Collecting area: Massachusetts

The Special Commission on the Reorganization of Higher Education was established to investigate and review Massachusetts laws concerning elementary and secondary education. In order to determine the existence and extent of unequal educational opportunity services, the commission reviewed the state’s school systems as well as the educational laws, programs, and school systems of other states.

Consists of records of the Special Commission on the Reorganization of Higher Education Records, including materials relating to the Boston Community Reorganization, a federal finance proposal, lottery distribution, and school finance reform.

The Special Commission on the Reorganization of Higher Education was established to investigate and review Massachusetts laws concerning elementary and secondary education. In order to determine the existence and extent of unequal educational opportunity services, the commission reviewed the state’s school systems as well as the educational laws, programs, and school systems of other states.

Consists of records of the Special Commission on the Reorganization of Higher Education Records, including materials relating to the Boston Community Reorganization, a federal finance proposal, lottery distribution, and school finance reform.

On the eve of the Seven Years War in the Province of Massachusetts, town constables shouldered an array of public responsibilities, including announcing town meetings, serving writs for the town clerk, and collecting local taxes. Although they received a commission for the taxes collected, constables were also held personally responsible for any taxes unpaid, authorized by writ of the Provincial Treasurer and enforced by County Sheriffs.

The warrants in this collection, nearly all printed forms completed in manuscript, were issued by the Treasurer and Receiver General of Massachusetts Bay Province, William Foye or his successor Harrison Gray, authorizing the Hampshire County Sheriff, Oliver Partridge, or Deputy Sheriffs Moses Miller or Ephraim Williams, to attach the goods of local constables in arrears: Brimfield, Greenwich, Sheffield, and Westfield, Mass., along with Somers and Suffield, now part of Connecticut. In instances where the taxes were not delivered, the Sheriff was empowered to “levy by Distress and Sale of the Estate real and personal” of the constable to make up the unpaid difference.

In the late 1990s, MassEquality was formed as a coalition of advocacy groups that sought to build legislative support for same-sex marriage and gay rights in Massachusetts. Formally incorporated as a 501(c)4 advocacy organization in late 2001, the coalition hired its first employee, Campaign Coordinator Marty Rouse, in late 1993, and achieved a landmark success that November when the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled that the state may not “deny the protections, benefits and obligations conferred by civil marriage to two individuals of the same sex who wish to marry.” On May 17, 2004, Massachusetts became the first state in the nation to allow equal marital rights to same-sex couples. Since that time, MassEquality has continued to champion marriage equality nationally.
The MassEquality Records document the origins, operations, and activism of one of the leading organizations in New England advocating for marriage rights and civic equality for all, regardless of sexual orientation. The collection includes some material generated by the Freedom to Marry Coalition, a partner in the coalition, and a series of large banners and posters, some of which were displayed during the event celebrating the arrival of marriage equality in Massachusetts.

The farmer Nathaniel Maynard was born in Marlborough (Worcester County), Mass., on Feb. 27, 1780, the eldest of four children of Joseph Maynard and Lovina Barnes. By 1804, when he married Rachel (Hill) of North Brookfield, Nathaniel was already a resident of Leverett, where he had apparently moved with his brother William. Nathaniel and Rachel had four children: Ira B. Maynard (1810-1896), Alvin (1813-1818), Emeline Dudley (1815-1901), and Joseph Bartlett Maynard (1817-1881).

This small volume is a hybrid production. Roughly the first half of the volume consists of relatively standard exercises for learning arithmetic and business activities, including calculating weights, measures, currencies, finances, and interest rates. The remainder consists of accounts, recording a variety of work performed by Maynard, ranging from farm labor (sale of potatoes, plowing and planting, working with oxen, slaughtering, and chopping wood) to weaving (“sheeting”) and especially mending or making shoes.

The archaeological anthropologist Alan McArdle received his masters degree (1975) from UMass Amherst for a demographic study of 17th century Hadley, Mass., followed by a doctorate (1986) on late 19th century mortality change and industrialization in the region. He remained at his alma mater for most of his career, becoming Associate Director of Analytical Studies in the Office of Institutional Research, and has been active in local historic preservation efforts.

McArdle took extensive photographs of colonial cemeteries in Hadley, Mass., and in nearby towns Amherst, Belchertown, and Shutesbury, as well as additional images in Concord, Mass., and in Kennebunkport, Wells, and York, Maine.

Temporarily stored offsite; contact SCUA to request materials from this collection.

A lifelong activist for social and environmental justice, Kevin McVeigh was among the founders of two prominent antinuclear and environmental organizations in Northern California, the Pelican Alliance (1978) and Interhelp (1981). After relocating to Massachusetts, he continued in environmental activism, founding the Green River Center in Greenfield in 1987, but in response to the intense public health crisis, he gradually shifted his focus to become an advocate for persons with HIV/AIDS. As a founder of the AIDS Community Group of Franklin County (Mass.), he has coordinated AIDS services for Tapestry Health, a not-for-profit organization providing affordable health care to in Western Massachusetts.

The McVeigh Papers document a career as a committed antinuclear activist and advocate for persons with HIV/AIDS. The collection includes organizational materials from each of the groups McVeigh helped found: The Pelican Alliance, Interhelp, the Green River Center, the AIDS Community Group of Franklin County, and Tapestry Health, as well as correspondence, newspaper clippings, journals and magazines related to the issues concerning, notes from HIV/AIDS caregivers’ conferences, materials relating to men’s support groups, and other material related to environmental protection and anti-war activism. Finally, the collection includes audio files of an oral history (approximately two hours) conducted with McVeigh in July 2010, and a small collection of antinuclear books from small publishing houses.

The labor educator and activist Dale Melcher was both a graduate of UMass Amherst and a longtime member of staff and faculty. Melcher began her career at UMass Amherst as a student and then staff member in the newly formed program in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, before joining the Labor Relations and Research Center in 1987 as its Labor Extension Coordinator. Interested in leadership development for union women, she taught courses over the years on women and work, immigration, and race and gender. She also maintained an array of other commitments to social justice organizations, including the Northeast Summer School for Union Women, the Women’s Institute for Leadership Development (WILD), and the Professional Staff Union/MTA.

Focused on the year just prior to the Reagan era, this collection contains an assortment of manuscript and printed materials relating to Melcher’s involvement with Socialist feminism and the women’s movement, economic justice, and he movement for Puerto Rican independence. The collection includes particularly valuable materials on feminism in the Pioneer Valley and the Valley Women’s Union, records of the People for Economic Survival, and a significant body of material for the Puerto Rican Solidarity Committee.

Adolph and Helen Meyer, Mass. Federation Presentee Ball, at Hotel Statler Hilton Boston, 1959 Nov.

A founding member of the Massachusetts Federation of Polish Womens’ Clubs, holding every post in the organization, Helen (Gorecka) Meyer (1908-2003) was incredibly active in the Polish community in Boston, Cambridge, and later Cape Cod. Born in Poland, Helen came to America at the age of three, living with her parents in Lynn and Wilmington, before moving to Cambridge. She married Adolph Meyer in 1928, and both were important business owners (establishments included the White Eagle Restaurant in Cambridge, the Log Cabin Restaurant in Waltham, South Boston Liquors, and Al’s Bottled Liquors) and community members. Honored by the Mass. Federation of Polish Womens’ Clubs in 1963 as their “Woman of the Year,” Helen was also actively involved in the St. Joseph and Sacred Heart Societies of St. Hedwig’s Parish, local and national Polish Roman Catholic Union groups, and the Kosciuszko Foundation Presentation Balls.

Compiled from Helen Meyer’s papers by her nephew Stan Bartosiak, this collection of personal, family, and community papers – including published materials, photographs, slides, correspondence, audiovisual material, news clippings and ephemera – documents the Polish community in the Boston area from the 1930s through the 1990s. Some records concerning the Meyer, Gorecka, and connected families are from earlier. Various Polish clubs and organizations are represented through society badges, souvenir programs, financial records, correspondence, and photographs, with the Kosciuszko Foundation Presentation Balls particularly well documented. Additional audiovisual recordings document Bartosiak and his work an educator.

Opposition to fluoridation of public water supplies in Massachusetts swelled in the 1950s, culminating in passage of a law in 1958 mandating that towns that wished to fluoridate would first put the proposal to public referendum. The primary force advocating for this law was the Massachusetts Citizens Rights Association, an organization founded and directed by Norman and Mary-Louise (Shadman) Meyer of Wellesley and which remained the leading anti-fluoridation group in the Boston area for twenty years. Having met and married while students at Harvard (1943) and Wellesley, respectively, the Meyers were tireless supporters of civic activities ranging from educational and environmental causes to public television (through the Citizens for Public Television in Boston), and disability (Norman served as director of the Protestant Guild for the Blind in Watertown), and they were stalwart members of the Wellesley town meeting. Norman Meyer died in Tortola in 1986, with Mary-Louise following in 1999.

The Meyer collection is a rich assemblage of letters and other materials documenting the Massachusetts Citizens Rights Association and the struggle against fluoridation in Wellesley, Newton, and other communities in eastern Massachusetts. Central figures in the movement, the Meyers maintained a wide correspondence with other activists throughout the region and published and disseminated information on the dangers of flourides in the water supply.