Archives and Special Collections

Archives, Historical Records, Special Collections

Boston Globe Archival Advisory: Highlighting the Dairy Festival

This blog post is the first in a series by members of the Northeastern University Library’s Digital Production Services and Archives and Special Collections teams sharing their favorite images and their role in the Boston Globe Library Collection digitization project.

My name is Kim Kennedy and I’m the Digital Production Librarian in the Northeastern University Library. In our recent push to digitize Boston photographs from the Boston Globe Library photo morgue, I coordinated the work with our vendor Picturae. In four months, they digitized 59 boxes of material. I developed a workflow to perform quality control checks on the digitized items and helped prepare them for upload to our Digital Repository. Most of these images are limited to the Northeastern community while we determine the rights status of the photographs, but a subset has been reviewed and is available to the public.

Some of my favorite images are of the Boston Common Dairy Festival, an annual event in which cows returned to the Boston Common (in the 17th and 18th centuries, the Common was used as a cow pasture by colonists).

Black and white image of three children posing next to a fake cow with a sign that says Milk Products
Roy Magnussen, Greg Gannon, and David Bruno pose with the Dutch Cow, a paper mache cow made by a third-grade class in Raynham, June 6, 1973. Photo by Ed Farrand, Boston Globe Library Collection
Black and white image of two girls feeding hay to a cow
Sandra Lee Nickerson and Vicky Lynn Nickerson of Rockland feed hay to a cow at the 15th annual Dairy Festival on May 30, 1970. Photo by Charles Carey, Boston Globe Library Collection
Black and white image of a girl looking at a bull
The Dairy Festival on June 5, 1967. Photo by Joe Dennehy, Boston Globe Library Collection

Here are some resources to learn more about the Boston Common Dairy Festival:

Boston’s Uncommon Park; Common and Garden Provide Togetherness in 75-Acre Refuge, September 27, 1964, New York Times

An Uncommon Common, August 28. 1994, Boston Globe

The Singing Cowsills to Sing Out for “Cowes” During Boston Common Dairy Festival, June 1969, Vermont Farm Bureau News

Honoring the 50th Anniversary of the Boston Public Schools’ Desegregation

Black and white image of children and adults walking on a sidewalk holding protest signs
1963 Picket line at the Boston School Committee offices

The year 2024 will mark the 50th anniversary of the 1974 decision by Judge Garrity that found the Boston Public Schools unconstitutionally segregated. A cohort of historians, activists, teachers, former students, civic leaders, and community members have gathered together to build events and outreach to observe this significant anniversary. On Thursday, September 7, at the Massachusetts State House, the Boston Desegregation and Busing Initiative announced their efforts toward increasing conversation, commemoration, and coalition-building around the history of school desegregation in Boston’s public schools.

Surrounding the press and attendees gathered at the State House were reproductions of records from the Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections’ many collections documenting the long history of school desegregation and the fight against racial imbalance in the Boston Public Schools. I worked with members of the initiative to select photographs and records that were emblematic of the key events and stories of school desegregation, busing, and early education activism. Records selected included flyers advertising Freedom Schools as an opportunity for civil protest; Ruth Batson‘s demands issued on behalf of the NAACP to the Boston School Committee; and records of the pre-1974 busing organization Operation Exodus, run by Ellen Jackson, as well as photos of the many pro-busing and anti-busing protests that took place across the city of Boston and photos of the first days and weeks of busing in 1974 and 1975.

Green flyer titled "Stay Out for Freedom" and a typed list of 14 proposals for the Boston School Committee
Left: 1963 flyer about the “Stay Out for Freedom Day.” Right: 1965 Proposal to the School Committee.
Black and white image of a Black student standing in front of a school bus surrounded by police officers, with a crowd of adults looking on
First day of busing at South Boston High, September 12, 1974, photo by Dan Sheehan courtesy of the Boston Globe Library collection

Once the records were selected, reproductions were made to be featured at the many events of the Boston Desegregation and Busing Initiative, alongside other archives’ historical desegregation records. We are grateful to their work of activating our archival collections and inviting the Greater Boston community to put these records into conversation with the present and their own memories of the past.

To follow the Boston Desegregation and Busing Initiative and their upcoming events, you can visit their Facebook page. Their first forum, “On the Organizing for Better Schools and Desegregation, 1960-1973,” will be held September 26 at 6 p.m. at Roxbury Community College.

To browse the historic Boston school desegregation records from the Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections, as well as other Boston archives, visit https://bpsdesegregation.library.northeastern.edu/.

Barbie in the East Boston Community News

Black ink drawn portrait of Maxine Tassin Ari-Teixeira
Maxine Tassin Ari-Teixeira aka Ms. Tex

In anticipation of the Barbie movie premiere, many archives and museums, including the Smithsonian and the National Archives, have been consulting their records to see what stories related to the iconic doll are preserved in their collections. At the Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections, our greatest source of Barbie insight comes from the East Boston Community News. 

Maxine Tassin Ari-Teixeira, or Ms. Tex, wrote about all kinds of issues facing a mother working and raising a family in East Boston. One of the subjects that kept reappearing in her “Heights Notes by Ms. Tex” column in the East Boston Community News was toys, and in particular, Barbie. Every December, Ms. Tex would give her annual toy report while Christmas shopping for her family. Barbie is mentioned in 17 of her columns between 1972 and 1988.

Newspaper clipping of Heights Notes by Ms. Tex. Headline reads Year of the Toy Takeover

In a December 7, 1982 issue of the East Boston Community News, Ms. Tex titled her column “Year of the Toy Takeover” and under the heading “Doll Debt” described the complexity of the Barbie dream house. 

“As I said last year, dear old Barbie’s dream house is enormous. You would need a separate room for this house, with the patio and pool (sold separately) and the Corvette. You have your choice of the plain ‘vette that does nothing, or the remote controlled one. You not only need a room for the dream house, you need a mortgage. That plastic nightmare is $98.87!!!! That is unfurnished, naturally. The furniture costs between $9 and $15 per piece!!!  Actually, looking at the doll houses, I wondered if Child World had considered the mortgage business. They could make a killing.”

On December 20, 1988 Ms. Tex observed a shift in Barbie-land in her Heights Notes column: 

“Finally at the ripe of age of what? 29? 30? Barbie has a career. Doctor Barbie comes with a white lab coat, and doctor things. But she is still Barbie after all, and also comes with an evening gown for her nights off with Doctor Ken.”

To find more of Ms. Tex’s observations on living in East Boston, the daunting task of Barbie shopping in December, and more, you can search and read the East Boston Community News in Northeastern Library’s Digital Repository Service.

Portrait of Maxine Tassin Ari-Teixeira was drawn by Joe Porzio and is a part of the Joe Portzio cartoons collection at the Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections.

Read the full December 7, 1982 issue of the East Boston Community News.

Read the full December 20, 1988 issue of the East Boston Community News.

Celebration, Activism, and Outreach in the Theater Offensive Records

Poster for Pure PolyEsther
Pure PolyEsther,” ca. 1990-2000. The Theater Offensive records, Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections.

While Pride is recognized as a protest, it can also be a time of celebration of the LGBTQIA+ community and queer identity. Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections is fortunate to steward the records of The Theater Offensive, a queer performing arts organization which is still alive and thriving in Boston today and will soon celebrate its 35th year of operation in 2024. Founded in 1989 by Abe Rybeck and other artists, the Theater Offensive strived to combine art and activism for the benefit of the LGBTQIA+ community throughout New England and, eventually, nationally. 

Since its founding, they have put on numerous performances, festivals, and community programs. Of note in Northeastern’s digital repository is the performance of Pure PolyEsther: A Biblical Burlesque, an adaptation of the story of Esther from the Old Testament as a part of Purim celebrations. Written by Rybeck, Pure PolyEsther was described as a “hot, flamboyant Mardi Gras…[that] melts the edge off the bitter New England winter.” It is an intersectional celebration of both Jewish and queer traditions. 

The Theater Offensive has also uplifted LGBTQIA+ youth with their True Colors program and their youth outreach performances. These have included the Living with AIDS Theater Project’s Lessons from the Heart, which educated teens on ways to combat the AIDS epidemic, highlighting an intergenerational conversation and relationship between queer youth and adults that remains incredibly valuable to this day. 

Black and white image of performers gathered together. Some are holding instruments and papers and others are singing
True Colors Youth Theater, ‘Love + Mosquitos,'” 1998. The Theater Offensive records, Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections

The Theater Offensive continues to be an important cultural institution in Boston, and its records illustrate a rich and robust past that has championed queer creativity and community. To learn more about the Theater Offensive’s work not just this Pride Month but all year round, check out the resources available through the digital repository and University Archives and Special Collections!

Sources: 

“History.” The Theater Offensive, https://thetheateroffensive.org/history

“Pure PolyEsther.” The Theater Offensive records (M082). University Libraries Archives and Special Collections Department.

“‘Pure PolyEsther’ press release.” The Theater Offensive records (M082). University Libraries Archives and Special Collections Department.

The Theater Offensive records, M082. Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections. https://archivesspace.library.northeastern.edu/repositories/2/resources/856 Accessed June 23, 2023.

“True Colors Youth Theater, ‘Love + Mosquitos.’” The Theater Offensive records (M082). University Libraries Archives and Special Collections Department.