Local History, Closer to Home
In honor of Women’s History month, we’re featuring our collection of unique documents from local collections highlighting diverging views and the evolution of the movement toward woman suffrage in Massachusetts.
New: Articles from The Bostonian in the late nineteenth century describing the state of women’s clubs in Boston and around the country.
The time of the Fugitive Slave Law in Boston saw a tremendous outpouring of bravery by ordinary citizens. This student-developed project focused on the predominantly African-American neighborhood of Boston’s Beacon Hill and West End to connect a variety of biographical sources and in many ways bring these individuals to life.
[Continue reading]We’re excited to announce this venture aimed at integrating the efforts of high schools, historical societies and anyone interested in local history. A collaboration of these institutions and interested people in Essex and Middlesex Counties will help curate documentary evidence and pictures pertaining to a range of topics. We started with Essex County, and have now expanded the scope of the project to include Middlesex County. Phase one of our search begins with two areas that we have already made a great deal of progress on: Slave Gravestones, and Child Apprentices in the Colonial Era. (Later we will be looking at One Room School Houses, “Ten-Footer” Shoe Shops, and Poorhouses & Workhouses). Are you interested in being a part of this digital document collaboration? Click on the projects below, and join us.
Children “Bound Out”:The social mobility of apprenticed, bound-out children in their respective communities.
Slave Gravestones & Epitaphs: The stories of these people during and after their lives as slaves.
Called "the documentary record of the most comprehensive public approach to the relief of poverty in colonial and revolutionary America", The Eighteenth Century Records of the Boston Overseers of the Poor, edited by Eric G. Nellis and Anne Decker … [Continue reading]