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Cambridge

City in northeastern Massachusetts, USA, on the north bank of the Charles River, just above the river's entry into Boston Harbour; seat (with Lowell) of Middlesex County; population (2000 est) 101,360. Its seaward side is industrial and includes a part of the Boston port area; industries include paper and publishing, electronic equipment and scientific instruments. Cambridge is the seat of several important colleges: Harvard University (1636), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1861), and Radcliffe College (1879). The John F Kennedy School of Government is part of Harvard University. One quarter of the residents are students and one sixth of the workforce is employed in higher education. Although noted for its educational institutions, Cambridge used also to be an industrial town. Some of the old factories have been taken over by high tech facilities.

History

Cambridge was first settled as New Towne in 1630 and renamed Cambridge (after the university town in England) in 1638; it was incorporated as a city in 1846. Harvard University is the oldest educational institution in the USA. It was named after John Harvard (1607-1638), who bequeathed his library to it along with half his estate. Cambridge has over 200 entries on the national register of historic places, including houses, historic districts, milestones, factories, almshouses, churches, and synagogues, Fort Washington, university premises, schools, cemeteries, banks, and a post office. Cambridge has 12 museums and galleries. Harvard University has four museums for cultural and natural history. The first printing press in America was established here in 1639 by Stephen Daye.

The population of Cambridge is very diverse ethnically; about 50 languages are spoken in the town and in the late 1990s pupils from 82 different nationalities were enrolled in the schools.

Cambridge is the birthplace of the lawyer Oliver Wendell Holmes and the poet-diplomat James Russell Lowell, author Richard Henry Dana, Democratic politican Tip O'Neill, and economist and diplomat, John Kenneth Galbraith. The house of the poet H W Longfellow is here; it was once the headquarters of George Washington (1775).

Massachusetts

Middlesex County

Robinson, Joan Violet