The Atlas of Boston History [1 ed.] 2018057645, 9780226631158, 9780226631295

Table of contents :
Contents
Preface
Section I. The Setting
Introduction
The Boston Basin, before 5,000 BP
The First Inhabitants, 12,000–400 BP
Europeans Arrive in Massachusetts Bay, 1500s–1630
Section II. Making New England’s Metropolis
Introduction
Boston Is Founded, 1630–1640
Boston’s Economy in the 1640s
Accommodation and Conflict, 1630–1676
Boston in 1676
Section III. A Provincial City in the British Empire
Introduction
Boston’s Economy, 1740–1760
Boston and the Slave Trade, 1638–Early 1800s
Boston in 1743
Revolutionary Boston, 1763–1776
Section IV. From Town to City Government
Introduction
Boston’s Economy, 1776–1807
Boston in 1800
Connections to the Mainland and Additions of Land, 1786–1828
Section V. “Athens of America”
Introduction
Railroad Development, 1830–1855
Early Landscaped Spaces, 1820–1860
Literary Boston, 1837–1891
Boston and Reform Movements, 1820–1865
Abolitionist Movement, 1829–1865
Section VI. Immigration and Industrialization
Introduction
Irish Immigration, 1700s–1855
Boston in 1855: Population
Boston in 1855: Economy
Development of the South End and Back Bay, 1845–1882
Great Fire of 1872
Addition of Land, 1828–1880
Section VII. MetropolitanBoston
Introduction
Annexation Movement, 1868–1873
Streetcar Suburbs, 1870–1900
Public Transportation, 1856–1918
Water and Sewerage Systems, 1795–1906
Boston and Metropolitan Park Systems, 1875–1919
Section VIII. Boston in the Late1800s/Early 1900s
Introduction
Boston’s Economy, 1905
Sports and Recreation, 1895–1903
Scollay Square, 1880s–1963
Theatrical Boston, 1880s–1930s
Cultural Boston, 1780–1915
Enterprising Women, 1862–1914
Social Service Institutions, c. 1900
Boston in 1910
1910 Mayoral Election
Section IX. Decline
Introduction
The Long Depression, 1920–1960
Public Housing, 1935–2010
Boston in 1950
Section X. “The New Boston”
Introduction
Addition of Land, 1880–2003
Highways and Airport, 1920–1973
Public Transportation, 1918–1967
Relocation to the Suburbs, 1940–1970
The Urban Renewal Era, 1949–1974
Boston School Busing, 1974
Section XI. Boston in the Early 2000s
Introduction
Updating the Water System, 1907–2013
Updating the Sewerage System, 1907–2013
Updating Highways and Public Transportation, 1967–2017
Boston’s Economy: Higher Education in 2018
Boston’s Economy: Medical Center in 2016
Boston’s Economy: Commercial Center in 2019
Boston’s Economy: Visitors and Tourists in 2017
Environmental Challenges in 2014
Boston in 2010
Acknowledgments
Appendix
Additional Information, Sources, and Credits
Contributors
Index

Citation preview

The Atlas of Boston History

THE ATLAS OF The University of Chicago Press * Chicago and London

BOSTON HISTORY Edited by Nancy S. Seasholes

The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2019 by Nancy S. Seasholes All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews. For more information, contact the University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637. Published 2019 Printed in the United States of America 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19   1 2 3 4 5 ISBN-­13: 978-­0-­226-­63115-­8 (cloth) ISBN-­13: 978-­0-­226-­63129-­5 (e-­book) DOI: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226631295.001.0001 Title page: A. F. Poole, Twentieth Century Boston (Boston: F. D. Nichols Co., 1905). Reproduction courtesy of the Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library.   Libra ry o f Co ngr e ss Cata lo gi ng -­i n-­P ub lic at i on D ata Names: Seasholes, Nancy S., editor. Title: The atlas of Boston history / edited by Nancy S. Seasholes. Description: Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press, 2019. | Includes index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018057645 | ISBN 9780226631158 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780226631295 (e-­book) Subjects: LCSH: Boston (Mass.)—­History—­Atlases. Classification: LCC F73.3 .A853 2019 | DDC 912.744/61—­dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018057645 Maps by International Mapping Associates This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48–­1992 (Permanence of Paper).

Contents

p r efa ce  ix Nancy S. Seasholes

Section I.

The Setting

I n tr odu ct ion   3

Plate 2. The First Inhabitants, 12,000–­400 BP  6

P l at e 1. The Boston Basin, before 5,000 BP  4

Plate 3. Europeans Arrive in Massachusetts Bay,

Nancy S. Seasholes

Joseph Bagley

1500s–­1630  8

Joseph Bagley, Nancy S. Seasholes, Marshall Pontrelli, and Laurie Baise

Section II.



Dane Morrison

Making New England’s Metropolis

I n tr odu ct ion   12

Plate 6. Accommodation and Conflict, 1630–­1676  18

P l at e 4. Boston Is Founded, 1630–­1640  14

Plate 7.

Mark Peterson

Katherine A. Grandjean

Robert Charles Anderson

Boston in 1676  20

Nancy S. Seasholes

P l at e 5. Boston’s Economy in the 1640s  16 Mark Peterson



Section III.

A Provincial City in the British Empire

I n tr odu ct ion   24

Plate 1 0. Boston in 1743  30

P l at e 8. Boston’s Economy, 1740–­1760  26

Plate 1 1 . Revolutionary Boston, 1763–­1776  32

Mark Peterson

Benjamin L. Carp

Mark Peterson

J. L. Bell

P l at e 9. Boston and the Slave Trade, 1638-­Early 1800s  28 Kerima M. Lewis and Mark Peterson

S e c t i o n I V.



From Town to City Government

I n tr odu ct ion   37

Plate 1 3. Boston in 1800  40

P l at e 12. Boston’s Economy, 1776–­1807  38

Plate 14. Connections to the Mainland and Additions of Land,

Nancy S. Seasholes Richard Garver

Gayle Sawtelle

1786–­1828  42

Nancy S. Seasholes

S e c t i o n V.



“Athens of America”

I n tr od uct ion   47

Plate 1 7. Literary Boston, 1837–­1891  52

P l at e 1 5. Railroad Development, 1830–­1855  48

Plate 1 8. Boston and Reform Movements, 1820–­1865  54

P l at e 16. Early Landscaped Spaces, 1820–­1860  50

Plate 1 9. Abolitionist Movement, 1829–­1865  56

Dean Grodzins

Susan Wilson

Richard Garver Arthur Krim

Section VI.



Dean Grodzins Dean Grodzins

Immigration and Industrialization

I n tr od uct ion   61

Robert J. Allison

P l at e 20. Irish Immigration, 1700s–1855  62 Ruth-­Ann M. Harris

P l at e 21. Boston in 1855: Population  64 Nancy S. Seasholes and Dean Grodzins

P l at e 22. Boston in 1855: Economy  66

Plate 2 3. Development of the South End and Back Bay,

1845–­1882  68

Nancy S. Seasholes

Plate 2 4. Great Fire of 1872  70 Nancy S. Seasholes

Plate 2 5. Addition of Land, 1828–­1880  72 Nancy S. Seasholes

Richard Garver, Nancy S. Seasholes, and Arthur Krim

Section VII.

Metropolitan Boston

I n tr od uct ion   77

Plate 2 8. Public Transportation, 1856–­1918  82

P l at e 26. Annexation Movement, 1868–­1873  78

Plate 2 9. Water and Sewerage Systems, 1795–­1906  84

P l at e 27. Streetcar Suburbs, 1870–­1900  80

Plate 3 0. Boston and Metropolitan Park Systems,

Karl Haglund Noam Maggor and Sam Bass Warner Noam Maggor and Sam Bass Warner

Charles Bahne and Nancy S. Seasholes Nancy S. Seasholes

1875–­1919  86

Nancy S. Seasholes and Karl Haglund

Section VIII.

Boston in the Late 1800s/Early 1900s

I n tr od uct ion   91

Plate 3 5. Cultural Boston, 1780–­1915  100

P l at e 3 1. Boston’s Economy, 1905  92

Plate 3 6. Enterprising Women, 1862–­1914  102

P l at e 3 2. Sports and Recreation, 1895–­1903  94

Plate 3 7. Social Service Institutions, c. 1900  104

P l at e 3 3. Scollay Square, 1880s–1963  96

Plate 3 8. Boston in 1910  106

P l at e 3 4. Theatrical Boston, 1880s–1930s  98

Plate 3 9. 1910 Mayoral Election  108

Robert J. Allison Richard Garver Richard Garver Rebekah Bryer

Michelle Granshaw

Jay Wickersham

Susan Wilson and the Boston Women’s Heritage Trail James Green Reed Ueda

James Green

Section IX.

Decline

I n tr odu ct ion   113

Plate 4 1 . Public Housing, 1935–­2010  116

P l at e 40. The Long Depression, 1920–­1960  114

Plate 4 2. Boston in 1950  118

John Avault

Lawrence J. Vale

Richard Garver, John Avault, Sam Bass Warner, and James Green

Section X.



John Avault

“The New Boston”

I n tr odu ct ion   122

Plate 4 6. Relocation to the Suburbs, 1940–­1970  130

P l at e 43. Addition of Land, 1880–­2003  124

Plate 4 7. The Urban Renewal Era, 1949–­1974  132

P l at e 44. Highways and Airport, 1920–­1973  126

Plate 4 8. Boston School Busing, 1974–  134

Jim Vrabel

James C. O’Connell and Gerald Gamm

Nancy S. Seasholes

Charles Bahne and Nancy S. Seasholes

Richard Garver Jim Vrabel

P l at e 45. Public Transportation, 1918–­1967  128 Nancy S. Seasholes and Charles Bahne

Section XI.



Boston in the Early 2000s

I n tr odu ct ion   139

Plate 53. Boston’s Economy: Medical Center in 2016  148

P l at e 49. Updating the Water System, 1907–­2013  140

Plate 54. Boston’s Economy: Commercial Center in 2019  150

P l at e 50. Updating the Sewerage System, 1907–­2013  142

Plate 55. Boston’s Economy: Visitors and Tourists

John Avault

Nancy S. Seasholes Nancy S. Seasholes

P l at e 51. Updating Highways and Public Transportation,

1967–­2017  144

Amy D. Finstein, Nancy S. Seasholes, and Charles Bahne

P l at e 52. Boston’s Economy: Higher Education in 2018  146 Aubrey Butts and Arthur Krim

A cknow led g m ents   159 A p p en di x   163 A ddi ti ona l Info rm ation, S ourc es, and C r e di ts   165 L i st of Con t ributo rs   191 I n dex   193

John Avault, Nancy S. Seasholes, and Arthur Krim John Avault and Richard Garver

in 2017  152

Richard Garver

Plate 56. Environmental Challenges in 2014  154 Stephanie Kruel

Plate 57. Boston in 2010  156

John Avault and Jim Vrabel

Preface

T

he Atlas of Boston History is a unique addition to works about Boston history. The first historical atlas of Boston, it traces the city’s history through maps drafted especially for the work by a team of cartographers. These maps and their accompanying texts, illustrations, and graphs tell the story of Boston’s development from the end of the last ice age to the present. The atlas should thus be a valuable resource for all those interested in Boston’s history. The content of the atlas was determined by a group of historians who work on Boston history. Their objective was to explain the transformation of Boston from a small village in the 1600s to the present modern city. To this end, the historians decided that the emphasis of the atlas should be on the physical development of Boston and its infrastructure, economic changes, the various demographic groups that have populated the city, and social and cultural developments more than on political events and politics in Boston. The historians wanted to present the material as a narrative story, so the atlas is organized chronologically rather than topically, as are some historical atlases. The Atlas of Boston History is divided into eleven roughly chronological sections. Section I describes Boston’s geological setting, Native American occupation of the Boston area before the arrival of Europeans, and European explorers and settlers in Massachusetts Bay before Boston was founded. Section II covers the founding of Boston in 1630, its economy in the 1640s, relations with Native Americans through King Philip’s War, and a description of the town in 1676. The 1676 description is the first of a series of plates (the double-­page spreads that constitute the main body of the atlas) interspersed throughout the atlas that describe the demography and economy of Boston in a specific year. Section III discusses Boston in the 1700s: its economy, participation in the slave trade, the town in 1743, and events of the Revolutionary War era. Section IV includes plates on the economy from the Revolution to the Embargo of 1807, the town in 1800, and physical changes—­early bridges and turnpikes connecting Boston to the mainland as well as additions of land to Boston itself. Section V covers the development of railroads and Boston’s relation to various mid-­1800s social and cultural movements: landscaped public spaces, the literary world, reform movements, and abolitionism. Section VI discusses mid-­1800s economic and demographic developments in Boston: Irish immigration, population and economy in 1855, development of the South End and Back Bay, Great Fire of 1872, and addition of land. Section VII concerns the development of the metropolitan Boston

area with plates on the annexation movement, growth of the outlying sections of the city, and development of the public transportation, water, sewerage, and park systems. Section VIII deals with Boston at the turn of the 1900s—­its economy; leisure time activities such as sports, burlesque, legitimate theater, and cultural institutions; women’s enterprises and social services; and the city in 1910 and the mayoral election that year. Section IX covers the subsequent period of decline with plates on Boston’s long depression from 1920 to 1960, public housing, and the city in 1950. Section X is about the period of revival that followed with plates on changes to the infrastructure—­ addition of land, highways, airport, and public transportation—­and important developments in this era—­suburbanization, urban renewal, and the busing crisis. The last section, Section XI, has three plates about updates to the infrastructure: water, sewerage, highways, and public transportation; four plates about the basis of the present economy: higher education, medicine and biotech, commercial offices, and the visitor/tourist industry; a plate about environmental problems; and in conclusion a plate about Boston in 2010. The atlas project originated with my own work on Boston history. When doing the research for my study of landmaking in Boston, I wished that there were one source to which I could turn for maps of, say, the water and sewerage systems, or railroads, or for population statistics, or for maps about many other facets of Boston’s history. So, when I completed my volumes on landmaking, in 2007 I convened a committee of Boston historians to discuss a possible historical atlas of Boston. We were fortunate to meet later that year with Stephen Hornsby, an editor of the Historical Atlas of Maine, and Anne Knowles, a historical geographer then at Middlebury College, who gave us invaluable advice about historical atlases and some of the geographical issues such an atlas might address. The Boston atlas committee continued to meet from 2007 through 2010, eventually drawing up a table of contents that was essentially the same as the contents of the present volume. This committee was composed of Sam Bass Warner, Bill Fowler, Bob Allison, Dick Garver, Jim Green, Noam Maggor, Reed Ueda, Jim Vrabel, Arthur Krim, Clay McShane, and Beverly Morgan-­Welch. Chandra Harrington and Cheryl LaRoche each joined us on at least one occasion. And Tom O’Connor and Liz Cohen participated by email though were never able to attend a meeting. The meetings were originally held at Suffolk University, then at the Museum of African American History, and finally at Northeastern University. While these meetings were occurring, other

parts of the atlas project were being put in place. With the help of Bill Fowler, the atlas found an institutional home in the History Department at Northeastern University. Laura Frader, chair in 2008 when this arrangement was made, was enthusiastic about the project as is Heather Streets-­Salter, the current chair. Northeastern has aided the project in various ways. Members of the university’s development office have suggested sources of funding or helped arrange contributions. Members of what was then the Geology Department arranged for me to sit in on an ArcGIS course so that I could understand the mapping program our cartographers use. Most of the dealings with Northeastern, however, have been financial—­Jenn Mocarski and then Kirsten Bilas, administrative assistants in the History Department, have very competently helped pay the project’s bills and kept track of its account. In addition, two recent Northeastern graduates became atlas authors on the recommendation of Marty Blatt, director of Northeastern’s Public History Program. Also in 2008 the atlas project engaged Alex Tait of International Mapping Associates to be the chief cartographer for the atlas. Alex seemed a good fit for the project—­he is an excellent cartographer, he was highly recommended by people who knew both him and myself, and his firm had recently finished the 2000 Census Atlas of the United States for the U.S. Census Bureau and was interested in working on another atlas. The atlas project also found a publisher during this period of organization. Alex suggested the University of Chicago Press, which, as the country’s largest publisher of cartographic and geographic material, seemed an appropriate choice. Christie Henry, at that time the press’s sciences editor, was delighted with the idea, saw the Boston atlas as a model for historical atlases of other U. S. cities that Chicago might publish, and signed a contract with the Boston atlas project in May 2010. The project has subsequently worked with three different editors: Paul Schellinger, the reference editor; the delightful Christie Henry; and now the very competent Mary Laur, a senior editor and an editor of some volumes in Chicago’s well-­known History of Cartography series. I also began fundraising to finance the atlas project. Some crucial early gifts enabled us to commence work; for these I am very grateful to Amalie Kass, Jeremy Pool, Anne Lilley Hammond, and Sue and Ed Elmendorf. But the atlas project obviously needed a large source of funding. By a great stroke of good fortune, an anonymous angel appeared and has financed almost the entire project.

  ix

Preparing atlas plates began in earnest in 2011. The Boston atlas had originally been modeled on the three-­volume Historical Atlas of Canada and the recent Historical Atlas of Maine, which was still being written at that time, but quickly departed from these examples. In an effort to make the information accessible to a wide variety of readers, each plate in the Boston atlas usually has a text explaining the main points covered, a large map showing the relevant locations, and then additional maps, illustrations, and graphs as needed. The geographical area encompassed by a plate is determined by its subject: some plates show only a section of Boston, others the entire metropolitan area. Since it would be difficult to resize maps once a plate had been laid out, the cartographers laid out the plates. Atlas design was aided by Debra Naylor, a book designer already working with International Mapping, who established the font and color of plate titles as well as many other initial elements of the plate design. A number of authors contributed to the The Atlas of Boston History. Members of the steering committee authored plates in their areas of expertise. For plates outside those areas, we found additional authors, often through recommendations of existing atlas authors, sometimes through other channels. In all, thirty-­five people authored at least one atlas plate. The production of atlas plates was a joint endeavor between the author, myself, and the cartographers. An author would conduct the necessary research and send all the materials for a plate to me. I would do the necessary editing, select the historical map(s) to be used as base map(s), write the instructions for the cartographers, and submit the materials to them. The cartographers would then lay out the plate and submit a draft. That would initiate a series of back-­and-­forth comments between the author, myself, and the

x  P R E F A C E

cartographers, resulting in revised drafts of the plate (far too many drafts, from the cartographers’ point of view), until all errors were corrected and the author and I pronounced the plate finished. Despite our best efforts, however, some errors undoubtedly still exist, and for these I take full responsibility. Alex Tait designed the first plate (Plate 29 on the water and sewerage systems from 1795–­1906) and worked on several subsequent ones. But early in the project, Vickie Taylor, director of cartographic operations at International Mapping, also began to work on Boston atlas plates. She was soon joined by Erin Bolton, senior cartographer at International Mapping, and, especially after Alex left the firm in 2016 to become The Geographer at the National Geographic Society, Vickie and Erin have produced almost all the atlas plates. Not all the plates meet their cartographic standards, however. I sometimes wanted brighter colors or a different layout or the inclusion of content they thought unnecessary, and they deferred to the client’s wishes. But the overall appearance and success of the atlas is a tribute to Vickie’s and Erin’s cartographic skills. These cartographic skills contributed to an important feature of atlas maps, namely, that shorelines are correct for the end date of the plate on which they appear. Almost from the time of its founding, Boston’s shoreline changed continually as new land was created along its coasts. The maps drafted for the atlas reflect these changes, for each map is intended to be accurate for the date of its plate. To accomplish this, the cartographers skillfully combined data from many historical maps and charts. Fortunately, we had available not only the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration archive of historical charts but also the wonderful collections of digitized maps of Boston at the Leventhal Center at the Boston

Public Library and, to a lesser extent, at the Harvard Map Collection. The historical maps used to create the shoreline on each plate are listed in the Sources section at the back of the atlas. The acknowledgments for each plate are also at the back of the atlas. Some people, however, deserve special mention. Charles M. Sullivan, executive director of the Cambridge Historical Commission, answered innumerable questions about Cambridge history, sometimes doing the necessary research himself. Charles Bahne, treasurer of the Boston Street Railway Association, was my go-­to person for transportation information; he corrected highways, railroads, and public transportation lines on many plates. Several authors worked on early versions of plates that were later replaced by the present plates: Susan Stewart on Plate 4 about Boston’s founding and Lily Geismer on Plate 48 about Boston school busing. The atlas website, http://www. atlasofbostonhistory.org/, is managed by our very able webmaster, James Zhen. Dennis McCarthy, a Boston by Foot guide, reviewed atlas plates for errors and enlisted BBF guides Laurel Perkins and Steve Kluskens to do the same. I am very grateful to all the atlas authors, who so generously donated their time and expertise. And last, but certainly not least, is Sam Bass Warner, who has been my advisor throughout the atlas project. His advice on problems such as finding an institutional home or a publisher was invaluable and his support and encouragement during all the years of the project are deeply appreciated. All these and many more have contributed to making the Atlas of Boston History a volume that we hope will be useful to many for years to come. Nancy S. Seasholes April 2019

Section I

­The Setting

Introduction

A

bout 550 million years ago a chain of volcanic islands near the South Pole broke away from the huge supercontinent to which they had been attached and began to drift north. The southern part of this island chain had split open, forming a shallow inland sea surrounded by volcanoes. This sea had filled, first with large fragments of stone and debris from the volcanoes and then with finer particles of silt and mud. About 370 million years ago, the island chain collided with the supercontinent that included what is now western Massachusetts. The volcanic islands became part of eastern Massachusetts—­the sea became the Boston Basin (see Plate 1) and the volcanoes became the hills now surrounding the basin on the north and south. The larger stones and volcanic debris in the basin had become cemented together in a matrix of clay and sand to become a conglomerate rock; the silt and mud had become a shale. These two types of rocks form the bedrock in the Boston Basin—­what is known as Roxbury Conglomerate is in the southern part and what is called Cambridge Argillite is in the northern (see Plate 1). About 2.5 million years ago a series of great ice sheets began to cover the Boston Basin area. These glaciers eroded the bedrock and deposited many feet of glacial till (clay, sand, gravel, and rocks) on top. In some cases, the glaciers rode over the deposited till, forming it into rounded, lenticular-­shaped hills called drumlins. Drumlins are a distinctive feature of the Boston Basin today, both on land and in the harbor (see Plate 1). The last glacier in the Boston area reached its maximum extent 23,000 years ago, burying the Boston Basin under a sheet of ice almost a mile thick (see Plate 1) and extending as far as Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. At that time, sea level was much lower than at present because so much sea water was locked up in the ice. When the ice began to melt, the sea level began to rise. At first, the sea filled the Boston Basin, depositing a thick layer of marine clay we now call Boston Blue Clay (see Plate 1). The land, no longer depressed by the weight of the ice, rebounded, rapidly exposing

the clay and drumlins above water. The rate of rebound was so much greater than the rate of sea level rise that by 10,000 years ago sea level was about 164 feet lower than at present, and Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket were part of the mainland (see Plate 2). After that, the sea rose faster than the land rebounded and around 3,000 years ago began filling Boston Harbor, establishing the coastline Europeans found in the 1600s. Native Americans first arrived in the Boston area at least 12,000 years ago during what archaeologists call the PaleoIndian period (see Plate 2). Archaeologists have not found much evidence of PaleoIndians in the Boston area, probably because, since sea level was then much lower, many of their hunting, fishing, and gathering sites are now under water. Nonetheless, we know that PaleoIndians camped on hills near rivers and hunted large game. More sites have been found from the next Native American period, which archaeologists call the Archaic and lasted from 9,000 to 2,700 years ago, though many Archaic sites are also probably under water (see Plate 2). From existing evidence, however, we know that Archaic Indians exploited some of the distinctive resources in the Boston area, particularly stone and fish. The Boston area has the densest concentration in New England of different types of stone, which Native Americans used to manufacture tools. And Archaic Indians caught the fish that were so plentiful in the area’s waterways. During the Native period before the arrival of Europeans, which archaeologists call the Woodland (2,700–­400 years ago), the rising sea had flooded Boston Harbor, and shellfish beds were flourishing in the relatively warm, shallow water. Native Americans harvested clams and other shellfish on the Boston Harbor Islands, which were also favorable locations for growing corn—­one of the new developments during this period—­since the islands’ climate was slightly warmer than that of the mainland. Farming meant that Native Americans led more sedentary lives,

which also enabled them to make pottery and live in village-­like settlements. Europeans began to explore the Massachusetts Bay area soon after their discovery of the New World (see Plate 3). Early explorers in the 1500s were seeking a Northwest Passage—­a sea route through the unexpected land mass of North America to the riches of China and the Far East. Though they never found such a passage, the explorers did find a resource that had also attracted Native Americans to the area—­fish. The Europeans set up fishing stations on the coast where fish were dried before being shipped to Europe. In the early 1600s Europeans began to establish more permanent settlements in Massachusetts Bay (see Plate 3). Most prominent of the pre-­1630 sites was Plimouth, a colony of English Separatists established in 1620. In the mid-­1620s, small groups and individuals settled in what would become the Boston area, and the Dorchester Company established Naumkeag. After Puritan settlers arrived at the latter site in 1628, their Massachusetts Bay Company absorbed the Dorchester group, renamed the site Salem, and welcomed John Winthrop’s fleet in 1630. But the Winthrop party found Salem’s topography confining, so sailed on to another Massachusetts Bay Company settlement in Charlestown. The water in Charlestown proved to be brackish, however, so in September many settlers moved across the Charles River to the Shawmut Peninsula. The peninsula had not only freshwater springs, but also a harbor protected by a network of islands, channels deep enough for ships to reach the wharves in what became the North End, and, with land access only via a narrow neck, a site easily defended from land attack. So the Massachusetts Bay settlers remained on the Shawmut Peninsula, which they named Boston. Nancy S. Seasholes

S E C T I O N I . T H E S E T T I N G   3

The Boston Basin, before 5,000 BP J O S E P H B A G L E Y, N A N C Y S . S E A S H O L E S , M A R S H A L L P O N T R E L L I , A N D L A U R I E B A I S E

B

oston is located in a topographical formation called the Boston Basin, a wedge-shaped indentation in the coast surrounded by higher areas (see map). At the bottom of the basin are two types of bedrock: a shale, called Cambridge Argillite, in the northern portion and a conglomerate—stones cemented together in a matrix of clay and sand—called Roxbury Conglomerate in the southern. The stones in conglomerate have been likened to the plums in plum pudding, so the stone is often called puddingstone or, in the Boston area, Roxbury Puddingstone. There are several types of the conglomerate—one is sandy colored with small stones; another is darker with large cobbles (see photos). Because puddingstone resists breaking when frozen, it has been quarried extensively (see Plate 22) for use in building construction, especially the light-colored variety for many Boston churches (see photo).

The present appearance of the Boston Basin was determined by the great ice sheets that periodically covered the area beginning about 2.5 million years ago. These glaciers eroded the bedrock and deposited many feet of glacial till (clay, sand, gravel, and rocks) on top. In some cases, the glaciers rode over the deposited till, forming it into rounded, lenticular-shaped hills called drumlins. The long axes of the drumlins in the Boston Basin are generally aligned northwest-southeast because that’s the direction the glaciers were moving (see map). The last ice sheet reached its furthest extent about twenty-three thousand years ago, covering the Boston Basin with about four thousand feet of ice (see photo) and extending as far as Cape Cod and parts of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. At that time, sea level was

much lower than at present because so much seawater was locked up in the glacier. But when the ice began to melt about 23,000 BP (before present), the sea level began to rise. At the same time, however, the land, which had been pushed down by the weight of the glacier, began to rebound. The rate at which the land rebounded was greater than the rate at which sea level rose, so that at 10,000 BP sea level was 50 meters (about 164 feet) lower than today’s shoreline (see Plate 2). From that point onward, the rate of sea level rise was greater than the rate of rebound, so that by about 5,000 BP sea level was only about 5 meters (16 feet) lower than at present and has gradually risen since, beginning to flood Boston Harbor about 3,000 years ago. This rising sea left only MARBLEHEAD the tops of the drumlins in the harbor above water, thus forming the inner Harbor Islands (see map).

BEDFORD WOBURN

LINCOLN

WINCHESTER

95

Nahant Bay

LEXINGTON MEDFORD

Some Well–Known Drumlins 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

NAHANT REVERE

2 93

BELMONT

CAMBRIDGE

Brighton

WELLESLEY

Drumlin

East Boston

Roxbury

8

Jamaica Plain

Old Harbor

Dorchester Bay

Quincy Bay

Hyde Park

Massachusetts Bay

7

West Roxbury

NEEDHAM

Boston Bay

Boston Harbor

South Boston

Dorchester

NATICK

1

WINTHROP

3

BOSTON

NEWTON

BROOKLINE

Roxbury Conglomerate Elevation contours (30 feet)

R.

9 10

1A

2

6

rles Cha

90

90

Cambridge Argillite

Mystic R . 4 Charlestown 5

SOMERVILLE

WATERTOWN

Boston Basin

EVERETT CHELSEA

WALTHAM

WESTON

WAYLAND

MALDEN

ARLINGTON

Orient Heights Eagle Hill Jeffries Point Bunker Hill Breeds Hill Copps Hill Telegraph Hill Parker Hill Corey HiIl Fisher Hill

Hingham Bay

HULL

DEDHAM MILTON

HINGHAM CANTON

BRAINTREE

MEDFIELD

4,000

WEYMOUTH SCITUATE

NORWOOD

4  P L A T E 1 · S E C T I O N I : T H E S E T T I N G

2 miles

COHASSET

WESTWOOD

This view of the Boston Basin in 2018 shows the depth of glacial ice that covered it twenty-three thousand years ago. Depth is shown to scale.

1

QUINCY

DOVER

Maximum Depth of Ice Sheet in Boston Basin

0

93

95

SHERBORN

SAUGUS 1

MELROSE

CONCORD 2

SWAMPSCOTT

LYNN

STONEHAM

Feet

Glacial Ice

Plate 1 Feet

0

Historic Fill 18

Silt 33

Boston Blue Clay

New Old South Church

140

New Old South is one of many churches Back Bay and the South End constructed of the light-colored Roxbury Puddingstone.

Outwash 150

Glacial Till

Conglomerate at New Old South

175

This close-up of the conglomerate from which New Old South is constructed shows its light color and relatively small stones.

Cambridge Argillite (bedrock)

Stairs at Doherty Playground Frederick Law Olmsted often used the more organically shaped dark-colored puddingstone for the rusticated structures in the parks he designed, such as the boulders bordering these stairs at Doherty Playground in Charlestown.

Glacial Deposition in Back Bay As the last ice sheet melted, it transformed Boston’s landscape by depositing many layers on top of the bedrock. This profile shows typical layers deposited in Back Bay. First, the glacier left a thick and jumbled layer of glacial till. Gravel and sand in melt waters then covered the till in a layer of outwash. The melting glacier caused sea levels to rise quickly, briefly drowning Boston. While underwater, massive amounts of eroded rock flour settled over Boston forming the famous Boston Blue Clay, so named for its bluish hue (see photo). While Back Bay was still a natural bay, the newly formed Charles River left behind a layer of silt. Finally, these naturally deposited layers were topped by a man-made one: glacial till brought in from Needham by railroad to fill the area and create new land (see Plate 23).

Conglomerate at Doherty Playground This close-up of one of the conglomerate boulders bordering the stairs at Doherty Playground shows its dark color and large stones. P L A T E 1 · S E C T I O N I : T H E S E T T I N G   5

The First Inhabitants, 12,000–400 BP

JOSEPH BAGLEY

NATIVE AMERICAN LIFE IN THE BOSTON AREA

A

rchaeologists have divided the time between the arrival of Native Americans in Massachusetts around 12,000 BP (years before present) and the arrival of permanent European settlers in 1620 AD into the PaleoIndian, Archaic, and Wood­land periods. These divisions are based on technological, environmental, and cultural changes that occurred over time. The maps at left show both the changing topography of the Boston area as sea levels rose to their current height (see Plate 1) as well as major archaeological sites found in the area during these periods. These sites document many changes in culture as the Native people of Boston adapted to their ever-evolving surroundings. Currently, there are over one hundred documented Native American archaeological sites in the city of Boston.

Saugus Jasper Quarry

Native Americans in the PaleoIndian Period were primarily hunters and gatherers who traveled great distances in search of natural resources. Their camp sites were on hills near rivers where large game, such as caribou, and other animals could be found.

PaleoIndian archaeological sites Land Modern land

Canton 0

2

Modern Boston boundary

4 miles

PaleoIndian, 12,000–9,000 BP When people first entered the region, they found a tundra-like climate of grasses and low shrubs. Two major PaleoIndian sites are located north and south of Boston, but no sites have been found in the city itself. This is probably because the rising sea level (see Plate 1) covered much of what once were hunting, fishing, and gathering areas along Boston’s former shorelines. PaleoIndians’ stone tools include large spear points with a central channel.

Archaic, 9,000–2,700 BP Boylston Street Fishweir

Boston Common

Back Bay DillawayThomas House

Hancock Woods Brook Farm

Spectacle Island

Long Island

Arnold Arboretum Quincy Shore

Lower Mills

Nantasket Archaic archaeological sites Land

0

2

Modern land

4 miles

During the Archaic Period, Native American population grew as they set up temporary seasonal camps in various resource-rich areas such as stone tool quarries, rivers, and high grounds near wetlands. Larger settlements were near the confluences of rivers and along the shore. Many of these locations are now underwater, but much evidence remains of increased diversity in diet, site location, and use of marine resources. During this period the Harbor Islands were increasingly used, and fishweirs—fence-like structures used to capture migrating fish each spring—were constructed in Back Bay.

During the Archaic Period, as the environment transformed from tundra to forest, Native Americans created seasonal camps in locations with prevalent natural resources such as raw materials for stone tools and adequate fish and game.

Modern Boston boundary

Woodland, 2,700–400 BP Charlestown Village Hog Bridge Fishweir

Water Street Boston Common

Thompson Island Arnold Arboretum

Spectacle Island

Commercial Point

Gallops Island

Calf Island

Long Island

Brook Farm Lower Mills Neponset Bridge

Woodland archaeological sites Land Modern land

0

2

4 miles

6  P L A T E 2 · S E C T I O N I : T H E S E T T I N G

Modern Boston boundary

Around three thousand years ago the shallow area of Boston Harbor area was quickly covered by the rising sea. The stabilized sea level allowed clam and other shellfish beds to flourish in the harbor. This readily available food source increased the use of the Harbor Islands. Additional technological developments included the growing of corn and making of pottery, both of which required a more sedentary lifestyle. Larger villages, long-term use of sites, and tribal boundaries are readily apparent in the archaeological assemblages of Boston during this time.

During the Woodland Period, Native Americans flocked to the newly formed harbor where they could maximize recently developed farming practices and pottery-making, and form larger village sites.

Plate 2 NATURAL RESOURCES OF THE BOSTON AREA

F

or over twelve thousand years, humans have gravitated to the Boston Basin because of its diverse ecological and geological resources. We do not know exactly what the landscape of the Boston area looked like thousands of years ago, but the density and variety of natural resources in the immediate area is unique in

New England. Archaeological evidence from Native sites in and around Shawmut, the place we now call Boston, provides insights into which specific resources made Shawmut an ideal place to live. The map below illustrates just some of these resources and how they were used by the Native Americans before the arrival of Europeans.

3 Lynn Volcanics The Lynn Volcanics are a type of rock found north of Boston that produce a red-colored rock used in this 2,700–2,000-year-old point from the Water Street Site in Charlestown.

2 Clay The blue clay deposits left behind by the receding glaciers (see Plate 1) are exposed in areas along rivers, especially along the Mystic. This clay provided the raw material for pottery like this 1,000-year-old pottery fragment found on Spectacle Island. 1 Charles River Rivers were the highways of the past. The Charles, Mystic, and Neponset Rivers gave people access by canoe to over five hundred square miles of eastern Massachusetts.

12 Hunting The uplands, marshes, and wetlands that surrounded Boston provided diverse foods. Animals were not only a source of food and clothing, but their bones could also be worked into tools like these deer bone spears, which date from c. 535–1590 AD and were found on Spectacle Island.

Banded Mattapan Felsite Banded Mattapan felsite is only found in an outcrop in Mattapan. It was used for this 3,000-year-old spear point from Brook Farm in West Roxbury. 11

9

4 Shelter Bent saplings, bark, and wood fiber were combined to produce wetus—domelike houses used in the Boston area for thousands of years. 3

M y s t ic R.

4

2

12

Cha

rle

. s R

SHAWMUT

1

6

10

8

5 Boston Harbor The harbor provided marine fishing and quick transportation. The unique climate of Harbor Islands like Rainsford (pictured) allowed a longer growing season for corn than the mainland.

5

11

Nep

o

R. et ns

7

10 Springs The Shawmut Peninsula was surrounded on almost all sides by salt or brackish water, but natural springs on the peninsula itself produced vital freshwater. These same springs were the reason why Europeans eventually established Boston there. 9 Dugout Canoe Canoes like this, called mishoon, were carved by hand from solid trunks of trees, which were abundant in the areas surrounding Boston. Boston itself was already deforested when Europeans arrived in the 1600s.

8 Shellfish The tidal mudflats surrounding Boston provided its residents with a readily available source of food: clams. Shell middens are common along the shores of Boston Harbor. These deposits consist of thousands of clam shells mixed with other organic remains. The ones above are from Spectacle Island and date from 535–1590 AD.

6 Fish Fresh and saltwater fish were abundant around Boston. They not only provided food but their bones could also be made into jewelry, as have these codfish vertebrae found on Calf Island in Boston Harbor.

7 Blue Hills Rhyolite Certain hills in the Blue Hills Reservation have been used for thousands of years to collect rhyolite, a type of rock that flakes well for stone tools. This approximately 3,000-year-old Blue Hills Rhyolite spear point, or knife, was found on Boston Common.

P L A T E 2 · S E C T I O N I : T H E S E T T I N G 7

Europeans Arrive in Massachusetts Bay, 1500s–1630

DANE MORRISON

N

ews of Columbus’s “discovery” of a New World and rumors of a Northwest Passage across it to the fabled riches of India and Cathay (China) lured mariners like Giovanni Verrazzano, who explored America’s eastern coast from the Carolinas to Maine in 1524 (see map). Although Verrazzano did not enter Massachusetts Bay, his accounts drew other explorers. During the later 1500s and early 1600s, efforts to find a Northwest Passage and fish—an important resource for Europe—lured explorers to the Gulf of Maine and Massachusetts Bay (see map). In 1602 Englishman Bartholomew Gosnold sailed south from Cape Elizabeth, Maine, and anchored at Barnstable where, impressed by the abundance of fish, he named the place Cape Cod. He established a fishing station on Cuttyhunk but, lacking provisions, it was quickly abandoned. Samuel de Champlain was likely the first European to explore Boston Harbor. In his first voyage to the area in 1605, Champlain recorded ample fish at the Grand Banks, visited Cape Ann and Nahant, and entered Boston Harbor. His report appears to describe the islands of the harbor and “a very broad river”—very likely the Charles. Captain John Smith also explored Boston Harbor in 1614. None of the other early visitors ventured far enough into Massachusetts Bay to enter Boston Harbor, but all described rich fishing grounds along the coast, including Martin Pring in 1603. Settlements soon followed (see map). In 1620, under a patent from the Virginia Company, a band of English Separatists established Plimouth Plantation, adding prized furs and lumber to the resources that attracted colonists. From this core, other settlements, such as the temporary site of Wessagusset (Weymouth, 1622–23) hived off. Other people struck out on their own to settle in or near what would become Boston. In 1624, Thomas Morton established Mount Wollaston—later Merrymount (Quincy). The Reverend William Blackstone (Blaxton) built a home on the Shawmut Peninsula on what is now Beacon Hill (1625). The following year, Thomas Walford built a house on the Mishawum (Charlestown) peninsula, David Thompson settled on Thompson’s Island, and Samuel Maverick built a home at Winnisimmet (Chelsea). On the north shore of Massachusetts Bay, the Dorchester Company established a fishing station at Cape Ann (Gloucester) in 1623 (see map). When this settlement disbanded three years later, several families moved south to establish a new community at Naumkeag (Salem). In 1628, they joined with new arrivals from the Massachusetts Bay Company and renamed the settlement Salem. That was where Winthrop’s Puritan fleet first landed in 1630 (see Plate 4).

John Smith’s 1616 Map of New England The best-documented voyage of this time produced the best map of Massachusetts Bay. In 1614 John Smith landed at Penobscot, then sailed south, charting “close aboard the shore in a little boat,” drawing a “map from point to point, isle to isle, and harbor to harbor, with the soundings, sands, rocks, and landmarks” (see map on opposite page). It was Smith who assigned the name “New England” to the region he praised: “Of all the parts of the world I have yet seen not inhabited, I would rather live here than anywhere.” Smith’s map clearly shows the future site of Boston at the mouth of the Charles River, which was named for fifteen-year-old Prince Charles, later Charles I.

The Sacred Cod European explorers were initially attracted to North America because they imagined the continent to be part of Asia or to provide a Northwest Passage to Asia. During the early explorations, it became clear that the new land offered other resources: sassafras (thought to be a remedy for venereal diseases), furs, and especially fish. Cod was particularly prized and was brought back to Europe by Gosnold, Pring, Champlain, Smith, and others. In time, cod would become a staple resource in the New England economy, and a representation of the “sacred cod” hangs in the Massachusetts State House (see Plate 5).

Martin Pring’s Men Meet Native Americans This fold-out plate from a Dutch volume shows an imaginative reconstruction of an encounter between men from Pring’s crew and Native Americans, likely near the shelter the Europeans built at Provincetown. (Some controversy remains about the location of this shelter; some historians maintain it was at Plymouth Harbor.)

Drying Cod Following the explorations of John Cabot in 1497, the abundance of fish for European markets drew English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Basque fishermen. A common practice was to dry a catch on stands called “flakes” for several days, then ship the cargo back to Europe at the end of the summer season. 8  P L A T E 3 · S E C T I O N I : T H E S E T T I N G

1605–1606, Champlain

Fish at Grand Banks

Plate 3

1623, Cape Ann (Gloucester)

Settled by the Dorchester Company

1626, Naumkeag (Salem)

Settled by the Dorchester Company 1628 Massachusetts Bay Company settlers arrived

Early Explorers and Settlements in Massachusetts Bay Verrazzano, 1524 Gosnold, 1602

1626, Mishawum (Charlestown)

Pring, 1603

Thomas Walford and his wife had arrived with Robert Gorges’s voyage to Maine, but soon settled near the mouth of the Mystic River

Champlain, June–July 1605 Champlain, September 1606 John Smith, 1614

Massachusetts Bay

1626, Winnisimmet (Chelsea) Samuel Maverick built a house

Fishing sites Settlements

1625–1635, Shawmut

Rev. William Blackstone settled on Beacon Hill near what became Boston Common; he had come over with Capt. Gorges to Wessagussett (Weymouth)

1626, Thompson Island

David Thompson established a trading post to trade with the Neponset Indians

1624, Mount Wollaston (Quincy)

Thomas Morton and Richard Wollaston established a trading post at Mount Wollaston, later Merrymount

AT LA NT I C OCEA N

1622, Nantasket

Thomas Gray established a trading post

1622, Wessagussett (Weymouth)

Settled by Thomas Weston of Plymouth Colony, failed in 1623, surviving colonists joined Plymouth colony

1603, Pring

1620, Plymouth

Pilgrim settlement

Cape Cod Bay 1602, Gosnold

Fish at Cape Cod

1602, Cuttyhunk Gosnold fishing station (failed)

0

5

10 miles

Nantucket Sound

Nauset Harbor

Section II

Making New England’s Metropolis

Introduction

T

he origins of Boston, the metropolis of New England, lay in the English Reformation, its turbulent politics, and its disruption of English society. The highest concentration of migrants to Boston in New England hailed from London and the counties to its east and north, the region generally referred to as East Anglia (see Plate 4). For centuries, this region maintained close contacts with the Netherlands, much of it through the wool trade, which made Boston in England—­ Lincolnshire’s Boston (see Plate 4)—­a prosperous city in the Middle Ages. In the 1200s, overseas merchants of England’s Boston were taxed at a rate second only to London among England’s port cities. Boston was a member of the Hanseatic League, northern Europe’s association of powerful trading cities. Boston’s prosperity produced the magnificent St. Botolph’s Church, the largest non-­ cathedral church in England, popularly known as “Boston Stump” for its massive 272-­foot-­high tower, visible for miles around and a useful landmark for North Sea sailors (see Fig. 1). Old Boston’s wealth also generated a rich monastic community, with Dominican, Franciscan, Carmelite, and Augustinian friaries all represented. But the region’s close ties to the Low Countries also made it a conduit for new theological and political impulses emerging from central Europe. Reformation ideas gained early strength in London and East Anglia, fostered by the nearby University of Cambridge, where many of the colleges embraced Protestant teachings. When Henry VIII broke from Rome and established the Church of England, he distributed the properties of the church to secular elites. Adam Winthrop, grandfather of Governor John Winthrop and a prosperous cloth merchant, gained his foothold among the gentry by purchasing the manor of Groton, formerly the property of the Abbot of Bury St. Edmunds. When Puritan dissenters met to form the Massachusetts Bay Company in 1629, they held their meetings in a hunting lodge belonging to the Earl of Lincoln, built from the rubble of a former monastery. Among the many spiritual leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Company, John Cotton, minister of St. Botolph’s Church in Old Boston, outlined the colony’s purposes in a sermon to Winthrop’s departing migration fleet. Cotton likened the American colonization project to the apostle Paul’s establishment of the first Christian church and colony in Europe, at Philippi, prompted by Paul’s vision of a man of Macedonia saying “Come Over and Help Us.” This phrase, put in the mouth of an indigenous American on Massachusetts’ Great Seal (see Plate 6), simultaneously linked Boston’s founding to the apostolic tradition of Christian evangelism and to the ancient Greek and Roman history of imperial expansion through the estab-

St. Botolph’s Church

This watercolor of St. Botolph’s Church in Boston, Lincolnshire—the town for which Boston, Massachusetts, was named—was painted in 1821 by J. Harrison (active 1821).

lishment of autonomous city-­colonies. While perfectly capturing the religious zeal that motivated the Massachusetts colonists, Cotton’s and the Great Seal’s image obscures the equally powerful impulse to escape the devastation threatening Europe’s Protestant churches. While the Thirty Years’ War ravaged the European continent, England’s Stuart monarchs, James I and then his son Charles, flirted with Europe’s Catholic rulers, promoted ecclesiastical and theological positions that backed away from Reformed beliefs, and persecuted Puritan clergymen. Many of the eventual founders of Massachusetts fled to the Netherlands or went underground, worshipping in secret assemblies of the godly, in defiance of King Charles and his bishops. In correspondence with his wife,

12  S E C T I O N I I . M A K I N G N E W E N G L A N D ’ S M E T R O P O L I S

Margaret, John Winthrop wrote of the “shelter and hiding place for us and ours” that God would provide in New England. John Hull, a prosperous merchant, Massachusetts colony treasurer, and Boston’s leading silversmith, compared the Great Migration to the Babylonian exile of the Israelites after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Both high aspirations and desperate fears propelled the migrants to their new home. That new home’s location on the Shawmut Peninsula in Massachusetts Bay reveals these competing impulses at work. The far northern location for the colony, remote from the centers of wealth and power in the Caribbean and Meso-­ America, was best suited for a hiding place, out of harm’s way. Oliver Cromwell, who as Lord

Protector launched England’s Western Design against Hispaniola and Jamaica in the 1650s, called Massachusetts a “poor, cold, and useless” place, incapable of building England’s wealth or threatening Spanish dominance in the New World. But the choice of Shawmut for the new colony’s principal settlement shows the power of the aspirations driving the Puritan project. Most towns or cities emerge from a beneficial combination of geography and commodities—­a ford in a river, a prominent crossroads, or the point where a navigable river meets a safe harbor—­that offer obvious advantages for urban development, especially when a commodity suitable for distant trading is readily produced in the vicinity. Shawmut lacked these advantages, but Boston’s founders built there anyway. The region around Massachusetts Bay had long been home to many Indian groups, but this small peninsula, connected to the mainland only by a narrow and swampy neck, had not been a major Indian settlement or trading site (see Plate 2). Neither the Charles nor the Mystic River was navigable more than a few miles into the interior. The cold climate and rocky soil around the bay could not produce tobacco or sugar, commodities that had made other colonies prosperous. Despite extensive efforts to find them, no gold or silver lay hidden anywhere within reach of Shawmut. The site’s main advantage over Charlestown—­the neighboring peninsula—­was the presence of a freshwater spring. This, and the deep channels through the harbor allowing ships to sail in close to its eastern cove, made Shawmut, soon to be Boston, in the words of early colonist William Wood, “fittest for such as can Trade into England, for such commodities as the Countrey wants, being the chiefe place for shipping and Merchandize.” But what to trade? During the decade beginning in 1630, the steady arrival of new migrants

kept Boston’s economy afloat. The resources they brought paid for imported manufactures, and the migrants themselves were the customers for the crops raised by the first settlers. But with the Great Migration’s dramatic end around 1640 (see Plate 4), the market for New England’s produce bottomed out. The humble goods Massachusetts farmers could raise—­Indian corn, salted meats, timber products—­had no market in England, as the prohibitive costs of overseas transport dwarfed the value of the commodities. The cod from New England’s shores fetched good prices in southern European markets, but fishing could not employ all 20,000 of the region’s English colonists. Economic failure and abandonment of the colony were avoided by the emergence of sugar as a cash crop in the English Caribbean. Barbados’s sugar boom, made possible by the rapid importation of enslaved African labor, created the market that New England’s farmers needed. Rather than waste valuable land for sugar-­production on food and timber, Barbadian planters happily bought them from Boston merchants. Sugar from Barbados, like wool from Spain, could be sold by Boston traders in London, where manufactured goods desperately needed by the colonists could be acquired (see Plate 5). In this way, Boston’s merchants established the basic trade pattern that would support New England’s economy for the next two centuries. This prosperous trading system fueled the region’s remarkable growth throughout the 1600s. The narrow boundaries of the Massachusetts charter could not easily contain the many colonists and their numerous offspring, and new plantations quickly hived off, from Long Island Sound to the Maine coast. With them spread the intense religious culture of the Puritans, supported by the growing resources of the region’s economy. Dozens of new towns and villages, their churches

supplied by clergymen trained at Harvard College, dotted the interior, replicating the founders’ religious commitments across space and time (see Plate 5). But the cost of this rapid expansion came down heavily on New England’s indigenous population. Puritans interpreted their apostolic call to “come over and help” the Indians to mean that Indians had to adopt English ways wholesale; mere understanding or acceptance of Christian doctrine was not sufficient. True converts—­ “praying Indians”—­had to learn to read and write, live in English villages, dress in English clothing, and farm in English ways. The latter requirement meant giving up semi-­nomadic seasonal migrations, engaging in market agriculture, and accepting English land-­ownership and legal authority. While more than a thousand Indians converted and formed fourteen “Praying Towns” in the years after 1650, the endemic conflict caused by English encroachment on Indian lands exploded in violence in 1675. King Philip’s War ravaged the region (see Plate 6), marking a great failure of Boston’s founders’ aspirations and devastating losses for southern New England’s first peoples. Boston itself escaped the violence of King Philip’s War, although its population of roughly 4,000 (see Plate 7) increased with the resettlement of refugees from inland towns, including the famous captive, Mary Rowlandson of Lancaster. Restored to the surviving members of her family and resettled in Boston, Rowlandson could not escape the memory of past “afflictions,” which kept her awake at night and haunted her days, as when she spotted one of her former captors, who had once threatened to kill her, “walking up and down Boston under the appearance of a Friend Indian.” Mark Peterson

S E C T I O N I I . M A K I N G N E W E N G L A N D ’ S M E T R O P O L I S   13

Boston Is Founded, 1630–1640

I

No

rthu

mber

SCOTLAND

d

rl

an

Cu

m

be

D urham

Known English Origins of Boston Heads of Households, 1630–1640

Westmorland

21–36

Yo r k s h i r e

5–12 1–4

e

ingh

y

rb De

re

o

al

ksh

D o rset

e

dg

ri

mb B

fo

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Essex

for detail, see map above

Middlesex

London

ir

Surrey

sh

H

am

Suffolk

Ca

H

t er

ed

ire

e

lts

hi

C

w rn

o ha rt

W a

r

Wo r ce

ste

Devon

f

d or

No er

Wi

s

pt

d

for Staf

re

hi ps

er

n Huntingdon

am

G

O

xf

d or

gh

t es

er

B

Som

et

Norfolk

in

lo

rw

ick

ck

uc

Boston

r ste i c e Rutland e L

ro

Sh H

f

Lincolnshire

Bu

e er

o rd

p

Kent

Sussex

l

Known English Origins of Boston Heads of Households, 1630–1640 We know the place in England where approximately one-third of Boston’s residents from 1630 to 1640 originated. More than half of these immigrants came from just four counties: Lincolnshire, Suffolk, Essex, and London. This reflects the drawing power of three of Boston’s leading founders: Governor John Winthrop and Reverend John Wilson, who came from parishes near the Essex-Suffolk border, and Reverend John Cotton, from Boston, Lincolnshire. (Note that the county boundaries shown on this map are the 1600s boundaries.)

Estimated Population of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Boston, 1630–1640 13

2,500

12

Massachusetts Bay Colony Boston

11

2,000 Population in thousands

10

1,500

1,000

9 8 7 6 5 4 3

500

2 1

0 1620

1625

1630 Year

1635

Kent

am

Surrey

No t t

ir

C hester

WALES

Essex

London

sh

m

n

ca

0

Estimated Number of Immigrants per Year to New England, 1620–1640

Number of passengers

Middlesex

La

n late June and early July 1630, eleven ships straggled into Boston Harbor carrying members of the Massachusetts Bay Company led by John Winthrop. They were Puritans who, abandoning efforts to “purify” the Church of England, had formed the company to establish their own churches in Massachusetts. The Winthrop party had landed first at Salem, a Puritan enclave established in 1626 by the Dorchester Company, which had been rechartered in 1629 as the Massachusetts Bay Company with instructions to expand the settlement for the Winthrop party. Instead, the Winthrop fleet sailed on to another Massachusetts Bay Company settlement at Charlestown. They were not the only Puritan settlers in the Boston area. On May 30, 1630, just a few weeks earlier, about two hundred members of an offshoot of the Dorchester Company had landed on the north side of Savin Hill at a place the Indians called Mattapan and they named Dorchester. Most of the Winthrop colonists did not remain long in Charlestown. The water there was brackish, so in September many moved across the river to the Shawmut (Indian for “at the neck”) Peninsula and established a settlement they named Boston. Life was hard for these early settlers—many died or returned to England. But in spite of their travails, they established a functioning town. Within two years Boston had a meetinghouse and tavern, was electing selectmen— the executives who ran town affairs—and had set up a process for distributing land. Not all Massachusetts Bay colonists lived in Boston. Though Winthrop had wanted everyone to remain in one settlement, the numbers made this impracticable. When the main group moved from Charlestown to Shawmut in September 1630, others left to form the towns of Roxbury and Watertown. These early towns were large, for the settlers needed large areas for grazing their cattle and providing enough timber for houses and firewood, and, if available, marsh grasses for thatching roofs. Towns continued to be formed: the thousands who poured in during the Great Migration from 1630 to 1640 (see graph) as well as the ruling by the General Court—the elected colonial legislature—that no house be more than half a mile from a meetinghouse, necessitated more towns. By the time Parliament reconvened in 1640, raising Puritan hopes of reforming the church in England and ending the need for migration to Massachusetts, about 20,000 people had settled in New England, almost 13,000 of them in the Massachusetts Bay Colony where they had formed over twenty towns (see map on facing page).

land

ROBERT CHARLES ANDERSON

1640

0 1630

1635 Year

1640

These two graphs show different aspects of the population growth of Boston, the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and New England during the Great Migration from England. The graph on the left shows the estimated number of immigrants to New England each year from 1620 (arrival of the Mayflower) to 1640 (end of the Great Migration). The graph on the right shows the total population of Boston and Massachusetts Bay Colony for each year between 1630 and 1640. 14  P L A T E 4 · S E C T I O N I I : M A K I N G N E W E N G L A N D ’ S M E T R O P O L I S

Plate 4 0

3

6 miles

Salisbury 1639

(N EW HA MP SH I R E)

Amesbury

Merrimac

West Newbury

Haverhill 1640 Haverhill

Salisbury

Newburyport

Newbury 1635 Newbury

Groveland Methuen

Georgetown

RowleyRowley 1639

Lawrence

nd

Pepperell

Ipswich

Dracut

Dunstable

North Andover

Tyngsborough

Ipswich 1634

Boxford

Andover

Lowell

Topsfield

Rockport

Essex

Gloucester 1639

Hamilton Tewksbury

Groton

Wenham

Chelmsford

rg

North Reading

Westford Ayer

Shirley

Wilmington

Reading

Carlisle Burlington

Harvard Acton

Concord

Bolton

Stow

Clinton

Southborough

Watertown 1630

Sudbury 1639

Westborough

Dedham

Dover

Sherborn

Upton

Medfield

Dedham 1636

Millis Medway

Dorchester 1630 Milton

Norwood

Quincy

Cohasset

Braintree 1640

Braintree

Canton

Weymouth

Blackstone

Stoughton

Sharon

Franklin

Avon

Abington

Brockton

Wrentham Plainville

R HODE I SLA N D

Scituate

Hingham

Weymouth 1635

Randolph

Norwell

Rockland

Whitman

Foxborough Millville

Hingham 1635

Holbrook

Norfolk

Bellingham

Uxbridge

Hull

Walpole

Hopedale Mendon

Winthrop

Boston

Westwood Holliston

Northbridge

Revere

Roxbury 1630

Needham

Ashland

Milford

Swampscott

Wellesley Natick

Grafton

ne

kli

oo Br

Framingham

Cambridge

n

Marblehead

Boston 1630

sto

Bo

Beverly

Nahant

Chelsea

Somerville

Newton

Hopkinton

1630 Everett

Watertown

Lynn

Stoneham Melrose

Belmont

Weston

Wayland

Marlborough

Northborough

Waltham

Sudbury

Hudson

Salem

Charlestown Cambridge 1629 Malden 1630 Arlington Medford Medford

Lincoln

Maynard

ch Win

Gloucester Manchester

Peabody

Saugus

r este

Lexington

Lynnfield

Lynn 1630

Wakefield

Woburn

Concord 1635

ury

Woburn 1640

Bedford Boxborough

Berlin

Danvers

Billerica Littleton

Lancaster

Middleton

Salem 1626

East Bridgewater

Easton

Marshfield

Hanover

PLYMO U T H CO L O N Y Hanson

Pembroke

West Bridgewater

Mansfield

Halifax North Attleborough

Duxbury

Bridgewater

Norton

Kingston Plympton

Massachusetts Bay Colony Towns, 1640

Raynham Attleboro When the Winthrop Fleet arrived in 1630, only two towns had been properly settled in Massachusetts Bay: Salem and Charlestown. With the addition of one thousand new settlers in 1630, Boston, Dorchester, Watertown, Roxbury, Medford, Lynn, and Cambridge were established that year. More towns were created as the pace of migration accelerated in the latter half of the 1630s. This map attempts to delineate the boundaries of all those towns that had been createdTaunton by 1640 and the present towns later formed from them. (Because of deficiencies in the surviving records, Middleborough some of the 1640 boundaries shown here, especially for the towns on the expanding frontier, may include land added after 1640 to towns that had been created by that year.) Carver

Plymouth

P L A T E 4 · S E C T I O N I I : M A K I N G N E W E N G L A N D ’ S M E T R O P O L I S   15 Seekonk

Rehoboth

Dighton

Berkley

Lakeville

Boston’s Economy in the 1640s

MARK PETERSON

The Development of Boston’s Atlantic Trade The places identified are sites around the Atlantic World where Boston merchants sent their ship captains starting in the 1630s and ‘40s to find new markets for New England products. High quality fish, often known as “merchantable cod,” was very successful in the Spanish ports, where New England merchants traded it for wool to sell in Britain. Poor quality fish went to the West Indies, along with grain, livestock, and forest products for building and the sugar industry. West Indian sugar and rum opened doors to trade in British ports as well as African slave markets. Slaves, wine from the Atlantic islands, and a vast array of manufactured goods from Britain were in ever greater demand in the Caribbean and North American colonies.

London

EUROPE

Bristol

NORTH Boston AMERICA

ATLANTIC

Bilbao

OCEAN

Bermuda

Cadiz

Azores Madeira

Cuba

Canary Islands

Hispaniola W e st

A F R I C A

St. Kitts Antigua

Ind

Providence Island

ies

Barbados

Elmina

SOUTH AMERICA ATLANTIC OCEAN

“The Sacred Cod,” a wooden carving hanging in the House of Representatives at the Massachusetts State House in Boston, is an emblem of the significance of codfish to the development of Massachusetts’ commercial economy. 16  P L A T E 5 · S E C T I O N I I : M A K I N G N E W E N G L A N D ’ S M E T R O P O L I S

Plate 5

I

n the 1630s, Boston’s economy floated on the wealth of its initial migrants who liquidated their assets in England. The money they brought to Massachusetts paid for clothing, tools, and other necessities purchased from English merchants. A steady stream of newcomers kept prices high for the food the initial migrants produced on their newly laid out farms. But Massachusetts failed to produce a high-value commodity to sustain its economy into the future. High hopes had rested on the fur trade, but the local rivers offered limited access to the American interior. Massachusetts’ soil was fertile enough for growing food, but the climate could not sustain tobacco production on the scale that was making Virginians rich. In 1639, civil war began in Britain, the Puritan migration to America soon ceased, and the supply of new money dried up as well. Prices for New England’s agricultural products fell precipitously. The colonists lacked money or valuable commodities to pay for imports, providing English merchants no reason to send ships to Boston. Leaders like John Winthrop feared for the colony’s survival; some colonists returned to England, others moved on to more promising ventures in the West Indies. Hope emerged with the beginning of New England’s codfish trade to Spain, where demand for seafood was high. In the mid-1630s, Boston merchants began to ship locally caught and salted cod (bacalao) to Bilbao. These ventures coincided with growing

demand in England’s textile industry for Spanish merino wool. By exchanging their bacalao for valuable Spanish wool and delivering the wool to England, Boston’s merchants could purchase English goods needed by the colonists—and the “triangle trade” was born. The codfish and wool trade was too limited to solve all of Boston’s economic problems, but it pointed the way toward economic salvation, which emerged with the rise of sugar as the dominant crop in the British Caribbean. The sugar boom in Barbados in the 1630s attracted the attention of Boston’s merchants, as friends and relatives sent reports of the slave-based plantations’ astonishing success. The General Court—the Massachusetts legislature—sponsored the building of trading ships, and initial forays were made by captains such as William Peirce, who sailed for the Caribbean in 1637 with a cargo of codfish and enslaved Indians taken in the recent Pequot War, and returned a year later with a shipment of “salt, cotton, tobacco, and negroes.” Slowly, West Indian demand for New England’s foodstuffs, timber products, and livestock became the mainstay of Boston’s overseas trade. Boston’s merchants roamed widely throughout the Caribbean, across the Atlantic to West Africa, and along the Iberian coasts. They traded West Indian sugar and rum for goods they could sell in England, and purchased English manufactures for the growing population of Boston and its New England hinterland. (Falmouth)

(Portland) (Kittery)

Boundaries of Massachusetts Bay Colony North boundary (added to map) Undetermined north boundary (added to map) South boundary (marked on Mather map)

Boston Hives Off New Plantations The rapid growth of New England’s population of migrants meant that, after arriving in Massachusetts Bay, many early settlers fanned out to colonize promising locations throughout the region. These places were often far beyond the actual boundaries of the Massachusetts Bay Company’s charter, defined by lines three miles north of the Merrimack River and three miles south of the Charles River. (See map. The colony’s conjectural western boundary was the South Sea, or Pacific Ocean.) When the charter was granted in 1629, English authorities were unaware of the Merrimack’s sharp northward bend roughly thirty miles inland, which would cause considerable controversy in future decades over the actual northern boundary of Massachusetts. The new plantations outside Massachusetts Bay Colony produced resources for export and purchased imported consumer goods that helped to promote the Boston merchants’ rapidly developing overseas trade. This map, published in 1702 in Cotton Mather’s magisterial history of New England, Magnalia Christi Americana, depicts the geographical expansion of English settlement over the previous eighty years. Highlighted are some of the most important early plantations beyond the boundaries of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. P L A T E 5 · S E C T I O N I I : M A K I N G N E W E N G L A N D ’ S M E T R O P O L I S   17

Accommodation and Conflict, 1630–1676

K AT H E R I N E A . G R A N D J E A N

T

o the first colonists, the Massachusetts coast seemed empty. Epidemics sparked by contact with European fishermen and traders, including a destructive plague in the years 1616–19, had already killed untold numbers of Native people. So many bones littered the landscape that early migrant Thomas Morton called New England a “newfound Golgotha.” Some English thought this devastation a sign of divine will. In destroying its native inhabitants, the English adventurer John Smith wrote, “God had laid this country open for us.” By seeming to make room for colonization, disease allowed Englishmen to justify their own seizure of the land. Such a “vast and empty chaos,” they thought, surely invited English settlement. But that characterization was not quite true. When the first burst of Massachusetts Bay colonists arrived in 1630, many thousands of Native people were living in the American northeast. Early interactions suggest that English leaders realized the importance of forging friendships with these Indian neighbors. When a Massachusett sachem, or leader, visited Boston in 1631, for instance, he dined with Governor John Winthrop. Massachusetts Bay also brokered an alliance with the Narragansetts. As was customary among Native peoples, these relations were sealed with ritual gifts. The Indians brought skins, corn, and other offerings; the English reciprocated with pewter, tobacco, and beer. As colonists gained footing in the region, however, they pressed Native people to adopt English ways. Special pressures accompanied the drive to turn Indians into Christians, since spreading the gospel had been a purported goal of English colonization. (The official seal of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, illustrated above, featured an Indian man pleading, “Come over and help us.”) In the 1640s the Reverend John Eliot began to preach to Massachusett Indians. To “civilize” them, he also created English-style settlements for Christian Natives—what became known as “Praying Towns.” The first Praying Town was Natick, settled in 1651. But thirteen others, with more than a thousand Indian residents, were eventually established (see map). In 1675 tensions over Christianity contributed to war. That June, followers of the Wampanoag sachem Metacom (also called King Philip), embittered in part by the spread of Christianity, began attacking Plymouth Colony towns. King Philip’s War soon engulfed nearly all of New England. Besieged, whole English towns were abandoned. An English attack in Narragansett in December 1675, later called the “Great Swamp Fight,” killed hundreds. Many of the Christian Indians were placed on inhospitable Deer Island in Boston Harbor, where scores died. In August 1676 Metacom was captured and shot, his head afterward fixed to a pole on Plymouth Common. The war halved the region’s Indian population, and those remaining were increasingly forced onto small, marginal tracts of land. War’s end, then, all but ended any prospect for accommodation between Indians and English in southern New England.

Portrait of a Native American Sachem This portrait’s subject, wearing wampum beads and a wool or deerskin mantle, is an elite 1600s Native man. Long thought to be Ninigret, a Niantic-Narragansett sachem, the figure has now tentatively been identified as Robin Cassacinamon, a Pequot leader.

18  P L A T E 6 · S E C T I O N I I : M A K I N G N E W E N G L A N D ’ S M E T R O P O L I S

John Eliot’s “Indian Bible” Title page of the first edition of Mamusse Wunneetupanatamwe Up-Biblum God (1663), the Bible as translated by John Eliot and Native interpreters into the Massachusett language. It was the first Bible to be printed in the English colonies.

P E N N A C O O K

Plate 6

Events of King Philip’s War In January 1675 a Christian Indian named John Sassamon warned Plymouth Colony that Philip was planning a war. Weeks later, Sassamon was found dead at Assawampsett Pond. In June, after three Wampanoag men were hanged for that apparent murder, King Philip’s War began. First came attacks at Swansea, near Philip’s village at Mount Hope. Then blows fell on nearby towns like Dartmouth and Middleborough, just east. War soon spread to Nipmuck country, where Indians besieged interior Massachusetts towns like Mendon (July 1675), Brookfield (August 1675), Lancaster (February 1676), Marlborough and Sudbury (March and April 1676). In 1676 Native attacks struck within ten miles of Boston. (With few exceptions—such as the Great Swamp Fight and the killing at Nipsachuck of several Wampanoag warriors—we know less about English assaults on Native groups.) When the war ended, colonists had deserted most towns more than twenty miles west of Boston.

Wamesit

Groton

(March 1676)

S

Nashobah

C

U

A

Lancaster

S

A

H

TT E S

M

(February 1676)

Sudbury

(April 1676)

Okammakamesit

Boston (March 1676)

Brookfield

Natick

Magunkaquag

N I P M U C K

MASSACHUSETTS BAY

Pakachoog

(August 1675)

Medfield

Hassanamesit

Deer Island

(Praying Indians interned, Winter 1675-76)

Marlborough

Punkapoag

(February 1676)

Manchage

(July 1675, first Nipmuck attack)

Chabanakongkomun Wabquissett

W A M P A N O A G

Maanexit Quantisset

T

E

WAMPANOAG Major Native groups

N

Boundaries

A

Approximate boundaries

(February 1675)

(March 1676)

R

Attack on Native settlement or Philip’s allies

Swansea

A

R

(War begins, June 1675)

N P E Q U O T

Sassamon disovered

Providence

A

Attack on English town

CONNECTICUT

(April 1676)

G

Praying town

M O H E G A N

(July 1675)

Canonchet captured

S

PLYMOUTH English colony

Middleborough

T

Nipsachuck

(July 1675)

Other significant event or location related to King Philip’s War

PLYMOUTH

Mendon

Waentug

Mount Hope (Philip killed)

RHODE ISLAND

“Great Swamp FIght”

(December 1675)

0

5

10 miles

Boston in 1676

NANCY S. SEASHOLES

Significant Locations, 1676 Public buildings Churches–all cong. Burying grounds Military Taverns

S M R T B C D

Industries: Shipyard Mill (water, wind) Ropewalk Tan yard Blacksmith Cooper Distiller

T G Ba Bu F

Retail shops: Shoemaker, cordwainer, glover Tailor Goldsmith Baker Butcher Feltmaker

N LSTO (BOY

Other buildings (primarily residences)

S

ST.)

Almshouse

LD Ba

Ba

ST. )

Ba T

(SU MM E

T

(HA WL

EY

First Mee est. 16 F

ST.)

Third Meetinghouse, 1669

NG (SPR ILN.)

N STO

C

T

T

S

NG (K I

1630

C

S

(BED

ST.)

I

ST.)

Bu

S

T

S G

D ER (FE

AL

ST.)

(M

ILL

ST .)

F

ST.)

S

F

ST)

H (SOUT

(O LIV

ER

ST.) (SEA

20  P L A T E 7 · S E C T I O N I I : M A K I N G N E W E N G L A N D ’ S M E T R O P O L I S

(HIGH

ST.)

ST .)

EA RL

Fort Hill

(P

R

ST .)

M GR ES S

n 1676 Boston was the largest town in English North America with a population of approximately 4,000. Although about one hundred Boston men had been killed in King Philip’s War (see Plate 6), the town itself had not been damaged, as had many others in Massachusetts. The greatest danger was actually from fire since most houses were wood, packed closely together along the streets, some of which were cobbled. Except for the street from the Neck, which was an old Indian trail, these streets were not cow paths, as myth ascribes, but rather routes laid out between various town destinations (see map). Pigs roamed the town, and many houses, especially in the south part, had gardens and orchards. Merchants, craftsmen, and laborers all lived in the same areas, though there were a few concentrations of wealth and prestige in places such as Clark (now North) Square in the North End. In 1676 Boston was also the most important town in English America. The trade begun in the 1630s (see Plate 5) had steadily intensified, and Boston was becoming the second most active seaport in England’s dominions—far behind London but, by the end of the 1600s, equal in shipping volume to all Britain’s lesser ports. By 1676 Boston had also become the major entrepôt of the American colonies, making it a bustling mercantile town. Functions in this town were differentiated geographically (see map). Many industries were on or near the waterfront. They included shipbuilding, the mainstay of Boston’s trade and its most important industry, and also industries that served shipbuilders and outfitters—among them coopers, who produced the barrels and casks for exports such as fish and salt meat; ropemakers; sailmakers; carpenters; blacksmiths; caulkers; and braziers. Many retail shops of artisans, such as tailors and shoemakers, which were generally the front room of houses where goods made on the premises were sold, were along what are now Washington and Union Streets. Governmental and institutional functions were centered near the crossroads of the street to the Neck and the street running from the market place to the harbor (now the intersection of Washington and State Streets). Taverns—places to exchange information in the days before newspapers as well as to eat and drink—were generally located near the industrial and governmental areas.

ST.)

R

ST.)

) ST.

SEX (ES

H AC

E.) AV

(W ASH I NG G TON

FOR D

(BE

(H

ON RIS AR

T T

(BRO MFIE

T

ST.

F

ST.)

(C ON

S

(WIN

B

1660 NT

TER ST.)

C

MO

(SCHOOL ST.)

(TR E

(BEACON ST.)

(WE ST ST.)

The Three Doves

(P

UR CH

AS E

ST .)

(D

SOMERVILLE

7

ST.)

CHELSEA Plate

(GR EEN

1676 Clough Map

This map is a reconstruction, drawn in the early 1900s by Samuel C. Clough, a draftsman and cartographer for the Boston Edison Company. Clough based the map on extensive research in deeds, probate, and other early Boston records. The property lines are accurate, but the placement of houses on the lots is somewhat conjectural. The map depicts Boston before the large fire in the North End on November 27, 1676, which burned the Second Meetinghouse, its parsonage (site of the later Paul Revere House), and forty-five other houses.

CHARLESTOWN

Noddles Island

CAMBRIDGE

area of entire 1676 map

BOSTON Area of map detail below

ST.)

Land, c. 1676 Modern land

(CAMB RID GE

ROXBURY

N

DORCHESTER

C

O (C

M

M

ST .)

RCIAL ST.) ME

Castle Tavern

ST.) NCE B

ST.)

S

C B

Red Lyon Inn Paul Revere House site G

(S UN

R

) ST.

Ship Tavern

King’s Arms Tavern

(BA

King’s B Head (NO R TH ST.)

TT ER Y

S

C

) ST.

(GARDEN CT. ST.) Clark (North) Sq. Second (M Meetinghouse, 1650 OO N ST .) C

ST.)

ST.)

C

(HANOVER

ERY

Bu C

ST.)

C

(K I

)

C

ION TAT

S NT Bunch of HA Grapes C ER (M

W RO

ST.)

E AT (W

Blue Bell Tavern

(CHA RTER

N

C OR TH

TT (BA

.) ST

(HEN CHM AN ST.)

(FLEET

(N

Three Mariners

ER S T.)

(SALEM ST.)

LU (SA

Y LB

T

T

S

C

G Ba

ST.)

CT .)

.) ST

E

M (SALE

.) ST

) ST.

S ES

E AT (ST

RE ST.) NSHI DEVO

G AN CH (EX

S

D

ST .)

Rose and Crown

(FOST

ON D

Anchor Tavern

S S ALL

ICH M

Town House

C

(MAR SH ST.) S

(R

F

S

T

King’s Arms Tavern

M S

(PRI

S

NO VE R ST T .)

(CR OSS ST.)

S

etinghouse, 632, moved here 1640

GR ON (C

(H A

S

S

ST.) 1659

Baker’s Arms (Later Green T.) Dragon) S (U NI O

T

(ELM ST.)

(CO UR T

S

Jail

F

L WHIL (SNO

(P

ST .)

OR TL AN D

T

Salutation Inn

RTH S (N O

ST.)

S S

North Battery

MA RC H)

S

First Period Architecture in Boston Buildings constructed in Boston in the 1600s were in First Period, or Post Medieval, style.

RO

AD

ST.)

Public Buildings

(B

South Battery

None of Boston’s First Period public buildings survive. This drawing of the Town House was made in 1930 according to specifications in the 1657 contract for its construction. First Period features include the steep roof with gables on the façade and casement windows. The Massachusetts legislature, courts, and governor all met on the second floor, which also housed a public library. An open-air market was underneath on the first floor. This drawing also shows the public whipping post in front of the building.

Houses

The Paul Revere House is the only surviving 1600s house in Boston (two others are in Dorchester, which was not part of Boston then). The Revere House was built c. 1680 on the site of the Second Meetinghouse parsonage, which had burned in the 1676 fire (see map); it was owned by Paul Revere from 1770 to 1800. Now restored to its presumed First Period appearance, the house includes a steep roof, large tall chimney, second floor overhang with decorative pendants, and casement windows with diamond-shaped panes. Cooking was done in a basement fireplace, water came from a well or cistern, and the privy was outside behind the house.

P L A T E 7 · S E C T I O N I I : M A K I N G N E W E N G L A N D ’ S M E T R O P O L I S   21

Section III

A Provincial City in the British Empire

Introduction

T

he eighteenth century came early to Boston, as it did to the Empire in which it was enmeshed. In 1688, the Protestant Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic, William of Orange, led an invasion force to overthrow the king who was both his uncle and father-­in-­law, the openly Catholic King James II of England. This so-­called Glorious Revolution ended the century-­long conflict between Crown and Parliament, established England as a constitutional monarchy, and permanently fixed the Protestant Church of England as the state religion while allowing limited toleration for dissenters. This was all music to the ears of Boston’s Puritan leaders. The city and colony had spent its first half-­century resisting the Stuart monarchs’ efforts to restrain their religious and political autonomy by clinging to the 1629 charter as their defense. But the crown’s revocation of that charter in 1684 and its replacement by James II’s Dominion of New England in 1686—­a consolidated government of all the northern colonies from New Jersey to New Hampshire—­in the hands of James’s military viceroy, Sir Edmund Andros, threatened to destroy what Massachusetts had built. Andros established Anglican worship in Boston, demanded (in feudal fashion) annual quit-­rent payments on land the colonists owned, severely restricted town meetings, and ruled with only the advice of a hand-­picked council, abolishing the General Court’s representative assembly of deputies from the towns as well as the elected council of the first charter era. News of William’s invasion and James’s flight from England reached Boston in the spring of 1689, lending courage to the resistance against Andros. On April 18, 1689, a large crowd, including many soldiers experienced in colonial wars led by clergymen and magistrates from the charter era, arrested Andros and his supporters and shipped them back to England. Boston’s agents in London, including Increase Mather, minister of Boston’s North Church, negotiated with King William for a new charter, which was issued in 1691. While the second charter gave up the colony’s right to elect its own governor—­Massachusetts would henceforth have royally appointed governors—­it restored the elected assembly and council of the first charter era. The churches of the Puritans remained the established religion, though now Protestant dissenters (including Anglicans) could worship as they pleased. In return for these compromises, the new charter consolidated Boston’s territorial gains of the preceding era. Plymouth Colony and the islands—­Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, and the Elizabeth Islands, formerly part of New York—­as well as the District of Maine were now confirmed as part of Massachusetts Bay.

Equally important, King William reversed decades of the Stuarts’ pro-­Catholic foreign policies. He immediately launched the first of many wars against France and its imperial possessions that would characterize British foreign relations for the next 125 years. Bostonians, now under a Protestant monarch with an appealing vision of empire, immediately embraced the new imperial turn. Over the course of the 1700s, New England developed a reputation as the most warlike province of Britain’s empire. Boston’s mercantile and political leadership proved remarkably adept at raising troops and supplies for the crown’s ventures against French Canada and the Spanish Caribbean (see Plate 8). In the first decade of the 1700s, Jonathan Belcher, a prosperous merchant and future Royal Governor, toured the Netherlands and Germany, met the future ruling dynasty of England in Hanover, and bestowed new names on the city’s streets—­Hanover, Orange, and Marlborough (the victor at the Battle of Blenheim in 1704)—­that announced Boston’s pride in Britain’s expanding empire (see Plate 10). Membership in the British Empire provided material benefits that Boston’s merchants exploited. The Royal Navy’s capacity to rule the waves gave added protection to overseas trade, at the relatively low and easily evaded cost to Boston merchants of the Navigation Acts’ duties on specified goods such as imported sugar. In this favorable environment, Boston’s merchants extended their trading ventures well beyond the Empire’s bounds (see Plate 8). The 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, ending the War of the Spanish Succession, granted Britain the contract to supply enslaved Africans to Spain’s American empire. This, together with the demise of the Royal Africa Company’s monopoly on English slave trading, opened opportunities in this reprehensible trade for English and colonial merchants, and Bostonians took an active part (see Plate 9). The combination of a booming overseas trade and imperial warfare altered the social composition of Boston’s population in the early decades of the 1700s. Boston’s residents now included French and German refugees from Europe’s wars, extensive exchanges of captives, an increasing number of sailors from the Earth’s four corners, and a noticeably growing African population. The city’s overall population expanded rapidly, from roughly 6,000 in 1700 to nearly 18,000 by midcentury (see Plate 10). But the fortunes of war and trade, especially after the expansion of imperial conflict around 1740, brought marked inequality to the city as well. The mansions of rich and well-­connected merchants, like the Hancock House on Beacon Street, stood in stark contrast to

24  S E C T I O N I I I . T H E P R O V I N C I A L C I T Y I N T H E B R I T I S H E M P I R E

the Almshouse and Workhouse, just across Boston Common, where widows, orphans, and destitute families received public support. The Seven Years’ War, often called the French and Indian War in America, intensified these developments. This war was fought on a larger scale and for higher stakes than prior imperial wars, including the number of troops raised, the amount of money spent, and the global reach of the conflict. Roughly a third of all Massachusetts men between the ages of sixteen and sixty served in some capacity between 1754 and 1761, and were sent to places ranging from Quebec to Cuba. Massachusetts’ Royal Governor William Shirley was briefly elevated to Major General in command of all British military operations in North America, while a thousand Massachusetts provincial soldiers served on an expedition to remove French Catholic colonists from Nova Scotia, many of whom ended up as refugees in New England (see Plate 8). The American phase of this global war was punctuated by the startling victory of British forces under General James Wolfe, who surprised and overran General Montcalm’s French troops on the Plains of Abraham outside Quebec in September 1759. Boston rejoiced at Wolfe’s marvelous victory with sermons preached and songs published in broadside ballads, all to celebrate the divine hand of providence at work behind Britain’s expulsion of the Gallic foe from North America. But the ecstasy was short-­lived. In 1760, a great fire destroyed the old center of town south of King (now State) Street, leaving many homeless and destitute. The war’s end meant the loss of military spending and easy credit, leading to an economic downturn in Boston and other cities in colonial America. To defray Britain’s enormous debt incurred in this global war, Parliament passed new legislation to raise revenue from the colonies that would offset the cost of their government and defense. The new taxes themselves were neither heavy nor extensive. Parliament reduced the duty on imported French sugar in order to encourage merchants to pay it rather than evade it through smuggling, levied a stamp tax similar to what had been in effect in Britain for decades, and added a series of small duties on a variety of imported commodities, from paint and glass to paper and tea. Through determined efforts at evasion and resistance, Bostonians paid very little of these duties. But Parliament’s claim to the right to tax American colonies without the consent of colonial assemblies upended more than a century of custom. The crown’s attempt to enforce Parliament’s right, in the form of armed troops who arrived

Punch Strainer of Cartagena Silver

This silver punch strainer was made c. 1742–44 by Boston silversmith William Breed for John Vryling, a Boston merchant who served in an American regiment at the British siege of Cartagena in 1741. The silver used for the punch strainer was “among the plunder on Sunday 12 April 1741 . . . John Vryling received.”

ity of the new royal governor, General Thomas Gage, shrank to the territory his troops and ships commanded—­the Shawmut Peninsula and Boston’s harbor. Under orders from the crown to suppress the rebellion, Gage struck out on April 18, 1775, exactly four score and six years to the day from the arrest of Edmund Andros. Gage’s light infantry and grenadiers met ferocious resistance from the armed countryside and were forced to return to the safety of Boston, where they were hemmed in by thousands of rebel troops. A siege of nearly a year’s duration ensued. Through a long cold winter of food shortages, disease epidemics, and sporadic fighting, the city was badly damaged, with hundreds of buildings destroyed. By the time British forces evacuated in March 1776, taking with them more than a thousand loyalists, only about three thousand survivors remained in the ruined city of Boston. Mark Peterson

Pre–Boston Tea Party Punch Bowl

This Chinese porcelain punch bowl belonged to Benjamin Edes, radical printer and publisher of the Boston Gazette. On the afternoon of December 16, 1773, Edes held a meeting in the parlor of his Brattle Street home with a group of men preparing to take part in that evening’s destruction of the East India Company tea shipments—the Boston Tea Party. They fortified their courage with several rounds of punch from this bowl.

in Boston in 1768, made the conflict explosive. When new military governments were installed in the colonies Britain had won from France, including the enormous new province of Quebec, Bostonians feared a return of the absolutist tyranny that Edmund Andros’s Dominion of New England had represented. Parliament’s response to Boston’s destruction of the East India Com-

pany tea in December 1773 confirmed these fears. The 1774 Coercive Acts put Massachusetts under direct military government, stripped the province of its independently elected council, suspended town meetings, denied local courts’ authority over appointed crown officials, and eased the terms for quartering troops in urban America. As the province rose in resistance, the author-

S E C T I O N I I I . T H E P R O V I N C I A L C I T Y I N T H E B R I T I S H E M P I R E   25

Boston’s Economy, 1740–1760

B

VERMONT

NEW HAMPSHIRE

Newburyport

Methuen Boxford Dunstable Dracut Topsfield Gloucester Tewsbury Middleton Groton Wenham Danvers Billerica Littleton Wilmington Salem Marblehead Bedford Lancaster Acton Cambridge Malden Southborough Massachusetts MASSACHUSETTS Chelsea Watertown Westborough Charlestown Bay Waltham Hopkintown Boston Newton Hull Natick Needham Worcester Dorchester Milton Sherborn Spencer Weymouth Dedham Liecester Brookfield Braintree Medfield Scituate Holliston Grafton Westfield Medway Walpole Stoughton Oxford Sturbridge

NEW YORK

oston’s economy in the 1700s retained many of the patterns formed a century earlier (see Plate 5). Merchants continued to market local products in the West Indies and roamed the Atlantic world seeking marginal gains to earn credit in London. Shipbuilding and related industries added value as well. Midcentury Boston produced more ships than anywhere else in the colonies. By taking advantage of growing Caribbean sugar production, Boston became British America’s chief rum producer, with over thirty distilleries in the city by the 1760s (see Plate 10). The cheapest molasses came from French sugar islands, which encouraged smuggling, both to avoid the 6 pence per gallon tax of Parliament’s Molasses Act (1733) and to meet the distilleries’ demand. Boston’s rum became a principal commodity for trade with West Africa. But the mid-1700s also brought dramatic changes stemming from Britain’s imperial wars. Starting in 1739 with the “War of Jenkins’ Ear,” Britain’s campaigns against Spanish and French enemies recruited thousands of New England soldiers and provided contracts for Boston merchants to outfit the ships sending troops to places like Cartagena and Guantanamo. In the global conflict known as the Seven Years’ (French and Indian) War (1754–63), Boston played a key role in recruiting soldiers for service ranging from Canada to Havana. Gruesome campaigns like the 1755 ethnic cleansing of the Acadians sent thousands of New England soldiers to Nova Scotia to round up the “French neutrals,” who were then deported (on converted slave ships supplied by Boston merchant Thomas Hancock) to other British mainland colonies. More than a thousand Acadians were sent to Boston to be dispersed across the New England countryside. Wartime gave Boston an economic boost, but the benefits were unevenly distributed. Merchants and artisans producing goods for the wealthy flourished, but unskilled workers suffered the depredations of war to a greater extent. The number of widows and orphans in the city grew rapidly, and skyrocketing demand for poor relief revealed how wartime accelerated inequality. With the eventual victory over France in 1763, the economic engine

MARK PETERSON

Wrentham Easton Norton Attleborough Raynham Taunton Rehoboth Berkley Dighton

Suffield

Enfield Tolland

Windsor Hartford Farmington Wethersfield Woodbury

Waterbury

Norwalk Stamford Greenwich

Middletown

Island

Colchester

Durham

Woodstock Ashford Pomfret Killingly

Coventry Mansfield

Guilford

Canterbury Plainfield

Windham Lebanon Voluntown

Haddam Norwich East Haddam

Killingworth

Branford Milford Stratford

Long

Glastonbury

CONNECTICUT

Wallingford Newtown Danbury New Haven Derby Fairfield

Bolton

New London Lyme Saybrook

OCEAN

Bellingham

Dudley

Simsbury

ATLANTIC

Swansea

RHODE ISLAND

Freetown

Plymouth

Cape Cod Bay

Wareham Rochester

Dartmouth

Barnstable

Falmouth

Preston Groton

Nantucket Sound

nd

ou dS

Stonington

n Isla ode

Nantucket

Rh

Sound 0

10

20 miles

Towns in Massachusetts and Connecticut Receiving Acadian Exiles Boston’s military leaders recruited soldiers from across southern New England to serve in the British military expedition to deport the Acadian population from Nova Scotia. Many Acadian deportees ended up in the very towns from which the soldiers had come.

of warfare ground to a halt. Boston, like much of British America, suffered a credit contraction and economic slump, which hit working people hard. By the mid-1700s other colonial port cities, especially Philadelphia, New York, and Kingston, Jamaica, were growing faster than Boston proper (see Plate 10), confined as it was to the tiny Shawmut Peninsula. But the towns surrounding Boston continued to grow, and wealth

generated by the city spread into the countryside, where elite merchants built rural retreats in Brookline, Roxbury, Milton, and Medford. Poor prospects for commodity agriculture in the New England hinterland also hindered Boston’s growth. Immigrants—free or enslaved—coming to British America in these years were far more likely to pass through New York, Philadelphia, and Kingston on their way to new farms and plantations.

Prospect von Boston gegen der Bucht am Hafen (View of Boston toward the port dock) Boston’s importance as an Atlantic trading port in the 1700s, together with its renown during the crisis leading to the American Revolution, led many Europeans who had never visited the city to imagine it in fanciful terms. Here, artist Francis Xavier Habermann of Augsburg, Germany, depicts the port of Boston in the 1770s as a European walled city, with parapets and turrets defending extensive fortifications along the harbor. Although the image is a product of the artist’s imagination, it does reflect the reality that Boston’s peninsular topography, together with the fortifications on Fort Hill, the North and South Batteries, Boston Neck, and Castle Island, made Boston more like a fortified European city than anywhere else in British America (see Plate 10). 26  P L A T E 8 · S E C T I O N I I I : A P R O V I N C I A L C I T Y I N T H E B R I T I S H E M P I R E

Plate 8

Copenhagen

Danzig/Gdansk Lubeck Hamburg Bremen Amsterdam Rotterdam London

Glasgow

NORTH AMERICA

Portsmouth Boston Philadelphia Annapolis Williamsburg New Bern

New Orleans

DIA AC A

Louisburg Halifax Port Royal Providence Newport New London New Haven New York

Charleston Savannah

EUROPE

Bristol

ATLANTIC

Genoa Bordeaux Leghorn/ Livorno

OCEAN Fayal

Bay of Campeche

Havana, 1762

Dublin

Belle Isle Strait

Bilbao Oporto Lisbon

Azores

Valencia Seville Malaga

Bermuda Madeira

Havana

Guantanamo Bay, 1741 HONDURAS Kingston

Funchal

Canary Islands

Cap Français Monte Cristi

We s t Curaçao

I nd i e s

Cartagena, 1741

Smyrna

Iskenderun/ Alexandretta

Military expeditions

St. Croix St. Barts/St. Barthélemy St. Eustatius St. Kitts/St. Christopher Antigua Montserrat Guadeloupe Martinique Barbados Tobago Trinidad

A F R I C A Gorée Island

Bunce Island SURINAM

Elmina

SOUTH AMERICA

Cape Coast Castle

ATLANTIC OCEAN

Boston Trading Destinations, c. 1750 Compared to the similar image in Plate 5, this map indicates the proliferation of trading destinations for Boston’s overseas merchants from the 1600s to the 1700s. The locations shown are not intended to be exhaustive, but merely meant to suggest the ever-growing number of destinations sought out by Boston’s merchants and ship captains, as well as their willingness to trade beyond the strict confines of British possessions mandated by Parliament’s Navigation Acts. Rather than following fixed trade routes, enterprising merchants went wherever they could obtain the best markets for their varied cargoes. At the same time, certain patterns of commodity shipments established in the previous century continued to be prevalent. New England fish went to Southern Europe and the Caribbean. New England grain products, livestock, meat, and timber products were also shipped to West Indian markets, in return for sugar and molasses. Rum produced in Boston from West Indian sugar was shipped to the West African coast as part of the slave trade, which brought enslaved laborers back to the Caribbean and North America. British ports remained the major source for manufactured goods purchased by Boston merchants and distributed throughout the colonies. The century’s frequent wars between European powers, which increasingly expanded to their colonial possessions, served as both stimulant and threat to successful commercial endeavors.

P L A T E 8 · S E C T I O N I I I : A P R O V I N C I A L C I T Y I N T H E B R I T I S H E M P I R E   27

Boston and the Slave Trade, 1638–Early 1800s

T

he first enslaved Africans arrived in Boston in 1638 aboard Captain William Peirce’s ship, the Desire. Peirce had purchased these slaves in the West Indies where he had gone to sell Indians taken captive in the Pequot War. Boston’s merchants then began to send ships to West Africa to satisfy the Caribbean sugar plantations’ booming demand for African labor. Their vessels carried New England products such as barrel staves to the Canary Islands to trade for wine, sugar, and salt. Next they exchanged these commodities for African captives at slave trading “factories” along the Guinea coast, such as Elmina or Cape Coast Castle. Then they shipped the Africans to Barbados and Jamaica and exchanged them for sugar, molasses, and rum to fill their holds for the voyage back to Boston’s consumers or onward to another Atlantic port. Slaves who went unsold to Caribbean planters, often sick or rebellious, were labeled as “refuse” slaves and sent onward to buyers in the North American colonies, where demand and prices were lower. If unsold in Carolina or Virginia, they might arrive in Boston for New England’s limited market. These “refuse” slaves, like the seven-year-old child purchased in 1761 by the Wheatley family and named “Phillis” after the ship that brought her, were augmented by larger flows that came to Boston through the city’s direct trade with

KERIMA M. LEWIS AND MARK PETERSON

the West Indies. Between 1700 and 1774, at least two hundred ships sailed annually to the Caribbean while an average of only ten a year sailed from Boston to West Africa. By 1750, over 1,500 persons of African descent lived in Boston, just under 10 percent of the town’s population and more than a quarter of all the enslaved Africans in Massachusetts. The town had no single slave market—blacks were bought and sold along the wharves and in the streets and alleys of the town. Newspapers document the local slave trade’s vitality. Between 1704 and 1781, slave owners, including well-known families such as the Belchers, Faneuils, Hancocks, and Royalls, placed over 1,400 ­advertisements in the News-Letter and the Gazette to sell approximately 2,500 persons of African descent. The trade slowed during the American Revolution and was banned in 1788, but a few ships from Massachusetts, including those owned by James and Thomas Handasyd Perkins, continued to ply the waters off Africa’s coast for slaves to sell at their trading house in Sainte Domingue (Haiti). Boston’s participation in the Atlantic slave trade paled in comparison to that of Rhode Island, however, where merchant families including the Browns of Providence invested heavily in the trade.

Lake Sup eri or MASS.

NEW FRANCE

L

n uro eH ak

Lake Michigan

e Lak

NEW HAMPSHIRE

io Ontar

Boston NEW YORK

r Riv e

io Oh

Unspecified Rhode Island ports RHODE ISLAND CONNECTICUT

New York Perth Amboy

PENNSYLVANIA

Philadelphia NEW JERSEY MARYLAND Annapolis Delaware River North DELAWARE Potomac Oxford Potomac River Patuxent South Potomac Rappahannock Upper James River York River

VIRGINIA

Hampton

Lower James River

GREAT BRITAIN & FRANCE (Disputed)

Mis siss ippi River

MASS.

Unspecified Connecticut ports

ie Er ke a L

Portsmouth

NORTH CAROLINA

North Carolina ports

SOUTH CAROLINA

ATLA N T I C

GEORGIA

Charleston

OCEAN

Savannah

LOUISIANA

GREAT BRITAIN & SPAIN (Disputed)

(FRANCE)

Slaves Arriving at North American Mainland Ports, 1711–1775 100,000

Biloxi Pensacola

St. Augustine 35,000

New Orleans La Balise

5,000

FLORIDA (SPAIN)

Gu lf o f Me x i co

0

100

200 miles

28  P L A T E 9 · S E C T I O N I I I : A P R O V I N C I A L C I T Y I N T H E B R I T I S H E M P I R E

1,000 1750 boundaries

Plate 9 Percent of All Slaves Arriving in New England, 1676–1802 50

CANADA

EUROPE

35

Portland, MA Salem, MA Piscataqua (Portsmouth), NH Providence, RI Boston, MA Middletown, CT New London, CT UNITED Newport, RI

25 20 15 10 5

STATES

ATLA NTIC O CEA N

Pr ov ide nc e Pis ca ta qu a

Bo sto n

0

0 ,0 12

Slave ship port of origin

0

Gu l f of Mexico

30

Ne wp or t

AMERICA

45 40

Percent

NORTH

Jamaica

Sainte Domingue (Haiti) Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic) Antigua St. Kitts

Car i b bean S ea

Barbados

Equator

A F R I C A

Canary Islands

Sene

Gorée I.

SENEGAMBIA

SENEGAMBIA

WINDWARD

WINDWARD g a m bia 2 , 2 0 0 SIERRA COAST COAST SIERRA LEONE Bunce I. Sie r LEONE GOLD ra Leo BENIN ne 1,400 COAST W i nd Old Calabar Cape ward Coast 1,500 Coast Elmina Bight of Gold Coast 6,600 Biafra

SOUTH

SCA

R

AMERICA

DA GA

ATLA NTIC O CEA N

MA

MADAGASCAR

Sources and Numbers of Slaves Brought Directly to New England Relatively few slaves (some 12,000) reached New England directly from Africa. Most of these came from areas west of modern Nigeria. Ninety percent arrived in Boston- and Newportowned vessels. More African captives reached New England through traffic with other colonies or as part of slave shipments on New England vessels to the Caribbean.

300 0

500

1,000 miles

Phillis Wheatley

Slave Advertisements in Boston Gazette, February 12, 1728 With no central slave market, slaves were sold by individual merchants, often in conjunction with other items. While physical attributes like “strong” or “spry” were sometimes employed, the term “likely” was more often used to indicate that a slave was suitable for sale.

Kidnapped in Senegal at age seven and shipped to Boston in 1761 on the ship Phillis, for which she was named, Phillis Wheatley was owned by evangelical Christians John and Susannah Wheatley. Phillis was taught to read and write and began writing poetry in adolescence. Her first book, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, was published in England in 1773 when she was just twenty years old. After a visit with British antislavery activists in London that same year, John Wheatley soon granted Phillis her freedom. The nation’s first published black author composed classical poetry reflecting her religious beliefs, anti-slavery ideas, and devotion to friends and their virtues.

P L A T E 9 · S E C T I O N I I I : A P R O V I N C I A L C I T Y I N T H E B R I T I S H E M P I R E   29

BENJAMIN L. CARP

B

SOMERVILLE CHELSEA

CHARLESTOWN Noddles Island CAMBRIDGE

Clough House North West End End Old State House South End

BOSTON

area of map at right

ROXBURY Shirley Eustis House

Land, c. 1743 Modern land

DORCHESTER

Population of Largest British American Towns, 1687–1776 35,000

Philadelphia New York Boston Charleston Newport

30,000

25,000

20,000

15,000

10,000

5,000

70 17 76

17

17 60

17 50

17 40

30 17

17 20

10 17

17 00

0

16 8 16 7 90

y 1743 Boston may have been, as mapmaker William Price asserted in the text accompanying his map (at right), “the largest, most populous and flourishing Town in the British Dominions in America.” Price boasted of Boston’s harbor, lighthouse, fortifications, shipbuilding, and the surrounding countryside. He listed Boston as having about four thousand houses, seventeen houses of worship, and several public buildings. The accompanying legend notes that the town had overcome eight “Great Fires” and seven smallpox outbreaks during the 113 years since its founding. Price particularly takes note of the town’s newest public building, the marketplace at Faneuil Hall (no. 56, 1742). Price’s 1743 map, an update of John Bonner’s 1722 map, reveals the functional geography of Boston. Long Wharf (1711–15) extended from King Street, the center of local commerce, finance, government, and print communication. The town was most densely settled here and in the North End but had also expanded to the old South End and, more slowly, the West End. Churches and schools were spread throughout the town; institutions for the poor were at the northeastern end of Boston Common. Most industries were near the waterfront; ropewalks were located on hills. Structures for defense ranged from shoreline batteries to a hilltop fort and beacon. The panoramic view of Boston from the harbor is also by William Price in 1743, revised from a 1725 view by William Burgis; the numbers on the view match the corresponding sites on the map. Viewing Price’s map, Bostonians could increasingly take pride in the appearance and prosperity of their town. Yet Price’s boosterism belied several problems that darkened Boston’s horizons. Even during the years of economic growth, poverty was also increasing. The government had failed to prop up the colony’s declining currency. Tensions between Governor Jonathan Belcher and his opponents ran high. Rioters destroyed a market house and butcher’s stalls on March 24, 1737. When Peter Faneuil proposed to build a new market building for the town, the town meeting approved it narrowly and controversially in 1740. Boston’s population began to decline during the 1740s (see graph). Within a generation of 1743, Philadelphia and New York City surpassed Boston as hubs of population and commercial activity. These mid-Atlantic cities benefited from military contracts and privateering, massive immigration, and fertile hinterlands for cultivating grain and raising livestock, and they gradually drew trade away from rocky New England. Boston, meanwhile, struggled to compete with shipyards up and down the coast. Two midcentury imperial wars, King George’s War (1744–48) and the French and Indian War (1754–63), claimed hundreds of Boston’s young men, leaving hungry widows and children behind. Four times during the 1740s (most notably in 1747), Bostonians rioted in response to the British navy’s attempt to forcibly recruit, or “impress,” seamen into service. These events prompted Samuel Adams to write essays for the radical newspaper, the Independent Advertiser, one of five newspapers in town at the time. The Great Fire of 1760 was to damage much of this landscape and leave 220 families homeless. Economic contraction followed the end of the Seven Years’ War, which led to further political unrest in Boston.

Population

Boston in 1743

Year

Georgian Architecture in Boston Buildings constructed in Boston in the 1700s were in Georgian style, named after the kings of England at that time. Georgian buildings are usually symmetrical; have sash windows with multiple panes; and have bricks often laid in Flemish bond, i.e., alternating long (lengthwise) and short (crosswise) bricks. High-style buildings generally have classical details.

Public Buildings

Upper-Class Houses

Middle-Class Houses

The Old State House, built in 1713 to replace the Town House (see Plate 7), is shown as it would have appeared in 1743, with a gambrel roof and balustrade and an octagonal tower. Rebuilt in 1747–48 after a fire, when the lion and unicorn were likely installed, the doorway and stairs on the east end were removed in the first decades of the 1800s and the sundial replaced by a clock in the 1820s. The building’s many Georgian features include a belt course of raised brick between stories, doorways surmounted by triangular or segmental pediments and flanked by columns, and pedimented dormers.

The Shirley Eustis House, built in 1747–51 by Governor William Shirley, is actually in Roxbury. (See locator map. No upperclass Georgian houses remain from colonial Boston.) The house’s many high-style Georgian features include a roof balustrade, two-story pilasters (flattened columns), and quoins (large blocks), here surrounding the entry.

The Clough House in the North End was built c. 1715 with two stories, a gambrel roof, and dormers. (A third story was added later). Its Georgian features include splayed brick window and door lintels and transom lights over the door. The kitchen was in a rear room, and a cistern for water and a privy were outside behind the house. Other surviving Georgian middle-class houses in Boston are the PierceHichborn in the North End, the Capen (Union Oyster) and Ebenezer Hancock Houses in the Blackstone Block, and the Old Corner Bookstore on Washington Street.

30  P L A T E 1 0 · S E C T I O N I I I : A P R O V I N C I A L C I T Y I N T H E B R I T I S H E M P I R E

51

Plate 10

53

Cong.

15 49

40

30

Ang.

Bap.

54 31

14

Cong.

Ang.

Cong.

27

Cong. Fr. Prot. 55

Cong.

52

51

Cong.

42

23

20 10 22

Ang.

44 39 34

32

Q.

Cong.

36

Residences, shops

18 19 26

12

8 5

Significant Locations, 1743

7

Public buildings

Burying grounds

Schools

Shipyards

Churches:

Ropewalks

Cong. Ang. Bap. Q. Pres. Fr. Prot.

4

15

10 55

9 11

Congregational Anglican Baptist Quaker Presbyterian French Protestant

23

56

27

14

5

7

19

18

Distilleries Mills Military 1

Keyed to site on 1743 view

40

20

53

31 30

54

35

42 49

22 12

45

35

28 56

4

52

Cong.

Cong.

11

9

Pres.

Cong.

28

8

32

34 36

39

45 44

26

P L A T E 1 0 · S E C T I O N I I I : A P R O V I N C I A L C I T Y I N T H E B R I T I S H E M P I R E   31

Revolutionary Boston, 1763–1776

J. L. BELL

Hutchinson Mansion

1

Green Dragon Tavern

2

3

4 5

Brattle Street Meetinghouse

6 7 8 9

10

11

Faneuil Hall

12

Province House

13

14

15

16

17

Liberty Tree

8 Edes & Gill print shop – issued the Boston Gazette, the

town’s most radical newspaper.

9 Courthouse and Jail 10 Town House (now the Old State House) – seat of the

provincial and then state legislature.

18

Landmarks of Revolutionary Boston 1 Christ Church (now the Old North Church) – where 2

Noddles Island BOSTON

area of map above

3 4 5 6 7

lanterns were hung on April 18, 1775, to warn Patriots in Charlestown of the British route. North Battery Mansion of Thomas Hutchinson – nearly destroyed in the Stamp Act riots of 1765. Hutchinson was a merchant, historian, and politician supporting the Crown. Hancock’s Wharf – the basis of John Hancock’s fortune. Green Dragon Tavern – a Freemasons’ lodge where Patriot committees gathered. Brattle Street Meetinghouse – Boston’s upper-class Congregational church, its minister a vocal critic of royal policy. Faneuil Hall – built in 1742 to host town meetings over a marketplace; expanded to its present size in 1806.

32  P L A T E 1 1 · S E C T I O N I I I : A P R O V I N C I A L C I T Y I N T H E B R I T I S H E M P I R E

11 Customs House - site of the Massacre. 12 King’s Chapel – church of Boston’s wealthiest Anglicans,

many of them Loyalists.

13 Province House – official residence of the royal

governors, appointed by the government in London.

14 Old South Meetinghouse – a Congregational meeting-

15 16 17 18

house and also the largest enclosed space in Boston. It was thus used for crowded meetings such as the one on December 16, 1773, that preceded the Boston Tea Party. South Battery Griffin’s Wharf – site of the Tea Party. Liberty Tree – so-called by politicians after a stamp-tax collector was hanged in effigy from this tall elm in 1765. The Neck - fortified by the British army in 1774. Buildings in bold are still standing. Landmarks pictured no longer exist or have changed greatly.

Plate 11

I

n 1763 Bostonians celebrated the British Empire’s triumph over the French in the Seven Years’ War. But because Britain wanted its American colonies to pay more of the costs of that empire, Parliament placed taxes on such things as sugar, legal documents (under the Stamp Act), and tea. Bostonians protested through their town meeting and in mass gatherings under Liberty Tree. Many rioted against the Stamp Act and customs officers. In 1768 the Crown responded to such violence with troops. About 2,000 soldiers arrived to patrol Boston, which contained only 3,000 adult men. The resulting friction culminated in a brawl outside the Customs House on March 5, 1770. Soldiers shot into a violent crowd and killed five. Bostonians called that a “Massacre.” With the troops removed to Castle Island, Boston stayed relatively quiet until December 16, 1773, when townspeople blocked customs officers from collecting the tax on tea by throwing three expensive shiploads of it into the harbor.

Once again, the imperial government in London sent regiments into Boston, closing the port to trade and imposing changes in Massachusetts’s constitution. On September 2, 1774, rural militiamen rose up against these measures, ending royal rule in most of the province. Boston, once the hot spot of resistance to the Crown, became the refuge for Loyalists who supported it. Soon an elected Massachusetts Provincial Congress was strengthening the provincial militia in the countryside. Inside Boston, self-appointed Patriots watched for the royal governor’s response. They agreed with comrades in Charlestown to hang one lantern in the North Church steeple to signal if he sent troops out by road, two if he ordered troops across the Charles River by boat. (Longfellow later poeticized that choice as “One if by land, two if by sea.”) On the night of April 18, 1775, the king’s soldiers crossed the river and set out for Concord, nineteen miles into

unfriendly territory. Along the way, they had a fatal clash with the Lexington militia. At Concord, provincial regiments counterattacked and pursued the soldiers back toward Boston. By that evening, the town was surrounded by thousands of armed Patriots. Patriot troops from other New England colonies joined the siege. On June 16, the provincials built a small fortification on Breed’s Hill in Charlestown. The royal army attacked, winning Breed’s and the larger Bunker’s Hill but suffering more than a thousand dead and wounded. The result was a stalemate: British commanders awaited a convenient time to sail away, and the Americans could not push them out. In the winter of 1776 the Continental Army hauled additional cannon from Fort Ticonderoga and Crown Point in New York and mounted them on Dorchester Heights. Their ships threatened, British military leaders finally evacuated Boston on March 17, leaving behind a depleted but independent town.

The Battle of Lexington and Concord, April 18–19, 1775 The Battle of Lexington and Concord grew from two skirmishes into a running fight through five towns. Total killed: approximately 70 British soldiers, 45 militiamen, 5 civilians. Hog I.

Boston to Concord

Medford H

F

Lexington

I

North Bridge

Barrett’s Farm

Noddles I.

Charlestown C G

M

N

N

E

L

J

Chelsea

Menotomy (later Arlington)

BOSTON

Cambridge

Concord

B

D K

South Bridge

A

Lincoln

Paul Revere’s route William Dawes’ route

0

1

British route to Concord

2 miles

April 18, 1775 A 8:30 PM: William Dawes leaves Boston on horseback B 10:30 PM: Paul Revere signals to Charlestown C 11:00 PM: Revere leaves Boston by rowboat D 11:00 PM: British troops leave Boston Common in boats E 11:30 PM: On horseback, Revere evades British patrol April 19, 1775 (cont’d) O 9:00 AM: British reinforcements leave Boston P 10:00 AM: Shots exchanged at North Bridge; 6 killed Q 12:00 PM: British troops withdraw from Concord

R 12:30 PM: Provincial militia start to attack British troops T

2:30 PM: British reinforcements meet returning troops 3:30 PM: Entire British force heads east

2:30 AM: Alerted by Prescott, Concord militia musters 5:00 AM: British troops fire at militia on Lexington Common; 8 killed M 7:30 AM: British troops reach Concord N 8:30 AM: British troops search Barrett’s farm K L

5:30 PM: Bloodiest fighting of the day 6:15 PM: British troops choose to head east to Charlestown W 7:30 PM: British troops reach safety U

V

Medford S

Lexington

Chelsea

Menotomy (later Arlington)

T

Noddles I.

U W

P

North Bridge

V

Q

South Bridge

1

2 miles

N

3

Charlestown

R

Cambridge

Concord

0

Hog I.

2

Concord to Boston

Barrett’s Farm

DORCHESTER

Waltham

April 19, 1775 F 12:30 AM: Revere arrives in Lexington, followed by Dawes G 1:00 AM: British troops form up and march west H 1:30 AM: Lexington militia musters I 1:45 AM: Revere and Dawes meet Dr. Samuel Prescott J 2:00 AM: British officers capture Revere, Dawes loses his horse, Prescott rides on

S

Roxbury

Watertown

Samuel Prescott’s route

1

BOSTON

4

Lincoln

British reinforcements from Boston British withdrawal from Concord

Watertown

Roxbury

O

DORCHESTER

Waltham

Castle William – held by the British army from 1770 to March 1776, thus controlling the approach to Boston from the Atlantic. Battle of Noddles Island – second major fight of the war took place on Noddles Island, Hog Island, and the Chelsea shore on May 27-28, 1775. 3 Battle of Bunker Hill – June 16, 1775. The British seized the Charlestown peninsula but lost so many men that their generals became wary of further advances. 4 Dorchester Heights – heavy cannon placed here on March 4, 1776, threatened British ships, forcing the British to evacuate Boston. 1

2

P L A T E 1 1 · S E C T I O N I I I : A P R O V I N C I A L C I T Y I N T H E B R I T I S H E M P I R E   33

Section IV

­ rom Town to City F Government

Introduction

D

uring the period from the Revolution to the late 1820s, Boston underwent transformative changes. When the British evacuated Boston in March 1776, they left a depleted town. Many buildings had been damaged or destroyed and the population, which had been over 15,000 before the war, had dropped to less than 3,000 because many townspeople had fled during the British occupation. Peace did not bring immediate prosperity to Boston. Boston ships were no longer permitted to trade with British colonies, dealing a devastating blow to the maritime commerce that formed the basis of the town’s economy. As a result, Boston suffered severe depressions. About 1790, however, Boston began to prosper again. As detailed on Plate 12, Boston ships established lucrative trades with Europe, the West Indies, South America, and the Far East, particularly China. These ships brought the raw materials that supplied Boston’s largest industries at the time—­rum distilling and sugar refining, which utilized West Indian molasses, and ropemaking, which employed Baltic hemp. Boston ships also carried the imported consumer goods that were in such demand in the town’s retail shops (see Plate 13). In addition, the revival of shipping led to the establishment of insurance companies to cover the risks of these voyages and banks to provide the necessary capital—­two businesses that became important in Boston. People began to move to the newly prosperous town—­the population, which had climbed to about 18,000 by 1790, almost doubled by 1810. This population explosion produced a building boom. Less densely settled areas of the original Boston peninsula, such as the West End, old South End, and The Neck, began to be built up, as shown on Plate 13. Housewrights (master builders) became a major occupational group and lumber yards an important industry. As Boston became more densely populated, it also became more residentially segregated. The well-­to-­do, who in the

1700s had lived in the North End intermixed with members of other social classes, began to move to separate enclaves, first near Bowdoin Square and in the old South End and then on the south slope of Beacon Hill. African Americans, especially after slavery was abolished in Massachusetts in 1783, established a community on the north slope of Beacon Hill. Housewrights tended to settle in areas of new housing (see Plate 13). But Bostonians needed yet more space for residential and commercial development than was available on the original peninsula. Their solution was to make more land by filling in the tidal flats that surrounded the peninsula, a process described on Plate 14. Where Bostonians got the idea that they could create substantial areas of new land by filling tidal flats is not clear—­probably from the techniques used at the time to build wharves. At the beginning of the 1800s Boston wharves were constructed by enclosing the wharf area with stone seawalls, filling the interior until the level of fill was above the level of high tide, and then constructing wharf buildings on this newly made land. The same method was used to add land to Boston. A structure to retain fill—­ usually a granite seawall—­was built on the tidal flats around the outer perimeter of an area to be filled; then fill was dumped inside this structure until the level of fill was above the level of high tide. Major projects to add more land to Boston began in 1794 when the town granted the proprietors of the recently burned ropewalks on Fort Hill an area of flats at the foot of the Common with the requirement that the proprietors build a seawall on the west side of this grant, clearly intending that the proprietors fill these flats to create the land for their new ropewalks. Landmaking continued throughout the first decades of the 1800s and by 1828 had added many acres to the original Boston peninsula as well as some to South Boston, Cambridge, and Charlestown (see Plate 14).

During the same period—­1786 to 1828—­Bos­ton’s connections to the surrounding mainland improved. The one land route to the mainland that had served the town during its first 150 years was no longer adequate for a town that was growing so rapidly. So bridges began to be built to connect Boston to nearby areas of mainland (see Plate 14)—­first one to Charlestown in 1786, followed by one to Cambridge in 1793, then a bridge to South Boston in 1805, another to Cambridge in 1809, a bridge off this bridge to Charlestown in 1815, and a dam across Back Bay with a road on top to Brookline in 1821. The foregoing were all toll bridges, but finally, in 1828, two free bridges were built—­ one to Charlestown, the other to South Boston. These bridges usually connected to one of the many turnpikes constructed in Massachusetts during this period (see Plate 14), further connecting Boston to its hinterland. Massachusetts turnpikes were required to run in as straight a line as possible regardless of the terrain, a feature that still characterizes the highways they became. By the early 1820s all these factors—­maritime commerce (which had revived after the disruptions of the Embargo of 1807 and War of 1812), new industries, newly available land, and better connections with the mainland—­had encouraged yet more people to move to Boston; the population had reached 43,298 in 1820. Of these, over 7,000 were voters—­far too many to fit into the second floor of Faneuil Hall, where town meeting met. So, in 1822 Bostonians voted to adopt a city form of government with a popularly elected mayor serving a one-­year term, a Board of Aldermen elected at large, and a Common Council with representatives from each ward. Nancy S. Seasholes

S E C T I O N I V . F R O M T O W N T O C I T Y G O V E R N M E N T   37

Boston’s Economy, 1776–1807

RICHARD GARVER

A

t the outset of the Revolution, to transport their colonies’ goods. To Boston was the second most bypass restrictions against American ships, important port within Europe’s England and France accepted the fiction Atlantic colonial system after Philadelphia. that goods carried to American ports and With relatively low-value products to paying import duties there, which the export from their hinterland, Boston merUnited States reimbursed, could be re-exchants thrived by carrying those of other ported as American goods. North American and West Indian colonies. Boston’s enterprising merchants The Revolution devastated Boston’s comexploited each development. By-passing merce and manufacturing. It was followed French and British trade restrictions, they by one of the severest depressions opened markets in Russia and the in  Massachusetts history. British restricMediterranean. As their wealth grew, they tions on trade with the West Indies purchased new, bigger ships. To accommodeprived farmers and fishermen of their date them, they built wharves and waremarkets and merchants of commerce. houses (see Plate 14). To cover their risks, Boston’s exports during the 1780s were which now included not only maritime one-fourth those in 1774. Merchants were disasters but France’s and England’s conbankrupted. Some coped by smuggling and fiscation of their ships and cargo, mertrading in slaves. chants formed insurance corporations. By 1790, Boston’s commerce was recovMerchant alliances attracted financing for ering. The return from Canton of ships like Boston Ship Columbia on Northwest Coast members’ ventures by incorporating banks the Astrea and Columbia set the stage for a Pioneering a western route to Canton in 1787–90, the Boston ship Columbia traded goods such as whose stock investors could buy in hope of subset of Boston merchants to dominate metal tools, cloth, and beads to the Native Americans on the Northwest Coast for sea otter furs, profiting from successful voyages, the which had a high value in China. America’s China trade. Events in Europe foundation of Boston’s banking industry. were of even greater significance. Crop failures created markets for ships carrying Booming maritime trade stimulated industries, from distilling West Indian molasses to American grain. The American South became the principal source of cotton for England’s fabricating ships’ cordage and metal fittings (see Plate 13). New Englanders attracted by industrialized textile industry. In America, there was a swelling demand for imported job opportunities swelled Boston’s population, in turn creating construction and confinished goods. Finally, the unresolved war between England and France that began in sumer goods jobs. By 1807, on the eve of President Jefferson’s Embargo, which would 1793 required both countries to depend on neutral carriers, principally the United States, seriously damage its shipping, Boston was once again a leading American port. 90°W

60°W

30°W

0°

16 3

2

Mid-Atlantic

2

22

Boston

11

30°N

23

6 21

10 1

We s t Ind ie

s 24

0°

1 14

30°S

Buenos Aires

0

500

SPAIN PORTUGAL

3 4

21 20

South

1,000 miles

Scale at the Equator

38  P L A T E 1 2 · S E C T I O N I V : F R O M T O W N T O C I T Y G O V E R N M E N T

3 4 HOLLAND

FRANCE

3

12 6

7

DENMARK

ENGLAND

13

15

5

4

3

3 4

RUSSIA

Plate 12 Population of Five Largest American Towns, 1770–1810

CODMANS WHF.

Bank

100,000

Insurance company

Q. MARKET S

N. GE L

ST. STATE

Mass. Mutual Fire Insurance Co.

ST. RETT

Mass. Fire & Marine Insurance Co. AL L S LE N D

50,000

WHF. DOANES

Union Marine Insurance Co. T. Y S KILB

COURT SQ.

OW ERS R BUTL

WHF. LORINGS

U.S. Bank (“Branch Bank”)

Suffolk Insurance Co.

LEVE

DEVONSH IRE ST .

HF. LONG W

ROW TS AN

Mass. Bank

Boston Bank

Union Bank

75,000

H RC

New England Marine Insurance Co.

AN EXCH

WILSONS LN.

Old State House

LY.

Boston Marine Insurance Co.

Boston Exchange Office

ME

ILL NH

Baltimore Boston Charleston

BRAYS WHF.

Population

. SQ

New York Philadelphia (including suburbs)

N. SPEARS WHF.

FITCHES A

S ARD ODW WO

WH

F.

LT SA

SONS JACK HF. HF. W S W EAN McK

25,000

. HF W

0

ROW

0

100

200 feet

1770

1776

1780

1790

1800

1810

Year

Banks and Insurance Companies, 1807

Boston’s population fell below 3,000 in 1775–1776 when many residents fled during the British occupation but then almost doubled during the economic recovery from 1790 to 1807. New York grew faster, however, exceeding Philadelphia for the first time in 1800, while Baltimore emerged as an important port.

State Street, situated at the head of Long Wharf and connecting Boston overseas traders’ warehouses to the town’s retail concentration (see Plate 13), served as its merchants’ exchange, where they collected daily to share commercial information, arrange deals, and finance their ventures. Accordingly, it was the location merchants chose for the banking and insurance companies they formed to provide them with commercial capital.

180°

Boston Trade, 1790–1807 Boston merchants became truly global traders between 1790 and 1807. In addition to expanding their roles as carriers of U.S. mid-Atlantic and southern states’ commodities, importers of European goods, and suppliers to Europe’s Caribbean colonies, they entered into trade in Asia, previously a predominantly European market.

Boston Customs Duties, 1791–1807

Customs duties in dollars

3,000,000

C H I N A Canton

INDIA

8

0

9

Year

19

After the outbreak of war in Europe in 1793, Boston merchants’ role in Atlantic trade varied with changing French and British shipping policies, reflected in the rise and fall in the customs receipts. For example, in 1806 over 800 ships arrived in Boston, many carrying Caribbean products then re-exported to Europe, bringing import duties to almost $3 million.

17 18

1,000,000

17 9 17 1 9 17 2 93 17 9 17 4 9 17 5 9 17 6 9 17 7 9 17 8 99 18 0 18 0 0 18 1 0 18 2 03 18 0 18 4 0 18 5 0 18 6 07

Calcutta

2,000,000

19

Boston Tonnage, 1796–1807 125,000

Tonnage

100,000

2

Boston exports Boston imports Inter-port trade on Boston ships

Pickled & salted fish, beef, pork, fowl, horses, cattle, lumber, barrel staves & other wood products, shoes, butter Rum, grain, flour, whale oil, pot & pearl ash, leather

3

Sugar, tobacco, cotton (re-exported from West Indies)

4

Grain, whale oil

5 6

7

Colored cloth, ornaments, shoes, nails, metal tools

8

Cloth, ginseng

9

Sea otter skins, seal skins from Patagonia, sandalwood from Hawaii

15

Wine, oil, fruit, salt

16

Iron, hemp

17

Tea, silks & nankeens, porcelain

18

Cloth

19

Hard currency earned from re-exports

10

Sugar, molasses, coffee, cotton, dyes, spices

20

Grain, flour

Grain

11

Cotton, rice, tobacco, indigo

21

Cotton

European finished goods, (particularly textiles), rum, loaf sugar, lumber, whale oil, cotton & wool cards, pickled & salted fish, soap, candles, cordage, naval stores, shoes

12

Grain, flour

22

Sugar, cotton, spices

13

Finished goods (particularly textiles)

23

Tea, cloth, porcelain

24

Slaves

14

Hides

50,000 25,000 0

96 17 97 17 98 17 99 18 00 18 01 18 02 18 03 18 04 18 05 18 06 18 07

1

75,000

17

CO R

LE BRATT

Faneuil Hall

Year

As Massachusetts merchants’ profits grew during the economic recovery that began around 1790, they invested in more and larger ships. By 1807, they owned shipping with a capacity measured at 119,000 tons, compared to Massachusetts’ next most active ports: Salem/Beverley (41,100 tons) and Newburyport (34,600 tons).

P L A T E 1 2 · S E C T I O N I V : F R O M T O W N T O C I T Y G O V E R N M E N T   39

Boston in 1800

G AY L E S AW T E L L E

CHARLESTOWN

Land, c. 1800

Noddles Island

CAMBRIDGE

BOSTON

ROXBURY

Modern land

area of map at right

DORCHESTER

Congregational

Th e Ne ck

B

oston’s demographic and economic recovery in the 1790s (see Plate 12) brought a population explosion, building boom, and voracious demand for imported luxury goods—all phenomena with spatial consequences. Demand for housing spurred Bostonians to replace the town’s wooden building stock, most conspicuously with the brick designs of Charles Bulfinch in the new Federal style (see sidebar). The industrial landscape featured coastal distilleries and shipyards as it had a half century earlier (see Plate 10), but rum distilling was in decline while the few remaining shipyards primarily repaired and provisioned ships. The new bridges across the Charles River (see Plate 14) forced those supplying the building boom to shift their lumber yards away from the river to wharves fronting on South Cove. Many new manufacturing enterprises were located in the North End and other parts of the town (see p. 169). The commercial landscape burgeoned with luxury goods shops that formed a well-defined retail district along the town’s main inland artery. By 1800 West India goods stores selling West Indian products such as rum, sugar, and molasses on Long Wharf had also come to cluster at the entrances to the town from the Neck and the new West Boston Bridge. Two new public buildings contributed to the reorientation of the town. Construction of the New State House (1795–97) shifted the seat of government from its initial home at the densely built up crossing of Washington and State Streets to rural Beacon Street. This move drove the residential development of the south slope of Beacon Hill. To replace the dangerously overcrowded town almshouse at the corner of Beacon and Park Streets, an impressive new one was built on the coastal outskirts of the West End in 1799–1800 (see illustration). A house-by-house analysis of the town in 1800 shows increasing residential segregation. During the colonial period, elites had favored the North End. In the 1790s fashion shifted to the West End, where Bulfinch built houses for men like Harrison Gray Otis (see sidebar), first in Bowdoin Square and a decade later, when fashion had shifted again, on Beacon Hill. An enclave of elite residences also developed in the old South End, initially prompted by Bulfinch’s creation of the novel Tontine Crescent on Franklin Street (see illustration) and adjacent theatre, and later on nearby Pearl (Hutchinson) Street. By 1800 around half of Boston’s black population had formed its own community on the north slope of Beacon Hill. Housewrights (master builders) tended toward occupational segregation. One of the largest occupational groups in Boston at this time, the building trades were broadly scattered in the North End but formed distinct clusters in the West and old South Ends, often in areas of new building.

Old South End

Federal Architecture in Boston Buildings constructed in Boston from the 1790s to the 1820s were in Federal style, named for the period of U.S. history in which they were built. The most prominent Federal architect in Boston was Charles Bulfinch (1763–1844).

Congregational

Public Buildings Massachusetts’ new State House opened on Beacon Hill in 1798 (see map). Designed by Charles Bulfinch, the original brick building has such Federal features as thin Corinthian columns and Palladian windows (three-part windows with a large arched center section flanked by smaller square-topped side sections) in the wings. The dome, originally whitewashed wood shingles, was covered in 1802 with copper sheeting manufactured by Paul Revere and then in 1874 with gold leaf, as at present.

Upper-Class Houses

Middle-Class Houses

Bulfinch designed the First Harrison Gray Otis (HGO) House (1796) for the politician of that name. Like many free-standing Federal houses, it is five bays (openings) wide with a low hipped roof, narrow chimneys, and half height windows on the low-ceilinged third floor. High-style details include the elliptical fanlight over and sidelights next to the front door, a Palladian window in the center of the second floor, belt courses between floors, and keystone lintels over the windows.

Middle-class Federal houses are often of frame construction. In Boston, several, including the 1799 Nell House at 3 Smith Ct. pictured here, still exist on the north slope of Beacon Hill, the area populated in 1800 by African Americans (see map). Federal features include its five-bay width, half-height third floor windows, and pilasters (flattened columns) flanking the center entrance. The house was heated by fireplaces on the rear wall, including one in the basement for cooking; water came from a well or cistern; and a privy was outside the house.

40  P L A T E 1 3 · S E C T I O N I V : F R O M T O W N T O C I T Y G O V E R N M E N T

Plate 13

West Boston Bridge

Tontine Crescent

New Almshouse North Slope

o Beac treet n S

Beaco n H ill

We s t E n d

on Beac

3 Smith Court

1st HGO House

New

et Stre

Congregational

Bowdoin Sq.

Significant Landmarks and Spatial Patterns, 1800

N

Distilleries

Elite residences

Sugar refineries

Elite residences with black servant

Lumber yards

Black residents

Ropewalks

Housebuilders

Other industries

Former linen manufactory

New houses

Luxury goods shopping district West India goods stores

Episcopal

Area of West India goods stores

Catholic

Public buildings Churches

Central wholesale warehouse district

Concert Hall

Episcopal

Area of new house-building

Burying grounds Taverns

Central Congregational

Congregational

Congregational

South Mills

Boston Theater Congregational

Quaker

Baptist Baptist

North End

Sandemanian

Episcopal Congregational

Universal

Congregational

Methodist

P L A T E 1 3 · S E C T I O N I V : F R O M T O W N T O C I T Y G O V E R N M E N T   41

Connections to the Mainland and Additions of Land, 1786–1828 NANCY S. SEASHOLES

SE TPK A . ST .)

TT RE

Broad Canal

North Allen St., 1811 (Town of Boston, Lechmere Point Corp., West End Residents)

93

Charles St., 1803–1805 (Mount Vernon Proprietors)

( TR ON

COM M BOYLSTON ST.

(C HE L

BRO AD

ST. ST.

SE HA RC U P

ER

Ropewalk Lands, 1794 (Proprietors of the Ropewalks)

. ST

M

M

1 182 Dam .) t Mill S n aco (Be

I ND IA

ILK

M SU

Charles St., 1803–1804 (Town of Boston

Central Wharf, 1815–1816 (Central Wharf and Wet Dock Corp.)

BOSTON STATE ST. ST .

ST. ON BEAC

Faneuil Hall Market, 1824–1826 (City of Boston)

R

Oliver’s Dock, c. 1800 (Private Owners)

ST.

e

rl Cha

RLES CHA

The "Gore," 1821–1828 (Mount Vernon Proprietors)

Middlesex Canal Extension 1815

Boston Harbor

ST.

ST.

PINCKNEY ST.

CO U

)

ST.

Mill Pond, 1807–1828 (Boston Mill Corporation)

T

GROVE ST.

Charles St., 1805–1807 (Private Owner, Proprietors of the West Boston Bridge)

BOWDOIN ST.

CAMBRIDGE ST.

)

er s Riv

ACK

Bulkhead, 1800 (Private Owner)

West Boston Br. 17 (Longfellow Br.

MER RIM

EM ON T)

ST.

N. A LLEN ST.

WASH INGTON ST .

BR OA DW A South Y Dock

BELKNAP (JOY) ST.

MAIN

Cross Canal

. ST

ST.

US CA

. ST

ST.

VE LE

South Canal

AY EW

ST .

ESSEX ST.

E PL

AS

ST . Free Br. 18 28 (Dorchester Ave. Br.)

AN T

Back Bay Front St., 1804–1806 (Front St. Corp.)

FRO NT

ST.

ROXBURY 0

500

1,000 feet

42  P L A T E 1 4 · S E C T I O N I V : F R O M T O W N T O C I T Y G O V E R N M E N T

Sou th B osto n Br (W. . 180 Four 5 th S t. Br .)

South Bay

Noddles Is. (East Boston)

LYN N ( CH COMM AR ER CIA TE L R

T. )S

CAMBRIDGE

Middlesex Canal river crossing Cr aig Canal Br. approach, c. 1809 (F i e ’s i (C (Proprietors of the Canal Br.) rst C an ha rle al) sR B . D r. 18 am 09 ) New Almshouse, 1799–1800 (Town of Boston)

. ST

North Canal (proposed)

Extension of Salem Turnpike, c. 1822 (Town of Charlestown)

ST .

Name of landmaking project, dates (Name of entity conducting landmaking)

R

HI GH

SECOND

Original name of bridge, date opened (Present-day name)

TE WA

Navy Yard Shiphouse & Wharf, 1813 (U.S. Government)

CHARLESTOWN ST. 6 178 (N. WASHINGTON ST.) Br. r.) R. nB es tow arl Ch arles (Ch Warren Br. 1828 (Second Charles R. Dam)

Bridges

. ST

LS T.) T.

Pri s

ST.

Erosion prevention

Navy Yard Timber Dock filled, c. 1828 (U.S. Government)

ST.

Military

ST.

on Po int (G ilm B ore r. 18 15 Br. )

(M BR SG ID R. O’B GE ST RIE CAMBR NH . IDGE ST W . Y.) OTIS ST.

Institutions

ING TO N

. ST T.) S EN

New streets

WA SH

K

Public lumber wharf, before 1811 (Lechmere Point Corp.)

WATER ST.

(W BAC AR R

TOWN H IL S (HARVA RD

Residential

Navy Yard Shiphouse early, 1820s (U.S. Government)

M LE SA

ST.

Industrial

HA RV AR D

Shipyard, before 1811 (Rogers & Binney)

Winchester’s Soap Works, 1819 (E. & A. Winchester)

Commercial

N AI M

1828 Boston shoreline

CHARLESTOWN

State Prison, 1804–1805 (Commonwealth of Mass.)

HA SALEM AN NO N VE (N R OR ST TH .

New England Glass Co., c. 1818 (New England Glass Co.)

1794 Boston shoreline

ST.

Landmaking, 1794–1828

able to carry heavy loads from the southern end of the canal in Charlestown, across the Charles River on buoyed cables, through an extension in the Mill Pond—then being filled— all the way to Boston Harbor. During this period of bridge, turnpike, and canal building, Boston’s population more than tripled—from 18,320 in 1790 to 61,392 in 1830—as many people moved to the again prosperous town, straining its capacity to accommodate all these new residents. The original Boston peninsula was almost completely built up and, with the economy centered on the harbor and State Street (see Plates 12 and 13), there was no thought of expanding to the mainland, most of which belonged to other towns and did not have good harbors. Bostonians’ solution was to make more land by filling in the tidal flats that surrounded their peninsula, an idea probably suggested by wharf-building technology. The technique was simple: a structure, usually a stone seawall, was built around the outer perimeter of an area to be filled and then fill was simply dumped behind it until the level of fill was above the level of high tide. Major landmaking projects began in the 1790s and continued throughout the 1800s. Those from 1796 to 1828 created new land for various uses, as shown on the map below.

SEA

F

or the first 150 years of its existence, the Boston peninsula was connected to the mainland only by one road over the Neck. When the town began to grow and prosper after the Revolution, however, it needed better connections with the mainland, so bridges were built across the surrounding waterways (see maps). The early bridges, which were on the site of present spans, charged tolls. But by the late 1820s, the public demanded free bridges, and two opened in 1828. The era in which the first bridges were built was also one in which transportation ­facilities were improved nationally, particularly by constructing turnpikes and canals, and the Boston area was no exception. The first turnpike in the Boston area—from Salem—was chartered in 1802 and opened in 1803, soon followed by many others (see map on opposite page). Massachusetts turnpikes were required to run as straight as possible—regardless of hills or swamps—and their straight lines still characterize the routes that have supplanted them today. Boston bridges often connected with these turnpikes, increasing the town’s connections with the mainland. And one of the nation’s earliest canals—the Middlesex, constructed in 1794–1803—connected Boston with the Merrimack River. Canal boats were

Seawall, 1805–1806 (South Boston Association)

South Boston

India Wharf/Broad & India Sts., 1803–1808 (Proprietors of India Wharf/ Broad Street Association)

DANVERS

BILLERICA

BEVERLY

WILMINGTON LYNNFIELD

READING

SOUTH DANVERS

SOUTH READING

SALEM

BURLINGTON

ex

Medford Tpk., 1805 (Mystic Ave.)

H 1 8 1 St . , ,1 k. on Tp eac ., B ve

WATERTOWN

am ps

hi re CHARLESTOWN St .) CAMBRIDGE

Turnpikes Name of turnpike, date opened (Present-day name) Bridges

Neponset Br., 1803 (Neponset Br.)

HULL

Quincy Bay n (H cy T an pk co .

(Rte. 28, Randolp h Ave.)

Bru ep sh H o (Rt ill T e. 1 38, pk., 18 09 Blu eH ill A ve.)

CANTON RANDOLPH

Brai n (Qu tree & inc yA v

QUINCY

.1 ., c pk ) St. th T m ou to ey ng W Was hi , e.

Blue Hill Tp k ., c. 1807

03 . 18 ,c ) t. ck S

MILTON

DEDHAM

Canal, river crossing

ui

Br (Wa istol Tpk., 1 80 shin 6 gton S t.)

Turnpikes, Canal, Bridges, 1828

Since the early 1700s, Bostonians had debated whether to retain a town meeting form of government or to incorporate as a city. Those favoring town meeting government argued that it was more democratic. Those favoring city government argued it was more efficient. By the 1820s such a change had become imperative—in 1820 the town’s population was over 40,000 and its more than 7,000 voters were far too many to fit into the upper floor of Faneuil Hall, where town meeting met. So in 1822 voters adopted a city government with a mayor that served a one-year term, an eight-member Board of Aldermen elected at large, and a forty-eight member Common Council with representatives from each ward. The second mayor, Josiah Quincy, decided that a fitting project for the new city would be to clean up the old market place near Faneuil Hall and create a grand new market area. The result was the Faneuil Hall Market project. Built between 1824 and 1826 by constructing a seawall, filling in old wharves and slips in front of Faneuil Hall, and building new market structures on the made land, the project showed the new city government’s efficiency. It has been called the first urban renewal project in the nation. When completed, the three new market buildings, which are still familiar landmarks in Boston, were right on the harbor, as shown on the map on the opposite page and in an 1827 view from the east below. From left to right they are: South Market, Quincy Market with Faneuil Hall behind it, and North Market.

Q

DORCHESTER

t R. nse

Norf olk &

Boston Harbor

for detail, see map at left

Dorche ster Tp k., c. 18 (Dorch 07 ester A ve.)

ROXBURY

N

DOVER

BOSTON

Dorchester Bay

De (W dha as m T hi ng pk., 1 to n S 806 t.)

.

BOSTON BAY

South Boston

arle Ch

sR

CHELSEA

Chelsea Br., 1803 (Tobin Br.)

Punch Bowl Rd. (Brookline Ave.) BROOKLINE

10 St.) Worcester Tpk., 18 dley t., Du S t n o untington Ave., Trem

NEEDHAM

Lynn Bay

Malden Br., 1787 (Alford St. Br.)

4 Cambridg e–Watertown Tpk., 182 (Arsenal ve.) St., Western A R. Western Ave. Br., rles 1824 Arsenal St. Br., 1824 Cha BRIGHTON

R.

NEWTON

(Rte. 9, H

Mystic R.

em T (Rt pk., 1 8 e. 1 07 03 )

Mi dd t., le s Ma ss. A WEST mb rid CAMBRIDGE ge &C onco (C rd T on p k ., cord 180 Ave 6 WALTHAM .)

Ca

MALDEN

MEDFORD

Sal

, 1803

(Lo we ll S

Nahant Bay Ne wb u (R rypo tes rt Tp k. .9 9 & 1 , 1805 )

l es al Midd ex Can

LEXINGTON

Ch ar le s

STONEHAM

Boston Changes to a City Government

LYNN

SAUGUS

A nd over & Medfor d Tpk., 18 07 (Fo rest S t., Fellsway, Rte. 2 8)

WOBURN

Plate 14

MARBLEHEAD

WEYMOUTH

BRAINTREE

0

1

n

80

HINGHAM

Faneuil Hall Market Project 8

2 miles

Greek Revival Architecture in Boston Buildings constructed in Boston from the 1820s through the 1840s were in the Greek Revival style, derived from Greek temples.

Side-hall floor plan

Public buildings often had pedimented roofs supported by columns, like Quincy Market or the Custom House (above), designed by architect Ammi Young and originally built with a dome. (The present tower was added in 1913–15).

Houses were often brick rowhouses, three bays (openings) wide with the doorway on one side flanked by full-length sidelights (windows) and transom lights above. Windows had rectangular stone lintels and sills, and narrow, gable-roofed dormers were often on the roof. The side entrance resulted in an interior “side hall” plan—a long hall extended back from the entrance off of which opened front and back rooms heated by fireplaces on the opposite wall. Kitchens were in a rear ell, water came from neighborhood wells or cisterns, and privies were outside behind the house.

Middle-class houses sometimes had pedimented entrances with columns or pilasters (flattened columns) and bow fronts. Examples can be seen on Beacon Hill, the South End, and the Jeffries Point section of East Boston.

Working-class houses had very plain facades. Examples can be seen in Chinatown, Bay Village, and Charlestown.

P L A T E 1 4 · S E C T I O N I V : F R O M T O W N T O C I T Y G O V E R N M E N T   43

Section V

“Athens of America”

Introduction

A

thens of America,” as a nickname for Boston, became popular in the 1850s, but it had been coined earlier. Perhaps the first writer to see similarity between the bustling modern metropolis on the North Atlantic and the ancient one on the Aegean was the Boston native William Tudor. In an 1820 book, he boasted that although the “very name” of Athens “makes every thing modern shrink from comparison; . . . since the days of that glorious city, I know of none that has approached so near . . . that illustrious model” as Boston. Like ancient Athens, Boston in this era brimmed with ambition, much of it directed toward the sea. Boston merchantmen docked in harbors from Saint Petersburg to Calcutta, New Orleans to San Francisco, and Donald McKay’s East Boston shipyard, which opened in 1845, built the fastest clippers in the world. Yet enterprising Bostonians focused ever more of their attention inland. They established factories powered by waterfalls or steam, most producing footwear or cloth, in towns across Massachusetts and built an extensive network of railroads to connect these towns to the Boston hub (see Plate 15). Boston was like Athens, too, in that it was a major center of culture. No group did more to promote the cultural influence of the city than its tight-­knit elite, the so-­called Boston Brahmins (a designation that took hold, however, only after the Civil War). Consisting of about forty intermarried Yankee families that had made fortunes in trade and manufacturing, the Brahmins were generally Unitarian in religion and conservative in politics, and the culture they championed was genteel. Among their most visible successes was to popularize landscaping as a way of imagining public space (see Plate 16). The commons of Boston and Cambridge, once largely utilitarian places where livestock grazed, were transformed in 1830 into parks, and surrounding towns soon began landscaping their own commons. Meanwhile, in 1831 Brahmins established the garden cemetery

“

of Mount Auburn in Cambridge as an alternative to the old, stark, slate-­headstone-­filled Puritan graveyards. Mount Auburn, too, would be widely imitated. Boston and ancient Athens were also each home to a strikingly large number of influential writers and thinkers. The middle decades of the 1800s are remembered as the golden age of New England letters, when famous Boston-­ area authors such as Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller, and Longfellow flourished (see Plate 17). They were able to do so in part because the Brahmins invested time and money in creating a dense local literary infrastructure comprising publishing houses and bookstores, private and public libraries, literary and philosophical societies, lyceums and discussion clubs, major periodicals such as the North American Review and the Atlantic Monthly, and Harvard University. Yet some of the most important New England writers were critical of the Boston elite. Emerson, Thoreau, and Fuller, for example, belonged to the Transcendentalist movement, which challenged mainstream Brahmin opinion and taste, championing a more mystical theology, a more individualistic literary style, a more nonconformist way of life, and a more radical politics. Boston and ancient Athens were also both democracies. William Tudor himself emphasized this similarity in his book, declaring Boston to be “the most perfect, and certainly the best regulated democracy that ever existed.” At the time he wrote, Boston, like Athens centuries before, was a democracy of the direct kind. Because it still had a town government, its citizens would assemble to conduct public business at town meetings in Faneuil Hall. In 1822, however, the era of town meetings ended when Boston was chartered as a city—­the first in Massachusetts and perhaps the first in the United States with a popularly elected mayor. Yet Bostonians disagreed over how democracy

should work. The Brahmins tended to emphasize, as did Tudor, that it should be well “regulated”—­ meaning that the elite should lead it. But elite authority in Boston was often challenged. In these years before the Irish won positions of political power, the principal challengers were Yankees from outside the Brahmin circle who considered themselves part of the “Middling Interest.” One of their spokesmen, the Boston minister Theodore Parker, promoted the idea that a true democracy should not be dominated by one class but should be a “government of all, by all, for all” (a moral vision that appealed to Abraham Lincoln, who would adapt it for his Gettysburg Address). The diverse social reform movements that flourished in Boston (see Plate 18) were efforts to make the city and the nation better democracies in the Parkerian sense. Perhaps not surprisingly, these movements seem to have drawn more general and consistent support from the Boston middle class than from its Brahmin elite. No cause, however, divided Bostonians more sharply than abolitionism, the interracial movement for the “immediate” end of slavery and for black civil rights (see Plate 19). From the 1830s through the Civil War, Boston had a reputation as the capital of abolitionism, but many prominent Bostonians were anti-­abolitionist, and the city elite was especially hostile. A major anti-­abolitionist riot in 1835 was reportedly led by “gentlemen of property and standing,” and more riots occurred in the 1850s as abolitionists battled the elite over whether to arrest fugitive slaves and return them to the South. The “Athens of America” could be a politically tumultuous place, even as it bid to be the intellectual and moral capital of the nation. Like the Athens of old, however, its legacy lives in literature that is still read and ideas that are still believed. Dean Grodzins

S E C T I O N V . “ A T H E N S O F A M E R I C A ”   47

Railroad Development, 1830–1855

D

uring the 1830s and 1840s, Boston’s hinterland emerged as the most industrialized region in the world outside northwest England. Artisans, shop owners, and local merchants turned rural villages with water power into textile manufacturing towns and towns without water power into shoemaking centers. Boston merchant capitalists built textile cities like Lowell and Lawrence from scratch. Transporting raw materials from the port of Boston and returning manufacturers’ finished products were time consuming and expensive. The Middlesex Canal connected Lowell to Boston but froze in winter. Roads and turnpikes were seasonally unreliable. After extensive debate on state government’s role in financing railroads, initially conceived as horse-drawn rail lines, the Massachusetts legislature chartered three private steam railroad corporations: the Boston & Lowell Railroad in 1830 and the Boston & Worcester and the Boston & Providence Railroads in 1831.

RICHARD GARVER

The last connected via steamer to New York City, the country’s commercial capital. The lines quickly proved their worth, resulting in competition for rail freight service among New England’s ports and manufacturing cities. Buoyed by passenger travel generated by the region’s rapidly urbanizing towns, railroads also proved to be profitable. Ridership included a growing phenomenon—daily commuting between Boston and nearby towns—whose total population approached that of the city itself. Built primarily as interregional connections, Boston’s railroad network also included two sets of lines intended to reverse New York City’s dominance over the country’s second most valuable export—flour and grain. In 1842, the Western Railroad extended the reach of the Boston & Worcester to the Hudson River opposite the mouth of the Erie Canal from which poured the agriculture of the Old Northwest. But due in part to disagreements over through rates, the railroad failed to divert New York’s grain traffic to

Boston. In 1851, the Boston & Lowell and a series of railroads to the north completed an operating agreement that opened a second avenue to the west via the St. Lawrence River at Montreal. It was the most ambitious rail enterprise in the country to date. Boston congratulated itself with the “Great Railroad Jubilee” in 1851, climaxed by a dinner for 3,600 on the Common attended by President Millard Fillmore and Canada’s governor-general. At that point, twenty years after Boston’s first train departed for Newton, seven lines linked Boston to its hinterland (see map on opposite page). Within twenty miles they branched into nearly fifteen. The system, which had had 167 miles of track in 1839, had grown to 3,000 miles and connected Boston to almost every significant manufacturing city in the region as well as to waterway links to the west. It was the most extensive railroad network in the country at the time and encompassed most of New England’s system today. To Portland

To Portland

To Manchester To Bellows Falls

To Hudson R. To Rutland

To Montreal

Newburyport

To Lebanon

Haverhill

Nashua

To Peterborough

Methuen Lawrence Lowell

Adams

Georgetown North Andover Andover

Fitchburg Danvers

Woburn

Pittsfield

Stoneham

Salem Marblehead

Lynn

Clinton To Hudson R.

West Boylston

Waltham

Marlborough North Brookfield Worcester Leicester Spencer

Ware Great Barrington

Holyoke

South Hadley Palmer

Brookfield

Grafton

Natick

Oxford

Monson

Quincy

Dedham

Hopkinton

Weymouth

Millbury

Chicopee West Springfield

Westborough Framingham

Randolph Milford

Abington

Stoughton Uxbridge

Southbridge Dudley

Webster

To Bridgeport

East Bridgewater

Blackstone

To New London To New Haven

Attleboro

To New London

Raynham Taunton

New England Railroads—from Ascendancy to Decline By 1850 New Englanders, assisted by state governments during the economic crises of 1837 and 1839–43 and then swept up in a late 1840s railroad securities bubble, had invested more than fifty million dollars in the region’s railroads, making them the largest private corporations in America at the time. Three additional lines were in development (see map on opposite page): rerouting the Eastern to enter Boston at Causeway Street rather than in East Boston; the Grand Junction Railroad, a freight-only service running between the East Boston docks and the Boston & Worcester; and the Boston & New York Central, the eighth railroad to enter Boston, with a station at the site of today’s Federal Reserve office building. But in June 1851 the Erie Railroad reached Lake Erie, the first of the trunk lines that would connect New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore to the West during the next decade, relegating Boston’s railroads to the status of a secondary regional system. Boston’s railroads were also increasingly overbuilt. Driven by ambitious directors and the pursuit of revenues with which to maintain their dividend levels, the railroad corporations intruded into the territories granted each other by the legislature. Predatory competition undermined their profitability. In 1851, Edward Everett wrote, “There are indeed too many [lines]. They interfere with each other, and many…are ruinous to the first undertakers.” The New England railroad mania had run its course.

Providence (steamer connection to New York City) To New London

Massachusetts Towns Producing >$250,000 Worth of Shoes/Boots and Textiles, 1855

New Bedford

$10,000,000

$2,500,000 $1,000,000 $250,000 Boots/shoes Textiles Massachusetts railroads, 1855

48  P L A T E 1 5 · S E C T I O N V : “ A T H E N S O F A M E R I C A ”

Fall River

0

5

10 miles

Plate 15 Boston Depots in 1856

BOSTON & MAINE R.R. 1845

MEDFORD

GRA N

BO SOMERVILLE ST ON &

My stic

W LO . 18 4

3

R. R.

R.R

8 .1

55

FERRY

BOSTON

es R arl Ch

.

Boston Harbor

KNEELAN D ST.

BROOKLINE

BOSTON & WORCESTER R.R. 1835

Railroads and Depots 1851 Added 1851–1855

NT RA L

CE

OV ID E

YOR K

NC

E

BOS TON &N EW

R.R. 1845

&P R

South Boston

NY

BOS TON

LO CO

ROXBURY

R. R

South Bay

South End

D OL

R. R. 18 35

.1 85 5

Boston and Maine

RN

4

East Boston

CHARLESTOWN N ER ST EA854 1

N TIO NC U J

E ST EA

1852

85 .1

R.

CAUSEWAY ST.

D AN GR

R.R.

R.R

GR EAS AN TER D N JU R N C .R . 1 TI ON 838 – R.R 54 .1 85 2

GR .R

CAMBRIDGE

BRIGHTON

CHELSEA

5 83 .1

BUR

D JU NCT ION

R. R

Fitchburg

L EL

FITC H

NORTH CHELSEA

MALDEN

0

1/2

1 mile

DORCHESTER

Eastern Early Boston Railroads

Boston and Lowell

Boston and Providence

The first three railroads to enter Boston—the Boston & Lowell, Boston & Providence, and Boston & Worcester—all had depots on land created especially for them. Of the three, the Lowell and theWorcester had a balance of passengers and freight; the Providence, with connections to New York City, was weighted toward passengers. The next railroad, the Eastern, which had the highest passenger volumes despite competing with coastal steamers, entered Boston through East Boston and ferried its passengers across the harbor to the main part of the city. Subsequent railroads from the north had depots and freight facilities on or near Causeway Street; those from the south in the Kneeland Street area. In 1854 the Eastern relocated its tracks so that it, too, could have a depot on Causeway Street.

1848 Passenger and Freight Volumes Railroad Boston & Worcester Boston & Providence

Boston and Worcester

Old Colony

Boston & Lowell Boston & Maine Eastern Fitchburg Old Colony

Daily Trips 52 28 28 34 24

Annual Passengers 598,000 487,000 485,000 728,000 893,000

Annual Freight Tons 284,000 88,000 281,000 120,000 41,000

34 28

494,000 390,000

244,000 43,000

P L A T E 1 5 · S E C T I O N V : “ A T H E N S O F A M E R I C A ”   49

Early Landscaped Spaces, 1820–1860 BILLERICA

ARTHUR KRIM

WILMINGTON LYNNFIELD

READING

SOUTH DANVERS Laurel Hill Cemetery 1846

LE

Lakeside Cemetery 1846

Burlington Common

BEDFORD

Reading Common

Wakefield Common

WOBURN

Bedford Common

SALEM

SOUTH READING

BURLINGTON Woodbrook Cemetery 1845

Shawsheen Cemetery 1852

LYNN

STONEHAM

SAUGUS

NCORD

SWAMPSCOTT

Pine Grove Cemetery 1849

Riverside Cemetery 1850

MELROSE

Wildwood Cemetery 1851 WINCHESTER

Lexington Common

Harmony Grove Cemetery 1839

Lynn Common

LEXINGTON

OLN

WEST CAMBRIDGE

Oak Grove Cemetery 1853

MALDEN

MEDFORD

Ch arl es

Mount Feake Cemetery 1857 WESTON

Auburndale Park 1847

CHELSEA

BELMONT

SOMERVILLE CAMBRIDGE Cambridge Common 1631, 1830 Harvard Yard 1636, 1816 Mount Auburn Cemetery 1831 Cambridge WATERTOWN Cemetery 1853

Waltham Common 1816 R.

Walnut Park 1846

orce & W Boston

Newton Cemetery 1857

st e r

BRIGHTON Waverly Park 1845 Longwood Green c. 1846 Evergreen Cemetery 1850 Linden Place 1843

rl Cha

R.R.

NEWTON

NORTH CHELSEA

Woodlawn Cemetery 1850

Mystic R.

Tufts College 1852 WALTHAM

NAHANT

BROOKLINE

es

CHARLESTOWN

R.

BOSTON

Landscaped Sites, 1860

for detail, see map at right

Needham Common

Town common Rural cemetery

South Boston

Roxbury Common ROXBURY

Forest Hills Cemetery 1848

BAY

WINTHROP

East Boston

Boston Harbor

BOSTON

WEST ROXBURY NEEDHAM

Garden Cemetery 1841

Monument Square 1824

Residential square/park/mall Public garden College campus

Old Harbor

Mount Bowdoin 1836

Dorchester Bay

HULL

DORCHESTER

Quincy Bay

Mount Hope Cemetery 1850 t R. onse Nep

Dover Common DOVER

Dedham Common

MILTON

Quincy Common QUINCY

WEYMOUTH

DEDHAM BRAINTREE

50  P L A T E 1 6 · S E C T I O N V : “ A T H E N S O F A M E R I C A ”

HINGHAM

0

1

2 miles

Plate 16

L

andscaped open spaces in metropolitan Boston developed from three initial strands: 1) landscaped town commons, 2) residential squares and parks, and 3) suburban cemeteries. Of the town commons, Boston’s was the first to be landscaped when a promenade of trees was planted along the Tremont Street edge in the 1720s, forming the Mall, and a formal set of pathways was laid out in 1830. Similarly, neighboring Cambridge landscaped its common in 1830 with formal paths and an early baseball field, and Harvard Yard was landscaped in 1816. Other suburban towns landscaped their commons in the 1830s and 1840s, including Lexington, Bedford, Dedham, and Reading (see map). Following the creation of the Tontine Crescent (Franklin Street) in Boston, a London-style row park designed by Charles Bulfinch in 1793–94 (see Plate 13), urban residential parks began to be laid out in Boston in the early 1800s. These included Columbia Square (now Blackstone and Franklin Squares) in the new South End (1801); Washington Square at the top of Fort Hill, which appears on maps as early as 1800; and Louisburg Square on Beacon Hill (1834). The squares laid out in the South End

in the early 1850s were other examples of London-style residential parks. In the inner suburbs, residential parks were laid out by Cornelius Coolidge in Dorchester (1836) and by Alexander Wadsworth in the 1840s in the Auburndale and Newton Corner sections of Newton, which had developed along the Boston & Worcester Railroad. The first landscaped garden cemetery in the country was Mount Auburn in Cambridge, which opened in 1831 with a design by Alexander Wadsworth, Dr. Jacob Bigelow of Harvard University, and H. A. S. Dearborn of Roxbury that was based on the Cimetière du Père Lachaise in Paris (1804) and English picturesque models that had been closely studied in Boston during the 1820s. The picturesque or “rural cemetery” plan was quickly adopted in the Boston area, and by the late 1850s a number of examples existed in Boston suburbs (see map). The culmination of such landscape efforts were the 1850s plans for the Commonwealth Avenue Mall in Back Bay, a French-style boulevard and greenway that later linked the Boston Public Garden (1837) and Boston Common to a series of parks that became known as the Emerald Necklace (see Plate 30).

RIM ACK

L S T.

CIA L M ER

ST . CO M

NO

ST . B

SOUTH S T.

LA N D S T.

AD RO

. ST

Boston Harbor

Lexington Common Lexington Common was landscaped in the 1830s or 1840s. In this 1852 lithograph from Gleason’s Pictorial one can see the 1799 obelisk commemorating the Revolutionary War, an early example of a monument of this type, and the granite post-and-rail fence erected in 1840.

ST.

r Riv e

ST .

N ST. WA SH IN GT O

. ST

TR E M ONT

ER

ST

Washington Square

BOSTON ST.

ST.

ALBA

DO V ER

NY

ST.

W. CAS TLE

FEDERAL

.

Back Bay

ST. KNE E

FEDERAL ST.

T

ELIOT

Tontine Crescent 1794

ST.

ST.

PLEAS AN

Commonwealth Avenue Mall 1850s

ESSEX

T.

S

STON BOYL

ER M M SU

. AVE

LIN ST.

ST.

LIV

. ST

M COM

H ALT WE ON

Public Garden 1837, 1860

Boston Common 1634, 1830

ST.

MILK ST.

FR AN K

IN D IA

O

K

ST.

CON BE A

ST. STATE

ST.

Pemberton Square 1836

GH

SCH OO

R PA

Ch a

T

AD BRO

ST.

ST.

RNON MT. VE

ER OV

UR CO

PINCKNEY ST.

N HA

SOMERS ET ST.

Louisburg Square 1834

JOY ST.

CHARLES

rle s

ST.

RT H

. ST

CAMBRIDGE

This 1847 etching by James Smillie depicts a romantic, picturesque setting in the Mount Auburn Cemetery, the nation’s first rural garden cemetery. Shown here are typical features of the cemetery: curvilinear paths, white marble monuments behind cast iron fences, and an arboreal park formed of original estate trees interspersed with more recently planted ones.

ST .

ST.

HI

MER

Pilgrim Path, Mount Auburn Cemetery

Union Park Square 1851

. ST

ST .

. AV E N

IS O

HA RR

Worcester Square early 1850s

South Bay

. ST

W AS H

IN GT O

N

. ST

E IN

ST.

Columbia Square 1801

RK PA

AW

RK

P

A

. ST

R TE ES CH

SH

N IO

AM

. ST

E.

E. AV

UN

DH DE

N TO

. ST

Chester Square 1850

KL OO BR

EM

D OR ER NC ST CO CE OR W

T ON

TR

UT M

W NE

. ST

AL

0

NY BA

1,000

South Boston Union Park Square Union Park Square was laid out in 1851 as one of several residential squares in Boston’s new South End. This photo, taken some time after 1862 when South Congregational Church in the right background was erected (no longer standing), looks south at the central garden with its two fountains and surrounding cast iron fence—features that still exist today (see Plate 23).

2,000 feet

P L A T E 1 6 · S E C T I O N V : “ A T H E N S O F A M E R I C A ”   51

Literary Boston, 1837–1891

L

ess than three generations after America’s War for Independence, colonial Boston had grown into a world-class city—a large, bustling, urban center as heralded for its wealth, wit, and wisdom as it had been for its revolutionary roots. By the middle of the 1800s, the great arc linking Boston, Cambridge, and Concord was also the home and workplace for countless innovative writers whose interests ranged from transcendentalism, abolitionism, and American history to women’s rights, spiritual enlightenment, and utopian communities. Two of Boston’s most enduring nicknames—the Athens of America and the Hub of the Solar System—referenced this Golden Age of American Literature, when Boston nurtured many of the nation’s first significant authors, poets, philosophers, bookstores, publishing houses, periodicals, and libraries. The dates selected to define this literary flowering— from 1837 to 1891—are useful bookends. On August 31, 1837, Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered “The American Scholar” speech to the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Harvard, an oration

SUSAN WILSON

that Oliver Wendell Holmes called America’s “Intellectual Declaration of Independence” from the Old World and its literature. By 1891 when former editor of the Atlantic Monthly William Dean Howells moved to New York, the center of America’s literary world had indeed shifted to Manhattan as well. But the story is more nuanced and complex than those milestones suggest. From the time of its founding in 1630, Puritan Boston placed a premium on literature and learning and created numerous educational and literary institutions. And despite Emerson’s eloquent declaration, many of Boston’s authors and scholars were “nativizers” of European models who traveled across the Atlantic to study languages, learn new scholarly methods, meet with authors, or study innovative European philosophies—both before and long after 1837. Boston was home to unique individuals willing to share their views, skills, homes, and ideas, and to actively promote others’ talents. Unitarian minister William Ellery Channing, for example, inspired New England’s

transcendentalists with his sermons and writings on the divinity of the human soul. Philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and publishing magnate James T. Fields and his wife, Annie, were among those who created regular “gathering places” that fostered literary camaraderie and intellectual exchanges. The brilliant Margaret Fuller encouraged both women and men to think freely through her “Conversations,” while Ticknor & Fields discovered, funded, published, and promoted literary talent as no one had done before. According to historian Thomas O’Connor, Boston also became America’s literary mecca thanks to a broad, wellfunded, community effort to make the city the cultural envy of the nation. Since Boston had lost its preeminence as the nation’s political and economic center, a “leadership elite” of prominent liberal, local, entrepreneurial men worked deliberately to make the Cradle of Liberty into the Cradle of Civilization. Whatever the reason, for more than half a century, Boston truly glistened.

BOSTON CAMBRIDGE ST.

19

21

18

ST.

ST.

ST .

W AS HI NG TO N .

AV ON

BE DF OR D

ST.

TREM

AN K

LIN

ST .

ST.

ST .

FR

ST.

R

. ST

ONT

8

TE

ER

9

PL

7

M

ST .

1 2

BR OM FIE LD

M SU

ES ARL

CH

ST. TON ING ARL

Public Garden

W ES T

5 6

3

L FEDERA

ST.

Boston Common

TE M PL E

SCH OO L S T.

ST. HAMILTON PL.

10 W IN

King’s Chapel Burying Ground

DEVONSHIRE

27

26

Granary Burying 11 Ground . ST

ST.

CON BEA

12

K

25

4

13

R PA

T. T S

ER RIV

MER BRIM

UT STN CH E

24

ST .

BOST ON JOY ST.

ST.

N VERN O

NU WAL

MT.

15 17 16

Pemberton Square

ST .

ST.

Louisburg Square

21 20

. ST

WASHINGTON ST.

PINCKNEY ST.

H

ER OV AN

T UR CO

SOMERSET ST.

CEDAR

MYRTLE ST.

HOW ARD ST.

BOWDOIN ST.

ST.

ST.

ST.

14

ST.

TEMPLE

SMITH CT.

HANCOCK

JOY

S. RUSSELL ST.

ST.

ST.

WEST

CHARLES ST.

REVERE

IRVING ST.

ST

GARDEN

PHILLIPS

22

ANDERSON ST.

GROVE

23

PL .

ST .

28

ST. 0

500

1,000 feet

CO LU M

BU S

AV E.

ESSEX ST.

BOYLSTON

28 By 1854, literacy became the right of Everyman when Boston opened the doors of the country’s first major free municipal library. This Boylston Street site became the Boston Public Library’s first permanent home before moving to Back Bay in 1895 (se Plate 35). The library was just as beloved by ordinary folk and Boston’s new immigrant population as it was by great writers and scholars like the Alcott family, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, John Greenleaf Whittier, Lucy Larcom, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Sarah Orne Jewett, John Boyle O’Reilly, and Nathaniel Hawthorne.

9 Influential publisher and Foreign Library and Bookstore owner Elizabeth Peabody (1804–94) was linked by family, friendship, and her own work to transcendentalism, abolitionism, major contemporary authors, and innovative educators (see Plate 18 and p. 173). From this site she published the transcendentalist journal, the Dial, helped Nathaniel Hawthorne secure a job at the Custom House, published Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience and many of William Ellery Channing’s sermons, and sponsored Margaret Fuller’s feminist “Conversations.”

52  P L A T E 1 7 · S E C T I O N V : “ A T H E N S O F A M E R I C A ”

1 The Old Corner Bookstore was the shop where, between 1845 and 1864, William D. Ticknor (1810–64) and James T. Fields (1817–81) revolutionized the world of American book publishing and nurtured the Golden Age of American Literature. Among the authors published, promoted, and regularly gathered in this innovative literary “Hub of the Hub” were Emerson, Hawthorne, Thoreau, Longfellow, Holmes, Stowe, and Dickens. 10 Conceived at a Parker House gathering of the Saturday Club and making its debut in 1857, the Atlantic Monthly began as a progressive Brahmin literary showcase, a “journal of literature, politics, science, and the arts.” After 1864, both Ticknor & Fields and the Atlantic were headquartered at this site.

5 The Parker House, a hotel and restaurant founded by Harvey Parker in 1855, hosted the prestigious and influential Saturday Club, a festive monthly roundtable whose literary regulars included Emerson, Longfellow, Lowell, Holmes, and their intellectual colleagues. Among the literary gems born and nurtured here through member readings, conversations, and critiques was the Atlantic Monthly. And among the club’s most illustrious guests was British superstar Charles Dickens, who made the Parker House home base during his 1867–68 American tour. Dickens’ tour was choreographed by James T. Fields of the nearby Old Corner Bookstore.

TEWKSBURY

NORTH READING

Plate 17

DANVERS BEVERLY

BILLERICAWILMINGTON LYNNFIELD READING SOUTH DANVERS

CARLISLE

CONCORD

ACTON CONCORD

Orchard House is the best known of some two dozen residences used by the ever-mobile Alcott family. In 1857 it was purchased by philosopher and teacher Amos Bronson Alcott (1799–1888), one of the most brilliant and unworldly of all the Concord transcendentalists. It was here, at a desk in her second floor bedroom, that his daughter, Louisa May Alcott (1832–88) wrote her blockbuster novel, Little Women (1868), which was loosely based on her childhood experiences with her three sisters. From 1880 to shortly before his death, Bronson ran The School of Philosophy from the “Hillside Chapel” behind the house (see also nos. 20, 48, 53). 47

LO W

MONUMENT FO D BE ST.

L EL

er

ry Ri v

MAIN

53

52

C ONC OR D

CA

46

LEXIN G MB

RID GE

WA

FRAMINGHAM NATICK

TPK.

1,500

Walden Pond

3,000 feet

54 Walden Pond is the major literary shrine where in 1845 author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, surveyor, and transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) built his 10-by-15-foot hand-hewn house where he lived “deliberately,” observed nature, and wrote for two years, two months, and two days. Though writing A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers at the time, the stay inspired Thoreau’s best-known book, Walden, or Life in the Woods (1854; see also no. 53).

NORTH AVE. (MASS. AVE.)

ST.

BI A

.)

ST.

CO LUM

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31

31 This was the childhood home of the brilliant, intense Margaret Fuller (1810–50), famed author, editor, pioneering journalist, literary critic, educator, women’s rights advocate, and leading transcendentalist. She empowered generations to follow with her “Conversations” and writings, especially her magnum opus, Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845), a groundbreaking exploration of early feminism (see Plate 18).

The elegant home of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–82) was as powerful a magnet to writers in Cambridge as the Old Corner Bookstore was in Boston. One of the most popular poets, scholars, and educators (he taught at Harvard) of the century, Longfellow, along with his family and friends, proved integral to the development of American culture and traditions. The voluminous poetic works he completed during his forty-five years on Brattle Street include “The Courtship of Miles Standish,” “The Village Blacksmith,” “The Song of Hiawatha,” “The Wreck of the Hesperus,” and “Paul Revere’s Ride.” 39

HYDE PARK DOVER

DEDHAM

1

This is the site of the University Book Store run by the prodigious reader, writer, and entrepreneur John Bartlett (1820– 1905). A local legend for his ability to recall or quickly locate the sources of quotations, Bartlett self-published his first volume of Familiar Quotations in 1855. He later joined the publishing firm of Little, Brown and Company, which continues to publish new editions of his book to this day.

QUINCY

MILTON

WEYMOUTH

BRAINTREE CANTON RANDOLPH

Home

School

Gathering place, or magnet to many authors

Journal, newspaper, or magazine

Bookseller, book publisher, or book printer

Lecture hall

Boston Old Corner Bookstore Ticknor & Fields

Cambridge 30

Riverside Press

31

Margaret Fuller Home

32

James Family Home

33

Richard Henry Dana, Jr. Home

34

John Bartlett University Book Store

Newspaper Row

3

Little Brown

4

Massachusetts Historical Society

5

Parker House

6

Tremont Temple

35

Harvard College

7

Press of the American Unitarian Association/ Beacon Press

36

Margaret Fuller Home William Brattle House

Music Hall

37

8

Dexter Pratt Home Blacksmith House

9

Elizabeth Peabody’s Foreign Library and Bookstore

38

Harvard Annex/ Radcliffe College

The Atlantic Monthly Ticknor & Fields

39

10

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Home Vassall-Craigie House/ Washington’s Headquarters

40

William Dean Howells Home

11

Houghton Mifflin

12

Amory-Ticknor House

13

Boston Athenaeum

14

William Cooper Nell Home

41

Thomas Wentworth Higginson Home

15

William D. Ticknor Home

42

John Bartlett Home

43

James Russell Lowell Home

16

Henry Adams Home

44

Mount Auburn Cemetery

17

Thomas Bailey Aldrich Home

45

Cambridge Cemetery

18

William Ellery Channing Home

19

John Gorham Palfrey Home

20

Louisa May Alcott Home

21

William Dean Howells Homes

22

Annie Adams Fields Home and Literary Salon

23

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Home

Concord 46

Ralph Waldo Emerson Home

47

Orchard House Alcott Family Home The Concord School of Philosophy

48

The Wayside Nathaniel Hawthorne and Alcott Family Home

49

Concord Town House

50

Authors Ridge, Sleepy Hollow Cemetery

51

The Old Manse Nathaniel Hawthorne and Sophia Peabody Home

24

Julia Ward Howe Home

25

Francis Parkman Home

26

Appleton Family Home

27

William Hickling Prescott Home

52

Concord Free Public Library

28

Boston Public Library

53

29

Brook Farm

Thoreau-Alcott House Henry David Thoreau and Louisa May Alcott Home

54

Walden Pond Henry David Thoreau Home

34

(shown on locator map above)

HINGHAM

Cemetery

2

ST .

AVE. WESTERN

(M A

LIN E

.

ST VA RD

R HA

ST .

BR OA DW AY ST.

HULL

Library or other collections

. ST

2,000 feet

PUTNAM AVE.

LI D GE

N AI

45

Cambridge Cemetery

VAR D

RE HI PS M HA

HAR

BR OO K

Y ST .

34

IDGE S T.

33 32

M

AVE.

35

.

CAMBR

Harvard College

QUINC

. 36

ver Ri

1,000

38

37

Charles

N. 0

Cambridge

LE Common

D ST

AVE.

MT. AUBURN ST.

ELMWOOD AVE.

Mt. Auburn Cemetery

ATT

L AN KIRK

. SHINGTON ST

TER WEBS

39 BR

C AMBR IDGE

WA

.

42

AV E.

ST

43 44

40

ST

ST. TLE BRAT

41

N O AC

BUCKINGHAM PL.

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NEEDHAM

MEDFIELD

CAMBRIDGE . N ST HURO

BOSTON

Literary Venues 54

0

Boston

29

. ST

RY BU UD

SHERBORN

SWAMPSCOTT

NEWTON BROOKLINE

WELLESLEY

EN LD

S

Essayist, lecturer, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, individualist, and one-time Unitarian minister, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) was the acknowledged leader of the transcendentalist movement of the mid-1800s. Nicknamed the “Sage of Concord,” Emerson became the leading voice of intellectual culture in the United States. In 1835 he purchased this house, making the home, like himself, Concord’s spiritual and literary center—a magnet for creative talent and literary genius. Emerson was a mentor and friend to many, including the Alcotts and Thoreau, and the orator of choice for countless public events. 46

. RD

WESTON

TON RD.

LYNN

MELROSE

Cambridge

WAYLAND

48

47

WINCHESTER

NAHANT MEDFORD MALDEN ARLINGTON REVERE EVERETT CHELSEA BELMONT SOMERVILLE WALTHAM WINTHROP

SUDBURY

Sleepy Hollow Cemetery

49

ST.

STONEHAM SAUGUS WOBURN

LEXINGTON

LINCOLN

50

. RD

Su d b u

RD

SALEM MARBLEHEAD

BURLINGTON

Concord

. ST

51

WAKEFIELD BEDFORD

See pp. 170–172 for more information on all 54 venues

P L A T E 1 7 · S E C T I O N V : “ A T H E N S O F A M E R I C A ”   53

Boston and Reform Movements, 1820–1865

F

rom 1820 to 1865 Bostonians grappled with the social and cultural challenges produced by the rapid growth of their city, industrialization and immigration, and the implications of new humanitarian, political, and scientific ideas. In response, they launched a raft of important reform initiatives and experiments, devising fresh approaches to

VE NO

CAMBRIDGE ST.

SOMERSET S T.

ST.

E

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BOWDOIN

First English Kindergarten

G BELKNAP (JOY) ST.

CHARLES ST.

Maria W. Stewart Home

R

. ST

The Advocate of Peace

Quincy House C

E ST. H B Prisoner’s Friend Association TTL BRA RNHILL ST. Abner R. Campbell’s O B C FRANKLIN E ST. C Restaurant STAT AVE.

COU RT

ST.

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ST .

N

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W AS

ST .

HI GH

T. MA SO N

BEA CH S T. KNE

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. ST

I

ISON AVE.

ST.

WAS HING TON

N RE AR W

Church of the Disciples

. ST

ESSEX ST. LINC OLN ST.

TREM ONT ST.

ST.

Back Bay

. ST SE A H T. RC DS PU OA R B

SOUTH ST .

ON

ST.

D REN

ST. ON LST BOY

ER

T. Y S BU R

LIV

T. LS

I Anti–Sabbath

Wendell Phillips G Home

O

ST.

BOYLSTON ST.

ST .

AR PE

L ST.

ST. ES ARL

F

Convention

ELEY

NEW

CLA

UTH TMO DAR

TH EAL NW MO M . CO AVE

Girls’ High and Normal School

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T. H S

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L. ER G ST . W ES F New England Female T ST Medical College .

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ST.

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ST.

. ST

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Ednah Littlehale G Cheney Home

IND

ST.

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ST. John WILSON LN. Augustus’s Horace Dorothea Dix Shop E Mann . T S D N O N Home MT. VER G Home SCH Julia Ward G Legislative Testimony O OL ST. I Howe Home ST. of Angelina Grimké WATER Tremont . T S T Temple U Francis Milliken’s STN BR . CHE OM ST C Restaurant T. M IL K FIE B N S O L C DS Society for Aiding Discharged Convicts BEA T. Peace Convention I Twenty–Eighth Congregational Society H C Marlboro Hotel Temple School Bible Convention I E FR AN K LI N ST. TE Margaret Fuller’s SU M P M LE Conversations M P PINCKNEY ST.

Charles River

CO MM ER CIA LS T.

J Building utopia

ST .

E Improving schools

I ON D ARST. H C

Chardon Street Conventions

Reforming religious life

ST.

NO RT H

I

SA LE M

ST .

D Helping the disabled

Pitts Street Chapel

ST.

G Founding Feminism H Advocating world peace

A

ION UN

B Redeeming the criminal C Ending intemperance

P IT TS

F Educating girls and women

MER RIM AC

ST.

dealing with poverty, crime, endemic drunkenness, and the treatment and education of the disabled. In addition, they reformed the public schools, established innovative private ones, and expanded educational opportunities for women. Some also campaigned for woman’s rights, reform of religious traditions, the end of war, and even an entirely new social order.

Reform Movements A Alleviating poverty

DEAN GRODZINS

A Warren Street

Chapel

INDI A PL. NA

. VE

N LA D

J Brook Farm see Plate 17

54  P L A T E 1 8 · S E C T I O N V : “ A T H E N S O F A M E R I C A ”

D Perkins

Institute

C

. ST

Suffolk Street A Chapel

BR OA DW AY

ST .

ST.

ST .

ON GT HIN S A W

Dall Home

B

UT M W A SH

.) ST

) ST .

ST .

. ST

T RU

T ON EM R T

K OL FF SU ( E. AV

LEY

. STG Caroline Healey

A

1,000 feet

RKE

HA RR IS ON

500

D OR DF A BR

(BE

TURNPIKE ST. (DORCHESTER AVE.)

0

DO VER

A

CO LU M

SUF FOL K

BU S

ST.

AV E

.

TR E

E ST .

South Bay G Lucy Stone Home

Plate 18 REFORM MOVEMENTS A

Alleviating Poverty

In 1826, the Unitarian minister Joseph Tuckerman (1778–1840), the “Father of Social Work,” launched the “Ministry at Large,” which eventually included three Chapels for the Poor, to provide charity, spiritual support, and vocational training to Bostonians in need. B

Redeeming the Criminal

Between 1841 and 1859 thousands of men and women in trouble with the law, or their family members and friends, sought out John Augustus (1785–1859), the “Father of Probation,” at his home or his bootmaking shop near the Court House, looking for help. In 1845, the Universalist clergyman Charles Spear (1803–63) founded both the Prisoner’s Friend Association, dedicated to changing the purpose of prisons from punishment of criminals to their rehabilitation, and the Massachusetts Society for Abolition of Capital Punishment, the first organization of its kind. Meanwhile, the Society for Aiding Discharged Convicts, established in 1846, operated the first program in the country for helping ex-prisoners reintegrate into society. C

Ending Intemperance

Per capita consumption of absolute alcohol reached its historic peak in the United States—almost four gallons a year—in 1830, and drunkenness was pervasive. Most social reformers in Boston came to see intemperance as a sin in itself and a major cause of poverty, crime, political corruption, and abuse of women. They supported temperance organizations, whose members signed “the Pledge” never to drink, backed laws to restrict “rumselling,” and established temperance hotels and restaurants where no intoxicating spirits were served.

G

Founding Feminism

Many feminist firsts took place in Boston. The journalist Maria W. Stewart (1803–79), the first American-born woman to speak before a mixed audience of men and women on a political subject, delivered a series of talks on black women’s rights in 1832–33. The first speech by a woman to a legislative body occurred in February 1838 when the South Carolina-born abolitionist Angelina Grimké (1805–79) presented a petition to the Massachusetts legislature from twenty thousand Bay State women demanding an end of the slave trade in Washington, DC. In 1839–41, the Transcendentalist intellectual Margaret Fuller (1810–50) ran a series of seminal feminist conversations for women (see Plate 17). In May 1853 Lucy Stone (1818–93), above left, the leading woman’s rights activist in the country and later a resident of Dorchester, addressed a constitutional convention at the State House to demand women be given the vote. This was the first female suffrage speech by a woman to a legislative body. Many notable Bostonians became prominent in the woman’s rights movement, including the abolitionist orator Wendell Phillips (1811–84), the ministers James Freeman Clarke (1810–88) and Theodore Parker (1810–60) (see I., below), and the writers Caroline Healey Dall (1822–1912), Ednah Dow Cheney (1824–1904), and Julia Ward Howe (1819–1910), above right (see Plate 36 and p. 171). Massachusetts women would not win full voting rights, however, until 1920, and were among the last in the country to win the right to sit on juries—not until 1949. H

Advocating World Peace

The American Peace Society, founded in New York City in 1828 but based in Boston where its newspaper, the Advocate of Peace, was published, campaigned for an end to war between nations. A more radical group, the New England Non-Resistance Society, which was founded at a Peace Convention in Boston in 1838 and led after 1843 by Adin Ballou (1803–90), founder of the utopian community at Hopedale, Massachusetts (see J., below), rejected all forms of violence and coercion. D

Helping the Disabled

Dorothea Dix (1802–87), above left, a Boston resident for many years, started a national movement to provide better care for the mentally ill. Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe (1801–76), above right, who was also a leader in the antislavery movement, a supporter of Horace Mann’s efforts for school reform (see E., below), and the husband of Julia Ward Howe (see G., below), pioneered education for the blind and deaf as the director of the Perkins Institute for the Blind (established in 1829). E

Improving Schools

Horace Mann (1796–1859), left, first Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education (1837–48), set up the first teacher training academies. He also pushed to modernize public school houses and textbooks and end corporal punishment. The Transcendentalist Bronson Alcott (1799–1888) established the experimental, progressive Temple School (1834–40), where rote learning was replaced by student-teacher dialogue. The Transcendentalist educator and scholar Elizabeth Palmer Peabody (1804–94) established the first English-language kindergarten in the United States (1860) and became the national leader of the kindergarten movement (see Plate 17 and p. 180).

F

I

Reforming Religious Life

In 1840–41 the Friends of Universal Reform held three mass gatherings, called the Chardon Street Conventions, to debate the value of the Sabbath, church, and ministry. In 1842, they held a Bible Convention to debate whether the Scripture had divine authority. In 1848 reformers also held an Anti-Sabbath Convention to protest Sunday laws and what were seen as superstitious ideas about Sunday observance. Meanwhile, Bostonians founded a number of churches that eliminated the traditional New England practice of pew ownership or rental, experimented with new forms of worship, and championed the causes of temperance and antislavery. Among them were the Tremont Temple (Baptist), the Church of the Disciples (Unitarian), pastored by James Freeman Clarke, and Theodore Parker’s Twenty-Eighth Congregational Society (Transcendentalist, and the largest congregation in the city); the latter two churches also supported the woman’s rights movement.

Educating Girls and Women

Boston girls had attended primary school since 1789, and as many as fifty private schools for girls were founded in the city, mostly by women, between 1800 and 1850. In 1826, the first public high school in Boston for girls was established (five years after the first one for boys). It was controversial, however, and the city closed it after two years. In 1852 a permanent Girls’ High and Normal School was established (see p. 179). Meanwhile, in 1848 Dr. Samuel Gregory (1813–72) established what became the New England Female Medical College—the first school in the world dedicated to training women as midwives, nurses, and physicians.

J

Building Utopia

The mid-1800s was a heyday of utopian communities in the U.S.—bold experiments in communal living designed to offer models of how social and economic life should be reorganized. Bostonians were active in founding a number of these, including the Hopedale Community (1842–56) in Hopedale, Massachusetts, and the Northampton Association of Education and Industry (1842–46) in Northampton. The most famous of them, and the only one in what is now the city limits of Boston, was Brook Farm (1841–47), founded by the Transcendentalist minister George Ripley (1802–80), above left, and his wife, Sophia Dana Ripley (1803–61), above right, in West Roxbury (see p. 171). P L A T E 1 8 · S E C T I O N V : “ A T H E N S O F A M E R I C A ”   55

Abolitionist Movement, 1829–1865

DEAN GRODZINS

I

n 1829 a new kind of antislavery militancy emerged in Boston. David Walker, resident of the African-American neighborhood on Beacon Hill but born a “free black” in North Carolina, published An Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World, damning slavery and racism. That same year, William Lloyd Garrison, a white journalist originally from Newburyport, delivered a radical lecture at the Park Street Church that called for freeing the slaves and making them equal citizens. In 1831 Garrison drew on local AfricanAmerican support to begin publishing the Liberator, soon famous as the most militantly antislavery newspaper in the country. In 1832 he helped to found the New England (later Massachusetts) AntiSlavery Society. Dedicated to the “immediate emancipation” of slaves and racial equality, it became a model for “abolitionist” societies that soon formed across the North. Yet antislavery activists encountered strong, persistent opposition in Boston. They clashed with industrialists and merchants who had close business ties to the South, politicians and ministers who thought slavery must be tolerated to “preserve the Union,” and whites who feared black equality. In 1835 anti-abolitionism boiled over into a riot, during which Garrison was almost lynched. Bostonians also fought over whether to enforce the federal Fugitive Slave Laws of 1793 and 1850 and the “rendition” (return) of runaways to their southern masters. In 1842 the arrest of the runaway George Latimer provoked such outrage that his master was forced to free him, and in 1851 blacks led by businessman Lewis Hayden rescued the runaway Shadrach Minkins, who had just been arrested. But another runaway, Thomas Sims, was returned to slavery later that year despite a massive outcry, and in 1854 a failed attempt to rescue the runaway Anthony Burns from the Boston Court House resulted in one of his guards being killed. Mobs attacked abolitionists and blacks in the winter of 1859–60, blaming them for the secession crisis. But public opinion shifted decisively toward antislavery during “the Rebellion,” as Bostonians called the Civil War (1861–65). In 1863 they hailed the Emancipation Proclamation with public meetings at the Music Hall and the Tremont Temple and lined the streets to cheer the Massachusetts 54th, the first African-American regiment from the state, as it paraded off to battle—although that year also saw a bloody riot against the draft. By 1865, however, when the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, outlawing chattel slavery, and Garrison triumphantly closed the Liberator, most locals hailed him as a hero.

A William Lloyd Garrison (1805–79) published the Liberator, the famous and influential abolitionist newspaper. B David Walker (1796–1830) published An Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World. (No portrait of Walker exists.)

C Charles Sumner (1811–74) was a U.S. Senator from Massachusetts from 1851 to 1874 and one of the abolitionists’ closest allies in Congress.

D William C. Nell (1816–74)

was a journalist, historian, and champion of school integration (see p. 171).

Antislavery Placard, 1850s

E Lewis Hayden (1811–89) and his wife, Harriet (d. 1893), fugitive slaves from Kentucky, turned their two homes on Southac (now Phillips) St. into stations on the Underground Railroad.

F Maria Weston Chapman (1806–85) was the longtime president of the Boston Female Antislavery Society and organizer of the annual Anti-Slavery Christmas Bazaar.

G Wendell Phillips (1811–84) was the most famous aboli­ tion­ist orator.

H Theodore Parker (1810–60) was the most popular preacher in Boston and leader of the Committee of Vigilance and Safety, formed in 1850 to protect fugitive slaves. He also hid slaves in his home.

I Leonard Grimes (1815–73) welcomed so many refugees from bondage into his church, the Twelfth Baptist, that it became known as “the Fugitive Slave Church.”

J Lydia Maria Child (1802–80) published the Appeal on Behalf of that Class of Americans Called Africans (1833), one of the most important abolitionist pamphlets, which converted many to the cause.

Selected Abolitionist Events 1

Jan. 1, 1831

Garrison publishes first issue of the Liberator

1829

1830

Sept. 1829

Walker’s Appeal published

3

Aug. 21, 1835

1835 2

5

Mass meeting condemning abolitionism

Jan. 1, 1832

New England Anti-Slavery Society founded

56  P L A T E 1 9 · S E C T I O N V : “ A T H E N S O F A M E R I C A ”

4

1840 Oct. 21, 1835

Mob attacks Boston Female Antislavery Society and Garrison

Oct.–Nov. 1842

Fugitive slave George Latimer held

1845

Plate 19

CO MM E

Charles River

ST.

NO VE RS T.

. ST

ON T

ST .

NO RT H

Burns rendition, 1854

RS T.

Maria Weston Chapman Home F

N ST.

ST .

ST .

T. S S

ST .

M ER

N K LI

EXETER PL.

13

LI VE R

ST .

ST.

Boston Harbor

Washington Square

Parade of Massachusetts 54th Regiment, 1863

L ST.

RLE

A CH

ES T

FRA

FEDERA

SU M

O

MILK ST.

Boston Music Hall

IND IA

T. LS

TR EM

10

AR PE

W IN TE

W

CO MM ER CIA L

ST . SOMERSET ST.

ST. STATE

ST .

Long Wharf

8

ST.

HS HIG

PL .

RK PA

RO MF IEL D

. ST

Stop

COU RT

OT IS

Stop

Common

CORNHILL

ST .

State House

ST. CON BEA

Faneuil Hall

Court Anti-abolitionist House mob, 1835 King’s Chapel 4 Burying Ground City Hall CONGRESS ST. SCH OOL The Liberator ST. ST. 11 office, 1855–65 WATER Granary Tremont Burying The Liberator 15 Temple Ground 1 office, 1831–35 12 B

RO W E

. ON ST

9

Sims rendition, 1851

ST.

RN MT. VE

6

The Liberator office, 1835–55

Pemberton Square

W AS HI NG TO N

Louisburg Square

3

Failed Burns rescue, 1854

AD BRO

Anti-abolitionist mob, 1860

Anti-abolitionist mob, 1860

. ST

ST.

HANCOCK ST.

ST.

ST.

African Meeting House

R VE NO A H

ON U NI

Minkins rescue, 1851

C Charles Sumner Home D William C. Nell Home (see Plate 13) 11

Parade of Massachusetts 54th Regiment, 1863

13

B David Walker Home

(JOY)

ST.

2

S STILLMAN T.

SA LEM

ST.

BELKNAP

Lewis E Hayden Home

GROVE ST.

CHARLES

SMITH CT.

14

ST.

. ST

. LEVERETT ST

GARDEN

SOUTHAC (PHILLIPS) ST.

Lewis E Hayden Home

Public Garden

IMA C

Draft riot, 1863

HA

AL

MER R

COOPER ST.

7

ST.

Grimes’s Fugitive I Slave Church

N CA

Latimer held, 1842

CAMBRIDGE

. ST

E RS VE A TR

N.

MARGIN ST.

. ST

. ST

County Jail

SAL EM

UA

TT RE VE

5

US CA

Battery Wharf Embarkation

ST .

ST.

) INGTON (N. WASH STOWN CHARLE

SH NA

LE

AY EW

. ST

RC IAL

RC PU

D OA BR

T.

SE HA

. ST

. ST

Theodore Parker Home H

Rescue of fugitive slave Shadrach Minkins

8

William Lloyd A Garrison Home

Apr. 12, 1851

Rendition of fugitive slave Thomas Sims

9

J Lydia Maria Child Home

May 26, 1854

Failed rescue of slave Anthony Burns

1850 6

L.

1855 Oct. 1850

Boston Committee of Vigilance and Safety created to protect fugitive slaves

10

June 2, 1854

Rendition of Burns

Abolitionist Movement

BEA CH S T. KNE

People ST.

Places Timeline entries Events:

SOUTH

WA SHI NGTON ST.

ONT ST. DIX P

T.

Feb. 15, 1851

NT S

7

500 feet

PLEASA

250

ST. RCH CHU

0

Start

TREM

Providence Railroad Station

ESSEX ST.

. ESSEX ST

LINC OLN ST.

Wendell Phillips Home G

BOYLSTON ST.

Riots Minkins rescue, 1851 Fugitive slave renditions, 1851, 1854

ELAN

Parade of MA 54th, 1863

D ST .

11

Dec. 3, 1860

Mobs attack abolitionists and blacks

12

Jan. 1, 1863

Celebrations of Emancipation Proclamation

1860

Dec. 6, 1865

13th Amendment of U.S. Constitution ratified, abolishing slavery

1865 13

May 28, 1863

Parade of Massachusetts 54th Regiment 14

July 14, 1863

15

1866

Dec. 29, 1865

Garrison publishes last issue of the Liberator

Draft riot

P L A T E 1 9 · S E C T I O N V : “ A T H E N S O F A M E R I C A ”   57

Section VI

Immigration and Industrialization

Introduction

B

oston in 1850 was the nation’s fourth largest city, behind New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore (see Plate 21). In the previous decade its population had grown by half, mostly because of immigration. Nearly a quarter of a million people—­more than lived in Boston—­entered the United States between 1845 and 1855 through Boston Harbor. Many of them stayed, and by 1850 a third of Bostonians were born in another country, most of them in Ireland. Were the immigrants being pushed out of their homelands—­by the Great Hunger in Ireland, a starvation exacerbated by British trade policies, or by the civil uprisings and repression in Germany—­or were they being drawn to the New World by opportunities for work and political freedom? In either case, strong factors attracted immigrants to Boston, the hub of the American Industrial Revolution. The Merrimack River was the most industrialized place in the Western Hemisphere, and the Middlesex Canal made Boston the conduit for raw cotton and other materials going to, and finished textiles coming from, Lowell—­the nation’s largest industrial city. Workshops and factories in Boston also provided work. More than $8 million in ready-­made clothing was made in Boston every year, and the two largest industries for which data was collected in 1855—­manufacturing steam engines and industrial furnaces, and making pianos and organs—­ each employed more than a thousand people (see Plate 22). Boston also produced iron-­hulled steam ships and wooden clippers, shoes, candy, chromolithographs, the iron rails that carried trains across the continent, and more than $2.5 million worth of beer, ale, and spirits each year.

Work was also to be found for immigrant women as domestic help, and for men in the massive Back Bay project, filling the mud flats stretching from the Public Garden to Kenmore Square with gravel and creating one of the country’s most elegant residential areas (see Plate 23). The Back Bay would be home to Boston’s elite as well as to elegant new churches that would replace the stark Congregational meeting houses of the old Shawmut Peninsula, and to a Museum of Natural History (now the Museum of Science, opened 1864), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (opened 1865), a Museum of Fine Arts (opened 1876), and a new Boston Public Library (1895). Other projects involved filling the shorelines and expanding the docks in Charlestown and in East Boston (where the Cunard Line brought most of the immigrants arriving in the city), building the Boston Wharf Company’s new warehouse and docking area along the Fort Point Channel, and filling South Cove and extending the South End (see Plate 25). The great and devastating fire of 1872 destroyed much of Boston’s business center (see Plate 24), but the city very quickly rebuilt. Boston was expanding and changing, though the changes were disruptive and unsettling. When Barney McGinniskin joined the police force in September 1851, reporting as “from the bogs of Ireland” though he had been a resident of Boston for twenty-­two years, it outraged many police officers, a former mayor, and other city officials. One city alderman opposed the appointment since “Irishmen commit most of the city’s crime” and feared an Irish police officer would be too easy on his lawless countrymen. In 1854 the anti-­Irish, anti-­Catholic, anti-­

immigrant American Party, or “Know-­Nothings,” took control of Boston’s city government and the Massachusetts state government. They booted Barney McGinniskin, the first Irish police officer in the United States, from the police force, and took other steps to suppress the growing Irish population. But even as the Know-­Nothings took power, political attention was shifting from the issue of immigration to the issues of slavery and the fate of the Union. When the Civil War began, Boston mobilized, and all of its communities supported the war. Troops from Massachusetts were the first to come to Washington’s defense, uniforms came from Boston clothing shops, and cannon from the iron works in South Boston. The Irish Columbian Guards, disarmed by the Know-­Nothings, were formed again as the Massachusetts Ninth Volunteer Regiment, and Colonel Thomas Cass, who had been among the first Irish elected to public office in Boston, led them south. Once the United States made emancipation the goal and allowed the enlistment of African Americans, Boston’s free people of color formed the Massachusetts 54th and Massachusetts 55th. These were the years of Boston’s transformation, both in physical form, with the filling in of the Back Bay and South Cove as well as the beginning of what would become the South Boston Seaport, and in terms of its people who arrived from many different places but became Bostonians. Robert J. Allison

S E C T I O N V I . I M M I G R A T I O N A N D I N D U S T R I A L I Z A T I O N   61

Irish Immigration, 1700s–1855

S

mall numbers of Irish settled in Boston in the 1700s and early 1800s. While most were Protestants—Ulster descendants of Scottish settlers—a few Irish Catholics also arrived, typically younger sons of farming families who had become artisans. By the late 1700s there was a Catholic church in a former Huguenot chapel on School Street (see Plate 13), and in 1800 the Church of the Holy Cross was begun on Franklin Street (see Plate 21). By 1820 there were 4,000 Irish Catholics in Boston, growing to 8,000 by 1830; most lived in the Fort Hill area and the North End. The huge influx of Irish into Boston began in the mid-1840s after Ireland’s potato crop, a mainstay of Irish peasant diet, failed from 1845 through 1849, triggering an estimated population decline from deaths and emigration of two million between 1845 and 1851. While Ireland was emptying out, Boston was filling with Irish immigrants— by 1850, Irish-born comprised about 70 percent of the foreign-born in Boston and the city’s Irish population had almost doubled. Until 1848 the vast majority came from County Cork, but as the famine intensified, emigration shifted to County Kerry. In order to deter the arrival of paupers, Boston required shipmasters to post bond guaranteeing that their passengers would not become public charges. As a result, fares were higher to Boston than to other ports, effectively barring the poorest famine victims from coming to Boston. Boston’s Irish crowded into cheap housing near the wharves, with three families often occupying the space intended for one and many living in cellars, which were prized because they were cool in summer and warm in winter, despite being frequently flooded by drains backing up at high tide. In such overcrowded conditions, and with poor sanitation, the Irish were disproportionately affected in the high mortality districts. In 1855, for example, Irish mortality in Ward 7 was more than twice that of Ward 6, the healthiest ward in the city. Most immigrants were forced to rely upon the meager earnings of wives, sisters, and daughters who worked as domestic servants in hotels and private homes. Meanwhile, the men scraped up temporary jobs as day-laborers, sweeping streets, cleaning stables, unloading fish, and lugging crates until more industrial opportunities developed. Vere Foster’s Penny Emigrant’s Guide advised immigrants to ignore the hostility of native-born Americans because economic progress was dependent upon their labors. In the decade between the city censuses of 1845 and 1855 Boston’s foreign-born population went from a minority to a majority (the state census of 1855 had different results­—see Plate 21), and more than three-quarters of this foreign population was Irish. This effectively changed the political and social character of Boston in the ensuing decades.

RUTH-ANN M. HARRIS

County of Origin of Irish Immigrants in Boston, Prior to 1857 27.7%

Londonderry

5.0–8.7%

Donegal

2.0–4.9%

Antrim

1.0–1.9% 0.5–0.9%

Tyrone

Less than 0.5%

Armagh

Fermanagh

Down

Monaghan

Sligo Leitrim

Cavan

Mayo Roscommon

Louth Longford Meath Westmeath

Galway

Dublin

Kings

Kildare

Queens

Wicklow

Clare Carlow Tipperary Limerick

Kilkenny Wexford

Waterford

Kerry Cork

Emigrants Waiting for Passage, Cork Harbor

Immigrants at Constitution Wharf, Boston

This 1851 lithograph illustrates a weekly scene in Cork where parties of emigrants, many after walking a hundred miles or more, were, in the words of the accompanying London Illustrated News article, “stretched and tumbled about upon boxes and straw“ on the wharves as they waited for the ships to take them to North America. Many were going to join friends and relatives previously established in America, while those of the most destitute class had been evicted by callous owners. In leaving, the Irish had made the decision to seek in the New World an independence denied in the old.

The scene in 1857 at Constitution Wharf in Boston’s North End was crowded with friends of arriving immigrants. As described in the article accompanying this lithograph in Ballou’s Pictorial, when the hour of the ship’s arrival was telegraphed, thousands rushed to the wharf. As soon as the gangway was laid, the two tides of humans rushed toward each other. Here, the Americanized immigrant on the right is rushing forward to meet her family, distinctive in their Irish dress. It was said that the first use the new immigrant made of their earnings was to remit a large portion to those left behind in Ireland, either to aid them to live in a little more comfort or to pay their passage to America.

62  P L A T E 2 0 · S E C T I O N V I : I M M I G R A T I O N A N D I N D U S T R I A L I Z A T I O N

Plate 20 Mortality Rate by Ward, 1855

My stic R.

3.07%

My stic

2.74–2.77%

R.

2.50-2.53%

W2

CHARLESTOWN

2.21–2.30% 1.80–1.86% 1.44%

East Boston

W1

CAMBRIDGE

CHARLESTOWN

W2

W5 W3

. es R arl Ch

W4

W6 W9

W7

Boston Harbor

W8

CAMBRIDGE

W10

North W1 End

W5 West End es arl Ch

W3

W12

South Bay

ROXBURY

Beacon Hill W6

R.

W11

W4 W7

W9

Dorchester Bay

Fort Hill

Percent of Irish Population by Ward, 1855

Boston Harbor

W8

Number of Persons per House by Ward, 1855

72.0% 47.3–52.3%

18.26 Governor’s I. 11.57–13.20

33.6–39.3% 23.8–25.5%

W10

8.13–8.92

W11 W12

W2

CHARLESTOWN

9.74–10.91

16.3%

W1

CAMBRIDGE

South Bay

My stic R.

es arl Ch

Castle I.

South Boston

W5 W3

R.

W4

W6 W9

W7

Boston Harbor

W8 W10

ROXBURY W11

1,500

3,000 feet

Dorchester Bay

ROXBURY Dorchester Bay

Thompson’s I.

American and Foreign-Born Population of Boston, 1845–1855 100,000 American-born Irish foreign-born Other foreign-born 80,000

Burgess’ Alley off Half-Moon Place behind Broad Street in the Fort Hill District of Boston The illustration is from an 1849 report on Boston’s cholera epidemic that year, showing one of the most congested areas with highest death rates. The torrent of Irish arrivals in the 1840s made Boston, an already densely settled and water-locked city, become choked with slums overwhelmed by intractable health and sanitary conditions. The Irish sought the most economical housing adjacent to employment, so that while they were in every ward, newcomers were heavily concentrated in the North End and lower parts of the city around Fort Hill and toward South Cove. Burgess’ Alley was, in the words of the report, a fruitful source of cholera, built as it was against Fort Hill and the width of an alley consisting of a row of narrow sheds and privies.

60,000 Population

0

W12

South Bay

40,000

20,000

0

1845

1850 Year

1855

1845: Other foreign-born includes Irish. No separate data available. 1850 and 1855 data from city censuses that classed children under 21 of foreign-born parents as foreign-born, too.

P L A T E 2 0 · S E C T I O N V I : I M M I G R A T I O N A N D I N D U S T R I A L I Z A T I O N   63

Boston in 1855: Population

NANCY S. SEASHOLES AND DEAN GRODZINS

Population

I

n the 1850s latent social and economic changes in Boston emerged into full view. The sudden growth of immigration, especially from Catholic Ireland (see Plate 20), propelled and revealed these shifts. The Irish laboring population that arrived in Boston supplied the workers needed to energize nascent manufacturing and construction industries (see Plate 22). The newcomers flooded into existing neighborhoods, crowded into limited housing spaces (see Plate 20), and produced a new cultural and ethnic complexity. Protestants feared the Irish immigrants’ allegiance to the Roman Catholic church as loyalty to a foreign power. In reaction, the Know-Nothing party (so called because, when queried about activities, members were supposed to reply, “I know nothing”) emerged in the mid-1850s as an anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant movement. Bostonians elected a Know-Nothing mayor in 1854 and 1855, and in 1854 chose Know-Nothings to represent them in Congress. But the party soon declined over disagreements about slavery. As the population of Boston grew, many new places of worship were established: more than half those existing in 1855 had been founded since 1835. New kinds of Protestant churches were launched in part to attract unchurched migrants, both native and foreign-born: free churches (no pew rentals), union churches (open to a wide range of believers), and specialized churches such as seamen’s bethels and chapels for the poor. Places of worship were also founded by specific immigrant groups, such as Irish Catholics, German Lutherans, and German and Polish Jews. Population of Ten Largest American Cities, 1810–1850

Boston Occupations, 1855

American and Foreign-Born Population of Boston, 1855 100,000

U.S. whites Blacks (U.S. & foreign-born) Canada England, Scotland, Wales Ireland Germany & Holland Other (France, Portugal, Switzerland, Italy, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, West Indies, other countries)

80,000

60,000

40,000

20,000

0

1855

Year

550,000

1%

515,547

500,000

Population

New York

200,000 150,000 100,000

0.3% 0.03%

Mechanics: skilled workers in 80 enumerated occupations Merchants: merchants & traders, bookkeepers, peddlers, druggists, auctioneers, booksellers

3%

Laborers

15%

36%

Professional Men: physicians, artists, lawyers, musicians, clergymen, teachers, engineers, builders, authors, dentists

20%

Manufacturers of textiles, boots & shoes, rope; factory agents

St. Louis Washington, DC 1820

1830

1840

Miscellaneous (including, from most numerous to lesser): drivers, waiters, students, gentlemen, agents, saloon & restaurant keepers, public officers, firemen, bankers, boardinghouse keepers, railroad employees, expressmen, policemen, bank & insurance co. officers, inn keepers, stevedores Mariners & Boatmen

20%

Cities appearing in only one decade

50,000 0 1810

4%

Philadelphia (including suburbs) Baltimore Boston New Orleans Cincinnati Brooklyn, NY Albany, NY Charleston Salem, MA

250,000

This graph is based on the 1855 state census of population, which counted only those actually born abroad as foreign-born and found that 61 percent of Bostonians were American-born and 39 percent foreign-born. The graph is in contrast to one based on the 1855 city census of Boston (see Plate 20), which counted children under twenty-one years old of foreignborn parents as foreign-born, too, even if born in the United States, on the assumption they were under the influence of their parents. That census found that only 47 percent of Bostonians were American-born while 53 percent were foreign-born.

Agriculturalists Factory Operatives

1850

Year

By 1850, New York’s population far exceeded that of other U.S. cities. Boston remained the fourth largest city in the country after Philadelphia and Baltimore, as it had been in 1810, but midwestern cities were becoming more important.

Boston had few manufacturers and factory operatives in 1855 because it had no textile mills or boot and shoe factories. The city had many other industries, however (see Plate 22). And it is not surprising there were very few farmers in 1855 Boston.

Italianate Architecture in Boston Buildings constructed in Boston in the 1850s and 60s are in Italianate style, inspired by Italian Renaissance villas and featuring classical details including columns, arches, and decorative brackets. The most prominent Italianate architect in Boston was Gridley J. F. Bryant (1816–99).

Commercial Buildings

Upper-Middle-Class Houses

Middle-Class House

The State Street Block, designed by Bryant, was constructed in 1857 on land made by filling the slip between Long and Central Wharves (see map and Plate 25). Italianate features include the cornice with brackets underneath, segmental (part circle)-arched windows, and quoins (large rough blocks) framing the corners and first-floor openings. Almost three-quarters of the east end of the building was demolished in the 1950s for the construction of the Central Artery.

These Back Bay townhouses were built in 1856 on the Mill Dam (later Beacon Street) between future Arlington and Berkeley Streets just before the Back Bay in front of them was filled (see map and Plate 23). Italianate features include the cornice and supporting brackets, windows with “hooded” surrounds, and the bracketed framework around the double front doors. This house almost certainly had indoor plumbing.

Italianate features of this house on Meridian Street in East Boston (see map) include the wide roof overhang, cornice with supporting brackets, a front entry porch with flanking pairs of columns, and double front doors with roundheaded windows.  The house may originally have had indoor plumbing with water supplied by Boston’s new water system (see Plate 29).

64  P L A T E 2 1 · S E C T I O N V I : I M M I G R A T I O N A N D I N D U S T R I A L I Z A T I O N

Boston Population by Ward by Place of Birth, 1855 17,500

U.S. Whites Blacks (U.S. & foreign-born) Canada England, Scotland, Wales Ireland Germany & Holland Other (France, Portugal, Switzerland, Italy, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, West Indies, other countries)

15,000 12,500 10,000

R. Meridian Street House UE

East Boston N ST.

CHARLESTOWN

Ward 1

TO ING

NN

BE

MERIDIAN ST.

Locations of buildings illustrated on opposite page

My stic

Plate 21

M

W2

RICCa K

CAMBRIDGE

DE CA E TU R

ST.

EM EN

MA VE

ST .

BR

M

LO N

DO

N

Ward 3

ST .

ST .

B

U

Uv

C

Ward 2

OR LEA N

SS T.

MAVERICK SQ.

P

W1

C

Back Bay Townhouse

TREMO NT ST.

W9 J

U

U

Ward 11

LS T.

ST .

ER CIA

M

Ward 7

R SUMMER ST. PUCa FEDERAL ST.

Q

U

U E

M Methodist (12) Uv

E C

W8

A Adventist (2) FB

Ca

A A KNEEL

AND

Universalist (5)

P Presbyterian (3)

Free Will Baptist (1)

G German Evangelical (1)

Ward 8

ST.

W10

Boston Harbor

L Lutheran (1) Q Quaker (1) UE

Union Evangelical (1)

Ca Catholic (10)

J Jewish (3) S Swedenborgian (1)

Ward 12

N

ST .

ST .

HAR

(1) Number per denomination

B

ST .

C

Uv U

D

Ward 10

ST .

C

C

Ca

G

ST .

S WA

N HI

E Episcopal (12)

CH

B

. ST

ND

LA

T RU

W11

L

W7

A

E AV

M

UT M W M

C SHA

. ST

N O PT

AM

H RT NO

South End

CaCa U

E

TO

HA

TL AL W .

E

FRANKLIN ST.

WARREN ST.

U C

Ca

ST.

B

B Baptist (13)

P

E.

Uv

J

DO VER

U

C Congregational (14)

RISO N AV

G M

NT . PLEAS A ST

Ward 9

J

Places of Worship, 1855 Protestant U Unitarian (20)

State Street Block

C

U U BEDFORD ST. B C

N ST. LSTO BOY CHURCH ST.

U

Uv

W AS

HI

E

Ward 4

W4

NG TO N

M CU

E

SCHOOL ST.

U

ST.

RS T.

B

E ST .

B

NORTH ST.

U

BOWDOIN ST.

P

Ward 6

N

BOSTON

C SB

JOY ST.

W6

B

E C U

B

HA

ER

ST E

Ca

AS

B M M M

CHARLES ST.

Ch

. es R arl

B

M M

CO M

U E

C

M

EB

Uv

SA L O V EM ER

U

SU MN

FB

E

W3

B

ST .

Ward 5

B

Ca

ST.

ENDICOTT ST.

W5

E C N. BENNET ST. U

W

South Bay

M

E BR OA DW AY

W12

. ST Ca

DO

ER ST HE RC

. ST

BROADWAY E. FOURTH ST.

U

South Boston

ROXBURY Dorchester Bay

0

1,000

2,000 ft

Boston in 1855: Economy

RICHARD GARVER, NANCY S. SEASHOLES, AND ARTHUR KRIM

L

ike the country as a whole, Boston was prospering in 1855. Its wealth is reflected in the high-end retail district along Washington and Hanover Streets (see map on this page). The city’s prosperity arose from the success of its traditional economic activities, commercial trade and finance, and its expanding manufacturing. As consumer markets spread westward with the country’s population, the number of merchants in Boston reached its peak. Shipbuilding surged, including that of the innovative clipper ships, designed by East Boston and South Boston builders to carry goods around Cape Horn in record times as merchants raced to profit from the California Gold Rush trade. Underlying Boston’s prosperity were the two leading industries in its hinterland— cotton textiles and shoes (see Plate 15). In 1855 they were the country’s second and fourth most valuable manufactured products, respectively (flour and lumber were first and third), and New England manufacturers led the country in both. The region’s great textile mills were owned by corporations controlled by a narrow circle of Boston merchant investors. Their offices and those of their interlocking commission houses clustered on State, Milk, and adjoining streets. As the State Street illustration portrays, that street functioned as an exchange where merchants marketed the stock required to build and operate their factories, bought raw cotton, and sold and distributed finished goods. From State Street, these

same merchants controlled New England banking through the Suffolk Bank, which acted as a clearing house for the notes issued by the region’s banks and by its largest insurance company. Boots and shoes, on the other hand, were manufactured by smaller, less heavily capitalized proprietary firms located in towns clustered around Boston, each cluster specializing in a type of shoe. These firms’ exchange was a set of streets on which were concentrated dealerships (see map this page) and in whose public houses the dealers negotiated credit, bought leather, and sold their goods to jobbers from around the country. Although New York City and Philadelphia were far larger industrial centers, manufacturing in the Boston area was expanding, drawing on the sudden availability of large numbers of unskilled workers who had fled the famine in Ireland (see Plate 20). Boston continued to be a national leader in the value of two products derived from its historic trade with the Caribbean—distilling and sugar refining. Industries requiring large sites and shipments of fuel and bulk raw materials, such as glass, soap, and iron, expanded on waterfronts encircling the Boston peninsula. Smaller-scale industries like chair and cabinet manufacturing were scattered throughout the city (see map on opposite page). Boston clothing dealers, centered in and adjacent to the North End, challenged those of New York City, which were the country’s leading manufacturers of men’s ready-made clothing, an industry that ranked fifth in value in the country.

Boston Industries Producing over $1 Million in Goods, 1855

Da Da

Si

Casting furnaces

BR OM FIE LD

Da Da Si

RS T.

1600

2000

Textile manufacturers’ offices Leather curriers 1

1

10 5 2

Direction of view in corresponding illustration

Washington Street

66  P L A T E 2 2 · S E C T I O N V I : I M M I G R A T I O N A N D I N D U S T R I A L I Z A T I O N

Si

PL .

BE D

FO RD

ST .

State Street

ST . AL CO M M ER CI

ST.

PU

0

2

ST .

CY

Da

Si ST.

CH AU N

Boot, shoe & leather wholesale dealers

Op

Number of locations at same address:

IN

ST .

. ST

Banks

ST .

Da

Important Locations in the Economy, 1855 Selected high-end retail shops: Cl Clocks Da Daguerreotype photographers Op Opticians Si Silk goods

Si

ER

. ST

M ER

Da Da

NK L

N SO IN

Si S Da UM

Number of employees

LIV

RL

1200

RC H

A PE

800

O

K AT

400

FR A

Si

ST. FEDERAL

0

Si

ST .

IN TE

ST.

ER YM A

250

IND IA

WE LL ST.

Op

LE Y

W

Rope manufacturing

Liberty Square BATT

MILK ST.

Si

HA W

RR car, wagon & sleigh manufacturing

ST. RAL

Cl

Da Da

Op

Da Si Da

ST.

WATER

ST . Op

Op

Saddle, harness & trunk manufacturing

HI NG TO N

ON TS T.

TR EM

Upholsterers Boot & shoe manufacturing

Op

Granary Burying Ground

Boston Cambridge Charlestown Roxbury

Hat & cap manufacturing

L ST .

W AS

Quarrying & prepared stone

SCH OO

T CEN

ST. AD BRO

Rolling, slitting & nail mills

Da

Da Da Cl

E ST. STAT

ST.

Chair & cabinet manufacturing

ESS ST. CONGR

King’s Chapel Burying Ground

M ST.

2

Old State

1 House

Da

Glass manufacturing

ST.

A CHATH

KILBY

Steam engine & boiler manufacturing Piano/organ manufacturing

Da

COU RT

T S. MARKE

S HA RC

500 feet

East Boston Shipbuilding

ST. ST.

Si

Boston Industries with over 400 Employees, 1855

Da

. NGE ST EXCHA

Millions of dollars

TTLE ST. BR A Da CORNHILL

RF

9

WH A

8

ST .

7

HI GH

6

KET

PL .

5

N. MAR

Faneuil Hall

ST .

4

N ST. CLINTO

OT IS

3

B SH ARR ET OE & L T ST . EA TH ER ST.

ST .

ST.

Da

AR CH

2

NE

RR YS T.

C HOUSTO US M ES T.

SET ST.

1

AC KS TO

FE

FU LTO N

SU DB UR Y

ELM

SOMER

0

Cl Da

ROW NTS CHA MER

Brass foundries

ST.

. ST Da ER V NO Da HA

Da Da

Chair & cabinet manufacturing

Da

BL

Da

Da

Leather currying

CR OS SS T.

NO RT H

ST .

Da

IO N UN

Upholsterers Rolling, slitting & nail mills

Da

. ST

Oil & sperm candle manufacturing

T. SS

Boston Cambridge Charlestown Roxbury

Glass manufacturing

. ST

Brick manufacturing

KIN W HA

Sugar refineries

Cl Da

D IEN FR

D AN

Piano/organ manufacturing

Haymarket Square

AC S T.

. ST

L RT PO

Steam engine & boiler manufacturing

MER RIM

ND

Cl

Distilleries

1

O M CH RI

Clothing manufacturing Soap & tallow candle manufacturing

T. ES

D OA BR

. ST

Plate 22 My stic

R.

SOMERVILLE

East Boston

JU NC TI ON

R.R

.

CHARLESTOWN

CAMBRIDGE

LOW EL L

GR

. R.R RG .R. BU E R C H IN FIT MA & . ON R.R ST RN BO STE EA

BO STO N&

AN D

New England Glass Co.

R.R .

BOSTON

U DJ

TIO NC

N

. R.R

es R arl Ch

AN

GR

for detail, see map at left

.

BO ST ON

Boston Harbor &

NE

W

KC YOR

BOSTON & WORCESTER R.R.

&

.R.

PR OV I

LR

DE NC

ER

.R .

EN T R A

BROOKLINE

BO ST ON

Alger’s Foundry

South End

Major Industries, 1855 Soap manufacturers

South Bay

Glass manufacturers OLO DC OL

Leather industries Distilleries

NY R .R .

Sugar refineries Shipbuilders

South Boston

ROXBURY

Rope manufacturers Upholsters Chair and cabinet makers

Dorchester Bay

Piano manufacturers Iron industries

0

Brass foundries

2,000 feet

DORCHESTER

Quarries

South Boston Iron Co. (Alger’s) Foundry

1,000

Casting Cannon at Alger’s Foundry

New England Glass Co., Cambridge

Glass Cutting Room, New England Glass Co.

P L A T E 2 2 · S E C T I O N V I : I M M I G R A T I O N A N D I N D U S T R I A L I Z A T I O N   67

Development of the South End and Back Bay, 1845–1882 NANCY S. SEASHOLES

I

n the mid-1840s, when Irish immigrants were pouring into Boston (see Plate 20), the city responded by trying to keep middle-class Yankees, who were valued both as taxpayers and voters, from moving to the suburbs by providing attractive residential areas within the city. The only land then available for new residential development was the city’s land in the South End. So in the late 1840s and early 1850s, the city graded streets, built sewers, and laid out residential squares there (see Plate 16). The city also filled the flats east of Harrison Avenue, called the South Bay Lands, so that the sewers, which in that era discharged raw sewage at the nearest shoreline, would not create a “nuisance”—an obnoxious smell, sight, or obstruction. South End streets were soon lined with the brick, bow-front town houses that still characterize that neighborhood (see photo). Meanwhile, a second area was also being developed to entice upper-middle-class Yankees to remain in the city—Back Bay. Originally a large bay in the Charles River on the WEST back side of Boston Neck, hence its name, Back Bay had been dammed off in 1821 in order to CAMBRIDGE power some tide mills (see Plate 14) and criss-crossed by railroad embankments in the 1830s. These impediments prevented the sewage discharged into Back Bay from being

flushed away by the outgoing tide, and by the late 1840s Back Bay was described as a “great cesspool.” All agreed the solution was to fill Back Bay and develop the resulting land as an upper-middle-class residential area. Filling was done by the three entities that owned the flats in Back Bay: the Boston Water Power Company (BWP), which operated the mills; the Boston and Roxbury Mill Corporation (B&RMC), which had built the original dams; and the state. (Note that, with the exception of a small sliver of the Public Garden given to it by the state, the city of Boston did no filling in Back Bay.) Filling proceeded from east to west, and Back Bay streets were also soon lined with town houses. Both the South End and Back Bay did become middle-class residential areas, as intended. But the South End’s appeal lasted only through the 1860s—cheaper housing on Columbus Avenue lowered the area’s prestige, and in the financial panic of 1873 many houses were acquired by banks that resold them at low prices. Many residents soon moved to the more fashionable Back Bay, and the South End became a neighborhood of NORTH immigrants and roomingCHELSEA houses. Back Bay, on the other hand, remained a desirable residential area well into the 1900s.

CHELSEA

Fill Hauled by Railroad WALTHAM

BELMONT

Railroads began hauling fill for Boston landmaking projects in 1836, whenSOMERVILLE the very first Boston & Worcester Railroad CAMBRIDGE engine to enter South Cove, which was being filled at that time, pulled cars of gravel from Brighton. In the late 1840s and EastOld early 1850s part of the South Bay Lands in the South End was filled with gravel from Quincy brought on tracks of the Boston Colony Railroad. Trains also famously hauled fill in Back Bay. Both the state and the Boston Water Power Company made CHARLESTOWN contracts with Norman C. Munson and George Goss, railroad contractors, who hauled gravel from Needham, nine miles west of Boston, on the tracks of the New York & Boston Railroad. WATERTOWN s rle Cha

BRIGHTON

Boston Harbor

Evans track

South Boston

South Bay

Brookline Village

Needham

l R.R .

Yo r

Dorchester Bay

l Co y on

R. R.

DORCHESTER ham Branch Ded

An innovation on the Back Bay project was the use in Needham of steam excavators (steam shovels), which had been specially strengthened so that, as a gravel train was pulled past, they could load each car with just two shovelfuls. The ladies suggest the drawing for this 1858 engraving was made on a day of VIP or public visit to the site.

d Ol

s arle Ch

R.

Old Harbor

k C e nt r a

ROXBURY

BROOKLINE

WEST ROXBURY

NEEDHAM

k rac

Boston & New

Newton Highlands

st

BOSTON k Bac y Ba

Bos ton & P rov i denc eR .R.

NEWTON & Boston R ork .R. wY Ne

os

R.

Mu

n so n / G

.R. er R cest Wor & n o Bost

WINTHROP

QUINCY

Quincy Bay

Railroad station Gravel source

0

1/2

1 mile

R. ponset Ne

Quincy

Gravel Branch

Gravel Sources and Railroads, 1859 For the South Bay Lands project, William Evans, the contractor, ran gravel trains in Quincy on the Gravel or Mount Hope Branch of the Old Colony Railroad and then built a spur track and a bridge across South Bay. Back Bay gravel trains followed the route of today’s Riverside branch of the MBTA Green Line between Newton Highlands and Brookline Village. From Brookline Village, Munson and Goss built three MILTON DEDHAM miles of their own track to Back Bay.

This 1859 photo shows a gravel train in Back Bay—the cars dumped gravel sideways and then it was leveled by horse-drawn scrapers. In the foreground is the Public Garden bordered by trees along Arlington Street.

WEYMOUTH

Open Spaces Open spaces were included in both the South End BRAINTREE

CANTON RANDOLPH

Commonwealth Avenue Mall

Union Park Square in the South End

68  P L A T E 2 3 · S E C T I O N V I : I M M I G R A T I O N A N D I N D U S T R I A L I Z A T I O N

and Back Bay in order to attract upper-middleclass residents. In the South End, these were London-style residential squares—places where streets widened to accommodate narrow parks in the middle. The city laid out three in the early 1850s; the Boston Water Power Company added two more on its land in the 1860s. In Back Bay, in 1856 the central east-west street—soon named Commonwealth Avenue—was widened to 200 feet, which, with the required 20-foot setback for houses on either side, created a grand Parisianstyle boulevard 240 feet wide with a central mall.

RE VE

ST.

TT

CHA R

LES

. ST

Land Donated for Cultural Use

N. A LLEN

1,000 feet

.

AV E

AL

HA

ST.

ST. NY

ALBA N AV

RY ST.

H AR RISO ST.

ANY A LB

SOUTH BAY LANDS, 1845-1862

South Bay

South End and Back Bay Streetscapes In the South End, real estate speculators erected rows of identical houses, giving the neighborhood a notable homogeneity. The South End is now the largest district of Victorian brick row houses remaining in the United States.

ND

E.

SHA WM UT

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Land donated for cultural use

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Park

Commercial

K

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Boundary of entity filling Back Bay

Residential

WASH INGTO N

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AV E. N

GT O HU NT IN

PH BO TO L ST .

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NWAY ST.) (HEME

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Boundary of Back Bay, 1855

South Bay lands filled 1845–1862:

Worcester Square

T ES CH

1871–1882

E.

Boundary of city’s land in South End, 1845

ES M JA

ST.

Park Square

N IO UN

. . ST ST N . M ST TO . HA UP ST N ED E TO .D LIN AN W OK .C W RO . .B ST W E OK BR . M . ST ST PE D . D ST AN OR TL C RU ON ER .C . W ST ST CE LD OR IE W GF IN PR

.S W

1880 shoreline

1861–1871

N

ST

. ST

ST.

1855–1861

O GT

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LE S T.

DO VER

Blackstone Square Franklin Square

E AV

N HI AS W

CAS T

DW IGH M T S I LF T. OR NS D ST ON . Union ST .

T. TS ON EM TR

.

UT M W A SH

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HA

Concord Square

Chester Park

ER M M

T

TON DAL

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LER ND CHA ST. N O ET PPL

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VE. N A R RE ST. WA ERY OM NTG O M

1846 shoreline

KNE ELA

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H ST.

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ESSEX ST.

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D FOR

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BOSTON WATER POWER CO., 1855–LATE 1880s, 300 ACRES

.

BOYLSTON ST.

Institute of Fine Arts

. AVE ES JAM ST.

Rutland Square

Back Bay filled:

LI

SU

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T. N S NDO

VID PRO

ST.

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South End and Back Bay, 1845–1880

L ST .

. ST

ST. TON ING AR L

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RE CLA

Y BUR NEW

Common

Public Garden

Museum of Natural History

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

ST.

ST.

E HER

R STE UCE GLO

m Com

l

Mal

ST.

D

. Ave

h

ealt onw

RK PA

ST.

ST. ON BEAC

SCH OO

FR AN K

T. H S

TER

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ST.

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H OUG BOR ARL

ST.

OUT TM DAR

CON BE A

BOWDOIN ST.

JOY ST.

MT. V

CITY OF BOSTON, 1859

EXE

BOSTON & ROXBURY MILL CORPORATION, LATE 1850s–1882

ST .

GROVE ST.

The Museum of Natural History building, erected in 1862 facing Berkeley St., remained CKNEY ST. Boston’sPIN science museum until 1947. Since then T. several retail stores. S it has been occupied by ERNON ES ARL CH

The first MIT building, architecturally similar to the Museum of Natural History, was erected in 1864 facing Boylston St. Later named the Rogers Building, it stood until 1939 when it was demolished for the New England Life Insurance building.

RIM AC ST.

CO UR T

CAMBRIDGE ST.

COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS, 1858–1876, 97 ACRES

r Rive s e l r Cha

MER

ST.

. ST

Back Bay was developed over a longer period of time than the South End and its houses are in a greater variety of architectural styles. The earliest—in Italianate style (see Plate 21), such as these—are at the eastern end near Arlington Street, which was filled first. The latest—in later architectural styles—are at the western end near Massachusetts Avenue, which was the last area filled.

P L A T E 2 3 · S E C T I O N V I : I M M I G R A T I O N A N D I N D U S T R I A L I Z A T I O N   69

FOU ND

Having noted that the greatest demand in Back Bay was for lots facing the Public Garden or the Commonwealth Avenue Mall and that open blocks would enhance the value and character of the surrounding area, in 1861 the state donated the eastern third of the block bounded by Berkeley, Boylston, Clarendon, and Newbury Streets to the Boston Society for Natural History and the western two-thirds to the newly incorporated Massachusetts Institute of Technology (see map). Both institutions were to erect buildings covering no more than one-third of their land. In 1864 the Boston Water Power Company was similarly required to donate a block to the Institute of Fine Arts, which opened a building in 1876 on the site now occupied by the Fairmont Copley Plaza Hotel (see map and Plate 35).

AY EW US A C

N ST. CHARLESTOW

LE

Plate 23

Great Fire of 1872

B

oston’s fire of November 9 and 10, 1872, was a significant event in the city’s history and its subsequent development. The fire began, for unknown reasons, about 7:00 p.m. on Saturday, November 9, in the basement of a building at the corner of Summer and Kingston Streets. This building, like many others in the area, was four stories, had a mansard roof and granite façade, and had been built after the Civil War, replacing the upperclass houses previously along Summer Street. These new buildings were commercial—the one in which the fire started housed dry goods firms, as did many others in that area. Similar buildings in adjacent districts housed the wool, leather, and boot and shoe trades (see map). The fire spread quickly and was soon out of control. In its early hours, the fire’s rapid pace was caused by delayed fire alarms, inadequate water supply due to small pipes with low water pressure and too few hydrants, hydrants with only one hose connection, and flammable wood mansard roofs often joined to similar roofs—all conditions about which John S. Damrell, Boston’s fire chief, had warned for the past five years but the city had refused to correct. Other factors that contributed to the fire’s spread were narrow streets, uncontrolled crowds of onlookers, fire department horses incapacitated by an equine influenza that meant hauling heavy fire equipment by hand, and, in the fire’s later stages, gunpowder explosions to demolish buildings ostensibly to create firebreaks but

NANCY S. SEASHOLES

actually producing more flammable material, and gas from ruptured gas mains. The fire was finally stopped on Washington Street about 6:00 a.m. Sunday after buildings on the west side had been draped with wet carpets and cloths to prevent their catching fire, and Old South Meeting House had been saved by the arrival about 7:00 a.m. of a steam fire engine from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, whose hose streams could reach the church’s smoldering belfry. The fire was declared under control by 1:00 p.m. Sunday, but then, about midnight, gas explosions near the corner of Summer and Washington Streets caused a new fire that was not extinguished until Monday when all Boston’s gas mains were shut off. The fire destroyed 776 buildings and over sixty acres (see photo), causing about $75 million in damage (well over $500 million in today’s terms). Twelve firefighters and sixteen civilians lost their lives; twenty thousand were left jobless. Thirty-two insurance companies went bankrupt trying to cover the losses of the 999 displaced businesses. Although a large part of the city’s commercial district had been destroyed, it was quickly rebuilt because the capital was available. In addition, Damrell’s recommendations were finally implemented—streets widened, larger water mains and better fire hydrants installed, more central fire houses built, and a building code initiated that required fire escapes, fire exits, and fire resistant construction.

Boston Pilot Building Burning Located on the southwest corner of Franklin and Hawley Streets, the Boston Pilot was the foremost Catholic newspaper in the country. The building had a mansard roof that quickly caught fire, as shown in this drawing from the cover of the Supplement to Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper. The Pilot immediately relocated in the printing plant of Rand, Avery and Company on Cornhill Street, which itself was destroyed by fire ten days later.

The “Burnt District” Taken by E. L. Allen off Summer Street opposite Trinity Church, this panoramic photo shows the devastation caused by Boston’s Great Fire. The crenellated tower of the burned Trinity Church is in the left foreground, the distant tower with a curved mansard roof to its right is City Hall, the church steeple further right is Old South, and the large building with scaffolding on top is the New Post Office. Franklin Street curves through the left half of the panorama, Arch Street runs diagonally from Franklin to the border of the photo across the middle of the scene, and Otis and Devonshire Streets intersect Summer Street, which runs diagonally across the lower right-hand corner. The fire began on the right (south) side of Summer about opposite Otis.

70  P L A T E 2 4 · S E C T I O N V I : I M M I G R A T I O N A N D I N D U S T R I A L I Z A T I O N

Plate 24 E ST. STAT ST. E ST.

WA S

DEVONSHIRE ST.

ST .

LE Y HA W

Mixed Mixed

ST .

SHI R

OT IS

E S T.

ST .

KI N

GS TO N

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DEV ON

FEDERAL S T.

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South Bay

South Boston

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area of map

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BOSTON

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East Boston

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view of photo

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Boston Common

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City Hall

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Boston Fire, 1872 7 p.m. – 8 p.m. Saturday 8 p.m. – 10 p.m. Saturday 10 p.m. – 12 a.m. Saturday/Sunday 12 a.m. – 4 a.m. Sunday 4 a.m. – 6 a.m. Sunday

Pipe r’s

6 a.m. – 5 p.m. Sunday

W. Dra

Monday ke’s W.

Wool Wool Commercial zone

Dorchester Bay DORCHESTER

P L A T E 2 4 · S E C T I O N V I : I M M I G R A T I O N A N D I N D U S T R I A L I Z A T I O N   71

Addition of Land, 1828–1880

NANCY S. SEASHOLES

W

hen tracing Boston’s history through maps, as does this atlas, one noticeable feature is the changing shape of the city—from the small peninsula of the 1600s and 1700s (see Plate 11, for example) to the spread-out metropolis of today (see Plate 57, for example). This transformation is due not only to annexations of adjacent cities and towns (see Plate 26) but also to the creation of new land along the original Boston shoreline. The basic reason for making this land was to create more space for the rapidly growing city. But the specific reasons for adding land varied (see map). As Plate 14 explains, most of this land was made by filling tidal flats (areas covered with water at high tide and exposed mud flats at low tide) and with a simple technique (building a fill-retaining structure around the outer perimeter of an area to be filled and then dumping fill behind it until the level of fill was above the level of high tide). This technique was modified as the 1800s progressed, however. Although granite seawalls continued to be the most common fill-retaining structures, their foundations changed. In the early decades of the century, seawalls were built on crisscrossed timbers, called “platforms,” set directly on the clay at the harbor bottom. Later, walls were placed on foundations of timbers driven many feet into the clay, then capped with horizontal timbers or thick planks. The fill itself changed less. It was still required to be “clean,” that is, containing no rotting organic matter, for until the end of the 1800s people believed that diseases were caused by odors from decaying animal or vegetable matter, a belief known first as the miasmatic, and later, the filth theory of disease. Acceptable fills included gravel, mud from tidal flats, dirt excavated for new buildings, and coal ashes, the last collected by the city after coal came into common use for heating and cooking about 1840. Methods of excavating, transporting, and depositing fill changed most. Fill continued to be dug by hand and transported by horse-drawn tip carts (see photo on opposite page), as it had been since the beginning of the century, or by scows in the case of tidal mud, but new technologies were also introduced. Perhaps most dramatic were railroads, which famously hauled the fill for Back Bay (see Plate 23) and for other projects, too. Steam power was also used to excavate fill—“steam excavators” (steam shovels) dug dirt for several projects (see Plate 23) and steam dredges were introduced in the 1850s. By 1880, these techniques had added many acres of man-made land to Boston (see map).

Seawall Plan In the 1800s, most areas of made land were bounded by granite seawalls, built to retain the fill. As this 1845 plan shows, a seawall’s outer face (on the left) was often “battered,” i.e., wider at the bottom than top, while the back was “ballasted,” i.e., supported by small stones banked up against it (represented here by the squiggly diagonal line). This plan was for a seawall on the South Bay Lands project (see Plate 23).

LANDMAKING PROJECTS Name of landmaking project, dates (Name of entity conducting landmaking) Charlestown 1 Middlesex Canal, 1850s (Middlesex Canal Corporation) Mystic Wharf, 1859–1880 (Mystic River Corporation)

35

Public Garden, 1830–1837 (City of Boston)

3

Extension of Rutherford Ave., early 1870s (City of Charlestown)

36

4

Early 1870s (private owners)

Boston & Worcester R.R. embankment, 1834 (Boston & Worcester R.R.)

37

Charlestown Branch R.R./Fitchburg R.R., 1836–1848 (Charlestown Wharf Co., Fitchburg R.R.)

Boston & Providence R.R. embankment & depot, 1835, c. 1855 (Boston & Providence R.R. )

38

Church St. District (Bay Village), 1820s–1835 (private owners)

39

Suffok St. District (Castle Sq./ Mass Pike Towers), 1820s–1835 (private owners )

40

1846–1851 (Boston Water Power Co.)

41

Tremont St., 1829–c. 1836 (City of Boston)

42

Front St. (Harrison Ave.), 1835–1836 (City of Boston)

5

6

Town Dock, 1835–1836 (Town of Charlestown)

7

Navy Yard Timber Dock, Dry Dock, buildings, 1828–1869 (U.S. Government)

Cambridge 8 Millers River, 1874 (Cities of Cambridge and Somerville) 9

Boston & Lowell R.R. land (Boston & Lowell R.R.) 9a) 1835 9b) 1873, 1878

43

Wharves, 1834 (Canal Bridge Corporation)

Albany St. Extension, 1861–1866 (City of Boston)

44

11

Lechmere Canal project, 1874–1880 (Cambridge Improvement Co.)

1843–1845 (South Cove Corp.)

45

12

First Street Dump, c. 1880 (Frederick Ayer)

13

North Canal - filled, by 1865 (?)

Boston & Worcester R.R. depots, 1833–1839; other railroad land, late 1840s (South Cove Corp.)

46

14

Cross Canal - filled for extension of Sixth St., 1873 (City of Cambridge)

Custom House, 1837–1847 (U.S. Government)

47

State St. Block, 1856–1857 (Long & Central Wharf Corps.)

15

South Dock - filled for extension of Sixth St., 1873 (City of Cambridge)

48

City Wharf, 1829 (City of Boston)

49

16

South Canal 16a) (George Page Box Co.) 1857 16b) (?) after 1873

Commercial & Fulton Sts., 1828–1830 (Mercantile Wharf Co.)

50

Mercantile Wharf Buildings, 1855–1856 (Mercantile Wharf Co.)

51

Atlantic Ave., 1869–1872 (City of Boston)

10

18

Grand Junction Wharves, 1849 (Grand Junction R.R.)

South Boston 52 Norway Iron Works, c. 1869 (Norway Iron Works)

19

Cunard Wharf, 1840 (East Boston Co.)

53

Alger’s Wrought Iron Works, c. 1850 (Cyrus Alger)

20

Eastern Railroad Wharf, 1838 (Eastern R.R.)

54

Old Colony R.R. shops, mid 1860s (Old Colony R.R.)

21

South Ferry Wharf, 1835 (East Boston Co.)

55

22

North Ferry Wharf, 1853 (People’s Ferry Co.)

Alger’s & other iron foundries, 1827–1850s (Cyrus Alger & others)

56

23

1833 (East Boston Co.)

Boston Wharf Co. Wharf, 1836–1847 (Boston Wharf Co.)

57

24

1860s or 1870s (East Boston Improvement Co.)

Boston Wharf Co. Wharf, 1855–1878 (Boston Wharf Co.)

58

25–acre Lot, 1873–1878 (Massachusetts Board of Harbor Commissioners)

59

Boston & Maine R.R. land, 1845 (Boston & Maine R.R.)

Bay State Iron Co. land, 1850s and 1860s (Bay State Iron Co.)

60

27

Boston & Lowell R.R. depots, 1835 (Boston & Lowell R.R.)

City Institutions, 1834 (City of Boston)

61

28

1830s & 1840s (private owners)

Testing ground for naval guns, c. 1870 (South Boston Iron Co.)

29

N. Charles St., 1860s (City of Boston),

30

MGH Flats, 1860s (City of Boston)

31

Charles St. Jail, 1848–1851 (City of Boston)

32

1850–1860 (private owners)

33

1861–1870 (City of Boston; private owners)

Boston Proper, South End, Back Bay (Before 1855) 25 Fitchburg R.R. land, 1852–1857 (Fitchburg R.R.) 26

Some of the seawalls built in Boston in the 1800s to retain fill are still visible. The one in the photo was constructed in the late 1860s along the outer side of Atlantic Avenue (no. 51 on the map), now the walk in front of Christopher Columbus Park. 72  P L A T E 2 5 · S E C T I O N V I : I M M I G R A T I O N A N D I N D U S T R I A L I Z A T I O N

Mid 1840s (Boston & Roxbury Mill Corp.)

2

East Boston 17 Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn R.R. ferry wharf, 1875 (Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn R.R.)

Atlantic Avenue Seawall

34

South Bay 62 Excavated to fill South Cove, 1833–1845 (South Cove Corp.) Dorchester 63 Main Drainage outfall sewer, 1879–1883 (City of Boston) 64

Boston Gas Light Co. land, 1870s (Boston Gas Light Co.)

65

Putnam Nail Co. land, 1860s and 1870s (Putnam Nail Co.)

OW L EL ., R.R

Prison Point Br., 1815

5

9b

Malden Br., 1787

13

ON ST BO

Mys tic

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11

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28

EL

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43

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14

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28

16a 16b ,1 .R.

5

29

West Boston Br.,

85

BOSTON

32

JU

r Rive rles Cha

23

South Bay

Transportation

South Pollution cover Boston Institutions

Boston Harbor

52

Public works/buildings

45

Dorchester Ave. Br., 1828 Broadway Br., 1875 62

56

Military Parks Other made land 1828–1880

61

Excavated flats

55

41

NEW YO RK & (BOSTO NEW ENGLAN N D CENTRA & NEW YORK R.R., L R.R., 18 55)

43 South 54 Boston Br., 1805

See Plate 23

52

8 .R., 1 YR

Roxbury

59

Dorchester

63 61

45

Swett (Southampton) St. Br., 1870s

60

South Boston

53 LON CO

South Bay

O LD

PR BOS O T R. VID ON R. E & ,1 N 83 CE 5

53

Swett (Southampton) St. Br., 1870s

44

59

New streets

Mt. Washington Ave. Br., 1855

45 42

60

Residential

8 .R., 1 YR

40

37

Commercial

LON CO

Roxbury 39

1880 Boston shoreline

South 54 Eastern Ave.See (CongressBoston St.) Br.,Br., 1874 Plate 1805

58

36

1828 Boston shoreline

O LD

BOSTON & ALBANY R.R., 1867 (BOSTON & WORCESTER, 1835)

56

Industrial

57 38

17

Landmaking, 1828–1880 Broadway Br., 1875

43

Fort Hill

See Plate 23

Dorchester Ave. Br., 1828

19 44 55

47

34

57

1845

20

41

46

Boston Harbor

Mt. Washington Ave. Br., 1855

42

48

33

35

58

21 39

40

49 37

31 1793

51

50

30

Eastern Ave. (Congress St.) Br., 1874

24

38

PR BOS O T R. VID ON R. E & ,1 N 83 CE 5

G

ND RA

NR TIO NC

12

15

36

17

46

23

See Plate 23

BOSTON & ALBANY R.R., 1867 (BOSTON & WORCESTER, 1835)

14

19

48

Fort Hill

22

27

18

20

47

26

Cra

10

BOSTON

35 Warren Br., 1828 Charles River Br., 1786

25

51

49 E ast Boston

31

34

6

23 21

50

30

1793

Chelsea St. Br., 1834

33

Ch5a

9a

11

29

32

7

4

Prison Point Br., 1815

13

West Boston Br.,

3

JU

2

12

15

5

5 , 18

9b

CAMBRIDGE

27

Saratoga St. Br., 24 by 1838

22

26

ig 180ie’s B 9 r.,

10

CHELSEA

Warren Br., 1828 Charles River Br., 1786

25

9a els 18 ea B 03 r.,

CAMBRIDGE

Plate 25

6

Ch

SOMERVILLE

7

4

BO (G STO RA N ND & JU AL B NC AN TI ON Y FR BO , 18 EIG ST ON 5 2 HT ,E ,R AS R.R. EV TE , 18 ER RN 69 EB , 18 EA 38 CH ) & LY NN R. R. ,1 87 5

8

East Boston

Char lestown

3

Meridian St. Br., 1856

43

BO (G STO RA N ND & JU AL B NC AN TI ON Y FR BO , 18 EIG ST ON 5 2 HT ,E ,R AS R.R. EV TE , 18 ER RN 69 EB , 18 EA 38 CH ) & LY NN R. R. ,1 87 5

5 84 54 ,1 R. ., 18 R. R NE N R. AI R & M S TE EA

R.R ., 1 8

2

ON BOST

35 18

FI T CH BU RG

NEW YO RK & (BOSTO NEW ENGLAN N D CENTRA & NEW YORK R.R., L R.R., 18 55)

62

Dorchester Bay

0

H

,

C WMUT BRAN SH A 1872

Dorchester

64

1,000

2,000 feet

65

63 Commercial (Freeport) St. Br., c. 1809

65

Transporting Fill on Fort Hill, c. 1870 Dorchester Bay

C WMUT BRAN SH A 1872

H

64

,

Horse-drawn tip carts carried dirt from Fort Hill to the Atlantic Avenue project (no. 51 on the map), just as such carts had for many other landmaking projects in the 1800s. On Fort Hill, a steam shovel (middle distance in photo) excavated fill, which was loaded into small hand-operated railways cars that ran on movable tracks (at right) down to the waterfront.

65

Neponset Br., 1802

P L A T E 2 5 · S E CCommercial TION V I : I MSt. MBr., I G R A T I O N A N D I N D U S T R I A L I Z A T I O N   73 (Freeport) c. 1809

Section VII

­Metropolitan Boston

Introduction

T

he first subway in the Western Hemisphere opened in Boston in 1897, seven years after the London Underground and seven years before the New York City subway. The following year, the city determined to replace the West Boston Bridge, by now a worn-­out wooden structure. William Jackson, the Boston City Engineer, and Edmund Wheelwright, the architect of the new bridge, were sent to Europe to study examples of exemplary monumental structures. They designed a span with four commanding central granite towers and subway tracks in the center of the roadway. The Cambridge Bridge opened in 1907, the most significant link connecting the central city with the surrounding cities and towns. Twenty years later the bridge was renamed to honor Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Ever since the Longfellow Bridge opened, the ride over the Charles River on the Red Line from Kendall Square in Cambridge to Charles Street Station in Boston (see Plate 28) has offered one of the great cinematic views of the city. The subway accelerates as it leaves Kendall Station to meet the rising curve of the bridge, and the short spell of darkness in the subway tunnel dissolves on a sunny day in a flash of blue sky and open water. The Longfellow Bridge is one very visible symbol of the transformation of the city between the 1850s and the beginning of the 1900s. Boston had become a metropolis, the economic and political center of the region, and had tripled in size through the annexation of several adjacent cities and towns. After declining to act on the legislature’s authorization to take over Chelsea in 1856, the city annexed Roxbury and Dorchester in 1868 and 1870. Boston then doubled its newly expanded borders by incorporating West Roxbury, Brighton, and Charlestown in 1873 (see Plate 26). Transportation in the growing city progressed more slowly than its physical expansion. Horse cars running on rails began operating in 1856, and the first electric streetcar opened thirty-­three years later. One result of the improved electric cars was frequent street congestion in the city center, where all the lines converged. The proposed solution was a streetcar subway and two elevated lines, with the subway to be built by the Transit Commission (a joint city/state agency) and the elevated routes built by a private company, the Boston Elevated Railway Company (BERy; see Plate 28). With the streetcars came the streetcar suburbs (see Plate 27). The city invested substantial

sums in public works in the now-­expanded city. Networks of streets, water lines, and sewers came to be taken for granted as essential city services. Social and cultural investments included schools, libraries, and parks. And all these services attracted new residents. The 20,000 residents of Roxbury and West Roxbury in 1865 increased to over 140,000 by 1900. As with transportation, so with the provision of water and sewer lines—­Boston took its time. It now seems hard to believe that in 1848 thousands of Boston residents lined the streets for a parade and then gathered on Boston Common to witness a new fountain and listen as distinguished speakers celebrated the city’s first municipal water system. For two centuries the provision of water in American cities had been treated as a private resource. The Aqueduct Corporation (later the Boston Aqueduct Corporation and then the Jamaica Pond Aqueduct Corporation), for example, since 1796 had provided water from Jamaica Pond through a network of pipes to residents in the southern part of the town of Boston. In 1801, Philadelphia had constructed a public water works, but it lost money for the first thirty years—­ not, thought the owners of wells and other water sources in Boston, an example to be followed. When Mayor Josiah Quincy in 1825 appointed a committee “to inquire into the practicability, expense and expediency of supplying the city with pure water,” the immediate concern was not public health but a major fire the previous month—­ which was followed by a second fire a few months later. In the discussions that followed, Quincy cited a letter from John Collins Warren, one of the founders of the Massachusetts General Hospital. Warren wrote that “many complaints [of illness] owe their existence to the use of the common spring water of Boston.” Waterworks reports were commissioned by the city in 1834, 1836, and 1837, and the water issue was on the ballot in referenda in 1836 and 1838. Finally, the City Council agreed that water was a public good and voted to build a city-­owned system that would bring water from Long Pond (renamed Lake Cochituate in 1846) in Framingham and Natick. There followed construction of a series of dams, aqueducts, and reservoirs that later drew water first from the Sudbury River and then the Nashua River (see Plate 29). In 1895 the organization of the Metropolitan Water Board made the supply of water a regional responsibility. The more difficult issues in designing and con-

structing sewers meant that in Boston, as in many other American cities, clean water was widely available much sooner than adequate sewer lines. In the creation of public parks, Boston got a late start but soon made up for it. Though cows were banished from Boston Common in 1830, it was not until the end of the 1800s that the Common took on the character of a wooded park. Across the Charles, the pastoral vistas created at Mount Auburn Cemetery, chartered in 1831, seeded Boston sensibilities and helped open the way for the Boston Park Commissioners to engage Frederick Law Olmsted as the city’s landscape designer. His pastoral scheme for the Muddy River resolved the frequent flooding along the boundary between Boston and Brookline and was the beginning of what came to be known as the Emerald Necklace (see Plate 30). Charles Eliot and Sylvester Baxter proposed the next step in regional landscape design in 1892—­a linked network of metropolitan parks. It would be hard to find two people with such dramatically different backgrounds. Charles Eliot was the son of Charles W. Eliot, president of Harvard University while his son was an undergraduate there. His uncle, the architect Robert Peabody, introduced him to Olmsted, who immediately offered him a position in Olmsted’s firm. Baxter was a middle child in a large family in Falmouth. He aspired to enter MIT’s recently established architecture school—­but he wrote in his autobiography that “the means were not available.” He became a copy boy for several Boston newspapers, and then sent himself to school in Germany to study municipal administration. He later wrote a series of articles in the Boston Herald, published in 1891 as Greater Boston: A Study for a Federalized Metropolis. Charles Eliot read Baxter’s suggestion for a metropolitan park system, and together they began “an organized effort” to promote the idea. They were appointed to a temporary Metropolitan Park Commission and wrote the Commission’s first report. Convinced by their description of the opportunity to preserve “the rock hills, the stream banks, and the bay and sea shores,” the legislature authorized $3,500,000 in bonds and appropriations. The now-­permanent commission acquired over 9,000 acres in six years, including the Blue Hills, the Middlesex Fells, and hundreds of acres along the Charles and Neponset Rivers (see Plate 30). Karl Haglund

S E C T I O N V I I . M E T R O P O L I T A N B O S T O N   77

Annexation Movement, 1868–1873

I

n the five years from 1868 to 1873 the city of Boston annexed five neighboring cities and towns to attain most of its present inland boundaries. Then, like today, changes to municipal jurisdiction could potentially affect property values, rates of taxation, and government budgets. Annexation, therefore, proved far from a smooth process. It sparked intense controversy. Proponents of annexation in Boston and the cities and towns around it hoped to unify the entire metropolitan area under a single government. A popular coalition of supporters—skilled workers, shopkeepers, and small-scale manufacturers—pointed out that a large municipality would be better able to build and finance urban infrastructure. These advocates of the plan sought to expand public services like water pipes, sewer lines, streets, schools, libraries, and parks. They intended this expansion to facilitate the emergence of new urban neighborhoods on the periphery of the city, relieving soaring population density in the downtown area. Opponents of annexation, who came primarily from the ranks of the wealthy elite, preferred that the Boston area continue to be governed by a large number of independent, WEST fiscally conservative towns. They argued that an enlarged municipality would increase CAMBRIDGE public spending and force the city to raise taxes, which might impede Boston’s economy in the future and make it a less hospitable environment for business. Rather than use government resources to facilitate urban expansion, they argued, MEDFORD it was better to leave

BELMONT

N O A M M A G G O R A N D S A M B A S S WA R N E R

development to private market forces. Their model was Brookline, a wealthy, low-tax suburban enclave that grew slowly as an independent town. The annexation program made great strides, despite fierce opposition. Initially, Boston tripled its size by incorporating Roxbury (1868) and Dorchester (1870). As expected, the city launched massive public works projects in the annexed districts. This construction boom, which indeed entailed enormous government expenditures, opened new territories for urban settlement. The population of the annexed wards began to swell faster than that of the inner city. The successful development of Roxbury and Dorchester encouraged Boston to pursue the same strategy elsewhere. It therefore annexed Brighton, Charlestown, and West Roxbury in 1873. Annexation reshaped the social and economic geography of Boston. It redirected urban growth away from a high density within the city to extensive growth on the periphery and turned Boston from a tightly packed mercantile hub, clustered around the port and the bus­iness district, to a territorially expansive metropolis. Nevertheless, the process fell short of its advocates’ best hopes. Wealthy towns like Brookline launched deliberate political campaigns to resist union with the city. Brookline actually voted against annexation, effectively bringing the annexation movement to a halt in the 1880s. With the defeat of the MALDEN plan to create a unified metropolitan m ­ unicipality, Boston, like other urban centers in the NORTH United States, became increasingly divided between city and suburbs. CHELSEA

SOMERVILLE

Dillaway School Following annexation, Boston spent heavily on new schools, public buildings, and infrastructure improvements in the annexed areas. The Dillaway School, built in 1882 near Dudley Square in Roxbury, is an example of these improvements and one that still exists, though it is now residences.

Mys tic

CHELSEA Rive r

East Boston

CHARLESTOWN 1873

WINTHROP

CAMBRIDGE

WATERTOWN

From Brookline 1874

iver es R

rl Cha

BRIGHTON 1873

Boston Proper

Boston Harbor

From Brookline 1870 South Bay

NEWTON

South Boston

ROXBURY 1868

BROOKLINE

Dorchester Bay

WEST ROXBURY 1873

DORCHESTER 1870

Quincy Bay

QUINCY DEDHAM

HYDE PARK

Boston, 1867 Cities/towns annexed, 1868–73 0

78  P L A T E 2 6 · S E C T I O N V I I : M E T R O P O L I T A N B O S T O N

1/2

1 mile

MILTON

Annexations from Brookline, 1870, 1874

Plate 26 OTHER ACQUISITIONS

Boston

Breeds I. 1635

area of main map

Noddles I. 1637

0

East Boston

5

10 miles

The Graves

Bird I. 1637

BOSTON

Apple I. 1637 Governors I. 1637

Green I. Deer I. 1635

Outer Brewster I.

Little Calf I. Calf I.

SOUTH BOSTON 1804

Castle I. Spectacle I. 1635

WASHINGTON VILLAGE 1855

Lovells I.

Long I. 1635

Shag Rocks

Little Brewster I.

Gallops I. Thompson I. 1834

Middle Brewster I.

Great Brewster I.

Georges I.

Rainsford I.

1630 land Modern land Modern Boston boundary Other city/town boundaries

Bird I. Territory added

T

0

1/2

1 mile

BELMONT

he annexations of 1868–73 were not the only additions to Boston’s territory. East Boston was originally two islands—Noddles and what was variously called Hog, Susanna, Belle, and Breeds (now Orient Heights). The General Court granted them to Boston in 1637 and 1635, respectively. Boston gradually acquired the other harbor islands that are now within the city’s boundaries at various times for various reasons (see map). South Boston was once a part of the town of Dorchester known as Dorchester Neck. Boston annexed it in 1804 at the behest of real estate speculators who had bought land there and constructed a bridge (on the line of today’s W. Fourth St. Bridge—see Plate 14) to connect it to the rest of Boston. The neck connecting South Boston to Dorchester was annexed from Dorchester in 1855, enlarging South Boston. A small settlement called Little Neck had developed there, becoming Washington Village in 1850. More closely associated with South Boston than with rural Dorchester, its residents petitioned several times to be annexed to Boston, finally gaining approval in 1855. The annexations of Roxbury and Brighton precipitated some additional annexations. In 1870 Boston annexed the west side of Back Bay from Brookline, presumably so that when that area was filled, the land would be part of Boston (see Plates 23, 25, and 43). And in 1874 Boston annexed a strip of land along the river from Brookline in  order to connect recently annexed Brighton to the rest of the city (see map on facing page). Hyde Park was the latest annexation. The town of Hyde Park had been created in 1868 from the Readville section of Dedham and parts of Dorchester and Milton. It attracted a large immigrant population that worked in mills along the Neponset River. Led by the owner of a woolen mill, Hyde Park’s residents voted in favor of annexation in 1911. Boston, eager for tax revenues from the factories, accepted Hyde Park in 1912.

REVERE

EVERETT

Boston, 1911

CHELSEA

Annexed, 1912

SOMERVILLE East Boston

Charlestown WATERTOWN

WINTHROP

CAMBRIDGE l es Ch a r

BrightonAllston

NEWTON

R.

Roxbury

BROOKLINE

South Boston

Jamaica Plain

West Roxbury

Boston Harbor

Boston Proper

Dorchester Bay

Dorchester

HYDE PARK 1912 DEDHAM

QUINCY MILTON 0

1

2 miles

Base map from 1911 data

P L A T E 2 6 · S E C T I O N V I I : M E T R O P O L I T A N B O S T O N   79

Streetcar Suburbs, 1870–1900

N O A M M A G G O R A N D S A M B A S S WA R N E R

I

n the aftermath of annexation (see Plate 26), large swaths of land around Boston, which had previously been occupied by farms and the estates of the wealthy, became dense urban neighborhoods. The new neighborhoods experienced stunning growth. Indeed, most population increase and physical development during the closing decades of the 1800s occurred on the periphery of the city—in East and South Boston, Roxbury, West Roxbury, Dorchester, Brighton, and Charlestown. The population of Roxbury and West Roxbury alone rose from under 20,000 in 1865 to over 140,000 by the century’s end. The new neighborhoods emerged in the pre-automobile era when streetcars provided a major type of transportation (see Plate 28) and, therefore, came to be called “streetcar suburbs.” They offered residents significant improvement over conditions in the crowded central districts of the city. Although small by modern standards, housing lots were considered sizeable. The rates of home ownership far exceeded those in the inner city. Due to heavy investment by Boston city government, residents enjoyed access to public institutions like schools, libraries, and parks, and to urban amenities like running water, sewers, and paved roads. Housing styles included an eclectic mix of wood-frame single- or two-family houses, rows of brick houses, and apartment buildings. Three-deckers (see Plate 38)—a vernacular New England architectural form that first appeared in the 1870s—dotted the streets of many new neighborhoods. Although much reviled by housing reformers, this so-called Boston weed furnished working- and lower-­middleclass families with affordable living quarters that had much better light and air. Patterns of settlement in the outer neighborhoods generally did not produce a socially segregated landscape, nor did they promote strict separation of activities. Built by thousands of small-scale contractors and financed by ad-hoc lending practices and neighborhood banks, the new districts contained a mixed and variable built environment of what historian Sam Bass Warner has famously called a “weave of small patterns.” In contrast to the social polarization that characterized the center of the city, the new neighborhoods became home to a broad mix of families, with heads of households in a wide range of occupations. On commercial corridors, stores were interspersed alongside residences. Industrial districts thrived, particularly near railroad lines, with small workshops, industrial plants, and manufacturing facilities that aimed at local, regional, and national markets. As Boston entered the 1900s, this era in urban development drew to a close, in large part because of its reliance on generous municipal budgets and high taxes. A period of metropolitan integration and rapid development gave way to an era of class and ethnic fragmentation. Streetcar-suburb neighborhoods, however, remained an integral part of the city’s urban fabric, leaving a lasting legacy for Boston in decades to come.

Charlestown

East Boston

North End Brighton-Allston Back Bay South End

South Boston

Roxbury

Percent of Adult Male Property Owners by Ward, 1880 20.0 – 25.8% 15.0 – 19.9% 10.0 – 14.9%

Dorchester

West Roxbury

5.0 – 9.9% Less than 5.0%

Charlestown

East Boston

North End Brighton-Allston Back Bay South End

Roxbury

South Boston

Percent Change in Number of Houses by Ward, 1877 to 1889 50.0 – 120.7% 30.0 – 49.9%

West Roxbury

Dorchester

10.0 – 29.9% 0.1 – 9.9% -9.9 – -0.1% -27.2 – -10.0%

Development of Streetcar Suburbs, 1877–1889

Washington Street in Roxbury during the construction of the Forest Hills extension of the elevated (see Plate 28). The residential heterogeneity, typical of the new neighborhoods, is fully on display in this photograph, revealing two-, three-, and four-story houses in close proximity. Commercial and manufacturing establishments were also situated nearby.

80  P L A T E 2 7 · S E C T I O N V I I : M E T R O P O L I T A N B O S T O N

The peripheral neighborhoods of Boston—its “Streetcar Suburbs”—were the most rapidly growing areas of the city in the latter decades of the 1800s, with much more new construction than the inner city. Between 1877 and 1889 alone, over four thousand new dwellings were constructed in West Roxbury, Dorchester, and Brighton, almost doubling the number of houses there, at a time when wards in the North End and South End experienced virtually no new construction. These outlying neighborhoods also had a particularly high percentage of households that owned taxable property, primarily residential property. Whereas the percentage of property-owning householders in the working-class wards of the inner city hovered between 3 and 7 percent, making the vast majority of households into renters, this percentage reached much higher proportions in the outer wards, climbing to anywhere between 17 and 26 percent by the early 1890s—exceedingly high by the standards of the period. Many thousands of working families in these neighborhoods became property owners. Those who continued to rent made payments to a relatively large group of landlords, who tended to live in the vicinity and typically were not themselves major property owners.

Plate 27 Neighborhoods Charlestown West End North End Beacon Hill Back Bay

BrightonAllston

South End Roxbury

Dorchester

West Roxbury

East Boston

Locations of Heads of Households of a Few Select Occupations, 1880 The maps below are based on data from the U.S. Census of 1880. Households headed by elite businessmen—merchants, bankers, lawyers, and manufacturers—congregated in Back Bay and Beacon Hill. Upper working class or lower-middle-class households, headed by small proprietors, low-level white collar workers, and skilled tradesmen—carpenters, clerks, grocers, and machinists—were more widely distributed throughout the city, with increasing overrepresentation in the outlying districts. Households headed by unskilled workers—laborers, teamsters, domestic workers, and washer women—were most heavily concentrated in the non-elite areas of the inner city.

1 dot = 1 person

Business Elite

Bankers

Lawyers

Manufacturers

Merchants

Clerks

Grocers

Machinists

Laborers

Teamsters

Washer Women

Middling Population

Carpenters

Unskilled Workers

Domestic Servants

P L A T E 2 7 · S E C T I O N V I I : M E T R O P O L I T A N B O S T O N  81

Public Transportation, 1856–1918

O

n March 26, 1856, Boston became only the fifth city in the world with horse-powered street railway service when a line opened between Boston and Cambridge. Horse cars were more efficient than the omnibuses that had provided public transportation between Boston and its suburbs since 1834 because they ran on iron rails, enabling horses to pull much greater loads at faster speeds. This first street railway was a success and many more were soon chartered. In 1887 the West End Street Railway, a new line, consolidated all Boston’s horse car lines into its company except one to northern suburbs and Lynn. Boston thus became the largest city in the world to have a unified transit system under one management. In order to speed operations and reduce costs, the West End wanted to replace horses with another source of power, finally deciding on electricity. The first electric streetcar line started running between Park Square and Allston on January 3, 1889, and electrification then proceeded rapidly. By 1895, 94 percent of the streetcars were electrified. The last horse car line, on Marlborough Street in Boston’s Back Bay, closed in December 1900. Electric trolleys allowed service to be extended to more distant suburbs, an important factor in the suburbanization then occurring (see Plate 27). Ridership grew significantly, requiring more frequent operations, and the increased streetcar traffic resulted in massive street congestion in downtown Boston. In 1892 a state commission recommended relieving the congestion with a subway for streetcars under Tremont Street plus two elevated lines. In 1894 the Boston Transit Commission (a joint city/state agency) was created to build the subway and the Boston Elevated Railway Company (BERy, a private company) to build the elevated. The first section of the subway opened between Park Street and the Public Garden on September 1, 1897— the first subway in the Americas and only the fourth in the world. Two more sections soon opened, completing the Tremont Street Subway on September 3, 1898.

CHARLES BAHNE AND NANCY S. SEASHOLES

BERy began constructing an elevated line between Sullivan Square, Charlestown, and Dudley Street, Roxbury, in 1899, and the Main Line “El,” as it was called, opened on June 10, 1901. The cars received power from a third rail rather than overhead wires like the streetcars. Through downtown, elevated trains ran through the Tremont Street Subway, BERy having acquired control of the West End Street Railway in 1897. A second elevated line opened on Atlantic Avenue on August 22, 1901. New subways were also soon built. The Transit Commission constructed a streetcar tunnel under Boston Harbor, between Court Street (near present Government Center station) in Boston and Maverick Square in East Boston. Opening on December 30, 1904, it was the second lengthy underwater vehicular tunnel in North America. Because operating larger elevated trains through the narrow Tremont Street Subway had proved problematic, a new tunnel for Main Line “El” trains was built under Washington Street, opening in 1908. The Transit Commission and BERy together constructed a rapid transit subway between Park Street in Boston and Harvard Square in Cambridge between 1909 and 1912 by tunneling under Beacon Hill and crossing the Charles on a newly built bridge, later named the Longfellow, which had been designed to carry tracks in its center section. Thus, by 1912 the original parts of today’s Green, Blue, and Red Lines and a forerunner of the Orange Line had been built. By 1918, when BERy came under public control, both it and the Transit Commission had made many additions to the original system, which are shown on the maps at right. Ever since Boston’s subway system opened in 1897, streetcar subways have been important—surface trolleys from outlying neighborhoods that feed into tunnels (or a viaduct) in denser areas. In 1918, trolleys could enter today’s Green Line at five different places. And what became the Blue Line was a streetcar subway with service between Cambridge and East Boston (where the postcard at left shows a streetcar emerging from the tunnel in Maverick Square). Shorter streetcar subways had also been built at the Harvard Square and Broadway stations, the former still used by buses today.

LYNN

LYNN SAUGUS

WOBURN

WOBURN

STONEHAM MELROSE

WINCHESTER

SAUGUS STONEHAM MELROSE

WINCHESTER

MALDEN

MALDEN ARLINGTON

ARLINGTON

MEDFORD EVERETT

MEDFORD EVERETT

REVERE

REVERE

CHELSEA

CHELSEA BELMONT

BELMONT Mystic R.

SOMERVILLE

Charlestown

WATERTOWN

East Boston

WINTHROP

rles Cha

R.

Charlestown

WATERTOWN

CAMBRIDGE

Allston

Mystic R.

SOMERVILLE

East Boston

WINTHROP

CAMBRIDGE

Boston Harbor

Allston

rles Cha

R.

Boston Harbor

Brighton

Brighton South Boston NEWTON

Roxbury

South Boston

Horse Car Lines, September 30, 1888

Old Harbor

BROOKLINE

NEWTON

Roxbury

Electric Streetcar Lines, June 30, 1918

Old Harbor

BROOKLINE

Horse car lines Horse car on Chelsea Ferry

Boston Elevated Railway Co. Other companies Dorchester Bay

Dorchester Bay

Dorchester

Dorchester West Roxbury

West Roxbury

. nset R N epo

Hyde Park

. nset R N epo

HYDE PARK QUINCY

QUINCY

MILTON

DEDHAM

MILTON

DEDHAM

BRAINTREE

BRAINTREE 0

1

2 miles

82  P L A T E 2 8 · S E C T I O N V I I : M E T R O P O L I T A N B O S T O N

0

1

2 miles

Sullivan Sq. Sullivan Sq. ST

Harvard Sq. MA 1 SS 912 .A VE .

Plate 28

4

Central Sq.

190

Stadium

01 19 .

IN MA

SOMERVILLE

CAMBRIDGE

MAIN ST.

for detail, see map below

Kendall Sq.

Stadium Station—open only for special events at Harvard Stadium, 1912–61.

Governor Sq.

01 19

1914

Massachusetts Ave. Northampton St.

Andrew

East Boston

SOMERVILLE

AS HI

NG

T 19 ON 09 ST .

Dudley St.

1918

Broadway DORCHESTER AVE.

BROOKLINE

19 01

Charlestown

W

Thompson Sq. (1902)

Egleston Sq.

19 0

9

Green St. (1912) 0

Forest Hills

1/2

1 mile

Base map from 1918 data

City Sq.

Lechmere

Chelsea Ferry

1 190

(closed 1917)

Maverick Sq.

19

ry

12

CAMBRIDGE

1/2

1 mile

Base map from 1918 data

1901

S o ut

rry h Fe

98 18 Union St.

Friend St.

12

Scollay Sq. Under (1916) Scollay Sq. Brattle St. 18 98

19

Bowdoin Sq. 19 16

City Hall

Adams Sq. State St.

Court St. (closed 1916)

Rowe’s Wharf

08

Winter St.

1 190

19

16

South Station Under (1916)

Boylston St. Beach St.

South Station

& ch Bea

Subway/Elevated Lines, June 30, 1918 Streetcar subways Tremont St. Subway, Boylston St. Subway East Cambridge Viaduct East Boston Tunnel & Extension Continue as surface streetcar Rapid transit trains

Oct. 18 97

Park Sq.

ere Rev ton s o B

Main Line & Atlantic Ave. Elevated Main Line El through Washington St. Tunnel (1908 and later) Main Line El through Tremont St. Subway (1901–1908)

191

1901

1908

7

Pleasant St. (1901–8)

Main Line El connection to Tremont St. Subway (1901–1908) Cambridge Subway & Dorchester Tunnel Cambridge Subway on bridge

1901–

8

0

500

South Boston

Tunnel portals Stations Start of line extension 1898 Date line opened

1,000 feet

Base map from 2011 data

y err .F R.R n Lyn

Summer St. Washington St. (1915)

Boylston St. Sept. 1897

State St.

19

5

08

Public Garden

191

19

Boston Common

t. 18 97

Park St. Under Park St.

Boston Harbor

Devonshire St.

Essex St. 1914

Atlantic Ave. (1906) 1904

Milk St.

Sep

From 1901 to 1908, when Main Line El trains ran through the Tremont Street Subway, streetcars could not also run in the subway between Pleasant and Boylston Streets or between Park Street and Scollay Square. So streetcar service between those stations was temporarily suspended. Streetcars from the west then entered the subway and looped back at Park Street while those from the north entered the subway and looped back at Scollay Square through Adams Square.

1908

1916

19

04

Haymarket Sq.

To Governor Sq.

r th

North Station

Ch arl

es Riv er

North Station West (1912)

0

Battery St.

01

19

To Harvard Sq.

Copley Sq.

F

er

No

Discontinued stations

Dover St. To Forest Hills

Broadway

To Andrew

Water and Sewerage Systems, 1795–1906

NANCY S. SEASHOLES

WATER SYSTEM, 1795–1906

D

uring Boston’s first two hundred years most residents obtained their water from wells and cisterns near their houses. In addition, an aqueduct corporation formed in 1795 conveyed water from Jamaica Pond through pine log pipes to subscribers primarily in the South End. In 1825 Bostonians began to agitate for a supply of “pure (unpolluted) water,” a movement that culminated in October 1848 with the opening of an aqueduct from Lake Cochituate in Natick. The Cochituate Aqueduct conveyed water to a reservoir in Brookline from where it flowed by gravity to reservoirs on Beacon Hill, Telegraph Hill in South Boston, and Eagle Hill in East Boston and from those locations to service pipes. The Chestnut Hill Reservoir was constructed in 1866–70 to receive all water from the aqueduct and store the surplus. The annexation of Roxbury in 1868 and Dorchester in 1870 added areas too high to be supplied by gravity, so a pumping station was built near Roxbury Crossing in 1870. To insure a steady supply to the pumps as well as water for fires, a reservoir was constructed on nearby Parker Hill in 1873–74. When Charlestown was annexed in 1874, its water supply, which came from Upper Mystic Lake in Winchester and Medford, was added to the Boston system. By the early 1870s, however, it had become apparent that, due to years of drought, the annexation of new cities and towns, and water consumption far above original estimates, Boston needed a new water supply. The Sudbury River was chosen as the most economical Boston Water System 1873–1880

1846–1851

1881–1894

1861–1870

1895–1906

ACTON

Pumping station Cities and towns in Metropolitan Water District, 1906

STERLING CLINTON

BOLTON

a As s

be

t

MAYNARD

LEXINGTON

LINCOLN

SUDBURY

HUDSON

yR

.

WALTHAM

WAYLAND

rles R. ha

WESTON

BOYLSTON

MARLBOROUGH

Wachusett Aqueduct

Weston Aqueduct

Sudbury Reservoir

NORTHBOROUGH

SOUTHBOROUGH

SHREWSBURY WESTBOROUGH

S u d b u r y R.

Hopkinton Reservoir

WORCESTER

Framingham Reservoirs

2

MILLBURY

4 miles

NEEDHAM

NATICK

C

Sudbury Aqueduct

ASHLAND

Ashland Reservoir

HOPKINTON GRAFTON

Lake Cochituate Farm Pond

NEWTON

WELLESLEY

FRAMINGHAM

BELMONT

es h a rl

REVERE

WINTHROP Charlestown East East Boston Reservoir Boston sR Beacon Hill rl e

WATERTOWN Brighton

Cha BOSTON Roxbury

BROOKLINE

Chestnut Hill Reservoir Fisher Hill Reservoir Brookline Res., disc. 1900

Res., disc. 1880

South Boston

disc. 1888 South Boston Parker Hill Res. Res., disc. 1897 Jamaica Pond Aqueduct, disc. 1893 Jamaica Pond, disc. 1893

DEDHAM

Forbes Hill Reservoir QUINCY

MILTON

WESTWOOD

Whitehall Reservoir

HINGHAM

WEYMOUTH BRAINTREE

HOLLISTON

UPTON

HULL

Dorchester

West . set R Roxbury pon Ne HYDE PARK

R.

NAHANT

MEVERETT ys CHELSEA SOMERVILLE t i c R .

DOVER

SHERBORN

Fells Reservoir

MALDEN

MEDFORD

CAMBRIDGE

Waban Hill Reservoir

Weston Reservoir Dudley Pond Cochituate Aqueduct

MELROSE

Lower Mystic Lake disc. 1898

ARLINGTON

SWAMPSCOTT

LYNN SAUGUS

WINCHESTER

Upper Mystic Lake, disc. 1898

SALEM

STONEHAM

Bear Hill Reservoir Spot Pond

Mystic Reservoir

Wachusett Reservoir

0

WOBURN

STOW

BERLIN

WEST BOYLSTON

R.

C

h as

rd

CONCORD

R.

Sudbu r

N

ua

R.

Standpipe

o nc

WAKEFIELD

BURLINGTON

BEDFORD

Co

LANCASTER

PEABODY

CARLISLE

.

Dates constructed: 1795–1840s

LEOMINSTER

and abundant source of good quality water, and by 1878 three storage reservoirs had been created in Framingham by damming the river and the Sudbury Aqueduct had been constructed to the Chestnut Hill Reservoir. Additional storage reservoirs were added in the 1880s and early 1890s as both Boston’s population and average daily consumption continued to rise. These additions were inadequate, however, and in 1895 the state board of health recommended the south branch of the Nashua River as Boston’s new source of water and also the creation of a metropolitan water district. The latter was approved that year, and the new Metropolitan Water Board (a state agency that was combined with the state Metropolitan Sewerage Board in 1901) proceeded to finish the Sudbury Reservoir already under construction, build the Wachusett Aqueduct from the Nashua River to that reservoir, construct the Weston Aqueduct from the Sudbury Reservoir to a new reservoir in Weston, and build a dam to create the enormous new Wachusett Reservoir, completed in 1906. The Metropolitan Water and Sewerage Board also changed the system for distributing water to the nineteen cities and towns it served in 1906. The pumping station at the Chestnut Hill Reservoir, which had been the main station since it replaced the one in Roxbury in 1888, pumped water to Boston, to various suburbs, and to Spot Pond in Stoneham from where it was pumped again to northern towns. (Mystic Lake had been discontinued in 1898 because it was so polluted.) Water was also pumped a second time from Arlington to the higher parts of that town and to Lexington and from West Roxbury to the higher areas there and in Milton.

NORWOOD

MEDFIELD

CANTON

MILLIS

RANDOLPH

Boston’s Reservoirs—Then and Now

MT VERNON ST 0

500 yards

Massachusetts State House

The Beacon Hill Reservoir became less important after the Roxbury pumping station opened in 1870. In 1875 the water board recommended the reservoir be abandoned, and in 1880 the city took the site for a new courthouse. The courthouse was eventually built elsewhere, but in 1889–95 the rear wing of the State House was constructed on the reservoir site.

0

500 yards

6TH ST

EAGLE ST

(1851)

South Boston High School

The South Boston Reservoir also became less important after pumping began in 1870. In 1897 the water board disconnected the pipes to the reservoir, which had not been used for many years, and in 1899 the site was taken for South Boston High School, which opened in 1901.

84  P L A T E 2 9 · S E C T I O N V I I : M E T R O P O L I T A N B O S T O N

East Boston Reservoir

PUTNAM ST

(1849)

TELEGRAPH ST

(1849)

BROOKS ST

South Boston Reservoir

DERNE ST

G ST

TEMPLE ST

HANCOCK ST

Beacon Hill Reservoir

PAR K

WHITE ST

0

500 yards

East Boston High School

By 1900 the East Boston Reservoir was used only occasionally and in 1920 became a city playground. But no sooner had the reservoir been filled in and a field house built than the site was turned over to the school department for East Boston High School, which opened in 1926.

ER H

New England Baptist Hospital

ILL A VE

Parker Hill Reservoir (1874)

FISHER AV

E

0

500 yards

The Parker Hill Reservoir became less important after the pumping station was moved from Roxbury to the Chestnut Hill Reservoir in 1888. In 1912 it became a city playground and was filled in. In 1918, the year the playground was completed, the land was sold to the Elks for a hospital. It is now a New England Baptist Hospital parking lot.

Boston Sewerage Systems Date opened: Main Drainage, 1884 North Metropolitan, 1896

Plate 29

Charles River Valley, 1892 Neponset Valley, 1897

WAKEFIELD WOBURN

South Metropolitan, 1906 Direction of flow

STONEHAM

Spot Pond

MELROSE

WINCHESTER Upper Mystic Lake

LEXINGTON

Lower Mystic Lake

MALDEN

MEDFORD

ARLINGTON

Mys t

REVERE

ic

EVERETT

R.

Spy Somerville Pond Pumping

Station

BELMONT

CHELSEA

WALTHAM

Charlestown Pumping Station

SOMERVILLE

Charlestown

CAMBRIDGE rl e

sR

.

WATERTOWN Ch

a rl

es

East Boston

The Calf Pasture Pumping Station was designed by city architect George Albert Clough for the Main Drainage system on what is now Columbia Point. The original front door faces Mt. Vernon Street and is flanked by plaques inscribed “B.I.S.” for Boston Improved Sewerage, the original name of the Main Drainage, and “1883,” the date this building was completed. The station operated until 1968 and is now owned by UMass/Boston.

WINTHROP

R

Boston Proper

Brighton

NEWTON

East Boston Pumping Station

.

Cha

Fresh Pond

Boston’s Remaining Original Sewage Pumping Stations

Cities and towns in the Metropolitan Sewerage District, 1906

Horn Pond

Chestnut Hill Reservoir

Ward Street Pumping Station

BROOKLINE

Deer Island Pumping Station

BOSTON

South Boston

Roxbury

Reversed direction of flow in 1906

Calf Pasture Pumping Station

Jamaica Jamaica Pond Plain

Dorchester

West Roxbury

Not in operation in 1906

HYDE PARK DEDHAM

0

2

Moon I. Squantum

Ne p o n s e t R .

MILTON

Nut Island Screen House

Quincy Pumping Station

QUINCY

4 miles

The East Boston Pumping Station began operating in 1895 as part of the North Metropolitan Sewerage system. Seriously damaged by the Chelsea fire of April 12, 1908, it was rebuilt and enlarged, reopening in 1911. It operated until replaced by the adjacent Caruso pumping station in 1989 and is now owned by the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA).

SEWERAGE SYSTEM, 1876–1906

F

rom the 1600s into the early 1800s, Bostonians constructed an extensive system of drains beneath their town. Called sewers, they really carried only ground and household wastewater while human wastes were disposed into privies. In 1833 the city permitted privies to be connected to drains, turning the latter into sewers in fact as well as in name. These sewers emptied at the nearest shoreline from where the sewage was supposed to be carried away by the outgoing tide. Actually, much was brought back by the incoming tide and lay festering on the flats at low tide. By the 1870s Bostonians were concerned about the  city’s high death rate, and, at a time when it was thought diseases were caused by bad odors and filth, the sewers seemed a culprit. Sewerage systems had existed in some other U.S. cities since the 1850s, and in 1876 a special commission recommended new sewerage systems for the Boston area. The Boston system was built first. Between 1877 and 1884 the city constructed what came to be called the Main Drainage works. New sewers were built around the perimeter of the city, intercepting the old ones before they emptied onto the flats and carrying the sewage to a new main sewer, which in turn conveyed the wastes to a pumping station at the Calf Pasture, now Columbia Point. It pumped the sewage up thirty-five feet so that it would flow through an outfall sewer, then 160 feet down a shaft to a tunnel under the harbor to Squantum, and then to reservoirs on Moon Island where, still raw and untreated, it was released into the harbor at ebb tide.

It then became clear that additional sewerage systems could not be effectively built by individual cities and towns, so in 1889 the Metropolitan Sewerage Board, a state agency, was created, the first metropolitan authority in the nation. In 1892 it completed the Charles River Valley system, serving cities and towns on the south side of the Charles and emptying into the Boston Main Drainage. In 1896 it finished the North Metropolitan system for cities and towns north of the Charles and in the Mystic Valley and, like the Main Drainage, disposed the raw sewage into the harbor, this time at Deer Island Light. In addition to a final pumping station at Deer Island, interim pumping stations in Somerville, Charlestown, and East Boston also raised the sewage so that it flowed downhill. A system for the Neponset Valley was completed in 1897, again discharging into the Boston Main Drainage. By this time, however, the extra sewage in the Main Drainage as well as the high rents charged by Boston for use of that system led to the creation, in 1899, of the South Metropolitan system to replace the Charles River and Neponset Valley systems. A new sewer was constructed to serve the cities and towns in those systems as well as Quincy and parts of Boston not already included. The raw sewage was again disposed into the harbor, in this case from pipes off Nut Island. Although a new pumping station was built at Ward Street in Roxbury to raise the Charles River Valley sewage, the system functioned largely by gravity so pumps were not needed at Nut Island, where only screens and a sand catcher were installed. The South Metropolitan system was completed in 1906.

The Deer Island Pumping Station, designed by architect Arthur F. Gray, also went into operation in 1895 for the North Metropolitan system. It functioned until 1968 when it was replaced by another station on Deer Island (see Plate 50) and is now also owned by the MWRA.

P L A T E 2 9 · S E C T I O N V I I : M E T R O P O L I T A N B O S T O N   85

Boston and Metropolitan Park Systems, 1875–1919 BOSTON PARK SYSTEM, 1875–1912

NANCY S. SEASHOLES

B

oston’s public park system was part of the mid-1800s public park movement in the United States, which was a response to increasing urbanization and to the sanitary reform movement. At a time when people believed that diseases were caused by unhealthy odors, filth, and dampness, parks—with sunlight, fresh air, dry land, and pure water—were seen as one solution. Parks were also to be “for the people,” that is, public, and were intended as “pleasure grounds” where city dwellers could escape from the perceived evils of the city into a pastoral setting. In the 1860s, inspired by new parks in other cities, Bostonians agitated for more public parks, culminating in the establishment of a park department with a board of commissioners in 1875. The next year the park commissioners proposed a system of M Econnected D F O R Dby parkways. seven “urban” and four “suburban” parks in the city, some Boston was in the grip of a five-year national depression, however, so in 1877 only one ARLINGTO N of these parks was funded—what became the Back Bay Fens. It was approved not because it would create a recreational area but because it would address a sewerage problem by serving as a storage basin for the polluted storm overflows from Stony Brook. In the early 1880s, when the depression had ended, construction began on four

BELMONT

other parks in the original plan and also on the Arboretum, added to the system in 1882 near Franklin Park, the centerpiece “pleasure ground.” Construction of the parkways to connect the parks began in 1890. Like the other new parks, they were designed by noted ­landscape designer Frederick Law Olmsted. Together with the Common and the Public Garden, and connected to them by Commonwealth Avenue (see Plates 16 and 23), these parks and parkways form a chain of parkland around the city now known as the Emerald Necklace. Meanwhile, in 1891 the park department began to add more parks. Some, like those in Charlestown and the North End, were to provide parks in sections of the city that had not originally received them. Franklin Field was to provide space for large open-air MALDE N meetings, parades, and athletic events Olmsted thought unsuitable for Franklin Park. But most of the new parks were playgrounds, added as part of a national movement that tried to improve the morals of the urban poor through organized activities and to R E V and E R youth E provide spaces other than streets for children to play. By 1912, the year Hyde ­ b oundaries, Boston had established Park was annexed and the city reached its present EVERETT about forty playgrounds throughout the city.

CHELSEA

SOMERVILLE

CAMBRIDGE

Charles River Reservation

Brighton

Ch

Dummy Field

Paris St.

North End Beach

Muddy R

Chestnut Hill Park

NEWTON

BROOKLINE

Back Bay Fens

Charles River Reservation . es R arl Commonwealth Ave.

Boston Harbor

State House Park Common Public Garden

Apple I.

Governors Island

Tyler St.

.

Carolina Ave. Parkinson Arboretum

Savin Hill Mt. Ida

Franklin Park

Arborway

Castle Island

Spectacle I.

Thompson’s I.

Savin Hill Park

Arborway

Dorchester Bay

Christopher Gibson

Dorchester

We s t R o x b u r y

Ch

ar

es

Cottage St.

W. Third St. Commonwealth Fenway Randolph St. Blackstone First St. S outh Square Franklin W. Fifth St. Riverway Columbus Marine Square Ave. Madison Independence Park B oston Square Ward 19 Square Telegraph Fellows St. Hill Park Parker Orchard Hill Strandway Strandway R o x b u r y Park Highland William Old Harbor Park Eustis Marcella St. Washington Jamaicaway Park John Fountain Winthrop Square Jamaica Pond Columbia Road

Chestnut Hill Reservoir

Brookline Waterworks Land

Wood Island Park

Copp’s Hill Terrace Prince St. Charlesbank

North Brighton

Rogers Park Commonwealth Ave.

WINTHROP

Bunker Hill Monument

Rutherford Ave.

Charles River Reservation

East Boston

C h a r l e st own

WAT E RT OW N

Portsmouth St.

Orient Heights

Mystic R. Charlestown Charlestown Heights Mystic

Fresh Pond

Franklin Field

Forest Hills

Ashmont

Neponset

Roslindale West Roxbury Parkway Billings Field

Quincy Bay Dorchester Park

Norfolk St.

l

R.

Neponset River Reservation

Hyde Park Stony Brook Reservation

et R. ons Nep

QUINCY

Boston Park System, 1912 Emerald Necklace Park Original parks and parkways

Factory Hill

0

1/2

1 mile

Parkways

Bk

Playgrounds

.

DEDHAM

M

r othe

Neponset River Reservation

M I LT O N

Other Boston parks Metropolitan reservations within Boston

86  P L A T E 3 0 · S E C T I O N V I I : M E T R O P O L I T A N B O S T O N

WESTWOOD

BRAINTREE

SALEM

Plate 30

WAKEFIELD

STONEHAM

WOBURN

LEXINGTON

SWAMPSCOTT

LYNN

SAUGUS

Lynn Fells Parkway

King's Beach Reservation Lynn Shore Drive

MELROSE

Middlesex Fells Reservation

WINCHESTER

MARBLEHEAD

Lynnway

MEDFORD

Alewife Brook Parkway

WALTHAM Beaver Brook Reservation

BELMONT

Revere Beach Reservation

REVERE

Mystic R . Mystic River Reservation

Fellsway EVERETT Revere Beach Parkway

Winthrop Parkway

CHELSEA

Fellsway

Little River

NAHANT

Fellsway Fellsway MALDEN East West

Mystic Valley Parkway

ARLINGTON

Nahant Beach Parkway

SOMERVILLE Winthrop Shore

Ch arl e

WINTHROP Reservation

Pond WATERTOWN Fresh Parkway

CAMBRIDGE

Charles River Reservation

s R.

es R arl Ch

Charles River Reservation

NEWTON

BOSTON BAY

.

Charles River Reservation

Boston Harbor

BROOKLINE Old Harbor

WELLESLEY

Hemlock Gorge Reservation

Dorchester Bay

NEEDHAM Havey Beach

DEDHAM

SHERBORN

WESTWOOD

Stony Brook Reservation

R. onset Nep

Neponset River Parkway

MILTON Blue Hills Parkway

Quincy Shore Reservation

Neponset River Reservation

1/2

2 miles

QUINCY

WEYMOUTH

Neponset River Reservation

NORWOOD

D

HINGHAM

Blue Hills Reservation

CANTON

METROPOLITAN PARK SYSTEM, 1893–1919 WALPOLE

Nantasket Beach Reservation

Furnace Brook Parkway

BRAINTREE 0

HULL

Quincy Bay

Cutler Park

Metropolitan Park System, 1919 Reservations and parkways

RANDOLPH

KARL HAGLUND

uring the 1860s Boston park debates, advocates proposed a series of large parks and carriageways extending beyond the city limits, to be acquired by a regional authority. The Metropolitan Park Commission (MPC), the nation’s first STOUGHTON regional park system, was finally authorized in 1893, largely through the efforts of landscape architect Charles Eliot and journalist Sylvester Baxter. Eliot, who had apprenticed in the Olmsted office during the planning of the Boston parks, in 1893 wrote a letter to the governor asking that a plan be drawn up for metropolitan “reservations of scenery.” Three months later, Baxter wrote a series of articles in the Boston Herald promoting regional government for what he called “Greater Boston,” beginning with a system of parks. The legislature authorized a temporary park commission, and Eliot and Baxter wrote a report proposing a new vision for the city that would set aside “the rock hills, the stream banks, and the bay and the sea shores”—the region’s natural paths, edges, and landmarks. Though Massachusetts was still recovering from the depression of 1893, the legislature authorized $3,500,000 in bonds and appropriations that the Metropolitan Park Commission used to acquire over 9,000 acres in six years. The largest of the early

reservations were the Blue Hills (over 4,000 acres) and the Middlesex Fells (1,800 acres) south and north of Boston. Also acquired were Muddy Pond Woods (later Stony Brook ROCKLAND HOLBROOK AVON Reservation, 475 acres) in theABINGTON city; over 900 acres along the Neponset River, the southHANOVER ern boundary of the city; and almost 600 acres along the Charles River. The MPC built the Blue Hills and Middlesex Fells Parkways to connect Boston residents to the large forest reservations north and south of the city proper as well as other parkways to seashore parks. The most dramatic transformation was along the lower Charles. In 1873 the new state board of health had designated the lower Charles tidal estuary the most polluted and dangerous hazard in Massachusetts. Thirty years later, after a series of reports, the state agreed to construct an earthen dam across the river to create a freshwater basin that would permanently cover the polluted flats and create a “water park.” As part of the project, a narrow margin of flats was filled between the Cambridge (later Longfellow) Bridge and Charlesgate, the first phase of the present Esplanade. In 1919, the Metropolitan Park Commission merged with the Metropolitan Water and Sewerage Board to become the Metropolitan District Commission. P L A T E 3 0 · S E C T I O N V I I : M E T R O P O L I T A N B O S T O N   87

Section VIII

­ oston in the Late B 1800s/Early 1900s

Introduction

B

oston’s economy hollowed out in the era between 1880 and 1920. The nation’s second busiest port in 1900, Boston had fallen to sixth place by 1920. Industries were consolidating: larger competitors forced out or bought up Boston’s iron manufacturers; New England’s shoe and textile makers left in pursuit of less expensive labor; radio devastated the piano industry; and prohibition of alcohol shut down Boston’s breweries. Capital accumulated earlier in the China trade and the textile industry and invested in railroads, mines, and other industries kept Boston a banking and financial center. But with no underlying economic base, Boston began a long decline. Building a new urban infrastructure—­subway and elevated train lines, gas lines, and electrical generating plants—­provided work. Unaware of their city’s decline, Bostonians busily created art and cultural centers (see Plate 35)—­Mechanics Hall (1881), the Boston Public Library (1895), two Museums of Fine Arts (first at Copley Square in 1876, then on Huntington Avenue in 1909), Symphony Hall (1900), Jordan Hall (1903), an Opera House (1909), and Horticultural Hall (1901). Isabella Stewart Gardner opened her Venetian palace, Fenway Court, on New Year’s Day 1903, stocked with masterpieces of European art. Asked what was Boston’s most remarkable feature, an English visitor replied, “The Women!” The Civil War increased New England’s gender imbalance, which had long been the only region in the country where women outnumbered men. Boston women were central to its society and culture (see Plate 36). At a time when most men did not advance beyond sixth grade, Boston had the nation’s first Girls’ High School (1852) and a Girls’ Latin School (1878). Some of Boston’s educated women became teachers; others became doctors or nurses, opening the New England Hospital for Women and Children (1862), New England’s first hospital staffed entirely by women, and the nation’s first school to train nurses (1872). Women could vote for Boston’s School Committee (though not other offices) after 1879. Women also ran settlement houses to help new immigrants acculturate. Charity work was essential in a crowded city

with a declining economic base, but the women philanthropists offered more than palliative care. Women taught trades, home economics, art, literature, music, and crafts (see Plates 36 and 37)—­social and economic benefits to immigrants who continued to arrive in the port city. Lina Hecht opened the Hebrew Industrial School to teach immigrant Jewish women needlework as well as cooking. At the Boston Cooking School, Fannie Merritt Farmer introduced science to the preparation of healthier food. Ellen Swallow Richards, the first woman to study at MIT and the first to teach at MIT, pioneered the study of clean water as essential to urban health. Sports also offered recreational outlets and community ties. New sports, or new adaptations of old sports, increased in popularity in these years (see Plate 32). Bostonians built tracks and playing fields, arenas and stadiums. The Longwood Cricket Club, founded near Longwood Avenue in 1877 (it moved to Brookline in 1922), shifted to tennis and hosted the first Davis Cup championship in 1900. Built for horseback riding in 1882, the Country Club in Brookline hosted the first U.S. Open Golf Tournament in 1895. The next year the country’s second public golf course opened in Franklin Park, the Readville Trotting Park opened for horse races, and South Boston’s James Brendan Connolly won the first event (the hop, skip, and jump, now called the triple jump) in the first modern Olympics in Athens. The Olympics popularized running, and in 1897 a New York running club visited on Patriots’ Day to run from Ashland to Boston—­the first Boston Marathon. Boston had a series of baseball teams in this era of volatile teams and leagues. First were the Boston Nationals, later the Boston Reds or Red Stockings. Player Harry Wright, who had grown up playing cricket, brought these Cincinnati-­ based barnstormers, including his brother George, another former cricketer and one of baseball’s greatest stars, to Boston. The Nationals won every league championship from 1872 to 1875, when the league folded. George Wright opened a sporting goods business that helped to popularize tennis, and, after a trip to Scotland, created a private golf course in Boston in 1890—­one of the first golf courses in the United States. Sports proved a way to overcome ethnic

divides, as Bostonians of all ethnicities cheered on champions. South Boston’s Casey brothers became champion rowers, and Harvard’s collegiate crew hired Jeremiah Casey, the son of Irish immigrants, as their coach in 1897. During and after his ten years as the heavyweight boxing champion, John L. Sullivan became a Boston legend. Sullivan attributed the financial panic and depression of 1893 to his losing the title in 1892, since he no longer could share largesse with his fans. Long after retiring, Sullivan greeted young fighters at the Boston Arena (1910), now the oldest hockey arena in the country. Boston was building sports palaces (see Plate 32)—­the South End Grounds (1871) for the Nationals and later the Braves, the Congress Street Grounds for another version of the Boston Reds (1890–­91), Charles River Park’s Velodrome (1896) for bike races, and the Huntington Avenue Grounds for the Boston Americans (now the Red Sox) in 1901 (where the Americans won the first World Series in 1903), replaced by Fenway Park (1912) and Braves Field (1915). Just a month after the Americans won the first World Series in 1903, Harvard opened its new stadium. Designed by McKim, Mead & White, who also designed the Boston Public Library, Harvard Stadium was the world’s largest reinforced concrete building. Henry Lee Higginson had donated thirty-­one acres of land to Harvard to build playing fields, asking only that the stadium be called Soldiers Field in memory of five classmates who had gone to war in 1861, but, unlike Higginson, had not returned. Higginson endowed Soldiers Field for football, then a violent sport; he also was the primary sponsor of the new Boston Symphony Orchestra, which opened their new Music Hall (designed by Charles Follen McKim)—­now Symphony Hall—­in 1900. As Boston’s economy faded, Bostonians created cultural institutions for sports, music, and the arts that would sustain the city during the long years of decline. These institutions, along with the colleges and hospitals and the educated citizenry who joined in cheering on the teams and the orchestras, would be essential to Boston’s renaissance later in the 1900s. Robert J. Allison

S E C T I O N V I I I . B O S T O N I N T H E L A T E 1 8 0 0 S / E A R L Y 1 9 0 0 S   91

Boston’s Economy, 1905

RICHARD GARVER

B

y 1900 the United States was an industrial powerhouse. Manufacturing, once centered in the Northeast, spread west as far as St. Louis. Three converging trends concentrated manufacturing in cities: the development of steam technology that powered urban factories; the consolidation of railroads into national trunk lines that supplied the factories with coal and raw materials and carried the goods produced to national markets; and pools of urban labor produced by unprecedented levels of immigration. Facilitated by New York financiers, a merger movement transformed local manufacturers into major industrial corporations. Work conditions provoked widespread labor unrest. Boston was at the fringes of these developments. As the metropolitan center of a distinctive regional industrial economy heavily reliant on rural waterpower, its role differed from other major cities. Rather than concentrating in Boston, New England’s leading industries, which dominated national textile and footwear markets, were dispersed in secondary cities. Railroads linking them to Boston had been consolidated into three systems, but had weak connections to national trunk lines. With lower immigration levels than New York and other cities, Boston had fewer exploitable workers. Many of them gravitated to regional textile and shoe factories. As a result, Boston had a lower percentage of its region’s manufacturing output than any other major American city. Instead, its economy was dominated by its role as the regional manufacturers’ source of raw materials, sales, business services, and finance. With New England woolen production at its peak, Boston’s wool district was the country’s wool exchange. Its leather district was second only to London in the world leather market. Boston’s wholesalers distributed finished goods via ship and rail to buyers across the country. Industrial mergers like the United Shoe Manufacturing Corporation located headquarters in Boston but manufactured in its hinterland. New York eclipsed Boston as a financial center. Boston firms like Kidder, Peabody and Lee, Higginson allied with New York financiers to transfer Boston wealth from New England mills to investment opportunities in the West. U.S. global ambitions revitalized the Charlestown Navy Yard.

Atlantic Avenue, c. 1900 This photo was taken from the smokestack of the Lincoln Power Station (now Lincoln Wharf Condos, 357 Commercial St.). At the lower left, Atlantic Avenue intersects the curve of Commercial Street. Trolleys and the Union Freight Railroad link recently opened Union and South Stations. To the left of Commercial Street, food district buildings include the massive Quincy Market Cold Storage Warehouse. The North End, its residents’ laundry hanging out to dry, is to its right.

While Boston wholesaling was concentrated in particular areas, manufacturing existed in all but elite residential areas. Boston’s most important manufactured products continued to be those that were prominent in the mid1800s (see Plate 22). In dollar terms, printing and publishing were first. Second were men’s and women’s clothing. Garment making, the city’s largest employer in 1880, had been driven from downtown workshops into North End and West End sweatshops by the expansion of the

wholesale district. With higher labor costs than New York’s, this industry declined dramatically. The next most valuable products were tools and machines, distilled liquor, and confectionary goods, followed by boots, shoes, and leather stock. Across the Charles River in Cambridge, established industries like printing, confections, furniture, and soap, some with headquarters and sales in Boston, expanded and consolidated, while new ones like Simplex electrical cable appeared.

NOTABLE BUSINESSES AND INDUSTRIES, 1905 DISTRICTS AND REPRESENTATIVE BUSINESSES AND INDUSTRIES Leather dealers Wool dealers Furniture dealers 1 Paine Furniture Co. Retail 2 Chickering Piano 3 Filene’s 4 Gilchrist’s 5 Jordan Marsh 6 Mason & Hamlin Co. 7 R. H. Stearns 8 Steinert Piano 9 Wood Piano Co. Food wholesaling 10 Clinton Market 11 Mercantile Market 12 Quincy Market 13 Quincy Market Cold Storage Brewing 14 American Brewing Co. 15 Burckhardt Brewery 16 Haffenreffer Brewery 17 Highland Spring Brewery 18 Pfaff Brewery 19 Roessle Brewery Charlestown Navy Yard Railroad land

Packing Wool, 1909 Raw wool arrived in the wool district by rail and ship, where it was graded, sorted, packed, and sold by wholesalers.

INDUSTRIES/MANUFACTURERSBOSTON Sugar refining 20 American Sugar Refining Co. (Domino) 21 Boston Sugar Refinery

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Foundries/machine shops/boilers 22 Atlantic Works 23 Hunt-Spiller Mfg Co. 24 Walworth Mfg Co. Industrial products 25 B. F. Sturtevant Co. 26 Knowles Steam Printing and publishing 27 Beacon Press 28 Forbes Lithographic Mfg Co. 29 Ginn & Co. 30 Harvard Press 31 Houghton Mifflin Co. 32 L. C. Page Co. 33 Little, Brown & Co. 34 The University Press 35 Ticknor Press Food 36 +Armour & Co. 37 Baker Chocolate Co. 38 Chase & Sanborn Co. 39 H. P. Hood & Sons 40 Moxie 41 +Necco 42 Schraft Co. 43 +Swift & Co. Clothing 44 Macullar-Parker & Williams 45 Miner, Beale & Hachett 46 Morse & Leopold Co. Other industries 47 American Can Co. 48 +Edison Electric Illuminating Co. 49 +General Electric Co. 50 Gillette Safety Razor Co. 51 +United Shoe Co. 52 +Westinghouse Electric & Mfg. Co.

Other businesses 53 +American Telephone & Telegraph Co. 54 +New England Telephone & Telegraph Co. 55 Boston Stock Exchange 56 Kidder, Peabody, bankers 57 Lee, Higginson, brokers 58 United Fruit Co. INDUSTRIES/MANUFACTURERSCAMBRIDGE Machinery and boilers 59 Barbour-Stockwell Foundry 60 Edwin Kendall & Sons 61 Rawson & Morrison Mfg. Co. Confections 62 B. P. Clark & Co. 63 George Close Co. 64 Squirrel Brand Salted Nuts Musical instruments 65 Mason & Hamlin Co. 66 Samuel Hamill Furniture 67 A. B. & E. L. Shaw 68 Irving & Casson/A. H. Davenport 69 Keely & Co. Printing and binding 70 Athenaeum Press Other industries 71 American Rubber Co. 72 Boston Woven Hose & Rubber Co. 73 George G. Page Box Co. 74 John P. Squire & Co. (meatpacking) 75 +Lever Bros. 76 +Nabisco 77 +Revere Sugar 78 Simplex Wire & Cable Co. + Consolidated Corporations

Boston & Maine R.R.

& N WATERTOWN

for detail, see map above

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Boston’s Most Valuable Products, 1905 WINTHROP Printing and publishing periodicals Men's clothing Foundry and machine shops

Liquor, malts

Jamaica Plain

Confectionary Women's clothing Boots and shoes

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Printing and publishing books and job lots

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Sports and Recreation, 1895–1903

I

n 1858 Brahmin rowing enthusiast Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. deplored that if a gentleman could run around Boston Common in five minutes society would shun him. Fueled by prizes and gambling, sports were considered a working class activity. By the 1880s, however, as amateur movements distinguished recreational athletes from professionals, athletic associations proliferated. Sports permeated Boston. Its athletes were the core of the United States team in the first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896. Responding to the enthusiasm generated by the games, the Boston Athletic Association (BAA) organized a marathon in 1897. Working men’s sporting activity centered in neighborhood organizations. Attesting to rowing’s popularity, there were some fifteen rowing clubs, most working class. East Boston’s Frank Greer was 1903 national amateur sculling champion. Other neighborhood associations competed in boxing, track, and other sports. Catholic organizations such as the Mission Church’s St. Alphonsus Association and St. Joseph’s in the West End built athletic facilities to attract male parishioners, while Unitarians and Congregationalists formed competing young men’s associations. There was a mass mania for bicycling. Clubs organized excursions throughout the region. Upper class sporting activity had a British cast. The Longwood Cricket Club added lawn tennis. The Tennis and Racquet Club formed in 1902 to offer “real tennis,” racquets, and squash because the BAA was insufficiently exclusive. Golf expanded rapidly. Colleges, which earlier had discouraged sports as disreputable, rowed, played football, hockey, and

RICHARD GARVER

basketball, and ran track. Harvard’s revolutionary reinforced concrete football stadium opened in 1903. City leaders now saw athletic activity as conducive to health and a civilizing, Americanizing influence on immigrants. Opened in 1889, Charlesbank Park in the West End (see Plate 30) was the country’s first recreational facility for lower classes, while shortly afterward a municipal indoor gymnasium opened in East Boston. The city built public beaches and bathhouses. Schoolboy sports, such as rowing and football, were highly popular. Public facilities were also built for wealthier citizens. The Emerald Necklace (see Plate 30) contained bridle paths. Members of driving clubs put their trotters through their paces at the Charles River Speedway. Franklin Park contained tennis courts and a golf course. Meanwhile Bostonians, stimulated by newspaper coverage and betting, were the country’s most enthusiastic fans of the professionals, particularly scullers, boxers, and baseball players. Promoters presented boxing and wrestling matches at venues like the Music Hall. Spectators flocked to the Charles River Park velodrome to see racers compete in accident-filled events from mile sprints to six-day races. Boston was professional baseball’s strongest town. Its Beaneaters (eventually the Braves) dominated the brawling National League. In 1900, a baseball entrepreneur formed an upstart association, the more orderly American League. Its Boston franchise, later the Red Sox, opened its Huntington Avenue stadium in 1901 and won the first World Series there in 1903.

Charles River Speedway This 1902 photograph shows spectators gathered to watch the annual Speedway parade. The mile-long course opened in 1899 as a track for individuals and driving clubs to exercise and race light horse-drawn vehicles, such as runabouts and surreys, as well as for bicycling.

Boston Athletic Association Founded in 1887, the BAA opened its clubhouse in December 1888. It contained a basement swimming pool and baths; a mezzanine bowling alley, barber shop and storage for bicycles; second floor dining room, library, and billiard room; a third floor gymnasium and track; and a court tennis court on the top floor. The BAA also owned a nearby 220-yard outdoor track on Irvington Street, and a suburban country club, and built a boathouse behind Brimmer Street next to Union Boat Club.

Huntington Avenue and South End Grounds In 1901, Boston’s new American League team, the Americans, opened the Huntington Avenue Grounds (foreground), with a capacity of 11,500, just across railroad tracks from the National League’s Boston Beaneaters’ South End Grounds. The Americans hosted the first World Series in 1903. The Beaneaters’ double-decked stadium had burned down in 1894 during a fan riot provoked by conflict with the Baltimore Orioles, destroying surrounding buildings in what became known as the Great Roxbury Fire. After temporarily relocating to South Boston’s Congress Street Grounds, the Beaneaters moved into their new stadium, whose canopy is visible in the background, in 1903.

Rowing Clubs An 1895 illustration from the Boston Globe shows the boathouses of leading rowing clubs.

94  P L A T E 3 2 · S E C T I O N V I I I : B O S T O N I N T H E L A T E 1 8 0 0 s / E A R L Y 1 9 0 0 s

Plate 32

CHELSEA Mys tic

SOMERVILLE

Fresh Pond

Dewey Beach

CAMBRIDGE

Charlestown Wheelmen

Newell Boathouse

Professional venues Private facilities

Charles River Speedway

Trotting/sleighing tracks Public parks and playgrounds

Riverside Boat Club

Brighton

Sports Clubs/Locations Bathing (swimming) Bicycling

St. Joseph's Boat Club

Cambridgeport Cycle Club

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Golf

e arl

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West Boston Bridge

.

Tennis and Racquet Club

Rowing clubs

Mechanics Hall (track)

Sailing

Wood Island Park

Warren Bridge

North End Beach

Columbian Rowing Assn. Maverick St. Jeffries Yacht Club

Jeffries Point Rowing Assn.

The Music Hall Boston Harbor (boxing, Boston Yacht wrestling) Club (1 of 3 sites) YMCU (Young Men's Christian Union)

Congress St. (Massachusetts) Institute Grounds of Technology Gymnasium Central Boat Club Boston Athletic Assn. Dover St. Bridge Shawmut Rowing Assn.

BELMONT

Longwood Cricket Club

CHELSEA SOMERVILLE

East Boston WINTHROP

Charlestown

Cottage Park Yacht Club

CAMBRIDGE

The Huntington Ave. Grounds

St. Alphonsus Assn.

Winthrop Yacht Club

Old Harbor

The Country Club

Dorchester

Dorchester Gentlemen's Driving Club

Dorchester Bay

Neponset Beach

Metropolitan Wheelmen

for detail, see map at right

South Boston Yacht Club Boston Yacht Club (1 of 3 sites)

Old Harbor

Savin Hill Yacht Club

QUINCY

Dorchester Bay

Franklin Park Franklin Park

0

Marine Park

Old Colony Yacht Club Savin Hill Beach

Quincy Bay

DEDHAM

New England Breeders Assn. Trotting Park

Columbia Yacht Club

South Boston (women’s) South Boston (men’s)

Orchard Park

Hyde Park

MILTON

Mosquito Fleet Yacht Club

Roxbury

South Boston Roxbury

South Boston

The South End Grounds

Roxbury Bicycle Club Elm Cycle Club

Boston Harbor

Brighton

BROOKLINE

BAA boathouse

YMCA

Tennis and squash

WATERTOWN

Charlesbank Park

Union Boat Club

Massachusetts Bicycle Club

St. Alphonsus Assn. boathouse

General athletic clubs

East Boston Gym Sectional Dock

Craigie's Bridge

Captain's Island Beach Bradford Boat Club

Allston Golf Club

Bunker Hill Yacht Club

West End Boat Club

Charles River Park

Ea st Bo st o n

East Boston Athletic Assn. Boat Club

Henley Boat Club

Cambridge Casino and Rowing Club Soldiers Field/ Harvard Stadium

Public facilities

Spring St.

Charlestown Cycle Club

Harvard Rowing Club

College facilities

West Roxbury

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Sports Venues

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Dorchester Yacht Club

Boston Yacht Club (1 of 3 sites) Commercial Point

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Dorchester Gentlemen's Driving Club

Charles River Park

Cambridgeport Cycle Club

This velodrome, or bicycle racing track, constructed on a twenty-acre site in 1896 at the height of the region’s bicycle craze, was one of the region’s premier sporting facilities. With a concrete oval track, lighting for nighttime competitions, and changing rooms that could accommodate up to 150 competitors, it attracted overflow crowds of 16,000. In 1898 the track was the site of an automobile speed and hill-climbing trial at which a Stanley Steamer set an unofficial world speed record of 27 miles an hour. The track remained in operation at least until 1905, but was subsequently sold for industrial uses, becoming the site of the NECCO Candy factory, now occupied by the Novartis Institute.

This 1899 photo shows the members of the Cambridgeport Cycle Club, one of many town-based bicycle clubs, assembled in front of its clubhouse. It was located on Main Street near Charles River Park and a concentration of bicycle shops, including the Waltham Manufacturing Company, maker of top racing bikes.

P L A T E 3 2 · S E C T I O N V I I I : B O S T O N I N T H E L A T E 1 8 0 0 s / E A R L Y 1 9 0 0 s   95

Scollay Square, 1880s–1963

REBEKAH BRYER

I

and 1963 to make way for Government Center (see Plate 47). Scollay Square’s role in Boston was supplanted by the “Combat Zone” on Washington Street between Kneeland and Essex Streets. All that is left of vibrant Scollay Square today is a replica of the brass teakettle, which hangs in front of the Starbucks Coffee at the intersection of Court and Cambridge Streets.

Cha rle

sR ive

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t was once said that there was “always something doing” in Scollay Square. Centered in the heart of downtown Boston at the junction of Tremont and Court Streets, Scollay Square underwent significant changes over the course of its history. Scollay Square got its name from a brick building at the intersection of Tremont and Court Streets, which was purchased in 1795 by William Scollay and became known as Scollay’s Building. In 1838 the city designated the entire intersection, or square, Scollay Square. First known as a center of commerce and abolitionist activity due to the nearby office of William Lloyd Garrison (see Plate 19), Scollay Square also later hosted inventors like Samuel Morse, Alexander Graham Bell, and Thomas Edison. From the 1880s onward, however, the biggest draw was the burlesque and vaudeville theatres that thrived in Scollay Square. Of these, the Old Howard was the best known. Built in the 1840s as a tabernacle for a briefly popular religious sect, the Howard Athenaeum was originally a legitimate theatre (see Plate 34), but by the 1880s had become a venue for burlesque and vaudeville entertainment. In the early to mid-1900s vaudevillians like the Marx Brothers and burlesque and striptease stars graced the boards of the Old Howard. Other popular locations were the vaudeville houses Olympia and Star Theatres and the Crawford House, a hotel with several restaurants and nightclubs. Scollay Square’s burlesque theatres and taverns also attracted illicit activities, such as bootlegging during Prohibition and prostitution. These activities brought the condemnation of the Watch and Ward Society, an organization determined to uphold high morals in Boston, as well as of some Boston mayors like James Curley. Visitors to Scollay Square also knew it as a North place both to get great hot dogs at Joe and End West Nemo’s, which operated from 1909 to 1963, End and to see a giant brass teakettle, installed on area of Beacon maps below Court Street in 1875 by the Oriental Tea Hill Company as a symbol of their prosperity. During World War II sailors flocked to the Boston Common Public square for entertainment. Back Garden Bay Scollay Square declined in the postwar years: the Old Howard closed in 1953, and the square itself was demolished between 1960 South

Scollay Square, c. 1942 Scollay Square experienced a resurgence during World War II due to the number of visiting sailors looking for entertainment while on leave in Boston. This photo was taken looking northwest along what is now Cambridge Street; the Scollay Square subway station is in the foreground and the site of the present curved façade of 1-2-3 Center Plaza is at the left.

Boston

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96  P L A T E 3 3 · S E C T I O N V I I I : B O S T O N I N T H E L A T E 1 8 0 0 s / E A R L Y 1 9 0 0 s

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Plate 33

The Old Howard, c. 1890–1910

Sally Keith

The Old Howard was a popular performance venue in Scollay Square, bringing famous acts like the Marx Brothers and Abbott and Costello to Boston.

One of the best known Scollay Square performers was Sally Keith, who played in a nightclub at the Crawford House. She was famous for her tassel dance in which she wore four strategically placed tassels—two are shown in the photo—that she rotated in different directions.

Demolition of Scollay Square Area, 1962

Teakettle

In 1962 the Scollay Square area was being demolished. Part of what is now City Hall Plaza, at the bottom of the photo, had already been cleared as had most of the area along Cambridge Street where Center Plaza now stands. Buildings that still exist include the John Adams Courthouse and adjacent tall Suffolk Superior Courthouse and, at the lower left, the curved Sears Crescent and Sears Block, where the teakettle now hangs.

A giant brass teakettle was installed in 1875 by the Oriental Tea Company as a symbol of their prosperity (see 1917 map). A replica now hangs near City Hall (background) on the Sears Block building at the corner of Cambridge and Court Streets (see 2017 map).

P L A T E 3 3 · S E C T I O N V I I I : B O S T O N I N T H E L A T E 1 8 0 0 s / E A R L Y 1 9 0 0 s   97

Theatrical Boston, 1880s–1930s

M I C H E L L E G R A N S H AW

Boston Museum, Exterior

Boston Museum, Interior

One of the city’s most important and respected theatres, the Boston Museum featured curiosities in addition to theatrical performances, lectures, and concerts. It developed a celebrated stock company that included stars like William Warren (the younger).

Advertising his shows as educational and moral, Moses Kimball, the old Boston Museum’s manager in the 1840s, helped establish a new idea of theatrical ­respectability that attracted more middle class audience members to the theatre. The new Boston Museum, shown here, would continue to appeal to the city’s more respectable classes.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin Poster Promising audiences a larger spectacle than previous Uncle Tom companies, C. H. Smith’s Double Mammoth Uncle Tom’s Cabin visited Boston in 1882. In the second half of the 1800s, Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Tom shows were among the most popular entertainments in the United States.

D

uring the early 1800s Boston theatrical culture flourished in spite of Puritanical opposition. A short walk from the business district, Boston’s theatres centered around Tremont and Boylston Streets. By midcentury, the Boston Theatre as well as the Boston Museum and Howard Athenaeum near Scollay Square played prominent roles in Boston’s entertainment scene. In antebellum Boston, legitimate theatres operated resident stock companies that performed in repertory. After the Civil War, the dominant business model changed with the expansion of the nation’s railroads. Combination companies developed and toured popular New York productions, which attracted Boston audiences who wanted to see the latest hits. The increase in touring companies created a need for more theatres to accommodate visiting performers. The large influx of immigrants in the mid- to late 1800s provided a growing audience for Boston theatre. In his dime museums and variety houses, Boston theatrical manager B. F. Keith appealed to this audience and helped turn vaudeville into a national phenomenon. After the launch of Keith and E. F. Albee’s national vaudeville circuit in 1890, the popularity and profitability of vaudeville led to an explosion of new Boston performance venues. Other changes in American theatre were also pioneered in Boston. In 1882, Thomas Edison helped install the first electric stage lighting in the United States at the Bijou Theatre on Washington Street. The Broadway tryout system started with a production of Charles H. Hoyt’s A Trip to Chinatown at the Boston Theatre in 1891. The tryout system helped attract audiences back to Boston’s declining legitimate theatre. Throughout these years, amateur organizations such as the Watch and Ward Society, founded in 1878, tried to censor productions. In  1904, the Massachusetts State Legislature gave city mayors the power to censor theatre. The frequency of the city’s censures, which included banned productions and closed theatres, led to the phrase “Banned in Boston.” In the first few decades of the 1900s centralized booking organizations, such as the Theatrical Syndicate and the Shubert Organization, competed to control Boston theatres. Vaudeville began to decline as cinema and burlesque drew theatre audiences away. Many theatres converted into movie palaces and burlesque halls. The Great Depression further halted the expansion of Boston theatre. The Federal Theatre Project, part of the Works Projects Administration, helped put Boston theatre artists back to work between 1935 and 1939, but it failed to rejuvenate the local theatre scene. With a few exceptions like the Boston Negro Theatre and Brattle Theatre Company, local Boston theatre struggled and the New York tryout system dominated until the 1970s.

Bijou Theatre An 1884 program cover depicted the Bijou Theatre’s interior and the novelty of its electric lighting.

Castle Square Theatre As Boston’s theatre industry grew, it expanded into the South End with several new playhouses, including the Castle Square Theatre. 98  P L A T E 3 4 · S E C T I O N V I I I : B O S T O N I N T H E L A T E 1 8 0 0 s / E A R L Y 1 9 0 0 s

BOWDOIN ST

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Boston Theatre (second location) (1854–1925) Gaiety Theatre (1878–1882) Bijou Theatre (1882–1952) B.F. Keith’s New Theatre (1894–1952)

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A Trip to Chinatown Songbook Cover A Trip to Chinatown started the Broadway tryout system in Boston. The show launched several musical hits, including “After the Ball.”

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Theatre building still standing

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Vaudeville Program from B. F. Keith’s Theatre

Formerly known as the Toy Theatre, the Copley Theatre and its productions helped establish Boston’s Little Theatre Movement in the first decades of the 1900s.

Vaudeville featured a range of acts, including animal tricks, jugglers, ventriloquists, singers, comedians, short films, and, toward the end of bill, a star performer.

Haiti, Boston Federal Theatre Project Poster Featuring the New York cast, William Du Bois’s Haiti premiered at the Copley Theatre in 1938.

Costume Sketch of Macbeth This sketch depicts Macbeth’s costume in the Boston Federal Theatre Project’s Macbeth at the Copley Theatre. Directed by Eliot Duvey, the show ran January 31–March 4, 1939.

P L A T E 3 4 · S E C T I O N V I I I : B O S T O N I N T H E L A T E 1 8 0 0 s / E A R L Y 1 9 0 0 s   99

Cultural Boston, 1780–1915

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tarting after the Revolution and continuIRVING ST. 6th AAAS, ing throughout the 1800s, Boston spawned A 1981–present (modern) EVERETT S libraries, museums, and halls for cultural T. CAMBRIDGE events and performances. Their locations helped shape the city’s growth—often following or anticipating shifts in what were perceived as the most fashionable and prestigious residential districts. Harvard Cambridge . D ST BR A Common In addition, government officials and real estate LAN TTL University KIRK E developers enhanced the desirability of their ST . CAMBR own projects by donating space and land for culIDGE S T. MT. AUBU A Harvard Hall, Harvard College RN S tural institutions. T. 1st AAAS, 1780–1840 Ch When architect Charles Bulfinch developed the ar BR le OA residential Tontine Crescent in 1796, he donated DW AY rooms for the Massachusetts Historical Society and the Boston Library. Next door was the Bulfinchdesigned Boston Theatre (see Plate 13); collectively these buildings constituted Boston’s first cultural AV TEWKSBURY NORTH READING E. 0 500 1,000 feet center. (The American Academy of Arts and DANVERS BEVERLY Base map from 1910 sources BILLERICA Sciences, founded earlier in 1780, remained quarWILMINGTON LYNNFIELD READING tered for decades at Harvard University.) SOUTH DANVERS Cambridge CARLISLE From the early to mid-1800s, the center of MARBLEHEAD WOBURN WAKEFIELD SALEM BURLINGTON STONEHAM gravity shifted to the Common, which was transACTON BEDFORD CONCORD formed into an urban park ringed by mansions, SWAMPSCOTT SAUGUS LYNN churches, and civic buildings including the Public WINCHESTER MELROSE LEXINGTON Library, Horticultural Hall, Mechanics Hall, and NAHANT MALDEN ARLINGTON MEDFORD REVERE the Music Hall. The only survivor from this era isLINCOLN EVERETT the Athenaeum, which chose to grow upSUDBURY rather BELMONT CHELSEA SOMERVILLE WALTHAM than to move out, as did the other institutions. WINTHROP Cambridge WAYLAND WATERTOWN During the Civil War and its aftermath, Boston Boston’s historic core evolved into a homogeneous WESTON NEWTON commercial “downtown,” making the new Back FRAMINGHAM BROOKLINE WELLESLEY Bay district appear more attractive for cultural BOSTON HULL NATICK institutions. The state legislature donated land NEEDHAM there for the Museum of Natural History, MIT, MILTON HINGHAM DEDHAM QUINCY DOVER and the Public Library, and required a land donaWEYMOUTH SHERBORN tion for a Museum of Fine Arts building (see Plate WESTWOOD BRAINTREE 23). As with the Tontine Crescent, the inclusion of CANTON MEDFIELD RANDOLPH cultural institutions lent prestige to an ambitious residential development. These buildings were not placed on the ceremonial axis of Com­ B 7th MHS, 1899–present* monwealth Avenue, as would have occurred in a A 4th AAAS, 1899–1912 European city plan; in characteristically American 0 2 4 miles fashion they were plugged into the grid of streets and blocks. By the turn of the century, cultural institutions were expanding along two development corridors. The Massachusetts Historical Society and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum were built on the Olmsted-designed Fens. But the Fenway disF trict’s social cachet never equaled that of the Back Bay. Meanwhile, along Huntington Avenue, streetcar access attracted cultural venues that drew large crowds, including Symphony Hall, the new Horticultural Hall, the New England Conservatory, Fenway 6th Bost. Med. Lib., 1901–1964 and the Opera House. These dual movements culminated in the reloT. N S LSTO cation of the Museum of Fine Arts to the strategic BOY juncture of Huntington Avenue and the Olmsted park system. The museum built a double-sided complex: an entrance court fronting on the avenue and a colonnade floating like an Arcadian dream over the romantic landscape of the Fens. With this building, a century-long episode of Boston’s 3rd MFA, 1909–present Opera House, 1909–1958 growth came to a close.

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56 Isabella Stewart Gardner (1840–1924), left, was a wealthy art patron and collector who, through extensive foreign travels, amassed a fabulous collection of art treasures, then built a Renaissance palace in the Fenway as a museum/home to display her unique collection. The Gardner Museum opened in 1903 (see Plate 35).

55 Author, teacher, preacher, and lecturer Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910) was the founder of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, left, and a pioneer in the field of mind-body medicine. She also founded the prestigious daily newspaper, the Christian Science Monitor. The Mother Church was built in 1894 and the basilica from 1904 to 1906.

33 From 1900 to 1904, the prolific and influential African-American novelist, journalist, playwright, and historian Pauline Hopkins (1859–1930) was both writer and editor-in-chief of the Colored American Magazine, left, which focused on “the development of Afro-American art and literature.”

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Ellen Swallow Richards (1842–1911) was the first woman to study at MIT, MIT’s first female instructor, and a pioneer in the field of sanitary engineering and home economics; she established a Woman’s Laboratory at MIT, above, in 1876 with funding from the Woman’s Education Association.

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In 1869, the New England Woman Suffrage Association became a national organization called the American Woman Suffrage Association. One year later, a Massachusetts branch, The Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association, was formed by Lucy Stone (1818–93), left above, her husband, Henry Blackwell (1825–1909), and Julia Ward Howe (1819–1910), left below (see Plate 18). They were linked with and shared office space with the Woman’s Journal. 9b

Boston Suffrage March, 1914 On May 2, 1914, an estimated 9,000–14,000 women marched in Boston past some 200,000–300,000 spectators in the first suffrage parade ever held in Massachusetts.

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31 Founded in Boston in 1862 by Dr. Marie Zakrzewska (1829– 1902), left above, and reformer/ philanthropist Ednah Dow Cheney (1824–1904), the New England Hospital for Women and Children was the first hospital in New England to be staffed entirely by women physicians, and the first hospital in New England to offer obstetrics, gynecology, and pediatrics under one roof. In 1872, when NEHWC moved to its permanent campus at 55 Codman (now Dimock) Street in Roxbury, Dr. Susan Dimock (1847–75), left below, instituted the nation’s first school of nursing; NEHWC is today’s Dimock Center.

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tarting in earliest colonial times, Boston had its share of independent, outspoken women. Beginning with Anne Hutchinson and Mary Dyer, through Abigail Adams, Margaret Fuller, and anti-slavery activists Susan Paul and Maria Stewart, a handful of Boston women periodically challenged their prescribed “feminine” roles—and made history along the way. In the era between the Civil War and World War I, however, what was once an occasional outburst of individuals became a steady surge. Historian Justin Winsor even included a chapter on women in his 1881 Memorial History of Boston, observing: “When an English gentleman was asked what seemed to him the most remarkable thing in Boston, he promptly answered, ‘The Women!’” And it was true. During that vibrant half century, individual women and women’s groups created a world-class museum, a hospital, and a religion as well as established schools, settlement houses, journals, associations, and businesses for women. Supportive men also joined in the movement, creating opportunities for their “sisters” and encouraging them in new roles. Though the facts have been researched and chronicled by historians since the 1970s, the reasons behind this exceptional surge of womanhood are still being debated and developed. Some explain it by saying that minimal agricultural productivity and early industrialization in the Greater Boston area encouraged women to leave their subordinate “domestic sphere” to work in urban factories and shops (men’s powerful “public sphere”). Many women from lower socioeconomic groups—including an ever-expanding immigrant population—found paid employment, as well as economic independence and sisterhood, in and around Boston. Others note that since Boston was an early educational center, girls were allowed and encouraged to become students and, eventually, teachers. Still others believe that it was the wealth of Boston families that enabled female members to jump-start their own careers, finance their own institutions and movements, or aid and educate women with limited resources. More recent studies point to a “blurring of the spheres,” where women took jobs like nursing, cooking, benevolent work, childcare, and teaching—public sphere jobs that resembled domestic duties or replicated work women had done on farms. Once in Boston, they bonded with women in the boldest sociopolitical movements—particularly abolitionism and temperance (see Plates 18 and 19)—which became boot camps for the “woman suffrage” movement and political involvement. The result was a surge of strong, well-educated, skilled women—linked across class, ethnic, racial, and religious lines—battling for greater gender equality with their male counterparts. By the time the societal breach was evident, the gates had been pried wide open: enterprising women were a part of the fabric of Boston.

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32 In 1899 Anna Clapp Harris Smith (1843–1929), above, founded the first shelter for the Animal Rescue League of Boston for “the rescue and relief of suffering homeless animals,” and served as president of the League from 1901 to 1929.

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Plate 36 3 A leading member of the German Jewish community, activist Lina Hecht (1848– 1920), left, founded the Hebrew Industrial School in 1889 to teach Jewish women needlework skills and cooking. She hired reformer and educator Golde Bamber (1862–1951) to direct these programs.

The map shows locations of the most important or representative enterprising women just in central Boston, though dozens of similar women’s enterprises were also located in Boston’s outlying neighborhoods and Cambridge. Although a number of these individuals and institutions changed locations many times between 1862 and 1914, only one site is shown for each.

Women’s Enterprises Librarian Edith Guerrier’s (1870–1958) story hour at the North Bennet Street Industrial School was the foundation of what in 1899 became the Saturday Evening Girls’ Club, above, a cultural group for Italian and Jewish immigrants whose members were young working women and high school students who could only attend on Saturdays. Paul Revere Pottery grew out of this North End girls’ club (see Plate 37). 2b

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Boston School Committeewomen

National Women's Trade Union League

35

Lily Glass Works

6

Old South Meeting House

36

The Women's Block

7

Edmonia Lewis Studio

37

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Massachusetts Women's Christian Temperance Union

Women's Educational and Industrial Union (WEIU)

38

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9a

Woman's Journal

39

Amy Beach Home

9b

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40

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41

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43

12

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44

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45

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Woman's Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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46

15 16

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48

18

Elizabeth Peabody Kindergarten

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49

19

Portia School of Law

Miss Farmer's School of Cookery

20

Boston Young Women's Christian Association

50

Boston Normal School

51

Susie King Taylor Home

21

Julia Ward Howe Home

52

Harriet Tubman House

22

Anne Whitney Studio

53

Girls’ Latin School

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54

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24

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55

25

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56

26

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58

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Fannie Merritt Farmer (1857–1915), left, famed cookbook author and “The Mother of Level Measurement,” introduced scientific measurement in food preparation, established a cooking school, and influenced the medical profession in nutrition and well-balanced diets. 49

7 Finding inspiration in the lives of abolitionists, Native American subjects, and Civil War heroes, Edmonia Lewis (c. 1844–1907), left, was the first woman sculptor of African-American and Native American descent to gain fame in the international fine arts world.

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CA

17

26

RL

S

25

RI D G E

WEST LA

T

T. SOM

BRIDGE

ET

T.

VE

VE R

BLOS

CAMBRIDGE

IN PR

BE

LE

HU L

COM

Education

28 When her husband, Robert, died in 1878, only a year after launching the first Swan Boats at the lagoon in the Public Garden, above, Julia Paget (1848–1914), above right, assumed full management of the new enterprise, though she was forced to gather signatures from local businessmen testifying that a woman could run such a business.

28

Swan Boats

29

Boston YWCA Working Girls Home

See pp. 179–81 for more information on all 58 enterprises

P L A T E 3 6 · S E C T I O N V I I I : B O S T O N I N T H E L A T E 1 8 0 0 s / E A R L Y 1 9 0 0 s   103

Social Service Institutions, c. 1900

JAMES GREEN

D

uring the late 1800s and early 1900s Boston was the site of an extraordinary number of private instutitions founded to aid and reform needy residents suffering from a variety of social ills. Many of these efforts—for example, the Boston Baptist Social Union, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the Boston Children’s Aid Society, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, the Salvation Army, the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA)— were moral reform efforts created by Protestant missionaries during the 1860s and 1870s. By 1890, all of these insitutions had established outposts in downtown Boston and in its poor immigrant neighborhoods, especially the South End, which the city’s great reformer and writer, the Reverend Edward Everett Hale, called “the most charitied region in Christendom.” In the next decade, a whole generation of reformers dedicated to “social uplift” appeared in Boston’s poor neighborhoods. Some were religiously motivated missionaries who founded Combined Jewish Charities, Catholic Charities, and Goodwill Industries, the last created by the minister of the Morgan Methodist Chapel in Boston. Others were college-educated men and women devoted to secular reform movements for prohibition, women’s suffrage, trade unionism, and the kind of vocational education provided by the North Bennet Street Industrial School in the North End and the Wells Memorial Institute in the South End, where staff educated youths in the trades and taught classes in home economics to poor working women. Wells also provided a meeting hall for the numerous labor unions that flourished in Boston and established “trade union centers” for its members. The ambitious Women’s Educational and

In this photo immigrant women are painting pottery at a class sponsored by the Saturday Evening Girls Club. It had been formed in 1899 to offer intellectual and artistic opportunities on Saturday evenings for poor immigrant working women and girls living in the densely packed tenements of Boston’s North End. Over the next two decades, the club created seven library clubs, opened a Library Club House, and operated the acclaimed Paul Revere Pottery, located near the Old North Church. Directed by Edith Guerrier, a librarian, and her partner Edith Brown, an artist, these activities were supported by a financial patron, Mrs. Helen Osborne Storrow. In 1911, Paul Revere Pottery drew praise from the National League of Handicraft Societies, whose South End Settlement House reporter noted that every piece “speaks of a loving individual touch.” (See also Plate 36.)

Industrial Union and the zealous Woman’s Trade Union League focused their efforts entirely on the needs of girls and young working women (see p. 180). Andover House created a model for other “settlement houses,” including Elizabeth Peabody House in the West End, Denison House

on Tyler Street in the South Cove section, and Harriett Tubman House at 25 Holyoke Street in the South End. These and other institutions established a tradition of human service and charitable assistance that has been a hallmark of Boston urban life ever since the late 1800s.

WEST END/NORTH END Social service institutions, 1902

ST.

DAR W. CE

REVERE ST.

Villard Y Settlement

PINCKNEY ST.

ST.

104  P L A T E 3 7 · S E C T I O N V I I I : B O S T O N I N T H E L A T E 1 8 0 0 s / E A R L Y 1 9 0 0 s

ST .

Mission for Scandinavian Seamen

HA NO VE

GARDEN CT. ST.

Salvation Army

ER CIA

L

ST . ST.

CO U

Associated Charities

C LA RK ST.

Mariner’s House Boston ST. Seamen’s NORTH Friend Society

CR OS S

ST .

RT H NO

BOWDOIN ST.

Associated Charities

S. RUSSELL ST.

B e a c on H i ll

. ST

ST. UNION

Sunnyside Day Nursery

R VE NO A H

BE Reading NN ET Room ST .

CO MM

Society for Protection of Italian Immigrants Temporary Home . for Women ST RY Swedish BU Mission S

CAMBRIDGE ST.

N.

R

SAL EM

Union

ST DO . AR Wayfarers CH Lodge

Old North Church N. Bennet St. Industrial School

Nort h PARM End EN

SU D

ST . N

CHA RLE S S T.

Cha rles

Library Club

ST. House

CLINTON

ST.

ATLANTIC AVE.

Salvation Army

CO MM ERC R IAL ST ST. .

CE

Charity Building

ST .

LL

Civil Service Sheltering House Home (Hebrew)

MER RIM ACK ST.

GRE EN

HU

RT E

TE RS North End T.

N KI W HA

CAMBRIDGE BRIDGE Public Bath

Epworth League House ST .

COOPER ST.

ST.

Open-air Gymnasium for Women & Girls

IN PR

House of the Good Samaritan

CHAMBERS

We st End

ST. Hebrew Industrial School

. ST

AL L E N ST .

TT RE VE

LAR

. ST

N. WASHINGTON ST.

LE

POP

Charlesbank

AY EW S U CA

. ST

Elizabeth Peabody House

Y RL VE BE

Riv er

CH A

ST. STATE

RT ST.

0

250

500 feet

Plate 37 This photo shows a settlement house worker overseeing a lace making class for immigrant girls at Denison House in South Cove. It had been founded in 1892 by a group of college-educated women who were “distressed” by a “sense of privileges unshared” and motivated by a desire to break down social barriers between working class people and the “leisure class.” Located in a poor, multiethnic neighborhood, the house maintained a close connection with Wellesley College and sponsored a range of classes and activities including Camp Denison, Circolo Italiano-Americano, which held an arts exhibition each spring, and a Social Science Club where participants discussed socialism and other issues of the day (see p. 179). The Boston chapter of the Women’s Trade Union League was formed at Denison House, and Amelia Earhart resided there as a social worker in 1926.

West End/ North End North End West End Beacon Hill

South Boston South End

South End/ South Cove

Boston Common

Public Garden

SOUTH END/SOUTH COVE

ST.

Model Tenement CO Building MP T ST.

. AVE

Odd Fellows DOVE R S Hall T.

Good Templars’ Hall

Washingtonian Home LL RO

ST. TYLE R

NY ST .

ST.

A LB A

HUD SON

PL EA SA NT

ST .

Alcott Club School

OSW EGO ST.

Here a social worker leads immigrant children on a recreational outing from the South End House, which was located in a brick bow front residence on Union Park Square (see map).

Public Bath House

DOV ER

ST. BRID GE

Floating Baths

South End House (formerly Andover House)

T. SS IN

AV E

.

. ST

HA RR IS O N

N TO NG I H AS W

Boston Bath House Co.

St. Stephen’s House

So uth End

. ST

.

Denison House

Salvation Army

ST.

Hale House

AM TH AL W

UT M W A SH

E AV

WASHI N

DEC ATU R S GA T. RLA ND ST.

South End Day Nursery

Center

CAST LE ST . Wells Memorial

Boston Industrial Home

SHA WM UT

ON

Lincoln House

AVE .

TRE MO NT

Morgan Chapel

S T. Trade Union

GTON ST.

O

CO LU M BU S

M

EY KEL

New England Kitchen

Y.W.C.A.

Boylston Working Womens Club

In 1895 the name of Andover House, Boston’s first settlement house, was changed to South End House to give it more identity with its local neighborhood. Under this name, the house continued to provide myriad services for South End residents.

Tyler St. Day Nursery

M CO

AV E.

ST.

BER

Parker Memorial

N

H AR RISO N A VE.

D

Childrens Working Mission BEN Boys NET Home ST. South End Diet

E TT . YE ST FA

South End House, 1901

KNE ELA ND

Womens Hospital Branch

Associated Charities

BEAC H S T.

Trade Union Center

CARVER ST.

AN DIN FER

House of Mercy

. ST

Union Park Sq.

WARRENTON ST.

Social service institutions, 1898

N RRE WA

South End House BOYLSTON ST.

E.

. ST AM DH DE N E. O NT CA

U Grey Nuns NION PAR Home K

AL

ST .

Co-operative Buildings

NY BA

ST.

. ST

0

250

500 feet

This photo shows immigrant children performing and displaying classical music abilities learned in classes sponsored by the South End House.

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Boston in 1910

REED UEDA

Boston Population by Country of Birth or Race, 1910 U.S. (white with U.S.-born parents) 24%

U.S. (white with a foreign-born parent) 38%

Ireland 10%

English Canada 7%

Russia 6%

Britain 3% African American 2% Scandinavia 1% Germany 1% Other 3%

Italy 5%

In 1910 Boston remained predominantly Irish, although this is not obvious from the census data on which the graph above is based. Unlike the mid-1800s when nearly all Irish or their parents had been born in Ireland (see Plates 20 and 21), by 1910 most people of Irish ancestry had been born in the United States. The maps below show the location in Boston of various groups in 1910 but not their movement. At this time, for example, African Americans and Jews were moving to different parts of the city, sometimes exchanging places of worship. Thus, when African Americans left the north slope of Beacon Hill for the upper South End, they sometimes acquired former synagogues in the South End while their north slope churches were taken over by Jewish congregations. In this period Jews were also beginning to move to Roxbury and Dorchester, building new synagogues along Blue Hill Avenue.

U.S. Whites with U.S.-born parents

Irish

English Canadians

Russians (Jews)

Italians

African Americans

Baptist, Catholic, Episcopal, Congregational/Unitarian, Methodist Episcopal churches

Catholic churches

Synagogues

Episcopal, Presbyterian churches

Catholic churches

African Methodist Episcopal churches

Asians R AUBU

T

RE T LE VE

E DO IN

BO W

JO Y

NC OC K

LY ND E

CH AM BE

N. SS E

LL

G IN

IRV

RU

S.

RS

LL

BL OS SO

M

AN DE RS ON

N.

RD

EN

DE R AN

HA

TE MP L

GR OV E N. SO N

GR OV E

GA

PIT

TS

NASHUA AC

S.

IM

RN E

LE

HA

West Roxbury

N DO AR CH

Country of Birth or Race, Percent of Total by Ward, 1910 40.0–49.9%

7.0–9.9%

30.0–39.9%

3.0–6.9%

20.0–29.9%

0.0–2.9%

10.0–19.9%

106  P L A T E 3 8 · S E C T I O N V I I I : B O S T O N I N T H E L A T E 1 8 0 0 s / E A R L Y 1 9 0 0 s

Dorchester

Roslindale

R ER

DE

Jamaica Plain

M

S.

W .C ED AR

Roxbury

PORTLAND

MY RT LE

GE

N

CA MB RID

IFO AN ST

RD

I RG MA S.

ID GE

EA TO N

LANCASTER

AN

N GREE

RE VE RE

South End South Boston

CAUSEWAY

N

CA M BR

IPS

PA RK M

EA CL

ILL

Back Bay

M

PH

LOWELL

T

RU SS E

Charles St. Jail

East Boston

North End

BrightonAllston

MINOT

AR PL PO

BR .

WILLARD

ND ASHLA

. PL

FR UI

Charlestown

N

BILLERICA

Mass. Gen. Hosp.

G SPRIN

N

N

LEVERETT

BERS CHAM

O HT

W .B O ST O

ON BART

S

N LE AL

LE AR CH

National, Ethnic, Racial Groups in the West End, 1900 Reproduced from a map published in 1902, this map shows where various groups lived in the West End, which at that time included the north slope of Beacon Hill. Two colors along one street indicate that neither group was in the majority but each constituted 30 to 50 percent of the residents.

No data available for houses of worship

N

TON BRIGH

AS

American Irish Jews British and provincials African Americans Italians Mixed

Plate 38 Occupations with More than 2,000 Employees, 1910 Laborers (Not Specified) Draymen, Hackmen, Teamsters, etc. Clerks and Copyists Merchants and Dealers (excl. Wholesale) Salesmen Carpenters and Joiners Servants and Waiters Painters, Glaziers, and Varnishers Machinists Tailors Agents Men

B

y the beginning of the 1900s, Boston had a rapidly growing population resulting from international immigration and domestic migration, both at their heights. Immigrant groups from the countries of southern and eastern Europe—primarily from Italy and Russia—were added into Boston’s ethnic kaleidoscope that in the 1800s had been dominated by natives from rural New England and immigrants from Ireland, Canada, Britain, Scandinavia, and Germany (see Plate 21). The so-called new immigrants from southern and eastern Europe usually settled in the most densely populated districts of the city. Attracted by employment in industrial manufacturing and construction, they established a network of communities whose socioeconomic characteristics were blue-collar, wage earners, and the poor. Most of these newcomers lived in tightly packed tenements, in households with several children and assorted boarders, or were single adults living in group housing units such as boarding houses. The second and third generation of these foreign nationalities began to follow the “tenement trail” to suburban locations in Allston, Brighton, Hyde Park, Jamaica Plain, Dorchester, and Roslindale. This dispersion was propelled by rising incomes and occupational mobility. The adult children and grandchildren of immigrants had gained more schooling and greater employment opportunities, which they utilized to move into suburban areas that were connected to the rest of the city by an expanding web of streetcar lines (see Plates 27 and 28). The clustering of particular national groups in certain parts of the city is clearly visible on the maps. These areas of ethnic concentration corresponded with the establishment of churches, cathedrals, and synagogues. Social change and demographic complexity had given rise to a pluralistic urban culture.

U.S. Whites with U.S.-born parents African Americans English Canadians Irish Italians Russians (Jews) Other

Printers, Lithographers, and Pressmen Engineers and Firemen (not Locomotive) Bookkeepers and Accountants Plumbers and Gas and Steam Fitters Watchmen, Policemen, Firemen, etc.

U.S. Whites with a foreign-born parent included with appropriate foreign group

Manufacturers and Officials, etc. Messengers and Errand and Office Boys Boot and Shoe Makers and Repairers Street Railway Employees Masons (Brick and Stone) Barbers and Hairdressers 0

5,000

10,000 Number employed

15,000

20,000

0

5,000

10,000 Number employed

15,000

20,000

Servants and Waitresses

Ten Largest U.S. Cities, 1850–1910

Dressmakers

5

Saleswomen

New York

Bookkeepers and Accountants

Cities appearing in only one decade

Laundresses

Pittsburgh Detroit Albany

Women

4

Country of Birth or Race

Steam Railroad Employees

Teachers and Professors in Colleges, etc. Nurses and Midwives Stenographers and Typewriters Seamstresses

Population in millions

Housekeepers and Stewardesses 3

Clerks and Copyists

Chicago 2

Philadelphia

In 1910, immigrant and working-class Bostonians often lived in tenements in inner-city neighborhoods such as the North End and West End and in three-deckers in outlying areas such as Dorchester and Roxbury.

stove

1

Brooklyn

0 1850

Working-Class Housing

New Orleans 1860

1870

1880

1890

Cincinnati San Francisco 1900

stove

St. Louis Boston Baltimore Cleveland Buffalo stove

1910

Year

Boston remained one of the ten most populous U.S. cities from 1850 to 1910, its numbers and growth very similar to that of St. Louis and Baltimore. More striking was the growth of western cities, particularly Chicago. New York’s huge growth after 1890 was due to its inclusion in 1898 of Brooklyn and parts of other counties to form the present city.

Tenements were often brick, four or five stories high. The floor plan, for a tenement similar to the one pictured, has a two-room apartment at the front and two one-room apartments at the back. The stove, sink, and laundry tub were all in the main room; one toilet was shared by all apartments.

Three-deckers are three-story, free standing frame buildings with stacked front and back porches, each story occupied by a single family. They were a step up from tenements, for they had more space, windows on all four sides, a bath room, separate kitchen, and amenities such as oak floors and molded woodwork.

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1910 Mayoral Election

JAMES GREEN

T

he 1910 mayoral election was a the vote. Fitzgerald also carried Ward 17, turning point in Boston’s politiwhere 80 percent of the residents were cal history, a contest over who of immigrant origin, and where James would rule the city: the old Protestant Michael Curley, an up-and-coming poliYankee Republicans or the ambitious tician, and his Tammany Club turned out Irish Catholic Democrats from the the ethnic vote. immigrant working-class neighborFitzgerald’s slim majority did not hoods. The campaign pitted two perfect consist entirely of Irishmen, however. adversaries. John F. “Honey Fitz” Although many new immigrants did not Fitzgerald, the son of an immigrant fish register to vote, “Honey Fitz” did well monger, grew up in the rough and among those who did. He carried the tumble North End before the Italians Italian wards (the North End and East displaced the Irish. He built a reputation Boston) and the West End, where most as a labor reformer and served a term as of the city’s Jewish immigrants lived (see mayor, but lost his reelection bid in 1907 Plate 38). His greatest strength came to a Republican who charged him with from the support of the powerful Boston corruption. In 1910, Fitzgerald’s chalCentral Labor Council representing over lenger was James Jackson Storrow, a 90,000 union workers of various nationHarvard-educated banker who traced alities in more than three hundred locals. his lineage back to the Tories of the This election also elevated a certain Revolutionary War. style of urban “retail” politics perfected Storrow outspent Fitzgerald two-toby the Irish Catholic politicians from one and took the high road as the “good Boston who followed in Honey Fitz’s government” candidate, while “Honey footsteps. James Michael Curley was Fitz” pressed the flesh and sang “Sweet elected to Congress that year; he would Recounting the Votes in the 1910 Election Adeline” in all twenty-five wards. return in two years and build a city-wide Immediately after the election on January 11, 1910, Storrow and the Municipal Citizen’s League alleged Storrow carried the Beacon Hill and organization that would displace Honey voting irregularities in some wards and demanded a recount, which took place in Faneuil Hall and reaffirmed Fitzgerald’s election. Back Bay Wards 10 and 11 with huge Fitz and usher in a long period in which majorities he garnered from his fellow controversial Curley dominated the Yankees, and he polled more than two-thirds of the vote in streetcar suburbs Wards 20 city’s political life. Whether they were corrupt and vain like James Michael Curley or and 21, where many middle and upper income families had settled. Fitzgerald won the honest and humble like John W. McCormack of South Boston, who became Speaker of election by the narrow margin of 1,416 votes by carrying most of the wards with large the U.S. House of Representatives, these “Boston pols” and their campaign styles shaped concentrations of immigrant voters. For example, he won Ward 13 in South Boston, electoral politics in years to come, such as in the successful senate campaigns of Honey which had the city’s largest percentage of Irish born (see Plate 38), with 82 percent of Fitz’s grandsons, John F. Kennedy and Edward M. Kennedy.

James Michael Curley, Waiting in the Wings

John F. “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald with his wife, Mary Josephine (“Josie”), and his youngest son leaving on a trip following his mayoral election victory. The mayor won praise for his second term accomplishments, and he set his eyes on the Senate seat held by Henry Cabot Lodge.

James Jackson Storrow after his defeat in 1910. In the months that followed, he continued his career as an investment banker and served as interim president of the General Motors Corporation. Later that year, the Charles River Dam, a project Storrow had championed, was completed.

108  P L A T E 3 9 · S E C T I O N V I I I : B O S T O N I N T H E L A T E 1 8 0 0 s / E A R L Y 1 9 0 0 s

Soon after Fitzgerald’s victory in 1910, an ambitious young politician from Roxbury made plans to succeed Honey Fitz as mayor. Raised a poor boy, angry over his immigrant father’s death on a building site, James Michael Curley began his career as a ruthless and cunning campaigner. He won a seat on the city Common Council and then as a state representative with the assistance of a powerful political machine in Ward 17 called the Tammany Club. He became famous when he was elected alderman while serving a 60-day term in the city jail for taking a civil service exam for a friend. The more outrageous Curley became, the more the city’s Irish Catholics loved him. Curley won the loyalties of working class voters away from the old ward bosses, and his organization enabled him to win a U. S. Congressional seat in 1910 and then made him the victor in a threeway mayoral race three years later. Curley would go on to win three more mayoral elections (1917, 1921, 1945) and one as governor (1934). Beloved by many as “mayor of the poor,” he provided citizens with city jobs and access to expanded public facilities in the city’s hospital and bath houses. But the unscrupulous Curley also enriched himself while in office, abetted corruption in city hall, and alienated investors and merchants with high taxes and poor fiscal policies.

Plate 39 Mayoral Election , 1910 80.0% or more 70.0–79.9% 60.0–69.9% Fitzgerald

50.0–59.9%

Storrow

50.0–59.9% 60.0–69.9% 70.0–79.9%

4

East Boston

4

1

Charlestown

Ward numbers

3

5

Storrow residence

Back

25

10

South End 18

Fitzgerald’s home base

7

11 Bay

19

6

Beacon Hill

Brighton-Allston

2

North End

West End 8

13

9

South Boston

12

14

15

17

Roxbury

Curley’s Tammany Club

16 21

22

Jamaica Plain 20

Dorchester

West Roxbury

Fitzgerald Handing out Gift Turkeys Mayor Fitzgerald distributing Christmas gift baskets at the Salvation Army’s headquarters in the People’s Palace, December 14, 1910. During his second term as mayor, “Honey Fitz” favored progressive reforms, kept peace with the powerful ward bosses, and allied with some of his old enemies in the downtown business community.

23 24

Votes for Fitzgerald and Storrow by Ward, 1910 5,000

FITZGERALD

Fitzgerald Storrow Other

4,000

STORROW

Votes

3,000

2,000

1,000

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

9

10

11

12

20

21

22

23

24

25

Ward number (grouped by candidate with most votes)

P L A T E 3 9 · S E C T I O N V I I I : B O S T O N I N T H E L A T E 1 8 0 0 s / E A R L Y 1 9 0 0 s   109

Section IX

Decline

Introduction

B

oston suffered in many ways for almost half a century after 1920. The economy collapsed, languished, collapsed again, and then stalled again while the rest of the country enjoyed a post-­World War II boom that lifted other areas out of the Great Depression. Boston’s population dropped 13 percent (more than any other major U.S. city) in the decade after 1950, and by 1980 the population was about where it had been in 1900. Construction stalled. Only four office buildings were built between 1929 and 1957 (see Plate 54). Housing was overcrowded and deteriorating. The list could go on. But each of these declining aspects eventually hit bottom and recovered. They did not grow back to what they had been, but to something not imagined before, and some of the decisions and conditions from this period of decline helped shape the Boston we see in the early 2000s. The problem with Boston’s economy was not just that it lost business and jobs during national recessions. Boston’s problem was that it didn’t grow back afterwards. The jobs and businesses Boston lost were moving to other ports or cities, to lower cost areas, and out of town. The Boston economy had once centered on trade and manufacturing, and when those businesses closed during downturns, they moved to areas where land, labor, or other costs were lower. Wholesale and retail trade, which accounted for one-­third of Boston’s jobs in private for-­profit businesses in 1951, lost 17,600 jobs by 1962 even as Massachusetts was gaining jobs in these sectors overall. A 16 percent drop in retail employment echoed population loss over that period, while wholesale

distributors moved to take advantage of new road networks and cheap land outside the city. Boston’s manufacturing base did not fare any better. Apparel, machinery, textiles, and leather goods all lost jobs—­21,300 in all. But losses in the old manufacturing base were less worrying than the lack of growth in new industries. Electrical machinery and instruments grew strongly across the U.S. and elsewhere in Massachusetts after World War II, but not in Boston (see Plate 40). It would not be until the late 1970s that growth in the knowledge-­ based economy that we see dominant today (see Plates 52, 53, 54, and 55) began producing more new jobs than the old economy of manufacturing and trade was losing. Boston’s population loss was sustained and accelerated by regional highway construction during the 1950s (see Plate 44) and new suburban housing construction in the 1960s (see Plate 46). Immigration had always been a big element in Boston’s population dynamic, but that diminished because of postwar restrictions, hitting a national and local low around 1970. In the 1970s the Busing Crisis (see Plate 48) further undermined families’ confidence in Boston schools and contributed to another double-­digit percentage drop in population. The bottom didn’t occur until 1980, and by that time Boston had 30 percent fewer residents than in 1950. Housing was a major factor in who left and who stayed in Boston. In 1950 Boston’s housing stock was stretched thin, with low vacancy rates and overcrowding (see Plate 42). But the city was in the midst of a public housing boom that

made room for almost fourteen thousand families between 1938 and 1954. These families, sometimes pictured as “needy” and sometimes as “worthy,” endured years of racial segregation, difficult transitions to integration, and struggles with mismanagement that culminated in a court receivership. An era of housing construction for the elderly and then another of privately developed subsidized housing followed after 1954 (see Plate 41). While higher-­income families—­at least those who were white—­could take advantage of FHA and VA mortgage programs to buy new single-­family homes in the suburbs, many poorer and nonwhite families could find a home to rent in Boston’s considerable stock of “affordable” housing. In future years, when higher-­income households would move back to a more prosperous Boston, this affordable housing stock would still secure a place for low-­income families in Boston. As a result, Boston would one day be counted as one of the most income-­unequal cities in America. But seen in a different light, this was a source of Boston’s economic diversity. Boston in 1950 was in the middle of economic contraction and on the brink of population collapse. The perceived need for change was widespread. James Michael Curley, who had been mayor—­on and off—­since 1921, was replaced by John B. Hynes. The “New Boston” that Hynes promised still lay years in the future (see Plate 47), but the choice to create a new future had been made (see Plate 42). Better times lay ahead for Boston. John Avault

S E C T I O N I X . D E C L I N E   113

The Long Depression, 1920–1960

any other city. Manufacturers reduced production and some companies failed, including Chickering Piano and the 4,000-employee Plant Shoe Factory. About 26 percent of Boston’s 340,000 labor force was unemployed. Boston’s population rose to 781,200 in 1930, but the division between the well-off and the impoverished grew. Displaced industrial workers took lower-paid service and retail jobs. Immigrants and a small African-American population were relegated to even lower wage jobs. Working class and immigrant neighborhoods such as the North End, Charlestown, East Boston, South Boston, the South End, Roxbury, and parts of Dorchester were hit hard despite Mayor Curley’s investment in neighborhood facilities at the expense of downtown. The federal government sent Boston less New Deal relief funding than other cities because it distrusted Curley. The destitute set up a “Hooverville” on what is now Columbia Point. World War II brought work to the Navy Yard and textile and clothing shops, but it failed to trigger a postwar boom.

Charlestown Trust (1934)

MERCIAL S M T CO

CAMBRIDGE

110

S T.

N A VE.

RISO

ER

HAR

OL D C OL

VE. Y A ON

.

MM

ST .

Selected Closed Firms, 1920–1960

E. AV

ST

.

ER .

TREM ONT ST. WASH IN GT ON

.

AV E.

ST

. ST

T AS HE UT SO

Banks and investment firms Newspapers Breweries Piano manufacturers Other manufacturers

(1923) Date closed

SW ES PR EX AY

TERR AC E

S ES

BR OO KL IN E

Boston Harbor

GR

Y AN

U CH

S TT SE AV

E.

BICK FOR D

ST.

E ST.

Federal National Bank (1931)

CON

B AL

Croft (formerly Highland Spring) Brewing Co. (1952)

114  P L A T E 4 0 · S E C T I O N I X : D E C L I N E

Emerson Piano Co. (1923)

E. AV

Roessle Brewery (1951)

ST. CENTRE

RY

DORCHESTER AVE.

Chickering Piano Factory (1929)

TE

Prince Macaroni Manufacturing Co. (1939)

SU

Joseph F. Paul & Co.; Bay State Moulding Mills (1930)

A SS MA

Plant Shoe Factory (1929)

AY

H EATH ST.

DW

T ON EM R T

E. AV

. ST

S T AT

TH OR

ESSEX ST.

BR O A

American Brewing Co. (1934)

S T.

. AVE

L

Mason & Hamlin Piano (1929)

George Frost & Co. (late 1940s)

TS

CO

S BU UM

Boston Common

T. N S

SET CHU

IN NT HU

ON GT

Boston Evening Transcript (1941)

Public Garden

. AVE

DO REN CL A

SSA MA

ST. CON BEA

ST. R. ON L D BEAC A I OR MEM

TH EAL NW MO M CO ST. ON LST Y O B

AR

Boston Post (1956) S RLE

W RRO STO

R

s

A CH

C

Massachusetts per capita personal income declined from 50 percent above the national average in the early 1930s to barely above average during the Long Depression.

le har

.

1960

AV E

1950

Year

r ive

BU S

1940

Lee, Higginson & Co. (1932) Exchange Trust (1934)

HA RR ISO N

1930

NT RA L

CAMBRIDGE ST.

LONGFELLO W BRIDGE

90

CO LU M

100

Austin Biscuit Co./ Loose-Wiles Biscuit Co. (mid-1940s)

. ST

ATLANTIC AVE.

national average

AY EW S AU

ST

C

CH

120

80

.

ARL ES

ST

130

ST

140

CE

Per capita personal income as percent of national average

150

HA NO V

160

CITY SQ.

HW Y.

N

IE N

NSHIRE ST.

O’B R

VO

MS GR

Massachusetts per Capita Personal Income, 1929–1960

Boston’s financial sector remained strong, adding the management of corporate pension funds to its Brahmin trusts and investments beyond the city. But commercial development stagnated. Banks and insurance companies would not subject themselves to the real estate assessments of a hostile, often corrupt city government being bankrupted by declining property values. Mayor Curley’s jail sentence in 1947 exemplified the city’s degraded governance. Boston’s decline took on an added dimension in the 1950s. From a highpoint of 801,400, its population plummeted as postwar highways and federal housing policies attracted households to the suburbs (see Plate 46). By 1960, as the rest of the state added 562,300 residents, Boston’s population fell to 697,200, the largest drop of any major city in the country. Jobs followed. Eighteen percent of Boston’s 1951 manufacturing employment—21,300 jobs—had disappeared by 1962, even as “high technology” industries such as electronics and instruments blossomed beyond the city (see Plate 46).

DE

B

uoyed by World War I work and wages, Boston was a thriving city of 750,000 in January 1920, when the country’s economy abruptly collapsed. The brief depression that followed persisted in Boston, except during wartime, for the next forty years. The city’s retail sector, containing some 10,000 merchants and 66,000 jobs, remained robust throughout the 1920s, however. Office construction included the Batterymarch Building and the United Shoe Machinery Company headquarters. But wholesaling suffered as shoe and textile manufacturers left New England for the South. Garment making and other manufacturing contracted and the port continued to decline. The Great Depression compounded Boston’s distress. There were only minor bank failures, although the venerable Lee, Higginson investment house closed. The retail sector held on better than in other major cities. But between 1929 and 1933, wholesale volumes fell 57 percent and wholesale employment by 46 percent, more than in

R I C H A R D G A R V E R , J O H N AVA U LT, S A M B A S S W A R N E R , A N D J A M E S G R E E N

0

Industrial Bank and Trust Co. (1931)

Shawmut Cooperative Bank (1935)

1,000

2,000 feet

Plate 40

Closed Firms

Charlestown East Boston Central Back Bay/ Beacon Hill

Allston/Brighton

Fenway/ Kenmore

South End

North Dorchester

Roxbury Jamaica Plain

The American Brewing Company survived Prohibition only to succumb to the Depression in 1934.

South Dorchester

Roslindale

West Roxbury

South Boston

Mattapan

Change in Neighborhood Population, 1950–1960 9 – 14% Hyde Park

1 – 5% -1 – -8% -10 – -15% -20 – -25% -35 – -50%

Neighborhood Population Shifts As Boston’s depression persisted through the 1950s, the city underwent a massive population shift. Public housing construction retained some residents in their traditional working class neighborhoods. Many more left for neighborhoods and suburbs beyond the central city, encouraged by new expressways and by Federal Housing Administration policies that prioritized insurance of single family homes in newer, less built-up areas while denying it to built-up neighborhoods with “undesirable populations.”

Employees of the Boston Post waiting for back pay and overdue benefits in 1956, when the Post closed.

Boston Job Loss, 1950–1960

80

Instruments

Electrical machinery

Apparel

Manufacturing

0

Wholesale

20

Retail

40

Total employment*

60

Population

Percent change

2.0

Boston Rest of Massachusetts

-0.09% -20

*”Total employment” counts only private payroll jobs excluding health care, education, and nonprofit.

Boston lost population and jobs during the 1950s even as the rest of Massachusetts grew.

Property Value Index (inflation adjusted)

100

Changes in Neighborhood Property Values, 1946–1960

1.5

1.0 Citywide Charlestown Central Boston South End Roxbury

0.5

0.0 1946

1947

1948

1949

1950

1951

1952

1953

1954

1955

1956

1957

1958

1959

1960

Year

After adjusting for inflation, Boston residential property values increased by just 25 percent over the fourteen years 1946–1960. Values in Roxbury grew by only 6 percent while property values in the South End declined.

P L A T E 4 0 · S E C T I O N I X : D E C L I N E   115

Public Housing, 1935–2010

The Changing Racial Composition of Boston Public Housing, 1958–1998 100

Percent nonwhite

Percent nonwhite

80

60

40

40

Lenox Street Mission Hill Ext. (Alice Taylor) Cathedral (South End) Camden Street Whittier Street All BHA Family Projects

0

0 1960

1965

1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1960

1995

1965

1970

The gradual progression of these five projects toward nonwhite occupancy closely resembled that of the Housing Authority as a whole.

80

80

Percent nonwhite

100

60

40

Orchard Park Bromley Park Heath Street Columbia Point Franklin Hill Avenue Franklin Field All BHA Family Projects

20

R.

1985

1990

1995

Charlestown Mary Ellen McCormack (Old Harbor Village) West Broadway (D Street) Faneuil Orient Heights Maverick (East Boston) Old Colony Commonwealth (Fidelis Way) Fairmount All BHA Family Projects

60

40

20

0

0 1960

1965

1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

1960

1965

These six projects tipped rapidly from white to nonwhite during the 1960s.

CHARLESTOWN

Noddles

Back Bay

Bird Is.

Settled areas

ROXBURY DORCHESTER

1980

1985

1990

Noddles Island

1800

R. Boston Harbor

1975

1995

These nine projects remained mostly white the longest. All of these remained largely white into the 1990s, despite a waiting list that had become overwhelmingly nonwhite.

Almshouse

Ch ar les

Almshouse

1970

Year

Year

CAMBRIDGE

Ch ar les

1980

Four of these projects (Lenox Street, Camden Street, Whittier Street, and Mission Hill Extension) were intended for minority occupancy right from the start. South End/ Cathedral, which had a high level of integration in the early years, is also included in this group.

100

1676

BOSTON

1975

Year

Year

CHARLESTOWN

116  P L A T E 4 1 · S E C T I O N I X : D E C L I N E

60

20

20

Island Boston’s Almshouses—A Forced Flight from the Common to the Harbor Islands

During Boston’s first three centuries, the city’s poor CAMBRIDGE received little direct government assistance to help them afford housing. Most lived in deplorable conditions, some receiving aid from private charities or family members. In the most dire cases, city leaders relegated the poorest to almshouses or “houses of industry”—first introduced on Boston Common in 1662.

100

Mission Hill Gallivan Blvd. Washington/Beech South Street Archdale All BHA Family Projects

80

Percent nonwhite

S

purred by high unemployment and widespread slum conditions during the 1930s, the federal government passed legislation authorizing low-rent public housing, managed locally by the Boston Housing Authority (BHA), established in 1935. By 1954, with twenty-five projects constructed to serve nearly fourteen thousand families, the BHA could boast one of the nation’s largest public housing programs. Boston’s public housing sheltered approximately 10 percent of the city’s renters, most of them members of the white working class. Public housing to this point remained politically popular and had spread into nearly all city wards. After 1954, with Boston elected officials satisfied with the amount of public housing that had already been constructed and starting to feel resistance from neighborhoods, the BHA simply stopped building large public housing projects for families. The authority shifted its attention to providing housing for the elderly, a politically popular constituency. In all, the BHA constructed some three dozen projects for seniors, much of this in high-rises constructed during the 1960s and 1970s. Meanwhile, neighborhood by neighborhood, family public housing projects followed very different trajectories in a rapidly diversifying city. Although a few family projects mirrored Boston’s gradual racial shift toward increased nonwhite occupancy, three other patterns also prevailed: the BHA developed one set of projects for nonwhite occupancy right from the start, permitted another set of projects (located in white neighborhoods) to remain nearly all-white all the way through the 1980s, and struggled to cope when still another group of projects rapidly shifted from nearly allwhite to nearly all-black during the late 1960s and early 1970s (see graphs). Institutionally, the BHA underwent a near-total collapse during the late 1970s, marked by gross mismanagement and high vacancies, leading to court-ordered receivership in 1980. Since then, however, the agency has recovered substantially, aided by several large redevelopment efforts. During the 1970s, provision of public housing underwent a significant shift both nationally and locally to favor private sector involvement in the provision of “deeply subsidized” housing, targeted (like conventional public housing) to low-income households that paid no more than 25 percent of their adjusted monthly income in rent (raised to 30 percent in 1981). Boston quickly gained more than 20,000 units of privately developed rental housing in such new public-private projects, distributed across dozens of “project-based Section 8” developments. And, similarly, by 2010 portable Section 8 housing vouchers, currently known as Housing Choice Vouchers, provided more than 13,500 households with deep rental subsidies for use with private landlords. As of 2011, despite the BHA’s ongoing efforts to retain most of its traditional public housing, Boston had more voucher-based public housing and privately owned subsidized housing in projects than publicly owned housing projects.

L AW R E N C E J . VA L E

Back Bay

BOSTON

Boston Harbor

Settled areas

By the 1790s, the almshouse on the Common was severely overcrowded and considered too near the center of town, so it was relocated to the most remote land of the peninsula, Barton’s Point (later known as the West End), where Bulfinch himself designed the new structure, completed in 1800 (see Plate 13).

Orient Heights

Plate 41 Charlestown

Maverick 2006

PUBLIC HOUSING IN BOSTON Public Housing Projects Unit Count 1,000–2,000

Faneuil

500–999 200–499 50–199 0–49 Camden Family projects

Commonwealth 1985 Cathedral

no label Elderly projects

Alice Lenox Taylor

Projects significantly redeveloped since the 1980s

Camden

Mission Main 2000

1985 Year redeveloped

Year Opened

Whittier Street

1950–1959

Mary Ellen McCormack

Heath

Bromley Park

1960–1969

Old Colony

Orchard Park 2000

Highland Park

1930–1949

West Broadway 1985

1970–1979 1980–1989

Columbia Point 1985

Project-Based Voucher Housing, 1975–85 Unit Count

South Street

500–999 200–499 50–199 0–49

Franklin Hill 2008

Archdale

Tenant-Based Voucher Housing (Number per Zip Code)

Franklin Field 1987

1,000–2,000 500–999 200–499 50–199

WashingtonBeech 2011

0–49

Rental Housing in Boston, 2010

Gallivan

From Projects to Vouchers, 1938–2010

West Newton Street

Public housing (federal and state subsidy) 13,742 units Tenant-based housing choice voucher 13,576 units

18,000

Project-based Section 8 21,992 units

No deep subsidy 128,702 units Mys tic

CHARLESTOWN

SOMERVILLE

Ch a

rle s

Settled areas in Boston

BOSTON Boston Harbor

House of Industry

Ch

ROXBURY

Dorchester Bay

le ar

12,000

Family units

10,000

Tenant-based housing choice vouchers

8,000 6,000

Family units

4,000 2,000 0

Elderly units

38 19

44 19

50 19

56 19

62

19

68

19

74 19

Year

86

80

19

19

92

19

98

19

04

20

10 20

R.

CHARLESTOWN

East Boston

BOSTON Boston Harbor

South End

House of Corrections

South Boston

14,000

1856 R.

As the indigent increased in CAMBRIDGE number, however, Boston city leaders quickly needed a larger facility, and opened a House of Industry and a House of Correction in the mid-1820s, now relegated to the distant BROOKLINE City Lands section of recently annexed South Boston.

s

R.

1826

Total public housing

16,000

Housing units

Fairmount

Boston’s conventional public housing stock increased until the mid-1970s, but has gradually declined since then. Meanwhile, portable housing vouchers have grown in popularity to the point where these now serve more Boston families than are housed in public housing projects.

South Bay

South Boston

Governors Island

Castle Island

Almshouse

Deer Island

Settled areas

Bay Finally, in 1847, because the South Boston facility was inadequate and residents there objected to an almshouse in their midst, the House of Industry and its sister institutions were moved to Deer Island in Boston Harbor, where a temporary almshouse had already been established for arriving Irish immigrants. The city’s poorest were thus dramatically isolated from the rest of the city. Dorchester

P L A T E 4 1 · S E C T I O N I X : D E C L I N E   117

Boston in 1950

J O H N A V A U LT

1950 Aerial View of Boston Boston’s 1950 skyline was dominated by the John Hancock building and little else. The Hancock building had opened three years earlier and its lighted weather beacon soon became a landmark (see p. 182). At 495 feet, it was the second tallest building in Boston, one foot shorter than the 1915 Custom House Tower, visible in the background by the Boston Harbor.

118  P L A T E 4 2 · S E C T I O N I X : D E C L I N E

Ten Largest U.S. Cities, 1910–1950 8 New York Chicago Philadelphia Los Angeles Detroit Baltimore Cleveland St. Louis Boston Pittsburgh

7

6

Population in millions

B

oston had some reasons to be optimistic in 1950. Its population of 801,444 made it the tenth-largest city in the U.S. The defeat of Mayor James Michael Curley in 1949 was to usher in a “New Boston” under Mayor John B. Hynes, who was inaugurated on January 2 (see Plate 47). John F. Kennedy was in Congress. George Wein’s Storyville jazz nightclub and the Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts opened that year. Construction on Storrow Drive began. But all was not well with the city’s economy, still mired in its Long Depression (see Plate 40). Years of mistrust between the populist former mayor Curley and the business community had eroded the civic fabric. The city’s physical condition had deteriorated through years of disinvestment. The Boston Planning Board’s 1950 “General Plan for Boston” designated some 2,700 acres for clearance and redevelopment. Boston’s position as tenth-largest American city had fallen to well below its fifth-place rank in 1910 as the nation’s population moved west. The city was overwhelmingly white, with just 4.9 percent counted as Negro and 0.4 percent “other nonwhite.” Racial minorities, whose numbers had nearly doubled over the previous decade, were heavily concentrated in the South End and Roxbury, which each held 44 percent of Boston’s 42,744 people of color (see map). One-fifth of the white population was foreign-born, with Ireland, Canada, Italy, and the USSR accounting for most of these (see graph). The housing vacancy rate was a mere 1.7 percent, and one in eight dwelling units had more than one person per room. This crowded condition would be relieved over the following decade by both a surge of public housing construction (see Plate 41) and flight to the suburbs (see Plate 46). By 1960 Boston would lose 104,247 people, 13 percent of its population, as the rest of Massachusetts added 562,311. When the postwar economic recovery took off, it left without Boston and took its modicum of regional growth to the suburbs, following the outflow of population (see Plate 46). The poor economy took a toll on Boston families. The unemployment rate for men was 8.8 percent. The median household income of $2,643 was equivalent to just $25,750, adjusted to 2015 price levels, slightly above the poverty line for a family of four in that latter year. The median rent of $35.40 per month was only 16 percent of median income, about half of the “affordability ratio” in 2015. But life in Boston would prove no bargain for most inhabitants as the city slid into another decade of decline.

5

Cities appearing in only one decade Washington, DC Buffalo

4

3

2

1

0 1910

1920

1930

1940

1950

Year

As the nation’s population moved west, Boston declined in rank from the fifth-largest U.S. city in 1910 to tenth-largest in 1950.

Plate 42 Principal Occupations of Employed Boston Residents over 14 Years of Age, 1950 Operatives Clerical Craftsmen, foremen Service workers Professional, technical, kindred Sales Women Men

Managers, officials, proprietors Laborers Private household workers Occupation not reported

Burroughs Newsboys Home 0

5,000

10,000

15,000

20,000

25,000

30,000

35,000

40,000

Most Boston men were either craftsmen, equipment operators, or service workers in 1950. Most women had clerical jobs or operated machines such as sewing machines. A larger portion of working women held professional or technical jobs, compared to men.

The Burroughs Newsboys Home was opened in 1927 by Harry E. Burroughs, a successful immigrant who had sold newspapers on Boston street corners himself after arriving from Russia at age twelve. It remained here at 10 Somerset Street until 1950, when this photograph was taken. Although the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act somewhat regulated child labor, children as young as nine years were still allowed to work as “Newsies” with a special permit. The building was later demolished and replaced with a Suffolk University residence hall.

Boston’s Male Labor Force, 1950

Boston’s Female Labor Force, 1950

Number employed

Employed, 66% Not in labor force, 25% Unemployed, 6% Military, 2%

Not in labor force, 65% Employed, 34% Unemployed, 2%

Of Boston’s 302,343 men and boys over the age of 14, only one-fourth were neither working nor seeking work. The percents on the graph do not total 100 because of rounding.

Only about 35 percent of Boston’s 330,881 women and girls over 14 years of age sought paid work. The percents on the graph do not total 100 because of rounding.

Number of Foreign-Born Whites in Boston, 1950 30,000

Charlestown East Boston Central

25,000

Back Bay/ Beacon Hill

Allston/Brighton

South End

20,000 South Boston Number

Fenway/ Kenmore

Roxbury Jamaica Plain

10,000

South Dorchester

Roslindale

5,000

Mattapan

15.0–33.0% 1.0–5.0% Less than 1.0%

ia

rm

Ge

ia

As

es

an

Li

an y Sc ot Ca la na nd da ,F re nc h Gr ee ce Sw ed en

d an

th u

d an

an

d

Po l

W al

h US SR

ly

ng

Ita

lis

gl

Nonwhite Population in Boston Neighborhoods, 1950

En

Hyde Park

Ca

na

da

,E

la

nd

0

Ire

West Roxbury

North Dorchester

15,000

Country of birth (nationalities with more than 2,000 residents)

Nineteen percent of Boston’s population was foreign-born in 1950, continuing the steady postwar decline from 36 percent in 1910 (see Plate 38) and 24 percent in 1940.

P L A T E 4 2 · S E C T I O N I X : D E C L I N E   119

Section X

­“The New Boston”

Introduction

T

he “New Boston” describes the city that evolved from what its major newspaper described as a “tumbled-­down, has-­been” in 1945 into what its boosters called a “world-­class city” by 2000. At the beginning of this period, Boston’s economy, after being temporarily buoyed by wartime spending, was once more struggling, owing to its too-­long dependence on manufacturing and trade sectors that were either dying or moving to other parts of the country or the world. Aided and abetted by federal highway and mortgage programs, Boston’s middle class was fleeing (see Plate 40). Indeed, between 1950 and 1960 Boston suffered the largest percentage population drop of any major U.S. city. Good jobs were hard to find. New, growing industries, like the high technology sector, were both building in and hiring from the suburbs. Boston’s retail sector was losing ground to the new phenomenon of the suburban shopping mall. The city’s port was moribund; its days as a center for fishing and shipping were over. Boston’s neighborhoods, now primarily home to the poor and working class, were decaying. The city’s tax revenues were down; its property tax rates up; and its bond rating one of the lowest of any major city in the country. There was no money with which to provide services, let alone fund capital improvements. Like many of its old, well-­built houses, however, Boston had “good bones.” A regional mass transit system connected the city to its suburbs (see Plate 45). Although the Massachusetts Port Authority had abandoned efforts to revive the harbor, it had turned its attention to developing the airport, which was located just minutes from downtown (see Plate 44). Boston’s commercial sector was still stocked with banks, investment houses, and law firms eager to accept new clients, even if the clients were located just outside city limits. Boston had long been home to numerous colleges and universities (see Plate 52), which were primed to accept the burgeoning “Baby Boom” generation applying for admission. It had also long been home to numerous hospitals and laboratories (see Plate 53), which were poised to receive the coming increase in health care and research spending. The city had a workforce looking for jobs; a history that could be not only celebrated but marketed; and neighborhoods ripe for revival. What Boston needed most at this juncture

122  S E C T I O N X . “ T H E N E W B O S T O N ”

was the kind of leadership that would enable it to harness all this potential. Fortunately, Boston received this kind of leadership—­first from a succession of able and effective mayors. John Hynes was elected in 1949 (“the New Boston” was the slogan for his first reelection campaign). Hynes not only vanquished the legendary James Michael Curley, but also banished the ethnic and class politics that had for too long kept Boston’s Irish Catholic political establishment at odds with its Yankee Protestant business community. His commitment to honest and efficient government helped attract badly needed private investment. Hynes embraced establishment of a Freedom Trail of historic sites, got the Chamber of Commerce and Advertising Club of Boston to support it, and helped Boston launch itself as a destination for visitors (see Plate 55). Hynes convinced the Prudential Insurance Company to relocate its regional headquarters to Boston, and, when it opened in 1965, the Prudential Center not only was the tallest building in the U.S. outside Manhattan but joined several other recently built high-­rise office buildings on an emerging New Boston skyline (see Plate 54). Hynes also attracted public investment by embracing the new program called urban renewal, a commitment continued by his immediate successors, John Collins and Kevin White (see Plate 47). Urban renewal was particularly successful in rebuilding the city’s downtown. It helped to replace Scollay Square with Government Center (see Plate 33), reclaim the waterfront for residential and recreational use, and preserve and rehabilitate the Faneuil Hall/Quincy Market area—­all of which attracted workers, shoppers, and visitors to Boston’s once-­again bustling downtown. But urban renewal produced mixed results in Boston’s neighborhoods, and often met strong opposition by residents, especially after they saw the New York Streets area and the West End destroyed and the inhabitants of those neighborhoods displaced. Fortunately for Boston, though, the opposition to urban renewal produced a generation of able and effective grassroots leaders who also enabled the city to fulfill its promise in other areas as well. When it came to urban renewal, community leaders like Leo Baldwin in Charlestown, Muriel and Otto Snowden in Roxbury, and Mel King in the South End forced the city to live up to its promise to engage in “Planning With People.”

Residents like recent immigrant Paula Oyola and lifetime residents like Bob and Theresa Parks created Community Development Corporations to rebuild their own neighborhoods. In civil rights, African-­American residents waged a campaign against discrimination and for equal rights that included a 1965 “March on Boston” led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who declared the “vision of the New Boston must extend to the black community.” Doris Bland led a citywide campaign by a group called Mothers for Adequate Welfare that included an occupation of the Grove Hall branch welfare office, which not only sparked a three-­day riot but resulted in the overhaul of the state’s archaic and ineffective welfare system. Doris Bunte took part in a campaign to improve conditions in the city’s public housing developments and went on to become the administrator of the Boston Housing Authority, the first former tenant to lead a big-­city public housing agency in the country. Anna DiFronzo and the “Mothers of Maverick” sat down in the street to block dump trucks from passing through their East Boston neighborhood, which forced the Massachusetts Port Authority to be a better neighbor as it expanded Logan Airport (see Plate 44). Highway construction continued during the early years of the New Boston, and completion of the Southeast Expressway, Central Artery, and Massachusetts Turnpike Extension improved automobile access to and through the city. But when two more highways were proposed, an Inner Belt and a Southwest Expressway that would have strangled the New Boston, Chuck Turner and others led a “People Before Highways” movement that stopped them from being built and forced the state to invest in mass transit instead (see Plate 44). For decades, Ruth Batson led an unsuccessful campaign by African-­American parents to improve the quality and end the inequality and segregation in Boston’s public schools. But the failure of the Boston School Committee to uphold the law led to intervention by the federal court. While the court’s 1974 decision that the Boston public schools had been “unconstitutionally segregated” was irrefutable, its remedy—­extensive busing—­ prompted a fierce and sometimes violent opposition that roiled the New Boston and has hindered efforts at school reform ever since (see Plate 48).

In 1976, the New Boston celebrated America’s Bicentennial with a yearlong program of events that showcased the city’s progress, primarily in its downtown core. In the 1983 preliminary election for mayor, voters showed that they wanted that progress to be shared more equitably by the neighborhoods by rejecting candidates more likely to follow the direction set by the city’s recent mayors and by choosing two more neighborhood-­ oriented candidates—­Mel King and Ray Flynn—­to face one another in the final election. Flynn was subsequently elected mayor, and he and his successor, Tom Menino, gave more attention to the neighborhoods, something that the city has done ever since. A “linkage” ordinance was implemented that required developers of large commercial projects to contribute funds to promote the construction of affordable housing and support job training programs. A “Boston jobs policy” was enacted that called for the hiring of more city residents, minorities, and women on large construction projects. An “inclusionary development policy” was put in place that required large residential developments to include a percentage of units affordable to those with modest incomes. In the mid-­1980s, the New Boston both drove and benefited from a surging statewide economy that was dubbed the “Massachusetts Miracle.” The resulting increase in tax revenues and improved bond rating enabled the city to improve the delivery of basic services and invest in capital improvements that included paying attention to its long-­neglected park system. Boston generated more jobs than it had residents and its population began to grow again. The city’s progress was marred in a few neighborhoods, however, by a sudden increase in gang violence that was sparked by the introduction of crack cocaine and the too-­

easy availability of handguns. Cities across the U.S. faced this threat. Boston dealt with it better than most, dramatically reducing the city’s homicide rate through a partnership among the police, community, and local clergy that came to be called the “Boston Miracle.” By the year 2000, although the city still faced problems of youth violence, educational equity, and income inequality, the New Boston had become an extremely attractive place in which to live, work, and visit. Its economy was booming, its airport bustling, its colleges fully enrolled, and its hospitals and laboratories receiving record research funding. The city’s population continued to grow, and, for the first time in its history, a majority of residents were racial or ethnic minorities. Boston’s downtown business district was bursting and looking for somewhere it could expand. Most neighborhoods were experiencing a renaissance. Fifty years earlier, abandonment by the middle class had been a symptom of the Old Boston’s decline. Now, gentrification and a shortage of affordable housing were two of the most pressing challenges facing the New Boston. Jim Vrabel

S E C T I O N X . “ T H E N E W B O S T O N ”   123

Addition of Land, 1880–2003

B

oston’s land area increased in the late 1800s and throughout the 1900s partly due to the annexation of Hyde Park in 1912 (see Plate 26) but, more significantly, due to land created along the city’s shorelines (see map). As in other periods, this land was made— for various purposes—by filling in the tidal flats surrounding the city (see map and Plates 14, 23, 25, and 44). Shoreline landmaking was not unique to Boston, however—virtually every major city on an ocean coast, sizeable lake, or large river has some man-made land along its waterfront. What is distinctive about Boston is the amount, for its 5,245 acres of made land are probably more than in any other city in the Americas. Filling of tidelands, as they are called, has been regulated by the state since 1866. State-issued licenses permitted filling as far as the outer line of tidal flats—basically today’s Boston shoreline. Once that limit was reached, permits under Chapter 91—the law governing tidelands— have required that private development of the shoreline be offset by the provision of public benefits. For example, the Harborwalk that now follows Boston’s shoreline, which preserves public access to the waterfront, was created as part of this law. Methods of making land changed somewhat during the period from 1880 through the 1900s. Stone seawalls, which had been used during most of the 1800s to hold the fill for making land (see Plate 25), were replaced—especially on

NANCY S. SEASHOLES

large projects like the South Boston and East Boston Flats (see Plate 44)—by wood bulkheads and, later, steel sheet piling. Deposition of fill became completely mechanized— fill was hauled by dump trucks rather than by the ubiquitous horse-drawn tip carts of earlier times (see Plate 25). Perhaps most dramatic were changes in the fill itself. Once

the germ theory of disease was accepted in the United States at the end of the 1800s and people no longer believed that diseases were caused by rotting organic matter, trash became an acceptable fill. Large areas were then filled with trash, most notably Columbia Point where the buildings of UMass/Boston sit on a thirty-foot-deep former trash dump.

Modern Deposition of Fill Taken August 18, 1951, this photo shows filling west of the Harvard Bridge (no. 50 on the map), seen in the background. Fill was dredged from the river by the dredger at left, hauled in from the suburbs by dump trucks, such as the one at right, and leveled by the bulldozer in the center.

LANDMAKING PROJECTS Name of landmaking project, dates (Name of entity conducting landmaking) Boston - East Boston 1 Suffolk Downs and oil tank farm, early 1930s (Belle Isle Reclamation District Boston Port Development Company) 2 Industrial land, 1912–1919 (East Boston Company) 3 Orient Heights (Noyes) Playground, 1910–1912 (Boston Park Department) 4 Fill behind Dike, 1919–1920 (Mass. Commission on Waterways & Public Lands, 1919 Mass. Dept. of Public Works, 1920) 5 Orient Heights (Constitution) Beach, 1949–1951 (Mass. Dept. of Public Works) 6 Pigeon Hollow Spar Co. land, 1966–1969 (Pigeon Hollow Spar Co.) Boston - Charlestown 7 Everett Scrap Yard, 1931–1951 (Boston Elevated Railway, 1924–1947 Metropolitan Transit Authority, 1947–1951) 8 Charlestown (Ryan) Playground, 1891–1905 (Boston Park Department) 9 Dewey Beach, 1895–1898 (Boston Park Department) 10 Mystic Wharf, 1883–1892 (Boston & Lowell R.R., 1883–1887 Boston & Maine R.R., 1887–1892) 11 Navy Yard land and piers, 1899–1942 (U.S. Navy) 12 Hoosac Docks, early 1890s (Fitchburg R.R.) 13 Second Charles River Dam, 1974–1978 (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) 14 Millers River, 1928–1932, 1960s (Boston & Maine R.R.?) 15 Prison Point Bay, 1881–1886 (Boston Board of Health) Somerville 15 Prison Point Bay, 1881–1886 (Boston Board of Health) 16 Millers River, 1890s, 1928–1932, 1940s–1960s (Boston & Maine R.R.) Cambridge 17 Railroad yards, c. 1902–1904 (Boston & Maine R.R.) 18 Boston & Maine Terminal Project, 1928–1932 (Boston & Maine R.R.) 19 First Street Dump, 1880–1895 (private owners) 20 Industrial land, 1889–c. 1900 (John T. Scully & Son) 21 Lechmere Canal, 1951–1964 (abutters)

22 23 24 25 26

27 28 29 30 31

32 47

Industrial land, c. 1900–1920s (John T. Scully & Brother) The Front, 1895–c. 1910 (City of Cambridge) Industrial land, early 1890s (private owners) Broad Canal, 1880s–1892 (Boston Woven Hose & Rubber Co.) Broad Canal, 1960s 26a) Cambridge Redevelopment Authority, 1964 26b) Abutters, 1968 Industrial land, before 1886 (private owners) Commercial land, 1889–1890 (private owners) Industrial land, 1897–1899 (private owners) Cambridge Riverbank Esplanade, 1883–1900 (Charles River Embankment Co.) Charles River Road and seawall, 1883–1901 (Charles River Embankment Co. Cambridge Park Commission) Magazine Beach, 1899–1900 (Cambridge Park Commission) First Charles River Dam, 1905–1910 (Charles River Basin Commission)

Boston - Bay State Rd., Fenway, Boston Proper, South Bay 33 Commonwealth Ave. widened, 1887 (City of Boston) 34 Bay State Rd., 1889–1891 (private owners) 35 Bay State Rd., 1890–1891 (Riverbank Improvement Co.) 36 Residential land, 1881–1887 (Boston & Roxbury Mill Corp.) 37 Back Bay Fens, 1878–1894 (Boston Park Department) 38 Western Back Bay, 1881 (City of Boston Boston Water Power Co. Beacon Street Land Assoc.) 39 Ipswich Street area, 1884–1885 (private owners) 40 Norway Street area, 1885 (Boston Water Power Co.) 41 Hemenway St. south of Westland Ave., 1887 (Boston Water Power Co.) 42 Symphony/Gainsborough/St. Stephen Sts. area and streets, 1883–1898 (Boston Water Power Co. Boston Street Department)

124  P L A T E 4 3 · S E C T I O N X : “ T H E N E W B O S T O N ”

43

44 45

46 47 48 49

50 51 52 53 54

55 56

57

58

Parker/Ward Sts. area, 1883– late 1890s (Boston Water Power Co. Boston Street Department) Fenway area, 1885 (Boston Water Power Co.) Peterborough, Queensbury, Landsdowne Sts., 1896–1898 (Boston Street Department) Charlesbank, 1883–1888 (Boston Park Department) First Charles River Dam, 1905–1910 (Charles River Basin Commission) Boston Embankment, 1906–1909 (Charles River Basin Commission) Widening Esplanade and Charlesbank, early 1930s (Metropolitan District Commission) Compensation for Storrow Drive, 1950–1951 (Metropolitan District Commission) Nashua Street Playground, c. 1934–1937 (Boston Park Department) U.S. Coast Guard Base Boston, c. 1944 (U.S. Coast Guard) South Station, 1897–1899 (Boston Terminal Co.) Reconfiguration of Fort Point Channel, c. 2001–2003 (Central Artery/Tunnel project) Southeast Expressway, 1956–1959 (Massachusetts Highway Department) Roxbury Canal (and Dorchester Brook), 1964?–1969 (Massachusetts Department of Public Works) New Wharves, 1902–1907, (Roxbury Central Wharf Co. South Bay Wharf and Terminal Co.) Railroad yards, 1921–1929 (New York, New Haven & Hartford R.R.)

Boston - South Boston 59 Gillette Co. land, early 1960s (Gillette Co.) 60 Dock between Piers 1 and 2, 1969 (Anthony Athanas) 61 Part of dock between Piers 2 and 4, 1971 (Anthony Athanas) 62 Railroad yards, 1885–1889 (New York & New England R.R.) 63 South Boston Flats project, 1880–1920s (Massachusetts Board of Harbor and Land Commissioners, 1880–1911 Directors of the Port of Boston, 1912–1915 Commission on Waterways and Public Lands, 1916–1919 Massachusetts Department of Public Works, 1920s)

64

65 66 67 68 69 70

South Boston Annex dry dock, piers, land, 1940–1943 (U.S. Navy) Subaru Pier, 1980s (Massachusetts Port Authority) Power plant land, 1911–1914 (Boston Elevated Railway Co.) Marine Park, 1889–1895 (Boston Park Department) Strandway (Day Blvd.), 1896–1903 (Boston Park Department) Playground, 1901–1903 (Boston Park Department) Columbus (Moakley) Park, 1917–1919 (Boston Public Works Department)

Boston - Dorchester 71 Coleman Dump, c. 1925–1951? (Coleman Disposal Co.) 72 Bayside Mall, 1963 (Family City Development Corp.) 73 Boat yard, c. 1911? (C. A. Borden & Son?) 74 Columbia Point housing project, 1950–1951 (Boston Housing Authority) 75 Incinerator dump & John F. Kennedy Library, mid-1950s–1962, early 1970s, 1977 (Boston Public Works Department JFK Library Corp.) 76 Gasholders and land, late 1880s (Bay State Gas Co.) 77 Coleman Dump, c. 1934–1968 (Coleman Disposal Co.) 78 UMass/Boston land (Commonwealth of Massachusetts) 79 Old Colony (Morrissey) Blvd., 1918–1926 (Metropolitan District Commission) 80 Park land, late 1950s (Metropolitan District Commission) 81 Savin Hill Beach/McConnell Park, 1908, 1916–1918 (Boston Park Department) 82 Southeast Expressway, 1955–1959 (Massachusetts Highway Department) 83 Victory Road Park, 1969–1972 (Jerome P. Troy) Boston - Spectacle Island 84 Trash dump, 1930s–1950s (Coleman Disposal Co.)

Plate 43 1

1

EVERETT 7

CHELSEA 8

CAMBRIDGE

22

27

28

29

er Ri v s e l r 50 Ch a

30 32

Cottage Farm (BU) Br., 1850

50

49

50

49

48

36

51

33 35

12

52

18

See Plate 44

46

BOSTON

49 48

Boston Harbor

34

61

60

49 Summer St. Br., 1899

53

62

65

39

45

41

45

54

59

42

L St. Br., 1892

64

63

56 43

44

64

63

40

37

Logan International Airport

Northern Ave. Br., 1908 Moakley Br., 1996

38 34

WINTHROP

11

Harvard Br., 1891

31

31

13

47 47 23 24

6

14

18

26a 20 19 26b

See Plate 44

East Boston

Zakim/Bunker Hill Br., 2002

17

21

5

Charlestown

15

25

4

10

9

16

3

Mystic R iver

SOMERVILLE 15

2

South Boston

55 57

64

66

58

67

69

Roxbury

68

68

Old Harbor

70

Spectacle I.

84

72 74

71 73

Columbia Point 76

Jamaica Plain

80

77

81

Landmaking, 1880–2003 2003 Boston shoreline

Thompson I.

75

79 78

1880 Boston shoreline

71

Dorchester Bay

79

Dorchester

Drawbridge, 1928

82

Commercial Industrial Residential

79

83

New streets Transportation

82

Institutions Pollution cover Trash dumps

Quincy Bay

Public works/buildings Military Parks Other made land 1880–2003

QUINCY 0

1/2

1 mile

P L A T E 4 3 · S E C T I O N X : “ T H E N E W B O S T O N ”   125

CHELSEA

Highways and Airport, 1920–1973

Landmaking for Logan International Airport Existing in 1915

East Boston

1915–1923 1928–1937 1943–1949

Wood Island Park

1952–1953 1962–1977

filled by 1977

filled 1967–1969

4L-2 2R

Airport property boundary 1915 shoreline

15

L-3

2018 shoreline

3R

filled 1975–1976

4R-2 2L

T

wo new forms of transportation transformed Boston during the mid-1900s— highways and air travel. As early as 1909, a state commission, responding to growing automobile use and traffic congestion, had proposed a system of radial thoroughfares to connect Boston with outlying areas and circumferential thoroughfares to connect the radials—concepts that would reappear in future proposals. In the 1920s and ’30s, some radials were improved or built, and segments of a circumferential highway, planned since 1927, were constructed and designated Route 128. The Sumner Tunnel beneath Boston Harbor opened in 1934, and connecting roads were built to northern points (see map). Road construction was suspended during World War II, but in 1948 Massachusetts issued a Master Highway Plan, intended to relieve traffic congestion and revive the region’s economy (see Plate 40). It proposed a network of multi-lane, limited access expressways, including inner and outer circumferential roads. By 1960, Route 128 had been completed as an expressway, and the Northeast and Southeast Expressways were opened (see map). The Central Artery, first proposed in 1923 and again in 1930, was elevated above Boston’s downtown streets and connected to them by numerous on/off ramps. Construction began at its north end and aroused so much opposition that its southern end was put in a tunnel. Another highway, built on the Esplanade, was named Storrow Drive despite opposition from the Storrow family, who had financed the 1930s expansion of the Esplanade. Expressways proved expensive, however, and the state could not fund a proposed Western Expressway. In 1952 the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority was created to build it as a toll road, which was extended into Boston in 1964–65 (see map). Authorization of the Interstate Highway System in 1956 brought 90 percent federal funding for designated routes. But neighborhood protests over the proposed Inner Belt and Southwest Expressway (see map) transformed the politics of highway construction. After a comprehensive review, Governor Francis Sargent cancelled all South unbuilt highways within Route 128 in 1971 and 1973, and obtained Boston federal permission to transfer highway funds to public transit projects (see Plate 51). Air travel also changed the face of Boston during the mid-1900s. The state opened a Boston airport in 1923 on a section of the East Boston Flats being filled for a major rail and shipping terminal. In 1928 the state leased the airport to the city of Boston, which erected new buildings and continued filling (see map). Finally relinquishing plans for a port development in 1939, the state regained control of the airport in 1941 and, in response to the growth of aviation during World War II, embarked on major filling in 1943 (see map). At this time the airport was named for South Boston native General Edward Lawrence Logan, a lieutenant general in the Massachusetts National Guard who apparently was never in an airplane. In 1959 the Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport) assumed control of the airport. In the late 1960s Massport began extending a runway over Wood Island Park and filling the Bird Island Flats (see map), despite protest demonstrations by East Boston residents who were supported by some of the same people opposing the Inner Belt and Southwest Expressway. Filling the Bird Island Flats was the last major landmaking at the airport.

CHARLES BAHNE AND NANCY S. SEASHOLES

LOGAN INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

15

R3

3L

Bird Island Flats

Apple Island

filled 1964–1975

9-27

filled by 1962

filled early 1970s

14–

32

Governors Island

0

1,000

2,000 feet

Boston Airport, 1923 This 1923 photo of the Boston airport shows the T-shaped runway, at the very edge of the fill, that existed the year the airport opened. In the foreground is the wood bulkhead that retained the fill, which was dredged from the harbor. In the background, a train is steaming across the unfilled Basin on the tracks of the Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn Railroad (see Plate 45), which also extend across the edge of Wood Island Park and an unfilled cove north of it.

126  P L A T E 4 4 · S E C T I O N X : “ T H E N E W B O S T O N ”

DANVERS

Plate 44 BILLERICA

95

194 7–4 8

WILMINGTON

LYNNFIELD READING

1962

93

194 9, 19 59 –

128

3

rt No

60

+

196

y. xp tE es hw –55 54 19

PEABODY

4+

Northeast Expy., c anc elle d

59–6 1951, 19

1973

0

BURLINGTON

BEDFORD

WOBURN 1937

STONEHAM

MELROSE 1961 Alewife Brook Pkwy., 1931

SOMERVILLE

128

Brighton

achusetts Massk., 1957 Tp

1926, 1954–55+

90

1929, 1954–55+

wy. . Pk .W F . V 4 193

19

55

NEEDHAM

io Leg can 1932 i r e

197 3

1

19 56

95

1935

Date widened

3

8

MILTON

QUINCY

195 8

6+

19

60

128

1933

1956

1958

1959

196 6

NORWOOD

1956+

(Tobin Br., Date renamed 1967)

95

CANTON

24

BRAINTREE

128

RANDOLPH

– y., 1959 Exp ast

2 miles

Date upgraded to highway

the

1

Date opened

Sou

0

S 19 35

First link in a proposed, but unbuilt, highway to New York City.

e nce Hwy. 193 3

6

MEDFIELD

No rth

1935 1937

5

56 19

195

Pro vi d

2, 1

After 1973

nH

Hyde Park

195

1960–1973 Cancelled highway (approximate location)

c. 1967

DEDHAM

193 2,

WESTWOOD

1948–1959 Old Colony Pkwy., 1928 (Morrissey Blvd., 1951), 1954+

y., 1 9 t Exp eas uth So

1 93 +

1930–1941

Dorchester

Am

West Roxbury

Jamaica Plain

1920–1929

wy .,

Centre St., 1932

Southwes t Exp y., c anc elle d

Arborway

Before 1920

y., 1959 Exp

Roxbury

BROOKLINE

9

DOVER

B O S T O N

Boston Highways, 1973 (Four or more lanes, divided or left turns restricted)

South Boston

st ea uth So

I 95 cannner cel B e lt, le d 1 973

–38 1 9 3 4 Jamaicaway

WELLESLEY

Logan International Airport

Bowker Overpass, 1966 Fenway

NEWTON

1933

ad

1954 d., R. R rles 14 3) Cha896–19 r., 192 Boston 1 ial D Proper mor 1955 (Me rive D 1958 w Storro 55 + 9 1 , z 1951 1965

Riverway

9

East Boston Expy., 1951 Callahan WINTHROP Tunnel, 1961

28

ra l

1904, 1954–55+

90

V.F.W. Hwy., 1933

ge

WESTON

d.

s Tpk. Extn. usett sach s a M 1964

s Field R dier Sol

American Legion Hwy., 1933

McClellan Hwy., 1934

Sumner Tunnel, 1934

Charlestown

NAHANT

Lee-Burbank Hwy., 1934 East Boston

1

d E x py.)

1 95

Fresh Pond Pkwy., 1900 Eliot Br., 1951 Greenough Blvd., 1966 Soldiers Field Rd. Extn., 1957

695

CAMBRIDGE

WATERTOWN

My (To stic bin R. B Br. r., 1 , 19

+

1, 1 9 59 – 6 4

Fresh Pond Pkwy., 1930

5

Ro re ho

1

CHELSEA

0 95 ) 67

73 19

BELMONT

Northern Artery, 1928 (McGrath Hwy., 1933), 1957+ ute Northern Artery, 1928 2 Ex (O’Brien Hwy., tn., can cell 1950), 1958+ ed Memorial Drive 197 1 Extn., 1949

Ro

195 9 Cen tral A rtery (Fit

WALTHAM

Alewife Brook Pkwy., 1930

107

REVERE 95

Northeast Expy., 1957

4

968 +

EVERETT

196

1935 ,1

y. xp H Inte wy rna ., 1 tio 93 na 7 l

Nort he as tE 19 58

ARLINGTON

2

19 55

196 8+

MALDEN

MEDFORD

1955

General Edwards Br., 1935

19 41

93

1961–62

,

way nn Ly 195

1

1A

ca Inne nc r B ell elt ed , 197 1

193 5

95

Bennett & Cutler Hwys., 1937

1971

2

LYNN

WINCHESTER

d celle y., can Northwest Exp

1935

LEXINGTON

SALEM

SWAMPSCOTT

SAUGUS

LINCOLN

Final segment of Boston’s highway system.

7 193

1937, 1962+

59–61 + 1941, 19

WAKEFIELD

128

1988

WEYMOUTH

60

3

Fall River Expy., 1959, 1974+

P L A T E 4 4 · S E C T I O N X : “ T H E N E W B O S T O N ”   127

LEXINGTON

Public Transportation, 1918–1967 LINCOLN

B

NANCY S. SEASHOLES AND CHARLES BAHNE Thompson Sq.

Airport

Harvard

195 9

2 195

City Sq.

North Station

Science Park (1955)

Surface connection ended 1924; track removed 1952 Charles (1932)

1963

ST.

Closed 1962

Surface connection ended 1941

NT ST .

Boylston

TREM O

ON LST BOY

Surface connection ended 1961 19 41

Closed 1963

Government Center (Scollay until 1963)

Arlington (1921)

State St. (closed 1938) Aquarium (Atlantic until 1967)

State (Devonshire until 1967) State (Milk-State until 1967) Rowes Wharf (closed 1938) Washington E. AV TIC N LA AT Essex South Station (Boylston-Essex until 1967) Beach St. (closed 1919)

Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn R.R. Ferry (closed 1940)

South Station (closed 1938)

A Watertown

Atlantic Ave. Elevated closed 1938; removed 1942

Dover

0

AS

HI

NG TO N

ST.

Elevated line closed 1908; removed 1935

Maverick (1924)

Haymarket (Union-Friend until 1967) Adams (closed 1963)

Brattle (closed 1952)

Park St.

ended 1924

South Ferry (closed 1952)

North Station Atlantic Ave. Elevated closed 1938; removed 1942

Haymarket Bowdoin

Washington (Winter-Summer until 1967)

Copley

Battery (closed 1938) North Ferry (closed 1938)

Surface connection ended 1949

Lechmere (1922)

. GALEN ST

oston’s public transportation system underwent many changes in the decades after 1918 (see Plate 28). The rapid transit system continued Surface connections Stadium (closed 1967) to grow (see map). The Main Line El was extended to Everett, thoughended 1922 not to Malden as planned. In the East Boston Tunnel, rapid transit trains replaced streetcars because the latter were operating at near capacity by the early 1920s. What is now the Red Line was extended into Dorchester on the right-of-way of the Shawmut Branch of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad and included aCentral high-speed trolley from Ashmont to Mattapan. The Boylston Street Subway was run underneath Governor Square to reduce surface traffic congestion, the square renamed Kenmore, and the subway extended short distances under Commonwealth Avenue Kendall and Beacon Street. Another streetcar subway under Huntington Avenue, considered since the 1920s, was constructed as a WPA project. But not all the system expanded: after years of declining ridership and curtailed service, the Atlantic Avenue El closed in 1938. Management of the public transportation system also changed. The privately owned Boston Elevated Railway Company came under public control in 1918 and began receiving government subsidies. In 1947 a commission to investigate Boston’s rapid transit recommended transfer to a public authority, which was accomplished when the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) was created that same year. The MTA implemented several of the commission’s recommendations. It extended East Boston Tunnel service to Revere Kenmore along the route of the Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn Railroad, a narrow gauge (1932) line that had closed in 1940. And it converted the Highland Branch of the WESTON Boston & Albany Railroad, which went to Riverside station in Newton, to a (1965) trolley line, an idea under consideration since 1926. In 1964 theAuditorium MTA was Massachusetts replaced by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA).Prudential (1964) Mechanics Two formerly important parts of the public transportation system were Fenway Park discontinued in the 1918–67 period. Surface streetcars, which faced increasing Symphony operating costs, growing competition from autos, and aging equipment, began 59 19 to be replaced by buses in 1922 and by trackless trolleys—electric buses that received power from overhead Longwood wires—in 1936. By 1958 surface streetcars had 1 194 or vanished from the system, except for lines that included subway operations were on former railroad rights-of-way. Even some trolley lines that fed into the subway were curtailed, and a short segment of subway under Tremont Street, south of Boylston, was abandoned in 1962. The ferries to East Boston were also discontinued. The opening of the Sumner Tunnel in 1934, with its direct auto link to East Boston (see Plate 44), reduced use of these ferries. The Brookline North Ferry closed in 1938, contributing to the demise of the Atlantic Avenue Village El (see above); the South Ferry lasted until 1952. The Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn Railroad’s ferry service ended when that line closed in 1940.

1,000

2,000 feet

CENTRE ST. WASHINGTON ST. PARK ST.

Broadway

W

NEWTON Northampton

D Riverside Riverside

Woodland

Newton Center Andrew

Waban

Dudley

195 9

Eliot

WELLESLEY 27 19 Columbia

This illustration appears on the front of each Charlie Card. Charlie is presumably holding his fare card, though it is much larger than actual wallet-size Charlie Cards. Egleston

Charlie and the MTA Song

128  P L A T E 4 5 · S E C T I O N X : “ T H E N E W B O S T O N ”

Savin Hill

1927

The present MBTA electronic fare card is called a “Charlie Card.” It is named after the protagonist of a 1949 campaign song titled “M.T.A.,” which was written for a Boston mayoral candidate, Walter A. O’Brien Jr., who opposed the state takeover and “bailout” of the privately owned Boston Elevated Railway Company and the fare increase that followed. In the song, since Charlie doesn’t have a nickel to pay the new exit fare, he is Green fated to “ride forever ’neath the streets of Boston.” The song was written by Jackie Steiner and Bess Lomax Hawes and performed by the Boston Peoples Artists, a group that included Steiner, Hawes, brothers Arnold and Sam Berman, and Al Katz. Another O’Brien campaign volunteer later taught it to folk singer Will Holt, who recorded it in 1957. But, although initially popular, the song was taken off the airwaves because the lyrics mentioned Walter O’Brien, who, along with others in the Progressive Party, was caught up in the “Red Scare” politics of the early 1950s. The song didn’t become a hit until two years later, when it was recorded by the Kingston Trio—but only after the group made a small but significant change to the original lyrics of the final verse (Now, citizens of Boston, don’t you think it is a scandal / That the people have to pay and pay? / Join Walter A. O’Brien and fight the fare increase / Get poor Charlie off that MTA!) They changed O’Brien’s first name to George—in order to avoid the political censorship of the McCarthy era.

Newton Highlands

SAUGUS

WINCHESTER

MALDEN

Plate 45 Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn R.R.

ARLINGTON

Wonderland

REVERE

MEDFORD

EVERETT

Revere Beach 1954

Beachmont

Everett (1919)

CHELSEA Suffolk Downs

191

9

BELMONT SOMERVILLE

2 195

1/ /2 Orient Heights 4

ALFORD ST.

Sullivan Sq. N AI . ST

to n & , Re Ly ve nn re R. Be R. a ch

Wood Island 1/5/1952 (Day Sq. until 1954)

M

CAMBRIDGE

Thompson Sq. Surface connections ended 1922

M

AS SA CH Stadium US (closed 1967) E

WAT E RT OW N

TT S

Central

AV E.

Lechmere (1922)

Airport

Bo s

Harvard

City Sq.

North Ferry (closed 1938)

Bos ton , & LR evere Beach y n n R. R.

WINTHROP

Surface connections ended 1924

Maverick (1924)

Bowdoin to Maverick: Converted from streetcar subway to rapid transit train in 1924

Kendall

South Ferry (closed 1952)

MAIN ST.

Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn R.R. Ferry (closed 1940)

for detail, see map at left

19 41

ST.

Columbia

C E NTR

Savin Hill

Green

Boston Rapid Transit System, 1967 Trains

E Arborway

Forest Hills

Subway

Fields Corner

Elevated Surface

Shawmut 1928

Streetcars Subway Elevated

Ashmont

Surface

929

Cedar Grove

6/1 8/2

After the MBTA acquired the Boston transit system in 1964, it engaged an architectural firm, Cambridge Seven Associates, to modernize the system’s image. The authority’s new look, with its circle-T logo (the system is now often called the “T”) and a schematic rapid transit diagram, was introduced systemwide in 1967. Inspired by the 1933 diagrammatic map of London’s Underground, the T’s diagram showed the relative positions of lines and stations but not their actual locations. (Compare the map at left with the large map above.) Simultaneously, the T became one of the world’s first subway systems to name its lines after colors—Red because that line runs to Harvard, whose school color is crimson; Green due to the many parks and parkways along its route; Orange since part of Washington Street was once named Orange Street; and Blue because of its proximity to the ocean. Although updated many times since, the Boston rapid transit map—sometimes called the “spider map” because of its resemblance to a long-legged bug—always depicts the lines schematically rather than geographically.

ST. SOUTH

The MBTA Spider Map

GT

Egleston

E ST.

BROOKLINE

Andrew

N

Chestnut Hill

BOSTON

Dudley

1927

Brookline Hills

Broadway

O

1

W AS HI N

Reservoir 9 95

N AV E.

C Cleveland Circle

S. HUNTINGTO

to ce s Surfa

DORCHESTER AVE.

B Boston College

Auditorium

stops no (Massachusetts t shown 1932 NWEALT until 1965) H AVE. Copley 2 1932 193 Prudential n s h ow (Mechanics until 1964) Dover not 59 Fenway Park tops s 19 e Symphony c a f r Su Longwood wn ST. s ho BEACON not E. s p AV s to Northampton Beaconsfield ON ce T a f G r Brookline Su TIN N Village HU

COMMO

n

S u r fa c e s t o p s n o t s h ow n ST . WASHINGTON ST.

Kenmore (1932)

Surface

t sh ow

T

BRIGHTO N AVE.

ST.

no

MO N

GE RID MB CA

ps

TR E

Stations Start/end of line extension

Butler St. (1931)

Mattapan

9 1/192 12/2

Capen Valley Rd. St.

1959 Date line opened

Milton

(1967) Date station opened

Tunnel portals

Central Ave.

Discontinued tunnel portals Discontinued lines

M I LT O N

Discontinued stations 0

1/2

1 mile

Discontinued surface streetcar

P L A T E 4 5 · S E C T I O N X : “ T H E N E W B O S T O N ”   129

Relocation to the Suburbs, 1940–1970

W

hen World War II ended, Boston was poised for a suburban explosion. It was a period of rising expectations, which were expressed by the desire for a single-family suburban home. Upscale suburbs such as Concord, Dover, Lincoln, and Weston attracted professionals and technology executives with their countrified, carefully preserved landscapes, while mass-produced subdivisions of ranch houses, split-levels, neo-Colonials, and Cape Cod cottages sprang up in Framingham, Lynnfield, Needham, Norwood, and Reading. The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and the Veterans Administration (VA) financed thousands of these mortgages. Boston’s ethnic enclaves were transformed, as increasing numbers of white ethnics moved to the suburbs and African Americans settled in city neighborhoods. Migration patterns differed starkly (see maps on opposite page). Jews by 1970 had nearly abandoned their longtime stronghold in Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan and moved to entirely new Jewish neighborhoods in the suburbs. Italians, in contrast, remained in large numbers in the North End and East Boston, while moving to already-established Italian communities outside Boston. African Americans showed a third pattern with increasing concentration in Boston and a handful of other cities. Racial segregation grew markedly in these years, as blacks found few homes in the suburbs.

JAMES C. O’CONNELL AND GERALD GAMM

Contributing to the postwar suburban explosion was the limited-access highway (see Plate 44). As America’s first circumferential beltway, Route 128 spurred the development of Boston’s outer suburbs and encouraged the migration of industries, offices, and retail stores from the central city. The route, which circled a dozen miles from downtown Boston, opened in the 1950s. Suburbs along the Route 128 corridor grew by 36.4 percent in the 1950s and 25.7 percent in the 1960s. The area also became a locus of industrial office parks. The driving force behind business expansion into the Route 128 corridor was the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), long noted for technological breakthroughs and companies created by its faculties and students. Route 2 became a secondary corridor between Cambridge and Route 128 and a catalyst for research and development. Another major feature of suburbanization was the shopping center. Shoppers’ World, in Framingham, was the first on the East Coast in 1951. It and other early shopping centers were first open-air and then subsequently enclosed. The region’s first enclosed mall was Westgate Mall (1963) in Brockton. The anchor tenants of these shopping malls were downtown Boston department stores Filene’s and Jordan Marsh, which were following their customers to the suburbs. Alongside the shopping malls, extensive commercial strips grew up, reflecting the low-density, automobile-oriented development patterns of postwar sprawl.

Ipswich

Population Change, 1940–1970 Lowell

More than 10,000 increase 5,001–10,000 increase 2,001–5,000 increase 1–2,000 increase Population decline

495

Chelmsford

Billerica

MITRE Corporation A spin-off from MIT.

3

MIT Lincoln Lab Established when Route 128 opened. Acton

Boxborough

2

Woburn

Burlington Mall (1968)

Concord

495 Stow Bolton

Lincoln

Digital Equipment Corporation Founded by Ken Olsen in a vacant wool mill in Maynard, was the nation's leading minicomputer maker during the 1970s and 1980s.

Hudson

Marlborough 290

Sudbury

Raytheon Company Started manufacturing vacuum tubes for radios in the 1920s. Became a major defense contractor and moved to the Route 128 corridor in 1961.

2

Arlington

Waltham

Weston

Data General A major minicomputer manufacturer during the "Massachusetts Miracle" years of the 1970s and 1980s.

Nahant

Natick

Chelsea

Arthur D. Little A pioneer management consulting and research and development firm, it moved from the MIT area to Acorn Park in 1953.

Boston

The Mall at Chestnut Hill (1974) Next to the Chestnut Hill Shopping Center, which opened in the mid-1950s.

Brookline

Hull

Dover

3

495

Dedham

128

Medfield

Norwood

24

Stoughton

Franklin 2 miles

Norwell

Holbrook Avon

Rockland

Hanover

Marshfield

Sharon 1

Bellingham

146

Scituate

3 Weymouth

Randolph

Walpole

Norfolk

1

Hingham

Canton

Medway

Cohasset

South Shore Plaza (1961) Originally an open-air mall.

128

95

0

Quincy

Braintree

Millis

Milford

Milton

Westwood

Holliston

Winthrop

Cambridge

Needham

New England Industrial Center Created by Cabot, Cabot & Forbes, was the nation's first master-planned business park, Sherborn located to take advantage of the planned Route 128.

Hopkinton

Sylvania A major electronics corporation that opened this plant as Route 128 became "America's Technology Highway."

95

Wellesley

Shoppers’ World (1951) The first regional shopping Ashland center on the East Coast. It was demolished and rebuilt as a power center for big box stores in 1996.

Swampscott

1A

Somerville

Newton

Natick Mall (1965) Renovated in 2007.

Lynn

1

9

9 90

Saugus

Revere

90

Framingham

Marblehead

Malden

Medford

Watertown

Southborough Westborough

Salem

Melrose

Belmont

Wayland

Polaroid Corporation Established in 1937 and moved to Cambridge in 1940, it opened plants for manufacturing instant film on Route 128 in 1954.

128

Everett 128

Northshore Shopping Center (1958) Originally an open-air mall.

Peabody

Winchester

Lexington

Maynard

Beverly

1 Stoneham

Manchesterby-the-Sea

128

Liberty Tree Mall (1972)

Lynnfield Wakefield

Burlington

Bedford

Air Force Research Lab Located at Hanscom Air Force Base.

Reading

Northwest Industrial Park An early tenant was RCA.

Danvers

1

Avco A major aerospace and defense contractor during the postwar era.

Wilmington

Gloucester

Wenham

North Reading

93

Carlisle

Littleton

Essex Middleton

Highway Completed before 1950 Completed 1950–1960 Completed 1960–1973

Hamilton

Tewksbury

Wang Laboratories Founded by An Wang in Cambridge, subsequently moved to Tewksbury and then to Lowell in the 1970s. Motorola moved into this space in 2007.

Shopping centers Technology companies and laboratories

Topsfield

95

Foxborough

Westgate Mall (1963) Greater Boston's first enclosed mall. Brockton

Pembroke

Wrentham Duxbury

130  P L A T E 4 6 · S E C T I O N X : “ T H E N E W B O S T O N ”

Ipswich

Ipswich

Lowell Tewksbury

North Reading Billerica

Wilmington

Carlisle

Bedford

Acton

Lexington

Stow

son

Sudbury

Wayland

Weston

orough

Milford

Medfield

Millis Medway

Tewksbury Sharon

Base maps from modern data Billerica

Carlisle Wrentham

Wilmington

Foxborough

Bedford

Acton

son

Lexington

Sudbury

ough

Weston

Framingham

Tewksbury Sharon

Base maps from modern data Billerica

Wilmington

Foxborough

Bedford

Acton

son

ough

Lexington

Sudbury Weston

inton

Milford

Medfield

Milton

Franklin

Wrentham

East Boston Southborough West North End End Beacon Hill Back Bay Downtown Westborough Fenway South South End Boston Roxbury Hopkinton

Jamaica Plain

Holbrook

Sharon

Stoughton

Avon

Roslindale West Roxbury Mattapan

Milford

Hyde Park

Easton

Wilmington

Foxborough

Bedford

Weston

Wakefield Saugus

Peabody Lynn

Stoneham Melrose Winchester

Wellesley

Milton

Westwood

Wrentham

Quincy

Randolph

1,000–4,999 0–999

East Boston West North End End Beacon Hill Back Bay Downtown Fenway South South End Boston Roxbury

Jamaica Plain Dorchester

Canton Walpole

Norfolk

5,000–9,999

Charlestown

Braintree

Norwood

Millis Medway

10,000 or more

BrightonAllston Dedham

Dover

Medfield

Marblehead

Swampscott

Boston

Needham

Sherborn

Salem

(see map at below)

Brookline

Holbrook

Sharon

Stoughton

Avon

Roslindale West Roxbury Mattapan Hyde Park

Brockton

Base maps from modern data

Bellingham

Dorchester

Reading Lynnfield Easton

Newton

Framingham Natick

Ipswich Jamaica Plain

Nahant Medford Malden Arlington Revere Everett Chelsea Belmont Waltham Somerville Winthrop Watertown Cambridge

Sudbury

Wayland

East Boston West North End End Beacon Hill Back Bay Downtown Fenway South South End Boston Roxbury

Topsfield Roslindale Hamilton Holbrook West Essex Roxbury Gloucester Mattapan Avon Middleton Wenham Stoughton Hyde Park ManchesterNorth Reading Danvers by-the-Sea Beverly Brockton

Burlington Woburn Lexington

Lincoln

Franklin

Brockton Foxborough

Braintree

Sharon

Base maps from modern data Billerica

Holliston Dorchester

Canton

Base maps from modern data

Bellingham

Quincy

Randolph

Walpole Norfolk

Marlborough Charlestown

Braintree

Norwood

Millis Medway

Hudson

0–999

Charlestown

Randolph

Walpole

0–999

(see map at right)

Westwood Holliston

1,000–4,999

1,000–4,999

Quincy

Milton

Tewksbury

5,000–9,999

5,000–9,999

Canton

Chelmsford Norfolk Franklin

Acton

Marblehead

10,000 or more

BrightonAllston

Norwood

Lowell

Foxborough

Rockport

Swampscott

(see map at right)

Westwood Medfield

Carlisle Wrentham

Salem

Boston

Dedham

Dover

Bolton 10,000 or more Stow

BrightonAllston Dedham

Dover

Boxborough

Lynn

Needham

Sherborn

Medway

Peabody

Stoneham Melrose Winchester

Brookline

Wellesley

Concord

Needham

Sherborn

Marblehead

Wakefield Saugus

Newton

Framingham

Rockport Millis

Dorchester

Reading Lynnfield Easton

African-American Population, 1970

Swampscott

Boston

Brookline

Wellesley Natick

Lynn

Stoneham Melrose Winchester

Newton

Framingham

orough

Saugus

Salem

Weston

Natick

Ipswich Jamaica Plain

Nahant Medford Malden Arlington Revere Everett Chelsea Belmont Waltham Somerville Winthrop Watertown Cambridge

Sudbury

Wayland

East Boston West North End End Beacon Hill Back Bay Downtown Fenway South South End Boston Roxbury

Topsfield Roslindale Hamilton Holbrook West Essex Roxbury Gloucester Mattapan Avon Middleton Wenham Stoughton Hyde Park ManchesterNorth Reading Danvers by-the-Sea Beverly Brockton

Burlington Woburn Lexington

Lincoln

Littleton Bellingham

Nahant Medford Malden Arlington Revere Everett Chelsea Belmont Waltham Somerville Winthrop Watertown Cambridge

Lincoln

Wayland

Wakefield

Burlington Woburn

Concord Stow

Dorchester

Peabody

Wilmington

Foxborough

Bedford

Holliston

Reading Lynnfield

African-American Population, 1940

xborough

East Boston Southborough West End North End Beacon Hill Back Bay Downtown Westborough Fenway South South End Boston Roxbury Hopkinton

Topsfield Milford Roslindale Hamilton Holbrook West Essex Roxbury Gloucester Mattapan Avon Middleton Wenham Stoughton Hyde Park ManchesterNorth Reading Danvers by-the-Sea Beverly Brockton

Easton

Sharon

Base maps from modern data Billerica

Marlborough

Ipswich Jamaica Plain

Randolph

Walpole

Chelmsford Norfolk Franklin

Littleton Bellingham

Hudson

0–999

Canton

0–999

Canton

Lowell

Carlisle Wrentham

1,000–4,999

Quincy

Braintree

Tewksbury

5,000–9,999

1,000–4,999

Charlestown

Randolph

Walpole

Chelmsford Norfolk Franklin

Acton

5,000–9,999

Quincy

Milton

Norwood

Lowell

Bolton 10,000 or more Stow

Charlestown

Braintree

Norwood

Medfield

Concord

BrightonAllston Milton

Boxborough

10,000 or more

BrightonAllston

Italian Population, 1970

Marblehead

Swampscott

(see map at right)

Westwood Medfield

Millis

Salem

Boston

Dedham

Dover

Sherborn

Medway

Lynn

Needham

Holliston

Milford

Peabody

Stoneham Melrose Winchester

Brookline

Wellesley Natick

inton

Saugus

Newton

orough

Wakefield

Marblehead

Swampscott

Boston

Dedham

Dover

Carlisle Wrentham

Salem

(see map at right)

Westwood

Medway

Lynn

Needham

Sherborn

Rockport Millis

Peabody

Stoneham Melrose Winchester

Brookline

Wellesley

Littleton Bellingham

Nahant Medford Malden Arlington Revere Everett Chelsea Belmont Waltham Somerville Winthrop Watertown Cambridge

Lincoln

Wayland

Reading Lynnfield

Burlington Woburn

Concord Stow

Dorchester

Saugus

Newton

Natick

Plate 46

Beverly

Reading Lynnfield

Burlington Woburn

Framingham

Holliston

Topsfield Milford Roslindale Hamilton Holbrook West Essex Roxbury Gloucester Mattapan Avon Middleton Wenham Stoughton Hyde Park ManchesterNorth Reading Danvers by-the-Sea Beverly Brockton

Easton

Italian Population, 1940

xborough

East Boston Southborough West North End End Beacon Hill Back Bay Downtown Westborough Fenway South South End Boston Roxbury Hopkinton

Weston

Gloucester

Manchesterby-the-Sea

Nahant Medford Malden Arlington Revere Everett Chelsea Belmont Waltham Somerville Winthrop Watertown Cambridge

Sudbury

Wayland

Essex

Wenham Danvers

Wakefield

Lexington

Lincoln

Marlborough

Ipswich Jamaica Plain

Randolph

Walpole

Chelmsford Norfolk Franklin

Littleton Bellingham

Hudson

Canton

Lowell

Bedford

Acton

0–999

Charlestown

Braintree

Norwood

Boxborough

1,000–4,999

Quincy

Milton

Westwood Holliston

Marblehead

5,000–9,999

(see map at right)

Wilmington

Carlisle

Bolton 10,000 or more Stow

BrightonAllston Dedham

Dover

North Reading

Concord

Needham

Sherborn

Chelmsford Billerica

Hamilton

Middleton

Jewish Population, 1970

Swampscott

Boston

Brookline

Wellesley Natick

Lynn

Salem

Rockport

Topsfield Tewksbury

Littleton Peabody

Stoneham Melrose Winchester

Newton

Framingham

inton

Saugus

Lowell

Gloucester

Manchesterby-the-Sea

Beverly

Nahant Medford Malden Arlington Revere Everett Chelsea Belmont Waltham Somerville Winthrop Watertown Cambridge

Lincoln

ough

Danvers

Wakefield

Burlington Woburn

Concord

Essex

Wenham

Reading Lynnfield

Jewish Population, 1940

xborough

Hamilton

Middleton

Chelmsford

Littleton

Rockport

Topsfield

P L A T E 4 6Easton · S E C T I O N X : “ T H E N E W B O S T O N ”   131

Rockport

The Urban Renewal Era, 1949–1974

W

hen John B. Hynes took office in 1950, Boston’s housing was deteriorating and commercial development languished. Three densely populated residential neighborhoods bounding downtown—the West End, the North End, and the South End—were widely considered slums. Running on the platform of the “New Boston,” Hynes promised to take advantage of the urban renewal provisions of the 1949 Federal Housing Act, which underwrote the cost of acquiring and clearing deteriorated areas for sale to developers. The Boston Housing Authority obtained city approval of two “slum clearance” projects—the New York Streets area in 1955 and the West End in 1956, the former for industrial development and the latter for middle-class housing. To implement them, in 1957 the city created the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) with responsibility for displacing the projects’ more than three thousand residents, despite their anguished protests. Boston’s West End was a vibrant forty-six-acre working class neighborhood with 23,000 residents, mainly of southern and eastern European descent. Architecturally it resembled today’s North End, but to Boston planners it qualified as a slum because of its narrow streets and older housing. The urban renewal project displaced 2,700 families and cleared more than half the area (see photo), leaving only Mass­ achusetts General Hospital and a handful of historic sites while providing for construction of 477 middle-income apartments in five widely separated high-rise buildings. Relocation was botched, and many residents were dispersed to substandard housing elsewhere. Their experiences were documented in several influential studies, including Herbert Gans’s The Urban Villagers (1962) and Marc Fried’s 1966 article, “Grieving for a Lost Home.” Martin Anderson’s critical analysis, The Federal Bulldozer (1964), helped turn the tide nationally against such clearance projects. The project also discredited French architect Le Corbusier’s theory that dense urban neighborhoods should be replaced with widely separated towers separated by lawns and highways. John F. Collins followed Hynes in 1960. He lured nationally prominent planner Edward J. Logue from New Haven to be BRA director. They secured legislation giving the BRA unprecedented powers, uniting the city’s planning and development functions in the agency and authorizing tax relief to private developers. Incorporating lessons from the New York Streets and West End projects, and utilizing amendments to the 1949 act making activities like rehabilitation and historic preservation eligible costs, Collins and Logue turned Boston into the federal government’s urban renewal laboratory. Their immediate priority was the business district. In 1963, the BRA initiated the Government Center project, intended to replace tawdry Scollay Square (see Plate 33) with a city, state, and federal office complex and commercial development. In rapid succession, the BRA obtained approval of additional projects (see map). Community leaders in Roxbury were supportive but the BRA faced bitter opposition in Charlestown and Allston. Under Mayor Kevin White (1967–83), the BRA acquired swaths of real estate, relocated residents and businesses, and approved projects that created over twenty thousand housing units, many made affordable to lower-income residents through tax relief arrangements. The BRA made rehabilitation loans and grants to thousands of home owners, rebuilt streets, sewers, and water lines, and constructed parks, libraries, fire stations, and schools. Downtown, it oversaw the restoration of Quincy Market, introduced new waterfront uses including housing and the Aquarium, and jump-started commercial development. Its neighborhood projects drew heavily on federal housing subsidies but generated continued controversy. By the time Congress replaced the urban renewal program with Community Development Block Grants in 1974, the city had secured the fourth most urban renewal dollars in the country and established the conditions for the region’s expanding economy to revitalize the city. 132  P L A T E 4 7 · S E C T I O N X : “ T H E N E W B O S T O N ”

RICHARD GARVER

EVERETT

CHELSEA

Mystic R iver

Properties Proposed to Be Acquired for Redevelopment Properties proposed to be acquired for redevelopment

SO ME RV I LLE

Urban Renewal Area boundary

Charlestown

Downtown Waterfront

C A M BRI D GE North Harvard

Boston Harbor

West End Government Center

rl e Ch a

s

Ri v e

r

SchoolFranklin Bedford-West Boylston-Essex

South Cove St. Botolph

South Station

Fenway New York Streets South End

BRO O K L I N E

Date of Federal Federal Approval Grants Project NA New York Streets 1955 $11,703,768 West End 1958 $29,143,558 Washington Park 1963 $1,179,693 North Harvard 1964 $35,140,149 Government Center 1964 $30,225,013 Waterfront 1964 $43,535,862 Charlestown 1965 $54,368,458 South End 1965 $21,498,899 South Cove 1966 $10,827,106 Fenway 1967 $6,532,162 School-Franklin 1968 $1,769,242 Boylston-Essex 1968 $10,550,646 South Station 1971 $797,504 St. Botolph 1971 $19,360,806 Campus High School 1972 $1,262,874 Brunswick-King 1974 $1,562,126 Kittredge Square 1974 $6,251,061 Bedford-West 1974 $285,708,927 Total

BRA director Ed Logue and Mayor John Collins at the groundbreaking for the state social service building.

Campus High

Kittredge Square

Washington Park

Brunswick-King 0

1,500

3,000 feet

Base map from 1974 sources

This aerial shows the large amount of land cleared for the Government Center and West End projects. The first developments were a new federal office building on the former, under construction in the middle distance, and four high-rise apartment buildings on the West End in the background.

Plate 47 SOUTH END URBAN RENEWAL PROJECT The South End Urban Renewal Project offered homeowners grants and 3 percent loans for the renovation of row houses, many of them former rooming houses.

Public Garden

The BRA provided a federal grant and conveyed its property to a partnership of the Tent City Development Corporation, a community nonprofit, and the developer of Copley Place. They broke ground in 1986 for 220 units of mixed-income housing.

AV E.

This private parking lot and BRA-owned row houses were the site of the 1968 Tent City encampment led by community activist Mel King and of a later building occupation protesting displacement of low-income residents.

ST.

M BU S CO LU

Center for the Arts

LE Y

Tent City

H OUT TM DA R

Urban Renewal Area boundary

KE BER

South End Urban Renewal Area and Properties Proposed to Be Acquired for Redevelopment Properties proposed to be acquired for redevelopment

Boston Common

ST .

Parcel 19

T ON EM TR

. ST

AW SH

Chickering

N HI AS

E AV

GT

O

.

N

. ST

The defunct Cyclorama and National Theater were acquired for redevelopment as a Center for the Arts.

E. AV

HA R

TS ET

RI SO

US

N

H AC

AV

E.

S AS M

W

M

UT

AL

0

500

NY BA

. ST

1,000 feet

Base map from modern data

I

n 1960 the South End was home to diverse populations, from Syrians, Latin Americans, and African Americans to arriving “Urbanites.” More than fourteen thousand tenants occupied over 923 rooming houses. There were 116 liquor licenses, 28 churches, 16 neighborhood associations, and street after street of crumbling Victorian row houses. After intricate bargaining with the area’s diverse interest groups, the BRA approved the South End Urban Renewal Project in 1966. The plan called for using state and federal housing programs to enable residents to remain in the neighborhood. Three thousand structures were to be rehabilitated. Some 3,550 households, half of  them single individuals—19 percent of the neighborhood—would be relocated to over three thousand new mixed-income rental units and three hundred family and five hundred elderly public housing units (see Plate 41). By 1978 nonprofit developers had produced 4,316 new and rehabilitated units. As the project proceeded and middle-class owners spread southward, however, conflicts such as the Tent City occupation erupted with representatives of poor and minority populations. The South End Urban Renewal plan required that the Chickering Piano factory, which had failed during Boston’s long depression (see Plate 40), be renovated. With tax relief and financing from the state, in 1972 the building was converted to 174 mixed-income apartments marketed to artists and artisans.

The South End Urban Renewal plan called for Parcel 19’s dilapidated row houses and commercial buildings to be acquired and demolished for new housing. Its residents, largely Hispanic, formed the Emergency Tenants Council Community Development Corporation. Obtaining developer designation in 1969, they built Villa Victoria, a village of over eight hundred units of affordable and elderly housing.

In the foreground is a failed attempt at low-income infill housing. In the background, mixedincome multifamily relocation housing is under construction.

P L A T E 4 7 · S E C T I O N X : “ T H E N E W B O S T O N ”   133

Boston School Busing, 1974–

JIM VRABEL

O

n June 21, 1974, in a case called Morgan v. Hennigan, U.S. District Court Judge W. Arthur Garrity ruled that the Boston public schools were “unconstitutionally segregated” and subsequently ordered implementation of a desegregation plan that required the busing of large numbers of students to schools other than those nearest their homes. The court’s decision—but even more so its remedy—resulted in one of the most sustained protests and most turbulent decades in Boston history, and the impact of the case continues to be felt throughout the city today. (Continued on next page)

East Boston Charlestown

West End Beacon Hill

Allston/ Brighton

Back Bay

Fenway/ Kenmore

North End

Chinatown

South Boston

South End

Roxbury

Jamaica Plain

Dorchester

Roslindale

West Roxbury

se k

ne Ch i

Bl

W hi

te

1970 Census Tracts with One Race More than 50 Percent of the Population ac

Mattapan

50.1–75.0% 75.1–90.0% 0

1/2

1 mile

Hyde Park

90.1–100.0% No race over 50.0% Elementary schools Junior high schools High schools Other schools School geocode boundaries School district boundaries

134  P L A T E 4 8 · S E C T I O N X : “ T H E N E W B O S T O N ”

Plate 48 (Continued from preceding page) After two years of hearing hundreds of hours of testimony and reviewing over a thousand exhibits and several other court cases, Judge Garrity found that the School Committee had, for many years, “intentionally brought about or maintained a [segregated] dual school system” through policies that included “busing, open enrollment, multischool districts, magnet schools, citywide schools and feeder patterns [that] were antithetical to a neighborhood schools system.” To remedy the situation, Garrity ordered implementation of a desegregation plan to ensure “that the racial composition of the student body of every school should generally reflect the ratios of white and black students enrolled at that grade level . . . throughout the system.” The plan divided the city into eight districts and more than one hundred “geocode” tracts (see map) and assigned students to the system’s one hundred-plus schools based on their race and on the “geocode” in which they lived. At the time, there were some 83,000 students enrolled in the system—52 percent of them white, 36 percent black, and 12 percent other minorities. Since Boston’s white population—then 80 percent of the total population—was distributed around the periphery of the city and its minority population concentrated in the center (see map), the plan required 30 percent of the students in the system—nearly half of them in grades 1 through 5—to be bused to schools other than those nearest their homes.

Opposition to such large-scale busing had been growing for more than a decade— since members of Boston’s black community had first made public complaints about segregation in the city’s public schools. When the court’s desegregation plans began to be implemented, that opposition intensified and included demonstrations, protest marches, school boycotts—and sometimes violence. Part of the opposition to busing was due to bigotry. But part was due to the fact that the court’s plans to desegregate the schools departed from the traditional practice of  assigning students to the schools nearest their homes—just as the School Committee’s policies that had promoted segregation had departed from that practice in the first place. Opposition to court-ordered busing eventually subsided—but not before the parents of some 30,000 students removed their children from the system and not before many of those families left Boston for surrounding communities, where children were still assigned to neighborhood schools. The court subsequently allowed a new lottery-based student assignment plan to be implemented, and race was eventually removed as a factor in assigning students to schools. Large-scale busing continues in the Boston public schools today,  however, because of concerns that there are still not enough quality schools in minority neighborhoods.

Students Wait to Board Buses outside Hyde Park High School, December 1974 Demonstrators gather around buses outside Hyde Park High School in December 1974 during the first year of implementation of the court-ordered plan to desegregate the Boston Public Schools.

Select Dates in the Boston Busing Chronology

1963

Ruth Batson and the Boston Branch NAACP present a list of demands to improve education and equity and end de facto (unintentional) segregation in the public schools. NAACP executive director Thomas Atkins proposes a desegregation plan that relies on redrawing school district lines rather than busing. But the Boston School Committee refuses to consider either the demands or the proposal.

1965

After two years of protests by Boston’s black community and its supporters, the Massachusetts Racial Imbalance Law is passed. The law requires school districts in which minorities make up more than 50 percent of the enrollment in any school to develop desegregation plans.

1971

After refusing for six years to develop a satisfactory desegregation plan, the Boston School Committee votes to comply with the Racial Imbalance Law in regard to the opening of new schools in Dorchester. But the committee reverses its vote in response to pressure from parents of the affected students.

1973

The Massachusetts Board of Education develops its own racial imbalance plan for Boston.

1974

After finding the Boston School Committee guilty of de jure (intentional) segregation, Judge Garrity orders implementation of a temporary plan called Phase I. Based on the state board of education plan, it calls for busing some 18,000 students to schools in more than a third of the city, prompting protests in the affected neighborhoods.

1975

After rejecting a plan that would reduce the number of students bused, Judge Garrity orders implementation of a permanent plan called Phase II. Developed by his two appointed “experts,” it increases the number bused to some 25,000 students to schools throughout most of the city, prompting even more widespread protests.

1976

Protests continue and busing-related violence peaks with attacks on an African-American attorney on City Hall Plaza and on a white auto mechanic in Roxbury.

1980

After six years of busing, protests have subsided. Over that period, however, total enrollment in the Boston public schools has decreased from over 93,000 to some 65,000.

1989

Judge Garrity allows implementation of a new "Controlled Choice" lottery-based desegregation plan. It allows parents to list the schools they would prefer that their children attend, but continues to assign students based on their race.

1999

With no objection from the court, the Boston School Committee drops race as a factor in assigning students to schools. But it continues to assign children to schools through a lottery-based system rather than to schools nearest their homes.

2014

The Boston School Committee implements a new lottery-based system. Total enrollment in the system is 57,000 students, 13 percent of them white, 36 percent black, 41 percent Hispanic, 8 percent Asian, and 1 percent other races or ethnic backgrounds. P L A T E 4 8 · S E C T I O N X : “ T H E N E W B O S T O N ”  135

Section XI

­ oston in the Early B 2000s

Introduction

B

oston has reaped the benefits of preserving and investing in its physical and intellectual infrastructure. Whether those actions came as a result of wise decision-­making, by chance, or under duress, the product has been a city that has continued to grow, evolve, and progress. Local officials had the vision to create a new and more than sufficient water supply system for the area ninety miles west in the hills of central Massachusetts in 1939. But more recently, they were forced by state and federal courts to clean up Boston Harbor by building a new sewage treatment plant on Deer Island, which began operating in stages between 1997 and 2001 (see Plates 49 and 50). Local officials marshaled the political will and clout to undertake the “Big Dig,” the largest public works project in U.S. history. But while U.S. taxpayers who footed the bill for much of the project may not be happy that it was completed neither on time nor within budget, it has streamlined highway access to and through Boston and improved connections to Logan Airport. It also replaced the ugly, elevated Central Artery that was completed in 1959 through the middle of downtown with the Rose Kennedy Greenway, which opened in 2008. As part of that project, environmentalists were able to extract “mitigation measures” that forced public investments to improve and expand the area’s mass transit system (see Plate 51). All this has enabled Boston to continue to be “the Hub” of the region, not only intellectually and culturally but also economically. Boston is distinguished by its knowledge-­ based economy. Its institutions of higher education, its academic medical centers, and its office economy of financial and professional services not only support one another within the city and region, they constitute the export base that maintains the region’s prosperity. Tourism is another “export” industry that sells a Boston experience to visitors from around the world (see Plates 52, 53, 54, and 55).

Two distinctive pillars of the Boston economy are the so-­called Eds and Meds. The Boston area is home to fifty-­six institutions of higher education with a combined enrollment of 225,000 students (see Plate 52). Not all of those students come from within the region and not all of them stay here after graduation, but enough stay to provide a continual, reliable, and educated workforce capable of taking their places in this economy. The city is also home to three medical schools and more than two dozen hospitals. In addition to providing world-­class health care for those who come from around the world to receive it, these institutions attract record amounts of research funding, produce breakthroughs in medicine and science, and support a vibrant biotechnology sector (see Plate 53). Boston also remains a center for financial and professional services. They support not only the other growth sectors of Boston’s economy and the region but national and international clients as well. The growth of the skyline reflects their prosperity and influence. More than a third of Boston’s jobs are in “office industries,” principally financial and professional services. It hasn’t always been easy to site, finance, and develop the high-­rise office towers which they occupy, but the city’s business district is expanding from its traditional locations in downtown Boston and the Back Bay to the newly emerging Seaport area and beyond (see Plate 54). Boston is no longer only the province of Bostonians. The city attracts more than eighteen million visitors each year. Many come to walk the Freedom Trail and see historic sites, while others visit museums, do business, or attend conventions, concerts, plays, and games. Boston has become a “city of champions.” Its once struggling sports teams always seem to be competing for titles, and championship parades attract millions of fans from all over New England. Boston’s overall ambiance, walkability, and other features also attract visitors, who flock here to experience the

everyday pleasures that those fortunate to live and work here might otherwise take for granted (see Plate 55). Ironically, one of the major challenges that Boston faces comes from its harbor, which gave the original “City on a Hill” its reason for being. While the tides, temperatures, and storms in Boston have always danced to their own tunes, the melody seems to be changing now and the tempo quickening. Climate change, rising sea levels, and increasingly severe high tides and storm surges threaten to return Boston—­the U.S. city with the largest amount of man-­made land—­into a mirror image of its former self, that is, a peninsula like the original Shawmut Peninsula. Fortunately, local leaders are heeding the calls from scientists to take steps to make the city more resilient to these changes in nature so that there can be a future Boston (see Plate 56). Boston is a city that continues to make progress. But it is also a city of extremes and paradoxes. It is a city of the rich and of the poor, with one of the highest incidences of income equality in the country. Its knowledge-­based economy may be strong, but it fails to provide blue collar jobs for those without advanced education. It is a city of the old (empty nesters returning from suburbia and those living on fixed incomes) and of the young (its many college students and high percentage of eighteen-­ to thirty-­four-­year-­olds). But it is a city with few children. It is a city with among the highest rents and home prices in the country but it also has the highest rate of subsidized “affordable housing” of any major city in the country. With so many diverse ingredients in its melting pot, one hopes that Boston will find the right recipe to blend them into an even better future (see Plate 57). John Avault

S E C T I O N X I . B O S T O N I N T H E E A R L Y 2 0 0 0 S   139

ASHBURNHAM

GILL ERVING

GREENFIELD

ORANGE

Updating the Water System, 1907–2013 an Br le d d R. M i ift Sw

WENDELL

METROPOLITAN WATER SYSTEM Reservoirs, Aqueducts, Pipes

TEMPLETON WESTMINSTER

ch

Date opened: Prior to 1907

GARDNER

PHILLIPSTON

ATHOL

FITCHBURG

NANCY S. SEASHOLES

LEOMINSTER Emergency Only

1907–1925 We ranch st B

1926–1976 1926–1976 pressure aqueducts 1977–present

Swif

1977–present pressure aqueducts

cov. Covered

PETERSHAM NEW SALEM

h anc Br . t i ft R w

SHUTESBURY

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Discontinued

HUBBARDSTON

disc. Discontinued

STERLING

BARRE

R. Wa r

e

stdby. Standby

Cities/Towns in Metropolitan Water District: HATFIELD

RUTLAND

intake

In 1906 PELHAM

Added 1907–1925

Quabbin Ware R. to

Added 1926–1976 Added 1977–present

Quabbin Reservoir

permitted:

Oct. 15 to

Quabbin Aqueduct

June 15

HARDWICK

28 WEST BOYLSTON

HOLDEN

OAKHAM

See pp. 163–64 for exact dates NEW BRAINTREE

PAXTON

METROPOLITAN WATER SYSTEM Pumping Stations, Treatment Plants, Power Stations

SPRINGFIELD

0

1

SUTTO

2 miles

ATHOL

WENDELL

Br a n c h Sw i f t R .

SOUTHBRIDGE

NEW SALEM

DUDLEY

PETERSHAM

WEBSTER

North Dana

We ra st B nch

Swi ft R.

PELHA M

E

D A N A

Greenwich

Quabbin

Aqueduct

HARDWICK

N F

IE

LD

Enfield BEL

photo view

CH

Town boundaries, present

ER TO

Town boundaries, 1922

W

N

WARE

MILLBURY

1967; 1987 1943 1991

OXFORD

Y

140  P L A T E 4 9 · S E C T I O N X I : B O S T O N I N T H E E A R L Y 2 0 0 0 s

AUBURN

2005

BUR

present pumping stations were constructed at this time. With more water available, additional cities and towns joined the metropolitan district. So did a few in the metro west area and three in the Chicopee Valley. The water supply continued to be disinfected, as it had been since the WALES 1920s, by adding chloramine (a HOLLAND mixture of chlorine and ammonia that persists better than straight chlorine) at several points in the system. And using water to generate electricity, begun at the Wachusett and Sudbury Dams in 1911 and 1916, respectively, continued with hydroelectric plants in several locations. In 1985 responsibility for metropolitan Boston’s water and sewerage systems passed from the Metropolitan District Commission (MDC), in charge since 1919, to the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA). Most subsequent changes to the water system have been to meet requirements of the federal Safe Drinking Water Act. In 2001 the MWRA was exempted from constructing a filtration plant for Wachusett water and instead built the Carroll Water Treatment Plant, which uses ozone to inactivate cryptosporidium, giardia, and other pathogens. The Ware Disinfection Facility opened in 2000 to treat water for the Chicopee Valley system with chlorine. Ultraviolet light disinfection is now being added to both plants in order to meet new regulations. Moreover, to protect drinking water, the MWRA is replacing all open reservoirs with covered storage tanks. Finally, the MetroWest Water Supply Tunnel (2003) was built to provide an alternative to the Hultman Aqueduct.

2005

2000

CHARLTON

STURBRIDGE

TES

he 1895 report that recommended building the Wachusett Reservoir (see Plate 29) anticipated that metropolitan Boston’s water would eventually come from the Ware and Swift Rivers (see map). A 1922 report on the state’s water supply HAMPDEN endorsed this plan EAST LONGMEADOW and provoked strong opposition, particularly from Swift LONGMEADOW River Valley towns that would be drowned by the new reservoir (see sidebar). After considering several alternatives, the legislature approved the Ware/Swift extension in 1926, reaffirming Boston’s historical choice of pure (unpolluted) rather than filtered water. By 1931, a tunnel had been constructed to bring water from the Ware River to the Wachusett Reservoir and by 1940 this aqueduct had been extended from the Ware to the future reservoir on the Swift River, named Quabbin in 1932. Quabbin Reservoir itself was finished in 1939, but, as one of the world’s largest reservoirs—it holds 412 billion gallons— did not fill completely until 1946. The copious supply of water from Quabbin precipitated changes in the metropolitan water system in the period between 1926 and 1976 (see map). Pressure aqueducts, which could deliver water to higher elevations than gravity aqueducts, were constructed to bring water from Wachusett to Boston. Reservoirs were created or enlarged to hold the increased water supply—Norumbega in Weston (1940), Fells Basin 3 in Stoneham (1941), and Blue Hills in Quincy (1954)—and several standpipes and tanks, considered covered reservoirs, were also added. Most of the

BRIMFIELD

1997

1911 1916 1947 1951 1966 2010

SHU

AGAWAM

MONSON

2000 2005

Mi d d l e

T

WILBRAHAM

Power stations 25. Wachusett 26. Sudbury 27. Winsor 28. Oakdale 29. Cosgrove 30. Loring Road

1992 1996

R.

PALMER

LUDLOW

1912 1980 1970s

ift

ct

1886 1888 1901 1901 1907 1912 1936 1937 1949 1952 1954 1954 1958 2001

Sw

du ue

Year Year opened discontinued

WORCESTER Emergency Only

ch

Aq copee Valley

Pumping stations 1. West Roxbury 2. Chestnut Hill high-service 3. Chestnut Hill low-service 4. Gillis (Spot Pond) 5. Brattle Court 6. Hyde Park Avenue 7. Reservoir Road 8. Belmont 9. Lexington Street 10. Commonwealth Avenue 11. Newton Street 12. Dudley Road 13. Spring Street 14. Chestnut Hill Emergency

S

an

CHICOPEE

Nash Hill Reservoir, cov. 1999 C hi

1977–present

1980 1976 1995 2003 1996

Br

Swift R .

HOLYOKE

1926–1976

1920s 1920s 1933 1940s 1978

st

WARE

GRANBY

1907–1925

Ea

23

27

Year Year opened discontinued

G R E E N W I C H

SOUTH HADLEY Fire District #1

20

Treatment plants 15. Chestnut Hill Reservoir 16. Leland Street 17. Weston Reservoir 18. Norumbega Reservoir 19. Southborough Fluoridation & Corrosion Control 20. Winsor Dam 21. Interim Corrosion Control Facility 22. Wachusett Interim Disinfection Facility 23. Ware Disinfection Facility 24. Carroll Water Treatment Plant

P R E S C O T T

BELCHERTOWN

Date opened: Prior to 1907

Town centers, 1922

ANDOVER LOWELL

TOPSFIELD HAMILTON

GROTON

TEWKSBURY

MIDDLETON

CHELMSFORD

WENHAM

Plate 49

NORTH READING

DANVERS

AYER

SHIRLEY

WESTFORD

BILLERICA

LITTLETON

BOXBOROUGH

Co

ACTON

R.

ua

N

Ass

STOW

t ab e

MAYNARD

WOBURN

Bear Hill Tank

Bear Hill Reservoir, disc. mid-1980s Spot Pond, WINCHESTER stdby. 2013 Spot Pond Tank Turkey Hill Tank MEDFORD ARLINGTON Arlington Heights 5 Tank, stdby. 2013 t ic R My s

Sudbur

SUDBURY

HUDSON

WAYLAND

WESTON

el nn Tu

Loring Road Covered Reservoir

Walnut Hill Tank Arlington Covered Reservoir WALTHAM

9

13

BELMONT Mystic Res., disc. 1945 8 CAMBRIDGE Emer. Only

MARBLEHEAD SWAMPSCOTT

SAUGUS (part)

4 MELROSE

Fells Basins 1–2, stdby. 2013 Fells Basin 3, cov. 1999

SAUGUS (part) NAHANT

MALDEN EVERETT REVERE

.

y

LINCOLN

R.

LYNN General Electric only

CHELSEA WINTHROP SOMERVILLE

WATERTOWN Waban Hill Cha Res., disc. 1974 rl e s R.

East Boston Reservoir, disc. 1917

City Tunnel Extension

Dudley Pond, disc. Sudbury 30 Weston Res., Reservoir, BOSTON stdby. stdby. FRAMINGHAM 17 t c 10 15 u ed u q A 995 BROOKLINE C n Southborough it y 1 T o unnel 2,3 st tdby. ct Tunnel 18 Parker Hill Res., s edu NEWTON Hu ter 14 l t m a n A qu disc. 1912 an t Wanel s 7 e Hultmu 12 ct oW Tun Norumbega Norumbega Res., r ed t u Fisher Hill Res., q e A ly M 19 p p o c Covered Res. stdby. 2013 h NORTHBOROUGH C itu disc. 1954 Su a 21 Chestnut Hill 11 dis te A Framingham Basin Res., stdby. c. qu WELLESLEY 24 19 e 26 No. 3, stdby. 1967–68 (Lawrence Basin, 47 du Do Tank ct disc. 1948–49) Lake r Tu che Cochituate, Farm Pond, NEEDHAM SOUTHBOROUGH nn ste disc. 1947 el r disc. Framingham 1 Bellevue Standpipe #1, stdby. 2013 NATICK Basins Nos. 1–2, 6 Bellevue Standpipe #2 disc. WESTBOROUGH . 16 Su et R Sudbury R. t ns db u r y Aq u e d u c po e Hopkinton . N ASHLAND R std b Reservoir, y. 19 80 C harles Ashland DEDHAM MILTON disc. 1947 Reservoir, disc. 1947 Blue Hills Reservoir, SHERBORN DOVER Whitehall disc. 1981 Reservoir, Blue Hills WESTWOOD disc. 1947 Covered Res.

Deer Island Tank

We

MARLBOROUGH

SHREWSBURY

ON

BERLIN

t duc ue Aq 05 20

BOYLSTON

29 W

ve ro sg Co

Wachusett Reservoir, stdby. 2004

R.

R . CONCORD

CLINTON

25

nc

d or

SALEM

STONEHAM

LEXINGTON

BOLTON

ac h stduset by t .

PEABODY

WAKEFIELD BURLINGTON

BEDFORD

LANCASTER

h as

LYNNFIELD Water District

READING

CARLISLE

HARVARD

22

WILMINGTON

BEVERLY

HULL

Forbes Hill Res., disc. 1956

COHASSET

QUINCY

HINGHAM

BRAINTREE

HOPKINTON

GRAFTON UPTON

HOLLISTON

MEDFIELD

CANTON

0

WALPOLE

MEDWAY

WEYMOUTH

RANDOLPH

MILLIS

MILFORD NORTHBRIDGE

NORWOOD

2

NORWELL

4 miles

HOLBROOK STOUGHTON AVON

HOPEDALE NORFOLK

ROCKLAND

FRANKLIN

BROCKTON

WHITMAN

FOXBOROUGH

HANSON

WRENTHAM EASTON

1927

PLAINVILLE

HANOVER

SHARON

Towns Drowned by Reservoirs From the outset, the Boston MENDON water system was designed to supply the city with pure BELLINGHAM (unpolluted) water brought by gravity. As UXBRIDGE water consumption increased and the original sources of pure water becameBLACKSTONE polluted, MILLVILLE Boston looked further west for new supplies of pure water, often to the detriment of the towns in which these sources were located. The construction of the Wachusett Reservoir, for example, inundated parts of Clinton, Boylston, and West Boylston, requiring the demolition or removal of buildings in the latter two towns. By far the most damage, however, was to four towns in the Swift River Valley— Enfield, Greenwich, Dana, and Prescott. Slated to be drowned by Quabbin Reservoir, the town centers were leveled—1,200 buildings demolished or moved, 7,613 bodies disinterred from cemeteries of which 6,601 were reburied in a new one—and then wiped off the map altogether when their remaining land was incorporated into other towns (see map). Many in western Massachusetts felt their interests had been sacrificed for those in the eastern part of the state.

ABINGTON

MANSFIELD

EAST BRIDGEWATER WEST BRIDGEWATER

HALIFAX BRIDGEWATER

1987 Enfield—Before and After These photos were taken from the vantage point indicated on the small map at left—a high hill south of original Enfield. The top photo shows Enfield on the Swift River. The bottom photo shows the same scene after Quabbin Reservoir had been filled and the site of Enfield was ninety feet below the surface.

P L A T E 4 9 · S E C T I O N X I : B O S T O N I N T H E E A R L Y 2 0 0 0 s   141

Updating the Sewerage System, 1907–2013

T

he sewerage system constructed for metropolitan Boston by 1906 (see Plate 29) operated almost unchanged for nearly fifty years. Control shifted to the Metropolitan District Commission (MDC) in 1919, new towns joined, and new sewers were built (see map), but raw sewage continued to be discharged untreated into Boston Harbor at Moon, Deer, and Nut Islands. After many studies of and protests about the increasing pollution of the harbor, a primary treatment plant finally opened on Nut Island in 1952, serving the South Metropolitan system. This plant removed settleable solids from the sewage and slightly decomposed them, but then released the reduced sludge back into the harbor. Raw sewage was still discharged at Moon and Deer Islands until another primary plant, serving the North Metro­ politan and Main Drainage systems, opened at Deer Island in 1968. Most of the sewage reached this plant through tunnels from headworks (see map), which screened out grit and debris, but this plant also released sludge back into the harbor. Henceforth, raw sewage was discharged from Moon Island only during storms and failures at the Deer Island plant. By this time, sewage disposal was subject to federal and state regulations. The 1972 federal Clean Water Act required that the Nut and Deer Island plants be upgraded to secondary treatment—defined as removing 85 percent of the solids and biochemical oxygen demand, thus leaving more oxygen available for organisms in the water—by 1977

and that no sludge be discharged into the harbor. But the act had little effect. Years were spent on planning, not con­ structing, the upgrades, and, under a 1977 amendment to the Clean Water Act, the MDC applied for a waiver from secondary treatment because sewage was discharged into the open ocean. It took court action to clean up Boston Harbor. In 1982, the city of Quincy, spurred by its city solicitor’s disgust at the raw sewage on that city’s beaches, sued the MDC for discharging sewage into the harbor. State superior court Judge Paul Garrity appointed a special master, who recom­ mended remedial actions, but the major outcome was the creation, in December 1984, of the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA) to assume responsibility for metropolitan Boston’s sewerage and water. In January 1985 the Environmental Protection Agency sued the MWRA, MDC, and others for violating the Clean Water Act by discharging sewage into the harbor. This suit was combined with one brought earlier by the Conservation Law Foundation, and in September federal district Judge A. David Mazzone ruled that the MWRA was liable for the MDC’s violations and for remedying them. The MWRA’s remedies are known as the Boston Harbor Project or the Boston Harbor Cleanup. In early 1986 the MWRA decided to locate the major new sewerage facili­ ties on Deer Island, beginning construction in 1988. A facil­ ity to process sludge into fertilizer pellets opened at the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy in December 1991, thus

NANCY S. SEASHOLES

ending sludge discharge into the harbor. (Sludge was orig­ inally shipped to the plant by barge; since 2005 it has been pumped through a pipeline in the Inter-Island Tunnel [see map].) The new primary treatment plant at Deer Island began operating in 1995, the secondary plant at Deer Island was completed between 1997 and 2001, and the Inter-Island Tunnel opened in 1998, ending sewage discharge from Nut Island. With completion of the outfall tunnel in 2000, treated effluent is discharged 9.5 miles out into Massachusetts Bay rather than into Boston Harbor. (See map and the sidebar about Deer Island.) Despite these significant improvements, some sewage still enters the harbor from what are called combined sewer overflows (CSOs). Most of the original sewers in Boston, Chelsea, Somerville, Cambridge, and Brookline were combined, that is, they carried both sanitary wastes and storm water. During storms they often overflowed, discharging sewage as well as storm water. Solutions include replacing CSOs with separate sanitary and storm sewers; providing CSO treatment facilities that screen, disinfect, and dechlorinate overflows before discharging them; and constructing tunnels and tanks to hold overflows until they can be sent to Deer Island for ­ ­treatment (see map). The MWRA, the Boston Water and Sewer Commission, which has managed Boston sewerage since 1977, and the other municipalities are cooperating on a long-term abatement plan that requires completion by 2020.

Deer Island—1982 and Now

Water Tank

Cemetery

137 ft.

1

North Main Pump Station

Fort Dawes

Winthrop Terminal Facility 110 ft.

Water Reservoir 1968 primary sewage treatment plant 1895 sewage pumping station House of correction Women’s prison Piggery World War II fortifications 0

300

600 feet

Deer Island in 1982 Deer Island was greatly altered by the construction of the present sewage treatment plant. Formerly the island had: a large central drumlin with a reservoir on top; the primary sewage treatment plant constructed in 1968; a men’s prison—built in 1847 as a quarantine hospital, then used as an almshouse (see Plate 41), and, after 1882, a House of Correction; a woman’s prison; a 1908 piggery; and a cemetery where burials from the quarantine hospital/almshouse and prison were reinterred in 1909. Most of the east half of the island was a U.S. Army base—Fort Dawes—whose World War II fortifications had 17-foot-thick concrete ceilings. In order to construct the present sewage treatment plant, the entire drumlin was moved to the north part of the island, almost all structures were demolished except for the 1895 sewage pumping station (see Plate 29) and a few 1968 primary plant buildings, and all the World War II fortifications were removed. 142  P L A T E 5 0 · S E C T I O N X I : B O S T O N I N T H E E A R L Y 2 0 0 0 s

How the Deer Island Treatment Plant Works

2

9

8 7

6

Sewage arrives at Deer Island from 5 the north and west through the North Metropolitan Relief and Boston Main Drainage Tunnels (see large map). They 4 flow to the North Main Pump Station (1), 10 3 which pumps the sewage to the Grit Facility (4), where grit is removed. A separate sewer brings sewage from East Boston, Revere, Chelsea, 11 and Winthrop to the Winthrop Terminal Facility (2), 12 which screens the sewage and pumps it to the Grit Facility (4) for grit removal. Sewage from the Nut Island Headworks in the south, which has already removed the grit, is conveyed through the Inter-Island Tunnel (see large 0 300 600 feet map) to the South System—Lydia Goodhue—Pump Station (3), which pumps it into the outlet channel from the Grit Facility. From the Grit Facility sewage goes to the Primary Clarifiers (5), where solids settle to the bottom and are removed as sludge, and scum is skimmed off the top. The sludge and scum are pumped to the Gravity Thickeners (10). The remaining liquid effluent from the Primary Clarifiers goes to the Secondary Selector/Reactors (6), where microorganisms break down the compounds present. From there the effluent flows into the Secondary Clarifiers (7) where additional sludge and scum are removed, as in the primary clarifiers. Some of this sludge is returned to the secondary selector/reactors to maintain the desired microorganism concentrations; the rest is sent to the Centrifuge Facility (11). The effluent from the secondary clarifiers flows into the Disinfection Basins (8) to be chlorinated. The treated effluent then drops 357 feet down a shaft (9) to the Outfall Tunnel (see large and inset maps), where it is dechlorinated and discharged 9.5 miles out into Massachusetts Bay. Meanwhile, in the Gravity Thickeners (10) scum from the primary clarifiers is skimmed off the top and sludge settles to the bottom, further concentrating both. Sludge from the secondary clarifiers is thickened in the Centrifuge Facility (11) because it doesn’t settle well in the gravity thickeners. The concentrated sludge and scum from both facilities are then pumped into the Sludge Digesters (12). These egg-shaped containers, which are the signature structures of the project (see photo), provide a warm anaerobic (oxygen-free) environment that digests the sludge, producing methane gas, which is used to heat the entire plant, and carbon dioxide. The digested sludge is pumped through the Inter-Island and Braintree-Weymouth Tunnels to the fertilizer pellet plant in Quincy (see large map).

METROPOLITAN SEWERAGE SYSTEM Cities/Towns in Metropolitan Sewerage District: In 1906

Added 1945–1955

Added 1910–1916

Added 1964–1971

Plate 50

Added 1924–1930

Pipelines, Cross Harbor Tunnels Date opened: Prior to 1907

1969–1985

1907–1952

1986–present

1953–1968

1986–present cross harbor tunnels

1953–1968 cross harbor tunnels

WILMINGTON 1954

Treatment Plants, Headworks, Pumping Stations, Other Facilities, CSO Facilities, CSO Outfalls Date opened: Prior to 1907

1969–1985

BOSTON

1986–present

1953–1968

Year opened

Treatment plants 1. Nut Island Primary 2. Deer Island Primary 3. Deer Island Treatment Plant

Year replaced, upgraded, or discontinued

1952 1998 1968 1995 1995–2000 1967 1967 1967 1968 1998

Pumping stations 9. Hayes 10. Alewife Brook (formerly Somerville) 11. DeLauri (formerly Charlestown) 12. Caruso (formerly East Boston) 13. Prison Point 14. North Main 15. Deer Island 16. Ward Street 17. Wiggins 18. Calf Pasture 19. Squantum 20. Quincy 21. Braintree-Weymouth 22. Houghs Neck 23. Intermediate 24. Hingham 25. New Neponset Valley 26. Framingham

1921 1951 1993 1991 1980 1968 1895 1904 1960 1883 1930 1908 1937 1942 2005 1957 1995 1998

Other facilities 27. Chelsea Screen House 28. Nut Island Screen House 29. Pelletizing Plant

1990 1905 1991

CSO facilities 30. Cottage Farm 31. Somerville 32. Prison Point 33. Union Park 34. BOS019 35. North Dorchester Bay

1971 1971 1980 2006 2007 2011

WAKEFIELD

BURLINGTON 1965 WOBURN

STONEHAM

0

LEXINGTON

ARLINGTON 10

1968 2003 2002 2007 1999

BELMONT WALTHAM

1992

Cha

rl e

sR

.

Myst i

REVERE c

EVERETT CHELSEA

31 SOMERVILLE CAMBRIDGE

Brighton

4

NEWTON BROOKLINE

27

6

WINTHROP

12

No rth East Boston R Me eli tro ef, p 195 olita n 3

Boston Proper

30

2001

CSO outfalls

11 Charlestown 34

32 13

WATERTOWN

1952

1999

MALDEN

MEDFORD

1968 1938

BOSTON 33

16 Roxbury

o Bost

17

South Boston

nM

ge, aina n Dr

ai 1953

NATICK 1951 26

2 3 15

Deer I.

18

Jamaica Plain

Deer

14 7

35

5

Moon I.

Dorchester

FRAMINGHAM 1951

Island

ll, 200 Outfa

0

For detail, see map above

19

WELLESLEY 1914

West Roxbury

NEEDHAM 1924

28 Ne p o n s e t R .

8 1 Nut I. 22

21

20

ASHLAND 1964

BraintreeWeymouth, 2005

24

23

DEDHAM MILTON

WESTWOOD 1955

29

QUINCY

HINGHAM 1945 BRAINTREE 1910

NORWOOD 1928 25

CANTON 1928

WALPOLE 1928

WEYMOUTH 1930

RANDOLPH 1955

HOLBROOK 1971 STOUGHTON 1928

0

Deer Island Treatment Plant

4 miles

MELROSE

WINCHESTER

1987

2

R.

Headworks 4. Ward Street 5. Columbus Park 6. Chelsea Creek 7. Winthrop Terminal Facility 8. Nut Island

9 BEDFORD 1951

Inter-Island, 1998

1907–1952

Massachusetts Bay ll, Outfa d n a l Is Deer 0 0 0 2

READING 1916

2

4 miles

Updating Highways and Public Transportation, 1967–2017 AMY D. FINSTEIN, NANCY S. SEASHOLES, AND CHARLES BAHNE

THE “BIG DIG,” 1991–2007

C

onstruction of the Central Artery/Tunnel Project, known as the “Big Dig,” dominated Boston from 1991 to 2007. The Big Dig developed in response to the need for a third tunnel under the harbor to the airport and the shortcomings of the Central Artery, a six-lane elevated highway built along Boston’s waterfront between 1951 and 1959 (see Plate 44). Though intended to move vehicles through Boston, the Central Artery quickly had become clogged with ever-increasing traffic. By the early 1970s, state officials proposed burying a larger version of the highway underground and constructing a third harbor tunnel, thereby expanding traffic capacity while removing the elevated highway. Official project planning began in 1982, and, because it was integrated into the Interstate Highway System, the Big Dig received significant federal funding. The Big Dig set milestones in engineering, public works funding, and public impatience. Because the existing Central Artery had to keep functioning during construction, workers transferred the elevated highway’s weight from its original piers to the tunnel’s slurry walls so construction could proceed directly beneath the Artery. They applied another engineering innovation to the extension of I-90 below South Station’s railroad tracks, Charlestown where unconsolidated made land (see Plate 25) was frozen to provide the stability necessary for East Boston 93 Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill tunnel excavation. To connect the new tunnels to Memorial Bridge highways north, an iconic cable-stayed bridge, the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Tip O’Neill Tunnel (formerly Bridge, was built across the Charles River. Rose Kennedy Central Artery) Greenway The complexities of these feats naturally led to BOSTON Ted Williams Tunnel unexpected challenges, delays, and enormous cost overruns. Design and construction flaws plagued the project, most infamously including 90 the collapse of concrete ceiling panels in one South Boston tunnel, killing a female car passenger. The Big 93 Dig’s final cost of $14.6 billion far exceeded

Central Artery, 1971

Greenway, 2011

To aid comparison, the same color arrow points to the same building in both photos.

original projections and made it the largest public works project in American history. Nonetheless, the Big Dig accomplished much for the city. Its extension of I-90 across South Boston increased the accessibility of that area and encouraged its present development, and new parks along the Charles River significantly extended the Esplanade. Most visibly, the Big Dig’s removal of the old Central Artery reunited the city with its waterfront and liberated twenty-seven acres of land for parks and civic amenities, known today as the Rose Kennedy Greenway.

PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION, 1967–2016

1976 1979

1976 1981

198

Ea

Hingham Ferry Hull/Hingham Ferry via Logan

n ce R . R

19 79

&P rovi de

7

R .R .)

ny

24

ton (Bo s

ol o

Stoughton (Stoughton Branch R.R.)

Greenbush

C (Old

.)

3

) y &R.R.

19 67

Cohasset

re R.R.) th Sho (Sou 2007 (D Fairmount Coh uxb ass ur Braintree Readville et 93

1

RHODE ISLAND

(Boston, Hartford & Erie R.R.) (Old Colony R.R.)

9 19 .R.) er R l Riv (Fal 997

495

Plymouth

(MBTA) Kingston

Attleboro

1981 1988

Providence (New York, Providence & Boston R.R.)

To T.F. Green Airport 2010 & Wickford Junction 2012

3

Middleborough/ Lakeville (Cape

d 20 Bra nc 13 hR Co

2010

Charlestown Ferry

97

(Eastern R.R.)

.) R.R

19

1

1976

295

o

R ., ) n R. ch (Easterer Bran G l o u ce st

Beverly

ste rn

1

.)

197

1979

Start/end date of service Service added/resumed Service discontinued Original railroad

&

Reading

ine R.R.) Ma

R.)

77 19

Still operating 2017 Seasonal/part-time lines Later discontinued

n

(

196 7

Millis

Added Since 1967

to

Woburn

.R ty R oun C (Milford, Franklin & Woonsocket R.R.) 395 olk Forge Park orf (N Foxboro 198 Original 1967 System 8 Franklin Still operating 2017 Later discontinued 495

os ( B 79 19

Low ell R.

Dedham Islington

(New York, New Haven & Hartford R.R.)

(R

128

Needham Heights

90

Rockport Gloucester

95

Framingham n & Worcester R.R.) o t s 994 ( Bo

90

Ipswich

1971

290

290

95

s

Bedford

South Sudbury

51 197

n&

3

South Acton

190

Worcester

1976

(Bo

2

to

495

19

(Vermont & Massachusetts R.R.)

(Fitc

) R.R. urg 0 hb 75 198

144  P L A T E 5 1 · S E C T I O N X I : B O S T O N I N T H E E A R L Y 2 0 0 0 s

93

Lowell

Ayer 1980

Wachusett

To Concord

19 8 0 1 9 8 1

1980 1985 To Gardner 2016 1980 Fitchburg 1985

Newburyport

Haverhill

R.R.) (Eastern1998

NEW HAMPSHIRE

Almost all the present commuter rail lines are railroads that existed by 1855 (see Plate 15).

c R. kpo R .) r t

Commuter Rail

1976

B

oston’s public transportation system has undergone many changes since 1967 (see Plate 45). The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA or “T”), created in 1964, used federal transit funding to extend rapid transit lines (see large map), fulfilling some of the goals set forth by a 1947 commission investigating Boston’s rapid transit system. The Red Line was extended south to Braintree on the route of the former Old Colony Railroad (see commuter rail map)—on which passenger service had ended in 1959—and north to Alewife. Replacement of the Orange Line El, which had been proposed since at least 1940, was accomplished in two phases. The north section was relocated to the Boston & Maine Railroad’s “Main Line”; the south section was relocated into the corridor cleared for the cancelled Southwest Expressway (see Plate 44) with federal funding transferred from the highway project. Elevated structures in Charlestown and in the South End, Roxbury, and Jamaica Plain were then demolished. The Green Line’s short elevated section near North Station was also replaced with a tunnel. Another addition is the Silver Line “bus rapid transit,” in two disconnected segments. Silver Line Washington Street is replacement service for the demolished Orange Line El in the South End and Roxbury. Silver Line Waterfront serves new development in South Boston in a dedicated tunnel from South Station, on local streets in South Boston, and then through the Ted Williams Tunnel to Logan Airport. Plans for a tunnel through Chinatown to link the two Silver Line segments are now on hold. Still underway, however, is the Green Line Extension from Lechmere to College Avenue in Medford, a project planned since 1999, though now reduced in scope. The MBTA began subsidizing existing commuter rail lines in the 1960s, later purchasing the rights-of-way and equipment from the private railroads. Originally the T intended to convert these lines to rapid transit, but those plans proved to be too expensive. Although some lightly patronized routes were discontinued prior to 1976, increased demand has since caused the T to expand its commuter rail system, including restoration of some discontinued lines (see commuter rail map). The MBTA also extended bus routes into some outer suburbs after it acquired companies (including some former streetcar companies) that operated buses in those communities (not shown on map). And subsidized ferry services, which had ended in 1952 (see Plate 45), were resumed in the 1970s and 1980s (see maps).

.

0

R.) “Cape Flyer” to Hyannis

3

6 miles

L EXI NGTO N Community College

Plate 51

Charlestown Ferry

WINCHEST ER

Lechmere

North Sta.

South Sta.

d se clo 983 1 Harvard/Brattle (temp. 1979–83)

Watertown 90

late 4

S

pid ee S

5

Davis

Brookline Hills

Dean Rd

Reservoir Chestnut Hill

GL C

Newton Centre Newton Highlands Eliot

Waban Woodland

Needham Junction

NEEDHAM LINE

W. Roxbury

Highland

OL

Bellevue

C, E

,E

y

B ,C ,D 5

to n oy

SL

SL5

ls

n to

*B

ng

& 4 SL

y ke

FOREST HILLS

93

M ILT O N

Andrew

Quincy Ctr.

JFK/UMass

Newmarket

Fields Corner Shawmut

E LI N N T M

Q UINCY

Boston Rapid Transit System, 2017 Savin Hill

ASHMONT

New rapid transit lines since 1967

North Quincy Wollaston

RL

Cedar Grove

Quincy Center

GREENBUSH LINE

Proposed rapid transit line

BRAINTREE

MIDDLEBOROUGH/ LAKEVILLE LINE

RL

Discontinued lines since 1967

KINGSTON/ PLYMOUTH LINE

New stations since 1967

COMMUTER RAIL

Rebuilt stations

FERRY

Proposed stations Pre–1967 stations

Spider Map As explained on Plate 45, in 1967 the MBTA began to use a schematic map of its rapid transit lines. Known as the “spider map” because it supposedly resembles a long-legged bug, it has been updated many times. This redesign, winner of a public contest, was introduced in 2014. Note that the schematic map shows only relative, rather than actual, locations (compare with large map).

Quincy Adams (1983)

Pre–1967 rapid transit lines

Quincy Adams

d N St r R ve n PA en lley l A Milto Butle TA Cap Va ntra e AT C

U D E

RR Y

Uphams Corner

RL M

O FA

IR

M

BL BLUE LINE

SL

GL GREEN LINE and branches B C

FE

RR Y

0

RL RED LINE and Mattapan Line M OL ORANGE LINE

SL4 SL5

M

Wollaston

FE

DUDLEY SQ

Talbot Ave

SL1 SILVER LINE and branches SL2

LL

HA

Melnea Cass

Four Corners/ Geneva

STOUGHTON/ PROVIDENCE LINE

SL2

Mattapan

HU

NG

198

FRANKLIN LINE

DESIGN CENTER

HI

Black Falcon Ave

Broadway

Lenox St

Morton St

Legend

Harbor St Tide St

North Quincy

Logan International Airport

Mass. Ave

Hyde Park

Readville

South Station

SL1 & SL2

Worcester Sq

SL4 SL5

Fairmount

Ferry

Ashmont

D 25 ry D D oc ry k D Av oc e k Av e

C ,E

C ,D ,E

C n io nt ve on

le

C es

C op

yn

Ruggles

Green St

Roslindale Village

Chinatown

Newton St

Stony Brook

Needham Center

Downtown Crossing

Union Park St

Roxbury Crossing

ham

2005

AIRPORT TERMINALS

Logan Ferry Terminal

SL4

Jackson Sq

Needham Heights

Rowes Wharf

e

SL1

Aquarium

State

urs

SL4

SL5

Hing

Haymarket

East Berkeley St

Mass. Ave

GL E

GL D

co

Orient Heights

Maverick

Herald St

Back Bay

Longwood Medical Area Brigham Circle Fenwood Rd Mission Park Riverway Back of the Hill

HEATH

RIVERSIDE

Hersey

Tufts Medical Center

Symphony Northeastern Museum of Fine Arts

Beaconsfield

Englewood Ave

Prudential

Ya w

Brookline Village

Tappan St

on

Hull/

BOST O N

Arborway

Forest Hills

Airport Long Wharf North

Central Wharf

C

SL5

Kenmore

Fenway Longwood

Ar li

Brandon Hall Fairbanks St

Washington Sq

Park St

H

Summit Ave

CLEVELAND CIRCLE

BU East Blandford St

Hawes St St. Marys St

Coolidge Corner

BOSTON COLLEGE

GL B

BU West BU Central

Kent St

St. Paul St

Gov’t. Center

Charles/ MGH

tr

St. Paul St

Sutherland Rd

Chiswick Rd South St

BL

Pleasant St

Washington St

Chestnut Hill Ave

BOWDOIN

Kendall/MIT

Babcock St

SL5

Allston St

Warren St

Savin Hill

2004

Design Ctr. Silver Line Way

71 19

Packards Corner

Griggs St

ille

nv

Washington St. “El” closed 1987

Wood Island

E

North Station

Central

Harvard Ave

2 E. Berkeley St. 00 /2 Union Park St. Mass. 7 World Ave. Newton St. Trade Ctr. Worcester Sq. (12/2002) Mass. Ave. Lenox St. Melnea Cass Blvd. Dudley Sq. JFK/UMass 1988 (Columbia until 1982)

5

WORCESTER LINE to

CHARLESTOWN FERRY

Charlestown Navy Yard

E

Science Park/West End

Jackson Sq. Stony Brook

Suffolk Downs

GL

LECHMERE

Harvard

ew N

Beachmont

Sullivan Sq

21

FITCHBURG LINE

Revere Beach

Chelsea

Community College

Porter

Roxbury Crossing

BL

WONDERLAND

C ou r W tho or us ld Sil T e ve rad rL e in Ct e r W ay

t

Ruggles ap rM ide

Green St.

Wellington Assembly

on

lm

Be

p eS

Ted Williams Tunnel

y

y le er av W

Logan Airport

See Plate 4

m

ap

WINTHROP

2004

Lynn

Malden Center

ALEWIFE ha

E Line to Arborway closed 1985

NEWBURYPORT/ ROCKPORT LINE

OAK GROVE

RL

alt W

HAVERHILL LINE

OL

West Medford

er M

Heath St.

LOWELL LINE

for detail, see map at left

5

Se

BROOK LIN E

Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority Rapid Transit Map

Airport

45

r Fer am gh

See P

e4

Charlestown Ferry

te

Hin

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Boston College 6. 7. World Trade Cleveland Circle Ctr. 8. Silver Line Way 9. Design Ctr.

Riverside

lat

Lechmere

P Se e

Kendall/MIT (Kendall until 1978) Hynes Convention Ctr. (Auditorium until 1990, Hynes/ICA until 2006) See Spid er Map

A Line to Watertown closed 1969

NEWTO N

eP

Community College

1984

2013

2005

WAT ERT OWN

E. Berkeley St.

Se

1983

87

8

Charlestown “El” closed 1975

East Somerville Harvard

Suffolk Downs

Orient Heights

Sullivan Sq.

19

7/2002

500 1,000 feet

C H E LSE A

Gilman Sq.

Union Sq. 0

Herald St.

7/ 20 02

CAMBRIDGE

7

Everett

SOMERVILLE

Porter

Union Park St.

Mass. Ave.

Magoun Sq. Assembly (2014)

5 197 3/

1987 Washington St. “El” closed 1987

Davis

Alewife

EVE R E T T

Wellington

Ball Sq.

1985

200 4

Chinatown (Essex until 1987)

9

2

1984

7/2002

2009

College Ave.

9/1975

Downtown Crossing (Washington until 1987) Court House

Wonderland

la

3

200

R EVE R E

12/1975

Aquarium 2001

Government Center 2016

Tufts Medical Ctr. (New England Medical Ctr. until 2010) Back Bay

93

1971

Boylston

M A LDE N

Malden Ctr.

2004

Haymarket Charles/MGH 2007 (Charles until 1973)

MEDFORD

1975

1977

5 197 3/

05 Science Park/ 20 West End (Science Park closed until 2009) 2004 North Sta. 2004

SAUGUS

Oak Grove

Charlestown “El” closed 1975

Start/end of line extension 1959 (1967) 1967

93

BR A IN T R E E Braintree 3

Date line opened Date station opened Date station rebuilt

0

1/2

1 mile

P L A T E 5 1 · S E C T I O N X I : B O S T O N I N T H E E A R L Y 2 0 0 0 s   145

Boston’s Economy: Higher Education in 2018

AUBREY BUTTS AND ARTHUR KRIM

B

oston’s colleges and universities are an important part of its present economy. But the Boston area has not always been a center of higher education. Although Harvard—the first college in the colonies—was established in 1636 in Cambridge to train Puritan ministers, it remained the sole institution of higher education in the Boston area until the 1800s. Then, the growing number of colleges throughout the country as well as the increasing need for more specialized training led to the establishment of more colleges and universities in the Boston area, especially after the Civil War (see map). As elsewhere in the United States, these new institutions included women’s, technical, art and music, and normal schools (see map). In the 1900s, universities and specialized schools continued to be established in the Boston area (see map). In addition, after World War II a number of public institutions were founded in or near Boston: both community colleges— reflecting the increase of such schools nationally—and a branch of the University of Massachusetts. In this period, too, a number of institutions that had begun as specialized schools broadened their curricula and became colleges or even universities (see pp. 186–88). Higher education is a substantial business in Boston. Spending by and for the approximately 225,000 students enrolled in the Boston area’s fifty-six colleges and universities makes a significant contribution to the economy. Furthermore, the area’s eight research universities (Boston College, Boston University, Brandeis, Harvard, MIT, Northeastern, Tufts, and UMass/Boston) not only employ many people, but their purchases of goods and services from Boston-area vendors, construction contracts, and research spending are important components of the economy. With a greater concentration of research universities than any other region in the country, the Boston area is the national center of higher education.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was founded in 1861 and originally located in Back Bay. Its first building (above) was constructed in the 1860s on Boylston Street in the block between Berkeley and Clarendon Streets (see Plate 23). A second building (above left) opened in 1883 on the corner of Boylston and Clarendon Streets. MIT remained in Back Bay until 1916 when it moved to its present location in Cambridge.

Boston College was founded in 1863 by the Jesuits. Incorporated as a university from the outset, the school was located on Harrison Avenue in the South End in the building shown above. After the school outgrew this site, it moved in 1913 to its present location in Chestnut Hill.

Boston University (BU) began in 1839 as the Newbury Biblical Institute, a Methodist seminary located in the Newbury Seminary in Newbury, VT. In 1846 the institute moved to a meetinghouse in Concord, NH, and was renamed the Methodist General Biblical Institute. In 1867 the institute relocated to Boston and was rechartered as the Boston Theological Seminary; classes were held in rented space at 23 Pinckney Street. In 1869 three seminary trustees chartered Boston University with the seminary as its first department. The various university schools and colleges subsequently established were located on Beacon Hill and, later, Boylston Street and the Copley Square area. For example, after BU replaced a townhouse at 20 Beacon Street with this building in 1882, it was occupied by the School for Religious Education and Social Service (later the School of Social Work). To unify its geographically dispersed school, the university began buying land along the Charles River in the 1920s and opened today’s Charles River Campus in 1938.

Suffolk University began in 1906 as Archer’s Evening Law School when lawyer Gleason Archer started teaching law classes in his home in Roxbury. Archer soon began teaching full-time in his downtown office, changing the name to Suffolk School of Law. The school was chartered as Suffolk Law School in 1914 and until 1920 was located in the house at 45 Mt. Vernon Street (above). In 1920 the school constructed a building at the corner of Derne and Temple Streets, the beginning of the present Beacon Hill campus. In 1934 the school was renamed Suffolk University.

Information on plate correct as of June 2018. See pp. 186–88 for information about name and location changes of the other institutions on the map. 146  P L A T E 5 2 · S E C T I O N X I : B O S T O N I N T H E E A R L Y 2 0 0 0 s

Northeastern University began in 1898 as the Evening Institute for Young Men at the Boston YMCA, then at the corner of Berkeley and Boylston Streets. In 1913 the school moved with the Y to its present building on Huntington Avenue (above). The school was incorporated as Northeastern College of the Boston YMCA in 1916, changed to Northeastern University in 1922, and became independent of the Y in 1935. Needing more space, the university purchased the former Huntington Avenue Grounds baseball field (see Plate 32) in 1929. Richards Hall, the first building of the present campus, opened on the site in 1938.

BILLERICA WILMINGTON

Plate 52 LYNNFIELD READING

CAMBRIDGE

Middlesex Community College

BURLINGTON

30 25

Number of institutions

WAKEFIELD

. s R e l r Ch a

Founding Dates of Boston Area Colleges and Universities

BEDFORD

PEABODY Suffolk University

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

20

Bay State New England College College of Optometry (NECO)

Boston WOBURN University

15

Fisher College

Urban College of Boston

Emerson College New England Law/Boston

Boston Architectural STONEHAM College

10

91 8 19 19 –19 45 19 4 pr 6 es – en t

18

New England Conservatory of Music

WINCHESTER

Year

Simmons College

LEXINGTON

MCPHS University

LINCOLN

Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology

BOSTON MELROSE

Emmanuel College

61 –1

–18

18

00

16 00

s

60

0

SAUGUS

Berklee

The Boston Conservatory at Berklee

5

New England College of Business and Finance (NECB)

Northeastern SMFA University @Tufts Wentworth Institute of Technology Massachusetts College of Art and Design

0

MALDEN

1,000

2,000 feet

MEDFORD ARLINGTON

REVERE Tufts University

EVERETT CHELSEA

WALTHAM Bentley University

BELMONT CAMBRIDGE

WESTON

Longy School of Music of Bard College Episcopal Divinity School WATERTOWN

Brandeis University

Charlestown Lesley Bunker Hill University MGH Institute of Community Health Professions Harvard College University East Cambridge Hult International Boston College Business School

New England School of Acupuncture

Lasell College

NEWTON Hebrew College

Pine Manor College

South Boston Old Harbor

University of Massachusetts Boston

Jamaica Plain

Dorchester Bay

Dorchester

Babson College

William James College

Olin College of Engineering

West Roxbury

NEEDHAM

Quincy Bay Eastern Nazarene College

Colleges and Universities Major research universities Other universities Four-year liberal arts colleges Public two-year colleges Seminaries

WINTHROP

Boston Harbor

er

Roxbury Roxbury Community College

Hellenic College/ Greek Orthodox School of Theology

WELLESLEY

Ri v

BO STO N for detail, see map above

Newbury College

BROOKLINE

Massachusetts Bay Community College

les har

Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis

St. John’s Seminary Boston College

Wellesley College

C

Brighton

Regis College

Mystic R iver

SOMERVILLE

Hyde Park

Founding date 1600s 1800–1860 1919–1945 1946–2018

QUINCY

Boston Baptist College

1861–1918

Specialized

Labouré College

Quincy College

MILTON

DEDHAM

0

1

2 miles

Curry College

DOVER WESTWOOD MEDFIELD

P L A T E 5 2 · S E C T I O N X I : B O S T O N I N T H E E A R L Y 2 0 0 0 s   147

BRAINTREE

LYNN

Boston’s Economy: Medical Center in 2016 J O H N A V A U LT , N A N C Y S . S E A S H O L E S , A N D A R T H U R K R I M

B

Back Bay Fens

PARK DR.

R TEU

RIV ERW AY

DA

N AV E.

D. E R AC

P AS

Other medical and health sciences institutions

G

O WO

V E.

Harvard Medical, Dental, Boston Children’s Public Health Schools Hospital (H) Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (H) AVE.

Teaching hospitals/ medical school/biotech firm (by founding date)

LO N

E OKLIN

Longwood Medical and Academic Area

IS OU

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (H) Riverway

PAL

E. L AV

Merck

HUNT INGT O

N

FENWAY

BROO

oston’s medical institutions and biotech firms are an important component of its economy. The city’s three medical schools—Harvard, Boston University, and Tufts—use a number of hospitals in the Boston area for teaching and as bases for research (see maps). These teaching hospitals are very prestigious, attracting leading doctors, researchers, and future graduates. In 2016 the teaching hospitals and medical schools in Boston were awarded $1.85 billion in research grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Massachusetts General, Brigham and Women’s, Children’s Hospital, and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute were the top four hospitals in the country for the amount of competitive grant awards. The Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Boston Medical Center, also in Boston, were in the top fifteen, as was McLean Hospital in Belmont. These institutions not only bring in research money but are also major employers. In 2016 Boston’s hospitals employed 92,886 or 14.7 percent of total payroll jobs in the city (see graph), more than three times the national average. The two largest, Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s, employ more than 30,000 between them. The presence of top medical researchers in Boston has spawned an active biotech industry. The Boston and San Francisco areas are the country’s leading centers for biotechnology, and Boston’s biotech industry originated in its academic medical centers. Genzyme started in 1981 in an old clothing warehouse near Tufts Medical School. Biogen was a 1982 pioneer in the Kendall Square area of Cambridge near MIT and the Whitehead Institute, an area that soon developed a cluster of firms (see map). The Longwood Medical Area near Harvard Medical School spawned another activity center, nourished by joint projects with researchers at Harvard and the several nearby hospitals. In addition, some biotech firms are in the same Route 128 corridor of Waltham/ Lexington in which the electronic industry had located in the mid-1900s (see map on opposite page and Plate 46). Boston’s biotechnology industry specializes in pharmaceutical and drug development rather than in agriculture or manufacturing. In 2016 Massachusetts companies had 1,645 drug products under development, which represented 13 percent of the drugs being developed in the United States and 5.9 percent of drug development in the entire world. Twothirds of these drugs were to treat cancer, infections, and diseases of the immunological and central nervous systems. Boston area biotechnology growth relies on Boston’s tradition in finance as well as in medicine. In 2015 Massachusetts biotech companies received $2.1 billion in venture capital financing, one-quarter of which came from Massachusetts financers. Electronics and information processing are also woven into the fabric of Boston’s medical economy, contributing instruments for diagnosis and treatment as well as tools for analysis. These linkages support Boston as a major medical center and they place medicine at the center of its knowledge-based economy.

NT MO T RE

Brigham and Womens Hospital (H)

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (H)

ST FRANCIS

.

D RD. FENWOO

Academic and cultural institutions

ST.

0

500

1,000 feet

Longwood Medical and Academic Area The 231-acre Longwood Medical and Academic Area is a city in itself. In addition to Harvard Medical School, major teaching hospitals, and other medical and health science institutions, the area includes an international pharmaceutical research company as well as a number of colleges (see Plate 52). Each day more than 46,260 employees and 21,800 students work and study here.

Hospital Employment as a Percent of Total Boston Employment, 1980–2016 16 14

Ether Dome

148  P L A T E 5 3 · S E C T I O N X I : B O S T O N I N T H E E A R L Y 2 0 0 0 s

12 10

Percent

The first public surgery using anesthesia, depicted in this c. 1882 painting by Robert C. Hinckley, was in 1846 in Massachusetts General Hospital’s surgical amphitheater, now known as the Ether Dome. Other Boston medical firsts include the introduction of smallpox vaccine to America in 1799, the first organ transplant in 1952, the first successful in-utero cardiac implant in 2006, and the first full-face transplant in 2008.

8 6 4 2 0

1980

1985

1990

1995

2000

2005

2010

2015

Year

Hospitals have long been an important job generator for Boston, and that has been especially true since 2001. Hospital employment in Boston grew every year between 2001 and 2016 while the rest of the economy was mired down by two recessions.

MALDEN

Plate 53

PEABODY BURLINGTON

BEDFORD

ARLINGTON LEXINGTON

Shire

MELROSE

WINCHESTER ARLINGTON

WESTON

PAREXEL International Corp.

BELMONT

BELMONT

SOMERVILLE

WATERTOWN

MEDFORD

CAMBRIDGE

REVERE

EVERETT

WALTHAM

Ironwood Pharmaceuticals Inc. Brammer Bio

MALDEN

MEDFORD

ImmunoGen Inc.

McLean Hospital (H)

SAUGUS

STONEHAM

WOBURN

LINCOLN

WAKEFIELD

Lahey Hospital & Medical Center (T)

Agios Pharmaceuticals Inc. Takeda Oncology

CHELSEA WINTHROP

CAMBRIDGE

Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Momenta Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Sanofi Genzyme

Pfizer Inc. Novartis

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Acceleron Pharmaceuticals

BOSTON

NEWTON

REVERE

Moderna Therapeutics Inc.

C

les har

Ri v

er

0

1,000

2,000 feet

BROOKLINE

WELLESLEY

SOMERVILLE NEEDHAM

Charlestown

QUINCY

area of main map

Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital (H)

MILTON DEDHAM

Mount Auburn Hospital (H)

WATERTOWN

Cambridge Health Alliance (H)

East Boston

for detail, see map above

Massachusetts General Hospital (H) Shriners Hospital for Children (H) Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary (H)

CAMBRIDGE

Ch a

Brighton

rl e s

e Ri v

Tufts University School of Medicine

Franciscan Children's (B) St. Elizabeth's Medical Center (T)

r

Tufts Medical Center (T)

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (H) Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (H) Brigham and Womens Hospital (H)

for detail, see map at left

Merck Boston Children’s Hospital (H)

H

BOST ON Boston University

Harvard Medical, Dental, Public Health Schools

South Boston

Boston Medical Center (B)

Roxbury

Old Harbor

Medical Schools, Teaching Hospitals and Biotech Firms

BROOKLINE Jamaica Plain

Brigham and Womens Faulkner Hospital (T, H)

Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc.

B School of Medicine

New England Baptist Hospital (T, H)

NEWTON

T

Boston Harbor

Dorchester

Medical schools B Boston University School of Medicine H Harvard Medical School T Tufts University School of Medicine Teaching hospitals

(with medical school affiliation)

Lemuel Shattuck Hospital (T)

Number of employees 10,000 or more 3,000–9,999 1,000–2,999 Less than 1,000

Biotech firms

West Roxbury

Number of employees (includes all of Massachusetts)

Carney Hospital (T) Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System (B, H)

DEDHAM

0

1/2

1 mile

3,000–5,000 1,000–2,999 Less than 1,000

Founding date

Hyde Park

1796–1860 1861–1899

MILTON

1900–1945 1946–2018

P L A T E 5 3 · S E C T I O N X I : B O S T O N I N T H E E A R L Y 2 0 0 0 s   149

Boston’s Economy: Commercial Center in 2019

M

ired in its long depression (see Plate 40), Boston saw only four office buildings constructed between 1929 and 1947 and none over the next decade. The turning point was 1960. To meet the Prudential Life Insurance Company’s demand for tax relief as a condition for locating its regional headquarters in Boston, the legislature permitted commercial redevelopment projects to bypass the city’s exploitative assessment practices. With the new tax law in place and urban renewal projects creating office sites (see Plate 47), the city could take advantage of the region’s economic revival. A burgeoning technology sector along Route 128 (see Plate 46) and the city’s expanding financial sector created a growing demand for legal, management, financial, and architectural services. Boston added almost 115,000 jobs between 1977 and 1988, 84,000 of them in professional, business, and financial service “office industries,” enough to fill the twenty-three million square feet of office space built during the 1970s and 1980s (see graph). At the same time, Boston’s wholesale and retail sectors—once, together with finance, its strength (see Plate 31)—succumbed to national consolidation trends and the rise of suburban shopping malls. Washington and Tremont Street retail anchor stores like J. F. White’s, Gilchrist’s, Stearns, Jordan Marsh, and Filene’s closed or opened suburban branches, while wholesalers moved outside the city. Together, these developments established Boston’s modern commercial identity. By 2015, more than one-third of Boston’s 757,000 jobs were in office industries (see graph). The initial surge in office construction concentrated in Boston’s Financial District and Back Bay, but the Federal Reserve Bank headquarters (1977) pushed the Financial District to Dewey Square, and the redevelopment of the Charlestown Navy Yard created a new office node. Today, a wave of office building is underway outside Boston’s traditional locations, often accompanied by residential development. The South Boston interchange of the I-90 extension and the Silver Line (see Plate 51) turned an area of waterfront commuter parking into a district of technology, pharmaceutical, and financial services firms seeking proximity to downtown. Other new commercial districts include Brighton Landing, anchored by WGBH, New Balance’s corporate headquarters, and a new transit stop. Over the course of these developments, Boston’s historic role as the headquarters of national companies has evolved. Within the financial sector, investment houses like Fidelity grew in response to national demand for personal finance and pension plan services while venture capital expanded to serve regional and national high tech firms. But the city, long the headquarters of national and international banking corporations, lost many of them to a wave of consolidations during the 1990s. Businesses in other sectors, from hotels (Sheraton) to consumer products (Gillette), were absorbed by national companies. Since 2010, however, Vertex Pharmaceuticals and General Electric have relocated their headquarters to the South Boston Seaport and international shoe companies have moved theirs from the suburbs to North Station and Brighton.

J O H N A V A U LT A N D R I C H A R D G A R V E R

Boston Employment by Industry, 2015 Principal “Office Industries” Information, 2.2% Real estate and rental and leasing, 4.6%

Management of companies and enterprises, 1.1% Health care and social assistance, 18.5%

Administrative and waste services, 4.9%

Finance and insurance, 11.5%

Government, 10.1%

Professional, scientific, and technical services, 12.1% Accommodation and food services, 7.9%

Natural resources and mining, 0.1% Utilities, 0.3%

Educational services, 7.6%

Manufacturing, 1.1% Retail trade, 4.5%

Wholesale trade, 1.3% Arts, entertainment, and recreation, 2.2% Construction, 2.3% Transportation and warehousing, 3.4% Other services, 4.3%

By 2015 more than 36 percent of Boston’s jobs were in “Office Industries,” while wholesale and retail trade accounted for just 5.8 percent and manufacturing only 1.1 percent.

Prudential Building

Federal Reserve Building

Manulife Building

The Prudential Center tower rose from the Back Bay rail yard (see Plate 31) in 1965 to become the highest point in Boston and a symbol of its economic revival.

The choice of Dewey Square for the Federal Reserve Bank’s 1977 regional headquarters building was controversial at the time. But the location, then perceived as being outside the traditional Financial District, became an anchor for the wave of development that expanded the district during the following decade of rapid development.

The 2004 purchase of John Hancock Financial Services by Canadian insurer Manulife was another blow to the city’s prestige as a headquarters for national financial services firms. The John Hancock tower, Boston’s tallest building, became just another skyscraper. But that same year Manulife opened its U.S. headquarters on the South Boston waterfront, restoring some lost pride and expanding the perceived boundary of Boston’s Financial District. In 2018, however, the firm announced plans to put this South Boston building on the market and to consolidate its workforce again in Back Bay, returning some staff to the 1947 “old” Hancock building that was Boston’s first office skyscraper (see Plate 42).

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SOMERVILLE

Plate 54

1,000,000 or more

c R iver

Square Footage Charlestown Navy Yard

Charlestown

My

sti

750,000–999,999 500,000–749,999

Date Opened

East Boston

1950–1979 1980–1999 2000–2019 National headquarters constructed since 2000 Converse

CAMBRIDGE

60 State St.

BO ST O N

C

les har

Ri

Exchange Place One Post Office Square State Street Bank

One Beacon St.

ver

Boston Harbor

Boston Company Building Shawmut Bank

Two International Place One International Place

First National Bank of Boston 125 High St.

100 Summer St.

Atlantic Wharf

State Street Financial Center One Financial Center Stone & Webster Building

500 Boylston St.

Federal Reserve Bank

General Electric

John Hancock Tower

Prudential Center

Vertex

Manulife Building

Copley Place 111 Huntington Ave.

0

MALDEN

MEDFORD

1,000

2,000 feet

REVERE

ARLINGTON EVERETT

HAM

14

Hood Business Park

CAMBRIDGE WATERTOWN

Brighton Landing Brighton

Office Space Built in Boston, 1960–2019

CHELSEA

SOMERVILLE

Charlestown East Boston

Allston

BOSTON

Brighton Landing/ New Balance

for detail, see map above

Fenway

NEWTON

South Boston

Mission Hill BROOKLINE

WINTHROP

Roxbury

Jamaica Plain Dorchester

West Roxbury

8

6

4

Mattapan

0

QUINCY MILTON 0

1

BRAINTREE WESTWOOD

10

2

Roslindale

Hyde Park

DEDHAM

12

Office Space in million sq. ft.

BELMONT

NEEDHAM

South Boston

One Channel Center

2 miles

1960s

1970s

1980s

Year

1990s

2000s

2010s

The boom that took off in the 1970s was brought to a halt by the “Great New England Recession” of 1990–91. Boston had added 75,000 jobs during the 1982–88 “Massachusetts Miracle,” but then lost 71,000 jobs—11 percent of total employment—between 1988 and 1991. Office vacancy rates soared and construction fell. P L A T E 5 4 · S E C T I O N X I : B O S T O N I N T H E E A R L Y 2 0 0 0 s   151

Boston’s Economy: Visitors and Tourists in 2017

W

Charlestown

Bunker Hill Monument 61

HIGH ST.

WINTHROP ST.

ADAMS ST.

USS Constitution 62 & Museum

MAIN ST.

CONSTITUTION RD.

Ch a

r l e s Ri v e r HULL ST.

Copp’s Hill Burying Ground Old North 59 Church

HA NO VE R

ST .

60

58 Paul Revere House

BOSTON King’s Chapel & Burying Ground Granary Burying Ground

Boston Common 47 0

500

1,000 feet

Tourist bus drop-offs SCHOOL ST.

57 Faneuil Hall

55 56 Boston Massacre Site 51 Old State House 52 53 50 54 Old South Meeting House 49 Old Corner Bookstore Boston Latin School/Ben Franklin Statue Park St. Church

ST .

Massachusetts State House 48

T RE MO NT

ith the city declining (see Plate 40), in 1951 Mayor John Hynes attempted to attract visitors by inaugurating the Freedom Trail, establishing Boston’s history as a pillar of its visitor industry. The trail’s iconic red line was added in 1958. Under Mayor Kevin White, preparation for the country’s 1976 bicentennial celebration galvanized wide-ranging efforts to make the city’s history an attraction. The Boston National Historical Park was established in 1974. Quincy Market was converted into a “festival market place,” an innovative merging of history and shopping, in 1976. Today, tourism is Boston’s fourth largest industry, behind health care, professional services, and finance. Over eighteen million annual visitors take in its history, do business, visit museums, attend theatrical, musical, and sporting events, shop, or participate in special events like the annual Fourth of July concert. Many factors have contributed to Boston’s growing visitorship. One was the advent of inexpensive air travel. In 2016 Logan Airport handled a record 36.3 million passengers, 6.6 million of them international. Another was the expansion of the city’s convention facilities and its accompanying hotel construction. With three primary facilities (see map on opposite page), the city ranks among the top ten North American convention, meeting, and trade show destinations. Other visitors arrive seeking specialized health care at Boston’s medical centers (see Plate 53). Additional factors in Boston’s growing visitorship certainly include the enormous improvement in the attractiveness of the city itself, particularly the replacement of the elevated Central Artery with the Rose Kennedy Greenway, which reconnected the city to its cleaned-up harbor, now continuously accessible by Harborwalk and enhanced by the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area. To those arriving for vacations and excursions, the Freedom Trail, which draws four million walkers annually, remains one of Boston’s most significant attractions, as does Faneuil Hall Marketplace. Of the city’s arts and cultural organizations, the Museum of Science and Aquarium have the largest annual attendance (see table). The recent relocation of the Institute of Contemporary Art to the South Boston waterfront and the expansion of the Isabella Stuart Gardener Museum have increased their attendance. Performing arts organizations draw over 1.5 million annual paying patrons. An expanding inventory of restaurants attracts food tourists. Boston’s identity as a sports mecca makes a contribution, from the Red Sox’s annual attendance of 2.9 million and 300,000 on Fenway Park tours to events like the Boston Marathon and the Head of the Charles Regatta. To serve such a wide range of visitors, in 2017 Boston had eighty-six hotels. The 20,680 rooms in those with fifty or more rooms averaged 82 percent occupancy. Their guests split about evenly between leisure travelers, business visitors, and convention or meeting attendees and had an overall annual economic impact estimated at more than $784 million.

RICHARD GARVER

WASHINGTON ST.

Freedom Trail

Freedom Trail Map

A Freedom Trail guide entertains winter visitors at the Granary Burying Ground with the Park Street Church in the background.

The 2.5-mile Freedom Trail, linking eighteen destinations, attracts four million walkers each year.

Boston Convention and Exhibition Center The Boston Convention and Exhibition Center contains 2.1 million square feet of space. In 2016 it and the Hynes Center hosted 252 events with 724,000 attendees.

Attendance at Leading Boston Cultural Attractions, 2016

Attendance at Boston Professional Sports Teams, Season Ending in 2016 Team

Attendance

Museum of Science

1,397,600

Boston Red Sox

2,955,000

New England Aquarium

1,394,300

Boston Celtics

749,000

Museum of Fine Arts

1,164,800

Boston Bruins

770,000

Attraction

Attendance

Old North Church

605,300

Boston Children's Museum

545,700

USS Constitution Museum

507,900

Franklin Park Zoo

353,700

Paul Revere House Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum

317,400 266,900

John F. Kennedy Library

218,700

Institute of Contemporary Art

201,800

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Mystic R iver

Charlestown

SOMERVILLE

43

Plate 55

61

69

East Boston

62

North Station

10 41 65

CAMBRIDGE

12

60

Logan Airport

59

CAUSEWAY ST.

66

58

38 44

Brighton C 15

BRIGHT ON AV E.

68

FEN

32 22 24

M

AS

E. AV

3

South Station BLV (rail and bus CO N G RESS ST D. terminal) .

29

Cruise Terminal

South Boston

1/2

40

SAUGUS

1 mile

Roxbury

MALDEN

MEDFORD

REVERE

ARLINGTON

VISITOR DESTINATIONS Convention facilities

25

Lyric Stage Theatre

50

Granary Burying Ground

26

Opera House

51

27

Orpheum Theater

King’s Chapel & Burying Ground

Boston Convention and Exhibition Center

2

John B. Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center

28

Paradise Rock Club

World Trade Center

29

Schubert Theater

Museums 4

Boston Children’s Museum

5

Institute of Contemporary Art

6

Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum

7

JFK Presidential Library and Museum

8

Kennedy Institute of the Senate

9

Museum of Fine Arts

10

Museum of Science

11

New England Aquarium

12

The Sports Museum

Theaters and music halls 13

14 15

Berklee Performance Center Boch (Wang) Center Brighton Music Hall

16

Calderwood Theater

17

Charles Playhouse

18

Colonial Theater

56

Boston Massacre Site

33

Wilbur Theater

57

Faneuil Hall

58

Paul Revere House

59

Old North Church

60

Copp’s Hill Burying Ground

Other attractions 34

35

Boston African American National Historic Site Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area

36

Boston National Historical Park

37

Boston Public Library

38

Boston Public Market

39

Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum

61 62

NEEDHAM

Bunker Hill Monument

Dorchester Bay

46

Roslindale Mattapan QUINCY

Hyde Park

64

Fenway Park

65

Harvard sports complex

66

TD Garden

DEDHAM

68

Boston Marathon

69

Head of the Charles

Events

0

1

2 miles

BRAINTREE

WESTWOOD

4th of July Esplanade Concert

House of Blues

35

7

8

31

MILTON

Boston College sports complex

67

21

South Boston

Roxbury

Sport facilities 63

Faneuil Hall Marketplace

Zoo New England

West Dorchester Roxbury

USS Constitution & Museum

42

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

8 7

for detail, see map above

Dorchester

46

Duck Boat tours/trolleys

Harvard University

WINTHROP

BOSTON

Mission Hill

Jamaica Plain

Dorchester Heights

43

63 BROOKLINE

41

44

East Boston

Fenway

NEWTON

40

Rose Kennedy Greenway

Hyde Park

Old State House

Allston

CAMBRIDGE

Brighton

Jamaica 54 Old South Meeting House Plain

Symphony Hall

45

Jordan Hall

55

Charlestown

31

32

46

24

Old Corner Book Store

Strand Theatre

Hatch Shell

John Hancock Hall

53

SOMERVILLE

WATERTOWN

31

Cutler Majestic Theatre

23

Boston Latin School/ Ben Franklin Statue

South Boston pavilion

19

Huntington Theater

52

CHELSEA

BELMONT

WALTHAM

30

20

22

Old Harbor

EVERETT

1

3

30

1

WINCHESTER 0

Events

5 PO RT

E. AV

Sports facilities

ON GT TIN

SE A

39 4

S TT SE

N HU

HU

Theaters and music halls

TREMONT ST.

BOSTON

C SA

6

for detail, see map at left

45

16

9

Museums

Boston Harbor

41 11

26 18 19

17 23 33 STUART ST. 14 25

37

Tourist bus drop-offs

ST.

WAY

64

Convention facilities

Freedom Trail

20 67

er

41

2

21 HEREFORD 13

68

Other attractions

42 51 5556 36 48 50 5253 54 49 27 47

VE. H A ST. ALT WE ON N LST MO BOY COM

28

BROOKLINE

Ri v

les har

69

BEACON ST.

57

34

Visitor Origins, 2016

NORWOOD

Massachusetts, 35% Other northeastern U.S. states, 35% Other U.S. states, 17% RANDOLPH International, 13%

Freedom Trail 47

Boston Common

48

Massachusetts State House

49

Park St. Church

P L A T E 5 5 · S E C T I O N X I : B O S T O N I N T H E E A R L Y 2 0 0 0 s   153

Environmental Challenges in 2014

B

oston faces a number of environmental challenges that are exacerbated by its intense development of made land (see Plates 14, 23, 25, 43, and 44). One of the biggest challenges is climate change. While the entire globe will experience changes in temperature and precipitation, Boston is also vulnerable to sea level rise because much of the city is on low-lying made land. By 2050 Boston may have high tides up to 1.81 feet and by 2100 up to 6.83 feet above 2003 levels. By midcentury a “100-year storm” could flood nearly 30 percent of the city’s land area. The city is preparing by creating models to identify flood-prone areas; developing ordinances and guidelines for new and existing buildings to help them adapt to rising water; testing the ability of artificial reefs to reduce waves during storms; and working with at-risk communities to ensure that they are prepared for increased flooding. Boston’s large amount of made land creates another problem: falling groundwater and rotting foundation piles. Nearly all masonry buildings in Boston constructed on made land prior to the 1920s are supported on wood pilings, which last almost indefinitely if submerged in water. Since the 1920s, however, Boston groundwater levels have dropped because of leaks into subsurface structures such as sewers, subway lines, highway tunnels, and deep basements. This exposes the tops of wet foundation pilings to air where they may be attacked by microbes that cause rot, leaving the foundations unsupported (see drawing

STEPHANIE KRUEL

at right). These foundations then settle, causing cracked walls, slanted floors, and even, in extreme cases, collapse in the buildings above them. In 1986 the Boston Groundwater Trust was established to monitor groundwater levels in at-risk areas (see map at right), and in 2005 a city-state Groundwater Working Group was established to ensure groundwater is recharged and leaks are repaired. The result has been higher groundwater levels and reduced risk of structural damage in affected areas. A third environmental challenge stemming from Boston’s large amount of made land is the city’s vulnerability to earthquakes, which occur surprisingly often in New England. Between 1668 and 2007, 355 earthquakes were recorded in Massachusetts. Earthquake damage would be greater in areas of made land (see map below right): severe ground motion can cause liquefaction, where water-saturated land transforms into a liquid-like substance into which structures may sink. Also, unconsolidated soil above the water table can settle, causing aged water and gas mains to rupture, roads to break up, and utilities to disconnect CHELSEA from buildings. Roughly 50 percent of the residential buildings and 19,000 unreinforced masonry buildings in the city were built before 1940 and do not meet modern seismic hazard design standards. Another earthquake in Boston is predicted sometime within the next eleven to one hundred years and, if 5.0 magnitude or greater, would cause catastrophic damage.

SEA LEVEL RISE Potential Flooding from Sea Level Rise NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) Coastal Inundation data shows potential flooding from sea level rise 1.0 to 6.0 feet above mean higher high water, which is the average height of the higher of Boston’s two daily high tides.

My s t i c R .

Charlestown

East Boston 1630 Boston shoreline Flooding from sea level rise above present mean higher high water 6 feet 5 feet 4 feet 3 feet 2 feet

CAMBRIDGE

Cha

rl e s

R.

1 foot

BOST ON

South Boston

0

154  P L A T E 5 6 · S E C T I O N X I : B O S T O N I N T H E E A R L Y 2 0 0 0 s

1/2

1 mile

SOMERVILLE

Plate 56 My s t i c R .

FALLING GROUNDWATER/ROTTING FOUNDATION PILES Groundwater Conservation Overlay District

The Groundwater Conservation Overlay District requires that new building and renovation projects do not cause any reduction in Charlestown groundwater levels and that rainwater recharge systems are installed. The district includes both original and made land because of the way groundwater flows. In 2014, there were 210 functioning recharge systems.

East Boston

1630 Boston shoreline Groundwater Conservation Overlay District Groundwater recharge wells

CAMBRIDGE

Cha

BOSTON

R. s e l r

Rotted Foundation Piles

South Boston

REVERE 0

1,000

Roxbury

2,000 feet

EVERETT

The house in the photo is in an area where groundwater has dropped below the tops of the wood pilings supporting the foundation (shown in the schematic drawing), causing the piling tops to rot, leaving the foundation unsupported and the house subject to structural damage. Rotted piles can be repaired by underpinning (shown in the inset): rotting pile sections are cut away and replaced with steel pilings encased in concrete. This involves much manual labor at a very high cost: $400,000 to $600,000 for a typical three- or four-story row house.

EARTHQUAKE VULNERABILITY

SOMERVILLE

Mysti

CHELSEA

c R.

Jamaica Plain

WINTHROP

CAMBRIDGE

1630 Boston shoreline

Unreinforced masonry construction (URM) Confirmed URM

Cha

s rl e

R.

BOSTON

Suspected URM

Liquefaction potential Very high Moderate

November 18, 1755, Earthquake in Boston

Low

0

This woodcut shows the impact on Boston of the November 18, 1755, magnitude 6.0 earthquake centered off the coast of Cape Ann. About 1,600 chimneys were knocked down and brick walls of several buildings collapsed.

1/2

1 mile

Boston’s Earthquake Vulnerability Over 19,000 structures in Boston are of unreinforced masonry construction—made of brick, cinder block, or other masonry that is not braced by reinforcing beams. Many are built on made land that is highly susceptible to both liquefaction and settling. P L A T E 5 6 · S E C T I O N X I : B O S T O N I N T H E E A R L Y 2 0 0 0 s   155

Boston in 2010

B

J O H N A V A U LT A N D J I M V R A B E L

y 2010 Boston had become a city of contrasts. The city’s population had increased for the third straight decade (see graph), propelled by the growing popularity of urban living, increased college enrollment, and immigration. Boston had become a “majority-minority” city, in which more than half of the population was either nonwhite or Hispanic, and a city of immigrants—many now from the Caribbean, Latin America, and Asia—who comprised more than a quarter of its population. In one way, it was a young and well-educated city, with 35 percent of the city’s residents aged between twenty and thirty-four and 43 percent of those twenty-five years or older holding at least a four-year college degree. More than 150,000 students were enrolled full or part-time in the city’s thirty-five colleges and universities located wholly or partly within the city limits (see Plate 52), expanding the young adult cohort and raising the educational attainment level. But only 11.5 percent of the city’s population were school-age children, compared to 17.5 percent nationally. Since 1973, Boston public school enrollment had dropped 40,000, and many families left the city when their children reached school age.

Boston generated 660,145 total jobs—more jobs than residents—and the average payroll wage of $78,375 was 47 percent higher than that of the rest of the state and 68 percent higher than the national average. But two-thirds of the jobs in the city were held by commuters, and the median income of Boston residents was below that of all Massachusetts. “Knowledge-based” jobs dominated Boston’s economy. Hospitals and universities generated 20 percent of the city’s jobs (see Plates 52 and 53) and “Office Industries” such as Financial and Professional Services comprised another 35 percent (see Plate 54). Meanwhile, only 5.5 percent of jobs were in “Blue Collar Industries,” a onethird decrease since 2000. In 1950 Boston had been a

Charlestown

West End

Allston

Brighton

mostly a middle-income city. By 2010, it had become predominately a city of the rich and the poor (see graph), the eighth most unequal major city in the United States. Between 2000 and 2010, the city added more housing than in any decade since at least 1940, but most of it was built for high-income households. At the same time, 22 percent of Boston’s housing units were subsidized (see Plate 41), a greater percentage than in any other major U.S. city. Fewer than half of Boston’s households were families while 37 percent were single persons. Boston had experienced many high and low points in its nearly four-hundred-year history. At the end of the first decade of the new century, it was experiencing both at the same time.

East Boston

North End

Downtown Beacon Hill Back Bay Chinatown Fenway South End Mission Hill

Race/Ethnicity, 2010 1 dot = 50 people

South Boston

Roxbury

Hispanic or Latino White (alone, not Hispanic or Latino) Black or African American (alone, not Hispanic or Latino) Asian (alone, not Hispanic or Latino)

Jamaica Plain Dorchester

West Roxbury

Roslindale Mattapan

Hyde Park

Race/Ethnicity, 2010

White, 47% Black, 22% Hispanic*, 17% Asian, 9% Other, 4%

*Hispanics may be of any race. Does not total 100% due to rounded numbers.

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Plate 57 Twenty-Two Largest U.S. Cities, 2010 9

New York City Los Angeles Chicago Houston Philadelphia 12 southern and western cities average* 4 northern cities average** Boston

8 7

Population in millions

6 5

*The 12 southern and western cities are Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas, San Jose, Jacksonville, San Francisco, Austin, Fort Worth, Charlotte, El Paso, and Memphis.

4 3 2

**The 4 northern cities are Indianapolis, Columbus, Detroit, and Baltimore.

1 0 1950

1960

1970

1980 Year

1990

2000

2010

As America’s population migrated south and west to the sunbelt, Boston’s rank among U.S. cities dropped from tenth in 1950 to twenty-second in 2010. The city’s population declined from 1950 to 1980 as its population shifted to the suburbs (see Plate 46). But despite modest growth every decade since 1980, Boston had 23 percent fewer residents in 2010 than in 1950.

Boston Population, 1790–2010 900,000 800,000 700,000 Population

600,000 500,000 400,000 300,000 200,000 100,000

17 90 18 00 18 10 18 20 18 30 18 40 18 50 18 60 18 70 18 80 18 90 19 00 19 10 19 20 19 30 19 40 19 50 19 60 19 70 19 80 19 90 20 00 20 10

0 Year

Propelled by immigration, annexations, and a strong economy, Boston’s population grew rapidly until 1920, when these forces began to wane. A shift to the suburbs reduced the city’s population by 30 percent between 1950 and 1980, when a reviving economy, growing immigration, and physical renewal brought people back. By 2010 Boston’s population had recovered to a level last seen in the early 1970s.

Theater District Renovations of the Emerson Paramount Theater and the Suffolk Modern Theater  were completed in 2010, accelerating the transformation of the old “Combat Zone” red light district into the Theater District.  The renovations also added 462 dorm beds for Emerson College and Suffolk University, capping a decade that added 10,421 dorm beds in Boston.  The Ritz-Carlton residences and hotel, opened in 2001, towers in the background.

Boston’s Household Income Distribution Compared to U.S. Average, 2010

Boston relative to U.S. average

2.50

2.00

U.S. median=$52,175 1.50

1.00

0.50

$1

$1 0, 00

0 5,0 00 $2 0, 00 0 $2 5,0 00 $3 0, 00 0 $3 5,0 00 $4 0, 00 0 $4 5,0 00 $5 0, 00 0 $6 0, 00 0 $7 5,0 00 $1 00 ,0 00 $1 25 ,0 00 $1 50 ,0 00 $2 00 ,0 0 $2 00 0 ,0 00 +

0.00

Income

Fort Point Channel Area By 2010, the downtown side of the Fort Point Channel was being developed. Development had begun with the Federal Reserve Bank building (left) in 1977 and has since included Atlantic Wharf (center) in January 2011 and the Intercontinental Hotel and Residences (right) in 2006. More recently, development has crossed the channel and is now taking place in the South Boston Seaport District.

Compared to the U.S. average, in 2010 Boston had higher percentages of households with incomes below $20,000 or above $125,000. All incomes between these two extremes were underrepresented. A value near 1.00 means that Boston and the U.S. overall had nearly identical percentages of households at these income levels. The value of 1.50, for example, means that there are 50 percent more Boston households at this level than there are nationally. P L A T E 5 7 · S E C T I O N X I : B O S T O N I N T H E E A R L Y 2 0 0 0 s   157

Acknowledgments

Pl. 1—­The Boston Basin, before 5,000 BP Jack Ridge, Professor and Chair, Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences, Tufts University Noah Snyder, Associate Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Boston College Pl. 2—­The First Inhabitants, 12,000–­400 BP Miles Shugar, illustrator Jennifer Poulsen, archaeologist Doc Searle, photographer Pl. 3—­Europeans Arrive in Massachusetts Bay, 1500s–­ 1630 Kimberly S. Alexander, Visiting Assistant Professor of History, University of New Hampshire William M. Fowler Jr., Distinguished Professor of History, emeritus, Northeastern University Meghan Sullivan-­Silva, Reading Room Coordinator, John Carter Brown Library Ian Graham, Associate Librarian, John Carter Brown Library Pl. 4—­Boston Is Founded, 1630–­1640 Robert J. Allison, Chairman, History Department, Suffolk University, Boston Sarah Stewart, Independent Scholar Charles M. Sullivan, Executive Director, Cambridge Historical Commission Sandra Waxman, Librarian/Archivist, Dedham Historical Society and Museum, Dedham, MA Laura Anne Gribbin, Executive Assistant, University of North Carolina Press Pl. 5—­Boston’s Economy in the 1640s Susan Greendyke Lachevre, Curator, Commonwealth of Massachusetts Art Commission Pl. 6—­Accommodation and Conflict, 1630–­1676 Ruth Rogers, Curator of Special Collections, Wellesley College Mariana Oller, Associate Curator of Special Collections, Wellesley College Sionan Guenther, Assistant Registrar for Digital Resources, Rhode Island School of Design Museum Jennifer Fauxsmith, Reference Supervisor/Archivist, Massachusetts State Archives Pl. 7—­Boston in 1676 Mark A. Peterson, Professor, Department of History, University of California, Berkeley Anna Cook, Reference Librarian, Massachusetts Historical Society Elizabeth Roscio, Library and Archives Manager, Bostonian Society Nina Zannieri, Executive Director, The Paul Revere Memorial Association Anne Grady, Architectural Historian Tim Montenyohl, Designer/3D Artist, International Mapping Associates Introduction to Section III Anna J. Clutterbuck-­Cook, Reference Librarian, Massachusetts Historical Society Pl. 9—­Boston and the Slave Trade, 1638–­Early 1800s David Eltis, Robert W. Woodruff Professor Emeritus of History, Emory University

Donna Anstey, Permissions and Ancillary Rights Manager, Yale University Press Pl. 10—­Boston in 1743 Bob Damon, Clough House, Historic Site Manager, Old North Foundation of Boston, Inc. Nathaniel Sheidley, Executive Director, The Bostonian Society Tom Burgess, West End Museum Volunteer Curator Anne Grady, Architectural Historian Tim Montenyohl, Designer/3D Artist, International Mapping Associates Jaclyn Penny, Rights and Reproductions Coordinator, American Antiquarian Society New York Public Library Photographic Services & Permissions Pl. 11—­Revolutionary Boston, 1763–­1776 Leslie Obleschuk, Chief of Interpretation and Education, Minute Man National Historical Park Pl. 12—­Boston’s Economy, 1776–­1807 Sabina Beauchard, Reproductions Coordinator, Massachusetts Historical Society Elizabeth Roscio, Library and Archives Manager, Bostonian Society Gayle Sawtelle, Independent Scholar—­for mapping banks and insurance companies Pl. 13—­Boston in 1800 Maura FitzPatrick Sklar, author of “Black Settlement in Late-­18th Century Boston,” 1993 paper Ryan McNabb, National Park Ranger, Boston African American National Historic Site Suzanne Berger Kenniston, resident, 3 Smith Ct., Boston Paul Kosak, resident, 5 Smith Ct., Boston Tim Montenyohl, Designer/3D Artist, International Mapping Associates Pl. 14—­Connections to the Mainland and Additions of Land, 1786–­1828 Charles M. Sullivan, Executive Director, Cambridge Historical Commission Anne Grady, Architectural Historian Tim Montenyohl, Designer/3D Artist, International Mapping Associates Silvia Mejia, Special Collections Librarian, State Library of Massachusetts Pl. 15—­Railroad Development, 1830–­1855 Kimberly Reynolds, Curator of Manuscripts, Boston Public Library Tom Blake, Digital Projects Manager, Boston Public Library Pl. 16—­Early Landscaped Spaces, 1820–­1860 Elaine C. Doran, Collections Manager, Lexington Historical Society Hope Shannon, Executive Director, The South End Historical Society Pl. 18—­Boston and Reform Movements, 1820–­1865 Margot Minardi, Associate Professor of History and Humanities, Reed College Jan Seymour-­Ford, Research Librarian, Perkins School for the Blind

Gretchen O’Neill, Advisory Board, The Boston Women’s Heritage Trail, West Roxbury, MA Sr. Grace A. Hogan, OP, Administrative Assistant, Sisters of the Good Shepherd Pl. 19—­Abolitionist Movements, 1829–­1865 Margot Minardi, Associate Professor of History and Humanities, Reed College Anna J. Clutterbuck-­Cook, Reference Librarian, Massachusetts Historical Society Laura Wulf, Photographic and Digital Imaging Specialist, Massachusetts Historical Society Janice Tallman, Administrative Assistant, Ohio History Connection Aaron Schmidt, Print Department, Boston Public Library Karen Schafts, Print Department, Boston Public Library Pl. 20—­Irish Immigration, 1700s–­1855 John R. Harris, Professor of Economics, Boston University Kathleen Williams, Irish Studies Librarian, Boston College Libraries Ken Liss, Coordinator, Digital User Services, Boston College Libraries Bill Donovan, Digital Preservation Manager, Boston College Henry F. Scannell, Curator of Microtext and Newspapers, Boston Public Library Karen Shafts, Assistant Keeper of Prints, Print Department, Boston Public Library Tom Blake, Digital Projects Manager, Boston Public Library Pl. 21—­Boston in 1855: Population Reed Ueda, Professor of History, Tufts University Amy D. Finstein, Lecturer, History of Art Department, Massachusetts College of Art & Design Tim Montenyohl, Designer/3D Artist, International Mapping Associates Chris Spraker, Archivist, Temple Israel, Boston Jessie Xu, Digital Projects Coordinator, Jewish Heritage Center at New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston Pl. 22—­Boston in 1855: Economy Kimberly Reynolds, Curator of Manuscripts, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Boston Public Library Tom Blake, Digital Projects Manager, Boston Public Library Pl. 23—­Development of the South End and Back Bay, 1845–­1882 Elizabeth Roscio, Library and Archives Manager, Bostonian Society Kimberly Reynolds, Curator of Manuscripts, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Boston Public Library Tom Blake, Digital Projects Manager, Boston Public Library Nora Murphy, Archivist for Reference, Outreach and Instruction, MIT Institute Archives and Special Collections Pl. 24—­Great Fire of 1872 Bruce Twickler, President, Docema LLC

Pl. 25—­Addition of Land, 1828–­1880 Charles M. Sullivan, Executive Director, Cambridge Historical Commission Earl Taylor, Dorchester Historical Society Robert J. Allison—­for South Boston history Elizabeth Roscio, Library and Archives Manager, Bostonian Society

Kimberly Reynolds, Curator of Manuscripts, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Boston Public Library Sean Casey, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Boston Public Library Kenny Johnson and Chamisa Redmond, Business Enterprises, Duplication Services, Library of Congress

Pl. 26—­Annexation Movement, 1868–­1873 Gretchen D. O’Neill, Boston Public Schools Communications Office (retired) Giles Parker, Chief of Staff, National Parks of Boston Charles Bahne, Independent Scholar Linda B. MacIver, Reference Librarian, Social Sciences Department, Boston Public Library Caitlin Jones, Reference Archivist, Massachusetts Archives

Pl. 35—­Cultural Boston, 1780–­1915 David McCadden, Senior Publicist, Boston Symphony Orchestra Gina Perille, Chief of Communications & Strategy, Boston Public Library Rosemary Lavery, Senior Public Relations Associate, Boston Public Library Andrew Hurlbut, Visual Assets Manager, Office of Marketing & Communications, New England Conservatory Maureen Horn, Librarian, Massachusetts Horticultural Society Elizabeth Reluga, Curatorial Administrator, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Matthew Derosier, Media Relations Assistant, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Anna J. Clutterbuck-­Cook, Reference Librarian, Massachusetts Historical Society Phyllis S. Bendell, Director of Publications and Managing Editor of Daedalus, American Academy of Arts and Sciences Sue Bell, Coordinator of Image Licensing, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Márta Fodor, Digital Archivist, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Pl. 27—­Streetcar Suburbs, 1870–­1900 Eswaran Selvarajah, Boston Studies Group Jeanne Gamble, Library and Archives Specialist, Historic New England Pl. 28—­Public Transportation, 1856–­1918 Bradley H. Clarke, President, Boston Street Railway Association Charles M. Sullivan, Executive Director, Cambridge Historical Commission Pl. 30—­Boston and Metropolitan Park Systems, 1875–­1919 Sean M. Fisher, Archivist, Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation Judy Greene, Plans Archivist, Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation Pl. 31—­Boston’s Economy, 1905 Lauren Chen, Cataloger, Leventhal Map Center, Boston Public Library Aaron Schmidt, Print Department, Boston Public Library Pl. 32—­Sports and Recreation, 1895–­1903 Evan Thornberry, Reference and Geospatial Librarian, Norman B. Leventhal Map Center, Boston Public Library Aaron Schmidt, Print Department, Boston Public Library Tom Blake, Digital Projects Manager, Boston Public Library Henry F. Scannell, Research Services, Boston Public Library Charles M. Sullivan, Executive Director, Cambridge Historical Commission Kathleen Rawlins, Assistant Director, Cambridge Historical Commission Marc Davis, Communications Manager, Boston Athletic Association Sasha Parfenova, Assistant Museum Coordinator, The Plumbing Museum, Watertown, MA Debbie Smith, Stanley Museum, Kingfield, ME Jim Merrick, Archivist, Stanley Museum, Kingfield, ME Jason Wood, College Archivist & Associate Director for Discovery Services, Simmons College Library Pl. 33—­Scollay Square, 1880s–­1963 David Kruh, author of Always Something Doing (Boston: Northeastern, 1999) and Scollay Square (Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2004) Bob Collum, On Behalf of the Family of Leslie R. Jones Pl. 34—­Theatrical Boston, 1880s–­1930s Eric S. Ames, Curator of Digital Collections, Baylor University Aaron Schmidt, Print Department, Boston Public Library

160  ac k no w l e d g m ents

Pl. 36—­Enterprising Women, 1862–­1914 Boston Women’s Heritage Trail board Mary Smoyer, President Emeritus, Boston Women’s Heritage Trail Polly Welts Kaufman, Women’s Historian and Social Activist Mary Frances O’Brien, former Chief of Public Services, Boston Public Library, Central Branch Pl. 37—­Social Service Institutions, c. 1900 Meghan Bailey, Processing Archivist, University Archives & Special Collections, Joseph P. Healey Library, University of Massachusetts Boston Diana Carey, Reference Librarian, Visual Resources, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University Pl. 38—­Boston in 1910 Alexander Howard, Research Assistant Gerald Gamm, Associate Professor of Political Science and History, University of Rochester Jim Vrabel—­mapping places of worship Arthur Krim—­information about three-­deckers Tim Montenyohl, Designer/3D Artist, International Mapping Associates Sally Zimmerman, Senior Preservation Services Manager, Historic New England Duane Lucia, Executive Director, West 0End Museum Pl. 39—­1910 Mayoral Election Linda MacIver, Reference Librarian II, Social Sciences and Government Information, Boston Public Library Nicholas J. Green—­Excel data entry Donald deB. Beaver, Williams College—­Excel calculations Stephen Halpert, editor, Brahmins & Bullyboys: G. Frank Radway’s Boston Album (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1973) Aaron Schmidt, Print Department, Boston Public Library

Pl. 40—­The Long Depression, 1920–­1960 Carolyn Bennett, GIS Director, Boston Planning and Development Agency Alla Ziskin, Senior Cartographer, Boston Planning and Development Agency Greg Perkins, Boston Planning and Development Agency Charles Bahne, Independent Scholar Tom Blake, Digital Projects Manager, Boston Public Library Pl. 41—­Public Housing 1935–­2010 Yonah Freemark, Research Assistant Robert J. Allison—­for South Boston development Pl. 42—­Boston in 1950 Greg Perkins, Boston Planning and Development Agency Jim Vrabel, author of When in Boston (Northeastern, 2004) Pl. 43—­Addition of Land, 1880–­2003 Charles M. Sullivan, Executive Director, Cambridge Historical Commission Cathie Zusy, President, Magazine Beach Partners, Inc. Charles Bahne, Independent Scholar Jill Valdes Horwood, Director of Policy, Boston Harbor Now Caitlin Jones, Reference Archivist, Massachusetts Archives Sean M. Fisher, Archivist, Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation Pl. 44—­Highways and Airport, 1920–­1973 Jonathan Belcher, Planner, Central Transportation Planning Staff, Boston Stephen P. Carlson, Chair, Saugus Historical Commission Karl Haglund, Senior Planner, Department of Conservation and Recreation Sean M. Fisher, Archivist, Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation Elizabeth Roscio, Library and Archives Manager, Bostonian Society Pl. 45—­Public Transportation, 1918–­1967 Jim Vrabel—­Charlie and the MTA Song Pl. 46—­Relocation to the Suburbs, 1940–­1970 Kenneth Apostolakos, Hayley Engel, Alex Swanger, Research Assistants Charles Bahne, Independent Scholar Harry Fatkin, former Manager of Operations, Polaroid, Enshede, Netherlands Dennis McCarthy, volunteer with Boston By Foot, Leventhal Map Center, and Boston Public Library Pl. 47—­The Urban Renewal Era, 1949–­1974 Aaron Schmidt, Print Department, Boston Public Library Carolyn Bennett and Alla Ziskin, Boston Planning and Development Agency Nathaniel Smith, Records Manager, Boston Planning and Development Agency Ruth Edele, Assistant Archivist and Records Manager, Boston Planning and Development Agency Kenya Thompson, Landscape Architect, Boston Planning and Development Agency Charles Bahne, Independent Scholar Pl. 48—­Boston School Busing, 1974–­ John McColgan, Deputy Archivist, Boston City Archives Kristen Swett, Assistant Archivist, Boston City Archives Marta Crilly, Archivist for Reference and Outreach, Boston City Archives

Giordana Mecagni, University Archivist, Northeastern University Archives Michelle Romero, Assistant Archivist, Northeastern University Archives Susan Wilson, Independent Historian Pl. 49—­Updating the Water System, 1907–­2013 Lise Marx, Senior Program Manager, Planning Department, Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA) Marcis Kempe, Director, Operations Support, MWRA Field Operations Department Pak Yen Lim, Program Manager, Planning-­GIS, MWRA Rebecca Kenney, Library Supervisor, MWRA Ria Convery, Special Assistant to Executive Director, MWRA Richard P. Trubiano, Deputy Chief Operating Officer, MWRA Stephen Estes-­Smargiassi, Director, Planning, MWRA John P. Sullivan, Chief Engineer, Boston Water and Sewer Commission (BWSC) Sean Connor, Senior GIS Coordinator, BWSC Sean M. Fisher, Archivist, Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) Les Campbell, Photo-­Communication Enterprises, Sky Meadow Studio & Gallery, Belchertown, MA Elaine Darr-­Morton, assistant to Les Campbell Dave Dumas, Studio Manager, Pivot Media, Inc., Florence, MA Pl. 50—­Updating the Sewerage System, 1907–­2013 Rebecca Kenney, Library Supervisor, Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA) Karen Graham, Library Supervisor, MWRA Carl H. Leone, Senior Program Manager, MWRA Community Support Program Pak Yen Lim, Program Manager, Planning-­GIS, MWRA Ria Convery, Special Assistant to Executive Director, MWRA Richard P. Trubiano, Deputy Chief Operating Officer, MWRA Stephen Estes-­Smargiassi, Director, Planning, MWRA Marcis Kempe, Director, Operations Support, MWRA Field Operations Department Glenn Hazelton, GIS Manager, MWRA

David Kubiak, Senior Program Manager, Engineering, MWRA Dave Duest, Manager, Process Control, MWRA Christopher John, Senior Staff Counsel, MWRA Sean M. Fisher, Archivist, Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation John P. Sullivan, Chief Engineer, Boston Water and Sewer Commission (BWSC) Sean Connor, Senior GIS Coordinator, BWSC Pl. 51—­Updating Highways and Public Transportation, 1967–­2017 Jonathan Belcher, Planner, Central Transportation Planning Staff, Boston Steve Dunwell, Photographer Jeanne Sullivan, Customer Experience Navigator, Boston Harbor Cruises Pl. 52—­Boston’s Economy: Higher Education in 2018 Diana Yount, Archives and Special Collections, Andover-­Newton Theological Seminary Mark Rotondo, Vice President of Innovation and Strategic Initiatives, Cambridge College Anthony Viola, Library Director, Cambridge College Brendan Higgins, Public Services Librarian/Archivist, The Boston Conservatory Erin McCoy, Librarian for Instruction and Digital Media, Eastern Nazarene College Harvey Sukenic, Library Director, Hebrew College Roy Rudolph, Library Director, Longy School of Music of Bard College Kathy Krathwohl, Metadata and Digital Initiatives Librarian, MCPHS University Joanna Novick, Reference Librarian, Mount Ida College David Cocco, Library Assistant, Quincy College Jason Wood, College Archivist & Associate Director for Discovery Services, Simmons College Library Nancy Daniel, Academic Dean, Urban College of Boston Pl. 53—­Boston’s Economy: Medical Center in 2016 Sarah Hamilton, Vice President for Planning and Development at Medical, Academic, and Scientific Community Organization (MASCO) Dr. Orest Hurko, Biotechnology Industry Consultant

Jack Eckert, Countway Center for the History of Medicine Elizabeth Steele, Director, Economic Development & Global Affairs, Massachusetts Biotechnology Council Pl. 54—­Boston’s Economy: Commercial Center in 2019 Eswaran Selvarajah, Boston Studies Group Paul Leonard, Costar Analytics Diana Abrashkin, Architectural Design + Consulting Aisling Kerr, Boston Planning and Development Agency Te Ming Chang, Boston Planning and Development Agency Pl. 55—­Boston’s Economy: Visitors and Tourists in 2017 Rebecca Johnson, Research Associate, The Cultural Data Profile, DataArts Research, Boston Suzanne Taylor, Executive Director, The Freedom Trail Foundation Andrea Micci, Marketing Coordinator, Boston Convention Marketing Center Sebastian J. Colella, Pinnacle Advisory Group David O’Donnell, Senior Manager of Media Relations, Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism Jonathan Lee, Deputy Director of Research, Boston Planning and Development Agency Pl. 56—­Environmental Challenges in 2014 James R. Lambrechts, Associate Professor, Wentworth Institute of Technology Christian Simonelli, Executive Director, Boston Groundwater Trust Chris Watson, Research Assistant, University of Massachusetts/Boston Pl. 57—­Boston in 2010 Carolyn Bennett, GIS Director, Boston Planning and Development Agency Alla Ziskin, Senior Cartographer, Boston Planning and Development Agency Mingsheng Kevin Kang, Boston Planning and Development Agency Eswaran Selvarajah, Boston Studies Group

ac k no w l e d g m ents   161

Appendix

Boston’s Population 1687–2010 1687

6,000

1776

2,719

1930

781,188

1700

~6,700

1780

10,000

1940

770,816

1710

~9,000

1784

15,870

1950

801,444

1728

12,650

1789

17,880

1960

697,197

1733

15,075

1790

18,320

1970

641,071

1735

15,925

1800

24,937

1980

562,994

1737

16,600

1810

33,787

1990

574,283

1738

16,700

1820

43,298

2000

589,141

1739

16,750

1830

61,392

2010

617,594

1740

16,800

1840

93,383

Sources: See pp. 167, 168, 174, 182, and 190.

1741

16,660

1850

136,881

1745

16,290

1860

177,840

1750

15,890

1870

250,526

1756

15,680

1880

362,839

1760

15,631

1890

448,477

1770

15,520

1900

560,892

1771

16,540

1910

670,585

1775

6,573

1920

748,060

Metropolitan Water System Members—by Year Entered City/Town

Year

Belmont

Special Conditions

City/Town

Year

1895

Milton

Boston

1895

Chelsea

Special Conditions

City/Town

Year

1903

Norwood

1954

Swampscott

1909

Lynnfield

1956

1895

Clinton

1923

Marlborough

1957

Everett

1895

Brookline

1925

Peabody

1957

Hyde Park

1895

Southborough

1930

Wakefield

1957

Malden

1895

Lynn

1942

Weston

1963

Medford

1895

Saugus

1946

Leominster

1964

Melrose

1895

Winchester

1946

Canton

1967

Newton

1895

Chicopee

1947

Worcester

1971

Revere

1895

Wilbraham

1948

Woburn

1972

Somerville

1895

Cambridge

1949

Wellesley

1974

Watertown

1895

Waltham

1949

Bedford

1993

Winthrop

1895

Framingham

1949

Stoughton

2002

Quincy

1897

Marblehead

1951

Westwood

2005

Supplement only

Nahant

1898

1951

Dedham

2005

Supplement only

Arlington

1899

South Hadley Fire District #1

2005

1901

1954

Reading

Stoneham

Needham

2009

1903

1954

Wilmington

Lexington

Northborough

GE only

Emergency only

Special Conditions

Emergency only Emergency only

Reservoirs in Boston Water System—by Year Opened

Aqueducts in Boston Water System, 1795–2013—by Year Opened

Reservoir

Opened/Added

Discontinued

Aqueduct

Year Opened

Type

Discontinued

Jamaica Pond

1795

1893

Gravity

1893

1848

1900

Jamaica Pond Aqueduct

1795

Brookline Cochituate

1848

1947

Cochituate Aqueduct

1848

Gravity

1947

Beacon Hill

1849

1880

Sudbury Aqueduct

1878

Gravity

1980

South Boston

1849

1897

Wachusett Aqueduct

1898

Gravity

2005

East Boston

1851

1917

Weston Aqueduct

1903

Gravity

1995

Dudley Pond, Wayland

1862

Unknown

Quabbin Aqueduct

1939

Gravity

Chestnut Hill, Brookline

1870

1948–49 Lawrence Basin; standby in 2013

Hultman Aquduct

1940

Pressure

Chicopee Valley Aqueduct

1949

Pressure

Parker Hill

1874

1912

City Tunnel

1950

Pressure

Mystic Lakes, Winchester/ 1874 Medford

1898

City Tunnel Extension 1963

Pressure

Mystic, Somerville

1878

1945

Cosgrove Tunnel

1967

Pressure

Waban Hill, Newton

1878

1974

Dorchester Tunnel

1976

Pressure

Basins Nos. 1–2, Framingham

1878

Unknown

Metro West Water Supply Tunnel

2003

Pressure

Basin No. 3, Framingham

1878

Standby in 2013

Farm Pond, Framingham

1878

Unknown

Ashland (Basin No. 4)

1885

1947

Fisher Hill, Brookline

1888

1954

Whitehall, Hopkinton

1892

1947

Hopkinton (Basin No. 6)

1894

1947

Sudbury, Marlborough

1898

Standby in 2013

Fells (Basins 1 & 2), Stoneham

1899

1999; standby in 2013

Spot Pond, Stoneham

1900

Standby in 2013

Forbes Hill, Quincy

1901

1956

Bear Hill, Stoneham

1902

~Mid-1980s

Weston

1903

Standby in 2013

Wachusett

1906

Covered

Bellevue Standpipe #1, W. Rox

1915

Standby in 2013

Arlington Heights Tank

1922

Standby in 2013

Arlington Covered

1937

Quabbin

1939

Norumbega, Weston

1940

Turkey Hill Tank, Arlington

Standby in 2013 1945

Fells (Basin 3), Stoneham

1941

1999

Nash Hill, Ludlow

1950

1999

Blue Hills, Quincy

1954

1981

Bellevue Standpipe #2, W. 1955 Rox

1955

Walnut Hill Tank, Lexington

1961

1961

Bear Hill Tank

1986

1986

Deer Island Tank, Boston

1994

1994

Loring Road Covered, Weston

2001

2001

Norumbega Covered, Weston

2004

2004

John J. Carroll Tank, Marlborough

2005

2005

Blue Hills Covered, Quincy 2009

2009

Spot Pond Tank, Stoneham 2014

2014

Standby

Additional Information, Sources, and Credits

PLATE 1—­The Boston Basin, before 5000 BP

Sources Text Cecilia Lenk, Paul K. Strother, Clifford A. Kaye, and Elso S. Barghoorn, “Precambrian Age of the Boston Basin: New Evidence from Microfossils,” Science 216 (1982): 619–­20; David Woodhouse, Patrick J. Borosh, Edmund G. Johnson, Clifford A. Kaye, Henry A. Russell, William E. Pitt Jr., S. A. Alsup, and K. E. Franz, “Geology of Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America,” Bulletin of the Association of Engineering Geologists 28, no. 4 (1991): 375–­512; Clifford A. Kaye, The Geology and Early History of the Boston Area of Massachusetts: A Bicentennial Approach, Geological Survey Bulletin 1476 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1976); Clifford A. Kaye, Bedrock Geologic Maps of the Boston North, Boston South, and Newton Quadrangles, Massachusetts, U.S. Geological Survey (Reston, VA: U.S. Geological Survey, 1980); Clifford A. Kaye, “Bedrock and Quaternary Geology of the Boston Area, Massachusetts,” Geological Society of America, Reviews in Engineering Geology 5 (1982): 25–­40. Map Richard Goldsmith et al., Bedrock Geologic Map of Massachusetts, ed. E-­an Zen (Reston, VA: United States Geological Survey, 1983); Margaret D. Thompson, Bedrock Geologic Map of the Newton 7.5′ Quadrangle, Middlesex Norfolk, and Suffolk Counties, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Geological Survey Map GM-­17–­01 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts, 2017); Laurence LaForge, “Map and Sections Showing Areal Geology of the Boston and Boston Bay Quadrangles, Massachusetts,” in Geology of the Boston Area, Massachusetts (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1932); C. M. Brankman and L. G. Baise, “Liquefaction Susceptibility Mapping in Boston, Massachusetts,” Engineering and Environmental Geoscience 14, no. 1 (2008): 1–­16. Profile David Woodhouse, Patrick J. Barosh, Edmund G. Johnson, et al., “Geology of Boston, Massachusetts,” Bulletin of the Association of Engineering Geologists 28, no. 4 (1991): Profile “A,” Fig. 30, 425. Photographs Conglomerate at New Old South—­Joseph Bagley Boston Skyline, New Old South, Conglomerate at Doherty Playground, Stairs at Doherty Playground—­ Nancy S. Seasholes

PLATE 2—­The First Inhabitants, 12,000–­400 BP

Sources Texts James Wesley Bradley, Origins and Ancestors: Investigating New England’s Paleo Indians (Andover, MA: Robert S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology, 1998); Kevin Fleming, Paul Johnston, Dan Zwartz, Yusuke Yokoyama, Kurt Lambeck, and John Chappell, “Refining the Eustatic Sea-­Level Curve since the Last Glacial Maximum Using Far-­and Intermediate-­ Field Sites,” Earth and Planetary Science Letters 163, nos. 1–­4 (1998): 327–­42; Kenneth E. Sassaman, The Eastern Archaic, Historicized (Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 2010); J. Richard Jones and J. J. Fisher, “Environmental Factors Affecting Prehistoric

Shellfish Utilization: Grape Island, Boston Harbor, Massachusetts,” Archaeological Geology of North America, Centennial Special 4 (Boulder, CO: Geological Society of America, 1990): 137–­46; Christopher M. Edens and Robert G. Kingsley, “The Spectacle Island Site: Middle to Late Woodland Adaptations in Boston Harbor, Suffolk County, Massachusetts,” Timelines, Inc., Littleton, MA,1998; Leslie C. Shaw, Greg Laden, and David Cushman, “The Water Street Site: A Study in Prehistoric Adaptations to an Estuarine Environment,” Institute for Conservation Archaeology, Peabody Museum, Harvard University, 1984.

Old England to New England,” Journal of American Studies 41, no. 1 (Apr. 2007): 135–­68; Samuel Eliot Morison, Samuel de Champlain: Father of New France (Boston: Little, Brown, 1972); Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, A Topographical and Historical Description of Boston (Boston: Rockwell and Churchill, 1891); Walter Muir Whitehill, Boston: A Topographical History (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1968); Justin Winsor, “The Earliest Maps of Massachusetts Bay and Boston Harbor,” in The Memorial History of Boston, ed. Justin Winsor (Boston: James R. Osgood, 1881), 1:37–­62.

Maps 1630 shoreline—­http://www.mass.gov/anf/research-­ and-­tech/it-­serv-­and-­support/application-­serv/ office-­of-­geographic-­information-­massgis/ datalayers/ftplidar-­2002boston.html Bathemetric data for prehistoric shorelines on verso maps—­http://www.mass.gov/anf/research-­and-­ tech/it-­serv-­and-­support/application-­serv/office-­ of-­geographic-­information-­massgis/datalayers/ bathymetry-­for-­massachusetts.html, http://www. data.gov/ocean/datasets/bh2mmbbath-­multibeam-­ bathymetry-­2-­meterpixel-­boston-­harbor-­and-­ approaches Lidar data used for topography on recto map—­ http://www.mass.gov/anf/research-­and-­tech/ it-­serv-­and-­support/application-­serv/office-­of-­ geographic-­information-­massgis/datalayers/ftplidar-­ 2009cityofboston.html

Map John Brereton, Briefe and True Relation of the Discoverie of the North Part of Virginia in 1602 (Madison, WI: Wisconsin Historical Society, 2003); Samuel de Champlain, The Voyages and Explorations of Samuel de Champlain, 1604–­1616, Narrated by Himself, ed. Edward Gaylord Bourne, 2 vols. (Toronto: Courier, 1911); Conrad E. Heidenreich, “The Mapping of Samuel de Champlain,1603–­1635,” in The History of Cartography, ed. David Woodward and G. Malcolm Lewis, vol. 3, Cartography in the European Renaissance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007): 1538–­49; Samuel Eliot Morison, Samuel de Champlain: Father of New France (Boston: Little, Brown, 1972), 64–­86; “Samuel Champlain chart of Stage Harbor in Chatham, Mass.,” https:// bostonraremaps.com/inventory/samuel- ­champlain-­ chart-­chatham-­port-­fortune/, accessed April 14, 2018; “Samuel de Champlain,” Cape Cod National Seashore, National Park Service, https://www.nps. gov/caco/learn/historyculture/samuel- ­de-­champlain. htm, accessed April 14, 2018; Russell M. Lawson, The Sea Mark: Captain John Smith’s Voyage to New England (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2015), 133–­35; Stephen J. Hornsby and Richard W. Judd, eds., Historical Atlas of Maine (Orono, ME: University of Maine Press, 2015), Pls. 5, 6; David B. Quinn, “Martin Pring at Provincetown in 1603?” New England Quarterly 40, no. 1 (Mar. 1967): 79–­91; Marshall H. Saville, “Champlain and His Landings at Cape Ann, 1605, 1606,” American Antiquarian Society (Oct. 1933): 447–­69.

Drawings Miles Shugar Photographs Charles River, Lynn Volcanics, Blue Hills Rhyolite, Springs, Banded Mattapan Felsite—­Joseph Bagley Shelter, Dugout Canoe—­Joseph Bagley, photo usage courtesy of Plimoth Plantation Clay, Fish, Shellfish, Hunting—­courtesy of Jennifer Poulsen Boston Harbor—­courtesy of Doc Searls

PLATE 3—­Europeans Arrive in Massachusetts Bay, 1500s–­1630 S o urc es Text Charles Francis Adams Jr., “Old Planters about Boston Harbor,” Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings 16, no. 6 (1878): 194–­206; W. Jeffrey Bolster, “Putting the Ocean in Atlantic History: Maritime Communities and Marine Ecology in the Northwest Atlantic, 1500–­1800,” American Historical Review 113, no. 1 (Feb. 2008): 19–­47; Donald Francis Connors, “Thomas Morton of Merry Mount: His First Arrival in New England,” American Literature 11, no. 2 (May 1939): 160–­66; George Dexter, “Early European Voyagers in Massachusetts Bay,” in The Memorial History of Boston, ed. Justin Winsor (Boston: James R. Osgood, 1881), 1:23–­36; David Hackett Fischer, Champlain’s Dream (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009); Warner F. Gookin and Phillip Barbour, Bartholomew Gosnold: Discoverer and Planter (Hamden, CT: Archon, 1963); “Gosnold’s Settlement at Cuttyhunk,” Old South Leaflets 5, no. 120 (Boston: Old South Meeting House, 1902): 405–­ 16; William Heath, “Thomas Morton: From Merry

Illustrations Smith Map—­John Smith, New England: the most remarqueable parts thus named by the high and mighty Prince Charles, prince of great Britaine (London : Geor. Low, 1624), Map reproduction courtesy of the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library Sacred Cod—­Joseph Paul Gaimard, “La Morue Ordinaire,” in Voyage en Islande et au Groënland Publié, ed. Arthus Bertrand (Paris: Dido Frères, 1838), Courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University Martin Pring’s Men Meet Native Americans—­ Naaukeurige versameling der gedenk-­waardigste zee en land-­reysen na Oost en West-­Indiën . . . zedert het jaar 1601 tot 1605 (Leyden: door Pieter van der Aa, 1707), Courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University Drying Cod—­Bacqueville de La Potherie, Histoire de l’Amerique Septentrionale (Paris: Jean-­LucNion et François Didot, 1722), Courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University

SECTION II—­Introduction

Sources Text Charles McLean Andrews, The Colonial Period of American History, vol. 1, The Settlements (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1934); Bernard Bailyn, The New England Merchants in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1955); Richard W.Cogley, John Eliot’s Mission to the Indians before King Philip’s War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998); John Cotton, Gods Promise to His Plantation (London, 1630); John Hull, “The Diaries of John Hull, Mint-­Master and Treasurer of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay,” Transactions of the American Antiquarian Society, vol. 3 (Boston: John Wilson and Son, 1857); Samuel Eliot Morison et al., eds., The Winthrop Papers, vol. 2 (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1929–­); Mark Peterson, The City-­State of Boston: The Rise and Fall of an Atlantic Power, 1630–­1865 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019); Mary Rowlandson, The Sovereignty and Goodness of God (Boston, 1682); Pishey Thompson, The History and Antiquities of Boston (Boston, 1856); William Wood, New Englands Prospect (London, 1634). Illustration Boston Church, Lincolnshire, 1821 watercolor by J. Harrison (active ­1821). Courtesy of Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

PLATE 4—­Boston Is Founded, 1630–­1640

Sources Text Virginia DeJohn Anderson, New England’s Generation: The Great Migration and the Formation of Society and Culture in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); Massachusetts Office of the Secretary of State, Historical Data Relating to Counties, Cities and Towns in Massachusetts (Boston, 1948); Everett Emerson, ed., Letters from New England: The Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1629–­1638 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1976); William Francis Galvin, Historical Data Relating to Counties, Cities and Towns in Massachusetts (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1977); Massachusetts Harbor and Land Commission, Atlas of the Boundaries of the City of Lynn (Boston?, 1902); John Josselyn, Two Voyages to New-­England (London, 1674) in John Josselyn, Colonial Traveller: A Critical Edition of Two Voyages to New-­England, ed. Paul J. Lindholt (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1988); Susan Hardman Moore, Abandoning America: Life-­Stories from Early New England (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 2013); Darrett B. Rutman, Winthrop’s Boston: Portrait of a Puritan Town, 1630–­1649 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1965); Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, ed., Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, vol. 1, 1628–­1641 (Boston: William White, 1853); John Winthrop, The Journal of John Winthrop, 1630–­1649, ed. Richard S. Dunn and Laetitia Yeandle (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996); William Wood, New England’s Prospect, ed. Alden T. Vaughn (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1977). Graphs New England Immigrants—­Robert Charles Anderson, The Winthrop Fleet: Massachusetts Bay Company Immigrants to New England, 1629–­1630 (Boston: Great Migration Project of New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2012), 4 Mass. Bay/Boston population—­based on graph in Darrett B. Rutman, Winthrop’s Boston: Portrait of a Puritan Town, 1630–­1649 (New York: Norton Library, 1972), 179. Courtesy of the University of North Carolina Press

Maps English Origins—­Based on data collected from Robert Charles Anderson, The Great Migration Directory: Immigrants to New England, 1620–­1640 (Boston: Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 2015) 1640 Massachusetts Bay Colony towns Newbury, Ipswich, Rowley, Gloucester—­“Essex County in 1643” in Sidney Perley, History of Salem, Massachusetts, vol. 2 (Salem, MA: Sidney Perley, 1926), facing 145; Amos Everett Jewett and Emily Mabel Adams Jewett, Rowley, Massachusetts:“Mr. Ezechi Rogers Plantation,” 1639–­1850 (Rowley, MA: Jewett Family of America, 1946), 15–­17 Salem—­“Relief Map of Original Salem” in Sidney Perley, History of Salem, Massachusetts, vol. 1 (Salem, MA: Sidney Perley, 1924), facing 1 Lynn—­Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, ed., Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, vol. 1, 1628–­1641 (Boston: William White, 1853), 254, 272, 279, 292, 302 Woburn—­Henry Smith Chapman, History of Winchester, Massachusetts (Winchester, MA: Town of Winchester, 1936), facing 20 Medford—­Charles Brooks, History of the Town of Medford (Boston: Rand, Avery & Co., 1886), 13–­15 Boston—­Osgood Carleton, “A Plan of the Town of Boston, in the County of Suffolk, & Commonwealth of Massachusetts,” 1795, Massachusetts State Archives Cambridge—­Douglas R. McManis, Colonial New England: A Historical Geography (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), 61; General Court grants 1632/3, 14 May 1634, 9 April 1635, 3 March 1635/6 Concord—­Brian Donahue, The Great Meadow: Farmers and the Land in Colonial Concord (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004), 3 Watertown—­Henry Bond, Genealogies of the Families and Descendants of the Early Settlers of Watertown, Massachusetts, including Waltham and Weston; to which is Appended The Early History of the Town, with Illustrations, Maps and Notes, 2nd ed. (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1860), facing 985 Dedham—­Ancient Dedham Grant of 1636 in Official Commemoration and Chronicle Issued in Honor of the 300th Anniversary of the Historic Town of Dedham, 1636–­1936 (s.l.: Fisher-­Churchill Cos., 1936). Courtesy Dedham Historical Society & Museum Roxbury—­Mather Withington, “Plan of the Town of Roxbury,” 1794, Massachusetts State Archives, Boston; John G. Hale, Map of Boston and Its Vicinity (Boston: John G. Hale, 1819) Dorchester—­see Roxbury, Dedham, Braintree boundaries; Boston City Planning Board, “Map of Boston Boundary Line Changes,” 1926 (Mapping Dept., Boston Planning & Development Agency) Braintree—­Osgood Carleton, Map of Massachusetts Proper (Boston: B. & J. Loring, 1802) Weymouth—­Weymouth Historical Society, History of Weymouth, Massachusetts, in Four Volumes (Boston: Wright & Potter, 1923), 1:132

PLATE 5—­Boston’s Economy in the 1640s

S o urc es Text Bernard Bailyn, The New England Merchants in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1955), 1–­105; Regina Grafe, “The Globalisation of Codfish and Wool: Spanish-­English-­ North American Triangular Trade in the Early Modern Period” (Working Paper 71/03, February 2003, Department of Economic History, London School of Economics); John J. McCusker and Russell R. Menard, “The Sugar Industry in the Seventeenth Century: A New Perspective on the Barbadian ‘Sugar Revolution,’” in Tropical Babylons: Sugar and the Making of the Atlantic World, ed. Stuart B. Schwartz (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 289–­330; Susan Hardman Moore, Pilgrims:

166  a d d itiona l infor m ation , so u rces , an d cre d its

New World Settlers and the Call of Home (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007); Margaret Ellen Newell, From Dependency to Independence: Economic Revolution in Colonial New England (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998), 51–­71; Darrett B. Rutman, “Governor Winthrop’s Garden Crop: The Significance of Agriculture in the Early Commerce of Massachusetts Bay,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., 20, no. 3 (July 1963): 397–­401; Richard S. Dunn, James Savage, and Laetitia Yeandle, eds., The Journal of John Winthrop, 1630–­1649 (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1996). Map Cotton Mather, An Exact Mapp of New England and New York (Thomas Parkhurst, 1702). Map reproduction courtesy of the Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library. Illustration Sacred Cod—­State House Art Collection, Courtesy of Commonwealth of Massachusetts Art Commission

PLATE 6—­Accommodation and Conflict, 1630–­ 1676 Sources Text Cristobal Silva, Miraculous Plagues: An Epidemiology of Early New England Narrative (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011); Jenny Hale Pulsipher, Subjects unto the Same King: Indians, English, and the Contest for Authority in Colonial New England (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005); Richard W. Cogley, John Eliot’s Mission to the Indians before King Philip’s War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999); James D. Drake, King Philip’s War: Civil War in New England, 1675–­1676 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999); Daniel R. Mandell, King Philip’s War: Colonial Expansion, Native Resistance, and the End of Indian Sovereignty (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010); Lucianne Lavin, Connecticut’s Indigenous Peoples: What Archaeology, History, and Oral Traditions Teach Us about Their Communities and Their Cultures (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013). Illustrations Eliot Bible—­Courtesy of Wellesley College Special Collections Portrait—­Native American Sachem, c. 1700. Oil on canvas, 33" × 30". Courtesy of the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design. Photography by Erik Gould, courtesy of the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence Seal—­Massachusetts Archives, Massachusetts Bay Colony Seal, 1629, Massachusetts Archives, Boston, MA. Courtesy Massachusetts State Archives

PLATE 7—­Boston in 1676

A ddi t i ona l i nf ormat i on Note on method used to locate industries, retail shops, and taverns on 1676 map: The specific industries and types of retail shops mapped on the 1676 map are named on the maps in Figs. 1 and 2 of Martyn Bowden’s paper cited below. But since these maps show these industries and shops in the 1660s, their locations in 1676 were identified with the “Thwing file.” This file of 125,000 index cards was compiled in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by Annie Haven Thwing (1851–­1940), who employed deeds, probate, town records, church records, diaries, and graveyard epitaphs to trace people and properties in Boston from 1630 to 1822. Thwing gave the card file to the Massachusetts Historical Society, which in the 1990s converted it into an electronic database searchable on twenty-­four different fields; the New England Historic Genealogical Society published it in 2001 on a CD-­ROM. To locate industries and retail shops in 1676, the Thwing database was searched on the “occupation” field for each of the designated industries and retail

businesses, and then the identified records, which are organized by subjects’ names, were examined visually to see which people were operating in 1676. Additional information from the database, usually from the “deed” field, was then used to find where these craftsmen lived. These locations were then compared with the Clough map, which labels each property owner, and those craftsmen in the same location in both the Thwing database and on the Clough map were marked on the map in Plate 7. The results are imperfect—­a number of people identified in the Thwing file could not be found at their specified locations on the Clough map and, with a few exceptions, there was no data to indicate that a craftsman’s residence was also his place of work. Nonetheless, the map in Plate 7 gives an approximate idea of where these industries and retail shops were located in 1676. Taverns were located using information on the Clough map and in Thwing’s The Crooked and Narrow Streets of Boston, 1630–­1822 (Boston: Marshall Jones, 1920). Sources Text Martyn Bowden, “Boston: From East Anglian Nuclear Village to English Shiretown to Mercantile Replica of London” (paper, “Remaking Boston: The City and Environmental Change over the Centuries” conference, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, May 5, 2006); Carl Bridenbaugh, Cities in the Wilderness (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1968), 3–­139; Horace E. Scudder, “Life in Boston in the Colonial Period,” in The Memorial History of Boston, ed. Justin Winsor (Boston: Ticknor and Company, 1880), 1:481–­520; Edwin L. Bynner, “Topography and Landmarks of the Colonial Period,” in The Memorial History of Boston, ed. Justin Winsor (Boston: Ticknor and Company, 1880), 1:521–­56; Edward E. Hale, “Boston in Philip’s War,” in The Memorial History of Boston, ed. Justin Winsor (Boston: Ticknor and Company, 1880), 1:311–­28; Boston Record Commissioners, Second Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston Containing the Town Records from 1630 to 1660 and the Book of Possessions, vol. 2 (Boston: City Printers, 1877), 131. Map Samuel C. Clough, “Map of the Town of Boston 1676: drawn by Samuel C. Clough in accordance with information compiled from the records of the Colony, Town, Registry of Deeds, Suffolk Probate, and Supreme Court; Book of Possessions, Winthrop Journal, Lechford Note Book, Aspinwall’s Notes and City Surveys,” MS map, c. 1920, Clough Collection, Courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society; Annie Haven Thwing, Inhabitants and estates of the town of Boston, 1630–­1800 and the crooked and narrow streets of Boston, 1630–­1822 (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society and Massachusetts Historical Society, c. 2001), CD-­ROM; Louis Jordan, John Hull, the Mint and the Economics of Massachusetts Coinage (C4 Publications, The Colonial Coin Collectors Club, distributed by Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2002), 1–­18. Illustrations Town House—­Charles A. Lawrence, Boston’s First Town House, 1657–­1711: Drawn from the Original Specifications for Thomas Joy and Bartholomew Bernard, 1657, print, 1930, Courtesy of the Bostonian Society; Charles C. Smith, “Boston and the Colony,” in The Memorial History of Boston, ed. Justin Winsor (Boston: Ticknor and Company, 1880), 1:237

SECTION III—­Introduction

Sources Text Fred Anderson, A People’s Army: Massachusetts Soldiers and Society in the Seven Years’ War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984); Jonathan Belcher, “A Journal of My Intended Voyage and Journey to Holland, Hannover, &c, July 8, 1704 to October 5,

1704,” ms., Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, Massachusetts; Robert Earle Moody and Richard Clive Simmons, The Glorious Revolution in Massachusetts, Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts 64 (Boston: Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 1988); Eric Hinderaker, Boston’s Massacre (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017); Richard Frothingham, History of the Siege of Boston (Boston: Little, Brown, 1849); Mark Peterson, The City-­State of Boston: The Rise and Fall of an Atlantic Power (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019); G. B. Warden, Boston, 1689–­ 1776 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970); Wendy Warren, New England Bound: Slavery and Colonization in Early America (New York: W. W. Norton, 2016); Walter Muir Whitehill and Lawrence W. Kennedy, Boston: A Topographical History, 3rd ed. (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000). Illustrations Punch strainer, Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society Edes family Tea Party punch bowl, Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society

PLATE 8—­Boston’s Economy, 1740–­1760

S o urc es Text W. T. Baxter, The House of Hancock: Business in Boston, 1724–­1775 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1945); John J. McCusker, Rum and the American Revolution: The Rum Trade and the Balance of Payments of the Thirteen Continental Colonies, 2 vols. (New York: Garland Publishing, 1989); Gary Nash, “Urban Wealth and Poverty in Pre-­Revolutionary America,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 6 (1976): 585–­620; Eric Nellis, “Misreading the Signs: Industrial Imitation, Poverty, and the Social Order in Colonial Boston,” New England Quarterly 59, no. 4 (Dec. 1986): 486–­507; Margaret Ellen Newell, From Dependency to Independence: Economic Revolution in Colonial New England (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998), 241–­66; Geoffrey Plank, An Unsettled Conquest: The British Campaign against the Peoples of Acadia (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001); George Rawlyk, Nova Scotia’s Massachusetts: A Study of Massachusetts-­Nova Scotia Relations, 1630–­1784 (Montreal: McGill-­Queens University Press, 1973); David Syrett, “The Raising of American Troops for Service in the West Indies during the War of Austrian Succession, 1740–­41,” Historical Research 73, no. 180 (Feb. 2000): 20–­32; Thomas M. Truxes, Defying Empire: Trading with the Enemy in Colonial New York (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008); G. B. Warden, “Inequality and Instability in Eighteenth-­Century Boston: A Reappraisal,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 6 (1976): 545–­84; “Journal of Abijah Willard,” Collections of the New Brunswick Historical Society 13 (1930): 1–­75; John Winslow journal, 3 vols., mss., Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, MA. Map Massachusetts and Connecticut towns receiving Acadian exiles—­adapted from Geoffrey Plank, An Unsettled Conquest: The British Campaign against the Peoples of Acadia (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001), Fig. 15 Illustration Franz Xavier Habermann, Vuë de Boston. Prospect von Boston gegen der Bucht am Hafen Vuë de Boston vers le Cale du Port (Augsbourg: 177-­), Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

PLATE 9—­Boston and the Slave Trade, 1638–­Early 1800s

S o urc es Text and illustration captions Vincent Carretta, Phillis Wheatley: Biography of a Genius in Bondage (Athens: University Press of Georgia, 2011); Jay Coughtry, The Notorious Triangle:

Rhode Island and the African Slave Trade, 1700–­1807 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1981); Robert S. Desrochers Jr., “Slave-­for-­Sale Advertisements and Slavery in Massachusetts, 1704–­1781,” William and Mary Quarterly 59, no. 3 (July 2002): 623–­64; Elizabeth Donnan, Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade to America (Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1932); David Eltis, David Richardson, Stephen D. Behrendt, and Herbert S. Klein, eds., The Transatlantic Slave Trade Database on CD-­ ROM (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Larry Gragg, “To Procure Negroes: The English Slave Trade to Barbados, 1627–­1660,” in The Atlantic Slave Trade, ed. Jeremy Black, vol. 2, Seventeenth Century (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2006); Lorenzo Johnston Greene, The Negro in Colonial New England (Port Washington, NY: Kennekat Press, 1966); Edgar J. McManus, Black Bondage in the North (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1973); Gregory E. O’Malley, “Beyond the Middle Passage: Slave Migration from the Caribbean to North America, 1619–­1807,” William and Mary Quarterly 66, no. 1 (January 2009): 125–­72; William D. Piersen, Black Yankees: The Development of an Afro-­American Subculture in Eighteenth-­Century New England (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1988); James A. Rawley, The Transatlantic Slave Trade: A History (New York: W.W. Norton, 1981); Stephanie Smallwood, Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007); Hugh Thomas, The Slave Trade: Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1440–­ 1870 (New York: Simon Shuster, 1997); John Winthrop, History of New England, 1630–­1649, ed. James K. Hosmer (New York: Scribner, 1908); David Eltis, The Rise of African Slavery in the Americas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). Maps Adapted from Maps 139 and 143 in David Eltis and David Richardson, Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010). Map of number of slaves arriving at North American ports used with permission of Yale University Press. Illustrations Phillis Wheatley—­engraved by Scipio Moorhead, frontispiece for Wheatley’s Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (London: A. Bell, 1773), Library of Congress, Miscellaneous Items in High Demand, http://www.loc.gov/pictures/ item/2002712199/

PLATE 10—­Boston in 1743

A ddi t i ona l I nf ormat i on

Boston’s Population 1687–­1771 1687

6,000

1700

~6,700

1710

~9,000

1728

12,650

1733

15,075

1735

15,925

1737

16,600

1738

16,700

1739

16,750

1740

16,800

1741

16,660

1745

16,290

1750

15,890

1756

15,680

1760

15,631

1771

16,540

Sources: See graph sources below.

a d d itiona l infor m ation , so u rces , an d cre d its   167

Sources Text Benjamin L. Carp, Rebels Rising: Cities and the American Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007); Gary B. Nash, The Urban Crucible: Social Change, Political Consciousness, and the Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979); Jack Tager, Boston Riots: Three Centuries of Social Violence (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2001); Jonathan M. Beagle, “‘The Cradle of Liberty’: Faneuil Hall and the Political Culture of Eighteenth-­Century Boston,” PhD diss., University of New Hampshire, 2003; Martyn Bowden, “Boston: From East Anglian Nuclear Village to English Shiretown to Mercantile Replica of London” (paper, “Remaking Boston: The City and Environmental Change over the Centuries” conference, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, May 5, 2006).

4th ed. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1873); Allen French, The First Year of the American Revolution (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1934).

Maps William Price, A New Plan of ye Great Town of Boston in New England in America, with the many additionall buildings & new streets to the year 1743 (Boston, 1743), I. N. Phelps Stokes Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations; Nancy S. Seasholes, Gaining Ground: A History of Landmaking in Boston (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003), Fig. 1.1; http://www.mass.gov/anf/research-­and-­ tech/it-­serv-­and-­support/application-­serv/office-­of-­ geographic-­information-­massgis/datalayers/tidelands. html; Alexander S. Wadsworth, Chart of Boston Harbor: surveyed in 1817 (Philadelphia: John Mellish, 1819); Ellis S. Chesbrough, Map of Boston Harbor: showing Commissioners’ lines, wharves &c. (Boston: Tappan & Bradford’s Lith., 1852).

Illustrations Hutchinson Mansion—­American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge (Feb. 1836): 237, http:// ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/6h441060t Green Dragon Tavern—­Stephen S. C. Russell, engraver, http://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ ark:/50959/7s75dj94w Brattle Street Meetinghouse—­http://ark. digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/37720k46q Province House—­http://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ ark:/50959/ht24xd34w Faneuil Hall—­Samuel Hill, engraver, in Massachusetts Magazine (March 1789), http://ark. digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/8k71nx15s Liberty Tree—­Samuel Smith Kilburn, engraver, in The Memorial History of Boston, ed. Justin Winsor (Boston: James R. Osgood, 1882), 3:159, http://ark. digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/0g354v412 All illustrations Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library

Illustration William Burgis, A South East View of ye Great Town of Boston in New England in America (Boston, 1743), Courtesy, American Antiquarian Society Graph Benjamin L. Carp, Rebels Rising: Cities and the American Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 225; Peter A. Coclanis, The Shadow of a Dream: Economic Life and Death in the South Carolina Low Country, 1670–­1920 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 114; Elaine Forman Crane, A Dependent People: Newport, Rhode Island, in the Revolutionary Era (1985; New York: Fordham University Press, 1992), 76; Susan E. Klepp, “Demography in Early Philadelphia, 1690–­1860,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 133, no. 2 (June 1989): 104–­5; Gary B. Nash, The Urban Crucible: Social Change, Political Consciousness, and the Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979), 407–­9; Jacob M. Price, “Economic Function and the Growth of American Port Towns in the Eighteenth Century,” Perspectives in American History 8 (1974): 176–­ 77; Stanley K. Schultz, “The Growth of Urban America in War and Peace, 1740–­1810,” in The American Revolution: Changing Perspectives, ed. William M. Fowler Jr. and Wallace Coyle (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1979), 130.

PLATE 11—­Revolutionary Boston, 1763–­1776

Sources Text Hiller B. Zobel, The Boston Massacre (New York: W.W. Norton, 1970); Derek W. Beck, Igniting the American Revolution: 1773–­1775 (Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, 2015); Ray and Marie Raphael, The Spirit of ’74: How the American Revolution Began (New York: New Press, 2015); J. L. Bell, The Road to Concord: How Four Stolen Cannon Ignited the Revolutionary War (Yardley, PA: Westholme, 2016); David Hackett Fischer, Paul Revere’s Ride (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994); Richard Frothingham, History of the Siege of Boston,

Maps Thomas Hyde Page, A plan of the town of Boston with the intrenchments & ca. of His Majesty’s forces in 1775: from the observations of Lieut. Page of His Majesty’s Corps of Engineers; and from the plans of Capn. Montresor (London: William Faden, 1775), Map reproduction courtesy of the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library. “British Expedition and Patriot Messengers: April 18–­ 19, 1775” and “British Return from Concord, April 19, 1775” (Harpers Ferry, WV: National Park Service, 2009), available together at https://www.nps.gov/hfc/carto/ PDF/MIMAmap2.pdf

PLATE 12—­Boston’s Economy, 1776–­1807 Additio nal in fo rmatio n

Boston’s Population 1770–­1810 1770

15,520

1775

6,573

1776

2,719

1780

10,000

1784

15,870

1789

17,880

1790

18,320

1800

24,937

1810

33,787

Sources: See sources for population graph below.

S o urc es Text and map Robert G. Albion, William A. Baker, and Benjamin W. Labaree, New England and the Sea (Middletown, CT: Published for the Marine Historical Association, Mystic Seaport by Wesleyan University Press, 1972); Benjamin W. Labaree, “The Making of an Empire: Boston and Essex County, 1790–­1850,” in Entrepreneurs: The Boston Business Community, 1700–­1850, ed. Conrad Edick Wright and Katheryn P. Viens (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, Distributed by Northeastern University Press, 1997), 344, 349; Independent Chronicle, April 16, 1784, quoted in Hamilton Andrews Hill, “The Trade Commerce, and Navigation of Boston, 1780–­1880,” in Memorial History of Boston, ed. Justin Winsor (Boston: Ticknor and Co., 1881), 4:199; William Fowler, “Marine Insurance in Boston: The Early Years of Boston Marine Insurance Company, 1799–­1807,” in Entrepreneurs: The Boston Business Community, 1700–­ 1850, ed. Conrad Edick Wright and Katheryn P. Viens (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, Distributed

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by Northeastern University Press, 1997), 177; Federal Writers’ Program (Mass.), Boston Looks Seaward: The Story of the Port, 1630–­1940 (Boston: Bruce Humphries, Inc., 1941); Samuel E. Morison, Maritime History of Massachusetts, 1783–­1860 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1921), 125, 378; Walter Muir Whitehill, Boston: A Topographical History, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1968), 85–­86; Nancy S. Seasholes, Gaining Ground: A History of Landmaking in Boston (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003), 41–­47; Douglas C. North, The Economic Growth of the United States, 1790–­1860 (New York: Norton, 1966); Hamilton Andrews Hill, “Trade, Commerce and Navigation,” in Professional and Industrial History of Suffolk County (Boston: Boston History Co., 1894), 97–­103; Carrol D. Wright and Horace G. Wadlin, “The Industries of the Last Hundred Years,” in Memorial History of Boston, ed. Justin Winsor (Boston: Ticknor and Co., 1881), 4: 82–­83; Norman Sydney Buck, The Development of the Organisation of Anglo-­American Trade, 1800–­1850 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1969), 2, 3; Charles G. Sellers, The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815–­1846 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 16, 22; Oscar Handlin and Mary Flug Handlin, Commonwealth: A Study of the Role of Government in the American Economy: Massachusetts, 1774–­1861, rev. ed. (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1969), 76, 103; Alfred Dupont Chandler, Jr., The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1977), 20–­21. Illustration George Davidson, “The Columbia Attacked by Indians,” in Frederic W. Howay, ed., Voyages of the “Columbia” to the Northwest Coast, 1787–­1790 and 1790–­1793 (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1941), facing 404 State Street map Based on Samuel C. Clough, “Clough’s Atlas 1798 Property Owners of the Town of Boston,” Pl. II, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston. Graphs Customs duties—­John D. Forbes, “The Port of Boston, 1783–­1815” (PhD diss., Harvard University, 1936), Table XII Tonnage—­John D. Forbes, “The Port of Boston, 1783–­ 1815” (PhD diss., Harvard University, 1936), Table XI Population—­W. S. Rossiter, A Century of Population Growth. From the First to the Twelfth Census of the United States: 1790–­1900 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1909), 11; Jacob M. Price, “Economic Function and Growth of American Port Towns in the Eighteenth Century,” Perspectives in American History 8 (1974): 176; Stanley K. Schultz, “The Growth of Urban America in War and Peace, 1740–­1810,” in The American Revolution: Changing Perspectives, ed. William J. Fowler Jr. and Wallace Coyle (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1979), 130–­31; Population of the City of Boston, [Boston] City Document No. 104 (1886), betw. 4–­5; “Largest Cities in the United State by Population by Decade,” https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_cities_in_the_United_ States_by_population_by_decade

PLATE 13—­Boston in 1800

A ddi t i ona l i nf ormat i on Note on method used to locate commercial, industrial, and residential sites on 1800 map In order to locate the sites shown on the map, a study group of residents and proprietors was first compiled from a name-­by-­name analysis of all entries in the Boston tax-­taking books and the Boston Directory for the year 1800. Locations of residents and proprietors were then reconstructed by linking the directory and tax-­taking information with named properties on Samuel C.

Clough’s atlas map for 1798. On this map Clough plotted all Boston estates identified in the United States Direct Tax Census of 1798 onto a base map he derived from Osgood Carleton’s survey of 1795. Because the links between these two types of records indicated that residents of the principal streets often remained the same between 1798 and 1800, it was possible to mark the location of these “constants” onto Clough’s maps in order to establish a framework of fixed points for the year 1800. With these fixed points in place, it was then possible to use the manuscript tax-­taking books from 1800 to map residents and businesses that were not in the 1798 tax. This was feasible because Boston’s tax takers recorded names and estimated property values as they walked up and down the streets of Boston in May 1800. Given a few fixed points, it is possible to retrace their steps through the town with some certainty and often to relate their position at any given time to a particular property on one of Clough’s maps. Boston’s industries in 1800 Boston’s major industries in 1800—­rum distilleries, sugar refineries producing loaf sugar, lumber yards, and ropewalks—­are located on the map on Plate 13. The “other industries” that are plotted but not individually identified include several large-­scale operations that emerged in the 1780s: a glass manufactory off Essex and Short Streets in the old South End; a duck (sail cloth) manufactory at the corner of Frog Lane and Common Streets; and four card manufactories, three producing cards for combing fibers in textile production (one next to South Mills, one in Dock Square, and one near Faneuil Hall) and a fourth on The Neck just below Castle Street making playing cards. Smaller manufactories developed about this time, notably for the production of paper hangings, fine beaver hats, and snuff and tobacco. These facilities were often located along the town’s major arteries. In the Central Area, hatters concentrated on Ann Street. On State Street east of Kilby Street three manufacturers made hoops and nail rods, paper and nail rods, and paper and snuff. In the North End were manufactories for combs on Charter Street near Greenough’s Lane and decorative paper hangings on Prince Street near the Charles River Bridge. Two paper hanging manufactories were also located centrally on Cornhill and Union Street. On Marlborough Street in the old South End were manufactories for paper hangings, coach lace, and umbrellas. At the north end of The Neck was a manufactory for shoes and at the south end one for fish hooks. More noxious operations were typically sited along the coastal fringes of the North End and The Neck. These include manufactories of soap and both tallow and spermaceti candles, at least two tan yards (one off Frog Lane across from the Burying Ground, the other more centrally located off Water Street), and Paul Revere’s bell and cannon foundry (at the corner of Lynn and Foster Streets in the North End). Near the foundry, production of ceramics resembling Liverpool ware seems to have ceased by 1800 as had the printing of calico in a manufactory that town deeds place at 32 and 34 Irving Street. Mills on the Mill Pond produced flour, lumber, and chocolate. Two breweries, one off Leverett Street in the West End and the other at the corner of Ship Street and Foster’s Lane in the North End, produced for export and also advertised free delivery to every part of town; a smaller one stood on Washington Street below the old town fortifications. Shipbuilding, which had been a major industry in the mid-­1700s (see Plate 10), had declined to about six private shipyards, five in the North End and one near Fort Hill. Sailmakers and riggers worked in some nineteen sail lofts but only a few could be located precisely: two of the three in the old South End on Rowe’s and Robbin’s Wharves, five of the sixteen in the North End, and the one in the Central Area on Brimmer’s T

off Long Wharf. At least three mast makers worked in mast yards, and six North End boat builders owned coastal boat sheds, but only two mast yards could be located accurately—­one in the North End and a second at Oliver’s Dock near Liberty Square. S o urc es Text and map Edward Atkinson, “Boston as a Centre of Manufacturing Capital,” in The Memorial History of Boston, ed. Justin Winsor (Boston: James R. Osgood, 1881), 4:73–­81; Boston Directory (Boston: John West, 1800); Boston Tax Assessor Records, Taking Books, Wards 1–­12, 1800, unpublished ms., Boston Public Library; Nathaniel Ingersoll Bowditch, “Buttolph’s Eight-­Acre Pasture,” August 8, 1855, in Fifth Report of the Record Commissioners, rev. ed. (Boston: Rockwell and Churchill, 1887), 61–­62; Nathaniel Ingersoll Bowditch, “Bulfinch’s Four-­Acre Pasture,” August 11, 1855, in Fifth Report of the Record Commissioners, rev. ed. (Boston: Rockwell and Churchill, 1887), 69; Boston Record Commissioners, Twenty-­second Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston Containing the Statistics of the United States’ Direct Tax of 1798, as Assessed on Boston; and the Names of the Inhabitants of Boston in 1790 as Collected for the First National Census (Boston: City Printers, 1890), 1–­442; Jacqueline Barbara Carr, A Social History of Boston, 1775–­1800 (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2005), 43–­190; Allen Chamberlain, Beacon Hill: Its Ancient Pastures and Early Mansions (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1925), 213–­35, 242; William M. Fowler, Jr., “‘Trye All Ports’: The Port of Boston, 1783–­1793” in Massachusetts and the New Nation, ed. Conrad Edick Wright (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1992), 51–­53; Front Street Corporation, Collection of Facts and Documents Relative to the Project of a Bridge from South Street in Boston to Dorchester Neck, and the Annexation of That Peninsula to the Town of Boston (Boston: E. Lincoln, 1805), 20–­24; Anne Grady, “African Americans in Boston, 1790–­1820” (research report, Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities [now Historic New England], June 13, 1995), 7–­13, 22–­26; Maura W. FitzPatrick, “Black Settlement in Late-­18th Century Boston,” (May 1993, on file at Preservation Program, Boston University); Norman A. Graebner, “New England and the World, 1783–­1791,” in Massachusetts and the New Nation, ed. Conrad Edick Wright (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1992), 3–­4, 20–­21, 25; Lisa Beth Lubow, “Artisans in Transition: Early Capitalist Development and the Carpenters of Boston, 1787–­1837” (PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1987), 27–­65; Thomas Pemberton, “A Topographical and Historical Description of Boston, 1794,” Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 1st ser., 3 (1794): 276–­86; Gayle Elizabeth Sawtelle, “The Commercial Landscape of Boston in 1800: Documentary and Archaeological Perspectives on the Geography of Retail Shopkeeping” (PhD diss., Boston University, 1999), 101–­4, 120–­25, 306–­10, 341–­46, 366–­68; J. Leander Bishop, A History of American Manufactures from 1608 to 1860 (Philadelphia: Edward Young & Co., 1866), 2:55–­59; Carroll D. Wright and Horace G. Wadlin, “The Industries of the Last Hundred Years,” in Memorial History of Boston, ed. Justin Winsor (Boston: Ticknor & Co., 1881), 4:73–­81. Base map Osgood Carleton, A New Plan of Boston: from Actual Surveys with Corrections Additions & Improvements (1800; facsimile, Boston: Geo. B. Foster, 1878). Illustrations Tontine Crescent—­Bulfinch elevation and plan in Massachusetts Magazine, February 1794, facing 67 Almshouse—­Abel Bowen in Caleb Snow, History of Boston (Boston: A. Bowen, 1828), facing 52

PLATE 14—­Connections to the Mainland and Additions of Land, 1786–­1828 Sources

Text Frederic J. Wood, The Turnpikes of New England (Pepperell, MA: Branch Line Press, 1997); Nancy S. Seasholes, Gaining Ground: A History of Landmaking in Boston (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003). Maps S. P. Fuller, Plan of Boston Comprising a Part of Charlestown and Cambridgeport (Boston: Annin & Smith & J. V. N. Throop, 1826); John G. Hales, Map of Boston and Its Vicinity from Actual Survey (Boston: John G. Hales, 1829); Survey of the Coast of the United States, Boston Harbor, Massachusetts, Chart 337 (Washington, DC, 1856); Osgood Carleton, An Accurate Plan of the Town of Boston and Its Vicinity . . . (Boston: Osgood Carleton, 1797); Patrick Florance, Transforming Boston, 1797–­2001 ([Cambridge, MA]: Harvard Map Collection, 2001); Osgood Carleton, A New Plan of Boston Drawn from the best Authorities with the latest Improvements, Additions & Corrections (Boston: William Norman, 1806); Osgood Carleton, A Plan of Boston: from Actual Survey (Boston: John West, 1803); Osgood Carleton, A Plan of Boston: from Actual Survey (Boston: John West, 1805); Osgood Carleton, Plan of Boston (Boston: William Norman, 1807); Osgood Carleton, “Copy of William Taylor’s Plan of Survey of the Mill Pond,” 1809, MS map, Special Collections, State Library of Massachusetts; John G. Hales, Map of Boston in the State of Massachusetts (Boston,1814); http://www.mass. gov/anf/research-­and-­tech/it-­serv-­and-­support/ application-­serv/office-­of-­geographic-­information-­ massgis/datalayers/tidelands.html; Lieut. Page and Capt. Montresor, A Plan of the Action at Bunker Hill on the 17th of June 1775, in Richard Frothingham, Jr., History of the Siege of Boston and the Battles of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1849); Peter Tufts Jr., Plan of Charlestown Peninsula in the State of Massachusetts, From Actual Survey, 1818 (Boston: Annin & Smith, 1818); U.S. Navy Yard Boston. 1823 in George Henry Preble, “History of the Boston Navy Yard, 1797–­1874” (National Archives Microcopy No. 118), Pl. III, Naval Records Collection of the Office of Naval Record and Library, RG 45, Charlestown Navy Yard, Boston; Stephen P. Fuller, [Plan of proposed Faneuil Hall Market project, 1823], in Josiah Quincy, A Municipal History of the Town and City of Boston, during Two Centuries from September 17, 1630, to September 17, 1830 (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1852), 74; Copy of a Plan of South Bay from Surveys made under the direction of James Hayward & Ezra Lincoln, Jr., commissioners appointed by a resolve of the Legislature passed March 22, 1845, showing commissioners lines etc. recommended by Simon Greenleaf, Joel Giles, Ezra Lincoln, commissions appointed under a resolve of the Legislature approved May 3, 1850 (Boston: Tappan & Bradford’s Lith., 1851); Fuller and Whitney, Back Bay in 1814 (Boston: Fuller & Whitney, 1881); Fuller and Whitney, Back Bay in 1836 (Boston: Fuller & Whitney, 1881); U.S. Coast Survey, Plan of the Inner Harbor of Boston, Executed by the U.S. Coast Survey for the Commissioners Appointed by a Resolve of the Legislature passed April 16,1846 (Boston: J. Buffords Lithography, 1847); Thomas W. Davis, Plan of East Boston, 1880 (Boston: Engineering Department, 1880); Nancy S. Seasholes, Gaining Ground: A History of Landmaking in Boston (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003), Figs. 7.1, 8.1, 11.1, 13.1, 14.1; Robert C. Nylander, “East Cambridge land ownership, 1699–­1710, from original deeds,” in Susan E. Maycock, East Cambridge, rev. ed., Survey of Architectural History in Cambridge (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988), Fig. 10; Peter Tufts Jr., “Plan of Lechmere Point in Cambridge as

a d d itiona l infor m ation , so u rces , an d cre d its   169

Staked into Streets, 1811,” MS map; S. P. Fuller, “Plan of Lechmere Point in Cambridge as Staked into Streets, 1811, Surveyed into Lots, 1822,” Middlesex County (Massachusetts) South Registry of Deeds. Illustrations East view of Faneuil Hall market—­Joseph Andrews (Boston: Pendleton’s Lithography, 1827), Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library Side-­hall plan—­in Susan E. Maycock, East Cambridge, rev. ed., Survey of Architectural History in Cambridge (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988), Fig. 142, Courtesy of Cambridge Historical Commission

SECTION V—­Introduction

Sources Matthew H. Crocker, The Magic of the Many: Josiah Quincy and Rise of Mass Politics in Boston, 1800–­1830 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts, 1999); Robert Dalzell, Enterprising Elite: The Boston Associates and the World They Made (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987); Dean Grodzins, “Theodore Parker and the 28th Congregational Society: The Reform Church and the Spirituality of Reformers in Boston, 1845–­1859,” in Transient and Permanent: The Transcendentalist Movement and Its Contexts, ed. Charles Capper and Conrad E. Wright (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1999), 73–­117; Dean Grodzins, “Of All, by All, for All: Theodore Parker, Transcendentalism, and the Gettysburg Address,” in The Gettysburg Address: Perspectives on Lincoln’s Greatest Speech, ed. Sean Conant (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 88–­106; Hamilton Andrews Hill, Boston’s Trade and Commerce for Forty Years, 1844–­1884 (Boston: American Statistical Association, 1884); Thomas H. O’Connor, The Athens of America: Boston, 1825–­1845 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2006); Manisha Sinha, The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016); William Tudor, Letters on the Eastern States (New York: Kirk & Mercein, 1820).

PLATE 15—­Railroad Development, 1830–­1855

Sources Text Richard P. Mallory, A Panoramic View from Bunker Hill Monument, engraved by James Smillie (Boston: Redding & Co., 1848), key [lists passengers and freight by line]; Charles Francis Adams Jr., “The Canal and Railroad Enterprise of Boston,” in The Memorial History of Boston, ed. Justin Winsor (Boston: James R. Osgood, 1883), 4:126; Edward Everett to [first name not given] Holland, 10 May 1851, Edward Everett Papers, 97:149, quoted in Oscar Handlin and Mary Flug Handlin, Commonwealth, A Study of the Role of Government in the American Economy, Massachusetts 1774–­1861 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969), 176; George Rogers Taylor, The Transportation Revolution, 1815–­1860 (New York: Harper & Row, 1968); “Commercial Cities and Towns of the United States,” Hunt’s Merchants Magazine and Commercial Review 23 (1850): 483–­97; “Operations of the Railroads of Massachusetts: 1842–­1849,” Hunt’s Merchants Magazine and Commercial Review 23 (1850): 349–­50; Albro Martin, Railroads Triumphant: The Growth, Rejection, and Rebirth of a Vital American Force (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992); Ronald Dale Karr, The Rail Lines of Southern New England: A Handbook of Railroad History (Pepperell, MA: Branch Line Press, 1995). Map A.C. Morton, Map of the European and North American Railway, showing its connection with the railways of the United States & Canada (Philadelphia: Bowen & Co., 1850); J. H. Colton & Co., Massachusetts and Rhode Island (New York: J. H. Colton & Co., 1855); Alexander Williams, Telegraph and Rail Road Map of the New England States (Boston: Redding & Co., 1854); Francis

DeWitt, Statistical Information Relating to Certain Branches of Industry in Massachusetts, for the Year Ending June 1, 1855 (Boston: William White, 1856). Illustrations “Railroad Depots in Boston,” Ballou’s Pictorial Drawing Room Companion 10, no. 10 (March 8, 1856)

PLATE 16—­Early Landscaped Spaces, 1820–­ 1860

S o urc es Text Keith N. Morgan, ed., Buildings of Massachusetts: Metropolitan Boston (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2009); Keith N. Morgan, Community by Design: The Olmsted Firm and the Development of Brookline, Massachusetts (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2013); Walter Muir Whitehill and Lawrence W. Kennedy, Boston: A Topographical History (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000); Arthur Krim, “Diffusion of Garden Cemeteries in New England,” New England-­St. Lawrence Valley Geographical Society Proceedings 13 (1983): 38–­46; Arthur Krim, Card file on New England rural cemeteries, 1820–­60, in the author’s possession. Map Henry Francis Walling, Map of Boston and the country adjacent from actual surveys (Boston: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1860); James Slade, Plan of Boston (Boston: City Engineering Department, 1861); Fuller and Whitney, Back Bay in 1861 (Boston: Fuller & Whitney, 1861); A First Approximation to a Line of Seawall on South Boston Flats by U.S. Commissioners on Boston Harbor, 1863, in Sixth Report of U.S. Commissioners, [Boston] City Document No. 53 (1863); Survey of the Coast of the United States, Boston Harbor, Massachusetts, Chart 337 (Washington, DC, 1863); E. F. Woodward, “Map of the town of Brookline, Mass., surveyed in 1844 by order of the Town Authorities.” Illustrations Pilgrim Path—­by James Smillie in Cornelia W. Walter, Mount Auburn Illustrated in highly finished line engraving from drawings taken on the spot by James Smillie with descriptive notices by Cornelia W. Walter (New York: R. Martin, 1847) Lexington Common—­“View of the Monument and Battle-­Ground, at Lexington, Mass.,” Gleason’s Pictorial Drawing Room Companion 2 (1853): 304, Courtesy of the Lexington Historical Society Union Park Square—­c. 1860 stereo view, Courtesy of the South End Historical Society

PLATE 17—­Literary Boston, 1837–­1891 Additio nal in fo rmatio n

BOSTON 1. The Old Corner Bookstore

Ticknor & Fields 135 Washington Street, corner of School Street See Plate 17.

2. Newspaper Row

Washington, Milk, Court, and Hawley Streets Throughout the mid-­and late 1800s, this area was “the Cradle of American Journalism,” home to many of Boston’s most powerful newspapers, including the Boston Globe, the Transcript, the Herald, the Post, the Traveler, the Daily Advertiser, and the Journal.

3. Little, Brown

112 Washington Street Partners Charles Coffin Little and James Brown established themselves as booksellers in 1837, moving to this site in 1845. Though they began their book publishing activities with legal treatises and imported titles, early lists featured some of America’s finest, including Alcott’s Little Women, Emily Dickinson’s poetry, and Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations. In 1859

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John Bartlett became partner in the firm (see also numbers 34 and 42).

4. The Massachusetts Historical Society

30 Tremont Street Founded in 1791 as the nation’s first repository of American history, the MHS occupied a building on this site, next to the King’s Chapel Burying Ground, from 1833 to 1897. Its literary connections were many, including research there by Longfellow in preparation for his poem, “Paul Revere’s Ride” (1863).

5. The Parker House

60 School Street, corner of Tremont See Plate 17.

6. Tremont Temple

88 Tremont Street First opened in 1827 as the Tremont Theater, then reinvented as a Baptist Church that continued to host secular events, Tremont Temple was a popular mid-­ 1800s stage for orators and authors from Wendell Phillips and Frederick Douglass to Ralph Waldo Emerson and Charles Dickens, who packed the house with his theatrical readings.

7. Press of the American Unitarian Association/ Beacon Press

21 Bromfield Street In 1854, thanks to the fundraising efforts of educator George Emerson, cousin of Ralph Waldo Emerson, a street-­accessible bookstore and offices of the Press of the American Unitarian Association (the precursor of Beacon Press) were set up at the new Unitarian headquarters. The authors published were often Unitarian ministers—­including William Ellery Channing and James Freeman Clarke—­and the books were meant to promote Unitarian thought while reaping the benefits of the lucrative new field of American publishing.

8. The Music Hall

Hamilton Place Opened in 1852 on the site of what now is the Orpheum Theatre, the Music Hall was a favorite Boston stage for literary orators including Emerson, Alcott, Theodore Parker, Oscar Wilde, and hosts of others. The hall’s Victorian interior was the setting for the final split between suffragist Olive Chancellor and Verena Tarrant in Henry James’ The Bostonians.

9. Elizabeth Peabody’s Foreign Library and Bookstore 13–­15 West Street See Plate 17.

10. The Atlantic Monthly Ticknor & Fields 124 Tremont Street See Plate 17.

11. Houghton Mifflin

4 Park Street Henry Oscar Houghton became a printer in the 1840s, a publisher in the 1850s, an owner of the Atlantic Monthly and of Ticknor & Fields in the {~?~TN: PAGE \# “’Page: ‘#’’” Typesetter, make apostrophe curve away from numeral twice in this sentence.}’70s and ’80s, and a formal partner with George Mifflin in 1880. Houghton Mifflin Company occupied three stories at its Park Street headquarters and published many of the best authors of the era. A contemporary likened the shop to “more of a finely equipped library than a place of business.”

12. The Amory-­Ticknor House

9 Park Street, corner of Beacon From 1830 to 1871, this was home to George Ticknor (1791–­1871), Harvard language instructor, cousin of publisher William Ticknor, and author of the History of Spanish Literature (1849). An avid bibliophile with a private second-­floor library of 18,000 volumes, Ticknor helped found the Boston Public Library to which he donated his own collection.

13. The Boston Athenaeum

10 1/2 Beacon Street Founded by the Anthology Club, which also created the North American Review, the Boston Athenaeum was incorporated in 1807 as a private reading room, library, and art museum. Located on this site since 1849 and once one of the five largest libraries in the nation, it has been a haven for great authors and thinkers from the literary Golden Age through the modern day.

14. William Cooper Nell Home

3 Smith Court Black historian, writer, abolitionist, and integrationist William Cooper Nell (1816–­74) was a close colleague of William Lloyd Garrison and a journalist and office manager at Garrison’s The Liberator. Nell’s book, The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution (1855), chronicled previously undocumented accomplishments of African Americans (see Plate 19). Its introduction was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe, the best-­selling author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852).

15. William D. Ticknor Home

14 Pinckney Street William D. Ticknor (1810–­64) was the businessman behind Ticknor & Fields, headquartered at the Old Corner Bookstore, and a close friend of Hawthorne (see also numbers 1 and 10).

16. Henry Adams Home

57 Mount Vernon Street This was the boyhood home of Henry Adams (1838–­ 1918), a member of the Adams family of Massachusetts who was an assistant professor of medieval history at Harvard and edited the North American Review. His best known work, The Education of Henry Adams (1907), explored his feelings about being snubbed by Boston society.

17. Thomas Bailey Aldrich Home

59 Mount Vernon Street A member of the Saturday Club and fourth editor of the Atlantic Monthly, Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–­1907) is best remembered as the author of the semiautobiographical The Story of a Bad Boy (1870), a book heralded as the first realistic treatment of a boy character in American literature. (Six years later, his close friend Mark Twain created Tom Sawyer.)

18. William Ellery Channing Home

83 Mount Vernon Street Dr. William Ellery Channing (1780–­1842), minister of Boston’s Federal Street Church, was the foremost Unitarian preacher in the United States in the early 1800s and one of Unitarianism’s leading theologians. Channing’s religious teachings and thought were major influences on the New England transcendentalists.

19. John Gorham Palfrey Home

5 Louisburg Square Unitarian clergyman John Gorham Palfrey (1796–­ 1881) was a student of William Ellery Channing and the writer of numerous religious books. Author of the formidable five-­volume History of New England in the Revolutionary War (1859), he is best remembered for editing and owning the North American Review.

20. Louisa May Alcott Home

10 Louisburg Square Louisa May Alcott (1832–­88), the famed author of Little Women (1868), loved the town of Concord as a child but preferred writing in the city during her adult years. Among her Beacon Hill residences were rooms at 20, 43, and 81 Pinckney Street, the Bellevue Hotel at 21 Beacon, and 10 Louisburg Square.

21. William Dean Howells Homes

4 and 16 Louisburg Square A native Ohioan, Howells (1837–­1920) came to Boston on a literary pilgrimage before the Civil War and ended up living in, working in, and greatly influencing

the literary world he so admired. He became assistant editor, then editor, of the Atlantic Monthly, a literary advisor to Mark Twain, and a novelist whose best-­ known work was The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885; see also number 40).

22. Annie Adams Fields

Home and Literary Salon 148 Charles Street Annie Adams Fields (1834–­1915) and her husband, publishing magnate James T. Fields (1817–­81), created a legendary hub for Boston literary life with literary salons that included Willa Cather, Dickens, Emerson, Hawthorne, Holmes, Longfellow, and Stowe. Henry James said of the home, “Its aura was absolutely stunning and the literary connections seemingly infinite.”

23. Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. Home

164 Charles Street The self-­proclaimed “Autocrat of the Breakfast-­ Table,” Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (1809–­94) lived here from 1859 to 1870, then moved to 296 Beacon Street in 1871. At both sites he entertained people of letters and of medicine. His peers regarded Holmes—­ poet, professor, lecturer, author, and physician—­as one of the best writers of the 1800s.

24. Julia Ward Howe Home

13 Chestnut Street Though best known as the author of The Battle Hymn of the Republic (1861), Julia Ward Howe (1819–­1910) was a noted reformer, social activist, and iconic leader who helped found and edit the Woman’s Journal, edited the abolitionist periodical Commonwealth, wrote the biography Margaret Fuller (1883) and her own Reminiscences (1899), and provided leadership in the women’s club, woman suffrage, and peace movements (see Plate 18). In 1870, she instituted the nation’s first Mother’s Day, an annual antiwar event called “Mother’s Day for Peace.”

25. Francis Parkman Home

50 Chestnut Street America’s preeminent historian and master of narrative history in the 1800s, Francis Parkman (1823–­ 93) lived in this townhouse between 1865 and 1893. The son of a prominent Unitarian minister, young Parkman was drawn to traveling and writing histories of the American wilderness. His works, including The Oregon Trail (1847) and his monumental seven-­ volume France and England in North America (1865–­ 92), have been called “brilliant achievements of the writing of history as an art.”

26. Appleton Family Home

39 Beacon Street In 1843, Frances “Fanny” Appleton (1817–­61), the daughter of wealthy industrialist and politician Nathan Appleton, married a young Harvard language instructor and poet named Henry Wadsworth Longfellow here. As a wedding gift, father Appleton bought the couple the Cambridge mansion in which Longfellow was renting rooms—­today known as the Longfellow House Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site (see number 39).

27. William Hickling Prescott Home

55 Beacon Street The works of famed historian William Hickling Prescott (1796–­1859) included a three-­volume history of the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain as well as the History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843) and History of the Conquest of Peru (1847). A direct descendant of the revolutionary American officer William Prescott, author Prescott has been heralded as the first American scientific historian.

28. Boston Public Library 55 Boylston Street See Plate 17.

29. Brook Farm

670 Baker Street, West Roxbury (shown on locator map) Like founders George and Sophia Ripley, many participants in the idealized agrarian commune called Brook Farm Institute of Agriculture and Education (1841–­47) were Unitarians who had come to espouse transcendentalist philosophies (see Plate 18). Fertile literary minds from Emerson, Fuller, Greeley, and Hawthorne to John Sullivan Dwight and Charles Dana were either members of or visitors to this experiment in cooperative living.

CAMBRIDGE 30. Riverside Press

Blackstone Street In 1852, Henry O. Houghton started The Riverside Press in an old Cambridge building along the banks of the Charles River. The book printing plant served many prestigious publishing houses such as Little, Brown, G. C. Merriam, and Ticknor & Fields, and also printed the latter’s popular magazine, the Atlantic Monthly. In 1880, George Mifflin entered into a partnership with Houghton, together founding Houghton Mifflin Company (see also number 11).

31. Margaret Fuller Home 71 Cherry Street See Plate 17.

32. The James Family Home

20 Quincy Street Where the Harvard Faculty Club now stands was once the James family home. Both Henry James Jr. (1843–­1916) and his brilliant, troubled sister, Alice James (1848–­92), lived here. Though diarist Alice was not heralded as a writer until long after her death, Henry’s prodigious works included such classics as Hawthorne (1879), Daisy Miller (1879), Washington Square (1881), The Portrait of a Lady (1881), The Bostonians (1886), and The Wings of the Dove (1902).

33. Richard Henry Dana Jr. Home

16 Quincy Street Abandoning his studies at Harvard in 1834, Richard Henry Dana Jr. (1815–­82) signed up as a sailor on a brig bound for California. Invigorated by his adventures on the sea and in the hide-­trading ports of California, he returned home with healed spirits and the notion of the book for which he is still remembered, Two Years Before the Mast (1840).

34. John Bartlett

University Book Store Corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Holyoke Street See Plate 17.

35. Harvard College

Harvard Yard The list of writers, poets, philosophers, theologians, historians, and other thinkers who studied, taught, lectured, listened, argued, dropped out, or were otherwise affiliated with Harvard over the centuries is enough to fill several volumes. Among prominent literary graduates in the 1800s were William Hickling Prescott, George Bancroft, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry David Thoreau, Richard Henry Dana Jr., James Russell Lowell, Francis Parkman, and Henry Adams.

36. Margaret Fuller Home

William Brattle House 42 Brattle Street From 1831 to 1833, after Margaret Fuller’s family left Cambridgeport and before they moved to Groton, they rented the old clapboard William Brattle house in Harvard Square. In 1889, the house was purchased by the Cambridge Social Union, now known as the Cambridge Center for Adult Education (see also number 31).

a d d itiona l infor m ation , so u rces , an d cre d its   171

37. Dexter Pratt Home

The Blacksmith House 52–­54 Brattle Street Dexter Pratt, “The Village Blacksmith” immortalized by neighbor Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in his 1839 poem, lived and worked here from 1827 until his death in 1847. When the “spreading chestnut tree” mentioned in the poem was removed to widen the street, seven hundred Cambridge schoolchildren raised funds to have the wood converted into an armchair—­a gift to Longfellow. Both the poet and the smithy are buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery.

38. Harvard Annex/Radcliffe College

Brattle Street and adjacent areas In 1879, Harvard’s professors, who taught only men, were asked to make accommodations for instructing women as well. By 1894, the Society for the Collegiate Instruction for Women (the “Harvard Annex”) had been renamed Radcliffe College after Ann Radcliffe, the donor of Harvard’s first endowment in the 1600s. Elizabeth Cary Agassiz (1822–­1907) was the school’s first president, and Alice Longfellow (1850–­1928), eldest daughter of the poet, was a major force in the development of education for women there.

39. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Home

The Vassall-­Craigie House/Washington’s Headquarters 105 Brattle Street See Plate 17.

40. William Dean Howells Home

37 Concord Avenue William Dean Howells (1837–­1920) is remembered as the gentleman who replaced James T. Fields as editor of the Atlantic Monthly and who wrote the novel The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885). His other Cambridge residences were 41 Sacramento Street (1866–­70) and 3 Berkeley Street (1870–­72). A novelist, poet, essayist, short story writer, and critic, Howells was such an important literary figure in Boston that many historians equate his departure for New York in 1891 with the end of Boston as the literary hub of America (see also number 21).

41. Thomas Wentworth Higginson Home

29 Buckingham Place A radical nonconformist and inveterate man of action committed to social reform, Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823–­1911) is best known for his long literary relationship with Emily Dickinson. Major works of Higginson, who was an essayist, abolitionist, minister, and Civil War officer, include Army Life in a Black Regiment (1870), biographies of Margaret Fuller (1884), Whittier (1902), and Longfellow (1902), and a fascinating autobiography, Cheerful Yesterdays (1898).

42. John Bartlett House

165 Brattle Street This Second Empire-­style house was the private home of John Bartlett, the Harvard Square bookseller of Familiar Quotations fame (see also number 34).

43. James Russell Lowell Home

33 Elmwood Ave. Known as Elmwood, the residence of the president of Harvard, the 1767 Oliver-­Gerry-­Lowell House was once home to poet, essayist, and diplomat James Russell Lowell (1819–­91). One of the New England Lowells, James Russell succeeded Longfellow as Professor of Modern Languages at Harvard, and became the first editor of the Atlantic Monthly and an editor of the North American Review.

44. Mount Auburn Cemetery

580 Mount Auburn Street Cambridge/Watertown town line Founded in 1831 as the first rural garden cemetery in America, Mount Auburn even had a literary be-

ginning. For decades before its founding, Harvard students called the woods here “Sweet Auburn” after Oliver Goldsmith’s poem, “The Deserted Village.” Among the members of the literary Golden Age memorialized here are Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Julia Ward Howe, James T. and Annie Fields, Margaret Fuller (Ossoli), James Russell Lowell, Francis Parkman, Oliver Wendell Holmes, John Bartlett, and publishing colleagues Charles Little and James Brown, who have matching Gothic brownstone monuments on adjoining lots.

45. Cambridge Cemetery

76 Coolidge Avenue Not every literary Cantabridgian opted to spend the hereafter at Mount Auburn. Among those who chose the city cemetery next door were William Dean Howells and his family, William, Henry, and Alice James, and Thomas Wentworth Higginson.

CONCORD 46. Ralph Waldo Emerson Home 28 Cambridge Turnpike See Plate 17.

47. Orchard House

Alcott Family Home The Concord School of Philosophy 399 Lexington Road See Plate 17.

48. The Wayside

Nathaniel Hawthorne and Alcott Family Home 455 Lexington Road The Alcotts called this home “Hillside” when they owned it from 1845 to 1852. Many of the childhood events Louisa May described in Little Women, including her amateur plays, occurred at Hillside. In 1852 Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–­64), after renting a house in Lenox, Massachusetts, for a time, decided to return to Concord. Promised a liberal monetary advance by his publishers, Ticknor & Fields (The Scarlet Letter had already been published in 1850), Hawthorne and family purchased the house from the Alcotts. The home Hawthorne renamed “The Wayside” was the only one he ever owned (see also number 47).

49. Concord Town House

22 Monument Square The Concord Town House served not only as Town Hall but also as a popular lecture hall and rallying point for writers, abolitionists, and other prominent figures in the 1800s, from Emerson, Thoreau, and Bronson Alcott to William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and John Brown. In addition to town meetings, the hall was hired out for such events as conventions, fairs, concerts, dances, plays, exhibitions, preaching, and the Concord Artillery inspection.

50. Authors Ridge

Sleepy Hollow Cemetery 129 Bedford Street (Route 62) The “mute green bank” filled with the most literary history at Sleepy Hollow is called Authors Ridge. Hawthorne, Thoreau, Emerson, and the Alcotts are interred on this hill. Elizabeth Peabody, of bookshop fame, is another resident in a gravesite below Authors Ridge. As at Mount Auburn, the land here was already a popular wooded walking place frequented by Hawthorne, Fuller, Emerson, and their friends. Emerson was asked to give the address at the cemetery’s formal consecration in 1855.

51. The Old Manse

Nathaniel Hawthorne and Sophia Peabody Home 269 Monument Street The Old Manse was immortalized by Hawthorne’s 1846 story collection, Mosses from an Old Manse.

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Built by patriot minister Reverend William Emerson in 1770, it was the house where young Hawthorne and his wife, Sophia Peabody, spent the “three happiest years” of their lives, from 1842 through 1845 (see also number 48).

52. Concord Free Public Library

129 Main Street, at Sudbury Road Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered the keynote address at the Concord Free Public Library’s dedication in 1873 and served on its Library Committee. From that time on, the library began acquiring and maintaining superb Special Collections, featuring a comprehensive archive of primary and secondary source material related to Concord history, life, landscape, literature, and people, including Concord’s iconic writers—­Emerson, Alcott, and Thoreau.

53. Thoreau-­Alcott House

Henry David Thoreau and Louisa May Alcott Home 255 Main Street Henry David Thoreau lived here for the last dozen years of his life, from 1850 to 1862. In 1877, Louisa May Alcott and her sister Anna (Jo and Meg of Little Women) bought the house. Their mother, Abigail May, called Marmee in the novel, died here in 1877 (see also numbers 54, 47, 48, 20).

54. Walden Pond

Henry David Thoreau Home Walden Street (Route 126) See Plate 17.

Sources Text and captions Cleveland Amory, The Proper Bostonians (New York: Dutton, 1947); Edwin M. Bacon, Literary Pilgrimages in New England (New York: Silver, Burdett, 1902); Richard Barksdale and Keneth Kinnamon, Black Writers of America: A Comprehensive Anthology (New York: Macmillan, 1972); Noëlle Blackmer Beatty, Literary Byways of Boston & Cambridge (Washington, DC: Starrhill Press, 1991); Van Wyck Brooks, The Flowering of New England (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1936); William Corbett, Literary New England: A History and Guide (Boston: Faber and Faber, 1993); John Eastman, Who Lived Where: A Biographical Guide to Homes and Museums (New York: Bonanza Books, 1983); Annie Fields, Authors and Friends (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1897); James T. Fields, Yesterdays with Authors (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1871); Mildred B. Flagg, Boston Authors: Now and Then (Cambridge, MA: Dresser, Chapman & Grimes, 1966); Ginn and Company, A Literary Guide to Boston and Environs: A Special Edition of Ginn High School English Notes (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1965); Donald Hall, The Oxford Book of American Literary Anecdotes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981); The History Project, Improper Bostonians (Boston: Beacon Press, 1998); Helen Howe, The Gentle Americans (New York: Harper & Row, 1965); M. A. DeWolfe Howe, ed., Memories of a Hostess: A Chronicle of Eminent Friendships Drawn Chiefly from the Diaries of Mrs. James T. Fields (Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1922); M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Who Lived Here? A Baker’s Dozen of Historic New England Houses and Their Occupants (New York: Bramhall House, 1952); William Dean Howells, Literary Friends and Acquaintance (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1900); Donald M. Jacobs, ed., Courage and Conscience: Black & White Abolitionism in Boston (Bloomington: Indiana University Press for the Boston Athenaeum, 1993); Eugenia Kaledin, Literary Boston: Boston 200 Broadside Series (Boston: Boston 200, 1975); Justin Kaplan, ed., Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, Seventeenth Edition (Boston: Little, Brown, 2002); Polly Welts Kaufman, Jean Gibran, Sylvia McDowell, and Mary Howland Smoyer, eds., Boston Women’s Heritage Trail, rev. 3rd ed. (Boston: Boston Women’s Heritage Trail, 2006); Robert N. Linscott, ed., State of Mind: A Boston Reader (New York: Farrar, Straus, 1948); David McCullough, The

Greater Journey: Americans in Paris (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011); Shaun O’Connell, Imagining Boston: A Literary Landscape (Boston: Beacon Press, 1990); Thomas H. O’Connor, The Athens of America: Boston, 1825–­1845 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2006); Mary Melvin Petronella, ed., for the New England Chapter of the Victorian Society in America, Victorian Boston Today: Twelve Walking Tours (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2004); Lindsay Swift, Literary Landmarks of Boston (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1903); Warren S. Tryon, Parnassus Corner: A Life of James T. Fields, Publisher to the Victorians (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1963); Rufus Rockwell Wilson, New England in Letters (New York: A. Wessels, 1904); Susan Wilson, Garden of Memories: A Guide to Historic Forest Hills (Boston: Forest Hills Educational Trust, 1998); Susan Wilson, Heaven, by Hotel Standards: The History of the Omni Parker House (Boston: The Omni Parker House, 2014); Susan Wilson, The Literary Trail of Greater Boston (Beverly, MA: Commonwealth Editions, 2005); Susan Wilson, Sites and Insights: An Essential Guide to Historic Landmarks In and Around Boston (Boston: Beacon Press, 2004); Helen M. Winslow, Literary Boston of To-­Day (Boston: L. C. Page, 1902); Theodore F. Wolfe, Literary Shrines: The Haunts of Some Famous American Authors (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1895). Maps “Concord,” in F. W. Beers, County Atlas of Middlesex, Massachusetts (New York: J. B. Beers & Co., 1875); W. S. Barbour, Map of the city of Cambridge (s.l., 1881); Boston Map Company, Plan showing the principal portion of Boston (Boston: Boston Map Co., 1880). Illustrations Photos of Ticknor, Fields and Hawthorne, Peabody, Alcott, Emerson, Longfellow, Bartlett; drawings of the Boston Public Library, Old Corner Bookstore, and Margaret Fuller—­public domain images courtesy of Susan Wilson’s archival collection 1857 original cover of The Atlantic Monthly—­courtesy of Wikimedia Commons Engraving of Parker House; drawing of the Saturday Club—­courtesy of the Omni Parker House Photo of Thoreau bust—­© Susan Wilson Photo of Longfellow House—­courtesy of Longfellow National Historic Site

PLATE 18—­Boston and Reform Movements, 1820–­1865

Sources Text Annual Reports of the Boston Society for Aiding Discharged Convicts (Boston: White & Potter, 1847–­ 48); John Augustus, A Report on the Labor of John Augustus (Boston: Wright & Hasty, 1852); Thomas J. Brown, Dorothea Dix: New England Reformer (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998); Ruth M. Baylor, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, Kindergarten Pioneer (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1965); Caroline Healey Dall, Daughter of Boston: The Extraordinary Diary of a Nineteenth-­Century Woman, ed. Helen R. Deese (Boston: Beacon Press, 2005); Sterling Delano, Brook Farm: The Dark Side of Utopia (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2004); Therese B. Dykeman, “The Philosophy of Halfness and the Philosophy of Duality: Julia Ward Howe and Ednah Dow Cheney,” in “Women in the American Philosophical Tradition 1800–­1930,” Hypatia 19, no. 2 (Spring 2004): 17–­34; Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The Chardon Street and Bible Conventions,” Dial 3, no. 1 (1842), 100–­112; Dictionary of Unitarian Universalist Biography (uudb.org); Dean Grodzins, “Theodore Parker and the 28th Congregational Society: The Reform Church and the Spirituality of Reformers in Boston, 1845–­1859,” in Transient and Permanent: The Transcendentalist Movement and Its Contexts, ed. Charles Capper and Conrad E. Wright (Boston:

Massachusetts Historical Society, 1999), 73–­117; Daniel Walker Howe, The Unitarian Conscience: Harvard Moral Philosophy, 1805–­1861 (1970; rev. ed., Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1988); Stephanie Kermes, “‘To Make Them Fit Wives for Educated Men’? 19th-­ Century Education of Boston Girls” (2005), www. bostonhistory.org; Megan Marshall, Margaret Fuller: A New American Life (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2013); Megan Marshall, The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005); Joell Million, Women’s Voice, Women’s Place: Lucy Stone and the Birth of the Woman’s Rights Movement (Westport, CT: Preager, 2003); Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, Record of a School, Exemplifying General Principles of Spiritual Culture (Boston: J. Munroe, 1835); Henrietta Dana Raymond, Sophia Dana Ripley: Co-­founder of Brook Farm (Portsmouth, NH: Peter E. Randall, 1994); Peter Tufts Richardson, The Boston Religion: Unitarianism in its Capital City (Rockland, ME: Red Barn Publishing, 2003); Alan Rogers, “Under Sentence of Death: The Movement to Abolish Capital Punishment in Massachusetts, 1835–­ 1849,” New England Quarterly 66, no. 1 (1993): 27–­46; Lisa Tetrault, The Myth of Seneca Falls: Memory and the Women’s Suffrage Movement, 1848–­1898 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014); Frederick C. Waite, History of the New England Female Medical College, 1848–­1874 (Boston: Boston University School of Medicine, 1950); Ronald G. Walters, American Reformers: 1815–­1860 (1978; rev. ed., New York: Hill & Wang, 1997); Lucy R. Woods, History of the Girls’ High School of Boston, 1852–­1902 (Boston: Riverside Press, 1904); Stimpson’s Boston Directory (Boston: Charles Stimpson Jr., 1832, 1836); Directory of the City of Boston, 1850, 1860, 1865 (Boston: George Adams, 1851, 1861, 1865); Daniel A. Sanborn, Insurance Map of Boston (New York: Daniel A. Sanborn, 1867). Map J. Slatter and B. Callan, Map of the City of Boston, Massts. (Boston: L. N. Ide, 1852); N. Henry Crafts, Plan of Boston (Boston: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1866); Plan for the occupation of Flats Owned by the Commonwealth in Boston Harbor. Approved and Adopted by the General Court, May 18th, 1866 (Boston: Wright & Potter, 1868).

York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1961); Luis F. Emilio, History of the Fifty-­Fourth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry (Boston: Boston Book Co., 1894); Albert J. von Frank, The Trials of Anthony Burns: Freedom and Slavery in Emerson’s Boston (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999); Wendell Phillips Garrison and Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805–­1879, 4 vols. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1894); The Liberator (Boston: William Lloyd Garrison, 1831–­1865); Julie Roy Jeffrey, The Great Silent Army of Abolitionism: Ordinary Women in the Antislavery Movement (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998); Leonard W. Levy, “Sims’ Case: The Fugitive Slave Law in Boston in 1851,” Journal of Negro History 35, no. 1 (January 1950): 39–­74; Henry Mayer, All on Fire: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition of Slavery (New York: St. Martin’s, 1998); William C. Nell, The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution (Boston: Robert Wallcut, 1855); William Cooper Nell: Selected Writings from 1832–­1874 (Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 2002); Thomas H. O’Connor, Civil War Boston: Home Front and Battlefield (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1997); Theodore Parker, Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional Sermons, 2 vols. (Boston: Crosby and Nichols, 1852); Theodore Parker, Additional Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional Sermons (Boston: Little, Brown, 1855); Wendell Phillips, Addresses, Lectures, and Letters (Boston: Redpath, 1863); Maria W. Stewart: America’s First Black Woman Political Writer (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987); David Walker’s Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World (1829; New York: Hill & Wang, 1994); William F. Hanna, “The Boston Draft Riot,” Civil War History 36, no. 3 (1990): 262–­73. Maps J. Slatter and B. Callan, Map of the City of Boston, Massts. (New York: M. Dripps, 1852); N. Henry Crafts, Plan of Boston (Boston: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1866).

Illustrations Photo of Dorothea Dix—­Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division Photo of Samuel Gridley Howe—­Courtesy of the Perkins School for the Blind Photo of Horace Mann—­Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division Photo of Lucy Stone—­Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division Engraving of Julia Ward Howe—­Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division Photo of George Ripley—­Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division Drawing of Sophia Dana Ripley—­Courtesy of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, New York

Illustrations Photo of William Lloyd Garrison—­Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division Photo of Lewis Hayden—­Courtesy of the Ohio History Connection Photo of Theodore Parker—­Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library Photo of Charles Sumner—­Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division Photo of Maria Weston Chapman—­Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society Drawing of Leonard Grimes—­William J. Simmons, Men of Mark: Eminent, Progressive, and Rising (Cleveland: Geo. M. Rewell, & Co., 1887), 664. Photo of William C. Nell—­Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society Photo of Wendell Phillips—­Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division Photo of Lydia Maria Child—­Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society Antislavery placard—­Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library

PLATE 19—­Abolitionist Movement, 1829–­1865

PLATE 20—­Irish Immigration, 1700s–­1855

S o urc es Texts Stimpson’s Boston Directory (Boston: Charles Stimpson, 1831, 1835, 1845); Directory of the City of Boston, 1850, 1855, 1862 (Boston: George Adams, 1851, 1856, 1863); Daniel A. Sanborn, Insurance Map of Boston (New York: Daniel A. Sanborn, 1867); http://www. nps.gov/boaf/historyculture/walkstew.htm; http:// www.davidwalkermemorial.org/david-­walker/ david-­walkers-­life; Courage and Conscience: Black and White Abolitionists in Boston (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993); Gary Collison, Shadrach Minkins: From Fugitive Slave to Citizen (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997); David Donald, Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War (New

A ddi t i ona l i nf ormat i on Explanation of census data The graphs on Plate 20, “Irish Immigration, 1700s–­ 1855,” are based on data from the 1855 census of Boston taken on May 1, 1855, by the city. A census of Boston was also taken on June 1, 1855, by the state of Massachusetts. The results of the two censuses differ in some respects and, since the 1855 state census is the one often cited (for example, in Oscar Handlin, Boston’s Immigrants [Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1979], Table VII), the choice of the 1855 city census for this plate merits an explanation. A striking difference between the two censuses is the enumeration of foreigners. The city census recorded all children of foreigners under age 21 as foreigners, on the assumption that they were still influenced by their

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foreign-­born parents, while the state census recorded children of foreigners according to place of birth, so that children of immigrants born in America were classed as native born. The results, not surprisingly, were large. The Boston census reported 68,611 Irish persons while the Massachusetts census reported only 46,237 Irish—­a difference of 48 percent. The explanation is not only the difference in recording children under 21 but also the stated intention of the Boston census to provide information about foreigners, which meant that Boston census takers were better instructed in how to ask about foreign birth and spent more time and attention on this issue. This difference of course also affected the totals—­in the Boston census 42.5 percent of the population was Irish, while in the Massachusetts census 28.8 percent was Irish-­born. So why was the 1855 city census chosen as the source of data on Plate 20 if the state census is more often cited? Primarily because the city census reported data on mortality and housing conditions that are not reported in the state census. And, aside from the difference in the enumeration of foreigners, the population counts of the two censuses were quite similar. The city census recorded 161,429 persons on May 1, 1855; the state census 160,508 persons on June 1, 1855, a difference of only .57 percent. And the distribution of population across the wards of Boston was quite similar in both censuses—­both show Ward 1 (North End) as the most populous followed closely by Wards 7 (Fort Hill) and 12 (South Boston). The distribution of Irish was also similar in both censuses—­both reported Ward 7 with the highest percent of Irish followed closely by Ward 1. At the other end of the spectrum, both reported Ward 6 (Beacon Hill) with the least Irish followed by Ward 5 (West End). So, for the above reasons, data on Plate 20 were taken from the 1855 city census. Explanation of data on Irish county of origin The map of Ireland on Plate 20 that shows from which counties emigrants came to Boston is based on data obtained from “Missing Friends” advertisements in the Boston Pilot, a nationally distributed Catholic newspaper. The advertisements, which appeared from 1831 through 1920, were placed by persons in North America, England, Ireland, and Australia who were trying to locate relatives and friends who had emigrated. Of the 22,709 persons sought before 1857, there were 2,178 who had both a Boston area connection and a reported Irish county of origin. Although this is a very small sample, given that 100,000 Irish arrived in Boston between 1846 and 1849 alone, it is the best source available for the county of origin of Boston’s Irish immigrants. Irish censuses for 1841 and 1851 indicate the total population decline in each county from death and emigration but not from emigration alone. The Pilot’s “Missing Friends” data, however, is broadly consistent with those censuses, since the counties that show large population declines are the counties with high numbers of “missing” emigrants in the ads. U.S. Census and ship lists merely provide information on county of birth in Ireland, so are not a useful source of data. Sources Text Robert J. Allison, A Short History of Boston (Beverly, MA: Commonwealth Editions, 2004); Philip Bergen, Old Boston in Early Photographs, 1850–­1918 (New York: Dover Publications, 1990); Andrew Buni and Alan Rogers, Boston: City on A Hill (Woodland Hills, CA: Windsor Publications, 1984); James Bernard Cullen, The Story of the Irish in Boston; together with Biographical Sketches of Representative Men and Notable Women (Boston: James B. Cullen Co., 1857, 1889); Henry Louis Vere Foster, Work and Wages, or the Penny Emigrant’s guide to the United States and Canada (London: W. & F. G. Cash, 1851): Oscar Handlin, Boston’s Immigrants, 1790–­1865 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1941); Bill Harris, Boston: City of Many

Dreams (Guildford, England: Crescent Books, 1984); Ruth-­Ann M. Harris, “‘Where the Poor Man Is Not Crushed Down to Exalt the Aristocrat’: Vere Foster’s Programmes of Assisted Emigration in the Aftermath of the Irish Famine,” in The Meaning of the Famine, ed. Patrick O’Sullivan, vol. 6 of The Irish World Wide, ed. Patrick O’Sullivan (Leicester, England: Leicester University Press, 1997), 172–­94; Brett Howard, Boston: A Social History (New York: Hawthorn Books, Inc., 1976); Peter R. Knights, The Plain People of Boston, 1830–­1860: A Study in City Growth (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971); Alex Krieger and David Cobb, eds., Mapping Boston (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999); William P. Marchione, Boston Miscellany: An Essential History of the Hub (Charleston, SC: History Press, 2008); William P. Marchione, Allston-­Brighton (Dover, NH: Arcadia Publishing, 1996); Mary McNeill, Vere Foster (Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies of Queen’s University, 1971); Nina Rolnick Meyer, “Building Early Urban America: Architectural and Social Development in Boston’s North End, 1826–­1850” (PhD thesis, Boston University, 1986); Thomas H. O’Connor, South Boston, My Home Town: The History of an Ethnic Neighborhood (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1988); Thomas H. O’Connor, The Boston Irish: A Political History (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1995); James M. O’Toole and David Quigley, eds., Boston’s Histories: Essays in Honor of Thomas H. O’Connor (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2004); Michael Price and Anthony Mitchell Sammarco, Boston’s Immigrants, 1840–­1925, Images of America series (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2000); Walter Muir Whitehill, Boston: A Topographical History (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of the Harvard University Press, 1968); W. E. Vaughan and A. J. Fitzpatrick, eds., Irish Historical Statistics, Population, 1821–­1971 (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 1978), 259–­353; Richard W. Wilkie and Jack Tager, Historical Atlas of Massachusetts (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1991). Maps and graph H. (Henry) McIntyre, Map of the city of Boston and immediate neighborhood: from original surveys (Boston: H. McIntyre, 1852); R. H. (Robert Henry) Eddy, Plan of East Boston showing the land and water lots sold and unsold, also all buildings and other improvements (Boston: Tappan & Bradford, 1851); Henry F. Conant, “Plan of Back Bay and Vicinity. . . . March 11, 1852,” MS map, State Library of Massachusetts, Boston; Jesse Chickering, MD, Report of the Committee Appointed by the City Council; and also a Comparative View of the Population of Boston in 1850, with the Births, Marriages, and Deaths in 1849 and 1850 (Boston: J. H. Eastburn, 1851); Josiah Curtis, MD, Report of the Joint Committee of the Census of Boston, May, 1855, including the Report of the Censors, with Analytical and Sanitary Observations (Boston: Moore & Crosby, 1856); Lemuel Shattuck, Census of Boston for the Year 1845, Embracing Collateral Facts and Statistical Researches Illustrating the History and Condition of the Population, and their Means of Progress and Prosperity (Boston: John Eastburn, 1846); Ruth-­Ann M. Harris, D. Jacobs, and New England Historic Genealogical Society, eds., The Search for Missing Friends, Irish Immigrant Advertisements Placed in the Boston Pilot, vols. 1–­4, 1831–­60 (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1989–­95)—­the data from these volumes can be accessed at “infowanted.bc.edu.” Illustrations Emigrants Arrival at Cork—­a Scene on the Quay—­ Illustrated London News 18, no. 483 (1851) Emigrant Arrival at Constitution Wharf, Boston—­ Ballou’s Pictorial Drawing-­Room Companion 13, no. 18 (1857): 273; both Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library Burgess’ Alley, North View—­Report of the Committee of Internal Health on the Asiatic Cholera, [Boston] City Document No. 66 (1849): 170

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PLATE 21—­Boston in 1855: Population A ddi t i ona l i nf ormat i on

Boston’s Population 1810–­1850 1810

33,787

1820

43,298

1830

61,392

1840

93,383

1850

136,881

Source: “Largest Cities in the United State by Population by Decade,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_cities_in_ the_United_States_by_population_by_decade

Sources Map and graphs H. McIntyre, Map of the City of Boston and Immediate Neighborhood (Boston: H. McIntyre, 1852); Francis DeWitt, Abstract of the Census of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts . . . on the First Day of June, 1855 (Boston: William White, 1857); “Largest Cities in the United State by Population by Decade,” https://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Largest_cities_in_the_United_States_by_ population_by_decade; “Churches and Ministers,” Boston Directory (Boston: George Adams, 1855), 389–­90; S. N. Dickinson, “Churches and Ministers of Boston,” The Boston Almanac for the Year 1843 (Boston: Thomas Groom & Co., [1843]), 66–­126; “New Churches in Boston,” The Boston Almanac for the Year 1854 (Boston: Damrell & Moore and George Coolidge, [1854]), 49–­ 72; Sketches and Business Directory of Boston and Its Vicinity (Boston: Damrell & Moore and G. Coolidge, c. 1860); “Halls, Buildings, Offices, Etc.,” Boston Directory (Boston: George Adams, 1860), 16–­17; Carol Clingan, Massachusetts Synagogues and Their Records, Past and Present (Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Boston, 2010); Edward M. Bacon, King’s Dictionary of Boston (Cambridge, MA: Moses King, 1883); Condensed History and Manual of the Maverick Street Church (Boston: Maverick Congregational Church, 1894); J. H. Fairchild, Remarkable Incidents in the Life of J. H. Fairchild, Minister of the Payson Church, South Boston (Boston: The Author, 1856); C. Bancroft Gillespie, Illustrated History of South Boston (South Boston: Inquirer Publishing Co., 1900); Patrick J. Loftus, That Old Gang of Mine: A History of South Boston (South Boston: TOGM-­P.J.L. Jr., c. l991); Thomas C. Simonds, History of South Boston (Boston: David Clapp, 1857); John J. Toomey and Edward F. B. Rankin, History of South Boston (Boston: The Authors, 1901); William H. Sumner, A History of East Boston (Boston: J. E. Tilton & Co., 1858); J. Slatter and B. Callan, Map of the City of Boston, Massts. (Boston: L. N. Ide, 1852); Daniel A. Sanborn, Insurance Map of Boston (New York: Daniel A. Sanborn, 1867); Sanborn Map Company, Boston, Massachusetts, vol. 5, East Boston and Charlestown (New York: Sanborn Map and Publishing Co., 1888); G. W. Bromley & Co., Atlas of the City of Boston, vol. 4, South & East Boston (Philadelphia: Geo. W. and Walter S. Bromley, 1884); “First Baptist Church, Somerset Street, Boston, Mass., 1854–­1877,” https://www. historicnewengland.org/explore/collections-­access/ capobject/?refd=PC001.03.01.TMP.047.

PLATE 22—­Boston in 1855: Economy

A ddi t i ona l i nf ormat i on Note on statistical information The source for the graphs on Plate 22—­Francis DeWitt, Statistical Information relating to certain Branches of Industry in Massachusetts, for the year ending June 1, 1855 (Boston: State Printers, 1856)—­has some serious limitations. As DeWitt, the Secretary of the Commonwealth, points out in his introduction, the report is inaccurate because it omitted important industries, such as clothing manufacture and printing, and did not record complete statistics for many other industries. DeWitt himself estimated the value of

clothing manufactured in Boston, so that industry is included, but a post-­census effort to collect data from printers and book binders received answers from only 26 of 89 establishments, so that industry has been omitted. Sources Text Robert F. Dalzell, Jr., The Enterprising Elite: The Boston Associates and the World They Made (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987), esp. 94–­98; Hamilton Andrews Hill, The Trade and Commerce of Boston, 1630 to 1890 (Boston: Damrell & Upham, 1895), 146, 155, 156; George Rogers Taylor, The Transportation Revolution, 1815–­1860 (New York: Rinehart, 1951), 243; Frank W. Norcross, “The Wholesale Shoe Trade of Suffolk County, 1629 to 1892,” in Professional and Industrial History of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, vol. 3 (Boston: Boston History Company, 1894); Boston Board of Trade, Report of the Committee to Whom Was Referred the Subject of Steam Communication between Boston and New Orleans: presented at a meeting of the government July 7th, 1856 (Boston: Moore & Crosby, 1856), 9; Boston Board of Trade, Report of the Committee on a Resolution Submitted to the Government of the Board, February 1, 1858, by James C. Converse, on the Subject of the Branch House system, for the Sale of Goods Manufactured in Massachusetts, and in Adjoining States, on Boston Capital (Boston: A. Mudge & Son, 1858); David Ward, “Nineteenth Century Boston: A study in the Role of Antecedent and Adjacent Conditions in the Spatial Aspects of Urban Growth” (PhD diss., University of Wisconsin, 1963). Maps H. (Henry) McIntyre, Map of the city of Boston and immediate neighborhood: from original surveys (Boston: H. McIntyre, 1852); J. Slatter and B. Callan, Map of the city of Boston, Massts. (New York: M. Dripps and Boston: L. N. Ide, 1852); Francis DeWitt, Statistical Information relating to certain Branches of Industry in Massachusetts, for the year ending June 1, 1855 (Boston: State Printers, 1856); Survey of the Coast of the United States, Boston Harbor, Massachusetts, Chart 337 (Washington, DC, 1856); Henry F. Conant, “Plan of Back Bay and Vicinity . . . March 11, 1852,” MS map, State Library of Massachusetts, Boston; H. (Henry) F. (Francis) Walling, Map of the city of Cambridge, Middlesex County, Massachusetts (Boston: Geo. L. Dix, 1854); Henry Francis Walling, Map of Boston and the country adjacent from actual surveys (Boston: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1860); George Adams, The Boston Directory . . . (Boston: Geo. Adams, 1855); George Adams, The Roxbury Directory . . . (Roxbury: J. T. Bicknell & Co., 1854, 1856); George Adams, The Charlestown Directory . . . (Charlestown: McKim & Cutter, 1854; Abram E. Cutter, 1856); The Cambridge Directory for 1859 (Cambridge: J. D. Baldwin, 1859); Cambridge Historical Commission, Cambridgeport, vol. 3, Survey of Architectural History in Cambridge (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1971); Arthur Krim, Northwest Cambridge, vol. 5, Survey of Architectural History in Cambridge (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge Historical Commission, 1977); Susan E. Maycock, East Cambridge, rev. ed., Survey of Architectural History in Cambridge (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988). Graphs Francis DeWitt, Statistical Information relating to certain Branches of Industry in Massachusetts, for the year ending June 1, 1855 (Boston: State Printers, 1856). Illustrations Washington Street—­Detail from “Grand Panorama of the East Side of Washington Street, Boston, Mass., Commencing at the Corner of State Street, and Extending to No. 206,” Gleason’s Pictorial Drawing Room Companion 4 (1853): 328–­29 State Street—­“State Street in 1855,” Ballou’s Pictorial Drawing Room Companion 8 (1855): 73

East Boston Shipbuilding—­“Ship-­Building at East Boston,” Ballou’s 8 (1855): 305 Casting Cannon at Alger’s Foundry—­Ballou’s 8 (1855): 393 Glass-­Cutting Room, New England Glass Co.—­Ballou’s 8 (1855): 40 All the foregoing Boston Public Library, Print Department, Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library New England Glass Co.—­“New England Glass Co.’s Works, East Cambridge” South Boston Iron Co.’s Foundry Both on H. (Henry) McIntyre, Map of the city of Boston and immediate neighborhood: from original surveys (Boston: H. McIntyre, 1852)

PLATE 23—­Development of the South End and Back Bay, 1845–­1882 S o urc es Text and captions Nancy S. Seasholes, Gaining Ground: A History of Landmaking in Boston (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003); Nancy S. Seasholes, Walking Tours of Boston’s Made Land (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006); William A. Newman and Wilfred E. Holton, Boston’s Back Bay (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2006).

Maps Boston Map Co., Plan Showing the Principal Portion of Boston (Boston: Boston Map Co., 1880); George G. Smith, Plan of Boston comprising a part of Charlestown and Cambridge (Boston: George G. Smith, 1846); Stephen P. Fuller, Plan of Boston comprising a part of Charlestown and Cambridgeport (Boston: Annin & Smith 1826); Plan of proposed Marginal Street from Broad Street at Rowe’s Wharf to Commercial Street at Eastern Avenue (Boston: Boston Engineering Dept., 1868); Copy of a Plan of South Bay from Surveys made under the direction of James Hayward & Ezra Lincoln, Jr., commissioners appointed by a resolve of the Legislature passed March 22, 1845, showing commissioners lines etc. recommended by Simon Greenleaf, Joel Giles, Ezra Lincoln, commissions appointed under a resolve of the Legislature approved May 3, 1850 (Boston: Tappan & Bradford’s Lith., 1851); Ezra Lincoln, Plan of Back Bay and Vicinity (Boston: Tappan & Bradford, 1852); Whitwell and Henck, Plan of lands belonging to the Boston Water Power Company (Boston: s.n., 1855); Commonwealth’s Land in the Back Bay in First Annual Report of the Harbor and Land Commissioners for the Year 1879, [Mass.] Public Document No. 11 (1880); Fuller and Whitney, Back Bay in 1861 (Boston: Fuller & Whitney, 1881); Fuller and Whitney, Back Bay in 1871 (Boston: Fuller & Whitney, 1881); Fuller and Whitney, Plan of Back Bay (Boston: Fuller & Whitney, 1882); Henry Francis Walling, Map of Boston and the country adjacent from actual surveys (Boston: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1860); H. F. Walling, Map of the town of Quincy, Norfolk County, Mass. (New York: H. F. Walling & Co., 1857); Norfolk (Mass.) County Registry of Deeds, 263:21, 179:132, 403:48; J. Slatter and B. Callan, Map of the city of Boston, Massts. (New York: M. Dripps and Boston: L. N. Ide, 1852); Survey of the Coast of the United States, Boston Harbor, Massachusetts, Chart 337 (Washington, DC, 1863). Illustrations Steam Excavator in Needham—­“Loading Gravel Cars for the Back Bay, Boston,” Ballou’s Pictorial Drawing Room Companion 15, no. 14 (Oct. 1858): 209, Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library/Rare Books Gravel train in Back Bay—­“Public Garden from Corner of Charles and Beacon Streets,” Courtesy of the Bostonian Society MIT—­“Photogravure views of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology” (Boston: Henry Lewis Johnson, Boston Photogravure Co., 1889), Courtesy

of MIT Libraries, Institute Archives and Special Collections, Cambridge, MA Photographs of Commonwealth Avenue Mall, Union Park Square, Museum of Natural History, South End streetscape, Back Bay streetscape—­© Susan Wilson.

PLATE 24—­Great Fire of 1872

Sources Text Robert Taylor, The Great Boston Fire, 1872: A Disaster with a Villain: Old Style Politics (Boston: Boston Sunday Globe, Nov. 12, 1972); Stephanie Schorow, Boston on Fire (Beverly, MA: Commonwealth Editions, 2003); Docema LLC, “Boston 1872 Fire” (unpublished manuscript, Word document received from Bruce Twickler); Docema LLC, Damrell’s Fire: How One Firefighter Stopped America’s Cities from Burning Down, 2005, DVD. Map Docema LLC, “Plan Showing the Path of the Fire with Footprints of Buildings,” 2003 (TIFF file received from Bruce Twickler). Illustrations Burnt District—­E. L. Allen, “Photographic panorama of the ‘Burnt District’ of Boston, after the Great Fire, November 9, 10, 1872,” [c. 1872], Boston Pictorial Archive, Print Department, Boston Public Library Pilot Building—­James E. Taylor, “The Great Fire in Boston. The Boston ‘Pilot’ Buildings, corner of Franklin and Hawley Streets, a prey to the flames,” cover of Supplement, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, Nov. 23, 1872, Boston Pictorial Archive, Print Department, Boston Public Library

PLATE 25—­Addition of Land, 1828–­1880

Sources Text and landmaking projects Nancy S. Seasholes, Gaining Ground: A History of Landmaking in Boston (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003); Susan E. Maycock, East Cambridge, rev. ed., Survey of Architectural History in Cambridge (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988), 37–­38; G. M. Hopkins & Co., Atlas of the City of Cambridge, Massachusetts (Philadelphia: G. M. Hopkins, 1886), Pl. 24; J. B. Chase, Plan of Lands in Cambridge Belonging to the East Cambridge Land Co., December 1869, Cambridge Historical Commission; Cambridge Chronicle, April 27, 1872, February 22, 1873, December 10, 1887. Map 1828 shoreline S. P. Fuller, Plan of Boston Comprising a Part of Charlestown and Cambridgeport (Boston: Annin & Smith & J. V. N. Throop, 1826); Fuller and Whitney, Back Bay in 1836 (Boston: Fuller & Whitney, 1881); Survey of the Coast of the United States, Boston Harbor, Massachusetts, Chart 337 (Washington, DC, 1856); http://www.mass.gov/anf/research-­and-­ tech/it-­serv-­and-­support/application-­serv/office-­ of-­geographic-­information-­massgis/datalayers/ tidelands.html; Copy of a Plan of South Bay from Surveys made under the direction of James Hayward & Ezra Lincoln, Jr., commissioners appointed by a resolve of the Legislature passed March 22, 1845, showing commissioners lines etc. recommended by Simon Greenleaf, Joel Giles, Ezra Lincoln, commissions appointed under a resolve of the Legislature approved May 3, 1850 (Boston: Tappan & Bradford’s Lith., 1851); James Hayward, A Map of Cambridge, Mass. (Boston: Eddy’s Lith., 1838); H. F. Walling, Map of the City of Cambridge, Middlesex County Massachusetts (Boston : Geo. L. Dix, 1854); Survey of the Coast of the United States, Boston Harbor, Massachusetts, Chart 337 (Washington, DC, 1878); Peter Tufts Jr., Plan of Charlestown Peninsula in the State of Massachusetts, From Actual Survey, 1818 (Boston:

a d d itiona l infor m ation , so u rces , an d cre d its   175

Annin & Smith, 1818); U.S. Navy Yard Boston. 1823, in George Henry Preble, “History of the Boston Navy Yard, 1797–­1874,” (National Archives Microcopy No. 118), Pl. III, Naval Records Collection of the Office of Naval Record and Library, RG 45, Charlestown Navy Yard, Boston; Alexander S. Wadsworth, Chart of Boston Harbour: surveyed in 1817 (Philadelphia: John Melish, 1819); MapWorks, Inc., Boston Shoreline 1795 in Mapping Boston, ed. Alex Krieger and David Cobb with Amy Turner (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999), Mather Withington, “A plan of South Boston and the owners lands, and the roads . . .” ms., Boston Public Library; U.S. Coast Survey, Plan of the Inner Harbor of Boston, Executed by the U.S. Coast Survey for the Commissioners Appointed by a Resolve of the Legislature passed April 16,1846 (Boston: J. Buffords Lithography, 1847). 1880 shoreline Boston Map Co., Plan Showing the Principal Portion of Boston (Boston: Boston Map Co., 1880); Survey of the Coast of the United States, Boston Harbor, Massachusetts, Chart 337 (Washington, DC, 1878); Thomas W. Davis, Plan of Dorchester (Boston: Engineering Department, 1880); W. S. Barbour, Map of the City of Cambridge (s.l.: s.n., 1881); Boston Park Commissioners, Charles River Embankment: Boston District (Boston: s.n., 1876); Thomas W. Davis, Plan of Charlestown (Boston: Bufford’s Lith., 1879); E. F. Bowker, Compiled Plan, Showing Millers Creek and a Portion of Charles River (Boston: W. R. Fish, 1873); Thomas W. Davis, Plan of East Boston (Boston: Bufford’s Lith., 1880); Thomas W. Davis, Plan of South Boston (Boston: Engineering Dept., 1880); Fuller and Whitney, Plan of Back Bay Showing Improvements on Streets and Estates from Latest Surveys, July 1, 1882 (Boston: Fuller & Whitney, 1882). Illustrations Seawall plan—­Alexander Parris, “Drawing for a seawall to be built by Shubael Bills, Dec. 29th, 1845” in [Boston] City Document No. 82 (1857) Photograph of Atlantic Avenue seawall—­Nancy S. Seasholes Photograph of Levelling of Fort Hill, c. 1866–­72, Courtesy of the Bostonian Society

PLATE 26—­Annexation Movement, 1868–­1873

Sources Texts Annexation Movement Sam Bass Warner Jr., Streetcar Suburbs: The Process of Growth in Boston (1870–­1900), 2nd ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978); Kenneth T. Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 138–­56; Alexander von Hoffman, Local Attachments: The Making of an American Urban Neighborhood, 1850 to 1920 (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1994).

Other Acquisitions Nancy S. Seasholes, Gaining Ground: A History of Landmaking in Boston (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003), 240–­41; Thomas C. Simonds, A History of South Boston (1857; repr. New York: Arno Press, 1974), 72–­77, 226–­27, 277–­83, 313–­15; Lawrence W. Kennedy, Planning the City upon a Hill: Boston since 1630 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1992), 68, 121–­22. Maps G. M. Hopkins & Co., Map of the Cities of Boston, Cambridge, Somerville and Chelsea and the Town of Brookline with Parts of Newton, Malden, and Everett (Philadelphia: G. M. Hopkins & Co., 1874); [Boston] City Planning Board, Map of Boston Boundary Line Changes, 1926, Map C-­957, Mapping Dept., Boston Redevelopment Authority; E. P. Dutton, A new & complete map of the city of Boston, with part of Charlestown, Cambridge, Brookline, Dorchester &c

(Boston: E. P. Dutton, 1868); H. M. Wightman, Plan of the Town of Brighton ([Boston]: A. Meisel, 1873); Fuller and Whitney, Back Bay in 1871 (Boston: Fuller & Whitney, 1881); Thomas W. Davis, Plan of Charlestown (Boston: Bufford’s Lith., 1879); U.S. Coast & Geodetic Survey, Boston Harbor, Massachusetts (Washington, DC, 1911); Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, A Topographical and Historical Description of Boston, 3rd ed. (Boston: City Printers, 1890), 444, 448, 464; Jim Vrabel, When in Boston: A Time Line & Almanac (Boston: Northeastern Press, 2004). Photograph Tim Pierce, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dillaway_ School

PLATE 27—­Streetcar Suburbs, 1870–­1900

S o urc es Text Sam Bass Warner, Jr., Streetcar Suburbs: The Process of Growth in Boston (1870–­1900), 2nd ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978). Captions Growth of Streetcar Suburbs maps City of Boston, Auditor of Accounts’ Annual Report (Boston: Alfred Mudge and Son, 1877, 1889); Nathan Matthews, The City Government of Boston (Boston: Rockwell and Churchill, 1895), 193. Occupations maps Noam Maggor, “Politics of Property: Urban Democracy in the Age of Global Capital, Boston 1865–­1900” (PhD diss., Harvard University, 2010). Maps Boston Map Co., Plan Showing the Principal Portion of Boston (Boston: Boston Map Co., 1880); A. Williams & Co., Map of Boston 1875 (Boston: Heliotype Printing, 1875); Thomas W. Davis, Outline Plan Showing the Growth of Boston (Boston: s.n., 1880); Noam Maggor, “Politics of Property: Urban Democracy in the Age of Global Capital, Boston 1865–­1900” (PhD diss., Harvard University, 2010). Photograph Washington Street, Roxbury—­“Looking North from the West Side of Washington St., Boston, Mass., April 18, 1906.” Boston Elevated Railroad Collection, Courtesy of Historic New England

PLATE 28—­Public Transportation, 1856–­1918

S o urc es Text Prentiss Cummings, “The Street Railway System of Boston,” in Professional and Industrial History of Suffolk County, Massachusetts (Boston: Boston History Company, 1894), 3:286–­301; Bradley H. Clarke, The Boston Rapid Transit Album, Bulletin No. 17 (Cambridge, MA: Boston Street Railway Association, Inc., 1981); Bradley H. Clarke and O. R. Cummings, Tremont Street Subway: A Century of Public Service, Bulletin No. 22 (Boston: Boston Street Railway Association, Inc., 1997); Brian J. Cudahy, Change at Park Street Under (Brattleboro, VT: Stephen Greene Press, 1972); Edward Dana, ed., Fifty Years of Unified Transportation in Metropolitan Boston (Boston: Boston Elevated Railway Company, 1938); Edward A. Anderson, “Eliot Square and Stadium Station Revisited,” Rollsign 46, no. 9/10 (Sept./Oct. 2009): 7–­15; George M. Sanborn, “A Chronicle of the Boston Transit System” (Boston: State Transportation Library, 1981, rev. 1993). Maps Street Railways of Boston and Vicinity, Jan. 1914 (Boston: Heliotype Co., 1914); Boston Transit Commission, Boston Subway, East Boston Tunnel, Washington St. Tunnel, Tunnel for Cambridge Connection & Proposed Riverbank Subway, June 30, 1910 (Boston: Boston Transit Commission, 1910);

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George Chiasson Jr., “Boston’s Main Line El: The Formative Years 1879–­1908,” special issue, Headlights 49 (1987): 3–­79; details from George Washington Bromley, Atlas of the city of Boston: Boston Proper and Back Bay, from actual surveys and official plans (Philadelphia: G.W. Bromley and Co., 1917); Sanborn Map Company, Insurance Maps of Cambridge, Massachusetts, vol. 2 (New York: Sanborn Map Co., 1935); Map of Boston and Vicinity, Showing Tracks operated by the Boston Elevated Railway, January, 1910 (Boston: Geo. H. Walker & Co., 1910); Clarence W. Norwood, “List of Routes—­Lynn Division, Bay State Street Railway, About 1915 or Before,” Turnout 13 (1954): 46–­47, 69–­70, 82–­83; Stephen P. Carlson, All Aboard! Public Transit in Saugus (Saugus, MA: Saugus Historical Society, 1980); Ruth Wainwright, “Quincy Street Railways, 1861–­1948,” Quincy History no. 36 (Winter 1996–­7), [1–­4]; Jim Fergusson, Boston Elevated Railway 1908 (Swanley, Kent, U.K.: Jim Fergusson, 1987); Tracks of the Four Street Railways in Boston and Suburban Cities and Towns 1887 (Cambridge, MA: Boston Street Railway Association, Inc., 1973); Map of the Boston Elevated Ry. in 1915 (repr., Cambridge, MA: Boston Street Railway Association, Inc., 1973); Boston Elevated Railway Co. Corrected to Feb. 5, 1910 (Boston: Boston Elevated Railway Co., 1910); Map of Boston, for 1888, Published Expressly for the Boston Directory (Boston: Sampson, Murdock & Co., 1888); “Rand, McNally & Co.’s Indexed Atlas of the World Map of Boston” in Rand, McNally & Co.’s Indexed Atlas of the World . . . (Chicago: Rand, McNally & Co., 1891), 2:246–­47; Boston and Surroundings (Boston: Walker Lithograph and Publishing Company, 1910); Geo. W. & Walter S. Bromley, Atlas of the City of Chelsea and the towns of Revere and Winthrop. From Actual Surveys and Official Plans. (Philadelphia: G. W. Bromley & Co., 1886); O. W. Walker, comp., Atlas of Massachusetts (Boston: Geo. H. Walker & Co., 1891); Boston Elevated Railway Co., Department of Civil Engineering, “Track Lengths of Surface Lines and Subway” (Boston: Boston Elevated Railway Co., 1915); Annual Reports of the Board of Railroad Commissioners, January, 1887–­ 1890 (Boston: Wright & Potter, 1887–­1890); Quincy Patriot, various articles and legal notices, January–­ August 1888; Lynn & Boston R. R. Co., advertisement, Chelsea Telegraph and Pioneer, August 25, 1888, 3; Survey of the Coast of the United States, Boston Harbor, Massachusetts, Chart 337 (Washington, DC, 1889), http://historicalcharts.noaa.gov/historicals/ preview/image/337-­05-­1889; U.S. Harbor Line Board, Map of Charles River from Brookline Street Bridge to Charles River Bridge (Boston: A. Hoen & Co., 1889); George W. Bromley, Map of the City of Boston and Vicinity (Boston: City of Boston, 1889); William H. Whitney, Plan of Back Bay Showing Improvements on Streets and Estates from Latest Surveys (Boston: William H. Whitney, 1888); U.S. Coast & Geodetic Survey, Boston Harbor, Chart 246 (Washington, DC, 1919), http://historicalcharts.noaa. gov/historicals/preview/image/LC00246_06_1919. Illustration Postcard–­“ East Boston Tunnel, Entrance,” The Metropolitan News Co., Boston, c. 1907, Collection of Charles Bahne

PLATE 29—­Water and Sewerage Systems, 1795–­ 1906 Wat er syst em Texts Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, A Topographical and Historical Description of Boston, 3rd ed. (Boston: City Printers, 1890), 412–­14; Seventeenth Annual Report of the Boston Water Board for the Year Ending January 31, 1893 (Boston: City Printers, 1893), 3–­7; Nathaniel J. Bradlee, History of the Introduction of Pure Water into the City of Boston (Boston: City Printers, 1868); Desmond FitzGerald, History of the Boston Water Works, from 1868 to 1876 (Boston: City Printers, 1876);

Annual Reports of the Boston Water Board (Boston: City Printers, 1877–­1895); Report of the Massachusetts State Board of Health upon a Metropolitan Water Supply, [Massachusetts] House Document No. 500 (Boston: State Printers, 1895); Desmond FitzGerald, A Short Description of the Boston Water-­Works (Boston: City Printers, 1895); Annual Reports of the [Boston] Water Commissioner (Boston: City Printers, 1896–­1900); Water Supply and Work of the Metropolitan Water District (Boston and Its Vicinity) in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, U.S.A. (Boston: City Printers, 1900); Sarah S. Elkind, Bay Cities and Water Politics: The Battle for Resources in Boston and Oakland (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1998), 81–­88, 93–­113); Annual Reports of the Metropolitan Water Board, [Massachusetts] Public Document No. 57 (Boston: State Printers, 1896–­1901); Annual Reports of the Metropolitan Water and Sewerage Board, [Massachusetts] Public Document No. 57 (Boston: State Printers, 1902–­1908); Suffolk (MA) County Registry of Deeds, Deeds, 1169:269 (1873), 4082:15 (1918), 4612:440 (1924); Annual Reports of the [Boston] Park and Recreation Department, City Document No. 22 (1918–­1920), No. 19 (1921–­1924). Maps Charles Perkins, Map of the Boston Water Works Prepared under the Direction of the Cochituate Water Board ([Boston]: Tappan & Bradford’s Lith., 1852); Boston Engineering Department, Boston Water Works. Map Showing the Several Systems of Supply Already Constructed; Also the Drainage Areas of Lake Cochituate and the Charles, Sudbury, Shawshine & Mystic Rivers (Boston: Bufford’s Rheotype Process, 1878); [Massachusetts] Metropolitan Water Board, Map Showing Works for Supplying Water from the Nashua, Sudbury and Cochituate Watersheds to the Metropolitan District (Boston: Geo. H. Walker & Co., 1899); [Massachusetts] Metropolitan Water and Sewerage Board, Map Showing Metropolitan Water District, Wachusett, Sudbury and Cochituate Watersheds and Locations of Reservoirs, Aqueducts and Pipe Lines, in Ninth Annual Report of the Metropolitan Water and Sewerage Board for the Year 1909 (Boston: State Printers, 1910); [Massachusetts] Metropolitan District Commission, Map Showing Metropolitan Water District, Wachusett, Sudbury and Cochituate Watersheds and Locations of Reservoirs, Aqueducts and Pipe Lines. 1926; [U.S.] Coast & Geodetic Survey, Boston Harbor, Massachusetts, Chart 246 (Washington, DC, 1909), http://historicalcharts.noaa.gov/historicals/preview/ image/LC00246_01_1909. Illustrations of reservoirs Bureau of Geographic Information (MassGIS), 1:5,000 Color Digital Ortho Images, 2005; Charles Perkins, Map of the Boston Water Works Prepared under the Direction of the Cochituate Water Board ([Boston]: Tappan & Bradford’s Lith., 1852); G. M. Hopkins, Atlas of the County of Suffolk, Massachusetts (Philadelphia: G. M. Hopkins, 1875), Pl. 55; Annual Report of the Park and Recreation Department, [Boston] City Document No. 22 (1918–­1920), [Boston] City Document No. 19 (1921–­1922, 1924); Suffolk County [Massachusetts] Deeds, 4082: 15 (1918). S ew e r a g e syst em Texts The Sewerage of Boston. A Report by a Commission Consisting of E. S. Chesborough, C. E., Moses Lane, C. E., and Charles F. Folsom, M. D., [Boston] City Document No. 3 (1876); Eliot C. Clarke, Main Drainage Works of the City of Boston, 3rd ed. (Boston: City Printers, 1888); Report of the State Board of Health upon the Sewerage of the Mystic and Charles River Valleys, [Massachusetts] Senate No. 2 (1889); Annual Reports of the Board of Metropolitan Sewerage Commissioners, [Massachusetts] Public Document No. 45 (Boston: State Printers, 1890–­ 1901); [Massachusetts] Metropolitan Sewerage Commissioners, Main Drainage Works of Boston and

Its Metropolitan Sewerage District (Boston: State Printers, 1899); Annual Reports of the Metropolitan Water and Sewerage Board, [Massachusetts] Public Document No. 57 (Boston: State Printers, 1902–­1906). Maps City of Boston, Main Drainage. Plan Showing Main, Intercepting & Outfall Sewers, and Old Sewer Outlets, in Eliot C. Clarke, Main Drainage Works of the City of Boston, 3rd ed. (Boston: City Printers, 1888), Pl. V; [Massachusetts] Metropolitan Sewerage Commissioners, Map of Metropolitan Sewerage District. Sept. 30, 1900 (Boston: Geo. H. Walker & Co., 1900); [Massachusetts] Metropolitan Water and Sewerage Board, Map Showing Metropolitan Sewerage District, January 1, 1910 (Boston: Geo. H. Walker & Co., 1910); [U.S.] Coast & Geodetic Survey, Boston Harbor, Massachusetts, Chart 246 (Washington, DC, 1909) http://historicalcharts.noaa.gov/historicals/preview/ image/LC00246_01_1909. Photographs Calf Pasture, East Boston, Deer Island Pumping Stations—­© Susan Wilson

PLATE 30—­Boston and Metropolitan Park Systems, 1875–­1919

Bo sto n Park System Text Second Report of the Board of Commissioners of the Department of Parks for the City of Boston, 1876, [Boston] City Document No. 42 (Boston: City Printers, 1876), 15–­33; Cynthia Zaitzevsky, Frederick Law Olmsted and the Boston Park System (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1982), 33–­108; Jon A. Peterson, “The Impact of Sanitary Reform upon American Urban Planning, 1840–­1890,” in Introduction to Planning History, ed. Donald A. Krueckeberg (New Brunswick, NJ: Center for Urban Policy Research, Rutgers University, 1983), 13–­39; David Schuyler, The New Urban Landscape: The Redefinition of City Form in Nineteenth-­Century America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), 59–­66; Galen Cranz, The Politics of Park Design: A History of Urban Parks in America (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1982), 5–­99; Dominick Cavallo, Muscles and Morals: Organized Playgrounds and Urban Reform, 1880–­1920 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981), 1–­12; Paul Boyer, Urban Masses and Moral Order in America, 1820–­1920 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978), 242–­51. Map Boston and Surroundings (Boston: Walker Lithograph and Publishing Company, 1910); Annual Report of the Board of [Boston Park] Commissioners, 1876–­1913 (Boston: The [Park] Department or City Printers); U.S. Coast & Geodetic Survey, Boston Harbor, Chart 246 (Washington, DC, 1911), http://historicalcharts.noaa. gov/historicals/preview/image/LC00246_06_1911. Metro po litan Park System Text [Horace William Shaler Cleveland], The Public Grounds of Chicago: How to Give Them Character and Expression (Chicago: Charles D. Lakey, 1869), 8; Robert Morris Copeland, “The Park Question,” Boston Daily Advertiser, December 2, 1869; Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Acts of the General Court, 1870, Chapter 283; Robert Morris Copeland, The Most Beautiful City in America: Essay and Plan for the Improvement of the City of Boston (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1872), 14; Cynthia Zaitzevsky, Frederick Law Olmsted and the Boston Park System (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1982), 35–­43, 118–­22; Sylvester Baxter, Greater Boston: A Study for a Federalized Metropolis Comprising the City of Boston and Surrounding Cities and Towns (Boston: A. J. Philpott & Co.), 1891; [Charles W. Eliot], Charles Eliot, Landscape Architect (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1903), 356; Commonwealth of Massachusetts,

Report of the Board of Metropolitan Park Commissioners (Boston: Wright & Potter, 1893–­1901); Susan E. Maycock, East Cambridge, rev. ed., Survey of Architectural History in Cambridge (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988), 205; Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Report of the Charles River Basin Commission (Boston: Wright & Potter, 1904–­1910); National Register of Historic Places, Nomination Forms, “Metropolitan Park System of Boston” (2002), “Alewife Brook Parkway” (2004), “Blue Hills Parkway” (2003), “Charles River Basin Historic District” (1978), “Fells Connector Parkways” (2003), “Fresh Pond Parkway” (2004), “Furnace Brook Parkway” (2004), “Lynn Fells Parkway” (2003), “Mystic Valley Parkway” (2005), “Nahant Beach Boulevard” (2003), “Neponset Valley Parkway” (2004), “Quincy Shore Drive” (2003), “Revere Beach Boulevard” (2002), “Revere Beach Parkway” (2007), “Stony Brook Reservation Parkways” (2005), “Winthrop Parkway” (2003), “Winthrop Shore Drive” (2003). Map “Map of the Metropolitan District of Boston, Showing Local Public Reservations, and Holdings of the Metropolitan Park Commission, December 1, 1907,” in Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Report of the Board of Metropolitan Park Commissioners (Boston: Wright & Potter, 1907); U.S. Coast & Geodetic Survey, Boston Harbor, Chart 246 (Washington, DC, 1919), http://historicalcharts.noaa.gov/historicals/preview/ image/LC00246_06_1919; U.S. Coast & Geodetic Survey, Boston Harbor, Chart 246 (Washington, DC, 1921), http://historicalcharts.noaa.gov/historicals/ preview/image/LC00246_05_1921; Map of Boston and Suburbs (Boston: Walker Lith. & Pub. Co., 1913); [Massachusetts] Metropolitan Park Commission, Blue Hills Reservation (1919); [Massachusetts] Metropolitan District Commission, Right of Way Division, Alewife Brook Parkway & Alewife Brook: Location Plan (1946?); [Massachusetts] Metropolitan District Commission, Right of Way Division, Location Plan: Fresh Pond Parkway (n.d.); [Massachusetts] Charles River Basin Commission, Proposed Dam and Lock, Plan No. 2 (1905).

PLATE 31—­Boston’s Economy, 1905

sources Text and map locations David Grayson Allen, Investment Management in Boston: A History (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2015); Richard Franklin Bensel, The Political Economy of American Industrialization, 1877–­1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); U.S. Bureau of the Census, Census of Manufacturers: 1905, Massachusetts, Bulletin 53 (Washington, DC, 1906); U.S. Bureau of the Census, Industrial Districts: 1905, Bulletin 101 (Washington, DC, 1909); Cambridge Historical Commission, Report Three: Cambridgeport, Survey of Architectural History in Cambridge (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 1971); Cambridge Historical Commission, Report One: East Cambridge, Survey of Architectural History in Cambridge (Cambridge MA: Acme Printing, 1965); Victor S. Clark, History of Manufactures in the United States (New York: Published for The Carnegie Institution of Washington by McGraw Hill, 1929), 472; David Ward, “The Industrial Revolution and the Emergence of Boston’s Central Business District,” Economic Geography 42, no. 2 (April 1966): 152–­71; “Leather from Many Lands Sold in Boston,” Boston Globe, May 8, 1904; Arthur A. M. Gilman, ed., Cambridge of Eighteen Hundred and Ninety-­Six (Cambridge, MA: Riverside Press, 1896); Alvin F. Harlow, Steelways of New England (New York: Creative Age Press, 1946); Edgar Malone Hoover, Location Theory and the Shoe and Leather Industries (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1937); Thomas Kessner, Capital City: New York City and the Men behind America’s Rise to Economic Dominance, 1860–­1900 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003); William Lazonick, Business Organization and the Myth of the Market

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Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); Albro Martin, Railroads Triumphant: The Growth, Rejection, and Rebirth of a Vital American Force (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992); D. W. Meinig, The Shaping of America, A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History, vol. 3, Transcontinental America: 1850–­ 1915 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998); Albert P. Langtry, ed., Metropolitan Boston; A Modern History (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Co., 1949), chap. 11; Bliss Perry, Life and Letters of Henry Lee Higginson (Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1921); Douglas W. Rae, City: Urbanism and Its End (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003); Orra L. Stone, History of Massachusetts Industries: Their Inception, Growth, and Success, vol. 2 (Boston: S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1930); Orra L. Stone, The Industries of Metropolitan Boston, vol. 2 (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, Inc., 1929); Michael J. Tyrrell, Boston’s Fort Point District (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2002); Horace G. Wadlin, “The Sweating System in Massachusetts,” Journal of Social Science 30 (1892): 86–­102; Gordon M. Winder, “The North American Manufacturing Belt in 1880: A Cluster of Regional Industrial Systems or One Large Industrial District?,” Economic Geography 75, no. 1 (Jan. 1999): 71–­92; Robert A. Woods, ed., Americans in Process: A Settlement Study. North and West Ends, Boston (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1902); Robert A. Woods and Albert J. Kennedy, The Zone of Emergence: Observations of the Lower Middle and Upper Working Class Communities of Boston, 1905–­1914 (Cambridge, MA: Joint Center for Urban Studies of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, 1962); The Boston Directory (Boston: Sampson & Murdock, 1905); The 1905 Cambridge Directory (Boston: W. A. Greenough & Co., 1905); Bureau of the Census, Bulletin 53, Census of Manufacturers: 1905, Massachusetts (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1906). Map Boston and Surroundings (Boston: Walker Lithograph and Publishing Company, 1910); U.S. Coast & Geodetic Survey, Boston Harbor, Massachusetts, Chart 246 (Washington, DC, 1904). Illustrations Atlantic Avenue c. 1900—­Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library Packing Wool, 1909—­Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library

PLATE 32—­Sports and Recreation, 1895–­1903

Sources Text and captions John Hanc, The B.A.A. at 125: The Official History of the Boston Athletic Association, 1877–­2012 (New York: Sports Publishing, 2012); Cambridge City Directory (Boston: W. A. Greenough, 1901); City of Cambridge Park Department, Annual Report (Cambridge, MA: City of Cambridge, 1897); Alan E. Foulds, Boston’s Ballparks and Arenas (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2005); Richard Garver, A Brief History of Riverside Boat Club (Cambridge, MA: Riverside Boat Club, 2008); Karl Haglund, Inventing the Charles River (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003); Stephen Hardy, How Boston Played: Sport, Recreation, and Community, 1865–­1915 (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1982); Oliver Wendell Holmes, Autocrat of the Breakfast Table: Every Man His Own Boswell (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1896), 207; Steven A. Reiss, City Games (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989); Glenn Stout and Richard A. Johnson, Red Sox Century: The Definitive History of Baseball’s Most Storied Franchise (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004); Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, Baseball: An Illustrated History (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994); Cynthia Zaitzevsky, Frederick Law Olmsted and the Boston Park System (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1982); Alexander W. Williams, A Social History of the Greater Boston Clubs (Barre, MA: Barre

Publishers, 1970); Lorenz J. Finison, Boston’s Cycling Craze, 1880–­1900 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2014); Boston Public Library, Boston Sports Temples, Digital Public Library of America, April 2013, http://dp.la/exhibitions/exhibits/show/boston-­sports-­ temples; Frederic L. Paxson, “The Rise of Sport,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 4, no. 2 (September 1917): 143–­68; John Richards Betts, “The Technological Revolution and the Rise of Sport, 1850–­1900,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 40, no. 2 (September 1953): 231–­ 56; Robert Weir, “Take Me Out to the Brawl Game: Sports and Workers in Gilded Age Massachusetts,” Historical Journal of Massachusetts 37, no. 1 (Spring 2009): 26–­ 47; “A Report by E. M. Hartwell, Director of Physical Training,” Boston School Document No. 22 (1891); Nancy S. Seasholes and The Cecil Group, Inc., “Sites for Historical Interpretation on East Boston’s Waterfronts,” Boston Redevelopment Authority, 2009; “New England Golf, Sources from Which the Game Has Sprung into Wonderful Popularity,” Boston Globe, April 2, 1899. Map Geo. H. Walker & Co., Map of the City of Boston and Vicinity (Boston: Geo. H. Walker, [c. 1903]); U.S. Coast & Geodetic Survey, Boston Harbor, Massachusetts, Chart 246 (Washington, DC, 1902); Bainbridge Bunting, Harvard: An Architectural History (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1985), 98; Harvard College, Lawrence Scientific School, Map of Cambridge in the Vicinity of Harvard College, 1903–­4 (Cambridge, MA: s.n., 1903); Boston Yacht Club, http:// www.bostonyc.org/page/about; South Boston Yacht Club http://www.southbostonyc.com/History.html. Illustrations Charles River Speedway—­c. 1902 photo Boston Athletic Association clubhouse—­1889 photo in American Architect and Building News 25 (April 6, 1889) Huntington Avenue and South End Grounds—­1911 photo, Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library Rowing Clubs—­1895 drawings in Eugene Buckley, “Busy Season for Boston’s Crack Rowing Clubs,” Boston Sunday Globe, May 26, 1895, 38 Charles River Park—­1897 lithograph by Bert Poole, Courtesy of Stanley Museum, Kingfield, ME Cambridgeport Cycle Club—­1899 photo, Courtesy of the Cambridge Historical Commission

PLATE 33—­Scollay Square, 1880s–­1963

S o urc es Text Robert C. Allen, Horrible Prettiness: Burlesque and American Culture (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991); Anne Alison Barnet, Extravaganza King: Robert Barnet and Boston Musical Theater (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2004); Daniel A. Gilbert, “‘Why Dwell on a Lurid Memory?’: Deviance and Redevelopment in Boston’s Scollay Square,” Massachusetts Historical Review 9 (2007): 103–­33, http://www.jstor.org/ stable/25081214; David Kruh, Always Something Doing: Boston’s Infamous Scollay Square (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1999); Neil Miller, Banned in Boston: The Watch and Ward Society’s Crusade against Books, Burlesque, and the Social Evil (Boston: Beacon Press, 2010); Andrew Ryder, “The Changing Nature of Adult Entertainment Districts: Between a Rock and a Hard Place or Going from Strength to Strength?” in “Sex and the City: Social and Economic Explorations in Urban Sexuality,” special issue, Urban Studies 41, no. 9 (August 2004): 1659–­86, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43201473. Maps G.W. Bromley & Co., Atlas of the City of Boston, Boston Proper and Back Bay (Philadelphia: G.W. Bromley & Co., 1917), Pls. 1, 4.

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Illustrations Scollay Square c. 1942—­Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection Old Howard—­Courtesy of the Bostonian Society Sally Keith—­Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library Scollay Square area 1962—­http://www.bambinomusical. com/Scollay/Munsey.html Teakettle—­Rebekah Bryer

PLATE 34—­Theatrical Boston, 1880s–­1930s

Sources Text “Boston Athenaeum Theatre History,” http:// www.bostonathenaeum.org/node/224, accessed August 5, 2012; Thomas F. Connolly, “Boston,” in The Cambridge Guide to American Theatre, ed. Don B. Wilmeth, 2nd ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 120–­22; Donald King, The Theatres of Boston: A Stage and Screen History (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2005), 62–­200; Elizabeth A. Osborne, Staging the People: Community and Identity in the Federal Theatre Project (New York: Palgrave, 2011), 49–­84; Arthur Singer and Ron Goodman, Boston’s Downtown Movie Palaces (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2011), 9–­18. Illustrations Boston Museum, exterior—­Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library Boston Museum, interior—­Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library Uncle Tom’s Cabin poster—­1882, Houghton Library, Harvard University Bijou Theatre—­1884, TCS 66, Houghton Library, Harvard University Castle Square Theatre—­Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library A Trip to Chinatown songbook cover—­1892, Frances G. Spencer Collection of American Sheet Music, Crouch Fine Arts Library, Baylor University, Waco, TX Copley Theatre—­Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library Vaudeville program from B. F. Keith’s Theatre—­April 3, 1905, Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library/Rare Books Haiti, Boston Federal Theatre Project poster—­1938, Library of Congress, Work Projects Administration Photograph Collection, http://www.loc.gov/pictures/ item/98516895/ (accessed November 8, 2012) Costume sketch of Macbeth—­1939, Library of Congress, The New Deal Stage: Selections from the Federal Theatre Project, 1935–­1939, http://memory.loc.gov/ music/ftp/fprcd/1107/11070002/0001v.jpg (accessed November 8, 2012)

PLATE 35—­Cultural Boston, 1780–­1915

Sources Text and map Boston and Surroundings (Boston: Walker Lithograph and Publishing, 1910); Thomas Boylston Adams, “Here We Have Lived: The Houses of the Massachusetts Historical Society,” Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 78 supplement (1967); American Academy of Arts and Sciences, “House of the Academy,” https:// www.amacad.org/contentu.aspx?d=317; http://www. bostonzest.com/2009/04/where-­is-­this-­attention-­to-­ detail.html; The Athenaeum Centenary: The Influence and History of the Boston Athenaeum from 1807 to 1907 (Boston: Boston Athenaeum, 1907); Boston Museum of Fine Arts, “Architectural History,” http://www.mfa. org/about/architectural-­history; Boston Symphony Orchestra, “The History of the BSO,” http://www.bso. org/brands/bso/about-­us/historyarchives/the-­history-­ of-­the-­bso.aspx; James R. Chadwick, “The Boston Medical Library,” Medical Library & Historical Journal (April 1903): 127–­35; Massachusetts Horticultural Society, “History,” http://www.masshort.org/History;

Keith N. Morgan, ed., Buildings of Massachusetts: Metropolitan Boston (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2009); Nancy S. Seasholes, Gaining Ground: A History of Landmaking in Boston (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003); Walter M. Whitehill and Lawrence W. Kennedy, Boston: A Topographical History, 3rd ed. (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000); Walter M. Whitehill, Boston Public Library: A Centennial History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1956); “Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association,” http://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Massachusetts_Charitable_Mechanic_ Association; “Federal Street Theatre” (Boston Theatre), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Street_Theatre; Daniel A. Sanborn, Insurance Map of Boston (New York: Daniel A, Sanborn, 1867); “Boston Library Society,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Library_Society; “1915” Boston Exposition, Official Catalogue and the Boston 1915 Year Book (Boston: Chappel Press, 1915), 30. Illustrations Provident Bank, Tontine Crescent, Mechanics Hall, 3rd Horticultural Hall, 2nd YMCA, Music Hall, 2nd BPL, 2nd MFA, Opera House—­Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library 5th Museum of Science—­https://www.mos.org/ home page, 6/2014 4th Athenaeum, 6th Medical Library, 3rd YMCA—­© Susan Wilson 2nd Horticultural Hall—­from Robert Manning, ed., History of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, 1829–­1878 (Boston: The Society, 1880), Courtesy of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society 4th Museum of Natural History, St. James Hotel—­ Nancy S. Seasholes Massachusetts Medical College–­http://commons. wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Massachusetts_Medical_ College_ca1824_MasonSt_Boston.png 2nd Mass. Char. Mech. Assoc.—­http://commons. wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MCMA_ChauncySt_ KingsBoston1881.png 3rd BPL—­BPLExterior 007.jpg, Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library 6th AAAS–­photo by Martha Stewart, Courtesy of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 7th MHS—­photo by Laura Wulf, Courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society 4th Horticultural Hall—­http://commons.wikimedia. org/wiki/File:Horticultural_Hall,_Boston,_ Massachusetts.JPG 3rd MFA—­State Street Corporation Fenway Entrance, photo by Antonio López Garcia, Photograph © 2008 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Symphony Hall—­photo by Erin Glennon, Courtesy of the Boston Symphony Orchestra Courtyard, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, 2014, Courtesy of the Gardner Museum 3rd New England Conservatory—­Andrew Hurlbut/ NEC, Courtesy of the New England Conservatory

PLATE 36—­Enterprising Women, 1862–­1914 A ddit io na l in for m at i on

1. Edith Guerrier, Edith Brown, and Helen Osborne Storrow

Paul Revere Pottery 18 Hull St. Paul Revere Pottery, based at the Saturday Evening Girls’ Club, was a means for young North End Italian and Jewish women to earn a living wage in good working conditions. It was founded in 1908 by librarian Edith Guerrier (1870–­1958) and artist Edith Brown (1872–­1932) and funded by philanthropist Helen Osborne Storrow (1864–­1944).

2a. Pauline Agassiz Shaw

North Bennet Street Industrial School 39 North Bennet St. Founded by philanthropist Pauline Agassiz Shaw (1841–­1917) in 1885, this North End school trained

newly arrived Italian and Jewish immigrants in skilled trades and fine craftsmanship, giving them the tools needed to succeed and become gainfully employed.

2b. Edith Guerrier

The Saturday Evening Girls’ Club North Bennet Street Industrial School 39 North Bennet St. See Plate 36.

3. Lina Hecht

Hebrew Industrial School Baldwin Pl. See Plate 36.

4. Massachusetts State Nurses Association

Faneuil Hall In 1903, thirty years after the New England Hospital for Women and Children graduated America’s first trained nurse (Linda Richards 1841–­1930), a meeting of three hundred graduate nurses at Faneuil Hall established the Massachusetts State Nurses Association, one of the first of its kind in the nation.

5. Boston School Committeewomen

Old City Hall 45 School St. Women were elected to the Boston School Committee before they could vote. In 1875, after a drive by the New England Women’s Club, six women took their seats on the Boston School Committee elected by Boston men. Although the Committee was reduced from 116 to 24 members the following year, four women were reelected.

6. Mary Hemenway

Old South Meeting House 310 Washington St. Considered Boston’s wealthiest woman in the late 1800s, philanthropist Mary Hemenway (1820–­94) was a major figure in the historic preservation movement and a leader of the 1876 campaign to save the Old South Meeting House from the wrecking ball.

7. Edmonia Lewis

Artist Studio No. 89, Studio Building 104 Tremont St. See Plate 36.

8. Mary Rice Livermore

Massachusetts Women’s Christian Temperance Union 2A Park St. Founder and president of the Massachusetts Women’s Christian Temperance Union (1875–­85), lecturer-­ extraordinaire Mary Rice Livermore (1820–­1905) was an active organizer and booster of the temperance and the woman suffrage movements as well as Spiritualism.

9a. Lucy Stone

Woman’s Journal 3–­5 Park St. In 1870, Lucy Stone (1818–­93) and her husband Henry Blackwell (1825–­1909) founded the Woman’s Journal, the influential weekly newspaper of the American Woman Suffrage Association. Among the journal’s prestigious editors or contributors were Julia Ward Howe, Louisa May Alcott, and William Lloyd Garrison.

9b. Lucy Stone, Julia Ward Howe, et al.

The Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association 3–­5 Park St. See Plate 36.

10. Caroline Severance, Julia Ward Howe, et al.

The New England Women’s Club 4–­5 Park St. Founded in 1868, the New England Women’s Club was one of the first women’s clubs in the country

and a vital part of Boston women’s efforts to promote civic reform and to empower themselves through meetings, activities, lectures, and mutual support. Reformer and suffragist Caroline Severance (1820–­1914) was the first president, followed by the long tenure of Julia Ward Howe (1819–­1910).

11. Anna Eliot Ticknor

Amory-­Ticknor House Home, Meeting Place, and Lending Library 9 Park St. Author and educator Anna Eliot Ticknor (1823–­96) was a pioneer in long-­distance learning. Founder of the Society to Encourage Studies at Home (1873), she employed 183 instructors to do one-­on-­one teaching with women students by mailing them books and photos and engaging in handwritten correspondence.

12. Milliners and Dress Reform Parlors

Hamilton Pl., Winter St., and Temple Pl. These short streets running between Tremont and Washington Streets contained a variety of shops for women in the late 1800s and early 1900s, including milliners and “Dress Reform Parlors,” where women could buy clothes that freed them from the restrictive fashions of the day.

13. Boston Normal School

Girls’ High and Normal School Adams School Building Mason St. Though many conservative Bostonians opposed offering girls more than a grammar school education, preparing them to become teachers seemed like a nonthreatening option. As a result, Boston Normal School was created in 1852 to train young women to teach in primary and grammar schools. In 1854 the school became Girls’ High and Normal School (see Plate 18).

14. Mary J. B. Lincoln

Boston Cooking School 174 Tremont St. In 1879, cook, educator, and author Mary J. B. Lincoln (1844–­1921) was hired by the Women’s Education Association to become an instructor and the first principal of the Boston Cooking School. Lincoln’s cookbooks became influential in improving nutrition and hygiene in the American home. The school’s best-­known student and, later, director was Fannie Farmer (1857–­1915).

15. Emily Greene Balch, Vida Scudder, and Helena Dudley

Denison House 93 Tyler St. In 1892, Wellesley College instructors Emily Greene Balch (1867–­1961) and Vida Scudder (1861–­1954) founded Denison House, the third settlement house in the nation. The woman-­run institution, headed by Helena Dudley (1858–­1932), provided educational and social services to poor women, including recent immigrants (see Plate 37).

16. Frances Stern and Isabel Hyams

The Louisa May Alcott Club 9 Rochester St. Social worker and nutritionist Frances Stern (1873–­ 1947), along with Isabel Hyams (1865–­1932), established the Louisa May Alcott Club in 1895. The self-­governing club served eleven-­to seventeen-­year-­ old girls, all immigrants or children of immigrants, teaching them English, cooking, and sewing.

17. Rebecca Lee Crumpler

Home and Medical Office 67 Joy St. Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler (1831–­95) is considered to be the first African-­American woman doctor. She received a “Doctress of Medicine” in 1864 from the New England Female Medical College in Boston’s

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South End, which later merged into the Boston University School of Medicine.

18. Elizabeth Peabody

Early Kindergarten 15 Pinckney St. With the financial backing of Pauline Agassiz Shaw (1841–­1917), innovative thinker, publisher, and educator Elizabeth Peabody (1804–­94) established the first formally organized American kindergartens, resulting in thirty-­one nurseries and kindergartens in Boston (see Plate 17).

19. Portia School of Law

45–­47 Mount Vernon St. Named for the woman who disguised herself as a lawyer in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, Portia School of Law began in 1908 when two women asked Attorney Arthur MacLean to tutor them for the Massachusetts bar examination. Portia expanded into the only school providing legal education solely for women.

20. Pauline Durant

Boston Young Women’s Christian Association 77 Mt. Vernon St. The first YWCA in the nation was created in 1866 after thirty women met at the home of Pauline Durant (1832–­1917), determined to assist young rural women moving to the city with housing, employment, education, cultural experiences, and physical exercise at a variety of downtown sites. Durant served as president of the YWCA from 1866 until 1905.

21. Julia Ward Howe

Home and Meeting Place 13 Chestnut St. Though best known as the author of The Battle Hymn of the Republic, Julia Ward Howe (1819–­1910) was a noted reformer who helped found the Woman’s Journal and was a leader in the women’s club movement and the woman suffrage movement.

22. Anne Whitney

Sculpture Studio and Home 92 Mt. Vernon St. Though women were actively discouraged from pursuing careers as professional artists in the 1800s, abolitionist and suffragist Anne Whitney (1821–­1915) began as a poet, then molded a successful career as one of America’s leading sculptors.

23. The Sisters of St. Margaret

St. Margaret’s Convent 19 Louisburg Sq. Originally founded in 1855 in Sussex, England, to care for the poor and ill, the Sisters of St. Margaret, an Episcopalian religious community, came to Boston in 1873 to act as superintendents of a children’s hospital. These townhouses served as convent, chapel, and small hospital.

24. Louisa May Alcott

Author’s Last Home 10 Louisburg Sq. Louisa May Alcott (1832–­88) was an active abolitionist, suffragist, and writer, best known as the author of the hugely successful classic novel Little Women (1868). She and her father, Bronson, lived at 10 Louisburg Square during the last three years of their lives (see Plate 17).

25. Annie Adams Fields

Literary Salon 148 Charles St. (originally number 37) Annie Adams Fields (1834–­1915), wife of publishing magnate James T. Fields and, later, life partner to author Sarah Orne Jewett (1849–­1909), created a hub for Boston literary life with literary salons that included Cather, Dickens, Emerson, Hawthorne, Holmes, Longfellow, and Stowe.

26. Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin

Woman’s Era 103 Charles St. In 1894 Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin (1842–­1924) organized the Woman’s Era Club, a group focused on African-­American women’s issues. She also founded Woman’s Era, the first newspaper published by and for African-­American women, and was a charter member of the NAACP.

27. Mary Pickard Winsor

Miss Winsor’s School 95–­96 Beacon St. In 1886 Mary Pickard Winsor (1880–­1950) started a six-­month school to develop “competent, responsible, generous-­minded women” and prepare them for college. The Winsor School expanded, moved to its modern-­day location on Pilgrim Road in 1910, and is still one of the top ten prep schools in America.

28. Julia Paget

Swan Boats Lagoon at the Public Garden See Plate 36.

29. Boston YWCA

Working Girls Home 68 Warrenton St. In 1873 the Boston YWCA built a six-­story double house building here for “the good of working women.” This Working Girls Home offered housing as well as training with the hope of finding “new and proper avenues of employment for women” as well as “to protect them in their rights.”

30. Ellen Swallow Richards

The New England Kitchen 142 Pleasant St. Boston women reformers set up facilities providing working women and immigrants with affordable lodging, public or “diet” kitchens, day nurseries, and health care. MIT’s Ellen Richards (1842–­1911) founded the New England Kitchen in 1890, which sold inexpensive and nutritious food to working-­ class Bostonians for them to take home and eat.

31. Dr. Marie Zakrzewska, Ednah Dow Cheney, and Dr. Susan Dimock New England Hospital for Women and Children 60 Pleasant St. See Plate 36.

32. Anna Clapp Harris Smith

Animal Rescue League of Boston 68 Carver St. See Plate 36.

33. Pauline Hopkins

The Colored American Magazine 5 Park Sq. See Plate 36.

34. Mary Kenney O’Sullivan

National Women’s Trade Union League 7 Park Sq. Mary Kenney O’Sullivan (1864–­1943) was one of the principal founders of the National Women’s Trade Union League in 1903. The Boston branch, which set up shop in Park Square, helped women workers form trade unions, provided relief, publicity, and general assistance for women’s unions on strike, and actively worked for woman suffrage.

35. Sarah Wyman Whitman

Lily Glass Works 184 Boylston St. Sarah Wyman Whitman (1842–­1904), working from her own Lily Glass Works studio, was a multitalented artist whose work included designing more than two hundred book covers for Houghton Mifflin and stained glass windows for Boston’s Trinity Church and Memorial Hall at Harvard.

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36. Various Women Entrepreneurs

The Women’s Block 184–­320 Boylston St. During the 1890s, this stretch of Back Bay was an unbroken row of multistory houses that included offices, shops, and studios, many of which were occupied by women working as dressmakers, milliners, physicians, teachers, photographers, and other artists.

37. Dr. Harriet Clisby

Women’s Educational and Industrial Union (WEIU) 356 Boylston St. Founded in 1877 by physician Dr. Harriet Clisby (1830–­1931), the WEIU provided support for Boston’s working women, including legal aid, social justice, and instructional courses. The group’s research arm drafted model legislation for both worker and consumer protection, and the WEIU opened the nation’s first credit union in 1913.

38. The Sewing Circle League

(Junior League of Boston) 142 Berkeley St. Boston’s “Sewing Circle League” grew out of the 1800s sewing circle tradition that engaged debutantes in sewing for Civil War soldiers and the poor. Established in 1907, this voluntary organization of women serving the community was renamed the Junior League of Boston in 1916, becoming the second Junior League in the country.

39. Amy Beach Home

28 Commonwealth Ave. The first U.S. woman to have a symphony performed by a professional orchestra, Amy Cheney Beach (1867–­1944) was a respected and prolific composer with more than three hundred published works in a wide range of genres: orchestral, opera, choral, chamber, solo songs, and works for piano.

40. National Association of Collegiate Alumnae

The College Club 40 Commonwealth Ave. Founded in 1890 to support higher education for women, the College Club is the oldest women’s college club in the United States. It was established by nineteen Boston women of the National Association of Collegiate Alumnae (today’s American Association of University Women).

41. Sarah Choate Sears Home

1 Commonwealth Ave. Like Isabella Stewart, artist Sarah Choate (1858–­1935) both inherited and married into wealth, financed travels and artistic studies for young talents, and collected original works of art. She was one of two women on the first board of the Society of Arts and Crafts, Boston.

42. Isabella Stewart Gardner Home

150–­152 Beacon St. Isabella Stewart Gardner (1840–­1924) was a wealthy art patron and collector who, through extensive foreign travels, amassed a fabulous collection of art treasures while living at this residence.

43. Harriet Hemenway

Massachusetts Audubon Society 272 Clarendon St. In 1896 Harriet Hemenway (1858–­1960) and her cousin Minna Hall (1851–­1941) started a successful campaign against the slaughter of birds for feathers to ornament women’s hats, resulting in the establishment of the Massachusetts Audubon Society, the nation’s first Audubon Society.

44. Julia Ward Howe

Home and Meeting Place 241 Beacon St. Julia Ward Howe (1819–­1910) moved to an apartment at this site in 1879. During this period, as president of the Massachusetts and New England Suffrage Associations, she worked nationally to negotiate the

reunion of the two branches of the suffrage association that split over the 15th Amendment.

45. Ellen Swallow Richards

Woman’s Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Annex to the Rogers Building 501 Boylston St. See Plate 36.

46. Alice Stone Blackwell

Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association and the Woman’s Journal 585 Boylston St., Chauncy Hall Alice Stone Blackwell (1857–­1950), daughter of Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell, was an activist for human rights, peace, and suffrage who edited the Woman’s Journal after her mother’s death and helped reconcile the two competing branches of the national suffrage movement. Chauncy Hall was described by the Boston American in 1913 as a “busy bee hive full of workers for women.”

47. Massachusetts Normal Art School

Southwest corner of Exeter and Newbury Sts. In 1870 the Commonwealth of Massachusetts funded the first government-­supported art school in the nation, the Massachusetts Normal School (later called the Massachusetts College of Art). Operating on this site from 1887 to 1929, it was open to anyone and free to teachers, and boasted more female than male alums by the end of the century.

48. Mary Elizabeth Haskell

The Haskell School for Girls 314 Marlborough St. Boston had a long tradition of establishing independent school for girls, several of which began in Back Bay. Among them was the progressive Haskell School, founded by Mary Elizabeth Haskell (1873–­1964), who nurtured promising young women and immigrants. The school operated here from 1903 to 1919.

49. Fannie Farmer

Miss Farmer’s School of Cookery 30 Huntington Ave. See Plate 36.

50. Boston Normal School

Dartmouth St. By 1872, concern that the “normal,” or teacher-­ training, element of Girls’ High and Normal School had been absorbed by the high school and that the teacher-­training aspect had lost its independent, professional character convinced the School Committee to split the courses into two separate institutions. The Normal School relocated to Dartmouth Street in 1878.

51. Susie King Taylor

Home 23 Holyoke St. Born enslaved, then freed when her family escaped to the Union Army, Susie King Taylor (1848–­1912) became an army teacher and nurse and helped organize and preside over Corps 67 of the GAR women’s auxiliary. Her book, A Black Woman’s Civil War Memoirs, was published in 1902.

52. Harriet Tubman Crusaders

Harriet Tubman House 25 Holyoke St. The Harriet Tubman Crusaders, an African-­ American branch of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union in Boston, established the Harriet Tubman House in 1904 as a residence for black women who were excluded from the city’s college dormitories and “respectable” rooming houses.

53. Girls’ Latin School

West Newton St. The move to create a college preparatory Latin School for girls was the work of three organizations—­

the Education Committee of the New England Women’s Club, the Women’s Education Association, and the Massachusetts Society for the University Education of Women. Established in 1878 (and today known as the Boston Latin Academy), GLS was the first college prep high school for girls in the U.S.

54. Lucretia Crocker

Home 40 Rutland Sq. Appointed in 1876 as the first woman supervisor in the Boston Public Schools, Lucretia Crocker (1829–­ 86) pioneered the discovery method of teaching mathematics and the natural sciences during her decade-­long tenure.

55. Mary Baker Eddy

The First Church of Christ, Scientist 210 Massachusetts Ave. See Plate 36.

56. Isabella Stewart Gardner Fenway Court 280 The Fenway See Plate 36.

57. Simmons Female College

300 The Fenway When John Simmons of Boston died, he left the bulk of his fortune for an institution that would teach whatever types of art, science, and industry might best enable women to earn an independent livelihood. Established in 1899, Simmons originally trained women to be household economists, secretaries, librarians, scientists, horticulturists, and social workers.

58. Lucy Wheelock

Miss Wheelock’s Kindergarten Training School 100 The Riverway Educator Lucy Wheelock (1857–­1946) founded her eponymous training school in 1888 to provide teachers skills in, and understanding of, early childhood education. Her school was at the forefront of the kindergarten movement nationally and moved through several downtown locations before finally settling into newly constructed facilities on Boston’s Riverway. It was reincorporated as Wheelock College in 1939.

S o urc es Text and map locations Karen J. Blair, The Clubwoman as Feminist: True Womanhood Redefined, 1868–­1914 (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1980); Ednah D. Cheney, “The Women of Boston,” in The Memorial History of Boston, ed. Justin Winsor (Boston: Ticknor and Company, 1881), 4:331–­56; J. North Conway, New England Women of Substance: Fifteen Who Made a Difference (North Attleboro, MA: Covered Bridge Press, 1996); Sarah Deutsch, Women and the City: Gender, Space and Power in Boston, 1870–­1940 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000); Virginia G. Drachman, Hospital with a Heart: Women Doctors and the Paradox of Separatism at the New England Hospital, 1862–­1969 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984); Alica Faxon and Sylvia Moore, eds., Pilgrims and Pioneers: New England Women in the Arts (New York: Midmarch Arts Press, 1987); Erica E. Hirshler, A Studio of Her Own: Women Artists in Boston, 1870–­1940 (Boston: MFA Publications, 2001); Edward T. James, ed., Notable American Woman: A Biographical Dictionary, 1607–­1950 (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1971); Polly Welts Kaufman, Jean Gibran, Sylvia McDowell, and Mary Howland Smoyer, eds., Boston Women’s Heritage Trail, rev. 3rd ed. (Boston: Boston Women’s Heritage Trail, 2006); Polly Welts Kaufman, Boston Women and City School Politics, 1872–­1905 (New York: Garland Publishing, 1994); Leslie Larson, “292, 296–­300, 306 Boylston Street, Boston, and Their Block” (unpublished manuscript, Boston Public Library, March 22, 1984); Thomas H. O’Connor, The Athens of America: Boston,

1825–­1845 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2006); Mary Melvin Petronella, ed., Victorian Boston Today: Twelve Walking Tours (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2004); Susan L. Porter, ed., Women of the Commonwealth: Work, Family, and Social Change in Nineteenth-­Century Massachusetts (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1996); Suzanne M. Spencer-­Wood, “Diversity and Nineteenth-­Century Domestic Reform: Relationships among Classes and Ethnic Groups,” in Those ‘of Little Note’: Gender, Race and Class in Historical Archaeology, ed. Elizabeth M. Scott (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1994), 175–­208; Robert W. Roberts and Helen Northen, eds., Theories of Social Work with Groups (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), 6; Erica Harth, “Founding Mothers of Social Justice: The Women’s Educational and Industrial Union of Boston, 1877–­1892,” Historical Journal of Massachusetts 28, no. 2 (1999):140–­ 65; George Washington Bromley, Atlas of the city of Boston, city proper and Roxbury, from actual surveys and official plans (Philadelphia: G. W. Bromley & Co., 1890), http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/14421567; The Boston Directory (Boston: Sampson, Davenport & Co., 1865, 1875), The Boston Directory (Boston: Sampson & Murdock Co., 1870, 1872, 1885, 1905), all at http:// dca.lib.tufts.edu/features/bostonstreets/people/ directories.html#browse; North Bennet St. Industrial School: http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/immigration/nbss. html; Massachusetts State Nurses Association: http:// www.massnurses.org/about-­mna/history; Edmonia Lewis: http://www.oberlin.edu/external/EOG/ womenshist/women.html, http://www.lkwdpl.org/ wihohio/lewi-­edm.htm; Denison House: http://ocp. hul.harvard.edu/immigration/denison.html, www.gale. cengage.com/pdf/scguides/denison/denisonrollconts. pdf; Josephine Ruffin: http://www.pbs.org/ blackpress/news_bios/newbios/nwsppr/Biogrphs/ josephruff/joseph.html, http://www.masshumanities. org/shwlp/honorees/ruffin.html, http://www. amistadresearchcenter.org/archon/?p=collections/ findingaid&id=52&q=&rootcontentid=32101; New England Hospital for Women and Children: http:// www.jphs.org/victorian/hospital-­founded-­by-­women-­ for-­women.html; Women’s Trade Union League: http:// womenshistory.about.com/od/worklaborunions/a/ wtul_2.htm; Women’s Educational and Industrial Union: http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/immigration/weiu. html; Ellen Swallow Richards: http://web.mit.edu/ newsoffice/2011/timeline-­richards-­0126.html; Girls’ Latin School: http://blagls.org/; Gardner Museum: http://www.gardnermuseum.org/the_museum/ timeline.asp. Map Boston and Surroundings (Boston: Walker Lithograph and Publishing Company, 1910). Illustrations Suffrage Parade in Boston, 1914—­Courtesy of the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University Mother Church—­photo © 2011 by Susan Wilson All other images—­courtesy Susan Wilson’s archival collection and the Boston Women’s Heritage Trail

PLATE 37—­Social Service Institutions, c. 1900

Sources Text Robert A. Woods, ed., The City Wilderness: A Settlement Study, South End, Boston (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1898); Robert A. Woods, ed., Americans in Process: A Settlement Study, North and West Ends, Boston (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1903); Allen F. Davis, Spearheads of Reform: The Social Settlements and the Progressive Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967). Maps William I. Cole, comp., “Map to Show the Chief Institutions and Meeting Places in the West End, Boston,” in Americans in Process: A Settlement

a d d itiona l infor m ation , so u rces , an d cre d its   181

Study, ed. Robert A. Woods (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1903), 320; William I. Cole, comp., “Map to Show the Chief Institutions and Meeting Places in the North End, Boston,” in Americans in Process: A Settlement Study, ed. Robert A. Woods (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1903), 288; “Map to Show the Chief Institutions and Meeting Places in a Part of the South End, Boston,” in The City Wilderness: A Settlement Study, ed. Robert A. Woods (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1898). Illustrations Saturday Evening Girls—­Courtesy of the University Archives & Special Collections Department, Joseph P. Healey Library, University of Massachusetts Boston, from Barbara Kramer: Saturday Evening Girls papers Lace making class at Denison House—­Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University South End House outing and music students—­Courtesy of James Green

PLATE 38—­Boston in 1910

A ddit io na l in f orm at i o n

Boston’s Population 1850–­1910 1850

136,881

1860

177,840

1870

250,526

1880

362,839

1890

448,477

1900

560,892

1910

670,585

Source: “Largest cities in the United States by population by decade,” last modified 17 April 2012, http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Largest_cities_in_the_United_States_by_population_by_ decade

Sources Text, maps, and graphs Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Census of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1905, vol. 1, Population and Social Statistics (Boston: Wright and Potter, 1909), 94–­104, tables 61–­65; U.S. Bureau of the Census, Thirteenth Census of the United States, 1910, vol. 2, Population (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1913), 890, table 5; Boston School Committee, Boston Public Schools, District Maps, 1903 (Boston, 1903); U.S. Bureau of the Census, Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900, vol. 8, pt. 2, Manufacturers (Washington, DC: U.S. Census Office, 1902), 371–­77, table 7; The Boston Directory (Boston: Sampson and Murdock, 1906); George W. Bromley, Atlas of the City of Boston, Boston Proper and Back Bay (Philadelphia: G. W. Bromley & Co., 1908); George W. Bromley, Atlas of the City of Boston, Ward 25, Brighton (Philadelphia: G. W. Bromley & Co., 1909); George W. Bromley, Atlas of the City of Boston, Charlestown and East Boston (Philadelphia: G. W. Bromley & Co., 1912); Robert A. Woods, ed., Americans in Process: A Settlement Study (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1902); “Largest cities in the United States by population by decade,” last modified 17 April 2012, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_cities_ in_the_United_States_by_population_by_decade. Illustrations Arthur J. Krim, “The Three-­Deckers of Dorchester: An Architectural Historical Survey,” Boston Landmarks Commission, 1977; Report of Tenement-­House Commission, [Boston] City Document No. 77 (Boston: City Printers, 1904)

PLATE 39—­1910 Mayoral Election

Sources Text Doris Kearns Goodwin, The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys: An American Saga (New York: McMillan,

1987); John Henry Cutler, Honey Fitz: Three Steps from the White House (Indianapolis: Bobbs-­Merrill, 1962); Jack Beatty, The Rascal King: The Life and Times of James Michael Curley, 1874–­1958 (Reading, MA: Addison-­Wesley, 1992); Henry Greenleaf Pearson, Son of New England: James Jackson Storrow, 1864–­1926 (Boston: Thomas Todd Printers, 1932). Map U.S. Bureau of the Census, Thirteenth Census of the United States, 1910, vol. 2, Population (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1913), 890, table 5; Annual Report of the Board of Election Commissioners for the Year Ending January 31, 1910 (Boston: Printing Department, 1910). Illustrations Recounting votes, “Honey Fitz” and family, Storrow, Fitzgerald handing out turkeys—­from G. Frank Radway, Brahmins & Bullyboys: G. Frank Radway’s Boston Album, ed. Stephen Halpert and Brenda Halpert (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1973), used with permission of Stephen Halpert Curley portrait—­Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library

PLATE 40—­The Long Depression, 1920–­1960

S o urc es Text Charles H. Trout, Boston: The Great Depression and the New Deal (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977); “Boston,” Fortune (February 1933): 27–­36, 105–­6; Robert R. Mullen, “Poor Old Boston,” Forum 103 (May 1940): 234–­43; Michael P. Conzen and George K. Lewis, Boston: A Geographical Portrait (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1976); Stephan Thernstrom, The Other Bostonians: Poverty and Progress in the American Metropolis, 1880–­1970 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973). Maps Closed firms Peter Stott, A Guide to the Industrial Archaeology of Boston Proper (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1984).

Neighborhood population c h a n g e s 1 9 5 0 –­1 9 6 0 Data from U.S. Census Bureau, 1950 Census of Population and Housing, Boston Massachusetts (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1952) and 1960 Census of Population and Housing, Boston Massachusetts (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1962), prepared by Greg Perkins, Boston Redevelopment Authority Research Department. Graphs Per capita personal income U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Regional Economic Accounts Data, Table SA04 Annual State Personal Income, http://bea.gov/regional/index.htm. Changes in neighborhood property values Robert F. Engle and John Avault, Residential Property Market Values in Boston (Boston: Boston Redevelopment Authority Research Department, 1973). Values adjusted to constant dollars with the U.S. Cities CPI-­U (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics). Boston job loss Employment for Massachusetts and Suffolk County: U.S. Department of Commerce, County Business Patterns Massachusetts 1951 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1953); U.S. Department of Commerce, County Business Patterns, Massachusetts 1962 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1964). Boston contains about 96 percent of Suffolk County employment. Photographs Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library

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PLATE 41—­Public Housing, 1935–­2010

Sources Text and main map Boston Housing Authority, Data on Racial Occupancy, on Public Housing unit numbers, and on Section 8. Assembled from raw data available in various places in the Boston Housing Authority archives and from various Annual Reports. Other data from U.S. Bureau of the Census, Decennial Census of Population and Housing, 2010, https://www.census.gov/; U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, “Assisted Housing: National and Local,” 1996–­2009, http://www.huduser.org/portal/datasets/assthsg.html, accessed May 27, 2012; U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, “Multifamily Assistance and Section 8 Contracts Database,” 2012, http://portal.hud. gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/program_offices/housing/ mfh/exp/mfhdiscl, accessed May 27, 2012. Almshouse maps 1676—­http://www.mass.gov/anf/research-­and-­tech/ it-­serv-­and-­support/application-­serv/office-­of-­ geographic-­information-­massgis/datalayers/ tidelands.html; Samuel C. Clough, “Map of the Town of Boston 1676: drawn by Samuel C. Clough in accordance with information compiled from the records of the Colony, Town, Registry of Deeds, Suffolk Probate, and Supreme Court; Book of Possessions, Winthrop Journal, Lechford Note Book, Aspinwall’s Notes and City Surveys,” MS map, c. 1920, Clough Collection, Courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society. 1800—­Osgood Carleton, An Accurate Plan of the Town of Boston and Its Vicinity . . . (Boston: Osgood Carleton, 1797); Osgood Carleton, A Plan of Boston: from Actual Survey (Boston: John West, 1803); Peter Tufts Jr., Plan of Charlestown Peninsula in the State of Massachusetts, From Actual Survey, 1818 (Boston: Annin & Smith, 1818); Alexander S. Wadsworth, Chart of Boston Harbour: surveyed in 1817 (Philadelphia: John Melish, 1819). 1826—­see sources for 1828 shoreline on Plate 25; Nancy S. Seasholes, Gaining Ground: A History of Landmaking in Boston (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003), Fig. 10.1. 1856—­Survey of the Coast of the United States, Boston Harbor, Massachusetts (1856); J. Slatter and B. Callan, Map of the City of Boston, Massts. (Boston: L. N. Ide, 1852); H. McIntyre, Map of the City of Boston and Immediate Neighborhood (Boston: H. McIntyre, 1852). Graphs Reprinted by permission of the publishers from Lawrence J. Vale, From the Puritans to the Projects: Public Housing and Public Neighbors (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), 301–­4, © 2000 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.

PLATE 42—­Boston in 1950

A ddi t i ona l i nf ormat i on Weather beacon on 1947 John Hancock building The lights in the beacon indicate the weather prediction, which can be identified with this rhyme: Steady blue, clear view Flashing blue, clouds due Steady red, storms ahead Flashing red, snow instead

Boston’s Population 1910–­1950 1910

670,585

1920

748,060

1930

781,188

1940

770,816

1950

801,444

Source: “Largest cities in the United States by population by decade,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_cities_in_the_ United_States_by_population_by_decade.

Sources Text U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1950 Census of Population and Housing, Boston (Washington, DC: The Bureau, 1952); Jim Vrabel, When in Boston: A Timeline & Almanac (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2004); Lawrence W. Kennedy, Planning the City upon a Hill: Boston since 1630 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1994). Maps and graphs “Largest cties in the United States by population by decade,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_cities_ in_the_United_States_by_population_by_decade; U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1950 Census of Population and Housing, Boston (Washington, DC: The Bureau, 1952). Photographs Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library

PLATE 43—­Addition of Land, 1880–­2003

Sources Text and landmaking projects Nancy S. Seasholes, Gaining Ground: A History of Landmaking in Boston (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003); “The New Highway to the North Shore: Big Cut Being Made in Breeds Island . . . ,” Boston Globe, August 14, 1932; Ernest Hill, “Asylum Hill Dumped into River,” Boston Globe, September 6, 1931; “John T. Scully Foundation and Transportation Company,” Cambridge Chronicle, May 6, 1911; “First Street Dump,” Cambridge Chronicle, September 9, 1893; “The Boston Woven Hose & Rubber Co. at Work on an Extensive Addition to Its Plant,” Cambridge Chronicle, August 20, 1892; Susan E. Maycock, East Cambridge, rev. ed., Survey of Architectural History in Cambridge (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988), 38–­42; Charles M. Sullivan, email messages to Nancy S. Seasholes, June 9, 2017, June 15, 2017, June 16, 2017, September 13, 2017, November 30, 2017; Cambridge Park Department, Annual Report, 1899, 255–­56. Map 1880 shoreline—­see sources for Plate 25; Other shorelines—­c. 1930 aerial photo of area between Breed’s and Noddle’s Islands, Boston Public Library; U.S. Coast & Geodetic Survey, Boston Harbor, Massachusetts, Chart 246 (Washington, DC, 1896); 1923, 1947, 1952, 1969 aerials of Millers River from Cambridge Historical Commission; Cambridge Park Commission, Plan Showing Restrictions on Land of Charles River Embankment Company, 1897, in Cambridge Park Department, Annual Report, 1897; https://mapjunction. com/mj/start/boston—­1995 Boston aerial, 2003 Boston aerial; Arthur A. Shurcliff, Charles River Basin: General Plan, June 1931 in Annual Report of the Metropolitan District Commission for 1931, [Massachusetts] Public Document No. 48 (1931); July 10, 1934, aerial of Back Bay and Charles River Basin, The Bostonian Society; Arthur A. Shurcliff and Sidney N. Shurcliff, Storrow Memorial Embankment: Plan of Additions and Changes under the Requirements of Chapter 262, Acts of 1949, August 1949 in Sidney N. Shurcliff, “Boston’s Proposed Development on the Charles River,” Landscape Architecture 40, no. 1 (1949): 20; 1983 aerial photograph of Boston by Alex MacLean; November 11, 1923, aerial of Back Bay and Charles River Basin, The Bostonian Society; Boston Embankment: Cambridge Bridge to Harvard Bridge, 1906 in Fourth Annual Report of the Charles River Basin Commission, December 1, 1906, [Massachusetts] Public Document No. 71 (1907); Boston Park Department, Charles River Embankment, Section A, 1880 in Fifth Annual Report of the Boston Park Department for1879, [Boston] City Document No. 15 (1880); Frederick Law Olmstead, Plan of Charlesbank, 1892; 1965 aerial of Roxbury Canal and Dorchester Brook; U.S. Coast & Geodetic Survey, Boston Harbor, Massachusetts, Chart 246 (Washington, DC, 1911); Plan of Part of Boston Harbor Showing Improvements Made

In Its Channels by the United States and Commonwealth of Massachusetts. To Accompany Report of Harbor & Land Commissioners for the Year 1883, [Massachusetts] Public Document No. 11 (1884); April 20, 1951 aerial photo of the Calf Pasture, Aerial Photographic Map of City of Boston, Mass., sheets 5 and 6, Massachusetts State Archives. Photograph Courtesy Massachusetts State Archives

PLATE 44—­Highways and Airport, 1920–­1973

S o urc es Text Commission on Metropolitan Improvements, Public Improvements for the Metropolitan District (Boston: Wright & Potter, 1909), 39–­41, 189–­95, https://archive. org/details/publicimprovemen00mass; Karl Haglund, email message to Nancy S. Seasholes, January 21, 2015; Nancy S. Seasholes, Gaining Ground: A History of Landmaking in Boston (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003), 342–­43, 346, 206; Charles A. Maguire and Associates, Master Highway Plan for the Boston Metropolitan Area (Boston: s.n., 1948), https://archive. org/details/masterhighwaypla00char; http://www. bostonroads.com/roads/east-­boston/; City Planning Board, Summary of Projects Reprinted from a Report on a Thoroughfare Plan for Boston (Boston: s.n., 1930); O. D. Fellows, “Highways of the Boston Metropolitan District, Their Origin and Evolution,” Journal of the Boston Society of Civil Engineers 26, no. 4 (1939): 267–­ 77; http://www.mit.edu/~jfc/Route%202.html; Boston (Mass.) Mayor’s Conference on Traffic, The Motorists’ Case for a Central Traffic Artery [Boston: Printing Dept., 1941]; Yanni Tsipis, Boston’s Central Artery (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2001); James C. O’Connell, The Hub’s Metropolis: Greater Boston’s Development from Railroad Suburbs to Smart Growth (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2013), 149; Yanni K. Tsipis, Building the Mass Pike (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2002); http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_ Massachusetts_Turnpike; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Interstate_93; http://www.bostonroads.com/roads/ inner-­belt/; Jim Vrabel, A People’s History of the New Boston (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2014), 139–­49; Alan Lupo, Frank Colcord, and Edmund P. Fowler, Rites of Way: The Politics of Transportation in Boston and the U.S. City (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971); Boston Transportation Planning Review, Final Study, Summary Report, February 1973 (Boston: Executive Office of Transportation and Construction, 1973), https://archive.org/details/finalstudysummar00bost. Highway map Stephen P. Carlson, “A Century of Transportation,” in A Gathering of Memories: Saugus, 1900–­2000, ed. John J. Burns and Thomas F. Sheehan (Saugus, MA: The Saugus Millennium Book Committee, 2000), 388–­96; Michael M. Coates, Our Medford: An Elementary Guide to the History of Medford (Medford, MA: Medford Historical Society & Museum, 2016), www. medfordhistorical.org/wp-­content/uploads/2016/06/ coates_our_medford.pdf; Karl Haglund, Inventing the Charles River (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003); Arthur J. Krim, Report Five: Northwest Cambridge, Survey of Architectural History in Cambridge (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge Historical Commission, 1977); Landscape Research, Beyond the Neck: The Architecture and Development of Somerville, Massachusetts (Somerville, MA: Office of Planning and Community Development, 1982); Allan Lasser, “Charlesgate: Palimpsest of Urban Planning,” New Errands 1, no. 1 (2013): 31–­41, https://journals.psu.edu/ ne/article/view/59130, accessed February 25, 2017; David Luberoff, “The Roads Not Taken: How One Powerful Choice Made All the Difference,” Architecture Boston (Winter 2012): 28–­31, https://www.architects. org/architectureboston/articles/roads-­not-­taken, accessed May 31, 2017; Susan E. Maycock, East

Cambridge, rev. ed., Survey of Architectural History in Cambridge (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988); Susan E. Maycock and Charles M. Sullivan, Building Old Cambridge: Architecture and Development (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2016); Official Arrow Street Map Atlas Metropolitan Boston (Boston: Arrow Maps, Inc., 1973); Yanni Tsipis and David Kruh, Building Route 128 (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2003); Shell Map of Metropolitan Boston and Cape Cod (Chicago: H. M. Goushá Co., 1956), http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/ servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~212215~5500292:Shell-­ Metropolitan-­Boston-­and-­Vicin; Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Prepared for Chevron Oil Company—­Eastern Division, 1970 edition ([San Jose, CA]: H. M. Gousha Co., 1970); Commonwealth of Massachusetts, General Court, House Bill No. 52, 1935, http://archives.lib.state.ma.us/handle/2452/412122; A Report to Governor Foster Furcolo on the Massachusetts Highway Program and Other Department Activities, September 12, 1959 (Boston: Massachusetts Department of Public Works, 1959), https://archive.org/details/ reporttogovernor00mass_0; A Report of Progress to Governor John A. Volpe on the Massachusetts Highway Program and Other Department Activities, Fall 1961 (Boston: Massachusetts Department of Public Works, 1961), https://archive.org/details/ reporttogovernor961mass; A Report of Progress on the Massachusetts Highway Program, Fall 1962 (Boston: Massachusetts Department of Public Works, 1962), https://archive.org/details/reporttogovernor962mass; Semiannual Report to Governor Francis W. Sargent on the Highway Program, July 1–­December 31, 1969 (Boston: Massachusetts Department of Public Works, 1969), https://archive.org/details/semiannualreport00mass; Summary 1965/1967 General Plan for the City of Boston and the Regional Core (Boston: Boston Redevelopment Authority, 1965), https://archive.org/ details/19651967generalp00bost; Steve Anderson, Boston Roads, http://www.bostonroads.com, accessed April 2016; Christopher Hail, Harvard/Radcliffe Online Reference Shelf: Cambridge Buildings and Architects, http://hul.harvard.edu/lib/archives/refshelf/cba/, accessed March 22, 2017; Massachusetts Historical Commission, “Massachusetts Cultural Resource Information System (MACRIS),” http://mhc-­macris. net, accessed June 2016, February–­March 2017; Gil Propp, “Boston’s Cancelled Highways,” http://www. bostonstreetcars.com/bostons-­cancelled-­highways. html, accessed May 18, 2016; “New Two Way Steel Bridge at Auburn Pl., Somerville, Completed and Open to Traffic,” Boston Globe, Feb. 8, 1927, 4; “Vote to Let Traffic on Old Colony Road,” Boston Globe, Nov. 3, 1928, 7; “Open Soldiers Field Rd Extension Within 10 Days,” Boston Globe, Oct. 31, 1929, 9; “New Thoroughfare Along the Charles,” Boston Globe, Nov. 21, 1929, 8; “Public May Use New Road Extension Today,” Boston Globe, Nov. 21, 1929, 20; “Alewife Brook Boulevard Extension Will Be Open to Traffic Next Week,” Boston Globe, June 27, 1930, 17; “New Centre St. Is Almost Ready for Traffic Through Roslindale,” Boston Globe, May 29, 1932, A6; “Completion of Overpass Forecasts Opening of New Road in Early August,” Boston Globe, June 18, 1932, 3; “Completing New Super-­Highway,” Boston Globe, July 10, 1932, A39; “Monsignor McGrath Highway Bill Signed,” Boston Globe, Mar. 19, 1933, A30; “Concrete to Flow on Newton Section of Boston-­Worcester New Road Soon,” Boston Globe, March 31, 1933, 14; “Road Detour Bulletin Out,” Boston Globe, April 7, 1933, 7; “Legion Highway Dedicated at Roslindale Exercises,” Boston Globe, June 12, 1933, 4; “Construction in Progress on Many Highways in State,” Boston Globe, July 3, 1934, 8; “Gala Dedication Planned for Revere-­ Boston Road,” Boston Globe, Oct. 3, 1934, 2; “East Boston-­Revere Road to be Opened Tomorrow,” Boston Globe, Oct. 7, 1934, A7; “V. F. W. to Dedicate Highway Next Week,” Boston Globe, Oct. 14, 1934, A21; “New Concord Highway to Open First of June,” Boston Globe, May 13, 1935, 7; “Watch Out for Detours!” Boston Globe,

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May 29, 1935, 12; “Gen. Edwards Memorial Bridge Dedicated at Point of Pines Before Crowd of 5000,” Boston Globe, Sept. 30, 1935, 16; “New ‘Freeway’ Plan for State,” Boston Globe, July 6, 1937, 3; “New Six-­Mile Peabody-­Danvers Road Opened,” Boston Globe, Nov. 9, 1937, 28; “Saugus-­Revere Highway to be Opened Today,” Boston Globe, Nov. 10, 1937, 29; “Route 1 to Be Dedicated Wednesday in Lynnfield, Honoring War Vets,” Boston Globe, June 5, 1949, C40; “State to Rush $20 Million Bypass Road,” Boston Globe, July 6, 1949, 1; “O’Brien Highway Suggested,” Boston Globe, Nov. 23, 1949, 10; Gene Casey, “State’s First Super Road Will Be Big Traffic Aid,” Boston Globe, June 11, 1950, C1; “Completed Section of Storrow Drive to Open Friday,” Boston Globe, Oct. 31, 1950, 1; “Eliot Bridge Opens for Traffic Today,” Boston Globe, Jan. 24, 1951, 2; “Embankment Rd. Opens Tomorrow to 2-­Way Traffic,” Boston Globe, June 14, 1951, 1; Joseph F. Dinneen Jr., “Motorists Overrun Route 128,” Boston Globe, Aug 24, 1951, 1; “Logan Expressway Will Open Tomorrow,” Boston Globe, Sept. 22, 1951, 3; “Construction Started Near Anderson Bridge,” Harvard Crimson, Feb. 6, 1954, http://www.thecrimson.com/ article/1954/2/6/construction-­started-­near-­anderson-­ bridge-­pconstruction/; William J. Lewis, “Storrow Drive to Be Widened to Six Lanes,” Boston Globe, July 30, 1954, 1; “State to Open Section of Central Artery at Noon Tomorrow,” Boston Globe, Oct. 28, 1954, 1; William J. Lewis, “New Artery Span Saves 23 Minutes,” Boston Globe, Oct. 30, 1954, 1; “Section of Route 3 Relocation Will Open to Traffic Tuesday,” Boston Globe, Nov. 14, 1954, C22; “Northbound Lane of Artery Opens,” Boston Globe, Dec. 23, 1954, 2; “New Rte. 128 Section Opening on Monday,” Boston Globe, July 23, 1955, 22; “Herter to Help Dedicate New Lynnway Wednesday,” Boston Globe, July 31, 1955, C24; “New Hub Artery Link to Be Opened Tuesday,” Boston Globe, Oct. 30, 1955, 21; “New Bridge Will Span Soldiers Field Highway,” Harvard Crimson, Dec. 21, 1955, http://www.thecrimson.com/ article/1955/12/21/new-­bridge-­will-­span-­soldiers-­ field/; “Central Artery Section, 3 Ramps to Open at 9:30,” Boston Globe, Dec. 29, 1955, 1; Frederick H. Guidry, “Additions to MDC Street System Spur Plans to Integrate Parkways,” Christian Science Monitor, Aug. 3, 1956, 2; “Express Link Through Chelsea To Open Friday,” Boston Globe, Nov. 6, 1957, 12; “New Road Link Along the Charles To Be Opened Today,” Boston Globe, Dec. 17, 1957, 14; “Expressway Segment Opens Tomorrow North of Neponset,” Boston Globe, June 29, 1958, 11; “Northeast Expressway Link Opens Tomorrow,” Boston Globe, Sept. 16, 1958, 1; “Expressway Span Over Neponset to Open Tomorrow,” Boston Globe, Oct. 12, 1958, 68; “Open Quincy-­Braintree Link of Expressway on Nov. 1st,” Boston Globe, Oct. 27, 1958, 14; “Open Artery Tunnel at 11 A.M. Today,” Boston Globe, Nov. 21, 1958, 13; A. S. Plotkin, “Hub Artery, Expressway Join Today,” Boston Globe, June 25, 1959, 1; “New Link Opens Tuesday, Speeds Cape Travel,” Boston Globe, June 28, 1959, 48; A. S. Plotkin, “Missing Link to Cape Cod Next on Highway Program,” Boston Globe, Sept. 4, 1959, 1; “New Rte. 128 Link To Open Friday,” Boston Globe, Dec. 16, 1959, 17; “15-­Mile Strip Open Friday,” Boston Globe, May 22, 1960, 30; “Braintree Road Opening Extended,” Boston Globe, July 4, 1960, 56; A. S. Plotkin, “Narrow Winding Road: History of 128 Dates from the {~?~TN: PAGE \# “’Page: ‘#’’” Typesetter, make apostrophe curve away from numeral 20.}’20s,” Boston Globe, June 25, 1961, C2; “New Callahan Tube to Be Ready for Cars Saturday,” Boston Globe, Nov. 7, 1961, 7; Paul E. McBride, “Great Strides Taken in Meeting Transport Needs,” Boston Globe, Jan. 2, 1966, A35; “Mystic Bridge Gets New Name Wednesday,” Boston Globe, June 11, 1967, 77; A. S. Plotkin, “When Boston’s Newest Gateway Opens, Will It Solve or Create Traffic Problems?” Boston Globe, Feb. 20, 1972, 74A; “I-­93 to Open on Limited Basis Tuesday,” Boston Globe, Jan. 31, 1973, 31; A. S. Plotkin, “Hub’s I-­93 Link Opens Today—­ Sort Of,” Boston Globe, Feb. 6, 1973, 3; “Buses to Get Direct Access to New I-­93 Link Tomorrow,” Boston

Globe, Mar. 13, 1973, 8; “I-­93 Ramp to Be Open except from 4–­7 p.m.,” Boston Globe, Mar. 24, 1973, 3; “DPW Extends Northbound Use of I-­93 Ramp,” Boston Globe, June 8, 1973, 5; Jack Thomas, “Transportation—­a Revolution Barely Begun,” Boston Globe, June 24, 1973, C58; A. S. Plotkin, “State Will Lift Restrictions Monday for All Northbound I-­93 Traffic,” Boston Globe, Aug. 11, 1973, 17. USGS quadrangles Norwood, Mass., Edition of 1941, 1:31,680 [http://docs. unh.edu/nhtopos/Norwood7.5MA.htm]; Newton, Mass., Edition of 1946, 1:31,680 [http://docs.unh.edu/nhtopos/ Newton7.5MA.htm]; Reading, Mass., Edition of 1944, 1:31,680 [http://docs.unh.edu/nhtopos/Reading7.5MA. htm]; Salem, Mass., Edition of 1944, 1:31,680 [http:// docs.unh.edu/nhtopos/Salem7.5MA.htm]; Boston North, Mass., Edition of 1946, 1:31,680 [http://docs.unh. edu/nhtopos/BostonNorth7.5MA.htm]; Lynn, Mass., Edition of 1946, 1:31,680 [http://docs.unh.edu/nhtopos/ Lynn7.5MA.htm]; Reading, Mass., 1951, 1:31,680 [http:// docs.unh.edu/nhtopos/Reading7.5MA.htm]; Salem, Mass., 1949, 1:31,680 [http://docs.unh.edu/nhtopos/ Salem7.5MA.htm]; Reading, Mass., 1951, 1:24,000; Salem, Mass., 1956, 1:24,000; Reading, Mass., 1966, 7.5-­minute series (topographic), 1:24,000; Salem, Mass., 1970, 7.5-­minute series (topographic), 1:24,000; Boston North, Mass., 1971, 7.5-­minute series (topographic), 1:24,000; Boston South, Mass., 1970, 7.5-­minute series (topographic), 1:24,000; Boston South, Mass., 1970, photorevised 1979, 7.5-­minute series (topographic), 1:25,000. Airport map U.S. Coast & Geodetic Survey, Boston Harbor, Chart 246 (Washington, DC, 1915, 1923, 1940, 1949, 1969); National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration—­National Ocean Survey, Boston Harbor, Chart 13270 (Washington, DC, 1976); https://mapjunction.com/mj/start/ boston—­1952 aerial, 1969 aerial, 1977 aerial, 2016 aerial. Photograph November 11, 1923 photo of airport—­Courtesy of the Bostonian Society

PLATE 45—­Public Transportation, 1918–­1967

S o urc es Text Boston Elevated Railway Company, Fifty Years of Unified Transportation in Metropolitan Boston (Boston: The Company, 1938); Annual Reports of the Public Trustees of the Boston Elevated Railway (Boston: 1923–­1942); Bradley H. Clarke, The Boston Rapid Transit Album, Bulletin No. 17 (Cambridge, MA: Boston Street Railway Association, 1981); Bradley H. Clarke and O. R. Cummings, Tremont Street Subway: A Century of Public Service, Bulletin No. 22 (Boston: Boston Street Railway Association, 1997); Bradley H. Clarke, Streetcar Lines of the Hub: The 1940s, Heyday of Electric Transit in Boston, Bulletin No. 23 (Boston: Boston Street Railway Association, 2003); Brian J. Cudahy, Change at Park Street Under: The Story of Boston’s Subways (Brattleboro, VT: Stephen Greene Press, 1972); Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Report of the Metropolitan Transit Recess Commission, April 1, 1947 (Boston: Anchor Linotype Printing, 1947), https:// archive.org/details/reportofmetropol00mass_1. Large map [Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority], “A Chronicle of the Boston Transit System,” (unpublished report, 1981); Boston Redevelopment Authority, Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority System Route Map, July 1967 (Boston: Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, 1969); https://commons. wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1967_MBTA_system_map.jpg. Charlie and the MTA song Peter Dreier and Jim Vrabel, “Banned in Red Scare Boston: The Forgotten Story of Charlie and the M.T.A.,” Dissent (Spring 2008): 81–­96; Eric Moskowitz, “Charlie,

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Out from the Underground,” Boston Globe, December 26, 2010. Spider map Noah Bierman, “T’s Subway Maps, Putting Form before Function, May Not Help Commuters Navigate the World Above,” Boston Globe, September 27, 2009; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tube_map; “1973 MBTA rapid transit map card,” https://commons.wikimedia. org/wiki/File:1973_MBTA_rapid_transit_map_card.jpg; Paul Shaw, “The (Mostly) True Story of Helvetica and the New York City Subway,” November 18, 2008, http:// www.aiga.org/the-­mostly-­true-­story-­of-­helvetica-­and-­ the-­new-­york-­city-­subway/; Paul Shaw and Katrin Klingan, Helvetica and the New York City Subway System: The True (Maybe) Story (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011); Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, Manual of Guideline and Standards, Graphics V, Maps D2.0, Cambridge Seven Associate, Inc. [1967].

PLATE 46—­Relocation to the Suburbs, 1940–­1970

A ddi t i ona l i nf ormat i on Note on method used to calculate data for maps of ethnic/racial groups The populations of Jews and Italians are estimates, since the 1940 and 1970 censuses report country of origin only for the immigrant generation and, in many cases, their children (and do not report religion at all). Since the overwhelming majority of Boston’s immigrants from the U.S.S.R. were Jews, population estimates for Jews are based on census figures for immigrants from the U.S.S.R. The censuses provide exact numbers of persons born in Italy or the U.S.S.R.—­ and often those whose parents were born in Italy or the U.S.S.R.—­but not people, who would still identify ethnically as Jewish or Italian, whose grandparents or great-­grandparents were immigrants. Estimates for the total number of Jews are based on an array of demographic studies by organizations such as the Bureau of Jewish Social Research and Combined Jewish Philanthropies, cited in the notes to Urban Exodus (especially to chapters 9 and 10), and extrapolations from neighborhoods and towns with very large Jewish concentrations. In 1940, for example, certain census tracts in Dorchester, Roxbury, and Mattapan were about 90 percent Jewish—­based on criteria such as absences from school on Yom Kippur, Jewish surnames in the district, and the fraction of foreign-­stock people tracing their origin to Eastern and Central Europe; other areas, like Chelsea and Brookline, also had large Jewish populations. Using similar criteria, it is possible in 1970 to identify dense Jewish concentrations in Mattapan, Brookline, Newton, Brighton, Sharon, and Milton. Comparing estimates of the whole Jewish population in these districts to numbers of foreign-­stock people with U.S.S.R. ancestry provided a basis for estimating Jewish populations in other, less homogeneous, neighborhoods and suburbs. It became clear that first-­and second-­ generation Jews constituted a larger (sometimes much larger) proportion of the whole population in inner-­city neighborhoods and inner-­ring cities and suburbs than in areas of later settlement, and the estimates used for this map reflect those differences. A similar method was used for estimating Italian populations, with special attention given to areas of densest concentration, such as East Boston, the North End, and Revere. For estimating the Jewish and Italian populations, the following data were examined—­number of persons in a town or census tract, number of whites, number of first-­and second-­generation whites, number of whites born in Italy and the U.S.S.R., and number of whites whose parents were born in Italy and the U.S.S.R. For the smallest towns, where the census did not report any data on country of birth, it was assumed that the number of Italians and Jews was less than 1,000 persons. Estimates were not necessary for African Americans because their exact numbers were reported in each census for towns, cities, and census tracts.

Sources Text James C. O’Connell, The Hub’s Metropolis: Boston’s Suburban Development, 1800–­2010 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2013); Gerald Gamm, Urban Exodus: Why the Jews Left Boston and the Catholics Stayed (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999); Gerald Gamm, The Making of New Deal Democrats: Voting Behavior and Realignment in Boston, 1920–­ 1940 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989); Gerald Gamm, “In Search of Suburbs: Boston’s Jewish Districts, 1843–­1994,” in The Jews of Boston, ed. Jonathan D. Sarna and Ellen Smith (Boston: Combined Jewish Philanthropies, 1995), 127–­64; Peter G. Rowe, Making a Middle Landscape (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991), 16; Annalee Saxenian, Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994), 16–­17; Robert Fishman, Bourgeois Utopias: The Rise and Fall of Suburbia (New York: Basic Books, 1987), 196–­98; Yanni Tspis and David Kruh, Building Route 128 (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2003), 27, 117; Christopher Rand, Cambridge, U.S.A.: Hub of a New World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964), 9. Map on left page U.S. Bureau of the Census, Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940: Population, Volume I—­Number of Inhabitants: Massachusetts (Washington, DC, 1941), 481–­82; U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1970 Census of Population, Volume I: Characteristics of the Population, Part 23—­Massachusetts (Washington, DC, 1973), Table 6; “Shopping Malls in Massachusetts,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Shopping_ malls_in_Massachusetts. Maps on right page U.S. Bureau of the Census, Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940: Population, Volume II—­ Characteristics of the Population—­Part 3—­Kansas-­ Michigan (Washington, DC, 1943), Massachusetts Tables 24, 28, 30, 31, B-­35, B-­40, F-­35, F-­40; U.S. Bureau of the Census, Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940: Population and Housing—­Statistics for Census Tracts, Boston, Mass. (Washington, DC, 1942), Tables 1, 3; U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1970 Census of Population, Volume I: Characteristics of the Population, Part 23—­Massachusetts (Washington, DC, 1973), Tables 23, 27, 31, 81, 102; U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1970 Census of Population and Housing: Census Tracts—­Boston, Mass. (Washington, DC, 1972), Tables P-­1, P-­2.

PLATE 47—­The Urban Renewal Era, 1949–­1974

Sources Text and captions Pierre Clavel, Activists in City Hall: The Progressive Response to the Reagan Era in Boston and Chicago (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2010); Lawrence W. Kennedy, Planning the City upon a Hill: Boston since 1630 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1992); Langley C. Keyes Jr., The Rehabilitation Planning Game: A Study in the Diversity of Neighborhood (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1969); Thomas H. O’Connor, Building a New Boston: Politics and Urban Renewal, 1950–­1970 (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1993): Elihu Rubin, Insuring the City: The Prudential Center and the Postwar Urban Landscape (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012); Jim Vrabel, A People’s History of the New Boston (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2014); Boston Redevelopment Authority, “Subsidized Housing in the South End,” 1978; Boston Planning and Development Agency archives. Maps A l l u r b a n r e n ewa l p r o j e c ts BRA-­Owned Land Database and Parcel Disposition Maps (1960–­70s), 2014, Boston Planning and Development Agency, Office of Digital Cartography and GIS.

S o u t h E n d U r b a n R e n ewa l p r o j e c t a r e a South End Urban Renewal Area & Reuse Parcels (1978), BRA-­Owned Land Database and Parcel Disposition Maps, Boston Planning and Development Agency, Office of Digital Cartography and GIS. Table “South End Urban Renewal Project, Mass. R-­56, Project Cost Estimate and Financing Plan, Schedule 6,” November 7, 1975, Boston Planning and Development Agency Archives. Photographs Logue and Collins—­Courtesy of Logue family Land cleared for Government Center and West End, 1968 Tent City—­Courtesy of Boston Planning and Development Agency Recent Tent City, Row house renovation, Center for the Arts, Villa Victoria, relocation housing, Chickering factory—­Richard Garver

PLATE 48—­Boston School Busing, 1974–­

S o urc es Text and timeline Morgan v. Hennigan, 379 F.Supp. 410 (D. Mass. 1974) [sometimes described as Volume 379-­No. 2 of the Federal Supplement, October 21, 1974]; Boston School Department, Phase II Order, May 10, 1975 (Boston: Boston School Department, 1975); Wendy Bauman, Boston Globe Busing Chronology, 1963–­1975 (Boston: Boston Globe, 1976); Robert A. Dentler and Marvin B. Scott, Schools on Trial: An Inside Account of the Boston Desegregation Case (Cambridge, MA: Abt Books, 1981); Ronald P. Formisano, Boston against Busing: Race, Class, and Ethnicity in the 1960s and 1970s (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991); Boston School Department, Facts, Figures and Reports (http:// www.bostonpublicschools.org/). Map School districts, geocodes, school locations—­City of Boston School Committee, “Student Desegregation Plan,” January 27, 1975; 1970 U.S. census data—­https:// www.nhgis.org/research/citation. Photograph Protesters outside Hyde Park H.S. December 12, 1974—­Associated Press Images

PLATE 49—­Updating the Water System, 1907–­ 2013

S o urc es Text Fern L. Nesson, Great Waters: A History of Boston’s Water Supply (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1983); Report of the Massachusetts State Board of Health upon a Metropolitan Water Supply, [Massachusetts] House Document No. 500 (Boston: State Printers, 1895); Report of the Joint Board Consisting of the State Department of Public Health and the Metropolitan District Commission Relative to Water Supply Needs and Resources of the Commonwealth, [Massachusetts] House Document No. 1550 (Boston: State Printers, 1922); Annual Reports of the Metropolitan District Water Supply Commission, [Massachusetts] Public Document No. 147 ([Boston]: The Commission, 1926–­1947); Special Report of the Metropolitan District Water Supply Commission and the Department of Public Health Relative to Improvements in Distribution and to Adequate Prevention of Pollution of Sources of Water Supply of the Metropolitan Water District, [Massachusetts] House Document No. 262 (Boston: Legislative Printers, 1938); Francis H. Kingsbury and Harold J. Toole, Water Supply of the Metropolitan Boston Area Massachusetts (Boston: Department of Public Health, 1959); Metropolitan Water Resources Authority, “Water System Master Plan” (2006); “The Water System,” MWRA website, http://www. mwra.state.ma.us/04water/html/wat.htm; Sean Fisher, “A Chronology of Government Bodies Which

Constructed and Operated Boston’s Metropolitan Water Supply System,” (typescript, MWRA library, Chelsea, MA); Chester J. Grinder, “The Wachusett-­ Marlborough Tunnel,” Journal of the New England Water Works Association 73, no. 4 (December 1959): 318–­21; Metropolitan District Commission, Water Division, “Management Handbook” (report prepared by Harbridge House, September 1, 1972), IV-­6, 9. Map Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Plan of Proposed Reservoir on the Swift River and Its Tributary Watershed . . . , in Report of the Joint Board Consisting of the State Department of Public Health and the Metropolitan District Commission Relative to Water Supply Needs and Resources of the Commonwealth under the Provisions of Chapter 49 of the Resolves of the Year 1919, January, 1922, House No. 1550 (Boston: State Printers, 1922). Photographs Enfield 1927—­photo by Walter Gardner; Courtesy of Quabbin Visitor Center, Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation Enfield site 1987­—­photo by Les Campbell, Photo-­ Communication Enterprises, Sky Meadow Studio & Gallery, Belchertown, MA

PLATE 50—­Updating the Sewerage System, 1907–­2013

Sources Texts and map table Eric Jay Dolin, Political Waters: The Long, Dirty, Contentious, Incredibly Expensive but Eventually Triumphant History of Boston Harbor—­A Unique Environmental Success Story (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2004); Eric Jay Dolin, Dirty Water/Clean Water: A Chronology of Events Surrounding the Degradation and Cleanup of Boston Harbor (Cambridge, MA: MIT Sea Grant College Program, 1990); Charles M. Haar, Mastering Boston Harbor: Courts, Dolphins, and Imperiled Waters (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005); Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, “Wastewater System Master Plan” (2006); Camp, Dresser & McKee, “Report on Improvements to the Boston Main Drainage System, vol. 1, September, 1967; John P. Sullivan, email messages to Nancy S. Seasholes, August 19, 2013, October 2, 2013; Carl Leone, email messages to Nancy S. Seasholes, September 25, 2013, October 2, 2013. Maps Maps provided by MWRA of metropolitan sewerage system in 1952, 1968, 1985, 2013; Deer Is. maps: 1982—­ MWRA, “Secondary Treatment Facilities Plan,” Volume II: “Facilities Planning Background, Final Report” March 1, 1988, Fig. 5.3.1–­1 “Location of Cemetery Investigations”; Present—­MWRA, Massachusetts Water Resources Authority $471,780,000 general revenue refunding bonds, 1992 series B ([Boston]: [Massachusetts Water Resources Authority], 1992), “Site Plan: Deer Island (September 1992)”; Boston system—­map from Boston Water & Sewer Commission of Boston sewer trunk mains, 2005. Photograph Courtesy of the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority

PLATE 51—­Updating Highways and Public Transportation, 1967–­2017

Sources Texts Big Dig Robert Campbell, “The Big Dig: What’s Up under Boston?” Architectural Record 190, no. 3 (2002): 84–­86, 88; Amy D. Finstein, “Before the Big Dig: Boston’s Central Artery as a Construct of Mid-­ century Modernity,” ARRIS: Journal of the Southeast Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians

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16 (2005): 69–­81; Anthony Flint, “10 Years Later, Did the Big Dig Deliver?” BostonGlobe.com, 29 December 2015, https://www.bostonglobe.com/ magazine/2015/12/29/years-­later-­did-­big-­dig-­ deliver/tSb8PIMS4QJUETsMpA7SpI/story.html; Massachusetts Department of Transportation—­ Highway Division, “Central Artery/Tunnel Project—­ The Big Dig,” http://www.massdot.state.ma.us/ highway/TheBigDig.aspx; David Luberoff and Alan Altshuler, Mega-­Project: A Political History of Boston’s Multibillion Dollar Artery/Tunnel Project, rev. ed. (Cambridge, MA: A. Alfred Taubman Center for State and Local Government, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 1996); Dan McNichol, The Big Dig, photographs by Andy Ryan (New York: Silver Lining Books, 2000). Public transportation Charles Bahne, “A Brief History of Public Transit Planning in Greater Boston, 1947–­2016,” typescript, in author’s possession; Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Report of the Metropolitan Transit Recess Commission, April 1, 1947 (Boston: Anchor Linotype Printing, 1947), https://archive.org/ details/reportofmetropol00mass_1; Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, Revised Program for Mass Transportation, January 1969 (s.l.: s.n.). Photographs Central Artery—­http://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ ark:/50959/np193946c Greenway—­Photograph by Steve Dunwell Maps Commuter rail system Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, System Map, accessed April 13, 2016, http://www.mbta.com/ schedules_and_maps/system_map/; Jonathan Belcher, “Changes to Transit Service in the MBTA district, 1964–­2016,” version of November 21, 2016, http://www. transithistory.org/roster/MBTARouteHistory.pdf; Thomas J. Humphrey and Norton D. Clark, Boston’s Commuter Rail: The First 150 Years, Bulletin No. 19 (Cambridge, MA: Boston Street Railway Association, 1985); Ronald Dale Karr, The Rail Lines of Southern New England: A Handbook of Railroad History (Pepperell, MA: Branch Line Press, 1995). Spider map Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, Rapid Transit/Key Bus Routes Map, accessed April 13, 2016, http://www.mbta.com/schedules_and_maps/subway/. Rapid transit system Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, System Map, accessed April 13, 2016, http://www.mbta.com/ schedules_and_maps/system_map/; Jonathan Belcher, “Changes to Transit Service in the MBTA district, 1964–­2016,” version of November 21, 2016, http:// www.transithistory.org/roster/MBTARouteHistory. pdf; Jonathan Belcher, “MBTA Vehicle Inventory as of February 28, 2003,” Roll Sign 40, no. 1/2 (2003): 3–­31; Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority System Map (Boston: Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, 1988); Central Transportation Planning Staff, Official (T) Public Transit Map (Boston: Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, 1992); Central Transportation Planning Staff, Official Public Transit Map (Boston: Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, 1996); Central Transportation Planning Staff, 2016–­2018 Official Public Transit System Map (Boston: Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, 2016).

PLATE 52—­Boston’s Economy: Higher Education in 2018

A ddit io na l in f orm at i o n EXISTING INSTITUTIONS—­changes of location and name/purpose Babson College Founded 1919 as Babson Institute in Roger Babson’s house in Wellesley Hills; 1920 moved to Stuart Building

on Washington St. in Wellesley; 1923 relocated to present campus in Wellesley; 1969 renamed Babson College. B ay S t a t e C o l l e g e Founded 1946 founded to serve airlines industry; 1961 moved to present location at 122 Commonwealth Ave.; 1975 accredited to award associate degrees; now awards primarily two-­year degrees. Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology Founded 1908 as the Franklin Union with funds Benjamin Franklin willed to the city of Boston, located in its present building at Berkeley and Appleton Streets; 1941 renamed The Franklin Technical Institute; 1958 began awarding associate’s degrees; 1961 renamed Franklin Institute in Boston; 2001 renamed Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology. Bentley University Founded 1917 as Bentley School of Accounting and Finance by Henry C. Bentley at 125 Tremont St., Boston; 1920 moved to 915 Boylston St., Boston; 1922 moved to 921 Boylston St., Boston; 1961 authorized to grant B.S. degrees and renamed Bentley College of Accounting and Finance; 1968 moved to present Waltham campus; 1971 renamed Bentley College; 1973 graduate school established; 2008 renamed Bentley University. Berklee Founded 1945 as Schillinger House by Lawrence Berk at 284 Newbury St., Boston; 1954 renamed Berklee School of Music; 1970 renamed Berklee College of Music; 2016 merged with The Boston Conservatory and renamed Berklee. Boston Architectural College Founded 1889 as Boston Architectural Club in unknown location; 1911 moved to 16 Somerset St., Boston; 1944 reorganized as Boston Architectural Center; 1961 moved to 320 Newbury St., Boston; 2006 renamed Boston Architectural College. Boston Baptist College Founded 1976 as Baptist Bible Institute East in Shrub Oak, NY; 1981 moved to Boston as a branch campus of Baptist Bible College, Springfield, MO; 1993 became a separate institution; 2002 name changed from Baptist Bible College East to Boston Baptist College. Boston College Founded 1863 by Jesuits at 775 Harrison Ave., Boston; 1913 moved to present campus in Chestnut Hill; 1920s graduate schools added. The Boston Conservatory at Berklee Founded 1867 as Boston Conservatory of Music at 154 Tremont St., Boston; 1905 incorporated; 1914 reestablished as The Boston Conservatory and College of Oratory; 1928 moved to 256 Huntington Ave., Boston; 1935 renamed Boston Conservatory of Music; 1936 became a nonprofit and moved to present location on The Fenway; 1982 renamed The Boston Conservatory; 2016 merged with Berklee College of Music and renamed The Boston Conservatory at Berklee. Boston Graduate School o f P s y c h o a n a ly s i s Founded 1973; 2005 Manhattan campus opened; 2014 New Jersey campus opened. Boston University Founded 1839 as Newbury Biblical Institute in Newbury Seminary, Newbury, VT; 1846 transferred to Concord, NH, and renamed Methodist General Biblical Institute; 1867 moved to Boston and rechartered as Boston Theological Seminary at 23 Pinckney St.; 1869 chartered as Boston University; 1873 College of Liberal Arts (CLA) established at 18–­20 Beacon St., Boston; 1882 CLA moved to 12 Somerset St., Boston; 1913 CLA moved to 688 Boylston St., Boston; 1938 Charles River campus opened.

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Brandeis University Founded 1948 as a nonsectarian Jewish-­community–­ sponsored university on site of former Middlesex University in Waltham, MA, its present location. Bunker Hill Community College Founded 1973 at present site in Charlestown; 1987 Chelsea campus opened; satellite campuses at Education and Training Institute of the East Boston Neighborhood Health Center, Malden High School, and Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción (I.B.A.)/Villa Victoria in Boston’s South End. Cambridge College Founded 1971 as Institute for Open Education of Newton College of the Sacred Heart, located at 133 Mt. Auburn St., Cambridge, MA; when College of the Sacred Heart merged with Boston College in 1974, Open Institute was incorporated; 1980 moved to 15 Mifflin Pl., Cambridge, MA; 1981 accredited and renamed Cambridge College/Open Institute; 1991 renamed Cambridge College; 1993 moved to 1000 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA. Curry College Founded 1879 as School for Elocution and Expression by Anna Baright in old Congregational Building at corner of Beacon and Somerset Sts., Boston; 1885 merged with classes taught by Baright’s husband S. S. Curry to students from discontinued Boston University School of Oratory and renamed School of Expression; 1888 incorporated; 1895 moved to YMCA at corner of Berkeley and Boylston Sts.; 1898 moved to S. S. Pierce Building, 12 Huntington Ave.; 1932 moved to Bigelow Mansion, 251 Commonwealth Ave.; 1939 authorized to grant degrees; 1943 renamed Curry College; 1952 moved to present campus in Milton; 1974 absorbed Perry Normal School. Eastern Nazarene College Founded 1900 as Pentecostal Collegiate Institute in Saratoga Springs, NY; 1902 moved to North Scituate, RI, and became supported by Church of the Nazarene; 1918 chartered in RI as Eastern Nazarene College; 1919 moved to former Quincy Estate in Quincy, MA. Emerson College Founded 1880 as Boston Conservatory of Elocution, Oratory, and Dramatic Art by Charles W. Emerson at 13 Pemberton Sq., Boston; 1881 became known as Monroe Conservatory of Oratory; 1886 became known as Monroe College of Oratory and had moved to 36 Bromfield St.; 1890 renamed Emerson College of Oratory; 1891 moved to Odd Fellows Hall at Berkeley and Tremont Sts.; 1901 moved to Chickering Hall, 239 Huntington Ave.; 1933 purchased first building in former Back Bay campus; 1934 name shortened to Emerson College; 1992 purchased 180 Tremont St. to begin relocation to present campus. Emmanuel College Founded 1919 at present Fenway site, the first Catholic college for women in New England; 2001 became coeducational. Episcopal Divinity School Formed 1974 by merger of Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, MA (1867) and Philadelphia Divinity School (1867). Fisher College Founded 1903 as Winter Hill Business College by Myron C. and Edmund H. Fisher in Knights of Malta Building, 343 Medford St., Somerville; 1910 renamed Fisher Business College; 1939 moved to present location at 118 Beacon St., Boston; 1989 renamed Fisher College; 1997 North Attleboro and New Bedford campuses opened; 2011 Brockton campus opened. Harvard University Founded 1636 as Harvard College in Harvard Yard, Cambridge; recognized as a university by

Massachusetts Constitution 1780; became a university in fact when Medical School founded 1782. Hebrew College Founded 1921 as Hebrew Teachers College at 14 Crawford St., Roxbury; 1952 moved to 43 Hawes St., Brookline; 1969 renamed Hebrew College; 2002 moved to 160 Herrick Rd., Newton Centre. H e l l e n i c C o l l e g e / H o ly C r o s s G r e e k Orthodox School of Theology Founded 1937 as Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Theological School in Pomfret, CT; 1946 moved to 50 Goddard Ave., Brookline, MA; 1968 renamed Hellenic College with a Greek Orthodox theological school. H u lt I n t e r nat i o na l B u s i n e s s S c h o o l Founded 1964 as Management Education Institute by Arthur D. Little, Inc.; 1996, known as Arthur D. Little School of Management, formed partnership with Carroll School of Management at Boston College; 1997 became independent; 2002 after Arthur D. Little declared bankruptcy, school acquired by Kaplan, Inc. and renamed Concord School of Management; 2003 Bertil Hult acquired the school, renamed Hult International Business School; 2007 Shanghai campus opened; 2008 Dubai campus opened; 2009 London campus opened; 2010 San Francisco campus opened; 2015 merged with Ashridge Business School. Labouré College Founded 1892 as Carney Hospital Training School for Nurses in South Boston; 1949 merged with St. John’s School of Nursing in Lowell, MA, and St. Margaret’s School of Nursing in Dorchester, both also run by Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul; 1950 renamed Catherine Labouré School of Nursing after St. Catharine Labouré; 1954 moved to Carney Hospital, Dorchester; 1971 authorized to award degrees and renamed Catherine Labouré Junior College; 1984 renamed Catherine Labouré College; 1993 renamed Labouré College; 1997 became part of the Caritas Christi Health Care system; 2005 renamed Caritas Labouré College; 2009 changed back Labouré College; 2013 moved to 303 Adams St., Milton. Lasell College Founded 1851 as Auburndale Female Seminary, first two-­year college for women in U.S., at present Grove St., Auburndale location; 1932 renamed Lasell Junior College; 1989 chartered as a four-­year college and renamed Lasell College; 1997 became coed. Lesley University Founded 1909 as The Lesley School in Edith Lesley’s home at 29 Everett St., Cambridge; later also known as The Lesley Normal School; 1943 authorized to grant B.A. degrees and renamed Lesley College; 1954 began granting graduate degrees; 1998 merged with Art Institute of Boston; 2001 renamed Lesley University.

corner Newbury and Exeter Sts., Boston; 1925 renamed Massachusetts School of Art; 1930 moved to Massachusetts School of Art Building, 364 Brookline Ave. (corner Longwood Ave.), Boston; 1983 moved to present campus at 621 Huntington Ave. (former Boston State College); 2007 renamed Massachusetts College of Art and Design.

New England School of Acupuncture Founded 1975 by Dr. James Tin Yau So as first acupuncture school in U.S.; 2006 agreement with Tufts Medical School allowing simultaneous completion of acupuncture program at NESA and master’s in pain management at Tufts; 2006 moved to present 150 California St., Newton.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Founded 1861; 1862 building constructed on Berkeley St. between Newbury and Boylston Sts.; 1916 moved to present site in Cambridge.

N e w E n g l a n d L a w/ B o s t o n Founded 1908 as Portia School of Law, a law school for women, at 88 Tremont St., Boston; 1919 renamed Portia Law School; 1921 moved to 45 Mt. Vernon St., Boston; 1926 men accepted; 1969 renamed New England School of Law; 1972 moved to 126 Newbury St., Boston; 1980 moved to 154 Stuart St., Boston; 2008 renamed New England Law/Boston.

MCPHS University Founded 1823 as Massachusetts College of Pharmacy, second-­oldest college of pharmacy in U.S.; 1823–­ 1867 met in various Boston locations; 1852 chartered to grant degrees; 1867 classes began on Temple Pl. between Tremont and Washington Sts. and at 8 Boylston St.; 1868 all classes at 8 Boylston St.; 1876 moved to Mayhew School, Hawkins St.; 1877 school burned so moved to MIT; 1878 moved to Old Franklin School Building, 1151 Washington St.; 1887 moved to corner of St. Botolph and Garrison Sts.; 1918 moved to White Building, 179 Longwood Ave.; 1979 renamed Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Allied Health Sciences, later shortened to Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (MCPHS); 2000 Worcester, MA, campus opened; 2002 Manchester, NH, campus opened; 2002 acquired Forsyth Dental School; 2013 renamed MCPHS University. M G H I n s t i t u t e o f H e a lt h P r o f e s s i o n s Founded 1977 as Massachusetts General Hospital Academic Division; 1980 renamed MGH Institute of Health Professions; 1985 separate corporation from MGH; 2001 moved to Charlestown Navy Yard. Middlesex Community College Founded 1969 as Bedford Community College in Bedford; 1969 renamed Middlesex Community College; 1970 opened in leased buildings at Bedford VA Hospital; 1972 leased buildings from Marist Preparatory Seminary, Bedford; 1981 Burlington campus opened; 1987 Lowell campus opened; 1992 permanent Bedford campus opened on Marist site. New England College of Business and Finance (NECB) Founded 1909 as American Banking Institute; 1985 became only bank-­sponsored educational institution in U.S. accredited as a degree-­granting college; 1988 renamed New England Banking Institute; 1998 renamed New England College of Finance; 2008 renamed New England College of Business and Finance; moved to 10 High St., suite 204, Boston.

M a s s a c h u s e t t s B ay C o m m u n i t y C o l l e g e Founded 1961 at 27 Garrison St., Boston; 1966 moved to 57 Stanley Ave., Watertown; 1977 moved to 50 Oakland St., Wellesley, site of former Elizabeth Seton High School; 1990 Framingham campus opened; 2001 MassBay Technology Center opened in Ashland.

New England College of Optometry (NECO) Founded 1894 as Klein School of Optics by August Klein at 2 Rutland St., Boston; 1901 renamed Massachusetts School of Optometry; 1916 moved to 168 Mass. Ave., Boston; 1933 moved to 1112 Boylston St., Boston; 1943 moved to 472 Commonwealth Ave., Boston; 1945 moved Huntington Ave., Boston; 1946 incorporated as a nonprofit; 1948 moved to 178 Newbury St., Boston; 1950 renamed Massachusetts College of Optometry; 1961 moved to present location at 420–­426 Beacon St., Boston; 1976 renamed New England College of Optometry and is now the oldest continuously operating school of optometry in U.S.

Massachusetts College of Art and Design Founded 1873 as Massachusetts Normal Art School at 33 Pemberton Sq., Boston; 1874 moved to 24 Pemberton Sq.; 1874 moved to 28 School St., Boston; 1880 moved to Deacon House, 1679 Washington St., Boston; 1887 moved to Massachusetts Normal Art School Building,

New England Conservatory of Music Founded 1867 as New England Conservatory by Eben Tourjée, classes at Boston Music Hall; 1870 moved to St. James Hotel, Franklin Square, 11 E. Newton St., Boston; 1903 moved to Jordan Hall, 290 Huntington Ave., Boston, its present home; now the oldest independent music school in U.S.

Longy School of Music of Bard College Founded 1915 as the Longy School of Music by George Longy at 103 Hemenway St., Boston; 1930 moved to Church St., Cambridge; 1937 moved to present location at 1 Follen St., Cambridge; 2012 merged with Bard College, renamed Longy School of Music of Bard College.

Newbury College Founded 1962 as Newbury School of Business by Edward J. Tassinari on Newbury St., Boston; 1968 moved to 921 Boylston St., Boston (former location of Bentley College); 1971 changed to a junior college and renamed Newbury Junior College; 1973–­1990s established 15 satellite campuses in eastern Massachusetts; 1982 acquired part of former Cardinal Cushing College and moved to 129 Fisher Ave., Brookline; 1985 renamed Newbury College. Northeastern University Founded 1896 as Evening Institute for Young Men at Boston YMCA, corner Berkeley and Boylston Sts., 1898 classes began as Evening Law Institute at the YMCA, first evening law program in Boston; 1904 incorporated as Evening School of Law of the Boston YMCA; 1913 moved to new (present) YMCA at 316 Huntington Ave., Boston; 1916 incorporated as Northeastern College of the Boston YMCA; 1922 renamed Northeastern University; 1938 Richards Hall, first building on present campus, constructed. Olin College of Engineering Chartered 1997 with grant from F. W. Olin Foundation; 2002 first classes on present campus at Olin Way, Needham. Pine Manor College Founded 1911 as postsecondary division of Dana Hall School, 45 Dana Rd., Wellesley; 1930 chartered as independent Pine Manor Junior College; 1962 became a separate corporation; 1965 moved to 400 Heath St., Chestnut Hill (former Roughwood Estate); 1977 authorized to grant B.A. degrees and renamed Pine Manor College. Quincy College 1956 first classes as College Courses, Inc. at Coddington Elementary School, 34 Coddington St., Quincy; 1958 became Quincy Junior College; 1990 renamed Quincy College; 1991 Plymouth campus opened; 2007 moved to 150 Newport Ave., Quincy; 2013 moved to 1250 Hancock St., Quincy. Regis College Founded 1927 by Sisters of St. Joseph of Boston on present campus, 235 Wellesley St., Weston; 2007 became coed. Roxbury Community College Chartered 1968; 1970 named Franklin Park Community College; 1972 renamed Roxbury Community College; 1973 classes began at 460 Blue Hill Ave., Dorchester; 1974 moved to 424 Dudley St., Roxbury; 1982 moved to 621 Huntington Ave., Boston (former Boston State College); 1988 moved to present campus at 1234 Columbus Ave., Roxbury Crossing. S a i n t J o h n ’s S e m i na ry Founded 1884 as Boston Ecclesiastical Seminary in present location on Lake St., Brighton, MA, to train priests; 1941 renamed St. John’s Seminary; 1968 merged with Cardinal O’Connell Seminary in Jamaica Plain, MA.

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School of the Museum of Fine Arts Founded 1876 as School of Drawing and Painting at Museum of Fine Arts, corner St. James Ave. and Dartmouth St.; 1901 incorporated and renamed School of the Museum of Fine Arts; 1909 moved to temporary buildings at 465 Huntington Ave. Boston near new MFA; 1927 moved to 230 The Fenway; 1945 first joint degree program with Tufts University; June 2016 became part of Tufts University and renamed SMFA at Tufts. Simmons College Chartered 1899 with bequest from John Simmons; 1902 first classes at Women’s Educational and Industrial Union Building, St. Botolph St., Boston; 1902–­1907 leased buildings on St. Botolph St. and Huntington Ave.; 1904 moved to present campus at 300 The Fenway. (See also p. 181). Suffolk University Began 1906 as Archer’s Evening Law School when Gleason Archer taught evening classes in his home at 6 Alpine St., Roxbury; 1907 moved to Archer’s downtown office and renamed Suffolk School of Law; 1914 chartered as Suffolk Law School, located at 45 Mt. Vernon St.; 1920 moved to Archer Building at corner of Temple and Derne Sts.; 1920s–­1930s expanded on Beacon Hill; 1934 renamed Suffolk University. Tufts University Founded 1852 as Tufts College at 419 Boston Ave., Medford; 1854 classes began; 1892 Jackson College for Women established; 1955 renamed Tufts University. University of Massachusetts Boston Founded 1964; 1965 classes began in Park Sq. area, Boston (main building 250 Stuart St.); 1974 moved to present campus on Columbia Point. Urban College of Boston Founded 1967 as the Urban College Program within Action for Boston Community Development, Inc. at 178 Tremont St., Boston; 1993 renamed Urban College of Boston: A Two Year College; 2000 became fully independent. Wellesley College Founded 1870 by Henry and Pauline Durant; 1875 classes began on present campus. Wentworth Institute of Technology Founded 1904 as Wentworth Institute with bequest from Arioch Wentworth’s will; 1911 classes began on present campus; 1956 authorized to grant associate degrees; 1957–­1999 satellite campus at Plainview, MA; 1970 Wentworth College founded to offer baccalaureate degrees; 1972 became coed; 1977 Institute and College merged, renamed Wentworth Institute of Technology. William James College Founded 1974 as Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology; 2012 moved to present location at 1 Wells Ave., Newton Centre, MA; 2015 renamed William James College. FORMER INSTITUTIONS—­now closed or absorbed by other institutions Andover Newton Theological School Founded 1807 as Theological Institution in Andover on the campus of Phillips Academy, Andover, MA; 1870 renamed Theological Seminary in Andover; 1908 moved to Cambridge, MA, for unsuccessful merger with Harvard Divinity School; 1931 relocated to campus of Newton Theological Institution; 1965 merged with the latter institution and renamed Andover Newton Theological School; 2016 announced plans to sell Newton campus; and 2017 relocated to Yale Divinity School in New Haven, CT, where it is known as Andover Newton at Yale. Aquinas College Milton, Newton closed 2000.

Art Institute of Boston 1998 merged with Lesley.

Newton College of the Sacred Heart Founded 1946; 1974 merged with Boston College.

Boston Clerical School or Boston Business School 1984 merged with Roxbury Community College.

Newton Junior College 1976 closed.

Boston State College Founded 1872 as Boston Normal School; 1922 renamed Teachers Colleges of the City of Boston; 1952 renamed State Teachers College at Boston; 1960 renamed State College at Boston; 1968 renamed Boston State College; 1982 merged with University of Massachusetts Boston. B rya n t a n d S t r at t o n Commercial School Founded 1854 as Bryant and Stratton Business Institute by J. C. Bryant, H. B. Bryant, and H. D. Stratton; later accredited to grant degrees; established schools in many U.S. cities, now has campuses in NY, OH, VA, and WI; 1975 Boston school closed; 1979 Boston operations merged with Mount Ida Junior College. Burdett School of Business 1999 closed. C a lv i n C o o l i d g e C o l l e g e 1969 closed. Cambridge Junior College 1974 closed. Cardinal Cushing College 1972 closed. C h a m b e r l ay n e J u n i o r C o l l e g e 1988 merged with Mount Ida College. Chandler School 1979 closed. Coyne School of Technical Electricity Late 1980s merged with Mount Ida College. Garland Junior College 1976 transferred to Simmons. Grahm Junior College Founded 1951 as Cambridge School at 18 Tremont St., Boston; later moved to 120 Boylston St., 687 Boylston St., and finally Kenmore Sq.; 1964 accredited as a junior college of business; 1968 renamed Grahm Junior College for president Milton L. Grahm; 1977 filed for bankruptcy;1979 academic programs acquired by Mount Ida Junior College. M o u n t A lv e r n i a C o l l e g e 1973 closed. Mount Ida College Founded 1899 as Mount Ida School for Girls, a high school, at approximately 474 Centre St. (on Mount Ida), Newton Corner; 1907 first junior college courses; closed during Great Depression; 1939 reopened and relocated at 777 Dedham St., Newton Centre; 1967 first associate degrees awarded; renamed Mount Ida Junior College; 1972 became coed; 1982 renamed Mount Ida College; 2018 closed and campus purchased by University of Massachusetts, Amherst. New England Institute of Art Founded 1952 as Norm Prescott School of Broadcasting; 1962 sold and renamed The Northeast Broadcasting School; 1988 sold to Northeast Company Inc.; 1997 renamed Massachusetts Communications College; 2001 renamed The New England Institute of Art and Communications; 2003 renamed The New England Institute of Art; 2017 closed. New England Institute of Funeral Service Education (also New England Institute of Applied Arts and Sciences and New England Institute o f A n a t o m y, S c i e n c e , a n d E m b a l m i n g ) 1989 merged with Mount Ida College.

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Perry Normal School Founded 1898; 1974 absorbed by Curry College. Radcliffe College 1879 founded as The Harvard Annex; 1882 incorporated as the Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women; 1894 renamed Radcliffe College; 1943 began joint instruction with Harvard; 1977 non-­merger merger with Harvard; 1999 fully absorbed into Harvard and became Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. S a n f o r d -­B r o w n C o l l e g e Founded 1911 as Providence School in RI; soon had a satellite campus in Boston named Katherine Gibbs College for its founder; 2009 most campuses shut down; 2011 renamed Sanford-­Brown College—­Boston; 2014 closed. Sargent College Founded 1881 by Dudley Allen Sargent; 1929 acquired by Boston University. Stanley College 1959 closed. Swedenborg School of Religion 2001 closed. Vesper George School of Art 1983 closed. Wheelock College Founded 1888 as Kindergarten Training School by Lucy Wheelock at the Chauncy Hall School, 593–­597 Boylston St., Boston; 1896 became independent and moved to 284 Dartmouth St., Boston; moved to 134 Newbury St., Boston; 1914 moved to 100 The Riverway; 1930 renamed The Wheelock School; 1941 renamed Wheelock College; 1957 administration moved to present building at 200 The Riverway; 2003 Brookline campus opened on former Hebrew College site; 2018 absorbed by Boston University, becoming Wheelock College of Education and Human Development at Boston University. (See also p. 181.) Sources Text John R. Thelin, A History of American Higher Education (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2004); Appleseed Inc., Engines of Economic Growth: The Impact of Boston’s Eight Research Universities on the Metropolitan Boston Area (Boston: Appleseed Inc., 2003); Walter J. Marshall and Denis M. McSweeney, “The Prominence of Boston Area Colleges and Universities,” Monthly Labor Review 132, no. 6 (June 2009): 64–­68; Peter McHenry, Allen R. Sanderson, and John J. Siegfried, “The Economic Impact of Colleges and Universities,” Economics of Education Review 26, no. 5 (2007): 546–­58; http://www.bizjournals. com/boston/print-­edition/2012/02/10/it-­makes-­the-­ argument-­that-­higher.html. Photographs MIT—­“Photogravure views of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology” (Boston: Henry Lewis Johnson, Boston Photogravure Co., 1889), Courtesy of MIT Libraries, Institute Archives and Special Collections, Cambridge, MA Boston College—­Nancy S. Seasholes Boston University, Suffolk University, Northeastern University—­© Susan Wilson Map and additional information EXISTING INSTITUTIONS Babson College: http://www.babson.edu/about-­babson/ at-­a-­glance/babsons-­history/timeline/Pages/from-­ founding-­through-­wwII.aspx

Bay State College: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_ State_College Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_ Franklin_Institute_of_Technology; http://www. southendhistoricalsociety.org/benjamin-­franklin-­ institute-­of-­technology/; The Boston Foundation, Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology-­Report (online pdf, created Feb. 19, 2016) Bentley University: http://www.bentley.edu/about/ bentley-­history Berklee: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berklee_ College_of_Music; https://www.berklee.edu/about/ brief-­history Boston Architectural College: https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Boston_Architectural_College Boston Baptist College: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Boston_Baptist_College Boston College: https://www.bc.edu/about/history. html The Boston Conservatory at Berklee: http://www. bostonconservatory.edu/about/history; Brendan Higgins, Public Services Librarian/Archivist, The Boston Conservatory, email to Aubrey Butts Nov. 12, 2015; Steve Annear, “Berklee, Boston Conservatory Finalize Merger,” Boston Globe, Jan. 19, 2016 Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis: http://www. bgsp.edu/about/how-­we-­do-­it/#do1 Boston University: http://www.bu.edu/timeline/; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_University; Nancy Lurie Salzman, Buildings & Builders: An Architectural History of Boston University (Boston: Boston University, 1985) Brandeis University: http://www.brandeis.edu/about/ history.html; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandeis_ University Bunker Hill Community College: http://www.bhcc. mass.edu/about/; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Bunker_Hill_Community_College Cambridge College: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Newton_College_of_the_Sacred_Heart; https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_College; Mark Rotondo, Vice President of Innovation and Strategic Initiatives, Cambridge College, email to Anthony Viola, Library Director, Cambridge College Nov. 13, 2015, forwarded to Aubrey Butts Nov. 13, 2015 Curry College: http://www.curry.edu/Documents/PDF/ About%20Curry/curry135history.pdf Eastern Nazarene College: http://www.enc.edu/About-­ ENC/History-­of-­ENC/ Emerson College: http://emersonhistory.omeka.net/; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerson_College Emmanuel College: http://www.emmanuel.edu/ discover-­emmanuel/our-­history.html Episcopal Divinity School: http://eds.edu/history Fisher College: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher_ College; http://www.somervillema.gov/sites/default/ files/documents/hpc-­east-­somerville-­walking-­ tour-­2014.pdf Harvard University: http://www.harvard.edu/about-­ harvard/harvard-­glance/history/historical-­facts Hebrew College: http://www.hebrewcollege.edu/ history Hellenic College/Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology: http://www.hchc.edu/about/history_of_ hellenic_college Hult International Business School: https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hult_International_Business_ School Labouré College: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Labour%C3%A9_College Lasell College: http://www.lasell.edu/campus-­life/ activities-­and-­involvement/lasell-­traditions-­and-­ events/history.html Lesley University: http://www.lesley.edu/centennial/ lesley-­first-­century/; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Lesley_University

Longy School of Music of Bard College: http://longy. edu/about/history/; Roy Rudolph, Library Director, Longy School, email to Aubrey Butts Nov. 24, 2015 Massachusetts Bay Community College: http://www. massbay.edu/Who-­We-­Are/History.aspx; http:// www.massbay.edu/uploadedFiles/Second_Level_ Pages/Alumni_and_Friends/THE%201977%20 Greenyears.pdf Massachusetts College of Art and Design: http:// history.massart.edu/timeline/ Massachusetts Institute of Technology: http://mitstory. mit.edu/mit-­highlights-­timeline/#1863 MCPHS University: http://pdcetaalumni.org/wp-­ content/uploads/2013/03/EtaChapterHistory.pdf; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MCPHS_University; Kathy Krathwohl, Metadata and Digital Initiatives Librarian, MCPHS University, email to Aubrey Butts Nov. 13, 2015 MGH Institute of Health Professions: https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MGH_Institute_of_Health_ Professions Middlesex Community College: https://www. middlesex.mass.edu/news_events/40th%20book%20 UNIFLIP/document.pdf New England College of Business and Finance (NECB): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England_ College_of_Business_and_Finance New England College of Optometry (NECO): http:// www.neco.edu/about/history New England Conservatory of Music: http://necmusic. edu/about-­nec/history/timeline; https://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/New_England_Conservatory_of_Music New England Institute of Art: https://en.m.wikipedia. org/wiki/New_England_Institute_of_Art New England School of Acupuncture: http://www.nesa. edu/about/history New England Law/Boston: https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/New_England_School_of_Law; https://www. nesl.edu/HistoryProject/ Newbury College: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Newbury_College_(United_States) Northeastern University: http://www.northeastern. edu/facultyhandbook/mission-­organization/history. html; http://library.northeastern.edu/archives-­ special-­collections/find-­collections/northeastern-­ history/timeline Olin College of Engineering: http://www.olin.edu/ about/history/ Pine Manor College: http://www.pmc.edu/pmc-­history Quincy College: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quincy_ College Regis College: http://www.regiscollege.edu/about/ history.cfm Roxbury Community College: https://rcchistory.omeka. net/exhibits/show/rcc_history Saint John’s Seminary: https://www.sjs.edu/aboutus/ history/; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_John%27s_ Seminary_%28Massachusetts%29 Simmons College: http://www2.simmons.edu/library/ archives/exhibits/369.php SMFA @ Tufts: http://www.smfa.edu/history; http:// www.smfa.edu/tufts-­announcement Suffolk University: http://moakleyarchive.omeka.net/ exhibits/show/campushistory/eveninglawschool Tufts University: http://www.tufts.edu/home/get_to_ know_tufts/history/timeline/ University of Massachusetts Boston: https://www.umb. edu/the_university/history/roots Urban College of Boston: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Urban_College_of_Boston Wellesley College: http://www.wellesley.edu/about/ collegehistory Wentworth Institute of Technology: http://www.wit. edu/timeline/history.html William James College: http://www.williamjames.edu/ about/welcome/history.cfm; https://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/William_James_College

FORMER INSTITUTIONS Andover Newton Theological School: http://www.ants. edu/about/at-­glance/history; https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Andover_Newton_Theological_School; Diana Yount, Archives and Special Collections, Andover-­ Newton, email to Aubrey Butts, Nov. 24, 2015 Aquinas College: https://cihe.neasc.org/information-­ public/merged-­closed-­or-­previously-­accredited-­ institutions Art Institute of Boston: http://www.lesley.edu/ centennial/lesley-­first-­century/ Boston Clerical School or Boston Business School: https://cihe.neasc.org/information-­public/merged-­ closed-­or-­previously-­accredited-­institutions Boston State College: http://www.mass.edu/forstufam/ diplomas/closedinst.asp Bryant & Stratton College: https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Bryant_%26_Stratton_College; https://cihe. neasc.org/information-­public/merged-­closed-­or-­ previously-­accredited-­institutions Burdett School of Business: http://www.mass.edu/ forstufam/diplomas/closedinst.asp Calvin Coolidge College: https://cihe.neasc.org/ information-­public/merged-­closed-­or-­previously-­ accredited-­institutions Cambridge Junior College: https://cihe.neasc.org/ information-­public/merged-­closed-­or-­previously-­ accredited-­institutions Cardinal Cushing College: https://cihe.neasc.org/ information-­public/merged-­closed-­or-­previously-­ accredited-­institutions Chamberlayne Junior College: https://cihe.neasc.org/ information-­public/merged-­closed-­or-­previously-­ accredited-­institutions; https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Grahm_Junior_College Chandler School: https://cihe.neasc.org/information-­ public/merged-­closed-­or-­previously-­accredited-­ institutions Coyne School of Technical Electricity: https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Ida_College Garland Junior College: https://cihe.neasc.org/ information-­public/merged-­closed-­or-­previously-­ accredited-­institutions Grahm Junior College: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Grahm_Junior_College; https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Mount_Ida_College Mount Alvernia College: https://cihe.neasc.org/ information-­public/merged-­closed-­or-­previously-­ accredited-­institutions Mount Ida College: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Mount_Ida_College; Joanna Novick, Reference Librarian, Mount Ida College, email to Aubrey Butts Nov. 12, 2015 New England Institute of Funeral Service Education (also New England Institute of Applied Arts and Sciences or New England Institute of Anatomy, Science, and Embalming): https://cihe.neasc.org/ information-­public/merged-­closed-­or-­previously-­ accredited-­institutions Newton College of the Sacred Heart: https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton_College_of_the_ Sacred_Heart Newton Junior College: https://cihe.neasc.org/ information-­public/merged-­closed-­or-­previously-­ accredited-­institutions Perry Normal School: https://cihe.neasc.org/ information-­public/merged-­closed-­or-­previously-­ accredited-­institutions Radcliffe College: https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/ about-­us/our-­history Sanford-­Brown College: http://www.sanfordbrown. edu/Student-­Life/blog/June-­2011/Gibbs-­Boston-­ now-­Sanford-­Brown Sargent College: http://www.bu.edu/timeline/ Stanley College: https://cihe.neasc.org/information-­ public/merged-­closed-­or-­previously-­accredited-­ institutions

a d d itiona l infor m ation , so u rces , an d cre d its   189

Swedenborg School of Religion: http://www.mass.edu/ forstufam/diplomas/closedinst.asp Vesper George School of Art: http://www.mass.edu/ forstufam/diplomas/closedinst.asp Wheelock College: http://www.wheelock.edu/library/ reSources/archives/historical-­timeline

PLATE 53—­Boston’s Economy: Medical Center in 2016

Sources Text and large map Biotechnology Industry Snapshot, MassBio, 2016, http://files.massbio.org/file/2016-­MassBio-­Industry-­ Snapshot.pdf; National Institutes of Health (NIH) 2017, Boston Planning and Development Agency, Research Division, February 2017, http://www.bostonplans.org/ getattachment/eaee1f07-­44fa-­4a2a-­8897-­fe30fd85ae40; American Hospital Association, AHADataviewer. com based on FY2012 AHA Annual Survey Database, Licensed by Health Forum, an American Hospital Association affiliate, Feb. 2014; Individual hospital websites; Joe Halpren and Sean McFadden, “The Largest Life Science Companies in Massachusetts,” Boston Business Journal, October 7, 2016; Harvard, Tufts and Boston University Medical School websites: https://hms.harvard.edu/about-­hms/hms-­affiliates; http://medicine.tufts.edu/About-­Us/Administrative-­ Offices/Office-­of-­International-­Affairs/Our-­Training-­ Hospitals; Arthur Krim, email messages to Nancy S. Seasholes May 2, 2017, Sept. 6, 2017. Illustrations Longwood Medical and Academic Area—­Medical Academic and Scientific Community Organization, Inc. (MASCO) Ether Dome painting—­Boston Medical Library in the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School LMA map Medical Academic and Scientific Community Organization, Inc. (MASCO), LMA Guide, https://www. masco.org/thelma/lma-­guide-­map. Graph Massachusetts Department of Labor and Workforce Development, ES-­202 Employment and Wage Data, http://lmi2.detma.org/lmi/lmi_es_a.asp.

PLATE 54—­Boston’s Economy: Commercial Center in 2019

Sources Text John Avault and Alex Ganz, Tax Constraint and Fiscal Policy: After the Property Tax, vol. 1 (Boston: Boston Redevelopment Authority Research Department, October 1983), chap. 4; John Avault and Mark Johnson, Summary and Survey of Development in Boston (Boston: Boston Redevelopment Authority Research Department, April 1987); Boston Redevelopment Authority Research Department, Boston’s Economy Report 2015 (Boston: BRA Research Dept., October 2015); Boston Planning and Development Agency Research Division, Boston’s Economy Report: 2017 (Boston: BPDA Research Division, May 2017). Map John Avault and Mark Johnson, Summary and Survey of Development in Boston (Boston: Boston Redevelopment Authority Research Department, April 1987); Boston Planning and Development Agency Economic Development Department, online Development Projects Pipeline, http://www.bostonplans.org/projects/ development-­projects; Costar Market Analytics, unpublished Boston commercial property inventory, viewed at their Boston office in February 2018. Graphs Employment by industry Boston’s Economy Report: 2017 (Boston: Boston Planning and Development Agency, May 5, 2017).

Office space Same sources as map. Photographs Eswaran Selvarajah, Boston Studies Group

PLATE 55—­Boston’s Economy: Visitors and Tourists in 2017

S o urc es Text Bruce Ehrlich and Peter Dreier, “The New Boston Discovers the Old: Tourism and the Struggle for a Livable City,” in The Tourist City, ed. Dennis R. Judd and Susan S. Fainstein (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999); Greater Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau, Statistics and Reports https://www.bostonusa. com/media/statistics-­reports, July 12, 2017; James C. O’Connell, “Great Cities of the World Conference, September 22–­27, 1980,” (unpublished paper, in the possession of James C. O’Connell); City of Boston, Massachusetts, $150,000,000 General Obligation Bond Offering, 2017 Series A, prospectus issued by City of Boston Treasury Department, March 9, 2017, Selected Demographic and Economic Information, https://www. boston.gov/sites/default/files/boston_city_of_ma_go_ bonds_srs_2017_a_os_03-­10-­17.pdf.

Maps Sea level rise—­The Boston Harbor Association, “Preparing for the Rising Tide,” January 2013 Groundwater overlay district and recharge wells—­ Boston Groundwater Trust, http://www. bostongroundwater.org/maps.html URM and liquefaction potential—­Northeast States Emergency Consortium, “City of Boston Natural Hazard Mitigation Plan,” 2014 Update, 72, https:// www.cityofboston.gov/images_documents/ Boston%20Revised%20Draft%20Hazard%20 Mitigation%20Plan%202014%20Update%20%2003–­ 31–­15_tcm3–­51167.pdf Illustrations Rotting foundation piles—­Stephanie Kruel Woodcut of 1755 earthquake—­Courtesy of National Information Service for Earthquake Engineering, University of California, Berkeley

PLATE 57—­Boston in 2010

A ddi t i ona l I nf ormat i on

Boston’s Population 1950–­2010 1950

801,444

1960

697,197

Maps “The Largest Museums in Massachusetts,” Boston Business Journal, August 18, 2017, 12; The Greater Boston Convention and Tourism Bureau, Statistics and Reports, https://www.bostonusa.com/media/statistics-­ reports, 7/12/17; https://www.thefreedomtrail.org/; Data from David O’Donnell, Senior Manager, Media Relations, Greater Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau; Data from DataArts.

1970

641,071

1980

562,994

1990

574,283

2000

589,141

2010

617,594

Tables C u lt u r a l at t r a c t i o n s at t e n d a n c e “The Largest Museums in Massachusetts,” Boston Business Journal, August 18, 2017, 12; The Greater Boston Convention and Tourism Bureau, Statistics and Reports, https://www.bostonusa.com/media/statistics-­ reports, July 12, 2017.

Sources Text John Avault and Gregory Perkins, The Boston Economy in 2010 (Boston: Boston Redevelopment Authority Research Department, January 2011); John Avault, Boston Housing by the Numbers (Boston: Boston Redevelopment Authority Research Department, November 2013); U.S. Census Bureau online data, https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/ community_facts.xhtml, https://factfinder.census. gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/guided_search.xhtml; Boston School Department, unpublished enrollment figures.

Sports teams attendance Bruins—­data from Heidi Holland, Director of Publications and Information Red Sox—­https://www.baseball-­reference.com/teams/ BOS/attend.shtml, May 9, 2018 Celtics—­http://www.celticstats.com/misc/attendance. php, May 8, 2018 Graph Data from David O’Donnell, Senior Manager, Media Relations, Greater Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau. Photographs Freedom Trail—­Richard Garver Convention and Exhibition Center—­Courtesy of Boston Convention and Exhibition Center

PLATE 56—­Environmental Challenges in 2014

S o urc es Text “Which Coastal Cities Are at Highest Risk of Damaging Floods? New Study Crunches the Numbers,” World Bank Group, August 19, 2013, http:// www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2013/08/19/ coastal-­cities-­at-­highest-­risk-­floods; “Sea Level Rise: Understanding and Applying Trends and Future Scenarios for Analysis and Planning,” Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, November 7, 2013; E. Douglas, P. Kirshen, V. Li, C. Watson, and J. Wormser, “Preparing for the Rising Tide,” (Boston: The Boston Harbor Association, 2013); Boston Groundwater Trust, www.bostongroundwater.org; “City of Boston Natural Hazard Mitigation Plan,” 2014 Update.

190  a d d itiona l infor m ation , so u rces , an d cre d its

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Decennial Census of Population and Housing, 1950–­2010, https://www.census.gov/.

Map U.S. Census Bureau, Decennial Census of Population and Housing, 2010, https://www.census.gov/, data organized by Boston Redevelopment Authority Mapping Department. Graphs Race/Ethnicity, 2010—­U.S. Census Bureau, Decennial Census of Population and Housing, 2010, https:// www.census.gov/, data organized by Boston Redevelopment Authority Mapping Department Twenty-­Two Largest Cities—­U.S. Census Bureau, Decennial Census of Population and Housing, 1950–­ 2010 Boston Population 1790–­2010—­For 1790–­1940: U.S. Census Bureau, cited in Lawrence W. Kennedy, Planning the City upon a Hill: Boston since 1630 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1994), 261; for 1950–­2010: U.S. Census Bureau, Decennial Census of Population and Housing, 1950–­2010 https:// www.census.gov/ Household Income Distribution—­U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey, 2009–­2011, accessed through The American Factfinder website of the U.S. Census Bureau: https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/ nav/jsf/pages/searchresults.xhtml?refresh=t Photographs Fort Point Channel Area—­Eswaran Selvarajah, Boston Studies Group Theater District—­John Avault

Contributors

R o b e rt J. Allis on , Professor of History, Suffolk University R o b e rt Ch a rles A n d ers o n , Director, Great Migration Study Project at New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston Jo h n Avau lt , Chief Economist, Boston Redevelopment Authority (retired) Jo se p h B a g ley, City Archaeologist, City of Boston C h a r l e s B a h n e, Independent Scholar L au r ie B a ise, Professor and Chair, Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, Tufts University J. L . B e l l , Boston1775.net R e b e k a h Bryer, PhD student, Northwestern University Au br ey Bu t ts , Oral History Researcher, The HistoryMakers Be nja min L. C a rp , Associate Professor of History, Brooklyn College, City University of New York A my D. F inst ein , Assistant Professor, Department of Visual Arts, College of the Holy Cross Ge r a l d G a mm , Professor of Political Science and History, University of Rochester R ich a r d G arver, Deputy Director of Boston Redevelopment Authority (retired); Fellow, Massachusetts Historical Society K at h e r in e G ra n dj ea n , Associate Professor of History, Wellesley College Mich e l l e G ra ns h aw , Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts, University of Pittsburgh Ja me s G r e en , Professor Emeritus of History, University of Massachusetts/Boston (deceased) De a n G r o dz ins , Senior Researcher, Harvard Business School; Visiting Scholar, Massachusetts Historical Society K a r l H a g lu n d, Senior Planner, Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation; Fellow, Massachusetts Historical Society Ru t h -­A n n M . H a rri s , Adjunct Professor of History and Irish Studies, Boston College (deceased) A rt h u r K r im , Faculty, Boston Architectural College St e p h a n ie K ru el , Senior Environmental Planner, VHB K e r ima M. L ew is , Adjunct History Instructor, Quincy College No a m Ma g g or, Assistant Professor, School of History, Queen Mary University of London Da n e A . Mo r ris on , Professor of Early American History, Salem State University Ja me s C. O ’C on n el l , Adjunct Professor, City Planning-­Urban Affairs Program, Boston University Ma r k P e t e rs on , Professor of History, Yale University Ma r s h a l l P on t rel l i , Master’s student, Tufts University Gay l e Sawt elle, Independent Scholar Na nc y S. S ea s h ol es , Independent Scholar; author, Gaining Ground: A History of Landmaking in Boston R e e d U e da , Professor of History, Tufts University L awr e nce J. Va le, Ford Professor of Urban Design and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Jim V r a b e l, Independent Scholar; author, A People’s History of the New Boston Sa m B a s s Wa rn er , Visiting Professor, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (retired) Jay Wic k e r s h a m , Partner, Noble, Wickersham & Heart LLP Susa n Wil son , Resident Scholar, Brandeis University WSRC; House Historian, Omni Parker House

Index

Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations and maps. Abbott and Costello, 97 Abington, 48 abolitionism in Boston area, 47, 52, 55, 56–57, 102 opposition to, 56 Acadians, deported from Nova Scotia, 24, 26 in Massachusetts and Connecticut towns, 26 Acceleron Pharmaceuticals, 149 Adams (MA), 48 Adams, Abigail, 102 Adams, Henry, Home, 52, 171 Adams, John, Courthouse, 96, 97 Adams, Samuel, 30 Adams Square streetcar subway station, 83, 128 Advertising Club of Boston, 122 Advocate of Peace, 54, 55 African Americans in Boston, 37, 40, 41, 56, 102, 103, 114, 118, 119 in 1910, 106 in 1940 and 1970, 131 in 2010, 156 on north slope of Beacon Hill in 1900, 106 African Meeting House, 57 Agios Pharmaceuticals Inc., 149 Air Force Research Lab, 130, 130 Airport (Blue Line) station, 128, 129, 145 Airport, Logan International, 122, 123, 139, 144, 152 filled, 126, 126 runways, 126 Airport Terminals (Silver Line) stops, 145 Albany (NY), 64, 107 Albany Street, 73 Albee, E. F., 98 Alcott, Amos Bronson, 53, 55 Alcott, Louisa May, 53, 53 Club, 103 Home, 52, 53, 103, 171, 180 Little Women, 53 School, 105 Alcott family, 52, 53 Home, 53 Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, Home, 52, 171 Alewife (Red Line) station, 144, 145 Alewife Brook Parkway, 87, 127 Alewife Brook sewage pumping station (formerly Somerville), 143, 143 Alger, Cyrus, 73 Alger’s Wrought Iron Works, 73 Allen, E. L., 70 Allen Street, North, 42 Allston, 82, 107 Allston Golf Club, 95 almshouse, Boston, 20, 24, 31, 40, 41, 42, 116–17, 116–17, 142 Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc., 149 American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 100, 100, 101 American Brewing Co., 114, 115 American Legion Highway (Route 1), 127 American Literature, Golden Age of, 47, 52 American Party (“Know-Nothings”), 61 American Peace Society, 55 American Woman Suffrage Association, 102 Amory, Rufus, House, 101 Amory-Ticknor House, 52, 103, 170 Amsterdam, 27 Anderson, Martin, 132 Federal Bulldozer, The, 132 Andover, 48 Andover & Medford Turnpike, 43 Andover House, 104, 105, 105 Andover Newton Theological School, 188 Andrew subway (Red Line) station, 83, 128, 129 Andros, Sir Edmund, 24, 25 Animal Rescue League of Boston, 102, 103

Annapolis, 27, 28 annexations to Boston, 72, 77, 78–79 of areas requiring pumping stations, 84 arguments, pro and con, 78 public works resulting from, 78 territorial increase of, 77, 78, 78, 124 anti-Catholic, 61, 64 Antigua, 16, 27, 29 anti-immigrant, 61, 64 anti-Irish, 61, 62, 64 Anti-Sabbath Convention, 54, 55 Anti-Slavery Christmas Bazaar, 56 Antislavery Society, Boston Female, 56 Anti-Slavery Society, New England (later Massachusetts), 56 Appeal on Behalf of that Class of Americans Called Africans (Child), 56 Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World, An (Walker), 56 Apple Island, 79, 126 Appleton Family Home, 52, 171 Aquarium (Blue Line) station, 128, 145 Aquarium, New England, 132, 152, 152, 153 Aqueduct Corporation, 77, 84 aqueducts in Boston water system, 164 Chicopee Valley, 140 City Tunnel, 141 City Tunnel Extension, 141 Cochituate, 84, 84, 141 Cosgrove Tunnel, 141 Dorchester Tunnel, 141 Hultman, 141 Jamaica Pond, 84 Metro West Water Supply Tunnel, 141 pressure, 140 Quabbin, 140, 140 Sudbury, 84, 84, 141 Wachusett, 84, 84, 141 Weston, 84, 84, 141 Aquinas College, 188 Arborway, 86, 127 Arborway (Green Line) station, 128 Arborway Branch (E) Green Line, 128, 129 closed to Arborway in 1985, 145 archaeology, prehistoric in Boston area, 6–7 artifacts, 7, 7 sites, 6 Archaic period in Boston area archaeological sites, 6 dates, 3, 6 lifeways in, 3, 6 sea level in, 6 Archdale public housing project, 116, 117 Archer, Gleason, 146 Archer’s Evening Law School, 146 architecture in Boston Federal, 40, 40 First Period, 21, 21 Georgian, 30, 30 Greek Revival, 43, 43 Italianate, 64, 64 tenements, 107, 107 three-deckers, 107, 107 Arch Street, 70–71 Argillite, Cambridge defined, 3, 4 location of, 3, 4, 4 illustrated, 5 Arlington, 84 Arlington Covered Reservoir, 140, 141 Arlington Heights Tank, 140, 141 Arlington pumping station, 84, 84 Arlington Street, 64, 68, 68, 69 Green Line station, 128

Arlington Theatre, 99 Arnold Arboretum, 86, 86 archaeological sites, 6 Arsenal Street (Watertown), 43 Arsenal Street Bridge (1824), 43 Art Institute of Boston, 188 arts, performing, in Boston, 152 Ashland Reservoir, 84 Ashmont (Red Line) station, 128, 128, 129, 145 Ashmont Playground, 86 Asians in Boston in 1910, 106 in 2010, 156 Assawampsett Pond, 19 Assembly (Orange Line) station, 145 Associated Charities, 104, 105 Astrea (ship), 38 Athanas, Anthony, 125 Athens (Greece), 47, 91, 94 “Athens of America,” 52 athletic associations in Boston, 94, 95 Atkins, Thomas, 135 Atlantic Avenue, 72, 72, 73, 73, 92, 92 El (elevated), 82, 83, 128 streetcar subway station, 83, 128 Atlantic Monthly, 47, 52, 52, 170 Atlantic Wharf building, 151, 157 Attleboro, 48 commuter rail station, 144 Auburndale Park, 50, 51 Auditorium (Green Line) station (formerly Massachusetts), 128 Augustus, John, 55 Shop, 54 Austin Biscuit Co., 114 Austin’s Palace Theatre, 99 Avco, 130 Ayer, Frederick, 72 Ayer commuter rail station, 144 Azores, 16, 27 Babson College, 147, 186 bacalao, 17 Back Bay archaeological site, 6 churches in, 5, 5, 61 Commonwealth Avenue Mall, 51, 51, 68, 68, 69, 86, 86, 100 cultural center, 100 deposition layers in, 5, 5 landmaking project, 61, 64, 68–69, 68, 69 occupations of residents in 1880, 81, 81 townhouses in, 64, 64, 68, 69 vote in 1910 mayoral election, 108, 109 west side annexed to Boston, 79 west side filled, 125 Back Bay (Orange Line) station, 145 Back Bay Fens, 86, 86, 125 cultural center, 100 Balch, Emily Greene, 179 Baldwin, Leo, 122 Ballou’s Pictorial, 62, 62 Ball Square (proposed Green Line) station, 145 Baltimore, 48 population of, 39, 39, 61, 64, 107, 118 Bamber, Golde, 103 banks in Boston, 37, 38, 39, 66, 91 in 1807, 39 in 1855, 66 “Banned in Boston,” 98 Barbados, trade with Boston, 13, 16, 17, 27, 28, 29 Barnstable, 8, 9 Bartlett, John, 53, 53, 171 in d e x   193

Bartlett, John (continued) Familiar Quotations, 53 Home, 53, 172 Barton’s Point, 116, 116 baseball teams and stadiums in Boston, 91, 94, 94 baths, public, in Boston, 104, 105 Batson, Ruth, 122, 135 Battery North, 21, 26, 31, 32 South, 21, 26, 32 Batterymarch Building, 114 Battery Street El station, 83, 128 Battery Wharf, 57 Battle of Blenheim, 24 Baxter, Sylvester, 77, 87 Greater Boston, 77 Bayside Mall, 125 Bay State College, 147, 186 Bay State Gas Co., 125 Bay State Iron Co., 73, 73 Bay State Moulding Mills, 114 Bay State Road, 125 Bay Village, 43, 73 Beach, Amy, 180 Home, 103 beaches in Boston, 1903, 94, 95 Beachmont (Blue Line) station, 128, 129 Beach Street El station, 83, 128 Beacon Hill, 41 Blackstone’s house on, 8, 9 Boston University on, 146 Greek Revival houses on, 43 Louisburg Square on, 51 north slope of, African Americans on, 37, 40, 41, 56, 106 occupations of residents in 1880, 81, 81 south slope of, 37, 40 tunnel under, 82 vote in 1910 mayoral election, 108, 109 Beacon Hill Reservoir, 84, 84 Beacon Press, 52, 170 Beaconsfield (Green Line) station, 129 Beacon Street, 40, 42, 64, 128 Beacon Street (Cambridge), 43 Beacon Street Land Association, 125 Beacon Theatre, 96 Bear Hill Reservoir, 84 Bear Hill Tank, 141 Beaver Brook Reservation, 87 Bedford, 141 commuter rail station, 144 Bedford Common, 50, 51 Bedford West urban renewal project, 132 bedrock in Boston Basin, 3, 4, 5 Belcher, Jonathan, 24, 30 Belcher family, 28 Bell, Alexander Graham, 96 Belle Isle, 79 Belle Isle Reclamation District, 125 Bellevue Standpipe #1, 140, 141 Bellevue Standpipe #2, 140, 141 Belmont (MA), 84 Belmont pumping station, 140, 141 Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology, 147, 186 Bennett & Cutler Highways (Route 1), 127 Bentley University, 147, 186 Berkeley Street, 64, 69, 146 Berklee, 147, 186 Berklee Performance Center, 153 Berman Arnold, 128 Sam, 128 Bermuda, 16, 27 Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, 148, 148, 149 Beverly commuter rail station, 144 Bible Convention, 54, 55 Bicentennial, U.S., in Boston, 123, 152 bicycling mania in Boston, 94, 95, 95 “Big Dig,” 139, 144 Bigelow, Jacob, 51 Bijou Theatre, 98, 98, 99 Bilbao, 16, 27 Billings Field Playground, 86 Biloxi, 28 Biogen, 148 biotechnology industry in Boston area, 139 centers of, 148, 149 pharmaceutical emphasis, 148 194  in d e x

Bird Island, 79 Bird Island Flats, 126, 126 Blacksmith House, 53 Blackstone (MA), 48 Blackstone “Blaxton,” William, 8 Blackstone Block, 30 Blackstone Square, 51, 51, 86 Blackwell, Alice, 181 Blackwell, Henry, 102 Bland, Doris, 122 Blue Hill Avenue, 43, 106 Blue Hills Covered Reservoir, 141 Blue Hills Parkway, 87, 87 Blue Hills Reservation, 7, 77, 87, 87 Blue Hills Reservoir, 140, 141 Blue Hill Turnpike, 43 Blue Line (MBTA), 82, 83, 128, 128, 129, 145 Board of Aldermen, Boston, 37, 43 Boch (Wang) Center, 153 Bonner, John, 30 bookstores in Boston area, 1837–91. See literary activity in Boston area, 1837–91 boot and shoe trade in Boston, 66, 66, 70 Bordeaux (France), 27 Borden, C. A., & Son, 125 Boston (Lincolnshire), 12 trade of, 12 monasteries in, 12 Boston, city of, 73 in Back Bay, 68, 69 Boston, Hartford & Erie Railroad, 144 Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn Railroad, 73, 73, 126, 126, 128 ferry, 73, 83, 128, 128, 129 Boston African American National Historic Site, 153 Boston Americans (Red Sox), 91, 94 Boston & Albany Railroad, 73, 128 Highland Branch, 128 Boston & Lowell Railroad, 48, 49, 73, 73, 125, 144 Boston depot in 1856, 49, 73 Boston & Maine Railroad, 49, 73, 73, 93, 125, 144, 144 Boston depot in 1856, 49 Terminal Project, 125 Boston & New York Central Railroad, 48, 49, 73 Boston & Providence Railroad, 48, 49, 73, 73, 144 Boston depot in 1856, 49, 57, 73 Dedham Branch, 68 Stoughton Branch, 144 Boston and Roxbury Mill Corporation, 68, 69, 73, 125 Boston & Worcester Railroad, 48, 49, 51, 73, 73, 144 Boston depot in 1856, 49 Boston Aqueduct Corporation. See Aqueduct Corporation Boston Architectural College, 147, 186 Boston Arena, 91 Boston Athenaeum, 52, 100, 101, 171 Boston Athletic Association, 94, 94, 95 boathouse, 95 Boston Athletic Boat Club, 94 Boston Bank, 39 Boston Baptist College, 147, 186 Boston Baptist Social Union, 104 Boston Basin bedrock in, 3, 4 formation of, 3 ice ages in, 3, 4 location of, 4, 4 resources in, 7, 7 sea level in, 3, 4 Boston Bath House Co., 105 Boston Beaneaters, 94 Boston Blue Clay, 3, 5, 5, 7 Boston Braves, 91, 94 Boston Central Labor Council, 108 Boston Children’s Aid Society, 104 Boston Children’s Hospital, 148, 148, 149 Boston Clerical School, 188 Boston College, 146, 146, 147, 186 in South End, 146, 146 sports complex, 153 Boston College Branch (B) Green Line, 129, 145 Boston Common, 30, 37, 51, 51, 152, 153 almshouse on, 20, 31, 116, 116 cultural center, 100, 101 linked to Emerald Necklace, 86, 86 water system fountain, 77 Boston Common archaeological sites, 6 artifact from, 7 Boston Company Building, 151

Boston Conservatory, The, at Berklee, 147, 186 Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, 152, 152, 153 Boston Cooking School, 91, 103 Boston Edison Company, 21 Boston Elevated Railway Company (BERy), 77, 82, 125, 128 Boston Evening Transcript, 114 Boston Exchange Office, 39 Boston Gas Light Company, 73, 73 Boston Gazette, 25, 28, 29, 32 Boston Globe, 94 Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis, 147, 186 Boston Harbor advantages of for early settlement, 7 British confined to, from 1775–76, 25 explored in early 1600s, 8 Middlesex Canal continued to, 42 sea level c. 3,000 BP, 3, 4 tunnels under, 82, 83, 127, 144, 144 Winthrop fleet in, 14 in Woodland period, 3, 6 Boston Harbor Cleanup, 139, 142 Boston Harbor Islands, 4, 4, 6, 7, 116, 117 acquired by Boston, 79, 79 Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area, 152, 153 Boston Herald, 77, 87 Boston Housing Authority, 116, 122, 125, 132 receivership, 113, 116 Boston Improved Sewerage, 85 Boston Industrial Home, 105 Boston Latin School, 152, 153 Boston Library Society, 100, 101 Boston Marathon, 91, 94, 152, 153 Boston Marine Insurance Co., 39 Boston Massacre, 33 site, 152, 153 Boston Medical Center, 148, 149 Boston Medical Library, 100, 101 Boston Mill Corporation, 42 Boston Museum, 98, 98, 99 Boston National Historical Park, 152, 153 Boston Nationals, 91 Boston Negro Theatre, 98 Boston News-Letter, 28 Boston Normal School, 103, 179, 181 Boston Park Department, 125 Boston Peoples Artists, 128 Boston Pilot, 70, 70, 71 Boston Planning Board, 118 Boston Port Development Company, 125 Boston Post, 114, 115 Boston Public Garden, 51, 51, 103, 103 Boston Public Library, 52, 52, 61, 91, 100, 101, 153, 171 Boston Public Market, 153 Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA), 132 Boston School Committee, 91, 122, 135 women on, 103, 179 Boston Society for Natural History, 69 Boston State College, 188 Boston Street Department, 125 Boston Symphony Orchestra, 91, 100, 101 Boston Tea Party, 25, 32, 33 Ships and Museum, 153 Boston Terminal Co., 125 Boston Theater (1793), 40, 41, 100 Boston Theatre (1854), 98, 99 Boston Theological Seminary, 146 Boston Transit Commission, 77, 82 Boston University, 146, 146, 147, 186 early history, 146 move to Charles River campus, 146 Boston University School of Medicine, 148, 149 Boston Water and Sewer Commission, 142 Boston Water Power Company, 68, 69, 69, 73, 125 Boston Wharf Company, 61, 73 Boston Wharf Company Wharf, 73 Boston Woven Hose & Rubber Co., 125 Boston Yacht Club, 95 boulevards, French-style, in Boston, 51, 68 boundaries of Boston in 1640, 15 in 1855, 49, 63, 65, 67 in 1859, 68 in 1860, 50 1867–74, 78 in 1888, 82 in 1889, 80, 81 in 1891, 53

in 1910, 106, 109 in 1912, 86 in 1918, 82 in 1919, 87 in 1950, 119 in 1960, 115 in 1970, 130, 131, 134 in 2010, 117, 156 modern, 79 Bowdoin Square, 37, 40, 96 streetcar subway (Blue Line) station, 83, 128 Bowdoin Square Theatre, 96, 99 boxing matches in Boston, 91, 94 Boylston, 141 Boylston-Essex subway station, 83, 128 Boylston-Essex urban renewal project, 132 Boylston Street, 69, 98, 146 Silver Line stop, 145 streetcar subway (Green Line) station, 83, 128, 145 Boylston Street Fishweir archaeological site, 6 Boylston Working Womens Club, 105 Bradford Boat Club, 94, 95 Brahmins, Boston, 47, 94 Braintree, 15 commuter rail station, 144 Red Line station, 144, 145 Braintree & Weymouth Turnpike, 43 Braintree-Weymouth sewage pumping station, 143, 143 Braintree-Weymouth Tunnel, 142, 143 Brammer Bio, 149 Brandeis University, 146, 147, 186 Brattle, William, House, 53 Brattle Court pumping station, 140, 141 Brattle Hall (Cambridge), 99 Brattle Street (Boston), 25 streetcar subway station, 83, 128 Brattle Street Meetinghouse, 32, 32 Brattle Theatre Company, 98 Breed, William, 25 Breeds Hill, 4, 33 Breeds Island, 79, 79 Bremen, 27 breweries in Boston, 1905, 91, 92, 93 bridges in Boston area free bridges, 37, 42 specific bridges: Arsenal Street (1824), 43; Broadway (1875), 73; Cambridge (Longfellow, 1907), 77, 82; Canal (Craigie’s, 1809), 37, 42, 73; Charles River (1786), 37, 42, 73; Chelsea (1803), 43, 73; Chelsea Street (1834), 73; Commercial (Freeport) Street (c. 1809), 73; Eastern Avenue (Congress Street, 1874), 73; Eliot (1951), 127; Free (Dorchester Avenue, 1828), 37, 42, 73; General Edwards (1935), 127; Harvard, 124, 124; Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial (2003), 144, 144; Malden (1787), 73; Meridian Street (1856), 73; Mill Dam (1821), 37, 42; Mount Washington Avenue (1855), 73; Neponset (1802), 73; Prison Point (1815), 23, 37, 73; Saratoga Street (by 1838), 73; South Boston (West Fourth Street, 1805), 37, 42, 73; Swett (Southampton) Street (1870s), 73; Tobin (1950), 43, 127; Warren (1828), 37, 42, 73; West Boston (1793), 37, 40, 42, 73; Western Avenue (1824), 43 in specific years: in 1786–1828, 37, 42, 42, 43; in 1800, 40; in 1880, 73 toll bridges, 37, 42 Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital, 149 Brigham and Women’s Hospital, 148, 148, 149 Brigham Circle (Green Line) station, 128 Brighton, 68, 77, 78, 78, 79, 80, 107 Brighton Landing, 150, 151 Brighton Music Hall, 153 Brimmer Street, 94 Bristol (England), 16, 27 Britain, trade with Boston, 13, 16, 17, 27, 27, 38 Broad Canal, 125 Broad Street, 42 Broad Street Association, 42 Broadway Bridge (1875), 73 Broadway subway (Red Line) station, 82, 83, 128, 129 Brockton, 130 Bromley Park public housing project, 116, 117 Brook Farm, 53, 54, 55, 171 archaeological sites, 6 artifact from, 7 Brookfield, 19, 19, 48 Brookline, 77, 78, 79, 91, 141, 142 Brookline Avenue, 43 Brookline Hills (Green Line) station, 129

Brookline Reservoir, 84, 84 Brookline Village, 68 Green Line station, 129 Brooklyn (NY), 64, 107 Brown, Edith, 104, 179 Brown family (Providence), 28 Bruins, Boston, 152 Brunswick-King urban renewal project, 132 Brush Hill Turnpike, 43 Bryant, Gridley J. F., 64 Bryant and Stratton Commercial School, 188 Buenos Aires, 38 Buffalo, 107, 118 Bulfinch, Charles, 40, 51, 100 Bunce Island, 27, 29 Bunker Hill, 4 Bunker Hill, Battle of, 33, 33 Bunker Hill Community College, 147, 186 Bunker Hill Monument, 152, 153 park, 86 Bunker Hill Yacht Club, 95 Bunte, Doris, 122 Burdett School of Business, 188 Burgess’ Alley, 63, 63 Burgis, William, 30 burlesque in Boston, 96, 97, 98 Burlington Common, 50 Burlington Mall, 130 Burns, Anthony, 56, 57 Burroughs, Harry E., 119 Burroughs Newsboys Home, 119, 119 burying grounds in Boston, 20–21, 31, 41, 47, 52 See also cemeteries, rural garden, in Boston area Bury St. Edmunds, Abbot of, 12 business district in Boston in 1807, 39 in 1855, 66 in 1905, 93 in early 2000s, 139, 151 businesses, closed, in Boston, 1920–60, 114 busing, school, in Boston, 113, 122 Butler Street (Red Line) station, 129 Cabot, Cabot & Forbes, 130 Cabot, John, 8 Cadiz, 16 Calcutta, 39, 47 Calderwood Theater, 153 California Gold Rush, 66 Calf Island, 79 archaeological site, 6 artifact from, 7 Calf Pasture sewage pumping station, 85, 85, 143, 143 Callahan Tunnel, 127 Calvin Coolidge College, 188 Cambridge (Longfellow) Bridge (1907), 77, 82, 87 Cambridge (MA), 15, 141 city of, 73, 125 industries in 1855, 66 landmaking in, 37, 42, 73 literary activity in, 52, 53 sewers, 142 Cambridge & Concord Turnpike, 43 Cambridge Argillite. See Argillite, Cambridge Cambridge Casino and Rowing Club, 95 Cambridge Cemetery, 50, 53, 172 Cambridge College, 147, 186 Cambridge Common, 50 landscaped, 50, 51 Cambridge Improvement Company, 73 Cambridge Junior College, 188 Cambridge Park Commission, 125 Cambridgeport Cycle Club, 95, 95 Cambridge Redevelopment Authority, 125 Cambridge Seven Associates, 129 Cambridge Street, 96, 97 Cambridge Subway, 82, 83 Cambridge University, 12 Cambridge-Watertown Turnpike, 43 Camden Street public housing project, 116, 117 Campbell, Abner R., Restaurant, 54 Camp Denison, 105 Campus High School urban renewal project, 132 Canadians, English, in Boston in 1910, 106 in 1950, 119 Canal (Craigie’s) Bridge (1809), 37, 42, 73

Canal Bridge, Proprietors of, 42 Canal Bridge Corporation, 73 canals, Cambridge, 42 Broad, 125 Cross, 73 Lechmere, 73, 125 North, 73 South, 73 South Dock, 73 canals, Massachusetts, 42 Midddlesex, 42, 43, 48 Canary Islands, 16, 27, 28, 29 canoes, dugout, 7 Canonchet, 19 Canton (China), 38, 39 Canton (MA), 141 archaeological site, 6 Cape Ann, 8, 9, 155 Cape Coast Castle, 27, 28, 29 Cape Cod, 4 named, 8, 9 Cape Cod Branch Railroad, 144 Cape Horn, 66 Capen (Union Oyster) House, 30 Capen Street (Red Line) station, 129 Cap Français, 27 Captain’s Island Beach, 95 Cardinal Cushing College, 188 Caribbean. See West Indies, trade with Boston Carney Hospital, 149 Carolina Avenue Playground, 86 Carroll Water Treatment Plant, 140, 141 Cartagena, 25, 26 Caruso sewage pumping station (formerly East Boston), 85, 143, 143 Casey, Jeremiah, 91 Casey brothers, 91 Cass, Thomas, 61 Cassacinamon, Robin, 18, 18 Castle Island, 26, 33, 79 Castle Island Park, 86 Castle Square, 73 Castle Square Theatre, 98, 98, 99 Castle William, 33, 33 Cathedral public housing project, 116, 117 Catholic Charities, 104 Causeway Street, 48, 49, 49 Cedar Grove (Red Line) station, 129 Celtics, Boston, 152 cemeteries, rural garden, in Boston area, 47, 50–51, 50, 51 Cambridge, 50, 53 Evergreen, 50 Forest Hills, 50 Garden, 50 Harmony Grove, 50 Lakeside, 50 Laurel Hill, 50 Mount Auburn, 47, 50, 51, 51, 53 Mount Feake, 50 Mount Hope, 50 Newton, 50 Oak Grove, 50 Pine Grove, 50 Riverside, 50 Shawsheen, 50 Wildwood, 50 Woodbrook, 50 Woodlawn, 50 censuses of Boston population of 1845, 62, 63 of 1855, 62, 63, 64, 173–74 of 1880, 81 of 1910, 106 Center for the Arts (South End), 133, 133 Center Plaza, 96, 96, 97 Central Artery, 64, 122, 126, 127, 144, 144, 152 Central Artery/Tunnel project, 125, 139, 144, 144 Central Avenue (Red Line) station, 129 Central Boat Club, 95 Central Square subway (Red Line) station, 83, 128, 129 Central Wharf, 42, 64 Central Wharf and Wet Dock Corporation, 42 Chabanakongkomun, 19 Chamberlayne Junior College, 188 Chamber of Commerce, Boston, 122 Champlain, Samuel de, 8, 9 Chandler School, 188 in d e x   195

Channing, Williams Ellery, 52, 171 Home, 52 Chapels for the Poor, 55 Chapman, Maria Weston, 56, 56 Home, 57 Chapter 91, 124 Chardon Street Conventions, 54, 55 Charity Building, 104 Charles (Red Line) station, 77, 128 Charles I of England, 8 Catholic beliefs of, 12 Charlesbank Park, 86, 94, 95, 125 Open-air Gymnasium for Women and Girls, 104 Charlesgate, 87 Charles/MGH (Red Line) station (formerly Charles), 145 Charles Playhouse, 153 Charles River access to interior, 7, 13, 17, 17 British troops crossed, 33 Champlain, described by, 8 silt deposited by, 5 on Smith’s map, 8 Winthrop settlers moved across, 3 Charles River Basin Commission, 125 Charles River Bridge (1786), 37, 42, 73 Charles River Dam, First, 42, 87, 108, 125 Charles River Dam, Second, 125 Charles River Embankment Co., 125 Charles River Park, 91, 94, 95 Charles River Reservation, 77, 86, 87, 87 Charles River Road (Memorial Drive), 125, 127 Charles River Speedway, 94, 94, 95 Charles River Valley sewerage system, 85, 85 Charles Street, 42 Charleston, 27, 28, 30, 39, 64 Charlestown, 80 annexed, 77, 78, 78 Doherty Playground, 5, 5 El demolishing, 144 Greek Revival houses in, 43 industries in 1855, 66 landmaking in, 37, 61 Massachusetts Bay Company in, 3, 14 Middlesex Canal terminus, 42 parks in, 86, 86 in 1640, 15 Walford’s house on, 8, 9 water of, brackish, 3, 13, 14 Charlestown (Ryan) Playground, 86, 125 Charlestown, city of, 72 Charlestown, town of, 72 Charlestown Branch Railroad, 73 Charlestown Bridge, 42 Charlestown Cycle Club, 95 Charlestown ferry, 144, 145 Charlestown Navy Yard. See Navy Yard (Charlestown) Charleston public housing project, 116, 117 Charlestown Pumping Station, 85, 85 Charlestown State Prison, 42 Charlestown Town Dock, 73 Charlestown Trust, 114 Charlestown urban renewal project, 132 opposition to, 132 Charlestown Village archaeological site, 6 Charlestown Wharf Company, 73 Charlestown Wheelmen club, 95 Charlie Card, 128, 128 Chelsea, 8, 9, 77, 84, 142 Chelsea Bridge (1803), 43, 73 Chelsea Bridge beach, 95 Chelsea Creek Headworks, 143 Chelsea Ferry, 83 Chelsea Fire, 85 Chelsea Street Bridge (1834), 73 Cheney, Ednah Dow Littlehale, 55, 102, 180 Home, 54 Chester Square, 51 Chestnut Hill (Green Line) station, 129 Chestnut Hill Emergency pumping station, 140, 141 Chestnut Hill Park, 86 Chestnut Hill pumping station, 84, 84, 140, 141 Chestnut Hill Reservoir, 84, 84 Chestnut Hill Reservoir treatment plant, 140, 141 Chestnut Hill Shopping Center, 130 Chicago, 107, 107, 118 Chickering Piano Factory, 114, 114, 133, 133 Chicopee, 48, 141 196  in d e x

Chicopee Valley Aqueduct, 140 Child, Lydia Maria, 56, 56 Appeal on Behalf of that Class of Americans Called Africans, 56 Home, 57 Children’s Mission, 105 Children’s Museum, Boston, 152, 153 China, trade with Boston, 37, 38, 38–39, 91 Chinatown, 43, 144 Silver Line stop (formerly Essex), 145 cholera epidemics in Boston, 63 Christ (Old North) Church, 32, 32 Christ, Scientist, First Church of, 102, 103 Christian Science Monitor, 102 churches in Boston. See worship, places of, in Boston Church of England, 12, 14 Church Street District (Bay Village), 73 Cincinnati, 64 Circolo Italiano-Americano, 105 City Hall (Boston), 57, 70, 71, 96, 97 City Hall Plaza, 96, 97 City Square El (Orange Line) station, 83, 128, 129 City Tunnel (aqueduct), 141 City Tunnel Extension, 141 City Wharf, 73 Civil Disobedience (Thoreau), 52 Civil Service House, 104 Civil War (U.S.), 47, 56, 61 in Boston, 56, 57, 61 Clarendon Street, 69, 146 Clark (North) Square, 20 Clarke, James Freeman, 55 clay. See Boston Blue Clay Clean Water Act, 142 Cleveland, 107, 118 Cleveland Circle Branch (C) Green Line, 129, 145 climate change in early 2000s, 154 Clinton, 48, 141, 141 clipper ships, 47, 61, 66 Clisby, Harriet, 180 clothing, ready-made, industry in Boston, 61, 66, 92, 114 Clough, George Albert, 85 Clough, Samuel C., 21 Clough House, 30, 30 Cochituate Aqueduct, 84, 84, 141 cod, as a resource, 8, 13, 16, 17 “sacred cod,” 8, 16 Codman (Dimock) Street, 102 Coercive Acts, 25, 33 Cohasset commuter rail station, 144 Coleman Disposal Co., 125 Coleman Dump, 125 College Avenue proposed Green Line station, 144, 145 College Club, 103, 180 colleges and universities in Boston area, 54, 91, 94, 122, 123, 139, 146–47, 146–47 economic impact, 146 dates founded, 147 dorm beds added, 2000–2010, 157 enrollment in, 146, 156 establishment, reasons for, 146 Collins, John F., 122, 132, 132 Colonial Theatre, 99, 153 Colored American Magazine, 102, 102, 103 Columbia (Red Line) station, 128, 129 Columbia (ship), 38, 38 Columbian Rowing Association, 94, 95 Columbia Point, 85, 114, 124 Columbia Point public housing project, 116, 117, 125 Columbia Road, 86 Columbia Square, 51, 51 Columbia Theatre, 99 Columbia Yacht Club, 95 Columbus (Moakley) Park, 125 Columbus, Christopher, 8 Columbus, Christopher, Park, 72 Columbus Avenue, 68 Columbus Avenue Playground, 86 Columbus Park Headworks, 143 “Combat Zone,” 96, 157 Combined Jewish Charities, 104 “Come Over and Help Us” on Massachusetts Bay Colony’s Great Seal, 12, 18, 18 said by Macedonian man, 12 said by Native American, 12, 18 Commercial (Freeport) Street Bridge (c. 1809), 73

commercial buildings in Boston, 64, 70, 150–51 Commercial Point archaeological site, 6 Commercial Point beach, 95 Commercial Street, 73, 92, 92 Committee of Vigilance and Safety, Boston, 56, 57 Common, Boston cultural center, 100 Freedom Trail site, 152, 153 as park, 47, 51, 51, 77 poor, institutions for, on, 24, 30, 116 common, other cities/towns, landscaped, 1816–60, 47, 50–51, 50, 51 Bedford, 50, 51 Burlington, 50 Cambridge, 50, 53 Dedham, 50, 51 Dover, 50 Lexington, 50, 51, 51 Lynn, 50 Needham, 50 Quincy, 50 Reading, 50, 51 Roxbury, 50 Wakefield, 50 Waltham, 50 Common Council, in Boston, 37, 43, 77, 108 Commonwealth (Fidelis Way) public housing project, 116, 117 Commonwealth Avenue, 125, 128 Commonwealth Avenue Mall, 51, 51, 68, 68, 69, 86, 86, 100 Commonwealth Avenue pumping station, 140, 141 Commonwealth Playground, 86 Community College (Orange Line) station, 145 Community Development Block Grants, 132 Community Development Corporations, 122 Emergency Tenants Council (South End), 133 commuter rail system in Eastern Massachusetts, 144, 144 on existing rail lines, 48, 144 Concord, 15, 52, 53, 130 Concord Free Public Library, 53, 172 Town House, 53, 172 Concord and Lexington, Battle of, 25, 33 Concord Avenue (Cambridge, Belmont, Lexington), 43 Concord School of Philosophy, 53, 53 Concord Square, 69 conglomerate rocks defined, 3, 4 Roxbury Conglomerate, defined, 3, 4; location of, 3, 4, 4 Roxbury Puddingstone, defined, 4, 5, 5 types in Boston, 4, 5, 5 use of in Boston, 4, 5, 5 Congregational Society, Twenty-Eighth, 54, 55 Congress, Massachusetts Provincial, 33 Congress Street Grounds, 91, 94, 95 Connecticut, slaves arriving at, 28 Connolly, James Brendan, 91 Conservation Law Foundation, 142 Constitution, USS, 152, 153 Museum, 152, 153 Constitution Beach, 125 Constitution Wharf, 62 Continental Army, 33 convention facilities in Boston, 152, 152, 153 “Conversations” (Fuller), 52, 53, 54 Coolidge, Cornelius, 51 Copenhagen, 27 Copley Place, 133, 151 Copley Plaza Hotel, Fairmont, 69 Copley Square streetcar subway (Green Line) station, 83, 128, 129 Copley Theatre, 99 Copp’s Hill, 4 Copp’s Hill Burying Ground, 15, 152–53 Copp’s Hill Terrace, 86 Corey Hill, 4 Cork, County (Ireland), 62, 62 Corner Bookstore, Old, 30, 152, 153, 170 Cornhill Street, 70 Cosgrove power station, 140, 141 Cosgrove Tunnel (aqueduct), 141 Cottage Park Yacht Club, 95 Cottage Street Playground, 86 Cotton, John from Boston, Lincolnshire, 12, 14 sermon to Winthrop’s fleet, 12 Country Club, The (Brookline), 91, 95 Court House (Silver Line) station, 145

“Courtship of Miles Standish, The” (Longfellow), 53 Court Street, 96, 97 Court Street streetcar subway station, 82, 83 Coyne School of Technical Electricity, 188 Craigie’s Bridge. See Canal (Craigie’s) Bridge (1809); Craigie’s Bridge beach, 95 Crawford House, 96, 96, 97 Crocker, Lucretia, 181 Home, 103 Croft (formerly Highland Spring) Brewing Co., 114 Cromwell, Oliver, 12 Cross Canal (Cambridge), 73 Crown Point, 33 Crumpler, Rebecca Lee, 179–80 Medical Office, 103 Cuba, 16 cultural institutions in Boston, 91, 100–101, 152 cultural use, land donated for, 69, 69, 100 culture in Boston, 47 Cunard Line, 61 Cunard Wharf, 73 Curley, James Michael, 96, 108, 108, 113, 114, 118, 122 Curry College, 186 Custom House in Boston, 33, 43, 52, 73 Custom House Tower, 118, 118 customs duties, Boston, 39, 39 Cutler Majestic Theatre, 153 Cutler Park reservation, 87 Cuttyhunk, 8, 9 Cyclorama, 133, 133 Dall, Caroline Healey, 55 Home, 54 Damrell, John S., 70 Dana (MA), 141 Dana, Richard Henry, Jr., Home, 53, 171 Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, 148, 149 Danvers, 48 Danzig/Gdansk, 27 Dartmouth, 19 Data General, 130, 130 David (Red Line) station, 145 Davis Cup, 91 Dawes, William, 33, 33 Day Square (Blue Line) station, 129 Dearborn, H. A. S, 51 Dedham, 15, 48, 79, 141 commuter rail station, 144 Dedham Branch (Boston & Providence Railroad), 68 Dedham Common, 50, 51 Dedham Turnpike, 43 Deer Island granted to Boston, 79 institutions for poor on, 117, 117, 142 Native Americans interned on, in King Philip’s War, 18, 19 prisons on, 142, 142 sewerage facilities on: outfall tunnel, 142, 143; primary treatment plant in 1968, 142, 142; pumping station in 1895, 85, 85, 142, 142, 143, 143; treatment plant in 1995, 142, 142, 143 Deer Island Light, 85 Deer Island Tank, 141 DeLauri sewage pumping station (formerly Charlestown), 143, 143 Delaware River, slaves arriving at, 28 Democrats in Boston, 108 Denison House, 103, 104, 105, 105 Camp Denison, 105 Circolo Italiano-Americano, 105 Social Science Club, 105 deposition, glacial, in Back Bay, 5, 5 depressions Great New England Recession, 1990–91, 151 Long, in Boston, 1920–60, 114–15, 118, 132, 133, 150, 152 in Massachusetts, 1780s, 37, 38 in U.S.: from 1873–78, 86; in 1893, 87, 91; in 1920, 114; from 1929–1930s, 98, 113, 114, 115 Derne Street, 146 Design Center (Silver Line) stop, 145 Desire (ship), 28 Detroit, 107, 118 Devonshire Street, 71 streetcar subway station, 83, 128 Dewey Beach, 95, 125 Dewey Square, 150 Dial, 52 Dickens, Charles, 52

DiFronzo, Anna, 122 Digital Equipment Corporation, 130, 130 Dillaway School, 78, 78 Dillaway-Thomas House archaeological site, 6 Dimock, Susan, 102, 180 Dimock Center, 102 Disciples, Church of, 54, 55 disease, theories of germs, 124 miasmatic or filth theory of, 72, 85, 86, 124 distilling in Boston, 21, 26, 31, 37, 38, 40, 40–41, 66, 67, 92 Dix, Dorothea, 55, 55 Home, 54 Doherty Playground (Charlestown Heights), 5, 5, 86 “domestic sphere” of work, 102 Dominion of New England, 24, 25 Dorchester, 80, 107 annexations from, 79 annexed to Boston, 77, 78, 78, 84 1830s residential parks, 51 founded, 14 Jews’ move to, 106, 130, 131 in 1640, 15 Dorchester Avenue, 43 Dorchester Avenue Bridge (1828), 42, 73 Dorchester Brook, 125 Dorchester Company, 3, 8, 9, 14 Dorchester Gentlemen’s Driving Club, 95 Dorchester Heights, 33, 33, 153 Dorchester Neck, 79 Dorchester Park, 86 Dorchester Tunnel (aqueduct), 141 Dorchester Tunnel (subway), 83 Dorchester Turnpike, 43 Dorchester Yacht Club, 95 Double Mammoth Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 98, 98 Dover (MA), 130 Dover (NH), 17 Dover Common, 50 Dover Street Bridge beach, 95 Dover Street El (Orange Line) station, 83, 128, 129 Downtown Crossing (Red, Orange, Silver Lines) station (formerly Washington), 145 drains in Boston. See sewage disposal in Boston drumlins in Boston area formation of, 3, 4 location of, 4 Dublin, 27 Du Bois, William, 99 Haiti, 99 Duck Boat tours/trolleys, 153 Dudley, 48 Dudley, Helena, 179 Dudley Pond, 84 Dudley Road pumping station, 140, 141 Dudley Square, 78 El (Orange Line) station, 82, 83, 128, 129 Silver Line stop, 145 Dudley Street, 43 Dummy Field, 86 Durant, Pauline, 180 Duvey, Eliot, 99 Duxbury & Cohasset Railroad, 144 Dyer, Mary, 102 Eagle Hill, 4, 84 Earhart, Amelia, 105 earthquake hazard in Boston, 154, 155 liquefaction potential, 155 1755 earthquake, 155, 155 unreinforced masonry construction areas, 155 East Anglia, 12 East Berkeley Street (Silver Line) stop, 145 East Boston, 43, 48, 49, 61, 64, 80 granted to Boston, 79 vote in 1910 mayoral election, 108, 109 East Boston Athletic Association Boat Club, 95 East Boston Company, 73, 125 East Boston Expressway (Route 1A), 127 East Boston Flats, 126 East Boston Gym, 95 East Boston High School, 84, 84 East Boston Improvement Company, 73 East Boston Pumping Station, 85, 85 East Boston Reservoir, 84, 84 East Bridgewater, 48 Eastern Avenue (Congress Street) Bridge (1874), 73

Eastern Nazarene College, 147, 186 Eastern Railroad, 48, 49, 73, 73, 144 Boston depot in 1856, 49 ferry, 49, 49 Gloucester Branch, 144 Wharf, 73 East India Company, 25 East Somerville (proposed Green Line) station, 145 economy of Boston in 1630s, 13, 17 in 1640s, 16–17 1740–1760, 26–27 in 1760s, 24, 26, 30 1776–1807, 38–39 1780–1820s, 37 in 1855, 66–67 1880–1920, 91 in 1905, 92–93 in 1950, 118 in early 2000s, 139, 146, 148, 150, 152 decline of, in 1920–60, 91, 113, 114–15, 118 Eddy, Mary Baker, 102, 181 Edes, Benjamin, 25 Edes & Gill print shop, 32, 32 Edison, Thomas, 96, 98 Education, Massachusetts Board of, 55, 135 education of women in Boston, 55, 91, 102 Edwards, General, Bridge (1935), 127 Egleston Square El (Orange Line) station, 83, 128, 129 election, mayoral, of 1910, 108–9 elevated lines in Boston. See public transportation in Boston Eliot (Green Line) station, 128 Eliot, Charles, 77, 87 Eliot, Charles W., 77 Eliot, John efforts to convert Indians, 18 Mamusse Wunneetupanatamwe Up-Biblum God (Indian Bible), 18 Eliot Bridge (1951), 127 elite, business, residence in Boston, 1880, 81, 81 Elizabeth Islands, 24 Elm Cycle Club, 95 Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts, 118 Elmina, 16, 27, 28, 29 Emancipation Proclamation, 56, 57 Embankment, Boston, 125 Embankment, Cambridge, 125 Embargo of 1807, 37, 38 Emerald Necklace, 51, 77, 86, 86, 94 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 47, 52, 53, 53, 172 Home, 53 Emerson College, 147, 157, 186 Emerson Paramount Theater, 157 Emerson Piano, 114 Emmanuel College, 147, 186 employment in Boston, 119, 119, 150, 150, 156 Enfield, 141, 141 England, counties Boston immigrants originated from, 1630–1640, 14, 14 England, trade with Boston, 13, 16, 17 Environmental Protection Agency, 142 Episcopal Divinity School, 147, 186 Epworth League House, 104 Erie Canal, 48 Erie Railroad, 48 Esplanade, Boston, 126, 144 filled, 87, 125, 126 Esplanade, Cambridge, filled, 125 Essex (England), 14, 14 Essex (Orange Line) station (formerly Boylston-Essex), 128, 129 Essex Street, 96 Ether Dome, 148, 148 Europe, trade with Boston, 27, 38, 38 Eustis, William, Playground, 86 evacuation of Boston by British, 25, 33, 37 Evening Institute for Young Men, Boston YMCA, 146 Everett, 84, 128 Everett, Edward, 48 Everett El (Orange Line) station, 128 Everett Scrap Yard, 125 Evergreen Cemetery, 50 Exchange Place building, 151 Exchange Trust, 114 exploration, European of Massachusetts Bay, 3, 8–9 Factory Hill Playground, 86 Fair Labor Standards Act, 119 in d e x   197

Fairmount commuter rail station, 144 Fairmount public housing project, 116, 117 Fall River, 48 Fall River Expressway (Route 24), 127 Fall River Railroad, 144 Falmouth (MA), 77 Falmouth (ME), 17 Familiar Quotations, 53 Family City Development Corporation, 125 famine, potato, in Ireland, 61, 62 Faneuil, Peter, 30 Faneuil family, 28 Faneuil Hall, 30, 32, 32, 37, 39, 43, 43, 101, 108, 152, 153 Faneuil Hall Market, 42, 43, 43 Faneuil Hall Marketplace, 152, 153 Faneuil Hall/Quincy Market area, 122, 132 Faneuil public housing project, 116, 117 Farmer, Fannie Merritt, 91, 103, 181 Farmer’s, Miss, School of Cookery, 103 farming in Woodland period, 3, 6, 7 Farm Pond, 84 Fayal, 27 Federal architecture in Boston, 40, 40 Federal Bulldozer, The (Anderson), 132 Federal Housing Act of 1949, 132 urban renewal provisions, 132 Federal Housing Administration, 115, 130 Federal National Bank, 114 Federal Reserve Bank building, 48, 150, 150, 157 Federal Theatre Project, 98, 99 Fellows Street Playground, 86 Fells Basin 3 Reservoir, 140, 141 Fells Reservoir, 84 Fellsway, 43, 87 Felsite, Banded Mattapan, 7 Fenway, 86, 125, 127 urban renewal project, 132 Fenway Court (Gardner Museum), 91, 103 Fenway Park, 152, 153 Fenway Park (Green Line) station, 129 ferries in Boston area, 73, 144 Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn R.R., 83, 128, 128, 129 Charlestown, 144, 145 Chelsea, 83 Eastern R.R., 49, 49 Hingham, 144, 145 Hull/Hingham via Logan, 144, 145 North, 83, 128, 128, 129 South, 83, 128, 128, 129 Fields, Annie Adams, 52 Home and Literary Salon, 52, 103, 171, 180 Fields, James T., 52 Fields Corner (Red Line) station, 128, 129 54th Massachusetts Regiment. See Massachusetts regiments in Civil War Filene’s, 130, 150 fill for Boston landmaking excavating, transporting, depositing, 72, 73, 73, 124, 124 types of, 72, 124 Fillmore, Millard, 48 finance in Boston, 38, 39, 66, 91, 92, 114, 139, 150, 156 Fire, Great, 1872 (Boston), 70–71 effect of, 70 progress of, 70, 71 fires in Boston, 30 in November 1676, 21 in 1760, 24, 30 in November 1872, 61, 70–71 First National Bank of Boston building, 151 First Period architecture in Boston, 21, 21 First Street Dump (Cambridge), 73, 125 First Street Playground, 86 fish, as a resource, 3, 7, 8, 27 See also cod, as a resource Fisher College, 147, 186 Fisher Hill, 4 Fisher Hill Reservoir, 84 fish flakes, 8 fishing stations, 1500s and 1600s on New England coast, 3, 8, 9 fishweirs, in Archaic period, 6 See also Boylston Street Fishweir archaeological site; Hog Bridge Fishweir archaeological site Fitchburg, 48 commuter rail station, 144 Fitchburg Railroad, 49, 73, 73, 125, 144 Boston depot in 1856, 49 Fitzgerald, John F. “Honey Fitz,” 108–9, 108, 109 198  in d e x

Fitzgerald, Mary Josephine “Josie,” 108 500 Boylston Street building, 151 flats, tidal, filled to create land, 37, 42, 61, 68, 72 Flynn, Ray, 123 food wholesalers in downtown Boston 1905, 92, 93 Forbes Hill Reservoir, 84 foreign-born population of Boston, 63, 64, 106, 118, 119, 119 Fore River Shipyard, 142 Forest Hills Cemetery, 50 Forest Hills El (Orange Line) station, 80, 83, 128, 129, 145 Forest Hills Playground, 86 Forge Park commuter rail station, 144 Fort Dawes, 142, 142 Fort Hill, 20, 26, 37, 41, 51, 62, 63, 73 Fort Point Channel, 61, 125, 157 Foster, Vere, 62 Penny Emigrant’s Guide, 62 founding of Boston, 3, 14, 15 Fountain Square park, 86 Fourth of July concert in Boston, 152, 153 Foxboro commuter rail station, 144 Framingham, 48, 77, 130, 141 commuter rail station, 144 Framingham Reservoirs, 84, 84 Framingham sewage pumping station, 143, 143 Franciscan Children’s Hospital, 149 Francis Milliken Restaurant, 54 Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, Supplement to, 70 Franklin, Ben, statue, 152, 153 Franklin commuter rail station, 144 Franklin Field, 86, 86 Franklin Field public housing project, 116, 117 Franklin Hill Avenue public housing project, 116, 117 Franklin Park, 86, 86, 91, 94 Zoo, 152 Franklin Square, 51, 51, 86 Franklin Street, 40, 51, 62, 70, 70 Free (Dorchester Avenue) Bridge (1828), 37, 42, 73 Freedom Trail, 122, 152, 152 French and Indian (Seven Years’) War, 24, 26, 30, 33 French Catholic colonists in Nova Scotia, 24 Fresh Pond Parkway, 87, 127 Fried, Marc, 132 “Grieving for a Lost Home,” 132 Friends of Universal Reform, 55 Front, The, 125 Front Street (Harrison Avenue), 42, 73 Front Street Corporation, 42 “Fugitive Slave (Twelfth Baptist) Church,” 56, 57 Fugitive Slave Laws, 56 Fuller, Margaret, 47, 52, 53, 53, 55, 102 “Conversations,” 52, 53, 54, 55 Home, 53, 171 Women in the Nineteenth Century, 53 Fulton Street, 73 Funchal, 27 Furnace Brook Parkway, 87 furniture dealers in Boston, 1905, 92, 93 furs, as a resource, 8, 17 Gage, Thomas, 25 Gaiety Theatre, 99 Gainsborough Street, 125 Gallivan Boulevard public housing project, 116, 117 Gallops Island, 79 archaeological site, 6 Gans, Herbert, 132 Urban Villagers, The, 132 Garden, TD, 153 Garden Cemetery, 50 Gardner, Isabella Stewart, 91, 102, 102, 181 Home, 103 Gardner, Isabella Stewart, Museum, 91, 100, 100, 102, 152, 152, 153 Garland Junior College, 188 Garrison, William Lloyd, 56, 56, 96 Home, 57 Garrity, Paul, 142 Garrity, W. Arthur, 134, 135 gathering places in mid-1800s for Boston area authors, 52 General Court (Massachusetts legislature), 14, 17, 24, 79 General Motors Corporation, 108 Genoa, 27 gentrification in Boston, 123 Genzyme, 148, 149 geocodes, 134, 135 geology of Boston Basin, 3, 4–5

George Frost & Co., 114 George Page Box Company, 73 Georges Island, 79 Georgetown, 48 Georgian architecture in Boston, 30, 30 Gibson, Christopher, Playground, 86 Gilchrist’s, 150 Gillette Co., 125 Gilman Square (proposed Green Line) station, 145 Girls’ High and Normal School, 54, 55, 91, 103 Girls’ Latin School, 91, 103, 181 glacial till, defined, 3, 4, 5, 5 Glasgow, 27 Gleason’s Pictorial, 51 Globe Theatre, 99 Glorious Revolution in England, 24 Gloucester, 8, 9, 15 commuter rail station, 144 Gold Coast, 29 Golden Age of American Literature, 52 golf courses in Boston, 91, 94, 95 Good Samaritan, House of the, 104 Good Templars’ Hall, 105 Goodwill Industries, 104 Gorée Island, 27, 29 “Gore,” The, 42 Gorges, Robert, 9 Gosnold, Bartholomew, 8, 9 Goss, George, 68 government, form of, in Boston, 37, 43, 47 Government Center (Green, Blue Lines) stations (formerly Scollay), 82, 96, 128, 145 Government Center urban renewal project, 96, 122, 132, 132 Governor (Kenmore) Square streetcar subway station, 83 Governors Island, 79, 86, 126 Grafton, 48 Grahm Junior College, 188 Granary Burying Ground, 52, 57, 96, 152, 153 Grand Banks, 8, 9 Grand Junction Railroad, 48, 49, 73 Grand Junction Wharves, 73 Gravel or Mount Hope Branch (Old Colony Railroad), 68, 68 Graves, The, 79 Gray, Arthur F., 85 Gray, Thomas, 9 Great Barrington, 48 Great Brewster Island, 79 Greater Boston (Baxter), 77 Great Migration, 12, 13, 14, 14, 17 “Great Swamp Fight,” 18, 19, 19 Greek Revival architecture in Boston, 43, 43 Greenbush commuter rail station, 144 Green Dragon Tavern, 32, 32, 101 Green Island, 79 Green Line (MBTA), 68, 82, 83, 128, 128–29, 144, 145 Extension to College Avenue, Medford, 144, 145 Greenough Boulevard, 127 Green Street El (Orange Line) station, 83, 128, 129, 145 Greenway, Rose Kennedy, 139, 144, 144, 152, 153 Greenwich, 141 Greer, Frank, 91 Gregory, Samuel, 55 Grey Nuns Home, 105 “Grieving for a Lost Home” (Fried), 132 Griffin’s Wharf, 32, 32 Grimes, Leonard, 56, 56 Grimké, Angelina, 54, 55 Groton, 19 Groton manor (England), 12 groundwater, falling, 154, 155 Groundwater Trust, Boston, 154 Groundwater Working Group, 154 Grove Hall, 122 Guadeloupe, 27 Guantanamo, 26, 27 Guerrier, Edith, 103, 104, 179 Gulf of Maine, 8 gymnasiums in Boston, 1903, 94, 95 Habermann, Francis Xavier, 26 Haiti (Du Bois), 99, 99 Hale, Edward Everett, 104 Hale House, 105 Half-Moon Place, 63 Halifax (Nova Scotia), 27 Hamburg, 27 Hammond Pond Parkway, 87

Hampshire Street (Cambridge), 43 Hampton (NH), 17 Hampton (VA), 28 Hancock, Ebenezer, House, 30 Hancock, John, 26 Hancock, John, Building, 118, 118, 150 weather beacon, 118, 182 Hancock, John, Financial Services, 150 Hancock, John, Hall, 153 Hancock, John, Tower, 151 Hancock family, 28 Hancock House, 24 Hancock Street (Quincy), 43 Hancock’s Wharf, 32, 32 Hancock Woods archaeological site, 6 Hanover Street, 24, 66 Hanscom Air Force Base, 130 Hanseatic League, 12 Harbor and Land Commissioners, Massachusetts Board of, 125 Harbor Commissioners, Massachusetts Board of, 73 Harbor Islands, Boston. See Boston Harbor Islands Harborwalk, 124, 152 Harmony Grove Cemetery, 50 Harrison, James, 12 Harrison Avenue, 73, 146 Hartford, 17 Harvard/Brattle station, 145 Harvard Bridge, 124, 124 Harvard College/University, 13, 47, 51, 52, 53, 53, 171, 186 American Academy of Arts and Sciences at, 100 as major research university, 146, 147 sports complex, 153 as tourist destination, 153 Harvard Dental School, 148, 149 Harvard Medical School, 148, 149 Harvard Rowing Club, 95 Harvard School of Public Health, 148, 149 Harvard Square subway (Red Line) station, 82, 83, 128, 129, 145 Harvard Stadium, 83, 91, 94, 95 Harvard Yard, 50, 51 Haskell, Mary Elizabeth, 181 Haskell School for Girls, 103 Hassanamesit, 19 Hatch Shell, 153 Havana, 27 Haverhill, 15, 48 commuter rail station, 144 Havey Beach reservation, 87 Hawes, Bess Lomax, 128 Hawley Street, 70 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 52 Home, 53 Hayden, Harriet, 56 Hayden, Lewis, 56, 56 Home, 57 Hayes sewage pumping station, 143, 143 Haymarket (Orange Line) station (formerly Union-Friend), 128, 145 Haymarket Square streetcar subway (Green Line) station, 83, 128, 145 Head of the Charles Regatta, 152, 153 headquarters of national companies in Boston, 150, 151 Health, Boston Board of, 125 Health, Massachusetts State Board of, 84, 87 Heath (Green Line) station, 128, 145 Heath Street Branch (E) Green Line, 145 Heath Street public housing project, 116, 117 Hebrew College, 147, 187 Hebrew Industrial School, 91, 103, 103, 104 Hecht, Lina, 91, 103, 103, 179 Hellenic College/Greek Orthodox School of Theology, 147, 187 Hemenway, Harriet, 180 Hemenway, Mary, 179 Hemenway Gymnasium, 95 Hemenway Street, 125 Hemlock Gorge Reservation, 87 Henley Boat Club, 95 Henry VIII, 12 Herald Street (Silver Line) stop, 145 Higginson, Henry Lee, 91 Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, Home, 53, 172 Highland Branch of Boston & Albany Railroad, 128 Highland Park, 86 Highway Department, Massachusetts, 125 highways in Boston area, 127, 130, 139 circumferential, 126, 130 construction in 1950s and 1960s, 113, 114, 115, 122, 130

radial, 126 suburbanization, relation to, 113, 130 See also tunnels, highway, in Boston highways in Boston area, specific Alewife Brook Parkway, 87, 127 American Legion Highway (Route 1), 127 Bennett & Cutler Highways (Route 1), 127 Central Artery (Fitzgerald Expressway), 64, 122, 126, 127, 144 Charles River Road (Memorial Drive), 125, 127 East Boston Expressway (Route 1A), 127 Fall River Expressway (Route 24), 127, 130 Fresh Pond Parkway, 87, 127 Greenough Boulevard, 127 I-90 across South Boston, 144, 144, 150 I-93, 127, 130 I-495, 130 Inner Belt, 122, 126 International Highway (Route 1), 127 Lee-Burbank Highway (Route 1A), 127 Lynnway (Route 1A), 87, 127 Massachusetts Turnpike and Extension (I-90), 122, 126, 127, 130 McClellan Highway (Route 1A), 127 Northeast Expressway (I-95), 126, 127 Northern Artery (McGrath Highway, O’Brien Highway, Route 28), 127 North Shore Road (Route 1A), 127 Northwest Expressway (U.S. Route 3), 127 Old Colony Parkway (Morrissey Boulevard), 125, 127 Providence Highway (Route 1), 127 Route 2, 127, 130, 130 Route 9, 43, 127, 130 Route 28, 43 Routes 99 & 1, 43 Route 107, 43, 127 Route 128, 126, 127, 130, 130 Route 138, 43 Soldiers Field Road, 127 Southeast Expressway (Route 3), 122, 125, 126, 127, 130 Southwest Expressway, 122, 126 Storrow Drive, 118, 125, 126, 127 V.F.W. Highway (Route 1A), 127 V.F.W. Parkway (Route 1), 127, 130 “Hillside Chapel,” 53 Hingham, 15 Hingham ferry, 144, 145 Hingham sewage pumping station, 143, 143 Hispanics in Boston in 2010, 156 Hispaniola, 16 Hog Bridge Fishweir archaeological site, 6 Hog Island, 79 Hollis Street Theatre, 99 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Sr., 52, 94 Home, 52, 171 Holy Cross, Church of the, 62 Holyoke, 48 Holyoke Street, 104 Temporary Home for Women, 104 Hood Business Park, 151 Hoosac Docks, 125 “Hooverville” in Boston, 114 Hopedale Community, 55 Hopkins, Pauline, 102, 180 Hopkinton, 48 Hopkinton Reservoir, 84 horse cars in Boston area, 77, 82, 82 Horticultural Hall, 91, 100, 100, 101 hotels in Boston, 2017, 152 Houghs Neck sewage pumping station, 143, 143 Houghton Mifflin, 52, 170 House of Blues, 153 House of Corrections, 117, 117 House of Industry, 116, 117, 117 House of Mercy, 105 houses in Boston area in 1676, 20–21 in 1743, 30, 30 in 1800, 41 specific houses: Amory-Ticknor House, 52; Blacksmith House, 53; Clough House, 30, 30; Hancock House, 24; Harrison Gray Otis House, First, 40, 40; Hutchinson Mansion, 32, 32; Nell House, 40, 40, 52, 57; Old Manse, 53; Orchard House, 53, 53; Paul Revere House, 21, 21; Province House, 32, 32; Shirley Eustis House, 30, 30; Thoreau-Alcott House, 53; Vassall-Craigie House, 53; Wayside, 53, 53; William Brattle House, 53

specific styles: Federal style, 40; First Period style, 21; Georgian style, 30; Greek Revival style, 43; Italianate, 64 housewrights in Boston, 37, 40, 41 housing in Boston area, 156 affordable, 113 public (see public housing in Boston) suburban (see suburban development, post-World War II, in Boston area) Howard Athenaeum. See Old Howard Howe, Julia Ward, 55, 55, 102, 102, 171, 179, 180 Home, 52, 54, 103 Home and Meeting Place, 103 Howe, Samuel Gridley, 55, 55 Howells, William Dean, 52, 171, 172 Homes, 52, 53 Hoyt, Charles H., 98 Trip to Chinatown, A, 98, 99 “Hub of the Solar System,” 52 Hudson River, 48 Hull, John, 12 Hull/Hingham ferry via Logan, 144, 145 Hult International Business School, 147, 187 Hultman Aqueduct, 140, 141 Huntington Avenue, 43 cultural center, 100 streetcar subway line, 128 Huntington Avenue Grounds, 91, 94, 94, 95, 146 Huntington Theater, 153 Hutchinson, Anne, 102 Hutchinson Mansion, 32, 32 Hyams, Isabel, 179 Hyde Park, 107 annexation to Boston, 79, 79, 86, 124 created, 79 Hyde Park Avenue pumping station, 140, 141 Hynes, John B., 113, 118, 122, 132, 152 Hynes, John B., Veterans Memorial Convention Center, 152, 153 Hynes Convention Center (Green Line) station (formerly Hynes/ICA and Auditorium), 145 ice ages in Boston area, 3, 4, 4 immigrants in Boston, 91, 94, 98, 156 employment of, 61, 62, 66, 92, 102, 107, 107, 114 vote in 1910 mayoral election, 108, 109 immigration to Boston in 1630s, 12–13, 14, 14 in early 1700s, 24 1790–1820, 37 1845–55, 61 c. 1900, 92, 107 Irish, 61, 62–63, 64, 66, 68 ImmunoGen Inc., 149 income, per capita in Massachusetts, 1929–60, 114 Independence Square park, 86 Independent Advertiser, 30 India Wharf, 42 India Wharf, Proprietors of, 42 Industrial Bank and Trust Co., 114 industries in Boston area in 1676, 20, 20–21 in mid-1700s, 26 in 1743, 30, 31 1790s–1820s, 37, 38 in 1800, 40, 41, 169 in mid-1800s, 61 in 1855, 66, 66, 67 in 1905, 91, 92, 93 industries in Massachusetts, 47, 48, 48 inequality in Boston in mid-1700s, 24, 30 from mid-1700s wars, 26 in 1930s, 114 c. 2000, 113, 123, 139, 156, 157 Information, Additional Plate 7, method to locate industries, retail shops, taverns, 166–67 Plate 13: method to locate commercial, industrial, residential sites, 168–69; method to locate Boston industries in 1800, 169 Plate 20: use of 1855 city, not state, census, 173–74; data for Irish county of origin, 174 Plate 22, limitations of 1855 census of industry, 67 Plate 46, method to calculate numbers of Jews and Italians, 184 I-93, 127, 130 Inner Belt, 122, 126 in d e x   199

Institute of Contemporary Art, 152, 152, 153 Institute of Fine Arts, 69, 69 insurance companies in Boston, 37, 38, 39, 66, 70 in 1807, 39 Intercontinental Hotel and Residences, 157 Interim Corrosion Control Facility (Northborough), 140, 141 Inter-Island Tunnel, 142, 143 Intermediate sewage pumping station, 143, 143 International Highway (Route 1), 127 Interstate Highway System, 126, 144 Ipswich, 15 commuter rail station, 144 Ipswich Street, 125 Ireland, potato famine in, 61, 62, 66 Irish immigration to Boston, 61, 62–63, 64, 66, 68 Irish in Boston almshouse on Deer Island, 117 county of origin, 62 housing, 62, 63, 63, 64 mortality, 62, 63 population: from 1820–30, 62; from 1845–55, 62, 63; in 1855, 62, 63, 64; in 1910, 106, 106; in 1950, 119 occupations, 62, 64, 107 vote in 1910 mayoral election, 108, 109 in West End 1900, 106 Ironwood Pharmaceuticals Inc., 149 Irvington Street, 94 Iskenderun/Alexandretta, 27 Islington commuter rail station, 144 Italianate architecture in Boston, 64, 64, 69 Italians in Boston area, 103 in 1910, 106, 107 in 1950, 119 in East Boston and North End, 106, 108 move to suburbs, 130, 131 vote in 1910 mayoral election, 108, 109 in West End 1900, 106 Jackson, William, 77 Jackson Square (Orange Line) station, 145 jails in Boston in 1676, 21 in 1743, 31 in 1800, 41 Charles Street, 73 County Jail (1840s), 57 Jamaica, 28, 29 Jamaica Pond, 77, 84 Jamaica Pond Aqueduct Corporation. See Aqueduct Corporation Jamaica Plain, 107, 144 Jamaicaway, 86, 127 James I of England Catholic beliefs, 12 James II of England, 24 James Family Home, 53, 171 James River, slaves arriving at, 28 Jeffries Point, 4, 43 Jeffries Point Rowing Association, 95 Jeffries Point Yacht Club, 95 Jewett, Sarah Orne, 52 Jews in Boston area, 64, 65, 91, 103 in 1910, 106, 107 in 1950, 119 move to suburbs, 130, 131 vote in 1910 mayoral election, 108, 109 in West End 1900, 106 JFK/UMass (Red Line) station (formerly Columbia), 145 job loss in Boston, 1950–60, 115 Joe and Nemo’s, 96, 96 Jordan Hall, 91, 100, 153 Jordan Marsh, 130, 150 Junior League of Boston, 103, 180 Katz, Al, 128 Keith, B. F., 98 Keith, Sally, 97, 97 Keith’s, B. F., New Theatre, 99 Kendall/MIT (Red Line) station (formerly Kendall), 145 Kendall Square subway (Red Line) station, 77, 83, 128, 129 Kenmore Square, 61, 128 Green Line station, 128, 129 Kennedy, Edward M., 108 Kennedy, John F., 108, 118 Kennedy, John F., Federal Building, 96 Kennedy, John F., Library, 125, 152, 153 200  in d e x

Kennedy, John F., Library Corporation, 125 Kennedy Institute of the Senate, 153 Kerry County (Ireland), 62, 62 Kidder, Peabody, 92 Kimball, Moses, 98 kindergarten, first English, 54, 55, 103 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 122 King, Mel, 122, 12, 133 King (State) Street, 24, 30 King George’s War, 30 King Philip’s War, 18, 19 causes, 13, 18 effect on Boston, 13, 20 events of, 19 results of, 18 King’s Beach Reservation, 87 King’s Chapel, 32, 32, 96, 152, 153 Burying Ground, 52, 57, 96, 152, 153 Kingston (Jamaica), 27 Kingston commuter rail station, 144 Kingston Street, 70 Kingston Trio, 128 Kittery (ME), 17 Kittredge Square urban renewal project, 132 Kneeland Street, 49, 49, 96 Know-Nothing (American) Party, 61, 64 La Balise, 28 labor unions in Boston, 104, 108 Labouré College, 147, 187 Lahey Hospital & Medical Center, 149 Lake Cochituate, 77 Lake Erie, 48 Lakeside Cemetery, 50 Lancaster, 13, 19, 19 landmaking in Boston, 37, 42, 42, 61, 64, 68–69 1786–1828, 42, 42 1828–80, 72–73, 73 1880–2003, 124–25, 125 acreage of, 69, 124 in Back Bay, 5, 61, 68–69, 69 regulated, 124 in South End, 68–69, 69 techniques for, 68, 72, 73, 73, 124, 124 landscaping public spaces in Boston area, 47, 50–51 Landsdowne Street, 125 Larcom, Lucy, 52 Lasell College, 147, 187 Latimer, George, 56, 57 Laurel Hill Cemetery, 50 Lawrence, 48, 48 leather dealers in Boston in 1905, 92, 93 Lechmere Canal, 73, 125 Lechmere Point Corporation, 42 Lechmere streetcar subway (Green Line) station, 83, 128, 129 Le Corbusier (Charles-Édouard Jeanneret), 132 Lee, Higginson & Co., 92, 114, 114 Lee-Burbank Highway (Route 1), 127 Leghorn/Livorna, 27 Leicester, 48 Leland Street water treatment plant, 140, 141 Lenox Street (Silver Line) stop, 145 Lenox Street public housing project, 116, 117 Leominster, 141 Lesley University, 147, 187 Lewis, Edmonia, 103, 103, 179 Studio, 103 Lewis, Elma, School of Fine Arts, 118 Lexington, 84, 84 Lexington and Concord, Battle of, 25, 33 Lexington Common, 50, 51, 51 Lexington Street, 140, 141 Liberator, 56, 57 Liberty Tree, 32, 32, 33 Liberty Tree Mall, 130 Lily Glass Works, 103 Lincoln, 130 Lincoln, Mary J. B., 179 Lincoln House, 105 Lincoln Power Station, 92 Lincolnshire, 14, 14 Lincoln Wharf Condos, 92 Linden Place, 50 “linkage” ordinance, 123 Lisbon, 27 literary activity in Boston area, 1837–91, 47, 52–53

lithic resources in Boston area, 3, 7, 7 Little, Arthur D., 130, 130 Little, Brown and Company, 52, 53, 170 Little Brewster Island, 79 Little Calf Island, 79 Little Neck (Dorchester), 79 Little River Reservation, 87 Little Women (Alcott), 53 Livermore, Mary Rice, 179 location of Boston, reasons for, 13 Lodge, Henry Cabot, 108 Logan, Edward Lawrence, 126 Logue, Edward J., 132, 132 London (CT), 17 London (England), 13, 14, 14, 16, 20, 27 London Illustrated News, 62, 62 London-style squares and parks in Boston area, 51 Long and Central Wharf Corporations, 73 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 33, 47, 52, 53, 53, 77, 172 “Courtship of Miles Standish, The,” 53 Home, 53 “Paul Revere’s Ride,” 53 “Song of Hiawatha, The,” 53 “Village Blacksmith, The,” 53 “Wreck of the Hesperus, The,” 53 Longfellow Bridge, 42, 77, 82, 87 Long Island acquired by Boston, 79 archaeological sites, 6 Long Pond, 77 Long Wharf, 30, 39, 39, 40, 41, 64 Longwood Avenue, 91 Green Line station, 129 Longwood Cricket Club, 91, 94, 95 Longwood Green, 50 Longwood Medical and Academic Area, 148, 148 Longy School of Music of Bard College, 147, 187 Loose-Wiles Biscuit Co., 114 Loring Road Covered Reservoir, 141 Loring Road power station, 140, 141 Los Angeles, 118, 157 Louisa May Alcott Club, 103 Louisa May Alcott School, 105 Louisburg (Nova Scotia), 27 Louisburg Square, 51, 51, 52 Lovells Island, 79 Lowell, 48, 48, 61, 130 commuter rail station, 144 Lowell, James Russell, 52, 172 Home, 53 Lowell Street (Arlington), 43 Lower Mills archaeological sites, 6 Lubeck, 27 lumber yards in Boston area, early 1800s, 37, 40, 41, 42 Lyceum Theatre, 99 Lynn, 1, 48, 82, 141 Lynn Common, 50 Lynn Fells Parkway, 87 Lynnfield, 130, 141 Lynn Shore Drive, 87 Lynnway, 87, 127 Lyric Stage Theatre, 153 Maanexit, 19 Madagascar, 29 Madeira, 16, 27 Madison Square Park, 86 Magazine Beach, 125 Magnalia Christi Americana (Mather), 17 Magoun Square (proposed Green Line) station, 145 Magunkaquag, 19 Main Drainage sewerage system, 73, 85, 85, 142 Main Drainage Tunnel, Boston, 142, 143 Maine, District of, in Massachusetts, 24 Main Line “El,” 82, 83 Main Street (Cambridge), 95 Majestic Theatre, 99 Malaga, 27 Malden, 84 Malden Bridge (1787), 73 Malden Center (Orange Line) station, 145 Mall (Boston Common), 51 Mall, The, at Chestnut Hill, 130, 130 Mamusse Wunneetupanatamwe Up-Biblum God (Eliot), 18, 18 Manchage, 19 Mann, Horace, 55, 55 Home, 54

manufacturing in Boston area, 38, 40, 48, 61, 66, 92, 93 declined, 114, 122 job loss from 1951–62, 113, 114, 115 manufacturing in U.S. c. 1900, 92 Manulife Building, 150, 150, 151 maps, historical, in atlas Exact Map of New England and New York, An (1702) (Mather), 17 “Map of the Town of Boston 1676 . . . ” (Clough), 20–21 New England (1616) (Smith), 8 New Plan of Boston, A (1800) (Carleton), 40–41 New Plan of ye Great Town of Boston in New England in America, A (1743) (Price), 30–31 plan of the town of Boston . . . 1775, A (Page), 32 Marathon, Boston, 91, 94, 152, 153 Marblehead, 48, 141 Marcella Street Playground, 86 “March on Boston” 1965, 122 Marine Park, 86, 125 beaches, 95 Mariner’s House, 104 Market, North, building, 43, 43 Market, Quincy, building, 43, 43 Market, South, building, 43, 43 Marlboro Hotel (temperance hotel), 54 Marlborough, 19, 19, 48, 141 Marlborough Street (Back Bay), 82 Marlborough Street in 1700s, 24 Martha’s Vineyard, 3, 4, 24 Martinique, 27 Marx Brothers, 96, 97 Mason & Hamlin Piano, 114 Massachusett language, 18 Massachusett tribe, 18, 19 Massachusetts, Commonwealth of, 125 in Back Bay, 68, 69 Massachusetts Audubon Society, 103 Massachusetts Avenue (Arlington), 43 Massachusetts Avenue (Boston), 69 Massachusetts Avenue (Orange Line) station, 145 Massachusetts Avenue (Silver Line) stop, 145 Massachusetts Avenue streetcar subway (Green Line) station, 83, 129 Massachusetts Bank, 39, 101 Massachusetts Bay European exploration of, 3, 8–9, 9 sewage outfall in, 142 Massachusetts Bay Colony boundaries of, 17, 17 charters, 24 colonists’ arrival in 1630, 18 Great Seal of, 12, 18, 18 population of 1630–1640, 14, 14 towns in 1640, 14, 15 Massachusetts Bay Community College, 147, 187 Massachusetts Bay Company in Boston Harbor, 14 in Charlestown, 3, 14 formation of, 12, 14 at Salem, 3, 8, 9, 14 on Shawmut Peninsula, 3 Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), 128, 144 Massachusetts Bicycle Club, 95 Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics Association, 100, 101 Massachusetts College of Art and Design, 147, 187 Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, 149 Massachusetts Fire & Marine Insurance Co., 39 Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), 77, 132, 148, 149 flats filled, 73 Massachusetts Historical Society, 52, 100, 100, 101, 170 Massachusetts Horticultural Society, 100, 101 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 77, 91, 130, 146, 147, 153, 187 in Back Bay, 61, 69, 69, 100, 146, 146 Gymnasium, 95 Women’s Laboratory, 102, 102, 103 Massachusetts Medical College, 101 “Massachusetts Miracle,” 123, 130, 151 Massachusetts Mutual Fire Insurance Co., 39 Massachusetts National Guard, 126 Massachusetts Normal Art School, 103, 181 Massachusetts Port Authority, 122, 125, 126 Massachusetts regiments in Civil War 9th, 61 54th, 56, 57 55th, 61

Massachusetts State Nurses Association, 103, 179 Massachusetts Turnpike and Extension (I-90), 122, 126, 127, 130 Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, 126 Massachusetts Water Resources Authority. See MWRA (Massachusetts Water Resources Authority) Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association, 102, 103 Massachusetts Women’s Christian Temperance Union, 103 Mass Pike Towers, 73 Master Highway Plan, 126 Mather, Cotton, 17 Magnalia Christi Americana, 17 Mather, Increase, 24 Mattapan, 7, 14, 130, 131 Mattapan (Red Line) station, 128, 128, 129, 145 Maverick, Samuel, 8, 9 Maverick public housing project, 116, 117 Maverick Square streetcar subway (Blue Line) station, 82, 82, 83, 128, 129 Maverick Street beach, 95 Mayflower, 14 Maynard, 130 Mazzone, A. David, 142 MBTA spider maps, 129, 145 McClellan Highway (Route 1), 127 McConnell Park, 125 McCormack, John W., 108 McCormack, Mary Ellen (Old Harbor Village) public housing project, 116, 117 McGinniskin, Barney, 61 McGrath Highway (Route 28), 127 McKay, Donald, 47 McKim, Charles Follen, 91 McKim, Mead & White, 91 McLean Hospital, 148, 149 MCPHS University, 147, 187 Mechanics (Green Line) station, 129 Mechanics Hall, 91, 95, 100, 100 Medfield, 19 Medford, 15, 84, 84, 144 Medford Turnpike, 43 medical institutions in Boston area, 122, 123, 139, 148–49, 149, 152 economic impact, 148, 156 hospital employment, 148 medical innovations, 148 medical schools, 148, 148, 149 teaching hospitals, 148, 148, 149 meetinghouses in Boston. See worship, places of, in Boston Melnea Cass Boulevard (Silver Line) stop, 145 Melrose, 84 members of Metropolitan Boston Water System, 163 Memorial Drive (Charles River Road), 125, 127 Memorial History of Boston (Winsor), 102 Mendon, 19, 19 Menino, Thomas, 123 Mercantile Wharf Buildings, 73 Mercantile Wharf Corporation, 73 Merck, 148, 149 Meridian Street, 64 Meridian Street Bridge (1856), 73 Merrimack River, 17, 17, 42, 61 Merrymount (Quincy), 8, 9 Metacom (King Philip), 18, 19 Methodist General Biblical Institute, 146 methodologies for some plates Plate 7, to locate industries, retail shops, taverns, 166–67 Plate 13, to locate commercial, industrial, residential sites, 168–69 Plate 20, to determine Irish county of origin, 174 Plate 46, to calculate numbers of Jews and Italians, 184 Methuen, 48 Metropolitan District Commission, 87, 125, 140, 142 Metropolitan Park Commission, 77, 87 metropolitan park system in Boston area. See parks, metropolitan, in Boston area; parkways, metropolitan, in Boston area; reservations, metropolitan, in Boston area Metropolitan Sewerage Board, 84, 85 Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA), 125, 128 Metropolitan Water and Sewerage Board, 84, 87 Metropolitan Water Board, 77, 84 Metropolitan Wheelmen club, 95 MetroWest Water Supply Tunnel, 140, 141 MGH Institute of Health Professions, 147, 187 Middleborough, 19, 19 Middleborough/Lakeville commuter rail station, 144

Middle Brewster Island, 79 Middlesex Canal, 42, 43, 48, 61, 73 Middlesex Canal Corporation, 73 Middlesex Community College, 187 Middlesex Fells Parkway, 87, 87 Middlesex Fells Reservation, 77, 87, 87 Middlesex Turnpike, 43 Middletown (CT), 29 “middling interest” in Boston, 47 residences in 1880, 81, 81 Milford, 48 Milford, Franklin & Woonsocket Railroad, 144 Milk Street, 66 Milk-State Street subway station, 83, 128 Millbury, 48 Mill Dam (1821), 37, 42, 64, 68 Millers River, 73, 125 milliners and dress reform parlors in Boston, 103, 179 Millis commuter rail station, 144 Mill Pond, 32, 41, 42, 42 mills in Boston in 1676, 20–21 in 1743, 31 in 1800, 41 Milton, 79, 84, 84 Milton (Red Line) station, 129 Minkins, Shadrach, 56, 57 Mishawum (Charlestown), 8, 9 mishoon (dugout canoes), 7 missionaries in Boston, late 1800s, 104 Mission for Scandinavian Seamen, 104 Mission Hill Extension (Alice Taylor) public housing project, 116, 117 Mission Hill public housing project, 116 MIT Lincoln Lab, 130, 130 MITRE Corporation, 130, 130 Moderna Therapeutics Inc., 149 Mohegan tribe, 19 Molasses Act, 26 Momenta Pharmaceuticals Inc., 149 monasteries in Boston, England, 12 Monson, 48 Montcalm, Louis-Joseph de, 24 Monte Christi, 27 Montreal, 48 Montserrat, 27 Monument Square, 50 Moon Island, sewage discharged from, 85, 142 Morgan Methodist Chapel, 104, 105 Morgan v. Hennigan, 134 Morse, Samuel, 96 mortality rate in Boston, 62, 63, 85 Morton, Thomas, 8, 9, 18 Mosquito Fleet Yacht Club, 95 Mother Church, 102, 102 Mothers for Adequate Welfare, 122 “Mothers of Maverick,” 122 Motorola, 130 Mount Alvernia College, 188 Mount Auburn Cemetery, 47, 50, 51, 51, 53, 77, 172 Mount Bowdoin, 50, 51 Mount Feake Cemetery, 50 Mount Hope (RI), 19, 19 Mount Hope Cemetery, 50 Mount Ida College, 188 Mount Ida Playground, 86 Mount Vernon Proprietors, 42 Mount Vernon Street, 85 Mount Washington Avenue Bridge (1855), 73 “M.T.A.” song, 128 Muddy River landscape, 77 Muddy River Woods (Stony Brook Reservation), 87, 87 Municipal Citizen’s League, 108 Munson, Norman C., 68 Museum of Fine Arts, 61, 91, 100, 100, 101, 152, 153 Museum of Natural History, 61, 69, 69, 100, 101 Museum of Science, 61, 101, 152, 152, 153 Music Hall, 52, 56, 57, 94, 95, 100, 101, 170 MWRA (Massachusetts Water Resources Authority), 85, 140, 142 Mystic Avenue (Medford), 43 Mystic Lakes, 84, 84 Mystic Reservoir, 84 Mystic River access to interior, 7 clay along, 7 Walford settling near, 9 in d e x   201

Mystic River (Tobin) Bridge (1950), 127 Mystic River Corporation, 73 Mystic River Reservation, 87 Mystic River Valley, 85 Mystic Valley Parkway, 87 Mystic Wharf, 73, 125 NAACP Boston Branch, 135 Nahant, 8, 84 Nahant Beach Parkway, 87 Nantasket, 9 archaeological site, 6 Nantasket Beach Reservation, 87 Nantucket, 3, 4, 24 Narragansett tribe, 18, 19 Nash Hill Reservoir, 140 Nashobah, 19 Nashua River, 77, 84 Nashua Street Playground, 125 Natick, 18, 19, 48, 77 Natick Mall, 130, 130 National Association of Collegiate Alumnae (College Club), 180 National Institutes of Health (NIH), 148 National League of Handicraft Societies, 104 National Theatre, 99, 133 National Women’s Trade Union League, 103 Native Americans in Boston area, 3, 6–7 conversion to Christianity, 18 depopulation before 1620, 18 encounter with Pring’s men, 8 relations with colonists, 13, 18–19 Native Americans on Northwest Coast, 38, 38 Naumkeag (Salem), 3, 8, 9 Nauset Harbor, 9 Navigation Acts, 24, 27 Navy, British Royal, 24 Navy Yard (Charlestown), 42, 73, 92, 93, 114, 125, 150 office building, 151 NECCO candy factory, 95 Neck, Boston, 26, 32, 32, 37, 40, 41, 42, 68 Needham, 130, 141 Needham Heights commuter rail station, 144 source of fill for Back Bay, 5, 68 Needham Common, 50 Nell, William Cooper, 56, 56, 171 House, 40, 40, 52, 57 Neponset Beach, 95 Neponset Boat Club, 94 Neponset Bridge (1802), 73 Neponset Bridge archeological site, 6 Neponset Playground, 86 Neponset River, access to interior, 7, 13, 17 mills on, 79 Neponset River Parkway, 87 Neponset River Reservation, 77, 86, 87, 87 Neponset tribe, 9 Neponset Valley, New, sewage pumping station, 143, 143 Neponset Valley sewerage system, 85, 85 Netherlands, English trade with, 12 Puritans fleeing to, 12 New Bedford, 48 New Bern (NC), 27 “New Boston,” 113, 118, 122, 132 Newbury, 15 Newbury Biblical Institute, 146 Newbury College, 147, 187 Newburyport, 39, 48 Newburyport Turnpike, 43 Newbury Street, 69 New Deal funding, 114 Newell Boathouse, 95 New England growth in 1600s, 13 immigration to, 1620–1640, 14 naming of, 8 population of, in 1620–1640, 14, 14 Smith’s map of, 8 New England Baptist Hospital, 84, 84 New England Breeders Association, Trotting Park, 91, 95 New England College of Business and Finance (NECB), 147, 187 New England College of Optometry (NECO), 147, 187 New England Conservatory of Music, 100, 100, 101, 147, 187 New England Female Medical College, 54, 55 New England Glass Co., 42, 67 New England Hospital for Women and Children, 91, 102, 103 202  in d e x

New England Industrial Center, 130, 130 New England Institute of Art, 188 New England Institute of Funeral Service Education, 188 New England Kitchen, 103, 105 New England Law/Boston, 147, 187 New England Life Insurance building, 69 New England Marine Insurance Co., 39 New England School of Acupuncture, 147, 187 New England Woman Suffrage Association, 102 New England Women’s Club, 103 New Haven, 17, 27 New London, 27, 29 New Old South Church, 5, 5 New Orleans, 27, 28, 47, 64, 107 Newport, 17, 27, 29, 30 Newspaper Row, 52, 53, 170 Newton, 48, 51, 84, 128 Newton Cemetery, 50 Newton Center (Green Line) station, 128 Newton College of the Sacred Heart, 188 Newton Corner, 51 Newton Highlands, 68 Green Line station, 128 Newton Junior College, 188 Newton Street (Silver Line) stop, 145 Newton Street pumping station, 140, 141 New York, Providence & Boston Railroad, 144 New York & Boston Railroad, 68, 68 New York & New England Railroad, 73, 125 New York & New Haven Railroad, 93, 125, 128, 144 New York City financial center of, 92 industry in, 66 as literary center, 52 population of, 30, 30, 39, 39, 61, 64, 107, 107, 118, 157 railroad connections of, 48, 49 trade of, 27, 28 New York Streets urban renewal project, 122, 132, 132 Niantic-Narragansett tribe, 18 Nigeria, 29 Ninigret, 18 Nipmuck tribe, 19, 19 Nipsachuck, 19, 19 Noddles Island Battle of, 33, 33 granted to Boston, 79, 79 Non-Resistance Society, New England, 55 nonwhites in Boston in 1950, 119 in 2010, 156 Norfolk & Bristol Turnpike, 43 Norfolk County Railroad, 144 Norfolk Street Playground, 86 North American Review, 47 Northampton Association of Education and Industry, 55 Northampton Street El (Orange Line) station, 83, 128, 129 North Andover, 48 North Battery, 21, 26, 31, 32 North Bennet Street Industrial School, 103, 103, 104, 104 Northborough, 141 North Brighton Playground, 86 North Brookfield, 48 North Canal (Cambridge), 73 North Carolina, slaves arriving at, 28 North Charles Street, 73 Northeastern (Green Line) station, 128 Northeastern College/University of Boston YMCA, 146 Northeastern University, 146, 146, 147, 187 at Boston YMCA, 146 to Huntington Avenue Grounds, 146 Northeast Expressway (I-95), 126, 127 North End, 3, 30, 37, 40, 41, 62, 63, 86, 92 social service institutions in, 104 vote in 1910 mayoral election, 108, 109 North End Beach, 86, 95 North End Union, 104 Northern Artery (McGrath Highway, O’Brien Highway, Route 28), 127 North Ferry, 83, 128, 129 North Ferry Wharf, 73 North Harvard urban renewal project, 132 opposition to, 132 North Main sewage pumping station, 143, 143 North Market building, 43, 43 North Metropolitan Relief Tunnel, 142, 143 North Metropolitan sewerage system, 85, 85, 142 North Quincy (Red Line) station, 145

North Shore Road (Route 1A), 127 Northshore Shopping Center, 130, 130 North Square, 20 North Station subway (Orange Line) station, 83, 128, 145 North Station West streetcar subway (Green Line) station, 83, 128, 144, 145 Northwest, Old, 48 Northwest Coast, 38 Northwest Expressway (U.S. Route 3), 127 Northwest Industrial Park, 130, 130 Northwest Passage, 3, 8 Norumbega Covered Reservoir, 141 Norumbega Reservoir, 140, 141 Norumbega Reservoir treatment plant, 140, 141 Norway Iron Works, 73, 73 Norway Street, 125 Norwood, 130, 141 Novartis Institute, 95, 149 Nova Scotia, French Catholic colonists deported from, 24, 26 Nut Island sewerage facilities headworks, 143 primary treatment plant, 142, 143 screen house, 85, 85, 143 Oakdale power station, 140, 140 Oak Grove (Orange Line) station, 145 Oak Grove Cemetery, 50 O’Brien, Walter A., Jr., 128 O’Brien Highway (Route 28), 127 occupations in Boston in mid-1800s, 61 in 1855, 64 in 1910, 107 in 1950, 119, 119 O’Connor, Thomas, 52 Odd Fellows Hall, 105 office building construction in Boston, 113, 114, 122, 139, 150, 151 “office industries” in Boston, 150, 150 economic impact of, 156 office parks, industrial suburban, in Boston area, 130, 130 Okammakamesit, 19 Old Calabar, 29 Old Colony Parkway (Morrissey Boulevard), 125, 127 Old Colony public housing project, 116, 117 Old Colony Railroad, 49, 68, 73, 73, 144, 144 Boston depot in 1856, 49 Gravel (Mount Hope) Branch, 68, 68 Shawmut Branch, 73 Old Colony Yacht Club, 95 Old Corner Bookstore, 52, 52 Old Howard, 96, 96, 97, 98, 99 Old Manse, 53, 172 Old North Church, 24, 32, 32, 33, 104, 104, 152, 153 Old South Meetinghouse, 32, 32, 70, 70, 71, 103, 152, 153 Olin College of Engineering, 147, 187 Olmsted, Frederick Law, 87 designed Boston parks, 86, 100 hired by park commissioners, 77 use of puddingstone in parks, 5, 5 Olsen, Ken, 130 Olympia Theatre, 96, 96 Olympic Games (1896), 91, 94 omnibuses in Boston area, 82 One Beacon Street building, 151 One Channel Center building, 151 One Financial Center building, 151 111 Huntington Avenue building, 151 100 Summer Street building, 151 Tip O’Neill Tunnel, 144, 144 125 High Street building, 151 One International Place building, 151 One Post Office Square building, 151 Opera House, 91, 100, 100, 153 Oporto, 27 Orange Line (MBTA), 82, 83, 128, 128, 129, 144, 145 Orange Street, 24 Orchard House, 53, 53, 172 Orchard Park, 86 pool, 95 Orchard Park public housing project, 116, 117 O’Reilly, John Boyle, 52 Oriental Tea Company, 96, 96, 97 Orient Heights, 4, 79 Blue Line station, 128, 129, 145 Orient Heights (Constitution) Beach, 125 Orient Heights (Noyes) Playground, 86, 125

Orient Heights public housing project, 116, 117 Orient Heights Yacht Club, 95 Orpheum Theater, 153 O’Sullivan, Mary Kenney, 180 Otis, Harrison Gray, 40 Otis, Harrison Gray, House, First, 40, 40 Otis Street, 71 Outer Brewster Island, 79 Oxford (MA), 48 Oxford (MD), 28 Oyola, Paula, 122 Page, George, Box Company, 73 Paget, Julia, 103, 180 Paget, Robert, 103 Pakachoog, 19 Palace Theatre, 96 PaleoIndian period in Boston area archaeological sites, 6 dates, 3, 6 lifeways in, 3, 6 sea level in, 3, 6 Palfrey, John Gorham, Home, 52, 171 Palmer, 48 panics, financial 1873, 68 1893, 91 See also depressions PAREXEL International Corporation, 149 Paris, 51, 68 Paris Street Playground, 86 park, public, movement in U.S., 86 park commissioners, Boston, 77, 86 Parker, Harvey, 52 Parker, Theodore, 47, 55, 56, 56 Home, 57 Parker Hill, 4 Parker Hill Playground, 86 Parker Hill Reservoir, 84, 84 Parker House, 52, 52, 170 Parker Memorial, 105 Parker Street, 125 Parkinson Playground, 86 Parkman, Francis, Home, 52, 171 Parks, Bob and Theresa, 122 parks, metropolitan, in Boston area, 77, 87 parkways (see parkways, metropolitan, in Boston area) reservations (see reservations, metropolitan, in Boston area) parks, public, in Boston, 77, 95 Arboretum, 86, 86 Back Bay Fens, 86, 86 Blackstone Square, 86 Bunker Hill Monument, 86 Castle Island, 86 Charlesbank, 86, 94, 95, 125 Charlestown Heights (Doherty Playground), 5, 5, 86 Chestnut Hill, 86 Columbus (Moakley), 125 Copps Hill Terrace, 86 Dorchester, 86 Fountain Square, 86 Franklin Park, 86, 86, 91, 94, 95 Franklin Square, 86 Governors Island, 86 Highland, 86 Independence Square, 86 Madison Square, 86 Marine, 86, 95, 125 McConnell, 125 Orchard, 86 original system, 86, 86 parkways (see parkways in Boston) playgrounds (see playgrounds, public, in Boston) Rogers, 86 Savin Hill, 86 State House, 86 Telegraph Hill, 86 Victory Road, 125 Washington, 86 Wood Island, 86, 95, 126, 126 Park Square, 82 Park Street, 40 streetcar subway (Green Line) station, 82, 83, 128 Park Street Church, 56, 152, 153 Park Street Under subway (Red Line) station, 83, 128 Park Theatre, 99

parkways, metropolitan, in Boston area Alewife Brook, 87, 127 Blue Hills, 87, 87 Fellsway, 87 Fresh Pond, 87, 127 Furnace Brook, 87 Hammond Pond, 87 Lynn Fells, 87 Lynn Shore Drive, 87 Lynnway, 87, 127 Middlesex Fells, 87, 87 Mystic Valley, 87 Nahant Beach, 87 Neponset River, 87 Revere Beach, 87 Winthrop, 87 parkways in Boston, 86, 86 Arborway, 86, 127 Columbia Road, 86 Fenway, 86, 127 Jamaicaway, 86, 127 Old Colony (Morrissey Boulevard), 125, 127 Riverway, 86, 127 Strandway, 86, 125 West Roxbury, 86 Parliament, of England, 14, 24, 25, 27, 33 Patriots’ Day, 91 Patuxent, 28 Paul, apostle, 12 Paul, Joseph F., & Co., 114 Paul, Susan, 102 “Paul Revere’s Ride” (Longfellow), 53 Peabody, 141 Peabody, Elizabeth, House, 104, 104 Peabody, Elizabeth Palmer, 52, 52, 55, 103 Foreign Library and Bookstore, 52, 52, 170 Kindergarten, 54, 55, 103, 180 Peabody, Robert, 77 Peabody, Sophia, Home, 53 Peace Convention, 54, 55 Pearl (Hutchinson) Street, 40 Peirce, William, 17, 28 Pemberton Square, 51, 96 Pennacook tribe, 19 Penny Emigrant’s Guide (Foster), 62 Pensacola, 28 People’s Ferry Company, 73 Pequot tribe, 18, 19 Pequot War, 17, 28 Père Lachaise, Cimetière du, 51 Perkins, James, 28 House, 101 Perkins, Thomas Handasyd, 28 Perkins Institute for the Blind, 54, 55 Perry Normal School, 188 Perth Amboy, 28 Peterborough Street, 125 Pfizer Inc., 149 Philadelphia industry in, 66 population of, 30, 30, 39, 39, 61, 64, 107, 118, 157 railroads from, 48 trade of, 27, 28, 38 water works in, 77 Philip, King (Metacom), 18, 19 Phillips, Wendell, 55, 56, 56 Home, 54, 57 Phillis (ship), 29 piano-making industry in Boston, 61, 67, 91 Pierce-Hichborn House, 30 Piers 1, 2, and 4 (South Boston), 125 Pigeon Hollow Spar Co., 125 pilings, foundation, 154, 155 rotted repaired by underpinning, 155 Pilgrims, 9 Pinckney Street, 146 Pine Grove Cemetery, 50 Pine Manor College, 147, 187 Pine Street Chapel, 54 Pittsburgh, 107, 118 Pittsfield, 48 Plains of Abraham, 24 Plant Shoe Factory, 114, 114 playgrounds, public, in Boston, 95 Ashmont, 86 Billings Field, 86 Carolina Avenue, 86

Charlestown, 86, 125 Christopher Gibson, 86 Columbus Avenue, 86 Commonwealth, 86 Cottage Street, 86 Doherty, 5, 5 Dummy Field, 86 Factory Hill, 86 Fellows Street, 86 First Street, 86 Forest Hills, 86 Franklin Field, 86 Marcella Street, 86 Mount Ida, 86 Mystic, 86 Nashua Street, 125 Norfolk Street, 86 North Brighton, 86 North End Beach, 86 Neponset, 86 Orient Heights, 86, 125 Paris Street, 86 Parker Hill, 86 Parkinson, 86 Portsmouth Street, 86 Prince Street, 86 Randolph Street, 86 Roslindale, 86 Rutherford Avenue, 86 Savin Hill, 86, 125 Strandway, 86, 125 Tyler Street, 86 Ward 19, 86 West Fifth Street, 86 West Third Street, 86 William Eustis, 86 Winthrop, John, 86 Pleasant Street subway station, 83 Plimouth (Plymouth), 3, 8, 9, 9, 15, 18, 19, 19, 24 Plymouth commuter rail station, 144 Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (Wheatley), 29 Polaroid Corporation, 130, 130 policies favoring Bostonians, city, 1980s, 123 political parties in Boston, 1910, 108 poor, institutions for in Boston, 24, 54, 55, 73 1676–1856, 116–17 in 1743, 30 in 1800, 40, 41 population of Boston 1630–1640, 14 in 1676, 20 1687–1771, 30, 167 1687–2010, 163 in early 1700s, 24 1770–1810, 39, 39, 168 in March 1776, 25, 37, 39 1790–1807, 38, 39 1790–1820, 37 1790–1830, 42 1790–2010, 157, 157 1810–50, 64, 174 in 1820, 43 1840–50, 61 1850–1910, 107, 182 in 1855, 64–65 in 1910, 106–7 1910–50, 118, 182 in 1930, 114 in 1950, 118 1950–60, 114, 118, 122 1950–80, 113, 157 1950–2010, 157, 190 1980–2010, 157 in 2000, 123 age of, 2010, 156 censuses of (see censuses of Boston population) education of, 2010, 156 ethnic, racial, national groups: in 1910, 106; in 1950, 118, 119; in 1970, 134; in 2010, 156 foreign-born: 1845–55, 63, 64; in 1910, 106, 119; in 1940, 119; in 1950, 118, 119 King Philip’s War, effect of on, 13, 20 majority minority, 123, 156 neighborhood population shifts, 1950–60, 115 occupations of: in 1855, 64; in 1910, 107; in 1950, 119 slaves in 1750, 28 in d e x   203

population of Boston area 1940–70, 130 population of other entities Albany: 1830–50, 64; 1850, 107 Baltimore: 1770–1810, 39, 39; 1810–50, 64; in 1850, 61; 1850–1910, 107; 1910–50, 118 Brooklyn: 1840–50, 64; 1850–90, 107 Buffalo: 1900–1910, 107; 1910, 118 Charleston: 1690–1776, 30; 1770–1810, 39; 1810–40, 64 Chicago: 1860–1910, 107, 107; 1910–50, 118; 1950–2010, 157 Cincinnati: 1830–50, 64; 1850–1900, 107 Cleveland: 1890–1910, 107; 1910–50, 118 Detroit: 1910, 107; 1910–50, 118 Houston, 1950–2010, 157 Los Angeles: 1920–50, 118; 1950–2010, 157 Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1630–1640, 14, 14 New England, 1620–1640, 14, 14 New Orleans: 1810–50, 64; 1850–80, 107 Newport, 1708–1774, 30 New York: 1695–1775, 30, 30; 1770–1810, 39, 39; 1810–50, 64; in 1850, 61; 1850–1910, 107, 107; 1910–50, 118; 1950–2010, 157 Philadelphia: 1690–1775, 30, 30; 1770–1810, 39, 39; 1810–50, 64; in 1850, 61; 1850–1910, 107; 1910–50, 118; 1950–2010, 157 Pittsburgh: 1910, 107; 1910–50, 118 Salem, 1810–20, 64 San Francisco, 1870–1900, 107 St. Louis: 1850, 64; 1850–1910, 107; 1910–50, 118 Washington (DC): 1820, 64; 1950, 118 Porter (Red Line) station, 145 Portia School of Law, 103, 180 Portland (ME), 17, 29 Port of Boston, Directors of, 125 Port Royal (Nova Scotia), 27 Portsmouth (NH), 17, 27, 28, 29, 70 Portsmouth Street Playground, 86 Post Office, New, in Boston (1874), 70, 71 Potomac River, slaves arriving at, 28 pottery in Woodland period, 3, 6, 7 power stations in Boston water system Cosgrove, 140, 141 Loring Road, 140, 141 Oakdale, 140, 140 Sudbury, 140, 141 Wachusett, 140, 141 Winsor, 140, 140 Pratt, Dexter, Home, 53, 172 “praying Indians,” 13, 19 Praying Towns, 13, 18, 19 Prescott, 141 Prescott, Samuel, 33, 33 Prescott, William Hickling, Home, 52, 171 Press of the American Unitarian Association (Beacon Press), 52, 170 Price, William, 30 New Plan of ye Great Town of Boston in New England in America, A, 30–31 panoramic view of Boston in 1743, 31 Prince Macaroni Manufacturing Co., 114 Prince Street Playground, 86 Pring, Martin, 8, 9 Prisoner’s Friend Association, 54, 55 Prison Point Bay, 125 Prison Point Bridge (1815), 37, 42, 73 Prison Point sewage pumping station, 143, 143 Progressive Party, 128 Prohibition, 96, 115 property values in Boston, 1946–60, 115 Prospect von Boston gegen der Bucht am Hafen (Habermann), 26 Providence, 17, 19, 27, 29, 48 commuter rail station, 144 Providence Highway (Route 1), 127 Providence Island (Caribbean), 16 Provident Bank, 101 Province House, 32, 32 Provincetown, 8 Prudential (Green Line) station (formerly Mechanics), 128, 129 Prudential Building, 150, 150 Prudential Center, 122, 151 Prudential Life Insurance Company, 122, 150 public buildings in Boston in 1676, 20, 21 in 1743, 30, 31 in 1775, 32 in 1800, 40, 41 Greek Revival style, 43, 43 204  in d e x

Public Garden, Boston bordering Back Bay, 61, 68, 68, 69 Emerald Necklace, linked to, 51, 51, 86, 86 filled, 73 subway station, 82 public housing in Boston, 113, 115, 116–17, 118, 122 elderly projects, 113, 116, 117 family projects, 116, 117; shift to non-white occupancy, 116, 116 privately-developed subsidized, 113, 116, 139; Housing Choice Vouchers, 116, 117; project-based Section 8, 116, 117 public schools in Boston busing in, 134–35 desegregation plans, 135 enrollment of: in 1974, 135; in 2014, 135, 156; effect of busing on, 135 segregation in, 122, 134–35 “public sphere” of work, 102 public transportation in Boston, 77, 91, 122, 139 in 1856–1918, 82–83 in 1918–67, 128–29 in 1967–2016, 144–45 buses, 128, 144 commuter rail system (see commuter rail system in Eastern Massachusetts) elevated lines, 77, 80, 82; Atlantic Avenue, 82, 83, 128, 128; Main Line, 82, 83, 128; replaced, 144, 145 horse cars, 77, 82, 82 lines: assigned colors, 129; Blue, 82, 83, 128, 128, 129, 145; Green, 68, 82, 83, 128, 128–29, 144, 145; Orange, 82, 83, 128, 128, 12, 144, 145; Red, 77, 82, 83, 128, 128, 129, 144, 145; Silver, 144, 145 management of, 77, 82, 128 omnibuses, 82 rapid transit subway lines, 82; Cambridge Subway & Dorchester Tunnel, 83, 128, 129; in East Boston Tunnel, 128, 129 stations, 83, 128, 129, 145 streetcars, electric, 77, 82, 82 streetcar subways, 77, 82, 82, 83; Boylston Street, 83, 128; East Boston Tunnel & Extension, 83, 128; East Cambridge Viaduct, 83; Huntington Avenue, 128; Tremont Street, 82, 83, 128 street railways, 82 trackless trolleys, 128 trolley to Mattapan, 128 tunnels, 82, 83, 128 Public Works, Massachusetts Department of, 125 Public Works Department, Boston, 125 publishing houses in Boston area, 1837–91. See literary activity in Boston area, 1837–91 puddingstone. See conglomerate rocks pumping stations in Boston sewerage system Alewife Brook (formerly Somerville), 143, 143 Braintree-Weymouth, 143, 143 Calf Pasture, 85, 85, 143, 143 Caruso (formerly East Boston), 85, 143, 143 Charlestown, 85, 85 Deer Island, 85, 85, 142, 142, 143, 143 DeLauri (formerly Charlestown), 143, 143 East Boston, 85, 85 Framingham, 143, 143 Hayes, 143, 143 Hingham, 143, 143 Houghs Neck, 143, 143 Intermediate, 143, 143 Neponset Valley, New, 143, 143 North Main, 143, 143 Prison Point, 143, 143 Quincy, 85, 143, 143 Somerville, 85, 85 Squantum, 143, 143 Ward Street, 85, 85, 143, 143 Wiggins, 143, 143 pumping stations in Boston water system Arlington, 84, 84 Belmont, 140, 141 Brattle Court, 140, 141 Chestnut Hill, 84, 84, 140, 141 Chestnut Hill Emergency, 140, 141 Commonwealth Avenue, 140, 141 Dudley Road, 140, 141 Hyde Park Avenue, 140, 141 Lexington Street, 140, 141 Newton Street, 140, 141 Reservoir Road, 140, 141

Roxbury, 84, 84 Spot Pond, 84, 84, 140, 141 Spring Street, 140, 141 West Roxbury, 84, 84, 140, 141 Punch Bowl Road, 43 Punkapoag, 19 Puritans clergy, persecution of in England, 12 efforts to purify Church of England, 14 forming of Massachusetts Bay Company, 12, 14 at Naumkeag (Salem), 3 relations with Native Americans, 13, 18 religious culture spread, 13 Putnam Nail Company, 73, 73 Quabbin Aqueduct, 140, 140 Quabbin Reservoir, 140, 140, 141, 141 Quantisset, 19 Quebec, 24, 25 Queensbury Street, 125 Quincy, 8, 9, 48, 68, 84, 85 Quincy Center (Red Line) station, 145 Quincy, Josiah, 43, 77 Quincy Adams (Red Line) station, 145 Quincy Avenue (Quincy/Weymouth), 43 Quincy College, 147, 187 Quincy Common, 50 Quincy House (temperance hotel), 54 Quincy Market building, 43, 43 Quincy Market Cold Storage Warehouse, 92 Quincy Market/Faneuil Hall area, 122, 132 Quincy sewage pumping station, 85, 143, 143 Quincy Shore archaeological site, 6 Quincy Shore Reservation, 87 Quincy Turnpike, 43 Racial Imbalance Law, Massachusetts, 135 Radcliffe College, 53, 172, 188 Railroad Jubilee, Great, 48 railroads in Massachusetts, 47, 92 1831–51, 48 in 1855, 48 in Boston, 49, 49, 73 Boston, Hartford & Erie, 144 Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn, 73, 126, 126, 128 Boston & Albany, 73, 93, 128 Boston & Lowell, 48, 49, 49, 73, 73, 125, 144 Boston & Maine, 49, 73, 73, 93, 125, 144, 144 Boston & New York Central, 48, 68 Boston & Providence, 48, 49, 49, 68, 73, 73, 144; Dedham Branch, 68; Stoughton Branch, 144 Boston & Worcester, 48, 49, 49, 51, 68, 68, 73, 73, 144 Cape Cod Branch R.R., 144 Charlestown Branch R.R., 73 commuter service, 48, 144, 144 depots in Boston, 49, 49 Duxbury & Cohasset, 144 Eastern Railroad, 48, 49, 49, 73, 144; Gloucester Branch, 144 Fall River, 144 Fitchburg, 49, 73, 73, 125, 144 freight service, 48, 49, 49 Grand Junction, 48, 73 hauled fill for landmaking, 68, 68, 72 Milford, Franklin & Woonsocket Railroad, 144 New York, New Haven & Hartford, 93, 125, 128, 144 New York, Providence & Boston, 144 New York & Boston, 68, 68 New York & New England, 73, 125 Norfolk County, 144 Old Colony, 49, 68, 68, 73, 73, 144, 144; Gravel (Mount Hope) Branch, 68, 68; Shawmut Branch, 73 passenger service and, 48, 49, 49 Rockport, 144 South Shore, 144 Union Freight, 92 Vermont & Massachusetts, 144 railroads in New England, 48 railways, hand-operated, 73, 73 Rainsford Island, 7, 79 Rand, Avery and Company, 70 Randolph, 48 Randolph Avenue (Milton), 43 Randolph Street Playground, 86 Rappahannock, 28 Raynham, 48 Raytheon Company, 130, 130

Reading, 130, 141 commuter rail station, 144 Reading Common, 50, 51 Readville, 79 commuter rail station, 144 Readville Trotting Park. See New England Breeders Association, Trotting Park rebound of land, 3, 4 Red Line (MBTA), 77, 82, 83, 128, 128, 129, 144, 145 Reds, Boston (Red Stockings), 91 “Red Scare,” 128 Red Sox, Boston, 91, 94, 152, 152 Reformation, in England, 12 reformers in Boston 1820–65, 54–55 c. 1900, 104 Regis College, 147, 187 renewal, urban, in Boston. See urban renewal in Boston Republicans in Boston, 108 reservations, metropolitan, in Boston area Beaver Brook, 87 Blue Hill, 87, 87 Charles River, 86, 87, 87 Cutler Park, 87 Havey Beach, 87 Hemlock Gorge, 87 King’s Beach, 87 Little River, 87 Middlesex Fells, 77, 87, 87 Mystic River, 87 Nantasket Beach, 87 Neponset River, 86, 87, 87 Quincy Shore, 87 Revere Beach, 87 Stony Brook, 86, 87, 87 Winthrop Shore Reservation, 86 Reservoir (Green Line) station, 128, 129 Reservoir Road pumping station, 140, 141 reservoirs in Boston water system, 164 Arlington Covered, 140, 141 Arlington Heights Tank, 140, 141 Ashland, 84 Beacon Hill, 84, 84 Bear Hill, 84 Bear Hill Tank, 141 Bellevue Standpipe #1, 140, 141 Bellevue Standpipe #2, 140, 141 Blue Hills, 140, 141 Blue Hills Covered, 141 Brookline, 84, 84 John J. Carroll Tank, 141 Cochituate, 84, 84 Chestnut Hill, 84, 84 Deer Island Tank, 141 Dudley Pond, 84 East Boston, 84, 84 Farm Pond, 84 Fells, 84 Fells Basin 3, 140, 141 Fisher Hill, 84 Forbes Hill, 84 Framingham Basins numbers 1–3, 84, 84 Hopkinton, 84 Jamaica Pond, 84, 84 Loring Road Covered, 141 Mystic, 84 Mystic Lakes, 84 Nash Hill, 140 Norumbega, 140, 141 Norumbega Covered, 141 Parker Hill, 84, 84 Quabbin, 140, 140, 141 South Boston, 84, 84 Spot Pond, 84 Spot Pond Tank, 141 Sudbury, 84, 84 towns drowned by Quabbin, 141, 141 Turkey Hill Tank, 140, 141 Waban Hill, 84 Wachusett, 84, 84 Walnut Hill Tank, 140, 141 Weston, 84, 84 Whitehall, 84 residential squares/parks in Boston area. See squares/parks, residential in Boston area retail shops in Boston in 1676, 20, 20–21

c. 1800, 37, 40, 41 in 1855, 66, 66 retail stores, large, in downtown Boston, 93, 150 Revere, 84, 128 Revere, Paul, 21, 33, 33, 40 Revere, Paul, House, 21, 21, 152, 153 Revere, Paul, Pottery, 103, 103, 104 Revere Beach (Blue Line) station, 128, 129 Revere Beach Parkway, 87 Revere Beach Reservation, 87 Revolution, American, 26, 32–33, 37, 38, 42, 51 Rhode Island, slaves arriving at, 28 Rhyolite, Blue Hills, 7 Richards, Ellen Swallow, 91, 102, 180, 181 riding, horseback, in Boston, 94 riots in Boston in 1730s and 1740s, 30 in 1760s, 33 anti-abolitionist, 47, 56, 57 anti-draft (Civil War), 56, 57 over returning fugitive slaves to South, 47, 57 Ripley, George, 55, 55 Ripley, Sophia Dana, 55, 55 Ritz-Carlton hotel and residences, 157, 157 Riverbank Improvement Co., 125 Riverside (Green Line) station, 128, 128 Riverside Boat Club, 94, 95 Riverside Branch (D) Green Line, 68, 128, 128–29, 145 Riverside Cemetery, 50 Riverside Press, 53, 171 Riverway, 86, 127 Rockport commuter rail station, 144 Rockport Railroad, 144 Roessle Brewery, 114 Rogers & Binney, 42 Rogers Building (MIT), 69, 69 Rogers Park, 86 Ropewalks, Proprietors of, 37, 42 ropewalks in Boston in 1676, 20 in 1743, 30, 31 1790–1807, 37, 38 in 1800, 41 Roslindale, 107 Roslindale Playground, 86 Rotterdam, 27 Route 2, 127, 130 Route 9, 43 Route 28, 43 Routes 99 & 1, 43 Route 107, 43 Route 128, 126, 127, 130, 130 Route 138, 43 Rowe’s Wharf El station, 83 rowing (crew) in Boston, 91, 94, 94, 95 rowing clubs in Boston, 1903, 94, 95 Rowlandson, Mary, 13 Rowley, 15 Roxbury, 14, 15, 30 annexation of, 77, 78, 78, 84 El demolishing, 144 industries in, 66, 67 Jews moving to, 106, 130, 131 population increase, 1865–1900, 77, 80 racial minorities in 1950, 118, 119 Roxbury Bicycle Club, 95 Roxbury Canal, 125 Roxbury Central Wharf Co., 125 Roxbury Common, 50 Roxbury Community College, 147, 187 Roxbury Conglomerate. See conglomerate rocks Roxbury Crossing (Orange Line) station, 145 Roxbury Fire, Great, 94 Roxbury pumping station, 84, 84 Royal Africa Company, 24 Royall family, 28 Ruffin, Josephine St. Pierre, 180 Ruggles (Orange Line) station, 145 rum production in Boston, 21, 26, 27, 31, 37, 38, 40, 40–41 Rutherford Avenue, 73 Rutherford Avenue Playground, 86 Rutland Square, 69 “sacred cod.” See cod, as a resource Safe Drinking Water Act, 140 Sainte Domingue (Haiti), 28, 29 Saint Petersburg, 47

Salem, 3, 8, 9, 14, 15, 29, 39, 48, 64 Salem Turnpike, 42, 42, 43 Salisbury, 15 Salvation Army, 104, 104, 105, 109 Sanford-Brown College, 188 San Francisco, 47, 107 Sanofi Genzyme, 149 Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic), 29 Saratoga Street Bridge (by 1838), 73 Sargent, Francis, 126 Sargent College, 188 sassafras, as a resource, 8 Sassamon, John, 19, 19 Saturday Club, 52, 52 Saturday Evening Girls’ Club, 103, 103, 104 Library Club House, 104, 104 Saugus, 141 Saugus Jasper Quarry archaeological site, 6 Savannah, 28 Savin Hill, 14 Savin Hill (Red Line) station, 128, 129, 145 Savin Hill Park, 86 Savin Hill Playground (McConnell Park), 86 beach, 95, 125 Savin Hill Yacht Club, 95 Saybrook (CT), 17 Scarborough (ME), 17 School-Franklin urban renewal project, 132 schools in Boston in 1743, 30, 31 1820–65, 54 public (see public schools in Boston) See also colleges and universities in Boston area School Street, 62 Science Park (Green Line) station, 128 Science Park/West End (Green Line) station (formerly Science Park), 145 Scollay, William, 96 Scollay’s Building, 96, 96, 101 Scollay Square, 96–97, 96, 97, 98 demolition of, 97, 97, 122, 132 Scollay Square streetcar subway station, 83, 96, 96, 128 Scollay Square Under streetcar subway station, 83, 128 Scudder, Vida, 179 Scully, John T., & Brother, 125 Scully, John T., & Son, 125 sea level in Boston area in ice ages, 3, 4, 5 in prehistoric periods, 3, 6, 6 rise of, in early 2000s, 139, 154, 154; preparations for, 154 Seal, Great, of Massachusetts Bay Colony, 12, 18, 18 Seamen’s Friend Society, Boston, 104 Sears, Sarah Choate, 180 Home, 103 Sears Block, 96, 97 Sears Crescent, 96, 97 seawalls, 37, 42, 42, 43, 72, 72, 124 foundations of, 72 plan for, 72 Second Meetinghouse, 21 Sectional Dock beach, 95 Section 8 housing, 116, 117 segregation, residential, in Boston, 37, 40, 130 selectmen in Boston, 14 Senegambia, 29 Separatists, English, 3, 8 settlement houses in Boston, 91, 102, 104–5, 105 settlements, early 1700s European in New England, 6, 8, 9 self-justification for, 18 Seven Years’ (French and Indian) War, 24, 26, 33 Severance, Caroline, 179 Seville, 27 sewage disposal in Boston changes in 1833, 85 until 1884, 68, 85 sewerage system in Boston metropolitan area, 77, 85, 85, 142–43 in 1876–1906, 85 1907–2013, 142–43 and Boston Harbor Cleanup, 139, 142 combined sewer overflows (CSOs), 142, 143, 143 headworks: Chelsea Creek, 143; Columbus Park, 143; Nut Island, 142, 143; Ward Street, 143; Winthrop Terminal Facility, 142, 143 sludge processing, 142 systems: Charles River Valley, 85, 85; Main Drainage, 73, 85, 85, 142; Neponset Valley, 85, 85; North Metropolitan, in d e x   205

sewerage system in Boston metropolitan area (continued) 85, 85, 142; South Metropolitan, 85, 85, 142 treatment plants: Deer Island Treatment, 1995, 139, 142, 142, 143; Deer Island Primary, 1968, 142, 143; Nut Island Primary, 1952, 142, 143 tunnels: Boston Main Drainage, 142, 143; Braintree-Weymouth, 142, 143; Deer Island Outfall, 142, 143; Inter-Island, 142, 143; North Metropolitan Relief, 142, 143 See also pumping stations in Boston sewerage system Sewing Circle League (Junior League of Boston), 103, 180 Shag Rocks, 79 shale rocks. See Argillite, Cambridge Shattuck, Lemuel, Hospital, 149 Shaw, Pauline Agassiz, 179 Shawmut (Red Line) station, 128, 129 Shawmut Bank building, 151 Shawmut Branch of Old Colony Railroad, 73, 128 Shawmut Cooperative Bank, 114 Shawmut Peninsula, 42, 61 advantages and disadvantages of, 3, 12–13 Blackstone on, 8, 9 British confined on, 25 freshwater springs on, 3, 7, 13 Massachusetts Bay Company settlements on, 3, 14 Shawmut Rowing Association, 94, 95 Shawsheen Cemetery, 50 shellfish, as a resource, 6, 7 Sheltering Home (Jewish), 104 shipbuilding in Boston, 26 in 1676, 20, 21 in 1743, 30, 31 in 1800, 40 in 1840s and 1850s, 47, 61 in 1855, 66, 66, 67 shipyards in Boston area, 21, 30–31, 41, 42, 47, 66, 67 Shire, 149 Shirley, William, 24, 30 Shirley Eustis House, 30, 30 shoe and boot trade in Boston. See boot and shoe trade in Boston shoemaking industry in Massachusetts, 47, 48, 48, 66, 66, 91, 92 decline of, 114 Shoppers’ World, 130, 130 shopping centers in Boston suburbs, 130, 130 shopping malls in Boston suburbs, 130, 130 Shriners Hospital for Children, 149 Shubert Organization, 98 Shubert Theatre, 99 Siege of Boston, 25, 33 effect on Boston, 25, 33, 37 Sierra Leone, 29 Silver Line Washington Street, 144, 145 Waterfront, 144, 145, 150 Silver Line Way (Silver Line) stop, 145 Simmons Female College, 103, 147, 181, 188 Sims, Thomas, 56, 57 Sisters of St. Margaret Sixth Street (Cambridge), 73 60 State Street building, 151 size (area) of Boston increase from annexations, 77 slavery abolishment of, in Massachusetts, 37 abolitionism, 47 as an issue, 61 slaves African: in Boston, 17, 28; in Massachusetts, 28; in North American colonies, 16, 28; in West Indies, 13, 16, 17, 28 fugitive, 47, 56 Native American, 17, 28 “refuse” slaves, 28 slave trade, 24, 27, 28–29 advertisements in Boston newspapers, 28, 29, 29 ban, 1788, 28 Boston participation in, 28, 29, 38 “factories,” 28 with New England directly, 29 in North American mainland ports, 1711–1775, 28 Rhode Island participation in, 28, 29 ships in, ownership of, 26, 29 Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, 53 Authors Ridge, 172 “slum clearance” in Boston, 132 smallpox in Boston, 30 SMFA @ Tufts, 147, 188 Smillie, James, 51 206  in d e x

Smith, Anna Clapp Harris, 102, 180 Smith, Captain John, 8 on Native American depopulation, 18 map of New England, 8 1614 exploration of Massachusetts Bay, 9 Smith, C. H., 98 Smith Court, 40, 41 smuggling in Boston, 24, 26, 38 Smyrna, 27 Snowden, Muriel and Otto, 122 social classes, residences in Boston c. 1880, 81, 81 social reform movements in Boston, 47 social service institutions in Boston, 104–5 Society for Aiding Discharged Convicts, Massachusetts, 54, 55 Society for Protection of Italian Immigrants, 104 Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, 104 Soldiers Field (Harvard Stadium), 91, 95 Soldiers Field Road, 127 Somerset Street, 119 Somerville, city of, 73, 84, 142 Somerville Pumping Station, 85, 85 “Song of Hiawatha, The” (Longfellow), 53 Southac (Phillips) Street, 56 South Acton commuter rail station, 144 South America, trade with Boston, 37, 38 South Battery, 21, 26, 32 South Bay, 68, 125, 125 South Bay Lands, 68, 69, 72 South Bay Wharf and Terminal Co., 125 Southborough, 141 Southborough Fluoridation & Corrosion Control plant, 140, 141 South Boston, 80 annexed to Boston, 79 industries in, 61 institutions for poor in, 117, 117 landmaking in, 37 Seaport area developed, 150, 150 Silver Line in, 144, 145, 150 Washington Village annexed, 79 South Boston Annex, 125 South Boston Association, 42 South Boston bathhouses, 95 South Boston Bridge (1805), 37, 42, 73 South Boston Flats project, 125 South Boston High School, 84, 84 South Boston Iron Co., 67, 73 South Boston pavilion, 153 South Boston Reservoir, 84, 84 South Boston Seaport, 61 expansion into, 150, 157 South Boston Yacht Club, 95 Southbridge, 48 South Canal (Cambridge), 73 South Congregational Church (South End), 51, 51 South Cove, 40, 61, 63, 68, 73 social service institutions in, 104, 105, 105 urban renewal project, 132 South Cove Corporation, 73 South Dock (Cambridge), 73 Southeast Expressway (Route 3), 122, 125, 126, 127 South End African Americans moving to, 106 churches in, 5, 133 El demolishing, 144 Greek Revival houses in, 43 Jews moving from, 106 landmaking in, 61 national/racial groups in 1960, 133 racial minorities in 1950, 118, 119 residential squares in, 51, 51, 68, 68 social service institutions in, 104, 105 townhouses in, 68, 69 theatres in, 98 urban renewal project, 132, 133, 133 water from Jamaica Pond, 84 South End, old, 30, 37, 40, 41 South End Day Nursery, 105 South End Diet, 105 South End Grounds, 91, 94, 94, 95 South End House, 104, 105, 105 South Ferry, 83, 128, 129 South Ferry Wharf, 73 South Hadley, 48 South Hadley Fire District #1, 141 South Market building, 43, 43 South Metropolitan sewerage system, 85, 85, 142

South Pole, 3 South Shore Plaza, 130, 130 South Shore Railroad, 144 South Station, 92, 93, 125 South Station (Silver Line) station, 145 South Station El station, 83, 128 South Station Under subway (Red Line) station, 83, 128, 145 South Station urban renewal project, 132 South Street public housing project, 116, 117 Southwest Expressway, 122, 126, 144 Spain, trade with Boston, 13, 16, 17, 38 Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, 149 Spear, Charles, 55 Spectacle Island acquired by Boston, 79 archaeological sites, 6 artifacts from, 7 landmaking on, 125, 125 Spencer, 48 “spheres” of work “domestic sphere,” 102 “public sphere,” 102 spider maps (MBTA), 129, 145 sports associations, young men’s, 94 sports facilities in Boston, 1903, 95 sports in Boston, 91, 94–95, 152, 152 Sports Museum, The, 153 Spot Pond, 84, 84 Spot Pond pumping station, 84, 84, 140, 141 Spot Pond Tank, 141 Springfield, 17 Spring Street beach, 95 Spring Street pumping station, 140, 141 Squantum, 85 Squantum sewage pumping station, 143, 143 squares/parks, residential in Boston area, 50–51, 50, 51, 68 Auburndale, 50, 51 Blackstone, 51, 51, 69 Chester, 51, 69 Columbia, 51, 51 Concord, 69 Franklin, 51, 51, 69 Linden Place, 50 Longwood Green, 50 Louisburg, 51, 51, 52, 57 Monument, 50 Mount Bowdoin, 50, 51 Pemberton, 51, 52, 57 Rutland, 69 Tontine Crescent, 51, 51 Union Park, 51, 51, 68, 69 Walnut Park, 50, 51 Washington, 51, 51, 57 Waverly Park, 50, 51 Worcester, 51, 69 Stadium subway (Red Line) station, 83, 129 St. Alphonsus Association, 94, 95 boathouse, 95 Stamp Act, 24, 33 Stanley College, 188 Starbucks, 96 Star Theatre, 96, 96 State House, Massachusetts, 40, 40, 41, 55, 84, 84, 152, 153 “sacred cod” in, 8, 16 State House, Old, 30, 30, 32, 32, 39, 66, 152, 153 State House Park, 86 State Street, 20, 24, 39, 39, 40, 42, 66, 66 Blue Line station (formerly Devonshire), 128 El station, 83, 128 Orange Line station (formerly Milk-State), 128 State Street Bank building, 151 State Street Block, 64, 64, 65, 73 State Street Financial Center building, 151 St. Augustine, 28 St. Barts/St. Barthélemy, 27 St. Botolph’s Church, 12, 12 St. Botolph urban renewal project, 132 St. Croix, 27 steam excavators (shovels), 68, 68, 72, 73, 73 steam powered machines for landmaking, 72 Stearns, R.H., 150 Steiner, Jackie, 128 St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center, 149 Stern, Frances, 179 St. Eustatius, 27 Stewart, Maria W., 55, 102 Home, 54

St. James Hotel, 101 St. John’s Seminary, 147, 187 St. Joseph’s Boat Club, 95 St. Kitts, 16, 27, 29 St. Lawrence River, 48 St. Louis, 64, 107, 118 St. Margaret, Sisters of, 180 St. Margaret’s Convent, 103 Stone, Lucy, 55, 55, 102, 102, 179 Home, 54 Stone & Webster building, 151 Stoneham, 48, 84, 84 Stony Brook, 86 Stony Brook (Orange Line) station, 145 Stony Brook Reservation, 86, 87 Storrow, Helen Osborne, 104, 179 Storrow, James Jackson, 108–9, 108 residence of, 109 wards won in 1910, 108, 109 Storrow Drive, 118, 125, 126, 127 Storyville jazz nightclub, 118 Stoughton, 48, 141 commuter rail station, 144 Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 52 Strand Theatre, 153 Strandway, 86, 125 Strandway Playground, 86, 125 streetcars, electric, in Boston, 77, 82, 82 streetcar suburbs in Boston. See suburbs, streetcar, in Boston streetcar subways in Boston, 77, 82, 82, 83 St. Stephen’s House, 105 St. Stephen Street, 125 Subaru Pier, 125 suburban development, post-World War II, in Boston area, 118, 122, 130–31 housing construction, 113, 114, 130 office parks, industrial, 130, 130, 150 population gain, 115, 130, 130 shopping centers, 122, 130, 130, 150 suburbs, streetcar, in Boston, 77, 80–81 heterogeneity of, 80 housing in, 80, 80 population growth and, 77, 80 property ownership, rates of, 80, 80 public facilities and works in, 80 streetcar access to, 80, 82, 107 vote in 1910 mayoral election and, 108, 109 subways in Boston. See public transportation in Boston subways in other cities, 77 Sudbury, 15, 19, 19 South Sudbury commuter rail station, 144 Sudbury Aqueduct, 84, 84, 141 Sudbury power station, 140, 141 Sudbury Reservoir, 84, 84 Sudbury River, 77, 84 Suffolk (England), 14, 14 Suffolk Bank, 66 Suffolk County Courthouse, 96 Suffolk Downs, 125 Blue Line station, 128, 129, 145 Suffolk Insurance Co., 39 Suffolk Law School, 146 Suffolk Modern Theater, 157 Suffolk School of Law, 146 Suffolk Street District (Castle Square/Mass Pike Towers), 73 Suffolk Superior Courthouse, 96, 97 Suffolk University, 119, 146, 146, 147, 157, 188 early history of, 146 suffrage, women’s, associations, 102 suffrage, women’s, in Massachusetts, 55, 91, 102, 102, 104 sugar refining in Boston, 37, 66, 67 Sullivan, John L., 91 Sullivan Square El (Orange Line) station, 82, 83, 128, 129, 145 Summer Street, 70, 71 Sumner, Charles, 56, 56 Home, 57 Sumner Tunnel, 126, 127, 128 Sunnyside Day Nursery, 104 Susanna Island, 79 Swampscott, 141 Swan Boats, 103, 103 Swansea, 19, 19 Swedenborg School of Religion, 188 Swedish Mission, 104 Swett (Southampton) Street Bridge, 73 Swift River, 140, 140, 141, 141

Sylvania, 130, 130 Symphony (Green Line) station, 128, 129 Symphony Hall, 91, 100, 100, 153 Symphony Road, 125 synagogues in Boston. See worship, places of, in Boston Takeda Oncology, 149 Tammany Club, 108, 109 Taunton, 48 taverns in Boston, 14, 20 in 1676, 21 in 1800, 41 taxes, British on American colonies, 24, 33 Taylor, Alice, public housing project, 116, 117 Taylor, Susie King, 181 Home, 103 teakettle in Scollay Square, 96, 97 Telegraph Hill, 4, 84 Telegraph Hill Park, 86 temperance movement in Boston, 55, 102 Temple School, 54, 55 tenement, model, building, 105 tenements in Boston, 107, 107 Tennis and Racquet Club, 94, 95 tennis in Boston, 91, 94 Tent City, 133, 133 Tent City Development Corporation, 133 Tewksbury, 130 textile industry in Massachusetts, 47, 48, 48, 61, 66, 66, 91, 92 decline of, 114 Theater District, 157, 157 Theatre, Little, Movement in Boston, 99 Theatre Comique, 96 theatres in Boston, 96, 96, 98–99 Broadway tryout system, 98, 99 companies performing in, 98 legitimate, 98–99 movie, 98 vaudeville, 96, 98 Theatrical Syndicate, 98 Thirteenth Amendment, 56, 57 Thirty Years’ War, 12 Thompson, David, 8, 9 Thompson Island, 9 acquired by Boston, 79 archaeological site, 6 Thompson’s house on, 8, 9 Thompson Square El (Orange Line) station, 83, 128, 129 Thoreau, Henry David, 47, 52, 53, 53 Civil Disobedience, 52 Home, 53 Walden, or Life in the Woods, 53 Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, A, 53 Thoreau-Alcott House, 53, 172 three-deckers, 80, 107, 107 Ticknor, Anna Eliot, 179 Ticknor, William D., 52, 171 Home, 52 Ticknor & Fields, 52, 52 Ticonderoga, Fort, 33 tidelands, filling of. See landmaking in Boston tip carts, horse-drawn, 72, 73, 73, 124 Tobago, 27 Tobin Bridge, 43, 127 tonnage, of Boston ships, 39, 39 Tontine Crescent, 40, 41, 51, 51, 100 tourism in Boston. See visitor/tourist industry in Boston Town House, Boston, 21, 21, 30, 32, 32 town meetings in Boston, 37, 43, 47 in Massachusetts Bay Colony, 24 Toy Theatre, 99 trade of Boston, England, with Netherlands, 12 of Boston, Massachusetts: in 1600s, 13, 16–17, 20; in 1700s, 24; c. 1750, 27; from 1776–1807, 38–39; from 1780s–1820s, 37; from 1820s–1850s, 47; in 1855, 66; from 1900–1920, 91; in 1945, 122; from 1951–62, 113; slave trade, 24, 27, 28–29, 38 Trade Union Center, 105 trade unionism in Boston, 104 transcendentalism, 47, 52, 53, 55 transportation, public in Boston. See public transportation in Boston treatment plants in Boston water system, 140 Carroll Water Treatment Plant, 140, 141 Chestnut Hill Reservoir, 140, 141

Interim Corrosion Control Facility (Northborough), 140, 141 Leland Street, 140, 141 Norumbega Reservoir, 140, 141 Southborough Fluoridation & Corrosion Control, 140, 141 Wachusett Interim Disinfection Facility, 140, 141 Ware Disinfection Facility, 140, 140 Weston Reservoir, 140, 141 Winsor Dam, 140, 140 Tremont Street, 43, 51, 73, 96, 98 Tremont Street Subway, 82 Tremont Temple, 52, 54, 55, 56, 57, 170 Tremont Theatre, 99 triangle trade in 1630s, 17 Trinidad, 27 Trinity Church (Summer Street), 70, 70, 71 Trip to Chinatown, A (Hoyt), 98, 99 troops, British, in Boston, 24–25, 33 Troy, Jerome P., 125 Tubman, Harriet, Crusaders, 181 Tubman, Harriet, House, 103, 104 Tuckerman, Joseph, 55 Tudor, William, 47 Tufts College/University, 50, 146, 147, 188 Tufts Medical Center, 149 Orange Line station (formerly New England Medical Center), 145 Tufts University School of Medicine, 148, 149 tunnels, highway, in Boston Callahan, 127 Sumner, 126, 127, 128 Tip O’Neill, 144, 144 Williams, Ted, 144, 144 tunnels, subway, in Boston, 82, 83, 128 Turkey Hill Tank, 140, 141 Turner, Chuck, 122 turnpikes in Massachusetts, 37, 42, 48 Andover & Medford, 43 Blue Hill, 43 Braintree & Weymouth, 43 Brush Hill, 43 Cambridge & Concord, 43 Cambridge-Watertown, 43 Dedham, 43 Dorchester, 43 Medford, 43 Middlesex, 43 Newburyport, 43 Norfolk & Bristol, 43 Quincy, 43 Salem, 42, 43 Worcester, 43 Twelfth Baptist Church (Fugitive Slave Church), 56, 57 25-acre Lot, 73 Two International Place building, 151 Tyler Street, 104 Tyler Street Nursery, 105 Tyler Street Playground, 86 Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Stowe), 98 Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Double Mammoth, 98, 98 Underground Railroad, 56 unemployment in Boston, 118, 119, 119 Union Bank (Boston), 39 Union Boat Club, 94, 94, 95 Union Freight Railroad, 92 Union-Friend Street subway station, 83, 128 Union Marine Insurance Co., 39 Union Park Square, 51, 51, 105, 105 Union Park Street (Silver Line) stop, 145 Union Square (proposed Green Line) station, 145 Union Station, 92, 93 Union Street, 20 Unitarian Association, Press of the American, 52 United Shoe Machinery Company, 92, 114 United States government, 42, 73 University Book Store, 53, 53 University of Massachusetts Boston (UMass/Boston), 85, 124, 125, 146, 147, 188 unskilled workers, residences in Boston in 1880, 81, 81 Upper Mystic Lake, 84, 84 Urban College of Boston, 147, 188 urban renewal in Boston, 118, 122, 132–33, 150 accomplishments of, 132 opposition to, 122, 132 projects, 132, 132 in d e x   207

urban renewal in Boston (continued) South End project, 132, 133, 133 West End project, 132 Urban Villagers¸ The (Gans), 132 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 125 U. S. Bank (Boston branch), 39 U.S. Coast Guard, 125 Base Boston, 125 U. S. House of Representatives member of, 108 Speaker of, 108 U.S. Navy, 125 U. S. Open Golf Tournament, 91 utopian communities in mid-1800s Massachusetts, 52, 55 Utrecht, Treaty of, 24 Uxbridge, 48 Valencia, 27 Valley Road (Red Line) station, 129 Vassall-Craigie House, 53 vaudeville in Boston, 96, 98, 99 velodrome in Boston area, 91, 94, 95 Vermont & Massachusetts Railroad, 144 Verrazzano, Giovanni, 8, 9 Vertex building, 151 Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc., 149 Vesper George School of Art, 188 Veterans Administration, 130 Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System, 149 V.F.W. Highway (Route 1A), 127 V.F.W. Parkway (Route 1), 127 Victory Road Park, 125 “Village Blacksmith, The” (Longfellow), 53 Villard Y Settlement, 104 Villa Victoria, 133, 133 Virginia Company, 8 visitor/tourist industry in Boston, 122, 139, 152–53 economic impact, 152 focus on history, 152 size, reasons for, 152 visitor origins, 2016, 153 Volcanics, Lynn, 7, 7 voters in Boston, 37, 43 Vryling, John, 25 Waban (Green Line) station, 128 Waban Hill Reservoir, 84 Wabquissett, 19 Wachusett Aqueduct, 84, 84, 141 Wachusett commuter rail station, 144 Wachusett Interim Disinfection Facility, 140, 141 Wachusett power station, 140, 141 Wachusett Reservoir, 84, 84, 140, 140–41, 141 Wadsworth, Alexander, 51 Waentug, 19 Wakefield, 141 Wakefield Common, 50 Walden, or Life in the Woods (Thoreau), 53 Walden Pond, 53, 53, 172 Walford, Thomas, 8, 9 Walker, David, 56 Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World, An, 56 Home, 57 Walnut Hill Tank, 140, 141 Walnut Park, 50, 51 Waltham, 48, 141 Waltham Common, 50 Waltham Manufacturing Company, 95 Wamesit, 19 Wampanoag tribe, 18, 19, 19 Wang, An, 130 Wang Laboratories, 130, 130 Ward 19 Playground, 86 Ward Street, 125 Ward Street Headworks, 143 Ward Street sewage pumping station, 85, 85, 143, 143 Ware, 48 Ware Disinfection Facility, 140, 140 Ware River, 140, 140 War of 1812, 37 War of Jenkins’ Ear, 26 War of Spanish Succession, 24 Warren Bridge (1828), 37, 42, 73 Warren Bridge beach, 95 Warren, John Collins, 77 Warren, William (the younger), 98 wars 208  in d e x

American Revolution, 26, 32–33, 37, 38, 42, 51 between Britain and France, 24, 38 Civil War (U.S.), 47, 56, 61 French and Indian War, 24, 26, 30 King George’s War, 30 in 1700s, 27 Seven Years’ War, 24, 26, 33 War of 1812, 37 War of Jenkins’ Ear, 26 War of Spanish Succession, 24 World War II, 96, 114, 126, 130, 142 Warwick (RI), 17 Washington (DC), 64, 118 Washington/Beech public housing project, 116, 117 Washingtonian Home, 105 Washington Park, 86 Washington Park urban renewal project, 132 Washington Square, 51, 51 Washington Street (Dedham), 43 Washington Street (downtown Boston), 20, 30, 40, 66, 66, 70, 82, 96 Orange Line station (formerly Winter-Summer), 128 subway (Red Line) station, 83, 128 Washington Street (Roxbury/West Roxbury), 43, 80 Washington Street (Weymouth), 43 Washington Street Tunnel, 82, 83 Washington Village, 79, 79 Watch and Ward Society, 96, 98 Waterfront, Downtown, urban renewal project, 132, 132 Water Street (Charlestown) archaeological site, 6 artifact from, 7 water system in Boston metropolitan area, 77, 139 1795–1906, 84, 84 1907–2013, 140–41, 140–41 aqueducts, 84, 84, 140, 140–41, 164 members, 163 power stations, 140, 140–41 pumping stations, 84, 84, 140, 141 “pure” water, sources of, 84, 84, 140, 140–41 reservoirs, 84, 84, 140–41, 164 treatment plants, 140, 140–41 See also aqueducts in Boston water system; pumping stations in Boston water system; reservoirs in Boston water system; treatment plants in Boston water system Watertown, 14, 15, 84 Watertown Branch (A) Green Line, 128–29, 145 Waterways & Public Lands, Massachusetts Commission on, 125 Waverly Park, 50, 51 Wayfarers Lodge, 104 Wayside, 53, 172 Webster, 48 Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, A (Thoreau), 53 Wein, George, 118 Wellesley College, 105, 147, 188 Wellington (Orange Line) station, 145 Wells (ME), 17 Wells Memorial Institute, 104, 105 Wentworth Institute of Technology, 147, 188 Wessagusset (Weymouth), 8, 9, 9 Westborough, 48 West Boston Bridge (1793), 37, 40, 42, 73, 77 West Boston Bridge, Proprietors of, 42 West Boston Bridge beach, 95 West Boylston, 48, 141 West Broadway (D Street) public housing project, 116, 117 West End, 30, 37, 92, 106, 108 almshouse in, 40, 41, 116, 116 urban renewal project, 122, 132, 132 West End Boat Club, 94, 95 West End Street Railway, 82 Western Avenue (Cambridge, Brighton), 43 Western Avenue Bridge (1824), 43 Western Railroad, 48 West Fifth Street Playground, 86 West Fourth Street Bridge, 42, 79 Westgate Mall, 130, 130 West India goods stores in Boston, 40, 41 West Indies, trade with Boston, 13, 16, 17, 27, 37, 38 Westland Avenue, 125 Weston, 130, 141 Weston, Thomas, 9 Weston Aqueduct, 84, 84, 141 Weston Reservoir, 84, 84 Weston Reservoir treatment plant, 140, 141 West Roxbury, 77, 78, 78, 80 West Roxbury Parkway, 86

West Roxbury pumping station, 84, 84, 140, 141 West Springfield, 48 West Third Street Playground, 86 Westwood, 141 Wethersfield (CT), 17 wetu, 7 Weymouth, 8, 9, 9, 15, 48 wharf building in Boston, 37, 42 Wheatley, John, 29 Wheatley, Phillis, 28, 29, 29 Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, 29 Wheatley, Susannah, 29 Wheelock, Lucy, 181 Wheelock’s, Miss, Kindergarten Training School (Wheelock College), 103, 188 Wheelwright, Edmund, 77 White, Kevin, 122, 132, 152 Whitehall Reservoir, 84 Whitehead Institute, 148 whites (racial group) in Boston in 1910, 106 in 1950, 118 in 2010, 156 White’s, J. F., 150 Whitman, Sarah Wyman, 180 Whitney, Anne, 180 Studio, 103 Whittier, John Greenleaf, 52 Whittier Street public housing project, 116, 117 wholesale business in Boston, 66, 92, 113, 114, 115, 150, 150 Wiggins sewage pumping station, 143, 143 Wilbraham, 141 Wilbur Theater, 153 Wildwood Cemetery, 50 William James College, 147, 188 William of Orange, 24 Williams, Ted, Tunnel, 144, 144, 145 Williamsburg, 27 Wilmington, 141 Wilson, John, 14 Winchester, 84, 141 Winchester, E. & A., 42 Winchester’s Soap Works, 42 Windward Coast, 29 Winnisimmet (Chelsea), 8, 9 Winsor (CT), 17 Winsor, Justin, 102 Memorial History of Boston, 102 Winsor, Mary Pickard, 180 Winsor, Miss, School, 103 Winsor Dam treatment plant, 140, 140 Winsor power station, 140, 140 Winter-Summer Street subway station, 83, 128 Winthrop, 84 Winthrop, Adam, 12 Winthrop, John, 12 in Charlestown, 3 dining with Massachusett sachem, 18 English origin of, 14 fearing for Massachusetts’s survival, 17 fleet of, 3, 8, 12, 14, 15 founding Boston, 3, 14 letter to wife, 12 at Salem, 3, 8, 14 Winthrop, John, Playground, 86 Winthrop Parkway, 87 Winthrop Shore Reservation, 86 Winthrop Terminal Facility headworks, 142, 143 Winthrop Yacht Club, 95 Woburn, 15, 48, 141 commuter rail station, 144 Wolfe, James, 24 Wollaston, Mount, 8, 9 Wollaston, Richard, 9 Wollaston (Red Line) station, 145 Woman’s Education Association, 102 Woman’s Era, 103 Woman’s Journal, 102, 103 Woman’s Trade Union League, Boston chapter, 104, 105 women entrepreneurs, 179–81 women in Boston, mid- to late 1800s, 55, 91, 102–3 Women in the Nineteenth Century (Fuller), 53 Women’s Block, The, 103 Women’s Christian Temperance Union, 104 Women’s Educational and Industrial Union, 103, 104 Womens Hospital branch, 105 Women’s Laboratory at MIT, 102, 102

women’s rights activity in mid-1800s Boston area, 52, 55 Wonderland (Blue Line) station, 128, 129, 145 Wood, William, 13 Woodbrook Cemetery, 50 Wood Island (Blue Line) station (formerly Day Square), 128, 129 Wood Island Park, 86, 126, 126 beach, 95 Woodland (Green Line) station, 128 Woodland period in Boston area archaeological sites, 6 dates, 3, 6 lifeways in, 3, 6 sea level in, 6, 6 Woodlawn Cemetery, 50 wool dealers in Boston in 1905, 92, 92, 93 Worcester, 48, 141 commuter rail station, 144 Worcester Square, 51 Silver Line stop, 145 Worcester Turnpike, 43 workhouse, Boston, 24, 41 Working Boys Home, 105

Works Projects Administration, 98 World Series, 91, 94 World’s Theatre and Museum, 99 World Trade Center, 153 Silver Line station, 145 World War I, 114 World War II, 96, 114, 126, 130, 142 worship, places of, in Boston, 5, 14, 30, 61, 62, 64 denominations of: in 1676, 20–21; in 1743, 31; in 1800, 40–41; in 1855, 65; in 1910, 106 in South End, 1960, 133 specific institutions: African Meeting House, 57; Brattle Street Meetinghouse, 32, 32; Church of Disciples, 54, 55; Church of the Holy Cross, 62; Fugitive Slave (Twelfth Baptist) Church, 56; King’s Chapel, 32, 32, 96, 152; Mission Church, 94; Mother Church, 102; New Old South Church, 5, 5; Old North Church, 24, 32, 32, 33, 104, 104, 152; Old South Meetinghouse, 32, 32, 70, 70, 71, 152; Park Street Church, 56, 152; Pine Street Chapel, 54; Second Meetinghouse, 21; St. Joseph’s (West End), 94; Suffolk Street Chapel, 54; Tremont Temple, 52, 54, 55, 56, 57; Trinity (Summer Street), 70, 70, 71; Twenty-Eighth Congregational Society, 54, 55; Warren Street Chapel, 54

“Wreck of the Hesperus, The” (Longfellow), 53 Wright, George, 91 Wright, Harry, 91 Yankees (ethnic group), in Boston, 47, 68, 108 YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Association), Boston, 95, 100, 101, 104 YMCU (Young Men’s Christian Union), Boston, 95 York River, slaves arriving at, 28 Young, Ammi, 43 young men’s Christian sports associations, 94 YWCA (Young Women’s Christian Association), Boston, 103, 105 Working Girls Home, 103, 180 Zakim, Leonard P., Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge (2003), 144, 144 Zakrzewska, Marie, 102, 102, 180 Zoo New England, 153

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