Collecting area: East & Central Europe

In the mid-1970s, the Center for the Study of New Russian Literature in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at UMass Amherst began collecting the self-published and underground literature of the Soviet Union as a means of documenting social and political dissent in the Communist state.

The Samizdat collection includes writings in several genres — chiefly fiction, poetry, drama, and literary, social, and political criticism — in handwritten, photocopied, and printed form, as well as photos, a passport application for Mikhail Baryshnikov, and memorabilia from an American production of one of the plays in the collection.

Historian, author, Professor of Russian and Soviet Jewish History at Rutgers University, who helped arrange the escape of Jews from Europe during World War II and was active in several organizations concerned with the emigration of Soviet and Eastern European Jews to Palestine. Papers include biographical materials, correspondence, legal documents, writings, lecture and research materials, statistical data in the world Jewish population before and after World War II, oral history transcripts, pamphlets, newspaper clippings, and four photographs.

Colonel William Smith speaking at podium before a group of people from Argentina

Colonel William “Billy” Mitchell Smith Jr. was born in 1918 in Carpenter, Mississippi to William M. Smith Sr. and Fay Smith (neé Craig). The family later moved to Alabama and lived in Birmingham and Auburn, where Smith graduated from Auburn High School in 1936, then Auburn University in 1940 with high honors. After college, he enlisted in the military, and served with the 19th Artillery attached to General Sharp’s staff in France during World War II. In 1944, he was awarded a Bronze Medal for “meritorious service and gallantry in action”. Following the war, he was stationed in Frankfurt, Germany where he oversaw post-war reconstruction there, and later, Japan. He also served in the Korean War. In 1962, he commanded a ring of missile units of the Army Air Defense Command in Homestead, Florida during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He served as a Colonel in Vietnam in 1964-1966. Smith died in late 1970 when he took his own life.

The bulk of this small collection consists of correspondence between Smith and his wife to be, Eloise Lennard, during their courtship in 1939-1940. In addition, there are letters written during Smith’s time serving in Vietnam from 1965-1966 where he discusses the tone of the war and the degree to which the war weighed on him as a commanding officer. The collection also contains clippings, military documents and ephemera related to each of his duty stations, as well as a photographic memory book from his deployment at a base in Homestead, FL during the Cuban Missile Crisis with the 13th Artillery Group. There is also correspondence from friends and family following Smith’s death.

Mark Sommer, with Zetta, the first newborn goat at the Sommer homestead in northern CA, May 1985

Mark Sommer is an explorer, storyteller, and award-winning public radio and print journalist focused on advocacy and narratives of social, political, and environmental change and positive action. In Washington, D.C., Sommer found himself on hand for some of the 1960s pivotal moments, where he was involved with the Liberation News Service and the New Left think tank, the Institute for Policy Studies. Sommer moved to California in 1969 to explore the counterculture, spending several years journeying – spiritually, psychedelically, and physically between communes, farms, and wilderness homesteads along the western coast – before he and his wife built a self-reliant organic homestead in the deep woods of northern CA, where they lived from the 1970s to the 1990s. The resilience of nature deeply impacted Sommer’s outlook and work as a writer and journalist, driving his interest in the human capacity for overcoming adversity. Sommer founded and directed the Mainstream Media Project, a nonprofit media placement service scheduling leading edge thinkers and social innovators for extensive radio interviews, and Sommer served as host and executive producer of the internationally syndicated and award winning, one-hour weekly radio program, A World of Possibilities. Sommer is the author of three books (Beyond the Bomb, The Conquest of War, and Living in Freedom), and hundreds of op-eds in major newspapers worldwide. Current projects include short and movie length videos crafted from his photographs, films, interviews, and experiences.

Chronicling over five decades of creative and journalistic output of a life-long explorer and progressive advocate, the Mark Sommer Papers are an extensive collection, covering Sommer’s entire career and personal life from the late 1960s to the present. Writings include personal and multiple travel journals (including a unique trip to North Vietnam in 1968), correspondence, student essays, op-eds, articles, project and grant plans, memoirs, and book manuscripts. Additional journals exist in audio format, along with radio interviews where Sommer served as a guest. Slides, photographs, and movies cover Sommer’s family and home life to his wide-ranging travels and interests. Some main topics of coverage include foreign policy and international politics, progressivism, peace and conflict studies, the anti-nuclear and disarmament movements, wilderness and back-to-the-land experiences, and later in life fatherhood. Materials from Mainstream Media Project have been separated into the Mainstream Media Project Records.

For many years, Sovfoto, a stock photograph agency based in New York City, was the sole source in the United States for the best work in contemporary Soviet photojournalism. Founded in 1932, the company carried photographers for Tass and, later, other news agencies from throughout the Soviet republics, Eastern Europe, and China.

The Tass Sovfoto Collection depicts Soviet life, primarily in the 1950s and early 1960s. Typically rendered in heroic Soviet style, the photographs are relatively varied in subject, documenting political events (e.g., Communist Party meetings, the meeting of Kennedy and Khrushchev); generals, politicians, and celebrities (Lenin, Khrushchev, Shostakovich); and athletic and cultural events. A few images appear to be parts of photo essays aimed at a popular audience, including images of Jewish life in Russia and the life of a Soviet worker, while others are stock images of Soviet troops during the Second World War.

A member of a distinguished family of New England educators and clergymen, Brainerd Taylor played an key role assisting the U.S. Army in taking its first steps into modern mechanized warfare. Born in Newtonville, Massachusetts, in 1877, Taylor entered Harvard with the class of 1899, but during the rush of enthusiasm accompanying the start of the Spanish American War, he left before completing his degree to join the military. Serving with the Coast Artillery for several years, he became the Chief Motor Transport Officer for the Advance Section of the Service of Supply for the American Expeditionary Force during the First World War, earning promotion to Colonel, a Distinguished Service Medal, and the Legion of Honor from France for his efforts. Taylor married twice, first to Vesta Richardson, who died in 1919, and then to Helen Cady. Taylor died in 1955.

The Taylor family collection contains more than 1,000 letters documenting the military career and personal life of Brainerd Taylor, with particularly thick coverage of the period of the First World War when he was stationed in France, building the Motor Transport Corps virtually from scratch. These letters are exceptionally well written and rich in description, both about his duties and his travels in France and Germany. The collection also includes Taylor’s extensive correspondence to his father, James Brainerd Taylor (1845-1929), and correspondence relating to Taylor’s wives, children, and grandchildren.

A scholar of international politics, Ferenc Vali left his native Hungary during the revolution of 1956 after five years of imprisonment for his political activities. Born on May 25, 1905, Vali was educated at the University of Budapest and London School of Economics (PhD, 1932), and worked as a Professor of International Law at the University of Budapest until his arrest. Following his escape and a brief period as Fellow at Harvard, he joined the faculty in political science at UMass Amherst in 1961. A popular lecturer, he became the first member of the Political Science Department to receive emeritus status in 1975. He died at his home in Amherst in 1984.

The Vali collection includes both published and unpublished essays by Ferenc Vali on Hungary during the post-revolutionary years and idealism and realism in American foreign policy.