North End merchant Amos Mechaber out for a ride

Historical Tour of Jewish New Bedford

This 40 page brochure was compiled by Judy Farrar and Cindy Yoken for the 25th anniversary of the Center for Jewish Culture at UMass Dartmouth. It was introduced May 18,2005 with a presentation of historical photographs and was lectured by Cindy Yoken. The initial printing of the brochure was funded in partthrough a grant from the United Way of Greater New Bedford Community Building Mini Grant Program. An online version of the tour is available here.
Link to Jewish Tour Online.
If you would like to have a free copy sent to you, contact Judy Farrar or Cindy Yoken.

At an April 15, 2005 press conference, the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth announced the creation of the Affonso “Ferreira Mendes” Mendes Portuguese-American Archives Endowment in the amount of $1.5 million. The lead gift was made by Ms. Otília Ferreira, whose father, Affonso “Ferreira Mendes” Mendes, was one of the founders of Portuguese-American radio back in the early 1930s. Another six individuals and institutions also made considerable contributions, namely, Anthony Andrade, Frank B. Sousa, Elisia Saab, Luis Pedroso, Maria Furman, and the Luso-American Foundation, of Lisbon, Portugal.

Through the creation of the Affonso “Ferreira Mendes” Mendes Portuguese-American Archives Endowment, the “University recognizes the importance of the contributions to the United States of America by the more than 1 million Americans of Portuguese descent, including more than 45% of the population of the South Coast of Massachusetts,” said Chancellor Jean MacCormack. The University will take the steps necessary to document, effectively and properly, the Portuguese immigrant and ethnic experience in the United States by hiring a second archivist with a mastery of the
Portuguese language, and a tenure-track faculty member in the area of social history.

The Archives will include letters, unpublished manuscripts, diaries, historical
photographs, newspapers and magazines, papers of fraternal organizations, videos, films, recorded music, oral history recordings and transcriptions, among other materials. Garnered principally from the region, but also from around the state and all parts of this great nation where the Portuguese have settled, these documents will embody the historical memories of Portuguese Americans.

The Archives already house many important materials, including Diário de Notícias, published from 1919 to 1970, the only Portuguese-language daily newspaper ever published in the United States for a significant length of time, records of the Portuguese Alliance Benevolent Association, many photographs, family and personal papers collections and a collection of oral history interviews. Details are available on the University Library’s Archives and Special Collections web site at www.lib.umassd.edu.

For information please contact Judy Farrar, Archives and Special Collections Librarian, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Library by Email or 508-999-8686.

Howard T. Glasser Archives of Folk Music, at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Library Archives and Special Collection

Howard Glasser, retired design professor, founder and driving force behind the famed Eisteddfod International Folk Festival, that brought thousands of music lovers to this campus every fall from 1971 to 1996, has committed his massive personal collection to the newly established Howard T. Glasser Archives in the Archives and Special Collections. His collection consists of audio recordings of folk music gatherings, Eisteddfod performances, and audio interviews of folk musicians recorded during his travels in Scotland in the 1960s. Prof. Glasser enjoys an international reputation in folk music circles and this collection will be a very important resource to scholars and musicians. Professor Glasser has set up a fund to support the collection, with an initial gift of $5,000. The collection will be transferred to the archives gradually over the next few years as we work on reformatting and preserving the hundreds of audio tapes.

Link to the Eisteddfod Collection Finding Aid MC 2:

The Eisteddfod lives on!

3rd Annual Eisteddfod NY
Howard Glasser (director emeritus)
Festival of Traditional Music
Fri-Sun, November 17-19, 2006

Presented by the
Folk Music Society of NY/ NY Pinewoods Folk Music Club
at The Renaissance Charter School,
35-59  81st  Street
Jackson Heights, Queens, NYC
(Easily reached from Times Square and Grand Central by No. 7 subway)

For further information (travel, lodging, performers):
http://www.eisteddfod-ny.org