Episodes Archives - Page 5 of 32

Revolution’s Edge, with Patrick Gabridge and Nikki Stewart (episode 276)

The new play “Revolution’s Edge” will debut at Old North Church in June 2023. It tells the story of three Bostonians and their families on the eve of the Revolution. Mather Byles is the Loyalist rector of Old North Church, Cato is an African American man who’s enslaved by Byles, and John Pulling is a whiggish ship’s captain and member of the Old North vestry. The three men have very different stations in life, but they all have young families with intertwined lives, and on April 18, 1775, they all had very different decisions to make about those lives. My guests this week are Patrick Gabridge, producing artistic director of the Plays in Place theater company, and Nikki Stewart, executive director of Old North Illuminated. Together, they’ll tell us how this, um, revolutionary new drama came to be.

Continue reading Revolution’s Edge, with Patrick Gabridge and Nikki Stewart (episode 276)

The Lost Viking City on the Charles (episode 275)

If you walk down Mount Auburn Street in Cambridge, you might notice a small stone marker that states, “on this spot in the year 1000, Leif Erikson built his house in Vineland.” You might be surprised to learn that Leif Erikson had a house in Cambridge, and if so, you’ll be even more surprised to learn that the lower Charles River was the seat of a thriving Norse city around the turn of the first millennium. Learn about Harvard professor Eben Norton Horsford’s theory that the legendary Viking city of Norumbega was situated along the Charles River in this week’s podcast!

Continue reading The Lost Viking City on the Charles (episode 275)

The Schuyler Sisters in Boston (episode 274)

Thanks to the Hamilton musical, it’s almost impossible to hear the names Angelica, Eliza, and Peggy without bursting into song. The play made the three eldest daughters of Philip Schuyler famous, and in this episode we’re talking about the first two sisters, but mostly just Angelica. Fans know that there was a flirtation between Angelica and Hamilton, but that relationship was exaggerated for the show. Angelica’s actual romance and marriage were downplayed for the show, but it was this union that brought Angelica Schuyler Church to Boston, where she lived for over two years under an assumed name. What was she doing here, and who was the mysterious John Carter who escorted her here?

Continue reading The Schuyler Sisters in Boston (episode 274)

When Boston Brought Baseball to Britain (episode 273)

Spring in Boston means baseball, and this week we’re talking about the time in 1874 when the Boston Red Stockings tried to bring America’s national pastime to Britain. 120 years before the World Baseball Classic, Boston’s biggest baseball promoter did his level best to get the cricket fans in “jolly old” hooked on his game… and the fact that he could sell them all the mitts, bats, and gloves they would need was just a happy accident, I’m sure. Red Stockings pitcher and future sporting goods magnate Al Spalding led the team on the World Baseball Tour, but would they be able to convert English strikers to batters and bowlers to pitchers? And for the team, would their nearly two month long diversion mean the end of their pennant race for 1874?

Continue reading When Boston Brought Baseball to Britain (episode 273)

The Persuasive Powers of John Adams (episode 272)

John Adams later described the prosecution of William Corbet as a case “of an extraordinary Character, in which I was engaged and which cost me no small Portion of Anxiety.” In 1769, four common sailors were brought into Boston to stand trial for murder. The victim was an officer in the royal navy, and the crime had taken place just off Cape Ann, almost within sight of home. As Boston suffered under military occupation, could a military victim receive justice in a radicalized Boston? And what really happened on that ship near Marblehead? Had the dead officer really just been searching for cargo that the captain hadn’t declared and paid customs on? Or were they up to something darker, like illegally kidnapping Massachusetts sailors and forcing them to serve in the Royal Navy?

Continue reading The Persuasive Powers of John Adams (episode 272)

The Court Street Mutiny (episode 271)

On April 9, 1863, a shooting was carried out in a basement just off of Court Street, behind Boston’s Old City Hall. The gunman was a Union cavalry officer, who belonged to one of Brahmin Boston’s most wealthy families. The victim was a new Irish American recruit in his brigade. The shooting would result in accusations of cowardice and an execution, but was either justified?

Continue reading The Court Street Mutiny (episode 271)

Bonus: My Personal Evacuation Day

Just a quick bonus episode, so I can tell you about a change to my personal life and what it means for the show.

Continue reading Bonus: My Personal Evacuation Day

The Gettysburg Cyclorama: Mystery of the South End (episode 270)

Starting in 1884, audiences of veterans, schoolchildren, and everyday Bostonians streamed into a cavernous, castle-like building on Tremont Street in the South End to witness the closest thing to virtual reality that existed at the time. The building still exists, though a series of renovations have rendered it much more ordinary and less palatial than it was back then. The painting still exists too, and it still offers an immersive experience for visitors that blends reality and art, but not in Boston anymore. The building was known as the Cyclorama, and it was purpose built to hold the painting, which was also known as the cyclorama, one of the most audacious artistic endeavors of the 19th century. Together, they commemorated the turning point of the bloody Civil War that had ended two decades earlier.

Continue reading The Gettysburg Cyclorama: Mystery of the South End (episode 270)

Annie’s Restaurant (episode 269)

Annie L. Burton was an entrepreneur and restaurateur, who moved to Boston as a young woman after spending her childhood enslaved on an Alabama plantation. Annie spent decades as a domestic servant, first in the south, and then in the north, in Newton, the South End, Wellesley, Jamaica Plain, and other neighborhoods in and around Boston. For most Black women in the years and decades after emancipation, cooking, cleaning, raising children, and washing and ironing for white families were among the only opportunities available for paid work, making Annie’s experience utterly typical. Two things make her life unique: her decision to bet on herself and open a series of restaurants, first in Florida, then in Park Square in Boston, and then in a number of New England resort towns; and her decision, just after the turn of the 20th century, to put pen to page and write her story down and publish it, preserving the details of her life in a way that wasn’t available to most of her peers.

Continue reading Annie’s Restaurant (episode 269)

Joseph Lee and his Bread Machines (episode 268)

Joseph Lee was a hotelier, caterer, and one of the richest men in his adopted hometown of Newton. By the time of his death in 1908, Lee had worked as a servant, a baker, and for the National Coast Survey; he had worked on ships, in hotels, and at amusement parks. He had earned a vast fortune in hotels, lost most of it, and earned another one through his patented inventions that helped change the way Americans eat. He had entertained English nobles and American presidents. And he had raised three daughters and one son, who was a star Ivy League tackle before graduating from Harvard. If you make bread at home, or meatballs, or fried chicken, or casserole, you are the beneficiary of the technology Joseph Lee developed. That would be a remarkable life for anyone, but Joseph Lee was enslaved in South Carolina until he was about 15 years old, making his accomplishments even more remarkable.

Continue reading Joseph Lee and his Bread Machines (episode 268)