OPEN ARCHIVES NEWS | Category | Special Collections

In the Archives: Eagle Forward, Newspaper of the 24th Infantry Regiment

Date Friday Nov 13, 2015

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First issue of Eagle Forward. Originally titled Eagle’s Flight. September 14, 1950.

The 24th Infantry Regiment was one of the last segregated units in the United States Army. It was formed in 1869 by consolidating the 38th and 41st Colored Infantry Regiments, and all of its enlisted soldiers were African-American. The regiment was engaged in a number of military conflicts and wars throughout its history, including the Spanish-American War, the Philippine-American War, World War II, and the Korean War. It was disbanded in 1951, and then re-instituted in 1995, and served in the Iraq War from 2004-2005. For a useful history of the 24th Infantry Regiment, see Black Soldier, White Army: The 24th Infantry Regiment in Korea, published by the United States Army Center of Military History.

During the Korean War, the regiment published Eagle Forward (originally called Eagle’s Flight in its first issue), a two-page newspaper known as a “foxhole daily,” which had a circulation of about 600 copies which were distributed to soldiers in the Army. From September 1950 until September 1951, Eagle Forward published news items from the Armed Forces Radio Services, the Armed Forces Press Services, the Associated Press (AP), the United Press (UP), and the International News Service (INS). The paper also ran stories about individual soldiers and companies, advice columns, cartoons, and humorous items. AP journalist Hal Boyle wrote of Eagle Forward, “[It was] put out by candlelight, Korean gaslight and flashlight. It has gone to press in bombed-out buildings, abandoned factories, in open fields, in tents and in creek beds… [I]ts editors sometimes have to melt the frozen ink on the stove to publish, but no difficulty yet has stopped them.”

Newspaper article on Quentin Chavous. [Columbus Dispatch, 1951.]

Quentin Chavous was a member of the 24th Infantry Regiment and served as editor of the newspaper from May-September 1951. Chavous later joined the faculty of the Africana Studies Department at UMass Boston and a board member of the William Monroe Trotter Institute for the Study of African American Culture and History. He donated a nearly complete run of Eagle Forward to University Archives & Special Collections in 2006. In addition to issues of the newspaper, the collection also includes Army reports and news clippings on Eagle Forward and Chavous. The entire collection has been digitized and is available on UASC’s website here.

View the finding aid for this collection here.

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.

Exhibition tells story of Carol McEldowney’s anti-war activism and role in Women’s and Gay Liberation movements

Date Tuesday Nov 3, 2015

Posted by Andrew M Elder

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This display of diaries, writings, photographs, and ephemera on the 5th floor of the Healey Library reveals the accomplishments and insights of activist and self-defense educator Carol McEldowney.

University Archives and Special Collections at UMass Boston is excited to unveil several new exhibitions in the Walter Grossmann Gallery on the 5th floor of the Healey Library, all of which highlight materials from the department’s extensive archival holdings. I will describe these new exhibitions in a series of news posts over the next week.

The first exhibition I’d like to highlight, in one of the gallery’s upright display cases, is entitled “‘A PERSONAL MANIFESTO … OF SORTS’: The Diaries of Carol McEldowney” and explores the life of activist, writer, and women’s self-defense educator Carol McEldowney.

Although she died in 1973 at the young age of 30, “the spunky Carol McEldowney,” as she was described by Todd Gitlin in his book The Sixties, was outstanding in her accomplishments. In 1967, McEldowney was one of only two women in a small contingent from the U.S. to travel to Vietnam where she studied Vietnamese society and the consequences of war.

Pages from McEldowney’s Hanoi journal.

The diary that McEldowney kept during this trip was published by the University of Massachusetts Press in 2007. Elizabeth R. Mock, who co-edited McEldowney’s Hanoi Journal for publication, held several positions in the Healey Library at UMass Boston from 1973 until her retirement in 2010. From 1981 to 2010, Mock was the University Archivist and Curator of Special Collections, having established the archival program for the library. The book is available through the Healey Library here or through the UMass Press here.

In 1971, McEldowney moved to Boston where she immersed herself in the emerging Women’s Movement, playing a central role in the establishment of a Women’s Center in Cambridge. During this time she came out as a lesbian and immersed herself in the Gay Liberation Movement.

McEldowney (center, in tank top) in a martial arts or self-defense class.

From 1971 until the end of her life, McEldowney studied martial arts and taught practical self-defense classes to women and children, becoming one of the founders of the movement to use self-defense for rape prevention. An original contributor to Our Bodies, Ourselves, a source book on women’s health, McEldowney participated in one of the first women’s martial arts exhibitions in the country during International Women’s Day, in 1973, in Boston.

The Carol McEldowney collections in University Archives and Special Collections includes McEldowney’s personal papers relating to her activism, as well as several diaries and journals. The papers range in date from 1960 to 1973.

This exhibition uses selections from the McEldowney’s various diaries and journals – as well as photographs, ephemera, and other writings – to tell the story of a woman at the forefront of anti-war activism and the emerging Women’s and Gay Liberation movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Visit the display in the Grossmann Gallery on the 5th floor of the Healey Library at UMass Boston. The exhibition will run through the spring of 2016.

View the finding aid for the Carol McEldowney collections in University Archives and Special Collections here.

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

In the Archives: Dorchester Recycling Volunteers Records

Date Thursday Oct 29, 2015

Posted by Jessica R Holden

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Dorchester Volunteers newsletter. Volume 1, No. 1. August 1990.

I thought that it would be fun to highlight the records of a local community group that had ties to UMass Boston for my final Archives Month post. The Dorchester Recycling Volunteers was an all-volunteer organization that strove to educate the public on recycling issues, and worked with the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Services and the City of Boston’s Environment Department to establish a recycling drop-off program in Dorchester. The DRV’s recycling program began at the University of Massachusetts Boston on July 15, 1989. A station was established in the Service and Supply parking lot for monthly drop-offs of recyclable materials. From a September 15, 1989 memo from Chancellor Sherry H. Penney to the university community:

Members of Dorchester Recycles Volunteers. 1992.

“I am pleased to announce that the recycling project we implemented a short time ago has been very successful. Workers from the Dorchester Recycling Volunteers reported that 144 cars dropped off 16,000 pounds of newspapers and hundreds of glass jars and bottles during the six hour collection period on August 19th. That was up from 46 cars and 1000 pounds on our first collection day in July, an astounding 155% increase in the number of cars unloaded.” [folder 8]

The DRV ended its program when Mayor Raymond L. Flynn established a citywide curbside recycling program in Boston in November 1994.

The Dorchester Recycling Volunteers records span 1989-1994 and include internal meeting notes, minutes of meetings with the Boston Recycling Coalition, volunteer lists, operation files, the DRV newsletter, correspondence, and general recycling information.

Dorchester Recycles bumper sticker. Circa 1990s.

View the finding aid for the records of the Dorchester Recycling Volunteers here.

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

To celebrate Archives Month, I will be posting highlights from our collections throughout October. I hope that this will turn into a regular series. To learn more about Archives Month, visit the Society of American Archivists website.

In the Archives: The Papers of an Antiwar Activist

Date Thursday Oct 22, 2015

Posted by Jessica R Holden

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Perrin, Richard. G.I. Resister: The Story of How One American Soldier and His Family Fought the War in Vietnam. Trafford Publishing, 2001.

Massachusetts native Richard Perrin enlisted in the United States Army in 1967. Soon after his enlistment, he became an antiwar activist, and was particularly opposed to the Vietnam War. Perrin and several others in the Army began distributing antiwar leaflets and the publication The Bond. Perrin’s antiwar activities eventually resulted in a court-martial for a minor pass infraction. In September 1967, Perrin deserted the Army, traveling by train from Heidelberg to Paris. While in Paris, Perrin connected with other deserters and formed Resistance Inside the Army (RITA). This Wikipedia entry offers a brief summary of RITA’s history and activities. RITA published a newsletter, ACT, which is considered the first underground GI paper. ACT had a mailing list of about ten thousand and had a worldwide circulation. In Perrin’s own words, “it turned on a lot of guys and opened up a lot of avenues.”

“Cloak and dagger: U.S. deserters at Paris press conference.” Newsweek. February 26, 1968.

In 1969, Perrin left France for Regina, Saskatchewan, where he taught a university seminar on the US Army and founded the Regina Committee of American Deserters, which provided housing and other assistance to military deserters. In 1975, Perrin was granted amnesty in the United States. In 2001, he published his autobiography, G.I Resister: The Story of How One American Soldier and His Family Fought the War in Vietnam.

Regina Committee of American Deserters (RCAD) stamps

Richard Perrin donated his papers to University Archives and Special Collections via the William Joiner Institute for the Study of War and Social Consequences at UMass Boston in July 2001. A large portion of his papers comprises correspondence between Perrin and his family members, documenting his life after he graduated from high school, his experiences in the Army after enlistment, and his desertion to Paris in the fall of 1967. The collection also contains a newspaper-clipping scrapbook of Perrin’s activities which was assembled over the years by his mother, Betty Perrin; information on amnesty rights and specific amnesty organizations; information on the Regina Committee of American Deserters; and a copy of Perrin’s book.

Campaign flyer for U.S. House of Representatives election. [1998]

One folder that may be of particular interest in light of the current US presidential race is a subject file on Bernie Sanders, who was mayor of Burlington, Vermont in the 1980s and a member of the US House of Representatives from 1991-2007. The file spans 1975-1998 and includes correspondence between Perrin and Sanders, press coverage, and campaign items.

View the finding aid for the Richard Perrin papers here.

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

In the Archives: Socialist Feminism Pamphlets of the 1970s

Date Friday Oct 16, 2015

Posted by Jessica R Holden

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The collection that I would like to highlight this week is the Judith Smith collection of socialist feminist pamphlets, 1970-1981. In the 1970s, Smith was part of a group of women that organized and ran the Somerville Women’s Health Project, a health clinic which offered free medical care to low-income women and children. She was also a member of the Boston’s Women Union and its orientation committee, the Tuesday Night Orientation Group. The committee was later renamed the Tuesday Night Socialist Feminist Group and continued to meet until 2001, even after the Boston Women’s Union dissolved. Smith is a professor in the American Studies Department at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

Smith’s collection comprises 28 pamphlets and booklets, many of them published by local small presses, on a variety of topics, including race, class, sexism, women’s liberation, women’s wages, housework, family, and witchcraft. Browse the gallery below for a selection of pamphlet covers from Smith’s collection, which she donated to University Archives and Special Collections in 2005.

Bunch, Charlotte and Nancy Myron. Class and Feminism. Baltimore, MD: Diana Press, 1974.

Edmond, Wendy and Suzie Fleming. All Work and No Pay: Women, Housework, and the Wages Due. Bristol, England: Power of Women Collective and Falling Wall Press, 1975.

Ehrenreich, Barbara and Deirdre English. Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History of Women Healers. 2nd ed. Old Westbury, NY: The Feminist Press, 1973.

Long, Priscilla. Mother Jones, Woman Organizer and Her Relations with Miners’ Wives, Working Women, and the Suffrage Movement. Cambridge, MA: Red Sun Press, 1976.

Multicultural Project for Communication & Education. Caring for Children in a Social Context: Eliminating Racism, Sexism and Other Patterns of Discrimination. Cambridge, MA: 1981.

Warrior, Betsy and Lisa Leghorn. Houseworker’s Handbook. 3rd ed. Cambridge, MA: Leghorn and Warrior, 1975.

Women’s Work Project. Separated & Unequal: Discrimination Against Women Workers After World War II (The U.A.W. 1944-54).

Buhle, Mari Jo. Women and the Socialist Party, 1901-1914. Somerville, MA: New England Free Press.

View the finding aid for the Judith Smith collection here.

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

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Category Archives: Special Collections

Exhibition tells story of Carol McEldowney’s anti-war activism and role in Women’s and Gay Liberation movements

In the Archives: Dorchester Recycling Volunteers Records

In the Archives: Socialist Feminism Pamphlets of the 1970s

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