Boston Teachers Union Collections (2022)

Since 2018, UMass Boston historians, archivists, and students have partnered with the Boston Teachers Union (BTU) to archive, explore, and share the union’s history and the experiences of its members in Boston Public Schools since 1945. Thus far, our collaborations have included a participatory archiving event at the union hall, an ongoing oral history project, the digitization of the archives of the union’s newspaper, the Boston Union Teacher, and the transfer of the union’s documentary archives to UMass Boston. These newly accessible materials are being used in BTU organizing trainings, contract campaigns, and internal research, and by UMass Boston students in coursework and capstone projects. In Spring 2022, graduate students in Prof. Nick Juravich’s “Digital Public History” course organized the launch of these collections, along with a companion website they built and a library research guide. This project remains active!