A Look Backward

Ambrotype, Daguerreotype, or Tintype?: Identifying Early Photos

It’s easy to recognize when a photograph is an antique, but it’s not always as easy to identify at first glance the photographic process that was used to create it. In this blog post, we explore a few common forms of 19th-century photography …Read More

Revising History: Edward Bellamy and the Romance of Shays’s Rebellion

While Edward Bellamy’s best-known work focuses on the future, he was also interested in the past. Nearly a decade before the publication of Looking Backward, he wrote a novel that challenged the generally accepted narrative about a turbulent time in American history…Read More

The SS Edward Bellamy

The SS Edward Bellamy was a Liberty ship that was launched on April 14, 1943. How was this type of vessel used to support the war effort?…Read More

A Bit of Perspective

Consciously or unconsciously, biographers bring their own perspectives to their work.  Some writers set out to tell an untold story, focus on an important figure in a field or era that particularly interests them, or examine a life through a more objective lens…Read More

Distinguishing Features

While the Bellamy House isn’t as architecturally distinctive as the houses of other Gilded Age writers (think Mark Twain’s Hartford, Connecticut home), many small details still come together to give it a unique character…Read More

Like Mother, Like Son

Edward Bellamy was said to be his mother’s favorite son following the death of his oldest brother, Packer, but his biographers describe her as stern and somewhat cold.  What do we know about their relationship, and about Maria Bellamy as a mother?…Read More

The Warners of Chicopee Falls: Carrie

Researching women in the 19th and early 20th centuries can be challenging.  More limited in the occupations and interests they could pursue, women were often overshadowed and left out of the historical record…Read More

Making Headlines: Edward Bellamy the Journalist

Edward Bellamy began his writing career in newspapers, penning editorials and literature reviews for newspapers in New York City and Springfield, Massachusetts, before co-founding two newspapers of his own…Read More

How did our garden grow?

A lot can be learned about what the exterior of a house used to look like by examining it for signs of old paint colors, different foundations, and ghosts of features that were removed long ago.  However, it is much more difficult to know what its gardens may have looked like—especially in the years before…

The Art of the Short Story

Best known for his novel, Looking Backward, Edward Bellamy, like many other notable authors of his time, began his career in fiction by writing short stories. He continued to produce short stories even as his novels brought increasing success, publishing a total of 23 between 1875 and 1889…Read More

The Warners of Chicopee Falls: John, Part 2

In The Warners of Chicopee Falls: John, Part 1, we met John Warner and learned about his time farming in the Dakota Territory in the 1880s. Read on to find out where he went next, and if he ever returned to Massachusetts…Read More