Book Details

Revolutionary Sites of Greater Boston

Published in 2005; Photographs by Ulrike Welsch Text by Robert J. Allison; Commonwealth Editions (Publisher);

The following review first appeared in Issue 3, 2005 of The Picture Professional, the quarterly magazine of the American Society of Picture Professionals, www.aspp.com. ASPP is a community of image experts committed to sharing our experience and knowledge throughout the industry.

Review by Niki Barrie / ASPP:

Ulrike Welsch is an ASPP member who moved to Boston some 40 years ago from Germany. She became the first woman staff photographer in the history of both Boston papers, the Globe and the Herald. Revolutionary Sites of Greater Boston is Ulrike's ninth book of photographs, and it is a continuation of a personal journey that began for her in the 1960s. "I left the Globe in 1981 to develop a freelance career," says Welsch. Today, her collection tops 70,000 and includes images from Peru, Kenya, Mongolia, Montana, and other places around the world. Still, she keeps returning to Boston and continuing to produce books on this area of the country.

Through this book Ulrike and the author, Robert J. Allison-a historian, chairman of the history department at Suffolk University and teacher at the Harvard Extension School-took a journey though history and let us tag along. We travel to John Adams's birthplace in Quincy ... to the Somerville Powder House where colonial munitions were seized by General Gage's troops in the fall of 1774 ... to Buckman Tavern in Lexington, where the militia waited for the Redcoats on the morning of April 19, 1775, perhaps sampling an ale to kill time.

Line engravings, a map of the sites covered in the book and quotes from historic figures complete this little book (it's only seven inches by seven inches). It is a bargain for the price.