The goal of this presentation is to provide a guide to scholarly and popular culture internet resources on Boston, especially sites that either are not available at all through a google search or that may be buried among thousands and thousands of hits for apartment rentals and trendy shops and restaurants. My main academic interests in Boston are literary works (poems, plays, short stories, novels, memoirs) set in Boston (see my Annotated Bibliography of Works of Literature Set in Boston) and visual and documentary contextual materials, including maps, photographs, and contemporary documents, to illuminate my teaching of two courses, English 398 Boston: A City in Fiction, which I have been teaching for twenty years, and English/History 481 Boston in History, Literature, and Film, which I taught Spring 2006, with Prof. Bob Allison, Chair of the History Department at Suffolk University and author of A Short History of Boston .

In part today, I will use Suffolk University's Centennial to illustrate resources and search strategies. On the screen, for instance, you have been viewing the best visual presentation of what Boston looked like in 1906, the year Gleason Archer began what became Suffolk University. These are the earliest films of Boston, created by the Edison Company, between 1901 and 1905--precursors in a way of this year's Academy Award winning film The Departed, which incidentally features views of the State House from Suffolk University's Law School. The Boston Public Library, provider of some of the best online material on Boston, has put these films (silent, of course) online at Boston at the Movies: First Films of the City 1901-1905.

Another view of Boston at the turn of the twentieth century is provided by Boston Close Up Windows on a New Century (Historic New England), a narrated tour using old photographs of common street scenes.

Also informative and entertaining is an an animation, Boston 3D Time Machine, showing physical changes of Boston (Future Boston, Inc.). See also on this topic 1811 Lithographs and especially Boston: History of the Landfills (Jefferey Howe, Boston C).

The best starting points for any exploration of Boston on the Internet are three guides provided by local universities, including Suffolk University:

• Suffolk University Mildred F. Sawyer Library Guide: Boston History Resource Guide

• Boston University Libraries Research Guides: Boston and Its Neighborhoods

• Boston Area History Links (Dept. of History, Eastern Nazerene College)

Major cultural and educational institutions in Boston also provide online access to many of their resources.

• Boston Public Library's Image Gallery and Store

• Digital Collections (Boston Athenaeum)

• The Boston Historical Society and Museum

• The Bostonian Society: Online Collections

• The Massachusetts Historical Society

• Museum of Afro-American History Boston

• Interactive State House

• Digital Collections: Broadsides (The State Library of Massachusetts)

My hope is that you will use this collection of resources for your own exploration of Boston on the Internet.

Other Interesting Sites

Boston Harbor Islands Visitor Guide (Boston Harbor Islands Partnership)

Harriet Hosmer. Boston and Boston People, in 1850 (poem, excerpt)

Boston Maps (66 maps, American Memory)

Maps

• David Rumsey Map Collection (Path: insightBrowser; search By State/Province; Massachusetts)

  Use Zoom feature to magnify view to see individual sections clearly.

  Images 1-20

  • Thomas G. Bradford, Boston 1837

  • S.G. Goodrich, Boston 1841

  • G.W. Colton, Boston, 1856

  • F.G. Sidney, Boston and Vicinity 1852

  • L. Prang, Boston 1872

  • Tilly Hayes, Boston 1884

  • Rand McNally, Boston 1897

• Boston Maps on the Web (MIT)

• The Boston Atlas

• Boston Streets: Mapping Directory Data (Tufts)

• Maps over Time

Boston Images from the New York Public Library Digital Gallery (3,687 items) (link from ENC site)

Images of Boston from the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs division - keyword search: "Boston" (link from ENC site)

Prints, sketches, & paintings of Boston from Artcylopedia (link from ENC site)

Maps, engravings, and prints of Boston from the Yale University Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library - keyword search: "Boston" (link from ENC site)

Boston Illustrated (1886)

Historical Photographs of Suffolk University Buildings and Locations (Bostonian Society)

• 28-30 Derne Street, ca. 1886-90

• 28-30 Derne Street, ca. 1886-90

• Work site on the grounds of the Massachusetts State House, ca. 1900

• Southeast corner of Derne and Temple Streets, ca. 1889

• Boston Water Works or the Beacon Hill Reservoir on Derne Street, ca. 1860

• 17-13 Somerset Street, ca. 1870-96

• First Baptist Church at 12 Somerset Street, ca. 1870-96

• Boston University's Jacob Sleeper Hall at 12 Somerset Street, ca. 1890

• Cambridge Street, ca. 1950

• Ashburton Place, 1913

• Pemberton Square, September 1885

• Hamilton Place, 1926

• Hamilton Place, ca. 1898

• Hamilton Place, ca. 1934

• 118-122 Tremont Street, ca. 1941

• Tremont Street at Beacon Street, ca. 1890

• 100-122 Tremont Street, July 12, 1895

• 124-129 Tremont Street at Park Street, November 22, 1913

• Tremont House at Tremont and Beacon Streets, ca. 1890-1900

• Tremont House at Tremont and Beacon Streets, ca. 1860-90

• Tremont House at Tremont and Beacon Streets, ca. 1880-95 (close up)

• Colonnade Row on Tremont Street at West Street, ca. 1856

Boston History & Innovation Collaborative

Searched http://www.earlyamerica.com for Boston (152 matches)

Amercian Antiquarian Society Digital Collections

Boston Online: Historic Photos

The City Record and Boston News-Letter

John Hancock House

Old Colburn House Before It Was Torn Down

Garland Junior College: A Brief History (Simmons C Libraries)

Simmons College Archives: Fenway Area Historical Photo Exhibit

Leather District (South Cove)

Celebrate Boston

A view of Boston, after the Great Fire of November 9th and 10th, 1872.

Invitation to the B oston Tea Party (facsimile)

"The Decisive Day Is Come": The Battle of Bunker Hill (Massachusetts Historical Solciety)

Daguerrotypes at Harvard

The Sargent Murals (BPL)

Southend Historical Society

Mission Hill (MIT)

Boston Massachusetts History (Hello Boston): Includes links to full texts of old books about Boston and early videos (e.g., Theodore Rossevelt attending the wedding of his son)

Boston 1775 (J.L. Bell)

WGBH Forums at Old South Meeting House, includes audio and video of lectures, including Bob Allison

Sullivan, Charles M. Harvard Square History and Development, Executive Director Cambridge Historical Commission (2004)

Seaford, John Albert. Boston Byways and Highways

Boston History and architecture (iboston.org)

Medieval Boston, include 1956 photo of Stop and Shop on site of Ridgeway Building