Annexation and Perambulation (episode 141)

This week’s show revisits two classic HUB History episodes that are all about the boundaries of the city of Boston.  First, we’ll go back to a show that originally aired last January to learn why independent towns like Roxbury, Dorchester, and Charlestown were eager to be annexed into the city of Boston in the mid- to late-19th century, and we’ll examine why Boston hasn’t annexed any other municipalities since Hyde Park in 1912.  Of course, once you make the boundaries of the city bigger by annexing your neighbors, you have to keep track of those new boundaries. So our second clip will be from a show that aired way back in September of 2017, about the ancient practice of perambulating the bounds. Since the 1650s, Massachusetts law has required towns to clearly mark their boundaries with other towns, and to send somebody out to walk the line and examine the markers every five years.


Annexation

Perambulation

Boston Book Club

Last summer Adam Gaffin of the local news site Universal Hub published an article titled “Stony Brook: Boston’s Stygian River,” an in depth description of how an 1886 flood inspired the city to bury the Stony Brook.  The midsized river originates in the high ground where West Roxbury, Hyde Park, and Roslindale all come together, and it once wound its way through Roxbury until it drained into the Muddy River near its confluence with the Charles.  The brook was so clean and clear that a series of breweries were founded in Roxbury to make beer with its delicious water. Eventually, however, too many factories discharged their waste into the river, and it became polluted. As the watershed became heavily populated and industrialized, the Stony Brook’s annual floods could no longer be tolerated.  

Using many wonderful historic maps and photos, Gaffin’s article describes “a decades-long project to create Boston’s underground river – a 7 1/2-mile waterway on which the sun never shines. Throw in all the marshes that were filled and the tributaries that were also covered and you end up with a project to rival the creation of the Back Bay, one that affected hundreds of acres of land from Hyde Park to the Charles River.”  He follows the historic route of the Brook, describes the construction techniques used to build the massive scale tunnels that now carry it, and takes the reader on a virtual tour showing how to trace the route of the current underground river.

The article hits the sweet spot between urban infrastructure and Boston history, and it sits well with this week’s theme of 19th century development and expansion.

Upcoming Event

And for our upcoming event this week, we’re featuring a special 30th anniversary screening of the movie Glory.  When it was released in the summer of 1989, Glory became an instant hit and critical darling, winning three Oscars and a host of other awards.  The movie is a Civil War epic, which focuses on the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, which we’ve mentioned on the podcast many times.  Starring Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington, and Matthew Broderick, the film follows the all-black regiment and their white officers from their training in Readville, the neighborhood where I live, to the battlefield at Fort Wagner, South Carolina.  Roger Ebert’s 1990 review summarizes the plot, and one of the film’s major criticisms, quite nicely:

“Glory” tells the story of the 54th Regiment largely through the eyes of Robert Gould Shaw, who in an early scene in the film is seen horrified and disoriented by the violence of the battlefield.

Returned home to recover from wounds, he is recruited to lead a newly formed black regiment and takes the job even though his own enlightened abolitionist opinions still leave room for doubts about the capability of black troops.

It is up to the troops themselves to convince him they can fight – and along the way they also gently provide him with some insights into race and into human nature, a century before the flowering of the civil rights movement. Among the men who turn into the natural leaders of the 54th are Trip, an escaped slave, and John Rawlins, first seen in the film as a gravedigger who encounters the wounded Shaw on the field of battle.

These men are proud to be soldiers, proud to wear the uniform and also too proud to accept the racism they see all around them, as when a decision is made to pay black troops less than white. Blacks march as far, bleed as much and die as soon, they argue. Why should they be paid less for the same work? Shaw and his second in command, Cabot Forbes, eventually see the logic in this argument and join their men in refusing their paychecks. That action is a turning point for the 54th, fusing the officers and men together into a unit with mutual trust. And everything in the film leads up to the final bloody battle scene, a suicidal march up a hill that accomplishes little in concrete military terms but is of incalculable symbolic importance.

Watching “Glory,” I had one reccuring problem. I didn’t understand why it had to be told so often from the point of view of the 54th’s white commanding officer. Why did we see the black troops through his eyes – instead of seeing him through theirs? To put it another way, why does the top billing in this movie go to a white actor? I ask, not to be perverse, but because I consider this primarily a story about a black experience and do not know why it has to be seen largely through white eyes. 

On July 21 and 24th, which are a Sunday and a Wednesday, the film will be screened at a handful of area theaters.  It will be shown in the Fenway, and in Framingham, Revere, and Somerville. There are only two days of screenings, and there is only single showtime in some towns, so you probably want to try reserving tickets in advance.