History, Tourism & Greater Boston's Development

The Boston History Collaborative, established in mid-1997, is a not-for-profit alliance of five groups:

• Senior historians from area universities
• Museums, historic sites and libraries
• The Greater Boston tourism industry, including the Greater Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau and Legal Sea Foods
• City, state and federal government agencies, including the Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism
• Downtown businesses including Liberty Mutual Group and State Street Bank and Trust.

Mission

• To position Greater Boston as one of the world's primary destinations for historical tourism by offering visitors and residents programs which are both educational and entertaining over a ten year period.
• To develop these programs in collaboration with historical institutions, the visitor industry, government, academia, schools, and businesses.
• To serve as an example for exciting and authentic history in the midst of a major city.

Projects

The Boston History Collaborative is actively working to establish new historical themes or trails in several areas including:

• Literary Trail of Greater Boston: Featuring Beacon Hill, Boston Athenaeum, Boston Public Library's Bates Hall, Longfellow House, Concord Museum, Orchard House and Walden Pond. Opened 3-6-1999 Guided Group Tours & Self-guided individual tours now available.

• Boston by Sea: A Living History in Story, Sites, and Songs a third exciting on-water tour of Boston Harbor launched in May 2000, "Boston By Sea: Living History in Story, Sites and Songs". The harbor tour includes live theater, song, video and slides in a performance that tells authentic stories of courage, adventure, and discovery. The stories connect visitors to the sites they see in their on-water cruise including the USS Constitution, Boston Light, Fort Warren, the Tea Party and the Golden Stairs of Immigration The tour departs from Long Wharf in Boston aboard a Boston Harbor Cruise boat at 1 p.m. and again at 3 p.m. daily.

• Boston by Sea: The Long Wharf Walking Tour a free guided historical tour along the Long Wharf/Lower State Street will begin its second year on June 16th and run thru October 14th. Led by costumed guides who are set in Boston's 1850's Harbor life, they take you for 20 minutes out along the wharf that the British used to land in Boston before the revolution, that was the center of the cod trade, and of the Boston’s opposition to slavery and slave catchers, and tell you the true stories right where they happened. Special group tours can be booked through the Boston History Collaborative. Tours leave every Friday evening from Legal’s at Long Wharf 6:00 pm to 8:30 pm and Saturday from 5:30 pm at Marriott’s Custom House and Legal’s from 6 to 8:30 pm.

• Family History and Immigrant Trail Project: Several Projects: A website helping Americans find their family roots who migrated through, or lived in, Boston (1 in 4 Americans have a Boston root). Also, a series of virtual trails tied to local ethnic associations as well as to neighborhood historical societies to be ready for Fall '99. Also a single multicultural Trail to be inaugurated in 2000 featuring the new Boston Immigration Museum, Irish Famine Memorial, Vilna Shul, Holocaust Memorial and Chinatown.

• The Innovation Trail: Boston Ideas which have transformed all of our Lives: A Trail which highlights Boston's unique contributions to the worlds of technology, finance, and medicine from the invention of the Telephone and Internet to modern surgery and the commercial bank and mutual fund. Special Group tours can be arranged through the Collaborative.

• An Abolition to Civil Rights Project: Celebrates both the rich heritage and the social, political and cultural contributions of Greater Boston's African American community over the course of three centuries, developing from the Museum of Afro American History and the Black Heritage Trail on Beacon Hill.

Staff

• Maureen A. Taylor, Family History Website Project Manager
• Michael P. Quinlin, Family and Immigrant History Project Manager
• Dr. Robert M. Krim, Executive Director & Founder
• Julie Crockford, Development Director
• Jane Schwerdtfeger, Educational Consultant
• Jennifer Green, Project Researcher
• Andrea Catalano, Project Researcher
• Nancy Lorcalon, Operations Coordinator
  

Contributors/Consultants

• Angel Amy Moreno, Roxbury Community College
• Jerome E. Anderson, New England Historic Genealogical Society
• Ethan Beeler, National Park Service
• James Campano, West End Historical Association
• Van Christo, Frosina Information Network
• Hiep Chu, Project Director of the National Asian Family/School Partnership Project
• James Cooke, Dorchester Historical Society
• Stephanie Fan, Chinese Historical Society of New England
• David Hackett Fischer, Brandeis University
• Susan Goganian, Bostonian Society
• Nancy Hannan, Hyde Park Historical Society
• June Hatfield, Consultant to Northeastern University
• Mark Johnson, Northeastern University
• David Kunze, Roslindale Historical Society
• Henry Lee, Chairman of the Board, Massachusetts Historical Society
• Lynn Public Library
• Very Reverend Arthur Evans Liolin, Chancellor Albanian Orthodox Archdiocese in America
• Dr. William Marchione, Brighton Allston Historical Society
• Dr. Felix V. Matos Rodriguez, Northeastern University
• Marcia Melnyk, Italian American Genealogical Society
• Evelyn Menconi, St. George's Church
• Frank Middleton, African Meeting House
• Dr. Thomas O'Connor, Boston College
• Dr. William Reid, South Boston Historical Society
• Rep. Byron Rushing
• Ellen Smith, American Jewish Historical Society
• Dr. Alexander Von Hoffman, Harvard University
• Bryn Upton, Boston History Collaborative
  

Contact Information

Boston History Collaborative
175 Berkeley Street
Boston, MA 02117
Phone: (617) 574-5950
Fax: (617) 574-6689
Websites:

www.lit-trail.org

www.bostonbysea.org

www.inovationtrail.com

Board of Directors

• Gary Countryman, Board Chair, Liberty Mutual Group & Collaborative
• Roger Berkowitz, CEO, Legal Sea Foods
• James Darr, State Street Bank
• David Feigenbaum, Fish & Richardson PC
• David Hackett Fischer, Professor, Brandeis University
• William Fowler, Massachusetts Historical Society
• Richard Freeland, President, Northeastern University
• Bink Garrison, HMEI
• Don Law, President, Don Law Company
• Henry Lee, Chairman of the Board, Massachusetts Historical Society
• Lelio Marino, Modern Continental Companies
• Linda McConchie, Executive Director, Freedom Trail Foundation
• Patrick B. Moscaritolo, President, Greater Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau
• Beverly Morgan-Welch, Director, Museum of Afro American History
• Roger Saunders, Lenox and Copley Square Hotels
• Jon Westling, Boston University
• Robert M. Krim, Executive Director, Boston History Collaborative

Boston History Collaborative Advisory Council

• Katherine Abbott, Executive Director, Island Alliance
• Robert Allison, Suffolk University
• Eugenie Beal, President, Boston Natural Areas Fund
• Janey Bishoff, Principal, Bishoff-Solomon
• Martin Blatt, Boston National Historical Park
• John Bok, Chair of the Board, Mass Horticultural Society, Board member Island Alliance, Partner, Foley, Hoag & Eliot
• John Brooke, Tufts University
• Louis Casagrande, President, Children's Museum
• Dr. Robert W. Consalvo, Director of Research, Boston Redevelopment Authority
• Karilyn Crockett, Co-Director, MYTOWN
• Lawrence DiCara, Senior Partner, Real Estate, Peabody & Brown
• Prof. Michael Dukakis, Professor, Northeastern University
• Barry Dym, Principal, Workwise
• Westy Egmont, Executive Director, International Institute of Boston
• David Ellis, Director, The Science Museum
• Anne Emerson, Executive Director,The Bostonian Society
• Terence Heagney, Senior Vice President/External Relations, Houghton Mifflin
• Hubie Jones, University of Massachusetts/Boston
• Christopher Kenneally, Author/Writer (Author of The Massachusetts Legacy)
• H. Gregory Ketchen, Chief of Operations, New England Aquarium
• Katherine Kottaridis, Director, Boston Redevelopment Authority
• Alex Krieger, Principal, Chan, Krieger & Associates
• Jill Lepore, Boston University
• Jon Lipsky, Professor, BU/Theatre Arts
• Bernard Margolis, President, Boston Public Library
• Douglas McDonald, Executive Director, Massachusetts Water Resource Authority
• Mary Jane McKenna, Executive Director, Mass. Office of Travel & Tourism, Commonwealth of Mass.
• Nancy Nelson, Superintendent of the Minuteman National Historical Park
• Bill Nigreen, Vice President/Quality Improvement, Fidelity Investments
• Sarah Peskin, National Park Service, Regional Office - Boston
• Michael Quinlin, Irish Famine Memorial Committee
• Rep. Byron Rushing, Historian and State Representative
• Peter Steele, Boston National Historical Park
• Pamela Swain, New England Historic Genealogical Society
• William Tramposch, Vice President, Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities
• Robert F. Walsh, President, RF Walsh Co
• Sam Bass Warner
• Susan Wilson, author/photographer: Boston: Sites and Insights, former Globe columnist, author/photographer.

Family History Website Advisory Council

• Steve Kyner, vice president, GENTECH and editor of The Computer Genealogist
• John McClogan, Boston City Archives
• Mary Frances O'Brien, Boston Public Library
• Pamela Swain, New England Historic Genealogical Society

Credits

The Boston History Collaborative would like to thank the following:

• Photodisc© copyright, Inc. 2000
• Jane Schwerdtfeger