STRONG BOY Audiobook Now Available

Looking for a good summer read...er...listen? Good news. STRONG BOY: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JOHN L. SULLIVAN, AMERICA'S FIRST SPORTS HERO is now available as an audiobook. 

Approaching nineteenth-century sports and boxing with a twenty-first-century perspective, STRONG BOY brings to life John L. Sullivan, a man who was the gold standard of boxing for more than a decade and the first athlete to earn more than a million dollars. He had a big ego, big mouth, and bigger appetites. His womanizing, drunken escapades, and constant presence on the police blotter were a godsend to a burgeoning newspaper industry. The larger-than-life boxer embodied the American Dream for late nineteenth-century immigrants as he rose from Boston's Irish working class to become the most recognizable man in the nation. The "Boston Strong Boy," was our nation's first sports hero, and his name was not Babe Ruth. 

STRONG BOY has been called "one of the best boxing books ever penned" by the Boston Globe and "a muscular, relentlessly detailed book" by the Wall Street Journal. 

In addition to the paperback version, the audiobook version of STRONG BOY is available through Audible at Amazon as well as Barnes and Noble, iTunes and Indiebound.

Summer Tours of Boston Light Resume July 5th

Great news for history buffs and lighthouse lovers! Boston Harbor Island Alliance, the National Park Service and the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary will resume ranger-led summer tours of Boston Light, the nation’s first and oldest lighthouse station, on July 5, 2015.

"We're excited to have the island re-opened this summer for visitors," said Sally Snowman, Keeper of Boston Light. "The Coast Guard invested $1.5 million for major repairs to restore Boston Light and her facilities this past year. Now the lighthouse experience is even more spectacular!"

National Park Service Superintendent Giles Parker added, “Boston Light, which celebrates its 300th year in 2016, is the kind of place that captures the public’s imagination. When you look at the lighthouse, you understand the challenges of going to sea. You think about the people who have navigated their boats through darkness and stormy waters to find that reassuring beam to guide them into safe harbor. Our summer programs offer opportunities to explore the lighthouse and imagine the courage and sacrifice of the keepers and mariners who have passed through this harbor over the years.’’

The three-hour adventure begins with a 45-minute ranger-narrated tour through Boston Harbor, focused on its defining islands and the dramatic views of Boston’s skyline. Visitors will learn about the rich maritime history of the harbor islands and have opportunities to see two of the harbor’s other historic lighthouses – Long Island Head Light and The Graves Light. After a scenic ride, the ferry will dock at Little Brewster Island, home to historic Boston Light. There, visitors will have a chance to talk with the lighthouse keeper, hear stories of the families who've tended Boston Light over its almost 300-year history, and climb the tower’s 76 steps to see the only Fresnel lens in use in the Commonwealth today and the spectacular views of Massachusetts Bay and Boston's skyline.

 

Boston Light Tours begin on July 5 and run through October 4. Tours will depart from the Boston Harbor Islands Welcome Center at 9:30 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Individual fares are: $41 for adults, $37 for seniors, students and active members of the military, and $30 for children, ages 3-11. Children under 3 are free.  

“Boston Harbor Island Alliance is looking forward to bringing the program back after a one year hiatus," Boston Harbor Island Alliance president Phil Griffith said. "This trip is a must-see for all tourists visiting the Boston area, local area residents and lighthouse lovers.”

For more information and to purchase tickets for the Boston Light Tour, visit http://www.bostonharborislands.org/tour-lighthouse. Don't forget to bring along the ultimate companion to the islands, Discovering the Boston Harbor Islands, the most comprehensive guidebook to the national park area. 

June 7 Book Signing and Beer Tasting in Portsmouth, NH

John L. Sullivan appreciated a good pint—well, any pint for that matter—so I’m sure he’d be excited about a great afternoon of brews and books that will be hosted by the Beara Irish Brewing Company in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on Sunday, June 7, from 2-4 PM.

Sullivan's role as the country's first sports superstar and Irish-American hero has faded a bit from our collective memory in recent years, so I was particularly excited when I saw his image gracing the labels of a great local brew, Beara Irish Brewing Company's O'Sullivan Stout. The brewery has opened a new taproom on Route 1 in Portsmouth, and if you come in on June 7 you can sample the stout and the brewery’s other craft offerings, which I highly recommend. I’ll also be there to sign copies of Strong Boy: The Life and Times of John L. Sullivan, called “one of the best boxing books ever penned” by the Boston Globe.

And if you have a dad who loves to drink beer and imbibe sports and history, it’s a great two-fer for picking up some unique gifts! Father’s Day shopping doesn’t get any easier than this.

The Beara Irish Brewing Company is located at 2800 Lafayette Road in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Its web site is www.bearairishbrew.com. For more on Strong Boy, visit www.strongboybook.com. 

STRONG BOY now available in paperback

STRONG BOY: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JOHN L. SULLIVAN, AMERICA'S FIRST SPORTS HERO is now available in paperback. Same great content, half the price!

Happy to see this great review from the Boston Globe on the front cover: "From the first page to the last, Klein's prose retains its powers of enchantment and illumination. It is one of the best boxing books ever penned."

Approaching nineteenth-century sports and boxing with a twenty-first-century perspective, STRONG BOY brings to life John L. Sullivan, a man who was the gold standard of boxing for more than a decade and the first athlete to earn more than a million dollars. He had a big ego, big mouth, and bigger appetites. His womanizing, drunken escapades, and constant presence on the police blotter were a godsend to a burgeoning newspaper industry. The larger-than-life boxer embodied the American Dream for late nineteenth-century immigrants as he rose from Boston's Irish working class to become the most recognizable man in the nation. The "Boston Strong Boy," was our nation's first sports hero, and his name was not Babe Ruth.

If you have already purchased the hardcover version, congratulations! You now own a rare, out-of-print first edition. (Don't go spend it all at once.) If not, the paperback version of STRONG BOY is available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Indiebound.

Upcoming "Strong Boy" Talks about John L. Sullivan

What better way to celebrate St. Patrick's Day than learning more about one of the country's first Irish-American heroes? I'll be telling the colorful tale of the hard-hitting, hard-drinking Gilded Age boxer John L. Sullivan at a number of Boston-area institutions this March. Among the scheduled dates are the following:

March 6, 6 PM: Boston Public Library

March 8, 9:30 AM: The Irish Ancestral Research Association (Boston)

March 12, 7 PM: Medford Public Library

March 16, 2:30 PM: Stevens Memorial Library (North Andover)

March 18, 7 PM: Falmouth Historical Society and Museums on the Green

March 19, 7 PM: Thomas Crane Public Library (Quincy)

March 27, 6:30 PM: South End Historical Society

Come on out, and you'll

• Learn how Sullivan’s incredible career and oversized personality launched America’s modern sporting obsession
• Travel back in time to the extravagant Gilded Age to witness the birth of America’s celebrity culture
• Discover how Sullivan’s power and self-confidence transformed him into an idol for a generation of Irish-Americans emasculated in the wake of the horrific potato famine that gripped their homeland
• Grab a ringside seat to Sullivan’s epic brawls, such as his 75-round bout with Jake Kilrain, and his battles outside the ring with the law, a troubled marriage, and raging alcoholism
• Explore how Sullivan revolutionized boxing from outlawed bare-knuckle fighting into the gloved spectacle we know today

A full list of events can be found on the Strong Boy web site. I'll be bringing flat John L. in tow. He's bundled up for the winter weather and ready to go.

Hope to see you there!

How John L. Sullivan Changed America

He was America’s first sports superstar. He was the gold standard of his sport for more than a decade. He was the first athlete to earn more than a million dollars. His rise from the working-class city streets epitomized the American Dream. He had a big ego, big mouth, and bigger appetites. He ate and drank with reckless abandon. He was loud and vulgar. His womanizing, drunken escapades, and constant police-blotter presence were godsends to a burgeoning newspaper industry.

He wasn’t Babe Ruth.

He was John L. Sullivan.

Nearly four decades before Ruth donned a baseball uniform, Sullivan ruled as heavyweight champion from 1882 to 1892. Born to Irish-American parents who fled the horrible potato famine that gnawed away at Ireland, the larger-than-life boxer rose from a working-class Boston neighborhood to become the most recognizable man in America.

Far from being a bygone, sepia-toned relic, Sullivan’s story is a familiar one. Everything we know of modern sports—the hype machine, the press coverage, the hero worship by fans, the pitfalls of celebrity, the endorsements, the greed and ungodly sums of money, the gambling, the intersection of show business and athletics, and the gossip—all appear in Sullivan’s tale. The man known as the “Boston Strong Boy” starred in theatrical productions, sought political office, owned his own bar, and shilled products for advertisers, activities that all seem commonplace for athletes today.

John L. Sullivan’s left his imprint on American culture in three significant ways:

1. John L. Sullivan was the first American sports hero.

If sports are America’s secular faith, Sullivan is not only among the pantheon of athletic gods, he is our Zeus. His decade-long reign coincided with the birth of American mass media, and his oversized personality gave birth to America’s celebrity obsession with athletes. Long before athletes’ private lives became fodder for TMZ, Deadspin, and ESPN, there was Sullivan’s dirty laundry being aired in Richard K. Fox’s National Police Gazette and Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World.

2. John L. Sullivan was the first Irish-American idol.

The legendary spirit of the fighting Irish that was made flesh in Sullivan transformed him into a hero for tens of thousands of sons and daughters of the Emerald Isle who had felt emasculated in the wake of the Great Hunger. At a time when millions of Irish Americans sought respect in their new homeland, Sullivan earned it with his fists. His strength and self-confidence were elixirs for a people who had suffered from malignant shame after the famine, and it transformed him into an Irish-American idol. “Because he meant so much as a minority champion, he prefigured Joe Louis, Jackie Robinson, Billie Jean King and the many other athletes who became genuine heroes to the people they represented,” says illustrious sportswriter Frank Deford. “The Great John L. is as important a cultural figure as he was a sports idol.”

3. John L. Sullivan modernized the sport of boxing.

The last of the bare-knuckle champions and the first of the gloved title-holders, Sullivan was a transcendent figure in boxing history. By insisting on fighting with gloves under the newly developed Marquis of Queensberry Rules, he revolutionized the sport from barbaric, outlawed bare-knuckle fighting into the gloved spectacle we know today. “The Boston Strong Boy” pulled boxing from the back woods onto the front pages.

My latest book, Strong Boy, tells the story of the self-made man who personified the power and excesses of the Gilded Age. In vivid detail, the 368-page book offers readers ringside seats for Sullivan’s epic brawls, such as his 75-round bout against Jake Kilrain and his cross-country barnstorming tour in which he literally challenged all of America to a fight. Strong Boy also chronicles Sullivan’s battles outside the ring with a troubled marriage, wild weight and fitness fluctuations, and raging alcoholism. While he struggled with personal demons, his life story is ultimately a redemptive one.

Even those who aren't boxing fans will be entertained by Sullivan’s incredible exploits both inside and outside of the ring as they learn about America’s sports-obsessed culture, the seedy underbelly of Victorian society in the Gilded Age, and the rise of Irish America in the latter 1800s.

While Sullivan is referred to in some quarters as the “Babe Ruth of boxing,” Strong Boy readers will discover that in truth, Ruth was the “John L. Sullivan of baseball.”

Copies of Strong Boy, which will be available November 5, 2013, can be ordered online at Indiebound, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon. For more on John L. Sullivan, visit the Strong Boy web site at www.strongboybook.com and keep watching this blog.

Photograph courtesy of Library of Congress

Charitable Irish Society Dinner on St. Patrick's Day

Charitable Irish Society
To Host Annual Dinner
March 17 at Fairmont Copley Plaza

Event To Note Irish Significance In American Labor Movement

Society Ranks As Oldest Irish Organization in The United States
Staged Boston's First St. Patrick's Day Celebration in 1737

BOSTON, MA -- The Charitable Irish Society, founded in Boston in 1737, will hold its annual St. Patrick's Day Dinner on Sunday, March 17, at the Fairmont Copley Plaza Hotel in Boston.  Special guest speaker at the 6 p.m. dinner will be John Sweeney, President Emeritus of the AFL-CIO. The son of Irish immigrants and union members, John Sweeney is renowned for his life long dedication to improving the lives of American working people. At the dinner, he will address the importance of the Irish in the American labor movement and 100th anniversary of the Dublin General Strike.   Tickets for the dinner, priced at $175 are available by visiting http://www.charitableirishsociety.org/ or calling 617 330-1737.

Funds raised through the dinner will benefit the Society's Silver Key Fund which provides essential financial aid, housing assistance and employment opportunities to members of the local Irish community.

Ranking as the oldest Irish organization in North America, the Society is credited with having organized the first St. Patrick's Day celebration in Boston in 1737.

A MISSION OF SUPPORT

Since its inception, the Society has maintained a mission: to cultivate a spirit of unity and harmony among Irish residents and their descendants; to aid members of the local community by providing essential financial aid, housing assistance and employment opportunities; and to promote Irish culture in all its forms.  As such, the Society regularly partners with a host of local organizations including the Irish Immigration Center, the Irish Pastoral Centre, The Ancient Order of Hibernians, Cathedral Cares and Nativity Preparatory School.

Commenting on the Society's commitment to community involvement, Society President Paul McNamara said, "By having the ability to respond quickly to a wide range of emergency needs, The Society fills a critical niche that many other charitable groups are not able to meet.  We are proud to note that the Society is an entirely volunteer organization, with our Board working tirelessly to aid those who might otherwise have no means to receive vital assistance."

He added, "The motto attached to our original founding articles is 'With Good Will, Doing Service.' For the past 276 years, the Society has been dedicated to that responsibility -- providing service, whenever necessary, to Irish men and women, both here and in Ireland.

Projects through history have included providing relief during the Irish Potato Famine and supporting the Immigrant Aid Society of 1850.  More recent projects have involved offering financial assistance for critical medical care, assisting with handicapped accessible home conversions, and providing airfare assistance for travel to a parent's funeral in Ireland.

NEW CITIZENS

Since 1996, the Society has played an integral role in "Catch the Spirit-Citizenship," a program that encourages Irish residents to become United States citizens. Workshops covering all aspects of the application process are offered by volunteers from the Society, the Irish Immigration Center, and the Irish Pastoral Centre at sites in Brighton, Quincy, Dorchester and South Boston. The program has seen more than 1,000 citizenship applications processed and submitted to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, resulting in countless new American citizens.

SOCIETY HISTORY

The history of the Society is deeply rooted in the history of Boston and the United States of America.  Boston’s Irish community stretches back to the early 18th century when considerable numbers of Ulster Presbyterians came to New England in search of economic opportunity as well as the religious and political freedom which the Penal Laws denied to dissenters and Roman Catholics alike. 

Early Society Members

A variety of merchants, tradesmen, lawyers, teachers, and artisans from Ulster founded the Charitable Irish Society in 1737 with the express purpose of assisting fellow Irish immigrants in the traumatic process of settling in an unfamiliar city and country.

Noted among the Society's founders are:

• Teacher, painter and engraver Peter Pelham.  Pelham was stepfather to renowned Boston painter John Singleton Copley.  Copley, in turn, was the father of John Singleton Copley, 1st Baron Lyndhurst , three times the Lord Chancellor of Great Britain.

Peter Pelham was termed the "father of fine arts in New England."  In 1737 he applied to the Boston selectmen for "Liberty to open a school in this town for the education of children in reading, writing and needlepoint, dancing and the art of painting upon glass."

• Captain Patrick Tracey, from Newburyport, who operated a fleet of privateers during the Revolutionary War and captured 2000 British prisoners. His son Nathaniel was one of the chief financiers of the American Revolution.  His grandchildren included:  James Jackson, one of the founders of Mass General Hospital as well as its first physician; Charles Jackson, a member of theMassachusetts Supreme Court; and Patrick Tracey Jackson, who built the first complete cotton mill in Waltham.  (Patrick Jackson's father, Jonathan Jackson, a member of the Continental Congress in 1782, was one of the founders of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Cambridge.)
•  More recent notable members include President John F. Kennedy, andSenators Leverett
Saltonstall and Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.

The Silver Key

The original articles of organization of the Society stated that officers would be elected annually and would include a "Keeper of the Silver Key" whose duty it was to acquaint natives of Ireland or those of Irish extraction with the organization and invite them to contribute.

The Silver Key was designed for the Society by renowned Boston silversmith Jacob Hurd in 1738.   Born and raised in Charlestown, Hurd worked from 1723 - 1755 in a silver shop located in Boston on Pudding Lane.

The Silver Key, now on loan to Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, is made of sterling silver, measures 4.5 inches in length, and is engraved  with the inscription "Georgius II Rex" with an engraving of King George II in profile.  On its reverse side, the key is inscribed  "Hibernia 1738" and is engraved with a crowned harp, the arms of Ireland.  The MFA's permanent silver collection also includes a silver cup, salver, mug, covered bowl, teapots and a sword crafted by Jacob Hurd. 

The Archives 

The archives of the Society are housed in two distinguished collections at theMassachusetts Historical Society (covering the years 1737-1920) and at theBurns Library at Boston College (1920 - present).  Both collections are available to researchers.

For information on supporting or joining The Charitable Irish Society, visithttp://www.charitableirishsociety.org.