For almost two years, Boston Public Library intern Rachel Mead helped to create the library’s digital Atlascope. Incorporating historic maps of urban Boston, the tool lets users see how places have changed over time. Along the way, Mead embarked on a particularly sweet research project.
“Candy,” she said. “The confectionary history in Boston. It’s actually a trail. There are all these points that have to do with the same story.”
Mead, now the public engagement coordinator at BPL’s Leventhal Map & Education Center, is releasing the results of her findings this week — just in time for Halloween. She’s shared info about an different Boston confectionary locale every day on the Leventhal’s Instagram and Twitter accounts (@bplmaps) and is composing a blog post about the five most historically significant and interesting candy spots in the area.
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“Boston has a really strong history in manufacturing candy, especially molasses-based candy,” Mead said. “It’s part of the human spirit to love sugar.”
On Monday, Mead delved into the history of Baker’s Chocolate, produced in Milton before the company moved to Dorchester. In the summer months, the factory switched from working with cocoa to grist, wool, and paper.
According to her research, which focuses on the decades around the turn of the 20th century (1861 to 1938, to be exact), nearly 80 candy manufacturers existed in Boston alone in the 1910s — and that number includes only those documented in atlases by real estate firms and insurance companies. There were likely more, Mead explained.
The quantity of local confectioners can be attributed at least partly to the cool climate, she says.
Through her research, Mead uncovered details about local candy dynasties and mergers, the poisoned candy scare of the 1870s, and some unlikely birthplaces of sweets, like the Paul Revere House.
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Studying the old maps, newspaper clippings, advertisements, and historical photos, “was time consuming and sometimes hard on the eyes, but very fun,” Mead said.
Her project is only one of many that the BPL’s Atlascope software can be used for. Available publicly online, Atlascope allows users to search extensive city maps year by year.
Diti Kohli can be reached at diti.kohli@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter at @ditikohli_.
Diti Kohli can be reached at diti.kohli@globe.com.Follow her @ditikohli_.