author
Mary Harrod Northend
1850–1926
A prolific New England writer and photographer, she brought colonial houses, gardens, and interiors to life for early 20th-century readers. Her books helped preserve the look and feel of historic American homes long before preservation became mainstream.
5 Audiobooks
Colonial Homes and Their Furnishings
by Mary Harrod Northend
Historic doorways of Old Salem
by Mary Harrod Northend
Historic Homes of New England
by Mary Harrod Northend
Garden Ornaments
by Mary Harrod Northend
Remodeled Farmhouses
by Mary Harrod Northend
About the author
Born in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1850, Mary Harrod Northend became an American author known for writing about colonial architecture, home furnishings, and gardens. She was especially associated with New England subjects, and her work drew on a strong interest in historic homes and everyday domestic life.
Northend was more than a writer alone: she is also remembered for the large number of photographs she took or commissioned to illustrate her books and articles. That visual approach gave her work a documentary quality, helping readers see historic interiors, decorative details, and old houses in a vivid, accessible way.
Her books, including Colonial Homes and Their Furnishings and Historic Homes of New England, remain part of the record of early American preservation and design history. She died in 1926, but her writing still offers a window into how people of her era understood and valued the colonial past.