| WILFRED HOLTON
Northeastern University
Associate Professor of Sociology
Head Undergraduate Advisor
Chair of the Undergraduate Committee
Degree(s):
B.A., Vanderbilt University, Sociology, 1964
M.A., Boston University, Sociology, 1966
Ph.D., Boston University, Sociology, 1972
Areas of Research/Interest:
Urban Sociology, Social History of Boston, Intergroup Relations, Service-Learning, Applied Research, Sociology of Poverty
Selected Publications:
Creating Boston's Back Bay: America's Largest 19th Century Urban Development Project, (forthcoming, University Press of New England)
Diversity in the Victorian North End, chapter in Victorian Boston Today (2004).
External Affiliations:
Society for the Study of Social Problems, former Division Chair
The Partnership of the Historic Bostons, President
The New England Organization of Human Services Education, former President
The National Organization for Human Services, former board member
The Bostonian Society, Library Committee member
The Massachusetts Historical Society, Fellow
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Boston's Back Bay: The Story of America's Greatest Nineteenth-Century Landfill Project
Boston's Back Bay neighborhood is well known today for its upscale
residences, high-rise office buildings, fine hotels, and excellent
restaurants. Extending from Arlington Street to Massachusetts Avenue,
and from the Charles River to the Amtrak and MBTA tracks, the
neighborhood includes Commonwealth Avenue, Newbury Street, Boylston
Street, the John Hancock and Prudential towers, Copley Square, and the
Charles River Esplanade. The Back Bay today contributes heavily to
Boston's image as a prosperous, modern city with a rich historical
legacy.
Before
1820, however, this region was a tidal marsh that appeared to early
settlers as a large bay behind the town when it filled with high-tide
water twice each day. Only one road, now Washington Street, extended
across a narrow peninsula and connected Boston to the mainland. In the
early nineteenth century, Boston expanded by filling in some shallow
areas around the edge of the Back Bay. Two dams, constructed to
generate power using the tides, cut off the area from the Charles
River, dividing it into two basins: the "Full Basin" and the "Receiving
Basin." This book focuses on filling the Back Bay's largest section,
the Receiving Basin. By the 1850s, pollution of the former tidal marsh
and severe overcrowding in Boston inspired plans to fill the Receiving
Basin. Work on the landfill began in earnest in 1858 and was completed
around 1890--and remains the largest residential and commercial
landfill project ever carried out in the United States.
Opening
with a look at the geological history of the Back Bay and its life as a
tidal marsh, this fascinating narrative examines the roles of planners,
politicians, engineers, and contractors who made it possible to dump
millions of tons of sand and gravel into the marsh. Innovative new
technologies were needed to excavate, move, and grade the heavy loads,
and to construct substantial buildings on very soft ground. Newman and
Holton tap into a wide variety of primary sources including rare maps
and plans, photography collections, corporate and railroad archives,
political documents, deeds, mortgages, and bankruptcy records, all of
which underscore the significance of the Back Bay landfill as a central
component of Boston's development from a small town to a major
metropolis in the nineteenth century.
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