By Lindsey Hawkins
President Richard Freeland spoke to a crowd of about 40 people at the Mary Baker Eddy Library Wednesday to launch a new book developed by the Boston History Collaborative about Boston’s past.
The Collaborative, to which Freeland was one of the founding members, dedicated a page of the book, “Innovation Odyssey — Four Hundred Years of Shaping the Nation and the World,” to Northeastern’s history.
“For too many Bostonians and for too many visitors, history is now too much about revolutionary history, and not enough about a lot of other things,” Freeland said.
The book delves into Northeastern’s co-op program, which began in 1909 with the inspiration to “earn while you learn,” which later evolved into “learning while doing.”
Among the speakers and guests at the launch were writer and co-editor Marsha Conroy, President of the Massachusetts Life Technology Council Janice Bourke, Virginia Johnson of the Boston University Design Center and the Executive Director of the Boston History Collaborative Dr. Bob Krim.
The grandson of Percey Spencer, the inventor of the microwave, and Cambridge engineer Ray Tomlinson, the first person to have ever sent an e-mail and developer of the “@” symbol used in e-mail, were also in attendance.
“I think that e-mail is the innovation bringing humanity closer together,” Tomlinson said.
Other notable speakers included Boston University Professor John Wesley who played a major role in the production of the book.
“One of the things that I think that this project will help to do is to remind all of us just how important, how crucial, that overture provided by higher education is to the future of this city, this commonwealth and this region,” Wesley said.
The Boston History Collaborative, established in 1997, is a non-profit organization whose motto is, “Where We Bring History to Life.”
The Collaborative developed and began running the Innovation Odyssey Tour: Visit the People and Places of Boston’s Great Inventions, in March 2000. The program illustrates the people and institutions that have impacted Boston with their inventions and ideas in fields such as medicine, technology, finance and education.
“It’s the first of its kind because it’s only about inventors and innovations in Boston,” said Bishoff Communications Account Executive Janet Kalandranis, “where others incorporate New Hampshire and Rhode Island.”
Bishoff Communications helped to promote the book.
