Lois Lilley Howe Hub

Lois Lilley Howe Photo

As part of our year asking “Who Are Cambridge Women?” meet Lois Lilley Howe. Learn about her life and work.

Read More

Lois Lilley Howe: Pioneer Career Woman, Architect, Cambridge Citizen

By Larry Nathanson This article was originally published as a chapter in Cambridge in the Twentieth Century, edited by Daphne Abeel, Cambridge Historical Society, 2007.  Inspired by Cambridge Historical Society’s 2020 theme—Who are Cambridge Women?—the author has reviewed the manuscript and made a few updates. Introduction Growing up in the house at number three Gray Gardens…

Read More

Self-Guided Tour: Lois Lilley Howe Homes of Gray Gardens

By John Howe, volunteer, Spring 2020 Lois Lilley Howe (1864-1964), born and bred in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was one of the first women to graduate from Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s architectural program, the organizer of the only all-woman architectural firm in Boston in the early twentieth century, and the first woman elected as a Fellow of…

Read More

POSTPONED 2020 Spring Benefit

The Cambridge Historical Society is closely monitoring the recent outbreak of COVID-19. We continue to evaluate all measures in response to available information from the Cambridge Public Health Department and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Any changes to our event schedule will be communicated via our website, email, and social media. If you have further…

Read More

Opposition House

By Susan Chasen, 2012 Tucked away on a short spur off Hancock Street stands a quiet, historic home that has been known — if not well known — for most of its two hundred and five years as Opposition House. The name suggests a headquarters for political activity or resistance. But it was the house…

Read More

Mr. Foxcroft and His Street

By Michael Kenney, 2012 Along Cambridge Street one can spot a solid 1920s brick residence, now condominiums, known as Fox Croft Manor. The name, despite its fractured appearance, most likely refers to the Foxcroft family, Tory grandees who owned some120 acres of fields and orchards stretching beyond the present Kirkland Street to Shady Hill. Little…

Read More

The Old Hooper-Lee House by Thomas Coffin Amory

From the Proceedings, Volume 16, p. 21-25 [The following is taken, by permission, from the little-known article by Thomas Coffin Amory (H. C. 1830) entitled “Old Cambridge and New,” in the Register of the New England Historic-Genealogical Society for July, 1871. It gives an interesting picture of the house some sixty years ago — very…

Read More

Lois Lilley Howe by Elizabeth W. Reinhardt

Lois Lilley Howe, F.A.I.A. (1864-1964) by Elizabeth W. Reinhardt Read December 7, 1975 This article appeared in the Cambridge Historical Society Proceedings for the years 1973-1975 (Volume 43) Miss LOIS LILLEY HOWE, one of the first women to graduate from Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s architectural program, the organizer of the only all-woman architectural firm in…

Read More

Touching History; Harvard Square, The Bank and The Tasty Diner [video]

The closing of the beloved Harvard Square restaurant The Tasty in the late 1990s was a source of tension in Cambridge. Filmmaker Federico Muchnik documented the controversy in his short film, “Touching History; Harvard Square, The Bank and The Tasty Diner.” From the filmmaker: “Touching History tells the story of the re-development of Harvard Square’s…

Read More