Radio Script #599

Little Talks on Common Things

January 26, 1964

I must today call your attention to an unusual exhibition now on display at the Bixler Art and Music Center at Colby College. Since the erection of that building only a few years ago, many notable exhibits have been held, including the nationally famous display of Maine art assembled for the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the college. Most of those artistic displays have been of paintings, drawings, engravings, prints, and objects in the field of sculpture. The present exhibit is unusual because it consists entirely of photographs.

An account of this exhibit is appropriate on this program because it gives unusual historical insight into rural life in Maine in the period between 1880 and 1920. The exhibit consists of about 100 remarkable photographs taken in Kingfield, Maine and its immediate vicinity by Mrs~ Chansonetta Stanley Emmons. The collection has been presented to Colby College by Mrs. Emmons’ son-in-law, Dr. Irl G. Whiteburch of Denver, Colorado. Who was Chansonetta Stanley Emmons, and how did she become an artistically skilled photographer? Mrs. Emmons’ twin brothers were more famous than she, and they had much to do with her photographic accomplishments. Those twins were Freeland O. and Frank E. Stanley, inventors of the Stanley Steamer automobile. Like Chansonetta, the brothers had been born and lived until manhood in Kingfield. Before they finally settled in Newton, Mass., where they built a factory to produce the Stanley Steamer, the brothers had already patented another important invention, the Stanley Dry Plate.

Making photographs by the wet-plate process used by Mathew Brady and his followers for some thirty years was a tedious process, and several attempts were made to produce dry plates — none of them wholly successful until the Stanley product appeared. After marketing the plates from a small plant of their own for several years, the Stanley brothers sold their patent to the Eastman Kodak Company. Naturally a lot of photographic experiments were made around the Stanley home in Kingfield, and the twins’ younger sister took increasing interest in the art. Her brothers were of scientific bent. Chansonetta’s mind was artistic. While they concentrated on the mechanical techniques of cameras, plates and developers, she concentrated on getting good pictures.

About 1885 Chansonetta decided to get what are truly historic pictures -that is, domestic scenes showing elderly people in environment and employment that were passing from the scene.

I feel sure that nowhere in the United ‘States can there be found such a rare collection of photographs showing how elderly people in rural Maine lived at the turn of the century. Among the scenes depicted are old gentlemen in a grist mill. in a blacksmith shop, at a wooden pump in the dooryard, and at work sharpening a scythe on a grindstone. There is an elderly couple sitting in the kitchen after supper, a kitchen caller in shawl and bonnet, a group of four women at work in a kitchen. an old lady at her spinning wheel, another at a loom. and two very elderly women sitting beside a pot-bellied parlor stove. There are delightful pictures of children: boys at the village swimming hole, a little girl feeding chickens. a boy feeding a calf.

There are two delightful attic scenes. One is of an attic filled with what the old folks called “trash”. But discernible among a lot of useless debris are several choice articles: a cradle, two spinning wheels, a clock reel, a grandfather’s clock, baskets and jars in great variety. The other attic scene is more orderly. The spinning wheel is neatly set up. Other implements are carefully arrayed. Hanging from the rafters in orderly rows are clusters of corn and flax. One of the most striking photographs shows these elderly persons at dinner. On the table are the vinegar bottle, the sweets and the sours, and the Chinaware of long ago. Another memorable kitchen scene shows an old lady working the clapper of an ancient up-and-down churn, while sunlight streams in the window and across the floor.

Chansonetta Emmons was not only a photographer; she was also a painter, and Colby is proud to have one of her paintings in its collection of Maine art.

I am personally interested in this exhibit of photographs of life in Maine 60 years ago, not only because I am interested in anything that deals with the history of our state, but also because I knew so well one of Mrs. Emmons’ brothers. When I taught at Hebron Academy in the second decade of this century, the chairman of the Hebron Trustees was Freeland O. Stanley, Mrs. Emmons’ brother. At that time the other twin, Frank Stanley, had died in an automobile accident on his way from Boston to Boothbay Harbor. The surviving brother, Freeland Stanley, was then conducting alone the manufacture of Stanley Steamers at Newton. Many miles have I ridden with Mr. Stanley in those steamers, including a memorable trip to the top of Mount Washington, and another to New York City, which was made without change of water.

One nuisance of the early Stanley car was that the driver had to stop frequently for water, just as the old railroad locomotives had to do. Freeland Stanley perfected a process by which the escaping steam was recondensed and used over again in the boiler — a process later adopted by the nation’s railroads. That is why Mr. Stanley made no stop for water when I rode with him from his home in Newton to New York City.

Mr. and Mrs. Freeland Stanley were very fond of music, had a large music room in their Newton home, and also installed a pipe organ. They helped many young people to get musical education. Perhaps the most noted of their proteges was Frederick Tillotson, the late professor of music at Bowdoin College.

So you see that Chansonetta Stanley Emmons, the Kingfield photographer, really came from quite a family. Her photographs will be on exhibition at the Bixler Center until February 15. The exhibit is open to the public without charge. I urge you all to see these remarkable pictures.

While we are talking about local exhibits, we must not forget one recently displayed at the Waterville Public Library in honor of a local man. It recognized the latest of several books about Thomas Hardy written by the foremost authority on that English author, Dr. Carl J. Weber of Waterville. The exhibit showed not only Dr. Weber’s famous “Hard yof~Jessex” and several other of his books. but included the library’s holdings of Hardy’s own works.

Dr. Weber’s latest book concerning Thomas Hardy is worth the attention of persons who are interested in that English author because they want to know more about the talented man who wrote “Tess of the D’Urbervilles”, “The Return of the Native”, “Far from the Madding Crowd”. and “Jude the Obscure”. But the book may well be read by people who have never perused a Hardy novel. This latest book by Dr. Weber is entitled “Dearest Emmie”, and consists of letters written by Thomas Hardy to his first wife between the years 1885 and 1911, illuminated by Dr. Weber’s explanatory notes. There is a brief biographical introduction and an historical epilogue. Those are written in the clear. easy style known so well to Dr. Weber’s readers — a style quite different from the embellished pedantry of many a biographer and critic.

“Dearest Emmie” is worth reading if you have no interest at all in Thomas Hardy, but do care about the problems of family life that are not restricted in time or place. Though we may think of the Victorians as people loaded with taboos and inhibitions. they encountered the same problems as do the folk we know today. What shall a husband and wife do when they don’t get along well together? We can hardly see any improvement in the way a Hollywood couple meets that problem over the way it was met by Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Hardy. Although before the end of the long series of letters the salutation “Dearest Emmie” had been changed to “Dear E”, Hardy remained faithful and loyal to the woman who was perhaps even more irritating to him than he was to her. Really, we don’t get many books today like “Dearest Emmie”, just as we get too few people like Thomas and Emma Gifford Hardy.

There is one more thing that must be emphasized about “Dearest Emmie”. When we read a book, most of us like to believe that the author knows what he is writing about. Carl Weber has spent a lifetime of devoted, minute study of Thomas Hardy. Long ago his Co 1 by co 11 eagues gave Weber the label of “Colby’s Hardy Perennial” •

His vast knowledge of the gr.eat Wessex novelist and poet is such that he understands every allusion in those letters written long ago. Carl Weber never tried to follow Emerson’s advice to make mousetraps, but he did provide the literary world with such superior knowledge of one English writer, that those who want to know much about Thomas Hardy have made a beaten path to Carl Weber’s door.

Only last week new honor came to Or. Weber. He is the recipient of a research fellowship granted by American Council of Learned Societies. Or. Weber will use that fellowship to pursue further study of Hardy’s correspondence.

Let us close this broadcast with a return to some heated Maine politics of 70 years ago. In 1892 Edwin C. Burleigh, closely related to the Burleighs of Vassalboro and Waterville, was Governor of Maine, though Gov. Burleigh himself was a resident of Bangor. At that time Maine had four Congressmen and our fourth Congressional district was represented by Seth Milliken, who had first been elected in the year that swept Benjamin Harrison into the White House, 1888.

Milliken had never been governor, nor had he held any important office in the legislature. In 1892 a movement developed to oust him in favor of Governor Burleigh. Milliken was a regular Republican, backed by the strong machine of that time, headed by Joseph Manley of Augusta as the party chairman. Newspapers in Maine were sharply divided. The Waterville Mail attacked Burleigh and backed Milliken, while its neighbor, the Kennebec Valley News of Vassalboro, was an ardent Burleigh supporter. In 1892 Burleigh was completing his second two-year term as Governor, and he decided to run against Milliken for the party nomination for Congress. He didn’t have a chance. Joe Manley’s machine was too well oiled. Milliken was reelected, but when he died five years later in 1897, it was Burleigh who succeeded him.

I have given you all this background to make clear the following account in the Kennebec Valley News of April 5, 1892, five months before the state election of that year. Here is what it said: “Even the Waterville Mail now abuses Burleigh in the interest of Milliken. Burleigh men are numerous in Augusta and Joe Manley, though he has the post office behind him (Manley had secured the postmaster’s appointment) may be unable to retain supremacy on his own stamping ground. Joe Manley has made use of his position as Republican chairman to set himself up as a dictator. We are sorry for the Waterville Mail. It seems strange for a Kennebec paper, claiming to be Republican, to abuse a Governor who led his party to the greatest off-year victory in its history.” By off-year the News meant not a presidential year, and the victory referred to had been the 1890 state election when 79.400 votes were cast for Burleigh and only 61,000 for his Democratic opponent. William l. Putnam.

And with that reference to Maine politics more than 70 years ago, we must say goodbye until next week.

Year: 1964