Category: Episodes

Vilna Shul: Last Synagogue Standing (episode 257)

The West End and the North Slope of Beacon Hill have gone through extreme transformations over time. At the turn of the 20th century, these neighboring communities welcomed Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, though very few signs of those vibrant communities remain today. As the last of the purpose-built immigrant synagogues still standing in downtown Boston, the Vilna Shul is a unique building with a rich history of immigration, community, and the evolving American identity. Vilna Shul Executive Director Dalit Horn joins us this week to talk about the history and future of this unique synagogue.


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Mutiny at Prospect Hill (episode 256)

During the summer of 1775, when the siege of Boston was at its peak, about 1500 Pennsylvania Riflemen answered a call for volunteers.  By the time they reached the American lines in Cambridge, expectations for these troops were through the roof.  Thanks in no small part to a publicity campaign engineered by John Adams, the New England officers commanding the troops around Boston believed that these fresh troops were capable of nearly everything.  Their reputation was based in part upon the riflemen’s origins on the frontier, and in part on the advanced weaponry they carried.  While they’re the status quo today, rifles were new to both armies that were facing off in Boston and nearly unheard of here in New England.  However, fame went to these soldiers’ heads, and after only a couple of months on the front line, they were nearly ungovernable.  They refused to take part in the regular duties of an American soldier, they staged jailbreaks when their comrades were locked up for infractions against military discipline, and on September 10th, they staged the first mutiny in the new Continental Army.  


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Old North and the Sea (episode 255)

Independent researcher TJ Todd recently gave a presentation about Old North Church and the sea.  TJ’s talk focuses on two notable sea captains, both of whom longtime listeners will remember from past episodes.  Captain Samuel Nicholson was the first, somewhat hapless, captain of the USS Constitution, and Captain Thomas Gruchy was the privateer who captured the carved cherubs that keep watch over the Old North sanctuary from the French.  Exploring the lives of these two famous captains will reveal what life was like for the ordinary sailors and dockworkers who made up a significant portion of Boston’s population in the 18th and 19th centuries, as well as drawing connections to other incidents from Boston’s maritime past, including many that we’ve discussed in past episodes.

Thanks to our friends at the Old North Foundation for allowing us to share this presentation with you.


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Celebrating Cy Young (episode 254)

Cy Young Day, an exhibition game to celebrate the greatest pitcher of all time, was bracketed by days of sports celebration, from prizefighters in the squared circle to old time baseball in the Harbor Islands.  Held at the Huntington Avenue Baseball Grounds on August 13, 1908, the Cy Young celebration drew a record crowd of 20,000 fans to the now long gone ballpark.  By this time, Young had been playing professional baseball for 20 years, and he was starting to slow down.  Nobody knew if the old Ohio farmboy would be playing for Boston when the 1909 season rolled around, so it seemed as if the whole city turned out to show the pitcher their love, and to make sure he would have a comfortable nest egg for his expected retirement.


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Hostibus Primo Fugatis: The Washington Before Boston Medal (episode 253)

Back in 2015, I was at the Boston Public Library for a special exhibition called “We Are One,” which showcased items from their collection dating from the French and Indian War to the Constitutional Convention, showing how thirteen fractious colonies forged a single national identity.  Libraries have a lot more than just books, of course.  The BPL has everything from streaming movies and music to historic maps to medieval manuscripts to Leslie Jones’ photos to one remarkable gold medal.  Some of the items on display were breathtaking, like a map hand drawn by George Washington, Paul Revere’s hand drawn diagram showing where the bodies fell during the Boston Massacre, and a gorgeous 360 degree panorama showing the view from the top of Beacon Hill during the siege of Boston.  What stopped me in my tracks, though, was a solid gold medal.  It was about three inches in diameter, but it was hard to tell through the thick and probably bulletproof glass protecting it. 

On the side facing me, I could see a bust of George Washington and some words, but they were too small to read.  A special bracket held the medal in front of a mirror, and on the back I could make out more lettering, as well as a cannon and a group of men on horses.  Later, I learned that this was the Washington Before Boston Medal, commemorating the British evacuation of Boston.  It was the first Congressional gold medal, and the first medal of any kind commissioned by the Continental Congress during our Revolutionary War.  This illustrious medal’s journey to the stacks of the Boston Public Library will take us from Henry Knox’s cannons at Dorchester Heights to John Adams at the Second Continental congress in Philly to Ben Franklin in Paris to a Confederate’s dank basement in West Virginia during the Civil War.  


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The North End Draft Riot (episode 252)

By the summer of 1863, the Civil War had dragged on longer than anyone thought at the outset, and leaders on both sides were desperate for more money, arms, manufactured goods, and most of all men.  That growing desperation had inspired secretary of war Edwin Stanton to authorize Massachusetts governor John Andrew to start enlisting the nation’s first Black troops a few months before, including the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, whose well deserved fame was refreshed with the movie Glory.  The influx of fresh and motivated troops contributed to Union gains throughout the rest of the war, but the so-called colored regiments were not enough.  In July of that year, Congress passed a law compelling able bodied men into military service for the first time.  Here in Boston, the burden of that draft law fell disproportionately on the working class Irish Americans of South Boston and the North End.  And as we’ll see, the Irish had strong resentments based in class, race, religion, and economics that made them suspicious of compulsory service.  These tensions boiled over on the evening of July 14th, 1863 as marshals attempted to serve the first draft notices in the crowded and narrow streets of the North End, with the US Army eventually firing artillery and small arms into a crowd of civilian protesters at point blank range.  


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Lost on the Freedom Trail: The National Park Service and Urban Renewal in Postwar Boston (episode 251)

In this episode, Seth Bruggeman discusses his recent book Lost on the Freedom Trail: The National Park Service and Urban Renewal in Postwar Boston. In it, he traces the development of the Freedom Trail and our Boston National Historic Park, examining the inevitable tension between driving tourism revenue to Boston and doing good history.  He delves into the politics surrounding our local historic sites during the trauma of urban renewal in Boston and the violence of the busing era that followed.  He also argues that the Freedom Trail and related sites have been used to defend dominant ideas about whiteness at several different points in Boston’s contested history.


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Rebels at Sea: Privateering in the American Revolution, with Eric Jay Dolin (episode 249)

Eric Jay Dolin joins us this week to discuss his new book Rebels at Sea: Privateering in the American Revolution.  We’ll discuss the role of privateers in the American Revolution, with a special focus on the many privateersmen who sailed out of Boston and New England.  Privateers were civilian ships that were outfitted for war by optimistic investors, with volunteer crews who were willing to risk their lives fighting for a share of the profits.  From the mouth of Boston Harbor to the very shores of Britain, these private warships sailed in search of rich English merchant vessels, while risking the lives and freedom of their crews.  While their role is mostly forgotten today, Eric will explain how privateer crews helped turn the tide of Revolution in favor of the Americans, and we’ll discuss how our modern habit of associating privateering with piracy leads to a distaste for the privateersmen who helped win our independence.   Rebels at Sea will be available in bookstores everywhere on May 31, 2022.


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Sailing Alone Around the World, part 2 (episode 248)

This episode continues our story of Joshua Slocum and his solo circumnavigation of the globe. We’ll follow Captain Slocum as he builds the little sloop Spray and hatches a plan to make money for his family by sailing alone around the world for the first time.  We’ll follow his astounding path from Boston to the rock of Gibraltar, back to South America, and through the months long ordeal of the Straits of Magellan.  We’ll learn how he sailed thousands of miles across the South pacific to Samoa without ever touching the wheel of the sloop, while his family worried that he had perished at sea.  And we’ll follow him on his pilgrimage to the home of Treasure Island author Robert Louis Stevenson, his adventure in South Africa, and finally across the Atlantic and home, covering about 46,000 miles in three years, two months, and two days.


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