For Thanksgiving, we are revisiting three classic episodes of HUB History. First, learn how the carol “Over the River and Through the Wood” started out as a Thanksgiving song, and why the songwriter’s extreme beliefs almost cost her livelihood. Then, hear how 19th century Boston got the vast flocks of turkeys needed for a traditional Thanksgiving to market, and then to the dining room table. And finally, prepare to be surprised when you hear that college students, even Harvard students and even John Adams’ kids, have been known to drink and cause trouble, such as the 1787 Thanksgiving day riot.
Category: Episodes
The Trolley of Death (episode 261)
106 years ago this week, a terrible accident took place within sight of South Station. November 7, 1916 was election day in Boston, but it was an otherwise completely ordinary autumn afternoon for the passengers who packed themselves into streetcar number 393 of the Boston Elevated Railway for their evening commute through South Boston to South Station and Downtown Crossing. The everyday monotony of the trip home was shattered in an instant, when the streetcar crashed through the closed gates of the Summer Street bridge and plunged through the open drawbridge and into the dark and frigid water below. How many could be saved, and how many would have to perish for this evening to be remembered as Boston’s greatest moment of tragedy for a generation?
The Gentlemen’s Mob (episode 260)
19th Century Boston was a riotous town, and in past episodes, we’ve examined everything from anti-draft riots to anti-catholic riots to anti-immigrant riots that took place in this city in the 19th century. The incident on Washington Street on October 21, 1835 was different, however. Where most of Boston’s 19th century riots erupted from street violence among and directed by the working classes, the mob’s attack on the Female Anti Slavery Society and abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison was led by a group characterized as “gentlemen of property and influence.” Enraged by the audacity of radical calls for immediate abolition, this mob of respectable gentlemen broke down the doors, scattered members of the Female Anti Slavery Society, nearly lynched William Lloyd Garrison, and inspired abolitionist leader Maria Chapman to exclaim, “If this is the last bulwark of freedom, we may as well die here as anywhere!”
The Nazi Spy Ship (episode 259)
When it came steaming into Boston Harbor 81 years ago this week, the fishing trawler Buskø was escorted by a Coast Guard cutter, with armed guards watching over her crew. The next day’s headlines declared that the US had captured a Nazi spy ship manned by Gestapo agents who were setting up secret bases in Greenland, but the truth turned out to be more complicated. The Busko was sailing under the Norwegian flag and manned by a Norwegian crew, yet their peaceful voyage to deliver supplies to isolated Norwegian hunters in the arctic was used to cover up Nazi intelligence gathering, so what would the fate of the ship be? And while war was raging in Europe, the United States was technically at peace, so on what charges were the Norwegian crew held at the East Boston immigration station?
The Nazis of Copley Square, with Professor Charles R Gallagher (episode 258)
Professor Charles R Gallagher’s recent book The Nazis of Copley Square: The Forgotten Story of the Christian Front is an in depth accounting of an organization that was wildly popular in Boston and beyond in the years before the US entered World War II. The Christian Front was deeply rooted in Catholic doctrines, but the value at its core was a form of anticommunism that members treated as interchangeable with antisemitism. Professor Gallagher will tell us how the group was founded and how the doctrine of Catholic Action and the Mystical Body of Christ theory enabled their hateful ideology. He’ll also introduce the intellectual leaders of the group, the streetfighters who led it down the primrose path to paramilitarism, and the Nazi spymaster who turned the group toward treason.
Continue reading The Nazis of Copley Square, with Professor Charles R Gallagher (episode 258)
Vilna Shul: Last Synagogue Standing (episode 257)
The West End and the North Slope of Beacon Hill have gone through extreme transformations over time. At the turn of the 20th century, these neighboring communities welcomed Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, though very few signs of those vibrant communities remain today. As the last of the purpose-built immigrant synagogues still standing in downtown Boston, the Vilna Shul is a unique building with a rich history of immigration, community, and the evolving American identity. Vilna Shul Executive Director Dalit Horn joins us this week to talk about the history and future of this unique synagogue.
Continue reading Vilna Shul: Last Synagogue Standing (episode 257)
Mutiny at Prospect Hill (episode 256)
During the summer of 1775, when the siege of Boston was at its peak, about 1500 Pennsylvania Riflemen answered a call for volunteers. By the time they reached the American lines in Cambridge, expectations for these troops were through the roof. Thanks in no small part to a publicity campaign engineered by John Adams, the New England officers commanding the troops around Boston believed that these fresh troops were capable of nearly everything. Their reputation was based in part upon the riflemen’s origins on the frontier, and in part on the advanced weaponry they carried. While they’re the status quo today, rifles were new to both armies that were facing off in Boston and nearly unheard of here in New England. However, fame went to these soldiers’ heads, and after only a couple of months on the front line, they were nearly ungovernable. They refused to take part in the regular duties of an American soldier, they staged jailbreaks when their comrades were locked up for infractions against military discipline, and on September 10th, they staged the first mutiny in the new Continental Army.
Old North and the Sea (episode 255)
Independent researcher TJ Todd recently gave a presentation about Old North Church and the sea. TJ’s talk focuses on two notable sea captains, both of whom longtime listeners will remember from past episodes. Captain Samuel Nicholson was the first, somewhat hapless, captain of the USS Constitution, and Captain Thomas Gruchy was the privateer who captured the carved cherubs that keep watch over the Old North sanctuary from the French. Exploring the lives of these two famous captains will reveal what life was like for the ordinary sailors and dockworkers who made up a significant portion of Boston’s population in the 18th and 19th centuries, as well as drawing connections to other incidents from Boston’s maritime past, including many that we’ve discussed in past episodes.
Thanks to our friends at the Old North Foundation for allowing us to share this presentation with you.
Celebrating Cy Young (episode 254)
Cy Young Day, an exhibition game to celebrate the greatest pitcher of all time, was bracketed by days of sports celebration, from prizefighters in the squared circle to old time baseball in the Harbor Islands. Held at the Huntington Avenue Baseball Grounds on August 13, 1908, the Cy Young celebration drew a record crowd of 20,000 fans to the now long gone ballpark. By this time, Young had been playing professional baseball for 20 years, and he was starting to slow down. Nobody knew if the old Ohio farmboy would be playing for Boston when the 1909 season rolled around, so it seemed as if the whole city turned out to show the pitcher their love, and to make sure he would have a comfortable nest egg for his expected retirement.
Hostibus Primo Fugatis: The Washington Before Boston Medal (episode 253)
Back in 2015, I was at the Boston Public Library for a special exhibition called “We Are One,” which showcased items from their collection dating from the French and Indian War to the Constitutional Convention, showing how thirteen fractious colonies forged a single national identity. Libraries have a lot more than just books, of course. The BPL has everything from streaming movies and music to historic maps to medieval manuscripts to Leslie Jones’ photos to one remarkable gold medal. Some of the items on display were breathtaking, like a map hand drawn by George Washington, Paul Revere’s hand drawn diagram showing where the bodies fell during the Boston Massacre, and a gorgeous 360 degree panorama showing the view from the top of Beacon Hill during the siege of Boston. What stopped me in my tracks, though, was a solid gold medal. It was about three inches in diameter, but it was hard to tell through the thick and probably bulletproof glass protecting it.
On the side facing me, I could see a bust of George Washington and some words, but they were too small to read. A special bracket held the medal in front of a mirror, and on the back I could make out more lettering, as well as a cannon and a group of men on horses. Later, I learned that this was the Washington Before Boston Medal, commemorating the British evacuation of Boston. It was the first Congressional gold medal, and the first medal of any kind commissioned by the Continental Congress during our Revolutionary War. This illustrious medal’s journey to the stacks of the Boston Public Library will take us from Henry Knox’s cannons at Dorchester Heights to John Adams at the Second Continental congress in Philly to Ben Franklin in Paris to a Confederate’s dank basement in West Virginia during the Civil War.
Continue reading Hostibus Primo Fugatis: The Washington Before Boston Medal (episode 253)