The Pause That Refreshes
A carefully composed photograph captures a relaxing late summer afternoon in Camden.
By Joshua F. Moore
Theresa Parker Babb knew how to shake things up in turn-of-the-century Camden. The wife of the superintendent of the Knox Woolen Mill in town, Babb, at top, second from left, used her social standing and ambition to create the Camden Community Hospital, reach the summit of Maiden Cliff with the Camden Outing Club (and in a skirt, no less!), and discuss literature at the Monday Evening Reading Club. She also used it to round up models and locations for her budding photography hobby. In this striking image, captured on Sherman's Point in Camden's outer harbor during late summer 1900, Babb has convinced three friends and an older bespectacled chaperone identified as Miss Merriam, at bottom, to perch with her at low tide on the seaweed and barnacle-covered rocks.
