Doorways to Time Travel

I should be packing for my trip right now. My daughter, Gwen, and I will soon be departing for the ultimate daddy-daughter date to the other side of the world: South Korea. We will leave through the doorway of our house, go through doorways to the flight terminal, the intrusive security portal, and into the jet, then over seventeen hours later, we'll begin to explore through unfamiliar doorways in an exotic land 7,000 miles away - what an incredible journey.

But what would it be like if, instead of just going through different doorways of space, we could pass through different doorways of time? Jules Verne helped us do it with his wonderful book, The Time Machine, but we have also done it many times when going through doorways at places like Plimoth Patuxet Museums in Massachusetts and restored historical buildings all over the continent. There is something about ancient doorways that call to me, urging me to go through, and for a few moments at least, to try imagining what it was like to be there centuries ago.

That's what I offer you today: some very special doors to the past. This photograph contains doorways to the house and the early laboratory of the Pinkham family of Lynn, Massachusetts, probably in about the year 1880.

The original, sepia-toned photograph is from a stereopticon view: two identical images pasted next to each other on the same piece of cardstock; when viewed through a pair of lenses called a stereopticon viewer. An optical illusion is created whereby the two copies of the same photograph visually merge, making the subjects they contain appear three-dimensional. I submit to you, though, that a stereopticon viewer is not essential to enjoy a multi-dimensional perspective on the subject. While our eyes can perceive three dimensions, our imaginations can enjoy many more, if we let them. Let's work wiith this old sepia-tone photo and see what we have missed at first glance — with or without the stereopticon viewer.

My son, Nick, has done another great job using computer graphics to bring the sepia image into our world by adding color (see my 25 November 2023 blog post, "Their World Wasn't Sepia") and in doing so, some parts of the picture come to life in a way that my eye just missed before. Maybe the biggest surprise was to see a dog lying across the tops of two barrels on the left side of the photograph! So we have not only the Pinkham family and the Pinkham company workers, but the Pinkham pooch!

Something else that also stands out much better after the colorization are the stacks of Pinkham packing crates, either ready for packing or already packed and ready for shipping. The stack on the far left may be showing the ends of the crates (stacked by the narrow side so as not to block the door to the right), while the stacks to the left of the big entrance to the laboratory building are visible from the long side of the crates. I have also added a photograph here of two Pinkham shipping cases in my collection, showing them from the long and short sides; if you look closely enough at the photo, you can see the arch of type on some of the boxes and sometimes even a blob of black under the arch that was actually Lydia Pinkham's face, just like on my examples here.

Who the people are, specifically, is harder to determine. From the existing photos of Lydia's husband, Isaac, and their three sons: Charles, Dan, and Will, it is very difficult to determine who's who; relying exlusively on facial hair, it is possible that the man behind the dog was Charles, their oldest son, who later in life sported a bushy walrus moustache. If the photo was taken in 1880 as I believe, then sons Dan and Will were still living, although Dan may have already been showing signs of his terminal affliction with tuberculosis, then known as consumption for its propensity to make advanced victims look emaciated; perhaps the gaunt-looking fellow to the left of the dog is Dan, based on what look like hollow cheeks.

The Pinkhams had only one daughter, Aroline. I suspect she is in the photo, too, because this type of late-19th century photography is typical of a proprietor's photo, intentionally taken to include all the owners, family, and workers, set in front of the business to show it off and use it as a promotional piece. Given this purpose, I'm sure Aroline is one of the three young women (I'll take a wild stab and say the one at the base of the stairs, depicted in light blue, in front of her mother) and the other two were employees who helped Lydia in responding to her correspondence. The only person I am certain of in the entire picture is the matronly image of Lydia E. Pinkham herself, standing all in black in her doorway. Blown up and slightly colorized, she looks almost spectral — appropriately so for a woman who died over 140 years ago.

I invite you to walk up to these Pinkham doorways — maybe even go through them, if your imagination will take you there. Can you hear the inside of the laboratory building echo with the sound of men's and boy's voices, talking and sometimes punctuating with laughter, and hard-soled shoes scuffing along the floorboards? Does the sound of glass bottles clinking together in wooden crates echo their music as hay is stuffed around each one to quietly protect them? Do the pungent odors from the barrels of herbs waft through the air under your nose, constantly reminding the senses that this is not just another storehouse or barn?

And when you are invited through the front door of the Pinkham home, is it a quiet domestic sanctuary? Listen carefully, though, and you can hear the voices of a few young women respectfully seeking guidance from Lydia herself about how to answer the next letter sent by a desperate woman from some distant place who is hoping for a solution to her private discomforts from the lady renowned for her knowledge and wisdom.

     It should also be pointed out that that narrow, gravelly dirt cartway in front of all of them is what became the very wide, busy, fast-paced thoroughfare called Western Avenue and Route 107.

Hopefully this picture will transport you, even for just a few minutes, to a different place and time, bringing you great enjoyment at the very nominal expense of a little imagination, while Gwen and I travel through other doors in an exotic land far away, seeking memorable adventures, just like you. Bon voyage!