INTERVIEW WITH J. DENNIS ROBINSON
Author of Strawbery Banke: A Seaport Museum 400 Years in the Making

This is a huge project – a four-pound book covreing 400 years of history with almost 400 photos. What drew you to tell the complete story of Strawbery Banke?

I’ve been wandering through the campus of Strawbery Banke Museum since the early 1970s, but never really understood what it was all about. I knew it was the 1630 site of the first New Hampshire "plantation". I knew the state’s only seaport was once a booming part of the West India Trade before it went bust in the early 1800s. I knew it had become a red light district until 1912 and that the "Puddle Dock" immigrant neighborhood was shut down by eminent domain in the early 1960s. But none of the pieces seemed to fit together. There was no context, no connections. I guess the more I assembled the puzzle, the bigger the book got. For me, these 10-acres tell the evolving story of this nation better than any other historic campus I know. It was nice to learn that Ken Burns, who saw an early draft of the book, agrees. You can’t squeeze a story that rich and complex onto a bumper sticker, so I just wrote until I felt the tale was done.

In the Introduction you refer to yourself as "the last person on earth" who might write this book. Why was that?

This book is the history of a history museum with over 30 historic houses run by professional historians. I am just a storyteller, an English major who didn’t much like history in school. I didn’t want to focus on architecture and decorative arts. I was fascinated, instead, by the exciting lives of the people who lived and worked here – from the first settlers who were abandoned when their leader died in 1635, to the men and women who started and ran the museum in the 20th century. It was a rough and tumble story from start to finish. When I proposed the concept to Larry Yerdon, president of Strawbery Banke, he took a big gamble. Larry let me tell the story my way. Of course, I was careful to run all the facts by a lot of brilliant history scholars. Instead of a textbook, I wanted a page turner that pulls in readers like a detective novel.

In the second half of the book you tell wonderful stories about the people behind the early preservationist efforts. Where did you get so many juicy details?

I was fortunate to get my hands on a lot of letters, journals and behind-the-scenes documents and audio tapes. Dorothy Vaughan, one of the museum founders, passed away just shy of her 100th birthday as I was starting my research. She left over 100 boxes of data from her private files. Muriel Howells, another founder, kept a scrapbook for four decades. There was a "secret history" of the museum written by a frustrated former trustee hidden in the archives. As a journalist, I’m used to poking around where I don’t belong. Strawbery Banke was founded in 1958 and nine of the ten directors of the museum are still alive -- so I interviewed them all. I didn’t shy away from controversial topics, which is rare for a book like this, I guess, but I tried to see each controversy from different points of view rather than look for heroes and villains.
 
This book has illustrations on almost every page. The color art photography is spectacular. How did that come about?

I confess to being a micro-manager. I used to own a video and design company and I’ve always used pictures along with words. I had the incredible photographs of Ralph Morang and Richard Haynes Jr in my head long before the book started. I may be a writer by trade, but I know pictures are critical to sales and to the enjoyment of the reader. Too many history books have just a few fuzzy images. My goal was to create what looks, at first, like a coffee table book crammed with images, some never published before. Collecting all the images added almost a third year to the process, but I believe strongly in giving the book buyer as much value as possible, in the design as well as the writing. If someone only reads the captions and looks at the pictures, I want that experience to be as rich and enjoyable as reading the words. In that sense a book is like a theatrical production or a fine meal. I had worked with Peter E. Randall Publisher before, and I knew they could turn my vision into a super quality book. I’m very interested in every aspect of the book process from the font size to the paper stock. Another publisher once called me "the writer from Hell" and I take that as a compliment.

What surprised you the most about this project? And what did you learn from it?

I remain amazed how much we cling to pleasing myths and legends in favor of hard cold facts. The Piscataqua River, for example, was first explored decades before the Pilgrims came to Plymouth by a trader seeking sassafras to cure venereal disease. Years later New Hampshire was first settled by what amounts to a group of 17th century venture capitalists who thought the river might be the northwest passage to China. When the experiment failed to yield profits, they bailed and shut down the corporation. The founders didn’t build a church for 20 years, yet we still cling to the idea that New England was begun by people in search of religious freedom. When the Puritans later swarmed into Portsmouth, they brought religious intolerance. The founding of Strawbery Banke Museum, just half a century ago, was already wrapped in false legends that I hoped to dispel in the book. In order to launch a preservation movement, the "originators" had to destroy one of Portsmouth’s only ethnic neighborhoods. Even people who were there when it began told me stories that simply were not true. I learned to dig deep, question all sources and never trust old history books.

How do you think the book will be received?

Local readers have already sent kind and glowing reviews. One reader said the book would still be a bargain at three times the price. That makes three years of work feel worthwhile. My deepest hope is that people outside the region will see the Strawbery Banke story as a candid example of how we define and preserve history in America. History is a moving target. We save old buildings and build museums for many reasons and those reasons change as our view of history shifts. The battle over what history tells us, for me, is more interesting and more important than the military battles we’re forced to study in school. How we define our past defines us as a nation. I was given a rare opportunity to tell the whole truth, as I see it, about 10-acres of land through 400 years of history. I hope as many readers as possible will take that trip with me.

(c) 2009 Strawbery Banke Museum and SeacoastNH.com

WANT MORE?  Interview with JDR by Portsmouth Herald in January 2008