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A Busy Corner On Harvard Street With Young People Passing By On The Street.

Koreans

Corner of Harvard Avenue in Allston, an area often referred to as Boston's "Koreatown" and home of dozens of Korean-owned restaurants, businesses, and the Korean language newspaper, BostonKorea (building center left). Courtesy of Alastair Pike, NBC News.

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Painting Of 19th Century Waltham Showing Boston Manufacturing Company On The Banks Of The Charles River

Waltham

View of the Boston Manufacturing Company ca. 1816, the first fully-integrated factory in the US that attracted thousands of immigrants to Waltham in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Image photographed by David Bohl, courtesy Gore Place and the…

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Quincy

From the 1820s until the mid-20th century, thousands of skilled immigrant stonecutters found jobs in Quincy's granite industry. Shown here are quarrymen coming up in a "boat" for dinner in the Granite Railway Quarry, ca. 1920-1930. Courtesy Thomas Crane Public…

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Greek Restaurants in Boston

There’s an old saying that “when Greek meets Greek, they start a restaurant.” In Boston at least, this seems to have been true. Along with Jews and Italians, Greeks were one the top three immigrant groups that owned restaurants in…

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Jewish Restaurants in Boston

In 1894, the Boston Globe reported that the city had only one Jewish restaurant, located on Hanover Street in the North End. By the 1920s, however, there were more than three hundred Jewish-owned restaurants across the city, the most run…

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Large Restaurant With Tablecloths And Centerpieces, Leather Booths, And Murals With Italian Scenes On The Wall.

Italian Restaurants

Postcard showing main dining room of Cafe Bova, a popular downtown Italian restaurant, 1912. Founded by Calabrian-born Antonio Bova in 1907, this cosmopolitan restaurant featured elegant tables, murals of Neapolitan scenery, and live Italian music. Its eclectic menu offered dishes…

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German Restaurants

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, German restaurants and breweries were popular gathering places in Boston and other US cities. Following the 1848 revolutions and agricultural crises in Europe, German immigration to the United States increased sharply. Although…

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Chinese Restaurants

Unidentified man seated at the Oriental Restaurant at 32 Harrison Street owned by Bun Fong Low Company, ca. 1895-1910. Courtesy of the Trustees of Boston Public Library.

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Global Eats

Cast members of the theatrical production “One Sunday Afternoon” celebrating at the Russian Bear Restaurant on Newbury Street in December 1933, just days after the end of Prohibition. This restaurant opened a year earlier under the ownership of Mrs. L.B.…

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Jews in the Shoe Trade

Thousands of Russian Jews came to Lynn to work in its shoe factories. The economic life of the Lynn Jewish community was inextricably linked to the shoe industry, which became the major source of the Jews’ upward economic mobility. Even…

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