Taking Louisbourg, the Gibraltar of North America (episode 132)

This week’s show is about the namesake of the famous Louisbourg Square on Beacon Hill, an astonishing 1745 military victory won by a Massachusetts volunteer army made up of farmers, seamen, and merchants.  After war broke out with France the year before, Governor William Shirley proposed a daring plan to attack the French fortress of Louisbourg.  Located on Cape Breton Island, off the coast of Nova Scotia, Louisbourg was considered impregnable. Through a combination of luck, good leadership, and gallant conduct, the New England army conquered the Gibraltar of North America.  However, the victory was short lived, setting the stage for two wars that American history remembers more clearly.


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Love Behind Enemy Lines (episode 131)

We’re trying something new this week by bringing in a guest for our upcoming historical event segment.  Clara Silverstein from Historic Newton tells us about their “Crossing Borders” series.  Sticking with the theme, our show this week recounts a romance between young lovers that crossed enemy lines and political allegiances, uniting patriot Billy Tudor and loyalist Delia Jarvis.  Even as the Revolutionary War began and Boston was besieged, Billy risked everything and swam across the harbor to visit Delia.  As the war continued and they were separated by many miles, Billy would address his letters to Delia to “my fair loyalist,” and then sign them from “your ever faithful rebel.”


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Harnessing the Power of Boston’s Tides (episode 130)

This week, we interview Earl Taylor, president of the Dorchester Historical Society and one of the founders of the Tide Mill Institute.  He tells us how early Bostonians harnessed the power of the tides in Boston Harbor to grind their grain, manufacture products like snuff and spices, and even produce baby carriages.  Plus, he shows us the advantages tidal power had over other types of mills, how tide mills shaped the landscape of Boston, and why tide mills went out of fashion.


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The Miracle of Ether (episode 129)

Among the many medical breakthroughs that are attributed to Boston, surgical anesthesia is among the most impactful.  It’s hard to overstate the importance in medical history of ether for the treatment of pain, particularly for those undergoing surgical procedures. Many believe that this technique was pioneered at MGH under the famous Ether Dome, but history tells us a different origin story.


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Lincoln and Booth and Boston (episode 128)

This episode is being released on April 14, 2019, which means that Abraham Lincoln was shot 154 years ago today.  That’s why we’re talking about the links between the Lincoln assassination and the city of Boston.  President Lincoln, his assassin John Wilkes Booth, and Boston Corbett, the man who killed Booth, all had transformative experiences in Boston.  


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Marathon Women (episode 127)

The Boston Marathon was first run in April of 1897, after Bostonians were inspired by the revival of the marathon for the 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens. It is the oldest continuously running marathon, arguably the most prestigious, and the second longest continuously running footrace in North America, having debuted five months after the Buffalo Turkey Trot. Women were not allowed to officially enter the Boston Marathon until 1972.  In 1966, Bobbi Gibb became the first woman to run the Boston Marathon. In 1967, Kathrine Switzer, who had registered as “K. V. Switzer”, became the first woman to run and finish with a race number – despite the race director’s best efforts.


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The Museum Heist (episode 126)

It’s probably a familiar tale
 Late at night, after the museum is closed, a man talks the guard into unlocking the door.  Once inside, he pulls out a gun, and within seconds, the guard is tied up and blindfolded, while a gang roams through the museum, picking out rare masterpieces.  By the time the guard gets himself free and calls the police, the gang has made off with millions of dollars in stolen artworks, in a case considered the largest art heist in US history.  Yes, the tale may sound familiar, but we’re not talking about the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum case, we’re talking about a different art heist, one that was carried out 17 years earlier and across the river in Cambridge.  This is the story of the Fogg Museum coin heist.


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The Little Glass Treasure House (episode 125)

Artist and author Julia Glatfelter joins us this week to discuss her upcoming children’s book The Little Glass Treasure House. The Children’s Art Centre was incorporated in 1914 under the direction of FitzRoy Carrington, curator of prints at the Museum of Fine Arts. When the building was completed in 1918 on Rutland Street in Boston’s South End, it became the first art museum for children in the world. In 1959, the organization merged with 4 settlement houses to become United South End Settlements (USES). Julia taught at the Children’s Art Centre as part of the vacation arts program at USES in 2017, and during that time, she researched the history of the building, the evolution of its programs, and the people who brought the space to life. Her new book, The Little Glass Treasure House, narrates this story through the eyes of Charlotte Dempsey, who directed the center from 1930 to 1971.


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BPL Bonus Episode: Grand Peace Jubilee

Join us at the Boston Public Library to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Grand National Peace Jubilee held in Copley Square in 1869.  The Peace Jubilee was a week-long musical celebration of the Union victory in the Civil War. It was a concert of unprecedented scale, performed before an audience of up to 50,000 in a purpose-built Coliseum in the Back Bay that was one of the largest buildings in the world.  People came from far and wide to take in the spectacle, including President Ulysses S Grant and many other dignitaries. The climax of the show was a piece by Verdi called the Anvil Chorus. Jubilee director Patrick Gilmore conducted 10,000 vocalists, who were backed by 1000 instrumentalists, a battery of cannons, a convocation of church bells, a custom made bass drum eight feet in diameter, the world’s largest pipe organ, and a company of 100 Boston firefighters carrying sledgehammers and pounding anvils in unison.  

To help celebrate the 150th anniversary of this musical spectacular, the Associates of the Boston Public Library are throwing a party at the Copley branch of the BPL on March 29.  Nikki and I will be giving a brief talk discussing who Patrick Gilmore was, how he conceived of the enormous Coliseum where the Jubilee was held, and what the concert was like. Boston’s poet laureate Porsha Olayiwola will give a reading, and the keynote address will be delivered by Theodore C. Landsmark.  The highlight of the evening will be a musical performance by a brass band from the New England Conservatory of Music, featuring some of the same arrangements that were performed in 1869, complete with firemen hammering anvils.

If you’d like to join us at the BPL on Friday, March 29, make sure to pre-register. The event is free, but you have to pre-register to get in. Doors open at 7pm, and the program begins at 7:30. There will be a cash bar.

Our description of the Grand Peace Jubilee originally aired as episode 102.

Weird Neighborhood History (episode 124)

Instead of writing and recording a new episode, your humble hosts are going to History Camp this weekend.  We’ll leave you with two stories about Boston’s weird neighborhood history from our back catalog.  We’ll be sharing a story from Jamaica Plain about a politically motivated crime in the early 20th century that led to a series of running gunfights between the police and what the newspapers called “desperadoes.”  Then, we’re going to move across town to Brighton, which  — speaking of desperadoes — used to be home to saloons, card games, and hard drinking cowboys, when it hosted New England’s largest cattle market.


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