Irish Round Tower, Milford

Why are there so many stone towers in New England? Because Rock is abundant in the region? While I was in the Midwest for a few years, I didn't come across a single stone tower... Now my guess game starts here: when the European settlers cultivated the land they needed to clear chunks of rock. Creating a mound after mound of rock pile was way too boring and impractical. Instead of doing so, they piled rocks up for boundary hedges. That's practical, but it's not quite a fun yet.

Yet Puritans didn't fancy the concept of fun, after zillions of boundaries they might become "creative" with the use of the cleared rock: "Why don't we create some watching towers? We need to keep our properties free from intruders!" Ok, it does sill sound full of practicality sans fun, but you can at least tweak the design to distinguish one tower from another. And then it became a part of vernacular architectural style... That's my complete fancy.

(I'm not the only one fantasizing about New England towers' origins; take a look at the case with Newport Tower in Rhodes Island!)

One day, my Irish husband B. said: "those towers look like medieval towers in Ireland. Maybe there's something to do with Irish." Huh, good point. Come to think of it, the Irish field is as rocky as the New England counterpart. Not surprisingly, our state Massachusetts has the only Irish Round Tower in North America!

The Tower is in a Roman Catholic cemetery in Milford. St Mary Cemetery of Milford was established in 1839, and the tower was built in 1894 to commemorate Irish immigrants of the town. Milford is notable for its Milford Granite. The pink granite stone become fashionable during the 1870's, and the business trend supplied employment to the immigrants.

The supply of stone (nice one!) and Irish masons were plentiful, why not build an Irish round tower, right?

This cemetery is serenely quiet. I know, cemeteries are the synonym of quiet, but there are different tones in it. For example, state hospital cemeteries are sadly quiet. Well maintained cemeteries are peacefully quiet. Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge is lively quiet... I know it sounds strange, but the cemetery is always filled with birds and animals!

The Irish Tower sits on the edge of a pond. There is a huge rock by the tower. Under the rock, there is a man made cave of which entrance is furnished like a catacomb. The entrance is sealed with blocks of stone, and there is no way to peek inside. What's inside? Why is it sealed like that?

Wait a second, a tower and a catacomb... that sounds kinda symbolic doesn't it? I mean the motifs of man and woman are next together...

Immaculate conception?!

A cemetery is a great place to pick up interesting motifs and symbols. This cemetery is filled with Gaelic motifs. In addition to the Virgin Mary, many gravestone had a Celtic cross, serpentine, shamrock, and that tangled vine like thing (excuse my crude knowledge).

Needless to say, many gravestones are curved Milford Granite. I forgot to mention, the tower is made by Milford Granite blocks, too.

Close up of pink Milford Granite

I found a few pauper graves in the cemetery. I recently learned that many cemeteries in the country have pauper sections. Surrounded by non-pauper Milford granite gravestones, what fate drove them to such a numberless, austere gravestones. There may be no clues to tell their life story from a mere number, but we all have to keep in mind that even they have been labeled as "paupers", each person had a history as important as the rest of us.

After finishing my investigation, I was heading back to my car parked on the edge of the cemetery. The north side of the cemetery was next to a woodland of which ownership was not certain to me. There was newish wires in the woods which seemed to show the boundary between the cemetery and the rest of the forest.

As I walked by the woods, I was wondering who is the owner of that part of property. I was scanning for some nature trails, and suddenly mysterious wooden crosses jumped into my eyes.

The height of the cross was about 3 ft (a meter) high. From a quick observation, there were total 13 crosses on the edge of the cemetery property. (I have to say I don't like the number "13" in this context...) The plot seemed to be cleared recently as I noticed some sawdust on the ground.

As you can see from the pictures above, there were numbered plates on the crosses, indicating there seems to be an effort to distinguish one from another. Are those crosses pauper graves? Or are those recently found burial spots that their existences were somewhat forgotten from us? 

Locate Irish Round Tower @ Google Map

St Mary Milford: http://www.stmarymilford.org/
MACRIS database: http://mhc-macris.net/Details.aspx?MhcId=MIL.802
MACRIS database: http://mhc-macris.net/Details.aspx?MhcId=MIL.900 
 A towering mystery, the Greater Grafton Blog: http://greatergrafton.com/2010/01/06/a-towering-mystery-is-this-an-irish-round-tower/

Examining the Cambridge Poor Farm 2-2

If you stumble upon this post, I'd recommend reading Examining the Cambridge Poor Farm 1-2 first.

It dawned on me that I would have ended up there. Cerebral shunts weren’t even invented until the late 1800′s and probably not even remotely safe for most patients until the 1900′s...Eventually I would be considered invalid, and with no source of income I would be sent to the Poor Farm. Maybe I would do some light quarry work or net some fish, but more likely I would spend my days moaning in pain on a dirty floor while the orphans try to avoid me or steal my food. -- From Baron Barometer's Brain Blog 

Cambridge Poor Farm

Located on the most northern corner of the city of Cambridge, the Cambridge Poor Farm was established in 1851. At the almshouse, "the elderly and 'the deserving poor' lived among the sick and the insane" until its closure in 1927.

Continuing from the previous post, I've been investigating this less known piece of Cambridge history together with the 1851 Cambridge Chronicle article. What intrigues me the most is that how the historic event, philosophy, and public sentiment of the time reflected the walls of those institutions. Now, I'll continue the virtual tour. Let's go to 3rd floor.

Click picture to enlarge -- from Cambridge Chronicle

The upper floors

As I have explained in the previous post, 3rd floor had the same layout as 2nd floor: consisting with the workroom and dormitories divided by sex. But there were a few notable differences between the floors. On 3rd floor, the extreme ends of the east and west wings functioned as  hospital wards. Especially, the hospital ward at the men's (east) wing, two rooms were given to "inmates" who were "dangerously sick" or "in a dying stage".

Segregation or benevolent division? 

One more notable distinction between 2nd and 3rd floor is that the upper floor was dedicated to the "American poor". Conversely, it meant that the floor below was allocated to the "non-American poor". Wait, wait. What does an "American" mean in the sense of 1851?

In 1847 alone, 25,000 Irish immigrated to the City of Boston to escape the Great Famine of 1845. By 1850, 1/3 of the Boston population was Irish. Our North Cambridge also hold Irish neighborhoods such as "Dublin" and "New Ireland" around the time. Those communities accommodated workers for a nearby brickyard. There had been a much smaller almshouse nearby the neighborhoods, which was eventually alternated by the almshouse I'm investigating today.

 Second Town Poor House est. 1786

Click picture to read

I used to naively think: "what's the matter, the 'American' and the 'Irish' speak the same language!"  But when I observed how the tombstones at the Metfern Cemetery in Waltham --where some state hospital patients between 1947 and 1979 were buried-- were distinguished by Catholic and Protestant, the austere concrete blocks gave me an impression that the separation was, or some may say is, the norm of the local culture. Is it a benevolently intentioned custom to "avoid unnecessary confusion" for both sides? Or is it a fear and prejudice against the new wave of immigrants? I guess the picture is muddy; generally speaking, such a seemingly good-intentioned custom that draws a line between certain groups could lead to an established segregation practice.

@ Metfern Cemetery: "C" stands as "Catholic"

From the tone of the Cambridge Chronicle article, the separation practice at this almshouse seemed to start from the "good-hearted" intention; the article proudly stats the division as "So far our knowledge extends, this is the first provision of the kind ever carried out in practice."

The Cambridge Poor Farm had a chapel on 4th floor, and I wonder how did they divide Protestants and Catholics in terms of the chapel use.

Benevolent miscalculation?

You might notice it already, but there is a one big change between the now and then picture:

Look and compare the east (right) wing for male. The male dormitory underwent an expansion in 1915. It looks like the men's dormitory stretched twice as long! But what was the implication of the expansion? Did Rev. Dwight and Bryant thought the male: female inmate ratio would be equal, but the city later realized more accommodation was  required for male inmates? Even without mentioning George Orwell's observation, there are more male homeless than the female counterpart.

Aerial view of the Cambridge Poor Farm, from Google Map

Only 12 years after the expansion, the city relocated the almshouse to the new City Home for Aged and Infirm on Concord Avenue. The site of the Cambridge Poor Farm was sold to the Catholic Church, and  the building was converted to a parish school. Sometimes around 1999, the International School of Boston renovated the building to the current use.

My observation on the Cambridge Poor Farm ends here. I thank the Cambridge Room archivist who showed a genuine intellectual interest in my "creepy and strange" investigation and found the 160 year old article from a stack of microfilms. You should visit there! The powerful opening was cited from the Baron Barometer's Brain Blog. His stark observation on what would happen to him if he was a 19th century man sure grabbed my mind, and I'm glad such a badass guy is in 21st century Somerville!  

What else I'd say... If you spent some time in this building as a student or whatever, and a certain descriptions of the building ring a bell (i.e.: "No wonder why that room used to be a hospital ward for dying men."), please feel free to leave a message or send an e-mail to: creepychusetts[at]gmail.com. 

Locate Cambridge Poor Farm @ Google Map

Click Picture to Read

Click Picture to Read

<sources>
Cambridge Historical Commission. Survey of Architectural History in Cambridge: Report Five Northwest Cambridge. Cambridge: MIT, 1977.
"The New Alms-house." Cambridge Chronicle 22 Mar.1851: 1
Klein, Christoper. Discovering the Boston Harbor Islands. Boston: Union Park Press, 2008.

Brain Blog: History Around Every Corner: http://www.baronbarometer.com/?p=248
History of the International School of Boston: http://www.isbos.org/page.cfm?p=10
Cambridge Poor Farm, Creepy-chusetts, Strange-chusetts: http://creepychusetts.blogspot.com/2010/11/cambridge-poor-farm-cambridge.html

Examining the Cambridge Poor Farm 1-2

Wow, time flies. I started my blog "Creepy-chusetts, Strange-chusetts" on August 24, 2010. A year ago, I had little connection with Massachusetts. I knew nobody, I knew nothing about the place! I started the blog hoping to know people in my neighborhood and learn about this tremendously interesting state. The result? It has been great. The idea for my blog is still bottomless, and I hope I can continue my "quirky" adventure further. I thank all the readers and people I became to know through my investigation.

Today, I'd like to introduce what I found through my little research about an ex-almshouse in my neighborhood. Together with Gaebler Children's Center in Waltham, this is one of the most memorable places for me because I became to know some fabulous people though the investigation. -- Shuko K.

Then: from Cambridge Chronicle Mar. 22, 1851

Now: Aug., 2011

The city of Cambridge deserves infinite credit for its great liberality and intelligence in erecting such an edifice, and it can without presumption, take to itself the honor of having within its borders one of the best Almshouses in the country; a distinction more to be envied than its fine churches, public buildings or even its world-renowned Harvard University. --  from Cambridge Chronicle, March 22, 1851

The Cambridge Poor Farm is a less known sister of the Charles Street Jail (now the Liberty Hotel) in Boston. Planned by Gridley J. F. Bryant and Rev. Louis Dwight -- both progressive prison reformers of the time-- and completed in 1851, the almshouse housed "orphans, paupers, the elderly, and the insane" of the city of Cambridge. Approximately 30,000 dollars were spent in completing the almshouse. The building is currently utilized as an international school.

After several visits to the newly opened Cambridge Room at the Cambridge Public Library, the archivist found a piece of rather obscure history from our local newspaper, the Cambridge Chronicle. Together with other sources and my past post,  today I'll show you what I found thorough this mini research. Before I embark on the virtual tour, I want you to keep in mind that the Cambridge Poor Farm was established under the progressive philosophy and state-of-the-art architectural design. While investigating, I thought some of the practices employed at the poor farm were out-dated or even dubious from the contemporary eyes. On the other hand, I feel those practices are well ingrained to our consciousness; they become more coded and subtly nuanced. Even so, it is worth while seeing from a perspective that the almshouse was regarded as one of the greatest civil achievements of the 19th century Cambridge.

The article, which was printed for the March 22, 1851 edition, gives a detailed explanation of the original structure. The basic principal throughout the building was: the front wing for the administrators, the east (left) wing for female "inmates", and the east (right) wing for male "inmates". The central building, which was usually partitioned by sex, was devoted to a working or communal space. For example, the below is the original drawings of the basement floor:

Click picture to enlarge -- from Cambridge Chronicle

Dungeons!

The basement floor (S: I believe this is the floor the current entrance is situated, so I count this floor as the first floor) chiefly functioned as the kitchen, dining, bathing, and laundry spaces.What struck me the most is the existence of punitive cells:

On this floor of the east and west wings are Punishment Cell for refractory inmates, which can be made quite dark, or graduated to different degree of light (Cambridge Chronicle 1).

While the word "cell" is conveniently not-present from the floor plan, quite possibly the spaces between No. 9 and 8 in the East Wing and No. 10 and 11 in the West Wing were allocated as the cells.

The use of light and darkness intrigues me the most. I assume the degree of darkness corresponds with the one of inmates undesirable behaviour; the darker (and quieter) the cell gets, the more refractory the contained inmate is. Rev. Dwight was a prison reformer who had a strong belief in the Auburn System of penitential management, and he must have believed that man only could be compliant by placing him to silence. Darkness played the visual indicator of the degree of silence.

Click picture to enlarge -- from Cambridge Chronicle

2nd and 3rd floor functioned as workshops and dormitories. Separated by a partition, the male and female inmates were completely segregated. For example, the woman's dormitory was on the west wing, and some of them worked on the west side of the central building during the day. If the almshouse adopted Rev. Dwight's Auburn System, the work room should have kept completely silent. But how about the inmates who were assigned to work on the field or at the nearby Alewife brook? How could the men cast and drag a fishing net without shouting? And I wonder how strict the gender division was supervised for the outside labor. 

Control through architectural design

What I'm generally interested in the 19th century prisons and institutions is that how the authority created an effective observation system through the architectural design. I'll cite some of the mentions about the observation system gained through the design.

These (S: workshops) are in the octagonal section. A partition runs directly across the centre of the building, this dividing in half. One part is for women and one for men. This arrangement admits of complete supervision, on overseer being enabled with all ease to superintend both departments (Cambridge Chronicle 1).

Dwight and Bryant conceived the Alms House on a radial plan, having a central block for supervised activity and separate residential wings for men and women. This concept was based upon 18th century English prototypes and Dwight's long experience with the prison reform movement in the United States (Survey of Architectural History in Cambridge 131).

In my view, the most notable example of the prison design is the Jeremy Bentham's  Panopticon (i.e. Stateville Correctional Center in Illinois). But the radial plan represented by the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia was also widely applied to the prison design worldwide. In any ways, the Cambridge Poor Farm was designed to aim for the efficient supervision through architectural design. You can see how simple and efficient the Rev. Dwight and Bryant's plan was by comparing a proposed plan by Ammi B. Young:

Click picture to enlarge--from Cambridge Historical Commission

Rev. Dwight and Bryant's plan must have been chosen by the city because of the expected ease of surveillance through design; if you were a keeper of the almshouse, which plan would you like to adopt?

Ok, I end today's post here. In next few days (I hope...), I'll post more about the upper floors and some of the notable functions of the building I'd like to show. Bye bye now.

Continue to: Examining the Cambridge Poor Farm 2-2

Locate Cambridge Poor Farm @ Google Map

Faces of The Working Boys Home

(follow up of: Working Boys Home, Newton)

About three months ago, I wrote a short piece about the Working Boys Home in Newton. I stumbled on the place by browsing old maps of Newton in 1903 and 1946. There was (and still is) little historic information available, but the post has been drawing rich, personal experience and history related to the Home. Today, I'll introduce some faces of working boys.

The redbrick with an imposing clock tower was built in 1896. It still sits on top of a pine wood hill. Currently the building is functioning as a Jewish community center but was originally established by the Roman Catholic Church for the boys who were separated from parents.

One day, a reader commented on the post:

Ed G:
I grew up in Newton during the 1950s and 1960s and was always a little bit scared by those words on my local map - Working Boys Home. I feared being sent there if I got into trouble. I finally went there to look when it was the JCC about 10 years ago.

I really loved his personal depiction of the place as a local boy. His rich emotion pertained to childhood about the place must have been shared by the boys in the community. Parents might have used the boys' imagination when they found their boys disobedient. (i.e.: "You are a wicked boy. Your father will sent you to the Home, and you'll work day and night !!") Even for modern eyes, the clock tower on an isolated woodland draws quite a deal of imagination.

He asked about more history and photos of the place, and here is a piece of the WBH history:

1900 Census of WBH (Click picture to view)

The above is a census record of 1900. I obtained the information from another reader who told me that his ancestor was in the Working Boys Home. He explained that his ancestor came to the Home alone, separated from an out-of-wedlock mother. Considering from the stigma attached to unwed mothers  in the Catholic Church, sadly the separation was a common practice.

I somehow had an illusion that people in the past had a better handwriting skill than us the keyboard or touch panel type. But, oh boy, I barely read those. I now have a full respect towards archivists who can decode those scribbles.

What I learned from the census was that they were called "inmate". The majority were born here in Massachusetts but their parents were from Ireland or Italy. The boys' occupations were...let me see..."at school". I originally imagined those boys were working at nearby mills in Newton Falls.

If you have some information or personal history related to the Working Boys Home that you can share with us, please contact me through the below comment section or creepychusetts[at]gmail.com. And I thank the readers who gave me an interesting insight to the Working Boys Home.

Foxborough State Hospital, Foxborough

The predecessor of the Foxborough State Hospital, the Massachusetts Hospital for Dipsomaniacs and Inebriates was established in 1889 to retreat and cure alcoholics. Did the society regard those who succumbed to alcoholism as the casualty, sinner, lunatic or criminal? That was the first question when I saw this antiquated hospital name.

Located 20 mile (32km) south of Boston, the town of Foxborough now hosts the stadium for the New England Patriots. Driving through cranberry bogs looked like blood pools, the marshlands reminded me that it was getting close to the infamous Bridgewater Triangle.

After 1905, the Massachusetts Hospital for Dipsomaniacs and Inebriates went through a gradual transition to a psychiatric institution. By 1914, all the alcoholic patients were transferred to the Pondville State Hospital (aka the Norfolk State Hospital), some 50 mile southeast of Foxborough. And the inebriate hospital in Foxborough became the Foxborough State Hospital.

After less than 10 years of operation as a hospital specialized in alcoholism (and drug addiction), the Pondville was under the influence of history. The aftermath of World War I had affected American society; the federal government took over the hospital in 1918 to treat soldiers with PTSD related mental problems.

The Massachusetts Hospital for Dipsomaniacs and Inebriates was constituted with a few isolated wards. After the transition to the Foxborough State Hospital, the building blocks were connected by hallways functioned as day rooms. In addition, numerous isolated buildings and facilities such as coal generated power plant, laundry, staff housing, sewage treatment plant, and TB sanatorium dotted the campus.

When did Andy and Mandy inscribe their love to a tree trunk?

In 1976, the Foxborough closed its door. After the hospital functioned as various government related facilities and an annual Halloween horror house, it was finally converted to a condo in 2009.

It was an early spring, but the turf on the condo property was bright green, signifying the comfortable and aesthetically pleasing American ideal. Well, this is the nice side of the former hospital; the backside is a barren, bleak space that its future could well be in oblivion in few years time.

Now I ask you the question I had in the beginning: did the society in the early 20th century regard those who succumbed to alcoholism as the casualty, sinner, lunatic or criminal? Why did the state establish a hospital specialized in alcoholism?

The purpose of such hospitals as the Pondville State Hospital was "to provide hospital treatment for 'hopeful' cases and a detention colony for noncriminal but chronic cases." (from Asylum Projects) I hope the former function was the main focus of such institutions, but as with the case of asylums back then, the main purpose of such institutions was geographically externalizing the certain segment of society from the rest.

Railroads in American society often function dividing one community to the other 

But why did the state built such a grandiose redbrick to show the public that this would be the end result if you succumb to intoxication? Sure, so many families have been destroyed by family members' drinking problem, and many have lost their lives from poising themselves; I really hate to see that.

First thought I came up with was the rise of the prohibition movement in the mid 19th century that eventually lead to the enactment of the Volstead Act of 1919. The Prohibition Movement was backed up by some denominations of Protestant churches claimed drinking as the evil leads to immorality and sin. This was the beginning of the Roaring Twenties.

But there is more systematic, calculative rationalistic tone under the redbrick. I remembered the tragic stories of unwed mothers in the 20's confined into asylums in England, labeled as a societal threat that weakens the nation's strength with their "deviant" genes (please refer to my post: Our Lady's Hospital, Cork, Ireland.)

What were deemed as "deviant genes"? Eugenics was the scientific, rational answer to the question in the early 20th century. In May, 1911 a special committee was formed under the eugenics section of the American Breeders Association. Consisted with an advisory panel whose expertise in such studies as law, medicine, psychiatry, and social and political sciences, the main purpose of the committee was  to identify and sterilize groups of people who would "contaminate" the American population with their "inferior" genes. Two months after the formation of the committee, a series of conferences were held in an exclusive New York club in order to purify the American blood:

Ten groups were eventually  identified as "socially unfit" and targeted for "elimination". First, the feebleminded; second, the pauper class; third, the inebriate class or alcoholics; fourth, criminals of all descriptions including petty criminals and those jailed for nonpayment of fines; fifth, epileptics; sixth, the insane; seventh, the constitutionally weak class; eighth, those predisposed to specific diseases; ninth, the deformed; tenth, those with defective sense of organs, that is, the deaf, blind and mute. -- from War Against the Weak by Edwin Black, italicized by S.K.

1911 was the period when the Foxborough was transitioning from an inebriate hospital to a psychiatric hospital, transferring its alcoholic patients to the newly established Pondville State Hospital. The increasing number of asylums indicates the burgeoning idea of Eugenics was taking shape as the redbirck architecture, symbolizing the measure of isolating the "socially unfit" for the sake of eventual "elimination".

You may think "Thank god, such an absurd, cold-heated notion is now gone! No wonder why those asylums are now abandoned." Well, I don't want to say much about, but think about this "Economic Darwinian" society we are in...

How long is this abandoned wheelchair sit on this spot? This isn't a kind of wheelchair that one can play basketball with; this thought made me sad. And how many times would I encounter the notion of Eugenics when I look at those redbricks?

I came across a chapel of which annex roof was totally caved in. It looked like it would be demolished any time soon. Some of the windows were broken and even not boarded. I peeped through one of the openings to see the interior.What was the function of this space?

A young woman with her cell phone, chatting about her everyday life passed behind of me while I was completely absorbed by the sight of the ruin. She probably lives in the condo. The contrast between her everyday life and the surreal sight of the abandoned interior space was begging to provoke some existential questions about the ephemeral nature of people's memory.

Abandoned interior of FSH Chapel

From "Memory" by Serghei Minenok

"Memory" is a five minutes documentary about a movie director, Andrei Tarkovsky's childhood home in Moscow. While it was directed by Serghei Minenok in 1997, the filming style and spatial sense honor Tarkovsky's movies represented by Stalker*.

*Plot summary: a guide called the Stalker brings two clients to the abandoned area called the Zone that is heavily guarded by the government. The objective of their trip to the Zone is reaching "the Room" because the space is rumored to embody the visitor's deepest desire. The Zone is often compared to the area surrounding Chernobyl nuclear powerplant of which disaster took place 7 years after the movie was made.  

What striking about the documentary is the stark contrast between the completely ruined Tarkovsky's house and the everyday life of a busy Moscow street where cars constantly pass by. While his house symbolizes a wet, bleak space like the forbidden Zone in Stalker, the outside is an ordinary post-Soviet Moscow. 

From "Memory" by Serghei Minenok

FSH Chapel, from Google Map

There is an interesting similarity between the abandoned Chapel and Tarkovsky's home. At the Foxborough, the residents park their car around the ruin and conduct everyday tasks like unloading grocery and chatting on a cell phone. The intense history of the chapel and hospital becomes obscure by everyday life and will be forgotten from our memory, waiting to be swallowed by the surrounding environment like the Tarkovsky's childhood home was destined to be.

Continue to Foxborough State Hospital Cemetery

Locate Foxborough State Hospital @ Google Map

War Against the Weak by Edwin Black
Asylum Projects: Foxboro State Hospital
Asylum Projects: Pondville State Hospital
Opacity: Foxboro State Hospital

Stalker directed by Andrei Tarkovsky (1979)

Working Boys Home, Newton

Since I discovered the site armed with historical maps of Massachusetts and beyond, I have been browsing them constantly, imaging the landscape some fifty or even hundred years ago. For example, the number of TB sanatoriums is striking in the maps surveyed right after WWII.

In addition to now disused railroads, I am particularly interested in institutions, a kind of institution that we don't expect to see in present day America because some practices or concepts are long gone. Quarantining a mass of TB patients to sanatoriums would be a good example.

Today, I'll show you some of my little findings from old maps. The below is a 1946 map of the southwest Newton.

1946 Map of Newton from MyTopo Historical Map

Look at the lower right section of the map, do you see "Working Boys Home"? "Working Boys Home", what a Dickensian sound in it. We rarely associate the word "working" with "boys" in the context of contemporary American kids; we think of child labors in sweatshops in some countries. I mean kids working like 16 hours a day.

My image of working boys, from eRiding media library

My another image of working boys, from eRiding media library

A lodging for boys who were separated from parents and working some places like factories... This is enough to make me fascinated, and I decided to investigate further. 

 1903 Map of Newton from MyTopo Historical Map

The above is a 1903 map of Newton. I can recognize something like the precursor of the WBH. Wow, the area is really desolate, hilly, and swampy. I searched the place with my another favorite, the MACRIS database. Oh, I've got it! It's still there!

From MACRIS details of Working Boys Home

Imagine such an imposing redbrick tower on a remote woody hill. According to the MACRIS, the building was planned by John and William McGintly in 1896. I couldn't find any more historical information about it, and I wonder what kind of organization did build this institution. It is usually by a Christian one, but it could be by a municipal or nonreligious philanthropic group, too.

The building is currently housing Newton Highlands Jewish Community Center. I should check this place out.

And I went.

It's been beautifully preserved. I have to say it's a lot more cheerful than the black and white picture I saw at the MACRIS. I guess because a part of the building is utilized as a day care center.

Looking at the cheerfully colored playground equipments and toys, I couldn't help thinking how much the view on children has changed in last hundred years. Would the working boys who used to be there imagine a part of the building would become a thing called "pre-school"?

Let's examine the clock on the tower; it's in Hebrew! I'm impressed with the attention to such a detail.

I gotta think, who were the "working boys"? Where did the boys work? And who did build the institution? Information is so limited.

Well, solution is always simple. I should always check the homepage of the current occupant. According to the Leventhal-Sidman JCC, the WBH was operated by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston. So my initial guess about a Christian organization was right.

But where did the boys work? There must have been farms around the facility. Like many Poor Farms, the WBH could have been a self supporting community. The Boston Manufacturing Company (Francis Cabot Lowell's mill in Waltham) is 7 miles (11km) away from the Home. But those mills usually provided boarding to their employees. How about newspaper companies?  There is a relatively big textile machine factory only a mile away, too.

My questions deepen.

Locate Working Boys Home @ Google Map

Also read the follow up article: Faces of the Working Boys Home

Historical map of Newton from Mytopo: http://historical.mytopo.com/getImage.asp?fname=nwtn46nw.jpg&state=MA
MACRIS detail of Working Boys Home: http://mhc-macris.net/Details.aspx?MhcId=NWT.3599
MACRIS detail of Saco-Petee Textile Machine Shop: http://mhc-macris.net/Details.aspx?MhcId=NWT.3714
Leventhal-Sidman Jewish Community Center: http://www.lsjcc.org/home/leventhal.html