Peabody Essex Museum, Historic Houses, Women Artists and Artifacts, and Louise du Pont Crowninshield
East India Square

The Peabody Essex Museum, formed in 1992 with the consolidation of the Peabody Museum of Salem and the Essex Institute, contains renowned collections of maritime and American art, history, and architecture with many ties to women’s lives including decorative arts, folk art, portraits, and textiles (including girls’ samplers). The Peabody Essex Museum also owns and operates twenty-six historic houses that provide a window on daily life in colonial and Federal-era Salem. One of these properties, the John Ward House at 132 Essex Street, contained one of Salem’s Cent Shops (see S46) and, much later, was the studio of artist Sarah W. Symonds (see below). Another was the home of two generations of Nichols sisters (see S23), and one more belonged to the Ropes sisters (see S25). The museum’s most recent initiative in interpreting the lives of women through their historic houses is the Vilate Young House (see S10).

Among the many women artists whose work is contained in the museum’s collections is Lucy Hiller Lambert Cleveland (1780-1866), a Salem-born textile artist, author, and social reformer who created folk art sculpture she called “figures of rags” or “vignettes” that she exhibited and sold at charitable fairs to raise money and express her support for reform movements, according to museum curator Paula Richter.⁸⁷ In 1852, for example, Lucy submitted an example of her work to the Shirtwoman’s Union Fair in New York City “that raised twenty dollars for the financial relief of women garment workers… an example of how American women engaged in social and political debate before women’s suffrage.”⁸⁸ Lucy’s children’s books, published anonymously in Boston between about 1827 and 1842, engaged her young readers in such topics as slavery, temperance, and social benevolence. By working in two mediums, both submitted to a public forum, Lucy added her voice to the tumultuous forces that were shaping American society prior to the Civil War.”⁸⁹ She lived long enough to see the abolition of slavery in 1863, and created one of her final vignettes she called Free! in celebration.

Sarah W. Symonds (1870-1965), who was mentioned earlier, was widely known for her figurines and bas relief plaques of historic sites throughout New England that “recall our colorful past.”⁹⁰ The daughter of Lydia F. DaCosta and Lemuel W. Symonds, Sarah graduated from Emerson College in Boston “at a time when only a few courageous daughters of America were launching careers on their own,” according to a 1976 Antiques Journal article written during America’s bicentennial.⁹¹ At first, she studied oratory, but Sarah soon determined that artistic modeling was where she could “make her mark.” It is thought that her inspiration was derived from another Salem woman sculptor, Louisa Lander (see S40), and Sarah became quite successful and sought-after for her ivory-finished or painted molds in shades of tan and brown. Sarah opened her first studio in the John Ward House, her second was at 1 Brown Street, a gift shop followed at the Hawthorne Hotel, and eventually there was a summer shop in nearby Marblehead. She was a skillful marketer, and advertised and filled orders herself. Her artistic reputation established, Sarah also created a line of mementos for tourists, including incense burners, witch-stirred caldrons, door knockers, and paper weights. It was said of her that “the merit of Sarah W. Symonds’ work is her choice of subject, her feeling for it, and the truth of her expression; she not only created but embalmed.”⁹² Sarah continued working well into her eightieth year, and enjoyed great celebrity late in her life.

Another well-known artist in her day was Sarah Gooll Putnam (1772-1864), who was born in Salem just before the start of the American Revolution. She was the niece of Revolutionary War hero Timothy Pickering, and from childhood was “deeply imbued with the high-souled patriotism of those days” — never forgetting what it was like to dance in the same set as George Washington when he visited Salem in 1789.⁹³ She “beheld in her childhood the birth of the nation… she ever felt the deepest interest in all affecting its welfare and its honor… she lived to see its present terrible struggle for life… and her last days were cheered and made happier by the conviction that it had passed safely through the most perilous portion of the trial, and proved itself to be founded upon a rock, which cannot hereafter be shaken.”⁹⁴ Sarah was particularly well known for her exquisite embroidery, often giving samples to wounded soldiers during the Civil War. Years later, it would be said about her that “many a wounded, sick, or weary one has been unconsciously relieved and made happier by the proceeds of her constant pleasing devotion of this talent in their behalf.”⁹⁵ She donated numerous items to wartime Sanitary Commissions, Sailors’ Fairs, and the Children’s Mission to the Children of the Destitute, and painted portraits of Edward Silsbee and Clara Endicott Payson. Both of these portraits are owned by the Peabody Essex Museum. An avid reader, Sarah never tired of learning. She also married Samuel Putnam in 1795 and had five children. In a tribute to her life published in the Boston Daily Advertiser, it was written that “it is but simple justice to say of this honored lady, that her life has been a great and unmingled blessing to all with whom she was connected; and that her memory will continue to be one alike to the old and the young who had the privilege to know her.”⁹⁶ In a sermon preached in tribute to Sarah, it was said that “she never felt old, as she never looked old; never lost that mental or spiritual strength, in whose decline age is commonly thought to exist.”⁹⁷

Along with works by these women, the Peabody Essex Museum also owns the famous Holingworth/English chair once owned by Mary Holingworth (1652-94). Mary and her husband, Philip English, were both accused of witchcraft in 1692 but managed to use their wealth and influence to escape. When she was accused, Mary was so convinced she would be put to death that she made arrangements to care for her children’s education and for her servants. Her husband was accused nine days later, but through the pleas of friends, they were removed from Salem to Boston where they were imprisoned. According to Mrs. N. S. Bell in her book Pathways of the Puritans, “tradition has it that some New York merchant friends sent on a carriage in which Philip and his wife escaped; and that the colonial authorities conveniently closed their eyes.”⁹⁸ The following year, the couple returned to Salem where there was rejoicing that they had been spared. But Mary, due to her ill treatment in prison, became an invalid and died at the age of forty-two. In 1783, when their house was torn down, builders found a secret room in the garret “supposed to have been built after the witchcraft furor, as a place of temporary concealment in case of a second hue and cry.”⁹⁹

Other items in the Museum’s collections having to do with women’s history include a sampler by Mary Holingworth; Colonial Revival samplers by Mary Saltonstall Parker (see S31); a sewing table once owned by North Shore author Lucy Larcom (1824-93); a dressing table belonging to Elizabeth Derby West (1762-1814), a leading patron of decorative arts and architecture during Salem’s federal period; two paintings by Sophia Peabody Hawthorne (see S13); portrait miniatures by Sarah Lockhart Allen (see S34); and the cart Mary Spencer used to sell her famous “Gibraltar” candy (see S3).

At the Peabody Essex Museum, we remember Louise du Pont Crowninshield (1877-1958) who was born at Winterthur, Delaware. Like many girls of wealthy families, Louise was educated at home and grew up in a family with a tradition of philanthropy and historic preservation. At twenty, she organized a group of women called the Willing Helpers to make clothes for babies in poor families. Louise married Francis Crowninshield in 1900, and began spending her summers in Marblehead. She was instrumental in restoring the Lee Mansion in Marblehead and later the Saugus Ironworks in Saugus, Massachusetts. At the Peabody Essex Museum, Louise helped create a gallery to honor her husband’s family, involving herself in the choice and placement of objects. Her clear-headed, decisive, and creative style was said to have been respected by all who knew her, and when she died a memorial concert in Louise’s honor was held at the museum.

Notes
87. Paula Richter, “Lucy Cleveland, Folk Artist,” Antiques Magazine, August, 2000, 204-6.

88. Ibid., 206.

89. Ibid., 209.

90. Barbara White Morse, “The Bas Relief Plaques of Sarah W. Symonds,” The Antiques Journal, Sept., 1976, 44.

91. Ibid.

92. Ibid., 46.

93. Boston Daily Advertiser, Nov. 23, 1864, 16.

94. Ibid., 17.

95. Ibid.

96. Ibid., 18.

97. Ibid., 19.

98. Mrs. N. S. Bell, Pathways of the Puritans (Framingham, Mass., 1930), 205.

99. Ibid., 204.