Super Fan Required Reading

Did you know that when Father Thomas Gasson purchased the land that would become Boston College’s Chestnut Hill Campus, it was adjacent to not one but two reservoirs? You’ve probably heard of the Chestnut Hill Reservoir but the smaller one, Lawrence Basin, was filled in after World War II in order to build Lower Campus, including the spot that is now Alumni Stadium.

That moment in BC’s history marks the transition from “college” to “university” as argued by the authors of the two books featured in this edition of Beacon Book Club: The Heights: An Illustrated History of Boston College, 1863–2013 by Ben Birnbaum and Seth Meehan, MA’09, PhD’14, and Ever to Excel: A History of Boston College by James M. O’Toole ’72, PhD’87.

In fact, BC’s distinct eras frame these two important reflections on its first century and a half. The School was the vision of its founding fathers. The College coincided with the move to Chestnut Hill. And the University, BC’s current form, involved a transformed campus that made BC a residential institution, a shift toward coeducation, and an expanded and reimagined curriculum.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then The Heights is priceless. Originally published for the University’s sesquicentennial anniversary in 2013, its 225 pages depict Boston College’s origins, evolution, and maturity.

“Institutions produce two kinds of illustrated histories. One is the family album. The other kind makes it case as history, with illustrations. This book is of that kind. Though hundreds of images— many in print for the first time—appear on its pages, it is foremost about what Boston College did over the days of 150 years and how those days and years, in turn, shaped Boston College, as best we can know these things,” Birnbaum wrote in the book’s introduction.

O’Toole, the university historian and Clough Millennium History Professor Emeritus, wrote Ever to Excel, published in 2022, as a “social history” of BC. In other words, it focuses on the stories of hundreds of thousands of students, faculty, staff, alumni, and benefactors who have shaped the University.

“Over the course of my career, I’ve come to think history is valuable precisely because it connects to the stories of real human beings,” O’Toole said. “What are the actual people doing, not just in the president’s office, but on the ground?”