Missed the event? Watch the video here! Funding for this project was made possible through the generosity of the Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati On Monday, June 29, CHS held a Facebook Live event entitled “Politics Beyond the Parlor: The Loyalist Women of Cambridge.” During this event our spring semester intern, MaryKate Smolenski, spoke about the self-guided tour she created, … Read More
Self-Guided Tour: Loyalist Women of Cambridge
By MaryKate Smolenski, Tufts University Intern, June 2020 Download the tour here as a PDF with photos or without photos Funding for this project was made possible through the generosity of the Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati For further reading, see: Who were the Loyalist Women of Cambridge? Introductory post and Part 1: Mary Browne Serjeant Overview and History Loyalists … Read More
Smallpox, cholera, influenza around Cambridge: How the region endured pandemics of the past
By Martha HenryApril 2020 Reproduced from cambridgeday.com with permission We’re weeks into the Covid-19 pandemic, most of us stuck at home, trying to work, educate children or, when that all seems futile, just clicking “next episode” on whatever escapist show we’re binging on Netflix. Our coronavirus, social-distancing spring seems unprecedented. But it isn’t. New England has been coping with epidemics since … Read More
100 Years Ago: Cambridge leading up to the 1918-19 Influenza Pandemic
Red Cross workers make anti-influenza masks for soldiers in camp. Boston. Courtesy National Archives, photo no. 165-WW-269B-026 By Elizabeth Adams Lasser, April 2020 During the COVID-19 outbreak of 2020 as we quarantine at home, we have seen many references and comparisons in the national media to the influenza epidemic of 1918 and 1919. What was happening in Cambridge at the time? … Read More
Savoring the Legacy of Joyce Chen
Chef. Restaurateur. Entrepreneur. by Stephen Chen, president of Joyce Chen Foods Reproduced from joycechenfoods.com with permission Born in Beijing in 1917, my mother Joyce Chen came to this country with my dad, sister and brother in 1949. We moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where friends of the family had settled, and where I was born. Surrounded by Chinese students at Harvard … Read More
Elizabeth Ann Sullivan, M.D.
Inspired by our 2020 theme, “Who are Cambridge Women?” Society member Philip M. Cronin wrote this essay about his remarkable mother, Elizabeth Sullivan. Elizabeth Ann Sullivan was born in Winchendon, Massachusetts, in 1892. She attended local schools. The day after she graduated from high school, she boarded a train to Boston and enrolled at Tufts Medical School. At the … Read More
Our Year Asking “Who Are Cambridge Women?”
By Marieke Van Damme Read at the Opening Conversation and Annual Meeting on February 25, 2020 Hello everyone and welcome to the Cambridge Historical Society’s annual Opening Conversation. I’m Marieke Van Damme, executive director. Before we begin, I would like to say thank you to our friends at the Cambridge Public Library for hosting us tonight, and for CCTV for … Read More
2020 Opening Conversation Recap
On February 25, we hosted our 2020 Opening Conversation: “Who Are Cambridge Women?” at the Cambridge Public Library. Eva Martin-Blythe, Executive Director of the Cambridge YWCA, was joined by the Society’s Doing History Curator, Diana Lempel, for a discussion of the history, mission, and legacy of the YWCA. This event marked the beginning of a year of programs exploring the … Read More
An Intrepid Lady of Brattle Street: Sara Chapman Bull
By Ted Hansen Beginning in 1879, until her death in 1911, Sara Chapman Bull lived in Cambridge, first at “Elmwood” (the Oliver-Gerry-Lowell House), and from 1889 until her death at 168 Brattle Street. A number of facts about her should pique our interest: At age 20, she was married in a semi-secret ceremony in Norway to a 60-year-old renowned Norwegian … Read More
Introducing the 2020 theme “Who Are Cambridge Women?”
The Cambridge Historical Society engages with our city to explore how the past influences the present in order to shape a better future. This year, we are asking “Who Are Cambridge Women?” Our 2020 theme is important now more than ever in this year of national celebration of the centennial of the 19th Amendment granting women suffrage. While the Society … Read More