I research and read about Boston’s South End almost every day. I started this blog to share information about the history of the South End neighborhood and its relationship to Boston. Bostonians’ perceptions of what constitutes the South End have changed considerably over the last two hundred years. After all, the “South” End is a geographical distinction designating the southern portion of the settlement. Before the mid-nineteenth century, the South End was actually what is now the financial district. When people started moving out to the Boston neck and the city started selling lots and filling in land around Washington Street, this new South End (and the South End I’ll be talking about) was born.
I am not planning on including full scholarly citations for most of my sources. I will provide the basic information so that you can track the source down but, for the purposes of this blog, I’m not going all out Chicago-style.
Luckily for me, I work for the South End Historical Society and have access to many of their wonderful resources. While I’ll try to limit the philosophizing, any opinions I express are my own and are not necessarily shared by the South End Historical Society.
If you use any of the information on this blog for your own research, please give credit where credit is due.
The image above belongs to the South End Historical Society. Taken in 1972, it shows the block of 1631 to 1595 Washington Street, aka the Boston Neck. Notice the elevated train on the right side of the image.
Happy reading!
Looking forward to reading this – one of my favorite parts of my job is editing the weekly history page. After reading your first few posts, I can tell that I’m going to enjoy your history blogging. (Bonus: A break from Civil War history, which dominates down this way.)
Great! Nice to meet you Jennie!