#Boston history

[marzipanandminutiae]

are there any like

young Boston Brahmins anymore

I mostly know three categories of young people from Brahmin families:

descended from Not That Branch of a family with a Brahmin surname (it's me hi)

descended from Yes That Branch of a family but they moved out of Boston

descended from Yes That Branch of a family but they came from the brother who gambled away his cut of the fortune, so the brooch Isabella Stewart Gardner gave their great-great-grandmother as a wedding present was sold long ago and now they're normal

and I know two categories of Boston Brahmins, ie People from the Brahmin Families Who Still Live In the Boston Area and are Still Wealthy:

elderly and moved to a modern house on the Cape or something

elderly and still clinging to the ancestral townhome on Beacon Hill (YES GOOD FIGHT THE FLIPPERS. IT'S NOT GOING TO BECOME A MUSEUM OR AFFORDABLE HOUSING; THEY'RE JUST GOING TO WRECK THE INTERIOR AND SELL MILLION-DOLLAR CONDOS IN THERE)

they don't control the city anymore, which would be a good thing if not for the fact that now douchebag tech billionaire investors have stepped into fill the gap. but some of them still have money. I think the problem is that wealthy young people nowadays mostly aren't interested in the sort of noblesse oblige, Nothing Ever Changes Except They've Become Genteelly Progressive lifestyle that characterizes Boston Brahmindom

anyway this is why I would make such a good Amory, Lowell, or Warren and one of the families should have an eligible gay daughter who wants kids and will marry me. I would preserve the ancestral manse and redirect a portion of the fortune into investments in green energy. also I would advocate for demolishing Government Center to rebuild Scollay Square, with all store space and housing at the equivalent of the rents in the 1960s when it was gentrified.

additionally I would workshop a less 19th-century-Orientalist term than "Boston Brahmins" among all the other families. they're Genteelly Progressive, so this should go over well. my current proposal is The Sargent Squad

thank you for coming to my TED Talk

[copperbadge]

Sam, because you lived in Boston, I assume you have walked pat the statue of Mary Dyer on the Statehouse grounds. I don’t know if you were aware that the statue commemorates her hanging for being a Friend (Quaker).

I lived in Boston for a summer and I get out there at least once a year and I knew about Mary Dyer already and I made a special trip to see the monument to anesthesia on Boston Commons, and I still never managed to see this haunting motherfucker.

I have never seen such a terrifying Friend in all my days. I'm sure she was a perfectly normal-looking human in life, no judgement on Mary. And really no judgement on the sculptor, Sylvia Shaw Judson, either, she's a very good artist. It's just. What the fuck.

[ID: A photograph of the sculpture of Mary Dyer, one of Boston's "four martyrs"; her body is mostly in proportion as she sits on a bench wearing a plain dress and head covering. Her neck, however, is extremely long, as is her face, and something about the shape of the cheekbones above extremely deep-sunk eyes gives her a very Uncanny Valley aura.]

Mary Dyer's story is pretty interesting if you can stomach it. I'm perpetually surprised, though I shouldn't be, by how persecuted early Quakers were for the heresy of *checks notes* Believing in the dignity of all humanity, saying that being able to legally own another person was a bad thing, and being mostly very quiet while praying.

Like I do get it, Quaker belief tends to be in direct opposition to authority, but authority mostly sucks! The sheer terror they inspired through, basically, the act of being thoughtful, decent people seems deeply out of proportion.

(Amusingly, evangelicals still don't know what to do with Quakers much of the time. I've never seen a Baptist bluescreen as hard as the one who asked me if I'd like to come to his church and got the response "No thank you, I attend Quaker meetings." He just didn't know where to put that.)

That said, if someone who looked like this statue confronted me about bad behavior after a Meeting, I would flip the fuck out.

[borgiabeacon]

1919: The Sugar Tsunami of Boston

On January 15, 1919, Boston witnessed an extraordinary disaster that sounds almost too bizarre to be true: the Great Molasses Flood. This catastrophic event occurred when a massive storage tank containing over two million gallons of molasses burst, unleashing a tidal wave of the sticky substance through the streets at an estimated speed of 35 mph. The flood was not only a surreal spectacle but a deadly one, claiming 21 lives and injuring 150 people.

Molasses, the central figure in this disaster, is a byproduct of sugar refining, known for its thick, syrupy consistency and sweet flavor. It is widely used in cooking and baking, as well as in the production of rum and other industrial goods. Despite its commonplace nature, the Great Molasses Flood highlighted the potential dangers of industrial storage and the catastrophic consequences of negligence.

The sheer volume of molasses, coupled with its thick consistency, posed unique challenges for rescue and cleanup efforts. In the cold winter temperatures, the molasses quickly thickened, hampering attempts to free those trapped by the deluge. The disaster caused significant damage to the North End neighborhood, destroying buildings, overturning vehicles, and leaving a sticky residue that was notoriously difficult to clean. It took weeks to clear the molasses from the streets, and the harbour remained discoloured until summer.

The aftermath of the flood had lasting impacts beyond the immediate cleanup. It led to a reevaluation of safety standards and regulations for industrial construction, marking a turning point in how such facilities were built and maintained. The tragedy underscored the importance of regulatory oversight to prevent similar disasters in the future.

[pardoncaptainkidd]

Winter is almost upon us and we, the Captain Kidd Pardon Movement, hope everyone will be warm and safe this season. How many of you have had to withstand a cold winter with no fire or no electricity? 

October through February, 1699, Captain William Kidd was imprisoned in Boston’s gaol in the dead of winter. Lord Bellomont kept a strict watch on him and would not provide him any visitors, not even his own wife - he feared that Kidd plotted an escape. Due to this, Kidd’s health deteriorated by the brutal weather, lack of good food and warmth.  Kidd would not be removed from this prison until March 10th, 1700 when the HMS Advice finally arrived in Boston’s harbor to transport him back to London for trial. From there, he would have to sit and rot in a prison with far worse conditions.

Visit our site pardonwilliamkidd.com for more information on the movement. If you wish to support the movement, please consider liking this + following us here! We also take donations to help fund this movement on GoFundMe.com (search ‘Pardon Captain Kidd’).

[vintageboston]

Hotel Gardner • Boston Massachusetts

Old Postcard [Ballroom Photo Circa 1930-1945] "The Ball Room of the Hotel Gardner -- available for group affairs -- is one of the city's showplaces. The Hotel Gardner on Massachusetts Avenue at Norway Street (only two blocks from both Symphony and Mass, Ave. subway stations) is conveniently located near such famous Boston landmarks as Symphony Hall, the Boston Opera House, Horticultural Hall, and the Christian Science Mother Church. Delicious luncheons and dinners featured daily in the Gardiner Grill. Cheerful outside guest rooms make your visit an enjoyable one. Moderate rates. Send for folder."

[wordsandimagesbycynthiastaples]

the embrace

It is a truly interesting interpretation of a beautiful act, an embrace. I’m impressed with the concept though I struggle to understand everything that I am seeing. But for some reason I don’t mind that struggle with this piece. Maybe it is the hands. They are beautifully rendered. The viewer reads into art and what I read into those hands are both gentleness and strength, love and sensuality,…

[nasty-little-rat-boy-man]

[inkskinned]

this is just my opinion but i think any good media needs obsession behind it. it needs passion, the kind of passion that's no longer "gentle scented candle" and is now "oh shit the house caught on fire". it needs a creator that's biting the floorboards and gnawing the story off their skin. creators are supposed to be wild animals. they are supposed to want to tell a story with the ferocity of eating a good stone fruit while standing over the sink. the same protective, strange instinct as being 7 and making mud potions in pink teacups: you gotta get weird with it.

good media needs unhinged, googling-at-midnight kind of energy. it needs "what kind of seams are invented on this planet" energy and "im just gonna trust the audience to roll with me about this" energy. it needs one person (at least) screaming into the void with so much drive and energy that it forces the story to be real.

sometimes people are baffled when fanfic has some stunning jaw-dropping tattoo-it-on-you lines. and i'm like - well, i don't go here, but that makes sense to me. of fucking course people who have this amount of passion are going to create something good. they moved from a place of genuine love and enjoyment.

so yeah, duh! saturday cartoons have banger lines. random street art is sometimes the most precious heart-wrenching shit you've ever seen. someone singing on tiktok ends up creating your next favorite song. youtubers are giving us 5 hours of carefully researched content. all of this is the impossible equation to latestage capitalism. like, you can't force something to be good. AI cannot make it good. no amount of focus-group testing or market research. what makes a story worth listening to is that someone cares so much about telling it - through dance, art, music, whatever it takes - that they are just a little unhinged about it.

one time my friend told me he stayed up all night researching how many ways there are to peel an orange. he wrote me a poem that made me cry on public transportation. the love came through it like pith, you know? the words all came apart in my hands. it tasted like breakfast.

[beggars-opera]

The fact that the Boston transit system has been a garbage fire for so long that our mascot is a sad little man who is literally stranded on the train until the end of time due to a fare increase. Charlie's desiccated corpse has been riding this train since the 1940s and everyone just sort of rolls with it it this point

[lionofchaeronea]

Dandelions, Jean-François Millet, 1867-68

[edwardian-girl-next-door]

Some belated photos from the "Fashioned by Sargent" exhibit at the MFA Boston. My pictures just don't do it justice! I'm not one for hyperbolics, but it literally took my breath away, even with the crowds of people everywhere.

evening dress by the House of Worth (c.1880); owned by Sarah Choate Sears, who Sargent painted in another dress in 1889

reflection of Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth (1889); costume designed by Alice Comyns Carr and created by Ada Nettleship

evening dress with matching shoes by the House of Worth (c.1895)

Mrs. Charles E. Inches (Louise Pomeroy) (1887); dress made in 1887 and likely altered 1902. Louise was pregnant at the time of her portrait, and if you look very closely, you can see the dress skirt has adjustable panels to accommodate a changing body.

photos by me (@edwardian-girl-next-door)

[thedustycat]

"Portrait of Louisa" - 1913 photo from the Boston Art Club. Perhaps a reference photo?

[pardoncaptainkidd]

The Old Gaol - the first ever prison built in Boston is long gone and this columned structure now stands on the site where it once was. This was the place where Captain Kidd was imprisoned in 1699 when he was arrested by Governor Lord Bellamont before he was shipped back to England for his trial. It was a long, miserable winter and it was his last experience in the Americas. He never got to say goodbye to his family. An official plaque is displayed on the building, informing pedestrians that the old jail was once here and that Captain Kidd was held prisoner on this site.

[actiontourguide]

Step into the pages of history with our Boston Freedom Trail & Bunker Hill Monument self-guided walking tours bundle! 🚶🏼‍♀️⚓️🏛️ Uncover the birthplace of the American Revolution and experience the indomitable spirit of freedom.

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