Weather-beaten fish houses on the waterfront, the village homes and summer boarding houses, the majestic cliffs of the outer island and the busy harbor--these are the Monhegan Island scenes photographed in the late 1890s by photographer Eric Hudson. His works, in 125 duotone photographs, are featured in "An Eye for the Coast", with captions and text by Shettleworth and Bunting.

An Eye for the Coast: The Maritime and Monhegan Island Photographs of Eric Hudson

History

Shettleworth, Earle G., Jr.

Hudson, Eric

Bunting, W. H.

Americas

Tilbury House Pub

These extraordinary collections of photographs and narrative captions have wide appeal for anyone interested in Maine's past. Bunting has a knack for spotting the unusual in a photograph, or some minor detail that, in fact, tells a major story about the how and why. From granite quarry operations to an itinerant cobbler in a sailing scow to hootchie-kootchie dancers at the state fair to deepwater ships, his page-long captions place these images in social and economic context--but this is not dry history. His research has uncovered a wealth of fascinating, often quirky detail (did you know that mummy wrappings were imported from Egypt for Maine papermaking?), and he makes frequent forays into the Maine storytelling tradition. B&amp;W photographs

Day's Work, Part 2

Arts & Photography

Photography & Video

Tilbury House

Some people seem to be born with salt water running in their veins. As soon as they are able, they go to sea. For certain young men at the turn of the last century, this was as much a rite of passage as making the grand tour. In most cases the experience was a transitory adventure; for a few it was a life-shaping experience. Seastruck is about the final decades of American square-rigged sail, as recorded in firsthand accounts of voyages made by three well-born young men from Massachusetts. The city of New Bedford looms large here--two young men, Frank Besse and Rodman Swift, came from families prominent in the whaling industry, and old whaling money financed the construction of two ships, the William J. Rotch and the Guy C. Goss, both built in Bath, Maine, under the direction of Captain William Besse of New Bedford (and cousin of young Frank). Young Tod Swift, scion of the prominent Rotch and Swift families of New Bedford and just graduated from Harvard, chose to go to sea as an ordinary seaman, much to the distress of his mother, who was particularly upset that he hadn't packed his pajamas! Frank Besse, and a third young man, Carleton Allen, each sailed as paying passengers aboard their ships; even from that more sheltered vantage point, their accounts are fascinating. But Tod Swift's journal, kept in secret aboard the steel four-masted bark Astral, relates the reality of a prolonged, hungry, and difficult voyage from Philadelphia to Japan and San Francisco. His account is made even more compelling by interspersed excerpts from Astral's official log-which makes no mention of the fire that nearly doomed the ship, or that the hated cook was always armed with a cleaver, or that the crewwent on strike (and the captain called it mutiny). There is plenty of adventure here--storms, men overboard, a cargo of Chinese passengers, discipline that bordered on brutality, and exotic Far East ports--but these interwoven stories also demonstrate the fascinating web of connections in the New England maritime community. Frank and Carleton became bankers later in life and Tod an engineer. Swift had a small schooner built and until the end of his life, Tod Swift and Tyche were an integral part of the Martha's Vineyard waterfront.

Sea Struck

Howland, Llewellyn

Cameras float coastward. Almost every old family photograph album contains snapshots of children and sand pails, teenagers frolicking in surf or rowing a rental skiff, young couples half blinded by love and half blinded by beach-reflected sun, mothers with infants shaded by makeshift tents, and old-timers ensconced in folding beach chairs, often shielded by umbrellas.... Now and then the rummager of attics and antique shops finds other photographs, usually made from ferries or other commercial craft passing parallel to industrial waterfronts, beneath drawbridges, beside shipyards, sweeping professional and holiday-making image-makers just a wee bit offshore. Sometimes the photographs lie mixed with memorabilia: the steamship ticket or schedule, vacation map, restaurant menu, advertising label or other ephemera that people picked up, brought home, and preserved as they did shells, rounded stones, and sea glass gleaned from beaches. Taken together, arranged and rearranged, juxtaposed and analyzed, they form a kaleidoscopic vision...." From the Introduction by John R. Stilgoe The Camera's Coast: Historic Images of Ship and Shore in New England is a wonderful collection of historic photographs, paired with a rich assortment of ephemera - the subtle colors of an old postcard, the seductive details of an advertisement, a gay poster - engagingly captioned by W. H. Bunting. This page-by-page panorama of New England coastal activity from the late-nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries ranges from the ordinary to the extraordinary, from leisure and recreation to hard work. The imagery is mostly bygone but still strongly connected to our present-day landscape. The Camera's Coast began several years ago as a traveling Historic New England exhibition of photographs with informative captions by guest curator Bunting, a maritime historian who brings old photographs to life with small stories - sometimes humorous, sometimes heroic, sometimes tragic, but always captivating. In this beautifully designed book, additional images from Historic New England's diverse collection of ephemera have been carefully selected by the editors to augment the photographs and to flesh out Bunting's stories. This book is the first in a Historic New England series that will feature its collections in new ways that will appeal to both the specialist and the casual reader. Historic New England is presented by the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities.

The Camera’s Coast: Historic Images of Ship and Shore in New England

Historic New England

For nearly a century members of the Sewall family of Bath, Maine, built and managed a fleet of stout deepwater square-riggers―a fascinating story. Correspondence from their captains offers adventure of another kind―mutinies, shipwrecks, and “cannibal isles.” No family has been more intimately associated with the history of the city of Bath, then among the most productive shipbuilding communities of any size in the world. Despite a veneer of old-fashioned formalized civility, international shipping in the late 1800s and early 1900s was a highly competitive, low-margin, and often cut-throat business. While the Sewalls' shrewd responses to market changes make a fascinating story, the surviving correspondence from their captains offers adventure of another kind. Sewall captains were required to make regular reports to the Sewall office, and this correspondence is a treasure-trove of stories about the voyages of Sewall ships--surly crews, mutinies, plagues, shipwrecks, cannibal isles, destitute widows, and more, along with details of ship performance, weather encountered, trouble in port, and even lawsuits. The Sewalls also invested in railroads and other non-maritime securities and speculations, and also became involved in politics, but it is in the maritime world that they are best remembered. As the owners of the last surviving important fleet of American square-riggers engaged in worldwide trade, it was the Sewalls' fate to draw the curtain on this economic enterprise. No family had worked more assiduously, more stubbornly, or with more enterprise to delay the arrival of that day.

Live Yankees: The Sewalls and Their Ships

Tilbury House Distr

Nineteenth-century Maine―famed for its lumbering, shipbuilding, and seafaring―has attracted copious attention from historians, but early twentieth-century Maine has not. Maine on Glass redresses this imbalance with 190 postcard photos and three of Maine’s foremost historians.
MWPA Maine Literary Award Finalist John N. Cole Award for Maine-Themed Nonfiction
2017 book award from the New England Society of the City of New York Postcards were the Instagrams of the early twentieth century. On one day in September 1906, 200,000 postcards were mailed from Coney Island. In 1913 some 968,000,000 postcards were sent in the U.S., more than seven per person. The majority of postcards made at the turn of the twentieth century were mass-produced lithograph or letterpress half-tones, but the Eastern Illustrating &amp; Publishing Company produced “real photo postcards” in the form of silver gelatin prints made by exposing the negative onto photo paper card stock and developing it in a traditional wet darkroom. Eastern was the largest U.S. manufacturer of what it called “genuine” photo postcards. The images in this book were selected from 22,000 glass plate negatives created by the Eastern company between 1909 and World War II. As an archive of early twentieth-century Maine architectural photography, the Eastern collection (now housed at the Penobscot Marine Museum) has no equal, and it gives us many unexpected glimpses of Maine life. Maine residents, expatriates, and visitors will enjoy hours of pleasure in this journey through Maine’s countryside, villages, and towns, guided by three historians who can bring a vista to life with a few well-chosen comments. 190 duotone photos

Maine On Glass: The Early Twentieth Century in Glass Plate Photography

Johnson, Kevin

Shettleworth Jr., Earle G.

History & Criticism

For young men more than a century ago, “going to sea” was as much a rite of passage as making a grand tour of Europe. Sea Struck brings alive the final decades of square-rigged sail through the accounts of voyages made on three ships by three young men from Massachusetts. There is plenty of adventure here― storms, men overboard, discipline that bordered on brutality, and exotic ports. There is also a fascinating immersion in the lore of the sea and sail and the global web of connections in the New England maritime community. Photographs throughout

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

Down East Books

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Bunting, W. H.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Bunting, W. H.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Bunting, W. H.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

An Eye for the Coast: The Maritime and Monhegan Island Photographs of Eric Hudson

Day's Work, Part 2

Day's Work, Part 2

Sea Struck

The Camera’s Coast: Historic Images of Ship and Shore in New England

Live Yankees: The Sewalls and Their Ships

Maine On Glass: The Early Twentieth Century in Glass Plate Photography

Sea Struck

Maine On Glass: The Early Twentieth Century in Glass Plate Photography