Learning Activities Related to The Custom House Sketch
Hawthorne's Office in the Salem Custom House(photography by Aaron Toleos)
The following learning activities make use of material on the Website related
to the Custom House:
A student interested in history or architecture might wish to look at the
information on merchants of the
eighteenth century in Salem, the images of the
houses where Elias Haskett Derby lived, and the image of
Derby Wharf shortly after Hawthorne's time. Then the student might use
those sources along with the description Hawthorne gives of Salem at the
beginning of the "Custom House" chapter to write an essay discussing
how maritime Salem of Hawthorne's time, in the mid-nineteenth century, differs
from the Salem of the Golden Age of the late 1700s.
A student who enjoys creative writing might wish to look at the
architecture of the Custom House and the
panoramic tour of Hawthorne's office and then use these materials and
the sections of "The Custom-House" chapter in which Hawthorne describes life
at the Custom House and his fellow employees to write a creative, first person
piece from Hawthorne's viewpoint which reveals his attitudes toward his job
and the people at the Custom House.
