Description

Description: These four early 20th century black and white photographs on original stiff card mounts show the house where Mary Sawyer Taylor, the inspiration for the classic nursery rhyme, “Mary Had a Little Lamb” was born. The photographs show three different views of the house which burned down in 2007 at the hands of an arsonist. The fourth photo is a duplicate. The versos of three of the photos have notes. Two of them are dated 1901, the third has information about the house. It reads in part: “The house is in the eastern part of Sterling, facing the south” and “The house is nearly a century and a half old, and is where Mary was born and married, the heroine of the little poem ‘Mary’s Little Lamb'”.

Sarah Josepha Hale first published “Mary Had a Little Lamb” in 1830. According to Hale, when she was working as a teacher during the early 19th century one of her students, Mary Sawyer, brought a lamb with her to class one day. The lamb seemed very attached to Mary, and Hale used the disruptive classroom moment to teach a lesson on being kind to her pupils. Her poem was later set to music by Lowell Mason, and the rest is history.

The photos measure roughly 4 1/2″ x 6 1/2″ with slight variations in size, and the mounts measure approximately 7″ x 9″ and 8″ x 10″. Item #P00166

Condition: Light soil on two of the mounts, photos unaffected. Overall very good condition with good contrast and resolution.