Thomas Dresser sets his new book, “Martha’s Vineyard in the Roaring Twenties: Radicals and Rascals,” securely within the larger context of world history. It offers us a sweeping, micro/macro perspective of the decade sitting between the end of the First World War and the beginning of the Great Depression. The chapters are not sequential, nor mutually exclusive, covering such topics as the effects of Prohibition, women’s right to vote, the Red Scare, Harlem Renaissance, immigration, airplanes, and the Spanish flu on the Island.
Dresser actually starts his book a bit before the 1920s, with World War I and the Spanish flu as the opening chapters. As usual, Dresser gives us vivid details, putting the Spanish flu — which spread fear and infection across the Island — in historical context, telling us that some 50 million people died worldwide, more than 675,000 of whom were in the U.S. In each chapter, Dresser ends with connections to the 2020s, here sharing that in comparison, more than 1 million Americans have succumbed to COVID-19.
Dresser devotes two absorbing chapters to Prohibition. Turns out, the Island was an ideal location, with its remote beaches easily accessible to the fishing and other boats Islanders had to — under the cover of darkness — get their stash from the mother ship anchored the lawful 12 miles offshore, and then sell or drink it back on land. Dresser writes, “That watery slice of ocean was patrolled by the Coast Guard, eager to spot, chase, and catch small fishing boats and naive Vineyarders, trapped between the law and a profitable financial reward … It was not a safe or easy way to make a buck.” He includes a bloodcurdling story of the destruction of one such ship, the John Dwight, which, through piracy or mutiny, ended up with the bodies of her crew found floating, life jackets on and heads smashed in, among bootleg ale in Vineyard Sound.
On a lighter note, in the chapter titled “Fashion,” Dresser paints a picture of the 1920s flappers: “Freedom-loving, inspired, and inspirational characterized these highly motivated, unconventional young women.” Photos of one such young woman on the Vineyard, Maude Littlefield, “who smoked and partied with the best of them,” are examples of the related images Dresser includes throughout the book that accent his information.
We see the importance of African American culture here on the Island through chapters on the Harlem Renaissance, migration, and Shearer Cottage. Dresser introduces us to the topic with information from Adelaide Cromwell, a professor at Boston University with a summer home on the Vineyard, who studied the growth of the Black community here: “The first Blacks at these places [summer resorts] were year-rounders, seeking work in the more favorable northern environment … The second group was summer people who came to work for white Vineyarders, or came on vacation staying at guesthouses and small hotels run by and for Blacks. The third group, vacationing as the leisure class, stayed at Black-owned hotels, and then often bought their own homes.” Among others, Dresser introduces us to such individuals as Charles and Henrietta Shearer; author Dorothy West; baritone and classical Harry Burleigh, perhaps best known for his spirituals; and the Rev. Oscar Denniston, who served as minister to the Bradley Mission and as pastor for sailors at the Vineyard Haven Seamen’s Bethel.
With its bohemian flair, we learn about a perhaps lesser-known, and smaller, community connected to the up-Island Barn House in Chilmark that was started by a collection of random intellectuals, artists, and businessmen from Boston and New York. Apparently, “the Barn was a refuge, a place for a diverse group of individuals to gather and converse, and cherish their time together” with fun-filled days at the beach, amateur theatrical performances, and cocktail hours. The guest list also resonated with “free-spirited” liberal leaders, including siblings Crystal and Max Eastman, and Thomas Hart Benton, all of whom, while avoiding publicity, nonetheless roused considerable curiosity among their neighbors.
There’s interesting in-depth background about ongoing Island institutions such as the forming of the Dukes County Historical Society, which has evolved into today’s Martha’s Vineyard Museum. Also, among the groups still around today are the Garden Club, Want-to-Know Club, and businesses like Phillips Hardware, illustrated with interesting historic and recent photographs.
Dresser deftly segues in a chapter about the Scopes trial to the idea of historical revisionism in the Vineyard during the 1920s. One centers around the history of a fugitive enslaved person who had been rescued by the Underground Railroad of Martha’s Vineyard in 1854. The original newspaper article referred to two women from Holmes Hole helping in the rescue, but in a 1921 letter to the paper, Netta Vanderhoop stated that it was her grandmother Beulah Vanderhoop, a Wampanoag woman, not the two white women, who assisted the escapee.
There are many more chapters with slices of life here that shed light on the decade. Overall, Dresser hopes “readers walk away from the book recognizing how much the Vineyard was part of that exciting era.” In his epilogue, he connects this past with the future, and also ends on a cautionary note: “As we look ahead, none of us know whether we will face another financial panic, another pandemic, or a climate crisis beyond our wildest fears. Or perhaps we will be the beneficiaries of an unimagined proverbial blessing of a restoration of a stable climate, an unexpected economic windfall, or the elevation of a peaceful world order.
“It’s often been said that those who fail to learn from history are destined to repeat it. Let us trust that the 1920s have taught us something about learning to live in a more realistic, optimistic world.”
“Martha’s Vineyard in the Roaring Twenties: Radicals and Rascals” by Thomas Dresser, available at Bunch of Grapes, Edgartown Books, Phillips Hardware, the Corner Store, Off Main, and Cronig’s Market, thomasdresser.com, and elsewhere online.
Tom Dresser will be appearing on June 21 at noon at the M.V. Rotary at the P.A. Club; July 1 at 4 pm at the Chilmark library, and elsewhere throughout the summer.
