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Vera Beaudin Saeedpour Kurdish Library & Museum collection

 Collection
Identifier: BUSC-2011-003

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

  • 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

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