The University of Massachusetts Amherst
Robert S. Cox Special Collections & University Archives Research Center
CredoResearch digital collections in Credo

Collections: E

Evans, Cheryl L.

Cheryl L. Evans Papers

1946-2019 Bulk: 1960-2015
3 boxes, 1 oversized folder 3 linear feet
Call no.: RG 050/6 E93

Cheryl Evans singing at Medford High School, ca. 1962

A lifelong activist, performer, and educator, Cheryl Lorraine Evans was born in 1946 in west Medford, MA, the eldest of five. As a high school student, Evans attended the march on Washington in 1963, and was then the first in her family to attend college, in 1964 joining the largest class at UMass Amherst to date. She graduated four years later as a pivotal organizer of African American students across campus, the Five Colleges, and in the region – during the period when Black student groups, the Black Cultural Center, and the Black Studies department all had their origins at UMass. Evans was the first elected president of an African American student organization at UMass, and remains an organizer to this day, particularly as a key connector for Black alumni and through her UMass Black Pioneers Project.

Evans went on to work at UMass as an assistant area coordinator of Orchard Hill, an area housing the majority of the students of color and CCEBS students on campus at the time, and then for the Urban University Program at Rutgers University. She worked for over a decade in early childhood education, mostly in New Jersey and New York City, then while working for the State of Massachusetts received her MA in Communication from Emerson College, partially to help her public radio show, “Black Family Experience.” Evans was the first African American woman to run for City Council in Medford, and was appointed to the Massachusetts Area Planning Council by Governor Dukakis. She taught for five years at Northshore Community College, received her PhD from Old Dominion University in 1997, and ended her career at Bloomfield College, where she was a professor for 18 years until her retirement in 2016. A prolific singer as a child and young adult, Evans was, and continues to be, a performance artist, with several theater pieces focused on Black history, all in addition to her outreach, organizing, and workshops, many focused on increasing the number of Black graduate and doctoral students.

The Cheryl Evans Papers document over 60 years of the life of the educator and activist, including childhood report cards and essays, clippings from the civil rights movement she followed and joined as a high school student, undergraduate records and ephemera, documentation of Black UMass alumni events, and records from her careers in public advocacy, education, and the theater. Evan’s time at UMass is especially well documented, including schoolwork, numerous photographs of student life on campus, social and political organization records, including contact lists of and correspondence with Black students, and the original protest demands from the 1970 Mills House protest and march to Whitmore.

Gift of Cheryl L. Evans, 2018

Subjects

African American college students--MassachusettsAfrican American women teachersUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst--AlumniUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst--Students

Types of material

Photographs
Ewell, Maryo Gard

Maryo Gard Ewell Papers

1971-2010
7 boxes 9.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1066

A pioneer in arts programs in community development, Maryo Gard Ewell is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College with masters degrees from Yale (1972) and the University of Colorado Denver (1992). Beginning her career with arts councils in Connecticut, Ewell went on to become leadership positions wih the Illinois Arts Council and the Colorado Council on the Arts (1982-2003). A co-author of the influential The Arts in the Small Community (2006), she is a sought-after speaker and collaborator, serving as a board member and consultant for arts agencies across the country. Among other awards, she has been recognized with the “Arts Are The Heart Award” in Colorado; an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Goucher College; and the Selina Roberts Ottum Award from Americans for the Arts (1995). Since retiring in 2003, Ewell has remained active as a consultant, educator, and speaker.

This collection contains materials relating to two significant developments in the history of of community arts in the United States: records relating to how selected states decentralized arts funding in 1970s, and to early efforts of the National Endowment for the Arts to create a program to serve local arts agencies from the mid-1970s through the mid-1990s. In addition, there are records documenting a project, commissioned by Americans for the Arts in 2007, to trace the history of community arts councils from the first in 1948 through the 1960s when the National Endowment for the Humanities was formed.

Subjects

Americans for the Arts (Organization)Arts--Economic aspectsCommunity arts projectsNational Endowment for the Arts
Exner, Frederick B.

Frederick B. Exner Collection

1952-1969
1 box 1.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 924

The radiologist Frederick Exner settled in the Pacific Northwest after receiving his MD from the University of Minnesota in 1927. Concerned about proposals to fluoridate water in Seattle, he and his collaborator George Waldbott became national figures in opposing fluoridation by the early 1950s and for decades, were considered among the most effective scientific voices in the movement. A prolific writer and lecturer, Exner is particularly remembered for his influential book, The American Fluoridation Experiment (1957), co-written with Waldbott.

The Exner collection contains a number of mimeographed and printed articles by Exner on the environmental dangers and toxic effects of fluoride, dating from the early years of the antifluoridation movement.

Separated from the Martha Bevix Collection.

Subjects

Anitfluoridation movementFluorides--Physiological effect