Denise Foderingham

Denise Foderingham lived in the Port with her mother and sisters, and attended many Margaret Fuller House programs in her youth. She moved to Somerville in her 20’s and spent the majority of her career working in child care. She returned to the Margaret Fuller Neighborhood House in December 2018, when she was hired as…

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Nancy Ryan

Nancy Ryan was born in New Bedford and moved to Cambridge in 1980 to begin her work as Director of the City of Cambridge Commission on the Status of Women. She has lived in the Port for forty years and worked in partnership with the Margaret Fuller House through her role as Director of the…

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Who Is Essential Cambridge? Part 4: COVID-19

In our last installment, we examined the role of nurses as essential workers in Cambridge and beyond, exploring the ways in which gendered notions of caregiving and self-sacrifice both elevated nurses in the public opinion and limited their ability to advocate for better pay and working conditions. In this, our final installment, we look at…

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Who Is Essential Cambridge? Part 3: Nurses

In our last installment, we examined the role of Cambridge teachers as essential workers during the twentieth century. As it involved nurturing young children, teaching was viewed by many as a natural outgrowth of women’s caregiving responsibilities within the family, and education, especially at the elementary level, was considered a profession to which women devoted…

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Who Is Essential Cambridge? Part 2: Teachers

In the first part of our series, “Who Is Essential Cambridge?,” we examined the role of Cambridge women in the industrial sector during and between the World Wars. Women played an important role in industrial production in the years before the outbreak of World War I—a role that continued and intensified over the coming decades.…

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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.

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Self-Guided Tour: Women Activists of Riverside 50 Years After Suffrage

Stop 1: Begin the tour in Central Square With the passage of the 19th Amendment one hundred years ago this past August (2020), American women won the right to vote. Rather than a culmination, this event marked the beginning of a long fight for equal treatment and equity that is still far from over. Fifty…

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Revisiting 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…

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