The COMMUNITY ART CENTER was founded in 1937 in the Newtowne Court housing development in Central Square, Cambridge. It has long been an anchor for the surrounding community, particularly its youngest residents. As a result of decades of creative programs and events focused on youth, the Community Art Center has generated an incredible collection of art produced by young people in Cambridge.

 

One of the most impressive but lesser-known programs at the CAC is its youth photography class. We endeavor to give you a LOT more information about this long-running program as we learn more about its history in the future. For now, we have some amazing photos scanned and we wanted to share them with the world.

 

The selected images here were collected during a visit to the center’s archives by Pacey Foster and Brian Coleman in the fall of 2019, and were scanned by Brian Coleman, from original prints and color slides. (What you see on this page is less than half of the total images scanned).

 

We unfortunately do not have photographer IDs on any of these, which we hope to correct soon! It should be noted that we do not own or claim rights to any of these images, so if anyone has an issue with them being up (for instance, if you are one of the people in a photo and do not wish to have it up online), please let us know.

 

As importantly, if you grew up in the Newtowne Court houses and/or if you have any additional information about this program, any of the photographers, or subjects of these images, please reach out to us, we’d LOVE to hear from you!

 

For more information about the Community Art Center and its amazing programs, that continue to enrich the lives of young people in Cambridge to this day, please visit https://www.communityartcenter.org and https://www.communityartcenter.org/our-story.

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[Thank you to Fran Smith for the original intro at the CAC, and to Jensun Yonjan for allowing us to borrow the materials to digitize.]

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