AP's Worcester Home Allen Parker Home   For additional information or comments about this website, contact the Web Editor Site design by Joyce Joines Newman. All original contents copyright © 2000

IMAGES OF WORCESTER WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS BECAME ALLEN PARKER'S HOME FROM 1889 UNTIL HIS DEATH IN 1906. HISTORICAL WORCESTER Photographs by Edwin Bradbury Luce Luce opened a portrait studio in Worcester in 1885. His photographs of Worcester street scenes provide rich documentation of the evolution of New England's second largest city at the turn of the century when Allen Parker was a resident. THE "WORCESTER WHIRLWIND" "Life is too short for a man to hold bitterness in his heart." --- Marshall W. "Major" Taylor When "Major" won the world championship in a 1-mile bicycle race in Montreal in 1899, he was the second black world champion in any sport. He was a steadfast member of the John Street Baptist Church in Worcester and challenged racial prejudice when he bought a house in on Hobson Avenue in Worcester's well-to-do Columbus Park. His racing career made him one of the wealthiest blacks in the country. IMAGES FROM FIELD TRIP TO WORCESTER Recent photographs by Joyce Joines Newman Many of the African-American neighborhoods in Worcester where Allen Parker lived were obliterated during "Urban Renewal" in the 1960s and 1970s, but much of the Worcester he knew still exists. IMAGES FROM CONTEMPORARY WORCESTER Photographs by Robert M. Johnson Robert Johnson grew up in Worcester in the 1950s and has recorded the city with affection and humor.