North Adams

By Robert Campanile

North Adams is nestled in a comfortable valley in the northern Berkshire Mountains. It exhibits a rich diversity of character, mirrored by its textured and varied environment. The city s history goes back to the 1700s, with a military encounter during the French and Indian War that set the tone for future challenges. Through vintage postcards, North Adams reflects the unique history of this city. The postcards represent what is essentially a highlight tour of North Adams, a journey through its first golden era from its incorporation as a city in 1895 to the 1940s. Whether native, newcomer, or tourist, these postcards serve up a taste of North Adams that is both nostalgic and golden."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Feb 7, 2007
• ISBN: 9781439634615

Robert Campanile

Robert Campanile lectured and taught at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City before relocating to North Adams, where he designed the North Adams Museum of History and Science and the Vermont Covered Bridge Museum in Bennington, Vermont. He travels the Mohawk Trail through all seasons for inspiration and joy.

Book preview

love.

INTRODUCTION

North Adams is a city with a deep history both in time and in texture. While it has existed since 1740, first as a settlement of East Hoosuck, then as a city since 1895, this history will unfold during a unique period—its golden period, a vibrant period, when the prosperity of the city burst forth on the American landscape and reached out to touch the rest of the country like never before or, for that matter, since. It was a period of growth due to great engineering and manufacturing projects that advertised opportunity for an anxious immigrant infusion. It was a place that held an important natural commodity—its beautiful landscape—that was once again being recognized by city people across this new industrial nation as important for a full and satisfying life. Equally unique will be the vehicle for the telling of this history—the vintage penny postcard—which also had its golden period during the same era.

This volume will focus on the theme of vintage postcards, highlighting certain aspects of North Adams history. The chapters will play out the various themes chosen by the people of the times and the subject matter they chose to showcase to visitors, residents, and the rest of the world. In a sense, it is a history during the golden period of postcard production from the late 1800s through the 1940s. During this time, most postcards were printed in and imported from Germany until World War I when it became impractical to do so. At that time, manufacturers in the United States took advantage of the opportunity and produced some quality postcards.

In North Adams, the postcards portrayed a limited and finely focused history. The postcard does not play the same role as a historian or historical photographer. Postcards focus on themes and concepts while historians and photographers, who record history, value the fine details of history both positive and negative. It is always interesting to investigate what each city or town selects as its record of history lessons on a postcard. The postcards of North Adams are dominated for the most part by its natural beauty and the effort made by its inhabitants to blend their human-made intrusions to harmonize with the natural landscape. The reader should always keep in mind that these are postcard images; their primary objective was not to record or preserve history but to advertise a positive image of a locality. They were vehicles for a private message, a personal choice of image and words by a person to send to another person. The reader should sense that each image has a purposeful reason for being chosen as a portrait of North Adams and possesses, as equally, a purposeful choice to represent someone’s message on its back. Each postcard is essentially a sharing of thoughts and experiences, with each postcard image acting as the catalyst for both the sender’s and the city’s message.

Whether intentional or not in their manufacture, the impact of postcards had a dual role as both personal messengers and as history lessons of the times, however limited their scope may be. They are mail-order history lessons, visionary messengers, tidbits of trivia, instant you-are-there images. With very few exceptions, they usually record the best of the city and leave the complete history to other sources. However limited their recordings may be, it is a unique history.

In conclusion, I hope this volume will be both a visual odyssey for one’s eyes and one’s memories and a historical journey for the mind and for present and future generations. While a postcard carried a very personal message, ironically, it was never privatized by an envelope. That in itself makes its private message and choice of image very public. Considering its cost during those times, the vintage postcard truly could be a penny for your thoughts.

Robert Campanile

October 2006

One

THE VIEW

Bird’s-eye views of cities always made the perfect postcard image, and North Adams celebrated this format with abundance. This one, postmarked 1906, shows the city famous for its industrial might. As a city, North Adams was a mere 10 years old in 1906, but its industry dated back to the 1700s.

The next two postcard images provide a good sense of the city’s nestled environment between two mountain ranges. The view above is a classic from the summit of Hoosac Mountain that is reminiscent of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s thoughts when he first encountered the city of North Adams. Viewed from a hill to the westward ... a peculiarly happy and peaceful look ... it seems to lay in the hollow of a large hand. The second mountain view, which faces east, is from the opposite side on Greylock Mountain. The south branch of the Hoosac River is seen flowing across the foreground and the north