Since October, Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections processing assistants have been inventorying the records of Stull & Lee, a Boston-based architectural and urban design firm founded by Donald Stull in 1966. The firm is still active today, under the leadership of David Lee. The records held by Northeastern date from the 1960s to the early 2000s, spanning over 400 boxes and 700 tubes, and they document hundreds of projects, including the Southwest Corridor, Ruggles Station, and Roxbury Community College. Meet our processing assistants as they go through the collection, box by box.
Samuel
I’m Samuel Edwards (he/him). I just completed my Master of Arts degree in Library and Information Science with a concentration in Archives Management at Simmons University, and I have a Bachelor of Arts in History and Playwriting from Hampshire College in western Massachusetts. Some of my interests in archives include the history of social movements, LGBTQ+ history, local history, and anti-racist archival work. Outside of my archival work, I enjoy creative writing, theater, and playing Dungeons & Dragons with my friends.
Working on the Stull & Lee records has been an enlightening experience. I didn’t have a lot of familiarity with architecture or architectural records prior to working on this collection, but it’s fascinating to realize how much goes into creating just one building. You don’t just have the architects, but also electricians, plumbers, and other trades that help create the building. I have a newfound appreciation for buildings that previously just blended into the background, especially the buildings I walk by daily on my way to Northeastern which were designed by Stull & Lee, such as Ruggles Station.
Julia
I’m Julia Lee (she/her). I recently graduated from Northeastern University with a Bachelor of Arts in English and Theatre, and my final co-op was as a digital assistant for the Massachusetts Archives. My archival interests include early American history, including the Revolutionary War, Asian-American history, and the history of Boston.
For me, working with the Stull & Lee records started with inventorying boxes of files belonging to several architects, including the firm’s namesakes Donald Stull and David Lee. It turns out that the two men had quite distinct organizational styles. While several of Lee’s folders included colorful titles patterned after the T’s Orange Line signs, Stull favored concise alphabetization for his files. I’ve enjoyed the greater understanding I’ve gained of Boston’s architecture, transit, and public works through working with the collection, especially about the area around Northeastern, where I’ve lived for over four years now. This is my second time working in an archive, and it has served to solidify my goal of obtaining a Master’s degree in Library and Information Science in the coming years.
Aleks
I’m Aleks Renerts (he/him). I am a current graduate student at Simmons University in the dual Master of Arts degree program in History and Library and Information Science, with a concentration in Archives Management. My academic background is in history, with a focus on the Hispanic world and histories of class, gender, and colonialism. I received my Bachelor of Arts in History from McGill University, and have since partially redirected my focus to archives and archival research.
Something I’ve found interesting in the Stull & Lee records is the massive degree of collaboration that every architectural project depends on. Memos, notes, letters, logs, and drawings are sent back and forth with revisions, showing the complex process that goes into completing a project. There’s an incredible level of detail for all the parts of a completed structure, from steel framing and floor tiles to the mechanics of a door lock. Working on Stull & Lee has given me an appreciation of just how much detailed work goes into every part of constructing a building.
Nearly 30 years removed from the peak of the AIDS crisis, it is difficult for many young queer individuals to imagine not only the fear, but also the organized action that occurred throughout the LGBTQ+ community to rally support for those affected. The 1980s and ’90s especially were filled with opportunities for many within the community to find solace in one another and find their voices to try to change things and improve the lives of those dying from AIDS as well as those who had survived the infection.
But what happened to generate the steadfast work toward saving the lives of those affected by AIDS, or those who have been historically more susceptible to its spread? What finally pushed not only the government to authorize such work, but also pharmaceutical companies to pursue solutions?
Northeastern’s Archives and Special Collections (NUASC) holds a trove of valuable archival collections documenting the organizing efforts of the queer community in Boston during the ’80s and ’90s. The ACT UP/Boston (David Stitt) and ACT UP/Boston (Raymond Schmidt and Stephen Skuce) collections provide information on demonstrations and organizing by ACT UP (AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power). Administrative records exist alongside protest ephemera that can give present-day researchers an idea of the common talking points and demands that were being made regarding AIDS treatment and medication throughout the country at this time.
The ACT UP collections are also special because they display the intersection of art and organizing in ways that emphasize the importance of artists being involved in social movements. A striking example is this ticket issued to the Boston Police Department by the group Queer Nation, citing statistics of violence committed by individuals and the BPD against the LGBTQ+ community. Utilizing an item that so many recognize instantly, such as a parking citation, and subverting its purpose to convey information about the institution that issues such citations allowed organizers to gain attention and critically engage the public.
Keith Haring, who has become a symbol of not only the AIDS crisis organizing but queer culture in general, is also present in NUASC’s collections, providing art that emphasized the AIDS Action Committee’s inaction from the perspective of the LGBTQ+ community. Haring’s art is often associated with queer joy and the nuance of queer experience. Seeing Haring’s familiar figures put into conversation with a demand for more action from within the queer community is a unique contrast.
June is a month to celebrate LGBTQ+ individuals and reflect on the past. To learn more about the social organizations working for justice for those with AIDS in Boston, NUASC’s Digital Repository Service and digital exhibition Boston’s LGBTQA+ History are great places to start.
Sources “ACT UP members protest George Bush’s response to AIDS.” ACT UP Boston (Robert Folan Johnson) collection (Z15-005). University Library Archives and Special Collections Department. “Ticket issued by Queer Nation against Boston Police Department.” ACT UP Boston (Robert Folan Johnson) collection (Z15-005). University Library Archives and Special Collections Department. “Is this the policy of the AIDS Action Committee?.” AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts, Inc., records (M61). University Library Archives and Special Collections Department.
On March 18th, the Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center in the Boston Public Library (BPL) debuted their exhibit “More or Less in Common: Environment and Justice in the Human Landscape.” The exhibit examines how social justice and injustice are confronted in the study of the “human landscape” and how we can use questions of social justice to help us build healthier and better environments for the future.
Northeastern’s contributions to the exhibit come from our Freedom House, Inc., records and in particular, their records on urban renewal and neighborhood-led clean-up campaigns. The exhibit features two fliers calling Roxbury neighbors to action in various clean-up and maintenance projects. Neighborhood improvement programs designed to protect Upper Roxbury from urban blight began in 1949 when Freedom House joined with community members to organize neighborhood clean-up projects and playground construction.
Freedom House worked closely with the city to improve the services provided to Roxbury. At the same time, Boston was beginning a formal urban renewal campaign that did not initially include Roxbury. A telegram from Freedom House founders Muriel and Otto Snowden to Mayor John F. Collins resulted in the inclusion of the Washington Park Urban Renewal Project in Boston’s campaign. By 1963, Freedom House had entered into formal contracts with the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) and the Action Boston Community Development to serve as a liaison between the planners and technicians and the residents of Washington Park. This relationship lasted until the BRA withdrew from Roxbury in the late 1960s, leaving much of its work undone.
The Leventhal Center’s exhibit takes our Freedom House records, and many other institutions’ records, and composes them into a complicated vision of how human landscapes were confronted and contended with in the past and how they can be reimagined for the future.
Visit the exhibit in person at the BPL’s historic McKim Building during the BPL’s visiting hours, which can be found here.
Or you can view the digital exhibit, along with lesson plans and resources for further study, here.
Find out more about the Freedom House records, the Snowdens, and Roxbury neighborhood history here.
On January 27, 2022, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) officially took effect two years after it was ratified with Virginia’s historic vote as the 38th state to support the amendment. The ratification of this version of the ERA, which was introduced to Congress in 1972, took 48 years to complete. The ERA begins:
“Women shall have equal rights in the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”
Initially drafted in 1923 by Crystal Eastman and Alice Paul, the ERA was seen as the next step to take for women’s liberation following the passing of the 19th amendment, which gave women the right to vote and prevented them (on paper) from being disenfranchised. Women’s suffrage movements occupied a great space in the American consciousness throughout the end of the 20th century and the first two decades of the 21st century.
Empowered by this, Bostonian women formed groups to keep advocating for women’s rights, even as the passage of the ERA throughout this period did not look promising. Organizations such as the Reproductive Rights National Network and individuals like Sondra Gayle Stein worked tirelessly to advance gender equality in the legislature and in the streets. The Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections (NUASC) is fortunate to maintain the records of many women’s rights organizations that have worked for change throughout the Boston area.
NUASC also holds the Boston Globe Library collection, which contains photographs of life in and around Boston and includes photographs of demonstrations and protests, including those featured in this blog post. More can be found through Northeastern’s Digital Repository Service.
Fortunately for the ERA, a sea change within the legislative branch took place in 1970, when more women than ever before were elected to Congress and were persistent in pursuing the ratification of the ERA. The ERA in its final form that we know today was brought before Congress for its next steps in 1972.
NUASC has a wealth of information on women’s organizations in Boston, such as the Women’s Educational Center, The Second Wave: A Magazine of the New Feminism, and the Women’s School, all of which were organizations that existed in the 1970s-1990s to further women’s rights, promote discussion of feminist theory, and organize for women and other marginalized groups in the Boston area. The records of these organizations and many more groups and people are available for research for all Northeastern students, faculty, and staff, and the greater Boston community, at the Archives and Special Collections.
The Freedom House digitization project has been an ongoing effort to make the archival records of the Freedom House Inc. Records available through the Digital Repository Service (DRS). Initially begun as a photograph-focused endeavor in 2007, the project has expanded to the print records of the collection with the aim to make broadly accessible the documentary evidence of Freedom House’s activities in community activism and urban renewal in Roxbury during the mid-to-late 20th century.
Introduction Part of the digitization process includes the creation of metadata for each record so that people can find an individual item with the sea of documents. Metadata is the identifying information of a record, such as its title, author, creation date, and other components.
Recently, archivists have placed greater emphasis on the subject heading aspect of cataloging records.1 Archivists now recognize that the creation of subjects and descriptions as access points to a record is an inherently biased activity that can influence how one approaches and perceives the record itself and the topics it contains. While these access points are extremely helpful in improving search results, these pathways are created by archivists, i.e. people. Since archivists create metadata, the data reflects our perspectives, thereby making it imperative that we be mindfully aware of our unconscious biases. We must do the necessary self-evaluative work about ourselves, the power dynamics in which we function, and the multifarious impacts of our decisions on various groups.
Records are created within certain settings for certain purposes—whether political or social—and an archivist inserts the meta-narrative layer of collecting and making accessible those records. There is power in that process and traditionally the process has privileged dominant social systems, which then reinforces social inequities. The myth of neutrality in subject cataloging has led to subject headings that can reinforce biases, stereotypes, and offensive representations, as well as misrepresent and alienate marginalized communities. For instance, a reclassification project at GBH recognized the negative false equivalence of police only interacting with criminals in their legacy subject term “Law Enforcement & Crimes,” which they have changed to “Legal System.”2
Recently, many archivists have risen to the challenge of acknowledging the persistency of power dynamics and are actively seeking to infuse their metadata creation with inclusion, diversity, and social justice practices. I myself have recently undertaken the ethical reasoning behind the use of certain subject headings to achieve descriptions that not only increase searchability and accuracy but also are respectful and empowering to subjects previously ignored. It is my hope that by developing cultural competency, the records will be more accessible to the communities reflected in their content, which may be one small step towards actively dismantling oppressive systems.
The Collection and Daniela Saunders As I digitized the Freedom House Inc. Records, I stumbled upon an eye-opening folder about the Police-Community Relations Committee. The records from this folder of items from 1960 to 1966 document a growing awareness in Roxbury of police-community relation issues. At the time, there were community memories of problems and instances a decade prior. Back in 1952, the murder of Rabbi Zuber sparked meetings calling for community action. However, the initial uproar dwindled and while close relations and neighbors continued to fight for change, it was a small endeavor.
Some larger efforts did persist, including a Police-Community Relations Institute Conference held in 1960 that connected with religious organizations to discuss the relations between mass media, social work agencies, the judicial court system, civil rights, legislation, and the police. However, the improvements called for in the decade of discussions did not become sweeping real-world improvements. As a result, over the course of a year between the summers of 1962 and 1963, there were a number of stranglings of women in the greater Boston area.3
On January 5, 1963, 16-year-old Daniela Saunders was murdered in an alleyway between Warren Street and Elm Hill Park, just a few blocks from her home. The next day, 500 members of her community met with Otto P. Snowden and Freedom House to discuss what underlying social problems led to the tragedy. Initiated by a small group of mothers voicing the need to prevent such violence, the meeting expanded to the 500-person turnout. Many individuals voiced their perspectives on the issue:
Dewey Duckett outlined the general disinterest of the Boston Police Department Division 9 towards the community it was supposed to protect. He talked about how “the local police had clearly evidenced an incapacity to understand or respect either the local citizens themselves or their simple desire for minimal adequate protection.”4
Attorney Benjamin Johnson called for the creation of a 100-person auxiliary police of community members.
Mrs. Leona Tynes cited the practical issue of poor lighting facilities.
Mrs. Oswald Jordan recalled the aftermath of Rabbi Zuber’s murder and described the emotional toll of these types of meetings over the last decade since they had not led to any actual change.
At the end of the meeting, the goal was set to create a committee to meet with city officials, namely Commissioner Edmund L. McNamara, Captain Paul Sullivan, and Sergeant Kelly of Division 9. The other four main suggestions were to add foot patrolmen; ensure that police answered complaints with courtesy instead of their current lack of sensitivity; increase the effort to improve problem areas; and fire police that demonstrated bias towards the black community.
Another meeting held January 8, 1962, at the Jeremiah E. Burke School further expanded the four main issues. About 1,500 citizens gathered to demand change. Kenneth Guscott, representing the NAACP, called for a Villante Committee similar to what the Peace Corps created in Harlem. Police Commissioner McNamara personally attended this meeting, although he was met with objections when he attempted to downplay his former neglect by referring to his personal connection with a black member of the police force.
The various efforts aimed to “promote a better understanding between the protected and the protector.”5 The end goal was a positive coordinated action program formulated and carried out by neighborhood associations in affiliation with the local police. Along with Mayor John F. Collins and Commissioner McNamara’s immediate pledges to increase training in criminal investigation and compulsory attendance of courses at Northwest University and the FBI National Academy, the events led to long-term communication between the Roxbury community, city officials, and the police. The Freedom House Inc. Records reflect and display these sustained efforts.
Daniela Saunders’ Impact The events of Daniela Saunders’ murder and the aftermath from Roxbury’s community response are integral components to the larger historic narrative of the police-community relations documented in the Freedom House Inc. Records. Her story may be limited to a folder in this vast collection but her impact disseminates through many boxes. So many activities were initiated by her tragic demise.
However, most metadata elements do not provide space for Daniela. She wasn’t the author or creator of the records, she was not included in the title of the records, and her name was often eliminated in the documents themselves. Within the records of Folder 1015, Daniela was more of a ghost, a whisper, trickled throughout the newspaper articles, letters, meeting minutes, and reports. She may have been the impetus for change, but she didn’t have agency in these metadata components.
Additionally, in the larger historic narrative, Daniela has been forgotten. She is currently not listed as one of the Boston Strangler’s 13 victims despite the connection to the “Phantom Strangler” made in 1963.6
When making the metadata for items in Folder 1015, I wanted to allow Daniela to regain her own agency in being remembered. The power of remembering is enormous—it becomes public memory and informs current events. Therefore, archival records provide an opportunity to bear witness to an event when it has been lost to time. I knew I needed a way to provide a pathway to Daniela and link her to these records. I produced these conditions by making Daniela a Name Subject Heading, a practice that we are not often implementing in the Freedom House Inc. digitization project. Due to the large scope of the collection and the logistical issues of maintaining authorized subject headings over 83 containers, Name Subject Headings for individuals are a rare occurrence.
However, with the addition of this metadata component, Daniela’s story becomes accessible to the public. She is no longer a passive victim, marginalized and obscured, but is now an active agent at the forefront of police-community relations in 1963 Roxbury. People can now find the records related to Daniela and they can situate her contribution within the larger Freedom House and Roxbury narratives.
Additionally, the records can give the public a resource for holding historical agents accountable. The 1960s were fraught with many issues between communities of color and the police nationwide. The events of 1963 in Roxbury become a part of that larger context.
Finally, by recognizing Daniela and the events of 1963, I hope that the records and their metadata have an enduring impact on our current society. Police brutality, racism, abuse, systematic oppression, and unnecessary force are all topics that we see in the news every day. Past calls for better training and systematic changes to the police force are similar to present-day news stories. We are constantly exposed to the reality of this violence and our nation collectively feels an emotional toll possibly similar to the one described by Mrs. Oswald Jordan in January 1963. Maybe these historic records can help inform our present discourse. By knowing what happened in the past, maybe we can make more informed decisions, and ultimately, be the change we strive to see.
1A non-comprehensive list of recent literature includes, Jillian Ewalt, “Toward Inclusive Description: Reparations through Community-Driven Metadata,” NEA Newsletter 46, no. 2 (April 2019): 4-7; Rosale de Mattos, “The Representation of Archival Information in Controlled Vocabularies: The Context of the Archival Institutions in Rio de Janeiro,” Knowledge Organization 47, no. 7 (2019): 548-557; Samuel J. Edge, “A Subject “Queer”-y: A Literature Review on Subject Access to LGBTIQ Materials,” Serials Librarian 75, no. 1-4 (Jul-Dec 2018): 81-90; Gracen Brilmyer, “Archival assemblages: applying disability studies’ political/relational model to archival description,” Archival Science 18, no. 2 (Jun 2018): 95-118. 2Miranda Villesvik and Raananah Sarid-Segal, “Making Metadata Inclusive to Marginalized Voices” (presentation, Archives for a Changing World, NEA Spring Conference, Virtual, March 27, 2021). 3The Boston Strangler continued to murder young women in the Boston area until 1964. For more information, see Ronald Lettieri, “Boston Strangler.” Salem Press Encyclopedia (2019); Jess Bidgood, “50 Years Later, a Break in a Boston Strangler Case,” New York Times, July 11, 2013; Paul Hoblin, Boston Strangler (Unsolved Mysteries). Abdo Publishing, 2012; Susan Kelly, The Boston Stranglers: The Public Conviction of Albert DeSalvo and the True Story of Eleven Shocking Murders. Secaucus, N.J.: Carol Pub. Group, 1995. 4“Report from special community meeting about police issues, Daniela Saunders and Rabbi Zuber murders, and race relations held January 6, 1096.” January 6, 1963. Freedom House Inc. Records (M16). Northeastern University Library. Archives and Special Collections Department. Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts. Box 30, Folder 1015. 5“Outline on various phases of police activities.” April 28, 1964. UASC identifier: M16_B030_F1015_005. Freedom House Inc. Series 3: Programs. Sub-Series B: Urban Renewal. Neighborhood Associations. Police-Community Relations Committee, 1960-1966. 6Jack Thomas, “Victims of the Boston Strangler,” The Boston Globe, July 11, 2013. https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/07/11/victims-boston-strangler/CwbsZlSNcfwmhSetpqNlhL/story.html