Posts Tagged ‘West Cambridge’
1986 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 MoreSelf-Guided Tour: Stories from the Early African American Community of Old Cambridge
By Jules Long, Longfellow House – Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site, 2018 | Edited by Eshe Sherley, History Cambridge, 2021 Slavery in Pre-Revolutionary Cambridge The oldest existing mention of slavery in Massachusetts was recorded in 1638, when African prisoners arrived in the colony on the slave ship Desire, built in Marblehead the previous year. In…
Read MoreEarly Black Cambridge Resource Hub
Are you interested in learning more about the history of race, slavery, and African American life in the Cambridge area? This guide highlights many of the resources available that touch on these topics, including primary, secondary, and public-facing sources (such as self-guided tours and websites). While this hub is focused on material related to the 1700s, it also offers relevant material from later periods in Cambridge history.
Read MoreAnnette LaMond: Economist Turned History Enthusiast
Cambridge resident and CHS volunteer Annette LaMond has provided us with A History Reclaimed: The Society for the Protection of Native Plants and the Cambridge Plant Club, an in-depth, illustrated history of the two organizations that takes us back to their late 19th century origins. “This history of the Society for the Protection of Native Plants grew out of my…
Read MoreCOVID-19 Memorial
March 2021 marks the one-year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic. To honor the Cantabrigians who have died, we are installing markers on the lawn of our headquarters, the Hooper-Lee-Nichols House. Each marker, a butterfly, a symbol of hope and the shape of Cambridge itself, represents a life lost to the virus and a missing piece…
Read MoreEva Neer : My Neighbor, Groundbreaking Biochemist
By Annette LaMond* | S.M., MIT Sloan School of Management | Ph.D., Yale University In 1978, my husband and I moved to Brewster Village – an 1880s “development” of Queen Anne Victorians off Brattle Street. We soon began to meet our new neighbors. In our first six months, we were invited to not one, but…
Read MoreLois Lilley Howe Hub
As part of our year asking “Who Are Cambridge Women?” meet Lois Lilley Howe. Learn about her life and work.
Read MoreEvent Recap: How Does Cambridge Commemorate?
On Monday, August 17, CHS held a Virtual History Café exploring monuments and memorials in Cambridge. In this program, “How Does Cambridge Commemorate?” we examined several of the city’s most prominent public monuments, and we were joined by Kim and Sofia Bernstein, honorary members of the Cambridge Nineteenth Amendment Centennial Committee who provided the impetus…
Read MoreRevisiting the Cambridge Women’s Suffrage Movement
As we approach the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment next month, many of us have been mesmerized recently watching the American Experience production of “The Vote” on PBS. The movie tells the dramatic story the decades-long campaign waged by American women to win the right to vote. Historian and Cantabrigian Susan Ware, who served as an advisor…
Read MoreObservatory Hill
By Gavin W. Kleespies, 2013 The area called Observatory Hill has its center at the intersection of Concord and Huron avenues and stretches out to include the Harvard Observatory and surrounding areas. The eastern half of the neighborhood was once a part of the Vassall estate. The first of the family in Cambridge was John…
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