We got word last week that our book Salem’s Centuries. New Perspectives on the History of an Old American City, 1626-2026 cleared its final rounds of review and approval and will be published by Temple University Press in the fall of 2025, just in time for Salem’s Quadricentennial in 2026. This project has been challenging in many ways but I think our book will expand Salem’s written history rather dramatically: there are four pieces on African-American history alone, chapters on Salem’s experience of the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, and lots of twentieth-century history that has never been written, and much more. I felt vulnerable throughout the whole process: I had never edited a volume before, and I am not trained in American or modern history but here I was writing chapters not only on the seventeenth century, but also the nineteenth and twentieth. The whole project would not have been possible without my colleague and co-editor Brad Austin, who is both an experienced editor and a modern American historian. I also relied on Salem historians past and present, as I felt I had a detailed grasp on the topics I was writing about from a local perspective, but no general, much less comprehensive, context in which to place my Salem narratives. So the whole experience was like a deep dive into historiography for me, and I learned a lot. As a tribute of sorts, I thought I’d post my Salem bibliography, in chronological order of publication. These are the sources, primary and secondary, from which I learned the most. I’m going for breadth over depth here so I’m not going to annotate each and every title, but if you have questions ask away!

A couple of caveats: my chapters are on Hugh Peter, John Remond, the suffrage and Colonial Revival movements, and urban renewal in the twentieth century, so my reading list is going to reflect those eras and topics. This particular bibliography is not comprehensive in regard to the Witch Trials as our book is about new perspectives. I’ve got my colleague Tad Baker’s Storm of Witchcraft on here and a couple of classics, but that’s it.

1. Francis Higginson, Nevv-Englands plantation. Or, A short and true description of the commodities and discommodities of that countrey. Written by Mr. Higgeson, a reuerend diuine now there resident. Whereunto is added a letter, sent by Mr. Graues an enginere, out of New-England (1630). First impressions and physical descriptions, plus Reverend Higginson was like a bridge for me, as he’s from my period.
2. John Smith, Advertisements for the unexperienced Planters of New-England, or any where. Or, the Path-way to erect a Plantation…by John Smith, sometimes Governour of Virginia, and Admirall of New-England. (1631). 
3. Lewis Roberts, The merchants map of commerce wherein the universal manner and matter relating to trade and merchandize are fully treated of, the standard and current coins of most princes and republicks observ’d, the real and imaginary coins of accounts and exchanges express’d, the natural products and artificial commodities and manufactures for transportation declar’d, the weights and measures of all eminent cities and towns of traffick in the universe, collected one into another, and all reduc’d to the meridian of commerce practis’d in the famous city of London (1700).
4. Samuel Sewell, The Selling of Joseph. A memorial (1700).
5. Joseph Barlow Felt, The Annals of Salem, from its first Settlement (1827). This is my favorite of the antiquarian histories–full of details!
6. Charles Moses Endicot, Account of Leslie’s retreat at the North Bridge in Salem, on Sunday Feb’y 26, 1775 (1856).
7. Harriet Sylvester Tapley, Salem imprints, 1768-1825 : a history of the first fifty years of printing in Salem, Massachusetts, with some account of the bookshops, booksellers, bookbinders and the private libraries (1870). More than printing here!
8. Thomas J. Hutchinson, Patriots of Salem. Honor Roll of Officers and Enlisted Men in the late Civil War (1877).
9. Samuel Sewall, Diary of Samuel Sewall. 1674–1729. Massachusetts Historical Society, 1878-1882.
10. Marianne Cabot Devereux Silsbee, A Half Century in Salem (1887). There are quite a few memoirs by Salem women; this is my favorite.
11. William Pynchon and F.E. Oliver, editor, The diary of William Pynchon of Salem. A picture of Salem life, social and political, a century ago (1890). There are several Salem Tory diaries; most left, Pynchon remained.
12. Lyman P. Powell, ed., Historic Towns of New England (1898).
13. Essex Institute (William Bentley), The diary of William Bentley, D. D.,Pastor of the East Church, Salem, Massachusetts (1905-1914). The ultimate detailed diary: new annotated edition coming soon, I believe!
14. Arthur Barnett Jones, The Salem Fire (1914).
15. Mary Harrod Northend, Memories of Old Salem (1917).
16. Frank Cousins, The Colonial Architecture of Salem (1919).
17. Clifford L. Lord, ed., Keepers of the Past (1965). Really good chapter on George Francis Dow.
18. Richard P. Gildrie, Salem, Massachusetts, 1626-1683: A Covenant Community (1975). A really important book, key to understanding the religious structure and mindset of Salem’s religous foundation.
19. Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, Salem Possessed. The Social Origins of Witchcraft (1976).
20. Essex Institute, Dr. Bentley’s Salem: Portrait of a Town. A Special Exhibition (1977).
21. Elizabeth Stillinger, The antiquers : the lives and careers, the deals, the finds, the collections of the men and women who were responsible for the changing taste in American antiques, 1850-1930 (1980). So many seekers of Salem stuff!
22. Charles B. Hosmer, Preservation Comes of Age, 1926-49: from Williamsburg to the National Trust (1981). Salem is key in a national historic preservation movement.
23. John Demos, Entertaining Satan. Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England (1982).
24. Bryant and Carolyn Tolles, Architecture in Salem: an Illustrated Guide (1983, 2003, 2023).
25. Michael Middleton, Man Made the Town (1987). Urban renewal.
26. Julie Roy Jeffrey, The great silent army of abolitionism : ordinary women in the antislavery movement (1998).
27. Daniel Vickers, Young Men and the Sea. Yankee Seafarers in the Age of Sail (2005). OMG what a tour de force!
28. Dane Morrison and Nancy Schultz, eds., Salem: Place, Myth and Memory (2005). This is our exemplar, and we tried to make our book complementary.
29. Megan Marshall, The Peabody Sisters. Three Women who ignited American Romanticism (2006).
30. Avi Chomsky, Linked Labor Histories: New England, Colombia, and the making of  a Global Working Class (2008). My colleague and a contributor to our volume: Salem needs more labor history!
31. James R. Ruffin, A paradise of reason : William Bentley and Enlightenment Christianity in the Early Republic (2008).
32. Gretchen A. Adams, The Specter of Salem. The Witch Trials in Nineteenth-Century America (2008). A big theme in our last century: the overwhelming impact of the trials.
33. Georgia Barnhill and Martha McNamara, eds., New views of New England : studies in material and visual culture, 1680–1830 (2012).
34. Susan Hardman Moore, Abandoning America. Life Stories from early New England (2013).
35. Emerson W. Baker, A Storm of Witchcraft. The Salem Witch Trials and the American Experience (2014).
36. Martha Hodes, Mourning Lincoln (2015). Descriptions of Salem in mourning from Sarah Browne’s diary.
37. Jacob Remes, Disaster Citizenship: Survivors, Solidarity, and Power in the Progressive Era (2015).
38. Kabria Baumgartner, In Pursuit of Knowledge: Black Women and Educational Optimism in Antebellum America (2019). Essential for school desegregation in Salem.
39. Nancy Shoemaker, Pursuing Respect in the Cannibal Isles: Americans in Nineteenth-Century Fiji (2019).
40. James Lindgren, Preserving Maritime America. A Cultural History of the Nation’s Great Maritime Museums (2020).