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It Happened in Town House Square
I didn’t expect to be posting on Salem for a while as I’m on my way to Maine to escape the Halloween Hordes (haven’t quite broken away yet!) but I’m in the midst of writing the last chapter for Salem’s...
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Salem in the Press, 2023 Halloween Edition
Since I’ve been living outside of Salem for the past month, only coming in for classes and shooting right back to Maine on my (not-so) secret routes, I followed the press coverage on seasonal tourism a...
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Salem’s Bêche-de-mer Boom
Back in Salem until I take off for Scotland at the end of next week. I’ve got lots of teaching, writing, and organizing to do, but I ignored all of my obligations last weekend and read a fascinating...
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Before, During and After the Revolution
I have been thinking about Salem during the American Revolution quite a bit over the past few months. It’s yet another era in Salem’s history which is tragically under-represented, and we’re going to...
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Special Little Places: Closes, Corridors and Courts
Still basking in my Edinburgh afterglow as we finish the last week of classes of the Fall 2023 semester: at home, as a deficient boiler has rendered Salem State’s North Campus an uninhabitable place....
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The Salem Tercentenary, 1926
As I’ve been finishing up the manuscript of our 4o0th anniversary volume, Salem’s Centuries, I’ve been writing and thinking about Salem’s 300th anniversary quite a bit. For some reason I thought that I...
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Dorothy Talby
I’m starting out Women’s History Month with a Salem tragedy of the seventeenth century, and gratitude that this story popped into my mind at this time, better late than never. I wrote about Hugh Peter,...
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May Day Weather
May Day is a day with many associations and representations: an “olde” festival with attendant Green Man and maypoles, a cross-quarter celebration of spring and surviving the winter, a day to celebrate...
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A Big Salem History Project, 1952!
I receive gifts from readers of the blog from time to time and they are all very special and much appreciated. A reader sent me a slim, illustrated and bound History of Salem prepared by a “committee...
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Heroes Uncovered
Salem has three historic downtown cemeteries and the one closest to my house is Broad Street, where I go weekly to wander around and learn something new from the gravestones. Its neighbors have been...
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Salem Gardens, June 2024
Let’s take a break from history and observe and enjoy the world around us, shall we? I’ve been asking my Salem friends and aquaintences about their gardens, and everyone is very happy: blooms abound!...
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Revolutionary Summer, Part II: Heating Up
Today, part two of my occasional summer series on Salem’s role as provincial capital in the summer of 1774, illustrated by reenactors of the Encampment Weekend at Salem Maritime National Historic Site....
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The Troublesome Girls
A few weeks ago, a social media post popped up on my feeds from Destination Salem, our city’s official tourism office, featuring two young women dressed in garish costumes with giggly grins. They...
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Nancy Drew & the Peabody Sisters of Salem
What do a fictional detective and three very real women of mid-nineteenth century Salem have in common? Well, books have been written about them, and in certain editions of these books there are...
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Quick About Their Business
So I’m going back to the revolutionary summer of 1774, when Salem served as provincial capital and (with Marblehead) port of entry, Boston’s punishment for its Tea Party. Salem had a strong Tory...
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Revolutionary Remembrance
Even more so than usual, this Labor Day weekend seemed like the end of summer to me. Actually, not just the end, but the finale. This was quite a productive summer, even though I didn’t really produce...
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The Salem City Seal
Last week, the Salem City Seal was an agenda item for a meeting of our City Council: apparently there are concerns about its representation and plans for its replacement. I don’t know much more than...
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Salem Can’t Lose Sumatra
I’m still thinking and reading about Salem’s endangered city seal, so this is Part II of last week’s post. I promise there will be no part III (at least for a while) as I think I have resolved my...
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Salem 1774: Tea, Fire and a new Congress
I just want to wrap up Salem’s long hot Revolutionary summer of 1774 with a finale first week of October and then I’ll be turning to Salem’s intense Halloween—I am not escaping this year because I’m...
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The First Weekend of October in Salem
It’s been a long time since I spent an October weekend in Salem, but there I was on this past Saturday, walking through the crowded streets on my way to the Peabody Essex Museum to take their new...
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