Feb 1, 2024
A little over a year ago, Globe Magazine featured an in-depth article by award-winning author Dick Lehr about Jane Bosfield, a Black woman sporadically employed between 1915 to 1917 at the former Medfield State Hospital, and the media storm that resulted from her discrimination case. Lehr took some time to discuss his work on the piece.
A synopsis of the Jane Bosfield case
As described in Dick Lehr’s article, in 1915, Boston resident Jane R. Bosfield traveled to Medfield to interview for a job as a stenographer at Medfield State Hospital. Through his research, Lehr learned that she was a graduate of Cambridge Latin and High School, had scored high on civil service exams, and excelled in bookkeeping, stenography and typewriting. However, despite her credentials, Lehr also learned through various media accounts, that soon upon her arrival at MSH, Bosfield was allegedly told by the superintendent, “I couldn’t possibly employ you…I didn’t know you were colored.”
In his extensive January 2023 Globe Magazine piece, Lehr recounts how Bosfield rallied support from Boston government officials and Black activists and was ultimately hired, but was fired not long after. Bosfield ultimately pursued legal action that lasted about 1-2 years, got her MSH stenographer job back, but later resigned and pursued higher-level positions elsewhere, including government and university jobs in Washington, D.C., according to Lehr’s research.
To provide additional context to this story, John Thompson, Chairman of the Medfield State Hospital Buildings & Grounds Committee, points out that during the time of the Bosfield controversy, MSH conditions (along with societal/political issues) were especially challenging to navigate.
“The hospital was built for 1,000 patients, but from 1914-1916, there were over 1,600 patients living there. The superintendent and trustees who ran the state hospital were dealing with extremely challenging conditions,” said Thompson.
As further documentation, examples can be found in hospital annual reports indicating severe overcrowding, disease, failing infrastructure, patient problems, lack of sufficient housing for direct care attendants, and labor shortages.
Story catches Lehr’s attention
Author of nine books, former member of The Boston Globe investigative Spotlight Team, and a Boston University journalism professor, Dick Lehr first became interested in Jane Bosfield while working on his 2014 book, The Birth of a Movement – How Birth of a Nation Ignited the Battle for Civil Rights. The book is about Black civil rights leader and newspaper editor, William Monroe Trotter. Three years later, Public Broadcasting Service released a documentary based on the book.
“The book is really built around William Trotters’ 1915 protest on multiple fronts against the D.W. Griffith racist movie, Birth of a Nation, Lehr explains. “Trotter also published a newspaper, The Guardian, at the time.
Lehr noted that while reading about Trotter, he continually stumbled upon piecemeal stories and references regarding Jane Bosfield, which piqued his interest.
“The stories caught my eye about this young woman and her fight for her job, and I wanted to know more,” said Lehr.
While The Birth of a Movement book project took priority, knew he wanted to write the Bosfield story when time allowed. “I wasn’t done with Jane,” Lehr added.
He noted that the more he looked into Bosfield, the more interested he became. “While there wasn’t enough for a book, there was certainly enough for a magazine story, and the Globe Magazine editor loved the idea,” said Lehr.
Digging into the research
What seemed to surprise Lehr most was the sheer amount of media coverage on the Jane Bosfield story at the time, and it wasn’t all hard news.
“There was one interview with Jane at her home after she had won (the court case), and she’s exhausted, and it’s just very descriptive. The reporter almost put herself into it a bit – arriving at the home, and in the living room,” said Lehr, noting how much he loved the piece.
Dick’s first steps were creating clip files and establishing a timeline. “There were a lot of dailies (newspapers) back then in Boston – Boston Herald, Boston Post, Boston Traveler and of course, The Boston Globe,” said Lehr. He also noted that the story had gained national traction – especially around 1916, when the discrimination charge ended up in court.
Beyond relying on numerous newspaper archives, Lehr conducted deeper research. Among the sources he used included Census records, The Boston City Directory, Medfield State Hospital annual reports, and minutes of the various Black literary society meetings where the Bosfield case was being discussed found in Boston Public Library files. Lehr noted he also conducted genealogical research to better understand the Bosfield family.
An investigative reporter of famous crime cases, Lehr notes, “I wasn’t used to genealogical research – sometimes it was like trying to find needles in a haystack. I’d just go down this path, and then be off on different tangents.”
Beyond family history, 100-year-old court records were also difficult to find. As a result, Lehr said he relied on newspaper archives since so many of the media outlets were reporting on the case, so he seemed to trust their editorial coverage despite the tenor of the times.
“The Boston Post was progressive and liberal-leaning, and there was another paper, that was clearly not, and you could see a little bit of that in the editorials and the coverage of Trotter’s actions of disobedience and civil protests,” said Lehr.
And even though specific quotes and references to letters in his Globe Magazine piece came from issues of The Guardian published by Black activist Trotter, they were reinforced by detailed news coverage of court testimonies creating a triangulation effect, Lehr explained.
Setting the stage
Lehr noted that besides a cadre of activists behind her, Jane Bosfield also had legal representation. Based on his research, he said the lawyers were clearly part of the local NAACP.
“These lawyers had a strategy — a plan – that foreshadowed the civil rights movement 40 to 50 years later, in terms of taking things to court, and marshalling and litigating the issues. This (the Jane Bosfield case) was an early version of that, and they were litigating it politically and legally.”
By the time the civil rights movement petered out in the 1960s, Bosfield was back in Boston living in the Fenway area working as a medical secretary for about a decade until she retired, Lehr explained in his article.
When Bosfield died in 1981 at the age of 86, the Lehr article also states, “Only a brief notice about her death ran in The Boston Globe, and it made no mention of her year-long crusade earlier in the century when she’d refused to abide by the color line at work – a crusade that not only succeeded in restoring her to her job, but also contributed to improvements to the rules of civil service.”
(Lehr welcomes the opportunity to share his research documents on Jane Bosfield for Medfield Historical Society files. More about Dick Lehr is available here.)