Boston to Concord, Massachusetts Great American Railroad Journeys

I have crossed the Atlantic to ride the railroads of North America

with my faithful Appleton's guide.

Published in the late 19th century,

it will lead me to all that is magnificent, charming,

confusing, invigorating,

and wholesome in the United States and Canada.

As I journey through this vast continent,

I'll encounter revolutionaries and feminists, pilgrims and witches,

and ride some of the oldest and most breathtaking railroads in the world.

My railway journey through New England and Eastern Canada

continues to focus around Boston,

but I'll head out of the city into other parts of Massachusetts.

What a lovely word that is,

derived from the language of the indigenous Wampanoag people.

This state - one of the original 13 colonies -

has almost as long a history as any other.

Some of it glorious, some of it grim,

all of it germane to the development of the United States.

My journey has begun in the coastal communities

founded by British settlers.

I'll head north, through glorious New England,

to the wilderness around Lake Placid.

Crossing the border into Canada,

I'll take in French Canadian culture in Quebec,

before making my way through the capital,

and the Thousand Islands,

to end in the cosmopolitan city of Toronto.

Today, I'll be exploring downtown Boston,

before making a short trip to a centre of academic excellence.

I'll then head away from the cities to the notorious Salem,

and end in the historic and literary town of Concord.

Along the way, I learn the principles

of American cuisine...

We want to make sure that we have more cream than cake!

THEY LAUGH This, I do not believe!

..discover the horrors of 19th-century surgery...

You had to hold the artery so it wouldn't bleed,

and then you had 60 seconds to take off a limb.

It was terrible before ether.

..and find out what students do at the world's top university.

An undergraduate can work on the Mars programme?

Absolutely. Absolutely.

-That's what they come to MIT to do.

-How amazing.

Today, I'm exploring more of vibrant, historic Boston.

One of the oldest metropolises in the United States,

by the time of my 19th-century guidebook,

it was booming,

and it's still home to many of the institutions

that shaped the nation.

Following an intriguing lead in my guide,

I'm heading to the heart of the city.

Here in the Boston Public Garden,

Appleton's has brought me to the beautiful monument

in honour of the discovery of ether as an anaesthetic.

And, indeed, the plaque says,

"That the inhaling of ether causes insensibility to pain

"was first proved to the world at the Massachusetts General Hospital

"in Boston in 1846."

Imagine previous operations without anaesthetic!

It's enough to make you jump.

And ether was a knockout discovery.

The Massachusetts General Hospital was founded in 1811,

with the original building designed by

renowned American architect, Charles Bulfinch.

It's the first and largest teaching hospital

of Harvard Medical School,

and has hosted countless medical breakthroughs and advances.

At the top of the building, there occurred

a truly transformative moment in medical science.

I'm meeting the hospital's former anaesthetist-in-chief,

Dr Warren Zapol.

Warren, what a beautiful space.

There's this superb dome and a theatre.

This is the origin of the word "theatre" in medicine, isn't it?

It is indeed. And the skylight is perfectly placed

so you have enough light down here to operate.

This is a place for surgery. It's the top of the hospital.

If you scream here, there are big, thick doors.

No-one else can hear you in the hospital screaming!

You were tied into this velvet operating chair.

Now, this is surprising to me. First of all, that it's a chair,

that it's made of velvet,

and that you have to strap the patient in!

You have to be tied in.

You're given perhaps a bit of opiate, perhaps brandy.

And then you had 60 seconds or 90 seconds to take off a limb.

You had to saw off the bone.

Yes. THEY CHUCKLE

And you had to hold the artery so it wouldn't bleed,

saw the bone and take the leg off.

I must say, Warren, it makes me feel queasy

just to observe and touch that object.

Yuck! Let me give it back to you.

Yes, well, most people, of course, didn't like their surgeon

or want their surgery.

It caused this terrible pain, screaming, yelling.

People knew a minute of horrors was coming, or two,

and they may or may not live.

It was terrible before ether.

Ether, which is a distillation of ethyl alcohol with sulphuric acid,

was brought to the attention of medical science

by a young dentist named William Thomas Green Morton.

After experimenting on his goldfish, his wife's dog and himself,

he began to use ether on his dental patients,

and managed to perform painless tooth extractions.

I want to show you the technology that was available at the time,

which is this.

And there's a sponge inside for the ether.

So, you stick that in the mouth, do you?

You put that in the mouth. That's your mouthpiece.

-Mm.

-And then you breathe in and out.

You breathe in, the gas comes in, goes over the ether sponge,

vaporises, and goes into your lungs,

and goes in through your bloodstream,

and anaesthetises your head, your brain.

Word of Morton's pain-free procedures

spread to surgeons at Massachusetts General Hospital.

They requested a public demonstration.

It occurred on the 16th of October 1846.

The surgeon is John Collins Warren,

who is perhaps the most dour and humourless man...

-HE LAUGHS

-..who was ever a surgeon.

They brought a patient from Cambridge here.

Gilbert Abbott was the name.

He was a printer from Cambridge with a vascular tumour beneath his jaw,

and he had to have it removed

cos it was getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

And Morton begins.

They're all convinced he'll get up and scream and yell

as soon as they operate on him.

But he doesn't. He goes to sleep.

John Collins Warren is amazed.

-A great moment in medical history.

-Totally. It was remarkable.

It was truly remarkable,

and everybody in the audience knew that.

No-one said, "Bah humbug." Everybody said, "Wow!

"This is no Yankee fake. This is the real thing."

This would then take over the world in no time - in two months.

It would be in England and then France and everywhere else.

The use of ether was adopted in hospitals and on battlefields,

changing surgery entirely,

and giving birth to the new science of anaesthesia.

19th-century Boston was a hotbed of invention and progress in science,

and this extended to technology and education.

I'm taking a short subway ride from central Boston

to the neighbouring city of Cambridge,

across the Charles River.

Like its British namesake,

Cambridge is a hub of learning and research.

It's home to two of the world's top universities -

Harvard and MIT.

The Institute of Technology, now known as MIT,

is mentioned in my Appleton's 1879.

It was then in Boston, Massachusetts,

but it has since moved to nestle close to Harvard

here in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

University world rankings vary from year to year,

but not by much.

How is it that MIT, monotonously rated top in the world,

and Harvard, currently rated number three,

coexist in a small acreage of Boston suburb?

MIT admitted its first students in 1865,

and today it's associated with 89 Nobel Prize winners

and many distinguished alumni.

They include astronaut, Buzz Aldrin,

and former Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan.

Among its numerous scientific and technological breakthroughs

have been the first chemical synthesis of penicillin,

the development of radar,

and the creation of GPS to name but a few.

To find out how this inspiring institution came about,

I'm meeting history of technology professor, Roe Smith.

Roe, I'm thrilled to be in this distinguished institution.

Why was it created?

William Barton Rogers was a Virginian

who was born and raised and educated there,

but Rogers really took a liking to what he called

Boston's knowledge-seeking spirit.

What was the need for an institute of technology?

There was a great demand for engineers

during the 1820s and '30s in the United States,

particularly people who were railroad engineers.

Basically, Rogers wanted to produce a new type of person

that was hard to find in the United States.

In 1850, there were very few schools

that taught engineering from an academic perspective.

They didn't do what Rogers wanted to do, basically,

and that was to take students out of the lecture hall

and put them in the laboratories,

so that they could do hands-on experiments.

And it's amazing that somebody in 1860

could have that vision and still see it operative today, if you ask me.

I think it's fascinating, to me. He was quite a guy.

As well as teaching 4,500 undergraduates each year,

MIT is renowned for its pioneering research,

which aims to find solutions to the world's most daunting challenges,

from future energy needs to improving cancer therapies.

Dr Dava Newman was formerly deputy administrator of Nasa,

and is now Apollo professor of astronautics at MIT.

Dava, what are you working on?

We're working on sending people to Mars.

So, the suits, the life-support systems,

understanding human performance and how we can keep our astronauts,

our explorers of the future safe and well.

So, what we're looking at is a mock-up prototype

of what we call a BioSuit - a skin-tight spacesuit.

You have to have pressure to stay alive in space.

So, in the current suit, it's a gas-pressurised suit

that has 14 layers altogether. We've decoupled that and said,

"Let's work on the pressure production.

"How can we make that very mobile?"

Were you a student at MIT?

I did my graduate work here at MIT, in this lab.

What do you remember from your student days about the ethos of MIT?

Well, it's a great place to be a nerd, right?

It's fun! We just try everything out.

Test it this way and that way. It's cross-disciplinary.

We bring in aerospace engineers, we have computer scientists here,

we'll bring in psychologists,

bring in everyone on the team to say,

"Hey, how can we solve these really big challenges,

"big problems we have?"

At MIT, we give our undergraduates great research experience,

so they join our research teams from the day they enter, if they want.

An undergraduate can work on the Mars programme?

Absolutely, absolutely. That's what they come to MIT to do.

-How amazing.

-We're always looking for the next great challenge.

I try to tell students, "Make sure to celebrate failure."

"What?!" You know, they're not comfortable.

None of us are comfortable with failure, but that's how we make all our great breakthroughs.

If you celebrate failure, I feel I could fit in here!

There you go! Send your application!

In the 19th century,

Boston established great educational institutions,

but also some fine culinary ones.

I'm on the hunt for a city delicacy created, I'm told,

at the time of my guidebook at the Parker House Hotel.

I can't leave town without sampling the celebrated Boston cream pie.

I have an appointment down in the hotel's kitchens

with pastry chef, Laura Boyd.

-Laura, hello. I'm Michael.

-Hello, Michael. Nice to meet you.

I've come in search of the famous Boston cream pie.

And here it is. We have our sponge cake,

our vanilla pastry cream, our chocolate,

and then we use some toasted almonds around the side.

-How does one start, Laura?

-So, what you're going to do is

you're going to cut our cake in half.

-Use your wheel. It will spin.

-Mm-hm.

-You've done this before!

-No, I have not done this before!

What's the origin of this wonderful thing, then?

So, this was developed in the 1850s. It's always been a cake.

But it's called a pie because it was baked in pie dishes.

What did you say this was? Vanilla cream?

The vanilla pastry cream. This is the next step.

So, you're going to put a couple of scoops right into the centre

of your bottom layer.

We want to make sure that we have more cream than cake.

HE LAUGHS This, I don't believe!

This, I do not believe!

You bet! There you are.

-Look at this.

-There we go.

-Then we just sandwich them together.

The next step is to add more cream to the top and sides,

followed by a generous covering of chocolate ganache -

smooth and ready for the hotel's signature spider-web decoration.

That's looking great.

You start in the centre and then do circles all the way to the outside.

Well, I was going to show you how we do that part!

HE LAUGHS I've gone off on my own!

It's a truly original Boston cream pie.

-We're going to put some almonds on the side.

-Put some almonds around the outside.

There you go. Just like that. Delicious! It looks great.

Oh! HE LAUGHS

-There we are.

-I'm so sorry. I'm so embarrassed!

-Don't be embarrassed.

-Oh, is that what it's meant to look like?

It looks fantastic. It's the flavour that counts,

-and I can't wait to try yours.

-All right.

The famous Boston cream pie,

as adulterated by M Portillo.

Oh!

It's great, actually. It's the sponge which is so lovely.

And then all the vanilla and the cream

and the cream and the cream and the cream.

See, that's why there's so much cream!

Yeah! Thank you so much, Laura.

You're very welcome. I'm so glad you like it.

And well done. You did a great job. You're hired!

This morning, I'm leaving central Boston

to take the train north to one of the state's oldest

and best-known settlements on the North Shore of Massachusetts.

The names of even some very small places in Massachusetts

are known around the world

because of their great importance in history -

Lexington, Concord, Salem.

Of Salem, Appleton's says, "It's a venerable town,

"the site of the first permanent settlement

"in the old Massachusetts colony.

"The year 1692 is remarkable

"as the date of the witchcraft delusion,

"in which several people were tried and executed."

What occurred there, amongst otherwise civilised people,

gave us the term witch-hunt -

a byword for persecution, paranoia and injustice.

Salem was a God-fearing, Puritan community,

whose original inhabitants had left England

to avoid religious persecution.

-ON TANNOY:

-Next and final stop is Salem.

The notorious Salem witch trials began in 1692

after a group of young girls claimed to be possessed by the devil.

The terrified community began to hunt for witches

amongst its women and girls.

Good people, I apologise for the interruption,

but I'm sure we are all no doubt aware

of the recent act of witchcraft in our community.

The afflicted girls have cried out

as Bridget Bishop as their tormentor.

-And what do they accuse me of?

-Witchcraft.

-Ha! Stuff and nonsense!

This is not a request, and it seems I'll have to take you myself.

-BELL RINGS

-Keep your children away.

-Come this way!

-Come with us.

Very unpleasant to see this, even as a re-enactment,

to see the hue and cry as the mob chase after the arrested woman

charged with witchcraft.

As a wave of hysteria spread through the colony of Massachusetts,

a special court convened in Salem to hear their cases.

Cry Innocent is a play written to help audiences understand

how events unfolded.

-What do you say?

-I am innocent. I know nothing of it.

I have done no witchcraft.

The magistrates now summon any and all witnesses

who may give plain evidence in this case of Bridget Bishop of Salem.

The accused were cross-examined,

and villagers came forward with testimony of visions and dreams,

and their petty grievances.

One evening, I woke up.

As God is my witness, I clearly saw Bridget Bishop,

or else her spectre, sitting on my stomach.

She saw my boy and ran to him

and scratched his face and made it bleed.

The magistrates and citizens of our sovereign lord and lady,

the king and queen,

find that there IS enough evidence to hold Bridget Bishop

for a formal trial on the charge of witchcraft.

Bridget Bishop was convicted of witchcraft,

and hanged eight days later.

By the end of the trials, in 1693, a further 19 people had been hanged,

one pressed to death by stones, and five had died in custody.

How does it feel to you, being at the receiving end

of all this terrible testimony?

It clenches my insides up!

I mean, I start off with Bridget

as sort of almost laughing this off, as if, "This is so preposterous,

"no sensible person could actually listen to this bunk

"and believe that I'm guilty of a real crime."

But as the testimony goes on,

I can understand why these people would have said,

"Yes, she has something to be held responsible for."

I think I have witnessed witch-hunts in the present day,

and I thought there was no advance

in the sort of things I was hearing today

on the sort of things that I was hearing in your play.

It seemed to me that, you know, maybe we've made no progress.

I mean, we all know about Salem, but I think it still goes on.

By the way, I just want to congratulate you on the play.

Really powerful.

The play has been performed by the History Alive company

for the last 25 years.

Kristina Stevick is the artistic director.

When did people reassess what had happened in Salem

and think, "A terrible injustice has occurred"?

Well, almost immediately, there was regret and apology

a couple of years later, but in terms of academic writing

or writing about the witchcraft hysteria,

it wasn't until the 19th century that the writers really wanted

to distance themselves from that way of thinking.

By the time of my guidebook,

superstition had been largely set aside.

Writers offered psychological explanations

of the panic that had swept the Salem community.

The final stop on this leg of my journey

lies north-west of Boston, in Concord...

..which has gone down in history as the town where the first shots

of the American Revolution were fired.

After years of rising tensions,

it was here that an American militia united to fight against the British.

Every American learns at school about the role

of Concord, Massachusetts, in the American Revolution,

and the town is a magnet for fervent patriots

here to commemorate the deeds of brave men.

But it also attracts literary pilgrims,

here to rediscover Little Women.

Concord was the home of one of America's

most celebrated 19th-century female authors, Louisa May Alcott,

who wrote the novel Little Women in 1868.

An instant bestseller,

it remains amongst the most widely read novels of all time.

My guide to her home and works is Jan Turnquist.

-Hello, Jan.

-Michael, so nice to meet you.

Lovely to see you, and quite a lovely house.

This house was built in the 1600s

and was not very well maintained, so they spent a year fixing it up

and Bronson Alcott added outbuildings,

made it seem much bigger.

In fact, it was very comfortable for them.

What sort of a father did Louisa have, then?

He was an idealist.

He believed in every reform that you can imagine -

dress reform, diet reform, votes for women,

abolition, educational reform, certainly.

-So, he would have believed in educating the female members of his family?

-Yes.

He really saw his daughters, his wife,

other females that he knew,

as fully as important intellectually as any man.

Set against a backdrop of the American Civil War,

Little Women is a semiautobiographical

coming-of-age classic, which charts the fortunes

of four young women as they encounter employment,

society and marriage.

It's inspired numerous films and television series,

and 100 years later, it's never been out of print.

So, that would be the desk where she did the writing, would it?

-Well, actually, it was this.

-No!

-Yes!

Now, keep in mind, women were not supposed

to have a desk of their own.

It wasn't ladylike. It wasn't proper.

This family was very progressive to just not buy that,

and Bronson Alcott built this little shelf desk for his daughter.

She was thrilled.

Alcott wrote the book after returning

from the American Civil War,

where she'd served as a Union Army nurse,

and where she had contracted typhoid pneumonia.

Her father went to Washington City

after receiving a telegram here at Orchard House,

and he brought her back on the train. She was...

Her fever was so high, they expected that she wouldn't live,

but she did live, despite the treatment.

She was given calomel, which is mercury.

But, fortunately, then she was able to make a recovery

and to write Little Women.

How would you summarise the theme of the book?

The importance of family, the importance of being yourself,

being an individual despite what other people think.

Be bold. Be brave.

Today, you'd call it, I guess, self-actualisation.

They didn't have that term, but they were doing that.

In the book, four young women in the late 19th century

find themselves conflicted between what's expected of them as women...

-Yes.

-..and what they would like to do for themselves,

and they resolve it in different ways.

Yes, and that's still true today.

Women are still struggling over the same issues,

which probably is part of the reason that book is so well-received,

even in today's world.

The 14 women executed on trumped-up charges of witchcraft

are a stain on American history,

but Louisa May Alcott is an example of the enormous contribution

made by women to the country's intellectual life.

But even though voters have chosen an African-American

to go to the White House,

and even a Catholic from Boston in the person of John F Kennedy,

they have yet to choose a female

to be either vice president or president.

On my next leg,

I'll travel back in time on the Cape Cod Heritage Railway...

-Hi there!

-How are you doing?

-Great to be on board.

..uncover the brutality of whale hunting...

A good haul would mean that they would kill

-anywhere from 50-60 whales.

-50 or 60?

-Mm-hm.

..and marvel at those still at large in these waters.

Yes! And up comes the tail! Such a breathtaking sight.