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History is Gray
For the past month or so, I’ve been considering the case of the Salem City Seal and various reactions to it. In the past, before last month, I’ve probably thought about the seal for 5 minutes; over the...
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Mint McIntire
It’s always a big moment when a Salem house crafted by Samuel McIntire comes on the market, and that moment is approaching! Likely the most important McIntire house still in private hands, the...
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Christmas in Salem 2024
This past weekend was very busy: there was the annual Christmas in Salem tour of historic homes decorated for the holidays, Christmas teas at the Phillips House, and my new neighbors hosted a very...
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Merry Christmas from Salem
No deep dive here, just some photographs of Salem at Christmas time: my neighborhood, my house, other houses. It’s been a tough semester and a tough month, and I’m tired. I did Thanksgiving, so my...
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A Bewitching Bicentennial Book
Salem has been a tourist city for more than a century, so there has been a succession of guide books spotlighting the city’s landmarks and attractions from their particular chronological perspectives....
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Joseph Hodges Choate and the New York City Draft Riots
Salem is kind of an odd statue city, in my opinion. Some statues get placed by small constituencies, while others are erected in inappropriate locales. Salem’s most recent statue, of educator and...
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Headline History
I went up to the Phillips Library in Rowley to look through some scrapbooks memorializing the Salem Tercentenary of 1926 late last week and found myself enchanted by the presentation and curation of...
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Salem’s Abandoned Revolutionary Forts: a Bicentennial View
Every time I go up to the treasure trove that is the Phillips Library it’s a significant commitment of time so I try to order up a variety of items so I can accomplish whatever mission I’m on but also...
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Leslie’s Retreat: How an Incident became an Event
Next weekend here in Salem a whirlwind of events will commemorate the 250th anniversary of Leslie’s Retreat, including reenactments of the Redcoats’ march towards the North Bridge and the...
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Leslie’s Retreat 250
More local Revolutionary history! I know I have not been straying far from this focus lately, but this past weekend (well, really February 26) marked the 250th anniversary of Leslie’s Retreat here in...
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A Salem Women’s History Tour
For International Women’s Day today, I thought I would put together a walking tour of Salem women’s history. Of course, every street and every building in Salem has traces of women’s history, most of...
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Saints & Sinners & a Bad Professor
So you would think that I would be happy when an exhibition of paintings, texts and objects right in my teaching sweet spot of late Medieval/Renaissance/Reformation/Early Modern Europe comes to my very...
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Salem is a No-Show at Lexington and Concord
We are returning to the Revolution with the big Lexington & Concord 250th commemoration coming up next week! I find that I must revisit a question posed in a post several years ago: why didn’t...
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Salem Silk Swatches
Periodically I dip into the papers of Salem supercargo Benjamin Shreve (1780-1839), which offer interesting and insider perspectives on Salem’s early 19th century global trade. Fortunately these...
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My Top Ten Books on Salem’s Architectural History
I thought I would combine my traditional spring book list with the Preservation Month of May and put together a list of my top ten books on Salem architecture in historical context. I’m a rank amateur...
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