The roots of Veterans Day were explicitly in peace, disarmament and a world court
By Beth Folsom, 2026 Ten years after the end of what would come to be known as World War I, Massachusetts officially recognized Armistice Day as a state holiday. Marking the end of hostilities at 11:11 a.m. on November 11, 1918, Armistice Day had been celebrated across the United States from its first anniversary in…
Read MoreScience vs. Séances: Cambridge’s 19th-Century Clash Over the Afterlife
By Beth Folsom, 2026 In the mid-19th century, spiritualism gained momentum across the country. The roots of the movement can be traced to the 1840s in upstate New York, where evangelical religious revivals had taken hold and laid the groundwork for personal and emotional interactions with the divine. Spiritualism’s basic tenets were that the soul…
Read MoreThe Cambridge Museum for Children brought the world to young Cantabrigians
By Beth Folsom, 2026 A combination of classroom and experiential learning made the Children’s Museum an important fixture in the lives of Cambridge children for several decades, starting with Harvard University’s donation of a building at 5 Jarvis St. to the School Department, reported by the Cambridge Sentinel in May 1919. (There is no longer…
Read MoreGender, Work, and Virtue: Women Foundry Workers and the Politics of Labor Reform
By Beth Folsom, 2026 This week, as Cambridge joins the rest of the country in marking the Labor Day holiday, we also mark the anniversary of an industrial raid that challenged the city’s notions of “suitable” work for women and the role of government in regulating working conditions, hours, and wages. At the beginning of…
Read MoreFear and Fellowship: Cambridge’s Response to September 11
By Beth Folsom, 2026 On the morning of September 12, 2001, Cantabrigians from all walks of life were struggling to come to terms with what had happened less than 24 hours earlier, when hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center towers in New York, the Pentagon just outside of Washington, DC, and a field…
Read MoreSt. Botolph’s Island: Reimagining Municipal Spaces in Cambridge
By Kaliyah Macaraig, 2026 In 1907, the Boston Society of Architects proposed the construction of an island in the middle of the Charles River. Named St. Botolph’s Island, invoking Boston’s historical namesake, the artificial landmass was designed as the site for commercial uses, new transportation and government functions. As written in the 1907 Report, the…
Read More‘Cambridge is a Tiny Cuba’: Harvard and the Cuban teachers’ expedition of 1900
By Beth Folsom, 2026 In the winter of 1900, the United States was only a year and a half removed from its successful attempt to oust Spain from the small but geographically and logistically important island of Cuba. The Spanish-American War was in many ways America’s first global war, as its imperial clashes with Spain played…
Read MoreFor a summer staycation, Cantabrigians flocked to Mount Auburn Cemetery
By Beth Folsom, 2026 Peruse the summer issues of a Cambridge newspaper in the late 19th century and you would learn that the Peabodys were off to their cottage in Bar Harbor and the Longfellows were summering in Nahant. The local papers printed dozens of notices each summer detailing where Cantabrigians vacationed and when they would…
Read MoreThe Magazine Beach Bathhouse Debate and the Politics of Public Hygiene
By Beth Folsom, 2026 In 1818 the state of Massachusetts built a powder magazine on what was then known as Captain’s Island in Cambridgeport. Over the next half-century, the magazine was used to store gunpowder and ammunition, lending its name to the area and the street leading to it (Magazine Street). But in 1863, at…
Read MoreFresh Pond was a Revolution refuge and smallpox hospital, Civil War soldiers’ barracks and World War I training ground
By Beth Folsom, 2026 For most Cantabrigians, Fresh Pond is a natural resource, providing drinking water and green space to the city. For centuries, the Indigenous peoples who lived here used the pond and its environs for fishing, hunting and collecting rushes, marsh hay and clay deposits – activities that the English colonists who arrived…
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