Records of Cambridge Homes, 1854-2004 (inclusive), 1900-1998 (bulk)

The records of Cambridge Homes, a nonprofit home for the elderly, include by-laws, histories, and brochures; Board of Directors files (meeting minutes, notes, committee reports and minutes, lists of board members); resident applications; volumes listing resident wills, financial information, wishes about death and burial; and transcripts and audiotapes from an oral history project with residents. The collection contains extensive documentation of the early years of the Homes - annual reports, treasurer's reports, board minutes, and careful documentation of residents. Files on residents are most complete before the 1940s, and many contain birth certificates, United States citizenship or naturalization documents, and cemetery deeds for residents. There is little documentation of any kind between the 1940s and the 1970s. Board of Directors files from the 1980s through the mid 1990s are quite complete, and reflect the Board's struggles in those years with financial realities, an aging building, and the increased professionalization of elder care. Original titles written on folders or imprinted on volumes appear in quotations in the inventory; most folder titles were created by the archivist.

Additional material received in 2019 (accession number 2019-M68) was added to the collection in April 2019. This material is housed in #22.1. All other files remain in the same order. Folders are listed in intellectual, not numerical, order.

Series I, HISTORY AND ORGANIZATION, 1892-1996 (#1.1-3.3), includes by-laws, annual reports, brochures, histories, publicity material, and policies of the Cambridge Homes. Two bound volumes contain collected early records of the Homes (#1.2v, 2.16v). This series includes files of resident and Board member Lucy W. Stearns, most related to histories of the Homes that she researched and wrote. A number of brochures (#2.2), many undated, show the ways the marketing of Cambridge Homes changed over time. Files related specifically to the administration of the Homes are included here; a number of Board of Directors files in Series II also address administration issues of the homes.

Series II, BOARD OF DIRECTORS, 1909-1998 (inclusive), 1982-1996 (bulk) (#3.4-12.3), contains minutes, correspondence, reports, memos, and notes from Board of Directors and committee meetings. The Admissions Committee researches, interviews and recommends candidates for admission as Cambridge Homes residents. The House Committee is responsible for authorizing all expenditures for supplies and services in the Homes; it also included residents of the Homes as members. In general this series documents a nonprofit board (primarily composed of nonexperts) grappling with the changing nature of elder care over the late 20th century: increased state regulation, centralization and professionalization of health care, longer lives of residents, changing nature of funds available even to the poorest residents, etc. The Cambridge Homes board undertook studies to determine how to proceed with issues surrounding the cost of on-site nursing care, renovation of an older facility, and planning for an uncertain future. The Strategic Planning Committee, active in the 1990s, hired a consultant to recommend a way forward for the Homes; this resulted in the Board's decision to hire a management company and renovate to become an assisted living facility.

Files comprising this series are a mixture of those kept by Homes administrators and those kept by Homes Board members, including Presidents Frank Duehay and Catherine Gerrish. When files belonging to Board Members were titled or clearly marked as relating to a specific committee or topic, the files have been arranged with other files on the work of that committee, with original owner identified. A number of Board members' files were more general, and these are arranged by member name. Much of the material was unfoldered, and these materials were organized by Committee or topic. Folders with meeting minutes also may include agendas and committee reports to the board. Corporation meeting files may also include Board committee reports, as well as that of the Cambridge Homes Administrator, to the corporation. Series is arranged alphabetically.

Series III, RESIDENTS, 1854-1994 (inclusive), 1920-1950 (bulk) (#12.4-20.5, 22.1, FD.1-FD.2, F+D.1), contains resident application files; Cambridge Homes's records about resident next of kin and wishes for death and burial; lists of residents and their financial information, etc. Beginning in 1891, residents were given numbers in order of application. Resident number 1, Jane Augusta Field, applied for residency in October 1891 and took up residence that November. Most records in this series begin with the earliest residents and continue in chronological order through the 1960s. Residents, especially in the first three decades of the Homes, were a mix of immigrant and American-born, however most were white Protestants. Bound registers (#19.5-19.6v, 22.1) list names of residents, their town of residence, town and date of birth, parents' names and birthplaces, living close relatives, religion, occupation, years lived in Cambridge, and date of death and place of burial. Application files of deceased residents include their original applications, and in many cases were also used as catch-all files for the residents: many include directions upon death, cemetery deeds, correspondence residents received from family members or other community members, naturalization and citizenship records, or photographs. Cemetery deeds are often to Mount Auburn Cemetery and Cambridge Cemetery, as well as a few other local cemeteries. Applications contain detailed personal information, such as family background, occupation of parents, spouse if any, personal property, former places of residence, etc. Two bound "Legacy Books" (#18.1v, 18.7v), which list residents in order of death, had many pieces of paper stuck in between pages; these items have been removed and stored separately (#18.3-18.6, 19.1-19.2) A number of documents (#20.3) belonged to resident Lucy Stearns, who also served on the Cambridge Homes Board of Directors. A folder of song books that belonged to residents includes several printed by labor unions. The series is arranged alphabetically.

Series IV, CAMBRIDGE HOMES ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 1999-2004 (#20.6-21.5, T-295.1-T-295.34), contains audiocassettes and transcripts for oral histories taken of 14 Cambridge Homes residents. The Cambridge Homes Oral History project was launched in 1999, when, soon after retiring as curator of manuscripts at the Schlesinger Library, Eva Moseley was invited to serve as an incorporator of Cambridge Homes, and fellow Incorporator Olive ("Polly") Malcolm suggested that Moseley begin an oral history project. Together they assembled a small group of additional volunteer interviewers (Carol Bain, Harriet Belin, and Alexandra Leake) and arranged for training by Ruth Hill, Oral History Coordinator at the Schlesinger Library. The interviews were conducted with residents of the Homes beginning in late 1999. Tapes were transcribed by Amy Zug and each transcript was edited by the interviewer and by the interviewee and/or, in some cases, a family member. Residents were asked a series of questions about their childhood, their professional and adult lives, their family members, and other topics found interesting by the interviewer. All interview subjects signed release forms describing their wishes about access, copyright, etc. Copies of these legal agreements are included with each transcript. Each interview resulted in an edited oral history transcript save two, those of Lydia King and Sally Moulton: only audiotapes of these oral histories are available. All tapes in this series are audiocassettes. The series is arranged alphabetically by interviewee.

Series V, PHOTOGRAPHS, 1876-1983 (PD.1-PD.3), contains photographs of the Cambridge Homes building and its residents, primarily taken for publicity purposes. Also included are photographs belonging to resident John Lowell. These photographs, most unidentified, include a woman seated on donkey in Egypt in 1908; a tintype; and several views of a woman in her bedroom.

Most of the photographs in this collection are or will be digitized and available online.