Tag: collections

New Collections Available!

Posted on by Meta Partenheimer

We are happy to announce that we have recently processed and updated finding aids from several collections in our holdings. Scroll down for descriptions and sample images from the following collections: Patsy Baudoin Collection of Cambridge Prints and Photographs, Edwin Freeman Bowker Collection, Honors and Awards Collection, Alan McClennen Senior Collection, Cambridge Militia Records, City of Cambridge Veterans’ Graves Registration Cards Inventory, and William Lawrence Galvin Collection.

Patsy Baudoin Collection of Cambridge Prints and Photographs

This collection, sometimes known as an artificial collection, consists of photographs, drawings, and prints of historical houses and locations in Cambridge.  Also included are several page clippings from various books including the Historic Guide to Cambridge, Ever New England, and other area guides to historic houses.

Johnston Gate, Harvard Yard
One (1) pencil sketch: Johnston Gate, Harvard Yard by W. Harry Smith (Artist)

Most of the houses depicted in the prints were built pre-Revolutionary War, from 1660-1763, and have a long history of famous residents, including Margaret Fuller, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and John White Webster.  Additionally, many of the houses are listed as National Historic Landmarks including the seven houses that make up “Tory Row” on Brattle Street.

Longfellow in his Study
Longfellow in his study ca. 1870-1880. Photographer unknown.

Click here to view the finding aid for this collection.

Edwin Freeman Bowker Collection

This collection is composed of five boxes and two flat files containing Edwin F. Bowker’s professional correspondence as a civil engineer and surveyor. Included are surveyor’s notes and records, draft sketches, manual calculations, notes on markers, drawings, plans, transcripts regarding property boundaries from deeds, and correspondence from mid-1886 through 1919.

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Documents related to property at Hasting and Monson Streets, 1920

Click here to view the finding aid for this collection.

Honors and Awards Collection

This collection contains certificates honoring the Cambridge Historical Commission and various Cambridge businesses and organizations for their service to the built environment of this community.

YWCA001
Plaque and pencil sketch for the City of Cambridge Ruth L. Barron Award for Outstanding Community Service, 2014.

Click here to view the finding aid for this collection.

Alan McClennen Senior Collection

Included in this collection are maps, development studies, town reports, and traffic studies for the City of Cambridge with the bulk of the materials dating from the 1950s to the 1970s. Alan McClennen served as the Planning Director for the City of Cambridge from 1958 until 1968. Researchers interested in viewing the Alan McClennen Senior Collection will be engaged by topics on community development in the City of Cambridge during the mid-twentieth century. We would like to give a special thanks to volunteer Steve Kaiser, for to his contribution to the spreadsheet and box list for this collection.

Alewife001
Booklet for Alewife Brook Park created by AD Little/Cambridge Corporation, 1968
RR_grade_sep001
Memo on Railroad Grade Separations by the Cambridge Planning Board, 5 December 1950

Click here to view the finding aid for this collection.

Cambridge Militia Records

This collection contains nine record books detailing militia records for the City of Cambridge for the years 1846-1886. Each book contains lists of names recording those enrolled in the Cambridge Militia. At times these lists are accompanied by marginal notes.

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Militia roll: 1877 (“Ward Two Book”)
IMAG3956
Cambridge Militia Ledger: 1846-1859

Click here to view the finding aid for this collection.

City of Cambridge Veterans’ Graves Registration Cards Inventory

This collection contains veterans’ graves registration cards, filed in alphabetical order, for graves in various cemeteries in Cambridge. A majority of the graves are registered at Mount Auburn Cemetery and Cambridge Cemetery, but also include others, such as the North Cambridge Catholic Cemetery and Belmont Town Cemetery.

Click here to view the finding aid for this collection.

William Lawrence Galvin Collection

The collection contains print and photographic materials of William L. Galvin’s professional records and architectural drawings. This collection consists of correspondence, writing, articles, government records, photographs and drawings that depict Galvin’s professional career. The core of the collection consists of drawings for over 1,000 architectural projects, of which about 530 projects in Cambridge have been cataloged.

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Proposed Dormitory – Social and Recreational Center, Lesley College, undated

For the first time, indexes to photographs in the Galvin collection as well as rolled items not related to Cambridge are available. Follow the links above to view PDFs of these lists.

Over a 50-year career, 1927-1979, Galvin made a significant impact on the landscape of Cambridge through his numerous projects and constant support for progressive land use to fit a modernizing Cambridge community. This collection provides valuable insight into Galvin’s personality and professional work that has left a lasting mark on the landscape of the City of Cambridge.

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Drawing of Shea Cleaning Plant and Showroom, undated

Click here to view the finding aid for this collection.

To view the above collections, please make an appointment with our archivist, Emily, at egonzalez@cambridgema.gov. Our research hours are: Monday: 4:00-7:00 pm | Tuesday: 2:00-4:00 pm | Wednesday – Thursday: 10-12 and 2-4 pm.

Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to process collections and make them available for research!

 

Getting to Know Your CHC Staff: Part 4

Posted on 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.

profile
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).

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I love old photographs. This one is of my grandpa Les and his siblings on a farm in South Dakota.
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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.”
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Thanks for the free corndogs, Zooper. Image courtesy of Google.
  • My fiancé and I have a tuxedo cat named June. She rules the household.
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HRH

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.

emg-saa
Archivist fashion

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-recdeptWhat 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

New Guest Post from our Mayor’s Youth

Posted on by cambridgehistoricalcommission

My Time Working as a Mayor’s Youth for the Commission

Hello, I’m Raimi. I am interning at the Cambridge Historical Commission for half of the summer of 2018, through the Mayor’s Summer Youth Employment Program. I started to be interested in history during 6th grade, because that was the first year we had a real dedicated history class. That year we learned mostly about geography, pre-civilization humans, and the bronze age. Eventually my gaze fell upon history in the last 200 years or so, especially the Cold War, and very ancient history.

(This could be either of the two things I just mentioned)
(This could be either of the two things I just mentioned)

History is what I want to do with my life, and I’m glad I got this chance to work in an actual historical workplace. I deal with mostly filing and photocopying. One of the coolest projects was when I made a spreadsheet of almost 400 photo negatives, which took a little over 3 days to complete.

What I like best about interning here is that there is usually something new to do every day. To be specific, one day I might be photocopying entire books, and the next I could be filing away slides. My favorite artifact here at the CHC is this long petition for a new water source with over 2000 signatures, including one Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

A few facts about myself is that I have a cat named Moonlight, and a dog named Lola, but my favorite animal is the Venezuela Poodle Moth.

THE MOTH
Lola Belle Wiggles
Dr. Moonlight M.D.

I enjoy reading, and my favorite book is Lirael by Garth Nix, but I would say the most well written book I’ve ever read is Lord of the Flies by William Golding.

Oof ouch, the fire is too hot

Last thing I want to say is that if you’re in high school you can get job experience right now. It doesn’t even have to be a MYSEP job, it could just be volunteering at your school library. So don’t wait and start early.

New Finding Aids Added to ArchivesSpace

Posted on by cambridgehistoricalcommission

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

Cambridge Recreation Department Collection

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Images from the Cambridge Recreation Department Collection, CHC011

Squirrel Brand Company Collection

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Image of ephemera from Squirrel Brand Company Collection

Explore other collections and digital materials here.

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

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

Now Open: Cogswell Collection

Posted on by cambridgehistoricalcommission

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

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

Charles N. Cogswell Scrapbook Page #23
Top Left: “E” – Bryant St. from corner of Irving St., May 3, 1912. Top Right: View from Irving Street. Bottom Left: View from same point as above, September 1920. Bottom Right: View from same point as above, September 2, 1916.

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

Charles N. Cogswell Scrapbook Page #2
Charles’s brother George Cogswell on a penny-farthing.

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

Charles N. Cogswell Miscellaneous #17
Top right: April 30, 1910. The beginning of the extension of Francis Avenue through to Museum Street, before the Andover Seminary Building was constructed. Bottom left: 61 Kirkland Street. Bottom right: [Francis Ave.] View from same point on September 2, 1916 [Professor Chas H. Haskins-House in distance]
Shady Hill is located east of Harvard Yard, right next to what is now the Harvard Divinity School. The Cogswell Collection is unique because it captures the in-between moments of growth in Cambridge and shows what the city looked like as construction was happening.

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

Charles N. Cogswell Scrapbook Page #10
Views from Irving Street, 1891.
Charles N. Cogswell Scrapbook Page #3
Aerial view of Irving Street, 1888.

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

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

Charles N. Cogswell Scrapbook Page #5
Cyanotype photographs of a regatta on the Charles River, 1887 or 1888.
Charles N. Cogswell Scrapbook Page #20
Family dog, Kinch, on the Cambridge Common.
Charles N. Cogswell Scrapbook Page #15
Top: View of Holmes Field, 1886 or 1887. Bottom: Shaw Barn on Kirkland Road after the fire, April 7, 1886 (owned by Prof. G.M. Lane).

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

ArchivesSpace and the CHC

Posted on by Meta Partenheimer

Recently, the CHC formed a partnership with the Cambridge Public Library (CPL) in an effort to make our collections more digitally accessible. With the help of CPL Archivist Alyssa Pacy, we have begun to encode finding aids from our repository and upload them into an ArchivesSpace account that the CPL is kindly sharing with us.

Some of our readers may be wondering why this project is beneficial, or you may be unsure about what encoding a finding aid means. Let’s start at the beginning:

After a collection is donated to us, we perform a number of steps to ready the materials for research and use. Among these are physical processing as well as arrangement and description. The final product of this process is an organized collection with an accompanying finding aid, a document that describes the records and their significance.

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A typical collection donation–unorganized and waiting to be formed into a usable resource. Source: Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/modal/exhibit-slideshow/26546

At the CHC, we create print and PDF copies of our finding aids to be used in our office and to make available on our website.

 

xonnabel_fa
PDF finding aid for the Xonnabel Clark Collection

Whereas these versions are text-searchable, encoding a finding aid renders the text machine-readable and gives meaning to each section described. This is achieved by encoding the finding aid in XML (Extensible Markup Language). This process is akin to writing HTML to create a website.

xonnabel_XML
A snippet of the XML document encoded for the Xonnabel Clark Collection using Oxygen XML Editor software.

After our finding aids are encoded, we upload the XML document to a platform that can convert this information to display nicely for human eyes while still retaining the machine-readable “meaning” behind the words. In our case, we are using ArchivesSpace.

xonnabel_coll
The Xonnabel Clark Collection finding aid – available on ArchivesSpace

One example of this capability is in the subjects section. In paper or PDF finding aids, these items are simply words that convey the multiple subjects that may exist within a collection. Employed digitally, these subjects link collections with the same subject by just clicking your mouse.

xonnabel_subj

So, we hope you are as excited about our ArchivesSpace partnership with CPL as we are! We hope to continue to encode both new and existing finding aids to make all of our resources from the CHC more accessible. In the meantime, follow the links below to view our ArchivesSpace page or browse one of our available finding aids: the Cambridge Manual Training School/ Rindge Manual Training School/ Rindge Technical School Collection. We would love to hear your feedback!

Cambridge Archives Test

Rindge School

Now Open: The Simplex Pennant Collection

Posted on by cambridgehistoricalcommission

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

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

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

blog photo #1
Scores from company bowling league and trivia section.

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

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

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

blog photo #5
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.

blog photo #7
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.

blog photo #7
A newsletter cartoon joking about attendance.

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

Now Open: Xonnabel Clark Collection

Posted on by cambridgehistoricalcommission

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

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

But this collection is about Xonnabel.

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

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

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

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

Grace M.E. Church Postcard
A colored postcard of the church

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

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

Grace U.M.C. Scout Troop 17
One of the many Boy Scout Troops the church sponsored

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

Grace Church Herald, October 1903
An old church newsletter; note the baseball statistics

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

MLK_Program001
One of the multiple programs for Martin Luther King, Jr. celebrations

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

Grace U.M.C. Cakeless Cake Sale
A Cakeless Cake Sale, a novel new way to do bake sales

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

Grace U.M.C. Service
A photograph of Sunday service

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

New Finding Aids Available!

Posted on by Meta Partenheimer

The Commission has recently finished conducting inventories on a few of our smaller collections, and the corresponding finding aids for each are now available. Scroll down to read descriptions and view a selection of images from the following collections: Hovey Family Records, Signet Hosiery Company Collection, Squirrel Brand Company Collection, Cambridge Historical Commission Objects Collection, and The Riverside Press Collection.

Hovey Family Records

The Hovey Family Records are a collection of documents, booklets, and photographs which once belonged to the Hovey Family of Cambridge. In 1997, the bulk of the collection was found in a house in Worcester, MA by Shirley Piermarini and these items were donated to the CHC that same year. In 2001, Ms. Piermarini donated five Hovey family photographs. View the finding aid here.

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Photograph portrait of a young girl in the Hovey family, taken in 1871.

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Caption: Susan A. Hovey’s autograph book, 1876

Signet Hosiery Company collection

In 1926, the Signet Hosiery Company began moving into the newly-expanded Kendall Square Building located at 238 Main Street in Cambridge. Signet and its president William H. Doty encouraged customers to form their own Signet Clubs with their friends and relatives. Weekly membership dues of $1 entitled you to a subscription for hosiery and lingerie at discount prices.

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Membership book for the Signet Hosiery Company, 1926

This collection contains materials from the 1920s-1930s, and includes documents relating to Signet Hosiery Company club membership along with a Signet Hosiery Company hosiery box. View the finding aid here.

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Signet Hosiery Company hosiery box measuring 3 x 6.75 x 9.5”, c. 1920s-1930s

Squirrel Brand Company collection

The Squirrel Brand candy company started in 1890 in Roxbury, but had a presence in Cambridge beginning in 1915. Their focus was on manufacturing nut-based candies, such as roasted nuts and nougats. Their most popular product was made of caramel, vanilla, and nut taffy called the “Squirrel Nut Zipper.” Squirrel Brand moved to Texas after being purchased by Southern Style Nuts in 1999. The New England Confectionery Company (NECCO) purchased the license for Squirrel Brand from Southern Style in 2004, officially bringing the long-loved company back to Massachusetts.

Squirrel Brand adv card IMG_20151222_113527
Cardboard advertisement to “Eat Squirrel Brand Butter Chews,” c. 1940s.

This collection includes advertising materials manufactured for the Squirrel Brand Company, c. 1910-1940, and one copy of a document relating the history of the company from “The History of Candy Making in Cambridge” by the Cambridge Historical Society. View the finding aid here.

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Tin container for Squirrel Brand Salted Mixed Nuts, c. 1930s.

Cambridge Historical Commission Objects collection

This collection is composed of objects relating to various aspects of Cambridge history, c. 1890s-1980s. Within the collection are vases, pins, buttons, and badges. View the finding aid here.

longfellow_vase
Longfellow Home Vase, glazed ceramic, made in Germany, 5.25” in height, no date
badge
Cambridge 50th Anniversary Souvenir Pin, 1896

The Riverside Press collection

The Riverside Press started in Boston as a book-printing factory that began in 1852. Later, Henry Houghton began The Riverside Press along the Charles River in Cambridge.

building001
Photograph of the Riverside Press building, c. 1910

The Riverside Press collection contains photographic materials related to The Riverside Press. Subjects include architectural views of The Riverside Press buildings, interior views, machinery, and construction views, c. 1890s-1950s. View the finding aid here.

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Photograph of the first automatic fed cylinder press at Riverside, c. 1910

Currently, these findings aids are only available in paper format at the Commission. To view the finding aids for these collections, or 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.