Wwe’ve selected materials from the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) Records pertaining to oil exploration and expansion in the Ecuadorian Amazon. These materials have been selected in conjunction with the our ongoing Human Rights Film Series, which continues with a screening of the documentary film, Crude, directed by Joe Berlinger.  The film will be shown on Wednesday, October 13, at 4 pm in Konover Auditorium, and is free and open to the public.

The North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) was founded in response to the April 1965 U.S. invasion of the Dominican Republic. This armed intervention by the United States against a popular uprising–classic gunboat diplomacy–preempted the restoration to power of freely elected president Juan Bosch. It also paved the way for the thirty year dictatorship of caudillo Joaquín Balaguer. NACLA’s founders were especially struck by the Johnson administrations’ ability to disseminate its version of events virtually unchallenged, while mainstream opinion makers set the tone of a limited public debate. Moreover, as the U.S. intervention in Vietnam began in earnest, progressive critics and opponents of U.S. policy, both abroad and at home, began seriously to consider questions about the nature of public education, the role of independent media, and how to make critical analysis of the U.S. power structure accessible to a broad and interested public.

NACLA, which took shape from these questions, was founded in October and November of 1966 in a series of meetings of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the University Christian Movement, and returned Peace Corps volunteers, along with assorted other individuals and organizations. According to its articles of incorporation, NACLA’s role was “to encourage, produce and distribute information designed to identify and explain those elements and relationships of forces in the United States and Latin America which inhibit and frustrate urgently needed profound social and economic change.” The “congress” in NACLA’s name was suggested by the “Congress of Unrepresented People,” a contemporary group of civil rights, antiwar, and labor activists who came together to challenge elite conceptions of the national interest as fundamentally opposed to the real interests of the majority of the American people.

Most of the materials contained in this NACLA Collection were collected during the first twenty years of NACLA’s history (1966-1986). The special reports, newsletters, and eventually, magazines appearing under the NACLA imprint were the outcome of research and writing done by members of the collective. The materials that they amassed in their files ranged from newspaper clippings to original government documents to revolutionary communiques to corporate proxies. As NACLA established fraternal links with publications, political parties, and nongovernmental organizations across the region, it also acquired a substantial and varied collection of periodical publications, many of which can now be found only in this collection.

The item of the month below is a selection from the periodical holdings from the NACLA Collection, from August 2, 1987  (NACLA Box 125, Folder 5).

Action Bulletin from Survival International USA, a non-profit organization that aims to protect the human rights of indigenous peoples worldwide.

First page from the Survival International USA Urgent Action Bulletin.

New York, Westchester & Boston Railway station at Port Chester, New York, 1930

On August 21, 1937, service ceased on the New York, Westchester & Boston Railway line, which despite its reference to Boston actually ran just from lower Manhattan to Port Chester, New York.  It was incorporated in 1872 (as the New York, Westchester & Boston Railroad) but the charter lay dormant until 1900, when investors formed the New York & Westchester and reorganized in 1904 as the NYW&B Railway.  The line was in direct competition with the omnipresent New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad (better known as the New Haven Railroad), which controlled almost all railroad, trolley and steamship traffic in southern New England into New York City from 1872 to 1969, so the New Haven Railroad bought up all of the fledgling company’s stock and made it into a showcase of elegant stations, bridges and viaducts.  Unfortunately such opulence was unsustainable and the line was never able to turn a profit.  It closed in 1937, its property was auctioned off in 1942, and its locomotives and cars were scattered to the four winds.

A fantastic website giving the full history of this line is at http://nywbry.com/index.php.

Archives & Special Collections has Board of Directors minutes and financial records of the NYW&B Ry., as part of the  New York, New Haven & Hartford Records, an enormous collection of administrative, real estate, financial and legal records of the railroad and its predecessor companies.

Wendell Minor, an award-winning illustrator of books and book jackets, will receive an honorary Doctorate degree from the University of Connecticut at the May 9th, 2010 commencement ceremony. On May 20th we will host a Luncheon Reception in the Dodd Center’s Public Lounge from 12:00-1:30 pm, followed by a presentation by Dr. Norman D. Stevens in Konover Auditorium from 1:30-2:00 pm, with a book signing by Mr. Minor in the Public Foyer from 2:00-2:30pm. The Public is invited to all of these events.

A native of Illinois and current resident of Washington, CT, Mr. Minor studied art at the Ringling School of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida. He has designed the covers of over 2000 works and has illustrated 50 children’s books. Mr. Minor served as President of the Society of Illustrators in New York City in addition to currently serving on the Children’s Book Council. The exhibit pictured here is installed in the John McDonald Reading Room and is available for viewing Monday-Friday 10am-4pm until the end of May. On display are 22 original works of art for various books and book covers and a selection of his published works. Mr. Minor is generously donating the original art for his newest book, Jean Craighead George’s The Buffalo are back, to the Northeast Children’s Literature Collection.

Minor exhibit in McDonald Reading Room

One of the earliest athletic game films held in Archives & Special Collections is the 1934-1935 football battle between Connecticut State College and rival Rhode Island.  The 1935 Nutmeg reports that “the most thrilling and exciting week-end in Connecticut State College football history embraces the abduction of the Rhody Ram and the traditional battle between Connecticut  and Rhode Island.”  Unfortunately in 1935 the battle ended in a Connecticut defeat (Connecticut 0, Rhode Island 18).  In this footage the battle took place as much on the field as off.  The abducted Rhody Ram is paraded out onto the field for the Connecticut fans, while the marching band plays.  At the end of the game, Rhode Island fans tear down the goal posts and a fight breaks out. 

 View the film (run time 8 min. 52 sec.).

In 2005, Michele Palmer of Storrs, Connecticut, established the Malka Penn Children’s Book Collection on Human Rights as part of the Northeast Children’s Literature Collection. Each year, Ms. Palmer donates picture books, young adult novels and non-fiction works published in the previous year that address issues such as the Holocaust, racism and prejudice, war, and survival.  The books this year have some themes in common, such as  music and its curative powers in the face of conflict, and the presentation of the true story, whether through letters and photos or the memories of a young girl imprisoned by the Japanese during WWII.  

Silent music: a story of Baghdad, by James Rumford (New York : Roaring Brook Press, 2008).

The works on exhibit in the John McDonald Reading Room until November 30, 2009, represent twelve of the best books for 2008 chosen by Ms. Palmer, Terri J. Goldich, curator for the Northeast Children’s Literature Collection, and Victoria Pryke, Human Rights Intern for Fall 2009.

Les Paul, inventor and innovator of the solid body electric guitar, passed away last week.  Paul signed with Gibson Guitar company in 1950 to design and manufacture The Gibson Les Paul model, still available today.  Just as there would be no rock n’ roll without the electric guitar; there would be no Chicago blues without the influence of electrified guitar sound.  Chicago blues in the 1960s was dominated by Muddy Waters, Elmore James and Howlin’ Wolf.  Correspondent Russell Hall has ranked Howlin’ Wolf’s “Spoonful”, released on Chess Records in 1960, as having one of the top 10 great Gibson Les Paul solos.