Augustus Saint-Gaudens House, Cornish, New Hampshire

The home of Augustus Saint-Gaudens in Cornish, around 1885. Image from The Reminiscences of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Volume 1 (1913).

The scene in 2019:

Augustus Saint-Gaudens was one of the most prominent sculptors in American history, with a body of work that includes many important public monuments, along with the designs for several United States coins. Born in Ireland to an Irish mother and French father, Saint-Gaudens came to America in 1848 when he was six months old, and he subsequently grew up in New York City. Then, in the late 1860s he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and by the mid-1870s he had established himself as a successful sculptor.

It was a good time to be a sculptor in the United States at the time, given the large number of Civil War monuments that were being built around the country. Many of Saint-Gaudens’s most celebrated works were created in honor of Union heroes from the war, including statues of David G. Farragut, John A. Logan, Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, William T. Sherman, and Abraham Lincoln. In addition to these statues, his other major works included Diana for Madison Square Garden, The Puritan in Springfield, Massachusetts, and the Adams Memorial in Washington, D.C. Near the end of his life, Saint-Gaudens was also commissioned to redesign American coinage, and he supplied designs for new $10 and $20 coins before his death in 1907.

In 1885, in the midst of his career, Saint-Gaudens came to Cornish for the summer, at the suggestion of his friend Charles Cotesworth Beaman. A prominent attorney, Beaman owned several farms in Cornish, including this property, which was known as Huggins’ Folly. Saint-Gaudens and his rented it for the summer, and the first photo was taken on the front lawn at some point during the summer. In the photo, Augustus Saint-Gaudens himself is kneeling in the lower right corner. Standing in the foreground is his wife Augusta, and further to the left is their son Homer, who would have been about five years old at the time. Just to the left of Homer is Saint-Gaudens’s assistant Frederick William MacMonnies, and furthest to the left is his younger brother Louis Saint-Gaudens. Both of these men would become accomplished sculptors in their own right, and MacMonnies also had a successful career as a painter.

The Saint-Gaudens family would return here to Cornish for subsequent summers, and in 1891 he purchased the property from Beaman for $2,500 plus a bronze bust. He renamed it Aspet, after his father’s birthplace in France, and over the years he made a number of improvements, including landscaping the grounds and constructing studios and other outbuildings. As part of the landscaping, a honey locust was planted just to the right of the front steps, probably around 1886. This tree is still here, and now towers over the house in the center of the 2019 photo. Saint-Gaudens also made alterations to the main house, some of which are visible in this scene, including piazzas on either side of the house, a dormer window above the front door, and stepped parapets to replace the earlier sloped ones.

Saint-Gaudens moved into this house year-round in 1900, and he lived here until his death in 1907. This period marked the heyday of the Cornish Art Colony, which flourished in large part because of Saint Gaudens’s influence. During this time, dozens of prominent artists and other public figures spent summers in Cornish and the surrounding towns. Even Woodrow Wilson spent time in Cornish during his presidency, leasing the home of novelist Winston Churchill. The importance of the art colony steadily diminished after Saint-Gaudens’s death, but the town would continue to see prominent residents over the course of the 20th century, including writer J. D. Salinger, who died in Cornish in 2010.

In the meantime, this property remained in the Saint-Gaudens family until 1921, when Augusta transferred it to the Augustus Saint-Gaudens Memorial, an organization that she had established two years earlier. It was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1962, and then in 1964 it became the Saint-Gaudens National Historical Park, with the National Park Service acquiring the property a year later. It has remained open to the public ever since, and it features landscaped grounds and gardens, walking trails, several galleries, and one of Saint-Gaudens’s studio buildings. The main house, shown here in this scene, is also open for tours, and its appearance remains much the same as it did when Saint-Gaudens lived here more than a century ago.

Ventfort Hall Painters, Lenox, Mass

A group of painters standing on the steps of Ventfort Hall in Lenox, on May 13, 1893. Image courtesy of the Lenox Library Association.

The scene in 2018:

Ventfort Hall was completed in 1893, and it was originally the summer home of wealthy New York banker George Morgan and his wife Sarah, who was the sister of J. P. Morgan. Sarah had inherited $3 million (around $85 million today) when her father, Junius Spencer Morgan, died in 1890, and she and George subsequently purchased this property in Lenox and built this house. The first photo shows a group of painters, who are standing on the steps on the southwest side of the house on May 13, 1893. They were presumably working on putting the finishing touches on the new house, and preparing it for the 1893 summer season.

Sarah Morgan ultimately spent only a few summers here at Ventfort Hall before her death in 1896, but her family continued to own the property for several decades, often renting it out to other wealthy families. The Bonsal family purchased the house in 1925, and owned it until 1945, when it was sold and converted into a dormitory for Tanglewood. It would go through several more uses during the second half of the 20th century, and it was ultimately abandoned in the late 1980s and threatened with demolition.

Thankfully, Ventfort Hall was preserved and restored, starting in the late 1990s. It is now open to the public as the Ventfort Hall Mansion and Gilded Age Museum, and this scene on the steps is not significantly different from its appearance in the first photo, taken 125 years earlier. There have been a few changes, such as the installation of handrails on the steps and statues atop the balustrade on the left, and the steps themselves have seen more than a century of wear, but overall this spot is still easily recognizable from the first photo.

Inauguration of Abraham Lincoln, Washington, DC

The east front of the United States Capitol, during the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln on March 4, 1861. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.

The Capitol in 2018:

The first photo was taken around the same time as the one in a previous post, but this one shows the view from further back, with the entire unfinished Capitol dome in view, along with the crowd that had assembled for Lincoln’s first inauguration. It was the culmination of the highly-contentious 1860 presidential election, which saw the splintering of the Democratic Party into regional factions. Lincoln won the four-way race amid threats of secession from the south, and by the time he was inaugurated on March 4, 1861, seven southern states had followed through on their plans.

Because of this, there was a great deal of uncertainty on the day that the first photograph was taken. The start of the Civil War was just over a month away, and there were still plenty of questions about whether the South would be allowed to peacefully secede, or if the newly-inaugurated president would send an army to stop them. Appropriately enough, the backdrop to this event is the unfinished dome of the Capitol. Begun six years earlier, this new dome was still very much a work in progress during Lincoln’s inauguration, and it seemingly represented the as yet unfinished work of uniting the northern and southern regions of the nation.

The Capitol building itself is actually significantly older than this dome, though. Construction began in 1793, and the Senate and House wings were completed in 1800 and 1811, respectively. However, the building was burned in 1814, during the War of 1812, and its reconstruction was not ultimately finished until 1826. At the time, the building was topped by a low dome, which is visible in the first photo of another previous post. As the country grew, though, so did the Capitol building, and two new wings were added in the 1850s. As a result, the old dome looked out of proportion to the old building, so construction began on the current one in 1855.

During the early 19th century, the Capitol became the primary site of presidential inaugurations. At first, these ceremonies were held indoors, in either the Senate of House chambers, but in 1829 Andrew Jackson became the first president to be inaugurated here on the East Portico. This started a tradition that, with few exceptions, continued into the late 20th century. Jimmy Carter’s 1977 inauguration was the last to be held here on the East Portico, and since 1981 the ceremony has – with the exception of Ronald Reagan’s 1985 inauguration in the Rotunda – been held on the West Portico, on the side of the building facing the National Mall and the Washington Monument.

Four years to the day after the first photo was taken, Lincoln’s second inauguration would also be held here on the East Portico. By then, the exterior of the dome had been completed, and Lincoln’s goal of reuniting the nation had likewise been largely accomplished, with the end of the Civil War only weeks away. However, less than a week after Lee’s surrender, and only 42 days into his second term, Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, who had actually attended the second inauguration here, and had later claimed that he could have killed Lincoln during the event if he had wanted to.

Today, more than 150 years after the first photo was taken, the East Portico does not appear to have changed much. However, it actually underwent a major expansion starting in 1958, when a new portico was built 32 feet 6 inches in front of the old one. Aside from being built of marble, as opposed to the sandstone of the original walls, this new portico was essentially a duplicate. The old walls remain intact inside the building, although the original columns were removed and now stand in the National Arboretum. The 1958 renovations also involved the removal of two statues that once flanked the east steps. On the left, mostly hidden from view in the first photo, was Luigi Persico’s Discovery of America, and on the right was Horatio Greenough’s The Rescue. Both of these statues featured particularly unflattering depictions of Native Americans, and neither have been put on public display since then.

The other significant addition to this part of the Capitol occurred in the early 2000s, when the Capitol Visitor Center was constructed here. Consisting of 580,000 square feet of floor space on three floors, this massive expansion is almost entirely hidden from view in this scene, as it is located directly under the plaza in front of the East Portico. From this angle, the only visible signs of this underground complex are several skylights, including one on the far left side of the scene.

Hadley Company Mills, Holyoke, Mass

Looking north toward the Hadley Company mills, from the corner of Canal and Center Streets in Holyoke, around 1892. Image from Picturesque Hampden (1892).

The scene in 2017:

The caption of the first photo reads “Twelve o’clock at the Hadley Mills,” and it shows a group of workers leaving the Hadley Company thread mill in Holyoke, evidently on their lunch break. The factory is among the oldest in Holyoke, and was built around the late 1840s by the Hadley Falls Company. This company played a major role in turning Holyoke into a prosperous industrial center, including building the dam and canal system, but it was hit hard by the Panic of 1857 and the subsequent recession. The company’s assets were liquidated in 1859, and were subsequently acquired by the newly-established Holyoke Water Power Company.

In 1863, these mills here on Canal Street became the Hadley Company, a thread manufacturer that had no direct connection to its similarly-named predecessor. It was part of Holyoke’s booming textile industry, producing a variety of threads, yarns, and twine, and by 1879 it had an annual output of 727,315 pounds of yarn. Like most of Holyoke’s industries during this time, the company relied heavily on immigrant labor, and many workers lived in the nearby tenement rowhouses on the other side of Canal Street.

The Hadley Company was acquired by the American Thread Company in 1898, at a time when many industries were consolidating into large corporations. This mill was operated as a division of American Thread for the next few decades, but it was closed in 1928, leaving about a thousand workers unemployed on the eve of the Great Depression. At the time, the New England textile industry was in decline, and the nearby Lyman Mills here in Holyoke had closed just a year earlier, leaving a similar number of unemployed workers. However, it would only get worse for Holyoke, which would continue to lose its industrial base throughout the mid- to late-20th century.

By the 1940s, this mill complex had become the home of the Graham Manufacturing Company, which was later acquired by Johnson & Johnson. Today, the former Hadley Company property has a variety of different owners, but many of the historic mill buildings are still standing, including the three in this scene. The building in the center has lost its cupola, and the fence in the foreground is long gone, but otherwise the scene is still easily recognizable from the first photo 125 years ago.

Front Steps, First Presbyterian Church, Holyoke, Mass

A group of children sitting on the front steps of the First Presbyterian Church, at 237 Chestnut Street in Holyoke, around 1892. Image from Picturesque Hampden (1892).

The scene in 2017:

As discussed in the previous post, the First Presbyterian Church of Holyoke was established in 1886, and moved into this newly-completed Romanesque Revival-style building two years later. It was built of contrasting granite and brownstone blocks, and had two front entrances on the Chestnut Street side. This particular scene shows the northwestern entrance, which is on the right side of the building when facing it from the street, and it provides good detail of the rough-faced blocks that make up the exterior of the building.

The first photo was taken only a few years after the church was completed, and shows a group of five young children sitting on the front steps. Although the children are unidentified, their parents likely worked in some of the many factories in Holyoke, and they themselves probably ended up working in the factories too. Some may have even attended this church for the rest of their lives, since the building was owned by the First Presbyterian Church for more than a century after the photo was taken.

Today, around 125 years later, not much has changed in this scene. The church is still standing, and this entrance has seen only minor changes, such as a new door and the addition of railings on the steps. The building is a good example of Romanesque Revival architecture, and it is one of many historic 19th century churches in Holyoke. Although the original congregation sold it in 2002, is still in use as a church, and is now the home of the Centro de Restauracion Emanuel.

Main Street Pedestrians, Brattleboro, Vermont

Pedestrians on the sidewalk of Main Street, near the corner of Elliot Street in Brattleboro, in August 1941. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, FSA/OWI Collection.

The scene in 2017:

The first photo was taken in August 1941 by Jack Delano, a prominent photographer who was, at the time, working for the Farm Security Administration. Among the projects of this New Deal-era agency was hiring photographers to document living conditions in rural America in the wake of the Great Depression, and Delano traveled throughout Vermont during the summer of 1941. He took a number of photographs in downtown Brattleboro, showing everyday life in the small town on the eve of World War II. These two young people were the subjects of several of his photographs, and his original caption reads “On the main street of Brattleboro, Vermont, during the tourist season.”

The first photo does not show much of the surrounding streetscape, but several historic buildings are visible across the street. To the left of the lamppost is the stone building at 109-113 Main Street, which was built around 1850 and features an exterior facade that contrasts with the more conventional brick of the surrounding buildings. On the right side of the photo is the Union Block, which was built around 1861 and was evidently named in recognition of the patriotic sentiment at the start of the Civil War. Both of these stores housed discount department stores when the first photo was taken, with F. W. Woolworth on the left and M. H. Fishman on the right.

More than 75 years after the first photo was taken, this scene has not significantly changed. Most of the historic commercial blocks on Main Street are still standing, including the two in this scene, and even the present-day fire hydrant is still in the same location as the one in the first photo. The only noticeable difference – aside from the modern cars – is the change in the businesses occupying the storefronts. The era of downtown department stores is long gone, and both Woolworth and Fishman have since gone out of business. However, unlike many other downtowns, Brattleboro has managed to retain a thriving Main Street, and the storefronts here now house an eclectic mix of different businesses.