Yesterday marked the last official day of American Archives Month (October), and we wanted to thank everyone who participated in some of our own celebratory archives events here at the CHC.
In case you missed it (ICYMI):
On October 4, the CHC archivist – with the help of the City of Cambridge’s Director of Communications – took over the City of Cambridge Twitter account for Ask An Archivist Day. Anyone with questions about any and all aspects of archives – not just in Cambridge – could tweet to @CambMA and use the hashtag #AskAnArchivist to get a response. Check out some of the great questions and other interesting Cambridge history tidbits here!
We featured a couple of “behind the scenes” looks at some interesting collections in our archives via our Instagram.
Our new research series, “Researching the History of Your House in Cambridge”, took place from October 16 to today, November 1. This was a collaborative three-week event highlighting house history resources at the Cambridge Room (Cambridge Public Library), the Historical Commission, and the Department of Public Works.
Research series attendees browsing and learning at the CHC
If you missed this year’s research series, stay tuned, as we’ll be offering it again in a couple of months. And don’t forget, you can always make an appointment with us to research your building or house: histcomm@cambridgema.gov or 617-349-4683.
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.
Close-up of architectural inventory form for an address on Hampshire Street, CHC
Join staff members from the Cambridge Historical Commission, the City of Cambridge Department of Public Works and the Cambridge Room at the Cambridge Public Library for a three-week series on researching the history of your house or building.
Registration is mandatory, though you do not have to attend all three sessions (though we highly recommend it!). For your convenience, each department will offer two days of the same session – one in the evening and one in the afternoon.
To register, please check out the schedule below and contact the person listed. Looking forward to seeing you there!
Session 1: The Cambridge Room at the Cambridge Public Library This hour-long, hands-on workshop will guide you through a variety of online resources that will help you research your home from the comfort of your home. Discover when your building was built and by who. Find out who lived in your house and how your neighborhood has changed. We will provide laptops. Registration is mandatory.
Monday, October 16
6:00 – 7:00 PM
Location: Community Room, Cambridge Public Library
Max. 16 participants
or
Wednesday, October 18
3:00 – 4:00 PM
Location: Beech Room, Cambridge Public Library
Max. 13 participants
Led by Alyssa Pacy, Archivist at the Cambridge Public Library. To register, email: apacy@cambridgema.gov or call 617-349-7757
Session 2: Cambridge Historical Commission The Commission’s research collection is founded on an architectural inventory that contains survey forms, photographs, and documentation on all 13,000+ buildings in the City. Participants will learn how individual homes can be researched using these inventory files, as well as the Commission’s collection of city directories, atlases, maps, photographs, books on the City’s different neighborhoods, and some deed, tax, and building permit records.
Led by Cambridge Historical Commission staff. To register, email: egonzalez@cambridgema.gov or call: 617-349-4070
Session 3: Cambridge Department of Public Works The public works collection is primarily focused on sewer & drain utility drawings and plans showing the boundaries of the public rights of way. But many of these and other records, which go as far back as 1840, also include interesting historical facts such as previous building, street, and water body configurations as well as ancient industries, property owner names and assessment values. Participants will learn how individual locations can be researched with geographic, database, and online indexes and they’ll see how those indexes have evolved.
Monday, October 30
6:00 – 7:00 PM
Location: Department of Public Works, 147 Hampshire Street
Max. 12 participants
Or
Wednesday, November 1
2:00 – 3:00 PM
Location: Department of Public Works, 147 Hampshire Street
Max. 12 participants
Led by George Stylianopoulos, City of Cambridge Department of Public Works. To register, email: sgeorge@cambridgema.gov
General questions about the series? Call 617-349-4683.
Cambridge is a city rich with so much history, so many museums, libraries, and schools, that it can be hard to know where exactly to go for specific historical materials. The new Cambridge Archives website aims to help researchers, history lovers and curious citizens figure out which Cambridge archive holds what kinds of materials.
The new Cambridge Archives site was created with the generosity of the Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati (Anderson House), and through a collaboration with the Cambridge Historical Society, the Cambridge Historical Commission and the Cambridge Room of the Cambridge Public Library. Check it out, and watch for more updates over the next couple of months as we add more archives and collecting institutions to the site (add yours, too!).
Among the oversize materials in our flat files, the CHC holds architectural drawings and specifications of a house to be built for Lyman A. Belknap in Cambridge.
Front elevation of a home to be built at 9 Forest Street. The house was never constructed.
Mr. Belknap purchased a lot at 9 Forest Street in North Cambridge on March 31, 1871 but despite the elegant mansard design by architect G. F. Meacham, Belknap sold the property later that same year to William Frost, Jr. At this time, the land was still undeveloped. In 1872, Frost built a large, three-story mansard house on the lot for James M. Hilton, who rented the home to tenants.
Architectural survey form for 9 Forest Street.
Residents of 9 Forest Street
In early 1983, a descendant of Edwin Davis Mellen gifted the CHC with several family photographs taken in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Many are interior and exterior shots of homes, with a number known to be located in Cambridge. Among the photographs are two taken at 9 Forest Street.
Mellen (1861-1918), an 1884 M.I.T. graduate, was a talented amateur photographer. By profession a chemist, he became a partner in the Cambridge soap manufacturer Curtis, Davis & Co. He and his wife, Adele Jeanne, nee Lods, initially lived on Essex Street, not far from the factory, but in 1892-98 they rented the house at 9 Forest Street. In 1897 the British firm of Lever Brothers purchased an interest in Mellen’s firm, and he built a new home at 1590 Massachusetts Avenue (now demolished). With him were his wife, and a daughter, Lucile Christina.
The Mellen family at 9 Forest Street: Lucile Mellen and an unknown boy sit on tricycles. Adele can be seen sitting on the front steps. The photograph was taken by Edwin, ca. 1893-1898.An unknown boy, Lucile Mellen, and an unknown girl on the steps of 9 Forest Street, ca. 1893-1898.
This house was also once the home of Dr. Lucy A. “Sleeping Lucy” Cooke. Lucy’s foresight and restorative powers appeared when she was a young girl in Vermont. Lucy honed her talents and was known in her time as a psychic healer. Although she had no formal medical training, patients called her Dr. Cooke, and she was said to invent prescriptions and even heal broken bones, all while under a trance or hypnosis. Lucy also ran a mail-order prescription business. In addition to her medical talents, Lucy aided police with unsolved cases and helped discover missing items while in state of trance.
Portrait of Lucy Cooke (b. 1819 – d. 1895) by an unknown artist. Oil on canvas, c. 1850. Vermont Historical Society. In 1916 Lucy’s husband bequeathed $1,000 and the portrait to Mount Auburn Hospital on the condition that it be hung in a public area. The hospital declined the bequest, and it went to the Montpelier Public Library instead.
Lucy moved to Boston in 1876 with her secretary and soon-to-be second husband, Everett W. Raddin. In June of 1887, she purchased the three-story mansard home at 9 Forest Street. In 1891 Mr. Raddin converted the carriage house to a residence (at left in the photo above), and it is likely that the couple moved there so they could rent out the main house. Lucy ran her practice at this address, and continued to live there until she died in 1895 at age 76.
Article on “Sleeping Lucy” from 1966.
Lucy’s talents were said to be known worldwide, and many clients would line up outside her door for consultation and cures. One of Lucy’s most famous clients was Mary Baker Eddy, known as the founder of Christian Science. Lucy treated Mrs. Eddy and her children while living in Cavendish, Vermont. Both women are buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery.
9 Forest Street in 2009.
Today, the large house sits on the corner of Forest Street and Newport Road, and looks much as it did in the late nineteenth century. Many more photographs exist in the collection donated by the Mellens, with detailed home interiors and the family engaged in activities of the day. This collection is open for research on-site at the Cambridge Historical Commission.
In the late 1990s, Ronald R. Rindge donated a collection of materials that had belonged to his grandfather, the philanthropist Frederick Hastings Rindge (1857-1905). Earlier this month, Frederick Hastings Rindge’s great-great-granddaughter, Melissa Rindge, came to visit the commission. CHC Executive Director Charles Sullivan showed Melissa a selection of Rindge items. This collection is comprised of materials relating to the Rindge family’s business interests in New England and Frederick Hastings Rindge’s donations to the city of Cambridge, including the Cambridge Public Library (1887), Cambridge Manual Training School (1888), and City Hall (1889).
Charlie showing Melissa the Cambridge Manual Training School Yearbook from the class of 1897.
Born to a wealthy textile merchant family in Cambridge, Massachusetts on December 21, 1857, Frederick Hastings Ridge grew up to become a successful businessman. Rindge was privately tutored before continuing his education at Harvard. The passing of his parents in the late 1880s left him with an inherited estate of approximately 2 million dollars.
Portrait of Frederick Hastings Rindge from his book Happy Days in Southern California.
The Cambridge Historical Commission is proud to house the Frederick Hastings Rindge Collection, which contains materials from 1852-2001. Included are correspondence, photographs, financial records, family papers, and architectural drawings, among other items.
Ledger page detailing real estate and property inventory, 1 July 1893.
Rindge’s business interests in New England comprised a number of textile mills and manufacturing companies and he owned a large number of real estate properties, mostly inherited from his father. Many of our records represent the family business as well as Rindge’s philanthropic efforts.
Photograph of Monadnock Mills, located in Claremont, New Hampshire c. 1890s.Monadnock Mills comparison financial statement, 31 May and 30 November 1897. Francis J. Parker was one of Frederick Hastings Rindge’s business managers.Happy Days in Southern California was published in 1898. The book begins with a history of this region and follows with descriptions of animals, flora, and scenery.
In 1888 Rindge relocated to California, where he purchased large tracts in Los Angeles and a 17,000-acre Spanish land grant north of Santa Monica that is now occupied by the town of Malibu. Between 1888 and 1890, Rindge’s old schoolmate, William E. Russell, then Mayor of Cambridge, urged him to fund the construction of a number of projects in Cambridge, including the Cambridge Manual Training School (later renamed the Rindge Manual Training School and now the Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School). Rindge hired the architects, superintended the construction, hired the faculty, reviewed applications from students, and supported the school for five years before turning it over to the city. Because Rindge was living in California, all these matters were the subject of extensive correspondence with his agents in Boston.
Rindge Manual Training School Register, March 1903.Photograph of the Rindge Manual Training School baseball team, 1925.
Many records held in the collection relate to the Cambridge Manual Training School and Camp Rindge, a summer camp program for the CMTS students at Lake Winnipesaukee, NH.
A tent erected at Camp Rindge, c. 1893.
This collection is open for viewing and research at the Cambridge Historical Commission. Stop by during our research hours: Monday: 4:00-7:00PM, and Tuesday/Thursday: 9:30-11:30AM and 2:00-4:00PM, or feel free to call and make an appointment with our archivist!
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.
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 in her library cataloging corner.
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.
Sushi Russell.Russell Pt. 2.
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.
A print from the William Galvin Collection, one of many architectural drawings and designs that Emily cataloged and photographed over the past several months.
May is Preservation Month, and over the next few weeks we will be posting about a couple of preservation-related archival projects that we are working on over here at the Commission.
Here at the Cambridge Historical Commission, our holdings are centered on the built environment of the city, with strong collections on the social, business, and industrial history of Cambridge. Formats include photographs, manuscripts, architectural plans, and books, among other mediums. The most valuable intellectual asset of the Commission is our collection of architectural survey files, documenting the history of every building (over 13,000) in Cambridge.
An example of an architectural survey form from CHC’s files. Between 1964 and 1977, the commission surveyed and photographed every building in Cambridge.
As our largest collection, the architectural survey files contain architectural survey forms, photographs, news clippings, and like materials for buildings in Cambridge.
The Executive Director of the CHC, Charles M. Sullivan, documented interior and exterior conditions before this home underwent renovations in the early 1980s.
Each file holds documents on every current building in Cambridge as well as records of many demolished buildings. An address may contain one sheet or boast an entire file folder depending on its history in the community.
Many files contain a history of the address from its original purchase. These documents contain valuable information including dates and prices of sale or taxes, and a description of the building.
These files are used quite frequently by architects, building managers, or homeowners, and are open for research.
Included in some files are newspaper clippings regarding the building’s history or current projects. This clipping from 1983 details a renovation project at this home on Otis Street.
As these files currently exist only in physical format, a patron must perform any research with our survey files in-person. The Commission is currently embarking on a pilot digitization project to improve access. This project will facilitate the creation of a searchable and browsable database, which will allow us to upload and share our survey files online.
Taken by Alex Beatty in 1988, this image depicts the finished renovation of 67-69 Otis Street. Image courtesy of the Cambridge Historical Commission.
Please feel free to contact the Cambridge Historical Commission to explore the history of your property. Our research hours are Mondays 4:00-7:00pm, and Tuesday through Thursday 9:30-11:30am and 2:00-4:00pm. Check our blog often for updates on our other projects, and for news on when our digital files will be accessible!
The Cambridge Recreation Department Collection is now processed and available for research! This collection was donated to the Cambridge Historical Commission in August 1995 by Curtis Gaines, an employee of Human Services.
The Collection
This collection includes scrapbooks, books, and photographs that once belonged to the Recreation Department, as well as photographs that were already in the possession of the CHC. Much of the materials consist of City Council orders concerning park maintenance and upkeep, as well as department financial matters. The collection also includes budget appropriations materials, planning materials for parks and playgrounds, and department reports.
Preliminary Design for the Proposed Observatory Hill Park, Cambridge Planning Board, March 1950. Courtesy of the Cambridge Historical Commission.
A Brief History of the Recreation Department
The Cambridge Recreation Department was established in 1892 as the Cambridge, Massachusetts Park Commission. The Board of Park Commissioners with chairman General E. W. Hincks were now tasked with providing Cambridge citizens with a worthy park system. Previously, Cambridge only had a few poorly planned and maintained public parks with no public programs.
Cambridge City Council Order March 29, 1892, ordering “…the Committee on Parks be directed to consider and report upon the advisability of purchasing a tract of land…”
The commissioners hired landscape architect Charles Eliot and his firm, Olmsted, Olmsted, & Eliot to improve the existing parks and plan new ones in poorer, more congested neighborhoods. In 1894, the city acquired Donnelly Field in East Cambridge, Rindge Field in North Cambridge, and the entire Cambridge frontage of the Charles River. The latter section gave the department 800 acres of mud flat and degraded salt marsh by eminent domain and by 1914 a park was created along the length of the city’s shoreline. In 1910, the city began to construct playgrounds and to operate recreation programs there, and these functions expanded after the riverfront park was transferred to the Metropolitan District Commission in 1921.
City Council Order asking that the Park Commissioners purchase “Jerry’s Pit” to create a swimming pool. Dated April 7, 1914.
Maypole events were organized by the Cambridge Park Commission in the 1920s and 1930s. After the crowning of a “May Queen,” the young and gaily attired girls of the city would dance around the Maypole. Following this ceremony, there would be music, baskets of flowers, and other spring-themed activities for the children.
This image depicts a scene from a May festival on the Cambridge Common c.1925. Courtesy of the Cambridge Historical Commission.
After World War II, the responsibilities of the Park Commission were divided between the Department of Public Works and the Human Services Department. DPW began to oversee the parks, while Human Services took over recreational programs.
A group of teenagers posing on the ice during the 1940s. Three are holding hockey sticks.
