As the only teacher of color in the city, an ascent to principal and its attendant public scrutiny was more than Maria Baldwin felt capable of taking on. But she allowed herself eventually to be persuaded and moved from being one of its most beloved teachers to becoming its beloved leader.

In April 1775, as shots rang out at Lexington and Concord and the Massachusetts countryside blazed with the outbreak of the American Revolution, 33-year-old Mercy Scollay of Boston took shelter miles from the tumult, accompanied by four young children – not her own.

How did enslaved people create community in 18th century Cambridge? How did unfreedom persist despite the legal end of chattel slavery in Massachusetts? Though there’s tremendous research to build on, current residents can also offer tips, leads or ideas to follow up.

After years of relative obscurity, Pauline Hopkins is hailed today as one of the most influential African-American writers of the early 20th century, a pioneer in her literary work and social thought.

Helen Lee Franklin’s family journeyed from the South to the Boston area in the early 1900s, and she spent her life working at schools for African Americans in the South and for social justice here.

The Caribbean Heritage Oral History Project collected interviews of nine Cambridge residents who were born in or have roots in the Caribbean, part of asking: Where is Cambridge from? Areas of ancestry included Barbados, Haiti, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Suriname and Trinidad.

In Cambridge, as in the rest of America, the late 1960s was a period of unrest and upheaval. A couple of years ago, with the theme, “How Does Cambridge Engage?” the Historical Society looked back 50 years to the spring of 1969 for some answers.

You can see important institutions from the past, present and future in The Port neighborhood today – they’ve inspired a self-guided walking tour that takes you to places of worship, education, outreach and community engagement, and places of work.

Lois Lilley Howe, born and raised in Cambridge, was a trailblazer – one of the first women to graduate from MIT’s architectural program, the organizer of Boston’s only all-woman architectural firm in the early 20th century and the first woman elected as a fellow of the American Institute of Architects.

The Cambridge Historical Society and Cambridge Local First have joined forces to find out how the pandemic has affected small businesses, starting with City Girl Café, Harding House and Joie de Vivre.