The North End: A Brief History of Boston's Oldest Neighborhood


Book Description

Before evolving into a thriving "Little Italy," Boston's North End saw a tangled parade of military, religious and cultural change. Home to prominent historical figures such as Paul Revere, this neighborhood also played host to Samuel Adams and the North End Caucus--which masterminded the infamous Boston Tea Party--as well as the city's first African-American church. From the Boston Massacre to Revere's heroic ride, the North End embodies almost four centuries of strife and celebration, international influence and true American spirit. A small but storied stretch of land, the North End remains the oldest neighborhood in one of the country's most historic cities.







America's Changing Neighborhoods [3 volumes]


Book Description

A unique panoramic survey of ethnic groups throughout the United States that explores the diverse communities in every region, state, and big city. Race, ethnicity, and immigrants' lives and identity: these are all key topics that Americans need to study in order to fully understand U.S. culture, society, politics, economics, and history. Learning about "place" through our own historical and contemporary neighborhoods is an ideal way to better grasp the important role of race and ethnicity in the United States. This reference work comprehensively covers both historical and contemporary ethnic and immigrant neighborhoods through A–Z entries that explore the places and people in every major U.S. region and neighborhood. America's Changing Neighborhoods: An Exploration of Diversity uniquely combines the history of ethnic groups with the history of communities, offering an interdisciplinary examination of the nation's makeup. It gives readers perspective and insight into ethnicity and race based on the geography of enclaves across the nation, in regions and in specific cities or localized areas within a city. Among the entries are nearly 200 "neighborhood biographies" that provide histories of local communities and their ethnic groups. Images, sidebars, cross-references at the end of each entry, and cross-indexing of entries serve readers conducting preliminary as well as in-depth research. The book's state-by-state entries also offer population data, and an appendix of ancestry statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau details ethnic and racial diversity.




Boston's Oldest Buildings and Where to Find Them


Book Description

"A guidebook for Boston's 50 oldest buildings. Written in a conversational manner that does not bog the reader down in technical jargon, but allows them to see the history of Boston through the lens of its oldest structures while appreciating decades of efforts to preserve its built environment"--




Freedom Trail Boston - Ultimate Tour & History Guide


Book Description

Updated for 2014 - FREE COMPANION APP - FREE STREAMING NARRATION! Now includes Boston Harbor Islands - great day trip for all ages! FREE COMPANION APP for iPhone and Android w/MULTILINGUAL Option - Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, & Japanese! FREE STREAMING NARRATION w/web access - a tour guide in your pocket! Now with information on Harvard Sq., Lexington-Concord, & Adams NHP Updated history sections with Native Americans & early explorers Includes free Web-Updates with happenings, budget tips, maps & more Google Auto-Translate to Spanish, French, Italian, Chinese and Others with embedded QR-Codes! Whether you are a first time visitor or you've lived in Boston for years, the Freedom Trail Boston Ultimate Tour & History Guide provides everything to make your visit to The Freedom Trail and Historic Boston a smashing success. Read all important chapters in Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, Korean and other languages via exclusive links to web-based auto-translation features. Use it to plan, brush up on background information, or as a personal, interactive, multi-lingual tour guide when walking The Freedom Trail. It covers all 16 "official" Freedom Trail Stops as well as over 50 other "unofficial" landmarks. Also includes custom side-trips to Harvard Sq., Lexington, Concord & Adams National Historical Park. The Guide features over 100 photos and illustrations, as well as access to interactive maps, free smartphone apps, video, and other information. There are detailed descriptions of the important related events including the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, Paul Revere's Ride, the Battles of Lexington and Concord, and the Battle of Bunker Hill. There are tips for the best free tours, discounted admissions, where to eat, transportation and parking advice, and even where to find the best lobster specials. The Freedom Trail can be a great bargain, the Guide shows you how. Whether traveling alone or with small children, learn how to make the most of your visit. Find out what to see if you only have an hour. Or, plan the best 1/2, full or even two day visit. Don't miss out on what would be most interesting for you. The impact Boston had on the events and thinking that led to the American Revolution was extraordinary. The Guide gives you everything you need to bring The Freedom Trail to life.




Freedom Trail Boston - Ultimate Tour & History Guide - Tips, Secrets & Tricks


Book Description

2014 Edition - Includes FREE COMPANION APP & STREAMING AUDIO NARRATION. Also visit the Boston Harbor Islands, Harvard Sq., Cambridge, Lexington & Concord, and Adams NHP. Google Auto-Translate to Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, & Japanese. Free Web-Updates with Happenings, Budget Tips, Maps & more. Use it to plan, brush up on background information, or as a personal, interactive, tour guide when walking The Freedom Trail. Covers all 16 “official” Freedom Trail Stops as well as over 50 other “unofficial” landmarks. And, side trip to Cambridge/Harvard Sq., Lexington, Concord, and Adams NHP. Over 60 photos and illustrations. Tips for optimum touring strategy, best free tours, discounted admissions, where to eat, transportation, parking, and even the best lobster specials. What to visit with children and limited time.




The Lowells of Massachusetts


Book Description

The Lowells of Massachusetts were a remarkable family. They were settlers in the New World in the 1600s, revolutionaries creating a new nation in the 1700s, merchants and manufacturers building prosperity in the 1800s, and scientists and artists flourishing in the 1900s. For the first time, Nina Sankovitch tells the story of this fascinating and powerful dynasty in The Lowells of Massachusetts. Though not without scoundrels and certainly no strangers to controversy , the family boasted some of the most astonishing individuals in America’s history: Percival Lowle, the patriarch who arrived in America in the seventeenth to plant the roots of the family tree; Reverend John Lowell, the preacher; Judge John Lowell, a member of the Continental Congress; Francis Cabot Lowell, manufacturer and, some say, founder of the Industrial Revolution in the US; James Russell Lowell, American Romantic poet; Lawrence Lowell, one of Harvard’s longest-serving and most controversial presidents; and Amy Lowell, the twentieth century poet who lived openly in a Boston Marriage with the actress Ada Dwyer Russell. The Lowells realized the promise of America as the land of opportunity by uniting Puritan values of hard work, community service, and individual responsibility with a deep-seated optimism that became a well-known family trait. Long before the Kennedys put their stamp on Massachusetts, the Lowells claimed the bedrock.







The New Middle Kingdom


Book Description

Looking at the Far East and American ambition in China through the lens of literature. In the imaginations of early Americans, the Middle Kingdom was the wealthiest empire in the world. Its geographical distance did not deter commercial aspirations—rather, it inspired them. Starting in the late eighteenth century, merchants from New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Salem, Newport, and elsewhere cast speculative lines to China. The resulting fortunes shaped the cultural foundation of the early republic and funded westward frontier expansion. In The New Middle Kingdom, Kendall A. Johnson argues that—for the merchant princes who speculated in the global Far East, as well as the missionaries and diplomats who followed them—Manifest Destiny spurred more than the coalescence of the fractious regions into the continental Far West. It also promised a golden gateway to the Pacific Ocean through which the nation would realize its historical destiny as the world’s new Middle Kingdom of commerce. Examining the influential accounts of westerners at the center of early US cultural development abroad, Johnson conceives a romance of free trade with China as a quest narrative of national accomplishment in a global marketplace. Drawing from a richly descriptive cross-cultural archive, the book presents key moments in early relations among the twenty-first century’s superpowers through memoirs, biographies, epistolary journals, magazines, book reviews, fiction and poetry by Melville, Twain, Whitman, and others, travel narratives, and treaties, as well as maps and engraved illustrations. Paying close attention to figurative language, generic forms, and the social dynamics of print cultural production and circulation, Johnson shows how authors, editors, and printers appealed to multiple overlapping audiences in China, in the United States, and throughout the world. Spanning a full century, from the post–Revolutionary War era to the Gilded Age, The New Middle Kingdom is a vivid look at the Far East through Western eyes, one that highlights the importance of China in antebellum US culture.




The City-State of Boston


Book Description

A groundbreaking history of early America that shows how Boston built and sustained an independent city-state in New England before being folded into the United States 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 revered metropolis 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 the slave trade and ratification of the Constitution—it would tragically lose integrity and autonomy as it became incorporated into the greater United States. The City-State of Boston peels away layers of myth to offer a startlingly fresh understanding of this iconic urban center.