When: May 22, 2012 | 6:00-7:00 pm

Where: Boston Public Library, Commonwealth Salon, Central Library in Copley Square, 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 02117

This talk is FREE and open to the public.

University Archivist Joanne Riley will present a talk titled “Memories and Mortuary Records: Community Archiving Projects at UMass Boston” in the Commonwealth Salon at the Boston Public Library (700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 02117) on Wednesday, May 22 from 6:00 to 7:00 pm.

Description from the Boston Public Library:

UMass Boston houses many archival collections that are utilized by family historians and researchers interested in exploring Boston and Massachusetts cultural history through the lives of individuals. The University’s collections include more than 4,000 stories and images in the “Mass. Memories Road Show” project, hundreds of case records from the Boston Female Asylum, and more than 30,000 mortuary records from the Massachusetts Catholic Association of Foresters between 1880 and 1940. Joanne Riley will share examples from these collections, and will discuss the fascinating, productive, and sometimes challenging interplay among individuals, communities, and institutional archives. Since 2010, Ms. Riley has served as University Archivist at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

This talk is part of the BPL’s Local & Family History Lecture Series.

Explore images and stories from the Mass. Memories Road Show here. And learn more about the Foresters Records here.

University Archives & Special Collections (UASC) in the Joseph P. Healey Library at UMass Boston collects materials that reflect the University’s urban mission and strong support of community service, notably in collections of records of urban planning, social action, alternative movements, community organizations, and local history related to neighboring communities, including notable collections associated with Dorchester and with the Boston Harbor Islands. UASC also collects and preserves the history of the University of Massachusetts Boston, as well as historical information about preceding institutions, the Boston Normal School and Boston State College.

To carry out its mission, University Archives & Special Collections recognizes a formal commitment to working with, promoting, and assisting community archives in the Greater Boston area through facilitating cross-organization collaboration and access to informational, educational, and practical resources relevant to archival procedures and best practices.

The exhibition, titled “Nunca Más”: Niños Desaparecidos en Argentina y Las Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo (“Never Again”: Disappeared Children in Argentina and the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo), opened as part of an event celebrating of the life and work of biologist and human rights activist Rita Arditti and the many donations made by Arditti and her Executors to the Library at UMass Boston.

The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo is a human rights organization founded in 1977 to search for disappeared children who were abducted or born into captivity during the military dictatorship that ruled Argentina between 1976 and 1983. The Grandmothers’ goal was to find these children and return them to their biological families. The Grandmothers’ work led to the creation of the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team and the establishment of a National Genetic Data Bank.

In the early 1990s, Arditti traveled to Buenos Aires to interview the Grandmothers. She incorporated the interviews into her book Searching for Life: The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo and the Disappeared Children of Argentina (1999). Two additional interviews with the Grandmothers were conducted in 2011 by Estelle Disch, Professor Emerita at UMass Boston and Executor of the Estate of Rita Arditti.

The Rita Arditti Collection contains audio files, interview transcriptions, and photographs of the Grandmothers. The materials were donated to University Archives & Special Collections at UMass Boston in 2011.In this exhibition, sponsored by University Archives & Special Collections in the Joseph P. Healey Library at UMass Boston, are photographs of the Grandmothers who were interviewed by Arditti and Disch. Accompanying each photograph is an excerpt from that Grandmother’s interview in the original Spanish as well as an English translation.

The exhibition will be on display in the Healey Library’s Grossmann Gallery through the fall.

Volunteers and contributors at the Lexington Mass. Memories Road Show, March 16, 2013

On Saturday, March 16, 2013, as part of the town’s 300th Anniversary Celebration, the Mass. Memories Road Show visited Lexington, Massachusetts, and collected more than 300 photographs and stories from community members about their lives, their families, and their memories of Lexington.

Two hundred and eighty-one community members attended this Road Show event, which was part of series of activities for the LexCelebrate! Incorporation Weekend held at Lexington High School.

The Mass. Memories Road Show is a state-wide digital history project that documents people, places, and events in Massachusetts history through family photographs and stories. In partnership with teams of local volunteers, we organize public events to scan family and community photographs and videotape “the stories behind the photos.” The images and video are indexed and incorporated into an online educational database at openarchives.umb.edu.

A Lexington Mass. Memories Road Show contributor, and Battle of Lexington reenactor, describes his photo contribution, sword in hand, to the Mass. Memories Road Show digital archive.

The Mass. Memories Road Show is an initiative of University Archives & Special Collections in the Joseph P. Healey Library at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

The photos and stories from the Lexington Mass. Memories Road Show are currently being processed by archives staff and will be available online soon. It typically takes archives staff 2-3 months to fully process and incorporate images and stories into the digital collection.

Keep checking this site for up to date information.

Contact University Archives & Special Collections with any questions.

Date: Monday, April 22, 2012

Time: 4:00 – 6:00 pm

Location: Joseph P. Healey Library (5th floor), University of Massachusetts Boston, 100 Morrissey Boulevard, Boston, MA 02125-3393.

Please RSVP for this event by emailing library.archives@umb.edu or by calling 617-287-5944.

The Joseph P. Healey Library at UMass Boston invites you to celebrate the life and work of Rita Arditti, as well as the many donations made by Arditti and her Executors to the Library at UMass Boston, on Monday, April 22, 2013.

Arditti was an Argentinean professor living in the United States who learned about Las Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo (Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, pictured above), an organization that searches for children who were abducted during the Argentinean military dictatorship between 1976-1983. Arditti visited the Grandmothers and conducted more than a dozen interviews, which were incorporated into her book Searching for Life: The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo and the Disappeared Children of Argentina. Arditti spoke publicly about the Grandmothers’ work until her death in 2009.

Additional interviews were conducted in 2011 by  Estelle Disch, Rita Arditti’s partner and literary executor. The interview materials were donated to University Archives & Special Collections at UMass Boston in 2011.

Join us for this celebration, which will include an exhibition in the Library’s Grossmann Gallery about the Grandmothers and the disappeared children of Argentina. Speakers will include Estelle Disch, Doris Cristobal, Dean of Libraries Daniel Ortiz, and University Archivist Joanne Riley.

This event is free and open to the public. Refreshments and hors d’oeuvres. Please RSVP by emailing library.archives@umb.edu or by calling 617-287-5944.

For more information, visit blogs.umb.edu/archives.

This digital exhibit includes photographs and visual material from the UMass Boston Thompson’s Island Collection, including this photo of students having what looks like a jolly good time in the snow.

Explore this collection of photographs and documents from Thompson’s Island.

Carolyn is an experienced public historian, having worked as a museum curator at Lowell National Historical Park and the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. Her publications include Creating Consumers: Home Economists in 20th-Century America (University of North Carolina Press, 2012) and Do It Yourself: Home Improvement in 20th-Century America (National Building Museum and Princeton Architectural Press, 1998). Carolyn received her Ph.D. from University of Delaware, where she was a Fellow in the Hagley Program in the History of Industrialization.

One of Carolyn’s primary responsibilities will be coordinating the Library’s public scanning project, the Mass. Memories Road Show. She will also focus on building partnerships with undergraduate and graduate programs on campus, especially the History Department’s Archives and Public History tracks, as well as developing ways to expand the Library’s engagement with and service to local communities.

Upcoming Mass. Memories Road Shows include Lexington, on Saturday, March 16, and Stoughton on Sunday, May 5. Please visit openarchives.umb.edu for further information.

The event will feature light refreshments, as well as remarks by University Librarian Daniel Ortiz and Professor Reyes Coll-Tellechea, among others.

With the Agulló Digital Library, UMass Boston provides open, online access to published and unpublished Spanish-language research indices, the life’s work of Spanish historian Mercedes Agulló y Cobo, about Spanish and Latin American history, art, literature and politics – indices that, in their creation, were efforts to remove access barriers to historical materials in Spanish archives and libraries. The digital library serves as one example of efforts on the UMass Boston campus to further scholarship, learning, and research in open access environments and across geographic boundaries.

There are currently 13 volumes by Mercedes Agulló y Cobo digitized as part of this online collection and more than 50 volumes are queued for digitization.

Dr. Mercedes Agulló y Cobo has served as director of the Museos Municipales de Madrid and over the course of her illustrious career has produced important scholarly reference works in the historiography of the book, painting, sculpture and theater. The University of Massachusetts Boston was granted permission by the original publishers and copyright holders to make these publications available online.

The event will be held Tuesday, October 23, from 5:00-7:00 p.m., in the Center for Library Instruction (CLI) on the 4th floor of the Joseph P. Healey Library at UMass Boston, 100 Morrissey Blvd., Boston.

Learn more about the Mercedes Agulló y Cobo Digital Library online at http://openarchives.umb.edu.

For more information about this event, call 617-287-5944 or email library.archives@umb.edu.

Please note that this program, originally scheduled for Sat Jun 23rd has been cancelled and will be rescheduled for Fall 2012. Stay tuned for rescheduling announcements, or contact the the Boston Busing/Desegregation Project (BBDP) for further information.

ORIGINAL ANNOUNCEMENT

The Mass Memories Road Show, a project of University Archives & Special Collections at UMass Boston, and The Boston Busing/Desegregation Project present a unique collaboration: Boston in the Era of School Desegregation: Share your memories of your community from the 1960s and ‘70s.

At this Mass Memories Road Show:

• Bring up to 3 photos or documents that reflect yourself, your family, your community in Boston in the 1960s and 1970s. (Items will be scanned and the originals will immediately be returned to you.)
• Contribute to an oral history video project while you tell the story about your photos or documents – on camera
• Learn about preserving your pictures and documents

Come and share your story and become a part of the digital history of Massachusetts!

All scanned information will also become part of a state-wide educational website called Mass. Memories Road Show: Your Place in Massachusetts History. The Mass. Memories Road Show is a project of University Archives & Special Collections at the University of Massachusetts Boston and of Mass Humanities. Your contributions will also inform the Boston Busing/Desegregation Project (BBDP) as it looks to understand the historical context of school desegregation. This event is held in conjunction with the BBDP’s first annual citywide gathering. The BBDP is a project of the Union of Minority Neighborhoods.

EVENT POSTPONED!

Please note that this program, originally scheduled for Sat Jun 23rd has been cancelled and will be rescheduled for Fall 2012. Stay tuned for rescheduling announcements, or contact the the Boston Busing/Desegregation Project (BBDP) for further information.

View videos and stories from this ongoing project on the website of Shirley Tang, Associate Professor of American Studies at UMass Boston: http://shirleystang.com/digitalstories/.

UMass Boston is the only research university in New England designated and funded by the U.S. Department of Education as an Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institution (AANAPISI). Highlighted by the Association of American Colleges and Universities as a national model, the Asian American Studies Program offers the most Asian American Studies courses, faculty, and community linkages of any university in New England.

President Barack Obama drew 15,000 people to Hynes Auditorium in Boston to hear him support the reelection campaign of Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick on October 16, 2010. Three weeks later, Patrick became the first black governor in the country to be reelected. Image © Don West.

The most recent issue of the Trotter Review, which focuses on issues of the political representation of African Americans in local, state, and national politics, is now available in ScholarWorks, the institutional repository for scholarship and research at UMass Boston.

The Trotter Review has been published since 1987 by the William Monroe Trotter Institute for the Study of Black Culture at UMass Boston.

The contents of this issue include

“Governor Deval Patrick and the Representation of Massachusetts’ Black Interests” by Ravi K. Perry

“Considered a Foreign Policy Neophyte, Barack Obama Emerges as One of the Nation’s Most Competent Commanders in Chief” by Howard Manly

“Denver and Boston: Why One City Elects Black Mayors and the Other Has Not” by Kenneth J. Cooper

“Commentary: Creating a Pipeline for a More Inclusive Democracy” by Joyce Ferriabough