The University of Massachusetts Amherst
Robert S. Cox Special Collections & University Archives Research Center
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Archive

Grandison, Kathleen

Kathleen Grandison Papers

1977-ca. 2001
3 boxes 1 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1224

Dr. Kathleen Grandison, a family practitioner and pregnancy/birthing specialist with an interest
in homeopathy, was part of the first class of Kansas University School of Medicine at Wichita (1975) and
completed her residency in family medicine in Fort Worth, Texas. She joined the Sufi community near Unadilla, New York in the late 1970s and opened her family practice at the Light of Life Health Center there in January 1980. The Abode of New Life Birthing Room opened above the family practice with Grandison as its director and a goal of providing a safe alternative to hospital births. Along with other alternative-birth/parenting advocates including Murshida Vera Corda, Tom and Gail Brewer, and Angela Colclough, Grandison organized and spoke at the 1980 symposium Birth: The Transformation of Being. Grandison went on to continue her family practice in Western Massachusetts. With a consideration for spiritual health as well as physical, Grandison is also a certified Raphaelite Work practitioner.

Includes documentation of Grandison’s talks on and practices in pregnancy, birth, parenting, and spiritual health; lecture slides and class descriptions; publications detailing Grandison’s time at Kansas University Wichita; personal correspondence with Ina May-Gaskin (prominent American midwife, The Farm, Tennessee); documentation of the Abode of the New Life Birthing Center and Light of life Health Center; an autobiography excerpt; 57 cassette tapes of lectures from Birth: The Transformation of Being.

Gift of Kathleen Grandison, 2024.

Subjects

Birthing centersChildbirthPregnancy
Halley, Anne

Anne Halley Papers

1886-2004
13 boxes 10 linear feet
Call no.: MS 628

Writer, editor, and educator, Anne Halley was born in Bremerhaven, Germany in 1928. A child during the Holocaust, she relocated with her family to Olean, New York during the late 1930s so that her father, who was Jewish, could resume his practice of medicine. Graduating from Wellesley and the University of Minnesota, Halley married a fellow writer and educator, Jules Chametzky, in 1958. Together they raised three sons in Amherst, Massachusetts where Chametzky was a professor of English at UMass and Halley taught and wrote. It was during the late 1960s through the 1970s that she produced the first two of her three published collections of poetry. The last was published in 2003 the year before she died from complications of multiple myeloma at the age of 75.

Drafts of published and unpublished short stories and poems comprise the bulk of this collection. Letters to and from Halley, in particular those that depict her education at Wellesley and her professional life during the 1960s-1980s, make up another significant portion of her papers. Publisher’s correspondence and a draft of Halley’s afterward document the Chametzkys effort to release a new edition of Mary Doyle Curran’s book, The Parish and the Hill, for which Halley and Chametzky oversaw the literary rights. Photographs of Halley’s childhood in Germany and New York as well as later photographs that illustrate the growth of her own family in Minnesota and Massachusetts offer a visual representation of her remarkable professional and pesonal life.

Subjects

Curran, Mary Doyle, 1917-1981Jews--Germany--History--1933-1945Poets, American--20th centuryWomen authors, AmericanWomen poets, AmericanWorld War, 1939-1945

Contributors

Chametzky, JulesHalley, Anne
Halpern, Carl

Carl Halpern Papers

1920-1986
2 boxes 1 linear feet
Call no.: MS 783
Depiction of Carl Halpern and family
Carl Halpern and family

Born in 1902, Carl Halpern grew up in the Bronx where he attended elementary school. Upon leaving school, he took several jobs, including shoe salesman and accounting clerk, before he was hired as an errand boy in 1917 at the Electro-Chemical Engraving Company. Halpern stayed with the company for more than 40 years, retiring as an Executive Vice President.

The collection consists chiefly of materials relating to Halpern’s tenure at Electro-Chemical Engraving Company, including company reports and inter-company memos, advertisements for products, and other materials related to the business. Of singular importance is Halpern’s memoir, which intertwines his personal history with that of the company during the nearly five decades he was associated with the business.

Subjects

Bronx (New York, N.Y.)Electro-Chemical Engraving CompanyGenealogy

Contributors

Halpern, CarlHalpern, Joel Martin

Types of material

Memoirs
Hamilton, Phyllis

Phyllis Hamilton Sketch Collection

1970-1989
1 box 2 linear feet
Call no.: MS 752
Depiction of Phyllis Hamilton, Brotherhood of the Spirit, 1971
Phyllis Hamilton, Brotherhood of the Spirit, 1971

Phyllis Hamilton was a recently divorced mother of a young daughter when she joined the Brotherhood of the Spirit in 1970. Encouraged to visit the commune by two young friends, Phyllis was attracted to the spiritual values of the group and relocated herself and her daughter from Worcester to Heath, making her at the age of 40 one of the oldest members of the community. She quickly used her more mature demeanor and appearance to the group’s advantage. In an area where realtors were increasingly reluctant to work with “hippies,” Phyllis was able to negotiate and purchase the Warwick property with the assistance of another member; together they signed the deed over to the Brotherhood after the sale was final. Her age was not her only distinction, however, she was also an artist, and used her artistic capabilities to capture the familiar faces of her fellow commune members.

The collection consists of 146 sketches of members of the Brotherhood of the Spirit (renamed the Renaissance Community in 1974) from 1970-1989. About half of the drawings were identified by the artist’s daughter, the others are of unidentified individuals.

Subjects

Brotherhood of the Spirit (Commune)Communal living--Massachusetts

Contributors

Hamilton, Phyllis

Types of material

Sketches
Hammond, Tim

Tim Hammond Genital Autonomy Advocacy Collection

1971-2023
5 boxes 8 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1205

Tim Hammond’s pioneering contributions to the genital autonomy movement began in 1989 with the co-founding of the National Organization of Restoring Men and includes founding NOHARMM, producing “Whose Body, Whose Rights?”, publishing two large scale circumcision harm documentation surveys and a survey of 1,800 foreskin restorers, webmaster for the Global Survey of Circumcision Harm, co-founding the Children’s Health & Human Rights Partnership/Canada. Hammond is an Honorary Member of the Brussels Collaboration on Bodily Integrity and is honored to be the first Board president of the Genital Autonomy Legal Defense and Education Fund.

Vast collection of materials documenting the movement for genital autonomy including published works, interviews, photographs, videos, banners, shirts, and organizational records from American Academy of Pediatrics, Children’s Health & Human Rights Partnership, Amnesty International, Attorneys for the Rights of the Child, Bloodstained Men, and International Council on Genital Autonomy among others. For materials in the collection that are available online, URLs are provided within the finding aid. Many other items are available electronically and can be requested by contacting the department at scua@library.umass.edu or Tim Hammond at circharmsurvey@gmail.com.

Gift of Tim Hammond, 2023.

Subjects

CircumcisionGenital autonomy
Hawks, Alice Totman

Alice Totman Hawks Collection

1934-1978
4 boxes 5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 731
Depiction of

Born on January 29, 1908 in Conway, Massachusetts, Alice Totman spent her early years on her father’s family farm, Page Place, before he was forced to sell it due to a labor scarcity in 1916 and moved the family to Greenfield. She graduated from Greenfield High School in 1927 and enrolled at Massachusetts School of Art in Boston. She studied there for a year and a half before marrying Hart Mowry Hawks on June 16, 1929. The couple settled in Bellows Fall, Vermont where Mowry was recently assigned a permanent post with the Boston and Maine Railroad. Tragically, over the next fifteen years, Alice experienced seven pregnancies, only one of which resulted in a healthy child, Gertrude Ann, born in 1932. Alice’s interest in her family can be traced back to the earliest days of her marriage, during which time she worked on genealogies for both the Totman and Hawks families. Eager to share the knowledge she acquired and assembled, she often found ways to update her relatives, most notably in a family newsletter called Tot-Kin that she edited and published between the years 1935-1945.

Alice Totman Hawks’s collection consists of her extensive genealogical notes and writings, including a run of Tot-Kin, correspondence and some of Alice’s sketches.

Subjects

Hawks familyMassachusetts--GenealogyTotman family

Contributors

Hawks, Alice Totman

Types of material

GenealogiesLetters (Correspondence)
Hill, David W.

David W. Hill Diaries

1864-1885
1 box 0.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 496

A native of Swanzey, N.H., David W. Hill became a brass finisher in the years following his military service during the Civil War, working as a machinist for several concerns in Cambridgeport, Mass., New York City, NY, Newport, R.I., and Haydenville, Mass., through the mid-1880s.

The 13 pocket diaries in the Hill collection contain regular entries describing the weather, Hill’s work as a brass finisher, his travels, the state of his health, and miscellaneous mundane observations on his daily life.

Acquired from Peter Masi, Mar. 2005.

Subjects

Brass industry and trade--MassachusettsCambridge (Mass.)--History--19th centuryHaydenville (Mass.)--History--19th century

Types of material

Diaries
Holt, Margaret

Margaret Holt Collection

1983-1991
10 boxes 15 linear feet
Call no.: MS 450

A peace activist since the 1960s, Margaret Goddard Holt not only demonstrated against war, she led efforts to educate others about the effects of war. A member of the Gray Panthers of the Pioneer Valley and a co-founder along with her husband, Lee Holt, of the Amherst Vigil for a Nuclear Free World, she was sent as a delegate to Rome, Italy to visit Pope John XXIII advocating for a world without war. In addition to her dedication to peace and nuclear disarmament, Holt’s concern for prisoners developed into an involvement in prison-related issues.

The Holt collection of publications, brochures, news clippings, and correspondence reveals her interests and documents her role as a community activist during the 1980s.

Subjects

Activists--MassachusettsPacifists--MassachusettsPeace movements--Massachusetts

Contributors

Holt, Margaret
Howes, Jeanne C., 1916-

Jeanne Howes Papers

1967-2006
2 boxes 0.75 linear feet
Call no.: MS 471

Independent Melville scholar, Jeanne Howes proved that Herman Melville’s first book, Redburn, or, The Schoolmaster of Morning, was published anonymously in 1844. This collection contains her published articles and book about Melville, as well as a self-published work about Nathan and Seth Howes who were credited with creating the first American tented circus.

Also a poet, her papers include letters from Robert Francis, with whom she carried on a regular correspondence for nearly a decade, as well as unpublished typescripts of her own poems.

Subjects

Poetry

Contributors

Francis, Robert, 1901-1987Howes, Jeanne C., 1916-
Huntington, Catharine Sargent

Catharine Sargent Huntington Papers

1847-2003 Bulk: 1890-1984
29 boxes 15 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1164

Actress, producer/director, theater company founder, teacher, activist, avid gardener, and devoted family-member, colleague and friend, Catharine Sargent Huntington was born in Ashfield, Massachusetts on December 29, 1887. She attended Radcliffe College, graduating in 1911, and taught English and Theater at The Westover School in Middlebury, Connecticut from 1911 to approximately 1917. By the end of 1918 she had begun her theater career in earnest, working as a dramatic coach in the Boston area. In January 1919, she became the Radcliffe College representative to the Wellesley unit of the Y.M.C.A., working in France on war reconstruction before returning to Massachusetts to continue her work with the theater, particularly experimental theater, which was to endure for the next 60-plus years through her patronage, and her many performances, productions, and theater companies.

Spanning as it does almost a century from the late 1800s to the late 1900s, this collection captures Catharine Sargent Huntington’s many interests, professional and personal activities and connections, and close family relationships, through more than 2,300 pieces of personal and business correspondence; photographs; photographic negatives; theater programs; scripts; original manuscripts of her poems, speeches, stage notes, and theater production scenarios; newspapers and newspaper clippings; estate and will information; organizational documents of the many organizations she helped direct; personal financial documents; and other printed material and items of ephemera.

Gift of Porter-Phelps-Huntington Foundation, Inc., December 2021.

Subjects

Huntington family

Contributors

Huntington, Catharine Sargent, 1887-1987

Types of material

Photographs