Primary Sources for Online Learning

This exercise will provide you with experience analyzing different kinds of archival materials from University Archives and Special Collections. Using digitized historical documents, photographs, videos, oral histories, and other materials, you will explore the ways that primary sources shape your understanding of Boston history.

If you need assistance, please email jessica.holden@umb.edu.

Instructions for Activity

• Select one of the following Boston history digital collections on which to focus:

  • Boston Urban Gardeners Photographs

  • Documenting the UMass Boston Community’s Response to COVID-19

  • Massachusetts Hip-Hop Archive: Lecco’s Lemma Collection

  • Massachusetts Rock Against Racism Collection

  • Sumner Tunnel (Boston) Construction Photographs

  • Thompson Island Collection

  • UMass Boston Historic Documents

  • UMass Boston Memories – Oral History Collections

  • W. Arthur Garrity, Jr. Chambers Papers on the Boston Schools Desegregation Case

• Download the Activity Worksheet (MS Word)
• Fill out the Activity Worksheet
• Save and email the completed worksheet to jessica.holden@umb.edu

About the image: "The First Farm School in America," The Farm and Fireside, June 15, 1906. Courtesy of University Archives and Special Collections.

Please email completed activity worksheets (including your name, the name of your professor, and your course number) to jessica.holden@umb.edu.

Upon faculty request, Archives staff will share your completed assignments with your professor.

If you have any questions or need assistance, please email jessica.holden@umb.edu.