Preserving Educator Voices and Documenting History: The Boston Teachers Union Digital History Day

By Kayla Graffam

Reimagining Public History Through Community Memory

When Dana Royster-Buefort, a retired teacher, sat down with a stack of yearbooks from her time at Thompson Middle School, she wasn’t just sharing photographs. She was preserving the heartbeat of Boston’s educational past. She could point out any of her past students, telling a story for each one. This moment, captured during the 2025 Boston Teachers Union Digitizing Day, reflects the power that participatory archiving holds to humanize our history. Public history, at its core, is an effort to democratize the past. It is grounded in the belief that history does not solely reside in official documents or in the interpretations of professional historians, but is also embedded in the experiences, materials, and memories of individuals and communities. However, many community members never have the chance to document their history in a formal capacity.

A Collaboration Rooted in Community

On the day, we collected a number of incredible photographs and documents, including yearbook photos, pictures of field trips, and even t-shirts. Using Mellon grant funds, UMass Boston Archives also helped the Boston Teachers Union collect a number of recorded histories in video form with our Video Station at the event. Union members could sit and discuss some of their favorite memories as well as thoughts on certain topics and issues, and the discussions were recorded to be uploaded onto the website and included in the digital collections.

Challenging Traditional Archival Norms

Participatory Archiving events like these ones help to challenge traditional assumptions surrounding history and historical preservation. Conventional archives are often privileged records produced by institutions, whether they be government agencies, large organizations, or famous figures. These histories are often prioritized over those generated by individuals and grassroots organizations. These imbalances can reinforce narratives that center power while marginalizing the perspectives of those directly affected by policy decisions, like the desegregation of Boston schools or the development of programming for students with disabilities. While the Boston Teachers Union is a larger organization, it wasn’t always, and there is plenty of room for growth and expansion when it comes to documenting and sharing BTU history.

Participatory archiving provides an alternative model. Rather than collecting materials about communities (as outsiders looking in), we are able to work directly with community members who can identify, describe, and contextualize the records being collected. This process shifts the authority and expertise, recognizing that those who lived the history are best positioned to interpret and give meaning to it.

My Role in the Event as a UMB Graduate Student

In preparation for this event, I spent my time doing a number of things. My main task was developing timelines of events for our three main topics of interest: School Closures, Students with Disabilities, and Desegregation and Busing in the Boston area. These topics were chosen for specific reasons. As both a labor union and a long-standing force in Boston’s public education system, the BTU offers a rare window into how teachers have shaped (and been shaped by) major historical moments like desegregation, school closures, and inclusion reform.

We also had a heavy focus on inclusion and special education in Boston public schools,
especially considering the ongoing organization for BTU’s “inclusion done right” initiative. We
focused on the development of programs for special education and adequate pay and funding for
teachers and paraprofessionals. (BTU Inclusion) We wanted to take this opportunity to give
educators the chance to speak about their experience with these programs and reflect on how this
experience has changed over time.

Using the information we already have available to us, gathered from previous
participatory archiving events, I was able to develop simple timelines that offered an overview of
the topics, highlighting specific events that shaped and changed life for students and teachers
alike. In addition to research and planning, I helped with site visits, equipment set-up, and
helping to ensure that volunteers had everything they needed for a successful day.

As a Public History student, this experience has been incredibly valuable. Not only did I
have the opportunity to witness the behind the scenes aspects of organizing an event like this
one, I was able to actively participate in the process, working directly with BTU employees,
doing site visits and helping purchase equipment that was used for the event. I also helped the
volunteers, and was working directly with the community members who were coming to
participate in the event. I was able to meet many of them, discuss the items and documents they
were bringing in, and learned about their time as educators. I spoke with one teacher, Roberta
Cohen who used to take her students on field trips every other month. We spoke for nearly thirty
minutes, discussing all the students she had as she showed me photo album after photo album, all
images she had taken of her students.

What Counts as History?

One thing that really stuck out to me throughout my time at the BTU was how many people didn’t realize what “counted” as history. I spoke with a number of different people, some BTU members, some retired volunteers, and some current teachers, who were under the impression that photographs were what “counted” as history, and that’s all we were looking to digitize. I remember mentioning to one of the volunteers that I was hoping people would bring some lesson plans, as I had a special interest in seeing how lesson planning has changed over the last few decades. She seemed confused, and asked if that counted. I explained that history, and what is considered important to collect and document, is anything that you consider important, or find special. It doesn’t have to be simply photographs or yearbooks. It could be lesson plans, notes from students, gradebooks, even physical items like t-shirts or student gifts. What makes participatory archiving and community archives unique and important is the fact that we are collecting personal stories and things that might not have been deemed important by others.

Looking Ahead

Our work isn’t finished. I will be continuing to work with the BTU, the UMB Archives,
and Professor Juravich to further organize and categorize the items that we collected. We will
work to get the images uploaded to the digital archive and made available to the public. I will
also be working with Professor Juravich to develop a Digital Exhibit based on the materials we
collected, to add to the current digital exhibitions that have been posted throughout the years
these events have been taking place. I hope to find some common threads between the
photographs and other items we digitized.

After this event and beginning the digitization process, I can’t help but reflect on how
many powerful stories still remain untold. This past event gave us the opportunity to speak with
and record the history of 16) people. In just four hours, we gathered a large number of stories
that deserve to be preserved forever. We can only guess as to what will be accomplished as BTU
continues this event on their own. Participatory archiving offers a path forward, not only to
preserve the past, but to shape a more inclusive and equitable historical record.