Related Guides
- Boston's Annexed Towns and Some Neighborhood Resources (BPL) Boston is known as a city of neighborhoods. Some were formerly cities and towns on their own, and were later annexed to Boston. This guide exists to gather together resources to help in the study of the former towns that make up Boston. Material on the neighborhoods as they exist today is also presented.
Browse Selected Sources on Boston
Databases
- America's Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new window Fully searchable digital images of newspapers from 23 states and the District of Columbia. Focusing largely on the 18th and early 19th centuries. Date coverage: 1690 -1876.
- America: History & Life (AHL) This link opens in a new window Covers the history and culture of the U.S. and Canada from prehistory to present times; indexes journal articles, book titles and chapters, reviews from numerous multilingual sources; all abstracts in English. Date coverage: 1949-present
- American Antiquarian Society Historical Periodicals This link opens in a new window Digitized images of American magazines published between 1684 and 1912. Covers history of slavery, literature, women's and religious issues, politics, culture, the arts and foreign language journals published in the U.S. Rights for use by Boston University community supported by the Boston University Humanities Library Endowed Fund.
- Ethnic NewsWatch This link opens in a new window Full text articles from newspapers and periodicals published by ethnic, minority and native presses in the U.S. Includes both historic publications, starting in 1959, as well as current ones.
- Boston Globe (1872-1988) (ProQuest Historical Newspapers) This link opens in a new window Date coverage: 1872 - 1988. Full-page images and article images (PDF) with searchable full text from the newspaper The Boston Globe and its title variants. NOTE: For 1988+ use
- Boston Globe 1980+ This link opens in a new window Date coverage: 1980 - present. Searchable, current article text from the Boston Globe (no images, illustrations or charts included). For earlier editions use Boston Globe (ProQuest Historical Newspapers)
- Boston Globe (PressReader) Full-page images of current six weeks of the Monday-Saturday Boston Globe and 10/16/2003 until 03/01/2016.
- Boston [Sunday] Globe (PressReader) Full-page images of the Sunday Boston Globe, current six weeks.
- Access World News This link opens in a new window Find full-text current and archived articles on issues, events, people, government and more. Includes local news, editorials, announcements and other sections from more than 10,000 sources.
Archival Collections & Other Resources
- Boston's Annexed Towns and Some Neighborhood Resources (BPL) Boston is known as a city of neighborhoods. Some were formerly cities and towns on their own, and were later annexed to Boston. This guide exists to gather together resources to help in the study of the former towns that make up Boston. Material on the neighborhoods as they exist today is also presented.
- Boston History (BPL) Resources and tips for researching the history of Boston and Bostonians
- Bay State Banner Collection The Bay State Banner collection consists of photographs, electronic media, printed materials, and other items related to the Banner, a Boston-based African American newspaper. Photographs make up the majority of the collection and feature an extensive range of both color and black and white prints that have appeared in the Bay State Banner from the mid-1900s to the early 2000s.
- Lower Roxbury Black History Project, Northeastern University Archives Part of Northeastern University's continued commitment to collecting, preserving, and providing access to the rich historical legacy of Roxbury, and the voices of its residents: past, present, and future.
- Boston's Latino/a Community History Collection, Northeastern University Archives Boston's Latino/a Community History Collection is a project of the Northeastern University's University Archives and Special Collections. Over 41,000 items were selected, digitized, and made freely available to be a resource for community members, scholars, and students of all ages.
- Boston TV News Digital Library Welcome to the Boston TV News Digital Library, funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Council on Library and Information Resources. This collaboration between the Boston Public Library, Cambridge Community television, Northeast Historic Film and WGBH Educational Foundation aims to bring to life local news stories produced in and about Boston from the early 1960’s to 2000.
- The Boston Chinatown Atlas "The Boston Chinatown Atlas, a 15-year effort by Prof Tunney Lee, documents the origins of the Chinese in Boston and how they built Chinatown"
New Reports
- Noncitizens Living in Boston, 2022 (Boston Planning & Development Agency In 2020, there were approximately 97,000 non US citizens living in Boston, making up about 14% of the city's population. This presentation is a profile of these residents. The top countries of origin for noncitizen adults in Boston are China, Dominican Republic, and El Salvador.
- Changing Faces of Greater Boston Changing Faces of Greater Boston is a collaboration between Boston Indicators, the UMass Donahue Institute, the four free-standing research institutes at UMass Boston dedicated to the major communities of color (the Trotter Institute, the Gastón Institute, the Institute for Asian American Studies and the Institute for New England Native American Studies) and faculty from UMass Boston's McCormack Graduate School.
- Asian Americans and the Covid-19 Pandemic: A Multi-Lingual Survey in Greater Boston This survey examined the health, economic, and social impacts of the pandemic on Asian Americans in the Greater Boston area. The study prioritized recruitment of Chinese, Vietnamese, and South Asians with limited income and English proficiency who are often underrepresented in general surveys. Recommendations for Massachusetts lawmakers and agencies responsible for public health, economic and social services, and racial equity are presented at the end.
- Those who Come and Those who Leave: A Profile of Migration, 2022 (Boston Planning & Development Agency) Boston's migration patterns are marked by net positive international migration and net negative regional migration. This presentation profiles residents who move to Boston and those residents who leave Boston to live elsewhere.
- Multiracial in Greater Boston (Boston Indicators) The United States is a nation of immigrants. And so is the region of Greater Boston. We’ve gone through waves of being more and less open to immigration, but the effect across recent generations has been a steadily diversifying population. Not only is racial diversity increasing in the aggregate, but a growing number of families are forming across racial and ethnic lines. Today, for instance, one in five babies born in Massachusetts is of mixed race or Latino ethnicity. The report
Boston Chinatown: Resources
- Global Boston: Chinese Global Boston is a digital project based at Boston College that chronicles the history of immigration to greater Boston since the early nineteenth century. Examining different time periods, ethnic groups, and places of settlement, the site features capsule histories, photographs, maps, documents, videos, and oral histories documenting the history of a city and metro area where immigrants have long been a vital force in shaping urban life.
- The First Restaurants in Boston's Chinatown, Part 1 (The Passionate Foodie) What was the first Chinese restaurant in Boston’s Chinatown?
- The First Restaurants In Boston's Chinatown, Part 2--Expanded/Revised (The Passionate Foodie) Let’s continue our exploration of the history of Boston’s Chinatown restaurants and survey the first couple decades of the 20th century. At the start of the 20th century, Chinatown would continue to grow and expand, with a number of new Chinese restaurants opening. It would face a number of serious challenges and obstacles during this time period, including continued racism, legal issues, and Tong violence.
- Chinese Restaurant Finances in the 1920s (Sampan) How much did Chinese restaurants earn during the 1920s? How were they financed? And what did they pay their employees? We can get some insight into the answers through examining two restaurants, the Royal Restaurant in Chinatown and the Imperial Restaurant in Cambridge, both connected by one of the same partners, Chung Moi.
- Boston Chinatoen Master Plan 2020 Every ten years since 1990, the Chinatown community has come together to develop and publish our own vision and priorities for community development, to serve as an education, advocacy, and organizing tool for the community and as a guide to policy makers and developers. In the midst of publishing Chinatown Master Plan 2020, the COVID pandemic struck. This has not just meant a brief delay in publication as we moved to working online, but also that our plan now exists within a dramatically
- Chinatown Then and Now: Gentrification in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia Chinatown Then and Now is a report on the dramatic gentrification of Chinatowns in Boston, New York City, and Philadelphia in the past three decades. The report, contains some of the first-ever land-use data collected on the three largest Chinatowns on the East Coast.
- A Chinatown banquet : exploring Boston Chinatown (streaming, Academic Video Online) A Chinatown Banquet offers an unprecedented glimpse into the history, culture and character of Boston Chinatown through vignettes offering unique snapshots of this rich community. Blending public art, education and community development in an innovative, interdisciplinary format, the videos deepen public awareness about Chinatown and create a new, hybrid form of cultural landmark. This project directly engages community members across generations and geographic boundaries to discover and share Chinatown's untold stories, revealing the forces that have shaped and continue to influence Boston Chinatown.
- Moy Auk: band leader & famed chef (Sampan) During the late 1880s, one of the first and most famous restaurants in Boston’s Chinatown was owned by Moy Auk, who also led a famous Chinese musical band. His restaurant was referred to as the “Delmonico’s” of Chinatown. At this time, Delmonico’s, in Manhattan, was considered one of the finest restaurants in the country so this was very high prais
- The first attempt to eradicate Chinatown (Sampan) Around 1884, Boston’s Chinatown coalesced as a neighborhood and community, especially on Harrison Avenue. Only seven years later, the first attempt to eradicate Chinatown arose, fueled by racism and propelled by businesses seeking to get wealthier.
- An early history of Chinese laundries in Boston (Sampan) During the 19th century, the most prevalent occupation for Chinese men who settled in the Boston area was being a laundryman. This was also true for many cities across the country, especially as the Chinese had few available options, being barred from many other occupations.
- Boston's Chinatown: Community, Power and Placemaking A panel of community leaders discuss the legacy of Boston's Chinatown neighborhood, the birth of Pao Arts Center, and topics like urban expansion, resilience, public health, and other contemporary issues. This event was part of a series on Race, Place, and Space, co-hosted by the Initiative on Cities, BU Arts Initiative, and BU Diversity & Inclusion.
- A Tale of Three Chinatowns (WGBH) A TALE OF THREE CHINATOWNS explores the survival of urban ethnic neighborhoods in three American cities: Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Boston. Through the voices of residents, community activists, developers, and government officials, the film looks at the forces altering each community and the challenges that go with them, including the pressing issue of urban development and gentrification.
- Digital Commonwealth: Chinatown Explore historical collections from libraries, museums, and archives across Massachusetts for "Chinatown."
- The Boston Chinatown Atlas "The Boston Chinatown Atlas, a 15-year effort by Prof Tunney Lee, documents the origins of the Chinese in Boston and how they built Chinatown"
- A People's Guide to Greater Boston "People's Guide to Greater Boston reveals the region’s richness and vibrancy in ways that are neglected by traditional area guidebooks and obscured by many tourist destinations. Affirming the hopes, interests, and struggles of individuals and groups on the receiving end of unjust forms of power, the book showcases the ground-level forces shaping the city. Uncovering stories and places central to people’s lives over centuries, this guide takes readers to sites of
