Forty years past: Remembering the Blizzard of ’78

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On February 5, 1978, a storm of historic proportion hit the northeastern United States. The Blizzard of ’78 slammed into Massachusetts, stranding thousands and inflicting millions of dollars in damage. The snow brought the state to a week-long standstill as residents banded together to take stock of the damage and clear debris.

Many citizens from across the state have vivid memories of the storm, and Mass. Memories Road Show events over the past decade provided individuals with a chance to preserve their experiences and stories.

Washington Street near Lake Street, Brighton, week of the blizzard of '78. 'During the blizzard of 1978, not only was there an epic amount of snow, but it was unique for the near shutdown of the Boston region for a week. A few days after the storm I took a walk with my camera along the streets of the neighborhood, where no cars were allowed, only people.' Contributor: Charlie Vasiliades

Washington Street near Lake Street, Brighton, week of the blizzard of ’78. ‘During the blizzard of 1978, not only was there an epic amount of snow, but it was unique for the near shutdown of the Boston region for a week. A few days after the storm I took a walk with my camera along the streets of the neighborhood, where no cars were allowed, only people.’ Contributor: Charlie Vasiliades.

 

Photographs in the Mass. Memories Road Show collection commemorate personal losses and sacrifice brought about by the storm.

High tide February 1978 blizzard. 'High tide brought the water level to the edge of MacMillan Wharf, boats almost floating to the pier. My husband (deceased 2011) Anthony Jackett was the owner of the 'Plymouth Belle,' a commercial dragger rigged with top mast for swordfishing. This was the weekend the 'Capt. Bill' was lost at sea. Captain Ralph Andrews and all his crew were lost. Location: MacMillan Wharf.' Contributor: Priscilla Jackett

High tide February 1978 blizzard. ‘High tide brought the water level to the edge of MacMillan Wharf, boats almost floating to the pier. My husband (deceased 2011) Anthony Jackett was the owner of the ‘Plymouth Belle,’ a commercial dragger rigged with top mast for swordfishing. This was the weekend the ‘Capt. Bill’ was lost at sea. Captain Ralph Andrews and all his crew were lost. Location: MacMillan Wharf.’ Contributor: Priscilla Jackett.

 

Other images and stories record residents at work and at play after the blizzard, as community members got back on their feet.

Fighting fire through the Blizzard of 1978. 'My father-in-law, Eugene H. Lorden, Jr.: Deputy Chief, coming up to a home to put out a fire in a stove. Deputy Eugene Lorden would fight through anything to help anyone. That's what impressed me about him.' Contributor: Bill Neville

Fighting fire through the Blizzard of 1978. ‘My father-in-law, Eugene H. Lorden, Jr.: Deputy Chief, coming up to a home to put out a fire in a stove. Deputy Eugene Lorden would fight through anything to help anyone. That’s what impressed me about him.’ Contributor: Bill Neville.

 

See more photos of the Blizzard of ’78 from the Mass. Memories Road Show here.

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 10,000 photographs, videos, 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.

Grossmann Gallery art exhibit showcases Native American resilience

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Michelle Napoli, Koyanni Alwas/Singing Tree, mixed media on canvas (2017)

 

A new exhibit in the Joseph P. Healey Library’s Grossmann Gallery highlights the work of three Native American artists and examines the theme of Native American resilience through art.

Join us for an opening reception on Thursday, February 1, at 4:00 pm. The event is sponsored by UMass Boston’s Institute for New England Native American Studies (INENAS), the Joseph P. Healey Library, the Student Alliance for the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas, and the Native American and Indigenous Studies Program. It will include talks by the artists, Interim Dean of University Libraries Joanne Riley, and Dr. J. Cedric Woods, the director of INENAS, which is housed at the School for Global Inclusion and Social Development at UMass Boston.

The three featured artists are Michelle Napoli (Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria—Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo), Nia Holley (Nipmuc Nation), and Kristen Wyman  (Natick Nipmuc). “All three of these artists are inspired by their connections to their coastal homelands,” said Woods.

“The artists use materials such as abalone shells, quahogs, and wampum in their work, which have environmental and cultural significance to their Tribes,” Woods continued. “All three of them are navigating the tensions between their Native cultures and the urban society they live in. And each of them is also unique artistically.”

Visit the display in the Grossmann Gallery on the 5th floor of the Healey Library at UMass Boston. The Grossmann Gallery is open during the library’s regular hours: 7:30 am–10:00 pm on Monday through Thursday, 7:30 am–6:00 pm on Friday, 9:00 am–3:00 pm on Saturday, and 11:00 am–5:00 pm on Sunday. The exhibition will run through the summer of 2018.

For questions about the exhibition, please email Cedric.Woods@umb.edu or call 617-287-5784.

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.

Special Issue of New England Journal of Public Policy features select writings by Marcy Murninghan

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Cover for Special 2018 Issue of the New England Journal of Public PolicyThe most recent issue of the New England Journal of Public Policy is now available on ScholarWorks, the open access repository for scholarship and research at UMass Boston. The Special Issue is titled “Wealth, Power, and the Public Interest: Building Equity Culture and Civic Stewardship” and features eleven articles written by Marcy Murninghan.

In his editor’s note for this issue, New England Journal of Public Policy founder and editor Padraig O’Malley writes about Murninghan’s work: “I have known Marcy Murninghan since the early 1980s when she worked for the late Robert Wood, once president of the Massachusetts University system, then superintendent of the Boston School System during the heyday of court-ordered desegregation. During this tumultuous period in Boston’s history, Murninghan played a significant role, tasked by Wood to plan and direct the structural organization of the department. Since then her career has taken many turns. She has churned out a plethora of reports and analyses for foundations, universities, the corporate world, and media monoliths. The result is a formidable body of work, from which the articles for this issue of the journal draws a tranche.”

And in her introduction to this issue, Murningham describes the articles selected for inclusion: “America faces a reckoning, a crucible of what Reinhold Niebuhr observed more than eighty years ago. Our democratic principles and traditions are imperiled by the power of financial oligarchs and unfettered money flows, which have contributed to massive inequality that, in turn, has given rise to political unrest and a sense of cultural unmooring. The articles presented here are both descriptive and normative, setting forth a complex social problem with seemingly bottomless proportions and then offering a design or set of remedial actions to alleviate them. Drawing on my professional experience going back to the mid-1970s, I wrote these pieces to generate new knowledge, new capabilities, and new vistas that open opportunities for growth and well-being—all the while knowing that no problems ever can be solved permanently and that sometimes solutions in one era become new problems in another.”

The New England Journal of Public Policy has been published since 1985 by the John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston. After folding in 2006 due to financial constraints, the New England Journal of Public Policy resumed publication in 2013 as an online, open access journal. Full issues of the entire run of the New England Journal of Public Policy are available on ScholarWorks.

Apart from Murninghan’s introduction and the editor’s note by O’Malley, who is also the John Joseph Moakley Distinguished Professor of Peace and Reconciliation at UMass Boston, the contents of this issue include:

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

ScholarWorks is the University of Massachusetts Boston’s online, open access 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.

Announcing Mass. Memories Road Show events for 2018

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Join us on the road!

University Archives & Special Collections at UMass Boston is excited to announce that the Mass. Memories Road Show will be producing four events in 2018: Amesbury, Hip-Hop Edition, Chinese American Experiences, and Winchester.

Mass. Memories Road Show flyer, 2018Click the image above to download a copy of this flyer.

In Amesbury–a former farming and mill town located in Essex County on the left bank of the Merrimack River and on the New Hampshire border–the Road Show team will partner with the Amesbury Carriage Museum and the Amesbury Senior Community Center to gather local family photographs and stories from community members young and old.

The Town of Winchester’s Archival Center will lead a team of organizations–including the Jenks Center and the Winchester Council on Aging, the Winchester Public Library, the Winchester Multicultural Network, and the Winchester Historical Society–to organize a community Road Show in the small suburban town in Middlesex County north of Boston.

In addition, the Mass. Memories Road Show will be producing two thematic events next year. A collaboration with the Massachusetts Hip-Hop Archive project and the Boston Public Library will allow for the collection of photographs and stories from rap musicians, DJs, dancers, and graffiti artists from Boston and beyond. The “Show ‘Em Watcha Got” Mass. Memories Road Show: Hip-Hop Edition is made possible in part from a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the human endeavor. Read more about this grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities here.

The Chinese Historical Society of New England will work with the Greater Malden Asian American Community Coalition and a number of other organizations in the greater Boston area to coordinate a Chinese American Experiences Mass. Memories Road Show. The event will be hosted by the Pao Arts Center and the Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center.

Questions? Please contact Carolyn.Goldstein@umb.edu and keep visiting blogs.umb.edu/archives for updates about these events.

Browse the Mass. Memories Road Show collection here.

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 9,000 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.

Healey Library receives two National Endowment for the Humanities grants in support of archival collections and community collaboration

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The Joseph P. Healey Library at the University of Massachusetts Boston is proud to announce that it has received two grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities’ Division of Preservation and Access to support the work of the library’s University Archives and Special Collections department.

Logo for National Endownment for the HumanitiesThe Preservation Assistance Grant will allow University Archives and Special Collections in the Healey Library (UASC) to contract with the Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC) to assess the physical condition of the department’s extensive archival holdings. In addition, the grant will support a public photograph preservation training workshop that will be open to volunteers and professionals working in local historical societies and museums. UASC will use the assessment, resultant recommendations, and knowledge gained in the workshop to develop a 5-year preservation plan to ensure continued access to the unique collections.

“This support from the NEH is a tremendous opportunity to enable us to continue to improve how we preserve our collections,” explained Patricia Bruttomesso, the grant’s principal investigator and the department’s Archival Collections Project Manager. “We are grateful for the funding that will allow us to benefit from NEDCC’s expertise and share knowledge about preserving archival collections with other cultural institutions in the Boston area and across the Commonwealth.”

Edo G, Tony Rhome, Lisa Lee, and Pacey Foster speak on a panel as part of the launch event for the Massachusetts Hip-Hop Archive in November 2016.

Edo G, Tony Rhome, Lisa Lee, and Pacey Foster speak on a panel as part of the launch event for the Massachusetts Hip-Hop Archive in November 2016. Photo courtesy of Michael R. Colford.

UASC also received funding through NEH’s Common Heritage grant program to support a project called “Local Rappers, DJs, B-Boys, and Graff: Documenting the Massachusetts Hip-Hop Community from the 1970s to the present.” This funding will enable UASC and project partners at the Boston Public Library to work with the local hip-hop community and scholars to host a digitizing day event to collect photographs, stories, and other materials that will be added to the Healey Library’s Massachusetts Hip-Hop Archive. It will further support four public programs at the BPL showcasing the four original elements of hip-hop culture—music, dance, DJs, and graffiti.

“We are looking forward to holding a thematic Mass. Memories Road Show event where everyone connected to hip-hop—musicians, DJs, dancers, graffiti artists, producers, and fans—can bring materials to document their experiences and share personal stories,” says Carolyn Goldstein, the grant’s principal investigator and the department’s Public History and Community Archives Program Manager. “The event will allow UMass Boston’s Healey Library to continue to build a unique collection documenting hip-hop in Massachusetts and, in collaboration with the Boston Public Library, engage a broad public in learning all about this important culture and its place in the Commonwealth.”

“Development of public programs is underway, which will further enable discovery of this important and historic hip hop archive, and Boston Public Library invites all to celebrate Boston’s unique music culture with us beginning this spring,” said Gianna Gifford, Boston Public Library’s Chief of Adult Library Services.

UMass Boston professor and hip-hop historian Pacey Foster notes that “Boston has had a vibrant Hip-Hop scene since the very early 1980s but never quite got the recognition it deserved from the popular press or commercial outlets. As a result, perhaps more than any other major metropolitan area in the nation, the story of Boston hip-hop remains relatively unknown. This project presents an incredible opportunity for the Hip-Hop community in Boston to share their stories and ensure that they remain accessible for generations to come.”

For more information about these grant-funded programs and about University Archives and Special Collections, email library.archives@umb.edu or call 617-287-5469.

About University Archives and Special Collections in the Healey Library at UMass Boston

UMass Boston logoUniversity Archives and Special Collections in the 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.

To carry out its mission, UASC is committed to working with, promoting, and assisting community archives in the Greater Boston area through facilitating cross-organization collaboration and access to informational, educational, and practical resources relevant to archival procedures and best practices.

For more information about these grant-funded programs and about University Archives and Special Collections, email library.archives@umb.edu or call 617-287-5469.

Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in these initiatives and programs do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.