Women Singing OUT! formed in 1999 as a lesbian-based choir focused on social change. They promoted tolerance, diversity, peace, and hope. WSO performed a wide range of musical styles and held biannual concerts in winter and late spring. Led by artistic directors Claudia Frost and later Dr. Deirdre McClure, they practiced weekly at Christ Episcopal Church in Portsmouth. WSO disbanded in 2017.There are eight albums represented in this collection: The Beauty Around Us (2002), We Are Family (2005),…

The Higgins Family Photograph Collection consists of over 300 digital images primarily taken in the late 1800s through the first half of the 20th century. The images capture the everyday moments as well as the celebratory occasions of a family living in Portsmouth’s South End neighborhood.The original photographs come from the collection of Kathryn (Casey) Higgins (b. 1882). She is credited with the photography of much of the collection. The photos were provided to the library by the late J.…

A series of drawings created between 1908-1913 by local artist and Portsmouth native, Helen Pearson (1870-1949). In 1993, local historian and long-time editor of the Portsmouth Herald, Ray Brighton called Helen Pearson “…one of the best artists Portsmouth ever produced whose talent has been largely forgotten.” Born in Portsmouth on Nov. 13, 1870, Pearson was trained as a concert pianist and attended Boston’s Cowles Art School. She played piano with the Schenectady Symphony Orchestra in New…

A collection of 336+ historic bookplates and corresponding material from local artist and musician Helen Pearson. These bookplates were accumulated from her travels, acquaintances, other collectors and membership into several national and international bookplate societies. The collection was initially created and organized by Pearson. It arrived at Portsmouth Public Library as a bequest upon her passing on August 19, 1949. The collection was added to and at least partially mounted by then…

This collection of 19 original Christmas cards was created by artist and long-time Portsmouth resident Dorothy Sturgis Harding (1891-1978). These cards are part of a larger amalgamation of Harding memorabilia and were gifted to the Library by Portsmouth resident Joan Christy in January 2018. The Dorothy Sturgis Harding Christmas Cards are drawn in pen and ink on card stock and were used for holiday greetings in years spanning 1947 through 1976. According to local residents, Harding's…

This collection is an assemblage of work by Captain Edward H. Adams. They are photographic representations of The Adams Collection which includes about 175 of his original models and carvings. The Adams Collection was previously housed at the Sheafe Warehouse, and is now cared for by the Special Collections staff at Portsmouth Public Library, on behalf of the City of Portsmouth Trustees of the Trust. The Captain was born Edward Hamlin Adams to Joseph and Olive Adams on October 22, 1860.…

The NH Seacoast LGBT History Project was founded by Tom Kaufhold in 2015. Tom had been collecting papers, ephemera, and artifacts related to or created by the LGBTQ+ community on the Seacoast region of New Hampshire. To tell the story more fully, Holly Cashman, a professor at the University of New Hampshire, began collecting oral histories from the same community. With the assistance of interns and student workers, Dr. Cashman conducted ten interviews over a six-year period. The team processed…

The Portsmouth Public Library’s Special Collections Room holds several albums containing nearly 1000 individual Sarah Haven Foster watercolors. These were painted locally and during travels abroad. They depict a wide array of buildings, landscapes, and wild flowers. Most of the images are painted in miniature, some as small as postage stamps. Sarah Haven Foster (1827-1900), was the daughter of John Welsh Foster (1789-1852) and Mary (Appleton) Foster. She had one sister, Mary Appleton Foster,…

The Portsmouth Public Library’s Special Collections Room holds several albums containing nearly 1000 individual Sarah Haven Foster watercolors. These were painted locally and during travels abroad. They depict a wide array of buildings, landscapes, and wild flowers. Most of the images are painted in miniature, some as small as postage stamps. Sarah Haven Foster (1827-1900), was the daughter of John Welsh Foster (1789-1852) and Mary (Appleton) Foster. She had one sister, Mary Appleton…

English colonists established a settlement in Portsmouth in 1623 and called it “Strawbery Banke.” This area of Portsmouth, which came to be known as Puddle Dock, has cultural and historical importance to the city. In order to help tell the story of the area, Strawbery Banke Museum was developed in 1958, following urban renewal efforts that demolished much of Puddle Dock and the South End. Today, Strawbery Banke Museum sits on 10 acres of land and is home to 32 historic buildings. The 29 slides…

Between 1918 and 1949 staff members of the Portsmouth Public Library clipped articles from The Portsmouth Herald and other newspapers and glued them into 42 scrapbooks. The articles they selected for these scrapbooks covered such world changing events as WWI and WWII, as well as local concerns, such as news of an upcoming garden tour, a new movie by Louis DeRochemont, layoffs at the Navy Yard, or the election of the first city manager in Portsmouth. In short, these scrapbooks provide us with a…

Historic materials from the 350th anniversary of the City of Portsmouth, celebrated in 1973.

This collection of 97 black-and-white photographs was added to the Portsmouth Public Library’s Special Collections in 1995. The photos were taken between June 25, 1968 to September 29, 1969 and show the progression of work during the construction of the Piscataqua River Bridge, also known as the I-95 Bridge. Construction of the I-95 bridge, a significant landmark in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, was initiated in the late 1960s as part of the Vaughan Street Urban Renewal Project, which also…

This collection of images comes from Portsmouth’s North End, circa 1967. It is the area bordered by Market, High, Congress, Bridge, Maplewood, and Russell Street. This area was re-developed during the 1960’s as part of a Federally funded Urban Renewal movement that followed World War II. Primarily an Italian neighborhood, approximately 176 inhabited homes and active businesses were documented prior to removal.View Parcel Map[more]Approximately one dozen buildings - some dating back to the 1700s…

Tom Kaufhold founded the NH Seacoast LGBT History Project in 2015 to “research, document, and preserve the history of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people on the Seacoast of New Hampshire with emphasis on Portsmouth."Project members contributed materials that tell stories about the LGBTQIA+ community. The papers and ephemera are held at the Portsmouth Athenaeum while the library maintains the media archive. Video and audio recordings have been digitized by history project interns and…

This collection of 400+ postcards, depicting buildings and scenes of Portsmouth and the Seacoast area, was donated to the Portsmouth Public Library by the family of Louis J. Mackles in May of 2015. It was given specifically by Ross A. Moldoff, Gloria F. Moldoff and Harold Moldoff, who felt the collection should be made available for study and enjoyment. The rehousing of the physical collection into archival albums was made possible by the Moldoffs as well. Mr. Mackles collected postcards…

Henry Clay Barnabee was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1833, the son of a stage-driver turned innkeeper in Portsmouth. At the age of twenty, Barnabee moved to Boston, where he worked in the dry goods business while also pursuing acting and amateur singing. In 1859, he married Clara George of Portsmouth in Warner, New Hampshire, where her family originated. They made their home in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. In 1865, Barnabee made his formal performance debut and began touring New…

The items in this collection are part of Helen Pearson's portfolio of work that she created around the time she attended Cowles School of Art in Boston. Portsmouth Herald newspaper articles place her there in 1890, though some of her pieces are dated in the surrounding years.Many of the original pieces included in the portfolio are unfinished drawings and sketches. Pearson primarily used charcoal and graphite pencil. She continued to work with graphite throughout her career, most notably in her…

Parent-Teacher Associations have existed since the late 1890s. These groups advocate for improvements in the lives of children as demonstrated by the instrumental role they played in the adoption of school lunches, the institution of child labor laws, and the promotion of transportation safety, sex education, and tobacco and alcohol education. Through the years, Portsmouth schools adopted their own PTAs, including Haven School in the South End which opened in 1846. The Haven School PTA was a…

Puddle Dock and the South End are the oldest neighborhoods in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, which was settled in 1623. The first school building in Portsmouth was built and opened in 1713 and was located close to the site that would become the Haven School in 1846. When it opened, Haven School contained four graded schools: infant, primary, intermediate, and grammar. In 1969, Little Harbour School was built to replace Haven School. In 1978, the Haven School’s brick building was turned into…

The Portsmouth Public Library is endeavoring to historically document this unusual time in our shared Portsmouth, New Hampshire History. As always, staff of the Special Collections Room are physically collecting printed accounts, articles, and documents for the history files.To further our mission to document and make accessible Portsmouth history, we have started this diary project to capture the social, economic and personal accounts of the impact this pandemic has had on our residents and…