HUB History - Our Favorite Stories from Boston History

Prescott Townsend was one of the most interesting figures in Boston’s LGBTQ history. He was the ultimate Boston Brahmin, coming of age at Harvard in the shadow of Teddy Roosevelt and enlisting in the Navy during World War I. He served time in prison after getting caught in a Beacon Hill tryst back when homosexuality was a crime in Boston, and spent decades as an activist, helping to found the gay liberation movement, and marched at the head of the nation’s first pride parade on the first anniversary of Stonewall. We’re also going to meet a researcher who has uncovered new information about Prescott Townsend as part of an effort to improve how the National Park Service interprets the LGBTQ history of Boston.

Please check out the transcript and full show notes at: http://HUBhistory.com/193/

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Prescott Townsend

Make sure to watch the websites and social media profiles for the Boston National Historical Park (twitter, facebook, instagram) and the Boston African American National Historic Site (twitter, facebook, instagram) for information about virtual events developed by our interviewee Megan Linger.

Prescott Townsend in his WWI uniform, ca 1916-1919 Prescott Townsend in 1973, via UMass

• Townsend’s profile in Before Stonewall, by Charles Shively
• Mark Krone’s profile of Townsend for Boston Spirit
• Townsend and his Navy buddies take over Block Island
• The images below via Historic New England
• The Crimson Letter: Harvard, Homosexuality, and the Shaping of the American Culture, by Douglass Shand-Tucci

Boston Book Club

Esther Forbes is well known as the author of Johnny Tremain, a beloved novel for young readers. This fictional version of the lead up to war in Boston from mid 1773 to just after the battles at Lexington and Concord in 1775 was published in 1943 and won the next year’s Newberry award. A decade later, Disney made it into a feature film. The year before Esther Forbes published Johnny Tremain, she published a biography of Paul Revere that remains one of the most respected titles on Revere and the historical context of his famous ride. When co-host emerita Nikki started work at Old North Church, she wanted to refresh her knowledge of the events of April 1775, and every historian we asked recommended Paul Revere and the World He Lived In, by Esther Forbes.

In a 1942 review, Revolutionary War historian Frederic Kirkland calls it “a picture of Revolutionary times which is unsurpassable.” It’s little wonder that the book won the Pulitzer Prize for history in 1943, just as Johnny Tremain was being published.

Upcoming Event

Back at the beginning of June, I discussed the criminal career of burglar Levi Ames. However, the most interesting part of the story came after he was hanged in 1773, when medical students who would go on to be the top doctors in the newly independent United States tried desperately to steal his corpse, while a sympathetic minister tried desperately to hide it.

If you liked that tale of graverobbing resurrection men, you might enjoy an upcoming talk, titled “Anatomical Acts: Exploring the Intersections between Popular Anatomy and Popular Theatre in Nineteenth-Century America.” The event is being hosted by the Massachusetts Historical Society and led by Mia Levenson, a PhD candidate at Tufts. Her research examines 19th century grave robbing, public performance of science, and the growing popularity of blackface minstrel shows, showing how these seemingly disparate subjects are intertwined. Here’s how the MHS website describes it:

Levenson will contextualize her research as the intersection of three historical threads: the increasing importance of anatomical science to medical education, which contributed to widespread theft of bodies from public (and primarily African American) graves; the rise of a “popular anatomy,” whereby moral reformers sought to uplift the white middle-class through anatomical education; and the popularity of minstrelsy, a theatrical form that created a mockery of Black anatomy while, in some burlesques, simultaneously using the site of the dissection room as a punchline.

The talk will be held at 12pm on Thursday, July 16th. It’s free to the public, but you must register in advance to get the connection details.