Collecting area: Social change

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

In the fall 1987, a working group was formed in Boston to help coordinate planning for HIV-related services, prevention, and education. The Boston AIDS Consortium began operations the following January with the goal of ensuring effective services for people affected by HIV/AIDS and enabling them to live healthy and productive lives. In its eighteen year existence, the Consortium worked with over seventy public and private agencies and two hundred individuals.

The Records of the Boston AIDS Consortium provide valuable insight into community-based mobilization in response to the AIDS epidemic.

L-R: Steven Botkin (MRC Executive Director), Thulanu Nkosi (men's work leader in South Africa), and Rob Okun (MRC Associate Director), ca. 2000

Joining a men’s group soon after his arrival in the Pioneer Valley in 1979, and finding the support and community there important personally, and professionally for his graduate work in anti-oppression education, Steven Botkin began his now decades long work in anti-sexist activism. While doing his doctoral work at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, in 1982, Botkin co-founded the Men’s Resource Connection (MRC) to promote healthy ideas of masculinity and male leadership by challenging harmful stereotypes involving violence, sexism, and oppression and to create a local network devoted to this work. He completed his Ed.D. in 1988 (dissertation entitled Male Gender Consciousness: A Study of Undergraduate College Men) and continued to guide the MRC into a successful non-profit community-based organization, whose programs became a model for men’s organizing in communities around the world. In 2004, Botkin founded Men’s Resources International (MRI) to support the development of masculinity awareness and men’s engagement as allies within a global network. MRI eventually merged with MRC to form MERGE for Equality, Inc. Botkin additionally co-founded the Springfield based Men of Color Health Awareness (MOCHA), and the North American MenEngage Network, and has served as a leader, trainer, educator, and consultant for local, national, and global men’s groups and organizations, including in Africa, Asia, and Europe, and for groups such as the YMCA, Planned Parenthood Federation, Save the Children, the International Rescue Committee, and the Women’s Peacemakers Program.

The Steven Botkin Papers document Botkin’s long career in global men’s organizations and networks and their work in policy, education, empowerment, and organizing around the intersections of masculinity, gender, violence, sexism, oppression, power, politics, and society. Materials related to the men’s movement include significant records from the various groups Botkin co-founded and assisted, including organizational histories, program records and reports, meeting agendas, resource pamphlets, posters, networking and training curricula handbooks and handouts, a full run of the MRC magazine Voice Male, and video tapes and recordings. Botkin’s collection compliments and enriches the materials in the Men’s Resource Center Records.

For years, Mitzi Bowman and her husband Pete were stalwarts of the progressive community in Connecticut, and tireless activists in the movements for social justice, peace, and the environment. Shortly after their marriage in 1966, the Bowman’s settled in Newtown and then in Milford, Conn., where Pete worked as an engineer and where Mitzi had trouble finding employment due to her outspoken ways. In close collaboration, the couple became ardent opponents of the war in Vietnam as well as opponents of nuclear weaponry. The focus of their activism took a new direction in 1976, when they learned of plans to ship spent nuclear fuel rods near their home. Founding their first antinuclear organization, STOP (Stop the Transport of Pollution), they forced the shipments to be rerouted, and they soon devoted themselves to shutting down nuclear power in Connecticut completely, including the Millstone and Connecticut Yankee facilities, the latter of which was decommissioned in 1996. The Bowmans were active in a wide array of other groups, including the New Haven Green Party, the Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone, the People’s Action for Clean Energy (PACE), and they were founding members of Fight the (Utility Rate) Hike, the Progressive Action Roundtable, and Don’t Waste Connecticut. Two years after Pete died on Feb. 14, 2006 at the age of 78, Mitzi relocated to Vermont, carrying on her activism.
The Bowman Papers center on Mitzi and Pete Bowman’s antinuclear activism, dating from their first forays with STOP in the mid-1970s through the growth of opposition to Vermont Yankee in the approach to 2010. The collection offers a valuable glimpse into the early history of grassroots opposition to nuclear energy and the Bowmans’ approach to organizing and their connections with other antinuclear activists and to the peace and environmental movements are reflected in an extensive series of notes, press releases, newsclippings, talks, ephemera, and correspondence. The collections also includes extensive subject files on radiation, nuclear energy, peace, and related topics.

James K. Boyce, senior fellow at the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Professor Emeritus of Economics, received his B.A. from Yale University and doctorate from Oxford University. While an undergraduate, Boyce worked on a land reform and rural development program in India for two years. He completed his studies at Yale, designing an independent major in Agricultural Development, before returning to South Asia where he lived in a village in Bangladesh for a year. Out of this experience, Boyce and his partner, Betsy Hartmann, wrote and published the book, A Quiet Violence, which focused on the lives and perspectives of those who live in rural poverty. Throughout his career, he researched and wrote extensively on environmental economics. When Boyce joined the faculty at UMass Amherst in 1985, he established the first economics course on the topic called “the political economy of the environment.” During his first sabbatical in the 1990s, Boyce was a Fulbright Scholar at the Universidad Nacional in Costa Rica, where he helped establish a master’s program in sustainable development and ecological economics for Central America and the Caribbean. In addition to his focus on environmental economics, Boyce was active in the economics of violent conflict and peacebuilding. He traveled to El Salvadore soon after the signing of the peace accords and was asked to lead the Adjustment Toward Peace project for the United Nations Development Program. Boyce continues to write about topics related to political economy and climate policy.

The collection is a rich resource documenting Boyce’s research and professional contributions that include work on: South Asia with emphasis on irrigation and flood control; Africa; the Philippines; environmental topics such as climate policy, crop genetic diversity, Natural Assets Project, Toxic 100, Costa Rica; and peacebuilding, in particular in El Salvador. Publications and reports are contextualized within the collection through correspondence, drafts of writings, conference proceedings, and extensive notes and notebooks including those created on visits to Bangladesh.

Sparked in January 1789 by the efforts of Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II to remake politics in the Austrian-dominated Low Countries, the Brabant Revolution began with a series of intense riots coupled with rising political opposition to foreign rule. After a rebel army defeated Austrian forces at the Battle of Turnhout in Oct. 1789, the revolution gained steam and by December, the Brabant declared its indepedence, forming the new United States of Belgium. Although resistance to Austrian rule spread throughout the region and several key towns fell to the rebels, the new state was fragile and gained little support from foreign powers. After dissension began to afflict the revolutionary ranks, pitting conservative “Statists” against allegedly anticlerical “Vonckists,” Emperor Leopold II (successor to Joseph) moved in in force. By the end of 1790, the rebellion was crushed.

The Brabant Revolution produced a vigorous literature on all sides, favoring and opposing revolution, representing the various factional interests, and the wide range of ideologies and political ideas wrapped up in the revolutionary struggle. The collection (also known as the Collection Brabançonne) consists of dozens of pamphlets and books issued in the years 1789 and 1790, many of exceptional scarcity, reflecting a rising national consciousness that resulted in the formation of the modern state of Belgium. The publications are written primarily in French or Dutch.

Liane Brandon is an award-winning filmmaker, photographer and University of Massachusetts Amherst Professor Emerita. She is a co-founder of New Day Films and was one of the first independent women filmmakers working in New England. She was also a founding member of FilmWomen of Boston and Boston Film/Video Foundation. Brandon’s groundbreaking films Sometimes I Wonder Who I Am (1970) Anything You Want To Be (1971) and Betty Tells Her Story (1972) were among the most frequently used consciousness raising tools of the Women’s Movement. Her films, which also include Once Upon A Choice and How To Prevent A Nuclear War have won numerous national and international awards, and have been featured on HBO, Cinemax and the Criterion Channel. They have twice received Blue Ribbons at the American Film Festival and have been presented at the Museum of Modern Art, the Barbican Centre in London, the Tribeca Film Festival and many other venues. In addition to her role as Professor at the University of Massachusetts and Chair of the Educational Technology Program in the College of Education, she was the Director of UMass Educational Television. Designed to provide the public with innovative, original educational programming, UMass Educational Television produced award winning, original educational programming for cable/home audiences throughout New England. The twelve original series (50 half-hour episodes) were carried by local and regional cable and were seen in over 40 cities and towns in Massachusetts and Connecticut. The College of Education became the first educational college in the country to produce original educational programming for cable/home audiences. Currently working as a photographer, her credits include stills for American Masters, Nova, and Unsolved Mysteries. Her photographs have been published in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe and many other publications.

The Liane Brandon Collection consists chiefly of printed materials related to the antinuclear movement, peace movement, labor unions and workers’ movement, feminism and the women’s movement, women filmmakers, student movements and organizing, as well as photographs and videotapes of shows produced by UMass Educational Television (1995-1999). For materials related to Brandon’s contributions to UMET, see the UMass Educational Television Collection.

Brandon’s historic films and papers are held at the Archive of Documentary Arts at Duke University.

Access restrictions: Temporarily stored offsite; contact SCUA in advance to request materials from this collection.

Sigrid Brauner was born in Hofheim, Germany, earning her BA from the University of Frankfurt before immigrating to the United States. Brauner completed her PhD in German literature at the University of California Berkeley in 1989 and later the same year joined the faculty at UMass Amherst in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literature. Brauner, who served on the executive committee of the Women’s Studies Program, remained at UMass until her death in December 1992.

The papers reflect Sigrid Brauner’s interest in race and gender as well as her research in anthropology and theology. “Witches: Myth and Reality,” the popular course Brauner taught during the fall 1992 semester, is represented in the collection along with other notes for research and teaching. Professional correspondence as well as political and social change periodicals comprise the remainder of the Brauner Papers. A fair portion of the collection is in German.

Born in Germany in 1923, Gerard Braunthal was a scholar of German politics and taught as a professor in the Political Science department from 1954. Before receiving his B.A. from Queens College in 1947, Braunthal served in intelligence during World War II, going on to receive his M.A. from the University of Michigan in 1948 and Ph.D from Columbia University in 1953. While studying at Columbia, Braunthal worked as an interviewer for US Air Force intelligence. An expert on the German Social Democratic party (SPD), Braunthal published extensively on modern German politics. His work on the subject was well regarded in Germany as well as the United States. In parallel to his academic research, Braunthal was also an anti-war and anti-nuclear activist, serving on the executive committees of both the Valley Peace Center and the Citizens for Participation in Political Action (CPPAX). Braunthal received the Order of Merit from the German government.

The collection includes Braunthal’s correspondence, article manuscripts and research materials, as well as pamphlets, form-letters, and broadsides relating to anti-Vietnam war activism, interspersed with a small amount of personal correspondence from his own antiwar activities. Among his research materials is a collection of interview transcripts with members of the Federation of German Industry (BDI). There is also a significant collection of documents from his involvement with local activist groups, which includes minutes, form-letters, reports, conference proceedings, and leaflets.

Mark Taylor Brinsfield studied languages and law in Europe before receiving his MA in European Studies at the University of Exeter. His research has included work in the history of multiracial people in post-World War II Southeast Asia. Brinsfield currently lives in Northampton, Mass.

The posters in the Brinsfield Collection represent a cross-section of West German political campaigning during the decade leading up to reunification. Focused primarily on national, rather than regional elections, the collection includes representative work from the major left- and right-leaning political parties (CDU and RCDS, SDU, the Greens) as well as a few posters addressed at major political issues, including the antinuclear and antiwar movements.

Printers and bibliographers use a bevy of terms to refer to works printed on one side (or sometimes both sides) of a single sheet, classified primarily by size. From large to small, posters, broadsides, and fliers refer to works used to convey a more or less focused message to an audience, often using illustrations or inventive typography to grab the attention.

Posters from Communist world, with an emphasis on the political and cultural transformations of the late 1980s through mid-1990s. The majority of posters originated in the Soviet Union, although there are examples from East Germany, China, and elsewhere.