Today marks the 121st birthday of Helen M. Thomas!
Portrait of Helen Meriwether Lewis (1923). Image courtesy Schlesinger Library, Harvard Radcliffe Institute.
Born Helen Meriwether Lewis on August 21, 1905 in New York, she began her early education in the city and continued her high school years at St. Catherine’s School in Richmond, VA. Helen earned her AB from Radcliffe College in 1928 in government, but her interest in astronomy was inspired by undergraduate work at the Harvard College Observatory (HCO), where she assisted Professor Willem Luyten in identifying white dwarf stars.
Entry for Helen Meriwether Lewis, The Year Book of 1928, Radcliffe College. Image courtesy Schlesinger Library, Harvard Radcliffe Institute.
Helen married Frederick M. Thomas shortly after her graduation and they had one son. The marriage ended and Helen found employment in many organizations. She worked for three years as secretary to Leon Campbell, head of the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO), then affiliated with the HCO. She joined the Observatory staff under the remarkable astronomer Cecelia Payne-Goposchkin. During the late 1930s, Helen began work towards a PhD in the History of Science under supervision of Harvard professor George Sarton, preparing a thesis on the history of variable star observations from the 2nd century B.C. to the 19th century A.D. At the beginning of World War II, her graduate work was interrupted by war work, and her degree was not awarded until 1948.
Group portrait of Helen Lewis Thomas and her staff at MIT Research Laboratory of Electronics (1968). Image courtesy Schlesinger Library, Harvard Radcliffe Institute.
Helen was “drafted” first into the Harvard Radio Research Laboratory and, shortly after, into the MIT Radiation Laboratory, where she worked with science historian Henry Guerlac, preparing a history of the laboratory. In 1947 she was named a senior engineer at Raytheon Manufacturing Co, where she remained until 1954, working on guidance systems.
Exterior view of apartment building at 55 Langdon St, Cambridge. Image via Google Street View (June 2018).
Helen lived for a time at 55 Langdon Street in Cambridge. She returned to MIT as an editor and head of publications at the MIT Research Laboratory of Electronics until her retirement in 1971.
Entry for “Closest Prediction” in the 1987 Guinness Book of World Records, edited by Alan Russell.
In 1986, she was awarded a $50K prize by Trans World Airlines (TWA) for accurately predicting, thirty years before, the range, cruising speed, passenger capacity, and use of jet engines by commercial airlines (earning a listing in the Guinness Book of World Records). She died shortly before her ninety-second birthday, and a memorial service was held at Christ Church, Cambridge.
To learn the stories of more trailblazing women like Helen Meriwether Thomas, visit the Cambridge Women’s Heritage Project database: https://cwhp.cambridgema.gov/
Today would mark the 119th birthday of Cantabrigian Corinne Woodson Alleyne. Alleyne, born Corinne Helen Woodson on July 21, 1907 in Cambridge, was a registered nurse, oral historian, videographer, and documentary filmmaker. For the first several years of her life, Corinne lived with her father Albert, who worked as a hotel waiter, her mother Emma, and her siblings in Cambridge. The family boarded at 16 Hubbard Avenue, one in a set of ten three-story brick rowhouses constructed by the New England Brick Company in 1872.
Detail of City of Cambridge, Mass : 1877 Map. Boston: Franklin View Co., 1877 via Digital Commonwealth, showing building that once stood at 16-34 Hubbard Ave
Mrs. Alleyne was licensed as a nurse in 1930, but was denied work for 12 years because she was African American. She was finally hired during WWII when there was a shortage of nurses. Through her long career, she worked as a nurse in Boston hospitals, as a private nurse, and as a Boston Public Health Commission nursing supervisor. In 1954, she was elected Chairwoman of the Massachusetts Nurses Association private duty nurse section.
“Corinne Alleyne, a video producer, oral historian and former nurse, works at a video editing machine at Continental Cablevision (photo by Cheryl A. Miller)” The Cambridge Chronicle, 9/27/1990
In her retirement, Mrs. Alleyne became an oral historian, videographer and documentary filmmaker, recording histories of Boston senior citizens. In 1986, Alleyne, Kathleen Walcott and E. Denise Simmons organized an exhibit for Black History Month titled “Cambridge Black History: The Invisible Years”. In a Boston Globe article about the exhibit, Alleyne said, “We want to build awareness in young peoples’ minds of their culture. History will die if not collected.” In 1998, she was honored by Mayor Menino and the City of Boston with a lifetime achievement award. She died in September 2000 at the age of 93. We thank Corinne Woodson Alleyne and recognize her work to collect, preserve, and share her community’s history.
To learn more about trailblazing women like Corinne Woodson Alleyne, visit the Cambridge Women’s Heritage Project database: https://cwhp.cambridgema.gov/
Every March, Women’s History Month invites us to pause and look at the people that built our communities. Some of the stories are well‑known—names etched into monuments or printed in textbooks. But many others, often those of women, live quietly in the margins: teachers who shaped generations, activists who pushed for justice, artists who reimagined the world, caregivers who held neighborhoods together. These women influenced Cambridge in a myriad of ways, yet for centuries their contributions were scattered, forgotten, or never recorded at all.
The Cambridge Women’s Heritage Project (CWHP) was created to change that. It is, at its heart, a restoration project—not of buildings, but of remembrance. This effort seeks to bring women’s contributions into focus, ensuring that they are included in city’s rich history.
The project began in 1996, sparked by a community effort to honor writer May Sarton with a memorial at the Cambridge Public Library. What started as a single tribute quickly revealed a larger truth: Cambridge history was rich with women whose stories deserved recognition. That realization grew into a city‑supported initiative to document women’s lives from Cambridge’s founding in 1630 to the present day.
Today, the CWHP is a living, evolving archive. Volunteers, historians, and community members work together to research and write biographies of Cambridge women and women’s organizations. Some entries are detailed portraits; others are fragments waiting to be expanded. To date, more than 900 women and groups have been nominated, and the project continues to grow as new stories surface.
The work is meticulous and often challenging. Many women left few written records, and their contributions were not always preserved in traditional archives. The CWHP addresses this by gathering information from published sources, obituaries, local history collections, and community submissions. Each entry is carefully edited, fact‑checked, and organized so that future researchers, students, and residents can explore the city’s history through a more inclusive lens.
But the project is more than a database. It is also a catalyst for public engagement. Over the years, the CWHP has hosted International Women’s Day celebrations, walking tours, lectures, and other programs that bring women’s history into the public square. It invites the community to participate—by nominating women, sharing photographs, offering corrections, or volunteering to help with research.
The CWHP was created as a joint project of the Cambridge Commission on the Status of Women and the Cambridge Historical Commission and relies on volunteers from the community to keep growing. The mission is both simple and profound: to celebrate the women of Cambridge, to preserve their stories, and to ensure that future generations can see themselves reflected in the city’s past.
During Women’s History Month, the project feels especially resonant. It reminds us that history is not fixed; it is something we build, revise, and enrich. We invite you to follow us on social media as we highlight a selection of these individuals and organizations where the stories of women—long overlooked—are finally being given the visibility and honor they deserve.
It’s National Monopoly Day! A day to break out one of America’s most loved and well-known board games. To celebrate, we’d like to share a few board games from the archives collection!
Cambridge-opoly
Cambridge-o-poly was initially released in 2000 and designed in Randolph, MA by a company called Just Board in collaboration with Karen Carmean the president of the Cambridge Action Fund. This nonprofit fundraising agency helps to fund programs that combat homelessness. The game plays much like any other Monopoly game, but the design team’s goal was to make players more aware of homelessness in Cambridge and the organization set up to assist those in need. In place of what traditional Monopoly would call “Community Chest” cards, Cambridge-opoly has “Cambridge Action Fund” cards. Each card references one of the Action funds many funded organizations with instructions like, “Six homeless need beds for tonight at Harvard Square Homeless Shelter. Donate $150 to Cambridge Action Fund. Inc.,’’ or, “Affordable housing built for six families! Your rate goes down. Collect $30.” The spaces on the board available for purchase feature many Cambridge businesses, some now gone and some still around. These include Susan’s, Masse’s Hardware Company, Cambridge Savings Bank, Cardullo’s, the Longy School of Music, Gypsy Moon, and Picante Mexican Grill. The game was sold for $37.50. If you bought it from the Cambridge Action Fund, the cost was a taxable deduction and half the cost went directly to program funding. (Source Cambridge Chronicle)
The Champion Game of Baseball
The Champion Game of Baseball was manufactured in 1889 by Proctor Amusement Co. of North Cambridge. The game, consisting of a baseball field board, red and blue play pieces, and a spinning wheel, is designed to be played by 1, 2, or 4 players. There is not much strategy involved as your team’s performance is based largely on the spin of a wheel. 16 spots on the inner wheel that read various outcomes, “Out, Base Hit, Strike, Strike Out, 3 Base Hit, Ball, 2 Base Hit, Base on Balls, Foul, and Home Run,” with, of course, the Outs being the widest sections and Home running being the narrowest. Additionally, there is an outer ring used for stealing bases. It reads, “Out, Sacrifice, and Safe.” While the game is primarily based on chance, it seems like a great way to pass the time, become more familiar with baseball rules, and practice skills like keeping score.
Women’s Lib?: A Game of Women’s Rights
Women’s Lib was created in 1970 by Urban Systems Inc. a corporation previously operating at 806 Mass Ave. (Source: OpenCorporates) According to the instruction pamphlet, the objective of the game is “enlightenment.” It’s a sort of roleplaying game where each player chooses from a selection of characters,” The Male Chauvinist, Traditional Female, Moderate Woman, Moderate Male, (W.O.M.B.) women opposed to male bigots, Male Liberationist, and (W.I.S.E) women interested in sexual equality. After choosing your character, you are given a booklet that details that character’s beliefs and the facts that support them. With this in mind, you must debate election topics with your fellow players to persuade them to vote one way or another. Election topics include abortion, child care, employment, education, legal rights of the wife, and male contraception to name a few. The outcome of the vote in tandem with a “Historical Precedent” card then modifies the salary of each player. As mentioned earlier, the objective of the game is “enlightenment,” so there is no true way to “win” or end the game, you’re simply meant to discuss topics from different points of view.
We hope you enjoyed learning about some of our less typical collections items! Go play a board game with someone today!
Ada Louise Comstock, c.1897. Harvard University Archives.
Ada Louise Comstock (1876-1973) was born in the prairie city of Moorhead, Minnesota, and from a young age, excelled in education. She graduated from her local high school at 15 and the next year began undergraduate studies at the University of Minnesota. After two years, she transferred to Smith College, a women’s college in Northampton, Massachusetts, graduating in 1897. After, she went to Columbia University for graduate work in English, History, and Education, and earned a master’s degree in 1899. She returned to the University of Minnesota to work as an instructor and was appointed the school’s first dean of women in 1907. In that role, she was instrumental in improving the quality of life for the women of the college, arguing persistently that a college was responsible for one’s physical and intellectual well-being, something she believed had not been offered equally to the men and women at the university. From 1921 to 1923, she served as president of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae, now known as the American Association of University Women, and became known nationally as a pioneer in women’s education.
Ada Louise Comstock at her 25th reunion at Smith College in 1922. Faculty Biographical Files, Ada Comstock Papers
On October 20, 1923, Comstock was inaugurated as president of Radcliffe College. She led the school for 20 years, strengthening its academic programs and in 1943 persuading Harvard to accept classroom co-education. Prior to this, Radcliffe had been paying Harvard professors to repeat their lectures for women. President Comstock launched a nationwide admissions program for Radcliffe, improved student housing, constructed new classroom and dormitory buildings, and expanded the graduate program. She retired as president of the college in 1943 but continued to promote the Graduate Program and advocate for improvements in and expansion of women’s educational opportunities. After her retirement, Radcliffe named a new dormitory in her honor and called her “the chief architect of the greatness of this college.”
Ada Comstock during her time as President at Radcliffe College. Harvard University Archives.
Radcliffe’s Comstock Hall was built in 1957 as the final wing of Moors Hall, at the northern edge of Radcliffe Quad. The school hired Maginnis, Walsh and Kennedy, the successor of Maginnis and Walsh who specialized in Neo-Gothic architecture and had designed many churches in Cambridge and the eastern United States. For Comstock Hall, the architect Eugene F. Kennedy Jr. employed Georgian Revival and Classical detailing to complement the Quad’s existing character. Radcliffe would soon after embrace Modernism with the Hilles Library, Currier House dormitories, and Faculty Housing on Linnaean Street, which complete Radcliffe Yard.
Comstock Hall, 1970. CHC Archives.
In addition to her roles in women’s education, Comstock served in many capacities with governmental and institutional groups. In 1929 she was the only woman named by President Herbert Hoover to the eleven-member Wickersham Commission, which was tasked with surveying the U.S. criminal justice system under Prohibition and making public policy recommendations. She also served as president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and on the National Committee for Planned Parenthood.
The Wickersham Commission in 1929. Ada Comstock, the only woman on the commission, is seated in the front row. To her left is Roscoe Pound, then Dean of Harvard Law School. President Hoover is in the first row, center right.
A week after her retirement from Radcliffe in 1943, Comstock married Yale professor emeritus Wallace Notestein. The two had met in Minnesota decades before, but Comstock had focused on her academic career, as her father wished; neither had married in the intervening years. They never had children. Wallace Notestein died in 1969. Ada Comstock died four years later at her home in New Haven, Connecticut, at the age of 97.
Undated image of Ada L. Comstock, Harris & Ewing, photographer, Library of Congress Catalog.
Ada Comstock continues to be honored for her dedication to expanding and improving women’s education. She is also remembered in numerous buildings on college and university campuses, including Comstock Hall at the University of Minnesota; Comstock House, aresidence hall at Smith College; and the featured Comstock Hall in Radcliffe Quad, which is now a part of Pforzheimer House, one of Harvard’s twelve undergraduate residential houses. Her childhood home in Moorhead, Minnesota, is maintained by the Minnesota Historical Society.
The Commission has recently finished processing a small image collection titled the Lewis Family Collection. This collection chronicles a portion of the longstanding and prolific Lewis family of Cambridge, Mass. and it is part of a much larger set of subject records available concerning the Lewis family. Other records include the Lewis family and Lewisville segments of African American files in CHC people files. However, these other textual files mainly pertain to the family’s 19th century contributions and its efforts in various African American movements, including the Cambridge Liberian Emigrant Association. We highly recommend you visit us to see these incredibly rich records!
The Lewis Family Collection is unique because it is solely visual documentation and it covers a period of about 20 years (1900-1920) that is not often represented in historical accounts of the Lewis family. It also is a product of a larger effort conducted by the CHC primarily in 1980-1982 called the Cambridge Photo History Project. The Project was intended to bring together photographs of Cambridge taken before 1945. For this collection, the donor brought in five scrapbooks, which were photographed page-by-page and then returned to her. The CHC retained the surrogates and transformed them into negatives and copy prints so that the content of the scrapbook would be available to you.
“Dad.” George W. Lewis Jr. ca. 1900-1920s
Within the collection are three generations of the Lewis family, immediate relatives, and close friends. The first generation shown is Nancy and George Washington Lewis (Jr.) George Washington Lewis (Jr.) was born in Cambridge in 1848 and he worked as a steward for the Harvard Porcellian Club for over 45 years and he replaced his father’s position in 1876.
“Ma.” Nancy E. Lewis, ca. 1900-1920s
On October 11, 1872 George married Nancy E. Poole who was born ca. 1852 in Columbia, South Carolina. They had five children, Elizabeth E. Lewis, Jerome Theodore Lewis, Walter E. Lewis, George Colman Lewis, and Ethel A. Lewis. By 1897 the family purchased 47 Parker Street and were noted for hosting amateur theatrical productions and housing black Harvard undergraduates.
“A.M. Harvard. 1917”
“[top left] Julia Harris, [Gordon David] Dave Houston, [top right] Bob Morris, [bottom left] Ida Morris, [bottom right] Tony Harris”, ca. 1900-1920sThese images exemplify some of the African American youth that would congregate at the Parker Street residence. Gordon David (Dave) Houston is the resident of “Houston’s Den” mentioned in this collection. He was born in Cambridge on May 6, 1880 and attended the Cambridge High and Latin School. In 1900 he graduated from the high school, the same year as Anthony Harris– it is possible that they knew each other through sports. In 1904 he graduated from Harvard College cum laude and pursued an academic career as an English professor. He led English departments at Tuskegee Institute, Howard University, Dunbar High school, and Douglas High School. On August 20, 1907 he married Dora Mayo Lawrence and they had two daughters, Dorothy Maude and Ethel Augusta.
Anthony (Tony) Harris went to Sunday School at Christ Church in 1900– likely connecting him to Ethel Lewis. That same year he graduated from the Cambridge Manual Training School for Boys (CMTS) after attending and graduating from the Washington grammar school in 1895. During his time at CMTS, Anthony– or more popularly addressed as Tony– was known for his skills at football. He later coached football at CMTS until ca. 1906. The 1908 City Directory cites Anthony as a waiter boarding at 73 Howard Street.
The others in this image have speculative biographical histories available in the collection’s finding aid.
Along with hosting social gatherings for friends, Nancy and George had five children. The image on the left shows “Bessie” Lewis with her probable bridesmaids in 1910, the year she married Maurice Jefferson Brooks, who is in the right-side image. Bessie’s given name was Elizabeth Estelle Lewis but she went by various nicknames including Bessie, Birdie, Bess, and Aunt Lizzie. She was born in November 1880. After her family moved to Cambridge, she worked as a bookkeeper. She married Maurice (1879-1913), a porter from Washington D.C. living in Boston, on October 20, 1910. They had one son, Jerome Theodore Lewis, named after Elizabeth’s brother. When Maurice died in 1913, she moved back in with her parents.
“E.A. Lewis”
George and Nancy’s other daughter was Ethel A. Lewis who was born in October 1878. According to articles in the Cambridge Chronicle, she attended Sunday School at Christ Church and partook in the Girls’ Friendly Society in Cambridge– two organizations that connect her to other individuals in this collection. In the 1900 Census she is cited as working as a stenographer. She has been cited as graduating from Bryant & Stratton Commercial College ca. 1903 and by 1905 as working as a teacher for Simmons College, although no records of confirmation have been found. Nonetheless, a book was published by the Colored Citizens of Greater Boston and the Garrison Centenary Committee of the Suffrage League of Boston and Vicinity due to her efforts as stenographer. The book, The Celebration of the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Birth of William Lloyd Garrison was published in 1906 and it is available free as an online Google Book! Ethel moved to Baltimore, Maryland in 1906 to become a schoolteacher. She boarded at various residents including 1409 McCulloh St in 1920 and 1935 Druid Hill Ave in 1930 while being employed as a teacher and stenographer.
“G.C. Lewis”, ca. 1900-1920s
One of their sons, George Colman Lewis, was born in Columbia, South Carolina in 1875. By the 1890s he was a member of the Cambridge Social Union Debating Club and in 1892 he graduated from the Manual Training School. He also partook in the Riverside Cycle Club, an exclusively black club in Cambridge. At various points throughout his life George C. worked as a railroad worker but he attempted a career change ca. 1900 when he embarked on becoming a tailor at 29 Boylston Street. He soon returned to the railroad industry and became a porter. He died on August 19, 1906 at the Mt. Auburn Hospital of heart disease when he was 31 years old. He is here depicted at 4 Wellington Ave (now Somerville).
“Ma Lewis, Pa Lewis, Nellie Sorrell, Anthony Harris, Benzina Reese, Henry Robbins, Ethel Lewis, Jerome Lewis”, ca. 1900-1920s
The Lewis’s eldest son, Jerome Theodore Lewis, was born on November 21, 1872. When the family moved to Cambridge, he worked as a laborer for Ford Motors at 400 Brookline Street. He also married Margaret A. Lewis. Another son, Walter E. Lewis was born in November 1876 and died August 23, 1880. Little is known about him.
Benzina Reese was Nancy Lewis’s niece. Born in October 1873 in South Carolina, Benzina came to Cambridge by 1900. The 1900 Census lists her as working as an office girl. In 1902 she married Frederick Sandford Gray– making her also the Mrs. Gray of this collection. At some point they moved to 10 Chestnut Street in Plymouth, MA, where Frederick worked as a chef. They had three children: Herman F., Helen E. and Leslie R. Gray. Herman is also present in this collection as a baby.
Anthony (Tony) Harris went to Sunday School at Christ Church in 1900– likely connecting him to Ethel Lewis. That same year he graduated from the Cambridge Manual Training School for Boys (CMTS) after attending and graduating from the Washington grammar school in 1895. During his time at CMTS, Anthony– or more popularly addressed as Tony– was known for his skills at football. He later coached football at CMTS until ca. 1906. The 1908 City Directory cites Anthony as a waiter boarding at 73 Howard Street. The biographies of Nellie Sorrell and Henry Robbins are currently unknown.
“(upper left) Pa Lewis, (upper middle) Kate, Sue [Harris], (bottom middle) Washington Elm, (bottom right): Andrew”, ca. 1900-1920sThere are so many others present in this collection we could only give a quick taste of what you can come see. We’ve also digitized a sampling of images for our Flickr page. Check them out here
To learn more about what is available in the Lewis Family Collection, our newly edited finding aid will be available here soon!
Sharpen your pencils, sit up straight, it’s almost time to head back to class. We all remember the excitement, and sometimes a little dread, of returning to school in the fall. There have been so many great teachers in Cambridge but today’s post looks at a Cambridge teacher about whom we only recently learned. This teacher lived from 1830 to 1930 and taught in public and private schools for about forty of her ninety-nine years. Her name was Miss Emma Harris.
Emma Forbes Harris was born on December 16, 1830 in Milton, Mass. to Dr. Thaddeus William Harris and Catherine Holbrook Harris. She was the third of eleven children and the second oldest girl. The Harris family moved to Cambridge when Emma was two years old. Emma’s father took a position as the college librarian at Harvard. He also taught natural history to students that included Henry David Thoreau. The family settled at 8 Holyoke Place in a house built in 1844.
In 1853, Emma Harris resigned from her position as a public-school teacher at the Webster Middle School. She purchased a one-story building, formerly a post office and dry goods store, and moved it from Norfolk Street to Cotton Street (now Hancock Street) and converted it to a school. The building, which measured 20’ wide by 32’ long, was sited on a lot of land opposite Chatham Street that Harris leased from J. Warren Merrill of Harvard Street. Her school opened in 1854 for boys and girls up to fourteen years of age. Miss Harris operated her school in this location for over thirty years. In 1886 she began construction on a new larger school at 3 Acacia Street. The first school house was then moved to 277 Broadway and used by E. C. Heubel as a boot and shoe store. It was demolished in 1949.
Advertisement for the Cotton Street School, a private school run by Miss Emma Harris of Cambridge. Cambridge Chronicle, 22 August 1857.
Emma Harris purchased a one story building and moved it from Central Square to Cotton Street, near Harvard Street. Cotton Street was located between Harvard Street and Broadway and was renamed in 1865 to be an extension of Hancock Street. Hopkins Atlas of Cambridge, 1873.
This article details the life of a building that started as a post office, then was moved for Miss Harris’ school, then moved again to become a shoe store. Cambridge Tribune 28 January 1888,
The new school building on Acacia near the corner of Ash was 2½ stories high and built in the Queen Anne style with an asymmetrical gable roof, corner porch, and decorative shingles. It was designed by her younger brother, Edward Doubleday Harris and constructed by local builder F. B. Furbish. The new school opened in September of 1887. Both boys and girls were accepted for enrollment. Miss Harris’s mother Catherine died in the spring of 1888. This change in her family circumstances may have led to her decision to retire. But the fall of 1888 was the last year that she advertised for new students to enroll in her school.
Miss Harris’ new school was built in 1886 on Acacia Street near the corner of Ash Street in the Half Crown neighborhood. This two story building was converted in 1890 to a dwelling. Bromley Atlas of Cambridge, 1894.
This house at 3 Acacia Street was built first as a school in 1886 then adapted for the residence of Charles Harris and family in 1890. Google Street View image, June 2018.
In 1890 she pulled a building permit to convert the school to a residence. This may have involved a small addition at the rear of the building. The house was occupied by younger brother Charles Harris and his wife Elizabeth Hovey Harris and their children. The house still stands on Acacia Street, with sunroom and tower additions that were constructed in 1994. Miss Harris resided in the family homestead at Holyoke Place until 1929 when it was purchased by Harvard and demolished for the construction of Lowell House. At that time she went to live with her sister Elizabeth Harris at 68 Sparks Street. Miss Emma Harris died in June 1930 and is buried in the Cambridge Cemetery. Miss Harris touched many lives and imparted knowledge to countless school children.
Obituary of Emma Forbes Harris, who died in 1930 in her hundredth year. Cambridge Tribune 21 June 1930.
Thank you to all the teachers who are heading back to school to prepare for the children that will be learning from them this year! Who was your favorite teacher?
Portrait of Helen Keller in her college graduation cap and gown (Wikimedia)
Helen Keller (1880-1968), was a world renowned author, activist, lecturer, and the first deaf-blind person to earn a Bachelor’s degree. Born in Alabama, Helen later moved to Massachusetts with her teacher and friend Annie Sullivan and attended the Perkins School for the Blind and Cambridge School for Young Ladies in pursuit of her goal of attending college. She successfully passed her exams and was admitted to Radcliffe College, known then as the Harvard Annex, in the fall of 1900.
When she began her studies at Radcliffe, Helen and Annie were living at 14 Coolidge Avenue, now 24 Coolidge Hill Road.
24 Coolidge Hill Road (CHC Collection)
Helen not only immersed herself in her studies, she also participated in social activities. According to an article in the Radcliffe Quarterly, “she played chess and checkers with unusual concentration, and was an enthusiastic wheelwoman often seen on the Cambridge streets on her tandem… when elections for officers were held, Helen was chosen Vice President.”
Helen with her dog, Phiz, a gift from her college classmates (Wikimedia)
In 1904, both Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan moved to 73 Dana Street. The building was designed by the architect Arthur H. Bowditch and constructed in 1898. The 6-unit apartment building was designed to look like a large single-family dwelling.
73 Dana Street (CHC)
Helen graduated cum laude that same year. Her classmates praised her accomplishment by writing in the yearbook:
Beside her task, our efforts pale,
She never knew the word for fail;
Beside her triumphs, ours are naught,
For hers were far more dearly bought.
Helen went on to a remarkable career advocating for people with disabilities, campaigning for women’s suffrage, labor rights, and anti-militarism. She lectured around the world and became acquainted with many leading figures in politics and the arts.
In 1954 at Helen’s 50th college reunion, Radcliffe College dedicated a garden to her and a fountain to Annie Sullivan, located at the Cronkhite Graduate Center on the corner of Brattle and Ash Streets.
Helen Keller at the dedication of the garden and fountain at Radcliffe (Wikimedia)
The fountain today (CHC)
Sign dedicating the fountain to Anne Sullivan (CHC)
‘IN MEMORY OF
ANNE SULLIVAN
TEACHER EXTRAORDINARY — WHO,
BEGINNING WITH THE WORD WATER
OPENED TO THE GIRL HELEN KELLER
THE WORLD OF SIGHT AND SOUND
THROUGH TOUCH
BELOVED COMPANION THROUGH
RADCLIFFE COLLEGE
1900 — 1904’
Sources:
The Three Lives of Helen Keller, Richard Harrity and Ralph G. Martin, Doubleday & Co., New York, 1962.
Perkins School for the Blind Archives, Watertown, MA
Portrait of Sarah Wyman Whitman by Helen Bigelow Merriman, Wikipedia.org
Sarah Wyman Whitman (1842-1904) was a painter, stained glass artist, and book cover designer based in Boston. Whitman was also a doyenne of Boston society, along with Isabella Stewart Gardner for whom she designed a sign over the entrance to her house, now a museum in the Fenway. Married to Henry Whitman, a wool and dry goods merchant, they entertained in their home on Beacon Hill and summered in Beverly Farms on the North Shore. In addition to her social activities, Whitman was deeply involved in philanthropy. She founded the Boston Water Color Club in response to the Boston Society of Water Color Artists who only admitted men, and co-founded the Boston Arts & Crafts Society. Whitman advocated for Radcliffe College and better educational opportunities for women and children in the public school system, and she was a benefactor of Howard University and Tuskegee Institute.
“Gloucester Harbor”, late 1880s or early 1890s, Wikipedia.org
Whitman studied painting with William Morris Hunt of the Boston Museum School from 1868 to 1871, and studied drawing with William Rimmer. In the late 1870s, she traveled to France and studied drawing with Hunt’s former master Thomas Couture. She worked in oil and pastel, painting landscapes around New England as well as floral studies. She also painted numerous portraits, preferring to paint her subjects against dark backgrounds. She exhibited widely in the 1870s through the 1890s, including the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.
“A Song,” signed S. W. Whitman, 1883, invaluable.com
In the early 1880s, Whitman apprenticed with John La Farge, a stained glass artist who utilized opalescent glass in his work and innovated methods of layering and welding glass. Whitman also used opalescent glass in her own work along with colored and transparent glass. Whitman later started her own firm, Lily Glass Works, and her stained glass windows can be found in churches and colleges throughout New England, including the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe, Memorial Hall at Harvard University, Trinity Church in Boston, and First Parish Church in Brookline. For Harvard’s Memorial Hall she designed both the elaborate south transept window and the Honor and Peace window on the south side of what is now Annenberg Hall.
Stained glass at the Memorial Hall, Harvard University, 1900. The left side depicts “honor”, the right, “peace”.
In 1884, Whitman was asked to design book covers for the publishing company Houghton Mifflin. She designed over 200 books, working in the Art Nouveau style using organic forms and delicate line work. She also employed gold stamping and was one of the first to carry the design over the front, spine, and back of the book.
Whitman designed many book covers for her dear friend Sarah Orne Jewett, author of Country Of The Pointed Firs and A Marsh Island, among others. Wyman also designed a stained glass window in memory of Jewett’s father at his alma mater, Bowdoin College.
Smith, Betty S. “Sarah de St. Prix Wyman Whitman.” Old Time New England, V. 77, No. 266, Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, Boston, 1999.
Katharine Lane Weems, circa 1915 / unidentified photographer.
Sculptor Katharine Lane Weems was born into a wealthy Bostonian family on February 22, 1899. After studying art at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts from 1918 to 1922, Weems became one of the most highly-recognized animal sculptors of her era.
Katharine Weems with ‘Dolphins of the Sea’, ca. 1975 / unidentified photographer.
Her observations of animals, as seen through her meticulous sketches, underscore her dedication to representing an animal’s biological makeup. In doing so, she conveyed their physicality in stunning reality.
Sketchbook, 1913-1915
Weems’s work can be viewed throughout the Boston area, from the Lotta Crabtree Fountain on the Charles River Esplanade to the Dolphins of the Sea at the New England Aquarium. She donated a collection of 30 bronze animal sculptures to Boston’s Museum of Science, demonstrating the connections between sciences and the arts.
Elephant frieze on the biology lab at Harvard, not before 1933 / Paul J. Weber, photographer.
Her largest project was a commission for the Biological Laboratories at Harvard University, now the Harvard University Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology (MCB). The project included carved bronze doors at the lab entrance, a series of wildlife friezes, and two large bronze rhinoceros scultpures standing guard on either side of the doors of the lab.
Katharine Lane Weems at work on ‘Rhinoceros’, circa 1935 / unidentified photographer.
Named Bessie and Victoria, these rhinoceros sculptures were modeled after two female rhinoceri Weems studied at the Bronx Zoo. Both are composed of bronze and weigh 3 tons each. After years of work, Bessie and Victoria were unveiled on May 12, 1937. Despite this great accomplishment, Weems’s work was given little local fanfare.
Katharine Weems being introduced at the unveiling ceremony for her rhino sculptures at Harvard, 1937 May 12 / Harvard Film Service, photographer.
Weems continued to sculpt and create art throughout her long life. She later married her longtime friend Fontaine Carrington “Canny” Weems in 1947. Katharine Lane Weems died in Rockport Massachusetts on February 11, 1989.
Katharine Ward Lane Weems seated with a dog, circa 1935 / unidentified photographer.
Images and captions come from the collection Katharine Lane Weems papers, 1865-1989. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
