S&S Restaurant is still serving up the comfort after more than a century in Inman Square
by Deb Mandel, 2022 In the decade preceding Cambridge Electric Light’s illumination of Cambridge Street, when trolley tracks ran from Inman to Porter Square, a little delicatessen began welcoming hungry patrons. From its opening in November 1919, Rebecca “Ma” Edelstein greeted guests with “es and es,” Yiddish for “eat and eat” – the phrase that lent the…
Read MoreCambridge’s Caribbean connection runs deep
“Forgotten Souls of Tory Row: Remembering the Enslaved People of Brattle Street,” the installation of bottle trees now on view at the History Cambridge headquarters (159 Brattle St.), was inspired by a custom that originated in Congo in West Africa long ago. The tradition of bottle trees was brought to the Caribbean and the Southern United States by enslaved people and passed down through generations. While bottle trees signify different things to different people, there is agreement that the bottles are placed on tree branches to destroy evil spirits and to capture the energy, spirit and memories of ancestors.
Read More‘Forgotten Souls of Tory Row’ art installation remembers enslaved people of Brattle Street
Cambridge and slavery are not often paired in the public imagination. Most think of the enslavement of people of African descent as a Southern phenomenon from which the North, particularly New England, was exempt. But slavery was a very real, ever-present institution in Northern colonies and, later, states – including Massachusetts. Recent efforts by academic and public historians to emphasize the role slavery played in the Cambridge area include the re-centering of Medford’s Royall House and Slave Quarters to focus on the experiences of enslaved people on that estate, as well as Harvard University’s recent release of the “Harvard and the Legacy of Slavery” report. History Cambridge has also been engaged in this important work through our research and public programs, including our Tory Row Antiracism Coalition
Read More‘Changing Tides in Cambridge Industry’ talk will examine wave of labor and immigration
Since its beginnings as a colonial settlement, Cambridge has seen numerous shifts in its population, as waves of migrants arrived from various parts of the United States and around the world. As these new Cantabrigians arrived in the city needing work, many found jobs in the city’s industrial sector, most notably in the glass, brick, furniture, meatpacking and confectionary factories in Cambridge. Employment in many of these industries was dominated by different immigrant groups at different periods, with newer arrivals taking jobs in lower-paying, more physically demanding sectors. Eventually these ethnic groups would move up the socioeconomic ladder, finding employment in more lucrative and less strenuous industries while the next wave of newcomers replaced them. For many, similar work experience at home and the recommendation of friends, family or others of their same ethnicity led them to choose a particular industry. For others, their status as immigrants drastically limited the employment options open to them. Whether by choice or circumscription, the clustering of migrant groups in particular industries helped shape the labor landscape of Cambridge.
Read MoreJoyce Chen started with a 250-seat restaurant, went to 350 and only grew her empire from there
I recently began working as a volunteer for History Cambridge, updating the 2011 Culinary Cambridge website written by Rain Robertson. Digging through the Cambridge Public Library’s Historic Cambridge Newspaper Collection has been a great opportunity to revisit some of my favorite restaurants. My best experience so far has been speaking with Stephen Chen, son of Joyce Chen, to review information and enrich the restaurant’s history with photographs and personal stories. In honor of May being Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, we salute Joyce Chen, her restaurants and her family legacy.
Read MoreGilded Age Cambridge eyed the Haymarket Affair as misconduct from ‘those Bohemian anarchists’
How labor won over suspicion resulting from violence in Chicago
Read MoreUpcoming History Cafe will pose the question: Washington slept here, but who made his bed?
A talk on women, Black Cantabrigians and the work of revolution
Read MoreWhat is in a name? The origins of Cambridge Public Elementary Schools’ Nomenclature
The Cambridge Public Schools website lists four early childhood education programs, twelve elementary schools, five upper schools, and three high schools. Each of these schools has its own rich history of how it came to be what and where it is today. Below, we will explore the origins of the names of Cambridge’s twelve elementary schools.
Read MoreFrom Papists to Patriots: St. Patrick’s Day in Cambridge
In the 1840s and 1850s, as a blight on the potato crop left millions of Irish in dire straits, the Cambridge press shared detailed descriptions of their suffering and implored readers to donate to a growing number of relief societies to aid the starving Irish abroad. As the famine reached its peak in the late 1840s, waves of rural Irish arrived in Massachusetts and settled in Boston, Cambridge, and surrounding communities. By 1855, 22% of adults in East Cambridge reported having been born in Ireland, and Irish immigrants made up a sizeable portion of the workforce in the city’s clay pits, brickyards, and glass and furniture factories.[1] Although Cambridge was a welcome respite from their suffering at home, Irish immigrants were not uniformly embraced in their new city; as poor, foreign-tongued newcomers – and especially as Roman Catholics – they were often stereotyped, criticized, and even shunned by white Cantabrigians who considered themselves natives.
Read MoreThe ‘Hiker’ statue is monumental miseducation about Filipinos in Cambridge and 51 other cities
There may not be many Filipinos in Cambridge – as a Harvard student, I am one of the few – but it seems that the Philippines mattered enough to the community to place a monument about my country of birth on Arsenal Square, at Garden Street and Concord Avenue in Neighborhood 9.
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