Boston-area 1980s videos from the WGBH archives

A few years ago, I stumbled upon a quirky social media account operated by a public broadcaster in Boston, GBH Archives (aka WGBH Archives). It has proved to be a fountain of 1980s nostalgia.

The GBH Archives Twitter and Facebook accounts provided a daily dose of old videos from the vault, many from the 1980s. Street scenes (Facebook). Storms (Twitter). Shoppers (Twitter). High school students (Facebook). Snowstorms. Interviews with locals, from a “Celtics superfan” to our former governor, Michael Dukakis. Bettors at a chariot race (yes, this was a thing):

Much of the shared clips are B Roll - supplementary footage used to provide context or establish the background of a news story.

For instance, “Back seat drive along Memorial Drive and Mass Ave Bridge in April, 1984” shows the view from the back seat of a car driving around Cambridge and Boston while the driver fiddles with the radio.

It’s utterly mundane, and utterly delightful to watch. I’m clearly not the only one, as such clips typically garner hundreds or thousands of likes and shares.

Why do we feel nostalgic when looking at 1980s videos of street scenes, hairstyles, and automobiles? Because it reminds us of our youth. It shows us how cities and towns have changed, for better or for worse. We hear accents that have faded, and performers that are no longer with us. The footage brings to light the places and people and music and fashions and trends that made us who we are.

It’s fun to find these repositories. We salute the media archives, history societies, and museums that make an effort to preserve and share them. This often means resurrecting obsolete technology formats (see "Digital reality check: CD-ROM database of WW2 airmen can only be opened on Windows 98").

But they are constantly under threat, as the recent deactivation of the MTV News archive shows. Thousands of hours of interviews with artists and producers dating from the 1990s were taken offline as staff were laid off. Some of it may be stored on the Internet Archive, but much of it is gone forever.

Nostalgia can be a huge aid to genealogy research, whether the goal is to gather information or family stories.

 I was reminded of this when researching a maternal great-grandmother, and an old print archive turned up - the “Old Timer's” column in the March 1933 issue of the Canton Commercial Advertiser in Canton, New York, reminiscing about attending grade school where my great-grandmother was his teacher … in the 1880s!