Posts Tagged ‘Cambridgeport’
Changing Tides in Cambridge Industry
By the early 20th century, Cambridge was an industrial center with a broad array of factories. People from all over the country and the world came to work here. Why?
Read MoreBlack History in Action for Cambridgeport
Black History in Action for Cambridgeport is a non-profit focused on promoting culture, historical understanding, and education for all, and preserving the community service legacy of St. Augustine’s African Orthodox Church, a historically Black Church and neighborhood center for reparative and restorative justice, refuge, healing, and the reclamation and honoring of the community’s stories and…
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 More1986 Neighborhood Trivia Hunt
Cambridge has certainly changed over time, and our 1986 trivia hunt shows just how true that is. It serves as a kind of time capsule of our city. Take a trip back in time with this self-guided tour to see how many of these sites are still around. Which ones do you recognize? Which ones…
Read MoreCambridge Love Letters
In June 2021, History Cambridge held and event called “Cambridge Love Letters” at Starlight Square. We asked members of the larger Cambridge community to send us their love letters to the city. These are some of the submissions. Dear Cambridge, When I first arrived in your port twenty-one years ago, I had no idea how…
Read MoreA Brief History of Zoning in Cambridge
By Doug Brown, 2016 Just as we have a place for everything in a well-ordered home, so we should have a place for everything in a well-regulated town. What would we think of a housewife who insisted on keeping her gas range in the parlor and her piano in the kitchen?–Cambridge Tribune, March 8, 1919…
Read MoreWhen The Port Was a Port
By Michael Kenney, 2014 An early 20th century photograph of the schooner Henry Endicott heading up the Charles River towards the Broad Canal stands as evidence that there was a time when the “port” in Cambridgeport had any real meaning. The Henry Endicott was a 192-foot, three-masted schooner built in Bath, Maine, in 1908, for…
Read MoreThree Distinct and Separate Communities: The Old Cambridge Secession Attempts of 1842–44
By Edward Rodley, 2018 Introduction The Cambridge, Massachusetts, of 2017 is a heavily developed, densely populated urban center with a population that has hovered around 100,000 for the past twenty years. Regional differences exist from one part of the city to another, but the sense of Cambridge as a unique, distinct community provides a cement…
Read MoreCambridgeport: Its People and Their Stories
By Michael Kenney, Winter 2011 Cambridgeport stands, geographically and socially, midway between East Cambridge and Old Cambridge, neither a traditional southern European enclave nor the remnants of Puritan New England. This issue of the Newetowne Chronicle focuses on Cambridgeport and its vibrant past through a collection of articles and a report on the celebration of…
Read MoreNew Wine in Old Bottles
By Michael Kenney, 2017 Sunday brunch time and weekday happy hours, the courtyard at the corner of Broadway and Hampshire Street is a lively place, with hipsters and families enjoying the bars and restaurants grouped around the open brick-paved space. Hard to believe, but it was even more bustling a century ago, when shifts of…
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