It took some considerable digging on the web to identify the site of this large glass negative, even with the help of the sign in the upper right – Russell Cottages 1863 – 1890. The negative was surely taken by an amateur photographer, a summer guest soon after 1890 (the dress is clearly early in the decade); the exposure from shade into bright light had a very narrow latitude which required quite a lot of work to get the balance you see here. Had the sign not been included by happenstance no one alive today would know what we are looking at.
Russell Cottages, located in Kearsarge Village, North Conway, NH, was one of many resort hotels and boarding houses in the White Mountains, popular with city dwellers from before the Civil War into the first quarter of the 20th century. Most were not cottages as we think of them, any more than the palatial marble Gilded Age mansions built by tycoons in Newport, RI, which were also referred to as "cottages"; the term described vacation places, whether individual residences or resort hotels.
From a history of the White Mountains of 1886: N. Conway is the chief summer-resort among the White Mts., and is occupied by city-people from early May until late October. The height of the season is in August, when over 3,000 tourists are sojourning here. During the heated term it is warmer than Bethlehem, but cooler than the villages of the lake-country. Evening gayeties are much patronized, and there are hops, concerts, and readings in the halls of the chief hotels. The adjacent roads are visited, every pleasant day, by riding parties; and rambling pedestrians explore the neighboring forests and hills, or fish for trout along the falling brooks. It is the beauty and variety of its environs that gives N. Conway the foremost rank among the mountain-villages, added to the fact that it is at the proper focal distance from Mt. Washington.
This scene is a daytime parade entertainment of some kind, probably at the height of the season in August, in which residents apparently use chairs from the dining room for seating. We can't tell who is seated in the highly decorated carriage, but we can't be far off imagining a king and queen of the season with a fete to follow in the evening. The couple on the bench in the center wave and clap as the carriage moves by at a clip that raises dust.
Russell Cottages, and others of high status at this time, charged rates of from $7 – $10 dollars per week (dining included), about what you would pay for a quick lunch on-the-run today. Many well-known figures frequented North Conway in the summer, including William Dean Howells who describes just such settings in his famous Victorian-era novels.
