Collections: mss

Founded in 1968, the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute (MLRI) is a statewide non-profit poverty law and policy center. Their mission is to advance economic, racial, and social justice through legal action, education, and advocacy, specializing in large-scale impact litigation and policy reforms in a wide range of poverty law fields. The MLRI Housing Unit was involved in several cases attempting to protect low-income and minority housing in urban settings in Massachusetts in the 1980s. In a 1982 case, Olga Ramos et al. v. Ernest Proulx et al., nine minority residents of Holyoke and two Hispanic non-profit service agencies sued Mayor Proulx and the City of Holyoke for discriminatory practices related to disproportionately demolishing housing in low income and minority neighborhoods. In Boston, MLRI joined as council for the plaintiffs in a 1981 case, Viviana Munoz-Mendoza, et al. v. Samuel R. Pierce, Jr., et al., where South End residents sued the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), claiming federal funds were being used to racially desegregate their neighborhood when a HUD grant for the Copley Place development did not make a thorough study of the impact on residential integration or address a long standing desire for low-income housing on an adjacent site known as Tent City.

The MLRI Records consist of legal records, memos, correspondence, and strategy related to litigation for fair housing practice in the Holyoke and Boston cases, Ramos v. Proulx and Munoz-Mendoza v. Pierce. Newspaper clippings, city statistics and reports, and other documents stemming from the discovery portions of the cases are also abundant.

A non-profit, nonpartisan organization, MassPIRG is an advocate for the public interest in Massachusetts. Taking a stand on issues like public health, political corruption, consumer protection, and voting rights, MassPIRG uses the combined power of research, the media, grassroots organizing, and advocacy to initiate change that will improve the lives of citizens of the state.

Records of MassPIRG include reports on topics of research and investigation, issues of their publication, MassPIRG Reports, and documents relating to the establishment of Western Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group (WMPIRG) on the UMass Amherst campus in 1972.

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

The Massachusetts Review is an independent quarterly of literature, the arts, and public affairs. Co-founded by Jules Chametzky and Sidney Kaplan in 1959 to promote eclectic, nontraditional, and underrepresented literary and intellectual talent, the Review has been an important venue for African American, Native American, and feminist writers and poets, mixing new and established authors.
The records of the Massachusetts Review document the history and operations of the magazine from its founding to the present, including general correspondence and nearly complete editorial files for published works. The collection also includes a small number of audio recordings of MR2, a radio show hosted by Review editor David Lenson with interviews of writers, artists, and cultural critics.

Listen to MR2: Mass. Review Radio

An advocate for unionized construction workers in the state, the Massachusetts State Building and Construction Trades Council collection consists chiefly of conference proceedings.

The Massachusetts State Employees’ Association (MSEA) was founded in 1943 to protest proposed changes in the state employees’ retirement system. By 1969, the group had become the exclusive bargaining agent for the University’s administrative, clerical, and technical employees.

This small collection includes the constitution and by-laws of the MSEA along with Executive Board and general body minutes, correspondence, contracts, legislative materials, grievance records, hearing transcripts and decisions pertaining to job reallocations, subject files, newsletters, and press releases that document the UMass chapter of the Massachusetts State Employees’ Association from 1955 to 1978.

Town Monograph series published by the Massachusetts Department of Commerce and Development providing general information about towns in the Commonwealth including population from the U.S. Census (1960) and state census (1965), historic and recreational attractions, housing, and economic base.

The Massachusetts Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial commemorates the 1,536 men and one woman from the state who died during the Vietnam War and the 235,000 veterans who survived. Situated on a four-acre site at Green Hill Park in Worcester, the Memorial was formally dedicated in June 2002.

This small collection contains an assortment of material kept by supporters of the Massachusetts Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial during the long struggle to bring their vision to reality. In addition to a handful of letters and news clippings, the collection includes information on the design competition, contract documents, conceptual and construction plans for the memorial, ephemera from the dedication, and a roughly 3′ square scale model of the site prepared by the architects.

Founded in 1982, the Massachusetts Women in Public Higher Education (MWPHE) is a non-profit organization open to current and prospective women administrators in public higher education in the Commonwealth. Founded in 1982, the MWPHE serves as a support network, enhances professional development, encourages and promotes upward mobility, and addresses issues affecting Massachusetts public higher education and the status of women within the system.

The MWPHE records include administrative files and correspondence that document the organization’s work since its founding.

Established by the Department of Agriculture, the Division of Markets was responsible for determining the demand of agricultural products, encouraging their growth in Massachusetts, and informing purchasers and distributors of the condition of the markets. The division’s daily—except Saturday and Sunday—report provided vital information about the supply and demand of produce in the state.

The Farmers’ Produce Market Report Collection consists of the division’s report for the years 1935-1939. Details recorded include the activity of the market, prices for specific produce, agricultural products shipped within the U.S., and weather forecasts.

To meet the growing needs for potable water in the Boston metropolitan region, the Massachusetts state legislature ordered the evacuation of the relatively sparsely populated towns of Dana, Enfield, Greenwich, and Prescott, as well as portions of other adjoining towns such as New Salem, to make way for the construction of a massive reservoir. Over the course of almost two decades, the population of the towns was systematically relocated, the houses moved or razed, and bed of the future reservoir was stripped of trees and brush. The last remaining residents of the region were removed in 1938 and the four primary towns were officially disincorporated as the dam was completed and the waters began to rise.

The numbered blueprint sheets and index that make up this collection offer a detailed depiction of the Swift River Valley towns at the time the state government was seizing land for the Quabbin Reservoir. Apparently surveyed between 1932 and 1938, the maps were prepared by the Metropolitan District Commission of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for a Quabbin Reservoir Real Estate Survey in 1959 and then revised in 1972.