Author Archives: Andrew M Elder

Appreciating Difference: Latest issue of the Trotter Review available on ScholarWorks

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DeAma Battle, an artistic director and choreographer who has researched Africa-derived dances for decades, performs traditional steps while clad in the garb of her ancestral continent. Her studies and travels have documented steps and movements common to dances done in Africa and different countries in the Diaspora. Photo courtesy of DeAma Battle.

DeAma Battle, artistic director and choreographer. Photo courtesy of DeAma Battle.

The most recent issue of the Trotter Review, now available on ScholarWorks, explores how immigrants from the Caribbean and Africa wrestle with, define and adapt their identity after they arrive in the United States. Original research articles look at Haitian youth, African fathers and the children of Caribbean immigrants.

The Trotter Review has been published since 1987 by the William Monroe Trotter Institute at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Full issues of the Review are available on ScholarWorks, the institutional repository for scholarship and research out of the University.

Apart from an introduction by Barbara Lewis, director of the Trotter Institute, the contents of this issue, titled “Appreciating Difference,” include:

A couple listens during a 2005 meeting of African immigrants with Marina Dimitrijevic, a member of Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors. Courtesy of the office of Marina Dimitrijevic. Reprinted under Creative Commons.

A couple listens during a 2005 meeting of African immigrants with Marina Dimitrijevic, a member of Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors. Courtesy of the office of Marina Dimitrijevic. Reprinted under Creative Commons.

To view the full issue, and to explore back issues of this publication, click here.

ScholarWorks is the University of Massachusetts Boston’s online institutional repository for scholarship and research. ScholarWorks serves as a publishing platform, a preservation service, and a showcase for the research and scholarly output of members of the UMass Boston community. ScholarWorks is a service of the Joseph P. Healey Library at UMass Boston.

Reflecting on the Boston Schools Case: Archival collections in the Healey Library

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Judge W. Arthur Garrity signing the deed of gift for his chamber papers with UMass Boston Chancellor Sherry Penney. As a result over 60 boxes of files from the 1972 desegregation court case, Morgan v. the Boston School Committee, were donated to the Joseph P. Healey Library. Archivist Elizabeth Mock in background.

Judge W. Arthur Garrity signing the deed of gift for his chamber papers with UMass Boston Chancellor Sherry Penney. As a result over 60 boxes of files from the 1972 desegregation court case, Morgan v. the Boston School Committee, were donated to the Joseph P. Healey Library. Archivist Elizabeth Mock in background.

Busing is in the news.

The Boston Globe.

The Boston Herald.

WGBH.

And for good reason. It was 40 years ago this month that court-ordered busing started in Boston. Busing was an effort to desegregate public schools in Boston and Massachusetts and was the result of federal court case Morgan v. Hennigan, 379 F. Supp. 410 (1974), commonly known as the Boston Schools Case.

Morgan v. Hennigan, 379 F. Supp. 410 (1974) was a complex and legally entangled class action suit against the state of Massachusetts and the Boston School Committee that evolved from a report published in April 1965 by an advisory committee appointed by the State Board of Education and the Commissioner of Education to study racial segregation in Massachusetts’ public schools. On March 15, 1972, the plaintiffs filed a complaint with the First District Court of Massachusetts, charging the state and Boston officials with maintaining a segregated school system that denied black students equal educational opportunities. After preliminary hearings, the case went to trial before Federal District Court Judge W. Arthur Garrity, Jr., who was selected by a random process to preside over the case. The trial lasted about fifteen days and on June 21, 1974, Judge Garrity filed a 152-page opinion with the clerk of the court. In his lengthy opinion, the Judge ruled that the School Committee of the City of Boston had “intentionally brought about and maintained racial segregation” in the Boston public schools. The opinion also required the School Committee to use a temporary desegregation plan (court-ordered busing) for the 1974-1975 school year and ordered the Committee to begin formulating a permanent plan. By January 1975, the School Committee had failed to present an adequate desegregation plan to the court. As a result, the court assumed an active role in the formulation of the desegregation remedy and began to oversee implementation of court-ordered desegregation in the Boston public schools for the next fifteen years.

Last Sunday, the Boston Globe published a meticulously researched and compelling look at the history busing and school desegregation in Boston. Through interviews and archival research, the feature story explores issues of desegregation, but also broader issues of parenting and education. Earlier this month, the Herald published an opinion piece by Ray Flynn, who served as mayor of Boston from 1984 to 1993, about the busing ruling.

Spring 1981 issue of Mosaic, a publication by the students of South Boston High School

Spring 1981 issue of Mosaic, a publication by the students of South Boston High School

We have a number of collections in University Archives & Special Collections at UMass Boston that would certainly prove beneficial to researchers and writers looking at the history of busing and desegregation in Boston.

Judge W. Arthur Garrity, Jr. donated his chamber papers to University Archives & Special Collections in the Healey Library at UMass Boston on December 8, 1998. Chambers papers are the personal property of the judge, who retains the right to make the final decision regarding their preservation and management, and the papers in this collection constitute a day-to day file documentation of the Boston Schools Case.

In the papers of sociologist and academic Robert Dentler is information documenting his role in drafting a desegregation plan for Boston’s schools, as well as published articles and papers studying the impacts of busing in Boston.

University Archives & Special Collections also holds the papers of the Center for Law and Education related to the Boston school desegregation case. The center served as co-counsel for the plaintiffs.

Finally, UASC holds the records of Mosaic. Founded by Michael Tierney and Dan Terris, Mosaic was launched at South Boston High School in 1980 in response to the effects of court-ordered desegregation on the high school. Led by professional writers and photographers, students produced stories and photographs about themselves and their communities. A yearly anthology was published from 1980 to 1988.

I hope the stories keep coming.

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.

Ring Them Bells! UMass Boston, Park Square, and Elevators

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100 Arlington Street, UMass Boston's first home in Park Square. UASC-UAPHO-0001-0112

100 Arlington Street, UMass Boston’s first home in Park Square. UASC-UAPHO-0001-0112

The Massachusetts Legislature established the University of Massachusetts Boston in 1964 and the university opened its doors in 1965 at a renovated building in Park Square. That building, located at 100 Arlington Street and built in 1927 to serve as the corporate headquarters for the Boston Consolidated Gas Company, was the primary home to UMass Boston until the university moved to Columbia Point in 1974.

100 Arlington continued to be used by UMass Boston for a number of years and, from 1995 to 2010, was home to the Boston Renaissance Charter School, one of the first 14 charter schools approved to operate as public schools by the Massachusetts Secretary of Education in 1994. Earlier this year, though, the building at 100 Arlington began a new life after being repurposed into retail space and 128 luxury apartments. A one bedroom/one bathroom apartment in the newly renovated building leases for $3,800/month.

A discussion of Boston real estate costs aside, something I enjoyed seeing on the website for this new apartment and retail complex was a picture of the lobby elevators – elevators I’ve read about and seen photographs of in our University Archives collections.

Students outside the elevators at the Arlington Street building in Park Square. UASC-UAPHO-0001-0097

Students outside the elevators at the Arlington Street building in Park Square in 1966. UASC-UAPHO-0001-0097

There are a few photographs that we’ve digitized as part of our 50th anniversary photo indexing project that show UMass Boston students, faculty, and staff outside the lobby elevators at 100 Arlington in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Much has changed, but if you look closely at the newly renovated lobby and the photographs on our digital collections site, you’ll notice that a few telling characteristics remain.

A mail chute between two of the lobby’s five elevators. Pillars along the wall leading up to the elevators. A building directory frame that, in the redesigned lobby, now frames a large mirror.

People outside the elevators in the lobby of the Arlington Street building in Park Square. UASC-UAPHO-0001-0096

People outside the elevators in the lobby of the Arlington Street building in Park Square in 1966. UASC-UAPHO-0001-0096

But more than these photographs, there are snippets of information in our collections, contributed by UMass Boston community members, about the elevators in the lobby of 100 Arlington.

In one story, Linda Dittmar, an early faculty member in the English Department, describes the “lurching elevator that ferried us up and down [and how the elevators] still had a live operator announcing each floor …”

In another story, UMass Boston alumnus Joe Szocik writes about how the elevators helped create a more social environment: “… waiting for an elevator and riding the elevator provided many opportunities for talking to people from different classes.”

And in an interview conducted in the fall of 1998 as part of an oral history project, an early faculty member in the Music Department, Nicholas Tawa, talks about trying to hold concerts in the Arlington Street building’s lobby and “having to muffle the elevator bells because they kept on ringing.”

A lot in the newly purposed building at 100 Arlington has certainly changed, but at least those bells are still ringing.

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.

Library of Congress lists Mass. Memories Road Show as resource for community digital archives

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Diana Archibald and Turner Netherton at the Lowell Mass. Memories Road Show

We’re proud to report that the Mass. Memories Road Show, an initiative of University Archives & Special Collections in the Joseph P. Healey Library at UMass Boston, was listed as one of “10 resources that provide useful insight into developing, managing and accessing community digital archives” in a recent post on the Library of Congress’ Digital Humanities Blog. We’re always pleased when the Mass. Memories Road Show can serve as a model for community-archiving and community-based public history endeavors.

View the full story: blogs.loc.gov/digitalpreservation/2013/06/10-resources-for-community-digital-archives.

Explore the Mass. Memories Road Show collection: openarchives.umb.edu.

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. 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 videos are indexed and incorporated into an online educational database. Since its launch, the project has gathered more than 8,000 photographs and stories from across the state. It is supported in part by the Patricia C. Flaherty ’81 Endowed Fund at UMass Boston.  

University Archives & Special Collections in the Joseph P. Healey Library at UMass Boston was established in 1981 as a repository to collect archival material in subject areas of interest to the university, as well as the records of the university itself. The mission and history of UMass Boston guide the collection policies of University Archives & Special Collections, with the university’s urban mission and strong support of community service reflected in the records of and related to urban planning, social welfare, social action, alternative movements, community organizations, war and social consequence, and local history related to neighboring communities. To learn more, visit blogs.umb.edu/archives.

Moving from Park Square to Columbia Point: Records document the search for a permanent UMass Boston campus

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Buildings on the newly opened Columbia Point Campus of UMass Boston, circa 1974.

University Archives & Special Collections in the Joseph P. Healey Library at UMass Boston is pleased to announce the availability of a set of records that document the search in the late 1960s for a permanent campus site for the University of Massachusetts Boston.

The University of Massachusetts Boston was established in 1964, with its first campus opening in downtown Boston at Park Square. Shortly thereafter, the University began a search for a permanent campus location elsewhere in the Boston area. The search culminated with the establishment of the Columbia Point campus in 1974. These records document the search for a new campus, the various sites that were considered, and the public’s reactions to the move away from Park Square.

Materials span 1966-1969 and include consultants’ reports, maps, memoranda, press releases, correspondence, and statements for and against the establishment of a University of Massachusetts campus at Columbia Point.

View the finding aid for this collection.

These records have been reprocessed and reorganized by Jessica Holden, Special Projects Archivist/Librarian, as part of the University Archives & Special Collections’ activities in preparation for the University’s upcoming 50th anniversary celebrations.

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.