With one of the first agricultural fairs in the country taking place in Massachusetts in 1807, the state has a special place in the history of agricultural fairs in the United States. Twenty antebellum posters promoting agricultural fairs in western Massachusetts, primarily from agricultural societies in Hampshire, Hampden, Franklin, and Berkshire Counties.
An outgrowth of the extension movement in Massachusetts aimed at assisting rural women in domestic work, the Massachusetts Home Demonstration Agents’ Association (later the Massachusetts Association of Extension Home Economists) was formed in 1930. Offering an opportunity for the sharing of resources, approaches, and information, the organization provided encouragement for its members to improve their skills as home economists and adult educators.
The MAEHE collection includes award applications, minutes, correspondence, newsletters, and membership files.
The Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition (MassCann) is a state affiliate of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. Founded in October 1990 by a group of Boston-based activists, MassCann is a strictly grassroots not-for-profit group that works to ameliorate laws against the use and possession of marijuana and to raise public awareness about the potential of marijuana and hemp products. In addition to lobbying legislators and promoting ballot initiatives to decriminalize adult possession in the Commonwealth, MassCann sponsors public events, such as the landmark conferences held at Harvard Law School in 1991 and 1994, a series of Tax Day protests (1994-1998) calling for regulation and taxation of marijuana, and most famously the Boston Freedom Rally, the second largest anti-prohibition gathering in the country held annually since 1992.
The MassCann collection documents the work and interests of a grassroots advocacy organization dedicated to ending marijuana prohibition, from oganizational and administrative records relating to events it sponsors, particularly the Boston Freedom Rally, to promotional materials and materials relating to the legal environment, and medical marijuana. The collection also includes a wealth of video, compact discs, and audiotapes documenting MassCann events along with recordings of commerical programming on marijuana.
An early example of cooperative research between industry and academia, the Massachusetts Chicken and Turkey Broiler Test, Inc. was founded in 1954 to conduct tests to improve poultry productivity. Taking advantage of the professional skills of the staff and students in the Poultry Science Department at UMass Amherst, the Test facility was located adjacent to campus and over its five year course of operations, gathered scientific data on a number of variables, including rate of growth, rate of feathering, age of maturity, and egg production and hatchability.
The records of the Broiler Test consist of minutes, financial documents, correspondence, and test results.
In 1969, Governor Francis W. Sargeant established a bi-partisan council to review municipal and state collective bargaining practices more than decade after all public employees were extended the right to join unions. Over the next three years, the council heard from both sides, interviewing representatives from management and labor, and holding regional hearings throughout the state. The work of the group culminated in the enactment of the Massachusetts Public Employee Collective Bargaining Law (M.G.L. c.150E) in 1973, which granted full bargaining rights to most state and municipal employees.
The collection includes detailed minutes of meetings, transcripts of testimony, drafts of legislature, reports, and recommendations of the council.
The Massachusetts Community Forestry Council was formed in 1991 as the Massachusetts Urban Forestry Council in response to a mandate of the USDA Forest Service under the Urban and Community Forestry Act of 1990 Farm Bill. The Council had an office at the UMass Amherst Eastern Extension Center in Waltham, Mass. from 1997 through the early 2000s.
The collection consists of materials located at the UMass Amherst Eastern Extension Center including minutes, by-laws, committee documentation, annual reports, strategic plans, member lists, grant records and leases and agreement with UMass.
In the early 1960s the Council for Constitutional Reform, a nonpartisan citizen organization seeking to promote economical and efficient state government, called for a constitutional convention to convene in Massachusetts. The group cited the state’s national reputation for corruption and public immorality as reasons for amending the constitution, while others argued that the state’s problems, primarily governmental waste, a cumbersome state tax structure, and inefficient state agencies, could only be resolved by the legislature and governor. Opponents to the convention argued too that the cost of such a convention, in total more than $2 million, would only increase the financial burden of the state.
Correspondence and position statements arguing both sides of the debate offer insight into the politics of the 1960s as well as the public’s response to the political climate in the Commonwealth. Newspaper clippings trace the movement for constitutional reform from early proposals to the approval of four amendments during the November 1964 election.
First called for in 1918 as a result of the need for a coordinated women’s effort during World War I, the National Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs was not officially formed until just after the armistice was signed in 1919. The new organization did not die with the end of the war, however, as first expected. Instead the group determined that the need for a national business women’s organization was of equal or greater importance during a time of peace. Today Massachusetts state affiliates continue to improve the lives of working women through action on issues such as economic empowerment, women’s health, family and medical leave, and pay equity.
The records of the Massachusetts Federation of Business and Professional Women consist chiefly of correspondence and minutes of meetings, which together chronicle the various issues the state club has worked on for more than sixty years. In addition to materials that document the efforts of the state affiliate there are also records for local chapters in Massachusetts (Hampshire County and Upper Cape Cod centered in Falmouth) which include annual reports and newsletters. Publications issued by the parent organization, BPW/USA, connect the national agenda with topics of importance to the state and local chapters.
The Massachusetts Federation of Polish Women’s Clubs was formed in 1931 when Kolo Polek of Boston and Mrs. Frances Siluk as President hosted delegates representing 26 Polish women’s organizations in Massachusetts. The group’s object was to unite women’s clubs in the state whose members were of Polish birth or descent for civic, cultural, and educational purposes, and to foster an understanding of Polish culture.
The collection includes the organization’s newsletters and convention programs from the late 1940s through the mid 1990s.
The Stockbridge Auxilliary of the Massachusetts Indian Association was formed by prominent local women in western Berkshire County who sought to aid in educational and missionary work for and among Indians, and to “abolish all oppression of Indians within our national limits.”
Records include minutes that document the group’s committees, meetings, dues, and contributions to Indians on reservations nation-wide, accounts, membership lists, and a letter.
