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Stella Maris House collection, 1940-1973; bulk : 1960-1972

  • Mss 1585
  • Collection
  • 1940 - 1973

Ranging in date from 1940 to 1973, the Stella Maris House Collection consists of printed material, correspondence, and administrative, financial, and legal records created and collected by the Portland, Oregon-based social justice group during the course of their work. The collection demonstrates the local evolution of social issues key to the history of the United States during the 1960s. Over a third of the archive's content is dedicated to Oregon's migrant labor rights movement, and it also features records documenting the area's civil rights movement, urban renewal projects, interstate highway infrastructure, and social welfare programs initiated by the Economic Opportunity Act.

The bulk of the collection consists of printed material created by a number of local and national organizations between 1960 and 1972, then collected by the Stella Maris House. This portion of the archive includes programs, reports, studies, surveys, correspondence, brochures, and flyers generated by civil rights, migrant rights, and peace movement groups. Items of note include the Albina Neighborhood Improvement Project's plans for urban redevelopment (Series B), an African-American employment survey conducted by the Metropolitan Interfaith Commission on Race (Series E), and records documenting the Housing Authority of Portland (Series I). The collection also features printed material created by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (Series E), the Valley Migrant League (Series J), and the United Farm Workers (Series J). Newspaper clippings that document events important to social justice movements constitute a substantial part of the collection.

A small but significant portion of the collection was created by the staff members of the Stella Maris House; it includes notes by the staff documenting the meetings of local groups. These meeting notes often provide remarkably candid insights into the workings of area groups. Additionally, Stella Maris House staff members also contributed group and program histories to the collection.

Stella Maris House (Portland, Or.)

Valley Migrant League photographs

  • Org. Lot 74
  • Collection
  • 1965 - 1968

Collection consists of photographs used by the Valley Migrant League (VML) for its program newspaper, "Opportunity News." Most of the photographs were taken by VML staff. Many of the individuals and places depicted in the prints and negatives in this collection were identified by Oregon Historical Society archivists from the corresponding articles in "Opportunity News."
Subjects depicted in the photographs include VML-sponsored adult education and vocational training programs, including photographs of classrooms, workshops, and businesses hosting work-training programs as well as portraits of program graduates and teachers. Also depicted are VML’s children’s daycare programs including photographs of children in the daycare centers and on educational field trips as well as community events, sports, and cultural celebrations including the Woodburn Fiesta Mexicana, May Day, and Christmas. Photographs in this collection also document living and working conditions for Migrant laborers including depictions of laborers in fields, operating agricultural equipment, and in labor camps, as well as rural healthcare and mobile medical clinics. Also represented in the collections is VML involvement in labor and community organizing, including meeting with political leaders and local picket lines in support of the Delano Grape Strike. The photographs in the collection also include portraits of many individuals associated with VML and the agricultural labor movement of the 1960s.

Valley Migrant League