The mystery of Huron Avenue is more basic than you might guess
Cambridge’s streets have histories and stories, just as the city itself does. Among those stories, Huron Avenue is one of the richest – but one with a bit of mystery.
‘Incidents’ author Harriet Jacobs crossed paths with Imogen Eddy, an early Harvard astronomer
The boardinghouse that Harriet Jacobs ran in the 1870s is now an apartment building at Mount Auburn and Story streets. (Photo: History Cambridge) Harriet Jacobs, author of “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl,” lived in Cambridge in the 1870s. As his …
Mount Auburn Hospital grew from the dedication of a single woman: Civil War nurse Emily Parsons
After returning in 1864 from work as an army nurse, Emily Parsons’ attention turned to the absence of a hospital in the city. To create one, she relied on a spirit of volunteerism and cooperation she had encountered throughout the Civil War.
There are hidden surprises in Harvard Square
Think you know Harvard Square? Now you can see it in a whole new light with this self-guided tour. Brush up on local history by stopping by all the spots on this loop.
Aaron Molyneaux Hewlett and family prospered as educators, lawyers, activists – and as Othello
This sophisticated Black man lived in the United States at a time most people who looked like him were enslaved and considered subhuman. Even those who were free were usually limited to a small set of occupations. Aaron Hewlett, however, managed to find a way to prosper here in Cambridge.
We’ve seen eight historical waves of migration, but Cambridge’s ninth will be more complicated
Why do people uproot their lives, move far from friends and family and suffer the indignities that often come with being “new” to a place? There are themes that play out time and again and together form the story of a city, from Native Americans onward.
The Agassiz neighborhood starred in ‘Love Story’ alongside Ryan O’Neal, Ali MacGraw and Harvard
Throughout “Love Story,” viewers can glimpse Cambridge before urban renewal, cellphones and personal computers, and much of the film’s visual honesty comes from director Arthur Hiller’s portrayal of star-crossed lovers’ newlywed life in the Agassiz neighborhood (before gentrification).
History Cafés introduce us to abolitionist women who buoyed Black city life from 18th century on
History Cambridge hosted Harvard and Simmons educators at History Cafés in the spring exploring the history of the city’s Black community, including abolitionist Harriet Jacobs, who ran boarding houses in the city, and threads of the Black experience through the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries.
Stories of the early African American community in Old Cambridge are found on a self-guided tour
The first mention of slavery in Cambridge is from 1639, in a reference to a “Moor” living in the household of Nathaniel Eaton, master of Harvard College. By the 1770s, several of the wealthiest residents of Brattle Street (otherwise known as Tory Row) held multiple people in bondage.
Cambridge’s role in slave narratives continues, living on in descendants or cemetery headstones
The lineage of formerly enslaved people in Cambridge and their contributions to African American history may begin in the 18th and 19th centuries, but they continue to shape the city and the wider metropolitan area.
