Have you ever walked down the road and wondered how much the surroundings have changed since your first memory of it? New settlements, shops, and cafes rise here and there every month. It changes your city permanently. It can never be the same again. You may have heard your parents or grandparents (if they lived in the same city) talking about how the roads looked and what shop ran before the mall was built. It must be interesting to watch your city grow and prosper.
Boston is Massachusetts’ capital and largest city. Founded in 1630, it’s one of the oldest cities in the U.S. The key role it played in the American Revolution is highlighted on the Freedom Trail, a 2.5-mile walking route of historic sites that tells the story of the nation’s founding. One stop, former meeting house known as Faneuil Hall, is a popular marketplace. It would be fun and illuminating to watch this historical city to grow and prosper. For the same, researchers at the Boston Research Centre at Northeastern University are working to trace the city’s historical journey through old photographs, sketches, prints, newspaper clippings and anything they could lay their hands on. Researchers at the centre, are trying to build a digital community history lab based in the Northeastern University’s Library that is dedicated to the study of the City’s past, present, and future. Their teams will travel to neighbourhoods throughout Boston to collect hard-to-find historical artefacts and share the digital history of the city with its residents.
The work is supported by a $650,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the largest funder of the humanities in the U.S. in collaboration among the Boston Research Centre. The Boston Public Library and the Massachusetts Historical Society is also supported by the Mellon Foundation funding.
Shraddha Patil