Records of the New England Joint Board of the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union include union administration files, company files, and publications. Company files document interactions between the union and companies such as Best Coat Co.; Healthtec, Inc.; Image Wear; M & M Pants Co.; Soloff & Son, Inc.; and Wear Well Trouser Co.

Organized in Chicago in 1914, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America was formed after a split in the United Garment Workers, and quickly became the dominant force for union in the men’s clothing industry. Within a decade of its founding, ACWA had more than 100,000 members across the U.S. and Canada.

Records of the New England Joint Board of ACWA consist of general correspondence, membership lists, press releases, and collective bargaining files for companies such as Arlan’s Department Stores, Bedford Shirtmakers Corporation, Ethan Ames Company, Holyoke Shirt Company, Lawrence Clothing Company, and Whitney Shirt Company.

The largest division of the American Library Association, the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) is an organization of information professionals employed in the wide variety of academic libraries. In 1972, the ACRL authorized formation of regional chapters, including one in New England, as a means of supporting professional growth among academic and research librarians by sponsoring workshops, conferences, and other opportunities for learning, consultation, and collaboration.

Representing over forty years of records of a regional chapter of the ACRL, this collection offers thorough documentation. The collection includes a nearly complete run of bulletins, information on the organization and administration of the chapter, and some “historical” materials gathered for the chapter’s tenth anniversary.

NEAEC was formed in 1955 after the dissolution of the New England Research Council on Marketing and Food Supply, in order to promote education and research on economics and the social problems relating to the production, marketing, and consumption of agricultural products.

The NEAEC Records include correspondence, minutes and proceedings, organizational and financial records, and newsletters.

After many years of haphazard growth and prosperity in New England, a more collaborative approach was sought to plan for the future of the region. Hoping to replace the established method of developing a new industry to replace one that had failed, the New England Regional Planning Commission was formed in 1935. Charged with addressing the economic and social issues facing the region, some specific areas of concern included the condition of land and water resources, railway and airway transportations, fish and game supplies, and parks and recreational facilities.

The collection consists chiefly of minutes of meetings and commission publications.

The New England Research Council on Marketing and Food Supply was established after a 1922 meeting in which Lloyd Tenny of the Agricultural Economics Bureau disclosed that federal money was available for research in marketing. He requested that an advisory council be organized to prevent the duplication of research. The group’s charge was to stimulate and coordinate the studies of economic problems connected with the supply of foods and other agricultural products of New England. Membership of the council was comprised of representatives from institutions and agencies actively involved in prosecuting such economic studies. A number of faculty at the Massachusetts Agricultural College helped to shape the council in its early years, including Kenyon Butterfield and Alexander Cance. The council dissolved in 1955, and the New England Agricultural Economics Council was formed in its place.

The collection contains the records of the NERC from its formation in 1922 until its dissolution in 1955. Included are the council’s constitution adopted in 1922 and unaltered throughout the life of the organization, proceedings of annual meetings, publications, and reports on such topics as milk marketing and fruit and vegetable marketing.

Ice damage near Becket

Approximately every twenty years, western New England suffers from devastating ice storms, leaving heavy ice coating on trees and buildings and hazardous conditions. Major storms struck in 1921, 1942, 1961, 1983, 1998, and 2008, with the storm of December 29-30, 1942, disrupting power and closing roads throughout a broad swath of the northeast. In northern New York state, ice depths reached six inches.

The collection includes twenty six of an original thirty eight photographs depicting ice storm damage to power lines in the Pittsfield District (Windsor, Middlefield, Washington Mountain to Becket) resulting from the storm in December 1942. The collection also includes a cover letter pertaining to photos (not included) documenting a similar situation in Northampton, affecting the New England Power Service Co.

In 1989, almost 60,000 telephone workers in New England and New York waged a successful fifteen week strike against Nynex to protest a new contract that threatened cuts to medical benefits.

This small collection includes three handouts and a bulletin documenting the four-month labor strike carried out by New England telephone workers (represented by the Communications Workers of America and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers unions) against the NYNEX corporation.

Images from the Yankee Publishing Incorporated Records. The originals in this small sub-collection are mostly glass plate negatives taken during the period 1915-1939, and may have been taken by a photographer associated with the Boston Ledger.

Amelia Earhart, 1928-07-09

Dug Out Dan: Dana Smith, East Barre, Vt., Ca.1930

Herbert Hoover on Boston Common, Ca.1930

Nan Howard with lobster, Ca.1930

Abbie Long, Quaker, on Cape Cod, Ca.1930

Oldest telephone operator, Chesterfield, N.H., Ca.1930

Harriet Blackstone, American Mother Goose woman, Ca.1930

Charles Coffin, Freeport, Me., the Maine Hermit, Ca.1930

Cat’s Club, Carlisle, Mass.: James E. Taylor, Ca.1930

Cat’s Club, Carlisle, Mass. James E. Taylor, Ca.1930

Cat’s Club, Carlisle, Mass. James E. Taylor, Ca.1930

Cat’s Club, Carlisle, Mass. James E. Taylor, Ca.1930

Cat with flag, Bell Farm, Lexington, Mass., Ca.1930

Kitty Gordon awakes (cat in a baby carriage), Ca.1930

Lynching scene: breaking down the door (possibly San Jose, Calif.), Ca.1930

Alburgh, Vt., Stone School house, 1899-09-02

Armless Johnson, Ca.1930

Street cleaner, Ca.1930

Doctor who walked on his hands (Boston?), Ca.1930

Old fisherman, Cape Cod, Ca.1930

Old town crier, Provincetown: Walter Smith, the last in America (died Dec. 5, 1932), Ca.1930

Mr. Poole, Jaffrey, N.H., Ca.1930

George Willey, Sutton, N.H. One man band. Willey was a drummer boy during the Civil War, Ca.1930

Capt. Otis Fish, blind clam digger, Falmouth, Mass., Ca.1930

Capt. Otis Fish, blind clam digger , Ca.1930

Capt. Otis Fish, blind clam digger , Ca.1930

Capt. Otis Fish, blind clam digger , Ca.1930

Old lady purchasing walnuts from street vendor, Ca.1930

Capt. Clark, New Bedford whaling captain, Ca.1930

Man with divining rod, Ca.1930

Professor Braganda, crystal gazer, Ca.1930

Cobbler, South Boston, Mass., Ca.1930

Nathan S. Hill, china repairer, 1931

Childrens’ pageant: Jack and Jill, ca.1930

Blacksmith with horseshoes, ca.1930

Old bicycle rider, ca.1930

The Linguistic Atlas of New England project, begun in 1889 and published 1939-1943, documented two major dialect areas of New England, which are related to the history of the settling and dispersal of European settlers in New England with successive waves of immigration.

The collection contains handwritten transcription sheets (carbon copies) in the International Phonetic Alphabet, with some explanatory comments in longhand. Drawn from over 400 interviews conducted by linguists in communities throughout New England in the 1930s, these records document the geographic distribution of variant pronunciations and usages of spoken English. The material, taken from fieldworkers’ notebooks (1931-1933), is arranged by community, then by informant, and also includes audiotapes of follow-up interviews (1934); phonological analyses of informants’ speech; character sketches of informants by fieldworkers; fieldworkers’ blank notebook; and mimeograph word index to the atlas (1948).