H.P. Garrity, Cambridge High and Latin Class of 1913.
All the Cambridge High School Yearbooks in our Collection are now freely available online.
Cambridge High and Latin School
(Yearbooks available: 1913-1977)
Rindge Technical School
(Yearbooks available: 1929-1977)
Cambridge Rindge and Latin School
(Yearbooks available: 1978-2022)
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.
Join us for a History Café on Monday, August 3, from 6:00-7:00 p.m. for The Pandemic Post: Youth in Cambridge Respond to COVID-19.
Over the last several months, the COVID-19 pandemic has turned all our worlds upside down. But what has this upheaval looked like for young people in Cambridge?
This spring, students at the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School created The Pandemic Post, an online newsletter in which they reflected on their experiences through art, poetry and prose.
During this conversation with CRLS students and faculty we will discuss their work on the project and reflect on their pandemic experiences and the vision they have for a post-COVID Cambridge.
Register here! Free and open to the public.
Bodybuilders, 1984, from the No Easy Roses series, Olive Pierce Photographs (045), copyright Olive Pierce
Documentary photographer and political activist Olive Pierce spent the better half of the 1970s and 1980s photographing Cambridge. Her first project in the early 1970s was to document the turbulent Cambridge City Council meetings that polarized the community around issues like rent control and police brutality, in particular 17 year-old Larry Largey who died in police custody. Later in the decade, Pierce photographed the children of Jefferson Park, a housing project in North Cambridge, capturing their daily lives.
Pierce founded the photography program at Cambridge Rindge and Latin, and in 1986 published No Easy Roses: A Look at the Lives of City Teenagers, featuring photographs she took of students during her tenure.
Moving beyond Cambridge, Pierce photographed a rural Maine fishing village in the 1990s and Iraqi children during the interwar years.
The 78 photographs that Pierce donated to the Cambridge Room in 2014 are now available to view online. The description of Pierce’s collection, along with her biography, is available here.
Bill de Blasio’s 1979 yearbook identified him as “future president of the U.S.A. — the Untied Sneakers Association.’’
Did you know that New York City Democratic Mayoral Candidate Bill de Blasio grew up in Cambridge and graduated from Cambridge Rindge and Latin in 1979? Back then he was known as Bill Wilhelm and he was already espousing progressive politics. There was a great article about his formative years in Cambridge published by the Boston Globe on September 30th. Read it here and learn why the future New York City mayor may be a Red Sox fan.
John Thomas won a silver medal at Tokyo in 1964. Courtesy of the Boston Globe.
John Thomas graduated from Rindge Tech in 1958 and two years later, set a world record in the high jump at the California Olympic trials, clearing 7 feet, 3¾. He went on to win the bronze medal at the 1960 Rome Olympics and the silver in 1964 at Tokyo. Thomas was inducted into the Cambridge Rindge and Latin Athletic Hall of Fame in 1981. Read his obituary in the Boston Globe here.
Did you know that Cambridge is full of ghosts? Apparently, a British soldier haunts Christ Church in Harvard Square. Central Square’s YMCA has a green ghost. And, Cambridge Rindge & Latin School has a ghost of an old man pushing a book cart along a World War II memorial hallway. I’m not sure if you believe these sightings but Cambridge Day wrote an article in 2005 about all the hauntings that happen in Cambridge – it’s a fun read.
Do you want to know what haunts archivists? This:
But by All Saints’ Day, it turns into this:
Students at the Cambridge Manual Training School (now Cambridge Rindge and Latin) practice fire safety training, circa 1890.
The Cambridge Room 