I have a list of topics that I would research if I was ever going to pursue another Masters or Ph.D., which I am not. The list started long ago but these past seven years of blogging have definitely added to it, and consequently it includes a few Salem topics. This particular topic, however, predates the blog. Shortly after I moved to Salem, while I was still in graduate school, I started plaque research for Historic Salem, Inc. in order to learn more about my new city. This type of deed and local history research was very different from my dissertation research and so I thought it would give me a break, which it did, but it also raised some larger questions and problems which I did not have time to answer or even address at the time. One thing I noticed was the central role that women often played in the commission, financing, and disposition of property, particularly in the later half of the nineteenth century. As this is Women’s History Month everywhere and Women’s History Day here in Salem, I thought I would focus on some houses built specifically for women, whether widows or “singlewomen”, “gentlewomen” or freedwomen.

This is by no means an exhaustive survey; basically it’s just the result of a few walks. But my impression today is the same as it was several decades ago: there were a lot of houses built in Salem for women. A more comprehensive and comparative study would be very revealing, I think. No doubt these plaques represent an underestimate, though I did notice Historic Salem’s more recent policy (certainly not in place when I was doing this research) to represent both husbands and wives on plaques, as well as other domestic arrangements. This raises the question of under-representation in historic preservation, which would make a great session for this year’s Massachusetts Preservation Conference.

Above: shopowner Annie Sweetser’s house on Forrester Street, Cynthia Lovell’s on Williams, the house built for the Tilton sisters on Pickman, Lydia King’s house on Lemon Street, Mary Lindall’s house on Essex, Mary Derby’s house on Beckford, and Maria Ropes’ house on Chestnut. At least part of  the conjoined houses on Essex and Broad were built for women: Susannah Ingersoll & Hannah Smith. Below: putting woman on the plaque on two Daniels Street houses! (Love these more detailed HSI plaques).

The economic and social spectrum of women builders is also very interesting. There are several educator builders, and a few independent “property owners”.  The wealthy philanthropist Caroline Emmerton, who restored (created?) the House of the Seven Gables, also commissioned a copy of the Richard Derby House for the last lot on Chestnut Street from architect William Rantoul, and hired Arthur Little to transform her Federal Mansion on Essex Street into a Colonial Revival exemplar. I was reminded just last week by my colleague Beth Bower of one of my very first plaque research projects, years ago: in which I found that a Lemon Street house was built for Mahala Lemons Goodhue, her husband Joseph, a mariner,  and their son Joseph Jr., a laborer. The present owners seem to have made their own sign featuring Mahala, which is fine, as I looked up the original report and I’m embarrassed to admit that I seem to have completely omitted the fact that the Goodhues were African-American! My dissertation must have dominated during that time, or I may have been more preoccupied with the history of the land rather than the people who built the house (which was my tendency)—-will definitely revise the record.

Caroline Emmerton’s commissions on Chestnut and Essex, and the Lemons-Goodhue house on Lemon.