CAMBRIDGE, a city of Massachusetts, U.S.A., on the Charles river, opposite Boston; the county seat of Middlesex county. It is served by the Boston and Maine railroad and the local transportation system of the Boston metropolitan area, and for freight by the Boston and Maine, the Boston and Albany and a belt line which connects with the New York, New Haven and Hartford. The area of the city is 6.25sq. miles. The population in 1920 was 109,694, of whom 32,104 were foreign-born white and 5,334 were negroes; and was 113,643 in 1930.
Old Cambridge, centring at Harvard square, has been to Ameri cans a symbol of culture ever since the founding of Harvard col lege (q.v.) in 1636. Adjoining it has developed in the loth cen tury a commercial and industrial centre which now ranks third among the manufacturing cities of the State. The first printing press in America was set up here in 1639, and a publishing busi ness flourished through the 17th century. As long ago as 185o there were glassware factories employing 500 persons. In the early '7os was begun the reclamation of two square miles of tide-covered marshlands for a manufacturing district. Rapid expansion, how ever, began in 1912, when the opening of the underground railway brought the business section of Boston within three minutes of Cambridge, and it was further stimulated by the war-time boom and by the development of motor-trucking, which gave direct ac cess (without encountering the heaviest traffic congestion of Bos ton) to all the steamship piers, to the freight-yards of all the rail roads entering Boston and to the suburban district of the metro politan area. In 1927 there were 355 manufacturing establish ments, and their output for the year was valued at $176,000,000. The leading industries are printing and publishing and the manu facture of soap, candy, bakery products, electrical machinery and apparatus, foundry and machine-shop products and rubber goods. Most of the large New England industries are represented to some extent. The manufacturing as a whole is clean and unobjection able in character. Slaughtering and meat-packing, formerly the principal industries, have almost disappeared with the rise of the packing centres of the middle west. The industrial growth has been advantageous as an offset to the large proportion of exempt holdings in the city, while encroachment of manufacturing on the historic residential and educational sections has been ob viated by zoning regulations. A city-planning board was created by ordinance in 1913. Modern transportation facilities have made Cambridge also an important distributing centre. Many national producers have established here their Boston headquarters; sev eral Boston department stores have erected warehouses; and the Boston and Maine railroad in 1927 moved its general offices to Cambridge. The assessed valuation of property in 1927 was $173, 602,700, about $1,400 per capita.
In addition to Harvard university (q.v.) the older educational institutions include Radcliffe college for women (1879), affiliated with Harvard; the Episcopal theological school (1867) ; and the New-Church (Church of the New Jerusalem) theological school (1866). Andover theological seminary (Congregational) moved to Cambridge in after a notable century in Andover. In 1915 the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (q.v.) moved from the site it had occupied in Boston for so years to a tract of 8oac. on the Cambridge side of the Charles river basin.
The shaded irregular streets around Harvard square are full of historic and literary associations. The site of Cambridge was se lected by Governor Winthrop and others in 1630 for the capital of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, but Boston's position was seen to have the advantage both for commerce and for defence. The town records (published) are continuous since 1632. The settle ment was at first called New Towne, but in after the found ing of Harvard, was named after the English university town. General Synods of the New England churches met here in 1637 and 1647 to settle disputed points of doctrine and from here in 1636 Thomas Hooker's congregation left for Connecticut. Here camped the first American army at the outbreak of the Revolution, and from it went the detachment which entrenched on Bunker Hill. Under an elm which stood until 1923 Washington (according to tradition) took command of the Continental army on July 3, The convention which framed the Constitution of Massachusetts met here in 1779-80. In Apthorp House (17 60) Gen. Burgoyne and his officers were lodged as prisoners of war in 1777. Vassall or Craigie House (1759) was occupied by Washington in and later was the home of Edward Everett, Joseph E. Worcester, Jared Sparks and (1837-82) Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. In "Elmwood" James Russell Lowell was born and lived all his life ; and there are many associations with Oliver Wendell Holmes, Louis Agassiz, Charles Eliot Norton, John Fiske, Amy Lowell and many other men and women of note in the literary and scientific history of America.
The original town of Cambridge was very large. From it New ton was set off in 1691 ; Lexington in 1713 ; Brighton in 1837; and Arlington in 1846. The city was chartered in 1846. In 185o the population was 15,215; in 1870, 39,634; in 1900, 91,886.
See Lucius R. Paige, History of Cambridge, Massachusetts, 163o 1877 (Boston, 1877) ; T. W. Higginson, Old Cambridge (1899) ; Historic Guide to Cambridge (Cambridge, 5907) ; and Arthur Gilman (ed.), The Cambridge of Eighteen Hundred and Ninety-Six (Cam bridge, 1907) .