The annual Transgender Day of Remembrance calls attention to an epidemic of violence against trans people, and Black trans women in particular, but did you know that this solemn event was inspired by a brutal 1998 Allston murder? In this episode, we hear from the friends of Rita Hester about a vibrant life that was inspired by music and cut short by violence. We’ll see how her murder fit a pattern of crimes in the Boston area in the late 90s and how Rita’s family and friends channeled their...

In this episode, we explore the 1936 Boston cowboy strike, a one-day wildcat strike that became the founding moment for a labor union that still exists today. Staged by an organization that became known as the Cowboy Turtle Association at the old Boston Garden, this was the first rodeo strike in the world. While I call it a cowboy strike, cowgirls were an important feature of this particular rodeo, and the union’s longterm success is due in no small part to the wife of a champion cowboy. Why...

In this episode, we dive into the lasting folklore of Boston’s sea serpent, a supposedly true tale rooted in the early colonial history of New England. The story begins with a dubious 1639 account, continues through repeated sightings in the early 1800s, and extends into the 20th century. From the beginning, skeptics poked holes in accounts of the serpent, even when the scientific Linnaean Society fell for the story hook, line, and sinker. However, the idea of a sea monster on Massachusetts...

After last night's spectacular light show over New England, listen to this show from last December explaining how Cotton Mather had to wrestle with faith, science, and cancel culture when Boston experienced the northern lights for the first time in 1719. Original show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/289/

The construction of Boston’s Charles River Dam was a monumental project that transformed the tidal estuary of the Back Bay into a fresh-water basin, providing a 20th century solution to problems that the city inherited from the 19th, including issues with industrial waste, sanitation, and general public distaste for the acres of mudflats that were exposed at low tide. Temporary floodgates closed on October 20, 1908, which marked the first separation of the waters of Boston Harbor from the...

September 22nd marks the anniversary of a storm. 209 years ago today, the wind was building over the sea off Boston while the skies grew dark with clouds. The next day, the strongest hurricane in generations slammed into the New England coast, causing devastation on Boston Harbor, in city streets, and in fields and forests all around the region. The storm is remembered as the Great September Gale, and it had wide-ranging effects, causing everything from a collapse in the local glass...

We all know the old mnemonic device, right? Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November, but what if September suddenly had only nineteen days? That’s exactly what Boston experienced in 1752, when the town went to bed on September 2nd and woke up on the 14th. It sounds like something that would have a supernatural explanation, like a mass alien abduction, or maybe something contaminated the water supply to make the entire town go into a brief coma, but the explanation is more...

This week, Erica Lome and Tripp Evans join the show to discuss a new exhibit at the Eustis Estate called “The Importance of Being Furnished.” In the wake of Oscar Wilde’s 1882 lecture tour focusing on The House Beautiful, outlandishly decorated bachelor households became an aspirational style that helped define American homes from the Gilded Age to the Jazz Era. The new Aesthetic Movement brought beauty and artistic sensibility to American homes, replacing conservative styles that...

This week, Patrick Gabridge joins us to talk about his new play “A Light Under the Dome,” which opens at the Massachusetts State House on August 12. The first in a series of works exploring the intersection between abolition and suffrage in the 19th and early 20th centuries, A Light Under the Dome recreates a specific moment in history that took place under the dome of the Massachusetts State House 186 years ago. Angelina Grimke grew up in Charleston, South Carolina in a family of enslavers,...

Long before becoming a haven for software and biotech giants, Kendall Square was a center for manufacturing during the era of steam. Here, in the 1860s, two crucial advancements emerged: the standardization of threaded iron pipes and fittings for use in household plumbing, gas fixtures, and steam power and the invention of the modern pipe wrench that allows us to work on them. This episode explores the story behind the Stillson pipe wrench, a tool so revolutionary that its inventor’s name...

This episode explores the impact of the Cunard Line of steamers and its flagship Britannia on Boston in the mid-19th century. Before the Britannia, transatlantic travel relied on fickle winds, making each crossing perilous and unpredictable. The introduction of steamships revolutionized transatlantic travel by offering faster and more reliable journeys. Boston became a central hub for this new era of maritime transportation, benefiting from its proximity to Europe and the construction of...

For this week’s show, I spent some time asking visitors and locals what nicknames they know for Boston. From the Hub to Titletown to Beantown and beyond, people know a lot of nicknames for Boston, but it turns out that most of us don’t know the meanings behind the monikers. In this episode, I dig into the stories behind five nicknames you might have wondered about. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/304/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

105 years ago this month, Irish President Eamon De Valera embarked on an 18-month tour of the United States, starting with a visit to Boston. His goals were to raise funds for the Irish Republic, gain international recognition, and garner support for Irish independence from British rule. De Valera’s visit to Boston included a massive rally at Fenway Park, a speech to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and visits to historical sites. Despite facing challenges, such as his...

On the first anniversary of D-Day, Boston was feeling festive. Yes, there was a somber editorial cartoon in the Globe picturing an allied cemetery in Normandy to remind people of the sacrifices that the nation had made, but Germany had just surrendered, making the sacrifice seem worthwhile. Now, on D+1 (or was it D+366?), the city would turn out to hail a conquering hero, as General George S Patton, Junior set foot on American soil for the first time in two and a half years. His speech in...

Joseph Warren Revere was a Boston boy, but a military career kept him from spending much of his adult life here.  He was the grandson of the famous Paul Revere and named after the secular saint Joseph Warren.  As a young Navy officer on the USS Constitution, he fought slavers and pirates, discovered buried treasure, met a czar, and almost killed a king.  Falling in love with California while serving in the Mexican-American War, he made a small fortune during the Gold Rush, while getting mired...

Did you feel an earthquake in Boston on April 5, 2024? Depending on where you were at the time, you might have felt nothing or you might have noticed a mild tremor. While we think of Boston earthquakes as a punchline and damaging quakes as a California problem, that hasn’t always been the case. Imagine an earthquake that comes on with the sound of rolling thunder, one where the ground heaved like waves on an angry sea, throwing people to the ground, opening up fissures in the earth, and...

During the bicentennial celebrations in 1976, Boston bustled with fireworks, concerts, and historical reenactments, while a unique spectacle quietly unfolded at the Old North Church. The iconic lanterns, forever linked to Paul Revere’s midnight ride, were illuminated not by candlelight, but by the distant light of a star some 200 light-years away. This episode explores the technological challenges involved in capturing starlight and converting it into an electrical signal that traveled...

Eclipses happen when the moon passes between the sun and the earth during the daytime, briefly blocking the light of the sun from the face of the earth. Over the past few years, observers in the US have been treated to every flavor of solar eclipse: a partial in 2021 when part of the sun’s disc remains unobscured; a total eclipse in 2017, when viewers in the narrow path of totality experienced daytime darkness, and an annular eclipse just last fall, when a ring of fire hung in the cold,...

This week I’m pleased to be able to share a recent talk from the Shirley-Eustis House in Roxbury about recent archaeological discoveries at Shirley Place that help shed light on the lives of enslaved residents at the 18th century governor’s residence, as well as evidence of the home’s original location before it was moved into its current position in the 19th century.  The presenter is past podcast guest Joe Bagley, the archaeologist for the city of Boston, who has led a series of digs at the...

I’m pleased to share a recent talk called "Cotton Mather and the Women He Loved" that was part of the Congregational Library and Archive's Valentines Day celebration. Helen Gelinas spoke about Cotton Mather and the women he was closest to: his three wives, his daughters, and his sisters, as well as his lifelong mission to understand the biblical Eve, the prototype for all women in his universe.  Helen examined who he was behind closed doors, as a husband and father, and she challenged us to...

In this episode, I’m joined by Professor Adrian Chastain Weimer, author of the recent book A Constitutional Culture: New England and the Struggle Against Arbitrary Rule in the Restoration Empire. The book focuses on the period just after King Charles II returned the Stuarts to the English throne, during which he when he sought revenge against Boston Puritans for their perceived role in the execution of his father. Decades before the absolute rule of Edmund Andros, the crown sent four royal...

Despite the name, Plymouth Hospital was a South End institution. As the first training school for Black nurses in segregated Boston, Plymouth provided a needed service to an underserved community, led by a medical pioneer. Dr. Cornelius Nathanial Garland moved to Boston from the deep south to seek opportunity, but while he found opportunity in the Hub, he also found a deeply segregated medical establishment. To fight against this system and provide opportunities for Black Bostonians in...

In the last episode, we talked about Boston’s first water sources, from rainfall and natural springs to a simple wooden aqueduct connecting Jamaica Pond to downtown Boston. This time, we’re picking up where episode 292 left off. As Boston grew in the early 19th century, it quickly outgrew its existing water supply, which was dreadfully polluted anyway. The city was left looking outside its boundaries for a water source that was large and plentiful enough to supply the needs of a growing...

This is the first of a three-part history of Boston’s water supply. First up is the early history of water in Boston, from its reliance on natural springs to the construction of the first aqueduct. We’ll compare today’s pure, plentiful drinking water to the challenges that early Bostonians faced in obtaining clean water. First, we’ll look at natural springs, hand-dug wells, and cisterns in early Boston, but as the city grew, these sources became increasingly scarce and polluted. Then we’ll...