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 Gage’s 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 Boston’s 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, we’re 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
For almost two years in the early 1960s, women in Boston lived in fear of a killer who became known as the Boston Strangler. Thirteen women were killed, and the murders were eventually attributed to Albert DeSalvo, based on his confession, details revealed in court during a separate case, and DNA evidence linking him to the last murder victim. It’s been over fifty years since DeSalvo was imprisoned on unrelated charges, leaving many people to question whether he was really the lone killer.
There’s an oft forgotten clause written into Harvardâs 1650 charter promising to educate the Native American youth of Massachusetts. Â This week’s episode looks at the early, mostly unsuccessful efforts to create an Indian College on the Harvard campus, the abandonment of that plan after King Philipâs War soured the English settlers on their earlier plans for Christianizing local Native American tribes, and how modern scholarship is helping to rediscover this legacy and rededicate Harvard to embracing Native Americans. Â
Continue reading Episode 64: Harvard Indian College, Promises Broken… and Kept
What did TV character Fox Mulder have in common with John Winthrop, the Puritan founder of Boston? They both recorded strange lights in the sky and other unexplained phenomena in extensive detail. This week, weâre going to explore the close encounters Winthrop described in 1639 and 1644. There were unexplained lights darting around the sky in formation at impossible speeds, ghostly sounds, and witnesses who claimed to have lost time. Itâs a scene straight out of the X-Files, except these are considered the first recorded UFO sightings in North America.
