CHC staff - The Cambridge Historical Commission Blog

Getting to Know Your CHC Staff: Part 9

Posted on November 5, 2019August 17, 2020 by Brittany F.

Welcome back to our ongoing series featuring the staff members who work here at the CHC! This post introduces our Archives Assistant, Brittany Fox.

Where did you grow up?

I’m a Massachusetts local, through and through. I’ve lived outside of Boston in the very small town of Hopedale for most of my life. Currently about 6,000 residents, it was originally established as a utopian commune.

Where did you go to school? What was your degree?

I got my Bachelor’s in History with a concentration in European history and two minors in English Literature and Film Studies from Salve Regina University, in Newport, R.I. After I graduated, I jumped into my current studies at Simmons University. By the Fall of 2020, I will graduate with two Master’s in History and Library Science with a concentration in archival studies from its SLIS program.

Ochre Court, Salve Regina’s first building

What are your interests or hobbies?

One of my biggest passions is advocating for environmental protection against climate change through my daily activities. I spent four years cleaning up Newport’s beaches as a member of Clean Ocean Access and my undergrad’s Protect Our Wildlife club. My concern also led me to become a vegetarian 4 years ago and I more recently became a vegan almost 2 years ago. I’m also very conscious about my energy and waste consumption– I do a lot of advocacy for proper recycling practices, the benefits of composting, and I often go home to assist my family’s bountiful garden. I bring environmental concerns into my professional roles as well. I follow ProjectARCC, a group of archivists dedicated to protecting collections from climate change, and I give support to many environmentalist efforts, both locally and nationally. Additionally, I’m dedicating my studies in history to becoming a scholar in environmental and ecological history.

The average bounty of my family’s garden on a summer day.

Name some fun facts about you.

I absolutely love to bake! I really love the challenge of making traditional recipes vegan and gluten free.

I have a very close-knit family. Back home, three generations live under one roof. Plus two dogs, Winnie and Daisy, and a cat, Ellie. It’s a full house!

Winnie, Ellie, and Daisy (a self-identifying lapdog)

I quilt and embroider in my down-time.
Once upon a time I was training to become a professional ballerina. And I could sit on my hair; it was that long!

When did you start working at the CHC?

I started as an intern at the CHC last spring as part of my SLIS studies. I had prior experience working at my undergrad’s archives for 4 years, an internship at the Naval War College in Newport, and a summer fellowship at the Newport Historical Society so I was already well-versed in the archival profession. But I fell in love with the CHC, its staff, and Cambridge and they were kind enough to keep me on as a part-time archivist assistant.

What do you like best about working at the CHC?

By far the best part of my job is working with my co-workers. We are truly a team. We both get the work done while having fun doing it. It is also really rewarding to reveal facts and stories about Cambridge that had been hidden until we delve into the topic. We encourage each other to pursue the rabbit holes we stumble upon and I love hearing what the others have found. Cambridge’s history is overflowing and I am so excited each morning to get to work knowing that I will learn something new.

Do you have other professional pursuits?

I am a member of the New England Archivists, the Society of American Archivists, and the Progressive Librarians Guild, three professional organizations that keep me in the thick of things. But I also engage in less formal pursuits– whenever I can, I volunteer at community archives and Digitization Days for repositories largely run by voluntary efforts.

“How Carter’s Ryto Cathedral Bottles can be Converted into Beautiful Electric Lamps” How-to Guide, undated. The leaflet gives detailed instructions on how to repurpose the Cathedral bottles into lamps.

Give us a glimpse into your daily work or a current project.

Currently, I am processing some really interesting collections. I just wrote a finding aid for the Carter Ink Company, now available online HERE (https://www.cambridgema.gov/~/media/Files/historicalcommission/pdf/findingaids/fa_carterink_newoct2019.pdf?la=en) . Processing a collection involves many components. I have to do background research on the history and creators of the records so that I can write a Bio Note. I also physically arrange the collection and gain intellectual control over the material. This includes performing any preservation needs and finding suitable housing. The next step is to reflect its organization in the Description of the finding aid so that the records are findable, and therefore usable. It’s a true balancing act– I have to honor the collections original order while considering how people will likely use the collection. I also make sure to take the time to consider all of the biases inherent in the collection as well as my own personal perspective. Archivists aim for complete transparency and ethical decision-making.

Photographs of local families mounted on card stock taken between 1919-1921.

What is your favorite photograph, artifact, or collection at CHC?

One of my favorite collections is actually one of the first collections I processed. Although a small collection, I love the Benedict Daniels Photograph collection. It contains scrapbook pages created by Miriam Benedict, a Cambridge nurse. The individuals in the collection are unidentified but they may be families or patients she helped during her time as a nurse in the early 1900s. The photos are really heartwarming, and I am enthralled by the mystery of the families’ identities. Maybe someday we will be able to learn their stories. Most of our records relate to the built environment so more personal collections like this one really stick out to me. Check out the collection’s photos on our Flickr page and the finding aid.

What do you like best about living or working in Cambridge?

As of right now I live in Boston proper– near the Fenway. However, it is my ultimate goal to move to Cambridge when I graduate. Fingers crossed!

Thank you, Brittany!

Getting to Know Your CHC Staff: Part 8

Posted on October 23, 2019May 13, 2020 by cambridgehistoricalcommission

Welcome back to our ongoing series featuring the staff members who work here at the CHC! This post introduces our graduate research assistant, Grace Woodward. Grace comes to us from Northeastern, and is working on researching and documenting the history of enslaved and free Blacks in Cambridge during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in Takoma Park, Maryland, a crunchy little city just northeast of Washington, DC.

Town rooster. Photo: https://mainstreettakoma.org/roscoe-the-rooster/

Fun fact about Takoma Park: We love our town rooster! Roscoe the Rooster lived in and wandered around the city for a decade from 1989-1999. He became a kind of mascot for the city and is now remembered fondly in the center of town.

Where did you go to school? What was your degree?

I recently received my undergraduate degree in History from Northeastern University. I also graduated with minors in Art History and Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies. In my senior year at Northeastern, I started my Master’s in Public History as I was finishing up my undergrad. If everything goes as planned, I’ll finish my Master’s in the spring of 2020!

What are your interests or hobbies?

I play Ultimate Frisbee in most of my spare time! Generally, if I’m not at a museum or doing nerdy history things, I can be found tossing a disc and running around with my team (the Northeastern Valkyries – check us out https://express.northeastern.edu/valksultimate/)!!

One of many photos where I look quite silly playing frisbee, I’m #22.

Name some fun facts about you.

I do a lot of biking and hiking, I think astrology is super interesting, and I love the Washington Mystics.

When did you start working at the CHC?

I started working at CHC in September 2019.

What do you like best about working at the CHC?

I’ve loved the opportunity to focus on and prioritize research at CHC. I’ve always loved doing research, but in a lot of my previous jobs I’ve gotten bogged down in what feels like everything but historical research. It’s been really interesting to wade in to and try to piece together early histories of black communities in Cambridge while I’ve been here. It’s been important and rewarding to learn more about Cambridge’s difficult histories.

Do you have other professional pursuits?

Right now, I am also working at Northern Light Productions, a production company in Allston that creates all kinds of cool interactives and films for various museums and historical sites. I am also a writing tutor at Northeastern, mainly working with multilingual learners!

Give us a glimpse into your daily work or a current project.

At CHC, I’m researching and documenting the history of enslaved and free Blacks in Cambridge during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. I’m hoping to compile a narrative of this history that I can pair with a useful collection of various resources and documentation on the topic.

What do you like best about living or working in Cambridge?

I love my commute! That’s something not everyone can say, but I live in Roxbury Crossing and I love biking across the Mass Ave bridge on my way to and from Cambridge. Another Cambridge favorite of mine is Punjabi Dhaba in Inman Square, I think it’s the best Indian food in Boston and I can not get enough.

Okay, I must admit, this is not actually from my commute – it’s from a run much earlier in the morning – but it is a picture from the bridge I cross every day!

Thank you, Grace!

Cambridge Open Archives Recap

Posted on July 12, 2019May 14, 2020 by cambridgehistoricalcommission

Thank you to all who attended this year’s Cambridge Open Archives! From June 24-28, eight different archives and collecting repositories opened their doors to the public, showcasing collections items and sharing the stories behind objects, documents, and photographs. This year’s Open Archives theme was Politics and Activism in Cambridge (and Beyond).

Below, take a look at some of the photos taken by a few of this year’s participating archives and attendees. If you have photos from the event, feel free to share them with us! chcarchives@cambridgema.gov.

Thank you to all of the archives and archives fans! We’ll see you next year.

00100lPORTRAIT_00100_BURST20190627151833797_COVER — Cambridge Historical Society

IMG_20190625_145840 — Cambridge Historical Society

Getting to Know Your CHC Staff: Part 7

Posted on June 11, 2019May 14, 2020 by cambridgehistoricalcommission

Welcome back to our ongoing series featuring the staff and volunteer who work here at the CHC! This post introduces our photography consultant/photograph archives assistant, John Dalterio.

My name is Louis Dalterio, but everyone calls me by my middle name, John. I grew up in between Massachusetts and Connecticut with my mother, who was raising me on her own at the time. I was trained as an electrician in trade school, but upon graduating I discovered that I found no passion in that line of work. Instead, I wanted to be a film director.

All throughout high school I made skateboarding videos with my friends and consumed every film that the local Blockbuster sold as it went out of business. When I turned twenty I decided to attend community college to study film-making. A few months after enrolling, I attempted to make my first film with some Kickstarter funding and a small cast and crew from my local area. We discovered then that a Hollywood vision without Hollywood’s resources was nearly impossible to produce. After much deliberation, I decided to take the pragmatic route and shift my focus to a more simple and solitary art practice – photography.

In the Spring of 2012 I transferred to the Art Institute of Boston to fully pursue my interest in photography. The cityscape, chaotic and congested, could not be more different from the environment of my backwoods New England upbringing. For all its chaos, though, the city was rife with subject matter for the camera lens. Immediately I began wandering through side streets and back allies, searching for great moments to capture or interesting people to meet and make portraits of. After a few years of doing this while earning my bachelor’s degree, I had produced three photo series and two photobooks, which I am still fond of today: “Almagest,” and “Nayara.” Flipping through the pages of the image laden books, I recalled the excitement I felt when I first watched the dailies from the failed indie film. For a time, making and consuming photobooks became not only my hobby, but my sole obsession.

After the completion of my first photobook, I began working for the Cambridge Historical Commission as a photo restoration specialist. I was brought in to restore over 1,000 historical images that were to be used in the book, “Building Old Cambridge,” which was published by the MIT Press in 2016. The process of preparing the images took nearly a year and a half, which was a time of great perseverance and learning for me as I strived to produce high quality images on tight deadlines while balancing my school work. At the end of the book’s preparation process I left the commission to complete my bachelor’s degree at Lesley University, which had absorbed the Art Institute of Boston in the time since I had first enrolled. The move from Kenmore Square to Porter Square in Cambridge turned out to be a much-needed break from the hustle and bustle of Downtown Boston, allowing me to think more clearly and focus on the thing that I cared about most, my art.

As I neared the completion of my bachelor’s degree, I applied for and won an artist residency in Sweden, which was a magical experience that eventually led me to enroll in Lesley’s Master’s in Photography and Integrated Media program. This path would lead me away from photography for two years to focus on interactive installation art. Now, however, approximately one year after graduating from the master’s program, I find myself coming back to photography, and, thankfully, back to the Cambridge Historical Commission. This time, however, I am making the photos instead of restoring them.

ampmeter

Gilt Edge_Merged_1 copy

Mornings at the Historical Commission are very special to me. As a slow riser, I am grateful for the ability to settle in with my coffee and pastry from the shop across the street and watch the light as it pours in through the windows, pouring over the loose documents that were left out from the previous day’s studies, the various busts of noble figures that sit atop the surrounding filing cabinets and shelving units, and, eventually, the historical objects that I place in its path. I am fond of the Historical Objects Collection at the CHC, with my favorite part not being a single object, but the subtle character that each object contains, and the stories they tell when illuminated.

rubbershoes

In my time outside of the commission, I am a(n) freelance video producer, digital media specialist, art teacher, and artist. On a more personal level, I am a dog father to this sweet lady named Layla:

And step-dog father to this special lady named Lulu:

lulu

Thank you, John!

Getting to Know Your CHC Staff: Part 5

Posted on September 20, 2018May 14, 2020 by cambridgehistoricalcommission

Welcome back to our ongoing series featuring the staff members who do wonderful work here at the CHC! This post introduces our new Survey Director, Eric Hill.

Where did you grow up?
I grew up in Amherst, New Hampshire a quaint, historic New England village with an abundance of Colonial homes.

Where did you go to school? What was your degree?

I went to the University of New Hampshire and studied Geography with a focus on urban and human geography. Immediately after graduating, I moved half way across the country to Norman, Oklahoma and attended the University of Oklahoma’s College of Architecture where I studied Regional and City Planning.

Amazing Collegiate Gothic architecture at OU.

What are your interests or hobbies?
My favorite thing to do is travel. My goal is to visit all major world regions by the time I am 30 years old (still have a couple years to go). Besides travelling, I enjoy watching documentaries, hiking, and photography.

Lourve — Photo from my most recent trip to Paris and London.

Name some fun facts about you.

I am a sports fanatic and follow all New England sports teams along with the Oklahoma Sooners Football program and Paris St. Germain for soccer.
During graduate school, I got the opportunity to spend a month in Lusaka, Zambia and worked with children, teachers and a non-profit to work on designs for new schools and it was an experience that I will never forget.

soccer, zambia — Before I got beat in soccer by kids half my age in Zambia.

When did you start working at the CHC?
I started working at the CHC in September of 2018 and previously worked for the Boston Landmarks Commission as a Preservation Planner.

Acorn Street in Beacon Hill Historic District. I was the Preservation Planner for the neighborhood while in Boston.

What do you like best about working at the CHC?
My favorite part (so far) about working at the CHC is learning about the rich history of Cambridge and the layers of development from the Native American settlements of the past to the high-rise mixed-use buildings and neighborhoods of today.
Do you have other professional pursuits?
I hope to dive deeper into the modern movement and post-war Cambridge and advocate for the preservation of the (in my opinion) underappreciated and less well-known architectural styles and typologies of the 1940s-1980s.

My favorite building (Kimbell Art Museum) by my favorite architect (Louis I. Kahn). Sadly, Louis I. Kahn did not have any projects in Cambridge.

Give us a glimpse into your daily work or a current project.
Currently, I am giving myself a crash course on the centuries of people, events and places that make Cambridge, Cambridge. I am also reading up on the district guidelines for the Half Crown-Marsh Conservation District as I will be the planner in charge of design review for it.
What is your favorite photograph, artifact, or collection at CHC?
So far, my favorite collection is the W. L. Galvin Collection due to the quality and quantity of old plans and drawings of projects built, unbuilt and demolished.

Memorial Theater_Galvin — (Cambridge Memorial Theater drawing, 1931)

What do you like best about living or working in Cambridge?
Cambridge is a melting pot of not only architectural styles and history, but of people and cultures. It is a great place to work and during my lunch breaks, I always make an effort to walk around and enjoy the various cafes, shops and neighborhoods.

Getting to Know Your CHC Staff: Part 4

Posted on August 21, 2018May 14, 2020 by cambridgehistoricalcommission

Welcome back to our ongoing series featuring the staff members who do wonderful work here at the CHC! This post introduces our Archivist, Emily Gonzalez.

Emily showing one of her favorite items from our collections – Motor Boot Spats once made by the Cambridge Rubber Company

Where did you grow up?

My family moved quite a bit, but I mainly grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota. The East Coast feels like my home now, but I’ll always be a Midwestern gal.

emg-statefair — You haven’t lived until you’ve gone to the MN State Fair

Where did you go to school? What was your degree?

For undergrad I attended Lawrence University, a small school in Appleton, Wisconsin, and earned my BA in English Lit and Spanish. I did my graduate studies in Library Science and History at Simmons College here in Boston.

What are your interests or hobbies?

I love movies and documentaries, both old and new. I love visiting museums and historic sites, traveling, and trying out new restaurants. I just signed up to volunteer with Broken Tail Rescue, a local animal rescue organization, and I am super excited. About once a season I’ll force myself to run a road race (usually a 5k).

emg-grandpa — I love old photographs. This one is of my grandpa Les and his siblings on a farm in South Dakota.

emg-crossstitch — I also like cross-stitch, particularly the subversive kind. Image credit: http://www.subversivecrossstitch.com/

Name some fun facts about you.

I’m first-generation Cuban American, but I didn’t become fluent in Spanish until I was in college.
The summer after college I worked at a fast food kiosk inside of a zoo in St. Paul. It was called “Zooper Food.”

emg-zooper — Thanks for the free corndogs, Zooper. Image courtesy of Google.

My fiancé and I have a tuxedo cat named June. She rules the household.

When did you start working at the CHC?

November 2015.

What do you like best about working at the CHC?

No one day is like the other. There are always new research requests, collections to process, reorganize or digitize, and cool archival discoveries. I also love learning about the ins and outs of historic preservation through my colleagues.

Do you have other professional pursuits?

I’m an active member of the Society of American Archivists and New England Archivists, and I’m on the Collections Committee at the Cambridge Historical Society.

Give us a glimpse into your daily work or a current project.

A “typical” day could involve answering a research request, checking in with volunteers on their latest projects, discussing ongoing projects with my colleagues Meta and Emily, writing up text for promotional materials, emailing with other city departments or organizations about outreach activities, chatting about next year’s Cambridge Open Archives event, or meeting about the next steps in our big digitization project (“C-DASH”).

Because I manage our archives operation here, I don’t really do a lot of collections processing, so it’s nice when I do get to scan some historic photographs or reorganize a collection. I’m lucky in that I have such amazing archives assistants and colleagues, and that the CHC had library science interns and archives volunteers working on our collections for so long before I came here.

What is your favorite photograph, artifact, or collection at CHC?

I love the old restaurant menus in the Cambridge Ephemera Collection. The Wursthaus menu from August 6, 1962, is probably my favorite. Look at the “Businessmen’s Luncheon” – what a deal! [Note: The Wursthaus was a restaurant located at 4 Boylston Street, now JFK, in Harvard Square]

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(Cambridge Ephemera Collection, CHC002).

I also love images that capture great facial expressions, like this one from our Cambridge Recreation Department Collection (CHC011).

emg-recdept What do you like best about living or working in Cambridge?

The quirky, intelligent community and how much love they have for the City’s history.

emg-cambstreet

The Archivists’ Corner: Get to know your CHC archives staff

Posted on May 23, 2017May 14, 2020 by cambridgehistoricalcommission

This month, we are highlighting our fabulous archives staff here at the CHC. Our part-time archives assistants, interns and volunteers do it all — from processing collections and writing finding aids, to cataloging the research library, taking care of fragile objects and collections materials, and promoting it all on social media.

Our first staff post features Emily Magagnosc, Archives Assistant.

Emily grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs. Her mom is a librarian and her grandma volunteered in her local public library, so clearly Emily was destined to go into libraries. She went to undergrad at Smith College in Northampton, MA, and while there she worked in the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Museum and Library, which was the best job she’d ever had and led her to apply to the Graduate School of Library Science at Simmons College. She just finished her first year there and is very excited about all of her classes.

Emily lives with three roommates and three cats in Brighton. The most interesting thing she has found on the job is a collection of recorded (written) confessions from the early days of the church in Northampton. When she is not archiving, she is watching Parks and Recreation on repeat, listening to loud punk music, knitting, doing inappropriate embroidery, reading, and petting her cat, Russell.

Emily is working on cataloging the research library at the CHC. She also recently designed posters for the 2017 Cambridge Open Archives, writes blog and Instagram posts, and gets overly excited about the cool stuff in the archive. Her dream job is working in a women’s history collection like the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith or the Schlesinger Library at Harvard.

P0662 — A print from the William Galvin Collection, one of many architectural drawings and designs that Emily cataloged and photographed over the past several months.