Balsams Hotel Employee Photo Album, circa 1912-1918

Archive

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Museum of the White Mountains

Name/Title

Balsams Hotel Employee Photo Album, circa 1912-1918

Entry/Object ID

MWM2018.0004.0049

Scope and Content

Black cloth photograph album containing 430 black and white snapshots and postcards of employee life at The Balsams Hotel, located in Dixville Notch, N.H. The photographer and/or creator of the album is unknown. The album was purchased at an antique shop in Maine and then gifted to the donor. Album includes photos of employees: housekeepers, waitresses, butlers, chefs, kitchen and laundry staff, groundskeepers, chauffeurs, contractors, and other employees in and around the hotel. Employees are shown working, as well as engaging in recreational activities such as sledding, snow shoeing, ice skating, hunting, canoeing, hiking, riding carriages and automobiles, and attending outdoor costume parties. There are also photos of unidentified children and their pets, who may have been children of the hotel employees. Several of the children have been identified as the children and grandchildren of the hotel's owner Henry S. Hale: son Henry Warren Hale, and grandchildren: Henrietta Nancy Hale Thurn, and Esther Frances "Betty" Hale Laing. The album also includes many photos of the hotel's livestock, including horses, donkeys, cattle, sheep, and deer from the hotel's deer park (raised for venison). Locations depicted include the Balsams Feed Stable, Spring House, lakes/ reservoirs/ dams, exterior and interior views of the main hotel building and outbuildings, including the hotel's kitchen, dining room, and lounge. Also includes exterior views of Beaver Lodge, the residence of the hotel's owner, Henry. S. Hale beginning in 1912, the Club House, golf course, staff dormitory and houses, tennis court, farms and livestock barns. There are also photos of various scenery around the hotel in Dixville Notch, as well as Colebrook, N.H., and Camp Millsfield, which was purchased by the owner of the Balsams, and contained cluster of rustic cottages ten miles away that offered city visitors a true "wilderness" experience. The album also contains photos of the fire that destroyed the first boiler house in 1912, and the one-story, flat-roof concrete structure that replaced it, as well as the construction of the Staff Dormitory (1916) and guest garage (1916-1917), which held 200 guest automobiles and most likely was the largest garage structure north of Boston. Also shown are the various stages of the construction of the Hampshire House (1916-1918), the last major addition made to the hotel which transformed it into a 400-room grand resort. Some of the photographs contain handwritten dates in the corner; the earliest dated photo is dated to Winter of 1912/13. The photos have not been pasted into the album in chronological order. Loose pages that were tucked inside the back of the album have also been digitized. This includes three pages of photo identification done by Jacqueline Hale Armstrong. Also digitized are several pages of correspondence sent to the donor which includes the obituary of Mrs. Samuel (Isabel Horner) Tarrant, and two pages of handwritten identification of one of the group employee portraits. See MWM2018.0004.0048 for a similar Balsams employee photo album.

Acquisition

Accession

MWM2018.0004

Source or Donor

Mr. and Mrs. Stephen and Gail Barba

Acquisition Method

Gift

Lexicon

Nomenclature 4.0

Nomenclature Secondary Object Term

Album, Photograph

Nomenclature Primary Object Term

Album

Nomenclature Sub-Class

Memorabilia

Nomenclature Class

Documentary Objects

Nomenclature Category

Category 08: Communication Objects

LOC Thesaurus for Graphic Materials

Dogs, Winter, Farms, Agricultural buildings, Men, Livestock, Golf, Airplanes, Automobiles, Women, Hiking, Hotel employees, Hotels, Hunting, Mountains, Skating

Search Terms

The Balsams Winter Inn (Coos county, New Hampshire : inhabited place), Dixville Notch (Coos county, New Hampshire : inhabited place), Colebrook (Coos county, New Hampshire : inhabited place), Balsams Hotel (Coos county, New Hampshire : inhabited place), Sleds, Carriages, Lakes

Archive Details

Date(s) of Creation

1912 - 1918

Archive Notes

Date(s): 1912-1918

General Notes

Note

Notes: According to the donor re: how he aquired it: it "was found by Sandy and Dick Hamilton. Dick and Sandy were shopping in one of these collectible stores in Maine, I believe, and happened upon this album wrapped up in a plastic bag. As soon as he opened the album and saw some of the photos, Dick recognized what it was that he was holding and acquired it immediately. A few days later, he gave it to me. "The hand-drawn replica pages of Hale family photos was done by Jacqueline Hale Armstrong a granddaughter of Henry S. Hale, the founder of The BALSAMS. Jacqueline lived in Montreal, and on a reinstituted annual summertime visit to The BALSAMS with her husband, was delighted to discover this wonderful gift that Dick had bestowed upon me. We were great friends despite her advanced age. She loved that The BALSAMS had been revived and that she could enjoy coming back to the Notch after many years of staying away. She was a gracious lady and was always most generous with her time, personal memories and sentiments." Status Date: 2020-06-20 Scan ID#: WM201900135 - WM201900659