About

In 2016, I learned a walking tour about Boston women’s role in the suffrage and labor movements. Like many tours where the subject was NOT the American Revolution, I knew almost nothing about the people and topics it covered, and I spent a lot of time learning. The learning process opened a deep well of curiosity I could only satisfy by trying to find out more about the heroine at the heart of the story, Mary Kenney O’Sullivan. I started actively researching much more about her in 2019, and I am continuing to learn. I have found that I cannot shut up about my subject and her awesomeness and the sprawling network of American history surrounding her. If you’ve read this far, get ready for me to talk a lot more about Mary and everything relating to her life and times.

Here in 2023, my first “season” of this blog will focus on not only what I learned about Mary but how I learned it. Having the advantage of living and working in the areas that my subject lived and worked, I can literally trace her footsteps around the region. There are also a wealth of research resources very close by that I can visit to access primary sources and materials that aren’t available electronically. I’m not a trained researcher, so my steps in this direction have been halting and slow. I’m encouraged to start and keep going by my role models including the hosts of The History Chicks Podcast (Beckett Graham and Susan Vollenweider), the creator of the Speaking While Female Speech Bank (Dana Rubin), and my creative and inspiring husband, Steve Steinberg, whose fascinating and funny CricAmerica blog is well worth a look.

I hope you’ll enjoy what I have to offer and that it sparks your curiosity about untold stories and unsung heroes and heroines of history.

Find me on the elephant site at historians.social/@MicheleInBoston or on the bird site at Twitter.com/mrs_s92.