A member of of QTV fraternity, Charles Meade Boardman graduated from the Massachusetts Agricultural College in 1920 with a degree in landscape gardening.
Boardman’s Papers include two of his college yearbooks, a smattering of correspondence from the 1920s relating to landscape gardening, and approximately 30 photographs, apparently taken during or shortly after his time at MAC.
After receiving a doctorate from the University of London in 1962, Geoffrey Boothroyd was invited to join the faculty in Mechanical Engineering at UMass in 1967. An expert in automated assembly, mechanization, and automation, Boothroyd quickly became a leading figure in manufacturing engineering at the University. Active in a variety of professional organizations, he was author of dozens of articles and two textbooks.
The Boothroyd collection consists almost exclusively of two of his major publications from the late 1970s: Feeding and Orienting Techniques for Small Parts and Design for Assembly.
Enlisting for military service during the First World War, Frank Boyden Kelton began basic training in Jacksonville, Fla., in December 1917, and arrived in France as part of the American Expeditionary Forces by May 1918. Assigned to duty with the motor transport service in spare parts depots, he served in France through the late winter 1919.
The Boyden Papers contain 21 letters from Frank Kelton to his aunt in Holden, Mass., Susan Eliza “Lila” Boyden, along with five letters from other servicemen or their spouses. Despite some self-censorship and a stated desire not to emphasize the hardships he endured, Kelton’s letters provide a sense of service in one of the support units for the AEF. The single letter from family friend Ben D’Ewart briefly recaps his activities in the 110 Mortar Battery of Coast Artillery Corps during the battles of St. Mihiel and the Argonne Forrest.
The firm of Brackett and Shuff manufactured moldings, doors, and sashes in Lowell, Massachusetts, during the 1840s.
This slender ledger includes sparse accounts (fewer than 30p.) of millwork done by Brackett and Shuff, documenting the manufacture of moldings, doors, and sashes. Crudely kept and only partly filled out, it includes some records of setting up machinery, including tempering plane irons and truing shoulder saws.
Access restrictions: Temporarily stored offsite; contact SCUA in advance to request materials from this collection.
Sigrid Brauner was born in Hofheim, Germany, earning her BA from the University of Frankfurt before immigrating to the United States. Brauner completed her PhD in German literature at the University of California Berkeley in 1989 and later the same year joined the faculty at UMass Amherst in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literature. Brauner, who served on the executive committee of the Women’s Studies Program, remained at UMass until her death in December 1992.
The papers reflect Sigrid Brauner’s interest in race and gender as well as her research in anthropology and theology. “Witches: Myth and Reality,” the popular course Brauner taught during the fall 1992 semester, is represented in the collection along with other notes for research and teaching. Professional correspondence as well as political and social change periodicals comprise the remainder of the Brauner Papers. A fair portion of the collection is in German.
Born in Germany in 1923, Gerard Braunthal was a scholar of German politics and taught as a professor in the Political Science department from 1954. Before receiving his B.A. from Queens College in 1947, Braunthal served in intelligence during World War II, going on to receive his M.A. from the University of Michigan in 1948 and Ph.D from Columbia University in 1953. While studying at Columbia, Braunthal worked as an interviewer for US Air Force intelligence. An expert on the German Social Democratic party (SPD), Braunthal published extensively on modern German politics. His work on the subject was well regarded in Germany as well as the United States. In parallel to his academic research, Braunthal was also an anti-war and anti-nuclear activist, serving on the executive committees of both the Valley Peace Center and the Citizens for Participation in Political Action (CPPAX). Braunthal received the Order of Merit from the German government.
The collection includes Braunthal’s correspondence, article manuscripts and research materials, as well as pamphlets, form-letters, and broadsides relating to anti-Vietnam war activism, interspersed with a small amount of personal correspondence from his own antiwar activities. Among his research materials is a collection of interview transcripts with members of the Federation of German Industry (BDI). There is also a significant collection of documents from his involvement with local activist groups, which includes minutes, form-letters, reports, conference proceedings, and leaflets.
Settled in 1660 and incorporated in 1718, the town of Brookfield (Worcester County) straddles the Boston Post Road, one of the major arteries during the colonial period connecting Boston with the towns of the Connecticut River Valley and New York.
This assemblage of documents from the town of Brookfield consists primarily of warrants for town meetings, many with agendas, issued through the local constable. Concentrated in the 1770s, these warrants provide relatively detailed information on matters of local importance, including town finances, tax assessments, contributions to the poor house, roadways, and property disputes. During the Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary years, however, issues of interest to the town were often wrapped up in regional or national political issues. Town freeholders, for example, were called to consider requests to “come into any Vote or Resolve Respecting the East India Company Tea,” the encouragement of manufacture of firearms, smallpox inoculation, and pay for the town’s Minute Men.
Before his graduate work at Amherst College and Harvard University, Alfred Brown received both his bachelor’s (1931) and master’s (1933) degrees from Massachusetts State College in animal husbandry and agricultural economics. In 1935, he returned to his alma mater as assistant research professor in Agricultural Economics, earning promotion to full professor in 1948, with a focus on Marketing and Transportation. During World War II, Brown served as a transportation economist with the War Food Administration and as a consultant for the Office of Defense Transportation. Although Brown retired from teaching in 1972, he continued to work as a consultant for the United States Department of Transportation in Africa until his death in 2000.
The Brown Papers include published and unpublished transportation writings, correspondence, biographical and personal notes as well as notes for research and teaching, newsclippings, motion picture films, and slides. Also included among the papers are files related to Brown’s university service, including the Alumni War Memorial Fund, the University Centennial Committee, and the Alpha Chapter of Phi Sigma Kappa.
A local historian from Bethany, Connecticut, Alice Bice Bunton (1924-2000) was a long-time member of the Association for Gravestone Studies. Author of a book on the historic houses of Bethany in 1972, she attended AGS conferences regularly beginning in the late 1970s. Bunton died on October 18, 2000, at the age of 75.
Many of Bunton’s photographs documenting cemeteries in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Jersey were taken during tours associated with the AGS annual conferences. Also included in the collection are AGS conference brochures and other printed material, newspaper clippings, grave rubbings, and a small amount of correspondence.
Born in 1908 to Louis and Sarah Kessel Burgett, Katherine grew up on the family farm outside of Oquawka, Illinois. In 1924 her parents purchased their own farm in Monmouth, which they later lost due to the devastating impact of the Depression on agriculture, and it was there that she first met her future husband, Kenneth Monroe Irey, a student at Monmouth College. The newlyweds moved to New Jersey in 1931 where Kenneth was transferred for work. As a chemical engineer, Kenneth enjoyed a successful career and comfortably supported his wife and two children. Retiring in 1970, he and Katherine spent their later years pursuing two passions: traveling and bird-watching. Kenneth and Katherine’s eldest daughter, June Irey Guild, spent most of her adult life in Massachusetts where she has married twice, raised six children, and operated her own business. During her retirement years, June focused on preserving her family’s history by collecting letters and recoding family narratives.
The Burgett-Irey Family Papers chronicle the changes that many twentieth-century American families experienced as the nation descended into an economic depression, entered into a world war, and emerged as one of the most powerful countries in the world. The collection, which will continue to grow, includes approximately 65 letters between Katherine Burgett Irey and her family. Most of the letters exchange family updates, particularly precious after Katherine relocated to New Jersey. Among the earliest letters is an account of Katherine and Kenneth’s first meeting described as “fast work,” since he asked her out on the spot. Also included are autobiographical writings by Kenneth describing his cross-country trip to California in 1927 and a brief history of his life and career.
