Exhibit: Cousins

Thai Tea, from Kristen Emack’s Photography series, Cousins

Exhibition:  Cousins
September 11 – October 12, 2023
Main Library, L2
Gallery Hours
Monday – Thursday, 5-9 pm
Saturday, 9-5
Sunday, 1-5

Kristen Emack has been photographing her daughter and nieces for over a decade.  “There is something sacred about the lives of girls, and their innocent, confident relationships to themselves, their world and one another is gravitational,” explains Emack.  She has captured the girls’ childhood in an unfiltered way as they move with confidence throughout Cambridge and their environment.  Her work is an undeniable celebration of Black girlhood.  “There are notable bodies of work about girlhood, but Cousins is unique.  It chronicles the lives of girls of color, which is a perspective that still remains under-embraced,” writes Emack.  “Additionally, each frame is wholly female.”  Angst or distraction does not enter the frame.  Instead it’s their connection that stays in focus, their adolescent changes are organic, subtle and unprovocative.” 

Emack is a 2022 Guggenheim Fellow, a MacDowell Fellow, and a Mass Cultural Council Fellow. Her work has been featured in Vogue Italia and National Geographic and has been exhibited across the United States, Northern Europe and the UK. This exhibit, Emack’s first in Cambridge, features the Library’s newly acquired photographs from Cousins and celebrates Emack’s work in the community.  View these exciting new additions to the permanent collection of Library’s Archives and Special Collections on display at the Main Library on L2.

Visit kristenjoyemack.com.

Exhibition: The Uncompromising Political Career of Alice K. Wolf

Exhibition:  The Uncompromising Political Career of Alice K. Wolf
August 14- September 10, 2023
Main Library, Lobby and Second Floor

In 1939, at the age of five, Alice K Wolf and her parents, Frederick and Renee Koerner, fled Nazi Austria and arrived in Cambridge, seeking a stable life where they would not be threatened for being Jewish.  Although the family soon settled in Brighton, 51 years later, Wolf became Cambridge’s first Jewish Mayor. 

Wolf felt that the injustice and fear she experienced as a child under the Nazi regime shaped the kind of politician she would later become:  a public servant committed to “equity and to fairness of the government.”*  Wolf, a champion of progressive ideals, spent her political career as an advocate for the rights of women, minorities, refugees, renters, children, students, and the LGBTQ+ community. 

After graduating from Boston’s Girls Latin School and Simmons College, she married Robert Wolf, moved to Cambridge, and had two sons, Eric and Adam.  Wolf spent the next 20 years of her career in the research and software development field: first as an applied psychology researcher at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratories and later as a personnel director for the Computer Corporation of America based in Kendall Square. 

Wolf entered politics slowly as a concerned parent and member of the PTA.  In 1973, she decided to run for School Committee and was elected.  She served for eight years until she ran unsuccessfully for City Council in 1981.  But she won in the next election cycle and, served five terms between 1984 and 1994, include two years as Mayor from 1990-1991.  In 1996, Wolf won a seat in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, serving Cambridge and surrounding communities for 16 years. 

Alice Wolf died in her home in Cambridge on January 26, 2023 at the age of 89.  The Library is hosting a tribute to Wolf on September 9th at 2 pm. 

*”Go Ask Alice:  Cambridge’s ‘High Priestess of P.C.,'” Sunday People, Boston Sunday Herald, 12 December 1993, p. 6-9.

Exhibition: From Cambridge to Yerevan: 35 Years of Friendship

WBZ4’s Lev Reid Features Cambridge’s Black Trailblazers

Congratulations to the Cambridge Black History Project and their wonderful work, celebrating the lives of fifteen extraordinary Black Cantabrigians, Trailblazers, whose contributions and accomplishments have been often overlooked.

Stop by any Cambridge Public Library branch for a bookmark or come to the Main Library to view the Trailblazer exhibition, on display through February 28th.

Love in Metal: Abraham Megerdichian Machined Metal Miniatures

Date & Time:
September 19 – October 14, 2022
Main Library Hours
In Person

Join us for the first major art exhibit in Cambridge of Abraham Megerdichian’s metal miniatures on display at the Main Library from September 19th to October 14th.  Lifelong local machinist, Abraham machined from solid scrap metal his interpretations of everyday objects, and gave them away as gifts to family and friends.  After Abraham died in 1983 his pieces were put away, where many of them lay until 2013.  Since then Abraham’s son, Robert, has had pieces from the collection exhibited at nearly 20 venues in New England and beyond.  Also on exhibit are professional photographer Scott Sutherland’s photographs of the artwork.  The artwork is on display throughout the Main Library –  in the lobby, on the second floor, in the Cambridge Room, and in the Children’s Room.  Join us for a curator talk by Robert on October 12 at 6:30 pm in the Cambridge Room.  

Exhibition on WPA Muralist Elizabeth Tracy

WPA Muralist and Artist, Elizabeth Tracy

The Harvard Art Museums Archives is featuring an exhibit on WPA muralist and artist Elizabeth Tracy, later known as Tracy Montminy.  Tracy, along with Arthur Willis Oakman, painted the four murals in the Cambridge Public Library’s historic reading room.  The public is free to visit the exhibit this Thursday, October 25th from 12:00pm to 3:00pm, during the museum’s Archives Open Hours. 

The murals, commissioned by the Civil Works Administration in 1934, depict the ten divisions of knowledge that make up the Dewey decimal cataloguing system, and include:

• “Religion,” on the east wall of the Delivery Room, featuring the City Seal of Cambridge, flanked by wreaths labeled General Works, Philosophy, Religion, Sociology and Philology.
• “Fine Arts,” on the west wall of the Delivery Room, with a historic clock at its center, flanked with banners titled Literature, History, Useful Arts, Fine Arts and Pure Science.
• “History of Books and Paper,” a series of three panels on the east end of the Reading Room, depicts the contributions of Babylon, ancient Egypt, China, Greece and Rome and medieval Europe.
• “The Development of the Printing Press,” on the west wall of the Delivery Room, is the largest of the set, and follows the evolution of the printing press from Guttenberg in 1449 through the invention of the cylindrical press by Hoe and Co. in 1820. At the center is the 1639 Stephen Daye press of Cambridge, the first press in America.

The four murals were restored in 2009 when the Library was renovated.

Tracy’s mural, Religion, during the 2009 restoration at the Cambridge Public Library.

Tracy’s mural, The Development of the Printing Press, during the 2009 restoration at the Cambridge Public Library.

Best Food Forward: The Shoe Industry in Massachusetts

Illustration from The Union boot and shoe worker, 1900-1902. Courtesy of University of Wisconsin via HathiTrust.

Check out this great new online exhibit featuring the Massachusetts show industry, courtesy of the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA).  The DPLA has created several online exhibitions with material from collections all over the U.S.  There are some great topics, like Activism in the US, a History of US Public Libraries, and Patent Medicine Advertisements.

Miniature Book Exhibition

A leaf from an Italian breviary manuscript, rubricated on both sides and dating from about 1450.  The 3 inch tall page has five rubricated initials.   

Exhibition Location: Entrance and 2nd Floor, Glass Building

The definition of a miniature book depends on who is asked.  In the United States, many collectors feel that a miniature book is usually considered to be one which is no more than three inches (7.5 cm) in height, width, or thickness.  Some aficionados collect slightly larger books while others specialize in even smaller sizes.  Outside of the United States, books up to four inches are considered miniature by many.  The Library of Congress determined a miniature book to be one smaller than 4 inches (10 cm) in spine height.

The books in this exhibit represent a variety of sizes.  From 4 inches to one of the smallest in the world at .0394 inches (1 mm).  All of the books on display are “real” books, with pages that turn and with text and images on the pages, or sample pages from real books.

The categories of miniature books are:

Macro-Mini (between 4 and 3 inches tall)
Miniature (between 3 and 2 inches tall)
Micro-Miniature (between 2 and 1 inches tall)
Ultra Micro-Mini (less than 1 inch tall)

This exhibition is on loan from Joseph Curran, former President of the Miniature Book Society of America, and is in honor of the 2014 Book Fair of the Miniature Book Society, which is free and open to the public on Sunday, August 17th from 12:00 to 4:00 p.m. at the Taj Boston Hotel.

The Best Books about Cambridge You’ve Never Read

On left:  The Secret of Question Nine:  How We Lost Rent Control by Bill Cunningham, 1996.  On right:  Don Leslie, world renowned sword swallower and native Cantabrigian.

The Best Books About Cambridge That You’ve Never Read

The Cambridge Room, the Library’s Archives and Special Collections, has a vast collection of books on every subject imaginable about Cambridge, Massachusetts.  We’ve selected a few of our favorites – featuring bohemians, activists, hippies, teetotalers, revelers, restaurateurs, writers, design gurus, and urban planners.

With titles like, Peaking through the hole of a Bagel, Lewd, and Baby Let me Follow you Down  – what’s not to love.  These books are rare gems – one of a kind – in our collection and touch on the vast and unusual history of Cambridge.  Stop by the Cambridge Room on the second floor for more recommendations.

Exhibition Location: The Sakey Room on the first floor of the original Library building.

Cambridge Streets: Contested and Adored

On left:  The Streets of Cambridge:  An Account of their Origins and History by Lewis M. Hastings, City Engineer, 1921.  On right:  Harvard, Urban Imperialist by the Anti Expansion Anti ROTC Strike Steering Committee, 1969.

From lovingly recreated maps of Cambridge circa 1700 to rioting students in the 1960s, and from proposed demolition of neighborhoods to detailed plans of the urban landscape, this exhibition displays documents that show the ways in which the streets of Cambridge have been both a cause of celebration as well as a place of political contest. 

Exhibition Location: 2^nd Floor of the Main Library