History Commons^™

'Very Quiet Day, Vague Tension': Digitizing And Sharing The Stories Of School Desegregation And Busing In Boston, Andrew Elder

Joseph P. Healey Library Publications

In the summer of 2015, University Archives & Special Collections at UMass Boston began to work with a number of area archival institutions to create “a digital library of material that can be widely disseminated for both curricular and scholarly use” related to the history of school desegregation and busing in Boston. Too often, the history of Boston school desegregation seems weighted down by some of the most visible characters involved – politicians, policy-makers, court officials – so we decided early on to focus largely on identifying materials that tell a more complex, personal history of school desegregation and busing …

Doing History With Online Mapping Tools: Handout, Joanne M. Riley

Joseph P. Healey Library Publications

Handout listing resources and links that accompanied Riley's presentation "Doing History with Online Mapping Tools: an Introduction"

Doing History With Online Mapping Tools: An Introduction, Joanne M. Riley

Joseph P. Healey Library Publications

In November, 2014 the National Heritage Museum in Lexington, Mass., offered a presentation titled "How to Do History with Online Mapping Tools" as part of a series related to the Museum and Library’s collection of historic maps sponsored by the Ruby W. and LaVon P. Linn Foundation. The invited presenters were Jessie Partridge from the MetroBoston DataCommon, a provider of free applications that make it possible to map data, and Joanne Riley, University Archivist and Curator of Special Collections in the Healey Library at UMass Boston. Both presenters helped lay historians, data fans, and map enthusiasts discover how visualizations of …

Doing History With Online Mapping Tools: Handout, Joanne M. Riley

Joanne M. Riley

Handout listing resources and links that accompanied Riley's presentation "Doing History with Online Mapping Tools: an Introduction"

Doing History With Online Mapping Tools: An Introduction, Joanne M. Riley

Joanne M. Riley

In November, 2014 the National Heritage Museum in Lexington, Mass., offered a presentation titled "How to Do History with Online Mapping Tools" as part of a series related to the Museum and Library’s collection of historic maps sponsored by the Ruby W. and LaVon P. Linn Foundation. The invited presenters were Jessie Partridge from the MetroBoston DataCommon, a provider of free applications that make it possible to map data, and Joanne Riley, University Archivist and Curator of Special Collections in the Healey Library at UMass Boston. Both presenters helped lay historians, data fans, and map enthusiasts discover how visualizations of …

Mass. Memories Road Show Heads To Wayland, Allston-Brighton, The West End, And Umass Boston, Carolyn Goldstein, University Archives & Special Collections, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The Mass. Memories Road Show is an event-based public history project that digitizes personal photographs and stories shared by the people of Massachusetts. We work with local communities to organize free public events where every-one is invited to bring photographs to be scanned and included in the archives at UMass Boston. The goal of the Road Show is not only to document local history, but to build and strengthen connections within the communities of Massachusetts.

American Indian Activism And The Rise Of Red Power, Rachael Guadagni

Graduate History Conference, UMass Boston

Recent historical scholarship has determined that the socio-political environment of post-World War II America provided the necessary catalyst for Native American activism which when combined with the socio-political atmosphere of the civil rights era lead to the development of the Red Power Movement. In the thirty or so years immediately following World War II America witnessed profound social and political change. Initial fear of communism lead to strict, pro-capitalist Indian legislation resulting in the termination of hundreds of tribes and the relocation of countless Indian people. From this same environment rose strong leaders, including many veterans, influenced by Cold War …

Sasquatch And The Law: The Implications Of Bigfoot Preservation Laws In Washington State, Joan Ilacqua

Graduate History Conference, UMass Boston

The American Pacific Northwest is characterized by its lush wilderness, mountain ranges, salmon, Starbucks coffee, and most recently, by “Portlandia”-esque hipsters. The Pacific Northwest is also the home of the elusive, and potentially bogus, Sasquatch. The first Sasquatch, or Bigfoot, story was published by pioneer missionary Elkanah Walker in 1840 and a long tradition of publishing Bigfoot stories has proliferated since. Bigfoot searches and stories culminated in the 1967 Patterson-Gimlin film of a supposed female Sasquatch, although the myth has found resurgence in modern Bigfoot hunting television shows. Whether or not the elusive Sasquatch exists, ultimately the stories serve as …

Cycling Historiography, Evidence, And Methods, Lorenz J. Finison

Boston’s Cycling Craze, 1880-1900: A Story of Race, Sport, and Society

My purpose in Boston’s Cycling Craze, 1880-1900, was to unearth a largely hidden social cycling history from the point of view of the ordinary, not the famous. While there were many Boston connections to racing champions like Major Taylor, Eddie McDuffee, and Nat Butler, and there are abundant sources of evidence about them, the research was not just about them, nor just about bicycle racing, nor just about unique or fast bikes. I wanted to write about what bicycling meant to ordinary citizens of Boston and its surrounding towns— and to write about the worsening social climate of the …

Mass. Memories Road Show: Your Place In Massachusetts History, Andrew Elder, Carolyn M. Goldstein, Joanne Riley, University Archives & Special Collections, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The Mass. Memories Road Show is an event-based public history project that digitizes family photographs and stories shared by the people of Massachusetts. We work with local communities to organize free public events where everyone is invited to bring photographs to be scanned and included in the archives at UMass Boston.

To date, the Mass. Memories Road Show has digitized more than 5,000 photographs and stories from across the state, creating an educational resource of primary sources for future generations. Over time, we plan to visit each of the 351 cities and towns in Massachusetts.

Recovering A Sordid Past: Public Memory Of Scollay Square, Joan Ilacqua

Graduate History Conference, UMass Boston

Boston’s own entertainment district, Scollay Square, has been eradicated from Boston’s landscape, both physically and in public memory. In its prime, Scollay Square housed dime museums, theaters, burlesque attractions and its answer to Nathan’s hot dogs, Joe and Nemo’s. Eventually, Scollay Square deteriorated and was targeted for urban renewal. At present, Boston’s Government Center and City Hall Plaza occupy what once was a thriving local attraction. Beyond the plaque dedicated to the Howard Athenaeum, a strong public memory of Scollay Square is not evident in Boston. Following the rise and fall of Scollay Square and analyzing rhetoric used to support …

Mass. Memories Road Show, Heather Cole, Joanne M. Riley, Andrew Elder, Joseph P. Healey Library, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The Mass. Memories Road Show is an event-based public history project that digitizes family photos and stories shared by the people of Massachusetts. We work with local communities to organize free public events where residents are invited to bring family photos to be scanned and included in the archives at UMass Boston.

A Changing Bridge For Changing Times: The History Of The West Boston Bridge, 1793-1907, Dale H. Freeman

Graduate Masters Theses

This thesis examines the building of the West Boston Bridge in 1793, which was the first bridge to cross the Charles River between Cambridge and Boston, as well as the building of its successors at the same location in 1854 and 1907. It is a study of how these bridges brought change to both Boston and Cambridge which resulted not only in commercial development and urban settlement, but greatly assisted in opening up avenues to public transit for a growing urban population. It also examines the influences on the bridges of the historical periods when each was built: the first …

Black Church Politics And The Million Man March, William E. Nelson Jr.

Trotter Review

October 16, 1995 will be recorded as one of the most important days in the political history of African Americans in the United States. This day witnessed the largest mass political demonstration in the history of this nation—the assemblage of more than 1.2 million African-American men in Washington, D.C. under the banner of the Million Man March. Both the size and the overt political objectives of the march set it firmly apart from the pallid, feeble demonstrations in Washington led by the NAACP in the 1980s; in its size and character, the march echoed the focus on power and system …

Religious Institutions And Black Political Activism, Frederick C. Harris

Trotter Review

During the modern Civil Rights Movement religious institutions provided critical organizational resources for protest mobilization. As Aldon Morris' extensive study of the southern Civil Rights Movement noted, the Black Church served as the "organizational hub of Black life," providing the resources that fostered—along with other indigenous groups and institutions—collective protest against a system of white domination in the South.

Building On A Radical Foundation: The Work Of Theologian Howard Thurman Continues, Stephanie Athey

Trotter Review

Howard Thurman (1900-1981), whose life spanned most of this century, was a prodigious intellect and a pioneering theologian; his persistent effort, especially over the period of 1930s-1960s, to grapple with racism and classism within American Christianity paved the way for intellectual, political and religious leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, including Martin Luther King, Jr. Through his contact with Mahatma Gandhi, Thurman became convinced that African Americans might bring the "unadulterated message of non-violence to all people everywhere." Determined to find a moral and practical method to unite the concerns of the human spirit and the immediate material and social …

The Sacred As The Basis For Human Creativity And Agency In The Black Church, Cheryl Townsend Gilkes

Trotter Review

Religion is, I believe, the most important site for human creativity, innovation, and agency. In the world of the sacred in any social context, one is able to find the widest variety of human constructions of meaning. Indeed, the true understanding of human diversity may be found in the study of religion and the processes through which people sustain and renew their religious organizations and their religious world views. It is important, I think, to apply these new insights to the study of the African-American religious experience. The Black church, or the collective experience of African-American Christians in the United …

The Substance Of Things Hoped For: A Memoir Of African-American Faith By Samuel Dewitt Proctor: A Review Essay, Donald Cunnigen

Trotter Review

The following article is a review of The Substance of Things Hoped For: A Memoir of African-American Faith by Samuel DeWitt Proctor, written by Donald Cunnigen.

Black Immigrant Community Of Washington, D.C.: A Public History Approach, Portia James

Trotter Review

In the Washington, D.C. area contemporary Black community life has been shaped in large part by a pattern of migration and settlement of African Americans from southern states. But international immigration has also made its mark on the local Black community. Today, Washington and its suburbs in Virginia and Maryland are home to significant populations of Black people from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. This international movement of people has resulted in the broadening of Black community life and the development of a multicultural and multi-ethnic Black population in the area.

Signs, Symbols, And Slave Culture: Representations In Black Thunder, Sandra M. Grayson

Trotter Review

Black Thunder (1936), by Arna Bontemps, is a historical novel that recreates Gabriel Prosser's 1800 slave revolt. This novel is useful in reviewing some of the historical and cultural linkages between Black slaves in the U.S. and African cultures. Thematically, Black Thunder does more than represent Black people's self-assertion through revolt, it also shows their assertion of identity through practicing Atlantic (or western) African traditions, especially those of the Kongo. This is a topic that continues to be significant in light of greater contemporary political and economic linkages between U.S. Blacks and Africans, as well as increasing African immigration into …

The African-American Urban Milieu And Economic Development, Lenneal J. Henderson

Trotter Review

Economic disparity between urban white America and urban black America is becoming more pronounced, whether in central cities, suburbs, or edge cities. African-American employment prospects have declined in central cities, increased slightly in suburbs, and increased substantially for the few African Americans living and working in edge cities. William Julius Wilson cites the decline in stable, higher-paying, blue-collar employment in the industrial cities throughout America. Others identify the changing structure of metropolitan employment as characterized by more rapid professional and white-collar employment growth in suburbs and edge cities and declining employment in central cities. In his book, Cities Without Suburbs …

Revisiting The Question Of Reparations, James Jennings

Trotter Review

Recent congressional action to award Japanese Americans "reparations" for their internment during World War II, as well as the Florida state legislature's act to award $150,000 to black survivors of a white riot rampage of Rosewood, a black town, in 1923, has contributed to a re-emergence of the call for black reparations. Several black state and local politicians and leaders across the United States have called for legislative action that would compensate blacks for three and one half centuries of racial enslavement. The awarding of reparations to Japanese Americans is not the only precedent for indemnity to a group of …

Education And Community Development Among Nineteenth-Century Irish And Contemporary Cambodians In Lowell, Massachusetts, Peter N. Kiang

New England Journal of Public Policy

As cities undergo dramatic demographic changes, schools become important sites of conflict between the interests of established and emerging communities. This article presents a case study of Lowell, Massachusetts, where the second largest Irish community in the country resided during the 1850s, and which is now home to the second largest Cambodian community in the United States. Analysis of nineteenth-century Irish community dynamics, particularly in relation to issues of public education in Lowell, reveals the significance of religious institutions and middle-class entrepreneurs in the process of immigrant community development and highlights important relationships to ethnicity, electoral politics, and economic development. …

William Monroe Trotter: A One-Man Protester For Civil Rights, Robert C. Hayden

Trotter Review

William Monroe Trotter was the first, the only and the last of Boston’s significant protest leaders for civil rights, equality and justice for black Americans in this century. He gained national stature between 1901 and 1934.

Trotter was uncompromising in his demand for complete and immediate equality for black Americans in the early 1900s. His stress on militant protest for integration, legal and voting rights for blacks during the first quarter of this century became the hallmark of the modern civil rights movements of the 1954—65 period. William Monroe Trotter was a man 50 years ahead of his time.

William Monroe Trotter: A Twentieth Century Abolitionist, William A. Edwards

Trotter Review

William Monroe Trotter was a twentieth century abolitionist. He was a man of principle whose dedication to the cause of equality was never disputed. Many criticized his methodology, but the l960s saw a revitalization of his direct action approach. His life is an interesting profile in the study of leadership. He left no long standing organization, but in the history of the NAACP we can see his influence, His life is also the story of opportunities that converge but do not merge.

Dorchester House Multi-Service Center: One Hundred Years Of Community Service, 1887-1987, Linda Genovese, Elizabeth R. Mock

Joseph P. Healey Library Publications

Dorchester House has remained a vital part of its community since it was established in 1887. Beginning as a one-room industrial school in the Fields Corner neighborhood, Dorchester House has grown from a settlement house into a modern, multi-service center offering a wide range of social, educational, recreational, and health services to people of all ages. Over the past one hundred years, Dorchester House has continuously met the ever changing needs of the Dorchester community.

To Care For The "Fair Female Form" : The Founding Of The Boston Female Asylum, Elizabeth R. Mock

Joseph P. Healey Library Publications

No abstract provided.