FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 2, 2014

 

PHOTOGRAPH AVAILABLE

 

CONTACT:  Brenda French at 603-856-0607 or Donna-Belle Garvin at 603-856-0642

 

Historical New Hampshire edition includes topics on North Country to Seacoast

 

Magazine cover, featuring Berlin's paper industry in the final phase of its development, photographed by James L. Garvin in 1997.

CONCORD, NH--A striking 1997 photograph, showing the Berlin pulp and paper mill complex as it appeared just a decade before the eventual demolition of what had been one of the largest paper manufacturers in the world, adorns the cover of the just released issue of Historical New Hampshire. Known as the Berlin Mills Company until World War I, when it was renamed after the Brown family who owned and managed it, this leading pulp and paper manufacturer flourished for more than a century. It owned and controlled vast timber lands, not only throughout Northern New England but also in Canada, and left behind a record of achievements ranging from innovative technical developments to progressive forestry practices. The main article featured in this issue surveys the company's origins and growth, its constant experimentation with different methods of pulp production, innovative by-products, mechanization, financial challenges, and eventual decline. Author John K. Rule, a retired mechanical and ocean engineer, has made extensive use of the New Hampshire Historical Society's Brown Company Records and other related resources to create a thorough and well-illustrated account of the company's evolution and contributions. 

 The issue's second article, set in the Seacoast rather than the North Country, is also about growth and destruction, but that of a neighborhood rather than an industry. Associate Professor Blake Gumprecht is a historical geographer who teaches at the University of New Hampshire. While working on a book tentatively titled The Peopling of New England, he became interested in the Italian neighborhood that began to take shape in the North End of Portsmouth in the first decade of the twentieth century. After first linking the arrival of the Italians to the large number of construction projects under way in the area just after the turn of the century, the author traces the growth of the community to its peak around 1930. Oral history interviews with a number of former residents help give readers not only a sense of the vitality of this close-knit ethnic neighborhood but also of the tremendous loss its residents faced in the 1960s when the North End was almost entirely demolished via a federally funded urban renewal project, and the Italian population was irreversibly dispersed as a result.

 Returning to the North Country, the third and final article relates another tragic loss, the burning of the Coos County courthouse in Lancaster in 1886, as described in a letter written the next day by Mira Ladd to her son at Dartmouth. Opening the article with Mira's letter, the author, Professor Emerita Rosalind Ekman Ladd, relates not just one, but two tragedies that happened the night of the fire-not only the loss of the county records (something that has plagued historians and genealogists ever since) but also the personal and family loss of the only copy of an unpublished book manuscript that Mira's husband, Judge William Spencer Ladd, had spent years of his life writing. 

 The New Hampshire Historical Society has published Historical New Hampshire since 1944. Each issue contains a variety of articles about a past that enriches and informs our lives today, as well as reviews of recent books of state and local interest. Each issue is richly illustrated; this one contains 60 illustrations in color and black-and white. Historical New Hampshire is a benefit of membership in the New Hampshire Historical Society. To purchase a copy, call 603- 228-6688 or visit the Society's online store at nhhistory.org.

 Illustration caption:
Cover of the New Hampshire Historical Society's journal, Historical New Hampshire, featuring Berlin's paper industry in the final phase of its development, photographed by James L. Garvin in 1997.

Founded in 1823, the New Hampshire Historical Society is the independent nonprofit that saves, preserves, and shares New Hampshire history. The Society serves thousands of children and adults each year through its museum, library, education programs, publications, and outreach programs. To learn more about the Society's programs and services, visit nhhistory.org or call 603-228-6688. 

Founded in 1823, the New Hampshire Historical Society is the independent nonprofit that saves, preserves, and shares New Hampshire history. The Society serves thousands of children and adults each year through its museum, library, educational programs, publications, and outreach programs. To learn more about the Society's programs and services, visit nhhistory.org or call 603-228-6688.

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