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…
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.
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…
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…
The following account is one of the earliest oral histories with an immigrant shoeworker in Lynn. The interviewee, who is unnamed, was born in 1859 and came to the US in 1866. He was interviewed in 1938 by Jane K…
Employees of the Kaleva Cooperative Association in front of their Main Street shop, ca 1915. Photo by Geo. D. Elson, courtesy of the Maynard Historical Society.
321 Norfolk Avenue in Dorchester in 2017. This triple decker was built by John Varnerin in 1894. Photo from Google Maps.
Originally from Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Faustin Kalombo moved to Bujumbura, Burundi in 1994. When ethnic violence engulfed the region, Kalombo fled to Massachusetts and applied for asylum. In this 2018 interview with Caroline Dragonetti, he describes his…
