Tag: 19th Century

Horace Mann, Education Innovator (episode 116)

Boston has always been a city that valued education, and few people did as much to improve our educational system as Horace Mann.  He started from modest means, living out the one-liner in Good Will Hunting about getting a $150,000 education for $1.50 in late fees at the library.  Mann served as a tutor and a librarian before being elected to the Massachusetts legislature.  It was, however, as the Commonwealth’s first Secretary of Education that Horace Mann transformed education in Massachusetts by fundamentally reforming how our teachers are trained.  His method would eventually be adopted by much of the country.  You’re welcome!


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Crossing the River Charles (episode 115)

What do you know about the earliest crossings over the Charles River in Boston?  When it was founded, the town of Boston occupied the tip of the narrow Shawmut Peninsula, with the harbor on one side and the Charles RIver on the other.  Residents relied first on ferries, and later on a series of bridges to connect them with the surrounding towns and countryside. The progression of bridge construction illustrates not only the state of construction technology, but also the birth of corporations in America and a landmark Supreme Court case defining the limits of private property rights.


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Boston Standard Time (episode 113)

With New Year’s Eve comes the ball drop in Times Square at the stroke of midnight.  But in the late 1800s, Boston dropped a ball every day to mark the stroke of noon, because telling the time was serious business. The time ball, along with telegraphic signals and fire alarm bells, announced the exact time to the public, at a time when the exact time was critical to navigation on the high seas and safety on the newfangled railroads.  With ultra-precise clocks made by local jewelers and true astronomical time announced daily by the Harvard Observatory, Boston Standard Time became the de facto standard for a wide swath of the country long before time zones were officially proposed and adopted.


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Abolitionism on Trial (episode 112)

Boston abolitionists rallied in response to the Fugitive Slave Act, ushering in an era of more active resistance that we chronicled in episodes 15-17. This week, we’re spotlighting the role that Theodore Parker, a radically liberal Unitarian minister, played in securing the safety of self-emancipated African Americans and inciting the city to oppose slavery with violence if necessary.


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When Boston Invented Playgrounds (episode 111)

In the late 19th century, a new revolution in play was born in Boston.  In an era when urban children had few spaces to play except in the alleys and courtyards around their tenements, and child labor meant that many kids had no opportunities to play at all, an immigrant doctor inspired a Boston women’s group to take up the topic of play.  From its humble beginnings in a single sandpile in the North End, the playground movement grew to a quasi-scientific pursuit, until it was finally adopted as a national goal. By the early 20th century, safe playgrounds with structured, supervised play were seen as vital to children’s moral and educational development.


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The Girl in Pantaloons (episode 105)

Emma Snodgrass defied the gender roles of the 1850s, getting arrested multiple times in Boston for appearing in public unchaperoned and dressed as a man. Was she a troublemaker looking for thrills? Was she trying to pass as a man in order to find work and independence in a society with few opportunities for women? Or was she a trans person in an era that didn’t yet have words to describe that concept? Unfortunately, the historic record leaves us with just as many questions as answers.


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Jubilee Days (episode 102)

In 1869, an eccentric entrepreneur and musical visionary built one of the largest buildings in 19th Century Boston.  It was a concert hall with twice the capacity of the modern TD garden, and it was built to house the largest musical spectacular the world had ever seen up to that point.  It was the Boston Coliseum, built to house the Grand National Peace Jubilee celebrating the end of America’s Civil War.  


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Riot Classics (episode 101)

For this week’s show, we’re revisiting three highlights from Boston’s long and storied history of rioting. We’ll include stories from past episodes covering the 1919 Boston police strike, 1747 impressment riots, and the 1837 Broad Street riot.


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Boston’s Wild West (episode 99)

Brighton is one of our westernmost neighborhoods, and it’s often associated with Boston’s large and sometimes unruly student population, but in the mid 19th century, Brighton was home to all the elements of a western movie.  There were cattle drives, stockyards, saloons, and stampedes through the streets.  Before it was tamed, unruly Brighton was our own wild west.


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Folk Magic and Mysteries at the Fairbanks House (episode 93)

In this episode, we’re joined by the curator of one of the oldest houses in North America.  He’ll tell us about evidence that’s been uncovered that generations of residents may have believed in an ancient form of countermagic.  The inhabitants of Dedham’s Fairbanks House used charms and hex marks deriving from Puritan, Catholic, and pagan religious traditions in an attempt to ward off evil forces that might have included witches, demons, and even disease.  Fairbanks House Museum curator Daniel Neff will join us to explain the evidence he’s found and what it can tell us about the Fairbanks family and the world they lived in.


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