Welcome to our site exploring the Boston Teachers Union Collection at UMass Boston! Here, you’ll find resources and digital exhibits on the history of the Boston Teachers Union (BTU), which represents more than 10,000 Boston educators (active & retired), including teachers, nurses, psychologists, guidance counselors, paraprofessionals, and substitute teachers. The BTU was chartered as Local 66 of the American Federation of Teachers in 1945, and has been the collective bargaining agent for educators in Boston since 1965.
Since 2018, the BTU has been documenting its own history through community-based collecting projects, oral histories, and the digitization of the union’s newspaper, the Boston Union Teacher. BTU has donated this digital material, along with the union’s manuscript archives, to the University Archives and Special Collections at UMass Boston, where they can be accessed freely through the Open Archives Digital Collections portal. By following the links below, you can learn more about these collections and view digital exhibits and blog posts created by UMass Boston graduate students.
We want to hear from you!
If you have any questions about these collections or exhibits or simply want to know more about these projects, please email us at BTUHistory@gmail.com or fill out our survey.
Cover photo credit: Bilingual teachers prepare to march to City Hall in support of a better contract, 1970. Courtesy of University Archives and Special Collections, UMass Boston. Boston Teachers Union Digitizing Day, 2018.