Elizabeth Blum Papers

1961-1968
1 box (.05 linear feet)
Call no.: MS 1136
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Named for Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, the "Rebel Girl," Elizabeth "Liz" Blum has worked to live up to her name through public activism, organizing, and community service in the civil rights, anti-war, women’s, anti-apartheid, co-op, and other movements. After graduating from Bennington College in 1964, Blum went south as a part of the Mississippi Freedom Vote, going door to door in northwestern Mississippi until her house in Tupelo was firebombed, forcing her to relocate to Columbus for the remainder of the registration drive. She continued her work and connections with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in New Haven as a worker for the Freedom School and the Economic Research and Action Program, and additionally lived in New York City and San Francisco before returning to Vermont in 1967 to live in a commune and teach French at Castleton University. There Blum organized an SDS chapter and women’s group before moving to Cambridge, Mass., joining the Boston Women’s Health Collective and helping to edit Our Bodies, Ourselves. A retired Occupational Therapist, Blum is currently county chair of the Vermont Progressive Party, serves on the Board of the Hanover Co-op Food Stores where she heads the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee, and continues her diverse advocacy work through personal and community action.



Small in size, but generous in topic and form, the Blum Papers consist of correspondence and two newsletter portions with commentary on numerous events and activist groups during the first half of the 1960s. Personal experiences and reflections on national politics and trends, student and community organizing, and the anti-Vietnam War and civil rights movements, reveal how individuals negotiated and prioritized their thoughts and actions during such turbulent times. Correspondents include Henry M. Aronson, Ike Coleman, Vernon Grizzard, and Mike Miller, and updates from and to Blum are mostly from Mississippi, but also San Francisco, Cambridge, New Haven, and Selma.

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Background on Elizabeth Blum

Named for Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, the "Rebel Girl," Elizabeth "Liz" Blum has worked to live up to her name through public activism, organizing, and community service in the civil rights, anti-war, women’s, anti-apartheid, co-op, and other movements. After graduating from Bennington College in 1964, Blum went south as a part of the Mississippi Freedom Vote, going door to door in northwestern Mississippi until her house in Tupelo was firebombed, forcing her to relocate to Columbus for the remainder of the registration drive. She continued her work and connections with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in New Haven as a worker for the Freedom School and the Economic Research and Action Program, and additionally lived in New York City and San Francisco before returning to Vermont in 1967 to live in a commune and teach French at Castleton University. There Blum organized an SDS chapter and women’s group before moving to Cambridge, Mass., joining the Boston Women’s Health Collective and helping to edit Our Bodies, Ourselves. A retired Occupational Therapist, Blum is currently county chair of the Vermont Progressive Party, serves on the Board of the Hanover Co-op Food Stores where she heads the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee, and continues her diverse advocacy work through personal and community action.

Scope of collection

Small in size, but generous in topic and form, the Blum Papers consist of correspondence and two newsletter portions with commentary on numerous events and activist groups during the first half of the 1960s. Personal experiences and reflections on national politics and trends, student and community organizing, and the anti-Vietnam War and civil rights movements, reveal how individuals negotiated and prioritized their thoughts and actions during such turbulent times. Correspondents include Henry M. Aronson, Ike Coleman, Vernon Grizzard, and Mike Miller, and updates from and to Blum are mostly from Mississippi, but also San Francisco, Cambridge, New Haven, and Selma.

Inventory

Correspondence
1964-1968
Aronson, Henry M.
1964 Nov-Dec
Box 1: 1
Coleman, Ike
1965-1966
Box 1: 2
Grizzard, Vernon
1968 Mar-Apr
Box 1: 3
Johnson, Elsa
1966 May
Box 1: 4
Jones, Richard U.
1965 Jan
Box 1: 5
Low, Louise
1965 Jul
Box 1: 6
Miller, Mike
1965 Jul
Box 1: 7
Newsletters
1961-1962
Box 1: 8

Administrative information

Access

The collection is open for research.

Provenance

Acquired from Liz Blum, September 2021.

See also: The Economic Research and Action Project (New Haven, Conn.) Records

Processing Information

Processed by Blake Spitz, August 2021.

Language:

English

Copyright and Use (More information )

Cite as: Elizabeth Blum Papers (MS 1136). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.

Search terms

Subjects

  • Activists--United States
  • Civil Rights movements--Connecticut
  • Civil Rights movements--Mississippi
  • Council of Federated Organizations (U.S.)
  • Mississippi Freedom Project
  • Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (U.S.))
  • Students for a Democratic Society (U.S.)
  • Vietnam War, 1961-1975

Contributors

  • Blum, Elizabeth [main entry]

Genres and formats

  • Correspondence
  • Newsletters

Link to similar SCUA collections