Shipping Up to Boston Book Club

With thanks to Woodie Guthrie and Dropkick Murphys for providing the title.

This book club will explore Boston through its people who are, after all, reflections of its
culture. It will move from them to the neighborhoods they inhabited to discover the ways in which the Boston they created impacted the city-and often the surrounding American nation.

Beginning with the Puritans, Boston has always been a town -and then a city- of immigrants. As the city of Boston developed, the urban migration of these immigrants led to the creation of neighborhoods which became identified by an ethnicity which often remains today. One well known example would be the identification of Boston’s North End with its Italian heritage. Although the North End and its sister neighborhoods have become increasingly diverse, those original ethnic identities still frame our view of them.

Accordingly, our first reading will explore Boston’s West End in the decades before, and just after, it was demolished. Frank DelVecchio’s book, City Streets, is a memoir written by the son of Italian immigrants who grew up in the West End. It is a powerfully engaging investigation of urban ethnic life in mid-20th century Boston that moves beyond the West End to the larger issues of the nativist politics of urban redevelopment. 

Should there be interest, I would be happy to include a site visit to some of the sites we will investigate at both the beginning and the end of the club’s calendar. We will discuss this option at our first meeting.

Facilitator Bio: Lois Ascher is a retired humanities professor, who began with literature and progressed to Urban Culture Studies. While teaching literature she avoided book groups. In retirement her love of literature has returned through explorations in the company of others.

The SUB Book Club will meet the 2nd Monday of each month Sept-April (no Dec)

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