origin, Rise, and Progress” was one of the most interesting and detailed resources I found.

The finding aid for the Martha J. Lamb Papers, 1838–1969, at Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College Special Collections, Northampton, Massachusetts, is a wonderful resource. It offers a clear overview of what is available, including some digital items found by clicking here.

Diana

© 2026

Resources

“1860 United States Federal Census,” database with images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/7667/4213430_00067/37130394  : accessed 3 March 2026), Martha Nash Lamb, Chicago Ward 1, Cook County, Illinois. 

Charles B. Kimbell, History of Battery “A,” First Illinois Light Artillery Volunteers (Chicago: Cushing Printing Company, 1899), contains biographical sketch of Charles A. Lamb; digital images, “Chicago, Cook, Illinois, United States records,” FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QHV-53LV-M885?view=fullText  : accessed 24 March 2026), image 102 of 177; Image Group Number 008885819.

“Diana’s Bryan-Quinn Family,” Ancestry Member Trees, tree no. 45260559, person profile for Martha Joanna Nash, person no. 412759456469, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/45260559/person/412759456469/facts : accessed 25 March 2026). 

“Family Register of Mr. Arvin Nash,” images 478–481, in “Massachusetts, United States records,” images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QHV-13RK-YFQ2?view=fullText : accessed 19 March 2026); citing Daughters of the American Revolution (Massachusetts), Image Group Number 008977924.

Frances E. Willard and Mary A. Livermore, A Woman of the Century: Fourteen Hundred-seventy Biographical Sketches Accompanied by Portraits of Leading American Women in All Walks of Life, 1893, GoogleBooks  (https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_Woman_of_the_Century/zXEEAAAAYAAJ?hl=en : accessed 1 September 2024), pages 444 - 445, images 455-456). 

“Guide to the Martha J. Lamb Papers, 1756–1892 (bulk 1876–1892), MS 362,” finding aid, New York Historical, NYU Special Collections Finding Aids (https://findingaids.library.nyu.edu/nyhs/ms362_martha_lamb/ : accessed 3 March 2026).

John Adams Vinton, The Vinton Memorial, Comprising a Genealogy of the Descendants of John Vinton of Lynn, 1648: Also, Genealogical Sketches of Several Allied Families ... with an Appendix Containing a History of the Braintree Iron Works, and Other Historical Matter (Boston: S. K. Whipple and Co., 1858), digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/vintonmemorialco00vint  : accessed 3 March 2026).

Martha J. Lamb, History of the City of New York: its origin, rise, and progress Vol 1, 1877, Library of Congress (https://www.loc.gov/item/01001942/ : accessed 1 September 2024).

Martha J. Lamb, The Magazine of American History,1888, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/magazineofamericv20n6stev : accessed 1 September 2024). 

“Martha J. Lamb Papers, 1838–1969: Finding Aid,” Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College Special Collections, Northampton, Massachusetts (https://findingaids.smith.edu/repositories/2/resources/785 : accessed 3 March 2026).

“Martha Lamb: New-York Historical Society Pioneer,” New-York Historical Society Blog, 18 March 2020 (https://www.nyhistory.org/blogs/martha-lamb-new-york-historical-society-pioneer : accessed 22 March 2026).

Mary Collins, “The History of Martha J. Lamb: Her Origin, Rise, and Progress” (2020), in CUNY Academic Works (https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/3545  : accessed 13 July 2024).

 

Mrs. [Martha] Lamb, “A Poem: Addressed to the Members of Mathematical Department of the Pollack Institute,” 4 February 1867, Martha J. Lamb Papers, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts.

“New York, New York, Death Index, 1862–1948,” database, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/9131/records/452527 : accessed 3 March 2026), entry for Martha J. Lamb, death 1893, New York, New York. 

The Lansing Journal, February 6, 1893, Page  6. via Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-lansing-journal-martha-j-lamb-trib/194306813/ : accessed March 27, 2026), clip page for Martha J Lamb - tribute by user dewquinn.

The Magazine of American History, vol. 29 (New York: A. S. Barnes, 1893), digital images, HathiTrust Digital Library (https://hdl.handle.net/2027/coo.31924065789988: accessed 29 March 2026).