On Local Historical Societies

The snow has started [again--supposedly another 12-16 inches]; the white bean, kale, turkey sausage soup is on the stove; and it's a new month. Methinks it's time for a post. Welcome March--in like the lion--apparently.

Yesterday I had the distinct pleasure of visiting the new site of the Georgetown, Maine Historical Society in [you guessed it] Georgetown, Maine. Georgetown is a small coastal community outside of Bath and is the site of the book project I am working on about modernists who came to Georgetown in the late-nineteenth century, and then again in the 1920s and 1930s.

I've spent a good deal of time over the course of the past 8 years in Georgetown--mostly at the Chalet--the former summer residence of the photographer F. Holland Day--one of the main characters in my dissertation. For my second project, I'm back in Georgetown, but looking at a whole new crew of modernists including: Gaston Lachaise, the Zorachs, Marsden Hartley, Paul and Rebecca Strand, and others. I'd like to forge a connection between the early modernists [Day, Clarence White, Max Weber, Gertrude Kasebier and the like] and the latter--using Georgetown as an alternative site of American modernism, a place both groups came to escape from New York [and Alfred Stieglitz]. Why Georgetown?

Well, that's the question really, and one the historical society is also trying to figure out.

When I was researching my dissertation, GHS was just a tiny shack-like building on the second bridge into town. Now, it's a lovely multi-room cathedral ceilinged building with lots of light, research and storage space, and also a gallery/exhibition space that can hold 100 people.

I arrived at 10am [it's open to the public in the winter on Wednesdays and Saturdays] and was greeted by Lynne and Jeanne who gave me a tour of the new space and set me up at a table to work. Since I'd last done work there, Clarence H. White's daughter-in-law had left a portion of her estate to the society, and there were lots of new photographic materials and ephemera.

GHS also had a resource that proved to be invaluable--the guest book from the Seguinland Hotel from 1934-1937. The Seguinland [now Gray Havens] was essentially the only "hotel" in the area at the time, and was where the Strands, Hartley, and others came to stay. Yesterday, as I poured through the register, I was able to find the Strands multiple times [and one more than I thought would be there], Hartley, the Lachaises and even Paul Rosenfeld [big find]. This seemingly insignificant crumbling register has provided me with an extremely key piece of evidence--namely WHEN and HOW LONG the characters at the center of the new project were in Georgetown.

I think sometimes people often overlook local historical societies, not really imagining just what might be hiding in the back rooms and notebooks, but also dismissing the knowledge and expertise of the volunteers. Jeanne and Lynne were extremely knowledgeable, and, at the same time, desirous to know more. In our eventual sharing of information and research [checking what GHS has against what I've found at the Beinecke, what I will find at CCP, etc] I think a much clearer picture will emerge of just why these men and women fled to Georgetown and found exile there.

Jeanne has also begun a large map as to where these artists were in Georgetown and when [visually SO helpful] as well as a web of interactions and friendships between them. The web is only growing and we were able to add a few more yesterday. I was also able to go and see the former Lachaise House and Studio at Indian Point--a house I've passed COUNTLESS times on the way to the Chalet.

It was a lovely morning, and I can't wait to go back and dig through more. It's further evidence of the underlying principle of my whole project--how friendship and collaboration can influence cultural production.

Thanks GHS. I'll be back soon. This weekend, I'll be going up to Bates to look at the Hartley collection, given by his niece. Can't wait! Providing the snow stops, that is. Old man winter is hanging on tight up here.