Books on Cambridge History

This collection consists of books and pamphlets that are browsable by topic:

• African Americans
• Art, Architecture & the Built Environment
• Biographies & Memoirs
• Cambridge Authors
• Cambridge in Fiction, Poetry & Plays
• Cambridge History
• Churches
• Clubs & Organizations
• Genealogy
• Harvard University
• Industry
• Mount Auburn Cemetery
• Natural Environment
• Neighborhoods
• Social & Political History

This browsable collection has reference books on relevant Massachusetts history and City Reports on Cambridge. The collection also includes serial publications, such as:

• Building and Zoning Codes
• Cambridge Historical Society Proceedings 
• Cambridge Public Library Publications (Annual Reports & Budgets)
• City Directories and Voter Lists
• Code Directories and Phone Books
• High School Publications (Latin School Review, Cambridge Review & Rindge Register)
• Magazines (Magazines of Cambridge, Growing Up in North Cambridge & Inman Review)
• School Committee and School Department Reports
• Yearbooks

This collection of historically relevant books is the original Cambridge Room collection, curated by then Chair of the Board of Trustees, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, to represent literary, cultural and intellectual Cambridge as a distinct collection for the city's new library building. The collection was curated between 1889 and 1891. 

A sampling of the authors include: 

• Washington Allston
• Sarah Bull
• Richard Henry Dana, III
• Margaret Fuller
• Thomas Wentworth Higginson
• OIiver Wendell Holmes
• W.D. Howells
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• Thomas Shepard
• Joseph Story

Our rare book collection is a legacy from our circulating collection that goes back to the founding of the public library in 1852. Books that were deemed rare over the years were set aside and placed in something referred to as the "Walnut Case." This collection grew over the years and was curated into the Archives and Special Collections in 2009 when the new Library was built. It includes several mini collections, including the following:

•  Atlases
• Cambridge Authors
• Cambridge History
• Cambridge Presses
• Cambridge and Massachusetts Military History
• Cambridge Public Library History
• Massachusetts History
• Natural History Series (birds, ferns and flowers, herpetology, quadrupeds, etc.)
• The Edward Whorf Collection*

*The Edward Whorf Collection was donated by Edward H. Whorf as a bequest in 1910 to the Library of his books, pamphlets, and maps to create a reference collection on Mexico, Central America, and the American Southwest.