This is the first of a three-part history of Boston’s water supply. First up is the early history of water in Boston, from its reliance on natural springs to the construction of the first aqueduct. We’ll compare today’s pure, plentiful drinking water to the challenges that early Bostonians faced in obtaining clean water. First, we’ll look at natural springs, hand-dug wells, and cisterns in early Boston, but as the city grew, these sources became increasingly scarce and polluted. Then we’ll talk about new technologies at the turn of the 19th century, such as drilled artesian wells and the Boston Aqueduct, which brought water from Jamaica Pond into the city. However, these new technologies were controlled by private companies, only providing water to the wealthiest Bostonians, leaving most residents desperate for a new, public source of water in the mid-19th century. Later episodes will explore the near-miracle that introducing a public water supply from the Cochituate reservoir represented and the engineering marvel of our modern Quabbin reservoir.
Tag: Beacon Hill
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.
Continue reading Vilna Shul: Last Synagogue Standing (episode 257)
A Shooting at the State House (episode 209)
From our viewpoint in modern Massachusetts, with stringent gun licensing and background check laws, it’s hard to imagine how a young man with an extensive criminal record who had been involuntarily committed to multiple mental health institutions could walk into a store and walk back out with a shiny new handgun. And from a post-9/11 point of view, with security at the forefront of every public space, it’s hard to imagine how an uninvited visitor could walk right into the governor’s State House office and open fire. But on December 5, 1907, that’s exactly what happened, when a disturbed man with a gun and a grudge decided to pay a visit to our seat of government.
Continue reading A Shooting at the State House (episode 209)
Dr. Rebecca Crumpler, Forgotten No Longer (episode 200)
Dr. Rebecca Davis Lee Crumpler was the first Black woman to earn a medical degree in the US in 1864, and she spent most of her adult life in Charlestown, Beacon Hill, and the Readville section of Hyde Park. She devoted her career to pediatrics and obstetrics, published the first medical text by an African American author, and made a point of caring for the marginalized, even moving to Virginia to tend to formerly enslaved people at the end of the Civil War. The nation’s first Black female physician lay in an unmarked grave for 125 years, but there have been important developments in the story of Dr. Crumpler while we’ve been in quarantine this year.
Continue reading Dr. Rebecca Crumpler, Forgotten No Longer (episode 200)
The Hub of the Gay Universe, with Russ Lopez (episode 167)
Dr. Russ Lopez joins us this week to discuss his recent book, The Hub of the Gay Universe: An LGBTQ History of Boston, Provincetown, and Beyond. Russ called in from a vacation in California to talk about Puritan attitudes toward sin and sodomy, the late 19th century golden age for LGBTQ Boston, the tragic toll of the AIDS crisis, and the long fight for marriage equality.
Continue reading The Hub of the Gay Universe, with Russ Lopez (episode 167)
Separate but Equal in Boston (episode 162)
The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled on Roberts v Boston 170 years ago this month. When five year old Sarah Roberts was turned away from the schoolhouse door in Boston simply because of the color of her skin, her father sued the city in an attempt to force the public schools to desegregate, in compliance with a state law that had been intended to do just that years before. Unfortunately, the suit was unsuccessful. Not only did the Boston schools remain segregated, but the court’s decision provided the legal framework of “separate but equal,” which would be used to justify segregated schools across the country for a century to come.
Hooker Day in Boston (episode 138)
Hooker Day was a one-time holiday celebrated in Boston in 1903. While it might sound like this is going to be an X-rated podcast, we’re not talking about that kind of hooker. Civil War General Joseph “Fighting Joe” Hooker was briefly the commander of the main Union force called the Army of the Potomac. Forty years after his command, he was immortalized with a massive statue in front of our State House. When the statue was dedicated, the entire city celebrated a holiday that was called Hooker Day in his honor.
Bohemian Boston’s Gay Grampa (episode 109)
Prescott Townsend was a classic Boston Brahmin. He was born into Boston’s elite in 1894, graduated from Harvard, and served in World War I. All signs pointed to a very conventional path through life, but Townsend’s trajectory would take him far from the arc followed by his contemporaries from the Cabot, Lowell, or Adams families. Instead, Prescott Townsend would be active in radical theater, experimental architecture, and, surprisingly late in his life, he would help found the American gay liberation movement and lead the first Pride parade in 1970.
Episode 43: The Case of the Somnambulist
When young Albert Tirrell killed his lover Maria Bickford on Beacon Hill, it sparked a scandal that rocked Victorian Boston in the 1840s. It was a tale of seduction, murder, and the unlikeliest of defenses. In the end, he would be found not guilty, in the first successful use of sleepwalking as a defense against murder.
We apologize for Nikki’s head cold, some rough cuts that resulted from editing out her sniffles, and the couple of sniffles that made it into the final cut.