Documents scanned at the historical room of the local library:

Links:

Suffield:

Phelps-Hatheway House & Garden: http://www.ctlandmarks.org/phelps.php

Willis Seaver Adams:

Adams considered himself a colorist. We reflected on Emily Dickinson's celebration of color in her poem, Blazing in gold and quenching in purple as well as the color in Whitman's Spontaneous Me.

Blazing in gold and quenching in purple,
Leaping like leopards to the sky,
Then at the feet of the old horizon
Laying her spotted face, to die;

Stooping as low as the kitchen window, 5
Touching the roof and tinting the barn,
Kissing her bonnet to the meadow,—
And the juggler of day is gone!

SPONTANEOUS me, Nature,
The loving day, the mounting sun, the friend I am happy with,
The arm of my friend hanging idly over my shoulder,
The hill-side whiten’d with blossoms of the mountain ash,
The same, late in autumn—the hues of red, yellow, drab, purple, and light and dark
green,
The rich coverlid of the grass—animals and birds—the private untrimm’d
bank—the primitive apples—the pebble-stones,
Beautiful dripping fragments—the negligent list of one after another, as I happen to
call them to me, or think of them,
The real poems.

Our American Studies Projects

Hello Co-investigators, here are some guidelines for making a web page for gravestone iconography:

1. One Gravestone from the 1700s or early 1800s; have text explaining the iconography of the parts of your gravestone (see web page below to help you understand the parts); click here for my example of Sam Kent, Esq. gravestone.
2. Become an expert about a local artifact, a building or historic house, an aspect of architecture (roof(s), doorway; you can focus on a specific feature of the Phelps-Hatheway House. Before I list specific examples, let me explain how we can try to come to terms with the artifact or object. First explain and identify your object; then write about what interests you in this artifact or topic. Next try to explain how your object relates to a period in your history class as well as a character, plot, or literary situation from our class.

• First find a grave stone image that you like and put it into your I-Photo library. Then make three copies of the photo. You will then crop two; one crop will focus on the text of the gravestone; the other cropped photo will show the main icon(s) or symbols.
• Now put copies of all three images on your desktop and label them "main.grave.JPG" for the main photograph of the whole head stone; "text.grave.JPG" for the text part, "icon.grave.JPG" for the icon or symbol.
• Now open your sites folder in your server files and place the JPGs there.
• Begin a new ".html" document by following the previous steps for that; when it comes time to insert your images, be sure that you are checking the root folder and you are selecting them from your sites folder on the server.

Web pages to help you understand and interpret your iconography:

• First, to capture the spirit of our project, let's read Nathanial Hawthorne's reflections from 1838 when he wrote about spending time in his village's grave yard looking at his family's graves (remember from our work with Young Goodman Brown that his grandfather was a judge at the Salem Witch Trials.
• An interesting group called Saving Graves has an interesting of symbols and with interpretations: http://www.savinggraves.com/education/bookshelf/carvings.htm
• This page will help you identify the parts of your gravestone: http://www.primaryresearch.org/PRTHB/gravestones/index.php
• City of Boston; an informative site and authoratative because my college roommate works in the office knows the author personally; http://www.cityofboston.gov/parks/hbgi/iconography.asp
• Yale New Haven Teachers Institute: http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/2003/2/03.02.01.x.html#g
• The Association for Gravestone Studies: http://www.gravestonestudies.org/
• http://www.ctgravestones.com/aboutCGN.htmThis site has some explanations of symbols; it also explains how scholars disagree with each other's interpretations. http://www.gravestonestudies.org/faq.htm#Symbolism%20on%20Gravestones
• This site will help us for gravestones and other web sites for our primary research: http://www.primaryresearch.org/PRTHB/weblinks.php

The Lunette and Finials; Lunette hosts a cherub which had taken the place of death's head figure. Many scholars suggests that this symbol represents the soul's flight to heaven. The finial resembles the "Whorl" and "Pie" shape designs. Note also the border, signifying stability and order.

Inscription reads: In Memory of Sam Kent Esqr. who died 28th of Octr, 1772, in the 74 Years of his Age.

Here are some potential topics and artifacts: Asher Benjamin, the architect; the beautiful large beech tree; such as.

Skinner State Park Info: http://www.mass.gov/dcr/parks/central/skin.htm

Click here to listen to Naturalist Lorrie Sander's short mp3 about the "The Holyoke Range--Art, Literature, Nature, & American History." http://www.wfcr.org/field_notes/naturalareas/holyoke_range.mp3

August 30, 2002, Mt. Holyoke's Art Museum's Inaugural Exhibition to Feature Thomas Cole's 1836 Painting The Oxbow. http://www.mtholyoke.edu/offices/comm/csj/083002/oxbow.shtml Thomas Cole's View from Mt. Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm (The Oxbow), 1836, oil on canvas. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Mrs. Russell Sage, 1908. The Oxbow is included in the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum's exhibition Changing Prospects: The View from Mount Holyoke, which examines the historical significance of the College's namesake, Mount Holyoke.

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/offices/artmuseum/news/f02/exhibitions.html Changing Prospects: The View from Mount Holyoke; David John Gue, View from Mount Holyoke: The summit of Mt. Holyoke has long attracted visitors, including artists and writers, in search of edification and enjoyment. The second most popular tourist destination in the 19th century, the mountain gained status as a national icon.

Mount Holyoke, Massachusetts, "the Paradise of America" - Current and Coming: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1026/is_3_162/ai_91088102

Mt. Holyoke Historical Timelines: great site for the history of the mountain; has many links for maps and historical documents (maps). http://www.chronos-historical.org/mtholyoke/index.html

Scenic America: (http://www.scenic.org/) "Throughout the country, our most cherished scenic resources and hometown assets are being obscured by a blizzard of monstrous billboards, badly sited telecommunications towers, a tangle of overhead lines, and a hodgepodge of visual clutter. Open space is being lost. Our natural and cultural heritage is being buried under unconstrained development and poorly designed transportation systems."

SAVE THE MOUNTAIN! "We are a group of citizens dedicated to the protection and preservation of the Mt. Holyoke and Mt Tom Ranges of western Massachusetts." http://www.savemtholyokerange.com/