Picture Archive: The Streets of Boston, 1930s and 1940s

Local Heroes
Photography by George Woodruff
Boston—founded by English colonists in 1630, home of Paul Revere, onetime capital of the United States—has been a perennial subject in the pages of National Geographic magazine.
Five feature stories have focused on the city, including "Boston Through Midwest Eyes," published in 1936. For that feature alone, staff photographer Luis Marden returned to shoot the city at least three times during the Depression decade—in 1934, 1935, and 1936.
In this 1943 image, purchased by National Geographic from International News, the photographer's notes tout the canine component of the Boston Fire Department. "Majestic as if his spotted coat was the purple and ermine of royalty," read the notes, "Bingo-Bang … sits beside the driver of a fire truck answering an alarm."
The Dalmatian breed's association with firemen began back when the water pumps were drawn by horses. The Dalmatians would guard the firehouse equipment and keep the horses active during the wait between fires. By the time fire trucks became automated, the Dalmatians were an unofficial fire department mascot.
—Johnna Rizzo
Published April 29, 2013
Department Store Hordes
Photograph by Chrisitian Science Monitor
"Just a segment of the crowd estimated at 30,000 which turned out in Boston in response to the 'grapevine' news of two sales of nylon hosiery, one at Filene's, the other at Jordan's," read the notes of this photo, which was gifted to National Geographic in 1946. "The Filene's line moved rapidly, but it snaked back and forth until it was three deep in places."
Filene's customers were clamoring for nylon because it was rationed during World War II. Supply in the U.S. didn't meet demand until 1947.
William Filene opened his eight-story behemoth of a department store in Downtown Crossing in 1912 to an estimated opening-day crowd of 200,000. Customers streamed in for nearly a century until it was sold in 2006—shopping for clothing, ogling elaborate window displays, and meeting visiting celebrities such as Christian Dior and Zsa Zsa Gabor.
Published April 29, 2013
Bootblack Boys
Photograph by Luis Marden, National Geographic
"Boy bootblacks are a common feature of Boston streets," read staff photographer Luis Marden's notes from his 1935 shoot.
The profession was ubiquitous in Boston throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. By 2008, however, an article in the Boston Globe bemoaned it as all but lost, citing a sole shoeshine company's phonebook listing: A Shining Example, owned by Emily Gelbert, with stands at hotels Boston Marriott Copley Place and the Westin Copley Place in addition to the office building at One Beacon Street.
Published April 29, 2013
Hot Commodity
Photograph by Luis Marden, National Geographic
"A huge tea kettle over doorway of Oriental Tea Company in Scollay Square," read Luis Marden's notes on the back of this photograph, taken in 1934.
In 1875, the Oriental Tea Company's publicity stunt of soliciting guesses at how much tea the pot could hold garnered 13,000 tries. Filling it took more than an hour. In the end, Boston's Sealer of Weights and Measures declared the golden teapot's capacity to be 227 gallons, 2 quarts, 1 pint, and 3 gills. That official amount was etched onto the teapot's face.
Today the kettle is hoisted over 63 Court Street.
Published April 29, 2013
Lobstermen Unloading a Shipment
Photograph by Luis Marden, National Geographic
On assignment in Boston in 1936, staff photographer Luis Marden photographed these lobstermen delivering a barrel of the locally beloved crustaceans.
"Broiled lives now for inland cities," reads the caption of a similar photo published in our 1936 story. "From Massachusetts Bay north to Nova Scotia lobsters come to Boston by boat, there to be loaded on fast freights for places that never knew them fresh ten years ago."
In colonial times lobster was the food of prisoners and the poor. When it gained popularity in New York City and Boston in the 1880s, the price immediately shot up. It was one of the few food commodities that wasn't rationed during World War II, but only the wealthy could afford to eat it by then.
Published April 29, 2013
Sidewalk Advertising
Photography by B. Anthony Stewart
"As in London, sandwichmen are common in Boston's downtown section," read National Geographic staff photographer B. Anthony Stewart's notes on the back of this 1935 photo.
Charles Dickens is credited with coining the term "sandwichmen" for men paid to strap signs onto their backs and walk along city sidewalks helping businesses hawk their wares. The practice started in the 19th century, then ebbed in the 20th, but resurged during the Great Depression when advertising budgets plummeted.
Published April 29, 2013
Old Province House
Photograph by Luis Marden, National Geographic
Writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, born in nearby Salem, Massachusetts, in 1804, was taken by the Old Province House, built by a merchant in 1679. Of it, he wrote: "Entering the arched passage, which penetrated through the middle of a brick row of shops, a few steps transported me from the busy heart of modern Boston into a small and secluded courtyard.
"One side of this space was occupied by the square front of the Province House, three stories high," he continued, "and surmounted by a cupola, on the top of which a gilded Indian was discernible, with his bow bent and his arrow on the string, as if aiming at the weathercock on the spire of the Old South. The figure has kept this attitude for seventy years or more, ever since good Deacon Drowne, a cunning carver of wood, first stationed him on his long sentinel's watch over the city."
Residence of the royal governors of the province of Massachusetts from 1716 until the beginning stages of the American Revolution in 1776, the house was demolished in 1922. Today only the stairs, as seen in Marden's 1934 photo, remain.
Published April 29, 2013

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neil patrick

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Boston - "onetime capital of the United States". That is simply wrong.

Washington DC has been the capital of the US since 1800. Between 1789 and 1800, Congress met first in New York City and then in Philadelphia, designating those as the US capital. Even prior to the signing of the constitution, between the years 1774-1788, those groups representing the First and Second Continental Congresses and those involved in the Articles of Confederation met in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Lancaster PA, York PA, Princeton NJ, Annapolic MD, Trenton NJ, and New York, thus affording these cities an unofficial title of capital. Never was Boston considered or called the capital of the US, officially or otherwise.

Signed,

A Bostonian.

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