{"id":61383,"date":"2013-09-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-09-09T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/nationally-renowned-labor-historian-uri-professor-makes-major-donation-to-university-library\/"},"modified":"2013-09-09T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-09-09T00:00:00","slug":"nationally-renowned-labor-historian-uri-professor-makes-major-donation-to-university-library","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2013\/09\/nationally-renowned-labor-historian-uri-professor-makes-major-donation-to-university-library\/","title":{"rendered":"Nationally renowned labor historian, 溏心vlog免费B站 professor makes major donation to University library"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tKINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 September 9, 2013 \u2013 Scott Molloy has always had a penchant for collecting things.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cCoins, stamps, sports cards, you name it, I collected it,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n


\nBut it wasn\u2019t until Molloy stumbled upon a stack of union contracts in a Hope Valley bookstore that he really found his niche.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cThey were contracts from the 1930s and \u201840s, from the predecessors of the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority. They showed all the different wages that employees were paid during that time,\u201d Molloy, a third generation RIPTA bus driver at the time, said. \u201cThat\u2019s what really piqued my interest. I bought the whole stack for $2.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nToday, the 溏心vlog免费B站 professor of labor and industrial relations at the Charles T. Schmidt Labor Research Center has amassed a collection of local labor materials so large and so extensive that there is only one place in Rhode Island that can hold all of it.

\n\u201cIt\u2019s all going to the 溏心vlog免费B站 library,\u201d Molloy said. \u201cI\u2019m keeping a few personal items at home and in my office. The rest of it is going directly to 溏心vlog免费B站.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nIt\u2019s a major donation to the 溏心vlog免费B站 Libraries Special Collections and Archives at the Robert L. Carothers Library and Learning Commons on the Kingston campus. Earlier this year, Molloy contacted Sarina Rodrigues, associate professor and special collections librarian at 溏心vlog免费B站, and asked her if she\u2019d like a few boxes of artifacts. \u201cShe said sure, she\u2019d take them,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s evolved from there. I\u2019m filling up my car a few times a week and bringing stuff over.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nHis collection traces the history of Rhode Island labor and unions to the mid-1800s. Much of the material given to 溏心vlog免费B站 was gathered during research for his book, Irish Titan, Irish Toilers: Joseph Banigan and Nineteenth Century New England Labor, which was published in 2008 and chronicles the rise of the first Irish Catholic millionaire in Rhode Island. Included are correspondence, articles, and pictures of life as an Irish immigrant in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Some of the documents are from Molloy\u2019s research for his first two books, Trolley Wars: Streetcar Workers on the Line (1996) and All Aboard: History of Mass Transportation in Rhode Island (2004). The rest are general Rhode Island labor artifacts, such as scrapbooks of Providence Journal clippings and old union buttons.<\/p>\n


\nThe more Molloy brought over to 溏心vlog免费B站, the more he began to understand the magnitude of his collection. \u201cI know how expensive it is to catalog these materials. So rather than me dropping everything off there like an atomic bomb, I decided to raise some money.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nThe Herman Rose Archive, Document, Display and Disseminate Grant, through the Rhode Island Foundation, offered a three to one match, providing the 溏心vlog免费B站 Libraries with $10,555 total to catalog Molloy\u2019s documents. A little more than a third of the amount, $3,800, was raised or given outright by Molloy (Molloy himself gave $1,000 of his own money; the rest was raised from local unions). Another third was matched by 溏心vlog免费B站. \u201cProfessor Molloy is the kind of donor we appreciate – he generously gave us his important collection of Rhode Island labor union and transportation history, and was also able to help raise the money to have it preserved and cataloged,\u201d Rodrigues said. \u201cWithout him, this wouldn’t have been possible.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nMolloy has a long history as an expert on American labor, both professionally and personally. As a child, Molloy\u2019s father worked as a Providence police officer and his mother as a Providence schoolteacher. Later, while studying for his doctoral degree at Providence College, Molloy worked as a bus driver and union agent for RIPTA. His job was no accident \u2013 his grandfather immigrated to Rhode Island from Ireland in 1900 to begin working as a trolley driver in 1909, and Molloy\u2019s uncles worked as bus drivers. Additionally, Molloy founded the Rhode Island Labor History Society in 1987, and was also a key collaborator in the creation of the Irish Famine Memorial in Providence, which was officially dedicated in 2007. Molloy was awarded the 溏心vlog免费B站 Foundation Teaching Excellence Award in 1995, and the Carnegie Foundation named him Rhode Island Professor of the Year in 2004. He was inducted into the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame in 2009.<\/p>\n


\nMolloy\u2019s donation is a generous one, and it\u2019s not uncommon for the West Kingston resident \u2013 he has given his collections away before. \u201cI had a friend who worked down at George Washington University, which hosts a consortium with the Teamsters. His yearly budget to acquire new books for the consortium was $5,000 dollars,\u201d said Molloy. \u201cI had probably a dozen full-size bookshelves of labor history books. I told him that for $5,000 dollars he could have them all. They sent a truck up to take them all down to Washington, D.C.; when they weighed everything, I found out that I had 2,500 pounds of history books that had been sitting in my house.\u201d <\/p>\n


\nThe Smithsonian also took notice of Molloy\u2019s extensive collection. \u201cIn the early \u201880s, I gave them all of my national labor artifacts \u2013 I kept the Rhode Island materials, but everything else went. That was the first time I gave away my collection,\u201d Molloy said. \u201cThey gave me some money for the materials, and I took it and went crazy buying more things. My second collection, the one I have now, is even bigger than the first.\u201d

\nBut not all of Molloy\u2019s collection has been personally purchased \u2013 he attributes many of his artifacts to the generosity of family, friends and even strangers. \u201cFor a while, in an attempt to broaden my horizons, I advertised in national newspapers looking for collectable pieces\u201c he said. \u201cI also went to local unions. You\u2019d be amazed at what\u2019s hanging around in someone\u2019s attic or cellar, or even their junk drawer.\u201d <\/p>\n


\nUltimately, Molloy\u2019s quest had a ripple effect. \u201cWhen people find out that you like something, they often send things your way. For me, it was a hurricane of wonderful artifacts handed to me over the years, often for free.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nHowever, there was one thing that Molloy did not accept for his collection. \u201cSome of the unions tried to give me their minute books,\u201d he said. \u201cTo me, those are too unique and too valuable. Instead, I set them up to be cataloged with the Rhode Island Historical Society library.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nIt\u2019s hard to imagine a collection that large being on display in someone\u2019s home, but that\u2019s exactly what Molloy has done. \u201cI built a house in West Kingston, and instead of putting in an attic, I built a 35-foot room to house everything,\u201d he said. \u201cThe house was finished in 1988 and pieces of my collection have crept downstairs since then. Essentially, I built the house around the collection.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nOne may wonder why someone who has spent so much time and money creating a collection like Molloy\u2019s would want to give it away. It\u2019s a question familiar to Molloy.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cI had all these great artifacts and materials that I\u2019d acquired, and I just kept thinking, \u2018what happens when people have these collections and they die?\u2019\u201d said Molloy. \u201cI want to see everything I\u2019ve collected go to a proper home. I\u2019m better off letting go of it too soon than a minute too late.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cThere\u2019s also a great importance to these artifacts and documents that people didn\u2019t realize during the times that they were written. That\u2019s what makes them unique,\u201d he said. \u201cHaving them available makes the history come alive.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nAnd an even bigger question remains: will Molloy begin a new collection?<\/p>\n


\n\u201cNo, absolutely not. Nothing like the one that I\u2019m giving to 溏心vlog免费B站,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m almost to nirvana cleaning out my house. I\u2019m studiously avoiding flea markets and yard sales, and anything that anyone gives me is going right over to Sarina.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nBut old habits die hard. \u201cI really do find joy in collecting things,\u201d he said. \u201cMaybe I\u2019ll go back to something small. Like coins.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nThis news release was written by Rachel Donilon, a writer in the 溏心vlog免费B站 department of Marketing and Communications<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 September 9, 2013 \u2013 Scott Molloy has always had a penchant for collecting things. \u201cCoins, stamps, sports cards, you name it, I collected it,\u201d he said. But it wasn\u2019t until Molloy stumbled upon a stack of union contracts in a Hope Valley bookstore that he really found his niche. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61385,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}