From the Vault - Marblehead Current

24 Jun

THE VAULT: Are you ready to hit the beach?

Submitted ContentColumns, Culture, From the Vault, Opinion

By Jarrett Zeman, Marblehead Museum If a Marblehead woman visited a beach in the 1890s, her bathing suit would have looked very different than swimwear today. The Marblehead Museum’s collection includes this cotton bathing suit, featuring a knee-length tunic with puffed sleeves and a sailor collar. The woman’s swimsuit was designed for “sea bathing,” which consisted of wading and socializing rather than swimming, as the suit could weigh 25 pounds when wet. Like most Victorian fashions, the primary goal was to maintain modesty, aided by…

03 Feb

FROM THE VAULT: Before CVS, there was William Goodwin, Marblehead’s 19th-century pharmacist

Submitted ContentFrom the Vault, Local History, Local News

By Lauren McCormack, executive director of the Marblehead Museum For much of the late 19th century, the row of buildings from 96 to 104 Washington St. was known as Drug Store Row. Three druggists — William H. Shepard (96 Washington St.), William M. Lemmon (98 Washington St.) and William Goodwin (104 – now 102 – Washington St.), vied for the town’s pharmaceutical customers. Last December, the descendants of William Goodwin donated items from their ancestor’s store, as well as a thoroughly-researched family history, containing numerous…

19 Nov

The Vault: Capturing history in a photo

Saoirse StallingsFrom the Vault, Local History

Marblehead shoemaker Eleazer Doliber bought this ambrotype of a 102-year-old Revolutionary War veteran. It is now at the Marblehead Museum. COURTESY PHOTO On October 7, 1860, a 102-year-old man hobbled into the studio of Southworth and Hawes at 19 Tremont Row in Boston. Infirm with age and grasping a wooden cane, he sat before a gray background and glowered at the camera for this ambrotype. Ralph Farnham was one of the last living veterans of the Revolutionary War. A farmer from Acton, Maine, he served…

07 Mar

FROM THE VAULT: Airplanes take flight around Marblehead Harbor

Will Dowd0 CommentsColumns, From the Vault, Local History

If you looked out onto Marblehead Harbor 110 years ago, you might have seen an airplane gliding across the ocean for takeoff. From 1909 to 1918, Marblehead was home to The Burgess Company. Founded by William Starling Burgess (1878-1947), who had already made a name for himself designing and constructing yachts in Marblehead, the company built over 40 models of airplanes during its nine years of operation, both for private individuals and governments. Many of these were seaplanes, designed to take off and land on…

10 Jan

FROM THE VAULT: Before Instagram, the Kodak camera captured local life in the 1900s

Will Dowd0 CommentsColumns, From the Vault, Local History

In this 1900 photo, a group of friends visit Fort Sewall on a snowy day. Two women hold Kodak snapshot cameras under their arms. To take photos, they loaded rolls of nitrate film, held the cameras against their chests and looked through a small viewfinder before clicking the shutter. They could create 100 exposures with each roll of film, which developed into 3 1/4-inch square photographs. Twelve years earlier, George Eastman introduced the Kodak camera in Rochester, New York. Marketed with the slogan, “You press…

03 Jan

FROM THE VAULT: When the bicycle boom rolled through Marblehead

Will Dowd0 CommentsColumns, Culture, From the Vault, Local History

In this 1898 photo, a group of friends rests beside a road to Danvers during a bicycle trip. In the late 1880s, so-called safety bicycles became popular among women. Safeties replaced earlier, big-wheeled bikes that were harder to ride. Clergy, who were worried at the time that women would abandon their roles as wives and mothers, discouraged women from riding any kind of bikes. Boston was America’s cycling capital, with the country’s first bicycle club, magazine and manufacturer — the Albert H. Pope Company. Naturally,…