City of Cambridge Halloween Events and Important Safety Tips
The Halloween season offers a variety of fun events for children, youth and families across the City of Cambridge. Various city departments will be sponsoring Halloween events in Cambridge. For general Halloween safety, all kids are reminded to wear reflective colors, carry a flashlight when it gets dark, and use extra caution crossing streets. Young children should be accompanied by an adult or a responsible older kid. Additionally, Cambridge Police Officers will be out in various areas of the city engaging with people in the community who are out trick or treating.
Veterans Day Observance Event Saturday, November 11 and Veterans' Appreciation Week November 13-17
The City of Cambridge Department of Veterans Services will host a Veterans Day Observance event on Saturday, November 11, from 11 a.m.-12 p.m., at Cambridge Common. A Veterans Appreciation Week will be held November 13-17, at the Veterans' Life and Recreation Center, 51 Inman Street, 2nd floor, Cambridge. events will provide an opportunity for veterans and their loved ones to gather and participate in health, wellness, and other fun and interactive activities. Free food and refreshments will also be available each day from 12-4 p.m.
Director's Update, May 26, 2024
25th Annual Youth Poetry Awards, Kay Redfield Jamison, Park Sounds with Lady Lee and the New Awakening Reggae Band, and Much More!
The Silenced Muse: Emily Hale, T. S. Eliot, and the Role of a Lifetime (Main)
In January 2020, the largest and most eagerly awaited cache of new materials written by the Nobel-Prize-winning poet T. S. Eliot was finally opened: the 1,131 letters he sent Emily Hale, his little-known American love, over the course of their lifetimes. Their relationship was, in their own words, an “unnatural” love affair, one that began in Cambridge in 1913, when Eliot was a graduate student at Harvard and Hale, an aspiring amateur actress, and that played out in Boston, England and California over the years.
Named as one of its "Fifty Notable Non-fiction Books of 2024" by the Washington Post, Fitzgerald's biography of Hale is based on the embargoed letters and extensive research into Hale’s life and times. Hale was much more than just a muse to a literary celebrity. She overcame personal hardship to pursue a career as a professor of speech and drama at prominent American women’s colleges and schools, including Simmons and Smith Colleges and Abbot and Concord Academies. She was a talented amateur actress and director, who performed at many Boston area theaters and later guided Eliot as he tried his hand at playwriting. But in the end, Eliot disavowed her, sending a secret letter to Harvard in 1960 that claimed his love for Hale was that of “a ghost for a ghost,” and confirming that he had arranged for Hale’s side of their 27-year correspondence to be destroyed. In the words of The Washington Post reviewer, “Missing letters, a secret love affair, a famous poet, a beautiful actress—what else could you possibly want in a story?"
Sara Fitzgerald is a retired journalist whose career included fifteen years as an editor and new media developer for The Washington Post. In 2020, she also published The Poet’s Girl: A Novel of Emily Hale and T. S. Eliot. Since then, her essays about Hale have appeared in multiple volumes of the Journal of the T. S. Eliot Society and the T. S. Eliot Studies Annual. She has presented at the annual meetings of the Modern Language Association, the American Historical Association, the International T. S. Eliot Society, and at the T. S. Eliot Summer School at Oxford. She is also the author of the biography, Elly Peterson: “Mother” of the Moderates and Conquering Heroines: How Women Fought Sex Bias at Michigan and Paved the Way for Title IX.