Hello faithful social media followers! We here at the CHC want to provide you with the latest updates on the City’s response to COVID-19. City of Cambridge City offices will be closed to the public beginning at 5:00pm today, Monday March 16th, until further notice.
For the foreseeable future, CHC staff will be working remotely from our homes. We are committed to providing service to the public to the best of our ability during this time. For more information, please visit the City’s designated COVID-19 website via this link.
Many of our resources are available online, so please do check out the websites below for digitized historic photographs, building histories, archival collection information, GIS and map information, and much more. Finally, please do not hesitate to e-mail us at histcomm@cambridgema.gov with inquiries.
CHC Archives’ online resources:
- Instagram: We will still be updating this throughout the week!
- Flickr: Collection highlight – William Lawrence Galvin Collection (architect)
- Digital Commonwealth: Nearly 500 digitized photographs from our collection
- Cambridge Buildings and Architects Database for research on nearly every building in Cambridge. Note: this has not been updated since ca. 2002.
- CHC Archives website
- Library catalog, to make note of books you would like to see when we reopen. Some of these books may also be available online through other libraries.
Separate city department links that are useful to homeowners, architects, and developers:
Our Cambridge archives friends and affiliated projects:
- The Cambridge Room at the CPL: Including the Cambridge Public Library’s Historic Cambridge Newspaper Collection. This online resource provides free access to historic Cambridge newspapers, including issues of the Cambridge Chronicle from 1846-2015. You can spend hours searching and discovering interesting things on this site.
- Cambridge Historical Society: Many great online resources, including the Proceedings of the Cambridge Historical Society, which features interesting articles on Cambridge history; their Flickr page with great images of Cambridge people, industry, and correspondence, including Cambridge architect Lois Lilley Howe; and project sites from former CHS interns, highlighting facets of Cambridge history like folk music, candy, and innovation.
- Cambridge Women’s Heritage Project: recognizing and celebrating the contributions of women from the early days of Cambridge to the present. The project welcomes nominations, corrections, and time to help research or edit the entries. A great project to help with from home!
- Cambridge Black Trailblazers: Biographical information on several Black Trailblazers yet to be recognized by the City of Cambridge’s marker project, including dancer Gus Solomons Jr.; Henry Owens, Inc., the oldest minority-owned company in New England; and psychiatrist Dr. June Jackson Christmas.
Links from other departments and separate websites that we find useful and/or interesting:
- Maps! Atlascope and MapJunction
- MCN’s Guide to Virtual Museums – fun way to virtually tour museums!
- Mass Moments
- Boston TV News Digital Library
Stay safe and healthy, and we look forward to seeing you all again at the CHC soon.
I am assuming that, contrary to the latest email from Charlie, and because the news is now more dire, there will no meeting of the AHNCD on 3/23. Heli
>
Hi Heli – I would follow up with Charlie directly. Thanks!