I regret to inform you that I’m ending this women’s history series on a bit of a downer with my trip to Salem to investigate the witch trials there. Salem has taken a horrific event from its early history and turned it into a thriving tourist industry which peaks every October. The Salem I encountered on an early spring Saturday morning was quieter, but there were still people walking around with pointy witch’s hats and plenty of witch- and wizard-themed gift shops and restaurants.
Peabody Essex Museum
The obvious place to start would have been the Salem Witch Museum. I visited years ago, and, while there was a certain educational aspect, it’s also pretty cheesy, with outdated dioramas and narration. I decided watching a life-sized replica of Giles Corey gasping “More weight!” while being pressed to death with stones was an experience I only needed once in a lifetime, so I headed to the Salem Witch Trials exhibit at the Peabody Essex Museum instead.
This is predominantly an art museum, and I wouldn’t recommend paying the $25 admission just for the one exhibit, although that is exactly what I planned to do until I found out that Massachusetts teachers get free admission. The exhibit, although small, was an excellent introduction to the trials, with panels about many of the accusers and the accused and a mural showing a chaotic scene from the trials. It helped me get a sense of the timeline and some of the people involved.
Salem Witch Memorial
From there, I walked over to the Salem Witch Trials Memorial, which is a simple outdoor memorial with a bench for the victims of the trials, each one engraved with a name, how the person died, and the date of execution. The benches are arranged in a semicircle, and people have left flowers on the benches (or, in the case of Giles Corey, stones, which struck me as true gallows humor). It’s right next to the Old Burying Point Cemetery, Salem’s oldest burial ground, and is surprisingly peaceful.
My final stop was The Witch House, which is not really a witch house, just the former residence of Jonathan Corwin, one of the judges who presided at the trials. It’s not too different from many other historical house tours except for a gruesome exhibit exploring cannibalism and how consuming parts of humans, particularly executed criminals, was considered medicinally beneficial for centuries. Corwin struck me as a powerful, wealthy member of the community who made some really bad choices, but to be fair, a lot of other people made those same choices. Sound familiar?
I chose a visit to Salem this month because of its connection with women’s history–18 of the 25 people who were executed or died in prison were women–but I came away with a sense that witch hunts are an unfortunate part of human history that can include people for any race, gender, age, or other classification. The idea of those in power targeting a more marginalized or disenfranchised group didn’t end in 1693, as a glance through any recent news headlines will reveal.
Last year’s picture book It Happened in Salem by Jonah Winter does an excellent job of asking the big questions around the Salem witch trials: Who started the hysteria? Who kept it going? What were their motivations? And perhaps most important, what would you have done? Maybe speaking up for what’s right won’t cost you your life like it could in 1692 Salem, but it can cost you friends, family, your reputation, your money. Once again, it’s all being played out in our time.
If you know of an example, you can add it to the Salem Witch Museum’s Witch Hunt Wall Project, which invites you to think of a situation that fits the formula “Fear + A Trigger = A Scapegoat.” People have been adding entries since 2017, and it’s a fascinating list. I discovered a good example of this in a new book, Dreams to Ashes: The 1871 Los Angeles Chinatown Massacre by Livia Blackburne, illustrated by Nicole Xu (Carolrhoda Books, 40 pages, grades 3-6). Fear of Chinese immigrants living in Los Angeles was triggered one night in 1871 by a gunfight that left a police officer and another man dead. The scapegoats? The entire Chinese population, who became the targets of a massacre that killed eighteen Chinese men, only one of whom was involved in the gunfight, and destroyed homes and businesses throughout Chinatown.
I’ll end by quoting the last page of this book which again makes a horrific incident relevant to today: “How does a country learn from the past? By remembering. By writing the dark stories back into history books. By shining a light on the consequences of hate and working to keep those fires from sparking again. By embracing change. By loving those who dream of a better life and affirming the humanity of all. By stepping forward. Into hope.”
.
Peabody Essex Museum
The obvious place to start would have been the Salem Witch Museum. I visited years ago, and, while there was a certain educational aspect, it’s also pretty cheesy, with outdated dioramas and narration. I decided watching a life-sized replica of Giles Corey gasping “More weight!” while being pressed to death with stones was an experience I only needed once in a lifetime, so I headed to the Salem Witch Trials exhibit at the Peabody Essex Museum instead.
This is predominantly an art museum, and I wouldn’t recommend paying the $25 admission just for the one exhibit, although that is exactly what I planned to do until I found out that Massachusetts teachers get free admission. The exhibit, although small, was an excellent introduction to the trials, with panels about many of the accusers and the accused and a mural showing a chaotic scene from the trials. It helped me get a sense of the timeline and some of the people involved.
Salem Witch Memorial
From there, I walked over to the Salem Witch Trials Memorial, which is a simple outdoor memorial with a bench for the victims of the trials, each one engraved with a name, how the person died, and the date of execution. The benches are arranged in a semicircle, and people have left flowers on the benches (or, in the case of Giles Corey, stones, which struck me as true gallows humor). It’s right next to the Old Burying Point Cemetery, Salem’s oldest burial ground, and is surprisingly peaceful.
My final stop was The Witch House, which is not really a witch house, just the former residence of Jonathan Corwin, one of the judges who presided at the trials. It’s not too different from many other historical house tours except for a gruesome exhibit exploring cannibalism and how consuming parts of humans, particularly executed criminals, was considered medicinally beneficial for centuries. Corwin struck me as a powerful, wealthy member of the community who made some really bad choices, but to be fair, a lot of other people made those same choices. Sound familiar?
I chose a visit to Salem this month because of its connection with women’s history–18 of the 25 people who were executed or died in prison were women–but I came away with a sense that witch hunts are an unfortunate part of human history that can include people for any race, gender, age, or other classification. The idea of those in power targeting a more marginalized or disenfranchised group didn’t end in 1693, as a glance through any recent news headlines will reveal.
Last year’s picture book It Happened in Salem by Jonah Winter does an excellent job of asking the big questions around the Salem witch trials: Who started the hysteria? Who kept it going? What were their motivations? And perhaps most important, what would you have done? Maybe speaking up for what’s right won’t cost you your life like it could in 1692 Salem, but it can cost you friends, family, your reputation, your money. Once again, it’s all being played out in our time.
If you know of an example, you can add it to the Salem Witch Museum’s Witch Hunt Wall Project, which invites you to think of a situation that fits the formula “Fear + A Trigger = A Scapegoat.” People have been adding entries since 2017, and it’s a fascinating list. I discovered a good example of this in a new book, Dreams to Ashes: The 1871 Los Angeles Chinatown Massacre by Livia Blackburne, illustrated by Nicole Xu (Carolrhoda Books, 40 pages, grades 3-6). Fear of Chinese immigrants living in Los Angeles was triggered one night in 1871 by a gunfight that left a police officer and another man dead. The scapegoats? The entire Chinese population, who became the targets of a massacre that killed eighteen Chinese men, only one of whom was involved in the gunfight, and destroyed homes and businesses throughout Chinatown.
I’ll end by quoting the last page of this book which again makes a horrific incident relevant to today: “How does a country learn from the past? By remembering. By writing the dark stories back into history books. By shining a light on the consequences of hate and working to keep those fires from sparking again. By embracing change. By loving those who dream of a better life and affirming the humanity of all. By stepping forward. Into hope.”
.