Tag: Massachusetts

The Sunday porch: Martha’s Vineyard

Cindy at enclos*ureLeave a comment

Writer Dorothy West on her porch in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, ca. 1981, by Judith Sedwick, via Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America on flickr (both photos here).

West’s writing desk. Click to enlarge.

In 1978, West had been a participant in the Black Women Oral History Project. In 1981, photographer Judith Sedwick made portraits of a number of the interviewees, including West.

West had lived in her family’s former vacation home at Oak Bluffs, Martha’s Vineyard, since 1947 and wrote articles and stories for the The Vineyard Gazette.

The Sunday porch: Boston

Cindy at enclos*ureLeave a comment

An unusual front stoop on Bennington Street in East Boston, near Logan Airport, next to the elevated East Boston Expressway, May 1973, by Michael Philip Manheim for DOCUMERICA, via The U.S. National Archives Commons on flickr.

I think the site of these houses is now the end of the Vienna Street exit from the expressway.

DOCUMERICA was a 1970s photography program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Manheim recorded the disruption to the lives of East Boston residents due to the expansion of Logan Airport.

There are more of his photos here.

Salem, Massachusetts

Cindy at enclos*ureLeave a comment

View of garden, looking south, Leverett Saltonstall Place, 41 Chestnut Street, Salem, Massachusetts, June 1940, by Frank O. Branzetti for an Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division (both photos).

In 1808 (or maybe 1810), Thomas Saunders built a double house for his two daughters, Caroline and Mary Elizabeth, and their husbands, brothers Nathaniel and Leverett Salstonstall.

The Leverett Salstonstalls lived in the no. 41 side, shown here.

Looking north.

The garden was also laid out about 1810. Its arrangement was reportedly the same as when this drawing was made in 1937.

Drawing by Louise Rowell, 1937, for the same HABS. Click to enlarge.

Mary and Leverett’s granddaughter, Mary Saltonstall Parker, also lived in the house in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She wrote several little books of sentimental verse that fed into the Colonial Revival movement of that period. During WWI, her needlework art was published in House Beautiful and other publications.

Nantucket, Massachusetts

Cindy at enclos*ureLeave a comment

3-picket-fences-nantucket-ma-habs-library-of-congressWhitewashed picket fence, Pleasant Street, Nantucket, Massachusetts, 1969, by Jack E. Boucher for Nantucket Historical Study, HABS, via  Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division (both photos).

Fence on Upper Main Street, Nantucket.

Is there a name for this style of picket fence — with three to four saw-tooths (saw-teeth?) on each wide board?  I feel like there must be, but I can’t find it.