Southampton, Images of America

From a bucolic backwater to one of the most fashionable resorts on the East Coast, this is the history of New York's Southampton.

Settled in 1640 by a group of Puritans from Massachusetts, Southampton changed very little until the railroad line from New York City reached the village in 1870, focusing mainly on whaling. It was only then that wealthy New Yorkers discovered the rural hamlet on the South Fork of Long Island. By the turn of the century, Southampton was considered a definite "must" on the list of everybody who was anybody. Over 200 photographs, many rare and previously unpublished, illustrate the changes that came to agrarian Southampton as successive waves of summer residents arrived, first to stay in farmhouses refurbished as boarding houses, then building their own sprawling summer "cottages." Drawn from local historical archives and private collections, these images will show how small-town life continued over the years in a place now world-renowned for its exclusive clubs, grand mansions, and celebrity residents.