Three fragments of floral wallpaper from Cotuit, Massachusetts. The largest fragment [A] is affixed to the back of a cardboard promotional calendar for "The National Shawmut Bank" dated 1956. The wallpaper has an all-over design of stylized flowers and foliage in imitation of a tapestry or other textile. Roller-printed in pale yellow and dark olive on olive ground.
wallpapers
paper (fiber product)
floral patterns
Wallpaper
This floral green wallpaper is adhered to the reverse of a cardboard promotional calendar for National Shawmut Bank for the year 1956. The wallpaper itself is made of paper and fabric and is likely from the 1870s. The wallpaper fragments adhered to the promotional calendar were gifted to Historic New England by Bernard Scott who is responsible for giving many wallpaper and storage box pieces to the organization. Calendars of this variety were a common product of corporations; many New England families had advertising calendars in their homes. What is uncertain, though, is why the wallpaper pieces were adhered to the Shawmut Bank calendar.
The wallpaper fragments represent common materials and colors for home decorations in mid-to-late nineteenth century, however the board on which they are glued is striking. The board is an advertising calendar produced and circulated by Shawmut National Bank that depicts a stereotypical image of an Indigenous man, specifically Obbatinewat, a Wampanoag Sachem who lived in seventeenth-century in Boston.
Shawmut Bank was founded in 1836, and would merge with Boston Bank in 1995 under Fleet Financial, becoming the ninth largest bank in the United States. "Shawmut" was chosen as the name of this Boston-based bank because Shawmut was what the land was originally called by the Massachusett tribe prior to the arrival of the Puritans in 1630, after which colonial settlers dubbed the area Boston. b The Massachusett tribe lived alongside the Nipmuc, Wampanoag, and Pawtucket peoples in the Northeastern Woodlands region, and they shared an Eastern Algoniquin language. The Massachusett people would fish and dry their catch trade for other goods as far north as Maine and as far south as Virginia. The tribe constructed canoes and other tools to use while fishing and trade and would eventually educate Massachusetts Bay colonists in those practices.
The name "Shawmut" has been translated to mean "water," "canoe landing place," "land of many waters," or "place to ferry across" by various sources. This could refer to the saltwater surrounding the city or to the Great Spring in what would be the "downtown" area of Boston that gave its people fresh water. The name is still used by many Massachusetts companies: there is a Shawmut MBTA stop on the red metro line in Dorchester, as well as a Shawmut Street and a Shawmut Ave in Bay Village and in the South End, respectively. Many local businesses use the name, too. Both Shawmut Design and Construction and Shawmut Equipment, Co. adopted the regional term in their names.
This logo was selected by Shawmut Capital Partners, which is now an inactive business. There are currently dozens of busts of Obbatinewat recovered from closed Shawmut Bank locations for sale online, and one can still see the Sachems face on many night drop boxes still attached to buildings that used to house bank branches; Brookline and Brighton, and other sections of the Greater Boston area, have them in abundance. With no surviving historical account of Obbatinewats features or likeness, this portrait is clearly the work of an illustrator who relied on other popular yet stereotypical depictions of Indigenous men from the early-to-mid twentieth era. Obbatinewats bare torso and feather headdress are clear signifiers of their "otherness" in contrast to the owner of this calendar and by extension, the typical customer of Shawmut Bank.
"Floral Tapestry" (handwritten)
"G28" [circled] / Cotuit" (handwritten)
"Robinson / Shaw?" (Person wallpaper was acquired from.)
"The National / Shawmut Bank / [image of cigar indian] / 1956 / [calendar] / Member Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation / Forbes-Boston / Printed in U.S.A. " (Bank poster)
Waterhouse, Dorothy S.
Original To Alvin C. Burlingame House (Cotuit, MA),
Unknown
United States
20 1/4 x 14 3/4 (HxW) (inches)
Gift of Bernard Scott
2001.281.970A-C
Cotuit (Barnstable county, Massachusetts)
Probably United States
Title Reproduction Wallpaper Accession Number 2001.281.771.1-.2
Title Reproduction Wallpaper Accession Number 2001.281.867
Title Reproduction Wallpaper Accession Number 2001.281.883
Machine Printed
wall fragment
Olive
Original
Machine Made
Sidewall/Fill
Paper
Stylized Flowers
Vines
Foliage
Floral
Imitation textile
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