Reading Between the Lions
  • Print

22200.jpg



Strawbery Banke Presents
HISTORIC PORTSMOUTH #222

Young library assistant Dorothy Vaughan poses astride a lion at the entrance to the Rockingham Hotel on State Street. Over three decades later in 1957 Vaughan made local history on this spot. (Continued below)

 

 

HISTORIC PHOTOS of the Greater Portsmouth Area appear here week

222dv.jpg

Her speech inside the Rockingham to the Portsmouth Rotary, legend says, sparked the founding of Strawbery Banke. Vaughan, in fact, was among at least four prominent speakers who addressed Rotarians about historic preservation that year. She frequently noted in later years that this was her first talk to the all-male business group. Records indicate, however, that she also lectured to them on April 13, 1950. Born in 1904, Vaughan was an influential Portsmouth figure until her death in 2004. (NH Historical Society Collection)

READ: Love Letters of Dorothy Vaughan 
READ: Who Really Started Strawbery Banke? 

 

 This image from the book STRAWBERY BANKE:
A Seaport Museum 400 Years in the Making
by J. Dennis Robinson
(c) Strawbery Banke Museum Collection
 

Strawbery Banke