The Phillips Library of the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) is a rare books and special collections library. It is made up of the collections of the former Peabody Museum of Salem and the Essex Institute (which merged in 1992 to form the Peabody Essex Museum). Both had libraries named for members of the Phillips family.
14-844: The Phillips Library and Reading Room moved in 2018 to the Peabody Essex Museum Collection Center in Rowley, Massachusetts, a building which had once been the headquarters for the Schylling toy company. Formerly located in the Essex Institute Historic District of Salem , Massachusetts , the Phillips Library was in Plummer Hall on Essex Street, with offices in the connected John Tucker Daland House . Plummer Hall
28-637: A collections center 40 minutes away and not accessible by public transportation. The Phillips Library is best known for holding the majority of the original 1692 Salem witchcraft trials papers (on deposit from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Archives) and early works by Nathaniel Hawthorne . Collection subjects include art and architecture , Essex County , maritime history, natural history , New England , voyages and travels, Asia , Oceania , and Native American culture. Some featured collections include
42-875: A compact group of properties associated with the Essex Institute , founded in 1848 and merged in 1992 into the Peabody Essex Museum . Listed by increasing street number, they are: the Crowninshield-Bentley House , the Gardner-Pingree House (a National Historic Landmark ), the John Tucker Daland House , and the Phillips Library (the latter two are physically connected). The John Ward House , which fronts on Brown Street but shares
56-548: A press release announcing that the 42,000 linear feet of historical documents will be permanently relocated to Rowley, Massachusetts , and that Plummer Hall and Daland House, the two historic buildings which had housed the Phillips Library, will be utilized as office and meeting space. The move to Rowley allows the PEM to "provide the highest standards of preservation, care, and protection for the library collection" while offering space for its 1.8 million objects not currently on display at
70-621: The Salem Common Historic District in 1976. On December 8, 2017, much to the dismay of Salem residents, Dan L. Monroe, PEM's Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Director and CEO, issued a press release announcing that the 42,000 linear feet of historical documents will be permanently relocated to Rowley, MA and Plummer Hall and Daland House, the two historic buildings which had housed the Phillips Library, will be utilized as office and meeting space. Gardner-Pingree House Too Many Requests If you report this error to
84-600: The 132 Essex Street address, is another National Historic Landmark within the district. The Andrew Safford House at 13 Washington Square West, built in 1819, was said to be the most expensive home in New England at the time. The principal buildings of the district are the Daland House and the Phillips Library, the latter of which was the main Essex Institute building. The Daland House was built in 1851,
98-634: The C. E. Fraser Clark Collection of Hawthorniana, the Frederick Townsend Ward Collection of Western-language materials on Imperial China , and the Herbert Offen Research Collection. Essex Institute Historic District The Essex Institute Historic District is a historic district at 134-132, 128, 126 Essex Street and 13 Washington Square West in Salem, Massachusetts . It consists of
112-538: The Library in 1857, and the combination now serve as the library and research facility of the Peabody Essex Museum. The Library is a two-story building, although the second floor is two normal stories high (with suitably large windows), and originally served as exhibition space. The area behind the Phillips Library and south of Brown Street is a garden area that includes two other historical structures:
126-679: The Vaughan Doll House, a modest late 17th century one-room structure that may have been a Quaker meeting house, and the Lyle-Tapley Shoe Shop. They both stand near the John Ward House, which faces into the garden as well. Just to the east of the Daland House stands the Gardner-Pingree House, an elegant Federal mansion built in 1804 by noted Salem architect Samuel McIntire . To its east, at
140-552: The corner of Essex and Washington Square West, stands the Bentley-Crowninshield House, a c. 1727 Georgian house that was relocated from a site across Essex Street in 1860. The Andrew-Safford House is behind the Bentley-Crowninshield House, facing Salem Common. The district was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972; all of the properties in the district were also included in
154-701: The library's John Tucker Daland House and Plummer Hall. The project also included the digitization of the library's catalog." Slated for completion in 2013, the Phillips Library reading room reopened in August 2013 at a temporary location—with limited access to materials—at 1 Second Street, Peabody, Massachusetts. On August 31, 2017, the library's temporary location in Peabody closed, noting: "all access to collections will be suspended from September 1, 2017, through March 31, 2018." On December 8, 2017, Dan L. Monroe, PEM's Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo, director and CEO, issued
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#1732780739957168-510: The museum. PEM "sank $ 15 million in the Rowley property between the site purchase and renovations. Many areas are still under construction, including a conservation lab, library digitization space, and a photography studio." The Phillips Library reading room opened in June 2018, with space for up to 14 researchers at a time. The announcement of the planned movement of the Salem documents collection to
182-563: The town of Rowley—located about 17 miles (27 km) north of the Peabody-Essex Museum—has sparked protests by historians and interested Salem citizens who don't accept that unique documents regarding Salem's history should reside outside the city. The Friends of Salem's Phillips Library formed in December 2017 after PEM announced it was moving Salem's largest and oldest archival collection from its permanent home at Plummer Hall to
196-540: Was originally built for the Salem Athenaeum in 1857. The Athenaeum provided for space for the Essex Institute and several other groups, and sold the building to the Essex Institute in 1907. The reading room, with its gold-leaf pillars and busts of Nathaniel Bowditch and George Peabody , underwent restoration in 1998. The library closed in November 2011 for an extensive $ 20 million "renovation and restoration of
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