Photo Opportunity

The UMass Amherst Libraries’ Robert S. Cox Special Collections and University Archives Research Center (SCUA) is a treasure trove of materials documenting life at UMass, in the local region, and beyond. Its materials offer a window into the minds of great thinkers like James Baldwin, Daniel Ellsberg, and W. E. B. Du Bois, as well as capturing major social movements like those for civil rights, women’s equality, and disability visibility.

But SCUA also offers contemporary users a glimpse into the everyday moments that make up the fabric of history on campus through the archives’ extensive collection of photographs. Some images are clearly identifiable as documenting a particular time and place, but others are shrouded in mystery. Twenty years ago, SCUA began a project to digitize university photographs, which involved scanning nearly 12,000 images. Unfortunately, many lacked descriptions, but several years ago, archivists began working to provide updated captions and dates for the photographs. They have now gone through a few thousand of these images, and the work continues. 

For some images, identifying information has been hard to come by—for example, this photo, which shows what appears to be a group of people wrestling a hot air balloon to the ground. It is estimated to be from the mid- to late 1970s, but we don’t know much more than that. 

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