Salem Mayor Wants More Diversity In City Hall Portraits

SALEM, MA — There are seven portraits hanging in Salem city council chambers, and all seven depict a white man. Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll wants to change that and has filed an order ahead of Thursday night's city council meeting that would remove one of those painting and replace it with a painting to be commissioned, likely depicting the Naumkeag people.

"In my view, it is past time to recognize the contributions and sacrifices of others, especially the Native peoples who were displaced and killed, so Salem could become the city it is today," Driscoll wrote in a cover letter accompanying the proposal.

Under the order, an 1833 painting of President Andrew Jackson by Ralph Eleaser Whiteside Earl would be relocated to the anteroom off of the chamber and replaced with a frame and sign until the commissioned portrait can be completed. That painting is expected to be ready some time next year.

In addition to Jackson, there are paintings of General Henry Kemble Oliver, General Philip Sheridan, Leverett Saltonstall, Salem’s first mayor, Marquis de Lafayette, George Washington and William Kerin Constable in council chambers.

Jackson visited Salem at least once, in June 1833, when he stayed at Nathaniel West's Mansion House on Central and Essex Street before touring what is now the Peabody Essex Museum before heading on to Lowell. As the seventh president of the U.S., Jackson oversaw the displacement of Native Americans to the western united states by signing the Indian Removal Act of 1830.

Earl became lifelong friends with Jackson after meeting him when he was commissioned to paint the Battle of New Orleans, where Jackson served as a general. Earl eventually married Jackson's niece and, when Jackson was elected president, he went with him to Washington. Earl painted so many portraits of Jackson and his family that he became known as the "court painter" of the Jackson administration.