1870Professor, historian, and notable Gloucester resident, Alfred Mansfield Brooks was born.People and Communities, Notable People

Alfred Mansfield Brooks was born in Michigan in 1870. His mother died soon after his birth and his father gave him to his maternal grandmother, Abigal Somes (Davis) Mansfield of Gloucester to raise.

Brooks earned a Bachelor’s and Master’s at Harvard in Fine Arts and later became a Professor of Art at Indiana State University. After his retirement, he and his wife, Ruth Bryce Steele, moved back to Gloucester, where he was a Cape Ann historian and was very active in the Cape Ann Historical Association.