Virtual Tour of The Salem Witch Trials, 1692

PEM’s Head Librarian, Dan Lipcan provides a quick tour through The Salem Witch Trials, 1692. This exhibition of rare and personal items connected to Salem’s dark past will be on view at PEM from September 2020 through April 2021. The Salem witch trials threatened the very core of the early Massachusetts Bay Colony. The extraordinary hysteria involved more than 400 people and led to the deaths of 25 innocents — men, women and children — between June 1692 and March 1693. Explore rarely-exhibited original witch trial documents from PEM’s Phillips Library collection and learn the true story of this tragedy as told through the voices and with the possessions of those directly involved. Many unfounded theories about the Salem witch trials, from poisoning by rotten bread to property disputes to an outbreak of encephalitis, still persist to this day. The panic grew from a society threatened by nearby war and a malfunctioning judicial system in a setting rife with religious conflict and blata