Category: New Finding Aids or Collections

Did You Know?

Posted on by cambridgehistoricalcommission

Welcome to the first installment of a little blog series, “Did You Know?,” where we  highlight some of the documentary resources available at the CHC.

During the summer, we receive a lot of phone calls and emails inquiring after the Old Burying Ground in Harvard Square (sometimes referred to as the “Old Burial Ground”). Many people visit from out of town and would like to know where their ancestor, or person of historical interest, was buried — do we have a map of the burying ground? What about lists of burials? Records of specific epitaphs?

The answers: Yes, we have documentation on all of those things! It is important to note that, although this was the only burying ground in Cambridge until the early 1800s, many burial plots today remain unmarked.

Those interested in finding out more about the Old Burying Ground can make an appointment to check out the resources at our office, or find some of the digitized resources online.

Check out our list of some of these print and online resources:

  • We have a copy of the book, Epitaphs from the Old Burying Ground in Cambridge, (1845) by William T. Harris. This publication is also available online at Google Books.

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  • We also have several other useful books in our office.

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Paige’s essential early Cambridge history book, complete with helpful Supplement and Index, lists out the residents of Cambridge and their relations from 1630-1877. We often use this to figure out if a person died in Cambridge.
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Consulting Cambridge’s vital records to 1850 can also help locate a burial record. Cambridge Church Records, Records of the Town and Selectmen of Cambridge, and Proprietors Records of the Town of Cambridge, may also provide interesting genealogical clues and contextual information on the goings-on in early Cambridge.
  • Old Cambridge City Directories can also show if and when your ancestor lived in Cambridge. This can then help us to determine where they might have been buried.
  • For more information on the history of the Old Burying Ground, check out the book “Building Old Cambridge: Architecture and Development” (2016) by Susan Maycock and Charles Sullivan. The City of Cambridge’s Department of Public Works has an excerpt from the book on their website: https://www.cambridgema.gov/theworks/ourservices/cambridgecemetery/oldburialground/historyandnotableburials
  • Other cemeteries in Cambridge:
    • Cambridge Cemetery, opened 1853, 617-349-4890
    • Roman Catholic, Archdiocese of Boston’s Genealogy and Cemetery Locations, 781-322-6300
      • North Cambridge Cemetery on Rindge Avenue, Cambridge, opened 1846
      • Sand Banks Cemetery (aka Mt. Auburn Catholic or Cottage Street cemetery), on Cottage St., Watertown, Searchable Database
    • Mount Auburn Cemetery, opened 1831, 617-547-7105
    • Cambridgeport Burial Ground (No longer a cemetery), opened 1812, closed 1865. When this cemetery on Broadway in Cambridgeport was closed in 1865, existing burials were relocated to the new Cambridge Cemetery or another cemetery selected by the family of the deceased. The former burial ground was then re-purposed as a public park and called Broadway Common/Broadway Park and later renamed Edward J. Sennott Park.
      • We have two original burial plot maps of the Cambridgeport Burial Ground in our archives; contact us for more information.
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Image of the “Strangers Lot,” one of the Cambridgeport Burial Ground plot maps in our collection

To see these resources in person, or for answers to other questions, feel free to call the Historical Commission at 617-349-4683, or email us at histcomm at cambridgema.gov. Additionally, check out our other documentary resources on our page here.

Photo Morgue Digitization

Posted on by Meta Partenheimer

In a recent study published in The American Archivist, Laura McCann details the history of photo morgues, and their importance considering the newspaper industry’s shift from print to digital media. Ms. McCann is a conservation librarian in the Barbara Goldsmith Preservation and Conservation Department at New York University (NYU) Libraries. In light of our own newly-opened photo morgue collection (detailed below), her article has been summarized here.

When the use of photographic images began to appear alongside news print, only larger newspapers could afford full-time photography departments. Thus, many small establishments turned to news agency photography departments to compete and meet the growing demand for photographic images.

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“Billows of smoke pour from the John P. Squire Co. meat packing plant, as fireman battle to bring the blaze under control” (14 April 1963). Cambridge Photo Morgue Collection.

While the negatives and their copyright were usually maintained by the parent agency, the smaller papers developed “photo morgues” to organize and manage photographic print assets obtained from the news agencies and other parties. A caption or tag line, along with copyright information and a date, would usually be recorded on the verso of a print or on an affixed section of paper.

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“Cambridge, Mass., June 17 – Ellsberg residence” (17 June 1971). Cambridge Photo Morgue Collection.

Over the past few years, the CHC has collected many prints from various newspapers in the greater-Boston area. This collection, Cambridge Photo Morgue Collection, contains black-and-white prints taken by newspaper photographers to illustrate stories regarding the city of Cambridge. Images in this collection represent a wide breadth of topics including protests, political figures, buildings, and city projects, thus documenting the social change and architectural evolution of Cambridge in the 20th century.

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“Courtroom cages outlawed” (1963). Cambridge Photo Morgue Collection.

In an effort to reach those interested in Cambridge history, we recently sent these images to undergo digitization by Digital Commonwealth. The entire collection can be viewed by clicking here. This process is ongoing, and we plan to add more digitized content in the coming months.

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Screenshot from the Cambridge Photo Morgue Collection image “Cambridge ‘Sparks’ and his radio scooter”. Cambridge Photo Morgue Collection.

We hope the opening of this collection will bring interest to the images and inspire additional exploration. For further resources, check the Library of Congress list of Newspaper Photograph Morgues.

References:

McCann, Laura. “The Whole Story: News Agency Photographs in Newspaper Photo Morgue Collections.” The American Archivist 80, no. 1 (2017): 163-188.

New Finding Aids Added to ArchivesSpace

Posted on by cambridgehistoricalcommission

You can now access two more of our finding aids on our ArchivesSpace database!

Cambridge Recreation Department Collection

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Images from the Cambridge Recreation Department Collection, CHC011

Squirrel Brand Company Collection

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Image of ephemera from Squirrel Brand Company Collection

Explore other collections and digital materials here.

What is ArchivesSpace?  How is this different than viewing finding aids in the regular PDF format? Check out a previous blog post for answers to these questions.

Let us know what you think of this finding aid format!

Now Open: Cogswell Collection

Posted on by cambridgehistoricalcommission

This post was authored by our Simmons 438 Archives intern, Elise Riley.

At the turn of the 19th century Cambridge’s built environment entered into a period of flux. New buildings and streets were added as the city developed. Neighborhoods expanded as houses were built into the burgeoning urban landscape. Beginning in 1910, the neighborhood of Shady Hill saw the addition of several streets including Irving Street, Bryant Street, and Francis Avenue.

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Top Left: “E” – Bryant St. from corner of Irving St., May 3, 1912. Top Right: View from Irving Street. Bottom Left: View from same point as above, September 1920. Bottom Right: View from same point as above, September 2, 1916.

The Charles N. Cogswell Collection (P014) consists of a scrapbook and loose photographs that depict these changes to the built environment in Cambridge, as well as daily life, in the late 19th century. Charles N. Cogswell, a Cambridge resident and Boston architect, lived at 61 Kirkland Street from 1882 until his death in 1941, aged 76.

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Charles’s brother George Cogswell on a penny-farthing.

Cogswell attended Harvard University and went on to study architecture at M.I.T. and at the Ecole de Beaux Arts, Paris. While the bulk of his professional work took place in Boston, Cogswell dedicated his free time to capturing the changing architectural landscape of his Cambridge neighborhood.

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Top right: April 30, 1910. The beginning of the extension of Francis Avenue through to Museum Street, before the Andover Seminary Building was constructed. Bottom left: 61 Kirkland Street. Bottom right: [Francis Ave.] View from same point on September 2, 1916 [Professor Chas H. Haskins-House in distance]
Shady Hill is located east of Harvard Yard, right next to what is now the Harvard Divinity School. The Cogswell Collection is unique because it captures the in-between moments of growth in Cambridge and shows what the city looked like as construction was happening.

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Cogswell’s neighborhood was also home to several notable Cambridge residents. While Cogswell lived on Kirkland Street, around the block on Irving Street lived Harvard professors William James and Josiah Royce.

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Views from Irving Street, 1891.
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Aerial view of Irving Street, 1888.

E.E. Cummings and Julia Child would later live on this same block of Irving Street, the Childs in Royce’s former home at 103 Irving Street (above).

In his scrapbook, Cogswell also included snapshots of daily life and events in and around Cambridge.

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Cyanotype photographs of a regatta on the Charles River, 1887 or 1888.
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Family dog, Kinch, on the Cambridge Common.
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Top: View of Holmes Field, 1886 or 1887. Bottom: Shaw Barn on Kirkland Road after the fire, April 7, 1886 (owned by Prof. G.M. Lane).

The finding aid will soon be available on our website. To view photographs from the collection, check out our Flickr page, or email histcomm@cambridgema.gov to make an in-person research appointment. The Cambridge Historical Commission also holds files on 61 Kirkland Street and the other addresses mentioned in this scrapbook.

The Library Catalog is Live!

Posted on by cambridgehistoricalcommission

We are pleased to announce that our online catalog is nearly complete and is now live to the public. Cataloging the CHC Research Library has been a long process, but entirely worth it. We are especially grateful for the hard work of our cataloging intern, Becky Shea, whose efforts made it possible to complete the catalog.

Check it out (pun intended) at https://www.librarycat.org/lib/chclibarch831!

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Dr. Charles E. Vaughan and Radcliffe Yard

Posted on by Meta Partenheimer

The CHC recently opened a small but significant group of materials: the Dr. Charles E. Vaughan Collection.

Charles Everett Vaughan was born into the prominent Vaughan family of Hallowell, Maine on August 24, 1835. By the time he was 15, Charles and his family had relocated to Cambridge. His father, also named Charles, worked as a brush dealer for J. J. Adams & Co. in Boston. Below are two of the company’s advertisements from 1922.

The Vaughans were descended from British merchant and Jamaican plantation owner Samuel Vaughan and his wife, Sarah Hallowell. Charles E.’s grandfather Charles was one of the first settlers of this historic Maine town. His great-uncle Benjamin Vaughan, a well-known political radical in England before settling in Hallowell, was a close friend of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin.[1]

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Image of a historic bridge at Vaughan Woods & Historic Homestead in Hallowell, Maine. The homestead is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and is now a part of the Kennebec Land Trust. Photograph by Norm Rodrigue.

After graduating from Harvard Medical School in 1863, Dr. Charles E. Vaughan served as an assistant surgeon during the Civil War. He later married Elizabeth F. Wells of Cambridge in 1866.

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Marriage announcement of Dr. Charles E. Vaughan and Elizabeth F. Wells in Quincy, Mass. Cambridge Chronicle, 28 April 1866.

That same year, the couple moved to a house on Garden Street between Mason Street and Appian Way across from Cambridge Common. Dr. Vaughan also used the home, now known as 8 Garden Street, as the base for his medical practice.

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View of the Cambridge Common from the northeast, 1875. Appian and Mason have been highlighted, as well as property between them.

Elizabeth passed away in 1883. Dr. Vaughan lived at 8 Garden until 1886 he moved to 4 Brewster Place in 1886. After the death of his first wife, Vaughan married Alice C. Carter of Cambridge on October 11, 1894. Dr. Vaughan kept his practice on Garden Street until his retirement in 1895.

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Plan of land at 8 and 10 Garden Street, pre-1853

In 1895, Dr. Vaughan retired to Santa Barbara, California, and the following year he sold his property on Garden Street to Radcliffe. Dr. Vaughan died on June 24, 1904 and is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery.

The Dr. Charles E. Vaughan Collection contains correspondence, deeds, maps, leases, and other documents related to the 8 Garden property and its sale by Dr. Vaughan to Radcliffe College in 1896. Documents relate to previous owners of the property including Charles C. Foster of Cambridge and Louisa Higginson of Brattleboro, Vermont.

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Pages of Agreement to convey land – Louisa Higginson to C. C. Foster, 1852
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Plans regarding the sale of the Garden Street property to Radcliffe College, 1896

To view these and other items from this collection, please stop by the CHC during our research hours: Monday: 2:00-7:00pm, Tuesday: 2:00-4:00pm, or Wednesday-Thursday: 10:00am-12:00pm and 2:00-4:00pm. To make a research appointment with our archivist Emily, please call 617.349.4683 or e-mail egonzalez@cambridgema.gov.

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[1] Vaughan family papers, Massachusetts Historical Society. http://www.masshist.org/collection-guides/view/fa0040.

Now Open: The Simplex Pennant Collection

Posted on by cambridgehistoricalcommission

This post was authored by our Simmons 438 Archives intern, Elise Riley

Until the mid-20th century, the Simplex Wire & Cable Company on Sidney Street was one of the largest manufacturers in Cambridge. Founded in Boston in 1840, Simplex moved to Cambridge in 1916 and manufactured electrical appliances and wire in a multi-building complex near Lafayette Square. MIT bought the property after the company moved to New Hampshire in 1970; University Park now occupies the site.

This collection holds 18 issues from 1945 of the Simplex Pennant, the company’s employee newsletter that gives us an authentic glimpse into daily life in Cambridge during the 1940s.

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Scores from company bowling league and trivia section.

Dedicated to manufacturing wires and cables for electrical use, Simplex Wire & Cable rose in the industry as an innovator, developing a submarine cable with a significantly longer lifespan. This invention came in handy as war broke out once again in 1939. Simplex became a main supplier of telecommunications cable to the US Army and Navy.

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A thank you note to Simplex Wire & Cable Company from US War Department.
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Simplex awarded its Fourth Gold Star from the US Maritime Commission.
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Simplex Pennant masthead showing US War Department awards.

1945 was a pivotal year in World War II from Hitler’s defeat to VE Day. Woven into the Pennant’s committee reports are hints as to what was going on in the wider world.

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Entries honoring Franklin D. Roosevelt.

As the war raged on, The Pennant was there to capture the goings-on of domestic life and the war effort. The newsletter included birthday and wedding anniversary announcements as well as updates on enlisted employees or relatives.

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An employee’s letter from his son who had been released from a German P.O.W. camp.

It also featured cartoon reminders of attendance and safety precautions to keep morale and productivity up.

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A newsletter cartoon joking about attendance.

Come take a step back in time and explore the Simplex Pennant Collection! View the collection finding aid here. You can also take a look at selected pages from issues of the Simplex Pennant, digitized and available on our Flickr page.

Now Open: Xonnabel Clark Collection

Posted on by cambridgehistoricalcommission

This post was authored by our Simmons 438 Archives intern, Jacky Martin.

You may have heard of the Clarks before. Emory J. Clark Square sits at Fern Street and Concord Avenue.  Emory’s Pharmacy was the first Black-owned and operated pharmacy in Cambridge.

But this collection is about Xonnabel.

Xonnabel Clark was a teacher and counselor for various area schools over the years.  She received a Masters of Education from Harvard University.  She raised five children.  She was a very active member of her church, Grace Vision United Methodist.  And I think  – because I’ve not met her – that she is curious and passionate about learning and likes piecing puzzles together.

It’s the last two sentences that are important for this collection.

Clark became the unofficial historian for her church back in the 2000s, when the congregation needed to find the official deed for the church building.  She traveled to the Cambridge Registry of Deeds and successfully located the document.  That adventure sparked an interest in records and the history of her church that led to her working with the CHC to make the church into a historical landmark, and writing a report called The History of Grace Vision United Methodist 1871-2009: 138 Years of Christian Service (yes, we have a copy and yes, I’ve read it).

After spending two weeks with this collection, I understand her interest.

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A colored postcard of the church

The Grace Vision United Methodist Church was built in 1887.  Its original congregation was an outgrowth of a Sunday School-type program called the Sabbath School, which was run by Baptist, Congregational, and Methodist churches including the Harvard Street Church.  The original congregation was called the Cottage Street Methodist Episcopal Church, due to its location on Cottage Street, before it moved to the Magazine Street building and renamed itself Grace Methodist Episcopal Church.  Since then it’s gone through four name changes (from Grace M.E. to Grace Methodist to Grace United to finally Grace Vision United).  That’s five different names for one enduring congregation.

And by all accounts, the congregation’s focus on community and outreach that started with the Sabbath School didn’t change.  The church sponsored Scout Troops, ran arts programs, and remained an active part of the community.  From the original Sabbath School to Grace Academy, the Grace Vision UMC strove to always contribute to the local community.

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One of the many Boy Scout Troops the church sponsored

The collection itself is an interesting mix of official documents and informal photographs.

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An old church newsletter; note the baseball statistics

The largest part of the collection (aside from the History) are the church programs that Clark kept over the years.  From Martin Luther King Day celebrations to joint Easter Sunday services with other churches to Anniversary services and banquets, these programs run the gamut of the various events that are a constant part of a church’s life.

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One of the multiple programs for Martin Luther King, Jr. celebrations

More interesting – to me at least –  are the newsletters and correspondence in the collection.  Much of the collection consists of formal minutes from the multiple inter-church organizations that Grace United Methodist was a part of, but the rest includes church newsletters and messages to the congregation.  My favorite is the “Cakeless Cake Sale” letter, which is written almost entirely in rhyme.

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A Cakeless Cake Sale, a novel new way to do bake sales

The collection is a unique snapshot of the life of a church, taken by someone who clearly cares greatly for this church and its history.

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A photograph of Sunday service

View the finding aid for this collection here. If you would like to learn more about this collection, please call us at 617.349.4683 or e-mail our archivist, Emily, at egonzalez@cambridgema.gov to make a research appointment.

The new Cambridge Archives site is live!

Posted on by cambridgehistoricalcommission

Cambridge is a city rich with so much history, so many museums, libraries, and schools, that it can be hard to know where exactly to go for specific historical materials. The new Cambridge Archives website aims to help researchers, history lovers and curious citizens figure out which Cambridge archive holds what kinds of materials.

The new Cambridge Archives site was created with the generosity of the Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati (Anderson House), and through a collaboration with the Cambridge Historical Society, the Cambridge Historical Commission and the Cambridge Room of the Cambridge Public Library.   Check it out, and watch for more updates over the next couple of months as we add more archives and collecting institutions to the site (add yours, too!).