Literature Trail

Charlotte Forten
One of the earliest students to attend Salem Normal School, a school designed to educate young women for teaching, was Charlotte Forten (1838-1914), an African American woman from Philadelphia who arrived in Salem in 1854. She was sent North for schooling because Salem's schools were desegregated, first attending the Higginson Grammar School and, in 1855, the Salem Normal School. She lived with the Remond family, prominent members of Salem's African American community and ardent abolitionists.

Forten was the first African American to graduate from the Normal School, in 1856, and she began her teaching career at Salem's Epes Grammar School. Forten also wrote poetry and kept a journal which she would do for most of her life, documenting her experiences in Salem and South Carolina where she moved after the Civil War to teach the children of freed slaves. In 1864, Forten returned to her native Philadelphia where she published poems and essays including articles about her South Carolina experience for The Atlantic Monthly. Her fascinating journal has been published in several editions. On December 3, 1854, she noted, "Have just returned from an interesting lecture by Mr. Garrison," meaning, Newburyport abolitionist and newspaper publisher William Lloyd Garrison.

Salem Normal School
Address: Corner of Broad and Summer Streets, Salem (now a city-owned building)
(The Salem Normal School eventually evolved into today's Salem State College on Lafayette Street.)

Phillips Library, Peabody Essex Museum
Address: 134 Essex Street, Salem
Website: www.pem.org
Hours: Call 978-745-9500 ext. 3053
Admission: Full day use: $15 (4-7 hours), Half day use: $10 (less than 4 hours), Seniors: $13/$18, Students: $11/$6, free to Museum members and Salem residents
(The Phillips Library is one of New Englan's most important and historic research libraries. It is a major resource for residents and scholars with interests in genealogy, maritime history, New England history or documents relating to the museum's vast and diverse collections. The Library holds the nation's largest collection of ship logs and journals as well as original court documents from the 1692 Salem witchcraft trials. The Library is also home to three period rooms assembled by George Francis Dow, an American antiquarian for the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities.)