Topic: Art & Literature
Art, fine arts, artists, books, film, authors, actors, other creative forms
Theatre, Community, and the Augusta Fraternal Association During the Great Depression During the Great Depression, an unusual collaboration between immigrant mutual aid groups, the federal government, and the arts came together on a Boston stage. The Federal Theater Project raised funds for the Augusta Fraternal Association in a one night only performance. Explore this snapshot…
The author of Little Women, Louisa May Alcott, spent time in her youth writing from her third story bedroom in a rented house on Pinckney Street. Her literary career began with rejection, persistence, and eventual success in the West End. Her legacy remains tied to the neighborhood into the present.
Charles Angoff Charles Angoff (1902-1979) was a West Ender originally from Minsk who went on to a career in writing and publishing. His series of semi-autobiographical novels following the immigrant Polonsky family reflected on his youth in the diverse West End neighborhood and his experience as a Jew in America. His writings offered a glimpse…
Hammatt Billings: Architect and Illustrator of Abolition When he died in 1874 at the age of 56, Hammatt Billings was described as, “one of the best known of his profession in the country.” His name was a “household word where art was appreciated.” He was an architect, illustrator, designer, sculptor, and painter whose illustrations helped…
J.W. Strom and the Bowdoin Square Museum For a brief period of less than three years, J.W. Strom ran the Bowdoin Square Museum from the Parkman Building in Bowdoin Square. More of an enclosed carnival sideshow than our notion of a modern day museum, Strom’s venue offered Bostonians the most sensational entertainment 5 cents could…
Annie Adams Fields and Sarah Orne Jewett: A Boston Marriage on Charles Street Annie Adams Fields (1834 –1915) and Sarah Orne Jewett (1849 – 1909) shared a long and intimate relationship across several decades. Living together on Charles Street in the West End and traveling together to Manchester-By-The-Sea and around the world, the women formed…
Soothing the City with Soul: How James Brown Saved Boston While the rest of the country erupted in grief fueled riots in the days after the death of Martin Luther King Jr., Boston was quiet. The “Number One Soul Brother” James Brown had an almost sold out performance scheduled in the Boston Garden. Should it…
The Visionists were a group of bohemian writers, artists, and architects based primarily along Pinckney Street on the North Slope of Beacon Hill. Modeling their work after the arts and crafts movement, theosophy, and aestheticism. The short lived group left a mark on photography, the fine press, and Boston’s bohemian arts scene.
