Marilyn Hurvitz’s Vegetable Garden
Marilyn Hurvitz, an eleven-year-old girl of Polish descent in the West End, took pride in growing a vegetable garden that was ordinarily inaccessible in tenement life.
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Era
Organizational category for historical articles
Harrison Gray Otis and Sally Foster Otis
Harrison & Sally Otis Harrison Grey Otis was a major political and business figure in Boston during the Federalist Period. He is best known as a supporter of Charles Bulfinch, as Boston’s third mayor, and as a leader of the Hartford Convention. His wife, Sally, was a skilled socialite and hostess, who provided significant support for…
The Elizabeth Peabody House
One of the West End’s most prominent settlement houses, the EPH served as a community center, education space, and more for more than half a century in the West End, and continues its work today in Somerville.
Italian-American West Enders’ Fight for Citizenship in the 1950s
Two Italian-American West Enders fought for their legal right to live in the United States during the 1950s, with varying degrees of success. These cases reveal how the “immigrant era” of the West End continued after the 1920s, the traditional ending of that period.
Boralma the Racehorse, and His Gift to the West End Nursery and Infants’ Hospital
Boston stockbroker Thomas W. Lawson owned a racehorse, Boralma, who won $5000 in Kentucky’s Transylvania Stakes in 1900. The earnings were donated to the West End Nursery and Infants’ Hospital, with an amusing letter exchange between “Boralma” and “The Babies.”
Walking Competitions: A West End Pastime
Pedestrianism, or competitive walking, was a nationally popular sport in the 1870s and 1880s. The old West End was captivated by local competitions and news of world record-breaking pedestrians such as Boston’s Frank Hart, the most successful African-American pedestrian in the 1880s.
The Rocking Chair Fight of 1893
Dr. Thomas Jenks, one of Boston’s leading figures in medicine, business, and politics during the late-eighteenth century, lived in the West End for most of his life. In 1893, when Jenks chaired the Board of Public Institutions, his refusal to accept a donation of rocking chairs to the Rainsford Island hospital put him at odds with Alice Lincoln, an advocate for the poor in Boston, and Martin Lomasney, the political boss of the West End.
The Many Founders of Mass General Hospital
Massachusetts General Hospital was built in the early nineteenth century on four acres of land in the old West End called Prince’s Pasture. Many doctors and prominent citizens of Boston can be counted among its founders.