Notable Women of Beacon Hill

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This tour was developed by the Boston Women’s Heritage Trail, a group that works to restore women to their rightful place in the history of Boston by uncovering, chronicling, and disseminating information about the women who have made lasting contributions to the City of Boston.

Boston By Foot partners with the BWHT to give the tour which roams around historic Beacon Hill and introduces you to a variety of notable women who lived and worked in this neighborhood.  We will talk about abolitionists, suffragists, artists, nurses, lawyers, educational advocates and authors who not only changed our city, but made important strides for our country, and in some cases for the world. Come along to learn about women who opened new paths. As Abigail Adams so notably wrote to her husband we must always “Remember The Ladies.”

Even in Boston, the acknowledged “Cradle of Liberty,” the accomplishments of women were generally footnotes and afterthoughts, rather than the stuff of biographies, annual celebrations, and public statues. In 1989, that all began to change, when a group of Boston Public School teachers, librarians, and their students brainstormed and inaugurated the Boston Women’s Heritage Trail. Like The Hub’s two extant walks—the Freedom Trail and the Black Heritage Trail—this new historic trek promised to take visitors through fascinating slices and stories from Boston’s illustrious past.

Unlike its predecessors, the Boston Women’s Heritage Trail highlighted the work of women, from household names like Abigail Adams, Phillis Wheatley, Amelia Earhart, Louisa May Alcott, and Rose Kennedy, to less-familiar leaders like Chew Shee Chin, Julia O’Connor, Clementine Langone, and Melnea Cass.

Since its founding, The Boston Women’s Heritage Trail (BWHT) has worked to restore women to their rightful place in the history of Boston and in the school curriculum by uncovering, chronicling, and disseminating information about the women who have made lasting contributions to the City of Boston.