Word: sutton
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Fitting in was hard for them. Sutton says the Yankees "automatically assigned the Irish to the bottom of the social heap," treating the Black population with greater deference. But the immigrant influx turned Cambridge into a manufacturing power--the more the factories expanded, the more immigrants arrived, and vice-versa. In 1845, there were 94 manufacturing firms in the city. Twenty years later, that number had grown to 173, and 20 years still later, in 1885, there were 578 factories in the city. From a work-force of 1269 in 1845, the number of employees grew...
...midst of its growth spurt, Cambridge officially became a city. Over the protests of many upper-crust Cantabrigians, all the communities were officially joined. But, to borrow a phrase from Sutton, "the joining was strictly contractual, rather like a pre-arranged marriage of convenience in which the partners shared little love and continued to sleep in separate bedrooms." Actually, there was comparatively little for government to do--this was a boom era, and local government simply did not enact zoning regulations. It also refrained from planning, and even building codes were rudimentary. The look-the-other-way policy permitted fast...
Cambridge Reconsidered,by S.B. Sutton. Written to coiincide with the nation's Bicentennial, this lively history covers all periods and parts of the city's history. The prime source for much of the material in this section, Sutton's history is especially good in its treatment of the 19th century influx of immigrants and growth of industry in the city. Sutton's book is also available at many other locations--it is the most accessible guide to Cambridge's past...
...influx, mostly from the American South and the distant West Indies, was not exactly well received. Historian S.B. Sutton reports that theCambridge Chroniclebegan to fill its humor columns with jokes about Blacks, usually depicting them as "childlike and slow-witted." Because "the color of their skin set them apart from all other members of the community, they gathered in tight districts in Cambridgeport," Sutton reports. Those who could afford good homes lived by Howard St.; more commonly, their residences were rickety old shacks on former marshland by the Charles...
...most Blacks were nowhere near so fortunate. Because white workers often refused to work side by side with Blacks, "a Black man would have had an easier time getting into Harvard than obtaining a job in the factory." Sutton says. A few succeeded--Clement Morgan became the first Black on the Cambridge Board of Aldermen near the turn of the century. Most, though, didn't even bother to finish high school, realizing the training would not make it any easier to find jobs. "On the whole," one historian explains, "there is a deep-seated feeling that it is useless...