This week weâre revisiting Bostonâs great Molasses Flood, the subject of one of our earliest podcasts. Weâre giving you an update, now that our technology, research, and storytelling skills have improved. Stay tuned for tales of rum, anarchists, and the speed of molasses in January. Itâs not slow!
Continue reading The Great Molasses Flood, Remastered (Ep73)
The Boston Womenâs Municipal League was a civic organization made up of mostly middle and upper class women, at a time when most women didnât work outside the home. In 1915, they declared war on rats.  Over the next few years, Womenâs Municipal League published literature on eradicating rats, carried out an extensive education campaign, and in 1917 hosted a city-wide Rat Day with cash prizes for the citizens who killed the most rats. Â
When we record, we both put moving pads, those heavily quilted blue blankets that professional movers use to protect your furniture, over our heads to isolate us from outside noise. Well, this is what happens when I find out that part of mine is closed in the freezer door, and then I canât get my microphone stand to stand up. Youâll hear a bit of this rustling and banging in the last minute or so of next weekâs episode. My apologies in advance.
Warning: Mildly NSFW language
In 1848, railroad worker Phineas Gage suffered an unusual injury, in which a three foot tamping iron was blown through his skull, making him on of the greatest medical curiosities of all time. Weâll discuss his time in Boston, his life post-injury, and the impact of his case on modern neuroscience.
Content warning: The details of Gageâs accident and injury are a little gory.
This week, Ryan Walsh joins us to discuss Boston in 1968, the James Brown concert that might have prevented a riot, a cult that took over Roxburyâs Fort Hill, the strange history of LSD in our city, and a musical movement called the Bosstown Sound.  Most of all, though, we will discuss his book Astral Weeks, a Secret History of 1968 and the Van Morrison record that inspired it.
Continue reading Astral Weeks: A Secret History of 1968, with Ryan Walsh (Ep70)
Weâre joined this week by Lauren Prescott, the executive director of the South End Historical Society and author of a new book simply titled Bostonâs South End.  Itâs part of Arcadia Publishingâs âPostcard History Series,â and it features hundreds of images from the South End Historical Societyâs collection of historic postcards dating from the 1860s to the mid 20th century. Â
Continue reading Picturing the South End, with Lauren Prescott (Ep69)
In 1848, a murder case nearly brought an end to the death penalty in Massachusetts. Â When a young black man named Washington Goode was convicted of first degree murder that year, there hadnât been an execution in Boston for 13 years. Â White men who had been convicted of the same crime had their sentences commuted to a life in prison, and tens of thousands of petitions poured in asking the governor to do the same thing for Goode. Â Yet even so, he was sent to the gallows. Â Why?
Continue reading The Execution that Almost Killed the Death Penalty in Massachusetts (Ep68)
This is a very special episode for readers of the Hyde Park Bulletin and fans of Hyde Park 150. Back in episode 19, we featured the story of James Gately, the Hermit of Hyde Park. Gately was born in England, and he moved to Boston in 1847. After a series of mishaps, he became fed up with human society, and walked off into the woods. The woods he found were right here in Hyde Park, and he spent the rest of his life hunting, fishing, and trapping in our neighborhood. Listen to his story!
We used our studio time this week to record something special that will air next month. Without a new episode, we didnât want to leave you without any HUB History this week. Instead, here are three classic episodes honoring black and white abolitionists in 19th Century Boston. Recorded last February, in the wake of President Trumpâs attempt to implement a âMuslim Ban,â these episodes focus on Bostonâs resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act, which was seen as an unjust law. Â
Continue reading Classics: Boston Resists the Fugitive Slave Act (Episode 67)
This week, weâre talking about the conflict between Puritans and pirates in the late 1600s and early 1700s. Cotton Mather is remembered for his role in the Salem Witch Trials, but he was the childhood minister to Ben Franklin, ultimate symbol of the American Enlightenment, and he died less than fifty years before our Declaration of Independence was signed. In a way, Mather was one of the last Puritans, and some of his most famous sermons are the ones he wrote for mass executions of pirates. Times were changing, setting up a conflict between rigidly hierarchical Puritan societies and fledgling democracies that could be found on board pirate ships.
Continue reading Episode 66: Cotton Mather REALLY Hated Pirates
