Memories of Nineteenth-Century Cambridge

By Lois Lilley Howe Read January 22, 1952 This article originally appeared in the Cambridge Historical Society Proceedings, Volume 34, pages 59-76 ONE of my earliest recollections — I cannot date it — is that I asked some older member of my family if it was probable that I should be alive when 1900, the new century,…

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…

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

Harvard Square in the ‘Seventies and ‘Eighties

By Lois Lilley Howe Read January 25, 1944 This article originally appeared in the Cambridge Historical Society Proceedings, Volume 30, pages 11-27 Reminiscences, which should really have been called Harvard Square and its Environs in the ‘Seventies and ‘Eighties, have been in the back of my mind long enough for me to have verified details by…

Read More

New 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…

Read More

Printing In Cambridge Since 1800

by Norman Hill White, Jr., 1920 This article can be found in the Proceedings of the Cambridge Historical Society Volume 15, from the years 1920-1921. From 1692, when Samuel Green retired as manager of the college press, there was no printing done in Cambridge for over a hundred years, except that done by the brothers…

Read More

Eighty-five Aromatic Years In Harvard Square by Catharine K. Wilder

Eighty-five Aromatic Years In Harvard Square By Catharine K. Wilder, 1968 A​ ​tiny​ island exists today in Harvard Square about which the poet Robert Hillyer, Harvard ’17, writes: Not all goes up in smoke, here smoke appears To give stability in changing years​. Leavitt & Peirce, whose name evokes a host of blue haze memories,…

Read More

Café Algiers: A hidden gem with a long history

by Ruth Hobeika After almost five decades in Harvard Square — at 40 Brattle Street, home of the Brattle Theatre — this much beloved international style coffeehouse shuttered on August 31. The final decision was reached August 25 after negotiations between the land-lord, who cancelled the lease, and original owner Emil Durzi fell through. “It…

Read More

Series I: John Hicks House

Links to all the Postcard Collection gallery pages and the Finding Aid can be found by clicking here. *Postcard was used.

Read More