Hey, there! Log in / Register

History

By adamg - 4/19/23 - 1:43 pm
Street scene with cab company in old Boston

The folks at the Boston City Archives wonder if you can place this scene. See it larger.

By adamg - 4/17/23 - 10:41 am
Minutemen and followers marching to Old North Bridge in Concord

Michael Sentance watched a troop of Minutemen and followers in Concord on their morning march to destiny to Old North Bridge.

Meanwhile, down in Coolidge Corner, Michael Burstein watched William Dawes sound the alarum that the regulars were coming, on his way from the North End: Read more.

By adamg - 3/23/23 - 12:40 pm
Men installing street-car tracks in old Boston

The folks at the Boston City Archives wonder if you can place this scene. See it larger.

By adamg - 3/19/23 - 12:41 pm
Centre Street in Jamaica Plain on March 24, 2020

An empty Centre Street in Jamaica Plain on March 24, 2020, by Liz Lemongrab.

Three years ago, the streets, trains and parks of the Boston area were largely empty, as people stayed home as the pandemic exploded. Photographers across the region, though, did venture out to chronicle the newly formed voids.

By adamg - 3/6/23 - 12:17 pm
Cleanser, pawn shop and employment office in old Boston

The folks at the Boston City Archives wonder if you can place this scene. See it larger (also note the use of "cleansing," from which we no doubt got cleansas).

By adamg - 2/24/23 - 9:42 am

MIT News recounts the story of the Roxbury Photographers Training Program, the subject of an exhibit at the MIT Museum.

The studio in the heart of Roxbury included a darkroom and a gallery. Students were well supplied with film and photographic equipment, with support from Polaroid Corporation.

By adamg - 2/21/23 - 12:02 pm
Street scene in old Boston featuring billboard for Boston Light ale and beer

The folks at the Boston City Archives wonder if you can place this scene. See it larger.

By adamg - 2/16/23 - 12:28 pm
Trolley barn in old Boston

The folks at the Boston City Archives wonder if you can place this scene. See it larger.

By adamg - 2/10/23 - 11:03 am
Ad in colonial newspaper offering a free negro male child in Roxbury

First Church members would give away newborn slave children.

In a report for and on the First Church in Roxbury, Aabid Allibhai chronicles some of the horrible exploits of the colonial founders of the church, including its founding minister, as enslavers of both Blacks and natives, from their involvement in the slave trade to owning slaves themselves, to giving away newborn Black children "like puppies." Read more.

By adamg - 2/3/23 - 11:19 am

The Boston City Archives has posted a transcript of an interview with John J. McClane, who started working as a Boston firefighter in 1901 and who recalled the transition from horse-drawn engines to motor-driven ones, in the days when Brighton was still home to abatoirs and cattle yards, where farmers from around the area would bring their cattle and sheep to be prepared for shipment to England - and then retire to the Faneuil House for some high-stakes poker.

By adamg - 1/30/23 - 11:49 am
Street scene in old Boston, featuring store selling rubbers

The folks at the Boston City Archives wonder if you can place this scene. See it larger.

By adamg - 1/27/23 - 3:25 pm
Rialto Theater in Roslindale Square

In 1946, Warren Favor snapped this photo from South Street around to Washington Street and the Rialto Theatre. Read more.

By adamg - 1/26/23 - 10:34 am
Kids on an empty street in old Boston

The folks at the Boston City Archives wonder if you can place this scene. See it larger.

By adamg - 1/21/23 - 12:38 pm
1858 image of the intersection of Washington with Summer and Winter

Winslow Homer sketched the intersection of Washington Street with Winter and Summer streets in 1857, for Ballou's Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion, a Boston-based publication. Read more.

By adamg - 1/20/23 - 11:51 am
Old trolley in old Boston

The folks at the Boston City Archives wonder if you can place this scene (some details that would make it obvious scribbled out). See it larger.

By adamg - 1/15/23 - 2:23 pm

Today is, of course, the anniversary of the Great Molasses Flood, when a poorly maintained tank of molasses on the North End waterfront exploded at 12:40 p.m. on an unseasonably warm January day, sending a viscous brown tsunami down Commercial Street, killing 21 people and several horses, destroying buildings and bending the elevated. Read more.

Subscribe to History