Black History Month - February 18, 2021

Construction was booming on the East Side of Melrose south of Upham Street around the year 1900. Hundreds of families were moving into the affordably priced houses in the neighborhood. The houses you see pictured here—105 Laurel Street, 306 Beech Avenue, and 183 Laurel Street—are three of many East Side homes owned or rented by Black families in the early twentieth century.

Leonard Ford, a carpet installer, rented 105 Laurel in 1910 before purchasing a home on Beech Ave. Ellen Watson, a recently widowed laundress from Virginia, owned the house at 306 Beech in that same year; she had earlier lived on E. Foster Street. Samuel Smith, a blacksmith from Virginia, in 1920 owned 183 Laurel, the blue house on the left side of the photo. This house has recently benefited from the addition of a garage which has preserved the integrity of the original structure. The yellow house on the right, 179 Laurel, was constructed in 2005 following the complete demolition of the previous house, which had also been owned by a Black family.

The housing market in Melrose in the opening years of the 20th century was wide open to Black homebuyers. In the late 1890s, one local realtor, Minnie Farnsworth, even took out advertisements in Boston newspapers aimed at a Black audience (image 4), an unthinkable business strategy just a few decades later.

Early twentieth century Melrose was by no means perfect, but it was a time before government, realtors, and neighbors conspired together to create a racially segregated suburban landscape.  To learn more about the housing landscape in Melrose in this age before segregation, please visit and explore the interactive Google map here:  https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1VhzZB6I89NacVwdUYGQc6kzb3PMSjcej&usp=sharing

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