Tag Archives: local history

In the Archives: Jack Powers Collection

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Author: Amanda McKay, Archives Assistant and graduate student in the English MA program at UMass Boston

Drawn portrait of Jack Powers with “A Poet of the City” next to it.

Growing up in and around housing projects in Roxbury, Massachusetts, Jack Powers was no stranger to struggle and need. At the age of seventeen, Powers decided he was going to turn this struggle into something good, and the rest of his life is a testament to his devotion to community, welfare, and knowledge. Healey Library’s Jack Powers collection highlights the various areas of activism that Powers belonged to. Two major accomplishments from this collection are the Beacon Hill Free School and his Stone Soup poetry reading series.

Bookmark from the Downtown Reading Series, 1992.

During the prime of the Beacon Hill Free School, weekly classes on various topics were held for local community members, free of charge. Holding around eleven classes per week in his apartment, and another twenty per week in the Beacon Hill community center, Powers had a full schedule—and he never sacrificed his philanthropy for paid work. Class topics were not limited by any means, with Powers saying, “Every idea was held up like a jewel in the light so that if there were any defect hopefully human intelligence would see it” (Robb 2 Jun. 1979). His idea of freedom was expressed through the catalogue of extensive classes that were offered.

Schedule of the Downtown Reading Series, 1992.

Later, in the 1970s, Powers decided to create Stone Soup, a nightly poetry event. Stone Soup was a come-one-come-all event that featured renowned poets such as Allen Ginsberg, as well as local poets who hadn’t gotten their break into the spotlight yet. True to its name, a children’s folktale about community, the poetry series was a collective energy that livened up the arts scene in Beacon Hill and in Boston as a whole. Powers once said that, “We’re all in this world together, and there’s no better way to translate pleasure than through the magic of words,” showing his true intentions behind the reading series. Accessibility was at the forefront of Powers’ mind, and he achieved it by creating a safe space that was less “literary salon” and more “neighborhood activism.” Stone Soup lives on today, with meetings held both virtually and in person. There is an updated blog page with recent and upcoming activities that the organization holds as well as spotlights on local authors and artists.

The Jack Powers collection at UMass Boston not only includes information regarding the programs that Powers founded, but also information about Powers’ personal life and writings. The collection isn’t just about the power of art, it also documents the power of community and what can happen when people come together, something that must be remembered and held onto for generations to come.

Poster for “Jack Powers at Gallery Imago,” February 1985.

All images courtesy of the Jack Powers collection in Healey Library.

References:

Hartigan, Patti. “Literary Boston: Literary Boston.” Boston Globe. February 16, 1989. https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/literary-boston/docview/2445561348/se-2.

Holder, Doug. “Stone Soup Poetry founder Jack Powers: Looking back.” The Somerville Times. October 27, 2010. https://www.thesomervilletimes.com/archives/8821.

Jack Powers collection, SC-0001. University Archives and Special Collections, Joseph P. Healey Library, University of Massachusetts Boston. Accessed August 1, 2025. https://archives.umb.edu/repositories/2/resources/195.

Negri, Gloria. “Boston’s Jack Powers: Helping people body and soul.” Boston Globe. March 15, 1987. https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/bostons-jack-powers-helping-people-body-soul/docview/2074430383/se-2.

The Poetry Foundation. “Jack Powers.” Accessed August 1, 2025. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/blog/uncategorized/55706/jack-powers-.

Robb, Christina. “A Poet’s Odyssey with Stone Soup.” Boston Globe. June 2, 1979. https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/poets-odyssey-with-stone-soup/docview/747069726/se-2.

In the Archives: Dorchester Pottery Works

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Author: Amanda McKay, Archives Assistant and graduate student in the English MA program at UMass Boston

In 1895, George Henderson brought his knowledge of stoneware to Boston and opened Dorchester Pottery Works, a stonework business with the intention of selling stoneware both industrially and commercially. Until its closing in 1979, Dorchester Pottery Works operated as a family-run business, with son Charles Henderson taking over after George’s death in 1928. Before his death, George worked to create his own clay-firing kiln, described as, “beehive type, downdraft kiln built in a circular form. The interior dimensions, 22 feet in diameter and 10 feet in height allowed two to three freight carloads of pottery to be fired at one time” (Mock 1984).  With the large-scale kiln, the family business was booming and was well-received by consumers.

UMass Boston’s University Archives and Special Collections department not only holds records of the business but also houses pieces created at Dorchester Pottery Works. Photos of the pottery available through Healey Library’s Open Archives website show just how detailed and beautiful these pieces were. My personal favorites are the ones that are more artistic, showing off the skills of the pottery makers and stoneworkers. For example, these blue dishes show off painted, artistic designs including half scroll, geometric, and colonial lace patterns.

However, the creativeness did not stop at just the painted design. This star-shaped candy dish shows off how form and design come together by skilled workers to create a practical, yet visually interesting piece.

Along with these, the workers also created practical, minimalistic pieces, such as this brown pot.

Along with housewares, they also created various feeders and even a chicken waterer—a container to hold water for chickens, allowing clean water to be filtered through to promote the health of the livestock.

Their most popular invention was the footwarmer with a metal, leakproof tap which received a lot of praise and attention. It was even featured in The Ladies Home Journal!

Some of these pieces can be seen on display in the Archives Research Room on the fifth floor of Healey Library, or digitally through Open Archives, so be sure to stop by or visit our website to see what was created at Dorchester Pottery Works!

References

“Dorchester Pottery Works.” Wikipedia. Accessed July 11, 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorchester_Pottery_Works.

Mock, Elizabeth. “Dorchester Pottery Works: records, 1905-1961.” April 1984. https://web.archive.org/web/20060919220912/http://www.lib.umb.edu/archives/pot.html

Open Archives. University Archives and Special Collections, Joseph P. Healey Library, University of Massachusetts Boston. Accessed July 11, 2025. https://openarchives.umb.edu/digital/search/searchterm/dorchester%20pottery.

In the Archives: Preserving Memory through Oral Histories

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Author: Jack Ott, Archives Assistant and graduate student in the American Studies MA Program at UMass Boston

Oral histories and recollections can provide priceless and often otherwise transitory narratives about the politics and emotional labor invested in belonging to a community. Organizations such as the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, Cumann na Gaeilge i mBoston (The Irish Language Society of Boston), and The South End Seniors recognize and celebrate the importance of personal interaction while conducting historical research, and UMass Boston is proud to include oral history projects sponsored by these groups, as well as many others, in its digital archives.

UMass Boston’s University Archives and Special Collection is fortunate to hold a range of oral history projects and collections, and a full list and brief descriptions of each collection can be found here. Through video and audio interviews, as well as written transcripts, researchers can explore personal histories shared by members of the UMass Boston community, the greater Boston community, and beyond. In these personal histories, we can learn not only about the Cape Verdean community in Roxbury and North Dorchester in the post WWII years from the Neighbor Voices project, for example, but also about how that past has been internalized, remembered, and shared with future generations.

Adalberto Teixeira wearing a cap and jacket with buildings in the background
Adalberto Teixeira, November 21, 2016. Teixeira was born in Fogo, Cape Verde and moved to Roxbury in 1976 where he got a job as a welder at the Quincy shipyard and as a teaching aide at the Madison Park Public School before becoming a community organizer and constituent services worker for the city.

From humorous anecdotes such as Inishbarra, Ireland native Johnny Chóilín Choilmín’s first taste of a hot dog on his 1955 transatlantic voyage to America (he was expecting a breakfast sausage…and was unimpressed), to the resilience and ingenuity of Alice Inamoto Takemoto crafting homemade buttons from peach pits as a 15-year-old interned in the Santa Anita assembly center in 1942, the oral histories in this collection transform historical records into vivid and deeply personal narratives. In so doing, oral histories testify to the epistemological value of reflection and challenge dominant standards of who controls how history is recorded and preserved. State records may tell us how many Japanese Americans were relocated to assembly centers and then moved on to internment camps, but oral histories such as Alice Inamoto Takemoto’s ensure that memories like lying in an army cot as it sinks into freshly poured tar melting in the California summer heat are not lost to posterity.

Alice Setsuko Inamoto Takemoto sitting at a piano, smiling with her hands folded in her lap
Alice Setsuko Inamoto Takemoto, June 24, 2011. Takemoto was born in Garden Grove, California. A lifelong musician, she attended Oberlin College on a full scholarship after being released from the Jerome interment camp.

In the Archives: William A. Cowles and the Civil War

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Author: Kayla Allen, Archives Assistant and graduate student in the History MA Program at UMass Boston

Daguerreotype portrait in a gold frame of William Cowles in uniform from the waist up

William A. Cowles in uniform. Sitting recorded in Cowles’ diary: 06/02/1863, New Orleans

If you want to learn more about the Civil War or see some handwritten sheet music from the 1800s, you need look no further than our William A. Cowles papers, 1834-1905. William Cowles was a young man during the Civil War and he served in the Union Army twice with the 42nd Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers. On his first tour, Private Cowles played the French horn in the band of the 42nd Regiment while they were stationed in New Orleans. Later, Cowles served as a corporal in the same regiment. During both of his tours, Cowles had to leave behind his young wife, Josephine Lewis. Luckily, Cowles survived the war and was able to return home to Josephine and father two children.

Daguerreotype in daguerreotype case of Josephine Cowles, likely with one of her daughters. Josephine and William Cowles had two daughters, Josephine Virginia Cowles (born April 19, 1859) and Mabel Gertrude Cowles (born October 9, 1860).
“Soldier’s Furlough.” William A. Cowles, November 4, 1862

After Cowles’s and Josephine’s deaths, his papers made their way into the possession of author and historian Anthony Mitchell Sammarco, who donated them to the Healey Library’s University Archives and Special Collections. The digitized part of this collection includes images (such as daguerreotypes and tintypes) of Cowles, Josephine, and at least one of their two daughters. It also consists of war-time documentation like Cowles’s furlough card, discharge papers, and a muster call. In addition, there are obituaries and funeral information for both Cowles and Josephine, Cowles’s medals and ribbons, and his tuning fork. Some of the larger objects in the collection are Cowles’s sewing kit and portable writing desk (which he would have had with him on his tours), his journals documenting his experiences during the war, and his small book of music containing all of the pieces he played while on active duty.

A music book for French horn used by William A. Cowles during his service in the Union Army, dated 1862-1863. It included sheet music for pieces like “Star Spangled Banner,” “Yankee Doodle,” “Hail to the Chief,” and “Mocking Bird Quickstep.”
William Cowles’s portable writing desk, patented December 24, 1861

Please feel free to take a moment and “thumb” through the pages of Cowles’s journals and music book. We also have a typed transcript of some of his writing that might be helpful. When you’re ready, you can check out the digital collection and the physical collection’s finding aid.

In the Archives: A Peek Beneath Boston

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Black-and-white photo of workers standing inside Sumner Tunnel

“Shield in Final Position.” Here is the Sumner Tunnel tunneling shield in its final position after breaching the Boston Vent Shaft. Presumably, that means it was all set and ready to start digging under Boston Harbor. These men were standing at the back of the shield. You can see how the tunnel was constructed behind it as the shield moved on.

Author: Kayla Allen, Archives Assistant and graduate student in the History MA Program at UMass Boston

Our Sumner Tunnel collection consists of a fascinating set of photographs and papers. It doesn’t only offer us information about the Sumner Tunnel. It gives us a visual understanding of underground and submarine construction work. It shows us the economics and geography considered in the 1930s improvement of Haymarket Square. It lets us peek at the architecture of Boston at the beginning of the twentieth century. Many of these compelling photographs show us extant and extinct buildings, ranging in location from Haymarket Square up to Clark Street. Other photographs give evidence of the different kinds of supports that buildings and streets needed while the tunnel was being constructed beneath them. Still more show Boston’s streets with a bird’s eye view.

My favorite pieces of the collection show the construction of the tunnel and buildings related to its use. When I started writing this blog post, I had no clue how underwater tunnels were created. Through research, I learned that the Sumner Tunnel was created with something called a tunneling shield. This is a cylindrical piece of machinery inspired by a type of boring worm. Mechanical constructions push the large tube through dirt, soil, or sand and create a pathway. Workers mine the dirt that comes in from the holes in the flat shield at the front of the tube and place supporting structures in the tunnel behind the tube as it moves. Compressed air at the front of the tunneling shield helps to make sure that the tunnel doesn’t collapse (1). With our photograph collection, we get a strong idea of how this worked for the creation of the Sumner Tunnel. We’ve included some photographs of the Sumner tunneling shield at the end of this post.

I was also intrigued by the photographs of the construction of above-ground buildings. Our collection shows the origins of the Traffic Tunnel Administration Building at the very end of the tunnel (where they originally started digging) and the North End Sumner Tunnel Ventilation Building between Clark and Fleet Street. The photographs show the process of constructing the Administration Building and give us a peek at the tunnel’s exit. They also show the tunneling shield entering into a large rectangular concrete vent. After the shield moved on towards the Harbor, workers built a structure over that vent that pumps poisonous air out of the tunnel and fresh air in. This building is still in use today, and you can see it as you walk along North Street. 

Be sure to check out the collection and its finding aid. I’m sure that they will inspire you to learn a little bit more about our incredible city! If you’d like to learn more about the Sumner Tunnel as it is today and its upcoming centennial restoration project, click here.

“Administration Building – North St.” This is the completed Traffic Tunnel Administration Building! It looks almost exactly the same today as it did then. If you look to the left of the building, you can see the portal to the Sumner Tunnel under the North Bennet Street School.
“Administration Building at Tunnel Portal North St.” This photograph is a close-up of the side of the Admin Building and the exit of the Sumner Tunnel. At the time this picture was taken, the tunneling shield would have been well on its way toward Boston Harbor, if not already beneath it.
“Shield at Boston Vent Shaft (July 20).” This photograph is of the interior of the Boston Vent Shaft before it became the North End Sumner Tunnel Ventilation Building. The tunneling shield had just breached the vent the day before. From here, workers would clean out all of the dirt and then set up the shield again for its long journey under Boston Harbor.
“Shield at Boston Vent Shaft (July 19).” In this photograph, you can see the front of the tunneling shield as it first came into the Boston Vent Shaft. The shield pushed all of this dirt into the shaft as it moved. The workers poked out at the top of the pile of dirt. They must have been happy to see the light at the end of their long tunnel and get some fresh air!
“Gen. View at Boston Vent Shaft.” This is an above-ground shot of the Boston Vent Shaft that we just peeked into. Construction workers used it as the foundation for the later North End Sumner Tunnel Ventilation Building.
“330 North St. – braced.” This photograph shows 330 North St. This building was and is right next to the vent shaft, now the North End Sumner Tunnel Ventilation Building. You can see how workers braced the building with wood to keep it structurally sound while the tunneling shield moved beneath it.

All images shared here are courtesy of the University Archives and Special Collections Department, Joseph P. Healey Library, University of Massachusetts Boston: Sumner Tunnel (Boston): construction photographs.

References

Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Tunneling shield.” Encyclopedia Britannica, May 11, 2011. https://www.britannica.com/technology/tunneling-shield.