Cambridge tourist information

Cambridge was established as the town of "Newtowne" in 1630. Newtowne was one of a number of towns (including Boston, Dorchester, Watertown, and Weymouth) founded by the 700 original Puritan colonists of the Massachusetts Bay Colony under governor John Winthrop. The original village site was the heart of today's Harvard Square, while the town included a much larger area than the present city, with various outlying parts becoming independent towns over the years: Newton (originally Newtown) in 1690, Lexington (Cambridge Farms) in 1712, and Arlington (West Cambridge) and Brighton (Little Cambridge), which has since been annexed by Boston, in 1807

In 1636 Harvard College was founded by the colony to train ministers and Newtowne was chosen for its site. In 1638 the name was changed to "Cambridge" (after Cambridge, England) to reflect its status as the center for higher education in the colony.

Cambridge grew slowly as an agricultural village eight miles by road from Boston, the capital of the colony. By the American Revolution, most residents lived near the Common and Harvard College, with farms and estates comprising most of the town. Most of the inhabitants were descendants of the original Puritan colonists, but there was also a small elite of Anglicans "worthies" who were not involved in village life, made their livings from estates, investments, and trade, and lived in mansions along "the Road to Watertown" (today's Brattle Street), which is known as Tory Row. Most of these estates were confiscated after the revolution and sold to Loyalists.

Between 1790 and 1840, Cambridge began to grow rapidly with the construction of the West Boston Bridge in 1792 that connected Cambridge directly to Boston, making it no longer necessary to travel eight miles through the Boston Neck, Roxbury, and Brookline to cross the Charles River. A second bridge, the Canal Bridge, opened in 1809 alongside the new Middlesex Canal. The new bridges and roads made what were formerly estates and marshland prime industrial and residential districts. Soon after, turnpikes were built: the Concord Turnpike (today's Broadway and Concord Ave.), the Middlesex Turnpike (Hampshire St. and Massachusetts Ave. northwest of Porter Square), and what are today's Cambridge, Main, and Harvard Streets were roads to connect various areas of Cambridge to the bridges. In addition, railroads crisscrossed the town during the same era, leading to the development of Porter Square as well as the creation of neighboring town Somerville from the formerly rural parts of Charlestown.

Cambridge was incorporated as the second city in Massachusetts in 1846. Its commercial center also began to shift from Harvard Square to Central Square, which became the downtown of the city. Between 1850 and 1900, Cambridge took on much of its present character — streetcar suburban development along the turnpikes, with working-class and industrial neighborhoods focused on East Cambridge, comfortable middle-class housing being built on old estates in Cambridgeport and Mid-Cambridge, and upper-class enclaves near Harvard University and on the minor hills of the city. The coming of the railroad to North Cambridge and Northwest Cambridge then led to three major changes in the city: the development of massive brickyards and brickworks between Massachusetts Ave., Concord Ave. and Alewife Brook; the ice-cutting industry launched by Frederic Tudor on Fresh Pond; and the carving up of the last estates into residential subdivisions to provide housing to the thousands of immigrants that moved to work in the new industries.

By 1920, Cambridge was one of the main industrial cities of New England with nearly 120,000 residents. As industry in New England began to decline during the Great Depression and after World War II, Cambridge lost much of its industrial base. It also began the transition to being an intellectual, rather than an industrial, center. Harvard University had always been important in the city (both as a landowner and as an institution), but began to play a more dominant role in the city's life and culture. Also, the move of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from Boston in 1912 ensured Cambridge's status as an intellectual center of the United States.

After the 1950s, the city population began to decline slowly, as families were replaced by single people and young couples, and by the end of the twentieth century, Cambridge had one of the most expensive housing markets in the Northeastern United States. While maintaining much diversity in class, race, and age, it became harder and harder for those who grew up in the city to be able to afford to stay.