Friday Video: Boston by Streetcar, c1903

Isabella reporting,

Some of our most popular Friday Videos have featured turn-of-the-20th-century cities captured by early outdoor cameramen, usually from a streetcar. Here is Paris, and here's New York (in a blizzard) - and now we have these street scenes of Boston, c1903.

For those familiar with the city, this short film includes views of North Station, South Station, Atlantic Avenue, Copley Square, and Huntingdon Avenue. It's also a chronicle of urban transportation: while most people are traveling by foot, there are plenty of horse-drawn vehicles as well as streetcars, plus the newer trolleys and elevated cars whose tunnels are seen under construction.  It's also a time without crosswalks or traffic lights, with pedestrians jaywalking with bravado. I love seeing how formally everyone is dressed, too, with almost every man and woman wearing a hat. For more about the film, see this article by the New England Historical Society.

This video was shared with me almost simultaneously by two of the blog's New England friends, Kimberly Alexander and Andrea Cawelti. Thank you both!