Lynn Meadows

On view in the American Art before 1900 galleries

In this painting, Martin Johnson Heade captures a place of transition. Some old-fashioned square-riggers appear in the far distance on the water. Along the railroad that bisects the marsh, a modern train exits the scene, polluting the air with coal smoke. Men dig clams from the mudflats, a traditional form of labor, adhering not to the railroad’s schedule but to that of the tides. Although Heade’s pastoral frankly ac­knowledges the railroad, which was playing a major role in the Civil War, it offers no hint of the dramatic transformation of nearby Lynn, Massachusetts, into a major industrial center.