Kit Rawlins

Kathleen “Kit” Rawlins, a Massachusetts native, is the longtime assistant director (and in-house editor) of the Cambridge Historical Commission, where she “makes the trains run on time,” oversees the department’s finances including guiding Preservation Grant recipients through the reimbursement process, and presents programs on Cambridge history in local elementary schools. She has been a costumed interpreter at Plimoth Plantation (“living” as the wife of Captain Standish, John Alden, and Thomas Prence) and guided Quincy elementary students through their city’s rich history. In Cambridge, she creates tours and talks that impart a sense of double vision through the use of historic diary entries, correspondence, and poetry; walks include “The Hazard of New Ideas” (Craigie and Berkeley streets), Frederick H. Rindge and his generous gifts (Cambridge City Hall, Public Library, and Manual Training School), and explorations of her own neighborhood, Cambridgeport. Kit was a part of the original Cambridge African American Heritage Alliance that, with the commission, installed twenty historic markers around the city honoring Black Cantabrigians. Her illustrated articles on aspects of Cambridge history appear regularly in the city publication The Cambridge Life and on the commission’s blog. Now that covid restrictions have been loosened, Kit looks forward to sharing local history again with residents and visitors during neighborhood walks and talks and participating in citywide history events.