A fruitful week at the Boston City Archives.

During this week, I came into the Boston City Archives and the first thing I did was work on the edits Marta gave me for my blogs. I also began compiling a longer blog about Margaret Sanger and the issues the Boston Public Library had when processing her autobiography. That blog is turning out to be longer than my other ones, because of how much there is in those papers.

I created a list of people that I wanted to look for in the back, and then was able to find a lot of what I was looking for. Rose Kennedy attended Dorchester High School and graduated in 1906. I was able to find her in the graduation exercises from that year. She was listed as being on the honor roll. I also took a look at the school newspaper published that year to see if she was writing for it or on any sports. Unfortunately she wasn’t, but there was two very interesting articles written in the mid 1940s that I’ll probably write blogs about. One asked girls if they think women should serve on a jury, and the other was about dieting.

I found William Monroe Trotter, a newspaper editor and civil rights activist, listed in Hyde Park’s graduation exercises from 1860. At that point, Hyde Park High School was predominantly white, but Trotter managed to do well enough to be valedictorian of his senior class. I also tried looking for Horatio J. Homer in the city records, but have yet to find him. Homer was the first African American on the Boston police force.

I really enjoyed this week. I found a lot more to work with this week than last week. I want to finish up a few blogs before going in the following week. This way like before I can get some new things started much more easily. There are documents related to the Anthony Burns case that I need to look through next week. The Anthony Burns case was one that made a lot of people question the Fugitive Slave Law. I would also really like to find Horatio J. Homer in the archives. I feel as though I am finding my groove, and I am really getting to know where I can find documents in the archives.