Featured Collections

The decision to create the Patches for Peace quilt was made when a group of Tufts students and staff came together at Tufts Hillel on September 11, 2001 following the morning’s terrorist attacks. Their goal was to find community and support and to discuss how to respond. After a few hours, they had formulated a plan to create a Patches for Peace Quilt, seeing in it an opportunity to find a creative outlet and spread a message of community, peace and hope. With logistical and infrastructure support from Hillel, members of the Hillel student board invited many student groups on campus to...

Commencement and reunions weekend is one of the busiest, and most enjoyable, times of the year for us in the archives; we’re always busy with events and visits by graduating students, their families, and alums. Although in person visits are not possible this year, we at DCA have been reflecting on and researching the history of commencement at the University as we celebrate and congratulate Tufts 2020 graduates. We’ve created a new online exhibit titled A Step into the Unknown: Commencement at Tufts University, and have worked to digitize our collection of Tufts Commencement Programs dating to...

In honor of May’s designation as Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, we’ve chosen Voices as our current featured collection. Voices is a literary and art publication produced by the Tufts Asian American Student Coalition. Published annually and semi-annually, the first issue of Voices was a joint effort between Asian and Asian-American students from Tufts University and Harvard-Radcliffe; more recent issues were produced by Tufts students.

In recognition of the 50th anniversary of the first Earth Day on April 22nd, we are highlighting the papers of environmental activist Lois Gibbs as our current featured collection.   

Born in 1951, Lois Marie Gibbs is an environmental activist and organizer who formed the Love Canal Homeowners Association after discovering that her entire neighborhood of Love Canal, Niagara Falls, New York, had been built on a toxic waste dump.    

Gibbs had become increasingly concerned about her children’s health in the late 1970s. She read newspaper accounts of a landfill in Love Canal, noticed a...

Gerald R. Gill was a beloved faculty member in the History Department of Tufts University from 1980 to 2007. In those twenty-seven years he had a profound and lasting impact on the lives of his students and the Tufts community as a whole. The Gerald Gill Papers at Tufts Digital Collections and Archives include more than 50 boxes of material documenting Professor Gill’s life and work including extensive research on African Americans students at Tufts.

Zella Hurwitz Luria (1924-2018) was a beloved faculty member and mentor at Tufts University, remembered as a staunch supporter of her students, a champion of their work, and source of inspiration and encouragement. 

Professor Luria was a psychology professor at Tufts from 1959-2002, known for her work on the social construction of gender roles. She received the Jackson College Teaching Award in 1969, and the Seymour Simches Award on Teaching and Advising in 1995. She was a charter member of the Women's Studies program.

At Tufts, she was known for her feminism, strong opposition to the...

With the Africana celebrating its 50th anniversary with events and an exhibit at the Tufts University Art Galleries we are highlighting the Africana Center Records as our featured collection. This group of records document the Center's work from its founding in 1969 to its development over the several decades into a provider of academic and social resources and activities for students of African descent. Some of the larger projects represented in the records include the founding of the Tufts Black Alumni Association; the organization of the freshmen orientation Cape Cod retreat; the...

Roslyn Brogue Henning (1919 -1981) was a Tufts professor, composer, musician, and classics scholar. Henning studied at Drake University and at the University of Chicago, where she received a degree in classics at the age of 19. She continued her education at Radcliffe College earning a M.A. in 1943 and a PhD. from Harvard University in 1947. She joined the Tufts Department of Classics in 1962 as an associate professor.

The collection consists of sheet music, some printed and some handwritten in a box called "Manuscripts," and Henning's scrapbooks from 1919 to 1965, containing concert...