7 things you need to know about building a Developer Community

Starting a Developer Community can feel overwhelming, well, it was for me. I joined my first community in 2013 back in college, it was a small group of about thirty to fifty members and was quite an…

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Salem

A couple of weekends ago, my boyfriend and I took a trip out to Salem to see some of my semester’s readings come to life. And while we saw some beautiful historical buildings, paid respects to the women killed during the Salem Witch Trials, and got to walk the same streets that Nathaniel Hawthorne did while contemplating The Scarlet Letter, some aspects of the town left me with a sour feeling…

Let’s start here.

One of the first sites on my list to see was the Salem Witch Museum. It was only a short walk away from a large parking garage and a mall, and upon arriving, we were initially in awe of the dark, looming architecture of the building. My first thought was this is cool. However, I started inspecting the outside…

The outside was covered in these signs promoting the museum, and the bright yellow font and outlines of stereotypical “witches” and a cat reminded me of Halloween, reminding me that every year, thousands of people flock to Salem in order to celebrate the holiday. Presumably, this is because of Salem’s history and mysticism surrounding the witches. As usual, people flock to sites of tragedy and sites of the macabre. I had a feeling this museum might not portray the Salem “witches” in the most respectful manner and that I was in for more of a spectacle than a learning experience.

Here, we have what the museum promises: “The Museum consists of two historical presentations. Our first presentation depicts the major events of the 1692 Salem witchcraft trials. This is done with 13 life-sized stage sets built into the walls of a large auditorium that are illuminated to a dramatized narration. This part will last about a half hour. Our second exhibit presentation is a guided tour given by a member of our staff. This exhibit explores how societies have identified and reacted to witches throughout history. This part will last about 15 minutes.” Now, here I want to emphasize the word “dramatized,” because I feel it is the most accurate word to describe the actual exhibit

Upon entering the museum, a friendly young man at the ticket counter explained how the museum worked and sold us our tickets, emphasizing that cameras were not allowed. So, I can’t give a photo account of the exhibit, but I can describe what happened and what it was like.

A large group of people (including my boyfriend and I) were led into a darkly lit auditorium with benches and stools in the center and plastic/wax scenes and figures on stages that wrapped around the room. Each scene was in darkness, until a pre-recorded narrator started talking about them. The narrator was extremely dramatic. “Spooky” music and sounds played in the background as the narrator seemingly began to tell a fantastical ghost story in his dark, booming voice. My boyfriend and I immediately started snickering. It was the most cheesy, cringe-y, overly-dramatic presentation I had seen in a long time, and it was hard not to laugh all the way through it. Moreover, it was hard to focus on the actual information being given by the narration. It seemed as if learning more about the witch trials was less important than putting on a good show, which was disappointing.

The “show,” as we can call it, focused on telling the stories of a few prominent figures, including Rebecca Nurse, Giles Corey, and John Proctor, as well as some important moments in the courtroom in Salem and, finally, the hanging of Proctor.

After the show, I talked to my boyfriend about it, getting his thoughts. I wanted to know if he got the same feeling I did — the feeling that the “show” put a lot of emphasis on the men of the time, pinning them up as brave and wise heroes who stood by their wives till the end, while the women were portrayed as weak, delirious, and devil-worshiping. He agreed. More time seemed to be spent on John Proctor and Giles Corey’s stories than the actual dozens of women who were persecuted.

I sort of hated the museum after that. It dramatized and made a spectacle out of an actual historical event where people — mostly women — died needlessly — where people were persecuted simply for not fitting into the puritan mold.

Directly outside of the Salem Witch Museum, there was a statue of the first settler of Salem, Roger Conant. The statue seemed to be the perfect example of the type of puritan man that would have persecuted the witches. I wondered how the residents of the town view these statues of puritan men — if they still hold them in high regard, or if their views are tainted by the knowledge that these men ordered people to be hung.

Our next stop was the Salem Witch Trials Memorial. Here, there were a bunch of stone benches set into a stone wall that had the names of those who were persecuted during the trials engraved on them, along with how they died. The area was well-kept and fresh flowers adorned each bench as if mourners paid tribute to them every day.

Among those remembered was Martha Carrier, the woman whose trial was recorded by Cotton Mather. In The Wonders of the Invisible World, Mather writes,

“These our poor afflicted neighbors, quickly after they become infected and infested with these demons, arrive to a capacity of discerning those which they conceive the shapes of their troublers; and notwithstanding the great and just suspicion that the demons might impose the shapes of innocent persons in their spectral exhibitions upon the sufferers (which may perhaps prove no small part of the witch-plot in the issue), yet many of the persons thus represented, being examined, several of them have been convicted of a very damnable witchcraft: yea, more than one [and] twenty have confessed, that they have signed unto a book, which the devil showed them, and engaged in his hellish design of bewitching and ruining our land.”

However, it is clear to me, from these carefully cultivated memorials, that people no longer demonize these so-called witches. In fact, this memorial seemed to communicate that we have now forgiven these people and deem them innocent. Here, we recognize their personhood, giving them the burial they never had.

Unfortunately, however, this memorial seems to be the only marker in Salem that remembers the witches thoughtfully and respectfully. As we’ll see soon, there are many examples of the town profiting off of their tragedies. For now, we’ll tour the cemetery that was adjacent to the memorial. Here, regular members of the town were laid to rest and given proper headstones and inscriptions.

The town’s cemetery was full of cracked and crumbling headstones and sort of creepy baby angel faces. There isn’t much to say about the cemetery, except that it was cool to see really old tombstones. Also, it might be notable that most of them told of people dying at young ages in their 30s and 40s. Life expectancy seemed to be much lower in the 1700s.

On the way out, we noticed a plaque with a map of all of the graves of historical interest. We used it to find the grave of Nathaniel Mather, Cotton Mather’s brother.

“An Aged person that had been but Nineteen Winters in the World.”

Right across from the memorial and the graveyard, there were reminders that the town of Salem utilizes its grim history as a selling point for tourism. Tourists can buy the “Salem Hysteria Pass” that allows them access to all points of interest that are witch-related.

After touring the cemetery, we switched our focus to Nathaniel Hawthorne and The Scarlet Letter, and made our way over to the Custom House. However, along the way, we were struck by the beauty of the wharf, and we had to take a quick stroll along the water.

Finally, we make it to the historic Custom House, where Nathaniel Hawthorne spent many of his days overseeing the old men who governed the town. In the introduction to The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne writes of his experience here. He tells us of his deep-rooted history with the town, how he despises its stagnant atmosphere and its measly wharf, and how he worries that his writing ability has left him. The old men he works with, though pleasant and likeable, despise change and take up seats that younger, more adaptable men would be better suited for. It is here in the Custom House that Hawthorne finds the fated scarlet letter and crafts his ideas for his best-known novel.

And here is the eagle that Hawthorne so carefully describes as the guardian of the Custom House. In the introduction to the The Scarlet Letter, he writes,

It was interesting to see Hawthorne’s description come to life in the form of a golden eagle perched on the top of this impressive building. Sitting on the steps below her, I felt almost as if I was not welcome either. The steps remained deserted other than my boyfriend and I, and the Custom House was closed to public view, with the windows obscured by blinds. The building had become more of a memorial than anything else — a piece of the world frozen in time, commemorating old men who seemed — at least to Hawthorne — stuck in their own times.

I got the feeling that Hawthorne was ashamed of his town — ashamed that the eagle, a symbol of American pride, had been wrought to be fierce and unwelcoming rather than loving of its people. He was ashamed of the town’s history surrounding the witches. He writes, “I, the present writer, as their representative, hereby take shame upon myself for their sakes, and pray that any curse incurred by them — as I have heard, and as the dreary and unprosperous condition of the race, for many a long year back, would argue to exist — may be now and henceforth removed.”

As we close out this photo essay, I want to specifically talk about my final thoughts surrounding the way the town has portrayed the Salem Witch Trials. I believe that the people of Salem, unlike Hawthorne, do not take shame in their history. Instead, they promote it as an attraction — a spooky place to hang out and nab some “wicked” souvenirs. From “Witch Way Gifts” to the “Witch’s Brew Cafe” to the “Hysteria Pass,” Salem has found a way to profit off of pain and loss. In contrast, if you visit Berlin, there are somber memorials that respect the history of millions of individuals who were killed for their difference during the holocaust. The Germans do not sell Jewish trinkets. They own their mistakes and honor their dead.

The Holocaust Memorial and the Jewish Museum, Berlin (2016 by Leah Brooks)

On the way back to our car, we noticed that the Salem Witch Museum literally has a facade plastered on to it to make it more spooky and dramatic. This seems to sum up Salem in a nutshell.

7 things you need to know about building a Developer Community

Salem

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