Skip to main content

Lane/Mead Boston Maritime Collection

 Collection
Call Number: MS 3898

Scope and Contents

This collection documents the industrial development and history of the Port of Boston. It is an artificially constructed collection containing material from various entities connected with the Port of Boston Harbor Shipping Industry, including Arthur Lane, Jane Mead, Capt. A. Ross Pope, the Boston Shipping Association, Walter Egee, and Capt. Steve Palmer.

Dates

  • 1931-2004
  • Majority of material found in 1931-2002

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

The collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Items in this collection may be subject to copyright restrictions. In most cases, the Boston Public Library does not hold the copyright to the items in our collections. It is the sole responsibility of the user to make their own determination about what types of usage might be permissible under U.S. and international copyright law.

Arthur Lane, Jr. (active 1946-2008)

Arthur Lane graduated from Harvard in 1939 and began working for Peabody & Lane, a steamship agency founded by his father, Arthur Lane Sr. and Robert Peabody in 1920. Lane supervised the company's break bulk stevedoring operations until he joined the U.S. Navy during World War II. During the war he served in New Guinea where he was Company Commander of the 19th Seabee Stevedoring Battalion. Lane returned to Boston in 1946 and began his career as a shipping industry leader in the Port of Boston. He became President of Peabody & Lane in 1964 and served as President of the Boston Shipping Association from 1968 through 1990. During this time, Lane participated in negotiations with the East Coast International Longshoremen's Association. He was the founding member of The Boston Harbor Association, a long-time Associate Member of the Boston Marine Society, and a manager of the Boston Port and Seamen's Aid Society. Lane died in Boston in 2008.

Jane Mead

As Project Review Coordinator of the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management (CMZ), Jane Mead implemented the agency’s program policy and regulatory functions.  Mead was CMZ's lead reviewer of transportation and energy projects including the Central Artery/Tunnel Project; the proposed abandonment of the Boston & Maine rail spur to the Mystic River Designated Port; HubLine, a high-pressure natural gas pipeline constructed through Massachusetts Bay; expansion of several coastal electrical generating facilities; and the Cape Wind Project. Her publications include Energy Consumption and its Impact on the Massachusetts Coastal Zone (2004),  Guide to Environmental Permitting in Massachusetts (2003), Massachusetts Coastal Zone Management Plan (2002), and "Coastal Zone Law" in Massachusetts Environmental Law, Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education Association (2001). Ms. Mead is past president of the Boston Port and Seamen's Aid Society.

Extent

6.00 Cubic Feet

Language of Materials

English

Arrangement

This collection is arranged into 12 series: Series I. Day Books, Series II. Vessels Log, Series III. Peabody & Lane, Series IV. Certificates for shares of Peabody & Lane Capital Stock, Series V. The Stowage Red Book, Series VI. The Port of Boston Handbooks, Series VII. Scrapbooks, Series VIII. Commission on Waterways and Public Lands, Series IX. Letters and Miscellany, Series X. Photographs and Certificate, Series XI. Port of Boston and Related Material, and Series XII. Related Material.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Gift of Arthur Lane and Jane Mead, 2006. Portions of the collection were donated to the library from Capt. A. Ross Pope, the Boston Shipping Association, Walter Egee, and Capt. Steve Palmer. Provenance notes are included at the series level to indicate immediate source of acquisition for each group of materials.

Related Materials

Additional materials related to Boston maritime history can be found across Boston Public Library's research and circulating collections and at the Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center. For additional information and assistance locating related materials, please consult the Boston's Maritime Industrial History Research Guide, compiled by Jane Mead, on BPL's website.

Separated Materials

The following books were separated from the collection and cataloged individually:

Separated books

  1. Baker, William A., The Boston Marine Society in the American War for Independence. (VK 1.B83B34)
  2. Cunliffe, Tom, ed. Pilot Schooners of North American and Great Britian. (Acc. 2008-154 folio)
  3. Old Shipping Days in boston.  (VK 23 S7)
  4. Russell, Maud. Men Along the Shore: The I.L.A. and its History. (Acc. 2008-155)
  5. United States. Maritime Administration. Marine Museums in the United States. (Acc. 2008-153)

Processing Information

The description for this collection was compiled with consultation and assistance from Jane Mead in 2006.

Processing Information

This electronic finding aid is transcribed from legacy data. In many cases, transcriptions were not verified against collection materials at the time of transcription. As a result, this finding aid could be incomplete and might only reflect a partial understanding of the material.

Statement on harmful description

Archival description reflects the biases of time periods and cultures in which it was created and may include direct quotations or descriptions that use inappropriate or harmful language. Creator provided descriptions may be maintained in order to preserve the context in which the collection was created and/or used. Legacy description and potentially offensive content may be made available online until a collection can be reprocessed because the access that they provide to primary source materials is uniquely valuable to the research community at large. Our efforts to repair outdated descriptions and to describe our collections more equitably are iterative and ongoing.

Title
Lane/Mead Boston Maritime Collection
Status
Under Revision
Author
Jane Mead and Sean Casey.
Date
2014
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin

About this library

Part of the Boston Public Library Archives & Special Collections Repository

Contact:
700 Boylston Street
Boston MA 02116 United States