‘All Aboard for Quisset’ | Timeless New England
Baldwin Coolidge found inspiration in the comings and goings of Woods Hole scientists and students. The intersection of art and science came together when Baldwin Coolidge (1845–1928) brought his heavy, large-format cameras and dry-plate glass negatives to the dock on Quissett Harbor in 1897, at a time when Woods Hole, a village in the town […]
The Vigilant, Falmouth, Mass., 1897.
Photo Credit : Baldwin Coolidge Collection/Historic New EnglandBaldwin Coolidge found inspiration in the comings and goings of Woods Hole scientists and students.
Photo Credit : Baldwin Coolidge Collection/Historic New England
The intersection of art and science came together when Baldwin Coolidge (1845–1928) brought his heavy, large-format cameras and dry-plate glass negatives to the dock on Quissett Harbor in 1897, at a time when Woods Hole, a village in the town of Falmouth, Massachusetts, was already amassing a reputation for its oceanographic research. Coolidge had made his mark as a Boston photographer, especially with his exquisite portraits of art and priceless objects shown at the Museum of Fine Arts. But when summer came, he’d retreat to Cape Cod and a studio on Martha’s Vineyard. He was drawn to the countryside and to Quissett Harbor life (he spelled it Quisset), but especially to the Woods Hole students who spent days collecting marine specimens. On this voyage aboard the Vigilant in 1897 was 23-year-old Gertrude Stein. Just six years later she would move to Paris and in time become both a famous writer and a cultivator of artists and writers, including Picasso and Hemingway. But all that still lay ahead. Here she stands in the stern (at far right in this photo), a young woman immersed in the pursuit of tiny sea organisms, hopeful of becoming a doctor: one more image in a lifetime of frames preserved for history by Baldwin Coolidge.
Historic New England has a collection of more than 2,000 regional images by Baldwin Coolidge. To learn more and to order prints, contact: archives@historicnewengland.org.
Photo Credit : Baldwin Coolidge Collection/Historic New England
To see additional Coolidge photos online, visit: woodsholemuseum.org/wordpress. The Woods Hole Historical Museum has also published a book of Coolidge’s work: New England Views: The Photography of Baldwin Coolidge (1845-1928).
Mel Allen
Mel Allen is the fifth editor of Yankee Magazine since its beginning in 1935. His first byline in Yankee appeared in 1977 and he joined the staff in 1979 as a senior editor. Eventually he became executive editor and in the summer of 2006 became editor. During his career he has edited and written for every section of the magazine, including home, food, and travel, while his pursuit of long form story telling has always been vital to his mission as well. He has raced a sled dog team, crawled into the dens of black bears, fished with the legendary Ted Williams, profiled astronaut Alan Shephard, and stood beneath a battleship before it was launched. He also once helped author Stephen King round up his pigs for market, but that story is for another day. Mel taught fourth grade in Maine for three years and believes that his education as a writer began when he had to hold the attention of 29 children through months of Maine winters. He learned you had to grab their attention and hold it. After 12 years teaching magazine writing at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, he now teaches in the MFA creative nonfiction program at Bay Path University in Longmeadow, Massachusetts. Like all editors, his greatest joy is finding new talent and bringing their work to light.
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