Category Archives: Community

Posts about community happenings that aren’t necessary part of University Archives & Special Collections activities.

Join us for The Brutalist Library: Rereading Its Legacy and Reimagining the Future

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How does a building’s history inform its use? What do the design movements of the past have to do with our daily lives in the present? UMass community members use brutalist buildings every day—meeting, studying, and working in spaces designed decades ago, often in need of renovation and reimagining, but also worthy of preservation and appreciation.

The Joseph P. Healey Library at UMass Boston is one such idiosyncratic building. Designed by Harry Weese, a Chicago native and a prolific architect of the mid-twentieth century, the library is the tallest building on UMass Boston’s Columbia Point campus. Construction began in 1972, just four years before the opening of Weese’s most famous creation—the Washington, D.C., metro system. The Healey Library shares the D.C. Metro’s iconic waffle slab ceiling design.

Construction of the Joseph P. Healey Library, 1972.

The Healey Library is at home in Boston, where brutalist architecture defines our cityscape. Boston’s brutalist landmarks include Madison Park High School (designed by Marcel Breuer and Tician Papachristou), the Carpenter Center for Visual Arts at Harvard University (the only building in North America designed by pioneering modernist architect Le Corbusier), and, of course, Boston City Hall. Brutalist DC offers a helpful definition of this controversial architectural style.

Individuals at the top of the stairway that connects the second and third floors of the library at UMass Boston, circa 1978-1979.

Faculty, staff, students, alumni, and community partners across the University of Massachusetts system established UMass BRUT in 2019 as a way to celebrate, preserve, and reimagine the mid-century brutalist public architecture on our campuses. UMass BRUT is bringing a one-day symposium to UMass Boston on Friday, October 24, 2025, which will offer community members the opportunity to reflect on the challenges and joys of the built environment of our campus.

The Brutalist Library: Rereading Its Legacy and Reimagining the Future will explore the significance, technical challenges, and future adaptation strategies of the modernist public library. The event will feature three panels: historians will examine the design and development of campus libraries, librarians will discuss the evolving role of libraries in the digital age and their spatial needs, and architects will address technical challenges and innovative solutions for renovating iconic structures. The symposium will feature tours of the UMass Boston campus and the Healey Library as well as an open discussion between attendees and panelists.

The UMass Boston campus master plan and recent renovations of existing campus buildings offer a unique opportunity to elevate the role of public architecture and how it adapts to the changing context of academia. Attendees will include students, faculty, librarians, historians, and members from allied professions such as architects, engineers, and contractors, along with the broader campus community and the general public. The symposium will foster cross-disciplinary conversation among all participants on how we may celebrate, conserve, and provide stewardship for our modernist and brutalist buildings now and in the future.

Join us on Friday, October 24, 2025, at UMass Boston. Learn more and register on the UMass BRUT website.

A view of the celebratory cake for the 1977 UMass Boston open house, featuring the Healey Library and surrounding buildings rendered in cake form.

Launch of the Inaugural Artist Unresidency Pilot Program

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Grossmann Gallery image with visitors in front of Michelle Napoli's paintings for the group exhibit "Native American Resilience Through Art."

University Archives and Special Collections in the Joseph P. Healey Library at UMass Boston is pleased to announce the launch of its inaugural Artist Unresidency Pilot Program — a unique artist residency model that supports creative engagement with archival materials without requiring a physical residency. This initiative reflects the UMass Boston Archives’ commitment to fostering innovative approaches to archival engagement while exploring the intersections of art and archives. This pilot program is supported by an Innovation Grant awarded by Art+Everywhere, a global, artist-led foundation that supports creative experimentation, collaboration, and care.

Five local artists have been selected for this pilot program to explore the UMass Boston Archives and create original artwork inspired by their research. Working independently in their own studios, the artists will draw inspiration from the archives through in-person visits throughout the summer and fall of 2025.

To support their work, artists will receive an orientation to the UMass Boston Archives and the collections they have selected to use, with archivists available to support their research throughout the process. Each artist will receive a small stipend to support the development of their project.

The resulting artworks will be featured in a public exhibition in the Grossmann Gallery at UMass Boston’s Healey Library, on view from January 20 to May 15, 2026. The exhibit will be co-curated by Jeremy Andreatta, board member of Art+Everywhere, Art History Professor Carol Scollans, and UMB archivist Meghan Bailey.

As part of the exhibition programming, a public artist panel will be held on campus, offering the community an opportunity to hear directly from the participating artists about their creative processes and the role archival materials played in shaping their artwork.

This image features a view of the Grossmann Gallery with one visitor walking through an exhibit.

For questions about the Artist Unresidency Pilot Program or the UMass Boston Archives, contact library.archives@umb.edu.

The Frederick Middle School exhibit now on view in the Grossmann Gallery

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In Between Middle: Where Stories Reside, an exhibition opening June 10, 2025 in the Grossmann Gallery on the fifth floor of the Healey Library, features photographs by Lisa Kessler, and artwork and textual narratives collaboratively created by students and staff of the Lilla G. Frederick Pilot Middle School in Dorchester, MA. Exhibit hosted by the Joseph P. Healey Library at UMass Boston.

In Between Middle: Where Stories Reside, an exhibition opening June 10, 2025, in the Grossmann Gallery on the fifth floor of the Healey Library, features photographs by Lisa Kessler, and artwork and textual narratives collaboratively created by students and staff of the Lilla G. Frederick Pilot Middle School in Dorchester, MA. The exhibit is hosted by the Joseph P. Healey Library at UMass Boston. The Frederick, the last standalone middle school in the Boston Public School system, will close this year as part of a broader district-wide restructuring. This project captures the final year of the Lilla G. Frederick Pilot Middle School, a community located in the Grove Hall neighborhood of Boston.

The exhibition will be on display through December 5, 2025. A reception will be held in the Grossmann Gallery of the Healey Library on Tuesday, June 10, 2025, from 4:00-5:30 p.m. Members of the university community and the general public are welcome to attend.

As a restorative justice school, the Lilla G. Frederick Pilot Middle School is rooted in community and collective responsibility. Its foundation rests on the five pillars of PRIDE: Personal Responsibility, Respect, Integrity, Determination, and Empathy. Students and staff have long strived to embody the values championed by the school’s namesake, Ms. Lilla Frederick—a Grove Hall resident, tireless community advocate, and passionate believer in the potential of every child.

While the Frederick will no longer serve as a middle school, the community views this transformation with cautious optimism. The shift to a more unified K-6 and 7-12 school model represents an opportunity to address the long-standing systemic inequities and create more equitable access for all of Boston’s children. The building will continue to serve the children and families of Grove Hall as an elementary school—and it will continue to carry the name Lilla G. Frederick, a lasting tribute and a powerful reminder that “someone you never knew believed fiercely in you.”

This project was made possible with support from Unity Circles whose commitment to centering communities most impacted by carceral systems and for their leadership in cultivating intergenerational networks grounded in the principles of Restorative Justice and Transformative Justice. Their support has been instrumental in helping Lilla G. Frederick Pilot Middle School document and archive the powerful community and justice efforts taking place across our learning community. This work reflects our shared vision of supporting young people in developing to their full potential in a welcoming and nurturing environment and creating positive connections to the larger community and the world they will lead.

The Grossmann Gallery is open during Healey Library hours.

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.

“Boston’s Little Syria” exhibition on display in Grossmann Gallery

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Author: Sabrina Valentino, Archives Assistant and graduate student in the Public History MA Program, UMass Boston

Boston’s Little Syria, an exhibition currently on view in the Grossmann Gallery on the fifth floor of the Healey Library, takes viewers on a journey through Boston’s little-known first Arab neighborhood. Located in what is now Chinatown and the South End, Little Syria became home to immigrants fleeing blight and violence in Ottoman-controlled Syria and Mount Lebanon. The exhibition will be open through May 31, 2024. 

The Boston’s Little Syria exhibition uses property maps, photographs, interviews, and memoirs of Syrian and Lebanese Americans who lived in this neighborhood to build a map of the creation and eventual migration of Little Syria, blending the history of the modern Middle East and Boston’s urban history. The items on display not only tell individual stories of the lives of immigrants, but also shed light on a rich cultural center in Boston that has been pushed aside and largely forgotten. 

In the 1880s, immigrants from Ottoman-controlled Greater Syria chose to leave their homes to escape war, famine, and the collapse of the silk industry, leading many to build new homes in Massachusetts. Starting in what is now Ping On Alley, the community grew and created a thriving life for themselves, reaching 40,000 people expanding south down Shawmut Avenue by the 1930s. However, despite the community’s growth and success, the residents of Little Syria faced hardships such as being denied citizenship status, and eventually began to relocate due to the Boston Redevelopment Authority uprooting urban blocks. 

Syrians sitting on a front step on Hudson Street, black and white photograph, photographer unknown, 1909. Courtesy of the Trustees of Boston Public Library.

The exhibition originated from a larger project that began with walking tours in 2022, and eventually grew to include an interactive digital map and a bilingual article published in the online journal Al-Jumhuriya as well as exhibitions at both MIT’s Rotch Library (2022-2023) and the Massachusetts Historical Society (2023). 

The exhibition is curated by Lydia Harrington and Chloe Bordewich. Lydia Harrington received her PhD in Art and Architectural History from Boston University in 2022 and was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at MIT in 2022-2023. She is currently the Senior Curator at The Syria Museum, which is one of the sponsors of this exhibition. Chloe Bordewich is a postdoctoral fellow at the Jackman Humanities Institute and Critical Digital Humanities Initiative at the University of Toronto and  received her PhD in History and Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University in 2022.

Boston’s Little Syria is sponsored by the Syrian American Council, the Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library, and the University of Massachusetts Boston.

For additional information on Boston’s Little Syria, visit bostonlittlesyria.org.

The Grossmann Gallery is open during Healey Library hours.

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.

History Through the Foresters’ Eyes

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Guest author: Susan Steele, Director of TIARA’s Foresters Project

An appropriate story for St. Patrick’s Day? How about one involving a fraternal life insurance society founded by a group of Irish immigrants, an Irish genealogy group, and a university based in a state with one of the highest percentages of people claiming Irish ancestry!

Partners in Progress: It’s Not Just the Numbers
No, it’s not just the numbers… although they are impressive: 100 years of history, 80,000 records, 37,000 index entries, seventy volunteers, and thousands of hours in a twenty-year project involving three organizations!

Let’s Start with the Organizations
The Massachusetts Catholic Order of Foresters (now known as the Catholic Association of Foresters) was founded in 1879 as a fraternal organization that provided life insurance for its members. The organization also offered social and religious activities. In 2004, prompted by a decision to move to smaller headquarters, the Catholic Association of Foresters contemplated sending one hundred years of records to the shredder.

Saved from the Shredder
In 2003, TIARA (The Irish Ancestral Research Association) became aware of the historical and genealogical value of the Foresters mortuary records (life insurance policies). The following year, TIARA negotiated an agreement to take custody of the records. Hundreds of boxes were moved, and TIARA began a seven-year project of foldering, indexing, and arranging for the scanning of more than 20,000 mortuary records.

The Records Find a New Home
TIARA occupied basement-level office space and had several close calls with water leaks. Finding a permanent home for the Foresters records was a project goal. In 2011 this goal was achieved when the records were placed in the University Archives and Special Collections department in UMass Boston’s Healey Library. TIARA was honored for its preservation work with the first Joseph P. Healey Library Community Archives Award.

Partners in Progress
The award also recognized a growing partnership. When the records moved to University Archives and Special Collections, TIARA’s Foresters Project volunteers accompanied them. Volunteers continued to index the collection. Later, the development of a website data entry program enabled volunteers to work offsite. The year 2023 marks the twentieth anniversary of TIARA’s Foresters Project! Twelve of those years have been spent in a mutually beneficial relationship with UMass Boston.

From the Numbers to the Stories
What kept the project going for twenty years? It’s the stories contained in the records. In 2003, TIARA volunteers could open a mortuary record envelope and learn information about a great grandparent’s life.

James Lennon’s mortuary record envelope

In papers signed by an ancestor they could find a physical description, occupation, place of birth, local address, and the name of a friend. These envelopes containing life insurance applications also included correspondence, death certificates, and beneficiary information with names and ages of additional family members. In the years that TIARA held the records, volunteers answered requests for copies of more than 600 records. An early request introduced us to history broader than family knowledge.

Local Legend Becomes Reality
James Lennon’s cause of death was “by the bursting of a molasses tank.” Could this be the famous incident in the North End of Boston? James Lennon’s application page was filled with family history information but gave no hint of what was to come.

James Lennon’s Foresters membership application

A City of Boston death certificate included in the mortuary record, along with a search for newspaper articles, verified our conjecture. James’ multiple injuries were caused by the bursting of the molasses tank in the North End on January 15, 1919. Sorting by that death date, we found four more Foresters who died in the huge wave of molasses. Each of their stories lent more details to our knowledge of the incident.

City of Boston death certificate listing James Lennon’s cause of death as “mult[iple] injuries caused by the bursting of a molasses tank”

There will be future blog posts covering family history and a broad range of historical events contained in the Massachusetts Catholic Order of Foresters collection. Learn more about TIARA’s Foresters Project or search the Foresters Records Index. Contact library.archives@umb.edu to request access to the Foresters records.

A final St. Patrick’s Day fact: if you enter “Ireland” in the “Presumed Country of Birth” category in the search form and leave the rest of the form blank, you will see more than 11,000 results. And those results just cover Foresters deaths through 1935!