We at the CHC were saddened to hear of the passing of a Cambridge icon, Frances Antupit, long-time proprietor of the landmark establishment Koby-Antupit Photography Studios. In her studio, Frances photographed architects, politicians, scientists, and activists, as well as local students, couples, and children.
Frances Antupit in the Boylston/JFK St studio, ca. 1960s. Koby-Antupit Portrait Collection, Cambridge Historical Commission
Frances V. Antupit was born October 5, 1934, and raised in West Hartford, CT. She graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in 1957. Although Frances took only one photography course, she and a friend would sneak into the school’s darkroom after hours to develop film and make prints. Looking back, Frances laughed at her work from that time–mostly odd compositions of doorways and objects–calling it the “Ashcan School of Photography.”
Paul Koby Studio business card. Koby-Antupit Portrait Collection, Cambridge Historical Commission
Frances soon moved to Boston, intending to pursue a graphic design career, but quickly discovered few positions available. She was interviewed by a Copley Square art director who noticed her eye for photography and suggested she apprentice to an established photographer. In the yellow pages, Frances found an ad for Paul Koby’s studio in Harvard Square. Koby initially dismissed her, but Frances soon convinced him of her abilities, and she began her training in lighting skills, darkroom techniques, and retouching.
View of Paul Koby Photography studio, above the Wursthaus in Harvard Square. Cambridge Historical Commission
Koby left the Boston area in the 1970s. In 1978, despite no formal business training, Frances decided to purchase the business. Along with the studio, Antupit inherited a large collection of Koby’s negatives and prints.
Chris Jennings by Frances Antupit, 1991. Koby-Antupit Portrait Collection, Cambridge Historical Commission
Unknown couple by Francis Antupit, date unknown. Koby-Antupit Portrait Collection, Cambridge Historical Commission
In 1997, Cambridge Savings Bank bought the building that housed Antupit’s studio, and all tenants were given notice to vacate. Frances later opened a new studio but despite her reputation as a creative photographer, the new location proved difficult for returning customers and walk-ins alike. Antupit began afresh in neighboring Belmont before finally retiring. In 2006, Frances donated her collection of photography materials to the CHC. The Koby-Antupit Portrait Collection contains photographic materials taken by and relating to Frances and her work in the studio and material created by Koby.
John Muldoon, undated photograph. Image courtesy of Tracy (Halliday) Reusch.
John E. Muldoon, a furniture designer and self-taught architect, was born in East Cambridge in November 1864, the first child of William H. and Catherine (McKeever) Muldoon. William had been born in the neighborhood in 1840. When the Civil War began in 1861, the 21-year-old enlisted as a private in the U.S. Army; in 1864, during the long Siege of Petersburg, Virginia, William suffered a severe wound to his left arm, which was so damaged it had to be amputated. He was mustered out that same year and returned to Cambridge; he was home when John was born. The family lived on Fifth Street in East Cambridge; John’s only sister, Sarah, was born in 1866, his brother Samuel in 1872, and his youngest brother, William, in 1888. William the father worked at the nearby New England Glass Company, and later opened a tavern, “The Cosmopolitan,” on Cambridge Street, and even became a teacher. He died in 1898.
Advertisement for William Muldoon’s tavern, ‘The Cosmopolitan’, Cambridge Chronicle, July 1884.
John Muldoon attended local public schools and was apprenticed as a carpenter while a young man. In 1887, he married Margaret A. Fay; the next year, they welcomed a son, called Willie. John began work as a furniture designer for the esteemed firm of Irving & Casson and could walk to work from his home, a double house he rented with his parents on Fifth Street.
Example design by Irving and Casson – A. H. Davenport — Historic New England Collections. Flower Box of Mahogany c.1900.
John was hired by his landlord to design and oversee construction of a new double-house to replace the existing building there. This would be John’s first known foray into the architecture field. The double house at 41-43 Fifth Street was built with modest proportions but exhibits more detail than many surrounding tenements of the time. Today many of the building’s Classically inspired elements are covered in vinyl siding, yet Muldoon’s affection for Classical design is still apparent in the original pilasters in the Ionic style that frame the two entrances under deeply overhanging eaves. An image from the 1960s (below) shows the original pilaster detailing at the bay windows with swags in the entablatures. He and his young family would occupy one unit with his mother and father living in another unit. This first known building commission for John Muldoon would set off a short, yet significant career as an architectural designer in Cambridge.
Muldoon family home, 41-43 Fifth Street. Before covered with vinyl siding. CHC Staff photograph 1965.
In 1892 John Muldoon, with no architectural training or academic degree, submitted the lowest bid for a new firehouse in East Cambridge and was awarded the contract. The brick structure, described in newspapers as being in the “Doric style,” was built on the corner of Otis and Third streets across from the Middlesex County Courthouse. The station, with its 85-foot hose drying tower, space to accommodate six horses, and (ironically) a smoking room for the firefighters, stood for just three years: in 1895 it and the rest of the block bounded by Cambridge, Otis, Second, and Third streets were razed to make way for the new Middlesex County Registry of Deeds.
“New” Ward 3 Fire Station designed by John Muldoon in 1892. It was demolished less than three years later. Cambridge Chronicle, May 7, 1892.
Muldoon was then hired by the City to design another fire station just a few blocks away at the corner of Gore and Third streets. Architecturally, the second station shares many similarities with the earlier building with a stronger emphasis on Colonial Revival design with bold pilasters and pediment. Historically, the building also exhibited a Palladian window on the second floor. The former station stands today as a noteworthy institutional project in Muldoon’s early architectural career and is likely to have gained him important future commissions in Cambridge, despite his lack of professional credentials.
Engine 3, 29 Third Street, as completed. City of Cambridge Annual Report, 1896.Engine 3, 29 Third Street, 2017.
Muldoon’s first major project outside East Cambridge came in 1894 when a young couple James and Mary Heffernan hired him to design a large residence at the corner of Cambridge Street and Highland Avenue. The dwelling, while clearly Colonial Revival in its detailing, features a more traditional Queen Anne corner tower capped with a conical roof. Its prominent site and handsome design may have helped Muldoon attract the attention of affluent Mid and West Cambridge residents, who might otherwise have overlooked the work of a furniture designer from modest East Cambridge. Upper- and middle-class residents took notice of Muldoon’s high-quality designs, which were as good as those of major architectural firms—and cost a lot less.
Heffernan Residence, 81 Highland Avenue.
In 1895 while overseeing the construction of the second fire station, Muldoon was hired by Jeremiah W. Coveney, a former undertaker, Cambridge City Councillor, and State Senator, to design a dignified single-family home at the corner of Otis and Sixth streets. The design stood out in East Cambridge: a single-family detached house was a rarity in the dense neighborhood of tenements and rowhouses as were houses in the Colonial Revival style. The symmetrical design features two-story rounded bays flanking the central entry portico with a Palladian window above. Alterations in 1992, when the building was used as a funeral home, obscured some of the original detailing, but the Colonial Revival motifs largely remain intact.
Jeremiah Coveney House, 140 Otis Street, before renovations (1967).Jeremiah Coveney House, 140 Otis Street, after renovations (2021).
From 1895, John suffered a series of personal tragedies which put most of his projects on hold. In 1895 John and Margaret’s only child, Willie, died of diphtheria at age six. A year later, Margaret died while in Saratoga Springs, New York. After their deaths, John accepted a few small jobs in East Cambridge such as alterations to a neighbor’s house on Fifth Street, two renovations on Otis Street, and designing a stable on Gore Street (since demolished). In 1898 John lost his father.
During these somber years, John met Ellen Frances O’Connell (1875-1920), a first-generation Irish immigrant who lived with her father and mother in East Cambridge. Her father, John Patrick O’Connell, was for years the advertising agent for the Sacred Heart Review, a prominent Catholic publication that was active from 1888 to 1918. John and Ellen married in 1900 and would have six children together: five daughters (Helen, Catherine, Mary, Sarah, and Betty) and one son, John E. Muldoon, Jr.
The year before the marriage, Thomas J. Casey, the Chief of the Cambridge Fire Department, commissioned John to design a residence for his family on Lexington Avenue. The Casey’s stately, Colonial Revival double-house, a stone’s throw from the recently built Engine 9 Fire Station (1896), which was not designed by Muldoon. The Casey Residence exhibits Muldoon’s exceptional understanding on Colonial-inspired design with its rounded bays, a columned portico, and intricate trim detailing on the façade and dormers. Inside, five types of wood were laid as flooring in distinct patterns and colors.
Chief Thomas Casey House, 166-168 Lexington Avenue.
John’s craftsmanship (and low costs) impressed developers in Mid-Cambridge, who commissioned him to design multiple properties in the neighborhood. In 1901 he designed three adjacent double-houses at 27-29, 31-33, and 35-37 Highland Avenue for the owner-developer John Elston. The three unique residences are an eclectic blend of Queen Anne and Colonial Revival influences and today are in varied states of preservation. Elston also hired Muldoon that year to design a duplex at 14-16 Ellsworth Park, a short dead-end street.
During his career designing buildings all over Cambridge, John remained employed as a designer at Irving & Casson. Though he split his time between roles as architect and designer, his employers at Irving & Casson must have given him their blessing; as in 1903, John was hired by them to plan and design a four-story, four-bay addition to the company’s plant, that would be modest in size and located in the central corridor screened from Otis and Thorndike streets.
Irving & Casson Factory with Muldoon-designed addition from 1903 highlighted.
John Muldoon’s last known project in Cambridge was the two-family house he designed for himself and his family. In 1909 he purchased a house lot on Lexington Avenue from the heirs of his former client, Fire Chief Thomas J. Casey and erected the grand Colonial Revival style structure one sees today. The two-family house boasts a large, gambrel roof with its gable end facing the street, elaborate columned porticos surmounted by balustrades topped with urns, and bold corner quoins.
John Muldoon House (1909), 146-148 Lexington Avenue.
John Muldoon’s legacy in Cambridge cannot be overstated. He progressed from carpenter’s apprentice and furniture designer to a twenty-year career designing houses and buildings in Cambridge. Some of the city’s best examples of Colonial Revival-style houses were designed and built by Muldoon, the self-taught architect.
While he seemingly retired from the architecture profession following the completion of his own home on Lexington Avenue, he remained employed at Irving & Casson until his death in 1937. He was 72 years old.
Muldoon House (center left) and neighboring Chief Casey House (right) on Lexington Avenue.
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How many times have you fumed at an interminably slow traffic light or at people “running the light,” or been “rear-ended” while waiting? It’s hard to imagine driving in the city these days without traffic lights, but 100 years ago there were none.
But first, we can’t talk about traffic lights without a brief detour into the history of driver’s licenses. After all, the need for traffic lights arose from the number of cars on the road.
According to the American Automobile Association, in 1903, “Massachusetts (and Missouri) became the first states to require a driver’s license….when the first licenses were issued, they weren’t used to prove a motorist was a capable driver. By and large, anyone with a pulse and a car could obtain one”
Rhode Island was the first state to require a written test to obtain a license in 1908. Amazingly, it wasn’t until 1959 that all states required an exam to get a driver’s license. (South Dakota was the holdout.)
According to the Federal Highway Administration, in 2019, Massachusetts had 4,950,056 licensed drivers. No wonder we need traffic lights!
In the 1920s, licensed drivers were often referred to as “Autoists” in the press.
Cambridge Chronicle June 25, 1921
Prior to electric traffic lights traffic was directed by a traffic officer at intersections. This inevitably led to complaints about the officer holding up traffic in one direction in favor of waving through traffic in another direction. Discussions about installing traffic signals began in earnest in the mid-1920s when permission was given to “install a signal box for a new automobile traffic signal at the corner of Boylston [now JFK] and Mount Auburn Streets.” (Cambridge Tribune December 6, 1924) Permission was granted, and a few weeks later the Cambridge Tribune updated the situation: “Illuminated arrows direct the driver to the right, and an especial signal of red and yellow lights in combination, stops vehicular traffic while pedestrians cross the street in any direction safely.” (Cambridge Tribune December 27, 1924)
Central Square acquired its first traffic signal in 1924. This led to a kerfuffle about angle vs. parallel parking in town. The point of the traffic signal was to speed traffic but some felt that goal was hampered by “angle parking,” (car front end to curb). Of course, angle parking is much easier than parallel parking, hence the debate. Angle parking “delayed the speed of autos, which is necessary because of the new traffic signal in Central square.”
Cambridge Sentinel June 21, 1924
Eight months later the issue remained unresolved:
Cambridge Sentinel December 13, 1924
Apart from the parking problem, the advent of traffic lights generated a lot of other discussions. Where should traffic lights be placed? Should there be “safety islands’? How should they be timed? Should traffic officers trigger the lights? Should officers use loudspeakers? What colors should be used and in what sequence? Amber (what we now call yellow), green and red? Green and red only? Apparently, it was the amber light that caused the most confusion. In 1929, the Cambridge Sentinel reported on the results of a study of how many colors – – and what they mean – – are used in traffic lights in cities throughout the U. S.
The study noted, “Working on the information that persons who are to some extent color blind constitute 5 percent of the population, the bureau of standards has selected colors which are distinguishable to most if not all persons having defective color vision” (Cambridge Sentinel February 23, 1929)
In 1925 a traffic booth was installed In Central Square.
Cambridge Tribune March 28, 1925
The new electric traffic light worked automatically, thereby eliminating the need for a traffic officer. The Tribune went on, “It has three controls so that traffic can be handled according to its call. By setting it on the first control, traffic will be allowed to go up and down the avenue for 30 seconds and across the avenue for 30 seconds; second control allows traffic to go up and down the avenue for 40 seconds, across the avenue for 20 seconds; third control allows traffic to go up and down the avenue 25 seconds, across the avenue for 35 seconds.” [Got that??]
“The device has three colored spaces on each side. The top one which is read reads “Stop,” the middle being white reads “Change of Traffic.” There are three seconds between the signals so that each one has a fair chance to get his or her car under control. The bottom space is green, and reads “Go.” On top of the device there is a red light which is lighted at all times so that it can be seen my any one, therefore eliminating trouble by saying that they could not see it.”
Shortly thereafter the Chronicle outlined two suggestions for improvements to the “auto-cop” made by pedestrians and traffic officers alike, “…by which Central square’s new auto-cop might be distinctly improved upon….that the alarm bell, which rings to signal a traffic change, should be considerably louder…a more staccato note…would prove doubly effective… the second suggestion is that, during the interval of “traffic change,” when these words are outlined in white light in the center of the device, all other signals should disappear. An approaching motorist will tend to keep aright on going as long as he sees the word “Go” inviting him to do so.” (Cambridge Chronicle May 9, 1925.)
On June 5th, 1926, the Cambridge Chronicle reported that a “new” General Electric traffic signal had been put in operation the previous Saturday in Central Square. It featured a booth for a traffic officer who operated the signal.
That sounded hopeful. But the following year, after several traffic accidents involving officers, the police chief recommended what he called a “Fifth Avenue” system of lights for Massachusetts Avenue. (This system was named after the street in New York City where it was already in use.) Also known as the “wave” system, it coordinated traffic signals at each intersection so that if traffic moved at a given speed, they would never “hit the light” and be stopped. It’s not clear from the newspapers whether or not this was adopted.
Philadelphia had an interesting method of activating the lights:
“Mrs. I. T. Holton tests a new automatic traffic control installation which is being in tested in Philadelphia’s suburbs. It is designed to allow a motorist to cut into a busy traffic artery from a side street. By sounding her horn Mrs. Holton is changing the lights through a device which gathers the sounds and uses them to motivate an electrical sequence.” (Cambridge Sentinel May 4, 1929.)
It took some time for motorists to get used to traffic lights on traffic islands:
Cambridge Chronicle November 15, 1929
The article continues, “City Electrician O’Hearn, who has charge of installing the traffic signal system of which the traffic lights on the “safety island” are an important part, things that a change in reflectors will make them more conspicuous so that the motorists will pay more attention to them. He blames the motorists for the accidents …He expects that the motorists will soon get used to them…”
Jumping ahead about 7 decades, in 1994 the Cambridge Chronicle launched a new weekly column named “Road Gripe of the Week”
Cambridge Chronicle February 17, 1994
Today Cambridge has 128 standard yellow, green, and red lights; 14 flash beacons operating nonstop, 33 rapid flash beacons activated by pedestrians, and 31 timed school zone beacons operating during school drop-off and pick-up times.
Ferdinand Friedrich (Frederick) Adrian Bruck was born on January 24, 1921, in Breslau, Germany (present-day Wroclaw, Poland) the son of Eberhard Ferdinand Bruck and Irmgard Jentzsch Bruck. At the age of 15, Ferdinand left Germany for England and enrolled at the Bootham School in York, England. As they had means to do so, Bruck’s family fled Germany due to the growing antisemitic ideology seen there. Ferdinand Bruck was listed as “Hebrew” in his immigration documents, and his father fled Germany as a “refugee scholar”, the latter finding work elsewhere in Europe and eventually landing in the United States accepting a teaching position at Harvard.
Bruck in his Harvard Freshman Yearbook, 1937.
In 1937, Ferdinand Bruck arrived in Cambridge to attend Harvard University, his freshman dorm room was in Matthews Hall in Harvard Yard. His education was interrupted by World War II when he was drafted. Before leaving for the War, he and his girlfriend attended the Cocoanut Grove Nightclub in Boston, the night where the infamous fire occurred, which claimed the lives of 490 people. Bruck helped people escape from the blaze. He was hospitalized as a result of the fire and ensuing panic, and his departure for war was delayed. From the hospital, Bruck applied to the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) and was accepted.
Aftermath of Cocoanut Grove fire, Boston, November 1942. Boston Public Library collections.
He attended GSD during the spring and summer of 1942 but had to leave soon after for the war. He served in the US Army’s Military Intelligence Service unit back in his home country of Germany. Mr. Bruck spent the end of 1942-1945 overseas. He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1943 while serving.
Draft registration card for Ferdinand Friedrich Adrian Bruck. Ancestry.com
After the war, Mr. Bruck completed his time at GSD, where he learned Modernist design under Walter Gropius, a fellow German architect. During the summers, he apprenticed at the engineering firm of Stone & Webster, a major electrical engineering firm, designing power plants, dams, and other such structures along with the other estimated 800 fellow draughtsman at the company. Bruck would state in a later interview that it was not a good experience, but he learned something.
Ferdinand F. Bruck’s senior picture in Harvard yearbook.
After graduating from Harvard GSD, Bruck taught at the school part-time as an Associate Professor, a position he held from 1952-1963. Concurrently, he was hired by The Architects Collaborative under former professor Walter Gropius and assisted on designs with the firm as well as accepting independent commissions under his company, F. Frederick Bruck, Architect and Associates.
After his time at Harvard, Bruck was awarded the coveted Wheelwright Traveling Fellowship in 1954 and had the opportunity to travel the world, studying Modern architecture. Upon his return to the United States, Mr. Bruck married Phoebe Ann Mason (more on her later) and the couple purchased and moved into a new home at 77 Walker Street in Cambridge, a modest Queen Anne Victorian house built in 1885. Bruck’s Modernist sensibilities were toned down for his personal updates to his residence with a simple one-story porch and entry, new windows at the sides and rear, and a renovated interior. The exterior was largely maintained which likely made the neighbors happy at the time!
77 Walker Street, the home to Fred and Phoebe Bruck until the 1970s.
In 1959, Bruck received possibly his first commission in Cambridge by Peter Knapp, a psychiatrist at 77 Raymond Street, who sought an addition where he could hold meetings with clients. The house which was sited at the rear of the lot was reconstructed from an existing stable in 1938 on its existing site in the Colonial Revival style. F. Frederick Bruck envisioned an elongated Miesian-style one-story wing which would project off the side of the 1938 home. The glass addition and solid fence would create a private, inner courtyard which was landscaped to provide a feeling of solace and serenity to his patients when they visited the home. A meandering path was added to connect the driveway and detached garage to the house at the rear of the lot. Bruck was also commissioned to construct a new addition at the rear of the existing garage for Knapp’s wife’s art studio and storage space. The overall composition is not visible from the street.
Drawing by F. Frederick Bruck of “Knapp House Addition”, (1960) 77 Raymond Street. Cambridge ISD Plans.
Fred Bruck’s first major new construction project in Cambridge is a project that almost never was. When renovating a 1922 house on Gray Gardens East, the owners were heartbroken to learn a fire reduced their home down to the foundation. The owners, Harvard Professor I. Bernard Cohen and Frances Davis Cohen retained Bruck in 1962 to design them a new house. In rebuilding, Fred Bruck used the same foundation from the original house, but more vertical in a townhouse form. A requirement by the owners was for large expanses of side walls without windows to give the Cohens the space they needed for paintings and Professor Cohen’s large library, which was located on the top floor overlooking mature trees. A special design feature of the house in the front hall with its arched entrance, a nod to the Federal Revival fan light transoms, and on the inside, an 18-foot-high ceiling. The façade is dominated by an exterior chimney, further accentuating the verticality of the design.
22 Gray Gardens East, CHC Staff photograph.
22 Gray Gardens East front elevation drawing (1962)22 Gray Gardens East rear elevation drawing (1962)
About the same time Bruck designed the Cohen House, he was engaged in one of the largest design competitions in the country, the Boston City Hall competition. In October 1961, Mayor John Collins announced that the City of Boston would select the design for its new City Hall through an open, nationwide design competition. By the deadline, over 200 submissions were received, and eight finalists were selected, including one from the team of F. Frederick Bruck and Ervin Y. Galantay (a visiting architecture professor at Harvard GSD at the time). The duo’s design was a large, square building elevated on columns, with an expansive plaza surrounding. The building was on an elevated plaza which was connected to the larger open space by a bridge leading to a circular reflecting pool. The design was ultimately not chosen by the panel, who instead selected the design by the young team of Kallmann McKinnell & Knowles.
Proposed architectural model for Boston City Hall designed by “F Frederick Bruck and Ervin Y Galanty” (1962). Courtesy of Boston City Archives.
Within a year after he lost the design competition for Boston City Hall, Fred Bruck was commissioned by Alan and Claire Steinert to design them a new residence in the Reservoir Hill area of West Cambridge. Alan Steinert of the Steinert Piano family and his wife Claire were in their sixties and when they purchased the former Charles C. Little House on Highland Street, they decided it was too large and dated for their tastes. It was demolished and Fred Bruck was hired to design a one-story Modern house to accommodate the aging couple, their art collection, and allow for social gatherings. The couple insisted on having the latest technologies, including central air-conditioning, radiant heating, and low voltage lighting to highlight their artworks. The design was featured in Architectural Record’s annual Record Houses, highlighting the best residential project designs of the past year. Describing the construction of the house, Frederick Bruck said “the house is wood frame with dark brick veneer. Brick was chosen to blend with the substantial character of the surrounding houses, to reduce maintenance, and because it is a material which could meet the sloping terrain. Wood frame was chosen for economy and to facilitate construction during the winter months.” The building remains one of the best examples of 1960s residential designs in Cambridge.
64 Highland Street, 2016.
F. Frederick Bruck and his wife Phoebe moved from their Walker Street home to Coolidge Hill Road in the mid-1970s, modernizing a 1920s brick Colonial Revival house for their retirement. Other projects by Fred Bruck include the 1966 Bullfinch Office Center (remodeled in the late 1980s in the Post-Modern style by Graham Gund), the 1970 Charlestown Fire Station, and dozens of private residences all over New England. Fred Bruck died on May 14, 1997 and is buried at Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge.
Phoebe A. Mason Bruck
Phoebe Ann Mason was born in Highland Park, Illinois on November 26, 1928, the daughter of George Allen Mason and Louise Townsend Barnard. After attending Bard College from 1946 to 1949, she studied architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology’s (IIT) Institute of Design, which was founded as the New Bauhaus. There, Phoebe was introduced to Modern architecture and design, which would impact her taste and career for decades to come. She graduated from IIT in 1954.
Undated photo of Phoebe Ann Mason Bruck, Cambridge Chronicle 2004.
While in Illinois, Phoebe worked as a designer at Baldwin Kingree, a women-owned Modern design store established in 1947 in Chicago. Baldwin Kingree was founded by Kitty Baldwin Weese (wife of Modernist architect Harry Weese) and Jody Kingree. The store specialized in Scandinavian Modern furnishings to fill American homes with affordable, architect-designed furniture and objects. While in Chicago working at Baldwin-Kingree, Phoebe was spotted by Ben Thompson of The Architects Collaborative, who convinced her to move to Cambridge to serve as head of the design department for his new store.
In Cambridge, Phoebe worked as Head of the Design Department at Design Research, Inc., a home furnishing store in an old, mansard-roofed house on Brattle Street. In her capacity as head designer for Design Research, Phoebe worked often with The Architects Collaborative (TAC) and Sert, Jackson Associates Inc., on many of their projects providing designs and furnishings for interior spaces. While working with Design Research and TAC, Phoebe met F. Frederick Bruck, and they married in 1956. Phoebe, like many women in the design profession at the time, likely consulted and worked on dozens of projects where she is not credited, it is unclear as to how many projects Phoebe was involved with during her time at TAC or Sert, Jackson, Associates.
Original Design Research Harvard Square store, c.1968. CHC Collections.
Design Research, Inc. new Cambridge store, 48 Brattle Street, c.1972. UVA: Richard Guy Wilson Architecture Archive.
Early in their marriage, Phoebe earned a master’s degree in Landscape Architecture from Harvard University in 1963, and would join forces professionally with her life partner, Fred Bruck at his firm F. Frederick Bruck Architect and Associates, Inc. At the firm, Phoebe wore many hats consulting on furnishings and interiors for her husband’s projects as well as developing landscape plans and designs complimentary to Mr. Bruck’s Modern designs.
In 1968, Phoebe stumbled upon an advertisement in the Boston Globe, which marketed land in New Hampshire, suitable for a vacation retreat. The ad read, “…Strafford. 48 acres. Mountain top, excellent view. You can see for miles. Small log cabin. Timber cut off.” Phoebe and Fred Bruck travelled up to New Hampshire to find a formerly wooded lot littered with tree stumps, trees lying on top of each other, piles of empty fuel cans and exposed ledges scarred by logging operations. They had already purchased the lot and Phoebe began planning her regeneration of the devastated lot. By 1969, conditions were favorable for burning and much of the site was cleansed with a controlled fire to help restore the soil and forest. Within a year, low bush blueberries, aspen, young maples, birch, and oak trees began to sprout from the charred soil. Fred Bruck converted a former two-room (350 sq. ft.) log cabin into their summer house with decks and a detached out-house for rustic living when visiting their New Hampshire property. Phoebe restored the forest and developed natural gardens scattered throughout the property. The restoration of the forest here was featured in Landscape Architecture Magazine. Phoebe ended the article by writing:
“Ten years after logging, piles of rotting slash still remain in the far corners and along the edges of the property, a vivid reminder of the devastation and seeming destruction which once pervaded the entire site. The green tidal wave of vigorous young pines, birches, oaks and maples, which threatens the engulf the woodlot gives new meaning to the concept of regeneration, for the land as well for its owners.”
Phoebe was very busy in Cambridge architecture and landscape circles. She worked as a design critic for the Department of Landscape Architecture at Harvard GSD concurrently with her serving as a judge for the New England Flower Show from 1971-1979. She also served on various boards and committees including the Harvard Square Association, the Harvard Square Advisory Committee, the Quincy Square Design Committee, and served as President of the Boston Society of Landscape Architects (BSLA) from 1973-1975.
Phoebe was a force in her role as President of the Harvard Square Defense Fund and as chair of the Harvard Square Advisory Committee, where she pushed on architects, developers, and the City of Cambridge, advocating for high-quality design that maintained the character of the square. Phoebe was always firm in her positions and was very active in city life in Cambridge until she passed away in 2004. She was buried next to her partner, Fred, on Azalea Path in Mount Auburn Cemetery.
Grave memorial for Fred and Phoebe Bruck. Courtesy of Mt. Auburn Cemetery.
R. (Richard) Clipston Sturgis was born in Boston on Christmas Eve in 1860, the son of Russell and Susan Codman Welles Sturgis. As he was born into a wealthy family, Richard was schooled at the prestigious George Washington Copp Noble School (now known as the Noble and Greenough School) in Boston and at St. Paul’s in Concord, New Hampshire to prepare for college. He entered Harvard University in 1877, graduating in 1881 with a degree in architecture.
1881 Harvard Class photo of R. Clipston Sturgis. Courtesy of Harvard University Archives.
From 1881 to 1883 to worked in the office of his uncle, John Hubbard Sturgis (1834-1888), a partner in the firm Sturgis & Brigham, the designers of the original Museum of Fine Arts building in Boston and the Arthur Astor Carey house on Fayerweather Street in Cambridge. The Carey House in Cambridge was one of the earliest and high-style examples of Colonial Revival architecture in the region. It was during this time at his uncle’s firm that R. C. Sturgis married Esther Mary Ogden of Troy, New York in 1882.
The young couple then sailed to England, where Sturgis worked until late 1884 for London architect Robert William Edis, who worked on an extension to Sandringham House in Norfolk, England, one of the royal residences of King Charles III. It was during this period that Richard and Esther had their first child, Richard Clipston Sturgis, Jr. in Canterbury, England in March of 1884. Sturgis Jr. (1884-1913), closely followed in his father’s footsteps, attending the same schools and majoring in architecture at Harvard. Tragically, he died at 30 years old, possibly due to life-long illness as the family had a live-in nurse at their home in Boston. They had two other children, George Ogden Sturgis (1889), who died in infancy, and Dorothy Mary (Sturgis) Harding (1891-1978).
Richard Clipston Sturgis with newborn son Richard Clipston Sturgis, Jr. c.1884. Photo courtesy of F.S. Watt, Ancestry.com
Esther Mary Ogden Sturgis and son Richard Clipston Sturgis, Jr. c.1890, courtesy of F.S. Watt, Ancestry.com
After leaving Edis’ employ, Sturgis spent two years touring Europe, studying and sketching in France, Italy, Germany and Holland until he returned to the United States in September 1886, when he took charge of his uncle’s firm after the partnership between Sturgis and Brigham dissolved. His uncle, John Hubbard Sturgis retired in May of 1887 and died in February of 1888.
The project that perhaps launched the career of ‘Young Clip’ was the Church of the Advent in Beacon Hill. While working with his uncle, he assisted in the design and took over the project when his uncle died. He is credited with overseeing the completion of the project, designing the spire, lectern and the west porch. After his uncle’s death, Clip partnered with William Robinson Cabot forming Sturgis & Cabot from 1888 to 1893. From 1902 to 1907 Sturgis practiced with George E. Barton as Sturgis & Barton. From 1907 until his retirement in 1932 he practiced independently.
Church of the Advent, Beacon Hill, Boston. The project that helped start R. Clipston Sturgis’ career in the United States.
Clip’s career really took off in the first two decades of the twentieth century. In 1900, he was commissioned by John A. Little, the owner of two large private dormitories for Harvard students in Harvard Square to furnish designs for a new athletic building for his properties. The cramped site on Holyoke Street, just steps from Harvard Yard, featured a large tree at the middle, which Sturgis hoped to incorporate into his design. The Big Tree Swimming Pool as designed by Sturgis, was an excellent example of Collegiate Gothic architecture in the English tradition, typical for his work. The U-shaped brick building was sited around the preserved tree and also included two squash courts with limited windows for the interior programming. The building was razed in 1962 for the Holyoke Center.
Big Tree Swimming Pool. Brick Builder (1901)Building detail. Brick Builder (1901)Building plan. Brick Builder (1901)
Sturgis’ only residential project in Cambridge was during his partnership with George Barton. The firm was hired by James D. Prindle, who sought to develop the lot at the corner of Bates and Raymond streets. Sturgis and Barton designed a three-unit row that turns the corner lot. The 2 1/2-story homes are Queen Anne/Tudor in style and constructed of brick on the first floor and shingle siding above. The buildings were constructed in 1905.
32-34 Bates Street, Cambridge.
In 1902, Sturgis was appointed by the Mayor of Boston to the newly established Boston Schoolhouse Commission, a three-person independent board that would oversee the process of building schools for the City of Boston including the hiring of architects and shaping of the plans. From this expertise, Sturgis was called in to various cities all over the region to share how municipalities can provide high-quality and cost-effective new school buildings. In 1909, Sturgis spoke before the Cambridge Public School Association on this matter, explaining how that Boston commission set design standards and a standard cost structure for new buildings as to keep projects from ballooning in value. Sturgis would also serve as a consultant as the designated architect for the Museum of Fine Arts, providing a study and recommendations on the new building in the Fenway.
The Cambridge Chronicle, 23 October 1909
Sturgis was highly influential in school building construction and design in the Boston area (Cambridge included) and always advocated for English-inspired design, a personal favorite of his as he was an anglophile. He specialized in large civic buildings including schools, but also designed clubhouses, stately manors, banks, and churches. Early school buildings designed by Sturgis include the Winsor School in Boston (1908) and designing the new Perkins School for the Blind campus in Watertown in the Neo-Gothic and Colonial Revival styles. A few years after he oversaw the design and construction of the Perkins School campus, the institution hired him again to design the Woolson House Shop building (1914) on Inman Street in Cambridge. The brick building was constructed at the rear of the Woolson House at 277 Harvard Street and served as a workshop for blind women to learn a trade and sell their creations to the public. The modest Colonial Revival building was cost-effective and provided three floors of workspaces inside.
The same year he was commissioned to design the Woolson House on Inman Street, Clip was hired to design a new clubhouse for the Delta Upsilon Fraternity at Harvard, on Harvard Street, a short walk to campus. Sturgis designed the Colonial Revival style building elevated on the site, reusing the existing topography and adding a new stone retaining wall. Inside, the main feature was the hall, somewhat like an English college hall, which extended two stories high opening on the east to a lounge and to the west as a dining room. Above was the library with an opening looking down to the great hall and modest chambers for graduate members visiting. The building was purchased by the Cambridge Lodge of Elks in 1943 and is now home to the Ikeda Center, a non-profit whose mission is to “build cultures of peace through learning and dialogue“.
396 Harvard Street, Cambridge. Former D.U. Clubhouse.
Besides his career as an architect, Clip was involved in many social and professional organizations. Sturgis maintained a strong interest in promoting the arts and in serving community endeavors in the Boston area. In his early years, he was president of the Draughtsmen’s Club, later known as the Boston Architectural Club (now the Boston Architectural College). He was on the organizing committee for the Society of Arts and Crafts Boston and served as its president from 1917 to 1920. He was a member of the Tavern Club for more than 60 years and a Fellow of the Academy of Arts and Sciences. He also was a member of the Harvard Clubs of Boston and New York, the Union Boat Club, the Colonial Society, and more. Most notably, he as President of the Boston Society of Architects and as President of the American Institute of Architects for the years 1914-15.
Sturgis was also a prolific writer and critic. He gave many speeches on architecture and planning and wrote articles that appeared in various publications. He was a popular advocate for more thoughtfully designed suburbs, writing in the 1890s that “our suburbs for the most part, are composed of frame houses, looking unsubstantial and temporary. They convey no suggestion of dignity and retirement.” He thought that high quality design of houses and landscapes would make for better neighborhoods, no matter their scale. From this, he sought commissions for working class housing, designing high-quality buildings for the South Bay Union and the Elizabeth Peabody Settlement House in Boston, and Federally funded neighborhoods in Bridgeport, Connecticut and Bath, Maine.
Site plan designed by R. Clipston Sturgis and Arthur A. Shurcliff. University of Michigan Art & Architecture Library collections. U.S. Housing Report Vol. 2, 1919. Digital Commons.
Sturgis would retire in 1932, moving full-time to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where he had maintained his summer residence since 1890. His summer and later permanent residence, “Martine Cottage”, made Sturgis a neighbor to friend Arthur Astor Carey, who also summered and retired in Portsmouth. The two were likely friends since Richard Clipston Sturgis’ time at his uncle’s firm, when Arthur Astor Carey’s home in Cambridge was designed by them in the early 1880s. The firm was then reorganized as Sturgis Associates Inc., led by William Stanley Parker and Alanson Hall Sturgis, his nephew. Clip would remain associated with the firm as a consultant. One of the first projects of this new firm with Clip as a consultant would be the new Central Fire Station at Broadway and Cambridge streets. It is clear that the firm utilized a timeless Colonial Revival design due to the adjacency of the site to Harvard Yard, an area where Sturgis spent much of his time. This would be his last commission in Cambridge.
Cambridge Central Fire Station, 489-491 Broadway, CHC photograph, 2015.
Like many members of the “old guard” in the Society of Arts and Crafts, Sturgis was a life-long advocate for high-quality design with handcrafted features, which was in stark contrast to the emerging Modernist/Bauhaus movement that arrived in the United States in the 1930s. In New Hampshire, an entire state away from Harvard, Sturgis was troubled by the new modern design framework of Harvard’s building program under Walter Gropius. In 1950, an 89-year-old Sturgis would pen an open letter to his alma mater in the Harvard Alumni Bulletin, with great disdain for the shift in design and craftsmanship the University had taken.
He wrote, “Time Magazine published a cut of the brutally ugly buildings designed by Gropius for Harvard and [they] actually had the temerity to say ‘the buildings are true to an old Harvard tradition…From Colonial to Bulfinch Federal, to Victorian Gothic, to nineteenth century Romanesque, Harvard has moved with the tides of U.S. architecture… these new buildings show not a gleam of interest in Harvard’s past not any sense of value of beauty.” These strong words were the result of the new Graduate Commons and also the new Allston Burr Lecture Hall, the latter would be sited adjacent to the Yard and his firm’s Central Fire Station.
Allston Burr Lecture Hall, 1951, Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson, and Abbott, architects. Photo by Daniel Reiff, CHC Collections.
In response to the letter penned by Sturgis, Gropius’s students responded to the 90-year-old retired architect in 1951, attacking his traditional position: “must we take the word of our older alumni that ivory tower is the only true architecture? An ivory tower… is a beautiful thing… but Harvard prides herself, not on her ivory tower, but rather on her free marketplace of ideas.”
Sturgis died in 1951 in his beloved Portsmouth cottage. Local papers would write, “R. Clipston Sturgis, 91, national architectural authority for more than 60 years, who almost single-handedly set Boston area’s architectural fashions…died in his home in Portsmouth, N.H. yesterday”. He is remembered for his nearly seventy years of designs, consultations and critiques with witty remarks and a staunch commitment to traditional architecture. He is buried at the Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston.
Photograph courtesy of Find a Grave, by user pstott.
We are starting a new series on designers (architects, builders, landscape architects, and others) who have had a lasting impact on Cambridge’s built environment. For our first post in this series, we are featuring a lesser-known architect who lived and worked right here in Cambridge, William Everett Chamberlin.
William E. Chamberlin, 1907 Class Book courtesy of MIT Libraries
William Everett Chamberlin (1856-1911) was born in Cambridge on June 23, 1856, to Ann Maria Stimson (1822-1907) and Daniel Upham Chamberlin (1824-1898), a prominent Cambridgeport hardware dealer and president of the Cambridgeport Savings Bank. William Chamberlin (sometimes spelled Chamberlain) attended Cambridge public schools before enrolling at MIT, where he majored in Architecture.
William E. Chamberlin, Class of 1877 photograph, courtesy of MIT Libraries.
After graduating from MIT in 1877, the 22-year-old was hired as a draftsman by the esteemed firm of Sturgis and Brigham, architects in Boston. In February 1879, William moved to New York City, and began working as a draftsman at the internationally known firm of McKim, Mead, and White (MMW). Upon arriving in New York, William was quickly overwhelmed. Thinking there was a great deal he hadn’t learned, he was given permission by the firm to travel Europe for over two years to study in the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris, and to hone his drawing skills while travelling about the continent. He returned to the office of McKim, Mead & White in New York in early 1882, as the firm was receiving lucrative commissions with its Gilded Age clientele.
Sketch at Chaumont-Sur-Loire by William E. Chamberlin. Published in Catalogue of the architectural exhibition, Boston Society of Architects (1886).
Within a few months of arriving in the United States, William quit his job as a draftsman at MMW and returned to Cambridge, seemingly due to poor health – an issue which plagued him his entire life. Later publications explained that Chamberlin suffered from spinal troubles, which progressed enough that it left him confined to a wheelchair for much of his adulthood.
After a season of rest, William opened his own architecture office in downtown Boston, commuting from his parent’s house in Central Square. Recounting the early days of his own practice to former classmates in 1885, he sarcastically wrote: “I have started in business for myself here in Boston, though somehow or other, there don’t seem to be many ‘riche amateurs’ who want to build big ‘musees’ in parks as there used to be in the school programs. Still, I manage to get three meals a day, Voila”!
While Chamberlin joked about a slow start to his office, one of his earliest commissions was among his most important. In 1883, he designed an administration building and hospital wings for the new Cambridge Hospital (renamed Mount Auburn Hospital in 1947) in Cambridge. The building consisted of a main building of three stories and basement, which housed all departments of the hospital, including private rooms and two one-story wards, the whole forming three sides of a hollow square, with the opening toward the south and the river. Chamberlin worked closely with Dr. Morrill Wyman (1812-1903), an expert on the ventilation of sickrooms and public buildings and first president of the hospital, to orient the buildings facing the Charles River to maximize sun-exposure for south facing rooms and provide the full influence of southwestern breezes in the summer. Now known as the Parson’s Building (named after Emily Elizabeth Parsons a Civil War nurse who helped establish the hospital), Chamberlin’s first major commission in Cambridge set-off a prominent, yet largely overlooked career.
Parsons Buildingca.1955 aerial of Parsons Building and rear wings. The two rear hospital wings were truncated in 2006 for the present parking garage.
After receiving just a few commissions while running his own practice, Chamberlin entered into a business partnership with architect William Marcy Whidden (1857-1929). Whidden was a former classmate of Chamberlin, who’s career path mirrored much of his. They both graduated from MIT in architecture in 1877, they both studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, and both worked at the office of McKim, Mead & White. Whidden left MMW in 1885, when propositioned with the idea of running his own practice with Chamberlin. The duo established the firm of Chamberlin & Whidden that year.
The firm, led by a pair of thirty-year-old architects, was hired to design buildings all over the Boston area. Due to this success, they hired other young, promising architects to assist with drafting. One of those hires was Henry Bacon, who briefly worked for Chamberlin and Whidden before joining McKim, Mead & White. Locally, Henry Bacon could be known as the designer for the steps and walls of the Longfellow Monument in Longfellow Park, but he is best known for his design of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. (built 1915–1922), which was his final project. Within the first few years, the firm of Chamberlin and Whidden saw a lot of activity, including furnishing designs for a six-story commercial building in Boston in the Romanesque Revival style. Their major type of commission, however, was expensive, single-family suburban housing.
Stores on South Street, Boston, Mass. Featured in American Architect and Building News, February 1887.
The firm built beautiful homes including one on Highland Street for Robert Noxon Toppan (1836-1901) and his wife, Sarah Moody Cushing. The Colonial Revival style house was built in 1886 and is one of the earliest houses in Cambridge of the style, setting trends for its neighbors. The brick Toppan House exhibits a large Palladian window at the façade, with a rounded center bay and a full-length piazza overlooks the gently terraced landscape towards Brattle Street at the rear.
House at Cambridge, Mass. Featured in American Architect and Building News, February 1887.54 Highland Street54 Highland Street, rear facade.
When a design competition was announced for the new Cambridge City Hall, a few local firms were asked to submit designs following benefactor Frederick H. Rindge’s strict requirements. The advisory design committee suggested that Peabody & Stearns, Van Brunt & Howe, Longfellow, Alden & Harlow, John Lyman Faxon, and Chamberlin and Whidden all submit designs for consideration. Chamberlin and Whidden proposed a stately, symmetrical building with a strong Romanesque emphasis and a central clock tower, capped by a belfry and cupola. Their design was not accepted by Rindge, who selected Longfellow, Alden & Harlow instead. Undeterred, the young firm persevered.
Chamberlin & Whidden proposal for Cambridge City Hall, 1888. American Architect & Building News, June 1888.
A second time, Chamberlin and Whidden submitted in a design competition for the English High School in Cambridge, and won the design competition in 1889, securing that job. It would be their final project together in Cambridge. Their plans for the new High School called for a three-story masonry building of stone on the first floor with light-red brick above. The building was long and narrow, giving each classroom ample natural light and ventilation. Articles mentioned that there was little ornamentation as “the desire of all concerned was to construct a simple and dignified building expressive of its serious purpose”. The building was demolished in 1938 for the consolidated Cambridge High and Latin School.
English High School, photographed 1908. Detroit Publishing Company.
By 1890, William Whidden had moved west to Oregon and established his own firm. William promoted architect William Downes Austin (1856-1944) to partner of the firm, renaming it Chamberlin & Austin. The new firm kept busy with a steady stream of commissions, but it was clear Chamberlin’s health was preventing him from actively seeking out new projects as he once did. Many of the designs the firm completed as Chamberlin & Austin appear to have been from previous clients, showing their trust in Chamberlin’s quality designs.
One such projects was commissioned by Henry Endicott, whos large home at 151 Brattle Street was designed by Henry Bacon Jr. while working under William Chamberlin in 1888. Two years later in 1890, Endicott returned to Chamberlin to design a smaller residence on the newly laid out Brewster Street, at the rear of the Brattle Street property, for his daughter and son-in-law. The second house, much smaller in size, showcases Chamberlin’s attention to detail with the saw-tooth cut shingle and recessed porch at the entrance and gentle undulating form with continuous shingled siding.
151 Brattle Street as depicted in American Architect and Building News, May 5, 1888.151 Brattle Street, CHC photograph.
In 1891, William Chamberlin married Emily Douglass Abbott (1858-1916). The couple acquired a house lot on Clinton Street, at the rear of Emily’s father George Abbott’s residence on Harvard Street. That year, William designed his new house on Clinton Street and a renovation for his father’s new home on Harvard Street. The three houses were all direct neighbors. William Chamberlin’s new home on Clinton Street was the first of his own, after decades of boarding with his father and mother in Central Square. For his own house, William designed a modest, 1½ -story structure with prominent gambrel roof. The house, while altered, exhibits Chamberlin’s eclectic sense of design, which often blends styles into a single composition. William and Emily never had children. One year later, William D. Austin left the firm to partner with Frederick W. Stickney forming Stickney & Austin.
William E. Chamberlin House (1891), 27 Clinton Street, photograph taken 11-2022.1894 Bromley map showing location of William and Emily’s residence on Clinton Street (red); his father’s (blue); and his father-in-law’s (green).
William E. Chamberlin entered a semi-retirement due to his worsening health, which plagued him most of his life but could never fully step away from his passion for design. When he heard about the death of his beloved former professor at MIT, Eugene Letang in 1891, Chamberlin designed a memorial tablet of bronze set into a carved marble surround. This marker still stands in the Boston Public Library, Copley Square branch location. With this work, Chamberlin showed his skill beyond designing buildings. It is possible that he was the designer of many of his family memorial stones in the family plot at Mount Auburn Cemetery.
Eugène Létang tablet designed by W. E. Chamberlin. Ca. 1905 photograph, Boston Public Library collections.
He was hired again by the Cambridge Hospital (now Mount Auburn Hospital) in 1896, designing a Nurse’s Residence just steps away from the Administration Building and Hospital wings he designed over ten years prior. His design for the Nurse’s Residence, like nearly all his work, blends multiple styles effortlessly into a single composition. The brick building displays strong Classical features including the central columned portico and the belt course above the second story windows which reads as a frieze band with ocular windows. Soon after in 1898, he designed the Cambridge Homes for Aged People at 360 Mt. Auburn Street with former partner Stickney and Austin.
Nurse’s Home (1896)Cambridge Homes for Aged People (1898)
Nearly a decade later in 1904, Chamberlin and Boston architect Clarence Blackall completed designs for the new Cambridgeport Savings Bank (where his late father once served as president) in Central Square, Cambridge. The building is perhaps Chamberlin’s most recognizable and stately extant design where he could show-off his architectural versatility. The Cambridgeport Savings Bank is a monumentally scaled limestone-clad structure with a façade dominated by recessed central bays behind an engaged Corinthian portico. The ornate stone parapet which once capped the building was replaced in the 1950s. The Cambridgeport Savings Bank building is Chamberlin’s last known work in Cambridge before his death.
Cambridgeport Savings Bank Building, 689 Mass. Ave. CHC Postcard Collection.
At just 55 years old, William Everett Chamberlin died from a stroke on August 6, 1911, in Manchester Massachusetts, at his father-in-law’s summer house. When news of his passing spread, fellow members of the Boston Society of Architects memorialized of Chamberlin:
William E. Chamberlin was by nature dowered with great personal charm, a clear keen brain, debonair in its perceptions, just in its conclusions; a genius for his profession of architecture which was rare; and a fresh directness of expression tempered by a delicate humor. The active use of these qualities in the work of the great marketplace was first checked and then barred to him by a disease, which prevented his working outside of his home, and for over twenty years he made that home a center of intellectual stimulus to his friends…His noble character vibrated only perfect harmonies, but, unlike the harp in the wind, in him was the soul and the strong will which decreed always, as a duty to his fellow men, that no discords should mar the beauties of this life which, in spite of one great affliction, he found and made so blessed even to the last hour.
Last known photograph of William E. Chamberlin, ca.1910
William E. Chamberlin bequeathed nearly all his sizable estate, estimated at nearly $100,000, to several Cambridge institutions. His widow, Emily D. Chamberlin, received the income from his estate during her lifetime and that after her death. After which, it was distributed in seven parts. Two-sevenths went to the Cambridge Hospital, two-sevenths to the Cambridge Homes for Aged People, and one-seventh each to the Avon Home, the Holy Ghost Hospital, and to the Department of Architecture at MIT, which he remained engaged with throughout his life. Chamberlin’s legacy has lived on not only through his extant buildings, but his generosity, in the William Everett Chamberlain (sic) Prize for achievement in design at MIT and his generous gifts to Cambridge institutions.
William Everett Chamberlin is buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery on Bellwort Path in the family plot. His monument, like many of his family members, was likely designed by himself from his Cambridge home.
William E. Chamberlin’s monument at Mt. Auburn Cemetery. Much of lettering covered by lichen.
By 1930, Paul Robeson was an acclaimed star: a full-voiced bass; a commanding actor on screen and on stage; and a Civil Rights activist. In March of that year, he debuted his Othello at London’s Savoy Theatre. It was a wretched production—poorly directed, badly acted, overly elaborate sets—but Robeson shone. His “resonant voice, imposing stature, and artless acting were largely responsible for the twenty curtain calls at the London premier” (Harvard Theatre Collection, “Paul Robeson as Othello: the 1942-1945 Margaret Webster—Paul Robeson production of Shakespeare’s Othello”).
Paul Robeson backstage, 1942 New England Historical Society
Robeson was eager to perform the role in America but suspected that a Black Othello would not be acceptable to audiences here. And he was right—his Othello did not make it to the United States until August 1942. The Harvard Theatre Collection essay explains the long journey.
John Haggott, a young Harvard-educated stage manager and producer, arranged “through his Cambridge connections for Robeson’s Othello to appear at Brattle Hall, home of the Brattle Theatre Company … under the auspices of the Cambridge Summer Theatre.” Margaret Webster, the director, was an accomplished actress and preeminent Shakespearean director. Webster and Haggott met with Robeson, and the three approached New York theatre producers, but none would agree to finance a possibly controversial show. Webster, Haggott, and Robeson formed a three-way partnership and cast Uta Hagen as Desdemona and her husband, Jose Ferrer as Iago.
On August 8, 1942, the Cambridge Sentinel announced the advent of “The Robeson Othello.”
Uta Hagen and Paul Robeson. 1942 New York Theatre Guild production
Cambridge Summer Theatre playbill. CHC Ephemera Collection, Gift of Susan Juretschke
Jose Ferrer (white shirt, goatee) and Paul Robeson. 1942 New York Theatre Guild production
Juretschke found the playbill in her father’s papers. He had attended one of the performances and deliberately kept the program; he told his daughter he knew it was important.
The Harvard Theatre Collection essay concluded, “The Brattle Theatre appearance was attended by enormous, far-reaching publicity and a rush on tickets; according to contemporary accounts the opening performance went flawlessly and extended calls followed the performance, accompanied by collegiate-style foot-stamping.”
The production met with equal success at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton. It was brought to New York by the Theatre Guild in October 1943, where it ran for a record-breaking 296 performances. Then the company, with Robeson, Hagen, and Ferrer in the leads, began a nationwide tour. At every theatre, management had to sign a contract that included a non-negotiable clause:
“There shall be no segregation, grouping or setting apart of audiences because of race, creed or color.”
None of the Cambridge papers appear to have published reviews of the play but were thrilled to announce another public appearance by Robeson.
Cambridge Chronicle, August 13, 1842
Paul Robeson helps the Women’s War Savings Committee sell war bonds in Central Square, 1942. CHC. Courtesy Bea Fox
It’s not exactly clear who St. Valentine actually was. The Encyclopedia Britannica reports two competing versions. The most accepted theory is that he was a “Roman priest and physician” who was martyred under the rule of Emperor Claudius II. The other notion is that he was the Bishop of Terni, Italy, who was also martyred in Rome. Valentine the physician apparently cured his jailer’s daughter of blindness; writing to her before his execution, he signed his name “Valentine.” Thus traditions are born.
VALENTINE AS A NAME
“Valentine,” as both a masculine and feminine name, derives from the Latin “valens,” which means “strong and healthy” and was used by the Roman family of Valentinus. The female version as a first name is usually “Valentina.”
In 1850 four Cambridge men with the surname Valentine are listed in the City Directory. One was Charles Valentine (1797-1850), a wealthy Cantabrigian whose large estate was at the corner of Prospect and Harvard streets (now the site of Whole Foods).
Photograph: “Exterior view of front (east) wall, stable, and carriage house with Hon. and Mrs. Robert O. Fuller in background” ca. 1890 (Historic American Buildings Survey). Courtesy of Mrs. James A. Dunlap, Jr.
A player in Cambridge politics, Valentine was in the provisions trade and built a soap and candle- making factory in Cambridgeport at the corner of Pearl Street and–wait for it–Valentine Street, of course. The factory was subsequently bought by C. L. Jones.
Detail of H.F. Walling Map, 1854
Charles Valentine died shortly after his new mansion was finished; his obituary calls him as “a man of many eccentricities and peculiarities of character, but there are those who will have occasion long to remember his kindness and unostentatious charities” (Cambridge Chronicle, January 17, 1850). He left a wife and eight children. He is buried in Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Lot #1319 Pine Avenue. His monument was made by a well-known monument sculptor, William Freedley.
VALENTINE CARDS
Hand-made valentines made their appearance in the early eighteenth century and were soon followed by commercially produced cards.
ROSES ARE RED, VIOLETS ARE BLUE…
This little poem, so associated with Valentine’s Day, started out as a nursery rhyme in a children’s book from in England in 1784:
“The rose is red, the violet’s blue The honey’s sweet, and so are you.”
SCHMALTZY VALENTINES
The Victorian Era takes the cake for a sentimental valentines.
The warm weather in early 2022 made it hard to believe that as late as 1935 commercial quantities of natural ice up to 13” thick were harvested from a disused clay pit in North Cambridge.
Annual ice cutting campaign at the Johnson plant, Rindge Avenue. Cambridge Sentinel October 11, 1924
In the days before mechanical refrigeration, ice harvested from local ponds was harvested in huge amounts every winter, stored in enormous wooden icehouses, and distributed to households everywhere. The role that Cambridge’s own Nathaniel Wyeth and Frederick Tudor played in developing this industry at Fresh Pond has been extensively documented, but after the City of Cambridge closed the ice houses in 1891 most of Cambridge’s domestic ice – apart from a small amount harvested from the Glacialis, or Artificial Pond, off Concord Avenue – was sourced from Spy Pond in Arlington or from New Hampshire.
Layout of the Johnson Ice Cream plant. Sanborn Map Co., ca. 1929
Cambridge’s defunct ice industry was resuscitated in 1920 under unlikely circumstances. John B. Johnson, a New Hampshire native, had been making ice cream on Columbia Street since 1911. Johnson purchased 225,000 square feet of land off Rindge Avenue in the fall of 1919 and announced that he expected to save up to $15,000 a year by harvesting his own ice from Jerry’s Pit. He immediately erected a small icehouse (a double-walled wooden building insulated with sawdust) and that winter filled it with 3,000 tons of ice. In 1920 he built a two-story ice cream factory adjacent to the icehouse and closed his Columbia Street plant.
J.B. Johnson Ice Cream factory, 361 Rindge Avenue. L-R: factory, icehouse, and stable. Cambridge Sentinel, April 1, 1922
The next few winters were suitably cold, and in 1921 and 1922 Johnson was able to harvest 4,000 tons in each season, filling the icehouse with a conveyor belt at the rate of twenty-six 400 lb. cakes per minute over ten working days. After storing surplus ice outside under tarpaulins for a few seasons, Johnson more than doubled his storage capacity in 1925. Not every year offered suitable weather – at least a few weeks of clear, very cold nights and an absence of significant snowfall – but there were substantial harvests in 1930 and 1934, when up to 70 men and several horses brought in cakes 13” thick. 1935 turned out to be the last harvest, as Johnson fell ill and was unable to keep up with mortgage payments. The business continued in other hands until 1938, when the lender foreclosed. The factory buildings were cleared in 1940. The Board of Health denied a subsequent owner permission to use the pond as a dump, and the Dewey & Almy Co. purchased the property in 1942.
Johnson Ice Cream advertisement. Cambridge Chronicle, Dec. 14, 1934
Jerry’s Pit has always had a checkered reputation. Brickmaker Jeremiah McCrehan mined clay at the site until one morning in 1860, when, as his son told the story to the Cambridge Chronicle in 1927, he went to work at the pit and found 4’ of water in it. Some operators that tapped underground springs found it profitable to pump their pits dry, but McCrehan abandoned his mining operation instead. Ice was harvested there for domestic use in 1892, but the Board of Health objected, calling the water “entirely unfit for this purpose.”
The pool is a favorite place for such washing as is done by the foreign element who live in the neighborhood; it is a capital place for drowning stray cats and it is often used in this manner by the festive youth who gambol on its banks and who plash about in its shallows in their bare feet; it is, in a way, the cesspool of that neighborhood, and yet during the coming summer a large number of people will dilute their water with ice cut from its surface.
Cambridge Tribune, May 21, 1892
Jerry’s Pit was a de facto neighborhood recreation center, a site for swimming in the summer and skating in the winter in a neighborhood with few such opportunities. J.B. Johnson’s use of the ice in its manufacturing operation was apparently unobjectionable because it was not sold for human consumption. Johnson permitted swimming and skating throughout his ownership, and in 1927 allowed Cambridge’s Recreation Department to improve the facilities and staff the place with lifeguards. In 1943 the Dewey & Almy Co. built a bathhouse and toilet room at its own expense, which the city operated until the Metropolitan District Commission opened the Francis J. McCrehan Pool nearby in 1960.
“It’s a long wait for Linda Lavin, Donna Labo and Tommie Robichaud as they line up at the diving board of Cambridge’s new MDC pool to be the first to try it out.” Boston Record-American, July 25, 1960. CHC Photo Morgue Collection
Today’s post was written by CHC Executive Director, Charles Sullivan
Sources
Cambridge Historical Commission files
Cambridge Public Library, Historic Cambridge Newspaper Collection
Sinclair, Jill. Fresh Pond: The History of A Cambridge Landscape. The MIT Press, 2009
Weightman, Gavin. The Frozen Water Trade. HarperCollins, 2001
So, how to make a good cup of tea? Here are instructions from the Cambridge Chronicle:
How to Make Tea Properly. – The proper way to make a cup of good teais a matter of some importance. The plan which I have practiced for these twelve months is this: The teapot is at once filled up with boiling water,then the tea is put into the pot, and is allowed stand for five minutes beforeit is used; the leaves gradually absorb the water and as gradually sink to the bottom; the result is that the tea leaves are not scalded, as they were whenboiling water is poured on them, and you get all the true flavor of the tea. In truth, much less tea is required in this way than under the old and common practice.
Cambridge Chronicle August 15, 1856
We all know about the Boston Tea Party of 1773. But did you know the tea in those boxes hurled into the harbor was green tea? Green tea began life in China, and over the centuries bounced around to Japan, Korea, India and ultimately Europe, the United States, and everywhere else. It all started with a chance dead tea leaf floating in the Emperor’s cup of water somewhere around 2737 B. C. Apparently, he liked the taste, and green tea was born. In the 1500s, thanks to the efforts of English, Dutch, and Portuguese merchants, tea began its worldwide migration. In the 1600s, the Chinese began brewing fermented tea leaves which gave us what we now think of as traditional, black tea.
VARIETIES OF TEAS
All true tea comes from the Cammellia sinesis plant. The varieties derive from the different ways tea leaves are processed and brewed, as outlined in this article from the Cambridge Chronicle:
Cambridge Chronicle February 13, 1851
The article also included a list of green teas: Gunpowder (rolled into “bullets”), Imperial (Great Pearl tea), Hyson, Twankay (after a stream by that name in China), and Brick tea (a block of tea invented by the Tartars to make it easier to carry). Although Oolong was on the green tea list too, it is actually a black tea, but was listed because it tasted green.
TEA DRINKING ACCOUTREMENTS AND CUSTOMS
Teapot and lid. Left side is marked “America: Liberty Restored” and right side is marked “No Stamp Act.” Manufactured ca. 1766-1770. National Museum of American History.
The original Chinese tea cup did not have a handle. When tea arrived in England, this tradition was continued until the 1750s, when cups with handles emerged to protect delicate fingers from hot cups. Your host might also offer tea to gentlemen in a “moustache” cup which enabled sipping while keeping the “moustache” dry:
And the teapot may have been perched on a “teapot tile” to protect the table:
Ceramic reproduction of Victorian tile. Image via Zazzle.com
INFUSING TEA
Originally, loose tea leaves were added to hot water. When the leaves were brewed, the water would be filtered through a strainer into the teacup. These strainers ranged from the fancy…
English Tea Strainer. Image via Aspire Auctions
…to the simply practical.
Antique tea strainer with rocking mechanism. Image via catawiki.com
Next came the invention of a perforated metal ball filled with tea leaves and dunked into the pot or cup. Also available from fancy to plain:
Image via Pinterest
Image via theteasmith.com
Finally came tea bags. It is generally thought that a New York tea merchant named Thomas Sullivan invented the teabag. Actually, silk tea bags had been around since the early days in China. The first patent for the tea bag in the U. S. was given to two women: Roberta Lawson and Mary McLaren of Milwaukee in 1903.
Lawson and McLaren’s patent (US723287A)
Sullivan’s claim to fame is that he took the idea of tea bags and used them as a way of packaging his tea samples for vendors.
MILK & SUGAR? OR LEMON?
The English began adding sugar to tea in the late 1600s. The French soon came up with the idea of adding milk to bring the temperature down (and avoid the teacup cracking). It was the Russians who introduced adding lemon to tea served at travel posts along highways. Lemon was thought to soothe stomachs upset by the rigors of jolting carriage travel.
TEA PARTIES
John Tenniel’s illustration of The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party from Alice in Wonderland (1890). The British Library.
It’s generally agreed that European tea parties became popular in the 1840s, when the Duchess of Bedford initiated the custom as a needed afternoon pick-me-up around 4:00pm. It evolved into the standard 4:00 tea for the upper classes, and a later, “meat tea” (more like supper), for laborers after work. The 4:00 tea was often a social affair:
Cambridge Chronicle December 26, 1846
Cambridge Chronicle October 22, 1870
AND HOW ABOUT THOSE “MARTHA WASHINGTON” TEA PARTIES!
The “Martha Washington Tea Party” became popular at, during, and after the country’s centennial celebrations in 1875-1877. They mimicked Martha Washington’s famous tea parties, which she began when she and the General moved to Philadelphia after his inauguration in New York. Initially her invitee list included only Philadelphia’s upper-class ladies. As the tea parties became weekly affairs, they also evolved into intellectual and political salons. Others followed her lead. One hundred years later, at the time of this country’s centennial, many ladies celebrated with what by then were called “Martha Washington Tea Parties.” The main point of these affairs was to dress up in Revolutionary era costumes:
Cambridge Chronicle April 24, 1875
ADVERTISING TEA IN CAMBRIDGE
The first advertisements in (digitally available) Cambridge Newspapers for Tea were for the Boston Tea Company.
Cambridge Chronicle May 14, 1846
That same year, someone felt compelled to rant against “Imposter Tea,” in particular “Canton Tea”
Cambridge Chronicle July 23, 1846
Cambridge Tribune September 23, 1899
The “Big Tea Kettle” was put up by the Oriental Tea Company in 1873—and it still exists today—now outside Starbucks Coffee by Boston City Hall.
Photo by Mary Blake – WBZ NewsRadio 1030 via CBS Boston
THE INFLUENCE OF TEA DRINKING ON SOCIAL CUSTOMS: TEA HOUSES
Initially, any shop selling tea would call itself a “Tea House”
Cambridge City Directory 1880
The term “tea house” evolved to refer to a social place where friends could to sit down and enjoy a light lunch and “cuppa.”
Cambridge Chronicle July 10, 1909
Cambridge Chronicle September 20, 1919
THE BLACKSMITH HOUSE
Today perhaps the most well- known Cambridge tea shop was the Blacksmith House at 56 Brattle street.
Mary Walker’s House at 54 Brattle Street. Source: Cambridge Center for Adult Education.
Formerly The Cock Horse Inn, and then Dexter Pratt’s blacksmith shop, it was subsequently owned by escaped slave Mary Walker (1817-1873). Mary had been a seamstress on a plantation in North Carolina. She made her escape to freedom in 1848 while on a trip her enslaver’s family to Philadelphia. She settled in Cambridge where she earned her living as a seamstress. Mary later purchased the Dexter Pratt blacksmith shop from Pratt’s children in 1870. She ran it as a boarding house and ensured that it remained in her family by stipulating in her will that it must do so until her youngest son turned 21. It remained in her family until 1912.
Portrait of Elsa Brändström Ulich (1929) Image via Wikipedia.
Elsa, “the Angel of Siberia” had an extraordinary life. She was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, where her father was the Swedish military attaché. The family returned to Sweden where Elsa grew up and went back St. Petersburg when her father was made the Swedish Ambassador to Tsar Nicholas II. During WWI, Elsa was a nurse with the Imperial Russian Amy and served in Siberia. After the war, she was worked with the Swedish Red Cross and got involved with, or started, a number of aid organizations for soldiers, POWs, women and children. Elsa moved to the U. S. in 1933 when her husband, Robert Ulrich, was appointed a lecturer Harvard. In Cambridge, she started a consignment shop to employ Eastern European refugees from the War. It was located at 102 Mt. Auburn Street and was called The Window Shop. In 1947, the shop moved to “The Blacksmith House”, enabling her to expand her tearoom and pastry shop. Sadly, Elsa died of cancer just a year later. By 1971, the original purpose of the shop had been met, and it closed its doors. The property was purchased by the Cambridge Center for Adult Education in 1972.
Cambridge Chronicle March 11, 1948
NEXT CAME TEA DANCES
Tea dances emerged in the late 19th and early 20th century and provided a means for young ladies to mix with young men while being discreetly chaperoned. Private tea dances were a means of introducing debutantes to society. Some of the most popular tea dances were held at hotels with a full orchestra.
Boston Herald January 18, 1914 (excerpt)
HERBAL TEA
This post has focused on traditional black tea, but of course herbal teas have been used for medicinal purposes for millennia and have their own long and interesting history. Perhaps a post for another day!
Today’s post was written by CHC volunteer Kathleen Fox
