Mohegan Colony Association Collection/Mohegan Colony Records, 1923-1949

The Mohegan Colony Association Collection consists of 7 cubic feet of material covering the period 1923 to 2005, with the bulk of the collection dating from 1960 to 1997. The collection is divided into two subgroups: The Mohegan Colony Records and the Mohegan Colony Association Records, reflecting the change in the organization's politics and mission and marked by a new incorporation and revised constitution in 1952.

Mohegan Colony Records

The Mohegan Colony Records date from 1923 to 1949 and document the founding of the community and its commitment to anarchist principles and progressive education. The records of the Mohegan Colony consist of eight series documenting colony administration and governance over membership, finances, and property. These records primarily consist of correspondence, minutes, budgets, and publications. Within the financial series, records consist of one folder and an oversize financial ledger (1928-1949) stored separately, which documents expenditures and individual membership fees. A particularly substantial source of information is the publication series, which includes several issues of a literary magazine produced by the Mohegan Modern School students and bound pamphlets explaining the educational principles of the school. Other formats included within these records are photographs and bound publications. The photograph series primarily includes portraits of various colony members, though some views of Mohegan Colony property are included. Thirty Soviet children's books are also included within these records. These publications sample a variety of genres, including works of fiction and nonfiction "production books"(1) on different topics ranging from mathematics to manufacturing. Written in Russian, these books reflect the increasing size of the Communist population settled in Mohegan.

Mohegan Colony Association Records

The Mohegan Colony Association Records range from 1950 to 2005, with the bulk of material dating from 1960 to 1997. These records document the activities of the association after it was incorporated as a new organization managed largely as a homeowner's association. These records relate to issues of property ownership and maintenance, cultural activities, community relations, and local environmental and civic concerns. Consisting of 18 series, a bulk of material consists of minutes and agendas of the association board of trustees, committee reports and minutes, budgets and audits, and legal documents and correspondence mostly related to property maintenance and membership fees. The collection contains incomplete runs of five newsletters produced by the association from 1975 to 2002, with a partially complete run of the Mohegan Colony Newsletter (1976-1982). Smaller series document programs, projects, and events sponsored by the Mohegan Colony Association; these include correspondence, proposals, and reports related to the development of the Mohegan Lake Improvement District and two unsuccessful attempts at forming a Park District. Other series relate to community outreach, event files documents anniversaries, reunions, and cultural events sponsored by the association and scholarship files documents the distribution of two scholarships by the association to area secondary schools.

This subgroup also contains the subject files of the Mohegan Colony Association, consisting of correspondence, reports, memorandum, and publications, related to individuals, programs, and committees of the association.

Materials in other formats included in this subgroup range from photographs to audio tapes. Some photographs of the Martha Guinsberg Pavilion have been removed from the subject files and are included within the photographs series. An additional album containing over 200 prints from 1984 to 1985 is also included in this series. Other materials include a plaque, an audio tape recording with transcript of a dinner given in honor of Walter Schwartz, and the colony stamp.

This collection also includes over 30 maps of various sizes detailing roads and property of Mohegan Colony and the surrounding area. The bulk of these maps date from 1930 and 1949, and the most recent map dates from 2005.

All oversize material has been stored separately and is noted in series descriptions.

(1) Julia L. Mickenberg,Learning From the Left: Children's Literature, the Cold War, and Radical Politics in the United States(Oxford, 2006), p.62