Posts Tagged ‘Baldwin (formerly Agassiz) neighborhood’
Julia Child’s Kitchen
Compiled by Deb Mandel, 2022 Years 1961 – 2004 Location (Julia’s home) 103 Irving St., Cambridge History Julia moved from Europe to Cambridge in 1961, where husband Paul accepted a job. They settled into a cozy house on tree-lined Irving St., nestled into her soon-to-be-famous blue and green kitchen. Paul stirred up “upside down martinis”…
Read MoreWhat is in a name? The origins of Cambridge Public Elementary Schools’ Nomenclature
The Cambridge Public Schools website lists four early childhood education programs, twelve elementary schools, five upper schools, and three high schools. Each of these schools has its own rich history of how it came to be what and where it is today. Below, we will explore the origins of the names of Cambridge’s twelve elementary schools.
Read MoreEvolving Agassiz
By Rolf Goetze Three famous men –– Asa Gray, Louis Agassiz, and Charles Darwin –– shaped our understanding of our origin, and two of them lived in Cambridge. Gray was the eminent botanist at Harvard, classifying plants into families and monitoring their worldwide distribution. Agassiz, an animal taxonomist and founder of Harvard’s Museum of Natural…
Read MoreThe Gold Rush
By Michael Kenney, 2014 When Charles F. McClure came back from the California Gold Rush, he bought an extensive tract of land off Massachusetts Avenue (then known as North Avenue) and commemorated his “49er” fortune by naming the street running through his property Sacramento Street. Other names recall long-forgotten residents, at least four of them…
Read MoreThe Remeasure of Agassiz
By Jasmine Laietmark, 2014 Cambridge was on the cutting edge of science in the 19th century. Unfortunately, several star academics used the banner of science to support bigoted ideologies. Luckily, the scientific method also brought redemption by the second half of the 20th century. The paleontologist and Agassiz resident Stephen Jay Gould took his forebears’…
Read MoreFrom a Bleachery to a Playground
By Michael Kenney, 2014 It does look something like a swimming pool in this undated photograph from the Historical Commission. The location is just off Sacramento Street, and the girl, resting her arm against a tree, looks as if she is contemplating a swim, while the three adults lend a note of artistic composition to…
Read MoreLove Story
By Elizabeth Adams Lasser, 2014 On December 25, 1970, Hollywood’s maudlin film, Love Story made its New England debut at the Circle Theater in Brookline. The much anticipated film, starring heartthrob, Ryan O’Neal (Peyton Place), and the stunning Ali MacGraw (Goodbye, Columbus) became an overnight success. The movie was based on Harvard graduate Erich Segal’s…
Read MoreThe Cyclotron
By Bruce Irving, Spring 2014 For nearly 65 years, the corner of Oxford and Hammond streets was home to a nuclear family quite unlike the others in the neighborhood. This one was large, mostly male, heavy on the PhD’s (with a few Nobel winners thrown in), and was housed in a pair of buildings called…
Read More‘Quiet Courage’: Maria Baldwin and the Racial Politics of Education in Cambridge
By Beth Folsom, Program Manager, History Cambridge In her 1905 report to the parents of ten-year-old Edward Cummings, his principal Maria Baldwin described him as “a most loveable little boy, and we are glad that he is part of our little community.”[1] Nearly six decades later, when that little boy had become the celebrated American…
Read MoreEdith Lesley: Pioneering Educational Leader
By Jan Devereux This blog post is a result of our “How Have Women Shaped Cambridge?” call for submissions as we celebrate our 2020 theme, “Who Are Cambridge Women?” Edith Lesley (1872-1953) left a mark on Cambridge in founding, in 1909, the school that over the past 111 years has grown into Lesley University. The…
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