Protect Your Privacy At Home

As we shelter in our homes in an attempt to stop the spread of COVID-19, many citizens of Massachusetts have found themselves completely reliant on their computers as they "telework," "work remotely," or otherwise work from home. In fact, a March 2020 Pew Research Center study regarding how Americans have used technology in response to the current pandemic found that 76% of Americans have used digital tools to communicate with others and that almost half of all U.S. adults would categorize an interruption to their Internet or phone service as a major disruption impacting their day-to-day life. Technology has allowed us to work and communicate with our coworkers, friends, and family and remain connected during this difficult time.

But in downloading new tools that help us communicate and collaborate, we often sacrifice personal privacy unknowingly. Here are some resources that can help you protect your privacy and your data while using popular online communication software.

The Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) is a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting civil liberties online. They have many tools that can help you navigate online privacy and have been publishing multiple articles and guides regarding the online tools that we now rely on, including student learning software, health applications, and more. For a basic overview of the concerns regarding the many different tools we are using today, visit their article here:

"What You Should Know About Online Tools During the COVID-19 Crisis"(March 19, 2020)
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/03/what-you-should-know-about-online-tools-during-covid-19-crisis

The EFF has also published guides specific to certain popular applications being used now, such as Zoom. The following article provides specific things you can do to make sure you and your privacy are protected while using this popular communication app:

"Harden Your Zoom Settings to Protect Your Privacy and Avoid Trolls" (April 2, 2020)
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/04/harden-your-zoom-settings-protect-your-privacy-and-avoid-trolls

The article also mentions "Zoombombing," that is, the action of individuals hacking into an online meeting in Zoom (or generally in any online communication application) and causing disruption, often with inappropriate, racist, or threatening noises or imagery. The Boston FBI Office issued security tips that will help protect you against these individuals:

"Zoom-Bombing' Hijacks Online Class Meetings In Massachusetts, FBI Warns" (March 30, 2020):
https://boston.cbslocal.com/2020/03/30/zoom-zoombombing-hack-security-tips/

However, privacy concerns are not limited to Zoom, and further are not limited only to adults working from home. After widespread school closure, many students are continuing their semesters via online learning software and personal computers provided by their schools. These tools often have surveillance and social media-monitoring technology built into them of which many minors and their parents or guardians may not be aware. Whether you or your child's school is using Canvas, Moodle, Schoology, Google Classroom, or any other online learning software, consider reviewing the Privacy for Students guide provided by EFF:

Surveillance Self-Defense: Privacy for Students (Last reviewed March 2, 2020)
https://ssd.eff.org/en/module/privacy-students

At the State Library, we take your privacy very seriously. We keep no permanent record of the Internet sites visited by library patrons on the public computers in our Reading Room, the electronic databases accessed by our patrons, or the searches performed by individual patrons. Further, we do not keep any record of the materials that you have checked out in the past using your library card. We and the other libraries that make up the C/W MARS library consortium keep anonymous circulation statistics that allow us to see how often a particular item has been checked out, but not who checked it out. For more information about privacy, you can take a look at the C/W MARS Privacy Policy here: https://www.cwmars.org/about/borrowing-lending

When downloading new online tools to help you work, learn, and connect with others online, take a moment to consider the privacy concerns with that individual platform. Even if these platforms and technologies are required for you to participate in your job or education, there are still ways to protect yourself and your data while using them.

Alexandra Bernson
Reference Staff

Tips When Researching Legislation: Context through Visualizations

Researching Massachusetts legislation should never be panic-inducing, but it can seem overwhelming when you aren’t familiar with the best methods of attack.  After years of educating researchers on the dos, don’ts, and how-tos of legislative research, I started thinking about other ways in which I could communicate the information so that it’s easier to understand.  Tracing the history of a bill, which is part of the process of compiling a legislative history, can be quite tedious, but the process is not difficult if you have a relatable way to visualize it.

First off, it’s incredibly important for inexperienced researchers to hold back on the impulse to dive right into the middle of legislative research; understanding the context of the law (passed or not passed) should always come first.  Context is developed by tracing a bill back to its beginning, which can range from straightforward to very complex depending on the topic of the bill, general interest, and/or contention surrounding it. I can sometimes sense dread when I describe the process to a new researcher, so lately I’ve been using a visualization that is more easily graspable: the genealogical family tree.

Most everyone knows what a family tree looks like and how it’s laid out, and the further you go back, the more research is needed to fill in branches of unknown relatives.  I realized that tracing a bill is actually not that different, as the goal to suss out its origin(s) is the same, and just like family trees, it can be straightforward or very complex.  Researchers usually begin with what I call the “trunk” of the tree, which is the final version of the bill (passed or not passed). And unless the bill went straight through the legislature without any redrafts, it most likely has direct “ancestors” (previous drafts and amendments).

Here’s a good visual example of the bill history for H4099, which ultimately became Chapter 113 of the Acts of 2019.

Sometimes a successful piece of legislation is not the first time it has been introduced.  Previous failed attempts could be considered distant relatives, and they can tell you how an idea or language originally came to be--but they should not be included in your legislative “family tree” as they are not directly related to the bill you are researching.  Check out my previous blog about rejected bills.

While the State Library’s physical location is currently closed until further notice, our librarians are committed to assisting our patrons via remote services.  Reach out to us if you have a question or research need, as we are available Monday through Friday, 9am-5pm via email (reference.department@mass.gov) and phone (please leave a message at 617-727-2590).  We’ll get back to you as soon as possible!

Additional Resources:
Guide to Performing Massachusetts Legislative History
Massachusetts Law Resources in the State Library
Access to the State Library's Resources During Closure

Kaitlin Connolly
Reference Department

On (Virtual) Display at the State Library

State of Massachusetts-Bay. In the House
of Representatives, January 20th, 1777...

At the beginning of each month we change the display case that is located in the reading room, and though the State Library is currently closed, we are taking this opportunity to virtually change the case and share a new item with our patrons. Featured this month is a broadside from our Special Collections Department. It was issued in 1777 and called for a supply of blankets to be provided in support of the defense of American states.

In 1777 the country was in the midst of the American Revolution. On January 20, 1777 the Massachusetts House of Representatives passed a resolution that the state was required to provide aid for the Continental Army in the form of blankets. This resolution was printed as a broadside by Benjamin Edes, who also published the patriotic and influential newspaper The Boston Gazette and Country Journal. Once printed, the broadside was distributed throughout the Commonwealth with instruction for selectmen and Committees of Correspondence to share it with residents.

Faced with a supply shortage as winter set in, the resolution stated that Massachusetts was responsible for acquiring blankets for the Continental Army. The blankets were to be purchased, collected, and stored within individual towns and plantations until they were called up by the state, at which point they would be reimbursed from the public treasury. In total, the Commonwealth was required to supply 5,000 blankets, with each individual town or plantation assigned a specific number that they were responsible for providing. This broadside includes a listing of the towns and plantations and their required contribution, a number that  was seemingly based on population size. Look closely at the broadside to see that Boston - the largest town in Massachusetts - was required to provide the most at 461 blankets, while some smaller towns or individual plantations in Berkshire County and Cumberland County (now part of Maine) were only required to supply one or two blankets.

The need for blankets expressed in this broadside highlights a continuing issue that the Continental Army faced during the war. The Continental Army was still relatively new, having been formed by the Second Continental Congress in June 1775. Previously, military actions had been left to local militias, who were part-time servicemen called for temporary aid and action. The establishment of the Continental Army drew individuals from all thirteen colonies (then states, after 1776) for the purpose of the common defense. But as historian Frank E. Grizzard, Jr. writes in an essay on The Washington Papers website, “the Continental Congress’s efforts to equip and feed its army were inadequate from the start.” Supply issues like the January 1777 call for blankets were not new, and Grizzard’s essay goes into further detail on the topic. He explains that, “inadequate administrative procedures, a scarcity of money and the failure of credit, a weak transportation system, and a lack of manufacturing all combined with the natural obstacles of geography and weather to create frequent shortages of food, clothing, tents, and other military supplies throughout the war.” Despite some reforms, these challenges continued to plague the army throughout the war. Access the full article on The Washington Papers website here - and while you’re there, spend some time reading more of the correspondence of George Washington and his family.

Faced with a difficult national situation, this broadside shows that regardless of size, each town and plantation in the Commonwealth was called on to support the larger war effort. Click on the above image or access the document in DSpace to take a closer look at this document - be sure to find your own town and see the contribution they made in 1777.

By Elizabeth Roscio
Preservation Librarian

Are you a Massachusetts State Employee working from home and need access to a journal article? The State Library can help you!

If you're a Massachusetts state employee working from home, you can still access many of the State Library's resources remotely, including interlibrary loans for online journal articles! Thanks to our network of local academic library partners, we are pleased that we can continue to offer access to online scholarly journal articles for your research needs.

All you have to do is fill out your online form, and we'll take it from there! While we can't guarantee that every request will be fulfilled, most online journal articles arrive via interlibrary loan within 24 hours.

If you have any questions, just send us an email at interlibrary.loan@mass.gov, and a librarian will respond as soon as possible.

Laura Schaub
Cataloging Librarian

Socialist Labor Party

We are pleased to announce that “Collection of Socialist Labor Party pamphlets, flyers, and other material, 1884-1903” is now open to researchers!

The Socialist Labor Party (SLP), established in 1876, is the oldest socialist political party in the United States. The SLP was very active in Massachusetts in the 1890’s, the height of the party’s popularity in this country. In 1893, the SLP published a “Manifesto of the Socialist Labor Party of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts”.  In it, they address “workmen” and lay out their ideas for establishing the “Co-Operative Commonwealth”.

Letter from the Boston American Section,
Socialist Labor Party, 1893.

Manifesto of the Socialist Labor Party of
the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1893.

 

Over the next ten years, the local Massachusetts party established a Constitution and a State Executive Committee. Numerous meetings and rallies were held, many of them featuring candidates for local office or well-known advocates of the SLP’s ideals. One such speaker was newspaper editor Daniel De Leon, who is credited with the expansion of the SLP in the United States through his newspaper’s wide reach and influence.

Announcement Flyer for a SLP
Patriot’s Day Celebration, 1894.

Meeting Flyer, highlighting speaker
Daniel De Leon, 1900.

 


















The collection contains examples of SLP campaign literature, meeting and rally announcements, platform pamphlets, programs, ballots, and reports.  Some items in the collection have the notation, written in pencil, “From T.C. Brophy, Purchased”, suggesting an acquisition of at least part of the collection from Thomas C. Brophy, a member of the Socialist Labor Party of Massachusetts and frequent SLP candidate for local office. 

Undated and unlabeled newspaper clipping, Thomas C. Brophy
and Moritz E. Ruther, Socialist Labor Ticket in Massachusetts.

As we processed the collection, we discovered that many of the items needed attention from our preservation librarian. Paper from the late 1800’s and early 1900’s tends to be highly acidic because it was mass-produced using a high concentration of wood pulp. Wood pulp contains lignin, which causes paper to become brittle and discolored as it ages. What that means for us today (over one hundred years later!) is that these items are fragile and difficult to handle without tearing or crumbling. In some instances, our preservation librarian stabilized fragile materials by using a thin archival paper to mend, repair, and reinforce torn pages. The items that were in the worst condition also needed to be encapsulated in thin Mylar sleeves, which makes them easier to handle and store. 

This meeting poster, circa 1898, was originally folded.
It had to be repaired and reassembled by our Preservation Librarian.

To ensure the ongoing preservation of these records, the Special Collections Department staff is glad to assist researchers in accessing the collection. We invite you to come explore this brief, but interesting, period in Massachusetts history!

Access the guide to the collection here: Collection of Socialist Labor Party pamphlets, flyers, and other material,1884-1903: Guide (Ms.Coll. 176)

Deanna Parsi and Elizabeth Roscio
Special Collections

On Display in the State Library

The State of Maine turns 200 this March, but prior to 1820 the District of Maine had been part of Massachusetts. On display from March 5 through April 1 is a broadside that was issued in 1818 by the Commissioners of the Land Office in Boston. In the broadside, which functioned as an advertisement, residents of Massachusetts were encouraged to move north and apply to settle on land in Hancock, Cumberland, and Somerset counties. To spread the word of the available land, copies of this broadside were distributed to town selectmen who were tasked with reading it at public meetings, posting it in public places, and depositing it with Town Clerks so it could be shared with many residents.

You may be familiar with the phrase “Go west, young man, and grow up with the country” which was used throughout the 1800s as a rallying cry to urge the settlement of the western United States. This broadside shares a similar call to draw Massachusetts residents north.  It is peppered with lines like “Ye men of the country, who are independent on your farms, and have many sons to provide for, why not take up a lot for one, and try the experiment of an improvement.” The broadside stressed the affordability of buying land in the District of Maine, as well as listing the many benefits of its natural environment, from navigable waters and plentiful fish to excellent land for grazing. For those concerned with the isolation of settling in a new area, the broadside assured readers that new roads were completed (or would be completed) that would connect Maine to the Commonwealth and to Canada. It described townships along these routes that were in development, and encouraged several families from one neighborhood to go in together and start up a new enterprise in Maine.

Control of land in Maine had been contested by various groups over many years, but the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Revolutionary War, formally established Maine as part of Massachusetts. Maine tried to separate in 1807 and during the War of 1812, but did not achieve a successful vote to secede until 1819. Two years after this broadside was issued, Maine entered the United States and became the 23rd state on March 15, 1820. It joined as part of the Missouri Compromise, which established Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state, while also prohibiting slavery north of the 36°30′ parallel.

Mark Maine’s 200th birthday by visiting the library during March and taking a closer look at a piece of its settling history.

By Elizabeth Roscio
Preservation Librarian

March Author Talk: Josh S. Cutler

Register Online

Mobtown Massacre: Alexander Hanson and the Baltimore Newspaper War of 1812
By Josh S. Cutler
Wednesday, March 11, 2020—Noon to 1:00pm
State Library of Massachusetts—Room 341, Massachusetts State House

The State Library of Massachusetts is delighted to announce the next speaker in our Author Talk series: the State House’s very own Representative Josh Cutler! On Wednesday, March 11, Rep. Cutler will speak about his recent book, Mobtown Massacre: Alexander Hanson and the Baltimore Newspaper War of 1812.

Mobtown Massacre tells the story of one of the earliest and most violent attacks on the free press in the United States. This little-known episode in American history centers around Alexander Hanson, a fiery young Federalist newspaper editor from Baltimore and the namesake of the town of Hanson, Massachusetts. Just days after the beginning of the War of 1812, Hanson published a sharply-worded anti-war editorial that led to a violent standoff in Baltimore that left Hanson beaten within an inch of his life. These brutal events helped shape both the course of the war and the notion of a free press in a bitterly divided nation.

Author Josh S. Cutler is an attorney and has served for the past seven years as the Massachusetts State Representative for the 6th Plymouth District, representing the towns of Hanson, Pembroke, and Duxbury. Prior to his role in the House of Representatives, Rep. Cutler served for more than a decade as a local newspaper editor. Rep. Cutler is a graduate of Skidmore College, Suffolk Law, and the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth.

Following his talk, Rep. Cutler will sell and sign copies of Mobtown Massacre, with 100% of proceeds being donated to the Friends of the State Library of Massachusetts.

To register for Rep. Cutler’s talk, please visit: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/SLM-Cutler 

Laura Schaub
Cataloging Librarian

Upcoming Author Talks at the State Library: https://www.mass.gov/service-details/upcoming-author-talks-at-the-state-library