About the Harriet Tubman House Memory Project

Project Background

The Harriet Tubman House Memory Project began in July of 2020 when residents of the South End approached the Boston Research Center with a request to document the story of the Harriet Tubman House. Over the next six months, this project was designed with the guidance of community advisors, and with the research and technical support of BRC staff. In documenting the history of the Harriet Tubman House, United South End Settlements (USES), and the neighborhood, this project aims to offer testimony of community action and resilience, as well as the ongoing trauma of displacement through urban renewal and gentrification in the South End.

The Harriet Tubman House was a much-loved community space in Boston’s South End. Its history, and that of USES, extend to the foundation of the neighborhood’s first settlement houses in the late 19th century. Settlement houses were reform institutions in urban centers, primarily serving immigrant communities as places of residence, social services, and assimilation. Even as settlement houses expanded in the South End, they excluded Black community members. In the early 20th century, a Black women’s temperance group established the first Harriet Tubman House as a residence for single Black women who emigrated to Boston from the South, seeking work or education. First located in a brownstone at 25 Holyoke Street, the Harriet Tubman House expanded to include the building next door, at 27 Holyoke.

In 1960, four settlement houses–including the Harriet Tubman House–and a children's art museum in Boston’s South End merged to form the United South End Settlements. In 1975, the new Harriet Tubman House opened its doors at 566 Columbus Avenue; for 45 years, the space served as the headquarters for United South End Settlements, and served as a community center, gathering space, and art gallery. In 2020, USES sold the Harriet Tubman House to the real estate developer New Boston Ventures, citing financial difficulties stemming in part from the rising costs of building maintenance in a gentrifying neighborhood. While this sale was deemed necessary to ensure USES’s survival and continued service to the community, the decision to sell the building was met with controversy. Opponents to the sale fear that the replacement of a beloved community space with luxury condominiums will contribute to the neighborhood’s ongoing gentrification. I Am Harriet, a grassroots collective of community leaders, led efforts to prevent the building’s sale and eventual destruction. Following the sale of the building, USES moved their headquarters to 48 Rutland. In the winter of 2020, the Harriet Tubman House was demolished.

The project gathers the stories of past and present staff, volunteers, artists, and community members since the building’s development in the 1970s. The Harriet Tubman House Memory Project includes interview recordings, transcripts, photographs, manuscripts, and other records pertaining to the history of the Harriet Tubman House and United South End Settlements. It also includes recent photographs of the space taken by the Boston Public Library’s photo-documentation team in Summer and Fall 2020, just before the Harriet Tubman House’s sale in November 2020. This virtual portal was created using Northeastern University’s digital archives tools with support from NU’s Digital Scholarship Group. In addition to documenting the Harriet Tubman House, this project offers broader histories of the neighborhood and the role of the South End’s settlement houses during the 20th century.

Implementation

Over the course of this project, community members, including individuals affiliated with I Am Harriet and USES, have worked to preserve the legacy of the Harriet Tubman House in partnership with the Boston Public Library, the Boston Research Center at the Northeastern University Library, and Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections. This project aims to collect, preserve, and center the stories and memories embedded in this beloved community space.

Northeastern University’s Archives house the records of the United South End Settlements, which include meeting minutes, correspondence, reports, proposals, grants and contracts, newspaper clippings, program descriptions, property descriptions, artwork, photographs and slides, scrapbooks, and VHS cassettes. Among these are the “South End Honor Roll,” an oral history project produced in 1995-1996, documents the history and culture of the South End from the 1920s through the 1990s. Along with print and graphic materials from the United South End Settlements Collection, the “South End Honor Roll” has been digitized and added to the Harriet Tubman House Memory Project. The “South End Honor Roll” is an oral history project illuminating the Harriet Tubman House’s history through the lived experiences of past residents, students, employees, and others aims to humanize this building and add to the scholarship of settlement houses and social services in Boston’s South End.

Oral History

The Harriet Tubman House Memory Project includes two oral history collections, created 25 years apart. The “South End Honor Roll” was produced by USES from 1995-1996, and offers a broad history of the neighborhood and the role of settlement houses during the 20th century. These interviews were recorded in VHS format and digitized in 2021 as part of the Harriet Tubman House Memory Project.

The 2020-2022 oral history project centers on the experiences of past and present directors, board members, staff, volunteers and community members who have benefited from, served, and engaged with USES via the Harriet Tubman House. Because these interviews took place at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, they were conducted via Zoom.

The creation of these oral histories was informed by the BRC’s Oral History Toolkit, in adherence to the Oral History Association’s Principles and Best Practices. To expand access to the Harriet Tubman House Memory Project, interviews were transcribed using Otter.ai, a transcription service powered by artificial intelligence; some interviews were transcribed using Rev, another service that outsources transcription to freelance, paid professionals. Draft transcripts were lightly edited for clarity and accuracy by staff and volunteers, then reviewed by narrators to ensure that the transcripts accurately reflected and honored their memories.

These oral history recordings and transcripts are digitally housed in the Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections, which provide public access to the collections online. Audio and video files and transcripts are housed in Northeastern University’s Digital Repository Service (DRS); in addition, the collection will be made publicly accessible in the Digital Commonwealth. 

To view and learn more about the interviews, see the Interviews page of this website.

About the Boston Research Center

The Boston Research Center (BRC), based in the Northeastern University Library, is a digital community history and archives lab. The BRC’s mission is to help bring Boston’s deep neighborhood and community histories to light through the creation and use of new technologies. Through these technologies, Boston residents can share the underrepresented stories from their community’s past, as well as a deeper understanding of how this past shapes our present. 

The BRC is hosted at Northeastern but is designed to be a collaborative effort among many organizations in Boston—civic, research, teaching, and cultural heritage—devoted to developing institutional partnerships and fostering community engagement.

The historical materials used here are developed in partnership with various organizations in Boston, including the Boston Public Library and Massachusetts Historical Society.

About the Boston Public Library

Partnering with Northeastern University Library on the Boston Research Center, the Boston Public Library (BPL) has served as a convening space, supported BRC’s research, provided digitization services, and connected community members to BRC projects through educational programming and outreach. Digitized materials represented in BRC projects will be made publicly accessible via the Digital Commonwealth, a robust digitization program based at the BPL. This collaborative work advances the BPL’s missions of expanding access to its historical collections and research resources, and supporting patrons in the unearthing, telling, and sharing of local and community histories.

Funded in part by generous support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.