Jarrett Zeman, the Marblehead Museum’s associate director of programs and operations, has been with the museum for three years, but a museum professional for 10 years.
Zeman has developed the museum’s four walking tours — the Women’s History Walking Tour, Tour of Abbot Hall, Slavery to Freedom Tour, and Sports and Leisure History Tour. The museum plans to rotate the tours so that people can have the opportunity throughout the year to go on them.
“We are a museum without walls,” Zeman said. “That’s why we developed the walking tours. We wanted our audience to be able to experience our entire community as a historic site. It gives us the opportunity to help Marbleheaders gain a better appreciation for the town they live in. I’ve always enjoyed doing walking tours. I think it’s a great way for members of the community to get to know us. It’s always been the type of program I enjoy doing the most.”
Zeman’s background in 19th-century social history, as well as women’s history, helped him create the Women’s History Walking Tour.
“It’s a time period and topic that I have a great deal of passion for,” he said.
“The New Woman” era centers around Victorian-era women from the Civil War to World War I.
Zeman said the term refers to young, college-educated women who wanted to have a public life outside the home and be involved in politics.
“They are what we would call first-wave feminists today,” Zeman said.
Many women in this era, he said, never married or had children, instead owning their own businesses and becoming involved in politics and reform movements. Zeman calls these reforms the big three: the abolition of slavery, the women’s suffrage movement, and the temperance movement.
Zeman said the tour draws a contrast between the middle-class women and working-class women in town and the different lives that they led in this period. It was in this era that women declared their independence.
“It was their version of a declaration of independence,” Zeman said.
Zeman said his favorite thing about living and working in Marblehead is the pride that the town’s residents have for their history.
“There’s something special about the pride that people have about the history of this town and role it played in the national story,” Zeman said. “I have not witnessed this in other regions.”
