Welcome! This guide contains resources for learning about the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, with a spotlight on the historic Lower Mills district. Use the tabs on the left side of the page to navigate through the different sections. Happy researching!
"To think of Dorchester as just one neighborhood is pretty laughable. With some 126,000 residents spread across six square miles, it rivals the size and population of Cambridge. But the essence of Boston’s largest neighborhood goes far beyond those numbers. Dorchester contains multitudes. It’s filled with diversity and thriving families and active community organizations. Yet it also has a history of cultivated segregation, and heartbreak due to gun violence. It’s a neighborhood that can’t be described in just a few lines. Simply put: Dorchester is complicated.
Dorchester was annexed to Boston in 1870, but didn’t see its population swell until the 1920s, when newly installed streetcar lines changed the fabric of the neighborhood and made it into one of the original “streetcar suburbs.” The electric trolley transformed Dorchester from an enclave built by and for the wealthy to the home of working-class folks, as steetcars allowed them to commute to their jobs downtown. Along with the trolley came homes for these workers, like the iconic triple-decker so often associated with Dorchester. Immigrants flocked to the area from Ireland, Poland, and other countries, and a vibrant community was formed.
While Dorchester has always had a strong Irish Catholic presence, the area around Blue Hill Avenue was a thriving Jewish neighborhood in the ’40s and ’50s. By the 1960s, conflict was rife thanks to block-busting, redlining, and the “White Flight” to the suburbs. In 1969, the Jewish population of Dorchester-Mattapan dropped from 50,000 to 6,000, as real estate agents instilled fear in white families and intentionally funneled low-income black families into the area. Effects of this strategy are still visible today, as it’s no secret Boston’s neighborhoods are home to racial divides."
- Megan Johnson, "So You Want To Live in Dorchester." Boston Magazine. Accessed May 2023.
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