CASINOS IN THE NEWS: REPORTS IN THE STATE LIBRARY

The prospect of building casinos in Massachusetts is very much in the news today. A recent Sunday Boston Globe (January 10th, 2010 page C1) had an interview with State Senator Stan Rosenberg, who has travelled around the country to garner information about the overall issue of casinos.

The State Library has numerous reports and overall holdings on this timely subject in the online catalog. Also, the Special Collections Department of the Library collects papers from legislators and other public figures, usually when they leave office. The papers of former Representatives Mary Jeannette Murray and George Rogers contain materials relating to the casino issue. Finally, please note that there are other blog entries about casinos, and these can be found by using the labels assigned to this one.

Pamela W. Schofield
Reference Department

Keys to the City

As an intern in the Special Collections department, I am always excited when I learn something new about the collection. A couple days ago, the preservation librarian, Lacy, showed me this key to the city of Boston. She found it in the vault in a collection of medals. When we looked through the collection again, we found another ceremonial key to the city of Lynn that was presented during the city’s tercentennial celebration. Both keys are gold in color with designs representing the city etched on each side. To give an example, the Lynn key has a pair of high heels on the handle to pay homage to the city’s history as a major center in the shoe industry.

Keys like these two are presented by the mayor to honor individuals for their civic services, or personal or career achievements. The tradition of awarding these keys stems from the Middle Ages when walls surrounded cities and travelers entered through gates. The keys represented free and easy entry into the city as well as trust and respect. I was a bit surprised by the size of the keys. When I think of ceremonial presentations I think about comically oversized checks and I expected the keys to be just as big. Each key is about the size of a skeleton key to an old house, but the key is slightly larger than the Lynn key.

I did a little research about keys presented by the mayor of Boston in the City Record. The City Record documents events and news in Boston and the activities of Boston’s mayor. In the 1925 volume, I found several articles concerning events where Mayor James Michael Curley presented keys. Two articles in particular caught my attention. One was a short note from the Chinese General Consul Ziangling Chang, thanking Mayor Curley for his hospitality and the key to his city. The other article described a visit by the Belgian ambassador to Boston. Mayor Curley presented him a key and accepted a Belgian flag in return. If you are interested in conducting further research, I suggest searching local newspapers and the Zimmer Index for articles about key recipients in Boston and other cities.

Marietta Carr, Special Collections Intern

Massachusetts Women in Politics Exhibit, Now Open

The Library is excited to present our new exhibit, “Women in Massachusetts Politics.” The exhibit highlights important women in the state’s political history and their accomplishments. Included is a timeline showing important events and people, and a display on the Massachusetts Caucus of Women Legislators, celebrating their 35th anniversary.

The exhibit brings to light women such as Sybil Holmes, the first female state senator. While working at a law firm, Holmes studied law privately and passed the bar in 1910 at age 21. She later studied at both Harvard and Columbia law schools. Holmes served as an assistant attorney general for four years before being elected to the General Court in 1936.

Other women in the exhibit include Susan Fitzgerald and Sylvia Donaldson, who were the first women elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives. They were elected in 1923, just three years after the 19th Amendment was passed. Susan Fitzgerald studied political science and history at Bryn Mawr, where her three daughters later studied. She was a strong advocate for women’s suffrage and served in many different organizations to attain the right to vote. Fitzgerald wrote essays to promote equal rights for women, such as "Women in the Home," 1908, "What is a Democracy?" 1910, and "Have We a Democracy?" 1913.

Outside of the state legislature, women made important strides in local government. Alice Burke was elected mayor of Westfield in 1939, becoming the first female mayor not just in Massachusetts, but in all of New England as well. She beat the incumbent by just 127 votes and went on to serve for three more terms. Burke would become known as the Grand Dame of Westfield for her active role and many contributions to the community.

The exhibit shows how far women have come in Massachusetts politics, but also how far there is to go. In 1971, there were only four women in the legislature, out of a total of 300 seats (1.3%). In 2010, there are 52 women, out of a total of 200 seats (26%). The first female senate president, Therese Murray, was only elected in March 2007; and no woman has been elected as speaker of the House. The sole exception is Sylvia Donaldson, who was declared honorary speaker for one day, February 18, 1926. Massachusetts has yet to send a woman to the U.S. Senate; and of the twelve legislators representing the state in Washington, D.C., only one is a woman (Niki Tsongas, 5th District). As women comprise 52% of the Massachusetts population, they are not only underrepresented in national government but in the government of our own state.

This exhibit celebrates the hard work and achievements won by the women of Massachusetts. We hope you will come to view the exhibit, which is now open. The State Library is located on the third floor, Room 341, in the State House in Boston. Please visit our website at www.mass.gov/lib for more information regarding hours and directions.

Above: Members of the Caucus of Women Legislators outside the House of Representatives, December 1990.

Debate Coverage in the House and Senate

Patrons often ask about debate in the House and

Senate chambers when they are researching laws. The discussion is an important source for determining the intent of legislation.

The State House News Service, a private news-gathering organization covering Massachusetts state government, began providing accounts of formal House and Senate sessions in 1972. These are not transcripts, but they may quote what was said by the legislators on a particular bill. Remote access to this database is not provided; it must be accessed on site. Reference librarians guide patrons in conducting a legislative history and will log users into this electronic resource to ascertain whether any debate was recorded.

Selected House proceedings are available in audio or video format going back to 1984. Beginning in 1996 the Senate videotaped certain proceedings.

Sessions in both chambers are now accessible through webcasts. The House and Senate began taping on January 1, 2007. The proceedings can be viewed at http://masslegislature.tv/.

Reference Staff

Federal Tax Deduction for Haitian Relief

The State Library has received Federal Notice 1396, which allows one to deduct Haitian Relief cash contributions on the 2009 Tax Return. The notice is in English, Spanish, French, and Haitain Creole.

Federal and state tax forms are available on tables in front of Room 341 (the State Library) of the State House. There is a reproducible book of federal tax forms in the Library.

The federal forms can also be found at http://www.irs.gov and the state forms at http://www.mass.gov/dor

Haitian Collections on Display at the State Library

Recently the library was host
to a group of local students from the Education Development Group, an institution that prepares recent immigrants for success in education and employment by providing language skills and cultural awareness. After a tour of the State House, the students, which included several Haitians, came by the library to see two particularly interesting artifacts in our collection regarding Haiti.

The first item presented was the book, An historical survey of the French colony in the island of St. Domingo : comprehending a short account of its ancient government, political state, population, productions, and exports... published in 1797. This book contains a beautiful map of the island of St. Domingo prior to the revolution in 1804 that established Haiti as an independent country. While the library has several publications regarding Haiti after the revolution, this is the one in our collection that discusses the French colony prior to revolution. The map can be seen in the image above.

The second item presented was the medal awarded in 1871 by the Haitian government to U.S. Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts. Sumner worked tirelessly to gain official recognition of Haiti as a nation by the United States. Though Haiti declared nationhood after the revolution in 1804, the United States did not recognize Haiti until 1862. A letter by Sumner regarding the presentation of the medal can be found in Charles Sumner; His Complete Works, digitized by Google here. The medal is shown in the image above to the right of the map. Detailed images of the medal can be found on the State Library's Facebook page.

It is always a pleasure to display the library's treasured collections, and we were happy to host such an engaged group of students.

- Lacy Crews Stoneburner, Preservation Librarian

Learn About the State Library's Scanning Projects

An ongoing initiative at the State Library is the digitization of historic Massachusetts state documents. Small collections tend to be digitized in-house using state-of-the-art scanners, while larger projects are sent to the Boston Public Library’s scanning center. So far, the State Library has digitized around 1000 items, and that number increases daily.

The in-house scanning projects include the Legislative Biographical File, which contains information about members of the Massachusetts General Court and its predecessors, Massachusetts constitutional officers, and members of Massachusetts constitutional conventions from the colonial period to date. Also being scanned at the State Library is a collection of photographs of World War I soldiers from New England and the Zimmer Newspaper Index, which is a card index to "current events" from 1878-1937 for use by Massachusetts legislators and the public. The Zimmer Index was created as a result of the “Act to Authorize the Preparation for the State Library of an Index of Current Events," passed by the Massachusetts legislature in 1892.

Larger scanning projects, such as the journals of the House and the Senate, are sent to the scanning center at the Boston Public Library’s Central Library in Copley Square. Some items from a grant-funded scanning project are also being sent to the BPL; this project involves a collection of nineteenth-century transportation materials, including photographs, maps, atlases, annual reports, and manuscripts.

Digitized items are preserved both in the Internet Archive and the State Library’s online institutional repository, known as DSpace. The Internet Archive also includes other Massachusetts-related documents, such as town and regional histories, which have been scanned by other institutions.

- State Library Staff