In 1775, at the outbreak of the American Revolution, Sarah Winslow Deming escaped British-occupied Boston and took temporary refuge in Jamaica Plain.  Lucinda, whom she enslaved, was with her.  Speakers Natalie Eldridge and Emily Curran of Hidden Jamaica Plainwill share their research on Deming’s vivid account of their escape and on Lucinda’s life. This will be a hybrid event, please click through if you want to register for the Zoom link.

To celebrate Women’s History Month we are having a presentation by the Boston Women’s Heritage Trail. In 1989, a group of Boston Public School teachers and students decide to highlight the overlooked contributions of women to Boston’s history. Modeled after the Freedom Trail and Black Heritage Trail, the BWHT celebrates the past accomplishments of remarkable women in Boston, claiming their rightful place in our City’s history through education, reflection, and an interactive city-wide monument. This is a hybrid event, please click through to register for Zoom

Plant exploration – documenting and collecting wild plant diversity – is not just a Victorian Era activity, but is alive and well in 2025. Veteran plant explorer Michael Dosmann uses examples from his own expeditions in Asia and North America to compare and contrast the historic and modern plant hunter, placing these activities in the context of scholarship, global change, the search for improved garden plants. Hybrid event, please click through for the Zoom link

The Annual Members’ Event is open to all active members of the Jamaica Plain Historical Society.

Join us as we celebrate 20 years of marriage equality in Massachusetts with an engaging and heartfelt discussion about its impact on the LGBTQ+ community. This event will look back on the transformative journey that started two decades ago and explore how marriage equality has shaped lives, families, and communities. This event will be in a hybrid format, please click through to register for Zoom link.

Learn more about this institution, which celebrated its centennial in 2019 and where compassion has met promise for over 100 years. Our speaker will be Susan Keays, the CEO of the Italian Home. This event will have a hybrid format, please click through to register for the Zoom link (if you want to attend virtually).

The Jamaica Plain community is invited to gather together to read and talk about Frederick Douglass’s influential address, What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? . Designated readers will each read out a portion of the speech to be followed by a discussion of the meaning of the speech to us today.

In the 18th and early 19th centuries, the families living at the Loring Greenough House and farming the estate in Jamaica Plain used the labor of enslaved and indentured people. Scant information has long been known about their presence; recent research has uncovered more details. Join us for a talk to learn about the new findings and the ongoing study being conducted by volunteers. This will be a hybrid event, please click through to register for an in-person spot or to attend via Zoom.

Franklin Park is one of the great urban parks in the world. Generations of Bostonians have loved this landscape and invested it with many diverse memories and meanings. Today the park is at a turning point. Prof. Ethan Carr, the author of the new book Boston’s Franklin Park Olmsted, Recreation, and the Modern City. will be our speaker. This event will use a hybrid format, please click through to register if you want to attend via Zoom.

City Life/Vida Urbana (CLVU) will share its rich history of organizing in Boston to build the power of working class and BIPOC communities to fight for systematic change. Founded in 1973, and currently located in The Brewery, City Life is known for its anti displacement organizing, fighting unscrupulous landlords; defending families from foreclosures and evictions. Zoom event, please click through to register!

At least 27 Africans were enslaved in Jamaica Plain in the 1700s.  Hidden Jamaica Plain will present an overview of slavery in Jamaica Plain. This history includes land theft, enslavement first of Indigenous people and then expansion to Africans.  Massachusetts Bay was the first English colony to legalize slavery in 1641.  Chattel slavery existed in Massachusetts at the time of the American Revolution, and several Jamaica Plain patriots were enslavers.    Hidden Jamaica Plain is a volunteer group researching the history of land theft, enslavement, resistance and community in Jamaica Plain  Hybrid event, please click through to register for Zoom (if you want to attend virtually).

While completing his latest book, Alex Krieger realized that his own neighborhood of Jamaica Plain is emblematic of a number of American ideals. Americans still identify with Ralph Waldo Emerson who lamented, “I wish for rural strength and religion, and city facility and polish.” Krieger will use his talk to trace this long American desire to occupy a place in between: city and country; civilization and nature, sophistication and simplicity, community and family and to argue that JP is an answer to Emerson’s wish. This event will use a hybrid format, please click through if you wish to register for Zoom.

Join us for an event to launch the new book by Susan Wilson Women and Children First: The Trailblazing Life of Susan Dimock, M.D. in Boston. The book talk and reception will be followed by a visit to Susan Dimock’s gravesite.

Author Stephanie Schorow speaks about her latest book ‘A Boston Harbor Islands Adventure’. In July 1891, four intrepid women from Lowell set off for Great Brewster Island in Boston Harbor for an adventure they would remember all their lives. Calling themselves “the Merrie Trippers,” the women created a journal of their 17-day sojourn with entries, illustrations and photographs. This is a hybrid event - please click through to register if attending using Zoom.

The Boston Public Library holds a remarkable collection of approximately 500 bird’s-eye view maps from the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. How were these maps produced? How accurate are they? What sorts of historical information can we learn from them? This is a hybrid event, please click through if you would like to register for Zoom.

A presentation for the residents of Springhouse on the section of Jamaica Plain we refer to as Allandale. The area has quite an interesting history. The public is invited to attend via Zoom, please click through to register.

The Jamaica Plain community is invited to gather together to read and talk about Frederick Douglass’s influential address, What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? . Designated readers will each read out a portion of the speech to be followed by a discussion of the meaning of the speech to us today.

Dr. Wendy L. Rouse, Professor of History at San Jose State University,discusses her book 'Public Faces, Secret Lives: A Queer History of the Women’s Suffrage Movement', which explores the important role of queerness and queer suffragists in the fight for the vote. This book highlights the alliances that queer suffragists built and the innovative strategies they developed to protect and preserve their most intimate relationships as they defied the gender and sexual norms of their day. Please click through to register for this virtual event.

Please join us for a presentation about Reverend Charles F. Dole by Paul T. Burlin who has recently completed a new book Charles F. Dole, Liberal Theology and Reform: A Life Well-Lived.   Charles Fletcher Dole was a long-time Jamaica Plain resident (he lived at 14 Roanoke Street on Sumner Hill) and was the minister of the First Church in Jamaica Plain  from 1876 to 1916.

The Massachusetts Historical Society, the Jamaica Plain Historical Society and the Jamaica Plain Branch of the Boston Public Library are teaming up to help you learn more about ways to research the rich and vibrant history of JP.  Each organization will explain how to use the items in their collections to find out more about local history. Please click through to register for Zoom option.

Dana Pilson curatorial researcher and collections coordinator at Chesterwood, the historical home, studio, and gardens of sculptor Daniel Chester French in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, will present an illustrated talk focusing on French’s works in Jamaica Plain’s Forest Hills Cemetery. Please click through to register for Zoom option.

Join us on Zoom for a reading of the play Sophia Hayden Deserves Better by Stephanie Alison Walker. In 1891 a brilliant 23-year-old woman from Jamaica Plain won an architecture contest to design the Woman’s Building for the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. What should have been the start to a flourishing career in architecture became career-ending. Please click through to register.

Joe Bagley, the Archaeologist for the City of Boston will present the initial findings from the dig conducted at the Loring Greenough House in the fall of 2022. Click through to register for Zoom.

Katharine Cipolla, Parish Historian, will present a survey of this historic building from her recent book A History of St. John’s Episcopal Church, Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, The First Century. This survey offers a chance to explore the building’s history to date and to compare the existing edifice with the architect’s vision.

By 1880, the Jamaica Pond Ice Company had 22 icehouses on Jamaica Pond with a storage capacity of 30,000 tons. Charlie Rosenberg of the Jamaica Plain Historical Society will discuss this fascinating industry and the over-sized role it played in Jamaica Plain’s economy. This talk is a hybrid event, you can attend in person or via Zoom, click through to register.

The Annual Members’ Event is a chance to mingle with other members, test your knowledge with the trivia challenge and hear about the work of the JPHS. Illustration by Felipe Âlvarez @felipfecit

This tour will highlight the many women who made history in Jamaica Plain and beyond. Educational reformers, musicologists, scientists, doctors and suffragists — the contributions of these women are enormous and their stories are wonderful. Some names are quite well known (Sylvia Plath) while others are lesser known but no less astounding (Emily Greene Balch).

Join us for a screening of the film "Boston's Latino Pioneers" followed by a panel discussion featuring director Blanca Bonilla with some of the "Pioneers" as we celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month / Habrá una proyección de filme "Los Pioneros Latinos de Boston" seguida de un panel de discusión que presentará a Blanca Bonilla con los "Pioneros" en celebración del Mes de la Herencia Hispana.

For two days in November 1872, a massive fire swept through Boston, leaving the downtown in ruins and the population traumatized. Coming barely a year after the infamous Chicago fire, Boston’s inferno turned out to be one of the most expensive fires per acre in U.S. history. Yet today few are aware of how close Boston came to destruction. Boston author Stephanie Schorow masterfully recounts the fire’s history from the foolish decisions that precipitated it to the heroics of firefighters who fought it.

The Southwest Corridor Park was the result of protests about the creation of an eight lane highway running through Boston’s southwestern neighborhoods. Jamaica Plain’s residents played an important role in both the stopping of I-95 project and the efforts to create a park out of the razed land.