Tag Archives: State Library of Massachusetts

Salem Picturesque

I don’t think the word “picturesque” could be applied to the city of Salem in 2020: certainly some residential neighborhoods, but the major arteries of the city, which both access and divide said neighborhoods, are increasingly lined with residential, commercial, and even public buildings of which no one could possibly ever state, much less believe, that aesthetics was the highest criteria of construction (or even a consideration). I have no idea what the priorities of Salem’s planning department might be besides more density, but I am sure that “it’s better than what was there before” is the sole aesthetic standard. The Spring semester starts this week, which means on my “commute” I have to find creative ways of avoiding the MONSTROUS new Hampton Inn rising and sprawling on lower Washington Street, which is now the street of banal buildings (and the Bewitched statue, of course). It’s too big, too impossible not to see, so I’ll just have to close my eyes (when walking, not driving). As usual, when the present is objectionable, I always retreat to the past, so obviously a title like Salem Picturesque is appealing! It’s a slim volume of just 23 photographs, published in the 1880s by the Lithotype Publishing Company in Gardner, Massachusetts. It features select “Public Buildings, Churches, and Street and Birds’ Eye Views” of Salem, Massachusetts”: to be fair to the present, Salem was a densely-settled industrial city in the later nineteenth century, so not every quarter was picturesque, and this book features only those that were. Also, and again: someone has been cleaning up after all those horses! Still, there was an apparent striving to make the public part of the city aesthetically pleasing at that time which is not present now, in terms of preservation, maintenance, and most especially new construction. I’m nostalgic.

screenshot_20200114-114508_flickr

screenshot_20200114-153940_flickr

screenshot_20200114-154003_flickrSalem Common/Washington Square 

screenshot_20200114-154012_flickrLanding at the Willows

screenshot_20200114-154225_flickr

screenshot_20200114-154213_flickrCourthouses on Federal Street

screenshot_20200114-154241_flickrThe City Almshouse

screenshot_20200114-154245_flickrPhillips Wharf: the Philadelphia & Reading Coal and Iron Company.

screenshot_20200114-154024_flickrCorner of Norman, Summer & Chestnut Streets

screenshot_20200114-154042_flickr

screenshot_20200114-154018_flickrEssex Street

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screenshot_20200114-154233_flickrChestnut Street

screenshot_20200114-154136_flickrCorner of Flint and Warren Streets

screenshot_20200114-154143_flickrBroad Street

I’m also nostalgic to see pictures of houses lost to the Great Salem Fire in 1914 on Warren and Broad Streets—and the Bulfinch Almshouse. Salem Picturesque is just one of the interesting Flickr albums of the State Library of Massachusetts.


Some Came Back

Given that I, along with every other historically-conscious person in the world, have been thinking about World War One and its aftermath in this anniversary year of its commencement, that has to be my focus for this Veterans Day. I’ve been thinking about the impact of the Great War on Salem and its inhabitants for a while, but I haven’t really had time to engage in any serious research: I suppose that I have until 2017! This is one of those cases of “anniversary history” where the American and European perspectives are not quite in sync. I have found one great digital database, however: at the State Library of Massachusetts. A five-year project to digitize over 8,000 portraits of soldiers has created an amazing resource that every descendant of a Massachusetts doughboy will want to check out. Most of the photographs are accompanied by “cut slips” of paper that I find almost as poignant as the images themselves: data sheets for prospective Boston Globe stories which lists the soldier’s name, hometown, and story: either “experiences” or “killed in action”. The photographs were taken before the men shipped out; the slips were made out after armistice was declared. Some of these Salem men came back, and some did not.

Annable

Corp. Walter W. Annable, Battery F., 101st F. A.; Came Back.

Redmond

Capt. Ernest R. Redmond, Battery E, 101st F. A; Came Back (and ran unsuccessfully for Mayor of Salem in 1925).

Marcotte

Corp. Henry J. Marcotte, Co. M, 103rd Infantry; Came Back.

Lynch

Corp. Henry F. Lynch, 301st F. A.; Came Back.

Murphy

Henry G. Murphy, 101st F. A. Battery D.; Killed in Action in France.

Bufford

O. J. Bufford, Battery D., 101st F. A.; Killed by accident in France.

These are just a few Salem men and their fates: the entire record includes many casualties of war and as many–or more–of disease: the immediate post-war influenza epidemic which decimated the United States and the world. Imagine surviving the trenches and then dying from the flu in an army camp back home–or nearly there. Of course every death is heroic, but some were officially recognized as such, like that of Thomas Upton of Salem, who received a Distinguished Service Cross posthumously for extraordinary heroism in action near Belleau, France, on July 20, 1918. He voluntarily crossed a zone swept by machine gun and shell fire to aid wounded soldiers, and was killed. Conflict and contagion in 1918, and cheering crowds for those that came back.

Some Came Back 1918 Leslie Jones

Some Came Back 2 1918 Leslie Jones

Armistice Day 1919 SSU Dionne

Massachusetts troops arriving in Boston in 1918, Leslie Jones Collection, Boston Public Library; the first Armistice Day Parade in Salem, 1919, Dionne Collection, Salem State University Archives.

 


 

 


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