Boston Takes a Bath: Part I

From the 1848-49 Boston Directory.



Braman's Bath House, bottom of Chestnut street.



Braman's Baths, 1852, bottom of Chestnut street. Click on image for larger view (BPL collection).



Braman's Baths, close view.


I came to the topic of public baths when I found the book Washing the great unwashed: public baths in urban America 1840-1920, by Marilyn T. Williams. When I began investigating, I found the subject could be split into two sections - an early, 19th Century period of private baths, and a later turn of the century development of municipal facilities. I'll begin with the early era, and do a second post on the municipal baths next week.

The maps above show Braman's Baths, which opened in 1835, and sat on pilings in the Charles river near Beacon street and the new Public Garden. . At the time, that meant salt water. The building was two stories, 80x50 feet, with 50 bathing rooms and warm and cold water. The pool itself seems to have floated on the water. People took swimming lessons at Bramans, and we can imagine they cooled off in the summer's heat as well. In the fall, the bathing houses were towed up river and grounded for the winter.

The following list is from the 1848-49 Boston Directory. The baths at Craigie's and Warren bridge baths, and hte Morey bath of Western ave. (now Beacon street through the Back Bay) would have been floating in the Charles river. The others, including a second Braman's bath, were either in a hotel, or were 'medicated' baths.

Bruce Cyrus - Craigie's bridge bath
Cyrus Blodgett 233 Washington st. rear, Marlboro hotel
Henry Blodgett, Eastern Exchange Hotel, Eastern Railroad wharf.
Truman Morey - Western ave. (Beacon st)
Warren A. Veazie, Warren Bath House and Refectory, Warren bridge.
American House, 42 Hanover
Henry May, 1 Cambridge st. (medicated).
M.M. Miles, 13 Howard (medicated).
J. Braman, Tremont House.

One Year Of Boston As It Was

Congratulations to me for having kept this blog up for an entire year. The good thing about a history blog is that unlike contemporary news, the content doesn't get old - it already is old. I've already mined a lot of the easy pickings, so I suspect that entries will slow to a trickle soon. Still, the material will remain online as a resource for those interested.

Boston Honors its Women

I'm doing something different today. An earlier entry featured bygone Boston high schools. This one looks at schools named after women. In each case, a local woman was chosen, and each woman was active in advocating for education in Boston. There was a lot of catching up to do, so as immigrant children filled the school system and new building were built, quite a few were named for women.

Born in 1803, Sophia Dana Ripley was from a prominent Boston family, and married George Ripley, the couple becoming involved in Transcendentalism and Brook Farm, where she ran the primary school. Sophia started life as a schoolteacher, attended Margaret Fuller's 'conversations,' but lost enthusiasm for the Fourier-styled social arrangements, and converted to Catholicism in 1846.


Pauline Agassiz was the daughter of Louis Agassiz, Swiss scientist and leading light at Harvard University. She married Qunicy Adams Shaw, who came from great wealth and managed to add to it with the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company. Pauline Agassiz Shaw spent her life in philanthropic endeavors, including bankrolling the first kindergartens in Boston, which she was able to get the city of Boston to take over. I've already written/transcribed a blog post on her at my Jamaica Plain blog - for more, please read here.

All I can find for Martha A. Baker is an army nurse who served during the Civil War.




This remarkable building in Roxbury was built as a home called Abbotsford in 1872 for Aaron Davis Williams Jr.. Although I can't find the reference online now, I know that the property was taken over by the city and used as a school for wayward boys. M(ary) Gertrude Govind worked in the Boston school system, and I believe that she ran the school, although I need to get a reference for this. Elma Lewis took over the property and it is now the Museum of Afro-American Art.


Julia Ward Howe should need no introduction - her Battle Hymn of the Republic is just one of her claims to fame.




Sarah J. Baker was the principal of the Dillaway school for girls in Roxbury.


I find references in the Boston Globe archives to a Mrs Emily A. Fifield being active in the Boston schools between at least 1888 and 1896. She served on a committee for the school board in 1888.



Ellen H. Swallow Richards was the first woman admitted to MIT, the first woman graduate and instructor, and a leading and pioneering environmental chemist of her day. She and her husband lived on Eliot street in Jamaica Plain, and her story is well covered at the JP Historical Society web site.



Another of Boston's Transcendentalists, Elizabeth Peabody opened a bookstore at her home, where Margaret Fuller's 'conversations' were held. She also led the movement, assisted by Pauline Agassiz Shaw, so establish kindergartens in this country.




Miss Abbey W. May was one of four women elected to the Boston School Board in 1874. The matter had to to through the courts before they could be accepted in office, and in time their election was certified.


Harriet Hollis Baldwin was born in the town of Brighton in 1839. She was active in church and women's groups, and became an advocate for education when the town was annexed to Boston. She also advocated for the Horace Mann school for the deaf.

A Boston Tradition

We're still waiting for our first real snow of the winter, but riding your carriage down Beacon street was a winter tradition for decades in Boston. As the old Mill Dam road laid out through the Back Bay when it actually was a bay, Beacon street was a straight shot out of Boston, and probably kept its snow surface in better shape that most in-city streets. It also took you away from the prying eyes of parents and their friends, so like the original South Boston bridge, I'm sure it was a favorite of young lovers

South Boston Institutions of Old

House of Industry, South Boston.




1852.



1855.


As the 19th Century began, Boston made its first expansion by stealing/annexing South Boston from Dorchester. At the time, the peninsula surrounding Dorchester Heights was sparsely settled, and much smaller than it is today. As the population of the town, and then city grew, developers looked to South Boston as a residential district, while factories began to be built across South Bay from Boston proper.

With the growth of the city came an increase in poverty and of crime. The existing institutions for the care of paupers and the incarceration of criminals were being overwhelmed, and the city fathers looked to the unused lands of South Boston to place their replacements. Under new mayor Josiah Quincy, the city in 1824 bought 53 acres of land along the north shore of the peninsula, looking out at Boston Harbor. There, four institutions would be erected: the House of Industry, House of Reformation, House of Correction and, in 1839, a Lunatic Asylum. The maps above show the layout of the buildings and their significant acreage.

The print above shows the House of Industry, with its gardens that inmates worked to provide for the institutions and to sell in the city. As streets were laid out nearby and people moved in, they did not appreciate being the dumping ground for the city's criminals, neer-do-wells and feeble-minded. And so, the institutions were gradually moved from the site to other out-of-sight locations. Deer Island was one destination, as was Austin Farm, which became the Mattapan State Hospital site. South Boston's grid layout was continued through the old complex, and South Boston washed its hands of its burdensome neighbors.

Old Old City Hall

Boston's first City Hall (BPL Flickr photo group).


Boston made the change from town to city in 1822. At that time, the old State House became a temporary City Hall. In 1841-42, the Old Court House on School street (the building shown above) was taken over as Boston's City Hall. Twenty years later, this building was demolished, and in 1865 the new Old City Hall, which still stands on the site, was opened for business.

Link Time: Railroad.net MBTA Forum

I've added a new link to the Railroad.net forum MBTA board. There are the guys who know the model numbers of every trolly and train that ever ran in Boston, every station that no longer exists, and what work went on in each different maintenance shop. There's a lot of talk about contemporary MBTA issues, but the board is a great source for history as well. To my mind, this is the Internet at its best - people volunteering to share their knowledge with others.

Railroad.net