Category Archives: History

November 14, 2013

So Many Gables

By daseger

It would be fine with me if the House of the Seven Gables was the iconic symbol of Salem rather than the witch: it seems to me that these two images were competing for that role in the earlier part of the twentieth century, but the witch definitely won out in the second half. I can’t tell you how many House of the Seven Gables postcards I have–maybe 50 different images, some only slightly different–and I have seen Gables puzzles, plates, patches, pens, pillows and all sorts of other items that don’t begin with the letter P. Such souvenirs are pretty common, so I’m a bit more interested in artistic representations of the house and the book. There are many of these as well: illustrations from the multiple editions of the latter (which never seems to go out of print) and drawings, prints, etchings, and paintings of the former. I’m always looking for works by some of Salem’s renown early twentieth-century artists–Frank Benson, Philip Little, Ross Turner–but they don’t seem to have been inspired by the house (although there is a nice etching by Little’s friend and studio-mate Philip Kappel), which is understandable, given the fact that our Gables is not their Gables. What we call the House of the Seven Gables was known as the old Turner Mansion (or more formally the Turner-Ingersoll Mansion) in their time, and before preservationist/philanthropist Caroline Emmerton transformed it and adjoining buildings (some of which she made adjoining buildings) into the House of the Seven Gables Settlement Association after 1908, the old house really didn’t look that inspirational. This was a pretty run-down neighborhood, and part of Emmerton’s mission was to change all that, with a rather romantically “restored” mansion at its center. And so the old Turner mansion acquired several more gables and became the House of the Seven Gables.

The Making of the House of the Seven Gables, 1908-1915

The Turner-Ingersoll House in the 1890s and 1910s, after Mrs. Emmerton bought the house and established the Settlement Association. The middle picture, dating from around 1914, shows the house from the other side and the developing museum “neighborhood” and its vicinity, including the Seaman’s Bethel on the water, which Mrs. Emmerton later removed to Turner Street. Photographs from the Library of Congress and National Park Service.

With time–and long after Mrs. Emmerton’s death–the House of the Seven Gables Settlement Association not only cleaned up, but cleared out, its previously “derelict” neighborhood, and now there is a large parking lot to the left of those hanging sheets below. But that’s another story. A succession of artists from the 1920s on did indeed find the revitalized mansion inspirational, beginning with two female artists who occasionally came down from their Cape Ann summer homes to capture old Salem on canvas: Felicie Waldo Howell (1897-1968) and Theresa Bernstein (1890-2002). Two very different visions, as you can see, followed by the equally variant views of Dorothy Lake Gregory, Frederic Coulton Waugh, and the contemporary artists Jim Leggitt, Philip Eames, and Matthew Benedict. Just a few images that appealed to me, among many, many Gables out there.

Portraying the House of the Seven Gables, 1921-2010

14 Comments | tags: Architecture, Art, great houses, Historic Preservation, House of Seven Gables, Library of Congress | posted in History, Houses, Salem

November 11, 2013

Last Men Standing

By daseger

We are accustomed to seeing photographs of veterans—of the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, of Vietnam, of World Wars I and II, of the Spanish-American War, and even of the Civil War—but not of the American Revolution, as the first daguerreotypes were made a half-century after its conclusion. But such images do exist, first compiled in an extraordinary book that I’ve just discovered: E.B. Hillard’s The Last Men of the Revolution (1864). The Connecticut minister clearly had a mission of remembrance in the midst of the Civil War, and he made pilgrimages to the homes of six surviving Revolutionary War veterans, accompanied by Nelson and Roswell Moore, brother photographers from Hartford. I’m sure my Americanist colleagues know of this book, but its existence is a revelation to me: how shocking to gaze upon the images of men who, in Hillard’s words, “looked on Washington…[and] heard his words”.

Hillard’s little volume contains eagle-encircled images of the old men in their best dress, along with color plates of their homes and wonderful little vignettes which cover their experiences in the war and in life, along with their views of the “present rebellion”—no confederate sympathies here! There are also prescriptions for longevity: lots of smoking, moderate drinking, “no particular attention to diet”, lifelong physical exertion. You can see the book’s plates here, and below are individual carte-de-visite images from the Library of Congress–beginning with William Hutchings, who was born in my hometown of York, Maine (then Massachusetts, of course) and ending with Newburyport-born Samuel Downing, who harvested fifteen bushels of carrots on the 90-degree day before Hillard came to call.

I wish I knew much more about the contemporary reception of Hillard’s book and the Moores’ photographs, but they are certainly inspirational now. “New” images of Revolutionary War veterans have been uncovered/discovered, most notably by Utah-based journalist and collector Joseph M. Bauman, who recently published his collection in a book entitled Don’t Tread on Me: Photographs and Life Stories of American Revolutionaries (2012) and “daguerreotype detective” Maureen Taylor, who has published two volumes entitled The Last Muster. Images of the Revolutionary War Generation. The more interest there is in something, the higher the likelihood of finding more of it, in the case of these rare daguerreotypes, uncatalogued family collections are probably the key source. You can see a lovely portfolio of Bauman’s collection here: my favorites among them are another Massachusetts/Mainer, James W. Head, and the flamboyant George Fishley, famous resident of Portsmouth, New Hampshire and “last of the Cocked Hats”.

Revolutionary War veterans James W. Head and George Fishley: images courtesy of Joseph Bauman.

14 Comments | tags: books, Commemorations, holidays, Photography, Veterans Day | posted in History

November 8, 2013

Mansion of the Moment

By daseger

The Derby Family were Salem’s golden-age “royalty”, bequeathing their name to a major street, a long wharf, and many, many houses–some which have survived, and others long lost. Of all the Derby houses, the most legendary is the most fleeting: the Derby Mansion designed successively (and somewhat collaboratively, I think) by the new nation’s most prominent architects Charles Bulfinch and Samuel McIntire for “King” Elias Hasket Derby and his wife Elizabeth Crowninshield Derby. Elias and Elizabeth both died within a year of its completion in 1799, and given its prime location between Salem’s main street and the waterfront, it was torn down less than two decades later, to be replaced by the new (now old) Town Hall in the midst of what came to be known (and still is) as Derby Square. The Derby Mansion lives on in legend (and in the form of the furnishings that were made for it) but survives only on paper: narrative descriptions, book illustrations, and most importantly, architectural drawings.

The most influential image of the idealized house in the nineteenth century seems to have been based on a 1795 Bulfinch perspective drawing produced for the Derbys before they handed the commission over to McIntire. This is preserved in the collection of the Peabody Essex Museum, and it was reproduced in two popular histories of Salem’s commercial heyday as well as Fiske Kimball’s Domestic Architecture of the American Colonies and of the Early Republic (1922).

Charles Bulfinch’s perspective drawing of the Derby Mansion, 1795, via Hugh Howard’s Dr. Kimball and Mr. Jefferson: Rediscovering the Founding Fathers of American Architecture (2006) and the Peabody Essex Museum; illustrations from C.H. Webber and W.S. Nevins, Old Naumkeag. A Historical Sketch of the City of Salem, etc.. (1877) and Charles E. Trow, Old Shipmasters of Salem (1905).

But the Bulfinch drawing does not represent the completed McIntire structure: for that we have to turn to archival evidence. Fortunately, the Essex Institute (now incorporated into the international art and culture museum that is the Peabody Essex Museum, but previously the zealous historical society for Essex County in general and Salem in particular) acquired a portfolio of Samuel McIntire’s plans and papers in the mid- to late-nineteenth century, including drawings of the Derby Mansion. Even more fortunately, the PEM is digitizing some of the McIntire materials: what a pleasure and a privilege to see these annotated elevations of the mansion and its outbuildings–I especially love the drawings for a wrought iron fence, even though I have no idea if it ended up encircling this momentary mansion.

PEM Phillips Library MSS 264: Samuel McIntire Papers 1749-1822; below, Derby Square today.

3 Comments | tags: Architecture, Charles Bulfinch, Derby Family, great houses, Peabody Essex Museum, Samuel McIntire | posted in Design, History, Houses, Paper, Salem

November 6, 2013

Lynde Street Variety

By daseger

Walking to and from my polling place on a bright November election day, I was struck, not for the first time, by the architectural diversity that is Lynde (rhymes with blind) Street, a downtown cross street between Salem’s major commercial thoroughfare, Washington Street, and one of it major entrance corridors, North Street. Lynde Street is one of those old-city streets that had no preservation protections until relatively late in its development, so it features structures that date from the 1750s to the 1950s, and everything in between. The 1750s house is the Georgian Colonial James Barr House, with expansive additions in back, and across the street is the 1950s house, which is one of the more unprepossessing structures in Salem, in my opinion, though now that I’m looking at pictures of it and the Barr house side by side, I’m wondering if its builders were going for a 1950s version of a gambrel roof?

In the middle of Lynde Street are three structures that further testify to its architectural diversity: adjacent to each other on one side of the street are the former East Church Chapel and Christian Scientist Church (1897), now the Witch Dungeon Museum, and the Rufus Choate House (1787), while on the other side is Temple Court, a brick apartment complex built in 1910. The red line that runs along Lynde Street’s brick sidewalk was no doubt bought and paid for by the owners of the Witch Dungeon Museum, who also purchased the sign that was affixed to a structure situated on the site of the original jail building over on Federal Street in the early 1980s—not until a decade or so later were they called to task for this and compelled to put up a second plaque informing tourists that their Victorian structure was not in fact Salem’s seventeenth-century “gaol”.

The red line, bringing tourists to “heritage” sites, the Witch Dungeon Museum and Rufus Choate House, the former in the early 1980s, Massachusetts Historical Commission, the two plaques.

The Rufus Choate house is named after the famous congressman, senator, and lawyer who resided on Lynde Street from 1828-1834. Choate (1799-1859) spend considerable time in Washington after his elections, but he is more famous for his Salem and Boston displays of courtroom tactics, including the origination of a successful “sleepwalking defense” for one of his clients. The Lynde Street house in which he lived experienced considerable deterioration in the twentieth century, and at one point was apparently condemned by the city of Salem before it was purchased and restored in the 1980s.

The Choate House in photographs from 1891 (Frank Cousins), 1981 (Massachusetts Historical Commission), and yesterday.

And finally we come to the comparatively massive Temple Court, an apartment complex built in 1910 almost opposite the Choate House. I wonder what was here before! This seems like an unusual structure for Salem: you see these turn-of-the century courtyard complexes on Commonwealth Avenue as it extends westward out of Boston into Brookline, but they are more rare in the outer suburbs. Perhaps its existence indicates that Salem did not think of itself as a “suburb” in 1910.

11 Comments | tags: Architecture, Heritage Tourism, Historic Preservation, urban planning, Witch City | posted in History, Houses, Salem

November 4, 2013

Ringbearers

By daseger

As part of their midterm exams last week, I gave my Renaissance students several images to analyze, including one with a very earnest brown-eyed man holding–no, bearing a ring: was he mourning a deceased wife or fiance, was he himself a lost husband, or more mundanely, was he a goldsmith advertising his wares? These are the usual interpretations, and my students came up with more interesting ones. There are a surprising number of these ringbearing portraits, maybe not enough to classify as a sub-genre, but certainly more than I realized. Most art historians seem to think the portrait below depicts Bolognese goldsmith and painter Francesco Francia.

Francesco del Cossa, Portrait of a Man with a Ring, c. 1472-77, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid.

There is also a theory that this ringbearing young man was a member of the prominent Este family of Ferrara, which means he might be related to this other Francesco below, appearing in this striking portrait by Rogier van der Weyden. Franceso d’Este bears a ring and a hammer, which the curators at the Metropolitan Museum of Art believe might be jousting prizes or symbols of power. I had not thought of jousting prizes before, and while the hammer looks powerful, not sure about the ring.

Rogier van der Weyden, Francesco d‘Este, c. 1460, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

This has got to be a northern Renaissance device/motif that found is way to Italy, like oil painting in general and portraits in particular. The earliest ringbearing portraits I could find were painting by Jan Van Eyck and one of his “followers”: the first painting is Van Eyck’s incredibly intimate portrait of Bruges goldsmith Jan de Leeuw, and the second is simply titled Young Man Holding a Ring. I have always found the de Leeuw portrait strikingly modern. The curators at the National Gallery of Art in London, whose collection the latter painting belongs to, explain the ring rather conventionally in terms of trade and/or impending marriage, but there is an inscription here (Lord, Let it Pass) so maybe things were a bit more complicated?

Jan Van Eyck, Jan de Leeuw,c. 1436, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna; Follower of Jan Van Eyck, Portrait of a Young Man Holding a Ring, c. 1450, National Gallery of Art, London.

Don’t get me wrong–I think it’s enough that these goldsmiths are being “captured”: such a great example of the relatively egalitarian and aspirational aspects of Renaissance society and culture. I just wish I knew the whole story behind these interesting portraits. I’m the most curious about the sole woman in this group: the mysterious and beautiful subject of Lorenzo di Credi’s Portrait of a Woman (c. 1490-1500). Most likely the widowed daughter of a goldsmith, or perhaps the widow of the artist’s brother, she is clearly not showcasing her own creation but rather commemorating a relationship.

Lorenzo di Credi, Portrait of a Woman, c. 1490-1500, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Two other images speak to the Renaissance fascination with jewelry and jewellers, which I think might be both literal and symbolic: one is my absolute favorite painting, Petrus Christus’ St. Eligius as a Goldsmith, variantly titled A Goldsmith in his Shop (1449) in which a couple are pictured in a goldsmith’s shop, presumably about to purchase a ring (with onlookers outside, as well as US). There’s a lot going on here: one of the acts associated with the early medieval St. Eligius was the gift of a gold ring to his contemporary Saint Godeberta before she took her religious vows. Petrus Christus might be portraying Godeberta torn between worldly and holy marriages-and she appears to be reaching towards the latter.

Petrus Christus, A Goldsmith in his Shop, 1449, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

And finally there is the symbolic signature (after 1508) of another Northern Renaissance artist. Lucas Cranach the Elder: a crowned black serpent bearing a gold ruby ring. This heraldic device, which also served as Cranach’s coat of arms, appears in many variations (which you can see here) but no one seems to know precisely what it means–perhaps the artist simply thought it looked cool. I’ve always thought that Cranach was the most interesting and enigmatic of northern Renaissance artists, working closely with Luther to advance the cause of the Reformation visually while simultaneously maintaining commissions from the Catholic Church. Throughout his life, he always seemed to be reaching for the brass ring.

3 Comments | tags: Art, Decorative Arts, Renaissance, Teaching | posted in Culture, History

November 2, 2013

Has Salem sold its Soul?

By daseger

One last Halloween-related post (I promise!) on this All Souls Day: since it is a recurring theme of mine, I feel compelled to feature the Huffington Post columnist Greig Lamont’s stinging critique of the Witch City: “Selling your Soul in Salem”. I’ve read it before, heard it before, said it before, but I welcome Lamont’s compelling indictment. You would think he had more at stake, because he contrasts the bygone grandeur of Salem with its wholesale descent into tacky revelry in a particularly passionate way, beginning with soul-searching and ending with soul-selling: Once the house of New World glory, Arthur Miller discovered inspiration in Salem’s story. Today, there’s nothing to be found but a soul-selling despair in this home of American kitsch.

My favorite line, because it describes scenes I see again and again, even in my sleep it seems, comes in the middle of the piece, when Lamont contrasts the city’s glorious past with its vacuous present: today Salem has been reduced to prostituting itself to oddballs in costumes who gawk at gravestones and hanker for “museums” filled with broomsticks and bric–a–brac. For all its magnificent past, today it degrades itself by pandering to those whose zenith is having their photograph taken with a transvestite Dracula next to a guitar–playing zombie — and whose nadir would be to actually learn something new.

Calm Descends 450

What does this have to do with what happened in 1692?

14 Comments | tags: Halloween, Local Events, media, Witch City | posted in Culture, History, Salem

October 31, 2013

Cultural Costumes

By daseger

If I could set aside the whole capitalizing-on-the-deaths-of-innocents thing, I might like Halloween in Salem a bit more if the costumes were more creative. I buy a cartload of candy, and have to jump up every minute, and what do I see? The same old witches, princesses and superheroes. Very few DIY costumes that display any sort of imagination or creativity. You do see some interesting adult outfits in the second wave that takes over after 8:30 or 9 (standing out in a sea of slutty costumes) but these people are walking right by my door (Thank God!) on their way to downtown. If we have to be the Halloween capital of the world I think we should have higher sartorial standards.

I was looking around for some inspiration from the past, as usual, and most of the bespoke Halloween costumes I came across were a little creepy—bags over the head with slits for the eyes and mouth: ghost, scarecrow or Klansman? So I went to the treasure chest that is our university archives and found the cutest costumes ever–these kids are not dressed up for Halloween, but rather for some sort of cultural awareness educational activity at their school. I think they look adorable, though I imagine that dressing your kid up as an Eskimo today might be considered a bit politically incorrect–still, these are visual reminders that children in the past had to create and animate, rather than purchase or plug in.

Children in costume at Salem State’s Horace Mann Laboratory School in the early 20th Century: an Eskimo, a little Dutch girl, Red Riding Hood, and characters from Alice in Wonderland, Salem State University Archives Flikr. Pretty imaginative backdrops too.

8 Comments | tags: Halloween, Local Events, Salem State University, Shopping | posted in Culture, Current Events, History, Salem

October 29, 2013

Halloween & Husbands

By daseger

The modern secular holiday that is Halloween has evolved in so many ways over the twentieth century that its “customs” would have been unrecognizable even a century ago. At that time, the focus was much more on divination than on horror: pumpkins, black cats, and witches were in the margins but for grown-ups, fortune-telling was in the forefront. There’s a long process of assimilation that creates Halloween–from harvest to Samhain to the eves of All Saints’ and All Souls days–but the evolving traditions of the harvest holiday converged most vividly in Scotland, and Scotch-Irish emigres transferred them to the New World, where they were subject to yet another process of assimilation. In his 1785 poem Hallowe’en, Robert Burns presents and annotates the customs of western Scotland: its longer title, The Merry Diversions of Halloween, encompasses an account of the Kale stalks–burning nuts–Catching sweethearts in the Stalk Yard–Pulling the corn–winding the Blue Clue–Winnowing the Corn–Sowing the Hemp Seed–And the Cutting of the Apple, with the Conclusion of these Merry Meetings, by telling Wonderful Stories about Witches and Fairies. Written in Scots and English, the poem requires some translation, but as the title relates, it all begins with cabbages, witches only come in at the end, and Halloween is more merry than scary. Over a century later, one of Ellen Clapsaddle’s most sought after Halloween postcards illustrates the Scottish/cabbage connection.

Kale or cabbage-pulling was a particular type of divination tied to one’s marital future: unmarried men and women would go out to the patch and pull up a cabbage, and then bring it back to the farm to uncover its stalk–and the characteristics of their future mate: old or young, tall or short, strong (straight) or weak (crooked). Then the stalks would be hung up in a public place to determine exactly who you would marry: if yours was placed third in line you would marry the third man who walked beneath it. Corn (wheat), nuts, apples—all the fruits of the earth–could reveal all sorts of things if you knew the rituals to tease out their secrets, but Halloween rituals definitely seem to focus on relationships. The cabbage patch customs do cross over the Atlantic (with variations) but the most popular crossover was definitely scrying, or mirror magic. In the modern era, scrying usually involves a crystal ball, but centuries ago it was more generally a process that involved water, glass and/or mirrors. Burns’ poem contains a line where a “wee” lass says I’ll eat an apple at the glass which refers to the custom of gazing into a looking glass in candlelight while eating an apple, which will bring forth the visage of your future conjugal companion, peering over your shoulder. There were lots of variations on this ritual, including one which incorporates three bowls of water (clean, dirty, empty) and a blindfold, and another which calls for the seeker to descend backward down the stairs with mirror in hand (sometimes referred to as “Bloody Mary’s Curse”), and yet another in which the maiden flips an apple peel over her shoulder to see her future mate. All of these customs crossed over, but mirrors definitely dominated in modern America.

Mezzotint, 1830s, British Museum: “Place three Plates or other Dishes on the Table, one containing clean water _ another foul _ and the ghird empty _ If the lass [who is / blin]dfolded, put her hand into the clean water, she will soon get a young husband _ If into the foul water, she will […] / either an old man or a widower _ If into the empty dish, she will die an old maid. // Painted by Alexander Barron. // Engraved by E. Radclyffe.”; 1910 postcard, New York Public Library.

In America, there are fewer visual and literary references to the harvest (except for thoroughly-American pumpkins, of course, as well as apples) and encroaching witches–but all is still relatively merry in the world of turn-of-the century postcards. Things are changing though; the last young woman below looks scared–whether by the sight of the shadowy witch or her future husband, I do not know.

Of course the World Wars will change everything, but the more macabre and ghoulish nature of modern Halloween is hard to imagine when looking at these early 20th century postcards, which portray the holiday in either a whimsical or slightly sarcastic light (see below). But once traditions are torn from their geographical and cultural context and plunged into brave new worlds, their transformation can be frightful.

Good and bad husbands for Halloween: Rose Company postcards, c. 1900-1909, the New York Public Library Digital Gallery.

4 Comments | tags: ephemera, folklore, Halloween, holidays, Popular Culture | posted in Culture, History, Paper

October 23, 2013

A Poe Parlor

By daseger

Last year around this time (of course), the private sales site Joss & Main featured a “Destination Salem” shopping event, comprised of items chosen to conjur up the spirit of my fair city. I was pleased that the selections were not all kitschy witchy, but included some maritime, colonial and Federal (quotations around all terms, please) items as well. This year I’ve been looking out for another Salem collection, but instead the site curators have showcased Design Icon Edgar Allan Poe. Poe is certainly having quite a moment, with his big show at the Morgan Library & Museum! It’s hard to think of him as a “design icon” but he certainly was proficient at setting the scene. The curators of the Joss & Main collection seem to have gone in an exclusively dark and literal direction: all black and gray (think ravens and cats) and no red (think hearts, masques, and blood). I think I can do better.

The Salem and Poe collections actually share quite a few items: black-painted tables, windsor chairs, grey upholstery, raven-embellished pillows. There are some nice looking desks, although they’re a bit undersized (why is it that modern desks are so small and coffee tables so big?) I think the items below represent the Joss & Main portfolio quite well.

In putting together my Poe-inspired room, I took into consideration two influences. One is Poe himself who, oddly enough, did write an article on interior decoration, “The Philosophy of Furniture”, published in Burton’s Gentlemen’s Magazine in 1840. The other is my more imaginative conception of the Poe ambiance, based on my reading of his works: what I want my Poe room to look like rather than what he would have wanted his room to look like. We obviously have a much clearer vision of the former, and an illustration, as the reading room at the Poe National Historic Site in Philadelphia is decorated according to the preferences laid out in “The Philosophy of Furniture”: silver-grey walls with lots of crimson and gold accents, landscapes and female portraits, no flowers, minimal window hangings (Poe seems to have had a disdain for swags, like most men I have known), the Empire furniture of his time. Taking all these preferences together, you get a pretty conventional mid-nineteenth century Empire room–I think I need a little bit more texture, a bit more drama, a Gothic air.

The Reading Room (and spooky basement) at the Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site in Philadelphia, recreated according to Poe’s “Philosophy of Furniture”.

Poe writes a lot about “arabesque” motifs in his “Philosophy” piece, and the importance of carpets, so I’ve picked the Jaipur “Narratives” carpet below for my Poe parlor, from Joss & Main’s inventory site: this rug has all of his favorite colors, it looks perfect to me. I would keep the Empire sofa that you see above (I already have one), but I am very inspired by the Gothic doors of Poe’s Reading Room, so I would look for some Gothic revival side chairs with a similar silhouette: the perfect one sold in a Doyle’s auction last year, but I need more! In front of the Empire sofa I would put a neo-Gothic table made of metal; there are no “period” coffee tables so you might as well go for something cool.

I love this gilded mirror from Christopher Jones Antiques, which is contemporary with Poe: it would go over the mantle of the dark marble fireplace, with two Argand lamps on either side: the pair below are perfect: they just went for $3500 at a Connecticut auction gallery last weekend.

Now all we need are some whimsical/literal accessories and finishing touches: footstools and/or drapes in this “Nevermore” fabric, a Poe pillow or two, Raven candles from Target on the mantle, interspersed with these amazing metal sculptures. A great, beating (ticking) clock. I’m not sure about paintings; Poe’s preferred landscapes are boring and (against his wishes) I would definitely have a textured wallpaper rather than plain painted walls. I’m torn between the Pugin wallpapers below, created in 1848 for a client named Lockhart, which might be too much with my rug, and something more silvery and spidery. My Poe parlor is a work in progress.

3 Comments | tags: books, Decorative Arts, Edgar Allan Poe, Etsy, Interior design, Interiors, Literature, Shopping | posted in Culture, Design, History

October 21, 2013

The Witchfinder on Film

By daseger

Between weekend errands, I organized a little Vincent Price mini-marathon for myself, culminating in a truly horrible (in more ways than one) movie called The Conqueror Worm (1968), which was produced and released in Britain under the more appropriate title Witchfinder General. The film is very loosely based on Matthew Hopkins, the self-appointed “Witch-finder General” who was responsible for the condemnation and execution of more than 100 people for witchcraft in 1645-46, during one of the more chaotic phases of the English Civil War. Hopkins’ reign of terror in Essex represents the peak of the witchcraft hysteria in England, which was rather less hysterical than many hot spots on the European continent. I suppose that the American title, which alludes to a poem by Edgar Allen Poe, was chosen to take advantage of the popularity of Vincent Price’s Poe films like The Fall of the House of Usher, but the film has nothing at all to do with Poe.

witchfinder_general 1968

I have a distant childhood memory of seeing bits and pieces of this film on television, certainly without my parents’ knowledge, as it is intensely and gratuitously violent: Price’s Hopkins (about 30 years older than the actual Hopkins) is lecherous and his fellow “witch-pricker” John Stearne is absolutely sadistic. These men might have possessed these qualities and tendencies, and they did torture their victims, but it’s no matter: the film is all about sensation, not context, and certainly not history. And in that typical 1960s manner, everyone is running around with swinging sixties hair. There are too many historical inaccuracies to list here; perhaps the most egregious is Hopkins’ ability to just string up his victims, with no presentation of evidence or trial. Even in this chaotic era, lawlessness did not reign. When Hopkins engages in “due process”, it’s the notorious, and seldom-implemented, “swimming test” for witchcraft. The posters above represent the general anachronistic and sensationalistic nature of the film quite well, while also conveying the spirit of the “burning times” when in fact all English witches were condemned to death by hanging. Better to refrain from the film altogether and view Hopkins through Malcolm Gaskill’s substantive-yet-accessible Witchfinders: A Seventeenth-Century Tragedy.

Frontspiece to Matthew Hopkins’ “Discovery of Witches”, published by Richard Royston, 1647, British Museum; Illustration from C.R. Weld’s History of the Royal Society, 1848; Malcolm Gaskill’s Witchfinders. A Seventeenth-century Tragedy (2007).