Archives and Special Collections

The 2015 film Spotlight recently won the Critics’ Choice Award for Best Picture and earned six Oscar nominations. The film follows the Boston Globe’s investigation and reporting of the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal under Cardinal Bernard Law. The coverage began on January 6, 2002 and is widely credited with helping to uncover the depth of the scandal throughout the U.S. The Globe was awarded a Pulitzer for their reporting on the subject in 2003. But did you know that the story first broke in the Boston Phoenix almost a year earlier? Northeastern University’s Archives and Special Collections is the new home of the Boston Phoenix Collection, which contains over 30 articles and editorials covering the scandal. In particular, the collection includes Kristen Lombardi’s ground-breaking article “Cardinal Sin,” the evocative cover story of the March 23, 2001 issue.   Lombardi’s “Cardinal Sin” investigated the 25-plaintiff civil lawsuit against Father John Geoghan of the Boston Archdiocese, which additionally named Cardinal Bernard Law, Boston’s archbishop, as a defendant. The article uncovered Geoghan’s history of sexual abuse, his failed treatments, and his numerous reassignments by the Church in an attempt to hide the truth. In addition—through interviews with victims and an insightful evaluation of past abuse cases—Lombardi illustrated that the Church preferred to settle out of court and reassign those accused, offering no real solutions or justice. The Phoenix and Lombardi continued coverage of Cardinal Law and the sex abuse scandal through 2003. A bibliography and links to the articles are located in the Boston Phoenix Collection website archives. In publication from 1965 to 2013, the Phoenix remains an invaluable source of reporting on major Boston subjects—from school desegregation to LGBTQ issues to Occupy Boston—shining a light on the most controversial of topics. The paper has received multiple awards in journalism from the New England Press Association, the Penny-Missouri Newspaper Awards, and the American Bar Association Gavel Awards.

When news of David Bowie’s untimely death went public on the morning of January 11, 2016, artists ranging from Madonna to Iggy Pop to Guillermo del Toro made statements of sadness and disbelief concerning the passing of Major Tom. Sleater-Kinney guitarist and Portlandia actress Carrie Brownstein encapsulated it best when she tweeted: “It feels like we lost something elemental, as if an entire color is gone.” The Boston Phoenix Collection in Northeastern University’s Archives and Special Collections contains reviews, photographs, and articles documenting David Bowie’s artistry, ranging from his music and film careers to his political prowess, even his opinion on Todd Haynes’ controversial Bowie-inspired film, Velvet Goldmine.   The Boston Phoenix won numerous awards for journalism in its lifetime, including in 1994 when classical music writer Lloyd Schwartz was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. Ben Gerson’s  1972 article “Bowie’s Martian Spiders Spin New World” highlights the in-depth nature of the alternative newspaper’s music journalism. Showcasing the sexual, political, and artistic nature of Bowie’s music and showmanship, Gerson’s artistic profile of Bowie is beyond music reporting—it is an academic dissection of Bowie’s “Ziggy Stardust” tour. Referenced in Elizabeth Thompson and David Gutman’s The Bowie Companion, Gerson calls Bowie’s body a “laboratory, free of morphological determinants,” analyzing Bowie’s lyrics, performance, costumes, and philosophies. From a query as to why Bowie would want to perform on the A&E channel’s Live by Request in 2002, to a celebration of “the best record ever made about apocalypse, interplanetary lust, singer-songwriter role playing, and rock-and-roll-as-alien-outsider stuff,” The Boston Phoenix Collection offers insight into the reception of Bowie’s ever-changing identities. An elusive and iconic figure, Bowie is frequently cited as an inspiration not only by newer artists, like Lady Gaga, but also by contemporaries, like Mick Jagger. To explore the coverage of mainstream and underground pioneers in the music industry visit the Archives in Snell Library.

Guest Post by Kelly J. Conn, Ph.D. and Mya M. Mangawang, Ph.D.

I will never forget the thrill I felt as I worked my way carefully through the meticulously organized folders and boxes of the Lowell Institute School archive collection housed in the Northeastern University Libraries, Archives and Special Collections Department of Snell Library. What would be in the next folder? A poem? A work of art? A legal document? A handwritten letter? How were all these items connected? What story did these archives have to tell of the rich history of the 112-year-old Lowell Institute School, which was embraced by Northeastern University in 1996?

While many aspects of the School’s early history had previously been shared in different ways by various authors, an account that combined these stories into a comprehensive narrative that spanned the period from the arrival of the Lowell family in New England through today had not yet been published. My co-author, Dr. Mya M. Mangawang, and I set out to tell that story, not only to celebrate and honor the Lowell family, their Institute, and the School they began, but also to help frame the most recent vision for the future of the School in meeting the needs of the critical areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

This history is meant both to document the past and point to the future in order to highlight the ways in which the Lowell Institute School has met, and is well-positioned to continue to meet the needs of our STEM industries for years to come. We hope that you, as our readers, will appreciate the well-defined and distinguished legacy of the Lowell Institute and Northeastern University, and will join us in our optimism about the powerful impact that the Lowell Institute School at Northeastern University will have on future generations.

The full text of The Lowell Institute School at Northeastern University is available in the Digital Repository Service.