From the 1950s to the end of the twentieth century, Boston transformed from a city in freefall into a thriving metropolis, as modern glass skyscrapers sprouted up in the midst of iconic brick ...rowhouses. After decades of corruption and graft, a new generation of politicians swept into office, seeking to revitalize Boston through large-scale urban renewal projects. The most important of these was a new city hall, which they hoped would project a bold vision of civic participation. The massive Brutalist building that was unveiled in 1962 stands apart -- emblematic of the city's rebirth through avant-garde design.
And yet Boston City Hall frequently ranks among the country's ugliest buildings. Concrete Changes seeks to answer a common question for contemporary viewers: How did this happen? In a lively narrative filled with big personalities and newspaper accounts, Brian M. Sirman argues that this structure is more than a symbol of Boston's modernization; it acted as a catalyst for political, social, and economic change.
An engaging yet objective look at the 350-year old history of "Southie," a neighborhood that has survived largely unchanged since the early days of immigrant Irish families and old-time political ...bosses. Originally published by Quinlan Press in 1988 and reprinted by Northeastern University Press in 1994. With a new foreword by Lawrence W. Kennedy.
Why—contrary to much expert and popular opinion—more education may not be the answer to skyrocketing inequality. For generations, Americans have looked to education as the solution to economic ...disadvantage. Yet, although more people are earning degrees, the gap between rich and poor is widening. Cristina Groeger delves into the history of this seeming contradiction, explaining how education came to be seen as a panacea even as it paved the way for deepening inequality. The Education Trap returns to the first decades of the twentieth century, when Americans were grappling with the unprecedented inequities of the Gilded Age. Groeger's test case is the city of Boston, which spent heavily on public schools. She examines how workplaces came to depend on an army of white-collar staff, largely women and second-generation immigrants, trained in secondary schools. But Groeger finds that the shift to more educated labor had negative consequences—both intended and unintended—for many workers. Employers supported training in schools in order to undermine the influence of craft unions, and so shift workplace power toward management. And advanced educational credentials became a means of controlling access to high-paying professional and business jobs, concentrating power and wealth. Formal education thus became a central force in maintaining inequality.The idea that more education should be the primary means of reducing inequality may be appealing to politicians and voters, but Groeger warns that it may be a dangerous policy trap. If we want a more equitable society, we should not just prescribe more time in the classroom, but fight for justice in the workplace.
Boston National Historical Park is one of America's most popular
heritage destinations, drawing in millions of visitors annually.
Tourists flock there to see the site of the Boston Massacre, to
...relive Paul Revere's midnight ride, and to board Old
Ironsides -all of these bound together by the iconic Freedom
Trail, which traces the city's revolutionary saga. Making sense of
the Revolution, however, was never the primary aim for the planners
who reimagined Boston's heritage landscape after the Second World
War. Seth C. Bruggeman demonstrates that the Freedom Trail was
always largely a tourist gimmick, devised to lure affluent white
Americans into downtown revival schemes, its success hinging on a
narrow vision of the city's history run through with old stories
about heroic white men. When Congress pressured the National Park
Service to create this historical park for the nation's
bicentennial celebration in 1976, these ideas seeped into its
organizational logic, precluding the possibility that history might
prevail over gentrification and profit.
The event known as the Boston Massacre is among the most familiar in U.S. history, yet one of the least understood. Eric Hinderaker revisits this dramatic episode, examining the facts of that fateful ...night, the competing narratives that molded public perceptions, and the long campaign to transform the tragedy into a touchstone of American identity.
In Eden on the Charles: The Making of Boston, Michael Rawson examines how the city's relationship with its natural surroundings informed its early growth and development. His compelling, ...well-researched narrative touches on several milestones on Boston's road to modernity, including the Common's conversion from a place of labor to a place of leisure, the emergence of pastoral suburbs as a respite from an increasingly urbanized landscape, and the long fight over a proposed municipal water system to bring fresh water to those who needed it most...Perhaps the book's most important lesson comes from a frustrated mariner who, upset over the maltreatment of the harbor, laments that "the past seems to be forgotten, the present only is regarded as of importance, and a veil is drawn over the future." Eden on the Charles is a valiant effort to combat such shortsightedness, reminding us that the key to building a successful community lies in respecting the natural resources that provide for it and in understanding our responsibility to our fellow citizens.
The Boston Harbor Islands have been called Boston's "hidden shores." While some are ragged rocks teeming with coastal wildlife, such as oystercatchers and harbor seals, others resemble manicured ...parks or have the appearance of wooded hills rising gently out of the water. Largely ignored by historians and previously home to prisons, asylums, and sewage treatment plants, this surprisingly diverse ensemble of islands has existed quietly on the urban fringe over the last four centuries. Even their latest incarnation as a national park and recreational hub has emphasized their separation from, rather than their connection to, the city. In this book, Pavla Šimková reinterprets the Boston Harbor Islands as an urban archipelago, arguing that they have been an integral part of Boston since colonial days, transformed by the city's changing values and catering to its current needs. Drawing on archival sources, historic maps and photographs, and diaries from island residents, this absorbing study attests that the harbor islands' story is central to understanding the ways in which Boston has both shaped and been shaped by its environment over time.
South End Shout: Boston’s Forgotten Music Scene in the Jazz Age details the power of music in the city’s African American community, spotlighting the era of ragtime culture in the early 1900s to the ...rise of big band orchestras in the 1930s. This story is deeply embedded in the larger social condition of Black Bostonians and the account is brought to life by the addition of 20 illustrations of musicians, theaters, dance halls, phonographs, and radios used to enjoy the music. South End Shout is part of an emerging field of studies that examines jazz culture outside of the major centers of music production. In extensive detail, author Roger R. House covers the activities of jazz musicians, jazz bands, the places they played, the relationships between Black and white musicians, the segregated local branches of the American Federation of Musicians (AFL-CIO), and the economics of Boston’s music industry. Readers will be captivated by the inclusion of vintage local newspaper reports, classified advertisements, and details of hard-to-access oral history accounts by musicians and residents. These precious documentary materials help to understand how jazz culture evolved as a Boston art form and contributed to the national art form between the world wars. With this book, House makes an important contribution to American studies and jazz history. Scholars and general readers alike who are interested in jazz and jazz culture, the history of Boston and its Black culture, and 20th century American and urban studies will be enlightened and delighted by this book.
Unfreedom Hardesty, Jared Ross
04/2016, Letnik:
2
eBook
InUnfreedom, Jared Ross Hardesty examines the lived experience of slaves in eighteenth-century Boston. Instead of relying on the traditional dichotomy of slavery and freedom, Hardesty argues we ...should understand slavery in Boston as part of a continuum of unfreedom. In this context, African slavery existed alongside many other forms of oppression, including Native American slavery, indentured servitude, apprenticeship, and pauper apprenticeship. In this hierarchical and inherently unfree world, enslaved Bostonians were more concerned with their everyday treatment and honor than with emancipation, as they pushed for autonomy, protected their families and communities, and demanded a place in society.
Drawing on exhaustive research in colonial legal records - including wills, court documents, and minutes of governmental bodies - as well as newspapers, church records, and other contemporaneous sources, Hardesty masterfully reconstructs an eighteenth-century Atlantic world of unfreedom that stretched from Europe to Africa to America. By reassessing the lives of enslaved Bostonians as part of a social order structured by ties of dependence, Hardesty not only demonstrates how African slaves were able to decode their new homeland and shape the terms of their enslavement, but also tells the story of how marginalized peoples engrained themselves in the very fabric of colonial American society.
A bustling commercial center and favorite tourist attraction on Boston's historic waterfront, Quincy Market, the popular name for Faneuil Hall Marketplace, draws throngs of visitors to the ...magnificent granite buildings and cobblestone concourses that house the area's specialty shops, restaurants, boutiques, pushcarts, and food stalls. Yet few are aware of the history of this legendary public place and its importance in the history of Boston and the nation. In this elegantly written and lavishly illustrated work, John Quincy, Jr., tells the absorbing story of the Market's unique evolution over the centuries. Beginning with John Winthrop's landing at the Great Cove on the Shawmut Peninsula in 1630, Quincy weaves together a remarkable tapestry of the district's rise, fall, and rebirth. Originally published by Northeastern University Press in 2003. With a new foreword by Hillary Corbett.
