Down to the Sea | From Our Archives

Martha Hale Harvey documented the landscapes and people of turn-of-the-century Cape Ann.

Among Martha Hale Harvey’s hundreds of photos of Cape Ann life is this portrait of her husband, George Wainwright Harvey (1855–1930), an oil and watercolor artist renowned for his landscape and maritime scenes. Born in Gloucester in 1862, Martha Hale Rogers married her fellow Gloucester native in 1884. They settled temporarily in the Netherlands so that George could study painting; he was particularly drawn to Dutch Impressionism. When the couple returned home, they set up adjoining studios in Annisquam, a picturesque waterfront neighborhood where the Annisquam River flows into Ipswich Bay, north of downtown Gloucester. There, until her death in 1949, Martha continued photographing her favorite subjects: sailboats and fishing vessels, lighthouses and churches, neighbors and visitors, intimate scenes and coastal pano­ramas, and always, always, the restless and ever-changing sea. Historic New England is now the keeper of a collection of more than 2,000 images of early New England life, mostly glass-plate negatives, amassed by Yankee founder Robb Sagendorph in the 1960s. The collection dates from the 1890s to the 1930s; many of the images are attributed to photojournalist Alton H. Blackington (1893–1963) and landscape photographer Martha Hale Harvey (1862–1949). In 1994, Yankee donated the archive to Historic New England. See more shots from the collection at: historicnewengland.org