The Revolution in Color I decided to celebrate the debut of Ken Burns' new series on the American Revolution by getting out two old books which I always enjoy browsing through, and which I now realize were quite foundational in how I look (and I do mean look) at American history in particular and…

My Shaker Family I am very excited about The Testament of Ann Lee, the new film about the Shaker founder, because its sounds like quite the experience and I am descended from a Shaker family. I know that sounds like an odd thing to say, because one of the most conspicuous characteristics of the…

A Sampler of Salem Folk Art Salem is not particularly known for its folk art, I think. The standard for craftsmanship during the later eighteenth and early nineteenth century was so high, and production so prolific, that the curatorial and collecting emphasis always seems to be on the best and the…

“Salem is not a Theme Park” You hear my title phrase all the time in Salem now, with increasing frequency. It's a way to acknowledge the fact that residents of Salem have to (or want to): go to work, drive to their appointments, take their kids to school, walk along the sidewalk or sit on their…

The demolition of the East Wing of the White House. If I want to paint my 1827 house in Salem, Massachusetts the exact same color it is now, I have to get approval from our city's Historical Commission.

Limning the Local I've engaged in lots of different history here: a lot of public, some world, American and European, but above all, local. I'm always looking for new ways to delve into and present local history. I follow the sources, I chase down new perspectives and approaches whenever I catch a…

No Kings rally in York, Me.

So much WOOD! The Historic New England season is closing this Columbus/Indigenous People's Day weekend and as I am up in York Harbor, I went to visit one of HNE's oldest houses (both in terms of sheer vintage and time under its stewardship): the Jackson House in Portsmouth, built circa 1664. This…

Great event coming up at Salem State University in #SalemMA on October 29: a curated view of the multimedia approach crafted to tell the story of Ireland's last witch trial! #publichistory

Words or Pictures or Numbers? This post is about the work of a venerable but new-to-me graphic designer, Seymour Chwast, but before I get to him I have to explain how I got to him. If you have been reading the blog over the past year or so, you might have perceived that I have become mildly…

Schoolhouse to Outhouse I had some obligations here in Salem so could not leave the Witch City for the weekend, but I did spend yesterday driving around a little part of our county stopping in at open houses for the annual Essex Heritage Trails and Sails event series, which features an array of…

Escape to Old Newbury I had yet another "symbol trauma" (I have no other way to refer to it) on Friday when people starting sending me images of little anime cats with notes indicating that this was the new official mascot for Salem's 400th commemoration, Salem 400+. Was this a joke? Apparently…

I knew that my city was NOT SERIOUS about its long history---it profits on tragedy after all---but I had no idea it was this NOT SERIOUS. 400 years!

A Colonial Revival Dining Room I wrote the chapter on Salem's Colonial Revival movement in our forthcoming book Salem's Centuries, an effort that I think was pretty ballsy given that I am neither an American historican or an art/architectural historian. You can be sure that I had both types of…

Well this looks amazing!

Houses are History Last week I was thinking about all the things that annoy or concern me about Salem now, and the list seemed endless, which depressed me, and then I suddenly thought, why don't I focus on the things that I love about Salem so I won't be so depressed? This seemed like a good idea,…

Fall Reading 2025 The stars seem to have aligned and I am all set for a fall full of reading. Salem's Centuries is in production (and out on January 6), my new saffron project hasn't taken flight yet, and I have a course release for the semester. I've written two books in five years and now is the…

Up North for a Spell Sorry for the longer time between posts; I generally try (and succeed!) to post once a week but I was on vacation up in Maine and forgot my power cord, which might have been a good thing. I had my Fall Reading List all ready to post, but now I think I'll save that for next…

"Presidential Historian".

Cardboard & Chrome Last week was a little challenging here in Salem, with news of two local businesses closing: one decades old, the other an extremely popular retail shop which caters to residents rather than tourists. Such businesses seem fewer and fewer present along the streets of Salem, and…

Massachusetts Menus I had a more substantive post planned for this week but I took a little detour and so here I am with menus. I started to write about my experience as a tour guide at the Phillips House of Historic New England, as I'm in my second year and I thought it was time for some…

Hello #renaissance #reformation & #earlymodern historians: I'm really trying to rev up my Ren&Ref course this syllabus time: any inspiring/successful monographs, sources, websites that you could recommend? Melchior Lorck, Satire on the Papacy @metmuseum.org. Thanks!

I’m Confused by Pineapples This is one of those "writing it out" posts. It starts out with confusion in the hope that I can work it out, but I may not so it might end in confusion as well. I'm confused about the symbolism of pineapples. Of course everyone knows that pineapples represent…

Happy Birthday Hawthorne Hotel This week marks the 100th anniversary of the opening of the Hawthorne Hotel, which has been the center of so much of Salem's  social and civic life for a century. One thinks of a hotel as a place for visitors, and I suppose that has been the Hawthorne's primary…

Stone Enders I met several work deadlines last week so now it's officially summer road trip season: about time! So yesterday I drove south to Rhode Island to see a very distinct form of its early architecture: stone enders. This is a very descriptive term: stone enders are late 17th century houses…

Two Visions for Salem I'm in the history business, so I rarely dwell on visions, unless they are in the rear-view mirror. But last week I happened to take two photographs while running around in downtown Salem, and when I looked at them later on my phone I realized that they represented two…

Happy Fourth! Bridge & Northey Streets, Salem, Massachusetts,1876 from the Phillips Library of the Peabody Essex Museum.

A very important piece of ephemera as the Massachusetts was the first steam boat in Boston Bay. But it did not go well for her. Phillips Library, Peabody Essex Museum. #otd

“A Country by Itself” A mayoral task force commission has been meeting for the past few months, called to contextualize charges that Salem's City Seal is demeaning to Asian Americans and explicity rascist. The image in question depicts an apparent native of Sumatra's westernmost province of Aceh…

Benjamin Franklin's pseudonym mobilized again! www.bostonglobe.com/2025/06/27/l...

The Battle of Bunker Hill: it’s Personal A grand reenactment of the Battle of Bunker Hill to be staged at Gloucester's Stage Fort Park has been in the planning for months to mark its 250th anniversary and I planned to go on this past Saturday until just a few days before. On the actual…

Celebrating Juneteenth with our NAACP Image Award-winning book, ENVISIONING EMANCIPATION, by Deborah Willis and Barbara Krauthamer, which illustrates what freedom looked like for black Americans in the Civil War era.

So it is #BunkerHill day, and I'm wondering how historians of the American Revolution feel about the upcoming 250th anniversary reenacment this weekend in Gloucester, MA? Not my field, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. Of course the topography of Charlestown is completely different now, but....

Lieutenant Benjamin West, Salem's sole casualty at the Battle of Bunker Hill #otd 250 years ago. His sacrifice was unknown until his grand-nephew tracked it down decades later. Peabody Essex Museum portrait.

Patriot Properties An eventful weekend---one of several coming up this summer! I'm going to focus on one event out of several I participated in---a house tour of Patriots' homes in Marblehead---simply because it yielded the best pictures. Having done this a couple of times myself, I am always…

*Confused historians of early modern medicine wake up to find themselves experts on current affairs*

Twenty years since the Bewitched statue was installed in a #salemma square within sight of the location of the courthouse where the accused witches of 1692 were tried. And I think we have an answer to the question of whether there is no limit to the schmuck and hype.

Bunker Hill commemoration coming up! An opportunity to focus on the creation of the US Army in a more meaningful way than this weekend's co-opted event. @Rev250 events have been planned for quite some time, so hopefully are (somewhat) impervious to executive imperialism. @mhs1791.bsky.social

#FamilyHistory #genealogy If you'd like to celebrate the 250th birthday of the Army for real, may I recommend history.army.mil the website of the U.S. Army Center of Military History? Read a Unit History of the unit your relatives served in.

Military anniversaries, 1925: Soviet troops pay tribute to Lenin; a large crowd assembles in Cambridge, MA to hear President Coolidge pay tribute to the Continental Army. #armyanniversary

Summerlands I am just back from a very festive wedding in Mexico, blitzed and therefore completely incapable of presenting a proper post. But I have been saving up some images by Jazz Age commercial artist John Held, Jr. (1889-1958) for a while, and today seems like the perfect time to put them…

Hawthorne’s Salem Notebook For a blog with Salem in its title, I have written relatively few posts about witches, or Hawthorne. Faithful followers will understand the former slight, but I haven't really discussed my thoughts about Hawthorne here, I think. Essentially I am not a fan of the man or…

Bluesky folks seem to love both bunnies and cats so here is a photo of a Lynn, Massachusetts pet shop windows in the 1930s by Alton Blackington via Digital Commonwealth. #caturday

The lady's slippers have emerged! #gardeningfeed

White Houses of Thomaston We're up in midcoast Maine for a long Memorial Day weekend and I spent an afternoon walking around Thomaston, which was the site of a very early English arrival in 1605: I'm not sure why this is not more heralded, or at least discussed. It became a very important…

A former button factory in Waldoboro, Maine.

Sweet Cecily is the best herb for shade--and it's beautiful all summer. This is before ur New England nor'easter but after the dogwood petals fell. #gardeningfeed

Might Secretary Noem consult the great Magna Carta exhibition which is still up (for now) at the Library of Congress? Probably not: www.loc.gov/exhibits/mag....

Great photo of two newsboys in #salemma, c. 1910, from the Salem Boys and Girls Club collection at the #SalemState archives. Wish I could fix the resolution a bit, but you can clearly see the 10 cent cigar sign!