Month: June 2025

Illustrated Talk: Black Patriots of Cambridge

Posted on by cambridgehistoricalcommission

Join us tomorrow for an illustrated talk with Leslie Brunetta and Paula Paris and learn more about Cambridge’s Black Patriots and the Black Cantabrigians that lived and worked here in the years following the Revolutionary War. 

Wed. June 25, 2025, 6:00PM
First Church in Cambridge, Congregational
11 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
in the Margaret Jewett Hall – Note that this venue does not have air conditioning. Please plan accordingly.

Leslie Brunetta is a writer who has been a member of the Cambridge Black History Project since 2020. She stumbled into researching Cambridge Black history after discovering that Francis Prince Clary, activist and assistant to the first Harvard chemistry professor, had lived on her street in Mid Cambridge. She has published a number of profiles of historical Black figures in Cambridge Day and the Mount Auburn Cemetery website. She just published an essay at Commonplace about a well-known Black author’s formidable widow employed by William Dean Howells as a housekeeper on Sacramento St.

Paula Paris is a lifelong resident of West Cambridge. She is a member of First Church in Cambridge and is active in many community organizations including the Cambridge Historical Commission and the Cambridge Black History Project. She is Deputy Director of the educational non-profit JFY NetWorks, which prepares underserved youth for college and the workplace. Learn more about First Church’s racial justice work online here.

This event is being sponsored by the Cambridge Historical Commission, Cambridge Black History Project and First Church in Cambridge and with the support of a grant to the City from the Massachusetts Office of Tourism. For more information, see MA250 website and Cambridge250. 

Celebrate new U.S. Quarter Honoring Vera Rubin

Posted on by cambridgehistoricalcommission

The Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) and the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum will host a public event to honor Dr. Vera Rubin on June 26th, 2025. The event, titled “Historic Change: Celebrating the Life and Legacy of Dr. Vera Rubin,” will discuss impact both within and beyond the scientific community, and unveil a new quarter from the United States Mint featuring Rubin. 

The public program will include discussions from a distinguished group including CfA Director Lisa Kewley, Vera Rubin’s granddaughter, representatives from the Smithsonian, the designer of the new U.S. Mint coin, renowned astrophysicists, an astronaut, and others. This exciting event is free but requires tickets through the Harvard Box Office.

Following the panel discussion, there will be a free public festival (no tickets necessary) with booths from a variety of organizations, such as research institutions, historical groups, and community groups working within the fields of astronomy, women’s history, and STEM, among others.

Event details:

Thursday, June 26th, 

Free Ticketed event:

3:00 pm: Welcome remarks  

3:30 pm: Panel Discussion 

Location: Sanders Theater, Cambridge, MA


Open to the public:

4:30-7:30 pm: Public Festival

Harvard Science Center Plaza, Cambridge, MA

Live streaming of the event will be available at: https://harvard.zoom.us/j/92548813031

The United States Mint Vera Rubin quarter will become available on June 3, 2025: https://www.usmint.gov/american-women-quarters-2025-rolls-and-bags-dr-vera-rubin-MASTER_AWQVR.html

A Subject of Unique Interest: Mary Freeman Heuston Lewis and William Dean Howells

Posted on by cambridgehistoricalcommission

We would like to call your attention to an article recently written by researcher and member of the Cambridge Black History Project, Leslie Brunetta. In her piece “A Subject of Unique Interest: Mary Freeman Heuston Lewis and William Dean Howells” Brunetta focuses on an obscure essay by Howells, a white writer later known as the Dean of American Letters. Brunetta writes:

Howells published “Mrs. Johnson” in The Atlantic in 1868. “Mrs. Johnson” was the pseudonym Howells gave to his family’s Black housekeeper, Mary Lewis (1816-1868), whom he called “a subject of unique interest.” But it seems neither Howells nor his wife fully understood just how uniquely interesting Mary Lewis was.”

The Howells house at 41 Sacramento Street in Cambridge. Copyright 2025 Peter Loftus.

Brunetta notes that W.D. Howells and his wife, Elinor Mead Howells (1837-1910), moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1866 as Howells took up his position as assistant editor at The Atlantic. “Mrs. Johnson,” also the first essay in Suburban Sketches, published in 1871, relates the history of the Howells’ hiring of Mary Lewis and their increasing familiarity with each other.”

William Dean Howells, “Mrs. Johnson,” The Atlantic (January, 1868), 97-106.

In this article, Brunetta explores the questions of: what was life like for someone in Mary Lewis’ situation, that is, a well-educated Black woman with close family ties, married to an entrepreneurial intellectual activist, mother of a large family, living in New England? How did she see the world?

The article was originally published on Commonplace, a destination for exploring and exchanging ideas about early American history and culture. Read the piece in full here: https://commonplace.online/article/a-subject-of-unique-interest/.

Event: Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters Annual Juneteenth Gathering

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Gather for Juneteenth to honor those who endured slavery and seized freedom on Brattle Street 250 years ago, their descendants, and the long history of Black freedom activism in Cambridge and beyond.

This free, all-ages event is marking its fourth year in 2025! Denise Washington (#Pop-Up Poetry Series), a descendant of Darby Vassall, has curated the Juneteenth Gathering at Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters NHS each year. Join us for the Juneteenth Gathering, A Denise Plays Hard Event, featuring speeches, poetry, music, historical displays, family activities, and refreshments. All are welcome!

Event Details

🎤12:30-1:00 PM DJ Steve Gousby
👋1:00-1:15 PM Welcome
🎶1:15-2:30 PM Juneteenth # Pop-Up Poetry, A Denise Plays Hard Event, including:

  • Drum procession – Chibuzo Dunun
  • Remarks and Libation – Edmund Barry Gaither (Director and Curator of the Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists)
  • The Black National Anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing” – led by Judge Milton Wright
  • Denise Washington & The #Pop-Up Poetry Ensemble: Akili Jamal Haynes, Lenny Bradford, Stephen O’Neal

2:30-3:30 PM

🎛️DJ Steve Gousby
👥Interactive history and family activities
🥤Catered refreshments
📋Partner/resource tables by the Enslaved Legacy History Coalition, Christ Church Cambridge, First Church in Cambridge, and History Cambridge
StoryWalk: Juneteenth for Mazie by Floyd Cooper

Exhibit – How Sweet It Is: The History of Candy Making in Cambridge

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The Cambridge Museum of History & Culture, in collaboration with the Office of Mayor E. Denise Simmons, invites you to view its pop-up public history exhibition, How Sweet It Is: The History of Candy Making in Cambridge.

How Sweet It Is tells the story of Cambridge’s once-booming candy industry. Home to confectionery factories, Cambridge helped shape the nation’s sweet tooth with everything from candy bars and caramel to fine bonbons. The exhibition focuses on “Confectioners Row,” a stretch of Main Street where many candy companies once operated and where the exhibition will now be displayed.

The exhibition is co-curated by Jeremy Spindler and Jeffrey Myers of Spindler Confections, and presented in collaboration with the museum’s tremendous partners, Spindler Confections & Savory Delights, BXP, Cambridge Redevelopment Authority, Cambridge Arts, the Cambridge Historical Commission, History Cambridge, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Visitors to the exhibit will enjoy historic photographs, vintage packaging, company histories, and stories of the people and innovations that made Cambridge a true “Candy Land.” The exhibit will be running for the month of June, 2025 (National Candy Month). The location is ADA accessible.

For more details, visit The Cambridge Museum of History and Culture website or call 617-349-4327.