Instead of profiling a historic Bostonian or bringing you a dramatic story, let’s read a letter together. This brief letter gives an account of a strange, frightening, and funny occurrence on Boston’s Long Wharf in the summer of 1797. Along with one delightfully funny incident, the letter includes details about Boston’s infrastructure and commercial port at the turn of the 19th century. Don’t worry, we’ll flesh out the letter with context from other sources, as well.
Continue reading The Deleterious Effects of Marsh Miasmata (episode 177)
March 5th marks the 250th anniversary of the Boston Massacre, when a 
We’re joined this week by Yale history professor Mark Peterson to talk about his new book The City State of Boston: The Rise and Fall of an Atlantic Power, 1630-1865. In the interview, Professor Peterson will tell us why he believes that, from its settlement a century and a half before the US Constitutional government was founded until the end of the US Civil War, Boston had a political, economic, and social identity completely independent from the rest of what is now the United States. He’ll also tell us surprising stories about money in early Boston, a French-born British army officer who embodied Boston’s relationship with Acadia, and what it meant for Boston to be a slave society where the enslaved people were kept out of sight. 
