In this episode, we leave Harvard and Cambridge to explore the little-known history of immigration from the former Ottoman Empire to Boston in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. While completing their PhDs at Boston University and Harvard, Dr. Lydia Harrington and Dr. Chloe Bordewich began to research the history of the neighborhood in today's Chinatown and South End once known as Little Syria. Through the study of property maps, newspapers, oral history interviews, and immigration records, Chloe and Lydia have uncovered the story of this diasporic community from today’s Syria and Lebanon and added both to our understanding of Ottoman immigration to the United States and the history of Boston. The resulting public history project now includes walking tours of Little Syria, an article in both English and Arabic, an exhibit, and a digital humanities project.

Dr. Lydia Harrington is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at MIT. She earned her PhD in the History of Art and Architecture at Boston University.

Dr. Chloe Bordewich is Public History Postdoctoral Associate at the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research. She earned her PhD in history and Middle Eastern studies at Harvard University.

Learn more:

Boston Little Syria Project

"Boston's Little Syria: The Rise and Fall of a Diasporic Neighborhood" by Chloe Bordewich and Lydia Harrington in al-Jumhuriya

Anton Abdelahad

Credits, transcript, and photos