Boston Historic Marker Guides

Research if your topic has an existing commemoration:

1. Public Art Map
2. HMDB
3. Marker Map
4. Hero Squares

Consider the following eligibility criteria when evaluating a topic’s potential for nomination:

• Individuals: Individual nominated must be deceased.
  • ​​​​​​​Ask Yourself: Did the person live, work, study, organize, create, or spend formative years in Boston?
    • Ask Yourself: Did Boston play an important role in shaping the person's life, achievements, or legacy—even if their greatest accomplishments occurred elsewhere?
• Events: Events generally should have occurred at least 20 years ago. Exceptions may be considered for events with an immediate and significant impact.
  • ​​​​​​​Ask Yourself: Did the event take place in Boston?
• Buildings: Buildings nominated primarily for architectural significance should generally be at least 50 years old.
• Location: The proposed site must be meaningfully associated with the subject and allow the marker to be read from a publicly accessible area without requiring people to enter private property.
  • ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Ask Yourself: Is the site, building, landscape, object, or archaeological resource located in Boston?
    • ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Ask Yourself: Have you identified an appropriate Boston location to tell this story? 
• Property Type: Publicly and privately owned sites are eligible.
• Connection to Boston: Every nomination must establish a meaningful, documented connection to Boston. A subject with regional, national, or international significance may qualify if the nomination establishes a meaningful connection to Boston.
  • ​​​​​​​Ask Yourself: If the nomination concerns a broader movement, cultural tradition, idea, or historical trend, are there specific people, events, places, or stories that connect that history to Boston?
• Historical documentation: Sufficient historical evidence is required to be eligible.
  • ​​​​​​​Ask Yourself: Can the subject's connection to Boston be supported through historical research and documentation?
• Existing Commemorations: An existing marker does not automatically disqualify a nomination. The program considers whether a proposed marker adds to Boston’s commemorative landscape rather than duplicating existing interpretation. However, sites already marked through Boston's Bicentennial marker program are not eligible and nominations with significant existing commemorations are generally discouraged.

If you have any questions, reach out to commemoration@boston.gov

Historical research helps establish why a subject matters, how it connects to Boston, and why it deserves public recognition.

You do not need to be a professional historian to submit a nomination. Start with what you know, identify what you still need to learn, and look for reliable sources that support the story you want to tell.

Use these questions to guide your research. A clear Boston connection is especially important when your topic also has regional, national, or international significance. 

• Who or what is the nomination about?
• What happened? When?
• Why is this subject historically significant?
• How is it connected to Boston?
• What location is meaningfully associated with the subject?
• What information would someone need to understand its significance?
• If there is an existing commemoration or this subject is well-known, how does your approach materially deepen understanding of the subject?

Primary sources are materials created during the period being studied or by people directly connected to the subject. Examples include:

• Letters, diaries, and personal papers.
• Government documents and public records.
• Contemporary newspaper articles.
• Maps, photographs, and other visual materials.
• Organizational records and meeting minutes.
• Oral histories and recorded firsthand accounts.
• Long-standing cultural traditions, practices, and forms of expression.

Secondary sources interpret, analyze, or synthesize historical information. Examples include:

• Scholarly books and articles.
• Published biographies.
• Historic preservation studies and reports.
• Well-researched local histories.
• Museum or archival collection essays.

Keep a record of the sources you consult as you work. Include enough information for OHP reviewers to identify the materials supporting your nomination. Record all this information in one location as soon as you find a source and use this as the source list you upload to the nomination form

For each source, record as much of the following information as is available:

• Type of source: book, newspaper article, video, etc.
• Author, creator, interviewer, or issuing organization.
• Title of the work or item.
• Publication date or date the item was created.
• Publisher, publication, repository, or collection name.
• Page number, document identifier, collection name, or other identifying details, where applicable.
• Website URL and access information for online materials, where relevant.

• I have documented the sources I used.
• Each entry contains enough information to identify the source.
• I included URLs or repository information where available.
• I recorded dates and identifying details accurately.
• I have not invented missing information.
• The sources support the historical information in my nomination.
• If I have any useful materials such as historical photographs, maps, newspaper clippings and more, I have compiled them into one document with appropriate information included.

The following resources may help you locate historical records, photographs, maps, publications, and other documentation. 

The application will be on a Google Form

• Identify the property or site associated with your nomination. Explain how the location relates to the subject and why it is appropriate for a marker.
• A proposed marker must be readable from a publicly accessible area. Applicants should not assume that a site is suitable simply because it is historically associated with the subject.
• You do not need to own the property to submit a nomination. You do not need to have contacted the property owner to submit a nomination.
• You will be asked to input publicly listed information about the property such as the address, the property owner’s name, and the property owner’s mailing address. 
• If you know the property owner’s contact information, include it in the application where requested.

These resources will help you research a property:

• City of Boston Property Lookup
• City of Boston Parcel Viewer

Consider the following when evaluating a topic’s potential for nomination:

• Individuals: People nominated must be deceased.
• Events: Events generally should have occurred at least 20 years ago. Exceptions may be considered for events with an immediate and significant impact.
• Location: The proposed site must be meaningfully associated with the subject and allow the marker to be read from a publicly accessible area without requiring people to trespass or enter private property.
• Property ownership: Publicly and privately owned sites may be eligible.
• Existing markers: An existing marker does not automatically disqualify a nomination. The program considers whether a proposed marker adds to Boston’s commemorative landscape to avoid duplicating existing interpretation.
• Connection to Boston: Every nomination must establish a meaningful, documented connection to Boston. A subject with regional, national, or international significance may qualify if the nomination establishes a meaningful connection to Boston.
• Historical documentation: Historical evidence is required. Primary sources are encouraged, but relevant secondary sources and oral histories may also be used.

Meeting the eligibility criteria does not guarantee selection. 

The Historic Marker Nomination Form will ask you to provide the following information:

1. A brief title
2. A paragraph of 250 words introducing the subject. 
3. A paragraph of 350 words explaining the significance of your nominated subject.

Consider the following when explaining the significance:

• Historical Contribution: Did this nomination produce consequential contributions to Boston or to the state, region, nation, or world's development, institutions, movements, governance, economy, innovation history, or cultural life?
• Community & Cultural Significance: Does this nomination hold recognized meaning within a community or neighborhood of Boston through long term or historical use or through its associations with social life, migration, displacement, or collective identity?
• Interpretive Value: Would commemorating this subject or site materially deepen, expand, or transform public understanding of a neighborhood, the City, or of the state, the region, the nation, or the world's history because its significance is not readily visible or widely recognized?
• Civic Identity: If this nomination were omitted, would it leave a significant gap in understanding the City’s development and identity?
• Relationship to Broader Change: Did this nomination mark a turning point or play a necessary role within a broader historical process, movement, or structural change within a neighborhood, the City, or within the state, the region, the nation, or the world?
• Layers of History: Does the nominated subject or the site chosen for potential historic marker placement have associations with other histories?

• How to Upload Your Source List
• How to Upload Additional Materials

• OHP staff review applications to determine whether they meet the program’s eligibility requirements. 
• If your nomination is determined not eligible, it will not proceed to the selection process for this application cycle.

• For eligible nominations, OHP coordinates the property-owner consent process. Applicants do not need to obtain consent before applying.
• The necessary property owner consent must be secured before a nomination can be selected.
• If consent cannot be obtained for the proposed location, OHP may consider an appropriate alternative location. If neither consent nor an appropriate alternative location is available, the nomination cannot proceed to selection without the necessary consent.
• If consent is obtained later, OHP may reconsider the eligible nomination when a new application cycle opens. Eligibility does not guarantee selection in a future cycle.

• The Historic Marker Review Panel will review all applications that make it to the selection phase and make recommendations / determinations on which applications should be selected to move forward this round. 
• If your marker has been selected, we will contact you and begin the process of coordination and implementation.
• If your nomination has not been selected and was eligible, it remains eligible for the next round of applications. You may have to reaffirm your desire to continue in the next application cycle.