we are so lucky that the great Erin McGuirl will give the spring 2026 George Parker Winship Lecture at Houghton library tomorrow, March 4 at Houghton Library. please come and share widely! 📜
libcal.library.harvard.edu/event/162329....
thanks to @hyperallergic.com for the shout out in the latest Required Reading:
"As with too many art forms, several now-classic books by male authors would not have been possible without the women who typed and often edited them."
hyperallergic.com/required-rea...
A group of protestors stand on a sidewalk. One holds a sign that says "Cancer = Asthma Death"
Alternatives for Community and Environment (ACE) is Roxbury-based non-profit organization focused on eradicating environmental racism. Recently, @nu-archives.bsky.social processed their important records, making them accessible for research. Learn more: librarynews.northeastern.edu?p=277085
This collection to me is a one in a million example of the long, hard, complex, intersectional work of activism, especially when addressing environmental issues in a city. ACE is still ongoing in their work, and it's now our work to learn from their history. We are so lucky to steward these records.
My incredible colleague @willow-branch.bsky.social & her powerful team of processing assistants have completed processing the Alternatives for Community and Environment (ACE) records and you can now read the finding aid here: archivesspace.library.northeastern.edu/repositories...
delighted to see QLB's beautiful reprint of The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher (with introduction and afterword by @mollybrrown.bsky.social and me + cover design by the great Anthony Russo) is on the @strandbookstore.bsky.social's Holiday Gift Guide:
www.strandbooks.com/home-maker-9...
Folks in the Boston area: save the date for the week of November 3rd through 8th to take in some great events and exhibits highlighting archival labor and autumnal themes in area archives! Register for updates here:
bit.ly/ArchivesCrawl2025
📜
I absolutely love that in today's intro to archives class, where students look at records of neighborhood activism in Boston, a student responded to the reflective question: "who do you not see represented in these records?" with the answer: "rich people!"
Black woman looks up the the left and smiles, in slight profile. She is wearing a tie-dye dress and is seated at a piano in a baby blue room.
🎈 Happy birthday Elma Lewis! 🎈
Today marks what would have been Ms. Elma Lewis’s 104th birthday! Take a moment to celebrate the legacy of Ms. Lewis by learning more about her work that impacted arts and artists throughout Boston and beyond. subjectguides.lib.neu.edu/elmalewis
Were hard hats in your back to school supplies list? For students in the 1988 “Kids Building Boston” program they were! 50 students from the McKay School in East Boston participated in an educational program following the three year process of building 125 High Street in Boston’s Financial District.
“A nation-wide digital archive will both inform today’s racial redress agenda and significantly expand our knowledge about these atrocities beyond lynching.” - Margaret Burnham, founder of CRRJ.
Read more about CRRJ's ambitious project with @nu-archives.bsky.social
crrj.org/efforts/gath...
More discussion on the exciting news from my place of work! I can't wait for these records to be digitized and widely available!
Restorative justice is one of the most meaningful applications of archival work; the CRRJ project at Northeastern is an excellent example of that. I am honored to work alongside colleagues who help shape and grow the CRRJ’s Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive.
NEA is thrilled to welcome session proposals for our 2026 Spring Meeting, Resilience and Action in the Archives, on March 19-21, 2026 in Portland, ME! Submit your proposal before July 30, 2025: newenglandarchivists.org/news/13511144
Work with me and I will make collection prep for high volume digitization fun
Elma Lewis and the institutions she founded left a profound impact on Black arts in Boston & worldwide. Now, we at @nu-archives.bsky.social received a grant to digitize her records for our project "Black Art and Joy in Boston (and Beyond): Elma Lewis and the National Center of Afro-American Artists"
Did you know that the MBTA's Orange Line is a Gemini?! On this day (June 10th) in 1901 the Orange Line began service. How I learned this? Jim Vrabel's newly launched Boston history database "When and Where in Boston"! whenandwhereinboston.org
Such a fun peek into the Boston Globe Library Collection at @nu-archives.bsky.social by NU Journalism Prof. Meg Heckman. The Globe's clippings files reveal so much in what is filed and what isn't. I'm grateful for Meg's labor lifting up these women journalists' legacies! www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/...
Melnea Cass, in black and white, wearing pearls and a brooch, and cat eye glasses looking up to the left smiling subtly with her hair pulled back into a bun in a cowl neck knit dress.
Happy Melnea Cass Day! On May 22, 1966, over 650 community leaders gathered to pay tribute to the “First Lady of Roxbury” Melnea Cass. 52 years later, in 2018, then-Mayor Marty Walsh declared May 22, 2018 "Melnea Cass Day" See more records of Melnea Cass's legacy here: bit.ly/melneacass
Love to email a collaborator explaining a delay in some scans being sent their way and receiving "No worries it is garden push days" the perfect sort of spring understanding 💐
A more honest boiler plate language special for those with a busy inbox: "Apologies for the delayed response, but you see, I emailed you a most thorough response in my dreams, and have only now awoken to my belated reality"
Poster for march with a photograph of Martin luther King Jr. and the following text: "Why we march with Dr. Martin Luther King We march today with Dr. Martin Luther King to protest the sufferings endured by the citizens of Boston. WE MARCH TO CITY HALL To protest the exclusion of the poor from anti -poverty planning. To protest the bad faith of public officials in failing to enforce our housing codes. To protest continued segregation in public housing. In short, we march to protest the lie that a New Boston can be built without social justice. WE MARCH TO THE SCHOOL COMMITTEE To protest poor and racially imbalanced schools, and demand a commitment by the School Committee to a program and timetable to end this educational genocide, beginning September 1965. To call on the citizens of Boston to repudiate the School Committee majority which says: "These Negro parents have no background, they are just a pair of hands. " "We do not have inferior schools; what we have been getting is an inferior type of child." "White parents don't want their children to go to school with backward Negroes." Will YOU Join Us?"
On this day in 1965 thousands were led by Martin Luther King Jr. from Carter Playground to the Boston Common for a Freedom Rally. A poster distributed explaining reasons for the march stated:
“In short we march to protest the lie that New Boston can be built without social justice”
Theater Offensive founder Abe Rybeck in a brightly colored floral gown with long draping sleeves reaching up to adjust a flower crown atop his head. Abe is outside with brick buildings and businesses behind him while to his sides are more neutrally dressed onlookers in shirts and jeans smiling and laughing and admiring his bright ensemble.
This photograph of Theater Offensive founder Abe Rybeck accurately portrays how we're feeling on this sunny spring day watching the flowers begin to bloom in Boston. Good luck to everyone preparing for finals this week!
As I tried to wrap up a workshop on using archival records for a day long educator's professional development program and transition to the next session an educator cried out "but how can we leave Molly!!!" and I will now be floating off the ground thanks to that compliment
Woman wearing glasses with a pen in her right hand resting on a notebook that is on a table looking at a microfilm reader with text overlaid on it that reads "libraries work because we do"
Happy National Library Workers Day to all my fellow information laborers! It is always a great day to support those who enable equitable access to information and and to demand just systems that adequately fund and support that work as loud as we can!
Woman reading a book on the other side of a bookshelf, head tilted book open, about to turn a page, the books facing the photo on the shelf between the photographer and the reader are related to topics on America.
Young boy reading at a low table with leg curled up in next to him.
Woman reading a book with an elephant on it titled "animal alphabet" to child whose face is mostly obscured by the book. They are both seated.
Happy National Library Week! Here are some photos from July 1986 taken by Janet Knott at the old Dudley Street Library (now the Roxbury Branch of the Boston Public Library). Knott photographed folks browsing the stacks, reading aloud and reading independently.
Congress has the power to restore funding to the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Join me in calling your reps!
Thank you for this vision of magazines to dance in my head <3
A baby sits in a Bjorn rocker with a copy of the home-maker resting in her lap
Molly and Christine clink pink glasses of sparkling rose behind a table where their boxes of The Home Maker lay unpacked.
Our copies of THE HOME-MAKER are here! @mollybrrown.bsky.social and I had so much fun unboxing them and seeing our foreword and afterward in the new handsome QLB edition. Out on April 7th!
Awww I love this!!!