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Courier-Express Newspaper Collections [1926-1982]
The Courier-Express newspaper was born in 1926, with the merger of the Buffalo Courier and the Buffalo Express to form the Buffalo Courier-Express. William J. Conners, owner of the Buffalo Courier, was the person instrumental in bringing the two papers together. During the 19th century numerous newspapers existed. The Buffalo Courier-Express merger can trace its roots back to 1828. From 1828 to 1926, twelve separate newspapers merged during those years, ending with the formation of the Buffalo Courier-Express; quite a chronology for the history of this newspaper.
The Courier and then the Courier-Express took a liberal position on all issues. In the late 1970s, the Courier-Express was sold to Cowles-Media, an out of state publisher. Cowles Media decided to close the paper in 1982. The September 19, 1982 issue was the last one for this very popular Buffalo newspaper. Cowles Media donated the library to the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society and Buffalo State College.
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Dr. Fraser Drew - Langston Hughes Correspondence [1950-1967]
Langston Hughes was born on 1 February 1902 in Joplin, Missouri, and died on 22 May 1967. His maternal grandmother raised him in Lawrence, Kansas. According to Hughes, his grandmother inspired him to write, as she was a natural orator of black traditions. After his grandmother’s death, Hughes returned to his mother in Cleveland, Ohio, until he graduated from high school in 1920. In 1921, Hughes enrolled in an engineering program at Columbia University, but left after one year. For a few years, Hughes worked various blue- and white-collar jobs while he spent most of his time writing, as that was his passion. Langston Hughes began to publish numerous poems, and by 1926, he published his first book of poems, The Weary Blues. In 1929, he graduated from Lincoln University with a Bachelor of Arts degree. Conscious of the importance of race relations and politics, Hughes published The Way of White Folks in 1934. The spectrum of Hughes’ writing grew as the years went by. He began to write many politically inspired poems, plays (such as Mulatto and Don’t You Want to Be Free?), and autobiographies. Hughes also wrote books that supported his consciousness of race relations like Jim Crow’s Last Stand and Montage of a Dream Deferred. Writing was Hughes’ main contribution to black history, though he also served as a social activist. He traveled the world, expanding his horizons on black issues and became well-known as a radical democrat. Langston Hughes faced many obstacles during the prime years of his publications as his critics viewed him as being too extreme. He was able to hurdle these obstacles as he persevered. Today, Hughes is remembered as an essential figure in black history. He had the ability of writing the relevant problems within that community at a time when the American public consciously ignored such issues. Langston Hughes devoted his time to writing poems, novels, dramas, and numerous articles.
Fraser Drew had the opportunity to keep in contact with Hughes during the peak of his career. Dr. Drew was a professor of English at SUNY Buffalo State for decades; he retired in 1983. He received his Ph.D. in English Literature from the University at Buffalo in 1952. His interest in African American literature motivated him to follow Langston Hughes’ career closely, and this led him to reach out to Hughes directly. Hughes responded by keeping open communication with Drew for a number of years. The SUNY Buffalo State Archives and Special Collections contains the correspondence between Drew and Hughes.
The Dr. Madeline Davis LGBTQ Archive of Western New York [c. 1920-2015; bulk 1960-2015]
Western New York as a way to collect, safeguard, and provide access to materials that document the LGBTQ+ communities of Western New York and Southern Ontario.
In 2009, the archives were transferred to SUNY Buffalo State’s E. H. Butler Library. Housed in the Archives and Special Collections, the archives have expanded to more than 300 linear feet of items and become the region’s largest LGBTQ+ collection. More than 80 individuals, groups, and diverse organizations are represented in the tens of thousands of documents and items that include photographs, local organizational records, multimedia materials, pamphlets, posters, clippings, awards, signs, banners, plaques, published materials, as well as an array of ephemeral items and other pieces that date back to the 1920s.
Stewards of the collection are thrilled to be able to contribute to global projects such as the “Wearing Gay History Project” and the “Digital Transgender Archives” as well as the “New York Heritage” site and our local digital platforms in order to make the essential historical material available to students, communities, researchers, and other scholars from around the world.
Through generous funding, SUNY Buffalo State is able to hire and teach students on the importance of material of this nature as well as to be able to have their expertise add to descriptive knowledge bases for description and access.
The SUNY Buffalo State Madeline Davis LGBTQ+ Archives is actively soliciting donations of materials and further support. As Madeline Davis herself has said, “Our community has a past, but no history.” The presence and continued growth of the many collections in the Archives help to assure that our shared history will only grow in scope and importance. Any contributions to the collections will help fill in historical gaps, assuring that we have a past, a history, and a future.
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