The Downside of Progress

By Doug Brown, 2017 Cambridge has made a lot of things over the centuries, not all of them valuable. Our manufacturing history has its dirty, dangerous downside, and dealing with the hazards and by-products of production has always been a challenge in this jam-packed, 7.1-square-mile city. By the end of the 19th century, the technological…

Read More

The Reverend Jose Glover And The Beginnings Of The Cambridge Press (Part 2)

by John A. Harrer, 1960 This article can be found in the Proceedings of the Cambridge Historical Society Volume 38, from the years 1959-1960. The newly appointed printer, Samuel Green, having had no experience in his new trade, was at once confronted with the work of producing a small book that involved some problems not…

Read More

Early Glass Making In East Cambridge

by Doris Hayes-Cavanaugh, 1926 M​uch​ has been said recently about the business growth of Cambridge, and a number of publications have stressed the fact that Cambridge, and particularly the section known as East Cambridge, now stands very high in the scale of New England manufacturing centres. Imposing schedules of plants and factories have appeared, setting…

Read More

Elias Howe, Jr., Inventor Of The Sewing Machine (Part 2)

This article can be found in The Proceedings of the Cambridge Historical Society Volume 14, from the year 1919. The Victory Over Labor Mobs Starvation near his door and the $500 of George Fisher exhausted, Howe could now manufacture his machine for sale — if it would sell. To do this, he asked a practical…

Read More

Elias Howe, Jr., Inventor Of The Sewing Machine (Part 1)

Elias Howe, Jr., Inventor Of The Sewing Machine 1819-1919 A Centennial Address Born In A Cradle Of Invention   The succession of master minds in a particular locality compels us to believe in the spiritual consanguinity of genius. It is an heredity much greater than that of blood. It is an heredity of spirit, that…

Read More

The Romance of Brick

by G. Burton Long, 1971 B​rick ​is something that has been with us for centuries. There is an old maxim which says, “Familiarity breeds contempt,” and this might well be applied to brick, because it has been used as a building material throughout the ages, and we are prone to accept it without regard to…

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

The Riverside Press by James Duncan Phillips

The Riverside Press By James Duncan Phillips Vice President And Treasurer Of Houghton Mifflin Company Read 27 April, 1926   I​n​ Hawthorne’s House of Seven Gables he makes that delightfully simple old character, Uncle Venner, say, “In two or three years longer, I shall think of putting aside business and retiring to my farm. That’s…

Read More

Cambridge, A Pioneer Home Of Electronics

By Harold B. Richmond*Read October 28, 1952 A​s​ a sort of Christmas present last year, my very good friend and a distinguished citizen of Cambridge, the late Elmer A. Noden, appeared one day in my office to inquire if I would be the next speaker at the Cambridge Club and talk on the general subject…

Read More