Era: Immigrant Neighborhood (~1880-1960)
Immigration, first, second, and third-generation Americans, Settlement Houses, Irish politics, etc.
Ruth Roman (1922-1999) was raised in the West End, her Jewish-Lithuanian family moving from tenement to tenement. Her fledgling interest in acting was nurtured at the Elizabeth Peabody Settlement House in the West End, where Ruth’s flare for the dramatics led to leading roles at its playhouse. While she is today remembered as a Hollywood film star – with standout roles in Lightning Strikes Twice (1951), Strangers on a Train (1951), and Tomorrow Is Another Day (1951) – the roots of her career can be found in the West End neighborhood.
At the turn of the century, “Boston marriages” enabled women to live independently from men. These relationships were common among educated female employees of settlement houses in Boston and in the greater United States. In the West End, evidence for these relationships can be found among the literary women of the period.
F. O. Matthiessen was a literary critic and Harvard professor who lived in the historic West End from 1939 until his death in 1950. His life and work were heavily influenced by his identity as a gay man and his twenty-year relationship with the artist Russell Cheney, even though they were, for all intents and purposes, secret. Matthiessen is credited with founding the discipline of American Studies, and his major works explore key figures of nineteenth-century American literature through the historical context that shaped their writings.
Bernard Berenson (1865-1959) was a Lithuanian-born, West-End-raised art historian and commercial art dealer specializing in the Italian Renaissance. His knowledge and expert connoisseurship greatly impacted the art world of the 19th and 20th centuries, and his dealings with wealthy Americans bolstered the flow of Old Masters into the country. His publications on Italian Renaissance artists were hugely successful and are still used in classrooms today.
Thomas Edison (1847-1931), the famed inventor with 1,093 patents, got his start in Boston before contributing to the invention of the lightbulb, phonograph, and movie camera. From staying at boarding houses on Cambridge Street to experimenting in workshops in Scollay Square, the West End was a launching pad for the young Edison’s nascent career as an inventor and entrepreneur.
In 1916, Boston’s Committee on Public Lands voted in favor of naming the junction at Cambridge, North Russell, and South Russell Streets “Nims Square,” in honor of Ormand F. Nims, a distinguished Civil War veteran and longtime West End business owner.
Prescott Townsend (1894-1973) was a gay activist who lived on the North Slope of Beacon Hill from the early 1920s until his death in 1973. He was outspoken and proud of his identity, from boasting about his pilgrim ancestors to organizing early LGBTQ+-oriented groups in Boston.
Settlement houses were a valuable resource for immigrant families, providing them educational and health services, and practical support in adapting to their new country. Some settlement houses offered specialized services, such as music school settlements, which gave children and adults an opportunity to escape the daily struggles of city life by engaging with the arts.
