View of Cambridge from the Inner Basin

The shoreline of the Charles River in East Cambridge, Massachusetts, horizontally bisects this small canvas. Factories and industrial buildings stand alongside churches and courthouses, conveying the city’s importance as the center of manufacturing for the greater Boston region. Cambridge Gas Company used the conical building at the painting’s center to store gas for lighting the city. The billowing smokestacks at the far right belonged to the New England Glass Company (1818–1888), among the most significant early American glass manufacturers.

The West Boston Bridge, depicted at the far right, was personally relevant to the artist, Ernest Wadsworth Longfellow. His father, the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, had published a poem titled The Bridge (1845), a meditation on love that established this bridge’s fame.