‘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 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.

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).