The Atlas of Boston History, with Nancy Seasholes (episode 156)

10/27/19 • 47 min

HUB History - Our Favorite Stories from Boston History

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 ice age, right up to the present day. It contains essays contributed by a wide range of well regarded local historians, as well as many written by Seasholes herself. However, what sets this book apart is its beauty. As the name Atlas indicates, it is richly illustrated with maps, charts, diagrams, infographics, historical photos, paintings, and more. It’s a book that I will use as a reference far into the future, and one that any of my fellow Boston history nerds will love.

Please check out the full show notes at: http://HUBhistory.com/156/

And support the show on Patreon.

The Atlas of Boston History

Nancy Seasholes is a historian and a historical archaeologist. She’s the past author of Walking Tours of Boston’s Made Land and Gaining Ground: a History of Landmaking in Boston, which is a favorite reference for your humble hosts. Since the book has such a heavy emphasis on visual elements, you may want to follow along at the Atlas of Boston History website as you listen to our conversation this week. It includes sample pages from each of the book’s eleven sections, giving you a much better idea of why I’m so enthusiastic about this beautiful book.

Make sure to catch Nancy’s upcoming local appearances:

If you’re still on the fence, here’s how the publisher describes the Atlas:

Few American cities possess a history as long, rich, and fascinating as Boston’s. A site of momentous national political events from the Revolutionary War through the civil rights movement, Boston has also been an influential literary and cultural capital. From ancient glaciers to landmaking schemes and modern infrastructure projects, the city’s terrain has been transformed almost constantly over the centuries. The Atlas of Boston History traces the city’s history and geography from the last ice age to the present with beautifully rendered maps.

Edited by historian Nancy S. Seasholes, this landmark volume captures all aspects of Boston’s past in a series of fifty-seven stunning full-color spreads. Each section features newly created thematic maps that focus on moments and topics in that history. These maps are accompanied by hundreds of historical and contemporary illustrations and explanatory text from historians and other expert contributors. They illuminate a wide range of topics including Boston’s physical and economic development, changing demography, and social and cultural life. In lavishly produced detail, The Atlas of Boston History offers a vivid, refreshing perspective on the development of this iconic American city.

Upcoming Historical Event(s)

Douglas Egerton will give a lunchtime talk at the Boston Athenaeum on November 8, titled “Heirs of an Honored Name: the Decline of the Adams Family and the Rise of Modern America.” Anyone who’s been listening to our show for a while will realize that I’m a big admirer of the Adams family. I often use the letters of John and Abigail Adams as primary sources, we quoted passages from the letters and diaries of John Quincy in our show about early Charles River bridges, and we’ve even outlined how two of John Quincy’s brothers were involved in a riot at Harvard. John Quincy Adams’ son (and John Adams’ grandson) Charles Francis Adams was a respected historian in his own right, whom we’ve quoted in our episode about the epidemics that decimated Boston’s Native American population.

After those three generations, however, Professor Egerton would argue that the Adams family in America entered an irreversible decline, always living in the shadow of its famous past. Here’s how the Athenaeum describes his talk:

John and Abigail Adams founded a famous political family, but they would not witness its calamitous fall from grace. When John Quincy Adams died in 1848, so began the slow decline of the family’s political legacy. In Heirs of an Honored Name, award-winning historian Douglas R. Egerton depicts a family grown famous, wealthy, but...

Please check out the full show notes at: http://HUBhistory.com/156/

And support the show on Patreon.

The Atlas of Boston History

Make sure to catch Nancy’s upcoming local appearances:

If you’re still on the fence, here’s how the publisher describes the Atlas:

Upcoming Historical Event(s)

Previous Episode

The City State of Boston: The Rise and Fall of an Atlantic Power, 1630-1865, with Mark Peterson (episode 155)

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 Peterson will tell us why he believes that, from its settlement a century and a half before the US Constitutional government was founded until the end of the US Civil War, Boston had a political, economic, and social identity completely independent from the rest of what is now the United States. He’ll also tell us surprising stories about money in early Boston, a French-born British army officer who embodied Boston’s relationship with Acadia, and what it meant for Boston to be a slave society where the enslaved people were kept out of sight.

Please check out the full show notes at: http://HUBhistory.com/155/

And support the show on Patreon.

The Atlas of Boston History

Professor Mark Peterson will be appearing at the Charles River Museum of Industry in Waltham on November 13. Make sure to catch him there.

Here’s how the publisher describes the book:

In the vaunted annals of America’s founding, Boston has long been held up as an exemplary “city upon a hill” and the “cradle of liberty” for an independent United States. Wresting this iconic urban center from these misleading, tired clichés, The City-State of Boston highlights Boston’s overlooked past as an autonomous city-state, and in doing so, offers a pathbreaking and brilliant new history of early America. Following Boston’s development over three centuries, Mark Peterson discusses how this self-governing Atlantic trading center began as a refuge from Britain’s Stuart monarchs and how—through its bargain with slavery and ratification of the Constitution—it would tragically lose integrity and autonomy as it became incorporated into the greater United States.

Drawing from vast archives, and featuring unfamiliar figures alongside well-known ones, such as John Winthrop, Cotton Mather, and John Adams, Peterson explores Boston’s origins in sixteenth-century utopian ideals, its founding and expansion into the hinterland of New England, and the growth of its distinctive political economy, with ties to the West Indies and southern Europe. By the 1700s, Boston was at full strength, with wide Atlantic trading circuits and cultural ties, both within and beyond Britain’s empire. After the cataclysmic Revolutionary War, “Bostoners” aimed to negotiate a relationship with the American confederation, but through the next century, the new United States unraveled Boston’s regional reign. The fateful decision to ratify the Constitution undercut its power, as Southern planters and slave owners dominated national politics and corroded the city-state’s vision of a common good for all.

Peeling away the layers of myth surrounding a revered city, The City-State of Boston offers a startlingly fresh understanding of America’s history.

Here are some related past episodes

Professor Peterson talked about Sir William Phips and the attack on Quebec, as well as his treasure hunt.
The book concludes not long after Boston’s renditions of escaped slaves back into bondage.
We discussed radical abolitionist David Walker.
Professor Peterson’s book discusses the attack on Louisbourg.
We talked about the execution of King Charles I, after which two of his regicides escaped to Boston.
We briefly mention the 1789 Boston Revolt, which was the local expression of the Glorious Revolution.
Professor Peterson describes Boston’s slave economy.

Upcoming Event(s)

On October 30, the Massachusetts Historical Society will be hosting a Halloween-themed lunchtime talk. The 2015 movie ...

Next Episode

Girl in Black and White: the Story of Mary Mildred Williams and the Abolition Movement, with Jessie Morgan-Owens (episode 157)

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 born into slavery in Virginia, the child of an enslaved mother and father. Through the remarkable efforts of her father, the entire family was emancipated when Mary was 7 years old. Shortly thereafter, Mary caught the eye of Senator Charles Sumner. Her complexion was light enough for her to pass as white, making her a powerful political symbol for the abolitionist cause. The books details her life and deep ties to the Boston area.

Please check out the full show notes at: http://HUBhistory.com/157/

And support the show on Patreon.

Girl in Black and White

Dr Jessie Morgan-Owens is a professional photographer and dean of Bard Early College in New Orleans. After stumbling across a mention of the famous daguerreotype of Mary Mildred Williams while doing unrelated research in 2006, she spent over 12 years researching Mary’s life and family. The result, Girl in Black and White, attempts to reconstruct the actual life of a little girl who was used by abolitionists for her symbolic value.

If you still need more convincing, here’s how the publisher describes the book:

When a decades-long court battle resulted in her family’s freedom in 1855, seven-year-old Mary Mildred Williams unexpectedly became the face of American slavery. Famous abolitionists Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Henry David Thoreau, and John Albion Andrew would help Mary and her family in freedom, but Senator Charles Sumner saw a monumental political opportunity. Due to generations of sexual violence, Mary’s skin was so light that she “passed” as white, and this fact would make her the key to his white audience’s sympathy. During his sold-out abolitionist lecture series, Sumner paraded Mary in front of rapt audiences as evidence that slavery was not bounded by race.

Weaving together long-overlooked primary sources and arresting images, including the daguerreotype that turned Mary into the poster child of a movement, Jessie Morgan-Owens investigates tangled generations of sexual enslavement and the fraught politics that led Mary to Sumner. She follows Mary’s story through the lives of her determined mother and grandmother to her own adulthood, parallel to the story of the antislavery movement and the eventual signing of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Girl in Black and White restores Mary to her rightful place in history and uncovers a dramatic narrative of travels along the Underground Railroad, relationships tested by oppression, and the struggles of life after emancipation. The result is an exposé of the thorny racial politics of the abolitionist movement and the pervasive colorism that dictated where white sympathy lay—one that sheds light on a shameful legacy that still affects us profoundly today.

During the episode, we talked with Jessie about an exhibit at Boston’s Museum of African American History that tried to highlight how Frederick Douglass used photography and his own likeness to white opinion about African American Men. While we were there, we bought a book called Picturing Frederick Douglass, which you might want to check out, in order to contrast his experience with that of Mary Williams.

Upcoming Event

For our upcoming event this week, we’re featuring a lecture in the Old North Speaker Series:

Vaccination Controversies Then and Now: Boston in 1721 and 1901. The lecture will be delivered by David Jones, a Professor of the Culture of Medicine at Harvard, and then followed by a community discussion facilitated by Tegan Kehoe, whom we had the pleasure to meet at History Camp. Here’s how they describe the event:

Immunization is one of the oldest and most effective medical technologies now in use. However, immunization has sparked fierce controversy throughout its history and remains controversial today. This talk will explore the public protests in Boston triggered by the inoculation against smallpox in 1721 and by compulsory vaccination against smallpox in 1901. In each case, opponents of the practice justified their resistance with a mix of arguments that spanned medical theory, religious faith, public safety, a...