Collections

Center for Global Migration Studies (Formerly The Center for the History of the New America)

Established in 2011, the Center for Global Migration Studies is an interdisciplinary home for the study of migration and immigration around the world both today and in the past. Previously the Center for the History of the New America, the Center's name was changed in 2016 to reflect its increasing emphasis on peoples moving around the globe. The Center provides a distinctive institutional home for interdisciplinary research, for training faculty and students, and for distributing information about the migrant experience to a broad public. Inspired by the legal and demographic changes since 1965 that have made the United States an immigrant society once again, CHNA demonstrates that expanding scholarly and popular understanding of the nation's immigrant past is critical to better comprehending the contemporary immigrant experience and America's future as a nation of nations. By exploring conditions in immigrants' countries of origin as well as their American experiences, the Center contributes mightily to globalizing understanding of the history of the United States. The CHNA has held major conferences on topics ranging from birthright citizenship to public health, disease and migration; it is currently conducting a digital humanities project in collaboration with MITH and funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities on Afro-Caribbean migration across the Americas. It is also partnering with the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History to assess the teaching of immigration and migration history in K-12 schools across the United States. Upcoming projects include an international summit on global labor migration; a conference on the African diaspora in the Americas in collaboration with the Smithsonian's Museum of African American History, and further development of the Archive of Immigrant Voices which captures and preserves immigrants' stories of migration, dislocation, and community formation.

The George Meany Memorial AFL-CIO Archive
Comprising 40 million documents contained in 20,000 boxes, the archive takes up six miles of shelf space and is one of the preeminent research collections for the study of labor history. The documents in the archive range from minutes of local union meetings, reports of international conventions, personal letters to dissident newspapers, strike broadsides, fledgling union charters and photographs. The AFL-CIO archive complements other labor collections at the University of Maryland. Particular collection strengths in addition to the AFL-CIO include, but are not limited to, the Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America; the Bakery Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers; the Cigar Makers International Union; and the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America.

The David C. Driskell Center for the Study of Visual Art and Culture of African Americans and The African Diaspora

The Driskell Center honors the legacy of David C. Driskell—Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Art, Artist, Art Historian, Collector, and Curator—by preserving the rich heritage of African American visual art and culture. Established in 2001, the Center provides an intellectual home for artists, museum professionals, art administrators, and scholars who are interested in broadening the field of African Diasporic studies.  Among the resources of the Driskell Center are the one-of-a-kind Art Collection, comprised of 1,500 art objects, and Archives, which include the David C. Driskell Papers, a collection of 50,000 objects assembled by Professor David C. Driskell during six decades of scholarly research. As a whole, these materials chronicle the development and understanding of the study of African American visual culture. The David C. Driskell Archives, especially the David C. Driskell Papers, hold unique documents on a number of artists whose work focused on, were part of, or were interested in labor and/or the Great Migration, and a study of their correspondence reveals their intentions, networks, and outcomes. Both the Art Collection and Archives have received recognition as important resources and have been inventoried and cataloged through support from such organizations as the National Endowment for the Arts (2009-2001); the Institute of Museum and Library Services (2011-2013); and the Mellon Foundation through the Council on Library and Information Resources [CLIR], (2013-2015).