Talks, resource guide, walking tour will connect present with 18th century’s Black Cantabrigians
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.
Pauline Hopkins’ proto-science-fiction took off from familiar settings: The streets of Cambridge
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.
Vital to start of Cambridge Community Center, Helen Lee Franklin was activist in every sense
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.
Cantabrigians with roots in the Caribbean contribute vibrancy of immigrant experience
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.
Vietnam War and Harvard expansion resistance merged in protests that drew thousands in 1969
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.
The Port neighborhood’s sense of community began in the Caribbean, before The Port existed
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 pioneered as female architect, and her homes are still found throughout city
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.
Businesses Well Lived: Starting with three stories in which decades of work ended amid a pandemic
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.
Cambridge Historical Society’s antiracism work began by looking within its own headquarters
Cambridge Historical Society made the commitment to recognizing that Black Lives Matter and began to take an honest look at its own history – first in researching the history of their own headquarters, the Hooper-Lee-Nichols House.
Under good news of satisfaction survey is nuance of radical differences in wealth, issues of concern
On first glance, it seemed clear: The city’s 2020 resident satisfaction survey shows that “people are feeling good about Cambridge.” Some city councillors, though, wanted to know more about which people.
