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.
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…
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…
An Irish Shoeworker’s Story
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…
Cooperatives in Maynard
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.
The Story of 321 Norfolk Avenue
321 Norfolk Avenue in Dorchester in 2017. This triple decker was built by John Varnerin in 1894. Photo from Google Maps.
Saving His Family: Faustin Kalombo
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…
Interactive Map, 1870-2010
Click on town shapes to see foreign-born percentages; click on buttons on right to see data for different years. Source: US Decennial Census, 1870-2010; American Community Survey, 2022 5-year estimates
