From the Field – Page 5 – Public History at UMass Boston

March 15, 2017Heidi Gengenbach 1 Comment

Their Battle for the Ballot: Preserving Hyde Park’s History of Women’s Activism

by Patrice Gattozzi

In March 1870, fifty years before the 19th amendment granted women citizens in the US the right to vote, a bold group of women from Hyde Park, Massachusetts, voted in a local election.

Flyer announcing Caucus for Women’s Suffrage in Hyde Park, 1870.

Angelina Grimké Weld and Sarah Grimké, sisters who actively fought for abolitionism, had moved to Hyde Park after the Civil War. After the 13th Amendment outlawed slavery, the sisters focused their activism on securing rights, both political and social, for women. They may have led the women in Hyde Park not only to organize and speak out for women’s suffrage, but to vote in 1870.

That March, a group of roughly fifty women, including the Grimké sisters and Sarah M. Stuart, turned out on election day and cast their votes in a separate box. Local officials did not count the women’s ballots. But women’s collective action–showing up and voting–brought widespread attention to their demands for political rights. It also helped inspire another generation of women to continue the fight. The women’s ballots were saved and belong to the Hyde Park Historical Society (HPHS). They represent a valuable piece of local women’s history.

The HPHS contains a treasure trove of records, letters and photographs documenting the history of local women and men. Like many small historical societies, the collections of the HPHS live in a section of the the town’s library, in this case, Hyde Park Branch Library of the Boston Public Library. For a variety of reasons, including lack of funds and professional staff, over the past decade this private historical collection has received little preservation, organization, or research attention. Today, the HPHS society materials have reached a critical juncture. As graduate student studying History at UMass Boston, I hope to find a way to help protect and preserve the physical documents.

Records of the Current Events Club, a grassroots women's organization in Hyde Park. — Records of the Current Events Club, a grassroots women’s organization in Hyde Park.

Recently, I’ve begun preparing my thesis; it focuses on the women’s clubs of Hyde Park in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Two of the clubs, the Thought Club and the Current Events Club, formed in 1881 and existed for 127 and 114 years respectively.

The HPHS holds the clubs’ records, from their establishment until their disbandment. These include handwritten minutes from every meeting, financial reports, and membership records of every woman.

Hyde Park is my hometown neighborhood, and what interests me is that the records include their home address and most of their houses still stand today. In addition to membership records, the collection includes pamphlets, photos, directories, and maps. It’s exciting material, virtually untapped!

Letter from Julia Ward Howe to the Thought Club, 1896. — Letter from Julia Ward Howe to the Current Events Club, 1896.

Hyde Park became home to some outspoken activist women, like Angelina Grimké Weld and Sarah Grimké. The records of the HPHS reveal relationships to other women’s rights activists who lived in nearby Boston.((Hyde Park was incorporated in 1868 and annexed to Boston in 1912.))

Browsing through the Thought Club’s records, I found a handwritten note written by poet, author, and suffragist Julia Ward Howe. Best know for her song, Battle Hymn of the Republic, Howe lived in South Boston and had planned to address the Current Events Club in fall 1869, just months before a number of Hyde Park women voted in the local election. Her note sent regrets that she could not attend the meeting due to her health that day, but she hoped to soon reschedule.

Other samples from the collection include Clover Blossoms written by Elizabeth Hedge Webster, a poet, author, suffragist, and member of the Thought Club.

Pages of Clover Blossoms by Elizabeth Hedge Webster, who lived in Hyde Park. The collection of poems and prose discusses suffrage and women's rights at length. — Pages of Clover Blossoms by Elizabeth Hedge Webster (who lived in Hyde Park), 1880. The collection of poems and prose discusses suffrage and women’s rights at length.

The book tells an important piece of local history. The volume is filled with Webster’s reflections of people, events, poems, her thoughts and relationships with many important local people of the day. It also discusses suffrage and women’s rights at length. Though a copy of the book was digitized and made available for viewing online by the Internet Archive, the volume at HPHS is a rare and precious find for those studying the history of Hyde Park’s activist women.

These and other examples of women’s history in the HPHS collection can be found on the open shelves. But the Nancy Hannon Room, which was named after the last active historical society president, contains even more archival materials. The HPHS should be commended for collecting and saving these important documents. Unfortunately, reflecting the circumstances of many local historical societies, an inventory of materials doesn’t yet exist. Most of the materials have not been cataloged or received any preservation treatment. Two dedicated volunteers have begun to sort the materials, but they face a monumental task. And currently, the HPHS lacks funds to properly preserve and catalog the documents.

Luckily, I can begin my research. But ideally, I’d like to help design a plan for the cataloging and preserving of the materials so that future historians, especially those of women’s history, will be able to benefit from the collection. If you’re interested in women’s history and archives and would like to help with this archival project in some capacity–whether it be advice or hands-on work–please respond to this blog post!

March 10, 2017Heidi Gengenbach 19 Comments

Women & Witchcraft in Colonial Dorchester: The Tragic & Mysterious Story of Alice Lake

by: Sarah K. Black

Around the year 1650, nearly forty years before the infamous Salem witch trials took place, Alice Lake was accused of practicing witchcraft. A native of Dorchester, MA, Lake stunned the community by claiming that she saw an apparition in the form of her recently deceased infant. As word of Lake’s claim spread, she was officially charged with being a witch and a trial ensued. The court delivered a guilty verdict and she was sent to the gallows.

Woodcut of witches being hanged at gallows originally printed in Sir George Mackenzie, The laws and customes of Scotland (1678). Retrieved from “Bristol Radical History Group.”

Rev. John Hale included some details of Alice’s final moments in his Modest Inquiry Into the Nature of Witchcraft (1702). She refused to confess to witchcraft but accepted her conviction as God’s punishment for her sinful nature. She admitted to partaking in fornication and attempted to abort the resulting fetus to “conceal her sin and shame.”[1]

Rev. John Hale’s describes the moments before Alice’s execution in his MODEST INQUIRY (1702). Hale is best known for his support of the Salem witch trials. — Cover of Rev. John Hale’s treatise that described the moments before Alice’s execution in his MODEST INQUIRY (1702). Hale is best known for his support of the Salem witch trials.

Hale’s commentary on the incident led me to my research questions: May there have been a connection between Lake’s witchcraft charges and her promiscuity? More importantly, what societal conditions would prompt such a neurotic degree of shame and guilt in a woman years after her fornication incident?

With a very limited source base, only parts of Alice’s story could be reconstructed but through these fragments and reflections I found a broader story to tell. I argue that Alice accepted her impending death as punishment for her crimes because she lived in a society where sexuality was extremely restrictive. Her final moments also reveal a theme in colonial New England witchcraft that scholars may have overlooked or disregarded: sexuality. The erotic component of witchcraft was instrumental in blurring the barrier between “woman” and “witch.” By examining the relationship between sexuality and witchcraft, we can better understand the components of sorcery in Puritan ideology, sexuality in New England society, and why women such as Alice may have solidified their identities as “Handmaidens of the Devil.”[2]

Sarah K. Black speaking to a crowd of 70 at Dorchester Historical Society. — Sarah K. Black sharing her research about Alice Lake–a woman accused of witchcraft in Dorchester, ca. 1650–to a spellbound crowd at Dorchester Historical Society.

On February 19, I had the privilege of sharing my research on Alice Lake at the Dorchester Historical Society. The research was an experience in itself but the opportunity to present at the public forum proved to be the most fruitful. It was my first public presentation in almost a year and by far the largest crowd that I had ever spoken in front of. My professors and peers were extremely supportive and the audience members were very receptive. To move beyond creating history and into actually doing history was an exhilarating moment. Overall, the experience pushed me to step outside my comfort zone, rejuvenated my enthusiasm for the public history program, and reminded me why I chose this career path in the first place.

I knew that calling attention to Dorchester’s only documented witch might generate some interest in our Dorchester history initiative but I was not expecting an audience of about seventy!

Audience at Dorchester Historical Society, Feb. 19, 2017. Many were Dorchester residents eager to hear about their local history.

Although I was extremely nervous about giving the talk, the support of my peers and professors—along with the warm reception from the audience—washed away any anxiety I had. I remain very grateful for the chance to share my research with so many intrigued individuals, especially since the event opened up several more opportunities for me to tell Alice’s story. I was invited by UMass professor Maryann Brink to talk with her freshmen students about my research process and how I applied historical thinking and analysis. I was also contacted by a representative of the Boston Public Library; I will be giving the presentation again on April 24th at the Adams Street Branch.

This experience has given me so much more than I could have hoped for in my first semester at UMass. I strengthened my skillset, met many new and wonderful people, and built up my network—all while researching a topic that I love and learning the importance of local heritage in the process!

Notes

[1] John Hale, “A Modest Inquiry the Nature of Witchcraft,” Enquiry, in Narratives of the Witchcraft Cases, 1648-1706, ed. Charles Lincoln Burr (New York: Barnes & Noble Inc., 1946), 408-409, (hereafter cited as Hale, “A Modest Enquiry”).

[2] Cotton Mather, Ornaments for the Daughters of Zion (Cambridge, MA: S.G. & B.G., 1692), quoted in Carol F. Karlsen, The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1987), xix.

February 26, 2017Heidi Gengenbach No Comments

FROM THE CITY TO THE SUBURBS: VOLUNTARY SCHOOL DESEGREGATION THROUGH BOSTON’S METCO PROGRAM

By: Corinne Zaczek Bermon

In 1974, a young boy named Kevin Tyler stepped off his bus on the first day of school.((Name changed as request of former METCO student.)) As the Kevin looked out at the area surrounding his new school, he could only think that everything was foreign and weird. Although he was only ten miles from home, the Roxbury native thought that suburbia was another world. Gone were the noises from the street and common spaces and in their place were fences, private backyards, and white faces. Although it smelled cleaner, it wasn’t exactly pleasant to Kevin as the fresher air “felt weird to [his] nose.” The white students around him sounded strange and bland when they spoke, not in the expressive style he were used to in Roxbury. But even on his first day of school, Kevin could see that life in the suburbs was easier, charmed even.((Susan Eaton, The Other Boston Busing Story: What’s Won and Lost Across the Boundary Line (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 218-219.))

Many METCO students experienced a disconnect after they disembarked the buses that brought them to their suburban schools. Perhaps more profoundly than anyone, these young students saw the consequences of the deep racial and class divide that characterized Boston. The suburbs may be close geographically to the metropolitan area, but as Robert observed, they were worlds apart.

So how did students of color end up at schools in the suburbs? As we have passed the fortieth anniversary of busing for school desegregation, it is important to note, that voluntary busing existed before Morgan v. Hennigan mandated it, and still exists today as the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity or, as it is commonly know, METCO.

Even after the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, which determined that segregated education was inherently unequal and in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, de facto segregation remained prevalent in both the northern and southern US schools. In 1967 the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights released a pamphlet titled “Schools Can Be Desegregated,” which made several statements regarding segregated schools in the US:

Racial isolation in the public schools is intense and is growing worse.

Negro children suffer serious harm when they are educated in racially segregated schools, whatever the origin of that segregation. They do not achieve as well as other children; their aspirations are more restricted than those of other children; and they do not have as much confidence that they can influence their own futures.

White children in all-white schools are also harmed and frequently are ill prepared to live in a world of people from diverse social, economic, and cultural background.((U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, “Schools Can be Desegregated” (Washington, D.C.: Clearinghouse Publication No. 8, June 1967) 1.))

A Bird's Eye View from Within-As We See It by the staff and board of Operation Exodus — “A Bird’s Eye View from Within – As We See It,” report on Operation Exodus, 1965. Image courtesy Northeastern University Archives & Special Collections. Full report online.

Faced with the unresponsive and all-white Boston School Committee’s stance towards de facto segregation in Boston schools, concerned parents and activists founded “Operation Exodus” through Roxbury’s Freedom House in 1965 as a voluntary way to desegregate Boston Public Schools. In its first year, 400 African American students from Roxbury and Dorchester were bused to the predominantly white, but under enrolled, Faneuil School in Back Bay. In 1966, Operation Exodus was renamed the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity (METCO). Immediately, Black students faced the problem of how to address race while part of an expressly integration-based program. As Susan Eaton, Ed.D., expert in racial and economic inequality in public education, discovered, “neither [black nor white students] talked to the other about race – the very thing that appeared to be separating them. As a result, race frequently felt to the black students like a family secret. To keep life going smoothly, everyone compliantly locked the race subject away. It was too potent to open, to delicate to touch.”((Eaton, 81.)) The attitude towards race as a subject to be avoided in some ways reflected the outcry against METCO in the city.

The Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity, Inc. program created controversy in nearly every town to which it bused black urban students.

Photograph of black and white students sitting together in a classroom in Boston, circa 1973. Image courtesy of Boston City Archives.

While some suburbanites welcomed the program as a way to expose their children to a more diverse group of classmates while also assisting underprivileged urban students, others did not focus on the ideological mission of METCO. Instead, they considered the financial costs of the program, the potential negative impact on schools, and the needs of their own children to be more important than minimally integrating their school systems. Others accused METCO of reverse racism for primarily busing African American students rather than poor white students. During the 1970s busing crisis within Boston, the program exposed divisions and resentments between suburbs and the city and within the suburbs themselves. Many began to question the value of integration as well as its effectiveness. With the potential costs to each town and to each taxpayer, residents of both the city and suburbs wondered, was the ideological goal of integration a worthwhile endeavor?

The online exhibit, “Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity (METCO): Solving Racial Imbalance in Boston Public Schools,” created by graduate students Kristin Harris (MA American Studies, 2015) and Corinne Zaczek Bermon (MA American Studies, 2015; MA History Archives Track, 2017) explores the founding of the organization and the effects it had as a voluntary busing program rather than the controversial “forced busing.”

Using the METCO collection at Northeastern University, Harris and Bermon combed through nearly 144 boxes to find the story of METCO. They hand selected documents that highlighted the difficulties METCO had in funding despite support from the Board of Education and how parents stayed involved in the program through parent councils to keep their children safe and in the program.

This exhibit tells the story of the other side of the busing crisis in 1974-1975. Despite the ongoing violence and intimidation happening in city schools such as South Boston High School and Charlestown High School, METCO students had been quietly and determinedly attended suburban schools through their own busing program. Their stories counteract the narrative that all student busing for desegregation was fraught with protests and violence. The METCO program today still serves as a model for the country as to how to racially balance schools.

Visit the full exhibit to read more about METCO’s beginning and see how parent councils were involved closely with the host schools.

February 19, 2017Heidi Gengenbach No Comments

Caught in the Crossfire: Students’ Reactions to Busing in Boston

On December 11, 1974, Michael Faith, a 17-year old student at South Boston High School, was stabbed by an 18-year old African American student while walking in the corridor to his second period class.

Excerpt of police log on October 8, 1974, documenting violence reported at Boston Public Schools between 10:30 am and 12:35 pm. The report for the two-hour period totaled 8 pages. Image courtesy Boston City Archives.

Violence erupted and race-related attacks escalated in Boston’s public schools from the first week of court-ordered busing that September.

On a daily basis many African American students, teacher’s aids, and bus drivers were pelted with rocks and bottles, struck with bats, beaten with fists, and threatened, as this excerpt of a police log for a 2-hour period indicates.

All students In Boston Public Schools (BPS) were affected by the violent reactions to busing on some level. Those who weren’t assaulted physically often witnessed or heard about brutal attacks that occurred in their, or nearby, schools. Student absenteeism skyrocketed in many schools as a result. How did students react to the atmosphere of violence and fear during the years busing was used to desegregate BPS?

Letter from 3rd grade student to Mayor Kevin White, telling him he wants the violence between blacks and whites to stop. Image courtesy of Boston City Archives. Rights status is not evaluated.

The online exhibit, “What About the Kids? A Look Into the Students’ Perspectives on School Desegregation,” created by Krystle Beaubrun (History, 2015) and Lauren Prescott* (Public History and Archives, 2016) explores opinions and reactions students had to what was commonly dubbed “forced busing” in Boston.

Using collections at Boston City Archives and UMass Boston’s Archives & Special Collections, Beaubrun and Prescott scoured hundreds of letters written to Kevin White–then mayor of Boston–and W. Arthur Garrity–the federal judge who ordered that schools be integrated through busing–by students.

Poem by young student to Mayor Kevin White. Image courtesy of Boston City Archives. Rights status is not evaluated. — Poem written by elementary school student to Mayor Kevin White in December, 1974–four months after Phase I (busing) of desegregating BPS was implemented. Image courtesy of Boston City Archives. Rights status is not evaluated.

They selected a sampling of letters written by students–in elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools in Boston and across on the country–sharing their unique reactions to busing as a way to desegregate BPS. Many younger students expressed confusion about the violence and prayed for its end. Some offered the adults suggestions on how to improve the situation.

Their exhibit captures the unique reasons high school juniors and seniors opposed “forced busing.” In heartfelt letters to officials, students described how busing about disrupted their place on sports teams, prevented them from partaking in traditions like senior prom, severed relationships they’d built with teachers, and prohibited them from graduating from the school system they’d attended their whole lives.

Despite the violence that erupted in schools during the early years of busing, Beaubrun and Prescott’s exhibit also documents how some black and white students joined together to counteract negativity. Responding to media coverage that generalized South Boston High School students as racists during the 1970s, students Michael Tierney and Danis Terris founded and launched MOSAIC in 1980.

An exhibit annoucement for MOSAIC. Image courtesy of UMass Boston, University Archives & Special Collections. — An exhibit announcement for MOSAIC. Image courtesy of UMass Boston, University Archives & Special Collections. Search or browse full-text issues here.

MOSAIC, a publication produced from 1980-1988, contained autobiographical stories, photographs and poetry from students at South Boston High School. The University Archives & Special Collections at UMass Boston has digitized the full 11-issue run of MOSAIC. Search or browse full-text issues here.

Visit the full exhibit to read more reactions students had to busing. Learn about how officials, clergy, and individuals around the around the world reacted to Boston’s busing crisis in future posts.

*Shortly after graduating with her MA in history, Lauren became the Executive Director of the South End Historical Society. Congratulations, Lauren!

February 14, 2017Heidi Gengenbach No Comments

Mapping Divisions & Historic Decisions: The Road to Desegregating Boston Public Schools

Political cartoon, 1954. Image courtesy of the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia. Reproduction not permitted without prior permission, in writing, from the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library.

On Valentine’s Day, 1974, the Boston School Committee received a crushing rejection. Its appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to repeal the Massachusetts Racial Imbalance Act was denied on two grounds: the deadline to file had expired and the Committee’s appeal had “no substantial basis.”(1)

Established in 1965, the act empowered the state Board of Education to investigate and reduce racial inequality in public schools. Perhaps the strictest racial balance legislation among the states, the act defined racial imbalance as any school in which the number of nonwhites exceeded 50% of the total population. For nearly a decade, the Boston School Committee and the state Board of Education argued bitterly over the definition of racial imbalance and the means of implementing a more integrated public school system.

In 1972, the Massachusetts Board of Education accused the Boston School Committee of repeatedly refusing to institute any measures to integrate its schools, many of which were heavily segregated according to the act’s definition. After the state suspended funding to Boston Public Schools, the School Committee launched a series of legal battles to repeal the Racial Imbalance Act and recover state funding for city schools.

The NAACP also initiated legal action in the federal court system. It charged that, by not complying with the Racial Imbalance Act, the Boston School Committee violated the Fourteenth Amendment and the 1964 Civil Rights Act. In the digital exhibit, “Busing Boston Bound: Phase I of Desegregation in Boston, Massachusetts,” Rebecca Carpenter, a graduate student in the Archives program, explores the impact of the Morgan v. Hennigan decision.

Cover of booklet, "Make Congress Stop Bussing," [sic], by Lawrence P. MacDonald, April 1976. Reproduced courtesy of the John Joseph Moakley Archive & Institute at Suffolk University, Boston, Mass. Rights status is not evaluated. Written permission from the copyright holders is required for reproduction. — Cover of booklet, “Make Congress Stop Bussing” [sic] by Lawrence P. MacDonald, April 1976. Reproduced courtesy of the Moakley Archive & Institute at Suffolk University, Boston, Mass. Rights status is not evaluated. Written permission from the copyright holders is required for reproduction.

Using documents, maps, reports, and photographs from special collections and archives including Boston City Archives, the Northeastern University Archives & Special Collections, the National Archives, Boston, the Moakley Archive and Institute at Suffolk University, and other repositories, Carpenter evaluates Phase I of desegregation. Beginning in September, 1974, the plan, which required that students in the most racially imbalanced schools be bused into schools where the number whites exceeded 50%, provoked heated and hostile reactions in some neighborhoods. The exhibit explores the motivations behind Garrity’s decision and assesses the initial plans for busing.

How did students react to Garrity’s decision to bus them away from their neighborhood schools? How did the decision, and the fear and violence it provoked in some schools, affect teachers? Learn more about the the impact busing had on public education in the next posts. For more background and details on the Racial Imbalance Act, see Connor Anderson’s digital exhibit, highlighted in the last post.

Notes

[1] Muriel Cohen, “Court Denies Balance Appeal Request.” Boston Globe (1960-1985) Feb 15 1974: 3. ProQuest. 13 Feb. 2017