Stephen L. Saltonstall Photograph Collection

1962
1 volume (0.1 linear ft.)
Call no.: PH 014
rotating decorative images from SCUA collections

In the summer 1962, future Harvard student Steve Saltonstall was one of the early wave of white northerners who went into the Jim Crow south to work for civil rights. During that summer, he worked with SNCC to organize public accommodations in Cairo, Ill., and with an AFSC crew to help clear brush from a drainage ditch near Circle City, Missouri, encountering local resistance in both places. Saltonstall later became an attorney and currently practices in Vermont.



The Saltonstall collection consists of approximately sixty photographs taken by John Engel during his tour with an AFSC crew during the summer of 1962. While most of the images depict the crew's work near Circle City, Missouri, six photos document a civil rights rally in Cairo, Ill. The images are available in digital form only.

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Background on Stephen L Saltonstall


An image of: Civil Rights demonstration, Cairo

Civil Rights demonstration, Cairo

In the summer 1962, future Harvard student Steve Saltonstall was one of the early wave of white northerners who went into the Jim Crow south to work for civil rights. Still a teenager, Saltonstall assisted a SNCC project in Cairo, Illinois, then a hotbed of KKK activity, that sought to integrate public accommodations built with federal funds.

From there, Saltonstall enlisted on a crew organized by the American Friends Service Committee, to travel fifty miles west to work on a seemingly more mundane project, to help clear a tree-filled drainage ditch near the segregated, all-white community of Circle City, Missouri, that caused the city to flood each year. The AFSC crew was integrated by a single African American woman who, as Saltonstall recalled, "ultimately left the camp for unknown reasons I never fully understood," and as a result, the northerners was visited nightly by night riders. "But the head camp counselor, Mick Micklem," Saltonstall wrote, "was a southerner who persuaded the rednecks to leave. We cleared the trees from the ditch and had a Quaker Meeting in it on the last day of camp. It was a beautiful sight, pink cotton flowers as far as one could see."

After college, Saltonstall spent some time as a back to the land hippie and later received a law degree from Northeastern University. Today he does civil trial work in Vermont, with a specialty in personal injury and wrongful death, criminal defense, and civil rights and civil liberties.

Scope of collection

The Saltonstall collection consists of approximately sixty photographs taken by John P. Engel during his tour with an AFSC crew during the summer of 1962. While most of the images depict the crew's work near Circle City, Missouri, six photos document a civil rights rally in Cairo, Ill. The images are available in digital form only.

Inventory

1962
Digital
2
Engel, John P., photographer:
An image from the collection
Group of volunteers talking with elderly man
1962
Digital
4
Engel, John P., photographer:
An image from the collection
Volunteers posing in makeshift outdoor shower
1962
Digital
5
1962
Digital
6
Engel, John P., photographer:
An image from the collection
Swimmers at a public swimming spot
1962
Digital
7
1962
Digital
8
Engel, John P., photographer:
An image from the collection
Dramatic colors in the sunset sky
1962
Digital
11
Engel, John P., photographer:
An image from the collection
Dramatic colors in the sunset sky
1962
Digital
12
Engel, John P., photographer:
An image from the collection
Dramatic colors in the sunset sky
1962
Digital
13
1962
Digital
19
1962
Digital
20
Engel, John P., photographer:
An image from the collection
Volunteer clearing brush from beside a field
1962
Digital
21
1962
Digital
23
1962
Digital
24
1962
Digital
25
Engel, John P., photographer:
An image from the collection
Three volunteers resting beside a large tank
1962
Digital
26
Engel, John P., photographer:
An image from the collection
View across cotton fields
1962
Digital
27
1962
Digital
30
Engel, John P., photographer:
An image from the collection
Close-up of unidentified plant
1962
Digital
31
Engel, John P., photographer:
An image from the collection
Group of ten volunteers inspecting field
1962
Digital
32
1962
Digital
33
1962
Digital
34
1962
Digital
35
Engel, John P., photographer:
An image from the collection
Migrant labor shack(?). Image underexposed
1962
Digital
39
1962
Digital
41
1962
Digital
42
1962
Digital
43
1962
Digital
44
1962
Digital
45
1962
Digital
47

Administrative information

Access

The collection is open for research.

Provenance

Acquired from John Engel by Tom Fels, 1999.

Processing Information

Processed by Dex Haven, August 2010.

Digitized content

Digitized versions of the images in this collection have been added to SCUA's online repository, Credo.

See other collections in the Famous Long Ago Archives.

Language:

English

Copyright and Use (More information )

Cite as: Stephen L. Saltonstall Photograph Collection (PH 014). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.

Search terms

Subjects

  • American Friends Service Committee.
  • Cairo (Ill.).
  • Circle City (Mo.).
  • Civil rights demonstrations--Illinois--Photographs.
  • Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (U.S.)

Contributors

  • Saltonstall, Stephen L. [main entry]
  • Engel, John P.

Genres and formats

  • Photographs.

Link to similar SCUA collections