Vera Beaudin Saeedpour Kurdish Library & Museum collection
Abstract
Vera Beaudin Saeedpour started the Kurdish Heritage Foundation, Kurdish Library and Kurdish Museum all out of her home in Brooklyn, NY in the early 1980s. The Vera Beaudin Saeedpour Kurdish Library and Museum Collection was donated to Binghamton University Libraries in February 2011. The evolution of the library/museum is evident through her correspondences with politicians, universities, Kurdish friends, writers, and people of all different backgrounds. The collection contains more than 3,000 books, journals and newspapers in Kurdish and other languages. The collection also holds artifacts, costumes, maps, photographs, artwork and other unique materials. Items include a nineteenth-century traveler's account of Kurdistan, nineteenth-century maps, jewelry including necklaces, headpieces, bracelets, and belts, musical instruments and recorded music, as well as weavings, crafts, carpets and other textile art. Saeedpour also established numerous events to celebrate different aspects of the Kurdish culture. Photographs and records from these events can be found throughout the collection.
See the Container List for a detailed inventory of the manuscripts in the collection. Please email speccoll@binghamton.edu with questions about the artifacts or other materials not included in the container list.
Dates
- Creation: 1977 - 2010
Biographical Note
Dr. Vera Beaudin Saeedpour was born in 1930 to a Jewish family in Barre, Vermont. At the age of 18, her mother pushed her to marry a French-Canadian Catholic man named Marcel Beaudin, with whom she had 5 children and a relationship that lasted 27 years, when they eventually decided to divorce. At the age of 44, while working on her dissertation, she met a 26 year-old Iranian Kurd, Homayoun Saeedpour, whom she married in 1976. The marriage could only survive for 5 years, as Homayoun’s unfortunate battle with leukemia ended with his death in 1981.
Dr. Beaudin Saeedpur earned a Master’s Degree in Philosophy from the University of Vermont in 1973 and a doctorate in Education from Columbia University. She opened the Kurdish Heritage Foundation of America with the Kurdish Library in 1986 in her Brooklyn brownstone townhouse. She initiated the Kurdish Program under Cultural Survival, a nonprofit organization based in Cambridge, Massachusetts which is dedicated to defending the rights of indigenous people. Her scholarly publications, The International Journal of Kurdish Studies and Kurdish Life are part of the collections of leading university libraries. Dr. Beaudin Saeedpour’s inspiration to learn and educate others about the plight of the Kurdish people survived long after Homayoun’s death, until her own in May 2010.
Extent
205 Linear Feet
Language of Materials
English
Turkish
Kurdish
French
German
Arabic
Arrangement
The collection was organized and described by Aynur de Rouen, a Digitization Specialist, and Zachary Wallenstein, an Undergraduate Assistant in the Department of Digital Library Initiatives.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Donated by the Kurdish Heritage Foundation, February 2011.
Source
- Saeedpour, Vera Beaudin, 1930-2010 (Person)
Genre / Form
- Agendas (administrative records)
- Art
- Articles
- Artifacts (object genre)
- Audiocassettes (audiotapes)
- Carpets (textiles)
- Certificates (documents)
- Clippings (information artifacts)
- Clothing and dress
- Crafts (art genres)
- Headgear (accessories)
- Jewelry (accessories)
- Maps
- Newsletters
- Newspapers
- Pamphlets
- Periodicals
- Photographs
- Postcards
- Prayer beads (religious visual works)
- Reports
- Scarves (costume accessories)
- Shoes (footwear)
- Slides (photographs)
Geographic
Topical
- Title
- Guide to the Vera Beaudin Saeedpour Kurdish Library & Museum collection
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Repository Details
Part of the Binghamton University Libraries Special Collections Repository