Visualizing Historical Data with the MetroBoston DataCommon

historic mapping

Late last year, the National Heritage Museum in Lexington, Mass., offered a workshop titled “How to Do History with Online Mapping Tools” as part of a series related to the Museum and Library’s collection of historic maps. The workshop was sponsored by the Ruby W. and LaVon P. Linn Foundation.

In the workshop, participants learned how to use online tools to consult and create maps that chart Metro Boston area history. The presenters were Jessie Partridge from the MetroBoston DataCommon, a provider of free applications that make it possible to map data, and Joanne Riley, University Archivist and Curator of Special Collections in the Healey Library at UMass Boston.

Both presenters helped lay historians, data fans, and map enthusiasts discover how visualizations of data and space related to our region can help us understand our history.

Workshop materials: Joanne Riley’s presentation and handout; Jessie Partridge’s presentation.

One collaborative example from the workshop, using data from the records of the Massachusetts Catholic Order of Foresters:


View Larger Visualization


View Larger Visualization


View Larger Visualization


University Archives & Special Collections in the Joseph P. Healey Library at UMass Boston collects materials related to the university’s history, as well as materials that reflect the institution’s urban mission and strong support of community service, notably in collections of records of urban planning, social welfare, social action, alternative movements, community organizations, and local history related to neighboring communities.

University Archives & Special Collections welcomes inquiries from individuals, organizations, and businesses interested in donating materials of an archival nature that that fit within our collecting policy. These include manuscripts, documents, organizational archives, collections of photographs, unique publications, and audio and video media. For more information about donating to University Archives & Special Collections, click here or email library.archives@umb.edu.

Boston bicycling history in the news… and in the archives

Congratulations to author Lorenz Finison, whose book Boston’s Cycling Craze, 1880-1900: A Story of Race, Sport, and Society has been named one of The Boston Globe’s Best New England books of 2014! Published by the University of Massachusetts Press, Boston’s Cycling Craze, 1880-1990 “explores the rise of Boston cycling through the lives of several participants … [and] reveals the challenges facing these riders in a time of segregation, increased immigration, and debates about the rights of women.”

After completing work on his book, Larry Finison donated several archival collections, research materials, and publications that he’d gathered from groups, organizations, and individuals connected to the history of bicycling in Boston and around the world. The significance of these acquisitions, their relation to other collections held by the University and the fact that no other repository is preserving this material led UMass Boston to add the history of bicycling in the Boston area to its formal collection policy in August, 2014.

21 June 1969. The parade at Rockport, MA. Dr. Ralph Galen in front. Dr. Paul Dudley White behind.

21 June 1969. The parade at Rockport, MA. Dr. Ralph Galen in front. Dr. Paul Dudley White behind.

To that end, we are excited to announce that archivist Meghan Bailey has completed processing the first of these new collections documenting the surprisingly complex and rich history of bicycling in the City of Boston: the papers of Ralph W. Galen, which were donated to University Archives & Special Collections by Larry Finison, on behalf of Galen’s daughter, Terry Galen.

Dr. Ralph W. Galen, also known as “Wally” by his childhood friends and family, was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and resided for many years in Lexington and Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1954 he completed his graduate work in orthodontics at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine, where he received an appointment as a teaching fellow. He practiced orthodontia in Cambridge for nearly forty years.

Galen may be best known for his passion in the cycling world, co-founding the Charles River Wheelmen bicycle club in 1967 with his friend Fred Chafee . He later became president of the League of American Wheelmen, a national bicycling organization established in 1880 and reorganized in 1965 following a ten-year hiatus, where he became Life Member #1. In his early years with these organizations, Galen rode to Expo 67, part of Canada’s Centennial celebration in 1967, and across the United States. Later, Galen rode through thirteen countries in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, and authored a book about his journey entitled 2 Wheels 2 Years & 3 Continents: A Bicyclist’s Dream Fulfilled. Over the course of his lifetime he rode “boneshakers,” “high wheelers,” tandems, fixed gear, and road bicycles. He also amassed a collection of antique bicycles, which he later donated to the Lars Anderson Auto Museum in Brookline, Mass.

Ralph Galen received two patents along with fellow inventor John Vanderpoel, one for a bicycle safety flag apparatus in 1997, and another for a bicycle rack in 1976. He also invented a side mirror, which clamps onto the front fork next to the front wheel of the bicycle.

This collection documents the activities of Ralph Galen, including the activities of the Charles River Wheelmen Board of Directors dating from the early 1970s. Formats include minutes, notes, and agendas. The collection also contains personal materials, including records of Galen’s inventions for bicycles, correspondence with friends and family, and his notes and writings pertaining to articles and the book 2 Wheels 2 Years & 3 Continents.

Members of the public who are interested in donating papers, correspondence, photographs and other documentation of the history of bicycling in the Boston area are invited to review our donation brochure and to contact library.archives@umb.edu for additional information.

If you have any questions or if you would like to schedule a time to explore this or any of our collections, email library.archives@umb.edu or call 617-287-5469.

View the finding aid for the collection “Galen, Ralph: papers, 1959-2012.”


University Archives & Special Collections in the Joseph P. Healey Library at UMass Boston collects materials related to the university’s history, as well as materials that reflect the institution’s urban mission and strong support of community service, notably in collections of records of urban planning, social welfare, social action, alternative movements, community organizations, and local history related to neighboring communities.

University Archives & Special Collections welcomes inquiries from individuals, organizations, and businesses interested in donating materials of an archival nature that that fit within our collecting policy. These include manuscripts, documents, organizational archives, collections of photographs, unique publications, and audio and video media. For more information about donating to University Archives & Special Collections, click here or email library.archives@umb.edu.

Mass. Memories Road Show heads to Boston’s West End this Saturday

westendmemories_pic2When: Saturday, November 15, 2014 –  10:00 am – 2:00 pm

Location: The West End Museum, 150 Staniford St. (on Lomasney Way), Boston, Mass. Click here for directions.

Do you have a connection to the West End in Boston, Massachusetts? Share your memories and take your place in Massachusetts history at this free, public event.

Please bring 1-3 photos in their original format and your stories to be recorded. We will scan unframed pictures and copy digital images and return the images back to you. All images will be added to the online collection at openarchives.umb.edu. Preserve your memories of this wonderful neighborhood! Read more about this event here.

The Mass. Memories Road Show is a statewide digital history project that documents people, places, and events in Massachusetts history through family photographs and stories.

The Mass. Memories Road Show is produced by the Joseph P. Healey Library at UMass Boston and is co-sponsored by the Patricia C. Flaherty ’81 Endowed Fund.

The West End Mass. Memories Road Show is being hosted by the West End Museum and partners include The Vilna Shul, West End Civic Association, and the West End Branch of the BPL.

Questions: Contact Kim Whitaker at 845-270-2188, 617-723-2125, or kim@westendmuseum.org.

Remembering Mayor Thomas M. Menino, Class of 1988

Mayor Thomas Menino, Verizon's Robert Mudge, UMass Boston Chancellor Sherry Penney, and Ira Jackson at the Business-Higher Education Forum, 1998. UASC-UAPHO-0002-0063-0004

Mayor Thomas Menino, Verizon’s Robert Mudge, UMass Boston Chancellor Sherry Penney, and Ira Jackson at the Business-Higher Education Forum, 1998. UASC-UAPHO-0002-0063-0004

Today, the City of Boston bids farewell to beloved five-term mayor Thomas M. Menino, who passed away last Thursday, October 30.

Menino received his bachelor of arts in 1988 from UMass Boston’s College of Public and Community Service with a concentration in community planning. Menino took part in the 1987 commencement exercises, but received his degree in January 1988. View the commencement program here (his name appears on page 21 of the PDF). Seven years later, in 1994, he was on the commencement platform again, but this time he was giving the principal address to the graduates as The Honorable Thomas M. Menino, Mayor, City of Boston. View the 1994 commencement program here.

Over the years, Mayor Menino visited the campus often in support of the university’s strong programs in urban planning and community service. A number of images in the photograph collections of University Archives & Special Collections document Mayor Menino’s commitment to the mission of UMass Boston. Click here to view photographs of Mayor Menino from our collection.

Mayor Menino views Road Show photographs from Dorchester with University Archivist Joanne Riley.

Mayor Menino views Road Show photographs from Dorchester with University Archivist Joanne Riley.

Finally, the mayor’s office was a strong supporter of the Grub Street Memoir Project, which partnered with UMass Boston’s Mass. Memories Road Show project in 2007 for a reading and photo scanning evening at the Boston Public Library’s Central Library in Copley Square. Learn more about the Grub Street Memoir Project here and view the images collected at the Grub Street Mass. Memories Road Show.

The Healey Library joins the UMass Boston community and the City of Boston in offering condolences to the Mayor’s family on the loss of a remarkable man and a tireless public servant who transformed our city for the better. Mayor Menino will be missed.

Volume from Healey Library’s Special Collections featured in Rose Art Museum exhibition

War Against War

Ernst Friedrich’s War Against War (1924), from University Archives & Special Collections in the Joseph P. Healey Library at UMass Boston

University Archives & Special Collections in the Joseph P. Healey Library at UMass Boston recently had the opportunity to broaden exposure to our collections by loaning our copy of Ernst Friedrich’s War Against War (1924) to the Rose Art Museum, Brandeis Museum, as a centerpiece for their current exhibition, 1914: Magnus Plessen. Organized by Rose Art Museum curator-at-large Katy Siegel, 1914:Magnus Plessen incorporates recent work by Berlin-based painter Magnus Plessen (b.1967) alongside the historical materials and documents of World War I that inspired this body of work.

Curator Katy Siegel notes that in 1924, Ernst Friedrich published War Against War, a book of photographs that documented the experience of World War I. In Friedrich’s visual narrative, early German patriotic fervor gives way quickly to terrible consequences, including the injuries that trench warfare inflicted on individual soldiers. The images themselves were controversial, shocking in their force and frankness.

About 75 years after the initial publication of War Against War, contemporary Berlin artist Magnus Plessen obtained a copy. He has been looking at the book for the past decade, turning over in his mind the images of grievously wounded— now dead—soldiers he cannot forget. In 2012, he was impelled to begin paintings and drawings, working with those images. Unlike the original photographs, the subject of these art works is not the literal, graphic depiction of wounds, but the figurative hole in the original self or self-image of the soldier. Velvety black areas mark these blind spots. A dozen of Plessen’s paintings and accompanying drawings are exhibited, alongside selections from Dix’s print series, copies of Friedrich’s book, and a variety of archival and documentary materials.

1914: Magnus Plessen runs from September 10 through December 14, 2014, at the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University.


University Archives & Special Collections in the Joseph P. Healey Library at UMass Boston collects materials related to the university’s history, as well as materials that reflect the institution’s urban mission and strong support of community service, notably in collections of records of urban planning, social welfare, social action, alternative movements, community organizations, and local history related to neighboring communities.

University Archives & Special Collections welcomes inquiries from individuals, organizations, and businesses interested in donating materials of an archival nature that that fit within our collecting policy. These include manuscripts, documents, organizational archives, collections of photographs, unique publications, and audio and video media. For more information about donating to University Archives & Special Collections, click here or email library.archives@umb.edu.