Digital History – Public History at UMass Boston

September 18, 2017Heidi Gengenbach No Comments

Ambiance in Archives: How Surroundings Inform Content

By Katie Maura Burke

As a Public History student pursuing an archives certificate, I have spent countless hours in various archival repositories. The cardboard cartons, steel shelves, and chilly temperatures can give off a utilitarian feel that contradicts the richness of the records they contain.

The Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site. Courtesy of the Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site, National Park Service.

Today, digitization projects have drastically changed the way researchers can access archival documents, enabling them to receive images of requested items via a website, zip drive, or email attachment. Thanks to technology, many researchers no longer have to travel to archives, such as the Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site, where I started working as an intern in February. However, the beauty and history of the location of this archive infuses the records stored here with a context that informs their meaning in ways I did not anticipate before I began working here.

FL Olmsted, Sr. writing in the Hollow, Fairsted. Courtesy of Olmsted National Historic Site, National Park Service.

Who knew an archive could be so beautiful? Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr., who designed the site which now houses the archive, is widely recognized as America’s premier landscape architect. His accomplishments in park design, town planning, landscape architecture, and conservation have earned international acclaim.

South Lawn with Olmsted Elm photographed circa 1900. Courtesy of Olmsted National Historic Site, National Park Service.

In 1883, he purchased a home in Brookline, Massachusetts, for both his family residence and professional office. He deemed the property “Fairsted.” Over the next decade, he designed the building and grounds to match his aesthetic vision, creating a space to celebrate nature and offer an oasis amidst an increasingly urban setting.

Fairsted continued to be a hub of landscape design far past Olmsted’s retirement in 1895. His son, Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., and stepson, John Charles Olmsted, continued the business as the “Olmsted Brothers Landscape Architects.” During the first three decades of the twentieth century, the work volume and staff of the firm increased significantly.

FRLA 45414 - upper draft June1930 - front-jpg635805960073723013 — Image of ten employees of the Olmsted Brothers Landscape Architects in the upper drafting room at Fairsted in 1930. Courtesy of Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site, National Park Service.

By the 1940s, the volume of work had begun to decline; however, during the 1960s and 1970s, scholars, landscape architects, environmentalists and historic preservationists showed interest in the work of Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr. This academic and practical interest in Olmsted’s landscape architecture prompted individuals to collect and begin to preserve materials related to the firm’s history.

In 1979, when the firm’s landscape design activity formally ceased, Fairsted was acquired by the National Park Service (NPS) as a National Historic Site. The NPS became responsible for preserving and cataloging the documents, plans, and artifacts left behind by the firm and interpreting Fairsted’s history for the public.

The Olmsted archives contain more than 1 million original documents related to landscape design projects the firm took on between 1857 and 1979. The repository contains approximately 139,000 plans and drawings, as well as photographic negatives and prints, planting lists, lithographs, employee records, and office correspondence. Today, the majority of research requests the archives receives relate to the firms’ plans and drawings, which have been used for landscape restorations, academic publications, and historical exhibits.

In the early stages, the archives staff focused on preserving the plans, which were often brittle, dirty, and damaged. Next, the items were cataloged and made available to researchers, who, at that point needed to visit the site to view them physically. In recent years, reflecting archival trends and practices, a massive digitization project focusing on the plans and drawings began.

Plan for Prospect Park in Brooklyn, New York, created by Olmsted, Olmsted & Eliot in 1894. Courtesy of Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site, National Park Service.

Initially, the plans and drawings were scanned into black and white tiff files. But the Olmsted National Historic Site is currently undertaking a four-year project to re-scan plans and drawings into high resolution color images that meet current industry standards and research expectations.

Working, as many archives do, without an in-house platform and hoping to provide widespread public access to the materials, the archives staff have been uploading the items to Flickr. The availability of scanned images has been extremely popular, so much so that it has greatly diminished onsite research visits. Staff members are currently working out a system to include visitors to the Flickr page to meet the annual visitation expectations of the site.

The shift, along with an option of offsite storage, has brought up discussions on the necessity of archival storage at the Olmsted site in general. Fairsted is made of wood and highly susceptible to fire and other environmental factors. The plans are stored in a protected vault, but many other items remain in the open. For that reason, storage of the Olmsted firms’ archival items is split between the Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site and the Springfield Armory National Historic Site.

For now, the items at the Olmsted site will remain there, due primarily to a consensus that their presence adds visceral meaning to the site as a whole. The visitors on public tours experience, that intangible feeling familiar to historians who physically interact with meaningful historical records. This feeling is even stronger at the production site, in this case a beautiful home among gardens and wildlife. The researchers looking at files on their laptops will miss this experience.

Is it really worth researchers travelling miles and miles for a feeling?That depends on myriad factors. But, after working at the Olmsted site over the past six months it is clear to me that seeing, touching, and interpreting the plans while in the historic office delivers a powerful impact. If Olmsted researchers are in Boston, I hope they will make a stop at Fairsted.

June 29, 2017Heidi Gengenbach No Comments

“Abandoned His Duty”: Uncovering the 1919 Boston Policemen Strike

By Nina Rodwin

In the fall semester, my HIST 600 class had the opportunity to participate in a collaborative project between UMass Boston and the Boston Police Department Archives. We were tasked with documenting the lives of the officers involved in the police strike of 1919. Policemen had demanded a higher yearly salary, adopting the slogan “$200 or nothing” (Puleo, 143). When their demands were ignored, 1,400 police officers walked out. From September 9^th to the 11^th, Bostonians rioted and reacted violently (often towards the striking officers). President Wilson found the found the strike so disturbing that he described it as a “crime against civilization” (Puleo, 155-156). The police head clearly felt the same, firing all striking officers with no chance of re-employment. The men’s duty cards, which detailed each officer’s employment history, were stamped with a large “abandoned his duty, September 9^th 1919.” These duty cards lay in the BPD archives for years, largely forgotten. It was only by chance that a former BPD archivist discovered these cards and was immediately filled with questions: who were these men and what happened to them after the strike?

The scale of the project required collaboration, not only between UMass Boston and the BPD archivists, but also volunteers, the police officers’ descendants, and finally, my own class. While we entered the project in order to learn genealogical research skills, it was gratifying to see that our small contribution helped in a large-scale project. Each student was instructed to pick an officer and fill in vital information into a worksheet. We used public records to uncover these men’s lives, searching through the census, birth and death records, military records and newspapers. To me, the most engaging records were the census records, as they not only reflected a specific officer’s life, but also larger changing trends in America.

Image of Hugh P. McGuire from the 1901 “The Officers and The Men The Stations Without and Within of The Boston Police.” This book’s yearbook format was a great source for photographs of the striking BPD officers.

I choose Hugh P. McGuire, who seemed to have a relatively good life before the strike: he lived in his rented house with his wife and four children and had been on the police force since 1896. However, his whole family was drastically affected by the strike. Just one year later, McGuire was working as a watchman for a lumberyard. His eldest son and daughter, then in their twenties, continued to live in his house. These two children may have stayed home to contribute to family finances, as both were employed. By the 1930 census, it is clear that he was experiencing still more trouble: he was now unemployed, and while his sons seem to have left home, his two daughters remained as the sole breadwinners in his household.

By 1940, Hugh McGuire was 74 years old. According to census records, he was “unable to work.” His eldest daughter, Anna, now 40, continued to care for her parents as a secretary for the Veterans Bureau. As the sole breadwinner, she received a yearly salary of $1,980, which in today’s money ($34,500) would relegate the McGuire family to the lower class. However, this census information has its drawbacks: even though it offers us Anna’s yearly income, we don’t know, if McGuire’s sons contributed to the household, if McGuire received Social Security benefits, or if the McGuire family saved money before Hugh lost his job. In other words, the whole family may have been struggling to make ends meet.

Image from the United States Census, 1940.

The census records also leave out vital information about McGuire’s wife. Was she unemployed because she was fulfilling the stereotypical duties of white women at the time, or did her lack of education (she only completed the further grade) shut her out of the scant opportunities women could obtain? As much as the census can aid researchers, it will never be able to answer these compelling questions, and may often leave researchers with more questions!

Image from the United States Census, 1930. In the “Home Data” section, it asks the family to report if they own a radio set.

While census records offer the bare facts of an individual’s life, they are quite useful to demonstrate large-scale changes in health, education, immigration and even leisure through their questionnaires. For example, in both the 1900 and 1910 census, participants are asked to list the number of children born, as well as the number of children living. This distinction reflected the high child mortality rate during the time; Hugh’s wife was quite lucky that all four of her children survived. However, by the 1920s, efforts to combat childhood diseases increased, and the census no longer included this category. The most amusing category was in 1930s census, which included a category simply titled “radio set” reflecting the growing number of families with radios, including the McGuire family. This category disappeared by the next census in 1940, reflecting both that radio sets were no longer novelties and the assumption that most households owned a radio.

This research was so engaging that I chose to volunteer my time to help the project further. While completing the worksheets of three more policemen, I learned a valuable lesson about genealogical research: researchers should not always trust their internet searches. When attempting to find the birth records for a man named Owen Katon, I was unable to discover his information. It was only with the aid of UMass Boston archivist Joanne Riley that I noticed there had been a transcribing error between the physical documents and the online search results. When I searched for Owen Katon, I had only found one record for “William Katon” and promptly assumed it couldn’t be the correct person. However, Riley taught me an important lesson: never assume that the online search results are always correct. When I actually looked at the scanned records for “William Katon,” I discovered that the records were really for Owen Katon after all! This is not to say that websites are untrustworthy; rather, researchers must be aware of these human errors, and conduct their research accordingly.

The BPD Strike Project still continues, with the goal of completion by the 100^th anniversary on September 9^th, 2019. If you are looking to improve your genealogical skills, for your own personal or scholarly projects, I strongly I strongly recommend getting involved.

Reference

Puleo, Stephen. Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919. Boston, Mass: Beacon Press, 2004.

June 1, 2017Heidi Gengenbach No Comments

Putting Public History Into Practice: The Industrial School for Girls

By: Sarah K. Black

When I entered the public history graduate program at UMass Boston, my experience in the field of history was strictly academic. One can only imagine how anxious I felt when I received the syllabus for HST 625, Interpreting History in Public: Approaches to Public History Practice. Under the instruction of Professor Jane Becker and in partnership with Joe Bagley at the Boston City Archaeology Program, my colleagues and I were tasked with uncovering the history of those who lived and worked at the Dorchester Industrial School for Girls (ISFG) during the 1860s and delivering those stories to the public in a way that was both appealing and accessible.

ISFG map — Map depicting the Dorchester Industrial School for Girls, 1889.

The ISFG was established in 1853 by several women who sought to educate and train destitute young girls in the field of domestic service. Once deemed ready by the staff, the girls would be placed in homes to work as servants. Our class was required to connect our biographical sketches with artifacts retrieved during Bagley’s excavation of the site in Summer 2015, and construct a website to ensure our interpretations could reach the widest possible audience. I was extremely intimidated by the project because, unlike writing a paper, we were working with a client (Bagley) and producing a tangible product. Who knew that the ISFG project would become the most exciting, informative, and meaningful experience of my entire academic career.

There were two main phases of the project—the first of which required each of us to conduct extensive biographical research on one staff member and one student. But how do we construct narratives for women who spent much of their lives on the fringes of society? And what does the middle ground of meticulous research and writing for a popular audience look like? These were just a few of the many questions we had to grapple with when we began producing these histories. We had to learn how to effectively weave facts and relevant context into a story that was both informative and accurate, as well as include elements that readers could connect with.

Hasson card — Record of Margaret Hasson, an ISFG student who later became “inmate #13430” at Bridgewater Almshouse. Courtesy of the Massachusetts State Archives. Photograph by author.

Like several of my classmates, the beginning of my research was defined by countless hours working with genealogy sites and other online resources. Once we made it through the initial frustration of uncovering subjects so elusive in the historical record, we found that each had a unique and captivating story to tell. Some narratives featured immersive details of mischief, international travel, and death, while others concluded with more questions than they started with.

While conducting my research, I was fortunate enough to travel to the American Baptist Historical Society, located at Mercer University in Atlanta. There I found a collection of letters written by the ISFG matron, Mary S. Daüble, while she served as a missionary in India. Whether working as a missionary in India or a matron at multiple institutions, Mary devoted her life to education and religious teachings. After some intensive genealogical investigation, I was able to shed light on Daüble’s life and experiences. I even located a blueprint of her home and added her to my own family tree on ancestry.com.

Blueprint of Mary Daüble's house. — Blueprint of Mary Daüble and her husband’s house. Courtesy of the American Baptist Historical Society. Photograph by author.

The story of Margaret (Maggie) Hasson was quite different. An Irish orphan who entered the institution at just 8 years old, Maggie found herself placed as a domestic servant in 10 different homes between 1860 and 1864. Mischievous to say the least, she ran away several times and even eloped with an African American Civil War soldier. After a police officer located and returned Hasson to the Industrial School for Girls, the school sent her to the Bridgewater Almshouse.

The second phase of the project was centered on group work. Our class was divided into three groups: website design and introduction, social media and marketing, and annotated transcription the ISFG’s 1860 annual report. As a member of the introduction group, I was responsible for contributing to the overall design of the website and drafting the text for the site’s landing pages.

Once again, we were met with challenges: How do we create an interface that is both informative yet engaging? How can we stand out against the plethora of webpages that characterize the digital age in which we live? Just as it was difficult to condense hours of biographical research into 1000-word narratives, our team struggled with determining what information was essential for each of the site’s main pages. These sections had to be brief enough to capture and maintain the reader’s interest, but also paint the fullest possible picture of the school, the archaeological dig, and the project.

This experience gave my peers and me the opportunity to develop and improve skills in biographical research and historical interpretation in a digital age. We also learned the value of collaboration—not only with one another, but also with our professor, our client, and other cultural institutions. And finally, the project prompted us to retrieve voices that may have otherwise remained silent, gave us the chance to tell history from the bottom-up, and helped us to see the extraordinary value in uncovering the “ordinary.” The ISFG project proved to be the perfect introduction to turning public history theory into practice.

Sarah K. Black is earning her M.A. in History with a specialization in Public History. She currently also works as an editorial assistant for The New England Quarterly.

March 18, 2017Heidi Gengenbach 1 Comment

Roaring for Rights: Women & Boston’s Anti-Busing Movement

Clipping of a newspaper article about ROAR's "March on Washington" in March 1975. The article states that ROAR marched to demand a constitutional amendment to block school busing. Clipping part of the Louise Day Hicks Papers, Boston City Archives. — Clipping of a newspaper article about ROAR’s “March on Washington,” March 19, 1975. Louise Day Hicks stands in the front of the crowd, wearing sunglasses. Clipping from the Louise Day Hicks Papers, Boston City Archives.

On March 19, 1975, roughly 1200 Bostonians trudged through torrential rains and howling winds from the Washington Monument to the Capitol building. The group, members of “Restore Our Alienated Rights”–ROAR for short–marched to generate national support for a constitutional amendment. The determined marchers–mainly mothers–alternated singsong shouts of “No! No! No! We won’t go!” with the chorus of “God Bless America” as they slogged through the deluge with the movement’s founding leader, Louise Day Hicks.

At the time, many women across the nation gathered in public demonstrations to support the ERA, a proposed constitutional amendment that would guarantee equal rights for women. But the demonstrators of ROAR had a different goal that blustery March day. They intended to galvanize support for a different constitutional amendment–one that would end court-ordered busing as a means of integrating public schools in Boston.

Logo of Restore Our Alienated Rights (ROAR), depicting a lion grasping a school bus in its claws. Image from the Louise Day Hicks papers, courtesy of Boston City Archives.

On the steps of the Capitol, Louise Day Hicks, dubbed “the Joan of Arc of Boston,” rallied the sodden crowd. The day before, leaders from fourteen states formed a national anti-busing coalition and appointed Hicks as chairperson. Like its Boston counterpart, the national ROAR coalition’s logo featured a fierce lion menacingly clutching a school bus in its paws. ((Robinson, Walter. “National Antibusing Coalition Formed with Hicks as Leader.” Boston Globe (1960-1985): 1. Mar 19 1975. ProQuest. Web. 16 Mar. 2017)) As Hicks announced the national coalition, its goal, and her role as leader, she dramatically compared the heavy rain to the tears “of Boston’s oppressed parents.”((Robinson, Walter. “Hub Busing Foes Get Drenching, some Support.” Boston Globe (1960-1985): 1. Mar 20 1975. ProQuest. Web. 16 Mar. 2017.)) Gatherers roared their approval.

Louise Day Hicks, ca.1969. — Louise Day Hicks, ca.1969, prior to her leadership of ROAR. Wikimedia Commons.

Perhaps the most widely recognized leader of Boston’s anti-busing movement, the controversial Hicks provoked mixed reactions. To some, especially those from predominantly white neighborhoods like South Boston, Hicks became a paragon of virtue who championed the rights of working-class whites. To others, she epitomized a conservative racist on par with white supremacist “Bull” Connor, who ordered attacks on civil rights demonstrators in Birmingham, Alabama.

Hicks was raised in the predominantly Irish working-class neighborhood of South Boston. Known for her political and social conservatism, she embodied virtues associated with traditional femininity. Observers noted that she always styled her hair precisely, wore blue, pink, or green dresses, and frequently wore dainty white gloves. Although she conceived of the acronym ROAR, she spoke in a cultured, genteel voice and emphasized her role as a mother in her political campaigns.((Feeney, Mark. “LOUISE DAY HICKS, ICON OF TUMULT, DIES.” Boston Globe. Oct 22 2003. ProQuest. Web. 15 Mar. 2017.))

Before she became a champion of the anti-busing movement, as a young wife and mother, Hicks earned a law degree from Boston University Law School. In 1955, she was one of only nine women graduated from a class of 232. She built a successful, if short, career in politics after winning election to the Boston School Committee with the slogan “the only mother on the ballot.” ((Lukas, J. Anthony. Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families (New York: Vintage Books), 1986, 123.)) Despite her hearty endorsement of social conservatism, Hicks held a membership in the the National Organization for Women. Reportedly, her father had taught her that gender should not limit options or curtail opportunities; thus Hicks had lobbied for passage of the ERA while she served as a Massachusetts Representative in Congress (1971-1973).((Feeney, Mark. “LOUISE DAY HICKS, ICON OF TUMULT, DIES.” Boston Globe. Oct 22 2003. ProQuest. Web. 15 Mar. 2017.))

Hicks’ advocacy of equal rights did not extend to all. While serving on the School Committee in the 1960s, Hicks faced accusations that Boston Public Schools (BPS) suffered from racial imbalance. Like others on the Committee, she adamantly denied the accusation and clashed repeatedly with the NAACP on the issue.

Button of Restore Our Alienated Rights (ROAR), depicting a lion sitting on a school bus with the words, "STOP FORCED BUSING." — Button of Restore Our Alienated Rights (ROAR) with logo and words, “STOP FORCED BUSING.” Courtesy of John Joseph Moakley Archive & Institute, Suffolk University.

In 1974, when a federal judge ruled that BPS were segregated and mandated public school integration by busing students away from neighborhoods, many protested vehemently. Hicks became a spokesperson for the outrage many Bostonians felt towards “forced busing.” To some working-class Bostonians, Hicks and ROAR, the group she founded, symbolized key tenets of inalienable rights: individual liberty, the right of parents to make the best life choices for their children’s well-being and happiness.

Flyer of the Jamaica Plain Concerned Citizen's League. Image courtesy of Northeastern University Archives & Special Collections. — Flyer of the Jamaica Plain Concerned Citizen’s League. Image courtesy of Northeastern University Archives & Special Collections.

Under the guidance of Hicks, who had built a solid reputation as a conservative mother, ROAR began as an informal group of local women–white mothers with young children–expressing concern about busing. Excepting Hicks, most lacked any background in political organizing. But within a short time, ROAR members orchestrated numerous demonstrations, coordinated widespread boycotts, and initiated letter-writing campaigns, publicity stunts, and political appeals. Often, Hicks and other women justified even the group’s most violent activities in gendered terms, claiming a responsibility as mothers protecting neighborhood children.

Researching the topic of Boston Public School desegregation, graduate student Rachel Sherman became intrigued by ROAR, its controversial but little-researched leader, Louise Day Hicks, and the other women active in the anti-busing movement. Want to learn more about Hicks and ROAR? Sherman designed an online exhibit, “ROAR: THE ANTI-BUSING GROUP WITH THE LOUDEST VOICE,” that explores the group’s main characters, their motivations, local activity and national support. Peruse documents, ROAR’s publications, and photographs that Sherman unearthed at the Boston City Archives and Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections and learn about the women of ROAR and their legacy by visiting her full exhibit here.

March 6, 2017Heidi Gengenbach No Comments

She Had a Dream: Ruth Batson & Equal Education in Boston

In August 1963, Ruth Batson, a community leader and activist from Roxbury, Massachusetts, joined over 200,000 Americans to participate in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

Ruth Batson's pennant from the March on Washington, August 28, 1963. Image courtesy of Schlesinger LIbrary. Ruth Batson Papers, Schlesinger Library. — Ruth Batson’s pennant from the March on Washington, August 28, 1963. Image courtesy of Schlesinger Library. Ruth Batson Papers, Schlesinger Library.

The watershed moment, one of the greatest demonstrations for civil rights in the US, culminated with marchers walking peacefully to the Lincoln Memorial where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered what became known as the “I Have a Dream” speech. Batson, who had turned 42 shortly before the March on Washington, shared King’s vision. She had a dream, too. An activist for civil rights in Boston, Batson dreamed of equal education for African Americans in Boston Public Schools. She began working to make that dream a reality years before the March on Washington.

Ruth M. Batson working as a student teacher at Lenox St Housing Project Pre-School. — Ruth M. Batson working as a student teacher at Lenox St Housing Project Pre-School, ca. 1948. Image reproduced for research and educational purposes, courtesy of the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University. Rights status is not evaluated.

In the late 1940s, as a student teacher of the Nursery Training School of Boston and as a young mother, she witnessed disparity in the public school system firsthand. That experience led her to become active in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Boston. A decade before the March on Washington, she was appointed chairperson of the newly-established Public Education Sub-Committee. The experience transformed her. She recalled:

“From that day on, my life changed profoundly. I learned how to sharpen my observation skills. I learned how to write reports. I learned how to stand before a legislative body and state the NAACP’s case. I lost all fear of ‘important’ people or organizations.” ((Ruth M. Batson, The Black Educational Movement in Boston: A Sequence of Historical Events; A Chronology (Boston, MA: Northeastern University, School of Education, 2001), 9.))

Documenting the physical condition of the city’s public schools, she noted widespread separation of black and white children. She challenged the Boston School Committee to address de facto segregation and the inadequate facilities of schools attended primarily by blacks.

Committed to her dream of equal education, Batson became a leading force of METCO (the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity) and she became increasingly active in politics. She became the first black woman to serve on the Democratic National Committee and the first woman elected president of NAACP’s New England Regional Conference (1957-1960). During that time, she volunteered in John F. Kennedy’s civil rights office and worked tirelessly for democratic campaigns on both local and national levels.

Governor Endicott Peabody adminiters the oath to Ruth M. Batson for her new appointment at the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, 1963. Image reproduced for research and educational purposes, courtesy of the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University. Rights status is not evaluated. — Governor Endicott Peabody administers the oath to Ruth M. Batson for her new appointment at the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, 1963. Image reproduced for research and educational purposes, courtesy of the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University. Rights status is not evaluated.

Recognized for her spirited nature and determination, in December 1963–just months after the March on Washington–Batson was appointed to serve as chairperson of the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination.

Ruth Batson advocated for civil rights and equal schooling for blacks in Boston for over thirty years. Committed to making her dream a reality, she helped reshape Boston’s public education system. Want to learn more about this extraordinary woman from Roxbury?

Graduate student Laurie Kearney created on online exhibit, “Ruth M. Batson, Mother, Educator, Civil Worker,” that provides a comprehensive overview of Batson’s life, volunteerism, and career. Using documents and photographs from the Boston City Archives, the National Archives at Boston, Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections, and the Schlesinger Library, Kearney explores how the personal and political intersected in this woman’s life.

Kearney’s narrative explores how Batson’s upbringing and experiences as a mother led to a career of community and political activism. Learn more about Batson’s actions in the movement to integrate Boston Public Schools and her and role as a leader of METCO (the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity) by visiting the full exhibit.