UMass Boston archivists give presentation at ACRL/NEC annual conference

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Meghan Bailey, Processing Archivist in the Healey Library at UMass Boston (left), and a conference attendee discuss the department’s poster.

Last week, archivists from University Archives & Special Collections in the Joseph P. Healey Library at UMass Boston headed to the ACRL/NEC Annual Conference in Worcester, Massachusetts. At this year’s conference, called Spacing Out with the Library: An Exploration of Collaboration Across the Physical, Virtual and those Places in Between, Meghan Bailey and Andrew Elder presented as part of the poster session on the department’s efforts, sparked by the 50th anniversary of the founding of the University of Massachusetts Boston, to carry out a wide range of initiatives, all focused on locating, accessioning, preserving, and sharing the physical evidence of the university’s history.

Meghan and Andrew represented the department at the conference, but the poster was developed and designed collaboratively by the full staff of University Archives & Special Collections.

acrl posterOur poster, titled “‘Save Our History!’ Collaborating to Preserve the Past at UMass Boston,” outlines the various collecting activities, outreach methods, digitization projects, and dogged detective work that resulted in the addition of more than 2,500 linear feet of unique historic materials to the University Archives, as well as a number of well-received public events and exhibitions. We highlight our planning processes, marketing efforts, outreach and collecting endeavors, and our work to share the history of UMass Boston with members of the university community and beyond. We also highlight a number of our successes and identify ways other institutions and archives can work collaboratively to launch similar initiatives.

View the poster and handout here.


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.

Chew on This: 11th annual Mass History Conference explores the history of food in Massachusetts

2015 bannerWhen: Monday, June 1, 2015 | 9:00 am – 4:30 pm

Where: Hogan Campus Center, College of Holy Cross, Worcester, Mass.

Online registration is open. Visit www.masshumanities.org.

Click here for directions.

At this, the eleventh annual Mass History Conference, conference organizers will welcome the many small historical organizations and practitioners preserving, interpreting, and deepening the exploration of Massachusetts history.

You are what you eat! Or are you? At this year’s conference, we will explore the meaning and availability of food in Massachusetts History: what we grow, what we eat, food and identity, scarcity and quality. We will once again present a program that is chock-full of excellent hands-on examples of, and workshops in, the best practices in public history. We are planning workshops on topics like doing food demonstrations; conducting oral histories that focus on food and identity; and using public history in reinventing the food system. The conference will also include sessions on 20th century food production; archives with cookbook and other food-related collections; the history of and current strategies for feeding the hungry in Massachusetts cities and towns; multicultural food ways and local practices; how to interpret account books; Native American food practices; and interpreting agricultural landscapes.

This year’s conference, Chew on This: Presenting the history of food in Massachusetts, will feature a keynote address by filmmaker Ian Cheney, creator of The Search for General Tso, a 2014 documentary film about Chinese food in America, and co-founder of Food Corps.

Conference organizers are happy to welcome the 2015 MA SHRAB Forum to the Mass History Conference! MA SHRAB is holding two free sessions in the afternoon to which any Mass History Conference participant may attend. If you would like to ONLY attend these two SHRAB sessions, register for free on the MA SHRAB Forum Registration Page.

The Mass History Conference, widely celebrated as the best networking and skill-sharing opportunity for historians of our state culture, is co-presented by Mass Humanities, New England Archivists, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, the University of Massachusetts Amherst Public History Program, Massachusetts State Historical Records Advisory Board (MA SHRAB), the University of Massachusetts Boston Public History and Archives Track, and the Joseph P. Healey Library at UMass Boston.

Online registration is open. Visit www.masshumanities.org.

Phyllis Harmon: League of American Wheelmen (LAW) Collection – Now open for research

Guest post by Lindsay Sprechman

Phyllis Harmon: League of American Wheelmen (LAW) Collection

Phyllis Harmon: League of American Wheelmen (LAW) Collection

University Archives & Special Collections in the Joseph P. Healey Library at UMass Boston is happy to announce that the Phyllis Harmon: League of American Wheelmen (LAW) Collection is now open and available for research. This collection documents Phyllis Harmon’s work in the bicycling community, especially her work with the League of American Wheelmen, a prominent bicycling organization.

The League of American Wheelmen was founded in 1880 to address bicyclists’ needs. In their early days, they advocated for bicyclists’ access to roads at a time when many laws and ordinances were written keeping them off the road. LAW was also instrumental in the Good Roads Movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which advocated for improved road conditions. The League became inactive twice during periods from 1924 to 1939 and from 1955 to 1964, but reorganized in 1964 and still continues to advocate for bicyclists today. LAW was renamed the League of American Bicyclists (LAB) in 1997.

League of American Wheelmen newsletter, June 1940

League of American Wheelmen newsletter, June 1940

Phyllis Harmon is known as the “Grande Dame of American Bicycling” for her work with LAW and other bicycling organizations. Harmon became a member of LAW in 1939 and served numerous roles in the organization, including treasurer, executive vice president, historian, office manager, executive director and honorary director. However, her most prominent position was her role as writer and editor of LAW’s magazine, LAW Bulletin. Harmon volunteered to publish the magazine from her home and edited it from 1939 to 1945 and again from 1964 until 1979. For her contribution to the bicycling world in Chicago and around the country, Harmon was inducted into the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation’s Hall of Fame in 2006 and the U.S. Bicycling Hall of Fame in 2009.

This collection includes many of LAW’s organizational records, including Board meeting minutes, constitutions, by-laws, correspondence and memos. It also includes materials on LAW’s conventions and rallies, membership directories and surveys, collected research and articles about bicycling, and more than 30 years of issues of the LAW Bulletin, and its successor, Bicycle USA.

View the finding aid for this collection.

For questions about this collection or to schedule a research appointment, please contact library.archives@umb.edu or 617-287-5469.


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.

May4Matters: Remembering the 45th anniversary of the shootings at Kent State

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Second page of the Mass Media, May 20, 1970. University Archives and Special Collections, Joseph P. Healey Library, UMass Boston.

In May 1970, students, faculty, and staff at the University of Massachusetts Boston joined more than 1,250 colleges in protesting the shootings at Kent State on May 4 and, later, at Jackson State on May 15.

On May 5, UMass Boston’s student Senate, according to the Boston Globe, “voted to strike in memory of the four killed at Kent, pending a referendum [on May 6] by the 3600 students …” This resolution was passed amid nationwide demonstrations against the war in Vietnam and, in particular, the U.S. invasion of Cambodia, which President Richard Nixon announced in a national address on April 30.

With the events at Kent State the previous day, the protests took on a new, expanded meaning and May 5 became the first day of a student strike that shut down (either partially or completely) more than 450 high school, college, and university campuses across the country.

According to UMass Boston’s student-run newspaper Mass Media – reporting in a “Special Strike Issue” of the publication on May 7, 1970 – students, faculty, and staff at the university passed a resolution earlier that week stating, in part:

We, the faculty, students, and staff of the University of Massachusetts-Boston, hereby call a limited strike, to continue through the final examination period, with the objective of educating ourselves and the urban community about the issues raised by the faculty motion adopted on May 7 1970: American presence in Southeast Asia; political imprisonment of blacks and others; and repression of political dissidents, epitomized by the murder of students at Kent State University…

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Vol. 1, Iss. 1 of the Mass Media’s Special Strike Issue. University Archives and Special Collections, Joseph P. Healey Library, UMass Boston.

Weeks of building frustrations – on the UMass Boston campus, around the city, and across the country – preceded this limited strike. In March, plans for the new campus of the university – to be located on Columbia Point, in the city’s Dorchester neighborhood – were unveiled, to considerable community and student resistance. There were efforts in the legislature (ultimately unsuccessful at the time) to dramatically increase tuition at the university. Many faculty members and students expressed concerns that a UMass Boston faculty member had been fired, allegedly because of her involvement in political actions.

And then, on April 30, the U.S. announced that it would invade Cambodia, and just 5 days later at Kent State University, forty-five years ago today and after days of protest and demonstrations against the invasion of Cambodia, members of the National Guard opened fire on a crowd of demonstrators, wounding 9 and killing 4 Kent State students, including bystanders not involved in the demonstrations. In an eerily similar incident 11 days later at Jackson State College in Jackson, Mississippi (now Jackson State University), in the early hours of the morning, police shot and killed 2 students and injured 12 during an anti-war demonstration.

Click here to see how other colleges and universities across the country are showing that #May4Matters.

Learn more about the Kent State shootings here.


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.

You’re Invited! — Making a History of Columbia Point: A Participatory Exhibition

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Title: Columbia Point Community Leaders, 1965. Contributed by Richard Scobie. ID: UASC-0140-0036-0106-0001. Image from the Mass. Memories Road Show, which is produced by University Archives & Special Collections in the Joseph P. Healey Library at UMass Boston.

When: Saturday, May 9, 2015 –  9:00 am – 1:00 pm

Location: Bay Vista Room, Harbor Point Clubhouse, 1 North Point Drive, Boston, MA 02125.

Click here for directions.

Everyone with a connection to Columbia Point—past and present—is welcome to attend this free, public event, sponsored by University Archives & Special Collections, the Joseph P. Healey Library, and the Department of History (Public History Program) at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

Graduate students in UMass Boston’s spring 2015 public history seminar will interpret parts of local history through time, objects, photos, and physical sites.

Community members are invited to to review the students’s work and to participate in the process of making a history of Columbia Point. Together, a community history will be created and materials for a future exhibition on the neighborhood identified.

Bring photos, stories, objects, documents, and questions to include in an interactive timeline and in other historical media designed by the student project team.

Download and share the flyer for this event here.

Light refreshments will be served. Free parking is available.

Contacts

Jane Becker, PhD
Graduate Internship Coordinator and Lecturer
History Department, UMass Boston
Jane.Becker@umb.edu | 617-287-6885

Carolyn Goldstein, PhD
Public History and Community Archives Program Manager
University Archives & Special Collections, UMass Boston
Carolyn.Goldstein@umb.edu | 617-287-5929

For disability-related accommodations, including dietary accommodations, please visit www.ada.umb.edu two weeks prior to the event.