Mapping Feminist Cambridge

Mapping Feminist Cambridge Tours

This series of historic tours chronicles Cambridge's vital feminist movement from 1970s-1990s. Discover events that shaped history: the takeover of 888 Memorial Drive, the East Coast's first domestic violence shelter, one of America's earliest feminist bookstores, and pioneering women's studies courses.

Each event and organization on a MFC tour highlights the movement's fundamental concerns: reproductive rights, racial justice, female representation in media, support for survivors, visibility for lesbian and bisexual women, political activism, combating poverty, and many more efforts challenging existing power structures.

MFC provides current residents and visitors a crucial connection to this progressive legacy. The feminist infrastructure created during this period fundamentally reshaped Cambridge into the inclusive city it is today. By understanding how local activists created lasting change through grassroots organizing, today's Cambridge community gains not only historical knowledge but also practical models for continued advocacy and community building.

Inman Square Tour 
Central Square Tour *
Harvard Square Tour 
Youth Guide 

Second wave feminism refers to the feminist activity and thought that took root in the late 1960s and continued for approximately two decades primarily in Western democracies. As the women's movement sparked across the United States, Cambridge emerged as a dynamic center of liberation and organizing, rivaling the influence of much larger cities like New York and San Francisco.

Cambridge became ground zero for generative activism that fundamentally reshaped the city's future. From Saundra Graham's bold protest at Harvard University's commencement, to the historic 1971 Bread and Roses March and takeover of 888 Memorial Drive, Cambridge women fought for changes that benefit residents to this day: expanded access to healthcare and childcare, improved racial equity, delayed encroachment of the Riverside neighborhood by Harvard University, condemnation of gender-based violence and shelter for survivors, and numerous other essential rights and services.

To quote Jen Hoyer’s answer to greater civic engagement, MFC brings Cambridge’s feminist history, “out of the archives and into the streets” and allows residents to learn more about how the progressive values and policies they benefit from today were hard-won through the collaborative strength of women leading at the local level.

While MFC research highlights feminist organizing across many perspectives, CCSW acknowledges the movement, despite aspirations toward inclusion, has experienced and continues to experience exclusions across race, class, gender identity, religion, and disability. There are always more stories to discover and include in Cambridge's feminist history.

* 3-18-25. The Cambridge Commission on the Status of Women has released a new Mapping Feminist Cambridge story map focused on Central Square from 1970s-1990s. In this guide, we highlight feminist, socialist, and educational institutions that emerged and thrived in Central Square from the late 1960s through the 1990s and recognize the unique contributions they made to Cambridge feminist history.