The next presentation in the Dorchester History Initiative series is Thursday, March 2, 6:30 p.m. in the Uphams Crossing Community Room, 530 Columbia Rd., hosted jointly by Hancock Street and Jones Hill Civic Associations. UMass graduate student Genevieve R. Peterson poses the question, “Historical Preservation in Virginia-Monadnock: Why Not?”
In the last half century, how much of Dorchester’s history has involved individual neighborhoods facing economic disinvestment, blight, discriminatory lending, and inadequate financial and public resources; and their residents fighting heroically for stability, safe streets, affordable home ownership, quality of life and indeed neighborhood beauty?
Peterson asks why a place of architectural and historical significance has historically lacked preservation resources. Her search among primary sources – unpublished reports, personal papers and archives, interviews with community leaders who played principal roles, public documents, etc. – draws answers helping to reconstruct the saga of her neighborhood’s struggle to actualize its nascent beauty and value.
During the Fall 2016 semester, UMass graduate students conducted primary source research projects investigating a variety of topics on the history of Dorchester. Several students have offered to present their findings in community seminars. This initiative seeks to bring academic historical research to the community whose history is being written. Local history serves the sustainability of communities, empowering people to participate in local democracy and active citizenship. By searching the past to understand the present, community history can play a significant role in building shared culture and trust among Dorchester’s large and extraordinarily diverse populations.
The effort is a joint initiative of Vincent Cannato, Associate Professor and Graduate History Program Director University of Massachusetts, Boston; Earl Taylor, President, Dorchester Historical Society and John McColgan, Boston City Archivist.
