Christmas Past at the Yorick Club and Maybe a Shakespearean Graveyard Scene
"Yorick Hall Xmas Eve,” someone wrote on the bottom of this photo taken in the early 1900s. It was found in one of Annie’s scrapbooks after she died in 1952.
This image was taken in the hall at the Yorick Club. The men’s social club was formed in 1889 and named after Yorick the king's jester, whose skull is uncovered in the tragic-comedic gravedigger scene of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. An alternate view of the club’s exterior, which has intriguing details, was published on a postcard we acquired just yesterday.
Today, the building on the corner of Dutton and Merrimack Streets near City Hall, is home to the Cobblestones of Lowell Restaurant.
The damaged and dark Christmas Eve image shows hints of Christmas decorations and a tree. The reflection on the door suggests an early flash technique may have been used, such as powder. The “Smiles” sign indicates that this might be a singing group, yet a search of newspaper databases yields no such name.
The writing on the scrapbook image was likely added years after it was taken. It does not remotely match handwriting samples from Annie or her husband, John. Even if she didn’t take the photo, since she kept it until her final days as the image may have had sentimental value.
The postcard image of the club with a 1911 postmark is almost certainly Annie’s work.
This image was tinted, probably by her deft hand, for two publishers, the office supplier G.C. Prince and Lowell Postcard Co. Both businesses were located within two blocks on Merrimack St. The same image appears in black and white in an unidentified publication on the Downtown Lowell Facebook page.
It gets more complicated. The same publisher, Prince, printed two slightly different versions which give insight into Annie’s authorship and artistic intentions. Above, I have blown up a portion of the two versions in which we see a woman with a hat, yellow blouse and black skirt. In the version on the left, we see additional red ink on the Dutton St. sign, the post, the woman’s hat and shoulder, and the cement post. That version has additional red ink on parts of the building including the entrance. Additionally, we see five upright wood slats on the left but at least six on the right, suggesting that these were not in the original scene but were drawn in later on two occasions.
As I attribute these anonymous photos to Annie Powell, as I have looked at thousands of Lowell images from 1891 to 1958. I have concluded that spectral and lurking people–mostly men–figure prominently as reminders of death. This would have been central to her sect’s Calvinist beliefs that death was imminent and one needed to be prepared for the rewards of heaven. These images were clearly personal to her and any hidden symbolism would not be noticed by her municipal construction clients. Like this postcard, a few were sold to the public; yet, the red ink around a barely visible woman would require a magnifying glass to be appreci
So what were Annie’s artistic intentions with this hidden woman outside the Yorick Club? I would argue she represents Ophelia, Hamlet’s love interest who dies by drowning (possibly a suicide) and whose casket arrives to end the graveyard scene. In my view, the idea that red could represent blood and the wood slats could represent a casket adds a macabre twist to the scene.
Finally, we know that Annie sometimes used herself as a model and there’s a chance this is a self-portrait.
We don’t know that Annie knew the gravedigger scene from Shakespeare’s masterpiece. We do know his plays, and in particular, this scene, was a strong part of the popular culture in Annie's time, both in her prior 31 years in England and on her later arrival in Lowell in 1891. Newspaper accounts verify the play's popularity through performances, studies, quotes, and satirical versions.
In her lifetime between age 10 to 31, there were 60 references to Hamlet and Ophelia in her local Huddersfield, West Yorkshire press (British Newspaper Archive). During her life in Lowell, the grammar school curriculum was steeped in Shakespeare (School Committee report, 1906-07), and in 1897, the Lowell Daily Courier devoted 1,500 words to a well-attended lecture on Hamlet. The paper’s 1904 review of a touring production of the play began with complimenting the performance of the actor playing the role Ophelia.
We do know both images are dated after July 26, 1901. That is when a men’s social club of 200 members took over the building from the Merrimack Manufacturing Co. which originally built it as a facility for senior executives. (The postcard is postmarked 1911, but postcards were popular collectibles and our organization owns an example of one sent 11 years after the print date.)
The first Christmas party in the new headquarters was attended by over “300 wives and lady friends” who played billiards as “an orchestra discoursed enlivening music.” (Lowell Sun, Dec. 13, 1901).
An oral history recounts that the social club voted between two names when it was founded in 1889: Halcyon, for an idyllic period of time; and Yorick, for the jester in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Overlooking Yorick’s darker association with the ephemeral quality of life, they decided that “‘a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy’ definitely suggested good fellowship…”
In 1964, when Richard Burton appeared in the film version of Hamlet that played in Lowell, the club was in its waning years, but a column by "Pertinax" in 1964 noted:
...one of the audience felt bold enough to participate, during the scene when Hamlet holds the skull of the dead jester in his hands and says, "Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him well!(sic)... At that moment the droll one near us said loudly, "I know him well, too. His last name is Club." (Lowell Sun, Oct. 5, 1964)
By Bernie Zelitch, Executive Director
Published in our newsletter 12/24/2024
