A slide lecture by Susan Wilson
March 27, 7 pm – The Watertown Public Library, 123 Main Street – Watertown Savings Bank Room
Did you know that in the era between the Civil War and World War I, Boston women created a world-class museum, a hospital, and a religion? That during a time when ladies were supposed to work quietly on the home-front, outspoken Boston women of all races and classes established schools, settlement houses, journals, associations, and businesses?
To celebrate Women’s History Month, photographer and author Susan Wilson traces the origins and development of the Boston Women’s Heritage Trail, which has sought to “remember the ladies” of Boston history for more than two decades. Making its debut in 1989 as a project of the Boston Public Schools, the BWHT followed in the footsteps, and filled in the gaps, of Boston’s two earliest historic walking tours, the Freedom Trail (1951) and the Black Heritage Trail (1965).
Wilson’s illustrated, anecdotal talk will include BWHT involvement in creating the Boston Women’s Memorial (2003) on the Commonwealth Avenue Mall as well as the author’s two recent projects with the trail — creating a four-color walking map and guide to historic women’s sites in downtown Boston and writing a chapter for the forthcoming Boston Atlas on “Enterprising Women.”
Lecture attendees will receive a FREE copy of the walking map, Boston Women’s Heritage Trail: 30 Highlights of Boston History. Copies of the 108-page Boston Women’s Heritage Trail Guidebook will also be for sale.