Collections : [New York State Modern Political Archive]

The Legislative Issues series contains reports, draft reports, correspondence, notes, guidelines, fact sheets, legislation, testimony, memorandums, and news clippings pertaining to the various environmental issues pursued by Environmental Advocates. The series is further divided into eighteen subseries, including: Acid Rain, Adirondacks, Air, Bottle Bill, Energy, Funding, Hazardous Waste, Land Use, Lead, Parks and Wilderness, Pesticides, Solid Waste Management, Tobacco, Transportation, Water, Wetlands, and Wild Life. The subseries are arranged alphabetically by subseries title and thereunder by folder title.

The Water subseries includes material related to the Safe State Drinking Water Act (SSDRA), Clean Water Act, Great Lakes Initiative (GLI), Hudson River - Westway (Long Island), State Safe Drinking Water Act (SSDWA), Proposition 65, Long Island Sound Study (LISS), lakes, rivers, oceans, reservoirs, and groundwater. The subseries' inclusive dates are 1930-1990 with the bulk of the subseries covering the period 1977-1989.

The Leo W. O' Brien Papers document O'Brien's service in the House of Representative where he served from 1952-1966 on behalf of Albany, NY. The collection includes subject files, correspondence and various communications materials from his Congressional tenure.

This series contains the general subject files of Representative O'Brien's office including: amendments, bills, legislative records, news clippings, pamphlets, photographs, speeches, statements, and constituent correspondence.

Series 1: Local 105 Minutes is composed of photocopies of union ledgers from Local 105.

United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and PipeFitting Industry of the United States and Canada, Local 105 Records document the regular business of this chapterof the union, including meetings, financial reports, grievance reports, and membership.

The collection documents the Jewish community in New York's Capital Region and the creation of the Albany Jewish Community Center.

The collection documents workers at General Electric and the city of Schenectady. The materials includes a pamphlet for the General Electric alumni association, a book about the Steinmetz family, and other material about General Electric.

The M.C. Lawton Civic and Cultural Club Records showcase the operations of the first black organization in Albany that was actively involved in community service and educational advancement, which was founded in 1919.

The collection documents a sixty-seven year time span (1928-1995) of the New York Public Welfare Association and contains a wealth of material related to the history and diverse functions of the organization including correspondence, memos, minutes of meetings, expenditures, and other files.

There are three types of brochures in this series; annual meeting, mid-winter meeting, and training. The dates are not inclusive as many of the more recent years are missing. Many of the meeting brochures contain comprehensive lists of officers. The brochures have attractive covers that picture the resort or hotel where the conference is held as well as agendas of the meetings. There are many preliminary programs dispersed throughout the brochures. The training brochures are sparse and represent only a small fraction of the training that the organization participated in.

A statewide network of community based Mental Health Associations focused on public education and citizen advocacy.

The State Charities Aid Association subseries includes documents related to the activities of the SCAA in the field of mental health. It includes legal documents, reports, minutes, memos, letters, and pamphlets generated by various committees of the SCAA, reprints of articles by people belonging to or associated with the SCAA, and some state government documents and other external documents related to the work of the SCAA. Also included are reports of the Committee on Legislation, which was a special committee on legislation for the insane (1891-1895) and a letter to the mayor of New York City advocating bringing New York County into the state mental health system. The Subcommittee on After Care worked to improve the care offered to mental patients after discharge from mental institutions. Included are the subcommittee's by-laws, minutes, and one annual report. The Committee on Mental Hygiene was the principal committee of SCAA dealing with mental health issues. The records include reports of the assistant secretary, mission statement (labeled as "objects") minutes, proposal for the study of the prevalence of mental disease in New York State, training programs, memos, reports, and an excerpt from a history of mental health policies in New York. The Visiting Committees were members of the SCAA who were empowered by New York State to inspect mental institutions on behalf of the state government and report to the state's Department of Mental Hygiene on the conditions in the institutions and the quality and effectiveness of the care being offered to the mentally ill.

The Michelle Crone Papers document her experience as a feminist and lesbian activist from the early 1980s until the mid-1990s. The collection includes material from here position as National Civil Disobedience Coordinator for the 1987 National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, and as a member of the Executive Committee for the 1993 March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay, and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation. Also present are records from Michelle Crone's management of a number of women's festivals from 1982 to 1996—most notably Rhythm Fest and the Cultural Festival at Gay Games IV—and records from her Capital District production company, Elword Productions. The collection also includes the records from her experience with the Seneca Women's Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and the National Lesbian Conference. Also included are her personal correspondence, records of her undergraduate studies with the theater and women's studies programs at the University at Albany, SUNY, and political literature from a number of progressive causes at the national and local levels.

Chartered in 1934, as the Tri-City Newspaper Guild of Albany, Schenectady, and Troy, the Guild signed its first contract with the Albany Times Union in 1937. The collection includes correspondence, minutes, contracts, and organizing files. The majority of material in the collection is photocpied.