Author Archives: Meghan Bailey

Theresa-India Young exhibition at the Piano Craft Gallery

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University Archives and Special Collections is pleased to highlight an exhibition that features the artwork of Theresa-India Young and other contemporary artists. Legacy: A Continuous Thread will be held at the Piano Craft Gallery from October 1-24, 2021. A reception is scheduled for October 15 from 6:00-9:00 pm.

Postcard for "Legacy: A Continuous Thread" featuring Theresa-India Young and contemporary fiber artists

Postcard for “Legacy: A Continuous Thread” featuring Theresa-India Young and contemporary fiber artists

University Archives and Special Collections holds the Theresa-India Young papers, 1917-2011, bulk 1975-2008. This collection documents the life and work of fiber artist, interdisciplinary arts teacher, and educational consultant Theresa-India Young. The collection also contains personal papers relating to Young’s family, her early years in Harlem, and her education, travel, and genealogical research, particularly into her Gullah heritage. Young’s interest in and advocacy for multiculturalism and diversity in education is well-documented throughout the collection, with a particular focus on unearthing and preserving African and Native American traditions. Her fiber art was informed by her research into African aesthetics and traditions, particularly weaving and hair braiding. Much of her research is preserved in the collection in the form of clippings, handwritten notes, and varied publications. As a longtime resident of the Piano Factory, Young lived and worked within a dynamic local arts scene. The collection documents her relationships with other local artists, like Allan-Rohan Crite, as well as the issues they faced, such as affordable housing.

In the late 1960s Young was a student at the Harlem Youth Arts Program (Haryou Act) and studied with painter Norman Lewis and was an apprentice to Zelda Wynn, Costume Designer for the Dance Theatre of Harlem. She graduated from the High School of Art and Design in 1968 and studied at various institutions, such as Parsons School of Design and SUNY at New Paltz, where she received a degree in Arts Education and African Studies in 1973. In 1972 she studied West African Religion and Art at the University of Legon in Accra, Ghana.

In 1975 she won a scholarship to Boston University’s Program in Artisanry for Textiles. Since that time, she resided in the Boston area and maintained a home and studio at the Piano Factory artists’ building. From 1978-1983 she was Artist-in-Residence at Northeastern University’s African American Master Artist-in-Residency Program (AAMARP).

For more information on Theresa-India Young’s life and work see the finding aid for the Theresa-India Young papers.

University Archives and 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 and 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 and Special Collections, click here or email library.archives@umb.edu.

Digital collection now available: Stephen Lewis poster collection

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Digital collection now available: Stephen Lewis poster collection

This gallery contains 3 photos.

University Archives and Special Collections (UASC) in the Joseph P. Healey Library at the University of Massachusetts Boston is pleased to announce that more than 500 activist posters from the Stephen Lewis poster collection, circa 1921-2017 are digitized and available online. UASC has been working with Stephen Lewis to digitize more than 3,000 posters through […]

Grossmann Gallery hosts exhibition of student photographs

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Exhibit flyer on a blue background titled, “Living in the Urban Ocean,” Student Photo Essay Exhibition, October 16, 2019- January 22, 2020 in the Grossmann Gallery, 5th floor - Joseph P. Healey Library

Flyer for the Student Photo Essay Exhibition, “Living in the Urban Ocean”

The photograph essay contest exhibition Living in the Urban Ocean is now on display through January 22, 2020, in the Grossmann Gallery on the 5th floor of the Joseph P. Healey Library. The exhibition has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities, in partnership with the English Department, the Environmental Studies Department, and University Archives and Special Collections in the Healey Library at UMass Boston.

Throughout the Spring 2019 semester, students enrolled in Intermediate Seminar: Writing and the Environment (English 270G/Environmental Studies 270G) investigated the social, cultural and historical locale of Boston Harbor through archival and library resources. In addition, students developed their own urban ocean relationships through creative writing, walking, and reflection. In the era of the smartphone, creating a photo essay provided students with an opportunity to share their semester’s work through a visual language which they already use daily.

Students were asked to situate themselves in their urban ocean environment and tell an eco-story through photography. Students used iPhones and personal cameras to complete their photo essays. The winners of the photograph essay contest were selected through an online poll for best story told without words.

The Grossmann Gallery is open during library hours (posted here).

University Archives and 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 and 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 and Special Collections, click here or email library.archives@umb.edu.

Grossmann Gallery hosts exhibit documenting U.S. soldiers who opposed the Vietnam War

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Waging Peace FlyerWaging Peace in Vietnam: U.S. Soldiers and Veterans Who Opposed the War, hosted in collaboration with the William Joiner Institute, is now on display through September 22, 2019, in the Joseph P. Healey Library at UMass Boston. Organized by Ron Carver of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C., the traveling exhibition has been exhibited in Vietnam and at the Kroc Institute for Peace Studies at Notre Dame and will visit UMass Amherst and Washington, D.C. later this fall.

During America’s War in Vietnam, tens of thousands of GIs and veterans created a robust movement in opposition to the war. The Waging Peace in Vietnam exhibition explores how the anti-war GI movement unfolded, from the numerous anti-war coffee houses springing up outside military bases, to the hundreds of GI newspapers giving an independent voice to active soldiers, to the stockade revolts and the strikes and near-mutinies developing on naval vessels and in the U.S. Air Force. Waging Peace tells this story through oral histories, photographs, documents, and the pages of the underground press written by and for active-duty GIs. The presentation in the Grossmann Gallery also includes primary source documents from Healey Library’s University Archives and Special Collections, as well as materials from the Joiner Institute.

The book, also entitled Waging Peace in Vietnam: U.S. Soldiers and Veterans Who Opposed the War, is edited by Ron Carver, David Cortright, and Barbara Doherty, with an afterword by Christian G. Appy, and is published by New York University Press.  It features fourteen original essays by leading scholars and activists as well as first-hand accounts, oral histories, underground newspapers, posters, flyers, and photographs.

A reception for the exhibit opening and launch of the companion book is scheduled for Thursday, September 12, from 4:00-6:00 p.m. in the Grossmann Gallery on the 5th floor of the Joseph P. Healey Library. An inter-generational panel, hosted by Fred Marchant and featuring veterans from the Vietnam War and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and UMass Boston student veterans, is scheduled for Wednesday, September 18, from 3:00-5:00 p.m. in the Alumni Lounge (Campus Center, 2nd floor).

View the exhibition panels online at the Waging Peace website. Read articles about the exhibition in The Guardian (UK) and USA Today.

University Archives and 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 and 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 and Special Collections, click here or email library.archives@umb.edu.

Collections document history of the Vietnam War, local activism, and community groups

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Collections document history of the Vietnam War, local activism, and community groups

University Archives & Special Collections (UASC) in the Joseph P. Healey Library at the University of Massachusetts Boston is pleased to announce that six collections of previously unavailable archival material are now open for research. This is the fifth of a series of posts to announce newly available collections, toward the goal of making all of UASC’s collections, both processed and unprocessed, open for research. Collections that have not been processed, or that are minimally processed, will be made available upon request to researchers in approximately two to three weeks, depending on the size and complexity of the collection. Contact library.archives@umb.edu for more information.

To learn more about the collections that were made available this week, click the collection title in the list below.

  • Voice of Women records, 1962-1993: The Voice of Women organization was founded in 1960 to protest the Vietnam War and continued afterwards to advocate for disarmament. The organization collected materials related to other peace organizations in Massachusetts, and members conducted teach-ins, sit-ins, and protests in Newton and Boston. Peak activity was in the 1960s-1970s with women also running the Peace Boutique, a craft and gift shop of peace-related items that also served as a meeting place. These records document the interests and activities of the Voice of Women. Materials consist of reports, correspondence, notes, pamphlets, flyers, newsletters, correspondence, magazines, publications, clippings, and articles. Topics include Vietnam and other countries in conflict, such as Cambodia, as well as disarmament, peace movements, children and women in conflict zones, and American civilian and government official reactions.
  • Karen Turner Ho Chi Minh Trail papers, circa 1959-1999: Karen Turner is a historian at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. Her research interest developed during her time in college in the 1970s and focuses on the study of gender and its intersections with violence, particularly in the Vietnam War and published on topics relating to East Asia, and on gender in relation to law and politics.
    Two black and white photographs depicting Vietnamese women soldiers, date unknown

    Photographs from the Karen Turner Ho Chi Minh Trail papers, circa 1959-1999

    Karen Turner has made multiple trips to Vietnam and has conducted oral histories with women soldiers from the Vietnam War. These papers collected by Turner document the Ho Chi Minh Trail experience during the Vietnam War. Materials consist of translated manuscripts, photographs, and printouts. The images depict Vietnamese people during the Vietnam War, and the text describes the experiences of people there.

  • Coalition for Community Control of Development, 1986-2015: The Coalition for Community Control of Development (CCCD) was a local activist organization in the 1980s and 1990s with the goal of helping communities in Boston create ways to control the development of their neighborhoods. Some of the issues they helped address included tenant advocacy, strategies for helping communities organize, and environmental concerns within neighborhoods. One area of importance in which the CCCD helped communities strategize was how to advocate for or against real estate development. Materials consist of meeting records, articles, correspondence, notes, pamphlets, flyers, clippings, photographs, contact sheets, negatives, and questionnaires on topics relating to the organization, its activities, and the tenants and neighborhoods in Boston.
  • Dorchester Day ephemera, 1976-1988: Dorchester Day, also known as Dot Day, has been held since 1904 to celebrate the founding of the town of Dorchester in 1630. Typically held at the end of May through the first week of June, the event includes a parade, reenactment, banquet, road races, a doll carriage and bicycle contest, open house and flea market at Dorchester Historical Society, essay contest, soap box derby, and other events, along with vendors and speakers. The parade route typically begins on Dorchester Avenue at Pierce Square (Lower Mills) and ends at St. Margaret’s Church on Columbia Road and Dorchester Avenue.
    Two flyers advertising Dorchester Day, 1978

    Dorchester Day flyers, 1978

    These records document the Dorchester Day event’s programming and marketing activities. Materials consist of flyers, clippings and articles, programs, and rosters.

  • Monday Evening Club ledgers, 1906-1913: The Monday Evening Club met in Boston, Massachusetts, in the early twentieth century for the purpose of dinners with discussions on topics of interest, usually scientific, approved of by members. Materials consist of two ledgers kept by the secretary, including meeting minutes, both on club business and educational talks, and club information, such as voting in new members, costs of meetings, and officer ballots and voting.
  • Peace Action records, circa 1983-1993: Peace Action is a national grassroots organization composed of state and local groups, chapters, and affiliates. Massachusetts Peace Action began in the 1980s as Massachusetts FREEZE, and joined the Boston branch of SANE in 1987 at the same time as the national organization. The Boston chapter participated both on the local and national level in peace campaigns within Massachusetts and national political action towards disarmament and demilitarization under the direction of the organization’s national headquarters in Washington, D.C. Materials consist of meeting minutes, correspondence, publications, flyers, articles, clippings, and other supplementary materials relating to topics relevant to the organization, including nuclear war, military and political policies, demilitarization, disarmament, and other contemporary issues related to their peace-making campaigns.

For questions about these collections 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.