Subjects

Description

This series contains 4 X 5 glass plate, acetate, and nitrate negatives arranged by subjects in alphabetical order. The negatives were originally ordered and catalogued by Yankee Publishing Librarian and Archivist Lorna Trowbridge and those subjects has been maintained. The subjects include a wide variety of topics that exemplify life in New England in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. There are negatives of ordinary landscapes and items, including automobiles, bridges, fishes, flowers, milk cans, trees, and traffic. The negatives also capture important events of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, such as the Amelia Earhart reception at the Boston Airport, the Hindenberg air disasters, the Pickwick Club disaster, forest fires, floods of 1927, 1936, and 1937, the Hurricane of 1938, and the Boston Tercentenary. In addition, the negatives depict New Englanders participating in numerous activities, such as camping, fishing, yachting and sailing, picking cranberries, and canoeing. Lastly, the series includes many images of President Calvin Coolidge, his home in Vermont, his family, and his time spent at White Court, a house in Swampscott, Massachusetts. Many of the photographs are by Alton H. Blackington, although individual negatives are not labeled with a photographer name. The subjects of the images are very diverse and widespread, allowing for a broad understanding of New England life.