Tag: Roxbury

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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Recent Archaeological Discoveries at Shirley Place, with Joseph Bagley (episode 297)

This week I’m pleased to be able to share a recent talk from the Shirley-Eustis House in Roxbury about recent archaeological discoveries at Shirley Place that help shed light on the lives of enslaved residents at the 18th century governor’s residence, as well as evidence of the home’s original location before it was moved into its current position in the 19th century.  The presenter is past podcast guest Joe Bagley, the archaeologist for the city of Boston, who has led a series of digs at the Shirley house and at the house’s original location across Shirley street.  This work is important because written records have only revealed the identity of one of the Africans who were enslaved at the house by Royal Governor William Shirley.  In the talk, Bagley explains how discoveries of animal bones, forgotten paving stones, and a cowrie shell connect the dots to the enslaved lives that history otherwise overlooks.  He also shares stone flakes and pottery shards that remind us that the history of Shirley Place long predates William Shirley, encompassing the Massachusett people who first called it home.


Continue reading Recent Archaeological Discoveries at Shirley Place, with Joseph Bagley (episode 297)

Boy Wonder Arrested as Ringleader when Reds Riot in Roxbury (episode 221)

On May Day in 1919, Roxbury socialists marched in support of a textile workers’ strike in Lawrence.  The afternoon turned violent, with police firing shots to disperse the crowd.  In the aftermath, two officers were killed and a mob formed that hunted down and viciously beat many of the marchers.  As the smoke cleared, it became evident that one of the leaders of the march was a celebrity: William James Sidis, the boy wonder.


Continue reading Boy Wonder Arrested as Ringleader when Reds Riot in Roxbury (episode 221)

Literal Nazis (episode 215)

They stockpiled guns and ammunition.  They built homemade bombs.  They had a hit list of a dozen members of Congress who were targeted for assassination.  They believed themselves to be patriots, with soldiers and police officers among their ranks.  They rallied under the motto of America First, but they planned to overthrow our Constitutional government and install a fascist dictatorship.  Believe it or not, I’m not talking about the insurrection on January 6, 2021, but instead a plot that the FBI uncovered in January 1940.  The subsequent investigation threw a spotlight on a group called the Christian Front that made its headquarters at Boston’s Copley Plaza hotel, promoting violent attacks on Jewish Bostonians while accepting covert funding and support from a Nazi spymaster who flew the swastika proudly from his home on Beacon Hill.


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The Millen Gang Machine Gun Murders (episode 170)

86 years ago today, on February 2, 1934, the first murders were committed in Massachusetts using a fully automatic weapon.  Sadly, the victims were the first police officers to be killed in the line of duty in the sleepy Boston suburb of Needham.  At the center of the case were a stolen Tommy gun, a pair of brothers, and a ragtag assortment of followers. Before it was all over, the Millen-Faber gang would be tied to at least five murders, a long string of robberies, and an attempted jailbreak.  Three of the crew would be sentenced to death, and the shocking spectacle of military grade weapons being used on the streets of a quiet Boston suburb would stoke the already raging debate about gun control and the 1934 federal firearms act.


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Boston’s Favorite Fighting Frenchman (episode 163)

At just 19 years old, Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette joined our American Revolution.  Commissioned as a Major General in 1777, he served with distinction as an aggressive combat commander and trusted adviser to George Washington.  Nearly a half century later, the aging general would return to his beloved United States for a nationwide tour, and his first and urgent destination after arriving on this continent was Boston.  In the summer of 1824, he arrived in our city as the greatest celebrity it had yet seen. He was received by Governor William Eustis, former President John Adams, and Boston mayor Josiah Quincy before launching his national tour.  The next spring, he returned, presiding over the dedication of the Bunker Hill monument on the 50th anniversary of the battle.


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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.


Continue reading Annexation and Perambulation (episode 141)

Fifteen Blocks of Rage (episode 140)

For decades, a 1967 riot that rocked Roxbury’s Grove Hall neighborhood was generally referred to in the mainstream media as a “race riot” or as “the welfare riot,” while a handful of articles and books by Black authors called it “the police riot.”  A group of mostly African American women who led an organization called Mothers for Adequate Welfare were staging a sit-in protest at a welfare office on Blue Hill Avenue. When tensions escalated, the police stormed in and used force to remove the group.  Onlookers were outraged by the violence and attempted to stop the police. The resulting riot spanned three nights in Roxbury, with arson, looting, and shots fired both by and at the police, and the scars it left behind took decades to heal.


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Episode 61: Annexation, Making Boston Bigger for 150 Years

In the latter half of the nineteenth century, Boston transformed itself from a town on a tiny peninsula to a sprawling city.  In part, this was done by creating new land in the Back Bay and South Boston, but the city gained a great amount of area by annexing its neighbors.  The first was Roxbury, which joined the city of Boston 150 years ago this week.  Dorchester, Brighton, West Roxbury, and Charlestown would follow.  Other towns, like Cambridge and Brookline would not.  Find out why in this week’s show.

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