Category Archives: Culture

May 4, 2026

Philly Love

By daseger

We were in Pennsylvania for the last leg of our spring road trip, principally, but not exclusively, in Philadelphia. I’ve been to Philadelphia many times for different reasons, but this was definitely my favorite visit. It certainly wasn’t the weather—it was as unseasonably cold as it was elsewhere for most of the time we were there. Since we really slowed down and confined most of our touring, eating and drinking to the Old City it was most definitely the architecture, but it was also seeing so many people coming for the history, and being awed by it. Being a Revolutionary War tourist is really fun: I plan to keep on doing it all year long. There were crowds and crowds of color-coded t-shirt-wearing middle schoolers along with many foreign tourists in Independence National Historic Park, and the rangers handled it all in stride, with joy actually. We saw all the usual things, took in some special tours on historic preservation and taverns, made our own little Benjamin Franklin tour, visited the Museum of the American Revolution for the first time, and ate and drank at some great restaurants. The one thing I was a bit surprised about was all the construction going on—I assumed that projects would be completed for Philly’s big year—but it certainly did not detract from our experience. I’m looking forward to going back more often.

Just walking, beginning with Elfreth’s Alley. Philly seems to have figured out how to accomodate tourists and residents at the same time. Very clean streets, no huge walking tours (I saw no more than 20), no microphones.

Independence National Historic Park, including the Benjamin Franklin Museum:

I now have seen Declaration of Independence exhibits in SIX states and the These Truths exhibition at the American Philosophical is my favorite: it’s small but mighty, and manages to be incredibly dynamic by showing how the Declaration changes over time. This was certainly emphasized by the commissioned “Re-Declaration” project of Johanna Drucker, whose Declaration is a historical/contemporary study of the power of graphic design and punctuation. Then we were off to the Powel House, as it was on my punch list of mid-eighteenth-century mid-Atlantic Georgian houses. The home of Samuel Powel, the “Patriot Mayor” who served as the last colonial mayor of Philadelphia and the first “American” one, the highlight for me was the second-floor ballroom.

And finally, my first visit to the relatively new Museum of the American Revolution! There is an extended chronological exhibition which takes you through the Revolution in most of the building, a gallery for rotating exhibitions currently featuring a thoughtful examination of the Declaration of Independence’s “journey,” and then of course Washington’s Tent, the centerpiece of its collection. We ended up here on a rainy Saturday, so it was quite crowded, but the museum’s design seemed to handle everyone very well, and still provided a bit of intimacy in some of the galleries—I managed to be almost alone in the privateering gallery, sitting on a model ship with only a woman and her adorable baby in view (I was searching for Salem here and didn’t find much). The main exhibition had a very effective ending: with the amazing photographs of Revolution veterans and combatants from the mid-19th century on one wall, adjoining an assortment of mirrors surrounding the statement: MEET THE FUTURE of the American Revolution.

4 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Culture

April 27, 2026

The Wilton House

By daseger

Virginia was the second leg of our southern road trip: we visited family in Richmond, toured historic gardens, and saw several Lost Cause and revolutionary exhibitions. I am enjoying the regional America 250 interpretations. For example, the Virginia Museum of History and Culture has branded Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington, Virginians all of course, as the “Voice, Pen, and Sword” of the Revolution. Now I am a big Patrick Henry fan, but I think we can identify a few other notable voices—perhaps the Adamses of Massachusetts? Different messaging in Philadelphia–which I’ll explore next week. I thought I’d just spotlight a beautiful house today: the Wilton House, also in Richmond, thought its original location was 15 miles outside of the city. It’s a very high-style Georgian mansion built in 1753 for William Randolph III and his family. Threatened by industrial development in 1933 (the year after the bicentennial of Washington’s birthday, cresting an intense Colonial Revival wave) it was purchased by the National Society of Colonial Dames, dismantled, and carefully resurrected on a beautiful site overlooking the James River in Richmond’s west end. Its detaled resurrection, or re-erection, is extremely notable in the history of historic preservation, and I wanted to learn about that as well as see the house. The story, as well as the house, did not disappoint.

I tried, but my amateurish photography can’t really do this house justice: it’s so textured and there was only natural light in many of the rooms. Every single room, downstairs and up, is panelled, and those amazing windowed alcoves seemed to let in different shades of light. The black walnut staircase was astounding! The largest and most public of the downstairs rooms—photos four and five above—was so gorgeous I gasped but I don’t think it’s really captured here. It is set up for General Lafayette, who stayed at the Wilton House just before Yorktown. The interpretation was both architectural (both design and construction) and historical in terms of the Randolph family history and general history, because this was a conspicuous house, visited by many, including George Washington. Ultimately the decline of the Randolph family fortune led to the decline of the house and the derelict status from which the Colonial Dames rescued it. But both the family and its restoration were set in a broad historical and social context, so we see the list of people enslaved by the Randolphs as well as family portraits (in close proximity), and photographs of those who contributed to the restoration of the house and that story too. A dual narrative, encompassing many “smaller stories,” exemplified by a beautiful house.

5 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in Culture, History, Houses

April 13, 2026

I’d Rather Read Poetry

By daseger

Over the past few weeks Salem residents have learned that our city will become the site of yet another dark attraction, styled a museum of course, an establishment that seems even worse than the last arrival in terms of tackiness, kitschiness, darkness, and removal from anything to do with our past or present. I’m not going to name it as I don’t want to shower any publicity on the horrid thing, but you can read about it here. I got all revved up as I usually do, but then found that I could not act (write). All the work on the book, all the anxiety about the launch of the book, all the presentations I’ve been giving on the book, all of my immersion in Salem’s history for years just sort of emptied me, I think. And I truly felt despair. Usually rant writing revives me, but I had nothing to give, nothing to write, and I knew it wouldn’t matter anyway. So I was just kind of stuck. And then, for some inexplicable reason, I picked up an old poetry anthology and started reading it, and one poem led to another and then to another and so I experienced sort of a poetry immersion/conversion over the last week. I say conversion because I’ve had a notable lack of appreciation for poetry my entire life. I remember calling up my father, an English professor and a poet, when I was in college and complaining that I had to read Gerard Manley Hopkins and his work was awful and my father swearing at me in frustration, after which we both hung up and then he called back and calmly explained to me why Hopkins’ work was not awful, and I said ok, but basically I’ve been faking it since then. But the words that I have read over the past week–expressing sorrow over the loss of place, the trivilization of tragedy, and just general futility–really helped me. I discovered all sort of new poets and perspectives and I’m going back for more, but these are some of my favorite lines so far, set against the soon-to-be location of Salem’s newest “museum.”

I’ve always tried to find answers for what has happened and is happening to Salem in academic literature: there is now quite a robust discussion about “dark tourism” and the lure and exploitation of tragedy in general and the Salem scenario in particular. My colleagues Margo Shea and Drew Darien have contributed insightful chapters on tourism to Salem’s Centuries, both with personal and local perspectives (and Salem’s verty first Poet Laureate, J.D. Scrimgeour, closes our book). But it seems to me that Salem has gone way beyond just exploiting the Witch Trials of 1692: an entirely new layer of commodified horror seems to have been grafted onto the city’s identity, completely detached from its human history. I don’t have the tools or the patience to deal with this erasure, so I think I’ll stick to my poetry regimen.

5 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in Culture, Salem, Tourism

March 30, 2026

Personal Declarations

By daseger

I would love to hear about Revolutionary exhibitions, programs and events sheduled for your area in this 250th anniversary year: 1776 is certainly alive and well in the Boston area! Since I’m on sabbatical, I’ve been able to attend quite a few happenings, and my favorite collaborative initiative is the Declarations Trail, on which four institutions, the Boston Athenaeum, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Boston Public Library and Harvard University’s Houghton Library, have put more than a dozen copies of the Declaration of Independence on view, “originally created in different printings for different audiences” along with lots of other contextual objects. I’ve been to the first two exhibitions at the Athenaeum and MHS, and am looking forward to the opening of the last two later this spring.

Looking at, and thinking about, these paper Declarations has got me thinking about their popular and personal reception. I am very mindful of the words of historian J.L. Bell on his great blog Boston 1775: for the first generations of Americans it was a set of words, not an object they ever saw but at the same time, I know that one of the primary functions of print is to make things more permanent, and with tangible permanance comes possession as well as remembrance. Following that trail in my mind brought me to textile Declarations in general and Declaration handkerchiefs in particular–because there seems to have been a market for these words that you could literally put in your pocket. That market did not really develop until the first era of remembrance for the American Revolution—the 1820s, approaching its 50th anniversary with participants dying—but then it really took off. A great book (Threads of History. Americana Recorded on Cloth 1775 to the Present by Smithsonian curator Herbert R. Collins), an archived exhibition at the Museum of the American Revolution, and numerous auction archives introduced me to the copperplate-printed handkerchiefs produced by William Gillespie & Sons in Scotland for the American market beginning in 1821. Produced in blue, black and red colorways, there’s a blue one coming up at auction next week at Eldred’s Auctions, and this spectacular red textile was the banner lot at an important Sotheby’s auction in 2023. A black (more sepia) handkerchief was sold by Swann Auction Galleries in 2023, and the Yale University Art Gallery has a similar one, as well as a centennial quilt from fifty years later sewn around the same: what a perfect object linking two eras of patriotic remembrance.

Textiles seem less ephemeral than paper, so I assume that the Declaration handkerchiefs of the 1820s were in demand as commemorative items, but it’s important to remember that this was also an era that the Declaration was being issued as separate broadside for the first time too–it was evolving from words into an object which could take several forms. The motifs that were featured on these textiles, including the “chain” of states, big Revolutionary moments, and the founding fathers, will reappear again and again. Fifty years later, the Centennial will inspire another wave of patriotic production, but those objects will be more familiar than introductory.

1 Comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in Culture, History

March 16, 2026

Camellia Days

By daseger

Nineteenth-century monied New Englanders loved camellias and living embodiments of their desire exist at the Lyman Estate greenhouses of Historic New England, which hosts “Camellia Days” in February and March when these old trees are in bloom. Somehow I miss this event every year, but not this year. I drove to Waltham on Wednesday and had a quick view of the Lyman Estate mansion followed by some alone time with the camellias. The Lyman greenhouses are old (1804), and as close as I can get to Salem’s greenhouse era, when there were at least eight (maybe more—my count is ever-evolving) right in the middle of the city. Camellia Days extends to the mansion, which was designed originally by Samuel McIntire, so there’s a more direct Salem connection there too. I was never really a fan of this rambling structure, but now I realize that is because of its robust Victorian additions rather than its original design. McIntire’s plans reveal a charming two-story house unblemished by those bays. I can certainly understand why Arthur Lyman wanted to expand the house in the 1880s, however: he had a large family who enjoyed this bucolic estate as an escape from busy Boston. And I do love the relocated staircase and vaulted ceiling of the added third storey.

The mansion was built in 1793 and expanded and altered in 1882-83, but the Lyman family retained McIntire’s Federal ballroom (which they used as a library) and oval “bow parlor”. The relocated stairway with its Palladian window oversees the grounds and greenhouses.

I really liked the very Victorian library as well, but my heart stopped when I entered the adjacent china room with cabinets full to brimming with purple transferware! “My” Waterhouse wallpaper adorned one of the bedrooms upstairs so that was nice too. It’s a lovely summer estate with a preserved landscape in the midst of now-busy Waltham.

But I was there for the camellias and they did not disappoint! These are lush, heirloom varieties. I’m partial to less showy plants in the bright light of summer, but in the very dim light of late winter these bright blooms are just what you need. The Lyman greenhouses are accessible all year long actually (and there are great plant sales), but Camellia Days provide extra enticement.

8 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in Culture, Historic Houses, New England

March 9, 2026

Trolley Goals

By daseger

I came across this book entitled The Trolley and the Lady (1908) and thought, wow, great, this is going to be a great exploration of turn-of-the-century “transportation liberation” from the perspective of a liberated woman! But I should have known, as it was written by a man (William J. Lampton), that this would not be the story. Indeed, it’s a tale of a man chasing a woman on a trolley from New York City to southern Maine. He seems to catch up with her in my home town, York Harbor. In a way I guess it is about liberation, as the woman in question, Clara, is exploring New England via trolley, but it’s definitely not written from her perspective. Still looking for that perspective, I encountered a lot of projection and instruction related to the topic of women and trolleys. After I read the Lampton book, I found a charming and practical little piece, still from a male perspective, in The Puritan magazine, a women’s monthly published in 1899-1900: illustrating the right and wrong way that a woman (equipped with the cumbersome skirts of the era) should flag, board, and disembark from a trolley.

Despite the paternalistic instruction and aside from the conductor, the woman is alone, and that’s the key point. Like bicycles and later cars, trolleys were a way for women to get out and get away, on their own. But trolleys are even better than those other vehicles: no physical exertion was required and very little money, and there were routes everywhere in the early twentieth century: 940 miles in New England alone according to one trolley company’s advertising.

As street railways expanded beyond urban cores in the later nineteenth century, images of trolleys emphasized exploration rather than commuting, and featuring women was a good way to reinforce that message. Charles Herbert Woodbury’s two wonderful lithographs for Boston’s suburban trolley network (1897 & 1895) really illustrate this messaging well.

Boston Public Library via Digital Commonwealth; the second poster is inspired by Oliver Wendell Holmes’ 1891 poem The Broomstick Train or the Return of the Witches.

This post is just a teaser; there’s something about trolleys and gender that is interesting and needs a bit more exploration. The sexes/masses are pushed together in close contact: there are new opportunities, new connections, new horizons, and the need for new rules. The Puritan story is a bit condescending for sure, but there are more misogynist commentaries on trolley-riding women from the same era, generally regarding the “immodesty” of their dress as they climbed on or off. There is the occasional critique of male passengers (see below, upper right) but many more postcards targeting women: this is the age of “vinegar valentines” after all. A spinster chasing down the last trolley on the “Matrimonial Line” is not nice! And then there’s that old chestnut about street cars and women. Too much protesting, I think.

8 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Culture, Tourism

March 2, 2026

The Last Week in February

By daseger

Well, it’s been quite a winter here in eastern Massachusetts, and last week was quite a week, so I think I’m going to take a break from topical posting and just present the week that was. It started with a blizzard, and even though it is now March 1, as I am typing I see big fluffy snowflakes out there again. But not all was white: there was bright blue towards the end of the week as my husband and I proceeded north for a little break. In this topsy turvy winter, Rhode Island experienced 30+ inches of snow while midcoast Maine seems to have had just a dusting. By the time we got up there on Thursday, it seemed springlike to me! We saw my stepson, who works at an oyster farm near Damariscotta, engaged in a bit of house-hunting, and (lucky us) stayed at the storied Norumbega Inn in Camden. The latter was a long-time wish of mine, having driving by the fantasy castle on Route One many a time, and it did not disappoint. After two nights in Camden, we returned to Salem on Saturday for a really cool event at Hamilton Hall: Fashioning Freedom: Layers of Liberty. This was a theatrical performance fashioned as a “a celebratory, historical runway of Black creativity and activism” featuring prominent nineteenth-century African Americans, including the Remond family of the Hall, Frederick Douglass’s wife Anna, educator Charlotte Forten, and sculptor Edmonia Lewis. A collaboration between Salem’s revered historical theater company, History Alive, and the Hall, it was a can’t miss event for me: all Renaissance scholars adhere to the concept of “self-fashioning,” which is just what we saw, and of course after having written about John Remond in Salem’s Centuries it was a thrill to see “him” right in front of me. So it was a very interesting week and I am ready for March!

Monday’s blizzard from my second-floor windows.

And then: bright blue sky and sea in Maine! Obviously there was snow up there too, but less of it and more room to spread it around. City snow can be exhausting: you just can’t find get it out of the way and it is increasingly gray (among other colors). Below are a few houses in Newcastle, Cushing and Friendship, and then we were off to Camden and the Norumbega.

The Norumbega, otherwise known as Norumbega Castle, was built as a private home for Maine native Joseph Barker Stearns in 1886-87 in a style that is generally described as “Queen Anne”. To me, it has always seemed more Romanesque, but its interior was a bit lighter than I imagined—smaller too. Not that it is small, it’s just that the scale is not baronial or overwhelming. We stayed in one of the turret rooms, named Sandringham. Stearns made his millions in the telegraph industry by patenting and licensing duplex telegraphy, by which two messages could be sent over the same wire simulteneously. Camden is a hilly coastal Maine town (with its own municipal ski slope, called the Snow Bowl) and the Norumbega is situated on an elevated site which once, and really still, has unobstructed views over Penobscot Bay. The house remained residential for a century, and then was converted into an inn. We really enjoyed our stay: our room was lovely, as were all the public rooms, and breakfast and bar bites in the small blue cocktail lounge were special touches. We actually saw a bit less of Camden than we expected to because we just wanted to hang out in the castle—you can do that in the winter and not feel guilty. But Saturday morning we knew we had a date with the Remonds so back to Salem we went.

The real Remonds at Hamilton Hall and a few shots from “Fashioning Freedom” before and after the performance. It was a very visual evening so check out Hamilton Hall for more professional photos in the next few days. Congratulations to all involved! The month ended with the news that Salem’s new consolidated elementary school will be named after Sarah Parker Remond–yet another triumph for an important Salem family! I do tend to view them in the collective as they were all so invested and engaged. As we enter women’s history month, here’s a clip of an 1855 petition calling for the resignation of Judge Edward Greeley Loring, the Massachusetts Justice most associated with the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act, signed by ALL the Remond women, including matriarch Nancy, her daughters and daughters-in-law, and their friend Charlotte Forten. You can see more at the Massachusetts Archives Anti-Slavery Petititions Dataserve at Harvard University:

https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataverse/antislaverypetitionsma.

 

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Culture, History

February 23, 2026

A Major Revolutionary Engraver

By daseger

So many untold revolutionary stories in Salem’s history. SO MANY. I started thinking about Joseph Hiller, a soldier (Major, in fact), watchmaker, engraver, and Collector of the Port of Salem and Beverly, last week and put together a little visual sketch of his life, just to have everything in one place and illustrate how he both impacted and reflected his time. Hiller (1748-1814) was a Boston man, who came to Salem for reasons that are unclear to me, probably business. He is generally referred to as a watchmaker and sometimes a silversmith, though several sources refer to his more general “mechanical” abilities. In 1775, he became a Revolutionary player, in several ways. He is referenced as an officer in one of the Salem companies, and some sources indicate that he was at Lexington and Concord. I’m not sure about that, but his other early Revolutionary role is well-documented: he became an engraver and thus a disseminator of Patriot portraits. Just two weeks after the Battle of Bunker Hill, Hiller produced one of the earliest portrait prints of the Revolution: a mezzotint ot Major General Israel Putnam as portrayed in pastel by his fellow Salemite Benjamin Blythe. European publishers had been producing portrait prints for decades, and now Hiller was tapping into an emerging American market.

American Revolution Institute of the Society of the Cincinnati. More about this print, Blythe, and Putnam here.

Hiller was in the right place at the right time to engage in patriotic publishing. He followed up the popular Putnam print with one of John Hancock, based on the John Singleton Copley portrait, and possibly (several of Hiller’s prints are “possibly by” or “attributed to” as we don’t always see the definitive signatures visible on the Putnam and Hancock prints above) with prints of the martyr of Bunker Hill, Major General Joseph Warren, and General George and “Lady” Martha Washington, based on portraits made by Charles Willson Peale for John Hancock in 1776. The smoking battlefield of Bunker Hill is in the background of George Washington’s portrait, placing him at Dorchester Heights in the foreground, ready to drive the British out of Boston in March 1776. There is no dramatic/poetic narrative to attach to him, but Hiller seems Revere-sque in his commercial pursuits.

“The Hon. John Hancock Esquire” mezzotint after Copley, 1775, Christies; Major Joseph Warren mezzotint after Copley, possibly Joseph Hiller, Yale University Art Gallery; His Excellency George Washington and Lady Washington, McAlpin Collection, New York Public Library.

The uncertainty of several of Hiller’s attributions might be one reason we don’t hear more about him. Even though I wrote my Ph.D. dissertation on printing, I think art historians are far more equipped to analyze the transformation of portraits into prints, and there has been quite a lot of discussion among them over the attribution of the portraits I am featuring in this post. Context and connections must be considered. For the Blyth(e) portraits, I’m looking forward to reading a recently-published book by Bettina Norton entitled Benjamin Blyth, Salem’s 18th-Century Limner at a Time of Radical Upheaval, (Tidepool Press, available here and here) as it was she who identified the Bunker Hill-Dorchester Heights George Washington connection noted above. But for Hiller, publishing is only part of the story. After the Revolution, he was appointed Naval Officer for the port of Salem by Governor John Hancock and Collector by President George Washington thereafter: from 1783 until 1802, a busy time for the port, Hiller was Salem’s chief Customs official. Don’t let Nathaniel Hawthorne’s disdain for this post a half century later color its importance: during Hiller’s time import duties represented the vast majority of Federal revenues. A portrait in the Custom House is a testimony to his tenure, and his name is on a lot of paper, generally with more famous names! By all accounts Hiller was a professional officeholder, but he was also a conspicuous Federalist, so subject to the Jeffersonian purge. After he left his post, he left Salem for various locales, eventually ending up in Lancaster, where he died in 1814.

Hiller’s portrait in the Custom House (1819) built after his tenure and death, Salem Maritime National Historic Park; Cover of 1789 letter from Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton to Hiller, Smithsonian/National Postal Musuem; Crop of 1794 Sea Letter for Two Friends signed by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and countersigned by Hiller, Library of Congress. Hiller’s various obituaries reference Lexington and Concord, but I can’t place him there—I am always eager to find ANY Salem soldier present on that day so if you have more information, let me know! More interesting details of Hiller’s life: he was a prominent Mason and Swedenborgian convert.

2 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Culture, Salem

January 26, 2026

Frosty Salem

By daseger

So I was going to bring you some photographs of Salem during yesterday’s snowstorm today, but that would have necessitated actually going out and walking around, and just a few steps from my backyard out onto Chestnut Street at midday were enough to convince me that I didn’t want to do that. So I have images of snowstorms past, mostly new discoveries, and most from the Peabody Essex Museum’s Phillips Library, which possesses the largest collection of famed photographers Frank Cousins and Samuel Chamberlain, as well as images by amateur photographers in family papers. True to their promises of several years ago, the Phillips librarians have been steadily digitizing their local collections and everytime I go their digital collections page I see new-to-me things. If you’re new to Salem photo-sleuthing, you can just start with their very accessible “Salem Streets” collection, culled from a variety of sources. And of course all the glass plate negatives of Frank Cousins were digitized quite a while ago, and can also be found at Digital Commonwealth. My title is from Cousins, who assembled several of his favorite images for an 1891 collage, which I imagine was hung in the window of his Bee-Hive shop that very winter. Then I’m going to double back and proceed in chronological order.

So let’s go back a decade into the 1880s, when we really start to see a lot of photographs of Salem streets and buildings, both commercially published and popping up in family papers. I’ll never forget opening up the volumes of the Francis Lee papers a few summers ago at the Phillips Library in Rowley and seeing all of these gorgeous photographs from the mid-1880s. The photos below are from the same time period—1884-86—and this first amazing one is taken from the vantage point of Lee’s house, 14 Chestnut Street. No filter! Isn’t this a striking image? This photo and those that follow are attributed to John Robinson, a Salem author and horticulturalist and trustee of pretty much every single civic institution in the city at the time. I wasn’t aware that he was a photographer as well; I don’t know if had commissioned these images for some future publication? The last one of this group is from the vantage point of his house on Summer Street, and so we have two striking views of Samuel McIntire’s South Church, which burned to the ground in 1903.

Chestnut Street winters, Salem Streets collection, Phillips Library, Peabody Essex Museum.

The 1890s: was Frank Cousins’ most productive decade as a photographer. He loved to photograph Chestnut Street too, but he branched out, all over the city, as his “Frosty Salem” poster illustrates. I love his winter shots because many of them include people, while his more formal architectural photographs decidedly do not.

Essex Street, the Common, Dearborn and Lafayette Streets,1890s, Frank Cousins Glass Plate Negative Collection, Phillips Library via Digital Commonwealth.

Also from the 1890s are several photographs by amateur photographers of an uprooted (Elm?) tree on Chestnut Street, with every possible angle captured!  I have looked in vain for more views of dealing with the snow, but this is as close as I could get. Closing out this decade are several beautiful photographs of the Pickering and Bartlett houses on Broad Street which are somehow connected to (taken by?) a certain Katherine A. Pond. I need to know more about her.

Chestnut and Broad Streets, 1890s, Phillips Library Digital Collections.

The 1920s: when I was looking for photos of Salem’s 1926 Tercentenary in various family albums at the Phillips, I came across the photos of the winter of 1924-25 in Francis Tuckerman Parker’s album. Again, these are not professional, and they are not digitized—I just took photos of the snapshots myself—so they not that great quality, but they are so interesting for what they show. The first image shows the intersection of Chestnut, Summer, and Norman Streets and on the extreme right is what I think is the last photograph of Samuel McIntire’s house before its demolition. The second, looking up Chestunt in the other direction, shows the church that replaced McIntire’s South Church, which was later demolished. Then we have a snow trolley on Essex, and a very messy intersection at the Essex and Summer.

Salem in the winter of 1924-25, Parker Family Photograph Album, Phillips Library.

1930s: the Phillips Library also possesses the huge negative collection of Samuel Chamberlain, a very important mid-century photographer of New England architecture and scenery, which is accessible at Digital Commonwealth. Chamberlain published Historic Salem in Four Seasons in 1938, so I assume these photos are from that time, but the collection encompasses his entire career. Pioneer Village, Salem’s outdoor living-history museum, was in its first decade, and Chamberlain photographed its buildings and landscape lavishly.

Pioneer Village by Samuel Chamberlain, Digital Commonwealth.

And finally, a street view of Broad Street in 1956 and an aerial view of Chestnut in 1972, both after the storms. The latter is included in a feature in Life magazine in that year, prompted by President Nixon’s visit to China. Eastern-oriented Salem seemed like a good place to examine American perspectives on Asia at that time; I don’t think that would be the first Salem association now.

Salem in 1956 and 1972: William F. Abbott collection at the Phillips Library and Life magazine, 1972.

7 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Culture, Salem

January 19, 2026

Salem Ladies 1876

By daseger

I think I’ve previewed the “anniversary year” for quite a few years on this blog in Januarys past, but this particular year is going to be so dominated by the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution (nationally) and Salem’s 400th anniversary (locally) that I decided not to. However, I don’t want to lose sight of the trees through the forest! I’ve always thought that the 1870s was an interesting decade for Salem women, and in 1876 in particular there were two women’s organizations which emerged that I think really represent the collective impact of women both within and outside their community at this time, and after. One organization, the Ladies Centennial Committee of Salem, had a very specific focus and is no longer with us, while the other, the Woman’s Friend Society, most certainly is: it is celebrating its 150th anniversary this very year. I thought I’d shine a spotlight on both. I had an opportunity to research the Ladies Centennial Committee’s efforts for my chapter on Salem and the Colonial Revival in Salem’s Centuries, and my general awareness turned to appreciation for both its organization and creative curation: its December 1875 Salem exhibition of “relics” from the past was broadcast across the nation. These objects were sent to the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia along with many other Salem exhibits from the present, and because so few other Massachusetts towns and cities followed suit Salem really dominated the entire effort from the Bay State. The Ladies of Salem followed up with a Centennial Ball at Mechanics Hall, which added to Salem’s Centennial Fund coffers and enhanced its reputation as as steward of the Colonial past.

Centennial Commemoration in Salem: Exhibition and Ball, Mechanic Hall on Essex Street Salem and the Massachusetts Building in Philadelphia. Salem is the “Old City of Peace” and not yet Witch City.

The exhibition of antique articles was quite diverse, encompassing furniture, clothing, silver, portraits and paper from the past, but I think these women were more than casual antiquarians relying on their family and social connections for “relics” of Salem’s and America’s past. Mrs. Hagar, the committee chair, wasn’t even old-money North Shore: she was Mary Bradford McKim Hagar from New York State, the wife of Daniel Hagar, the principal of Salem Normal School. They received so much publicity, and often their Centennial efforts were paired with other pieces of “news” related to Salem women (see the first image above) which I think is really interesting. The membership of the committee included women—most prominently educator Kate Tannant Woods—who were as much or more interested in social reform as cultural curation. While she was serving on the Centennial Committee, Woods was instrumental in establishing the Moral Education Society of Salem, which eventually changed its named to the Woman’s Friend Society, after similarly-named societies in the area.

Right from its foundation, the Salem Woman’s Friend Society developed a mission that expanded far beyond the first “Needle Woman’s Friend Society” founded in Boston in 1847 “for the purpose of giving employment in needlework to poor women.” The Salem mission included a girl’s reading room, an employment bureau, and housing, after Salem’s most generous philanthropist, Captain John Bertram, offered them half of a stately Federal house on Elm Street for shelter purposes. In 1884, his daughter Jennie Emmerton, always referred to as “Salem’s richest woman” and long Salem’s largest individual taxpayer, deeded the house to the Society, which acquired the other half of the Joseph Fenno house in 1887 through private donations. There was also a focus on vocational education, but I’ll let the Society explain its expanding mission in its own words, with this great fundraising brochure from its deposited records at the Salem State Archives and Special Collections. (*note: these records are amazing! I had one student write a great paper about the employment bureau several years ago, but more studies could be sourced)

So many initiatives! Including the District (later Visiting) Nurse program, which would later be adminstered out of the House of the Seven Gables, founded by Jennie Emmerton’s daughter, Caroline Emmerton. All of this outreach was extraordinarily important in the historical context, when Salem’s immigrant population was increasing steadily and social and medical services were not yet in place. And now, more than a century later, such systems are well-established but the Woman’s Friend Society continues its important work in the housing sphere, where insufficiency prevails. This is also a Salem organization that knows and shares its history, and will be commemorating its 150th anniversary with several special events in the coming months, so watch this space.

Emmerton House/ Women’s Friend Society, 12 Elm Street, Salem, Massachusetts.

2 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in Culture, Salem