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When Jessie Gideon Garnett first showed up at Tufts University’s School of Dental Medicine, she was told by a dean that her acceptance must have been a mistake.
On November 9, 1872, the Great Fire of Boston destroyed more than 1,000 businesses in Boston’s downtown area.
Is Boston's birthday on September 7 or 17? The answer is more complicated than you realize!
Morna Crawford came to Boston after World War II to take a job at the Museum of Fine Arts. She reflects on how Fenway has changed since her arrival more than 30 years prior.
James Henderson, a black poet, playwright, and actor from Virginia, came to Boston in 1917. Boston became his home, and he reflects on his more than 50 years in the City in an oral history from the...
Elizabeth Amberman recalls the Great Depression in Jamaica Plain and a robbery over Betty Crocker’s angel food cake when she worked at a bakery during the 1930s
Franklin Park Zoo gets a hippo and Boston builds a rapid transit system. Three men reflect on growing up in Dorchester in the early 1900s.
In September 2019, a group of undergraduate students at Simmons University began work on a project that was initially meant to center on the life and legacy of pioneering social worker and Simmons...
A Roslindale woman recalls her immigrant father’s claim that he had never truly experienced the cold until he spent a winter in Boston. This, and more memories of growing up in Roslindale!
On July 4, 1861, Bostonians celebrated Independence Day as they grappled with the reality of civil war.
In the 1970s, Boston residents provided oral history interviews as part of the Boston 200 Bicentennial Celebration. We are highlighting these interviews in a blog series this summer!
On this day in 1865, Union General Gordon Granger read General Order No. 3 to the inhabitants of Galveston, Texas. The order signaled the total emancipation of all enslaved people in the United States...
On May 30, 1868, Americans observed the country’s first Memorial Day.
While cataloging Public Works Department photographs at the City Archives, intern Alyssa True noticed this dragon on the wall of a Washington Building. Intrigued, she began to investigate.
Residents were arrested, tomatoes were thrown, furniture was tossed into the street. In a David-and-Goliath-esque standoff, a small Allston neighborhood banded together to save their community from...
At the beginning of the twentieth century, interest in public health and child welfare grew.
What characteristics do you think of when you hear the word "slum"? Deteriorated infrastructure? Closely packed?
In the 1950s, the Boston Housing Authority (BHA) announced plans to "redevelop" the West End, a working-class, largely immigrant neighborhood. The BHA described the West End, a primarily residential...
The West End of Boston was once a diverse, bustling, working-class neighborhood of Boston. Then, in the 1950s, the Boston Housing Authority began tearing down entire streets and displacing thousands...
If you put 15 Hanover Street into a GPS, it will bring you to the middle of a crosswalk looking toward Government Center, next to the Holocaust Memorial. On the street now buried underneath City Hall...
On August 18, 1920, 36 states ratified the 19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote. Women’s suffrage doubled the pool of voters in the country and politicians began to compete to gain women's...
Boston's schools have always been an important part of the community! Early in the 20th century, Boston’s public school system expanded rapidly.
From the outside, the Elizabeth Peabody House was an unassuming building in Boston’s West End, before the neighborhood was bulldozed in the late 1950s in the name of urban renewal. The facade was...
Boston is a city known for its firsts. First subway, first public park, first public library, and unbeknownst to many, the first school training social workers.
In the fall of 1829, Boston abolitionist David Walker wrote and published a pamphlet entitled, “Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World.” In the pamphlet, Walker denounced slavery and encouraged...
Among the many transformations that Boston has undergone in its more than 300-year history, one of the most dramatic is the destruction of the West End in the late 1950s. Now known for its high rises...
In January of 1846, the Hayden family moved to Boston. The Haydens became key leaders in Boston's African American and abolitionist communities. Their Beacon Hill Home served as a stop on the...
On January 15, 1919, a 50-foot tall tank ruptured, sending 2.3 million gallons of molasses rushing through the neighborhood.
In January 1870, Boston annexed the Town of Dorchester. In honor of the 150th anniversary of Dorchester joining Boston, we're highlighting some of our favorite Dorchester records!
On this day in 1835, Phillips Brooks was born in Boston. Brooks served as the rector of Boston’s Trinity Church, and is best known for writing the Christmas carol “O Little Town of Bethlehem.”
