A celebration, this is

Plath graduated Gamaliel Bradford Senior High School and spent the summer working on a farm. She entered Smith College in September. Plath's published journals and letters commence at this time and offer the reader a sort of autobiography by which thoughts, themes, and experiences were related privately (journals) and for an audience (letters). While she excelled at Smith, darker forces existed and after her Guest Editorship at Mademoiselle in August 1953, she attempted suicide. This is the story at the heart of her novel The Bell Jar. Once recovered - "patched, retreaded and approved for the road" (Chapter 20) - she re-entered Smith in January 1954. She led a freer life for her last three semesters as an ungraduate, receiving her diploma in June 1955. The next photograph gallery covers the period of 1955-1957, when Plath was a Fulbright Scholar at Newnham College, Cambridge University.

Please contact me regarding use of the photographs on this website. No photographs may be used without my consent.

	Reference: Now held at the Mortimer Rare Book Room, Smith College.
	Reference: One of the first thing a visit to Smith College sees.
	Reference: Plath's residence house from 1950-1952.
	Reference: Plath's room was on the third floor, on the right side of this picture.
	Reference: Plath's residence house from 1952-1955.
	Reference: Lawrence House is next to the Library, off Green Street.
	Reference: Where, according to Plath, the "girls take their boys to neck on weekends." See Plath's Journals, page 390.
	Reference: The home of Olive Higgins Prouty, Plath's benefactress. See "Tea with Olive Higgins Prouty" in the Sylvia Plath Collection, Smith College.
	Reference: Plath stayed at a house on this street when visiting Richard Norton.
	Reference: See Plath's Journals, pages 51-2 and The Bell Jar, Chapter Five.
	Reference: The front of the building is much nicer than the back.
	Reference: Plath baby-sat for the Mayo's during the summer of 1951.
	Reference: The lawn looking towards the Atlantic. See Plath's Journals, pages 67-68
	Reference: The front door faces west, away from the sea.
	Reference: Taken from a plane, the red arrow points to the house and lawn.
	Reference: At the tip of Marblehead Neck. See Plath's poem "The Babysitters".
	Reference: The Norton family home.
	Reference: Plath waitressed here briefly during the summer of 1952. See her Journals and Letters Home.
	Reference: Now condominiums, The Belmont Hotel stood here.
	Reference: Now the beach is private, but once Plath likely swam here.
	Reference: Plath was a mother's helper for the Cantor's later in the summer of 1952.
	Reference: The beach near Bay Lane. Plath took the Cantor children here.
	Reference: Residence of May Sarton. Plath interviewed Elizabeth Bowen here for Mademoiselle on 26 May 1953.
	Reference: Plath resided here in the summer of 1953 in room 1511.
	Reference: Plath renamed the hotel "The Amazon" in her novel, The Bell Jar.
	Reference: The location of Mademoiselle's offices when Plath was Guest Editor in June 1953.
	Reference: See Plath's poem "Suicide Off Egg Rock" and The Bell Jar, Chapter 13.
	Reference: From Long Beach, Lynn, Mass.
	Reference: Plath underwent ECT treatment here in the Summer of 1953.
	Reference: An area on the side of the building.
	Reference: The other side of the building.
	Reference: Police and citizens searched for Plath here during her first suicide attempt in August 1953.
	Reference: Plath first recuperated here.
	Reference: Plath transferred to the Psychiatric Ward here before being sent to McLean Hospital.
	Reference: Plath's third and final hospital during her recovery.
	Reference: The map is reminiscent of a university campus.
	Reference: Plath recovered in here; likely the inspiration for Caplan in The Bell Jar.
	Reference: I believe Plath may have convalesced here, too.
	Reference: Plath may have used the color of this building to describe Dr. Gordon's private hospital in "Walton" in The Bell Jar.
	Reference: Likely the inspiration for Wymark in The Bell Jar.
	Reference: In The Bell Jar, Esther meets Irwin at the top of the steps. See Chapter 19.
	Reference: In Chapter 19 of The Bell Jar, Plath writes, "I was standing at the top of the long flight, overlooking the red brick buildings that walled the snow filled quad ..."
	Reference: The inspiration for Dodo Conway's house in The Bell Jar.
	Reference: Plath sublet Apt. 4 here in the summer of 1954. See Nancy Hunter-Steiner's A Closer Look at Ariel.

Sylvia Plath: A life in photographs: 1950-1955