John W. McCormack speaks to Boston about the war effort

In commemoration of the 70th anniversary of D-Day -- when Allied forces stormed the beaches of France and began their bloody eleven month march toward Nazi Germany -- I thought it might be interesting to reflect on the city of Boston during the war.

McCormack in the 1960s

One of my favorite moment's in Boston's WWII history is US Congressman John W. McCormack's Fourth of July oration. Speaking to a packed crowd in Faneuil Hall's second floor, known for two centuries as "Great Hall" and for slightly less as "the Cradle of Liberty," McCormack explained to Bostonians why they had to put in long hours at the Navy Yard or the factory, why they had to put every extra cent into war bonds, and why they had to send their sons and husbands to war:

"In this war more than any other," he said, "we are fighting powerful enemies who are imbued with the monstrous doctrine of hatred -- anti-religious hatred, economic hatred, and racial hatred -- determined to enslave the world." He ridiculed the Axis powers, criticizing their disdain for "the rule of majority, because their power lies in their own success in pillaging and destroying -- in the burning of books and the persecution of minorities, in the destruction of the dignity and personality of the individual."

Faneuil Hall

This speech, with was answered with thunderous applause and not a few war bond purchases, is an example of a countless number of local efforts to clearly and honestly explain the necessity of "the good war" to the American people on a local level. In reflecting on its origins -- coming from an America with a segregated army and from a home front torn asunder that same year (1943) with race riots, it is easy to dismiss speeches like McCormack's as propaganda. It is harder, but no less honest, to see it for what it was: a call to the people of Boston, and the United States, to strive toward a society free of these tyrannies. It could not have been lost on a politician regularly facing legislation and letters on both sides of the race issue that he was describing an America that was fantastical at the time, but looking back, it is equally difficult for us to recognize that we still have a long way to go, and that men like McCormack and his contemporaries put us on a path for a better tomorrow many yesterdays ago.

Join Paul Revere on April 20 at the Charlestown Navy Yard!

Paul Revere Row is an excellent event every year. Join the wonderful folks at the USS Constitution Museum for entertaining and family friendly programming, including "drills" with the Charlestown Militia, before getting your chance to meet Paul Revere, who will make his way across the Charles River under the cover of night, accompanied by the blazing of lanterns from the Old North Church back in Boston.

I cannot recommend this event enough for visitors in town for the weekend or locals looking for educational entertainment. Click here for more information!

Lecture: Boston's Orange Line

If you're like me, you can't get enough of old photos of Boston's subway system. To satiate that need, come to a lecture by Jeremy Fox and Andrew Elder about their new book, Boston's Orange Line, January 26, 2014 at 3pm.

Learn all about what older folks used to call "the scary line" from its beginning in 1901 as a private line to the present as a public one, and either celebrate its move from elevated to underground like a normal person, or mourn the loss of the creepy subway underpasses like me.

Better still, the lecture is being held at Doyle's, 3484 Washington St., Jamaica Plain (a short walk from the Orange Line's Green Street stop). This bar is in itself a historic site, seeped with history of the Boston Irish, prohibition, and municipal politics.

This event is free and open to the public. Sponsored by the Jamaica Plain Historical Society. Cash bar.

Destruction of the Liberty Tree

Engraving of a British official being tarred
and feathered at Boston's Liberty Tree

Boston's Liberty Tree - an elm tree that once stood roughly where the Chinatown T Stop is today - has long been recognized as a major symbol in the American Revolutionary. A rallying point for the South End Gang for the Pope's Day "festivities," which often led to violence against their North End counterparts and always with the destruction of anti-Catholic effigies, during the Stamp Act Crisis of 1765 it became a potent symbol of the nascent Patriot movement, as well documented by historian Alfred Young.

It is thus no surprise that the Liberty Tree became a target of destruction during the British occupation of Boston in 1775. According to a report in the Connecticut Courant on September 4, 1775, a group of soldiers led by a Job Williams, with the blessing of General Thomas Gage, "made a furious Attack upon" the famous elm. "After a long spell of laughing and grinning, sweating, swearing and foaming, with Malice diabolical, they cut down a Tree, because it bore the Name of Liberty."

While the destruction of the Liberty Tree could be construed as a significant symbolic blow to Boston's Patriot cause, the Courant dismissed the tree's demise as a setback, so long as "the GRAND AMERICAN TREE OF LIBERTY, planted in the center of the United Colonies of North-America, now flourishes with unrivalled, increasing beauty." The Liberty Tree had transcended its physical form, instead becoming an American revolutionary ideal.

This sentiment of the Liberty Tree as an undying symbol of the Patriot cause was echoed in the September 6 issue of Isaiah Thomas' Massachusetts Spy, in which the following poem appeared:

In a chariot of light from the regions of day,
the goddess of liberty came;
Ten thousand celestials directed the way,
And hither conducted the dame.
A fair budding branch from the gardens above,
Where millions with millions agree,
She brought in her hand, as a pledge of her love,
And the plant she named Liberty Tree.
The celestial exotic stuck deep in the ground,
Like a native it flourish'd and bore,
The fame of its fruit drew the rations around,
To seek out this peaceable shore.
Unmindful of names or distinctions they came,
For freemen like brothers agree,
With one spirit endu'd, they one friendship pursu'd,
And their temple was Liberty Tree.
Beneath this fair tree, like the patriarchs of old;
Their [illegible] in contentment they eat,
Unvex'd with the troubles of silver and gold,
The cares of the grand and the great.
With timber and tar they Old England supply'd,
And supported her pow'r on the sea;
Her battles they fought, without getting a groat,
For the honour of Liberty Tree.
But hear, O ye swains, ('tis a tale most profane)
How all they tyrannical powers,
King, Commons, and Lords, are uniting amain,
to cut down this guardian of ours;
From the east to the west, blow the trumpet to arms,
Thro' the land let the sound of it flee,
Let the far and the near - all unite with a cheer,
In defence of our Liberty Tree. 

While the physical Liberty Tree had already been destroyed, the symbol became one in which the Patriots rallied around. While Gage's men were able to remove the tree itself, they very likely increased the tree's potency and the Boston Patriots' resolve to oppose the crown.

Join local history buffs for Roslindale Origins talk January 23

Join local history buffs and former Roslindale Main Streets directors Carter Wilkie and Josef Porteleki at the Boston Public Library's Roslindale Branch on Thursday, January 23, 2014 at 7pm for a discussion about the origins of the Roslindale neighborhood. This "armchair tour" will explore the neighborhood's landscape and its precarious connection to Roslin, Scotland.

This event is free and open to the public. Roslindale Branch Library, 4246 Washington St., Roslindale, MA.

Presented by the Friends of the Roslindale Branch Library and the Jamaica Plain Historical Society.

Colonial history comes to life this January at Modern Theatre

There are few better examples of Boston's struggles with religious freedom than that of Anne Hutchinson. A early settler of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Hutchinson challenged religious authority in the community, holding services advocating her own unique brand of Puritanism in her own home until her exile from Boston in 1638.

This early American drama story is being brought to the stage by Intermezzo Opera, which is presenting performances of "Anne Hutchinson" on January 25 and 26 at the Modern Theatre, 525 Washington Street, Boston. Tickets start at $20.

The opera focuses on Hutchinson's trial and subsequent exile and excommunication. From the opera's synopsis, it seems an excellent opportunity to see a live theater performance that will also educate audiences about the nuances of American Puritanism - particularly the strands of intolerance in colonial America and the subtle differences and broad ideological repercussions of believing in a "covenant of grace" versus a "covenant of works." 

Music by Dan Shore: libretto by William Fregosi and Fritz Bell.