This post was authored by our Simmons 438 Archives intern, Elise Riley
Until the mid-20th century, the Simplex Wire & Cable Company on Sidney Street was one of the largest manufacturers in Cambridge. Founded in Boston in 1840, Simplex moved to Cambridge in 1916 and manufactured electrical appliances and wire in a multi-building complex near Lafayette Square. MIT bought the property after the company moved to New Hampshire in 1970; University Park now occupies the site.
This collection holds 18 issues from 1945 of the Simplex Pennant, the company’s employee newsletter that gives us an authentic glimpse into daily life in Cambridge during the 1940s.
Scores from company bowling league and trivia section.
Dedicated to manufacturing wires and cables for electrical use, Simplex Wire & Cable rose in the industry as an innovator, developing a submarine cable with a significantly longer lifespan. This invention came in handy as war broke out once again in 1939. Simplex became a main supplier of telecommunications cable to the US Army and Navy.
A thank you note to Simplex Wire & Cable Company from US War Department.Simplex awarded its Fourth Gold Star from the US Maritime Commission.Simplex Pennant masthead showing US War Department awards.
1945 was a pivotal year in World War II from Hitler’s defeat to VE Day. Woven into the Pennant’s committee reports are hints as to what was going on in the wider world.
Entries honoring Franklin D. Roosevelt.
As the war raged on, The Pennant was there to capture the goings-on of domestic life and the war effort. The newsletter included birthday and wedding anniversary announcements as well as updates on enlisted employees or relatives.
An employee’s letter from his son who had been released from a German P.O.W. camp.
It also featured cartoon reminders of attendance and safety precautions to keep morale and productivity up.
A newsletter cartoon joking about attendance.
Come take a step back in time and explore the Simplex Pennant Collection! View the collection finding aid here. You can also take a look at selected pages from issues of the Simplex Pennant, digitized and available on our Flickr page.
We are happy to announce the availability of three new finding aids and the addition of a subject inventory for one of our collections! Scroll down for descriptions and samples of images from the following collections: Traffic Proposals and Plans – A Supplement to the Cambridge Traffic Department Collection, Daniel White Charity Fund Cash Book, Hugh Russell Collection, and the Boston Globe Cambridge Clippings Collection Inventory.
Traffic Proposals and Plans – A Supplement to the Cambridge Traffic Department Collection
This collection contains report plans, transit reports, and studies prepared by agencies for improvement projects in Cambridge from 1962 to 1990. Subjects in this collection include Relocation/Construction of the Lechmere Station Project, Alewife Boulevard Alignment Study, and the North Point Roadway and Infrastructure Project.
This collection consists of one ledger detailing the income, cash account, interest, and other financial aspects of the Daniel White Charity Fund in Cambridge from its inception in 1863 to early 1959. An introduction to the ledger is written by former Cambridge mayor J. Warren Merrill. White gave $5000 to the Mayor and certain Trustees of Cambridge to be held in trust with the following instructions:
Go hold and invest the sum safely and to apply the income thereof from time to time according to the discretion of the Trustees to the purchasing and gratuitous distribution of fuel among the worth and deserving poor of my (his) native City of Cambridge.
This collection covers the years 1972 – 2011 and is divided into two series. Click here to view the finding aid.
Series One consists of six boxes of Planning Board documents concerning special permit applications. The folder list is a spread sheet, which is arranged alphabetically by street address. The information for each address includes proponent, significant dates, PB number, project name and description, and a list of folder contents. Box 6 contains for the most part information concerning University Park. Click here to view the spreadsheet for Series 1.
Series Two consists of two boxes of reports, meeting minutes, newsletters, proposals, petitions, surveys from a variety of neighborhood committees and organizations as well city departments, all of which concern various urban planning and development issues in Cambridge. The folder list for this series is a word document. Click here to view the spreadsheet for Series 2.
As these materials are housed offsite, please contact our archivist, Emily at egonzalez@cambridgema.gov or at 617.349.6112 to make an appointment and view the collection.
Boston Globe Cambridge Clippings Collection Inventory
In relation to our previous post, the subject list inventory for the collection of newspaper clipping files from The Boston Globe clipping library is now available online. Click here to access the inventory.
The Commission is happy to announce the availability of newly digitized images and updates to finding aids for four of our collections! Scroll down for descriptions and samples of images from the following collections: Inner Belt Scrapbook, Godinho Family Photograph Collection, Cambridge Manual Training School/ Rindge Manual Training School/
Rindge Technical School Collection, and the Curtis Mellen Photograph Collection.
Inner Belt Scrapbook
Proposed in the mid-1950s, the Inner Belt was once a planned highway that would have been Interstate 695. If built, this highway would have run a route through parts of Cambridge, Boston, Somerville, and Brookline. Many citizens protested the plan as it would have divided neighborhoods and displaced thousands of residents. This collection contains scrapbook pages detailing the saga of the Inner Belt campaign from 1960-1969.
Flyer: State House Rally, Jamaica-Plain-Roxbury Expressway Committee, 1969Clippings: Inner Belt Activities; Morning Union Leader, Christian Science Monitor, The Cambridge Chronicle; March 1966
Additional pages from the Inner Belt Scrapbook can be viewed here.
Godinho Family Photograph Collection
Scrapbook page: Members of the Godinho Family, c. 1920
This collection contains photographic materials and personal items of the Godinhos, a Portuguese family who lived in Cambridge from the late nineteenth to mid twentieth century. Although little is known about the individuals depicted, including many of their identities, the collection contains photos of the Azores, a region in Portugal, indicating that this may be where the family originated. When whaling and fishing declined towards the end of the nineteenth century, many Portuguese immigrants, who had been whalers and fishermen in New Bedford, Massachusetts, moved to industrial towns near Boston, including Cambridge. The Portuguese Catholic population became large enough that in 1902 St. Anthony’s Church was opened in East Cambridge.
Unknown Boy: Gribal Godinho Family – First Holy Communion Portrait, c. 1915-1920Joseph Godinho (left) and Unknown Man, c. 1920
Additional images from the Godinho Family Photograph Collection can be viewed here.
Cambridge Manual Training School/ Rindge Manual Training School/
Rindge Technical School Collection
The Cambridge Manual Training School for Boys was founded by Frederick Hastings Rindge in September 1888. The Cambridge School Committee renamed the school Rindge Manual Training School in 1899 in honor of Mr. Rindge after he retired. Considering its broadened offerings in technical education, the school was later renamed Rindge Technical School. In 1977, the Rindge Technical School merged with the Cambridge High and Latin School to form the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School (CRLS).
Having been assembled from multiple sources, items in this collection are related to the school and range from the 1880s to 1940s. Formats include photographs, documents, correspondence, and objects. Photographic subjects include events and classes at the Rindge School and Camp Rindge, as well as fire brigade practice operations.
Chemistry classroom, c. 1920sFire brigade operations, c. 1910
The bulk of this collection includes photographs of sports teams and individual players at Rindge Technical School. Many images depict the football team, but also include crew, hockey, track, swimming, and baseball.
Curtis Mellen Photograph Collection The Mellens were a very prominent family in Cambridge, and their soap business, Curtis Davis & Co., became the American branch of Lever Brothers, the largest soap manufacturer in the world at the time.
Interior View: Curtis Davis and Co., 180 Broadway
This collection includes family photographs as well as photographs of both the interior and exterior of Mellen family homes in Cambridge. Depicted are homes on Broadway, Chauncy, Forest, Linnean, and Hampshire streets. Many of the photographs have been attributed to Edwin D. Mellen and depict lavish interiors with intricate fixtures and furnishings.
Interior View: 33 Washington Avenue, c. 1880sInterior View: Unknown address, c. 1880s-1890s
Additional images from the Curtis Mellen Photograph Collection can be viewed here.
To schedule an appointment for in-person research, please contact the Cambridge Historical Commission today at 617.349.4683 or e-mail our Archivist, Emily at egonzalez@cambridgema.gov.
Last week, we received a special visit from Richard Pennington, a former librarian for the Boston Globe. Mr. Pennington and Lisa Tuite, the Globe’s Head of Library, donated seven boxes of newspaper clippings from the Globe’s newspaper clipping morgue. The clippings date from 1900 to around 1977 (with some from the 1980s) and include interesting news stories and information pertaining to Cambridge. The stories come not only from the Boston Globe, but from other newspapers and publications, including the Boston Herald and the Transcript.
The newspaper clippings are arranged by subject, and they run the gamut of topics related to Cambridge history: from specific Cambridge buildings (of particular interest to the Commission), to local politics, to schools, historic riots, and Cambridge businesses.
According to Pennington, “The Globe was clipped from around 1900 until it went electronic in 1977 – it was the first newspaper to store its content in a computer for retrieval.” The content of the clipped, indexed and filed newspaper clippings often depended on the preference of the librarian at the time. Pennington also added that, “The city desk also had a decades-long policy of sending ephemera to the library to be added to the clipping files, and this included small photographs. Occasionally odd book chapters and magazine articles were added to the files.”
Pennington helped with the recent and ongoing transition of the Boston Globe Library’s collections to new institutions, as the Globe relocates from their Morrissey Boulevard location back to downtown Boston. Pennington was assistant librarian at the Globe when he left in 2007. The large majority of the Boston Globe clippings collection was transferred to Northeastern University — however, the Cambridge Historical Commission was fortunate enough to receive a great portion of this collection for our research files.
The newspaper clippings will be processed, cross-indexed with our architectural inventory files, and a finding aid will be created for researchers. The collection is currently not open for research.
