Researching Black History at the BPL
Introduction
Massachusetts, and Boston in particular, played a key role in the Civil War effort as both an urban, political, and industrial center. Throughout the War, Boston continued to be a key abolitionist stronghold and stop on the Underground Railroad. Bostonians were not unanimous in their support for the war effort; Boston was the site of an anti-draft riot that left several people killed or injured. Over 26,000 Massachusetts men ended up serving for the Confederacy; however, this was trumped by the 133,000 who served for the Union. In particular, the Black 54th and 55th Regiments served critical political, historical, and military roles. Through the heroic and tragic assault on Battery Wagner in July 1863, the 54th helped spur on the enlistment of over 180,000 Black soldiers. This provided a needed boost to the Union forces and helped turn the tide in favor of the Union.
On This Page:
- Timeline of Civil War and Reconstruction era Black history in Boston
- Related primary sources and research projects
- Related nonfiction books
Image Right: This cabinet card photo is of an unnamed Civil War naval veteran at Robert A. Bell Post, 134, G.A.R. In 1877, Boston’s Committee on Public Buildings recommended that the city lease the Smith School at 46 Joy Street to the Robert A. Bell Post, 134, of the Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R.). Once approved, the former schoolhouse became the headquarters for this G.A.R. unit of African American veterans at the cost of $1 a year. Posts of the Grand Army of the Republic formed across the country to foster community among veterans of the Union Army. Newspapers from the time widely regarded the Robert A. Bell Post, 134, chartered June 29, 1870, as the first all-Black G.A.R. post in the country. (Text from the National Park Service, linked above)
1863 - The 54th Regiment, the first Black regiment in the North, is formed
1863 - James Trotter leads boycott for equal pay for Black soldiers in the 55th Regiment
1863 - The formation of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment
1866- Boston's Little Brown and Company publishes the United States Statutes at Large containing the 1865 Freedmen's Bureau Act for the relief of Freedmen and refugees following the Civil War and the charter of the Freedmen's Savings and Trust Company
1873 - African Americans and West Indians form the St. Paul AME Church in Cambridge
Image Right: Recruiting poster for the Massachusetts 54th regiment, first published by J. E. Farwell & Co, Boston, 1863. Via Wikimedia Commons.
Timeline courtesy of The City of Boston
Primary Sources and Research Projects
Fire and Thunder: Massachusetts Blacks in the Civil War
A project of The Commonwealth Museum, this is a digital exhibit examining Black soldiers and communities in Massachusetts during the Civil War.
Image Right: The 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment was an infantry regiment that saw extensive service in the Union Army during the American Civil War. It was the second African-American regiment. This Kurz and Allison print from 1890 depicts the moment of regiment commander Col. Shaw's death during the assault on Fort Wager. Image via the Library of Congress.
Nonfiction Books
Maria Baldwin's Worlds : a Story of Black New England and the Fight for Racial Justice by Call Number: E185.89.I56 W45 2019ISBN: 9781625344779Publication Date: 2019-09-20Maria Baldwin (1856-1922) held a special place in the racially divided society of her time, as a highly respected educator at a largely white New England school and an activist who carried on the radical spirit of the Boston area's internationally renowned abolitionists from a generation earlier. African American sociologist Adelaide Cromwell called Baldwin "the lone symbol of Negro progress in education in the greater Boston area" during her lifetime. Baldwin used her respectable position to fight alongside more radical activists like William Monroe Trotter for full citizenship for fellow members of the black community. And, in her professional and personal life, she negotiated and challenged dominant white ideas about black womanhood. In Maria Baldwin's Worlds, Kathleen Weiler reveals both Baldwin's victories and what fellow activist W. E. B. Du Bois called her "quiet courage" in everyday life, in the context of the wider black freedom struggle in New England.
No Right to an Honest Living : The Struggles of Boston’s Black Workers in the Civil War Era by Call Number: F73.44 .J66 2023ISBN: 9781541619791Publication Date: 2023-01-10From a Bancroft Prize winner, a harrowing portrait of Black workers and white hypocrisy in nineteenth-century Boston Impassioned antislavery rhetoric made antebellum Boston famous as the nation's hub of radical abolitionism. In fact, however, the city was far from a beacon of equality. In No Right to an Honest Living, historian Jacqueline Jones reveals how Boston was the United States writ small: a place where the soaring rhetoric of egalitarianism was easy, but justice in the workplace was elusive. Before, during, and after the Civil War, white abolitionists and Republicans refused to secure equal employment opportunity for Black Bostonians, condemning most of them to poverty. Still, Jones finds, some Black entrepreneurs ingeniously created their own jobs and forged their own career paths. Highlighting the everyday struggles of ordinary Black workers, this book shows how injustice in the workplace prevented Boston--and the United States--from securing true equality for all.
