A guide to the history of the Massachusetts region for visitors, locals and armchair tourists alike. The South Shore is an intriguing mix of antiquity and modernity. The region’s first settlement, Plymouth, is a top tourist destination, as more than one million visitors flock to it annually. Quincy showcases the region’s Revolutionary War past, but even more of its fascinating sites are hidden behind an urban façade. Along windswept beaches and cranberry bogs, the varied terrain is unique and captivating. From the birthplace of Abigail Adams in Weymouth to the historical houses of Hingham and the Old Scituate Light, author Zachary Lamothe uncovers the stories behind some of the most notable people and landmarks in New England.

A century ago, the words "Rockland" and "shoes" were synonymous. On any side road off Union Street, the town's main thoroughfare, were some of the most important shoe-manufacturing facilities in America, among them Emerson Shoe, Wright Shoe, and the Hurley Brothers Shoe Company. As the industrial revolution reigned, Rockland peaked, but Rockland had another side to it. Postals sent from Rockland exported the innate beauty of Reed's Pond, Cushing's Pond, and Whiting's Woods. These images proved to those folks who had never been to the town that even among the brick-and-mortar giants of the shoe industry, Rockland's natural side thrived.

Throughout Abington's history, its central location between Boston and Plymouth has been a vantage point that has been reflected in both work and play. It is Abington that provided the white-oak planks for the USS Constitution, and the town's Island Grove Park had national significance during the abolitionist movement. Abington was founded and built around the mills and then grew with the times to become a focal point for the thriving shoe industry. Many wealthy industrialists and capitalists have left their mark with brick and mortar. Their mansions still line the streets, and their lives shaped Abington forever. Abington presents an illustrated portrait of what it was like to live and work in the town during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It presents vivid images of the townsfolk, the shoe factories, and the old roads through Abington. The book includes images of John L. Sullivan, heavyweight boxing champion, and of the Buffum automobile, built on Centre Avenue. With photographs from the Abington Historical Commission, the Dyer Memorial Library, the Historical Society of Old Abington, and personal collections, Abington is sure to evoke memories of a bygone era.

Once known to native inhabitants as Manamooskeagin, or "the land of many beavers," Abington became an important manufacturing and financial center in Plymouth County by the early twentieth century. Postcard photographers and publishers caught every stage of the community's growth and broadcast it to the world through images of workmen at shoe factories, parades celebrating the town's 1912 bicentennial, and the dedication of the Island Grove Soldiers and Sailors Monument, a nineteenth-century gathering site for abolitionists that is today one of America's newest districts in the National Register of Historic Places. Abington captures the nostalgia of this town during the postcard era.

When Rockland was king, shoes were its currency. As part of a seven-town shoe manufacturing district that saw its heyday between the 1880s and 1920s, Rockland helped make one quarter of all the shoes being worn on American feet during that time period. The factory names represented the best the country had to offer: Just Wright, Emerson, Hurley Brothers, and more. Time has changed all that. In Rockland Through Time, we return to those golden days through the collections of the Dyer Memorial Library and the Historical Society of Old Abington, and then fast forward to today, to see what has become of the buildings and homes that made Rockland the South Shore gem that it was.

Representative Men and Old Families of Southeastern Massachusetts: Containing Historical Sketches of Prominent and Representative Citizens and . Records of Many of the Old Families.