March 5th - March 11th

March 9, 1914

March 7, 1842 - School Committee report on future of town schools
March 9, 1914 - 700-800 attend suffrage meeting at Town Hall
March 8, 1960 - Louise Castle first woman elected to Board of Selectmen
March 9, 1972 - Black BHS students call for change

March 7, 1842
School Committee report on future of town schools
Brookline's commitment to its public schools was evident early on. An 1847 report from the Massachusetts Board of Education -- compiled by its Secretary, Horace Mann -- showed the town spending more money per pupil on education than any other city or town in the Commonwealth in the 1845-46 school year.

Brookline, with 352 pupils between the ages of 4 and 16, spent $8.52 per pupil on education in the 1845-46 school year, more than any other city or town in Massachusetts

That commitment had no doubt been strengthened by a report from the town's school committee three years earlier. The report, submitted to Town Meeting on March 7, 1842, noted that 

none of us put too high an estimate upon a good education, or feel too much the importance of having our children furnished with such means for intellectual culture as the exigences of the age demand. The public schools in this town ought not to be inferior to those of any other town in the Commonwealth, and we ought not to be satisfied without the evidence that we are every year elevating their character and improving their condition.

 
Among the obstacles to quality education cited by the committee were the irregularity of attendance and turnover among teachers. In closing, the committee noted that they

would respectfully suggest to all our citisens the importance of giving still more attention to the great cause of education connected as it is with all that is dear in the weal of our common country.

March 9, 1914
700-800 attend suffrage meeting at Town Hall
Supporters and opponents of suffrage packed Brookline's Town Hall to hear a speech by U.K.-based activist Stanton Coit on "Women and the State." Coit was introduced by Gertrude B. Newell, vice president of Brookline's Equal Suffrage Association.

Coit was scathing in his criticism of upper class women and men who opposed an expansion of voting rights. "The people of Brookline and Back Bay," he said (as reported in the Boston Herald), "do not believe, so far as I can see or have been able to ascertain, in the vote for the poor people or for anything else that is not descended from their families."

Brookline's pro-suffrage activists did, in fact, include many upper class women (and men), though there were clear divides among the elite in the town. The local papers regularly carried both "Equal Suffrage Notes" and "Anti Suffrage Notes", usually on the same page. (The examples below appeared side-by-side on page 5 of the Brookline Townsman after the meeting.)

Brookline Townsman, March 14, 1914

Coit welcomed the opportunity to engage with anti-suffragists, commenting that indifference, rather than opposition, was the biggest obstacle to the suffragists' success. The "antis" declined, however, to participate in the question and answer period that followed the talk. Sarah White, their leader, told the Townsman that his [Coit's] "whole argument was so foolish that it was hardly worthwhile to ask him questions."

March 8, 1960
Louise Castle first woman elected to Board of Selectmen
Louise Castle upset the incumbent chair of the Board of Selectmen to become the first woman elected to the board in the 255-year history of the town. She was only the fourth woman to run for a position on the board.

Louise Castle monitoring election returns at her home in 1960. (Boston Globe photo by LeRoy Ryan)

Castle, who was 50-years old when elected, had been active in town affairs for more than a decade. She had been president of the League of Women Voters and had served on the Council for Planning and Renewal, the Committee on the Structure and Organization of Town Government, and the Community Relations Committee of the Community Council. 

Castle's successful campaign was managed by two men who went on to their own success in politics and government: future governor and presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, a Democrat; and future lieutenant governor and U.S. cabinet officer Elliot Richardson, a Republican.

Castle served on the board for nine years. She died in 2002 at the age of 92. In 2007, women formed a majority on the Board of Selectmen for the first time. The board's name was finally changed to Select Board in 2017.

March 9, 1972
Black BHS students and parents call for change
Racial tensions at Brookline High School came to a head at a meeting at Town Hall where Black students and parents presented a list of 11 changes they said were necessary for Black students to be seen as full members of the school community. 

Page 1 article in the Brookline Chronicle Citizen, March 16, 1972

More than 200 students and parents, along with school and town officials, participated in the meeting, precipitated by threats against Black students near the school the previous day. Ophie A. Franklin, father of a Black student, told the officials that the incident was "only a symptom of the larger and continually escalating problems of harassment and oppression" that had been occurring since the METCO program brought increasing numbers of Black students to the school.

Among the changes called for were: appointment of a Black administrator and other staff at the school; formation of a committee of Black students, parents, and staff;  introduction of staff development programs on Black history; curriculum revisions to recognize minority cultures; and other changes to "create a positive atmosphere and environment suited to to the specific needs of the Black students and staff and for the benefit of the entire Brookline community."