Archive

Stephen Baery Oates was born on January 5, 1936, in Pampa Texas, and earned a B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. He was a member of the UMass Amherst History Department from 1968 to 1997, when he retired. He authored consequential, award-winning biographies of major 19^th and 20^th century figures among his seventeen books on American history. As Paul Murray Kendall Professor of Biography, Dr. Oates held one of the first academic chairs in biography in the country. His many awards and honors include a Guggenheim Fellow, Christopher Award, Barondess/Lincoln Award, and a Distinguished Teaching Award from UMass among many others. Dr. Oates was a popular guest lecturer at colleges, universities, societies, and associations throughout the country, and made numerous appearances on radio and television, most notable in Ken Burns’ epic PBS documentary The Civil War. He consulted on projects for various commercial and university presses, as well as for the National Endowment for the Humanities. Dr. Oates was a member of the Society of American Historians, American Antiquarian Society, and Phi Beta Kappa. He died on August 20, 2021.

The papers of Stephen B. Oates document his career as a biographer and faculty member at UMass Amherst. Materials include research notes, correspondence, articles, drafts and proofs of publications, lectures and address, fellowship and grant applications, book reviews, teaching and course notes, awards and photographs.

Owned by Swift River Coop Corp., Our Daily Bread Food Coop, located in Orange, Massachusetts, supplied food to more than 200 households in the Orange-Athol area. This small collections consists entirely of correspondence and the group’s newsletters.

Founded in Chicopee, Massachusetts in 1949 under another name, Our Hideaway was the oldest women’s bar on the east coast, offering the local lesbian community a safe haven in which to socialize for fifty continuous years. Before the bar was forced to close after losing its lease in 1999, it was home to a diverse community of women from those known as “old timers,” comprised of women patronizing the bar for upwards of 25 years, to college students new to the area.

As part of a project to research the lesbian bar as a social institution, Smith College student Heather Rothenberg conducted interviews of the women who frequented Our Hideaway. During the course of her research an unexpected announcement was made: the bar was closing. As a result, Rothenberg’s efforts to document Our Hideaway extended far beyond her original intent, and she was able to capture the final days of the bar as both a physical place as well as a community of women assembled over five decades. The collection consists of interview transcripts, emails, photographs and Rothenberg’s written reports. Transcripts of the interviews were modified to protect the privacy of the women interviewed; the original transcripts are restricted.

Named for Joseph Hawley, a local leader in the American Revolution, the town of Hawley was first settled in 1760 by residents of Hatfield, Massachusetts. Situated in Franklin County, Hawley was officially incorporated as a town in 1792. Today the town is host to a few small businesses, farms, and fewer than 500 residents.

The collection consists of copies of manuscripts, publications, and genealogical notes all related to the history of Hawley collected by researcher Harrison Parker.

Daphne Patai joined the faculty of UMass Amherst in 1978, as assistant professor of Brazilian literature, and retired in 2017. She has published more than a dozen books, in a number of separate fields. These books reflect the range of her research interests, in Brazilian literature and culture; feminism and women’s studies;  utopian literature and thought; literary and cultural theory; higher education; and the “culture wars.”  In each of these areas she has produced substantive articles and books.  She has received several major national grants – from the NEH, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the National Humanities Center, in support of her scholarly work. In each area, the books she has produced have been considered significant contributions (and some have aroused considerable controversy) and have been widely reviewed.

The Daphne Patai Papers features an extensive collection of her research materials and notes, drafts of published works, book reviews, and professional correspondence. Also included is a vast family archive of correspondence with letters from Daphne Patai and family members: Naomi Nir, mother, Raphael Patai, father, and Jennifer Schneider, sister.

Access restrictions: Temporarily stored offsite; contact SCUA in advance to request materials from this collection.

After graduating from Brown University with an A.B. in 1971, Robert “Bob” Paynter received his M.A. (1975) and Ph.D. (1980) from the Anthropology Department at UMass Amherst. He taught at Queens College and the Graduate Center at CUNY before returning to UMass in 1981 as an Assistant Professor, where he conducted research and taught for the remainder of his career. Paynter studied and practiced historical archaeology on sites throughout Western Massachusetts, most notably Deerfield Village and the W. E. B. Du Bois Homesite in Great Barrington. Throughout his tenure at UMass, he was active on several university and departmental committees, including service to the Massachusetts Society of Professors (MSP), as well as a member of the Historic Northampton Board of Trustees and a member of the Academic Advisory Board of Historic Deerfield. Bob Paynter retired from the Anthropology Department in 2015.

The Robert Paynter Papers span the length of his career from early articles and presentations given in the 1970s to his more recent research, writing, and teaching. Materials include grant applications, lecture notes, drafts of articles, and committee work, including contributions to the Massachusetts Society of Professors (MSP). Paynter’s ongoing efforts to preserve the Du Bois homesite in Great Barrington are also documented, both his archeological site work and his service on the Advisory Board of the W. E. B. Du Bois Foundation.

Access restrictions: Temporarily stored offsite; contact SCUA in advance to request materials from this collection.

First conceived in 1980, the Peace Development Fund (PDF) was founded by a small group of activists and donors with a vision: to raise money to fund grassroots organizations promoting peace, global demilitarization, and non-violent conflict resolution. During the foundation’s first funding cycle, PDF awarded 19 grants to projects designed to increase understanding of the arms race; some to organizations as nearby as Deerfield and Northampton and others to organizations as far away as California. With the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s, PDF changed focus. Instead of thinking of peace as the absence of war, the Foundation began to see peace as “the presence of equitable relationships among people, nations, and the environment.” Since that time, PDF has developed a new perspective on peacework, one centered on fostering social, environmental, and economic justice.

The records of the Peace Development Fund consist chiefly of grant-making files documenting the many organizations that submitted and received awards. Also included is a nearly complete run of PDF’s annual reports, newsletters, and other publications, which together offer a full picture of the foundation’s funding and programmatic history. Exchange Project files record PDF’s efforts to provide training, not just money, to organizations lacking the skills necessary for effective fund-raising, strategic planning, instituting sound organizational structures, and dismantling racism.

Born in Newport, Rhode Island in 1919, Alford S. Peckham attended Rhode Island College, graduating in 1941, before serving in the U.S. Army 1st Division until receiving a medical discharge. For twenty-one years he worked as the manager of public relations for the United Farmers of New England, a cooperative of dairy farmers. His interest and expertise in agricultural history continued even after he left the cooperative for the Federal Reserve Bank in Boston; he was appointed the Massachusetts state agricultural historian in July 1989 and amassed his own collection of historical resources in the hopes of developing a Massachusetts Agricultural History Society. Peckham died on December 20, 2005 in Newport, Rhode Island, his home since his retirement in 1984.

Consisting chiefly of subject files, the Alford S. Peckham Collection covers topics ranging from agricultural history and fairs to dairy farmers and animal rights. Also included are photographs of agricultural events around New England, such as the Massachusetts Dairy Festival (1958), the American Dairy Princess (1961), and the Big E (1950s).

Established in October 1974, People for Economic Survival (PES) was a Socialist group based in Northampton, Massachusetts, first organized with the short-term goal of pressuring local banks to sell food stamps. The group’s vision for the longer term, however, was to stimulate change that would result in the replacement of an economy based on corporate profit with one based on people’s needs. After two and half years of community activity, including working for lower utility rates and against cutbacks in welfare, human services, and unemployment benefits, PES disbanded.

The PES collection consists of flyers, meeting minutes, and a full run of Take It, the group’s newsletter.

Collection of posters and newspaper clippings documenting the work of activists throughout the Pioneer Valley. Although the bulk of the materials relate to protests against the war in Iraq, other issues include rallies and protests at UMass, revival of SDS, the Valley Anarchist Organization, and pro-union demonstrations.