With the British military occupying Boston and patriots laying siege to the city, conditions in Boston deteriorated in the early weeks of 1776, with shortages of food, firewood, insulation, and almost everything leading to desperate circumstances. Against this grim background, audiences flocked to a makeshift playhouse to watch Boston’s first season of theater, including a play called “The Blockade of Boston” that premiered 250 years ago this week, only to be interrupted by a real life attack on the British lines in Charlestown. Our first listener-guest, Dr. Susan Lester, joins us this week to describe what her research has revealed about the legality of theater in colonial Boston, the format of a typical 18th century performance, and even the identities of a few of the actors who tread the boards at Faneuil Hall in January 1776.

Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/344/

Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

Allan Rohan Crite was a world renowned artist who grew up in Boston’s South End in the early part of the 20th century. After enrolling in the Children’s Art Center and graduating from English High, he attended the MFA School and graduated in 1936. His work was first shown at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 1936 and his first solo show at the Boston Athaneaum was in 1948. He went on to work at the Charlestown Navy Yard for over thirty years, while his paintings drew local and then national and international attention. During this time, he attended Harvard Extension School, where he earned an ALB degree in 1968. Looking at all of these experiences together, Allan Rohan Crite truly was a son of Boston, his work opening a window on the experience of Black Bostonians in the 30s, 40s, and beyond. If you are a lover of Boston history, you won’t want to miss the special exhibition of his work on view at the Boston Athenaeum through January 24 and at the Isabella Stuart Gardener Museum through January 19th. In this episode, Michelle Leblanc from the Athenaeum joins us to discuss the two wonderful exhibitions Crite’s work that are on display in Boston right now and what we can learn about Boston history from them.

Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/343/

Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

In this episode, Nikki is joined by Ken Turino, a public history career professional and expert on the interpretation of Christmas at historic sites. This week, they’ll be talking about the Boston origins of some of our favorite Christmas traditions, like Christmas cards and Christmas trees. They will also be talking about Ken’s new book Interpreting Christmas at Museums and Historic Sites, which offers practical guidance on how to use holiday cheer to engage interested visitors without alienating those who don’t celebrate.

Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/342/

Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

Ken Turino is a Senior Search Consultant for Museum Search and Reference. Ken is a nationally recognized leader in exhibition development, community engagement, and historic site interpretation. For over two decades, Ken served as the Manager of Community Partnerships and Resource Development at Historic New EnglandHis award-winning work includes exhibitions like Yankee Remix (with Mass MoCA) and The Importance of Being Furnished, and community projects such as At the River’s Edge, which aired on public television and his Haymarket Project, celebrating Boston’s immigrant history which earned the American Association of State and Local History’s Award of Excellence.

Ken is also an adjunct professor in the Tufts University Museum Studies Program where he teaches courses on the future of historic houses and exhibition planning.

His past books include Reimagining Historic House Museums and a chapter titled “The Varied Telling of Queer History at Historic New England Sites” in the book Interpreting LGBT History at Museums and Historic Sites. His latest work is Interpreting Christmas at Museums and Historic Sites.

For more context on Christmas cards and the early Puritan prohibition on Christmas, check out our classic podcasts:

For the next few months, from December 2025 to about July of 2026, HUB History listeners are going to hear a lot less of host Jake. I will be stepping away temporarily to produce a six-episode podcast series for Queer History Boston. You may not recognize that name, because the organization was known as The History Project until a recent rebranding. Queer History Boston is a community archive that has been documenting, preserving, and sharing the LGBTQ+ histories of Boston and New England for over 45 years.

A few months ago, we teamed up to apply for a grant from Mass Humanities and the Mass Cultural Council called “Expand Massachusetts Stories – Promises of the Revolution.” The grant program is meant to highlight stories of the American Revolution that usually go untold and highlight how marginalized groups have seized on the core promises made by the Declaration of Independence: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the fundamental equality of all people, your basic promise of America. Our yet-to-be-named show will start with stories of queer and gender nonconforming veterans of the Revolutionary War itself, then follow subsequent generations of queer revolutionaries, right up to the first Pride parade in 1970. I’m incredibly excited for the opportunity, but it means I’m not going to have as much time for HUB History for a while.

Luckily, you are going to be in incredibly capable hands while I am gone. Cohost emerita Nikki is going to rejoin the show for a while. If you listened to our show many years ago, back when HUB History was weekly, you’ll remember that Nikki used to anchor the podcast with me every week. Since leaving the show a few years ago, she has gone on to an enviable career at Old North Illuminated, where she has developed an broad network of Boston history people. While I’m away, Nikki is going to interview authors, curators, rangers, and all kinds of interesting guests. The first of these conversations is coming up on December 14, when Nikki will interview Ken Turino about the history of Christmas in Boston and how historic sites in Boston and around the country can engage with Christmas in historically appropriate ways.

Jake will be back to host a few episodes when time allows, and I’ll share updates about how my work with Queer History Boston is going when I do. If you have any questions or comments about these next few months, don’t hesitate to contact us!

By late November 1775, George Washington and the Continental Army encircling Boston faced a crisis: their soldiers were facing a frigid New England winter, their enlistments were expiring, and they were critically short of guns and gunpowder and essential supplies. General Washington was desperate to strike the British before his army melted away, even contemplating the use of spears as a last resort against the world’s most powerful military. The Continentals’ luck began to change when Washington commissioned a small squadron of six lightly armed schooners, the first American Navy, and ordered them to patrol New England waters. One of these schooners, the Lee, was commanded by a Captain John Manley of Marblehead. Operating under Washington’s directive to harass enemy shipping, Captain Manley cleverly tricked and captured the British ordnance brigantine Nancy near Boston Harbor on November 29, 1775. This single ship that had strayed from the safety of a larger convoy proved to be an “immense acquisition” for the patriots, yielding a treasure trove of military stores: cannons, thousands of muskets, and perhaps most importantly, a cache of ammunition and gunpowder that, paired with Henry Knox’s noble train of artillery, would provide the Continentals with enough firepower to finally drive the British out of Boston.

Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/341/

Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

This will be our 2025 Thanksgiving episode, and nothing says Thanksgiving quite like football… At least for most people, I guess. Somehow, the gene for caring about football missed me. The last football game I saw was a Super Bowl, and cohost emerita Nikki remembered that Beyonce sang Formation that year, which means it must have been 2016. All that to say that if the new book Inventing the Boston Game: Football, Soccer, and the Origins of a National Myth can get me interested in the early history of football, it can do it for anyone. Inventing the Boston Game follows the story of a group of upper-class Boston private school boys who called themselves the Oneida foot ball club. During the height of the Civil War in 1862, they started playing a ball game on Boston Common. Authors Mike Cronin and Kevin Tellec Marston join us this week to discuss how generations have argued about whether their Boston Game was some of the first soccer in the US or the first organized American football team. Especially after a group of teammates placed a stone monument on Boston Common 100 years ago this week, it was clear that they were deliberately inserting themselves into American sports history, but a century later it is hard to tell how much of their shared mythology was true.

Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/340/

Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

Mike Cronin is the Academic Director of Boston College in Ireland and a Professor of History in the Irish Studies Program at Boston College. He’s published books on everything from the history of Saint Patrick’s Day to soccer in Ireland.

Kevin Tellec Marston is a Research Fellow at the The International Centre for Sports Studies, or CIES to use the French acronym, and also a Visiting Researcher and Lecturer at the International Centre for Sports History and Culture at De Montfort University. He has written about the evolution of FIFA rules, corruption in professional sports, and many other topics at the intersection of history and athletics.

In this episode, we’ll revisit two murder trials that were held in revolutionary Boston. The first case was against four ordinary sailors accused of murdering an officer of the Royal Navy on a ship in Massachusetts coastal waters, and the other was against nine British prisoners of war who were accused of murdering a guard aboard a prison ship in Boston Harbor. The sailors were accused in 1769, when Boston was under military occupation and the tensions that would result in the Boston Massacre were coming to a head. The redcoats stood trial over a decade later, in the midst of a bloody war that had touched the lives of all Bostonians by 1780. In both cases, attorneys and judges worried whether a jury could deliver justice in a polarized city. Both cases were argued by signers of the Declaration of Independence, with John Adams defending the American sailors in 1780 and Robert Treat Paine prosecuting the redcoats in 1780. In both cases, the defendants argued that they had acted in self defense, and amazingly, both cases ended in acquittal.

Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/339/

Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

In October 1855, exactly 170 years ago this week, Boston hosted the third annual exhibition of the United States Agricultural Society, a grand five-day event that was lauded in the press as “a greater show of cattle and horses than has ever been given previously in the world.” Set on a newly created, fifty-acre fairground in the South End, the exhibition showcased Boston’s civic pride and economic power at a time when agriculture was still a primary driver of the American economy. While originally envisioned to showcase a range of crops, fruits, and agricultural implements, the Boston fair ultimately focused almost entirely on livestock and featured a significant amount of horse and harness racing, which was controversial in a city with a reputation for uptight conservatism. The event was promoted as a wholesome, family-friendly affair, with extensive amenities for women and children, deliberately distancing itself from the rough-and-tumble reputation of traditional cattle markets. The exhibition successfully attracted throngs of visitors, offered over $10,000 in cash prizes, and drew national attention, ultimately contributing to the popularity of harness racing in New England and strengthening the case for federal support of scientific agriculture.

Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/338/

Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

I intended to include many more pictures, but some of my key sources are offline this week!

250 years ago today, a letter from George Washington revealed a devastating secret: there was a British spy at the highest level of patriot leadership.  The traitor was none other than Dr. Benjamin Church, a man who seemed to embody the American cause.  He was a Harvard-educated physician who had been appointed as our first surgeon general, he was a close confidant of leaders like Samuel Adams and Joseph Warren, and he was officially in charge of organizing the war effort as head of the Massachusetts Committee of Safety.  Church had risked his life for liberty and was trusted with the revolution’s deepest political and military secrets, but a coded letter, a secret mistress, and a suspicious baker would unravel a web of deceit that would make Benedict Arnold blush.

Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/337/

Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

This week’s guest is Michael Ansara, author of a new volume of memoir called The Hard Work of Hope. It is a personal story, but it’s also a history of Boston in the 1960s, and especially of anti-war activism at Harvard and organizing among the New Left political movement during the Vietnam era. Michael went from a middle class childhood in Brookline to the playground of the elites at Harvard, just at the historical moment when the civil rights movement entered mainstream consciousness and as the US government dramatically escalated the war in Vietnam. Michael remembers the chaos and fear of those times, but also the patriotism and the optimism of youth that drove so many of his contemporaries, and the relentless organizing it took to shape that youthful optimism into a political movement that had the potential to change the world, though that potential may not have been fully realized. In our conversation, he looks back on hard-won lessons learned and grapples with the question of how today’s organizers might save a democracy teetering on the brink.

Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/336/

Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

The Hard Work of Hope is Michael Ansara’s memoir of the 1960s in Boston. Ansara is probably best known as one of the key leaders of Students for a Democratic Society at Harvard and an outspoken antiwar leader during the Vietnam years. He was also a reporter for Ramparts and the founder of an underground paper called the Old Mole, he operated a grocery co-op in Dorchester, and he was one of the founders of the Mass Fair Share movement, that campaigned for tax relief, utility rate caps, and other economic justice issues in the Bay State. Today, he’s a published poet and one of the founders of Mass Poetry, and he’s a proud father and grandfather.