Cambridge (city, United States)

Cambridge (city, United States), city, Massachusetts, United States. Cambridge is a noted educational and research centre: it is the seat of Harvard University (1636), the first college in North America; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1861); Radcliffe College (1879); and Lesley College (1909). Its printing and publishing industry dates from 1638, when the first printing press in America was established here. Rubber goods, electronic equipment, scientific instruments, confectionery, and meat products are also manufactured. The city's historic structures include the house George Washington used as his headquarters after assuming command of the Continental army in 1775; it later became the home of the 19th-century poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Among the many other notable 19th-century people who lived in Cambridge were the author-physician Oliver Wendell Holmes and the poet-diplomat James Russell Lowell. Other points of interest are Harvard Square; the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe, specializing in American women's history, and housing papers of Julia Ward Howe, Susan B. Anthony, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Amelia Earhart, and others; and Harvard's Widener Library, which displays a Gutenberg Bible. Founded as New Towne in 1630, the city was the capital of Massachusetts Bay Colony until 1634. It was renamed in 1638 after Cambridge in England. Population (1980) 95,322; (1990) 95,802.