Meet: Robert Allison, Boston Historian

At On the Dot®, we love when people are as obsessed with South Boston as we are. We were thrilled when historian and Southie extraordinaire, Robert Allison, agreed to sit down for a Q&A with us! Robert (Bob) Allison has been a Professor of History at Suffolk University for 30 years teaching U.S. History – American Life and Culture Since the Civil War – among other courses. He is also chair of the department, a published author, and President of the South Boston Historical Society.

We took some time to pick Bob’s brain about his knowledge of South Boston and the deep-rooted history that makes it so great. Read our Q&A Below!

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Good afternoon, Bob Allison. Thanks for sitting down with us so we can find out more about the man who has taught us so much history.

So, where were you born?

I was born in East Orange, New Jersey.

And where do you live now?

I live in East Boston, actually. We lived in South Boston for about 30 years and moved to East Boston in 2020. I lived in East Boston when I first moved to the city back in 1984. And my wife and I, she’s from Quincy, we got married and lived in East Boston for about seven years and then moved to South Boston. And we were happily there for about 30 years. And then, you know, our kids grew up and moved out. And our mother in law had been with us and she passed away. So we decided to downsize and found a place. It was with mixed feelings that we left South Boston.

My sense is that your historical interest in Boston is Boston-wide but focused mostly, more than on other neighborhoods, on South Boston. Is that correct?

That is correct.

Maybe you’re getting more interested in East Boston?

Well, I’m interested in the whole city. I also am President of the South Boston Historical Society, of course, looking for other people interested in South Boston. And I do think the president of the society should be somebody from the neighborhood, as opposed to just being someone who is interested in the neighborhood. We do have a lot of friends in South Boston.

How long have you been President?

About 12 years, I think.

Does that have a lot of members?

It has about 200. And because of the pandemic, we haven’t been able to have our regular meetings, which we used to do, but we still do have a lot of members and participate in the Evacuation Day events.

So probably my most important question here is what first got you interested in history?

That’s a good question. And I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t interested in history. And I suspect it’s because I liked stories about people. And history is filled with stories about people. And I also remember, I’ll give my mother some credit, she wasn’t interested in history at all. And in fact, she kind of took it personally that I became interested in history because she apparently had a bad experience with it in high school or in college. But when I was a kid she took me to Morristown, New Jersey, and George Washington’s headquarters. And it was just fascinating seeing this place, and it was nearby to where we lived. And near all of these things that had happened. I remember looking at a window at one point. And there was someone wearing a Continental Army uniform in there. And everyone who was outside just kind of gasped, and it probably was part of the show. But it was just that moment. And I think I’ve been kind of tracking that elusive figure now for many years. But it was just hearing stories about things that people had done. And so that’s, I suppose, what happened.

And then I’ve been fortunate to come to a place like South Boston, where history is an important part of the community, not only the history of the 20th century, where a lot of things happened, but also, you know, the neighborhood that really keeps alive Henry Knox and the cannons and Castle Island. I mean, how many neighborhoods have so many important historical sites in them — Castle Island, Dorchester Heights, St. Augustine’s Chapel?  Plus, you know, the various groups like not only the Historical Society but the Citizens Association and the various other organizations that really work to commemorate history.

Yes, indeed.

And you can even see this with Core Investments, developing Washington Village. This is an important piece of it. And so that is really I think the thing that makes it makes it a special place, because sometimes you feel it, seeing all the kids who take part in the Poster and Essay Contest every year. And we’ve done a History Day up at Dorchester Heights, where we bring reenactors and kids from the schools just walk around talking to these various characters. And just imagine, you know, in 40 years, 50 years, hopefully they will continue doing this and realizing that history isn’t just something that happened in Washington, or along the Freedom Trail, but it is something that is part of their lives.

Have you been surprised that since the last part of the 20th century Boston has been so economically robust and a place that people want to live and work, especially after those periods of postwar decline? And this is not really a history question, but it’s about Boston and its popularity and how Boston has thrived.

Absolutely. That is really an astonishing thing. As you know, in the 1950s, Boston was practically in receivership. And on the other end, Detroit was one of the wealthiest cities in the world. And that is really the great mystery, and what happened to turn Boston around. And I think it is well worth studying and thinking about. Because who would have predicted it? Even when I moved here in the 1980s, who would have predicted this, and you know had we been able to predict it we would have bought more property, I think. So those houses on Farragut Road that were going begging. So it is an astonishing thing. And it’s a success story. On the other hand, it’s easy to become a victim of your success. I mean, affordability is a problem. But definitely that is a huge story as well as the fact that Boston Harbor is now one of the cleanest in the country. It is an extraordinary turnaround that the city has had. And I suspect there will be a lot of people claiming credit for it. And I’m not about to start giving out awards for who did what.

A few people have written about this…. I’m curious whether you think there is something that causes Boston to reinvent itself.

Well, it has, you know. As I was doing this short book about Boston, I kept coming across New Boston. You know, 1713 was one, after there’s a devastating fire, and they rebuilt the central part of the town and widened the streets to ease traffic. And then after the Revolution, too, there’s another big decline. In fact, it had been in decline for most of the 18th century. And then of course during the occupation of Boston most of the civilian population left. So why do people come back? But they do, in fact, and more come in. And then the industrial transformation that happens, and we are in the midst of another of these reinventions. And again, I think one thing we’re seeing in this is it’s not always clear that those who are part of it understand exactly what they’re doing. One of my favorite historical markers, by the way, is in front of the Parker House. And it says — there’s a little picture of the spire of Old North Church —  and it says, Look up and see the spire of Old North. And now the MBTA has built a new station on City Hall Plaza, so it’s not as visible as it used to be. But it says this view is preserved for you by the Boston Redevelopment Authority. And of course, well, the Redevelopment Authority preserved the view by knocking down everything in Scollay Square, but they put up this marker patting themselves on the back for saving the view of Old North Church. It’s as though this was our intention.

What’s your last book, the one people would actually see on Amazon?

I wrote “A Short History of Boston.” And I wrote a biography of Stephen Decatur, who was an American naval hero. I think the book that has sold the most is the short history of Boston. It’s in a lot of college classes on Boston history, but also it’s available at various sites around town.

Thank you, Bob!  Lastly, any advice for young people who might consider studying history?

History is rewarding. And history is something that you don’t need to be a professional historian in order to appreciate, and in fact we really rely on people who are in all kinds of walks of life and all kinds of fields to have an understanding of history, because you understand what people have tried before and you understand you don’t always know the consequences of your actions.

The most important thing is that history does give you an understanding of how the world works, and also gives you a lot of interesting stories to talk about.

What’s your title?

I’m Professor of History at Suffolk University.

And how long have you been there?

30 years.

And what course or courses do you teach there now?

U.S. history. It’s a course called American Life and Culture Since the Civil War. Basically, you know, U.S. history from the Civil War to the present. That’s what I’m doing this semester, but I teach a range of other courses.

Why don’t you tell me a couple of the other courses that you teach?

The American Revolution, History of Boston, The Age of Benjamin Franklin, Creating the American Constitution…

So you write books too, right? And how many books have you written?

Let me see, eight to 10, I think. Written or edited, maybe a dozen.

And your most recent?

I’ve been working on one book now for it seems like forever. And I’m just trying to remember what was the most recent book.

That’s interesting. What’s the current one about?

It’s about the USS Constitution’s world cruise. In the 1840s, the ship sailed around the world. So I’ve been writing a book about that. It visits Brazil and Zanzibar and Vietnam and China and Hawaii. So I’m really writing about what the world was like at this time, and various sailors who encounter this world, so it’s been really interesting, because I’m finding out a lot about these places. And a lot of interesting stories about what happens at each place, as well as things about the crew and the ship. It’s been fun.

So are there areas of history other than Boston, and South Boston, that particularly interest you?

I think the formation of the US Constitution is really fascinating. The arguments about it and the ideas behind it. I really got interested in history as something to study when, in the mid 1970s, my mother — again, giving her credit, she was a computer programmer. And she went off to Iran in 1975 or so, the Shah was importing a lot of American technology. She went along. And so I went there in the year between high school and college, actually the summer between high school and college, and then I went back to visit a year or two later. It happened to be the week the revolution really broke out. And, you know, having studied something of the American Revolution and having an interest in it, I thought I knew something about revolutions. And I also thought that I understood how they happened. And, you know, because we have the example of the American Revolution, and then of course the French and Russian, and so on. And this one in Iran was very different. And it was a reaction against the kind of ideas of individualism and so on that are fundamental to the American and French Revolutions. So it really was kind of a puzzle. And I was also interested in the Middle East just generally, but also what happened. And so my own study of the American Revolution and the formation of the Constitution, this became my first book. Because I was thinking about — I kept coming across references to Africa, to North Africa, to Arabs, and Turks, and so on, much more so than you would see in a newspaper. Well, maybe today you would, but at that time you’re not seeing a lot of discussion, so why was that?

And, realizing that the people forming the United States Constitution had kind of an understanding of the way different cultures worked and operated governments, that was one thing — that was one really fundamental thing. But I think my persistent interest in the Constitution is, having seen other revolutions, we kind of know that the easy part is getting rid of the bad old regime, you know, toppling the Shah, or toppling Saddam Hussein or the Tsar, and the much harder part is creating a system that won’t be worse. And the American Revolution is one of the very few times when they haven’t replaced the bad old regime with a regime that is either just as bad or worse. So how is that? And what mistakes do they avoid? So that’s been a subject of interest.

And now the last book I published was a collection of the arguments about ratifying the Constitution. That I actually did with my graduate advisor, who has since passed away, but I was his research assistant back in, I guess, late ‘80s, early ‘90s, when he was doing a collection of ratification documents. So this is a shorter version of that, it’s about 60 or so of the arguments for and against ratifying the Constitution by the people involved in that big debate. He realizes this extraordinary political debate, and people at all levels of society are engaged in it and taking it very seriously. So I suspect that one thing that I really keep coming back to is the whole story of ratifying the Constitution.

And the document itself — it’s easy to sentimentalize and say what a wonderful thing it is. It’s also easy, I think, now to trash it. I just really get very worried that instead of having a constitutional convention that would include, say, James Madison, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, it would include Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell. And thinking, boy, who would devise a better system? They recognized human nature and they recognized the propensity to power and how do you control that and how do you create a system that will not crush human aspirations? And I suspect we also keep realizing that it is possible to have a system that will work. These people didn’t think they were better than anyone else or that, we’ll create a system for good people. They created a system understanding, as Madison said it, good and wise statesmen will not always be at the helm.

OK, a couple of favorite historians that you read or have read?

Let’s see. David Hackett Fischer, teaches at Brandeis. Let me think. Bernard Bailyn, I mentioned he was my advisor at Harvard. I got my Ph.D. there, in the History of American Civilization…I would say another Bill. Bill – William — Fowler, who used to teach at Northeastern and is now retired. Lou Masur, who’s written a variety of books on different topics, including Bruce Springsteen, and he’s written about Benjamin Franklin. And he’s written about all kinds of people in between.

How about those popular historians, David McCullough, people like that?

I read them. David McCullough is a great writer. And he does capture a large audience, which is very important. Also, I just should just say in the interest of full disclosure, he and my father were very close friends. And, you know, I’m friendly with one of his sons. But a great writer. I think one thing you notice about the John Adams book is just about every paragraph ends in John Adams’ voice. That is, McCullough is a good enough writer to recognize when he has material that he doesn’t need to mess with.

I think it’s one of the really interesting things that in the academy, where I happen to be, there is a kind of a shrinking interest in the kind of history that captivates people. And we’ve seen declining enrollments in history classes and so on, but then out in the real world it’s different. That’s one reason my department merged with another department. Out in the real world there are writers like David McCullough, or Joe Ellis, or even, what’s his name, Bill O’Reilly, who write books that people buy and people read. And Ken Burns, who makes TV series about historical subjects. So there is, I think, not only an interest but a real need for good history being written. And we in the academy haven’t been filling it as historians used to. Historians didn’t use to look at writing popular history as a bad thing. They saw that what they’re doing is engaging with the public. Another historian, I know, Joe Ellis, has been saying that. He talks about the historians who want to write about common people, but they don’t know how to actually write for common people. So we see that in South Boston with a great interest in Evacuation Day and in history in the neighborhood.

Well, Tolstoy in the afterword to War and Peace — so he’s writing this well over 100 years ago — says that modern historians are like dead men answering questions no one has asked. And that’s still something we see among historians, as we are fascinated with questions which aren’t necessarily the questions that are of interest to citizens or ordinary people, who are just interested in what happened. So periodically I hear people lamenting the fact that people don’t understand history. And I say, well, who’s to blame for that? We’re the historians, we should be doing a better job. Having said that, we’re also not doing a good job teaching it in K through 12. You know, we’ve really cut the amount of time. Third grade, fifth grade, eighth grade, 10th grade. That’s all the American history that you get in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. People of our generation think that kids are getting history every year. Well, think again. And our two sons both went to Boston Latin, both had the same high school history teacher in high school. And the week they were covering the Great Depression, they watched “Paper Moon,” the movie with Ryan O’Neal. And that’s what they learned about the Great Depression.

Thank you again, Bob for spending this time with us and sharing your knowledge. We hope this has inspired our readers!