Uncle Will’s grandmother, my spouse’s great-grandmother, was born into slavery and died as a free woman at the age of 108. Sometime during Reconstruction (1863-1877), the great-grandmother accrued a small plot of farmland that now awaits its fate, as her brood scrape together enough money to keep it.
THE EERILY FAMILIAR TALE OF SHADRACH MINKINS AND THE CENTURIES-OLD FEDERAL THREAT TO THE COMMONWEALTH
The guards prepared to fight any slave hunters who entered Boston, and specifically patrolled the streets of the West End and the northern slope of Beacon Hill, which at the time was home to the majority of the city’s black population.
A LOT OF LIGHTBULBS TO CHANGE
“Water is always going to be important to people … As our landscapes change over time, our systems have to change to adapt.”
DIRTY OLD BOSTON: HEROIN DAZE
An abridged trudge through Boston’s long, repetitive history of opiate abuse
THROWBACK: BRICKLAYER BILL AND THE ADVENTURES OF AN AMATEUR
A glimpse of the days when sports stars shone closer to earth
REMEMBERING THE HUB’S ADORABLE AND EXPLOITED NEWSIES
Through the warts and beauty of it all (but mostly the warts), street photographer, sociologist, and activist Lewis Wickes Hine focused on the seedy underworld of child news distribution
