While I tend to prefer alternate history or historical fantasy to straight historical fiction, history is of course a fertile source of inspiration for gaming. And of course there are games like Call of Cthulhu, which by default is set in our world (albeit with Mi-go, extra-dimensional monstrosities, and books that drive people insane), and in which you can use real-world history basically as-is.
With my B/X D&D campaign on indefinite hiatus, and with a copy of Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition on my tablet, I'm thinking about a Cthulhu campaign set in Boston in 1921. Why Boston? No particular reason. I've just never set a game there before. And after perusing Wikipedia (which is still one of the greatest resources for GMs!) and the Intarweb for a few hours, I have to say, Boston in 1921 is a fantastic setting for occult shenanigans.
"Shippin' up to Boston..."
In this post, I'm going to give a rundown on what I've cobbled together and a few thoughts on what I might do with it. My plan for the next post is to actually set out where the campaign's going to start. I've tentatively decided there will be three predominant Great Old Ones in Boston - Cthulhu (mostly worshipped in surrounding communities *cough Innsmouth cough cough* but also within Boston; Hastur, whose cult is mostly limited to a small group of artists and aesthetes; and Nyarlathotep, who has a few different, sometimes competing, cults within various groups and classes in the city.
Of course one needn't spend a lot of time on this. Really, most groups can run with a quick-and-dirty take on Boston. But I love learning about history, so why not put it all together?
In recent history, the Great War ended a mere three years ago, and the great Influenza Pandemic lasted into 1920. The Great Molasses Flood killed 21 people and injured 150 in 1919. The Russian Revolution was in 1917, leading to the first "Red Scare" in 1919. The President is Warren G. Harding, who will die in 1923, and the Vice-President (and soon-to-be President) is Calvin Coolidge, former Governor of Massachusetts whose career got a boost when he sent in the state militia to deal with the Boston Police Strike in 1919 (of which, more later).
(Issues 16/17 of The Unspeakable Oath has a period map of and information about Boston in the 1920s as well.)
Demographics, Racism, and Anti-Semitism
In 1920, Boston had around 750,000 people (compared to New York's 5,600,000). Almost one-third (31.9%) were of Irish descent, living predominantly in the city's South End, though the establishment was heavily white, anglo-saxon, and Protestant. The North End in 1921 would be heavily Italian.
In the early 20th century about one-third of the North End's population was Jewish, but 1922, the North End's Jewish community had mostly dispersed to other neighbourhoods. The 1920's saw the rise of "numerus clausas" policies at leading universities and medical schools (setting a preference for "desirable" - i.e. native-born, white, and Protestant - students), primarily to limit Jewish students but also to limit or prevent Catholic and African-American student enrolment as well.
The African-American population was relatively small, being around 2.2% of Boston's population in 1920. But that decade also saw the "Harlem Renaissance", a cultural and artistic boom within the African-American community, in which Boston seems to have played a significant role. And, as an aside,Sgt. Horatio Homer, the Boston Police Department's first African-American police officer retired in 1919, after 40 years of service.
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| Check out that epic 'stache! |
Caveat: I've never been a big fan of using history as a straitjacket; I would much rather have players play the characters they want, and the group makes it work. Lovecraft's work, and the pulp genre generally, were often deeply racist, of course, but I'd much rather err on the side of gameability; and it's obvious, anyway, that 1921 Boston can allow for characters from a broad range of ethnicities and cultures.
Nonetheless, the various different neighbourhoods and the ethnic and religious tensions of the day could certainly provide an ample source of conflict, or at least flavour, in the campaign (much like the CoC adventure Dead Man's Stomp).
Female Investigators
The Nineteenth Amendment, allowing women to vote, was ratified on August 18, 1920. In a game set in the 1920's, that means female characters have had the right to vote for less than a decade. In Boston 1921, they'll have had the right to vote for less than a year!
The 1920's of course offers many archetypes for female investigators. In 1921, Amelia Earhart was taking flying lessons in California. (She'd later become famous for being the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic, in 1932.) In 1926, Gertrude Ederle became the first woman to swim the English Channel. Jennie Irene Mix wrote about opera and classical music and became one of the few radio editors in 1924; years earlier, in 1907-08, Ina Eloise Young reported on sports - very rare for a female reporter - for a Colorado newspaper, the Trinidad Chronicle-News. There were many prominent female artists, actors, writers, and singers, such as Dorothy Parker, Bessie Smith, Zora Neale Hurston, and Georgia O'Keeffe.
In Boston, the Boston Police Department hired its first six female officers in 1921 - though no further female officers were hired until the 1940's, and female officers weren't given uniforms or guns until 1972. The six included Irene McAulliffe, an accomplished horsewoman who had already served as a mounted police officer in Weston in 1913, and as a police officer in Washington, D.C. If she doesn't scream "player character" to you, I don't know what to tell you...(McAulliffe, by the way, became a highly regarded officer but was abruptly assigned to switchboard duty in 1934 because, said her lieutenant, women were better at switchboard duties than men. Sheesh.)
Speaking of law enforcement - hoo boy, what a mess.
Prohibition
Prohibition was enacted by 18th Amendment, Jan 17, 1919 and came into effect on Jan. 17, 1920. It was ultimately repealed in 1933, but in Boston in 1921 the recent enactment of Prohibition allows for gangsters like Charles "King" Solomon, bootleggers, corrupt police...
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| Wrong game, Finn. Back to Arkham with you. |
The Boston Police Strike
...speaking of which. In 1919, the Boston Police went on strike. Their pay was less than that of an unskilled labourer on an hourly basis; they had to buy their own uniforms; they had to live in aging squad houses (some dating back to before the Civil War) with inadequate toilet and bathing facilities; and often had to share beds. And to add to the mess, the rank-and-file of the police force were heavily Irish Catholic, and - you guessed it - those in charge tended to be Anglo-Saxon Protestant.
So, in september of 1919, almost three-quarters of the police force went on strike. The labour movement considered joining them in a general strike, but ultimately refused on the basis that a general strike would open the unions to widespread criticism.
The Police Commissioner fired the strikers, replacing them with new officers; many of the new officers were not suited to the work and feel prey to alcoholism, corruption, or incompetence. Oh, and the Commissioner provided the new hires the wages, uniforms, and benefits that had been originally demanded by the striking officers. Classic union-busting. What an asshole.
For Boston 1921, this gives all sorts of ideas for PCs, NPCs, and plots. Much of the newly-hired police force is incompetent and corrupt (and with Prohibition in full swing, at that!), and a former police officer would make a fine backstory for a PC or NPC.
Labour and Political Unrest
By 1921 the First Red Scare is more or less over, though anti-Communist and anti-anarchist feeling still runs high. While the Red Scare may have lessened, this still provides justification for overzealous police raids, especially with the unrest of the Boston Police Strike within recent memory. Anarchists and radicals are still agitating. Some unions (like the Industrial Workers of the World) are more overtly political, revolutionary, and left-wing than others.
"I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night" -
(Joe Hill was an IWW organizer who was (probably falsely) executed for murder)
Performed by Paul Robeson, who could also be inspiration for a PC or NPC!
It's also a time of labour unrest, with union busting and strike breaking as common practice. (Unlike today, where...oh, wait.) But labour is also about to start a sharp decline; a number of strikes in 1919 (including the Police Strike) were unsuccessful, the judiciary, employers, and the media are unrelentingly hostile to unions, and the American Federation of Labor lost one million members (25% of its membership) between 1920 and 1925. The National Labor Relations Act won't be law until 1935, so there are few legal protections for joining a union or for strikers.
Oh, and the Sacco and Vanzetti trial and appeals are ongoing. The two men were found guilty of murder in July of 1921, though they weren't executed until 1927. (Though their guilt for the murder has been questioned from 1921 until the present day, and their conviction seems just as likely to have been owing to their being Italian immigrants and anarchists as it was for genuine proof of guilt.)
There's a lot to draw on here. While Lovecraftian characters tend to be from the educated upper-middle class, there's certainly room for working-class, radical, or trade unionist characters, too.
Censorship: Banned in Boston
Boston was renowned for its priggishness in the 1920's. The main organization responsible for censorship in Boston at the time was the delightfully-named "Watch and Ward Society" (whose motto was manu forti, "with a strong hand"). The Boston Public Library kept objectionable books in a locked room, and some plays were presented in a bowdlerized "Boston Version" to satisfy the W&W Society. Elsewhere in the country, the phrase "banned in Boston" was sometimes used to connote something lurid.
Of course this provides further motivation so seek out information from Miskatonic University...
This is great fodder. For my Boston, the Watch and Ward Society has been infiltrated by a cult of Nyarlathotep. The strict censorship laws allow Nyarlathotep's followers to monitor and control occult goings-on within Boston (such as performances of The King in Yellow), to confiscate arcane tomes under colour of law, and to shut down publications or performances that don't serve the cult's ends.
Music, Theatre, and Radio
Jazz and Blues are becoming popular. In 1921, Mamie Smith records "Crazy Blues", which is a Vaudeville song but with blues influences. It's the first blues song to be recorded by an African-American woman, and it becomes a surprise hit.
Movies are still silent; it won't be until 1927 that the first "talkie", The Jazz Singer, is introduced.
Live theatre is still big. Vaudeville has a strong history in Boston and a strong Irish presence, and would be popular for another decade, rife as it was with ethnic stereotypes.
What I'm thinking is starting off the campaign with the PCs attending a performance of The King in Yellow. But that's high-falutin' theatre; knowing that vaudeville's still king is an interesting side point.
Spiritualism and Occultism
The physical basis of all psychic belief is that the soul is a complete duplicate of the body, resembling it in the smallest particular, although constructed in some far more tenuous material. In ordinary conditions these two bodies are intermingled so that the identity of the finer one is entirely obscured. At death, however, and under certain conditions in the course of life, the two divide and can be seen separately. Death differs from the conditions of separation before death in that there is a complete break between the two bodies, and life is carried on entirely by the lighter of the two, while the heavier, like a cocoon from which the living occupant has escaped, degenerates and disappears, the world burying the cocoon with much solemnity by taking little pains to ascertain what has become of its nobler contents.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Vital Message
Spiritualism would have a substantial following in Boston in 1921 - and not just in Boston; Canada's longest serving Prime Minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King, was a great believer in seances and the occult. In Boston, noted psychic and medium Mina Crandon was conducting seances by 1923 and while Harry Houdini debunked her performances in 1924, that did not seem to dissuade her supporters and followers within the Boston elite.
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| ...possibly because she apparently conducted seances in the nude, no foolin'. |
The Order of the Golden Dawn, which is clear inspration, if only in name, for the Order of the Silver Twilight in Call of Cthulhu and Fantasy Flight Games, had lodges in the United States by 1920 (not sure if one was in Boston, but easy enough to add...). (As an aside, the short story collection Cthulhu's Dark Cults includes a story where two union men in 1921 Boston break into a Silver Twilight lodge to get incriminating information on their boss so they have a bargaining chip!) Similarly, Alistair Crowley's Ordo Templi Orientis was active in the U.S. - certainly in California, where a young L. Ron Hubbard was involved, but a lodge in Boston wouldn't be out of the question. And sex magic rituals like the Babalon Working, trying to summon a goddess, is certainly easily adaptable to the Mythos. Though probably with less sex and more, er, tentacles.
(As an aside, the Catholic Church condemned spiritualism in 1898, and the Anglican Communion expressed grave concern about people "making a religion" of spiritualism.)
Medicine and Psychiatry
Call of Cthulhu discusses psychiatric techniques prevalent in the 1920's, so I won't go into that overmuch. But in terms of medicine, there still wasn't a truly effective antibiotic until the 1930's (Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928). There were a couple that were used to treat syphilis, but they had serious side effects. But at least by the start of the 20th century doctors knew to wash their hands. And anaesthetics were available, generally in a syringe, like morphine, or in mask or oral form; intravenous anaesthetics wouldn't come into use until the 1930's.
Anyway, you get the idea.
Really, most of this won't be necessary. But it was fun to learn more about the history of the time, even in predominantly Wikipedia form. Hopefully I can put something coherent together for the actual game in the next little bit.
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