1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Cambridge (Massachusetts)

​CAMBRIDGE, a city and one of the county-seats of Middlesexcounty, Massachusetts, U.S.A., situated on the Charles river,in the outskirts of Boston, of which it is in effect a part, althoughunder separate government. Pop. (1880) 52,669; (1890)70,028; (1900) 91,886; (1910 census) 104,839. Of thetotal population in 1900, 30,446 were foreign-born, including11,235 Irish, 9613 English Canadians, 1944 English, 1483 FrenchCanadians and 1584 Swedish; and 54,200 were of foreignparentage (both parents foreign-born), including 24,961 of Irishparentage, 9829 of English-Canadian parentage, 2587 of Englishparentage, and 2288 of French-Canadian parentage. Cambridgeis entered directly by only one railway, the Boston & Maine.The township, now practically built over by the city, containedoriginally several separate villages, the names of which are stillused as a convenience in designating corresponding sections ofthe municipality: Old Cambridge, North Cambridge, Cambridgeportand East Cambridge, the last two being manufacturingand commercial districts.

Old Cambridge is noted as the seat of Harvard University(q.v.) and as a literary and scientific centre. Radcliffe College(1879), for women, practically a part of Harvard; an EpiscopalTheological School (1867), and the New Church (Swedenborgianor New Jerusalem) Theological School (1866) are other educationalinstitutions of importance. To Cambridge also, in 1908,was removed Andover Theological Seminary, a Congregationalinstitution chartered in 1807, opened in Andover, Massachusetts,in 1808 (re-incorporated under separate trustees in 1907). Thisseminary is one of the oldest and most famous theological institutionsin the United States; it grew out of the theological teachingpreviously given in Phillips Academy, and was founded by thewidow of Lt.-Governor Samuel Phillips, her son John Phillipsand Samuel Abbot (1732–1812). The instruction was stronglyCalvinistic in the earlier period, but the seminary has alwaysbeen “equally open to Protestants of every denomination.”Very liberal aid is given to students, and there is no charge fortuition. The Bibliotheca Sacra, founded in 1843 by EdwardRobinson and in 1844 taken over by Professors Bela B. Edwardsand Edwards A. Park, and the Andover Review (1884–1893), havebeen the organs of the seminary. In 1886 some of its professorspublished Progressive Orthodoxy, a book which made a great stirby its liberal tone, its opposition to supernaturalism and itsevident trend toward the methods of German “higher criticism.”Legal proceedings for the removal of five professors, after thepublication of this book, failed; and their successful defencehelped to secure greater freedom in thought and in instructionin American Presbyterian and Congregational theologicalseminaries. The seminary is now affiliated with HarvardUniversity, though it remains independent and autonomous.

Cambridge is a typical New England city, built up in detachedresidences, with irregular streets pleasantly shaded, and aconsiderable wealth of historic and literary associations. Thereare many reminders of the long history of Harvard, and of theWar of Independence. Cambridge was the site of the camp ofthe first American army, at the outbreak of the war, and fromit went the detachment which intrenched on Bunker’s Hill.Here are the Apthorp House (built in 1760), in which GeneralBurgoyne and his officers were lodged as prisoners of war in1777; the elm under which, according to tradition, Washingtontook command of the Continental Army on the 3rd of July 1775;the old Vassall or Craigie House (1759), where Washington livedin 1775–1776, and which was later the home of Edward Everett,Joseph E. Worcester, Jared Sparks and (1837–1882) Henry W.Longfellow. Elbridge Gerry lived and James Russell Lowellwas born, lived and died in “Elmwood” (built in 1767); OliverWendell Holmes was born in Cambridge also; John Fiske, thehistorian, lived here; and there are many other literary associations,attractive and important for those interested in Americanletters. In Mt Auburn Cemetery are buried many artists, poets,scholars and other men and women of fame. Cambridge isone of the few American cities possessing a crematorium (1900).The municipal water-works are excellent. A handsome bridgejoining Cambridgeport to Boston (cost about $2,250,000) wasopened late in 1906. Four other bridges span the Charles riverbetween the two cities. A dam between East Cambridge andBoston, traversed by a roadway 150 ft. wide, was in the processof construction in 1907; and an extension of the Boston subwayinto Cambridge to the grounds of Harvard University, a distanceof about 3 m., was projected. The city government is administeredalmost entirely under the state civil-service laws, Cambridgehaving been a leader in the adoption of its provisions.A non-partisan association for political reform did excellentwork from 1890 to 1900, when it was superseded by a non-partisanparty. Since 1887 the city has declared yearly byincreasing majorities for prohibition of the liquor traffic. Thehigh schools enjoy a notable reputation. A handsome city hall(cost $235,000) and public library (as well as a manual trainingschool) were given to the city by Frederick H. Rindge, a one-timeresident, whose benefactions to Cambridge aggregatedin value $650,000. Cambridge has many manufacturing establishments,and in 1905 the city’s factory products were valuedat $42,407,064, an increase of 45.8% over their value in 1900.The principal manufactures are slaughtering and meat-packingproducts, foundry and machine-shop products, rubber boots andshoes, rubber belting and hose, printing and publishing products,carpentering, pianos and organs, confectionery and furniture.Cambridge is one of the chief publishing centres of the country.The tax valuation of property in 1906 ($105,153,235) was morethan $1000 per inhabitant.

​Cambridge is “one of the few American towns that may be said to have owed their very name and existence to the pursuit of letters” (T. W. Higginson). Its site was selected in 1630 by Governor Winthrop and others as suitable for fortifications and defence, and it was intended to make it the capital of the Massachusetts Bay Colony; but as Boston’s peninsular position gave it the advantage in commerce and in defence against the Indians, the plan fell through, although up to 1638 various sessions of the general court and particular courts were held here. The township records (published) are continuous since 1632. A direct tax for the wooden “pallysadoe” about Cambridge led the township of Watertown in 1632 to make the first protest in America against taxation without representation. The settlement was first known as the “New Towne,” but in 1638 was named Cambridge in honour of the English Cambridge, where several score of the first immigrants to the colony were educated. The oldest college in America (Harvard) was founded here in 1636. In 1639 there was set up in Cambridge the first printing press of British North America (Boston having none until 1676). Other notable dates in history are 1637 and 1647, when general synods of New England churches met at Cambridge to settle disputed doctrine and define orthodoxy; the departure for Connecticut of Thomas Hooker’s congregation in 1636; the meeting of the convention that framed the present constitution of the commonwealth, 1779–1780; the separation of the Congregationalists and Unitarians of the first parish church, in 1829; and the grant of a city charter in 1846. The original township of Cambridge was very large, and there have been successively detached from it, Newton (1691), Lexington (1713), Brighton (1837) and Arlington (1867).