Subject Files
name: label: Collection Creator
content: Ostroff, Elaine
setName: label: See more items in
content: Elaine Ostroff Universal Design Papers
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1965 - 2008
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives Center, National Museum of American History
identifier: label: Identifier
content: NMAH.AC.1356, Series 2
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: This series contains files maintained by Ostroff during the course of her career.  Many of the materials relate to her teaching at the Massachusetts College of Art, where she developed the Arts and Human Services, a multidisciplinary graduate program that emphasized the role of designers and artists in creating community based projects for people with disabilities; and an earlier graduate program, "Planning for Play" at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Both projects were funded by the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health through the Western Massachusetts Training Consortium to develop leadership that would support deinstitutionalization.  The files contain research notes and papers from students, syllabi, course evaluations, fliers for public programs and performances, teacher workshop materials, agenda and exercises, correspondence, photographs, notes, brochures, university forms, and materials created by others, especially by Ostroff's students, such as course papers. 

Ostroff taught many courses through the Arts and Human Services Project, a Manpower Training Program within the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health. Beginning in 1974, the program focused on preparing artists and special educators for leadership roles in education and developing new services for children with severe disabilities and their families. Several programs were developed: Play Laboratories, Resource Centers, After-School Programs, Family Internships, Family Festivals, the Creative Learning Laboratory, and the Creative Play Center. The materials are arranged alphabetically.