Mass Hystoria

A blog of photographs and other items related to Massachusetts history.

[cityofbostonarchives]

Involved in activism for most of her life, Melnea Cass is particularly remembered for her community work in the South End and Roxbury. She helped black women register to vote in the 1920s,  founded the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters,  and worked to found Freedom House alongside Muriel and Otto Snowden. Mayor John Collins appointed her as a charter member of the Action for Boston Community Development in 1950. Melnea Cass then worked as the Boston president of the NAACP from 1962 until 1964, and a few years before her death, she acted as the chairperson for the Massachusetts Advisory Committee.

 Nicknamed the “First Lady of Roxbury” because of her activism, Melnea Cass passed away in December 1978. The eulogy above was written by Mayor Kevin White. He wrote that she worked her entire life “…to heal the rift between the races and provide for a better life for black Americans.” Her achievements mirror that statement.

Melnea Cass and participants at Boston Massacre Commemoration, Boston 200 records, Collection 279.001, Boston City Archives

Eulogy for Melnea Cass, December 1978, Box 121, Folder 56, Mayor Kevin H. White records 0245.001, Boston City Archives

Blog post by Monica Haberny, City Archives Outreach Intern

[yesterdaysprint]

Boston Post, Massachusetts, December 13, 1920

[steampunktendencies]

The Metropolitan Water Works’ Chestnut Hill High Service Pumping Station  The Waterworks Museum in Boston, MA

“The Metropolitan Water Works’ Chestnut Hill High Service Pumping Station, built 1886-87 and expanded in 1897-98, was built at the height of what is sometimes called Boston’s Golden Age, a period of great prosperity for Boston and New England, lasting from the Civil War through World War I.

Credits:  Frank C. Grace (Trig Photography)

[sciencefriday]

This team of early female astronomers created the star classification system we use today.

In the late 19th century, astronomy was a growing field. At the time, Edward Pickering, the director of the Harvard College Observatory, was working to create a classification system for stars by capturing the light from these distant celestial objects onto photographic glass plates. A team of female assistants and astronomers meticulously maintained and analyzed these delicate negatives. In her new book, The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars, Dava Sobel shares the stories of these female “human computers” and how their work helped to advance the field of astronomy and the role of women in science.

This team of astronomers included Williamina Fleming, who was once Pickering’s maid but eventually became a supervisor to the group and went on to identify hundreds of variable stars. And Henrietta Swan Leavitt’s observations about the luminosity of stars would shape later ideas about the expanding universe.

Listen to the interview here.

[Photos courtesy of The Glass Universe]

[npr]

So cool! 🌟  -Emily

[masshystoria]

I've posted about "human computers" of the Harvard Observatory before.

[historyofmassachusetts]

Massachusetts in the Civil War

Much like the War of 1812, the American Civil War was yet another war that did not take place in Massachusetts yet it still greatly affected Massachusetts in the 19th century. Although no Civil War battles occurred in Massachusetts, many Massachusetts soldiers and military leaders fought and died in the war and many Massachusetts residents helped in the war effort. What Side Was Massachusetts on in the Civil War? When the election took place in November of 1860, Abraham Lincoln won Massachusetts when he received 106,533 votes (about 63 percent of the ballots cast). Douglas received 34,370 votes and John Bell received only 22,232 votes (13 percent). Massachusetts was a free state in the Civil War era and supported the Union cause. Furthermore, Massachusetts political leaders were not in favor of secession and felt the union must be preserved. Civil War soldiers from Massachusetts: Association of Massachusetts Minute Men of 61, photo published in History and Complete Roster of the

[somervillearchives]

Advertisement in program a Somerville Players program from September 15, 1930. Board of Health Collection: 4701-BOH-001-085

[mediamattersforamerica]

Everyone needs to watch this full speech.

[karinanotcinerina]

THIS. I am thankful for this.

[sotheresthat]

The hero we need.

[masshystoria]

She is amazing! 🙌🏻 Dan Rather has also been a beacon of journalistic light during this whole debacle. Journalists truly are my heroes.

[masshystoria]

Thanksgiving menu from The Boston Cooking School Cook Book by Fanny Merritt Farmer, revised by Wilma Lord Perkins, 9th Ed., from 1951. Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! 🦃🍽

[cityofbostonarchives]

Its Election Day!

Here are some of Boston’s election returns from the presidential election of 1840.  The election of 1840 pitted Democratic candidate Martin Van Buren against Whig candidate William H. Harrison.  These returns from Boston’s Ward 1 don’t show Harrison and Van Buren’s names, but rather show the names of the electors that the Whig and Democratic parties sent to the Electoral College.

Do you know who won this election?

Returns of Votes Cast, Collection 0301.026 , Boston City Archives

[masshystoria]

Election Day is finally here! Get out and vote everyone!

[masshystoria]

The Boston Globe has a fascinating story about a street car accident that happened 100 years ago on Election night 1916:

The race for the White House was on everyone’s mind, with President Woodrow Wilson and Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes battling to the wire amid unrest on the Mexican border and a war raging in Europe. Bookmakers in Boston had given Hughes 10 to 8 odds, but the line was shifting toward the president when the polls closed at 4 p.m.

Which is why few inside the streetcar gave much thought to the final screech of the brakes or the thump that came with it. Trolleys were always whining, and sometimes they hit things — like a wayward wagon, or a tip-cart stuck in the tracks — and kept right on going.

Except suddenly there was commotion and muffled cries at both ends. The car had smashed through the warning gates of the open Summer Street drawbridge and was skidding toward the edge.

Screeching, sliding, it seemed to slow just in time, pausing at the brink, the front end dangling above the water, the rear wheels holding onto the tracks.

The car rocked; it teetered for a second, for two. The lights cut out — the trolley pole slipped off the overhead wire — but still it wasn’t clear to everyone inside what was happening.

Then wood splintered, metal popped. The trolley snapped free, plunging forward, abandoning the rear wheels on the tracks. Someone shrieked — “My God! We’re going over!” — and the passengers tumbled, screaming and reaching out for one another as the streetcar fell.

[cityofbostonarchives]

Its Election Collection Tuesday!

Here’s a Voter Instruction sign from one of our Election Department scrapbooks. Signs like this were printed by Boston’s Election Department and posted at polling places in 1857. 

How do these instructions differ from the instructions that voters receive today? Are they the same in some ways?

[somervillearchives]

100 Years Ago in Somerville - Mayor Z.E. Cliff writes to the Board of Aldermen to prepare for the return of the 8th Regiment. Board of Aldermen Meeting Minutes, October 26, 1916. http://www.somervillema.gov/departments/board-of-aldermen/archived-meeting-minutes

[cityofbostonarchives]

Its another Election Collection Tuesday!

American women gained the right to vote in 1920. But even after the battle for women’s suffrage was won, women could be stripped of their citizenship and their voting rights, if they married a man who was not a US citizen.

The Expatriation Act of 1907 stated that that  “any  American  woman  who  marries  a  foreigner  shall  take  the  nationality  of  her  husband.”  Upon  marriage, a woman’s legal identity merged into her husband’s. If her husband was not a US citizen, this meant that she lost her citizenship.

The Cable Act of 1922, also known as the Married Women’s Act, repealed the 1907 Expatriation Act. Under the Cable Act, the citizenship status of a woman did not change when she married. However, women who had married non-US citizens before September 22, 1922 had lost their citizenship, and had to reapply for US citizenship.

The situation of women who had married non-US citizens could be very confusing, especially at the voting booth! In 1924, Boston’s Board of Election Commissioners issued this document spelling out who was a citizen and who was not.

To read more about this issue, check out this article from the National Archives.

Political Ephemera, Box 1, Folder 19, Collection 9800.006, Boston City Archives

[masshystoria]

My grandmother was caught up by this law. She was born in Boston in 1903 and was taken back to Italy by her parents when she was about 3 years old. She lost her citizenship when she married my grandfather in Italy in 1920. When she came back to the U.S. in 1929 she had to reapply for citizenship and eventually became a naturalized citizen. She was bitter about this until the day she died at 86 years old. She would always say, I'm an American, I was born here!

[cityofbostonarchives]

Its Election Collection Tuesday!

In 1932, Boston Mayor James Michael Curley embarked on a speaking tour of the United States to campaign for Franklin D. Roosevelt.  2500 Bostonians gathered to send him off. The sendoff included an automobile parade to Back Bay Station and a brass band. When the Mayor’s train left Back Bay Station, a Boston Fire Department truck set off their sirens in honor of his departure.

We’re digitizing the scrapbook documenting Mayor Curley’s time on the campaign trail in 1932. Take a look at a few of these pages, and keep an eye out for more to come!

“A Swing Through America for Roosevelt,” 1932, Box 6, Mayor James M. Curley collection, Collection 0237.001, Boston City Archives

[cityofbostonarchives]

Aerial view, South Boston and Castle Island, 1925, City Planning Board photographs, Boston Landmarks Commission image collection, (Collection 5210.004) Boston City Archives

  Please attribute to Boston City Archives. For more images from this collection, click here

[fromthehandsofquacks]

A day in the life of anatomists, c.1900:

Students William Fiske Whitney and Francis Dexter hard at work at the Anatomy Laboratory in the Boylston Street Building of Harvard Medical School.

Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

[cityofbostonarchives]

The 2016 Summer Olympics begins tonight! Did you know that Boston Mayor Raymond Flynn ran in the 1984 Olympic Torch Relay? Here’s Mayor Flynn with the torch at the Paul Revere Mall.

Mayor Raymond Flynn participates in Olympic Torch Relay, Mayor Raymond L. Flynn records, Collection #0246.001,  City of Boston Archives.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License

Please attribute to City of Boston Archives. To see more images from this collection, click here