No. 3: The Omni Parker House’s (in)famous employees

No. 3: The Omni Parker House’s (in)famous employees

What do Ho Chi Minh, Malcolm X, and Emeril Lagasse have in common? They all worked at the Omni Parker House Hotel in Boston before rising to fame (or notoriety). Ho Chi Minh worked as a baker in the hotel's kitchen in the early 20th century, decades before becoming involved in politics and revolution in his native Vietnam. Malcolm X worked as a busboy in the 1940s. He would later be known as an activist for black Americans, though he was a black separatist who opposed the integration campaigns of the civil rights movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. A far less revolutionary figure, Emeril Lagasse, was a sous chef at the Parker House before achieving fame as a chef in his own right. Known as the place where Parker House rolls were created, the hotel was also the birthplace of the Massachusetts state dessert: The Boston Cream Pie. Another thing Ho Chi Minh and Malcolm X have in common? They shared a birthday: May 19th.

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No. 2: Watch and Ward Society bans Whitman in Boston
boston

No. 2: Watch and Ward Society bans Whitman in Boston

Lizzie Short

Members of upper echelons of Hub society, known as Boston Brahmins, led a vigilante campaign for decades to ban any works of art or literature that they deemed "immoral." Their passion for the task made "Banned in Boston" a national catch phrase, and sometimes was used to promote the targets to boost sales. The group was called the Watch and Ward Society and was composed mainly of ministers. On the list of banned books, for instance, were Walt Whitman's epic poem "Leaves of Grass," the World War I classic "All Quiet on the Western Front" and D.H. Lawrence's "Lady Chatterley's Lover." Ironically, the society miscalculated the temptations associated with any kind of forbidden fruit (it is the oldest temptation in the Good Book, after all), and their censorship efforts often backfired. Banned author Upton Sinclair once declared, "I would rather be banned in Boston than read anywhere else, because when you are banned in Boston, you are read everywhere else." We're glad the city has lightened up, though. Now if only we could get things to stay open a little later…

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