Collections : [New York State Modern Political Archive]

This collection documents the day-to-day activities of the Center for Law and Justice in Albany, New York, founded by its Executive Director Dr. Alice P. Green in 1985.

The Center for Law and Justice is dependent on various forms of funding including charitable donations and membership dues. Federal, state, local, and private grants provide a larger portion of the Center's funding. Though grants are not always secure or guaranteed, the Center for Law and Justice has several that have been long-term, supplemented by short-term funding. Based on the information in this series, the United Way is a substantial resource to the Center. The New York Bar Association has also provided funding to publish a directory entitled Free Legal Information and Services in the Capital District. Two other projects, Project Prep and Project Embrace were important parts of the Center's work. Project PREP (1994-95) was a crime prevention program for poor young people who did not receive the nurturing or information they need to develop into responsible, law-abiding, citizens. The program consisted of a curriculum that included cultural education, positive survival skills, and nonviolent empowerment programs. The primary goal of Project Embrace: An Outreach Model to Prevent Violence (1990-97), was to broaden community understanding of the nature and source of violent behavior and to promote the perspective that much of the violence addressed by the criminal justice system should also be recognized as a public health issue.

The Correctional Association of New York Records includes records from the Board of Directors, annual reports, prison visit files, Narcotics Committee files, program and bureau files, project files, subject files, and publications. The only records of the organization available from the nineteenth century are the annual reports, which have been microfilmed and are available in the University Library.

The Greater Glens Falls (N.Y.) Central Labor Council document the history of their council, which was formed in 1959.

This collection documents the life, professional work, and topics of interest to Cheryl Ann Costa, including her life and experiences as a transgender woman; her writing; her radio, theater, and television work; and her UFO research.

This series contains material that Abramowitz collected while researching the history of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). Among the highlights in this collection are carbon copies and photocopies of letters (1937-39) concerning the attitudes of CIO leaders John Brophy and Philip Murray toward Communists active in CIO unions, a partial photocopy of Brophy's typescript autobiography (1948), and a carbon copy of a twenty-six page letter Murray wrote to President Harry S. Truman urging him to veto the Taft-Hartley Act (1947). The collection also contains a number of important documents concerning the United Auto Workers (UAW) and Walter Reuther, among them transcripts of a 1945 speech that Reuther delivered, documents concerning racial discrimination and UAW Fair Employment Practices Committee Executive Director George W. Crockett, a typescript of UAW contract demands presented to the General Motors Corporation in 1964, and a typescript (c.1970) of John W. Anderson's scathing biography of Reuther. Other materials of interest document the United Furniture Workers (UFW): copies of representation election reports (1940, 1950), photocopied fliers and internal CIO documents concerning the UFW's 1949 expulsion from the CIO on the grounds that it was "Communist dominated" and its 1950 return to the CIO fold, and newsletters (1973-74) published by UFW Local 140 (Bronx County, New York). Also included are Abramowitz's notes on his oral-history interviews (1973, 1974) of an anti-Communist International Union of Electrical Workers activist identified only as "Raskin."

This collection contains research files created by and several typescript essays written by sociologist Howard D. Abramowitz. The collection amply documents his interest in the American labor movement and, in particular, the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and sheds light on the scholarly research that he completed during the final years of his life.

This collection contains publications, flyers, and notes which document the Occupy Movement and Free University of New York City, as well as other issues affecting New Yorkers at the time.

The collection documents the City Club of Albany and primarily contains organizational records from 1957-1959, mainly concerned with issues of the Citizen's Platform. The collection is composed chiefly of files retained by Harriet D. Adams as vice president of the club when it was particularly interested in urban planning.

These records of the City Teachers' Association of Schenectady include minutes (1918-34), and general files (1937-43) which contain bulletins, correspondence and other records. Also included in these records are the minutes of the Delegate Assembly of the Department of Public Instruction of Schenectady (1928-31), which was a body consisting of members from the faculty, staff and supervisory personnel of the Schenectady City School District.

The City Teachers Association of Schenectady was founded in 1918 to promote standards of professionalism in teaching. The group was chartered as a union, the Schenectady Federation of Teachers, in 1944. Local 803 went on strike in 1975 in violation of the NYS Taylor Law. The local is affiliated with New York State United Teachers, American Federation of Teachers.

This collection documents the day-to-day activities of the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) from 1918 to the present. There is no documentation of the organization's initial years of existence, but significant material about administration, meetings, membership, agreements, publications, and organizational history.

This series is divided into six subseries to reflect the meeting type.

This series consists of reels containing annual meeting minutes (with tables of contents), correspondence, CSEA President's reports, and verbatim transcripts of Board of Directors, County and State Delegate, and State Executive Committee meetings. Also contained on Reel 10 are the minutes of special delegates meetings and the records of the Capital City Council of the Civil Service Association which formed in 1918. The series also includes Board of Director Meeting files related to the quarterly Board meetings. These files feature committee reports, memorandums, state officer reports, interim Board of Directors meeting materials, and meeting minutes.

This series contains items related to the boat Clearwater; Clearwater as an organization, including its predecessor organization, Hudson River Sloop Restoration; and affiliated sloop clubs, particularly North River Friends of Clearwater. It includes newsletters, board of directors meeting minutes, membership mailings, catalogs, and educational materials. There is a near-complete collection of programs from Clearwater's annual Great Hudson River Revival, as well as copies of Clearwater's official newsletter, mainly from 1973-1993. This newsletter began publication under the name North River Navigator, then became the Clearwater Navigator in 1978. Administrative files from NRFC are limited and include by-laws, charters, some meeting minutes, and a membership dues receipt book from 1978. NRFC newsletters, spanning from 1976-1993, began as an unnamed publication, then became The Compass in 1982.

The papers of Nancy Papish document her involvement with Clearwater, North River Friends of Clearwater (NRFC), and the campaign to stop Hydro-Quebec's development plan for James Bay. These papers document the environmental activism of Nancy Papish from the 1970s through the 1990s. Included are meeting minutes, notes, mailings, press releases, news clippings, magazine articles, programs, and publications. The Clearwater files contain near-complete runs of newsletters produced by both NRFC and the parent Clearwater organization. Evidence of NRFC's outreach activities is found in a slide show titled "This Is Clearwater" and numerous poster displays. Documentation of Clearwater's organization and administration, such as meeting minutes, internal reports, and committee files, are almost entirely absent. There is little information about the membership of Clearwater. The James Bay files contain materials from several organizations.