19th Century Archives

America’s First Christmas Cards (episode 316)

Have you ever wondered where the tradition of sending Christmas cards every year came from? While the first Christmas cards appeared in Britain back in the 1840s, it was a German immigrant named Louis Prang who made them popular in the United States and around the world. Using a revolutionary new color printing technique that he called chromolithography, Prang’s Roxbury factory made the most popular greeting cards in the country from the 1870s until the turn of the century.

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Boston’s Spooky Sea Serpent (episode 312)

In this episode, we dive into the lasting folklore of Boston’s sea serpent, a supposedly true tale rooted in the early colonial history of New England. The story begins with a dubious 1639 account, continues through repeated sightings in the early 1800s, and extends into the 20th century. From the beginning, skeptics poked holes in accounts of the serpent, even when the scientific Linnaean Society fell for the story hook, line, and sinker. However, the idea of a sea monster on Massachusetts shores helped transform Nahant into a summer tourist destination, drawing curious visitors eager to spot the serpent and keeping the legend alive for a century.

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The Great September Gale (episode 310)

September 22nd marks the anniversary of a storm. 209 years ago today, the wind was building over the sea off Boston while the skies grew dark with clouds. The next day, the strongest hurricane in generations slammed into the New England coast, causing devastation on Boston Harbor, in city streets, and in fields and forests all around the region. The storm is remembered as the Great September Gale, and it had wide-ranging effects, causing everything from a collapse in the local glass industry to a construction boom to an acceleration in westward migration from Boston and New England.

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The Importance of Being Furnished, with Tripp Evans and Erica Lome (episode 308)

This week, Erica Lome and Tripp Evans join the show to discuss a new exhibit at the Eustis Estate called “The Importance of Being Furnished.” In the wake of Oscar Wilde’s 1882 lecture tour focusing on The House Beautiful, outlandishly decorated bachelor households became an aspirational style that helped define American homes from the Gilded Age to the Jazz Era. The new Aesthetic Movement brought beauty and artistic sensibility to American homes, replacing conservative styles that reinforced traditional morality. “The Importance of Being Furnished” introduces four decorators who helped revolutionize interior design during this period: Charles Gibson, Ogden Codman, Charles Pendleton, and Henry Sleeper, as well as their homes in Boston’s Back Bay, Gloucester, Lincoln, and Providence. In their own time, all four men were known as bachelor aesthetes, born into privileged families but hiding their queerness to greater or lesser degrees in an era when homosexuality was punishable by jail time in Boston. In this interview, exhibit curators Tripp Evans and Erica Lome will tell us how these men took inspiration from their personal lives in decorating their own homes, and how they leveraged those lavish homes into careers in decorating for everyone from robber barons to Hollywood stars.

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A Light Under the Dome, with Patrick Gabridge (episode 307)

This week, Patrick Gabridge joins us to talk about his new play “A Light Under the Dome,” which opens at the Massachusetts State House on August 12. The first in a series of works exploring the intersection between abolition and suffrage in the 19th and early 20th centuries, A Light Under the Dome recreates a specific moment in history that took place under the dome of the Massachusetts State House 186 years ago. Angelina Grimke grew up in Charleston, South Carolina in a family of enslavers, witnessing the cruelty of America’s peculiar institution under her own roof. Leaving her comfortable life behind, she risked threats and acts of violence to become a radical abolitionist. Listen to this conversation with Patrick to learn how she got invited to speak to the Massachusetts legislature, why her address was groundbreaking, and how she tied the cause of abolition to the novel idea of rights for women.

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The Enduring Grip of Stillson’s Pipe Wrench (episode 306)

Long before becoming a haven for software and biotech giants, Kendall Square was a center for manufacturing during the era of steam. Here, in the 1860s, two crucial advancements emerged: the standardization of threaded iron pipes and fittings for use in household plumbing, gas fixtures, and steam power and the invention of the modern pipe wrench that allows us to work on them. This episode explores the story behind the Stillson pipe wrench, a tool so revolutionary that its inventor’s name became synonymous with pipe wrenches and so innovative that its design remains nearly unchanged over 150 years later. We’ll meet Daniel Chapman Stillson, the Civil War veteran and ingenious machinist who, frustrated by the limitations of existing tools, designed an adjustable pipe wrench that revolutionized plumbing, pipefitting, and his employer, the Walworth company.

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Hail Britannia! (episode 305)

This episode explores the impact of the Cunard Line of steamers and its flagship Britannia on Boston in the mid-19th century. Before the Britannia, transatlantic travel relied on fickle winds, making each crossing perilous and unpredictable. The introduction of steamships revolutionized transatlantic travel by offering faster and more reliable journeys. Boston became a central hub for this new era of maritime transportation, benefiting from its proximity to Europe and the construction of railroads and modern wharf facilities. However, the challenges of winter ice necessitated innovative solutions, such as cutting a seven-mile canal for the Britannia to depart. Cunard’s regular service between Liverpool and Boston not only boosted the local mercantile economy but also transformed Boston into a center for European news dissemination. However, as the 19th century progressed, technological advancements and shifting economic factors led to a decline in Boston’s dominance in transatlantic shipping, with New York eventually overtaking it as the primary port for Cunard and other steamship lines.

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What’s In a (Nick)Name (episode 304)

For this week’s show, I spent some time asking visitors and locals what nicknames they know for Boston. From the Hub to Titletown to Beantown and beyond, people know a lot of nicknames for Boston, but it turns out that most of us don’t know the meanings behind the monikers. In this episode, I dig into the stories behind five nicknames you might have wondered about.

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A Blizzard of Falling Stars (episode 287)

190 years ago, Bostonians awoke to an unexpected light in the sky before dawn on November 13, 1833. Some began their morning routines, thinking the sun had risen, a few dashed outside to douse the fire they expected to see consuming a neighbor’s house, and some simply looked out the window in curiosity. When they looked up to the heavens, they saw an unparalleled celestial spectacle. A meteor shower of unprecedented intensity erupted in the night sky, filling it with tens of thousands of shooting stars per hour, which observers said fell as thickly as snowflakes in a winter storm. Star Wars fans might picture the Eye of Aldhani from episode 6 of Andor, a spectacular feat of special effects that allowed the protagonists to make their escape from the empire during a meteor shower that lit up the sky. The real 1833 meteor shower was no less spectacular. The event, which came to be known as the Leonid meteor storm, was one of the most remarkable astronomical events in recorded history, both because of its breathtaking beauty and its importance to the development of science.

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Disrupting Time: Industrial Combat, Espionage, and the Downfall of a Great American Company, with Aaron Stark (episode 284)

This week, Aaron Stark joins the show to discuss his new book Disrupting Time: Industrial Combat, Espionage, and the Downfall of a Great American Company, which chronicles an attempt by a foreign power to infiltrate, emulate, and eventually annihilate a great American company. In the late 19th century, watches were at the forefront of technological innovation, and the Waltham Watch Company made some of the finest watches in the world. Unlike their Swiss competitors, whose products were fancy, handcrafted works of art, the Watham company specialized in mass produced, affordable, and reliable watches for the masses. At an 1876 World’s Fair, they announced their arrival on the world’s stage, and the world took notice. The Swiss, in particular, took notice, and they took it by sending spies to steal the secrets of Waltham’s success.

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