Metaboston

Reenacting the Boston Massacre

This Thursday, March 5, is the 239th anniversary of the Boston Massacre.

The Boston Historical Society will have a reenactment of the Massacre and the subsequent trial with John Adams defending British soldiers.

Trial of the Century
11:30am – 12:30pm and 2:30 pm – 3:30pm

Watch John Adams defend the British soldiers accused of murdering Bostonians. Self-defense or cold-blooded murder? You decide as audience members are invited to act as jurors for this celebrated case. Program led by rangers from the Adams National Historical Park. Free with museum admission; in the Old State House.

Boston Massacre Reenactment
7:00 pm-7:45 pm

See the event that sparked the Revolution! Local reenactment groups will portray the infamous incident outside the Old State House.

(Image:  Paul Revere's print of the event)

Happy Darwin Day!

Celebrate the 200th anniversary of his birth with a lecture by Darwin biographer Janet Browne.

Darwin at 200: Rethinking the Revolution

On February 12, cities and universities around the world will celebrate “Darwin Day.” But what is being celebrated, the achievements of a single individual or the acceptance of his controversial theory of evolution? Harvard's Janet Browne, Aramont Professor of the History of Science, will explore Charles Darwin’s cultural significance and what he has come to represent over time: the idea of scientific progress.

Free and open to the public in the Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street.
Thursday, February 12, 6:00 pm

Other events and exhibits will also be taking place at Harvard.  You can still participate in the marathon reading of The Origin of Species.

A Family Confronts Its Slave-Trading History in Rhode Island

 What would you do if, like Katrina Browne, you found out your family, the DeWolfs, made their fortune as the U.S.'s most prominent  slave-traders?  It's quite a revelation, particularly if your family is not from Mississippi but from Rhode Island, the Deep North as she calls it.

Browne looked into her family's history and made a film about it.

Leonard Lopate discusses the movie with Browne in the show above.

One of her cousins Tom DeWolf has also written a book looking into his experiences with the revelation and investigation in Inheriting the Trade: A Northern Family Confronts Its Legacy as the Largest Slave-Trading Dynasty in U.S. History.

An interesting aspect of the whole story is the discussion of how invested the North was with slavery.

Thoreau's Journal Blogged

This Date, From Henry David Thoreau's Journal does exactly what it says it will bringing us a new post or as 19th century folk put it a new "journal entry" for each day. 

Today's, or February 2, 1860's, is a nice one:

The fox seems to get his living by industry and perseverance. He runs smelling for miles along the most favorable routes, especially the edge of rivers and ponds, until he smells the track of a mouse beneath the snow or the fresh track of a partridge, and then follows it till he comes upon his game. After exploring thus a great many quarters, after hours of fruitless search, he succeeds. There may be a dozen partridges resting in the snow within a square mile, and his work is simply to find them with the aid of his nose. Compared with the dog, he affects me as high-bred, unmixed. There is nothing of the mongrel in him. He belongs to a noble family which has seen its best days, - a younger son. Now and then he starts, and turns and doubles on his track, as if he heard or scented danger. (I watch him through my glass.) He does not mind us at the distance of only sixty rods. I have myself seen one place where a mouse came to the surface to-day in the snow. Probably he has smelt out many such galleries. Perhaps he seizes them through the snow.

Revisiting all the fascinating stuff from the past through technology is a great part of this time.

By the way, Thoreau has an interesting bouffant/faux-hawk in this picture along with the classic neckbeard.

Burfoot and the Boston Marathon

 

A vivid memoir of Amby Burfoot's 1968 Boston Marathon win.

Ponzi: Boston's Innovator of Financial Fraud

An apparent role model for alleged fraudster Bernie Madoff, Charles Ponzi joined the select group whose name has become immortalized in the language.

BU professor Mitchell Zukoff wrote Ponzi's biography and has been widely cited as people seek to understand the Madoff scandal

But, if you organize a Ponzi scheme what is your exit strategy if the scam can't be sustained and most don't last more than a year.

Some hope to disappear, some seem resigned to be caught and some intend to go straight and cover up the scam.

Most Ponzi schemes last a year at most, says Utpal Bhattacharya, an Indiana University finance professor. (Ponzi’s lasted just nine months.) So it seems likely that Mr. Madoff, an investment manager since 1960, started out legitimate or semi-legitimate. People in that position sometimes foolishly think they can hide a one-time loss with new investors’ money, and make up for it with a big gamble later.

In other words, Ponzi schemers don’t necessarily start out as such, and as sophisticated as they are, they may not consciously recognize that they have created one. They delude themselves into thinking the ploy is just a stopgap measure, an attempt to hide a loss until they can — once again — dream up something brilliant.

Rediscovering A Colonial Cabinetmaker in Salem

 

18th century New England furniture is very valuable and has been studied for a long time.  Yet Kemble Widmer of Newburyport and Joyce King of Wakefield deciphered ledgers at the Massachusetts Historical Society and found that a Salem cabinetmaker named Nathaniel Gould was the creator of much more furniture than was previously known.  This means his work has likely been misattributed in collections across the country.

Since 1835 three vellum-bound books with smudged handwritten pages have been lingering on shelves at the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston. The volumes, with lists of names, dates and prices scrawled on foot-tall sheets of rag paper, puzzled the few scholars who paid any attention to them until just last year.

This month the solution to the mystery is being announced with fanfare: Nathaniel Gould, a cabinetmaker in Salem, Mass., wrote those entries, and they represent thousands of furniture commissions shipped worldwide. Gould was previously thought to have produced perhaps a few dozen pieces. The ledger discovery could change attributions of carved mahogany, walnut and cedar objects for scores of museums, private collections and stores.

It is a nice historical redemption for Gould who died at 47 and had been thought to have only produced a relatively few pieces.

(Image:  Desk and bookcase from Gould's workshop in the collection of the Metropolitan)

Prehistoric Insect Imprint Found Near North Attleboro Mall

What may be the world's oldest insect imprint was found by Tufts student Richard Knecht:

The imprint found at a rocky outcrop near a large shopping center in North Attleboro, Massachusetts, is believed to have been made by an insect about three inches long as it stood on mud some 312 million years ago.

"It's not a dragonfly but picture a dragonfly-like body. We're looking at something related, maybe a mayfly. They have the same body plan," said the discoverer, Richard Knecht, a geology student at Tufts University in Massachusetts.  (Image: Jacob Benner-Tufts University) 

Finding Photos of Hiroshima in Watertown

When the owner of the Deluxe Town Diner found an old suitcase on the street he opened it and found some surprising images.

Taken during the weeks following the bombing, they show a landscape that is eerily vacant and quiet, like ruins from a vanished civilization. But why were they taken and by whom? And how is it that they ended up in a pile of garbage?

The man who found the photographs, Don Levy (no relation) lives and works in Watertown, a working-class suburb of Boston. Levy owns and operates the Deluxe Town Diner. It’s almost two o’clock in the afternoon and the lunch crowd is thinning out. He sits down for the first time that day and tucks into a Reuben sandwich, fries and a glass of water. He is wearing brown corduroy trousers, a dark blue pullover and horn rimmed glasses. His grey hair is cut short, with a fashionable tuft sticking straight up on top.

“When I opened the suitcase that night I knew what I was looking at almost right away,” he says softly. “Some of the prints had 'Hiro', short for Hiroshima, written on their edges.” He takes a bite of the sandwich. “I felt pleased to have found them but at the same time I was saddened by what I was looking at.”  (Image:  International Center for Photography) (via Kottke)

Audubon's Early Drawings

Harvard has its collection of early drawings by John James Audubon online as he worked toward becoming the artist he is now known to be.  The drawings are also available in the book Audubon: Early Drawings.

Buy:  Audubon: Early Drawings.  (Image:  Crested Mergansers by Audubon from the Harvard collection).

Paul Revere: Werewolf Hunter

Revere:  Revolution in Silver is a graphic novel set in colonial Boston where Paul Revere isn't just a silversmith and a hero of the American Revolution but must battle monsters like werewolves as well.  Werewolves are vulnerable to silver so that could work.

 Listen, my children, and you shall hear… Whoa, hold it right there. This is one Paul Revere story that is not fit for children’s ears or eyes. Revere: Revolution in Silver is scary, gory, and sort of sick, actually. That’s not meant as criticism, just a warning to anyone who might confuse this dark graphic novel with a nice, patriotic comic book for kids.

Lavallee’s concept is wickedly clever: Revere, the legendary midnight rider, is recast as a caped crusader who patrols the highways and byways of colonial Massachusetts to protect every Middlesex village and farm from–werewolves."

Preserving the Old State House

You can learn about the challenges of preserving a 300-year old building in the center of a modern city as the Bostonian Society offers a program on their recent tower renovation:  No Reservation about Preservation: Preserving the Old State House.

"At 295 years old, the Old State House has just undergone another major preservation project. The Old State House tower and weather-beaten North East corner have been painstakingly restored and are in wonderful condition thanks to a team of dedicated preservation professionals.

The Bostonian Society invites you to join us for an evening with our preservation project team. Our architects and preservation specialists will discuss the methods and techniques that were used to restore the Old State House. Members of the team will talk about the daily challenges that were overcome, and the exciting discoveries that were made throughout the project. View the historic nails, woodwork, and masonry that were removed from the building during the preservation process, and look at photographs documenting the project.

Following the presentation, enjoy refreshments and take a tour of our newly restored tower.

Time:  Tuesday, September 16, 6:30 p.m.
Location:  The Old State House Museum, 206 Washington St., Boston, MA
Cost:  Free and open to the public
(Image:  Bostonian Society)

Preserving the Barns of Massachusetts

Preserve Mass Barns works to preserve one of the most evocative symbols of Massachusetts' agricultural past, its barns.

"A barn is an expression of the people who built it. When we lose one, we’ve lost a part of our history, a part of ourselves."

Cape Cod National Seashore Anniversary

 

August 7th was the the 47th anniversary of President Kennedy's signing of the bill that created the Cape Cod National Seashore.  (Image:  National Park Service)

Ipswich Lace and the Novel It Inspired

 The story of Ipswich's lace industry in another of the consistently fascinating stories by Wendy Moonan.

"“Lace making in Ipswich is probably the first women’s industry in America,” said Bonnie Hurd Smith, a former curator of the Ipswich Historical Society, which displays Ipswich lace. “The women were doing it while the men were at war, and many men were killed, so their widows needed to make money to support their families.” Ipswich women “used lace making as a way to endure,” Ms. Raffel writes in “The Laces of Ipswich.” A yard of lace “was approximately equal in value to a cord of wood or 16 pounds of sheep’s wool.”

Wearing lace was a status symbol for both men and women. George Washington’s 1789 visit to Ipswich made its lace even more fashionable after he picked up some of the black silk variety for his wife, Martha.

“Creating and owning Ipswich lace was a source of national pride,” Ms. Smith said. “By 1791” in Ipswich, “this seemingly unassuming craft involved 600 lace makers out of 4,500 people in 602 households. Probably the only one who was not making lace was the minister’s wife. Between August 1789 and August 1790 these women and girls produced more than 40,000 yards of lace.”"

Ipswich lace has inspired the new historical novel The Lace Reader, in which women have the ability to read the future in lace patterns, by entrepreneurial Brunonia Barry who self-published the book before getting it picked up by a major publisher.

The End of Antiques Row in Cambridge

With the last sale at F.B. Hubley's, the old antiques row between Harvard and Central Squares has also disappeared.

"A lot of people never thought they would see a final sale at the venerable F.B. Hubley Auction Galleries. It did conduct its last sale, however, and the June 4 auction marked the end of an era. It also denoted the end of antiques row, a several-block area in the shadow of Harvard Square that was once filled with dealers and auctioneers. Hubley's was the last to go. Established in 1935 by F.B. Hubley, the gallery has been run since the early 1940s by his son-in-law Robert Cann, who turns 91 in December."I am disconsolate," he said the day before the sale. "It is a very sad day.""

They'll still be continuing their appraisal service.

It's an interesting article about the long history of a store you might have passed by without thinking about it.

Disappearing TV Repair Stores

One of Boston's last TV repair shops is closing, a victim of a throw-away culture and technological acceleration.

"After 40 years at its 68 South St. location, Herb’s TV Service will close its doors forever Aug. 1. The space will be taken over by McCormack & Scanlan Real Estate, which is currently located on Washington Street.

Except for a stint in the armed forces during World War II, “I have worked steady since 1942,” said Herbert Pratt, the repair shop’s proprietor and namesake. Pratt is a JP resident and the owner of the row of storefronts that includes 68 South.

He got his start repairing radios and transitioned to television repair in Roxbury in the late 1940s as that technology took off."

***

”What I will miss is customers running in and leaving smiling, shaking hands all around and saying, ‘Thank you, thank you,’” [Walter, an employee] said."

Their service was very good.  With a declining economy maybe people will be more inclined to repair items like TVs rather than throwing them out.

July 18 was the 145th anniversary of the assault on Fort Wagner by the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry.  The regiment is commemorated by the memorial by Augustus Saint-Gaudens in Boston Common and may be best known from the movie Glory.

"On July 18, 1863, on Morris Island, near Charleston, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, a Union regiment composed entirely of free African-American men, began their assault on Fort Wagner, a Confederate stronghold.

After the war, a sergeant of the 54th, William Harvey Carney, became the first African-American to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for taking up the fallen Union flag and carrying it to the fort’s walls.

Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, the commander of the regiment, was killed in the charge, along with 116 of his men, and the Union forces failed to capture the fortress. Shaw, an abolitionist born to a prominent Boston family, had been recruited by Massachusetts Gov. John Andrew to raise and command the all-black regiment, the first of its kind in the Civil War."  (Image:  Storming of Ft. Wagner:  Kurz and Allison (1890):  Wikimedia).

Happy Independence Day!

Historical Cambridge in Second Life

Cambrdge Community Television is sponsoring a project to recreate a part of historical Cambridge in the virtual world Second Life.

"Come to CCTV on Wednesday, July 16 at 6:30 PM to learn how individuals and organizations are using the virtual world Second Life. During the event, we will provide an overview of virtual worlds and present our proposal to create an historical re-creation of a physical location in Cambridge using Second Life in 2008-2009.

And we want you to get involved!

The goal is to present our project - created by Cambridge residents - at the grand re-opening of the New Cambridge Main Library proposed for Fall 2009."

Info:
Date: Wednesday, July 16
Time: 6:30 PM
Location: Cambridge Community Television, 675 Mass Ave. Central Square, Cambridge

Odd image of philosopher, pioneering psychologist and theorist of religion and prolific writer William James from the Wall St. Journal:

'William . . . appears as the original dilly-dallying graduate student, hanging around Harvard Square to teach, marrying at 36 and not publishing his breakthrough work, "The Fundamentals of Psychology," until age 48."

It seems hard to argue with his approach considering what he accomplished.

Why Did the Sky Turn Dark in 18th Century New England?

May 19, 1780 was a literally dark day in New England inspiring fear and puzzlement around the new states.

"At noon, it was black as night. It was May 19, 1780 and some people in New England thought judgment day was at hand. Accounts of that day, which became known as 'New England's Dark Day,' include mentions of midday meals by candlelight, night birds coming out to sing, flowers folding their petals,and strange behavior from animals. The mystery of this day has been solved by researchers at the University of Missouri who say evidence from tree rings reveals massive wildfires as the likely cause, one of several theories proposed after the event, but dismissed as 'simple and absurd.'

***
"Limited ability for long-distance communication prevented colonists from knowing the cause of the darkness. It was dark in Maine and along the southern coast of New England with the greatest intensity occurring in northeast Massachusetts, southern New Hampshire and southwest Maine. In the midst of the Revolutionary War, Gen. George Washington noted the dark day in his diary while he was in New Jersey.

Nearly 230 years later, MU researchers combined written accounts and fire scar evidence to determine that the dark day was caused by massive wildfires burning in Canada."

The Forgotten History of "Charlie on the MTA"

The CharlieCard takes its name from the song "Charlie on the MTA" but do you know the forgotten history of the song and Walter O'Brien, the Progressive Party mayoral candidate in McCarthy-era Boston for whom the song was written?

"[F]ifty years ago, [Boston] was a much different place. It was a city controlled economically by conservative Brahmin and Yankee Republican businessmen and politically by conservative Irish-Catholic Democratic politicians. It was a city where books were banned, unions were not welcome, and protesters demonstrating for jobs, justice, or peace feared not only hostile mobs but also the police who were supposed to protect them.

Indeed, Boston and Massachusetts enlisted early in the war against communists and “fellow travelers.” In 1948, the Boston public schools began to require every teacher to sign a “loyalty oath” as a condition of employment. In 1949, speaking at a campaign rally just days before the mayoral election, President Harry Truman informed his Boston audience, “I hate communism” and vowed that he would never surrender to the “godless creed it teaches.” In 1951 Massachusetts became one of the first states in the country to outlaw the Communist Party—three years before Congress and President Eisenhower took such a step. Not long after that, the Boston Bar Association sent out ballots to its members containing various proposals to expel and disbar any members involved with “Communist or subversive organizations.”

Somerville History Bike Tour

Ron Newman will be leading a Somerville History Bike Tour on Saturday, May 31.  You can check the route on this map.

"The ride will focus on the many commuter rail stations that Somerville once had, and on the Green Line stations that will soon take their place.

The ride starts at Somerville City Hall, 93 Highland Avenue, at 10 am. We’ll take about three hours to ride about seven miles, stopping along the way at railroad-related sites and at such historic landmarks as the Prospect Hill Tower and the Old Powder House. The ride will end at the Somerville Museum, where we’ll enjoy refreshments and an exhibit of the Somerville Preservation Awards.

Rain date is Sunday, June 1, same time and starting location. For more information, e-mail rnewman@thecia.net or call 617-628-8895.

We will ask for a voluntary $3 donation to support the activities of the Somerville Historic Preservation Commission."

Boston Walking Tours

A huge list of walking tours in the Boston area from Roxbury to the North End and covering areas of interest from history to food.

Audio Walking Tour of Old Cambridge Free

A downloadable walking tour of Old Cambridge from Untravel Media will be free through the end of May.  (Beginning June 2 the price will be $5). 

Museum of Antiquated Technology

Mark Vess is the curator of the private Museum of Antiquated Technology in Hanson, MA where he has collected examples of America's technological past:

"Its founder and curator, Mark Vess, has collected old telephones, radios and knick-knacks of all kinds since he was seven or eight years old. Some forty years later, Vess says his mission is to educate today's kids about America's technological past. Vess gives a few select tours of his collections every year to school groups, and collectors clubs."

No website so "[h]e asks that he be contacted, under "Vess," in the old-fashioned telephone directory."

The Archeology of Harvard Yard

The Harvard Yard Archeology Project investigates the ground beneath Harvard Yard for remains of the original 17th and 18th century buildings of the college as well as the institution that was focused on Native Americans:

"Harvard, founded in the reign of Charles I and named after John Harvard, a Cambridge graduate who left his books to the young college, is centred on Harvard Yard, a series of grassy quadrangles enclosed by red-brick buildings such as Massachusetts Hall, built in 1718 and the oldest surviving structure. “Seventeenth- century Harvard Yard included not only the Old College, which was the oldest university building in the country, but also the Harvard Indian College,” said Professor William Fash, the director of the Harvard Peabody Museum.

“Built around 1655 as a place to train Native students within Harvard, the Indian College is of special interest as the first university-level institution in the Americas focused on Native people,” said Professor Fash, although several centuries of activity mean that “the yard is a very dense and overwrought landscape.”"

Blogging the Old State House Renovation

The Bostonian Society is blogging the renovation of  their headquarters the Old State House in the Financial District. 

"[O]ur team has been up on the scaffolding exploring the damage that has been caused by time and weather. The goal with our preservation project is to save as much historic material as possible, but replace when necessary. The top and bottom rails on the tower balustrades are badly deteriorated and in need of work."

There's a lot of interesting pictures of the work on the blog (like this one of the scaffolding being installed) and the examination of the tower that is usually inaccessible.

'The Soiling of Old Glory,' Stanley Forman and Busing in Boston

A fascinating story on a photograph by Stanley Forman that epitomized the bad old Boston in the days of busing.

"On April 5, 1976, at an anti-busing rally at City Hall Plaza, Stanley Forman, a photographer for the Boston Herald-American, captured a teenager as he transformed the American flag into a weapon directed at the body of a black man. It is the ultimate act of desecration, performed in the year of the bicentennial and in the shadows of Boston's Old State House. Titled The Soiling of Old Glory, the photograph appeared in newspapers around the country and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1977."

The article connects the photo to other iconic photographs.  Another interesting aspect, this isn't even Forman's most disturbing picture.

Finding "Ancient Roads" in Vermont

Towns and groups all over Vermont are engaged in researching the paths of Vermont's "ancient roads." 

"The point is to comply with a 2006 state law that gives Vermont’s cities and towns until early next year to identify all their “ancient roads.” At that point, they can add the elusive roads to official town maps, ensuring that they remain public, or turn them over to owners of adjoining land.

Unlike many other states, where towns automatically forfeit rights to roads that go unused for years, Vermont requires that they remain public until formally discontinued. That has brought fights between towns and landowners whose property abuts or even intersects ancient roads, with the towns eager to preserve public access for outdoor pursuits and the owners seeking clear titles and privacy."

It seems like a fascinating process, hopefully some of the research will be posted on the Internet:  Google Maps anyone? 

"Peter Vollers, a lawyer in Woodstock . . ., said he loved getting out and looking for hints of ancient roads: parallel stone walls or rows of old-growth trees about 50 feet apart. Old culverts are clues, too, as are cellar holes that suggest people lived there; if so, a road probably passed nearby.

Mr. Vollers heads the Vermont Expedition Society, a group of off-roaders who treasure ancient roads as a recreational asset. He recently started a company, Vermont Overland Guide Services, to help off-roaders navigate ancient roads and other rural byways."

That said, it must be nerve-wracking if you own property in Vermont and some amateur historians' fun means you will lose access to some of your land or find a troup of SUVs heading across your lawn, especially if the "road" was last used in 1795

A Tour of Athenaeum Alley (Newport, Providence, Boston, Salem, Portsmouth)

An exciting trip for the book-loving daytripper, following Athenaeum Alley:

"As if tailor-made for a weekend getaway, a series of historic athenaeums lines up along a virtual Athenaeum Alley in New England. Open for visits are athenaeums in Newport and Providence, R.I.; in Boston and Salem, Mass., and in Portsmouth, N.H.

Visiting these bookish sanctuaries, which are housed in historic buildings in a number of architectural styles, provides an opportunity to touch remnants of American history. Many of the same books, newspapers, maps and documents that were read in colonial times can be viewed, admired and (with some limitations to nonmembers) handled."

One of the best things about these libraries is that they continue to be vigorously used and aren't dusty museums but vital organizations with our own Boston Athenaeum being one of the most accessible and lively.

This is a continuation of their original mission.  ""In the first half of the 19th century, the athenaeum concept — a library that is also a center for edification in the arts and sciences — was popular in the United States.  From the time of our founding, this was a gathering place,” [Allison Maxell, director of the Providence Athenaeum] said.

The Boston Athenaeum gets a lot of press around here but it is good to see that other athenaeums are holding their own and open for visits.

Video History of Polaroid

A good video history of Polaroid (once you get past the joshing hosts' intro) as the company prepares to stop producing film this month.

Appreciating the Polaroid Legacy As Polaroid Fades Away

A nice appreciation of Polaroid as a local and cultural institution.  Best of all:  the photo story above by Waltham photographer Michael Blanchard that lets the employees talk about what the company meant to them.

Polaroid has had a long, daunting decline since its glory days in the '60s and '70s. Yet even now, seven years after declaring bankruptcy, there are those who remember when it was the Apple of its day: feisty, ubiquitous, pioneering. The Polaroid Land Camera was like the Mac, with all other consumer cameras PCs. There was the same sense of engineering superiority and cultural cachet...

The then-Cambridge-based Polaroid uniquely stood at the intersection of science, business, and art. Its founder, Edwin Land, held 533 patents, second only to Thomas Alva Edison in US history.

***

The company had a knack for innovative marketing. Sir Laurence Olivier was signed up to introduce its SX-70 camera. A series of 300 ads in the late '70s and early '80s that featured James Garner and Mariette Hartley was in everything but name the best sitcom on network television between the end of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and the arrival of "Seinfeld."

Eve LaPlante Discusses Samuel Sewall

Eve LaPlante will discuss her ancestor Samuel Sewall, the judge in the Salem Witch Trials and the book she has written about him on March 16.

Info:
March 16, 2 p.m.
Hunneman Hall
Brookline Main Library
361 Washington St.
Brookline, MA

New Documentary on Harvard Square Puppeteer Igor Fokin

There is a new documentary about Harvard Square puppeteer Igor Fokin who died tragically young at 36 and who is memorialized by a small sculpture in the Square (left).

"Igor Fokin came to America in 1994.  For two years, his puppets  entranced children and adults alike with memorable performances in Harvard Square, drawing audiences from all over the country. He died of a heart attack at the age of 36, two weeks after the birth of his son. The family could no longer stay in America and had to move back to Russia. Five years after his death, a commemorative statue of Fokin's most popular puppet, Doo Doo, was dedicated in the puppeteer's honor.

The Story of Fenist introduces viewers to Fokin and his magical marionettes  , who played a central role in his life. Rich performance footage and insightful interviews with his wife, children, extended family and friends are used to retrace Fokin's life from his time as a Russian university theater student and at his St. Petersburg studio to his life in New England.

The film includes a parallel story to Fokin's artistic struggles based on the Russian fairy tale, Fenist the Bright Falcon -- about an enchanted bird that, overcoming great odds, reaches its star. Two children provide the delightful narration. Merging two stories in one, the documentary brings viewers into the world of beautiful images and metaphors, music and theatre.

"Igor's life was brief but incandescent; he touched many hearts," said filmmaker Yelena Demikovsky. "When he died, his family -- with whom I became close -- was orphaned just like his beloved marionettes. As Igor's friend, and as an artist, I committed myself to helping his widow and children. Fenist, the fairytale recounted in my film, is a prince who brings beauty and light to the world. In my film, Igor is that prince. So the film is really his," said Demikovsky."

Edith Wharton House Faces Foreclosure

Edith Wharton, chronicler of rich and snobbish New Yorkers in novels like The Age of Innocence , built a massive summer house in the Berkshires and in a blow to her posthumous dignity it is in imminent danger of being repossessed.  Now the organization that restored and runs The Mount, as Wharton's house is known, is facing the property's foreclosure. 

"To stave off creditors -- including, most prominently, Berkshire Bank -- so the home, which is listed as a National Historic Landmark, can continue to be a viable business venture, it must raise $6 million by March 24." 

They seem to have lined up a person willing to match $3 million of the debt.

After having borrowed million to pay for restorations the organization cannot pay the debt and has already missed one mandatory payment.  Borrowing that much seems like a very risky strategy when the usual approach seems to be to raise money first and then begin a big project. 

House museums often aren't all that popular so it remains to be seen whether there will be the kind of grassroots support that saved Toscanini's.  Do people like Edith Wharton the way they like ice cream?

(Image of The Mount:  Edith Wharton.org)

30th Anniversary of the Blizzard of '78

The weather's not too great today right?  Well it could be worse.  A lot worse.  Today is the 30th anniversary of the Blizzard of 1978 as the invaluable Mass Moments reminds us.

"The Blizzard of '78 claimed 54 lives in New England, 29 of those in Massachusetts. Seventeen thousand Massachusetts residents sought cover in shelters, while emergency workers evacuated another 10,000 people. By the time the storm ended on February 8^th, over 11,000 homes were damaged or destroyed. Several historical treasures were lost to the sea — the Outermost House on Cape Cod, Motif #1 in Rockport, and the Peter Stuyvesant long moored next to Anthony's Pier 4 restaurant in Boston."

"Almost 30 years later, the Blizzard of '78 still sets the standard for winter storms. People who lived through it can still tell you exactly where they were and what they were doing when it hit. Some remember the terror of having their homes flooded by the sea or their cars buried in snow. But most recall the spirit of cooperation — even heroism — that prevailed. An occasional seaside home still displays one of the bumper stickers that once adorned nearly every Massachusetts car: "I survived the Blizzard of '78.'"

Mt. Auburn Cemetery Discussion

Blanche Linden will discuss her book  Silent City on a Hill: Picturesque Landscapes of Memory and Boston's Mount Auburn Cemetery at the Harvard Book Store on Feb. 8th.

"Inspired by developments in England and France, and founded in 1831, Mount Auburn became the prototype for the "rural cemetery"  movement and was an important precursor of many of America's public parks, beginning with New York City's Central Park"

Just a little off the main tourist trail the Mt. Auburn Cemetery is an incredible spot and almost a hidden treasure.  Should be a good opportunity for an introduction to this landmark.

A profile of James and Devon Gray Booksellers in Harvard Square

A profile of James and Devon Gray Booksellers, a store in Harvard Square where you can pick up a copy of Musæum Regalis Societatis.  Or a catalogue & description of the natural and artificial rarities belonging to the Royal Society and preserved at Gresham Colledge by Nehemiah Grew (1641-1712) a collection of oddities belonging to England's Royal Society (like this nice armadillo image below) for a cool $3,500.

"Sixteen years ago, Roger Stoddard, then curator of rare books at the Harvard College Library, challenged Devon, who was studying English with him, to go into the business. “He romanticized the good old days of bookselling,” James recalls, “and asked, ‘Why can’t we do that now?’”    

When Devon—inspired by Stoddard and the curator of manuscripts, Rodney Dennis—began scouring auctions and book fairs on weekends to create a collection, bankrolled by about $8,000 in borrowed start-up capital, James was still working in industrial equipment sales. But soon she was reselling her acquisitions to Houghton and to other universities’ rare-book collections. Once the shop opened, James, who trained in anthropology and is something of an autodidact, worked mainly in the store while Devon focused on the catalogs and book repair."

Mass Moments: What Happened on This Day in Massachusetts

Mass Moments is a daily podcast (and website) describing diverse historical events that took place on that day in past years.  The podcast is a minute long with more detailed information on the website.    Recent historical events of significance have included the birthday of the first African-American Harvard graduate, Bill Belichik's appointment to the Patriots' coaching job, and Boston's Great Molasses Flood.

Profile of the interesting local history site Remember Jamaica Plain?

A nice article on one of our favorite local sites Remember Jamaica Plain? run by Mark Bulger which is full of fascinating details from Jamaica Plain's past.

"Bulger culls articles, maps and other information from BPL Globe archives, among other sources, then posts his discoveries under his blog handle, “Not Whitey Bulger.”

His posts combine a good nose for news with often-insightful comments and local flavor—what the site calls “a special interest in everyday life.”

It’s hard not to get drawn into an entry that he introduces with: “In July 1904, the boys of Jamaica Plain saw fit to hang the Boston police commissioner in effigy—twice.”

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“The historical society has the big names already,” Bulger said. “They’ve done exactly what they should do: fill in the biggest things first. While I have the energy and incentive, I’m filling around the edges.”

Film of John Harvard's last night

A film of Harvard benefactor John Harvard's last night has been directed by Somerville resident and Harvard graduate student Michael Van Devere and filmed at the Cambridge Historical Society andCambridge's Swedenborg Chapel and with choral music by the Harvard Glee Club.  Clips can be seen on YouTube and the entire film will be shown on Somerville Community Access Television.

Adam Gopnik's interesting review in the New Yorker of Harvard president Drew Gilpin Faust new book Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War

Adam Gopnik's interesting review in the New Yorker of Harvard president Drew Gilpin Faust's new book Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War.

"Her argument is that the scale of the killing between 1861 and 1865 demanded a new cult of memory—a new set of social rituals, some rooted in the Bible, but many intensely secular, the rituals of Republican mourning. These rituals—the response to the mass killing, from military cemeteries, neatly rowed, to a taste for tight-lipped prose—made us what we are. The embalming fluid developed at the time by Yankee ingenuity to preserve dead bodies on their way home from the battlefield still runs through our veins."

"Faust is tracing a true fault line in modern consciousness. In these years, and despite much conventional religious piety, there’s a nascent sense that the deaths of the young men will never be justified in the eyes of a good God, and never compensated for by a meeting in another world. Their deaths can be made meaningful only through a vague idea of Providence and through the persistence of a living nation. Lincoln’s address at Gettysburg, through the dignity of near-Biblical expression, elevated sordid nationalism to a shimmering ideal of popular government; and it resonated because it said what a lot of people already felt. Fewer people found comfort in the promise of eternal life; more found it in the idea of a new world worth making."

Maps of Boston exhibit at the BPL

Maps of Boston exhibit at the BPL.  The maps come from the donated collection of Norman Leventhal, developer of the Boston Harbor Hotel,  including this map that shows the effects of the 1872 fire.

"In this journalistic presentation, the city is viewed from the east with the burned district highlighted by shading. The designated area includes that portion of today's Financial District bordered roughly by Summer, Washington, Milk, and Broad Streets. The most destructive of several great fires that occurred in Boston, the disaster engulfed more than 60 acres of some of the most valuable real estate in the city, destroying 930 businesses valued at approximately $100,000,000 (about $3.5 to $4 billion in current dollars)."

Interesting article on the uniqueness of the Boston subway system

Interesting article on the history and the uniqueness of the Boston subway system.

The Mattapan Line and its beautiful old trolley cars.

The Mattapan Line and its beautiful old trolley cars.  The picture left  is by Richard Panse with more gorgeous pictures at Subchat.  You can also see more of his great photography at Railroad Picture Archives.net.

The cars themselves are rare gems of public transport, holdovers from a golden age of urban trolleys: 

"The President's Conference Committee car is truly a survivor. It had certainly done what the designers had intended- to serve reliably in everyday rapid transit service. So well-designed are these cars, that they often serve for more than one owner for years at a time. It used to be that most major cities in America had large fleets of these cars in service. With the retirement of Newark's fleet in 2001, that only leaves San Francisco and Boston as the only regular operators of the streamlined trolleys.

Once the backbone of Boston's streetcar and subway lines, the PCC is now limited to a unique shuttle operation serving some of the south suburbs. The Mattapan High Speed Line is one of the few places where you can still ride a PCC in regular service. A free shuttle service tacked onto the end of the Ashmont terminal of the MBTA Red Line, the ride is like a step back in time.

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The fleet consists of 11 cars, all originally built for Boston under a wartime construction contract with Pullman-Standard, and were delivered in 1945-46. A recent rebuilding program is restoring these cars to their original appearance, including the original 1950's orange-and-cream MTA scheme."

Photographs of the "old" Harvard Square

Photographs of the "old" Harvard Square from the early 1980s. People miss the Tasty but the Mug n Muffin sounds good (image Andy Lee) (via GirlHacker's Random Log)

234th Boston Tea Party Reenactment: Dec. 16

The Old South Meeting House hosts the 234th Boston Tea Party Reenactment on Dec. 16: 

"Add your voice to those of other Patriots and Loyalists concerning the fate of the “bainfull weed”!  Authentic volunteer reenactors portraying the faces from your history books will recreate the most famous protest in American history--from the lively, interactive town meeting to the dramatic "destruction of the tea." Will you side with Samuel Adams and the other Patriots? Or will you be among the Loyalists? The evening will conclude with the colonial fife and drum of the Musick of Prescott’s Battalion and other revelry on the Border's plaza.

Although Boston 1775 notes that the end of the reenactment won't be as dramatic as in years past:

"When the Tea Party Ship Museum was open, these reenactments ended with the crowd streaming down to the waterfront to watch (from an increasing distance) the men on that ship toss boxes into the water. There’s no ship to march to right now, so Old South has arranged for fife and drum tunes from the Musick of Prescott’s Batallion outside, and—here’s the part I can’t picture yet—the chance to “photograph your own tea party in our staged scene on the Borders Plaza.” (Borders Plaza is apparently the commercial name for what I think of as the site of the godawful Irish Famine Memorial.)"

Weather delays Ron Paul Blimp

Weather delays Ron Paul Blimp so it won't be in Boston for the 234th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party although supporters will still be rallying in Faneuil Hall on Dec. 16th.