Podcasts by HUB History - Our Favorite Stories from Boston History
Where two history buffs go far beyond the Freedom Trail to share our favorite stories from the history of Boston, the hub of the universe.
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Treasure of the Caribbean: the Legend of Governor’s Gold (episode 123) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Sir William Phips was the first royal governor of Massachusetts under the charter of William and Mary. As governor, he would implement the notorious Court of Oyer and Terminer that led to the exec...
ListenThe Ursuline Convent Riot, revisited (episode 122) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
This week we’re discussing the riots and destruction of Charlestown’s Ursuline convent, which we first covered back in January 2017. This episode touches on themes of xenophobia, anti-immigrant pre...
Listen"The Birth of a Nation" in Boston (episode 121) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
“The Birth of a Nation” was one of the most controversial movies ever made, and when it premiered on February 8, 1915 it almost instantly became the greatest blockbuster of the silent movie era. I...
ListenLewis Latimer, Master Inventor (episode 120) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
African American inventor and draftsman Lewis Latimer’s parents self-emancipated to give their children the opportunities afforded to those born into freedom. A Chelsea native, Latimer’s career too...
ListenApocalypse on Boston Bay (episode 119) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In the years immediately before English Puritans settled on the Shawmut Peninsula, a series of epidemics nearly wiped out the indigenous population of New England. The worst of these plagues was c...
ListenWorst Case Scenarios (episode 118) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
This week’s show revisits three classic episodes about disasters in Boston history. We’ll start with episode 21, which spotlighted the 1897 subway explosion on Tremont Street. Episode 39 discusses ...
ListenDavid Walker's Radical Appeal (episode 117) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
David Walker was one of America’s first radical abolitionists, a free African American man who moved to Boston in 1824 to escape the danger and humiliations of life in the slave states. He became a...
ListenHorace Mann, Education Innovator (episode 116) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Boston has always been a city that valued education, and few people did as much to improve our educational system as Horace Mann. He started from modest means, living out the one-liner in Good Wil...
ListenCrossing the River Charles (episode 115) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
What do you know about the earliest crossings over the Charles River in Boston? When it was founded, the town of Boston occupied the tip of the narrow Shawmut Peninsula, with the harbor on one sid...
ListenSmallpox Remastered (episode 114) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Although Cotton Mather is best known for his role in the Salem Witch Trials, he also pioneered smallpox inoculation in North America. This week, you’ll hear about Boston’s history with smallpox, i...
ListenBoston Standard Time (episode 113) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
With New Year’s Eve comes the ball drop in Times Square at the stroke of midnight. But in the late 1800s, Boston dropped a ball every day to mark the stroke of noon, because telling the time was s...
ListenAbolitionism on Trial (episode 112) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Boston abolitionists rallied in response to the Fugitive Slave Act, ushering in an era of more active resistance that we chronicled in episodes 15-17. This week, we’re spotlighting the role that Th...
ListenWhen Boston Invented Playgrounds (episode 111) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In the late 19th century, a new revolution in play was born in Boston. In an era when urban children had few spaces to play except in the alleys and courtyards around their tenements, and child la...
ListenTrailblazers (episode 110) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
This week we’re digging into our archives to bring you discussions of three Bostonian ladies who forged new paths for women. Katherine Nanny Naylor was granted the first divorce in the Massachusett...
ListenBohemian Boston’s Gay Grampa (episode 109) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Prescott Townsend was a classic Boston Brahmin. He was born into Boston’s elite in 1894, graduated from Harvard, and served in World War I. All signs pointed to a very conventional path through ...
ListenMary Dyer, the Quaker Martyr (episode 108) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Mary Dyer was an early Puritan settler of Boston. Born in England, Mary moved to Boston in 1635 and was soon drawn to the Quaker religion, in part because of the opportunities it afforded women to...
ListenHarvard’s Thanksgiving Day Riot (episode 107) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
When it comes to Boston history, it seems like there’s a riot for every possible season. It’s Thanksgiving season now, so this week we’re going to discuss a riot that took place at Harvard Univers...
ListenMiss Mac, from Wellesley to the WAVES (episode 106) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In honor of Veterans Day, we’re talking about the women who served in World War II in a Navy outfit called the WAVES. Specifically, their commanding officer, Mildred McAfee (later Mildred McAfee H...
ListenThe Girl in Pantaloons (episode 105) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Emma Snodgrass defied the gender roles of the 1850s, getting arrested multiple times in Boston for appearing in public unchaperoned and dressed as a man. Was she a troublemaker looking for thrills...
ListenThe Iron Lung (episode 104) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In 1928, researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital demonstrated a groundbreaking medical advancement – the iron lung. Prior to the arrival of the polio vaccination in 1955, the deadly disease was t...
ListenFounding Martyr (episode 103) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In this week’s show, we are talking about all things Joseph Warren. Author Christopher di Spigna joins us to discuss his book Founding Martyr: The Life and Death of Dr. Joseph Warren, the American ...
ListenJubilee Days (episode 102) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In 1869, an eccentric entrepreneur and musical visionary built one of the largest buildings in 19th Century Boston. It was a concert hall with twice the capacity of the modern TD garden, and it wa...
ListenRiot Classics (episode 101) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
For this week’s show, we’re revisiting three highlights from Boston’s long and storied history of rioting. We’ll include stories from past episodes covering the 1919 Boston police strike, 1747 impr...
ListenThe Occupation of Boston (episode 100) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
250 years ago this week, British troops landed in Boston. Author J.L. Bell joins us to discuss the British government's decision to send troops in an attempt to keep peace after Boston's years of ...
ListenBoston's Wild West (episode 99) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Brighton is one of our westernmost neighborhoods, and it’s often associated with Boston’s large and sometimes unruly student population, but in the mid 19th century, Brighton was home to all the el...
ListenMargaret Sanger, Uncensored (episode 98) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
his week, we’re discussing Margaret Sanger’s thwarted attempt to present a lecture on birth control to the good citizens of Boston in April of 1929. The 1920s were a fairly liberating time for wom...
ListenHunting the King Killers (episode 97) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
This week, we tell a story from very early in Boston’s history, a story partly shrouded in legend. The cast of characters includes everyone from Increase Mather to Nathaniel Hawthorne, encompassin...
ListenSeptember 1918, with Skip Desjardin (episode 96) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
This week, author Skip Desjardin tells us about his new book September 1918: War, Plague, and the World Series. He introduces us to a pivotal month, when world history was being made in Boston and...
ListenPandemic 1918! (episode 95) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
On August 27, 1918 Boston became acquainted with the epidemic that has gone down in history as the “Spanish flu.” A more accurate name for this disease outbreak might be the “Boston flu,” because...
ListenAmelia Earhart in Boston (episode 94) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
You probably know about Amelia Earhart’s famous career as a groundbreaking aviator, and you almost certainly know about her famous disappearance over the Pacific. But you may not know about Amelia...
ListenFolk Magic and Mysteries at the Fairbanks House (episode 93) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In this episode, we're joined by the curator of one of the oldest houses in North America. He'll tell us about evidence that's been uncovered that generations of residents may have believed in an ...
ListenBullets on the Boardwalk (episode 92) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
On August 8, 1920, an epic brawl broke out on Revere Beach when police attempted to arrest a group of four disorderly sailors. In the chaos that followed, 400 sailors attempted to storm the police ...
ListenBoston’s Pickwick Disaster and the Dance of Death (episode 91) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
On the evening of July 3, 1925, Boston’s Pickwick nightclub collapsed while couples packed the dance floor. Dozens were trapped in the rubble, while firefighters, police, and laborers worked despe...
ListenLove that Dirty Water (episode 90) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
For many people, summertime in Boston means canoeing, kayaking, paddle boarding, fishing, and even swimming in the rivers that run through and around our city. To celebrate the season this week we...
ListenBoston's Barons of the Sea (episode 89) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In this week’s episode, we sit down with author Steven Ujifusa to discuss his new book “Barons of the Sea, and their race to build the world’s fastest clipper ship,” which will be out this Tuesday,...
ListenThe Wreck of the Mary O'Hara (episode 88) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In January 1941, the two masted fishing schooner Mary O’Hara collided with a barge in Boston Harbor. At least 18 sailors died in the ice cold waters of Boston Harbor, while they were almost in si...
ListenThe Charles River Esplanade (episode 87) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
This week, over a half a million people from near and far will flock to the banks of the Charles River to celebrate our nation’s Independence Day. Why did Boston decide to create new land dedicate...
ListenImmigration in Boston (episode 86) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In this week's episode, we use three classic episodes to turn the Trump administration's anti-immigrant rhetoric on its head. The President teaches us to be afraid of Central American and Middle E...
ListenWhen Darkness Veiled the Sky (episode 85) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
This week’s show relates three incidents across three centuries when daytime turned to darkness in the skies over Boston. They weren’t solar eclipses. Instead, they were a different natural pheno...
ListenThe Broad Street Riot (episode 84) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The Broad Street Riot of 1837 was one of Boston's many historical melees. This one took place when a company of Yankee firefighters ran into an Irish funeral. Despite our reputation as a coastal ...
ListenWicked Proud (episode 83) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
It's Pride Week in Boston, so we're bringing you the story of Boston's first Pride parade. While most early Pride celebrations were joyous occasions, Boston's 1971 Pride parade was a protest march....
ListenBathing Beauty Baffles Bashful Boston (episode 82) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
We’re taking you to the beach for Memorial Day weekend. 111 years ago, champion swimmer Annette Kellerman was arrested on Revere Beach. Her crime? Appearing in public in a one piece bathing sui...
ListenThe Sacred Cod (episode 81) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Meet the Sacred Cod, a five foot long wooden fish, carved and painted to resemble a cod. The mighty cod holds great prominence in Massachusetts history, as cod fishing was the first industry practi...
ListenPirate Classics (episode 80) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Arrrr, matey! Nikki and I are running a pirate themed relay race on Cape Cod this weekend instead of recording a new episode, so of course we’re going to play three classic pirate stories this wee...
ListenThe Battle of Jamaica Plain (episode 79) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
What started as a simple holdup in a bar in Jamaica Plain in 1908 soon turned into a bloody battle, as a small group of radical anarchists engaged hundreds of Boston Police officers in a series of ...
ListenOrganized Crime Classics (Episode 78) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Boston’s history with gangsters and goons goes far beyond the legacy of Whitey Bulger. This week we’re featuring three stories from our back catalog about very different aspects of organized crime ...
ListenTent City (Episode 77) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
50 years ago this week, residents of one Boston neighborhood carried out an act of civil disobedience, bringing attention to the city’s need for affordable housing. A group of mostly African Ameri...
ListenPaul Revere's Not-So-Famous Rides (Ep76) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In honor of Patriots Day and the anniversary of Paul Revere’s famous ride, we are focusing on some of Paul Revere’s less famous rides this week. When Paul Revere set out to warn the Provincial Cong...
ListenPope's Night, Remastered (Ep75) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
This week, we’re revisiting the bizarre holiday known as Pope’s Night that was celebrated in early Boston. Having evolved out of the British observation of Guy Fawkes Day, Boston took the event to...
ListenOriginal Sin: The Roots of Slavery in Boston (Ep74) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The Boston slave trade began when a ship arrived in the harbor in the summer of 1638 carrying a cargo of enslaved Africans, but there was already a history of slave ownership in the new colony. Af...
ListenThe Great Molasses Flood, Remastered (Ep73) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
This week we’re revisiting Boston’s great Molasses Flood, the subject of one of our earliest podcasts. We’re giving you an update, now that our technology, research, and storytelling skills have i...
ListenRat Day (Ep72) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The Boston Women’s Municipal League was a civic organization made up of mostly middle and upper class women, at a time when most women didn’t work outside the home. In 1915, they declared war on r...
ListenThe Curious Case of Phineas Gage (Ep71) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In 1848, railroad worker Phineas Gage suffered an unusual injury, in which a three foot tamping iron was blown through his skull, making him on of the greatest medical curiosities of all time. We’l...
ListenAstral Weeks: A Secret History of 1968, with Ryan Walsh (Ep70) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
This week, Ryan Walsh joins us to discuss Boston in 1968, the James Brown concert that might have prevented a riot, a cult that took over Roxbury’s Fort Hill, the strange history of LSD in our city...
ListenPicturing the South End, with Lauren Prescott (Ep69) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
We’re joined this week by Lauren Prescott, the executive director of the South End Historical Society and author of a new book simply titled "Boston’s South End." It’s part of Arcadia Publishing’s...
ListenThe Execution that Almost Killed the Death Penalty (Ep68) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In 1848, a murder case nearly brought an end to the death penalty in Massachusetts. When a young black man named Washington Goode was convicted of first degree murder that year, there hadn’t been ...
ListenClassics: Boston Resists the Fugitive Slave Act (Ep67) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
We used our studio time this week to record something special that will air next month. Without a new episode, we didn’t want to leave you without any HUB History this week. Instead, here are three...
ListenCotton Mather REALLY Hated Pirates (Ep66) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
This week, we’re talking about the conflict between Puritans and pirates in the late 1600s and early 1700s. Cotton Mather is remembered for his role in the Salem Witch Trials, but he was the childh...
ListenThe Boston Strangler (Ep65) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
For almost two years in the early 1960s, women in Boston lived in fear of a killer who became known as the Boston Strangler. Thirteen women were killed, and the murders were eventually attributed t...
ListenHarvard Indian College: Promises Broken... and Kept (Ep64) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
There's an oft forgotten clause written into Harvard’s 1650 charter promising to educate the Native American youth of Massachusetts. This week's episode looks at the early, mostly unsuccessful eff...
ListenPuritan UFOs (Ep63) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
What did TV character Fox Mulder have in common with John Winthrop, the Puritan founder of Boston? They both recorded strange lights in the sky and other unexplained phenomena in extensive detail. ...
ListenEp62: Ten Paces, Fire! Boston's Hamiltonian Duel from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Early in the morning of March 31, 1806, two young men of Boston faced each other across a marshy field outside Providence, Rhode Island. With the sun beginning to peek above the horizon, they mark...
ListenEp61: Annexation, Making Boston Bigger for 150 Years from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In the latter half of the nineteenth century, Boston transformed itself from a town on a tiny peninsula to a sprawling city. In part, this was done by creating new land in the Back Bay and South B...
ListenEp60: Holidays on the Harbor (Dec 25, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
If you’ve been listening to the show for a while, you’ll know that the Boston Harbor Islands are one of our favorite local destinations. This week, we’re sharing three stories from the Harbor Isla...
ListenEp59: Corn, Cotton, and Condos, 378 Years on the Mother Brook (Dec 18, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Everyone knows the Charles River and the Neponset River, but have you ever heard of the Mother Brook? It is America’s first industrial canal, built by Puritan settlers in the earliest days of Mass...
ListenEp58: Harvard's Human Computers Reach for the Stars (Dec 11, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
During an era more associated with the Wild West, a group of women in Cambridge made historic advances in the field of astronomy, discovering new stars and fundamental principles about how our univ...
ListenEp57: Boston and Halifax, a Lasting Bond (Dec 4, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
On December 6, 1917, a munitions ship blew up in Halifax Harbor, causing the largest explosion until the atomic bomb was invented. The city was devastated; thousands were killed and injured. Befo...
ListenEp56: Classic Killers (Nov 27, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Last week's episode got us thinking about serial killers in Boston. In this week's show, we're revisiting two classic episodes about Boston's lesser known serial killers. Meet The Nightmare Nurse...
ListenEp55: The Boy Fiend, Boston's Youngest Serial Killer (Nov 20, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Jesse Pomeroy was a Victorian era serial killer who stalked the streets of Boston. He predated Jack the Ripper by a decade, and the Boston Strangler by almost a century. At only 14 years old, he wa...
ListenEp54: The 1747 Boston Impressment Riot (Nov 13, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In 1747, a British Commodore began kidnapping sailors and working men in Boston, and the people of the city wouldn’t stand for it. Three days of violence followed, in a draft riot that pitted the ...
ListenEp53: The Radical Heywoods (Nov 5, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
This week’s show profiles Angela and Ezra Heywood: writers, activists, free-love advocates, suffragists, socialists, labor reformers, and abolitionists who shocked the sensibilities of Victorian Bo...
ListenEp52: Our Year in Review (Oct 30, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
We're celebrating our first "podcastversary" with a look back at our favorite episodes so far, some reflections on podcast production, and our plans for switching things up in the year ahead. Stay...
ListenEp51: Confederates on Boston Harbor (Oct 23, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
During the Civil War, thousands of Confederate soldiers, diplomats, and politicians were imprisoned behind the walls of Fort Warren on Georges Island. Today, the fort is home to the only Confederat...
ListenEp50: The Great Brinks Caper (Oct 16, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The Brinks robbery, an infamous 1950 heist in Boston’s North End, captivated the nation and baffled the FBI. It was the largest robbery in American history up to that time. Show notes: http://HUB...
ListenEp49: The Tong Wars and the Great Chinatown Raid (Oct 9, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
This week's episode takes on the early history of Boston’s Chinatown, two murders that took place there at the turn of the twentieth century, and a terrifying crackdown on Chinese Americans in Bost...
ListenEp48: The X-Ray Man (Oct 2, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
This episode examines the life of Walter Dodd, who started his career as a janitor at Harvard Medical School before becoming a pharmacist, physician, and the Father of American Radiology. Though as...
ListenEp47: This Week in Boston History (Sep 25, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Your humble hosts are out of town and off the air this week. Never fear, Jake is here, and he has this week’s historical anniversaries for your enjoyment. Show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/047
ListenEpisode 46: Aeronauts, Ascents, and the Early History of Ballooning in Boston (Sep 18, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Early Boston aeronauts used balloons to perform scientific experiments, cross the English channel, take the first aerial photographs, and provide public entertainment. Whether by hot air or hydrog...
ListenEp45: The Skin Book (Sep 11, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The Skin Book was written by highwayman George Walton and dedicated to the only man to best him in combat. While he was a prisoner at Charlestown Penitentiary, Walton wrote a memoir. According to...
ListenEp44: Perambulating the Bounds (Sep 4, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Since 1651, Boston has had a legal responsibility to mark and measure its boundaries every few years. Despite advances in technology, the practice of "perambulating the bounds" means that someone ...
ListenEp43: The Case of the Somnambulist (Aug 28, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
When young Albert Tirrell killed his lover Maria Bickford on Beacon Hill, it sparked a scandal that rocked Victorian Boston in the 1840s. It was a tale of seduction, murder, and the unlikeliest of...
ListenEp42: Boston's Total Eclipse of the Podcast from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
While your humble hosts are away chasing the total solar eclipse, enjoy this show about the history of eclipses in Boston. Show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/042 (We're aware of some glitches in t...
ListenEp41: Canoes and Canoodling on the Charles River (Aug 14, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
During a late nineteenth century canoe craze, recreational canoeing became Boston's hottest leisure time activity. Young lovers took advantage of the privacy and intimacy of a canoe to engage in a...
ListenEp40: Banned in Boston! (Aug 7, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Despite our liberal reputation today, for years Boston was a bastion of official censorship. Authors and playwrights whose works were considered obscene had to create a watered-down "Boston version...
ListenEpisode 39: Tragedy at Cocoanut Grove (Jul 31, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
492 people were killed in a 1942 fire at Boston's Cocoanut Grove nightclub that lasted barely a half hour. It was the deadliest disaster in Boston history. Only the smallpox epidemics of the earl...
ListenEpisode 38: The Reign of Charles "King" Solomon (Jul 24, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
This week's show is about Charles “King” Solomon, also known as Boston Charlie, whose criminal enterprise placed him at the head of organized crime in Boston throughout the prohibition era. He rea...
ListenEpisode 37: This Week in Boston History (minisode Jul 17, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Your humble hosts are out having summertime fun this week. Don't worry, though... Jake is flying solo this week, and bringing you this week's historical anniversaries. Show notes: http://HUBhisto...
ListenEpisode 36: Boston in the Golden Age of Piracy, Part 2 (Jul 10, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In this episode, we continue our tale of Boston in the Golden Age of Piracy, picking up at the end of the War of The Spanish Succession. We’ll learn about some of the most fearsome and notorious p...
ListenEpisode 35: The Boston Symphony Orchestra in World War I (Jul 3, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
With a partial "Muslim Ban" in place, it's important to remember that vilifying "enemy aliens" is one of the darkest chapters of our nation's history. A hundred years ago, Americans were all too w...
ListenEpisode 34: Boston in the Golden Age of Piracy, part 1 (Jun 26, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Shiver me timbers! This is the first in a two-part series about Boston’s role in the Golden Age of Piracy, from 1650 to 1726. A few pirates set sail from our city, some preyed on the shipping com...
ListenEpisode 33: The Four Burials of Joseph Warren (June 19, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Dr. Joseph Warren was the greatest Patriot leader you've never heard of. His many accomplishments led the royal governor of Massachusetts, General Thomas Gage, to remark that “The death of Joseph ...
ListenEpisode 32: The Gruesome Tale of the Giggler (June 12, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Everyone knows the story of the Boston Strangler. Fewer people know the tale of The Giggler, Boston’s lesser known serial killer. The victims fit no pattern, they were a young boy and girl, a grown...
ListenEpisode 31: This Week in Boston History (Minisode May 29, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Your humble hosts weren't able to sit down together and record a full episode this week. However, we wouldn't want you to have to go a whole week without hearing from us. So here's a brief look a...
ListenEpisode 30: Resurrection Men, a Brief History of Grave Robbing in Boston (May 22, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Boston, today a city rich with world-class hospitals and medical schools, has a long history of medical innovation. This week, we take a look at the characters who laid the foundation for these ad...
ListenEpisode 29: Wonder Woman's Real Life Origin Story (May 15, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Wonder Woman debuted in a December 1941 issue of All Star Comics, just as the attack on Pearl Harbor was drawing the US into World War II. In the comics, Wonder Woman’s origin story said that she ...
ListenEpisode 28: The 1919 Boston Police Strike (May 8, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
This week, we take an in depth look at the 1919 Boston Police Strike and ensuing riots. In the post-WW1 inflation of the summer of 1919, Boston police officers were earning wages set in 1857. Aro...
ListenEpisode 27: Burned at the Stake (May 1, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Despite what a lot of people think, the victims of the Salem witch trials were hanged, not burned at the stake. However, in the history of Massachusetts, two women were executed by burning them at...
ListenEpisode 26: Isaiah Thomas and the American Oracle of Liberty (Apr 23, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
This week, we’re going to talk about Isaiah Thomas. Not the NBA star, but the colonial printer and founder of the Massachusetts Spy, whose office became known by the British as the Sedition Foundr...
ListenEpisode 25: The Court Martial of Paul Revere (Apr 16, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
This week we celebrate Patriots’ Day, and the anniversary of Paul Revere’s famous ride. It’s easy to forget that Paul Revere’s story didn’t end on April 18, 1775. This week, we bring you a less g...
ListenEpisode 24: The Parkman Murder, Boston's Celebrity Trial of the (19th) Century (Apr 9, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In 1849, Boston was rocked by the crime of the (19th) century when Professor John Webster murdered Dr. George Parkman in his lab at Harvard Medical School. The world was riveted by the investigatio...
ListenEpisode 23: The Groundbreaking Grimke Sisters (Apr 2, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In March 1870, forty-two women marched into their polling place in Hyde Park and illegally cast ballots in the local election. They were led by local residents and radical activists Sarah and Ange...
ListenEpisode 22: Brooke Barbier, author of Boston in the American Revolution (Mar 26, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
This week's episode features a conversation with Brooke Barbier, founder of Ye Olde Tavern Tours and author of the new book Boston in the American Revolution: A Town Versus an Empire. We talk abou...
ListenEpisode 21.1: The Tremont Street Subway Explosion (Mar 19, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
On March 4, 1897, a giant explosion rocked the corner of Tremont Street and Boylston across from Boston Common. Ten people were killed, and dozens were injured. How did construction of America’s ...
ListenEpisode 20: John Hancock's Private Army (Mar 12, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
When British General Thomas Gage arrived in Boston in 1774, he was met on Long Wharf by the patriot leader John Hancock at the head of an armed militia unit... But not for the reason you think. Si...
ListenEpisode 19: A Tale of Two Hermits (Mar 5, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
This week's episode examines two people who chose to live as hermits in and around Boston. When you think of a hermit, your mental image is probably a monk or an aging eccentric in a cabin in the ...
ListenEpisode 18: Dr. Rebecca Crumpler's Trailblazing Career (Feb 26, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
This week, we’re going to talk about a woman who studied medicine at a time when very few women could access higher education at all, and an African American who became a physician at a time when h...
ListenEpisode 17: Vikings on the Charles River (minisode Feb 19, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Your hosts Nikki and Jake are away this week, but through the magic of podcasting, we’re still able to bring you this mini-sode. Since we’re exploring Iceland, land of the Vikings, it only makes s...
ListenEpisode 16: Our Temple of Justice is a Slave Pen! (Feb 12, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
This week, we’re going to wrap up our series on the Fugitive Slave Act, and the efforts of black and white abolitionists in Boston to resist what they saw as an unjust law. In last week’s show, we...
ListenEpisode 15: Resist! Shadrach Minkins and the Fugitive Slave Act (Feb 5, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
With our new President doing his best to enforce unjust executive orders, we thought this would be a good moment to revisit an era in which Boston resisted an unjust law. After Congress passed the...
ListenEpisode 14: Go in Peace, or Go in Pieces! (Jan 29, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Lewis Hayden was born into slavery in Kentucky. When he was ten years old, his owner traded him to a traveling salesman for a pair of horses. But Hayden and his family eventually escaped to freed...
ListenEpisode 13: Katherine Nanny Naylor, Boston's Original Nasty Woman (Jan 22, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Boston in the 1600s was a theocracy, where the Puritan church ruled, and women were seen in many ways as the property of their husbands or fathers. Against that backdrop, a woman named Katherine N...
ListenEpisode 12: The Tragedy of Sacco and Vanzetti (Jan 15, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Welcome to part two of our inauguration special. On August 22, 1927, Bartolomeo Sacco and Nicola Vanzetti were executed in the electric chair at Boston's Charlestown State Prison. They were foreig...
ListenEpisode 11: The Ursuline Convent Riots (Jan 8, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Welcome to part one of our inauguration special. On a hot summer’s night in 1834, rumors swirled around a Catholic girls’ school in Charlestown. Catholicism was a frightening, unfamiliar religion...
ListenEpisode 10: The Grisly Fairbanks Murder (Jan 1, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In August of 1801, a young man named Jason Fairbanks showed up on his sweetheart's doorstep. He was covered in blood, and telling the story of a suicide pact gone wrong. This tale of a rich kid g...
ListenEpisode 9: The Zoo Shipwreck (Dec 25, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
There is a long history of shipwrecks in Boston Harbor. Many are terrifying, some are tragic. But one shipwreck is such an oddity that Boston hasn't stopped talking about it for the past 75 years...
ListenEpisode 8: The Holiday Minisode (Dec 18, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Life got in the way this week, and we didn't have a chance to prepare a full episode. We're going to do a miniature episode (minisode!), on this week’s historical anniversaries, with a quick discus...
ListenEpisode 7: Jane Toppan, Nightmare Nurse (Dec 11, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In 1901, a woman named Jane Toppan was arrested on Cape Cod for murder. By the time she went on trial, she had confessed to killing 31 people in Boston, Cambridge, on the Cape, and around the regio...
ListenEpisode 6: The First Boston Revolution (Dec 4, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Early one April morning, Boston rose up in revolt, overthrowing the widely hated royal governor. A provincial militia surrounded the city, while the Royal Navy backed British authorities. But thi...
ListenEpisode 5: Secret Nazis on Boston Harbor (Nov 27, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
At the end of World War II, the Allied powers raced across Germany, competing to capture technology related to Nazi super-weapons and the scientists who developed them. The US military operated a ...
ListenEpisode 4: The Thanksgiving minisode (Nov 20, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Happy Thanksgiving everybody! This week, we’re doing a mini-sode (miniature episode, get it?) on this week’s historical anniversaries, with a quick discussion of Boston’s first Thanksgiving. Enjo...
ListenEpisode 3: Slower than molasses (Nov 13, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
When an industrial tank collapsed in Boston’s North End in 1919, a wave of molasses destroyed the surrounding neighborhood. 21 people were killed and at least 150 were injured, along with an untol...
ListenEpisode 2: How Cotton Mather saved Boston (Nov 6, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
When smallpox threatened Boston in 1721, Cotton Mather was a leading advocate of inoculation. How did this influential Puritan, best known for his role in the Salem witch trials, become an advocat...
ListenEpisode 1: Remember remember the fifth of November (Oct 30, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
How did early Boston “celebrate” on November 5th each year? By drinking, brawling, and burning effigies of the Pope, of course. That story, and all the important historic anniversaries for Octobe...
ListenEpisode 0: Welcome to HUB History! from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Welcome to HUB History! We can't wait to share our favorite stories from Boston's long history. The first episode will air on October 30. In the meantime, visit http://HUBhistory.com/ to subscribe.
ListenGhost Stories (episode 208) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In honor of Halloween, I’m going to be sharing eight of my favorite Boston ghost stories this week. From haunted houses and inexplicable premonitions recorded by Cotton and Increase Mather in the ...
ListenFourth Anniversary Bonus Episode from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
This week marks the fourth anniversary of HUB History. Listen to this brief bonus track to learn how the show has changed in the past four years, what our most popular episodes have been, and wher...
ListenLaunching the USS Constitution (episode 207) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The USS Constitution is the most famous ship in Boston history, and perhaps in the history of the US Navy. When the Navy was reborn in 1794, the Constitution was among the first fleet of frigates ...
ListenJoseph Chapman, from Boston to L.A. (episode 206) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Your humble host really misses travel, so this week’s episode is inspired by travel, both historic travel and my own. In the early 19th century, a Boston shipwright’s apprentice went to sea with a...
ListenMatthew Dickey: Saving History with the Boston Preservation Alliance (episode 205) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
This week, Jake sits down with Matthew Dickey, the Communications and Operations Manager at the Boston Preservation Alliance to discuss the organization’s important work in saving the historic natu...
ListenPeace in Boston After the Civil War (episode 204) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Since last week’s show was about Boston’s 1851 Railroad Jubilee, which was an enormous celebration at a time when the nation was in the midst of a rush toward civil war, it seemed appropriate to di...
ListenBoston’s Railroad Jubilee (episode 203) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In September 1851, Boston threw an enormous party, a party big enough to span three days. After 15 years of development, the railroad network centered on Boston stretched out in every direction, l...
ListenBoston Transportation Firsts (episode 202) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Co-host emerita Nikki and I are camping this weekend, so instead of a brand new episode, we’re giving you three classic stories about advances in transportation in Boston. First up, we’re going to ...
ListenThe World Fliers in Boston (episode 201) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The early 20th century was a time of aviation firsts, and one of those firsts dropped into Boston for three long, exciting days in 1924. Five months after they started their journey in California,...
ListenDr. Rebecca Crumpler, Forgotten No Longer (episode 200) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Dr. Rebecca Davis Lee Crumpler was the first Black woman to earn a medical degree in the US in 1864, and she spent most of her adult life in Charlestown, Beacon Hill, and the Readville section of H...
ListenThe Clipper Ships of East Boston (episode 199) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Kick back and enjoy our interview with Stephen Ujifusa, author of Barons of the Sea, and Their Race to Build the World’s Fastest Clipper Ship, which originally aired in July 2018. Stephen takes us...
ListenWhen the US Army Invaded South Boston (episode 198) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In the 1940s, Boston was still an industrial city, and when the US entered World War II, that industrial might would be turned to wartime production. With industry comes labor disputes, and a new g...
ListenThe Grand Derangement (episode 197) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
One morning in August, redcoats fanned out across the province, taking entire families into custody, burning farms and crops, and killing livestock. Falling in the middle of two centuries of inter...
ListenThe Gold Gilded Grasshopper (episode 196) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Faneuil Hall’s grasshopper weathervane is 4 feet long, weighs about 80 pounds, and is made out of copper that’s been covered with 23 carat gold. It’s found at the top of an 8 foot spire above Faneu...
ListenBoston Goes to Bleeding Kansas (episode 195) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Bloody Kansas was a deadly guerrilla war between so-called Border Ruffians from Missouri in support of slavery on one side, and earnest abolitionists from New England on the other. The violence pe...
ListenThe Prisoners of Peddocks Island (episode 194) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
You may have heard stories about the Confederate prisoners who were held at Fort Warren on Georges Island during the civil war. In this episode, we’ll explore a different island that housed prison...
ListenPrescott Townsend, From the First World War to the First Pride Parade, with Megan Linger (episode 193) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Prescott Townsend was one of the most interesting figures in Boston’s LGBTQ history. He was the ultimate Boston Brahmin, coming of age at Harvard in the shadow of Teddy Roosevelt and enlisting in ...
ListenA People’s Guide to Greater Boston, with Joseph Nevins and Suren Moodliar (episode 192) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
A People’s Guide to Greater Boston is a new kind of guidebook to Boston and surrounding towns. Instead of giving an overview of the Freedom Trail and introducing readers to the hot restaurants and...
ListenPamphlets, Statues, and the Selling of Joseph (episode 191) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In June 1700, a brief pamphlet titled The Selling of Joseph was published in Boston. It’s considered the first abolitionist tract to be published in what’s now the United States. Authored by Sale...
ListenLike a Trump of Coming Judgement (episode 190) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
This week, we’re revisiting a classic episode about the radical Black abolitionist David Walker. Walker was a transplant to Boston, moving here after possibly being involved in Denmark Vesey’s pla...
ListenThe Gamblers’ Riot (episode 189) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
For almost 400 years now, Boston has never needed much prompting to start a riot. There have been anti-Catholic riots, anti-immigrant riots, anti-Catholic immigrant riots, anti-draft riots, pro-dr...
ListenDissection Denied (episode 188) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Levi Ames was a notorious thief who plagued the Boston area in the years just before the Revolutionary War began. He stole everything from shirts to silver plate, crisscrossing New England, until ...
ListenMarathon Man, with Bill Rodgers (episode 187) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
HUB History loves the Boston Marathon almost as much as we love Boston history. Patriots Day is one of Nikki’s favorite days of the year, and Jake has run Boston for charity. Just days before the B...
ListenWhale Watching on Washington Street (episode 185) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In the 1860s, Bostonians could pay 20 cents and watch a captive whale swim in a custom built aquarium on Washington Street in Boston’s Downtown Crossing. Today, there’s no sea world near Boston, a...
ListenHenry Knox’s Noble Train, with William Hazelgrove (episode 184) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Henry Knox commanded the Continental Army’s artillery, founded the academy that became West Point, and went on to become the first Secretary of War for the new United States. Before any of that, t...
ListenBlack Radical: The Life and Times of William Monroe Trotter, with Kerri Greenidge (episode 183) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
From his Harvard graduation in 1895 to his death in 1934, William Monroe Trotter was one of the most influential and uncompromising advocates for the rights of Black Americans. He was a leader who...
ListenUnequal Justice in Boston (episode 182) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
This week we’re revisiting two classic episodes to highlight injustice in how the death penalty has been applied in our city’s history. First, we’re going to visit early Boston, in a time when exe...
ListenThe Bloody Flux of 1775, with Judy Cataldo (episode 181) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In the late summer of 1775, a terrible epidemic struck Boston, and much of New England. As the Revolutionary War heated up, and the siege of Boston reached its peak, both armies faced an invisible...
ListenGhosts and Shadows of Automobile Row, with Ken Liss (episode 180) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In the early 20th century, car dealerships, tire companies, parts distributors, and other related businesses lined a section of Commonwealth Avenue in Allston that was known as Automobile Row, a so...
ListenDr. Thomas Young, the Forgotten Revolutionary, with Scott Nadler (episode 179) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Doctor Thomas Young was a native of New York’s Hudson Valley who seemed to be present at all of Boston’s revolutionary events, from the creation of the committee of correspondence, to the Boston Ma...
ListenPuritan Countermagic Revisited from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Built in 1637, the Fairbanks House in Dedham is the oldest building in Massachusetts and the oldest wood-framed building in North America. It was occupied by the members of the Fairbanks family for...
ListenThe Deleterious Effects of Marsh Miasmata (episode 177) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Instead of profiling a historic Bostonian or bringing you a dramatic story, let’s read a letter together. This brief letter gives an account of a strange and frightening occurrence on Boston’s Long...
ListenEpidemics and Public Health in Boston (episode 176) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I had planned an episode on a different topic for this week, but in light of our current COVID-19 state of emergency, I decided to share some classic clips about Boston’s experiences with epidemics...
ListenThe Missing Passengers of Flight 30 (episode 175) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
World Airways flight 30 landed at Logan Airport on January 23, 1982, in the middle of an ice storm. The plane touched down late on a slippery runway, sliding into Boston Harbor and breaking in half...
ListenRemembering the Boston Massacre, with Nat Sheidley (episode 174) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
March 5th marks the 250th anniversary of the Boston Massacre, when a party of British soldiers fired into a crowd of civilians, killing five. It was a terrible personal tragedy in a small town of 1...
ListenThe Last Women Jailed for Suffrage (episode 173) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
On February 24, 1919, President Woodrow Wilson visited Boston on his way home from the peace conference that ended World War I, expecting to find adoring supporters. Instead, he was greeted by mem...
ListenThe Red Scare in Park Square (episode 172) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Draft riots are nothing new in Boston. A 1970 protest at Northeastern University over the draft and the Vietnam War devolved into a riot. In 1863, the North End was torn by a draft riot that ended ...
ListenLittle Women in Boston (episode 171) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
You don’t grow up to walk two steps behind your husband when you’ve met Jo March. The same could be said of Louisa May Alcott, in which case you may not take a husband at all, choosing instead to p...
ListenThe Millen Gang Machine Gun Murders (episode 170) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
86 years ago today, on February 2, 1934, the first murders were committed in Massachusetts using a fully automatic weapon. Sadly, the victims were the first police officers to be killed in the lin...
ListenTrunk Tragedy in the City of Shoes (episode 169) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In February 1879, Jennie Clarke’s body was found jammed into a leather trunk on the bank of the Saugus river on her 20th birthday. Every detail of the case reveals yet another tragedy in the life o...
ListenMassachusetts in the Woman Suffrage Movement, with Barbara Berenson (episode 168) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Author Barbara F. Berenson joins us this week to discuss her book Massachusetts in the Woman Suffrage Movement: Revolutionary Reformers. She’s also the author of Boston in the Civil War: Hub of th...
ListenThe Hub of the Gay Universe, with Russ Lopez (episode 167) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Dr. Russ Lopez joins us this week to discuss his recent book, The Hub of the Gay Universe: An LGBTQ History of Boston, Provincetown, and Beyond. Russ called in from a vacation in California to tal...
ListenJohn Brown’s Body (episode 166) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The most popular song of the Union Army during the Civil War was inspired by the most hated man in America, it borrowed the tune from an old church hymn, and it was first sung right here in the Bos...
ListenThe 1689 Uprising in Boston, revisited (episode 165) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Early one April morning, the people of Boston rose up in revolt against the royal government of Massachusetts. Militia marched in the streets, while an alarm brought more armed men from towns all ...
ListenClassic Tales from Early Boston (episode 164) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In lieu of a brand new story, this week we are sharing two classic tales from the earliest years of Puritan Boston. One of them might be considered comedy, while the other is high drama. First, we...
ListenBoston's Favorite Fighting Frenchman (episode 163) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
At just 19 years old, Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette joined our American Revolution. Commissioned as a Major General in 1777, he served with distinction as an aggressive combat comman...
ListenSeparate but Equal in Boston (episode 162) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled on Roberts v Boston 170 years ago this month. When five year old Sarah Roberts was turned away from the schoolhouse door in Boston simply because ...
ListenBoston in the Time of Cholera (episode 161) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Cholera is a truly horrifying disease, with severe diarrhea causing death through dehydration, while the patient remains awake and in agony. The disease is carried by fecal bacteria, so it’s virtu...
ListenOver the River and Through the Wood (episode 160) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
We know the song “Over the River and Through the Wood” as a Christmas carol, but it was originally titled “The New England Boy’s Song about Thanksgiving Day.” Despite the song’s quaint themes of tr...
ListenFannie Farmer's Cookbook (episode 159) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Just in time for your fantasies about the perfect Thanksgiving meal, we’re going to introduce you to Boston’s matriarch of modern cooking this week. You probably thought that Julia Child was Greate...
ListenHarvard Harnesses the Heavens (episode 158) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Since we “fell back” to Standard Time this past weekend, Boston has been forced to adjust to 4:30 sunsets. To help us understand why the sun sets so early in Boston in the winter and what we could...
ListenGirl in Black and White: the Story of Mary Mildred Williams and the Abolition Movement, with Jessie Morgan-Owens (episode 157) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
We’re joined this week by Dr. Jessie Morgan-Owens, who called from New Orleans to discuss her book Girl in Black and White: The Story of Mary Mildred Williams and the Abolition Movement. Mary was b...
ListenThe Atlas of Boston History, with Nancy Seasholes (episode 156) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
We’re joined this week by Nancy Seasholes, editor of the new book The Atlas of Boston History, which just came out on Thursday. It’s a historic atlas of Boston that covers the period from the last...
ListenThe City State of Boston: The Rise and Fall of an Atlantic Power, 1630-1865, with Mark Peterson (episode 155) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
We’re joined this week by Yale history professor Mark Peterson to talk about his new book The City State of Boston: The Rise and Fall of an Atlantic Power, 1630-1865. In the interview, Professor P...
ListenRace Over Party: Black Politics and Partisanship in Late Nineteenth-Century Boston, with Millington Bergeson-Lockwood (episode 154) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Historian Millington Bergeson-Lockwood, author of Race Over Party: Black Politics and Partisanship in Late Nineteenth-Century Boston, joins us this week to talk about the evolution of partisanship ...
ListenThe Snow Hurricane (episode 153) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Before the Bomb Cyclone, before Superstorm Sandy, a historically severe storm hit Boston in 1804. Meteorologists say that the tropical cyclone would be counted as a category 2 hurricane today, wit...
ListenWomen and Witchcraft (episode 152) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Between 1648 and 1688, four women were executed for witchcraft in Boston and Dorchester. Witchcraft can be loosely defined as the act of invoking evil spirits or consulting, covenanting with, enter...
ListenThe Birth of Historic Preservation in Boston (episode 151) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
From the mid-19th century through the nation’s centennial in 1876, some of Boston’s most important historic sites and attractions were destroyed or nearly so. Starting with the Beacon Hill home of...
ListenWomen’s Groups Remaking Boston (episode 150) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
This week’s show dusts off two classic stories about times in Boston history when women’s volunteer organizations had a big impact on Boston. First, we’ll talk about the Massachusetts Emergency an...
ListenBoston’s Rock n Roll Riots (episode 149) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Boston has never needed much of an excuse to riot. Over almost four centuries, we’ve had political riots, racist and xenophobic riots, and plenty riots that seem to be about nothing at all. Of al...
ListenMayor Curley’s Plan to Ban the Klan (episode 148) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In the early 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan expanded into New England and tried to make Boston a capital of their invisible empire. However, their deep hatred for Catholics and Jews, as well as their pro...
ListenThe Dread Pirate Rachel (episode 147) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
History records that Rachel Wall was the last woman to be hanged in Massachusetts, and legend remembers her as the only woman pirate from Boston. Her highly publicized trial took place as America ...
ListenNo other answer but from the mouth of his cannon (episode 146) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Boston and Quebec City share a deeply intertwined history that goes back to the earliest days of English settlement in North America. Puritan Boston could hardly stand the idea that their closest ...
ListenBoston’s Dark Days and Eclipses (episode 145) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The brilliant sunsets and dramatic weather reports inspired by smoke drifting into our area from Canadian wildfires last month got me thinking about two past HUB History shows. There have been at ...
ListenAeroplane Fever (episode 144) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Sky Jockeys, Knights of the Air, and Man-Birds were just a few of the terms that newspapers around the country used to describe the early aviators who converged on Boston in September 1910. The fi...
ListenThe Secret Tunnels of Boston’s North End (episode 143) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
If you’ve ever taken a walking tour of Boston’s North End, or if you’ve talked to the old timers in the neighborhood, you’ve probably heard stories about the network of so-called secret pirate tunn...
ListenThe Cessna Strafer (episode 142) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
This week, our show brings you the story of what might be the only example of someone “going postal” in the air. We’re discussing a bizarre 1989 incident involving a North Shore man, a veteran an...
ListenAnnexation and Perambulation (episode 141) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
This week’s show revisits two classic HUB History episodes that are all about the boundaries of the city of Boston. First, we’ll go back to a show that originally aired last January to learn why i...
ListenFifteen Blocks of Rage (episode 140) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
For decades, a 1967 riot that rocked Roxbury’s Grove Hall neighborhood was generally referred to in the mainstream media as a "race riot" or as "the welfare riot," while a handful of articles and b...
ListenFounding the Boston Symphony Orchestra (episode 139) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Boston has long been known as the Hub of the Universe, but it’s also a hub of world class arts institutions. One of those institutions is the Boston Symphony Orchestra. This week, we’re looking at...
ListenHooker Day in Boston (episode 138) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Hooker Day was a one-time holiday celebrated in Boston in 1903. While it might sound like this is going to be an X-rated podcast, we’re not talking about that kind of hooker. Civil War General Jo...
ListenED Leavitt, Fresh Water, and Steam Power (episode 137) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
For centuries before the Quabbin reservoir opened, Boston struggled to provide enough clean, fresh water for its growing population. One of the solutions to this problem was a new reservoir built ...
ListenBoston Marriages in Literature and Life (episode 136) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
A new form of relationship arose between 19th century women, which had all the emotional trappings of romantic love, but was long considered to be merely an intense form of friendship. More recent...
ListenThe Underground Railroad on Boston Harbor (episode 135) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In the 19th century, a network of abolitionists and sympathizers in Boston helped enslaved African Americans find their way to freedom in the Northern states or Canada. It’s a topic we’ve talked a...
ListenLove is Love: John Adams and Marriage Equality (episode 134) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
15 years ago, the landmark case Goodridge v. Department of Public Health granted marriage rights to same-sex couples in Massachusetts. The November 18, 2003, decision was the first by a U.S. state...
ListenA Genuine, Bonafide, Non-Electrified Monorail! (episode 133) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
You may think taking the T is painful today, but back in the days of horsedrawn streetcars, public transportation was slow, inefficient, and frequently snarled in downtown traffic. In the 1880s, p...
ListenTaking Louisbourg, the Gibraltar of North America (episode 132) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
This week’s show is about the namesake of the famous Louisbourg Square on Beacon Hill, an astonishing 1745 military victory won by a Massachusetts volunteer army made up of farmers, seamen, and mer...
ListenLove Behind Enemy Lines (episode 131) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
We’re trying something new this week by bringing in a guest for our upcoming historical event segment. Clara Silverstein from Historic Newton tells us about their “Crossing Borders” series. Stick...
ListenHarnessing the Power of Boston's Tides (episode 130) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
This week, we interview Earl Taylor, president of the Dorchester Historical Society and one of the founders of the Tide Mill Institute. He tells us how early Bostonians harnessed the power of the ...
ListenThe Miracle of Ether (episode 129) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Among the many medical breakthroughs that are attributed to Boston, surgical anesthesia is among the most impactful. It’s hard to overstate the importance in medical history of ether for the treat...
ListenLincoln and Booth and Boston (episode 128) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
This episode is being released on April 14, 2019, which means that Abraham Lincoln was shot 154 years ago today. That’s why we’re talking about the links between the Lincoln assassination and the ...
ListenMarathon Women (episode 127) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The Boston Marathon was first run in April of 1897, after Bostonians were inspired by the revival of the marathon for the 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens. It is the oldest continuously running marat...
ListenThe Museum Heist (episode 126) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
It’s probably a familiar tale… Late at night, after the museum is closed, a man talks the guard into unlocking the door. Once inside, he pulls out a gun, and within seconds, the guard is tied up a...
ListenThe Little Glass Treasure House (episode 125) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Artist and author Julia Glatfelter joins us this week to discuss her upcoming children’s book The Little Glass Treasure House. The Children’s Art Centre was incorporated in 1914 under the direction...
ListenBPL Bonus Episode: Grand Peace Jubilee from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
https://www.associatesbpl.org/events-and-programs/pierce/ Join us at the Boston Public Library to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Grand National Peace Jubilee held in Copley Square in 1869....
ListenWeird Neighborhood History (episode 124) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Instead of writing and recording a new episode, your humble hosts are going to History Camp this weekend. We’ll leave you with two stories about Boston’s weird neighborhood history from our back c...
ListenEpisode 0: Welcome to HUB History! from 2016-10-18T01:06:17
Welcome to HUB History! We can't wait to share our favorite stories from Boston's long history. The first episode will air on October 30. In the meantime, visit http://HUBhistory.com/ to subscribe.
ListenEpisode 0: Welcome to HUB History! from 2016-10-18T01:06:17
Welcome to HUB History! We can't wait to share our favorite stories from Boston's long history. The first episode will air on October 30. In the meantime, visit http://HUBhistory.com/ to subscribe.
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