20th-century urban redevelopment
A01=Seth C. Bruggeman
American Revolution public memory
Author_Seth C. Bruggeman
Best books about Boston history
Black history in Boston
Boston heritage tourism
Boston historic preservation
Boston's colonial history
Boston's most famous historical sites
Boston's urban renewal history
Category=JHBD
Category=NHK
Category=NHTB
Category=WNJ
City branding through history
City planning in Boston
Colonial past in modern culture
Commercialization of American history
Controversies in public history
Critiques of public history narratives
Cultural tourism criticism
Economic impact of heritage tourism
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eq_history
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eq_isMigrated=2
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eq_non-fiction
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Federal government and historical preservation
Founding Fathers in Boston
Freedom Trail tourism
Gentrification and historical sites
Government-funded tourism projects
Heritage as economic development
Historic landmarks in Boston
History as public spectacle
History of the Freedom Trail
How the Freedom Trail was created
Interpreting Boston's past
Massachusetts historical narrative
National monuments and race
National origin stories
National Park Service and historical preservation
National Park Service heritage policy
New England cultural landscape
Paul Revere history
Paul Revere's Midnight Ride
Political uses of early America
Public history and collective memory
Race and memory in Boston
Revolutionary landmarks in New England
Revolutionary War sites in Boston
State-sponsored historical narratives
The making of the Freedom Trail
Tourism economy in New England
Urban history of Boston
Urban planning in Boston
Product details
- ISBN 9781625346230
- Weight: 439g
- Dimensions: 150 x 226mm
- Publication Date: 25 Feb 2022
- Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Boston National Historical Park is one of America's most popular heritage destinations, drawing in millions of visitors annually. Tourists flock there to see the site of the Boston Massacre, to relive Paul Revere's midnight ride, and to board Old Ironsides—all of these bound together by the iconic Freedom Trail, which traces the city's revolutionary saga.
Making sense of the Revolution, however, was never the primary aim for the planners who reimagined Boston's heritage landscape after the Second World War. Seth C. Bruggeman demonstrates that the Freedom Trail was always largely a tourist gimmick, devised to lure affluent white Americans into downtown revival schemes, its success hinging on a narrow vision of the city's history run through with old stories about heroic white men. When Congress pressured the National Park Service to create this historical park for the nation's bicentennial celebration in 1976, these ideas seeped into its organizational logic, precluding the possibility that history might prevail over gentrification and profit.
Making sense of the Revolution, however, was never the primary aim for the planners who reimagined Boston's heritage landscape after the Second World War. Seth C. Bruggeman demonstrates that the Freedom Trail was always largely a tourist gimmick, devised to lure affluent white Americans into downtown revival schemes, its success hinging on a narrow vision of the city's history run through with old stories about heroic white men. When Congress pressured the National Park Service to create this historical park for the nation's bicentennial celebration in 1976, these ideas seeped into its organizational logic, precluding the possibility that history might prevail over gentrification and profit.
