The 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…
Read MoreNext History Hang Spotlights North Cambridge’s Industrial, Environmental Past
By Beth Folsom, 2026 Roughly 10,000 years ago, the end of the last ice age meant that the glaciers covering most of what we now call North Cambridge were beginning to recede, leaving in their elevations like Observatory Hill, Strawberry Hill, and Avon Hill, along with large accumulations of rock and vast deposits of clay.…
Read More“Great Marsh” to Little League: A Century at Glacken Field
By Jen Craft, 2026 Little League players cheered on by parents and coaches. Toddlers splashing in the fountains. Elementary schoolers climbing playground structures. Dogs leading their owners to favorite sniff spots. All are modern-day images of neighborhood life at Strawberry Hill’s beloved Glacken Field and Playground. A little over a century ago, this recreational area…
Read MoreThe History of the Future: Predictions From Cambridge Past
By Beth Folsom, 2026 1896 marked a major anniversary for the city of Cambridge. Fifty years before, in 1846, Cantabrigians had decided to incorporate as a city rather than a town, and in 1896 residents were both taking stock of the past fifty years and anticipating what the next fifty might bring. Anniversaries are often…
Read More“The Greatest Curiosity of Cambridge”: Chinese Comes to Harvard
By Beth Folsom, 2026 An August 1879 article in the Cambridge Chronicle announced that “there was a written agreement dated Shanghai, 26th of May, ‘79, between [Francis] Knight, on behalf of the President and Fellows of Harvard College, and Ko Kum Huo, to teach the Chinese language at Harvard College for three years, at a…
Read More“Saving Dana Park” Melds Gaming, AI, and Local History
By Beth Folsom, 2026 Tucked into a Cambridgeport block off of Magazine Street sits Dana Park, part of the city’s landscape since the mid-1800s. How did the park come to be, and what might happen if it were to be taken from the Cambridge public and placed into private hands? These are some of the…
Read MoreCommemoration of Cambridge’s 275th Anniversary Reflects City’s Changing Face
By Beth Folsom, 2026 In December 1905, a large audience assembled in Sanders Theater to hear an array of “notable men” speak on the occasion of the 275th anniversary of the founding of the city we now know as Cambridge. The Cambridge Historical Society had been formed earlier that year, and this anniversary celebration was…
Read MoreDebate Over Fugitive Slave Act Raises Questions of “Lawful Authority”
By Beth Folsom, 2026 On April 5, 1851, the Cambridge Chronicle reported that “an alleged fugitive named Robert Symmes was arrested in Boston on a warrant from Geo. T. Curtis, Esq., U.S. Commissioner. Symmes is alleged to be the slave of James Potter, of Chatham County, Ga.” In his struggle against arrest, Symmes allegedly “inflicted…
Read MoreMetacom’s Resistance: Marking 350 Years of Conflict, Coexistence, and Indigenous Presence
by Beth Folsom, 2026 There is much ado about marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence this July, but this year also marks 350 years since the conflict that many of us know as King Philip’s War. Alternately called Metacom’s War or Metacom’s Resistance, this three-year conflict between groups of Indigenous New Englanders…
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