[Two years ago
this week, I moved to my new home in Waltham,
Massachusetts. Since then I’ve learned a lot more about the histories and
stories of this great town, and wanted to share a few of them this week,
leading up to a Guest Post from one of my favorite Walthamites!]
Three of the
many compelling document collections held at Waltham’s National Archives.
1)
The Mount
Vernon’s records: In 1803, the Mount Vernon, a tall ship out of Salem,
Massachusetts, undertook its first international voyage. This was the era known
as the
Great Age of Sail, and we can learn a great deal about that era and its
histories through the specific details provided in the Mount Vernon’s records. For example, the ship’s
“Return of Goods” documents not only the cargo that the ship carried away
from Salem but from where that cargo had originated, offering an illuminating
glimpse into the multiple stages of the period’s Triangle
Trade.
2)
Nathaniel
Prentice Banks: The life story of Waltham’s own Nathaniel P. Banks reads
like a primer on 19th century American history: an apprentice at a local
cotton factory who studied law and became a state representative, marrying a
fellow former factory employee along the way; then a Free Soiler who joined the
new Republican Party and served as the state’s first Republican governor during
the years leading up to the Civil War; then a Civil War General who gained some
of the war’s most significant victories; and finally an activist Congressman in
the tumultuous post-war decades. The Archives holds documents for every one of
those stages, from a sketch
of Banks’ childhood home to a letter
from Grant to Lincoln relaying info about Banks’ role in the siege of
Vicksburg.
3)
America on
the Homefront: Despite our many prominent histories and stories of World
War II, I don’t know that we have much of a collective sense of the wartime
experience of average Americans and their communities. The American on the
Homefront exhibition, a collection of documents and materials assembled from
the Archives’ records, does a wonderful job highlighting a number of such
experiences: from the broadly familiar (women
in the workforce) to the mostly unremembered (coastal
patrols watching for German submarines). Just another example of how much
we can learn from a site like the National Archives at Boston!
Last history tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Any histories and stories from your hometowns you’d share?
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