The University of Massachusetts Amherst
Robert S. Cox Special Collections & University Archives Research Center
CredoResearch digital collections in Credo

Collecting area: Arts & literature

Cohen, Gene D.

Gene D. Cohen Papers

1956-2014 Bulk: 1970-2014
9 boxes and books 13.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1079
Depiction of Gene D. Cohen: keynote speaker at the White House Conference on Aging, 2005
Gene D. Cohen: keynote speaker at the White House Conference on Aging, 2005

A pioneer in geriatric psychiatry with a polymathic imagination, Gene D. Cohen was born in Brockton, Mass., in 1944, and educated at Harvard, Georgetown University School of Medicine (1970), and the Union Institute (PhD, Gerontology). Cohen began his career with the U.S. Public Health Service out of medical school, and from the outset, set a novel course in his research, becoming one of the first psychiatrists to specialize in study of the impact of aging on the brain and Alzheimer’s disease. Recognized for administrative prowess as well as the originality of his scholarship, he was selected as the first chief of the Center on Aging at the National Institute of Mental Health (1975-1988), and went on to leadership positions at the National Institute on Aging (NIH) and in the profession more generally. In 1994, he left government employment to found the Center on Aging, Health, and Humanities at George Washington University. The impact of Cohen’s research was felt widely and catalyzed a change in the field from viewing aging as a disease to recognizing the creative potential of the older mind. His demonstration of the health benefits to older people of engagement in the arts made him one of the intellectual architects of the field of Creative Aging. The author of more than 150 articles and monographs, he earned numerous awards for his work, including the highest award bestowed by the U.S. Public Health Service, the Distinguished Service Medal. Cohen died of metastatic prostate cancer at the age of 65 in Nov. 2009, leaving his wife, Wendy Miller, two children, and four grandchildren.

A significant collection for study of the growth of geriatric psychiatry and the field of creative aging, the collection includes materials from throughout Gene Cohen’s pathbreaking career. The collection offers insight into the development of gerontological research particularly during Cohen’s years at the NIMH and NIH. In addition to an extensive set of publications by and about Cohen, the collection includes background materials for Cohen’s books The Creative Age, The Mature Mind, and Sky Above Clouds, and a significant corpus relating to some of his major research projects. Finally, the collection includes a selection of videotapes of interviews with Cohen, including several presentations and talks.

Gift of Wendy Miller, May 2019

Subjects

Creative agingGeriatric psychiatryPsychiatrists--Maryland

Contributors

George Washington University. Center for Aging, Health, and HumanitiesNational Institute of Mental Health (U.S.)Washington D.C. Center on Aging

Types of material

PhotographsVideo recordings (Physical artifacts)
Colburn, Paul

Paul and Olive Colburn Collection

1894-2001
1 box 0.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 860
Depiction of Jonathan Dow marker, Eastern Cemetery, Portland, Me.
Jonathan Dow marker, Eastern Cemetery, Portland, Me.

Husband and wife Paul Francis and Olive (“Tommie” Fox) Colburn were active members of the Association for Gravestone Studies from the 1980s. Natives of Lowell, Mass., and long-time residents of Berwick, Me., the Colburns shared an interest in New England gravestones and marker symbolism, with Tommie enjoying a particular specialty in metal-based markers.

The Colburn collection represents a cross-section of the couple’s work documenting and lecturing about New England grave markers and marker symbolism as well as Victorian funerary practice. Of note are a small number of items reflecting Victorian mourning culture, including images of funeral wreaths and arrangements, three mourning handkerchiefs, and a funeral card.

Subjects

Sepulchral monuments--ConnecticutSepulchral monuments--MaineSepulchral monuments--MassachusettsSepulchral monuments--New HampshireSepulchral monuments--New YorkSepulchral monuments--Rhode IslandSepulchral monuments--Vermont

Contributors

Colburn, Olive

Types of material

HandkerchiefsPhotographs
Collins, Phebe

Phebe Collins Collection

ca.1875-1969
10 boxes 15 linear feet
Call no.: MS 958
Depiction of Boy and his dog, 1931
Boy and his dog, 1931

The daughter of a Scottish immigrant and a 1923 graduate of Smith College, Phebe Hazel Ferris returned to her alma mater to pursue graduate work degree in Geology, but in 1928 she married her instructor, Robert Frank Collins. Settling in Williamsburg, Mass., the couple raised a family of three boys, Frank, Robert, and James. Robert, Sr., remained as a Professor of Geology and Geography at Smith, while Phebe eventually returned to graduate work, though in Physics, and thereafter worked for many years at Smith as a laboratory instructor. Phebe died in 1983, less than two months before her husband.

The Collins collection consists primarily of meticulously maintained scrapbooks assembled by Phebe Collins between the 1920s and the 1960s. The range of materials in these scrapbooks is remarkable, including not only photographs, postcards, and letters received, but children’s drawings, report cards, and the occasional surprise like a quarantine sign hung on the family door for a sick child. In aggregate, they are a rich record of the growth of an intellectually-inclined family across four decades. The collection also includes seventeen photograph albums and hundreds of Collins and Ferris family photographs, along with images taken by Robert during his geological work.

Gift of Cathy Englehardt, Jan. 2017

Subjects

Family--MassachusettsFerris familyGeologists--MassachusettsWilliamsburg (Mass.)--History

Types of material

EphemeraPhotographsScrapbooks
Comité de Apoyo Pro Alfabetización

Rachel Wyon Comité de Apoyo Pro Alfabetización / Pro Literacy Support Committee Collection

1982-1985 Bulk: 1982-1985
1 box .2 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1253
Two men holding a banner that reads "U.S. Educators for Peace in El Salvador" in a crowd
Members of the U.S. Educators for Peace in El Salvador holding a sign. Photograph by Tom Mattie

The Comité de Apoyo Pro Alfabetización was formed in 1983 by Rachel Wyon and others in Estelí, Nicaragua where Lyon was living and working in solidarity with the Salvadoran popular movement in exile, including the Salvadoran Teachers Association ANDES 21 de Junio. The group continued their solidarity work from the Cambridge/Boston area, where Wyon was based.

The bulk of this small collection consists of approximately 100 photographs taken in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua between 1982-1985. One of the members of the Committee, Tom Mattie, traveled to Central America in 1985 and took photos documenting everyday life. Some of the subjects covered in the photographs include: family living conditions, group meetings, public events, rural education projects, marches, and the effects of the civil war. There is also a series of photos of Mélida Anaya Montes (aka Commander Ana María), who was a Salvadoran educator, guerrilla, and co- founder of the Popular Liberation Forces (FPL) that in 1980 merged with other organizations to form the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN). The photos in the collection were given to the Committee for their solidarity work in the U.S. In addition, there is a small folder of documents from the ANDES 21 de Junio, the National Association of Salvadoran Educators, an issue of The Freeze, an adult literacy pamphlet, a flier for Tom Mattie and Wendy Shaull’s exhibit of photographs, and a script for a Comité do Apoyo Pro-Alfabetización educational slideshow.

Language(s): Spanish

Subjects

Central America--Social conditions--PhotographsDocumentary photographyEl Salvador--Politics and governmentEl Salvador--Social conditions--PhotographsPacifists--Photographs

Contributors

Mattie, TomWyon, Rachel

Types of material

Photographs
Common Reader Bookshop (New Salem, Mass.)

Common Reader Bookshop Collection

1977-1997
1 box 0.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 472
Depiction of Abramson, Johnson, and cats on the porch of their New Salem home, 1977
Abramson, Johnson, and cats on the porch of their New Salem home, 1977

Co-owned by Dorothy Johnson and Doris Abramson, the Common Reader Bookshop in New Salem, Massachusetts, specialized in women’s studies materials, or in their words, “books by, for, and about women.” A couple for almost 40 years and married in 2004, Johnson and Abramson opened the store in 1977 and as they grew, relocated to the town’s old Center School building across the street in 1983. The shop closed for business in 2000.

Comprised of two scrapbooks and folder of ephemera, the collection highlights the Common Reader Bookshop not only as a place for buying antiquarian books, but also for the community it fostered.

Gift of Doris Abramson and Dorothy Johson, Jan. 2005.

Subjects

Antiquarian booksellers--MassachusettsNew Salem (Mass.)--HistoryWomen--Massachusetts

Contributors

Abramson, Doris E.Common Reader Bookshop (New Salem, Mass.)Johnson, Dorothy

Types of material

EphemeraPhotographs
Construyamos Juntos

Construyamos Juntos Collection

1986
1 box 1.5 linear feet
Call no.: PH 052
Depiction of Parrot in Nicaragua
Parrot in Nicaragua

In May 1985, a group of activists in Western Massachusetts opposed to the interventionist U.S. foreign policy of the Reagan era formed a construction brigade to assist with basic human needs and express solidarity with the people of Central America. Modeled on the Venceremos Brigade, Construyamos Juntos, Building Peace of Nicaragua, raised over $20,000 for construction supplies in addition to funds for individual travel. Between January and March 1986, the 17 activists joined a smaller brigade from West Virginia in constructing the Carlos Armin Gonzales elementary school in San Pedro de Lovago. During their first month in Nicaragua, they witnessed a Contra assault on the town that left one assailant dead and two residents of the town wounded.

This exhibit includes 55 mounted images and 99 35mm slides taken during the brigade’s time in Nicaragua, documenting the brigade’s construction work and providing a valuable visual record of life in Nicaragua during the Contra war. Used in public talks about Contruyamos Juntos, the collection includes exhibit labels that explain the purpose and activity of the brigade, the history of Nicaragua, and the Contra attack in January 1986.

Subjects

Nicaragua--History--1979-1990

Types of material

Photographs
Copeland, Thomas W.

Thomas W. Copeland Papers

1923-1979
22 boxes 10 linear feet
Call no.: FS 050
Depiction of Thomas W. Copeland, 1940
Thomas W. Copeland, 1940

A scholar of eighteenth century British literature and culture, Thomas W. Copeland began what would become more than half a century of research on the statesman and political philosopher Edmund Burke while studying for his doctorate at Yale (1933). After publication of his dissertation in 1949 as Our Eminent Friend Edmund Burke, Copeland was named managing editor of the ten-volume Correspondence (1958-1978). After academic appointments at Yale and the University of Chicago, he joined the faculty at UMass in 1957, remaining here until his retirement in 1976. A chair was established in his name in the Department of English.

The Copeland Papers are a rich collection of personal and professional correspondence, journals and writings from Copeland’s Yale years, manuscripts, typescripts, notes, and draft revisions of his works on Edmund Burke, and a journal chronicling Copeland’s four-year exercise in the daily practice of writing.

Subjects

Burke, Edmund, 1729-1797University of Massachusetts Amherst--FacultyUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst. Department of English

Contributors

Golden, Morris
Cosby, Bill, 1937-

Bill Cosby Radio Program Collection

1968 Jan-Jul
12 phonograph records .3 linear feet
Call no.: MS 981

“The Bill Cosby Radio Program” was a daily syndicated radio series of roughly 5-minute comedy inserts by Cosby and produced by Frank Buxton (who also served as the show’s announcer and comedic “straight man”). Along with sound man Gene Twombly, Cosby and Buxton improvised the episodes, which were syndicated to more than 200 top-40 radio stations around the nation on transcription discs by The Coca-Cola Company and distributed by McCann-Erikson (Coke’s ad agency). The show marked the beginning of Cosby’s long association with Coca-Cola and was the debut of many characters from Cosby’s comedy.

This collection features twelve radio broadcast transcription discs (one 12-inch disc and eleven 16-inch discs) of “The Bill Cosby Radio Program” containing programs #21-130 (1968 Jan 29-Jun 24) and programs #141-145 (1968 Jul 15). The disc labels contain the original program description and art.

Gift of Jerry Reed, June 2017.

Subjects

African American comediansBuxton, FrankCoca-Cola CompanyCosby, Bill, 1937-Radio comediesRadio programs

Types of material

Phonograph records
Restrictions: SCUA does not currently have the appropriate media to play these records.
Craig, Edward Gordon, 1872-1966

Edward Gordon Craig Collection

1951-1956
1 box 0.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 344

A noted figure in modernist theater, Edward Gordon Craig was born in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, on Jan. 16, 1872, the illegitimate son of the renowned actress Ellen Terry and the architect Edward William Craig. Although the most productive portion of his career was brief, he exerted a strong influence on the field of set design and lighting, and was fairly prolific as a writer on theatre.

The six audio recordings that comprise the Craig collection originated from a series of BBC radio talks in the early 1950s. The reel to reel tapes include Craig’s reminiscences of Ellen Terry, Isadora Duncan, the old school of acting, celebrities, masks, and how he played Hamlet in Salford, Lancashire, but are more generally his thoughts on acting, the theater, and art.

Gift of Walther Richard Volbach via Vincent Brann, 1990

Subjects

ActingActors--Great BritainDuncan, Isadora, 1877-1927Terry, Ellen, Dame, 1847-1928Theater--Great Britain

Types of material

Open reel audiotapesSound recordings
Culley, Margo

Margo Culley Papers

1973-1985
1 box 1.5 linear feet
Call no.: FS 103

A former Professor of English at UMass Amherst and contributor to the Program in Women’s Studies, Margaret (Margo) Culley was a specialist in women’s literature, particularly in women’s autobiography and diaries as a literary form. Her research drew variously upon work in literature, history, American studies, and religion, exploring gender and genre, language, subjectivity, memory, cultural diversity, and narrative. Between 1985 and 1994, she edited three volumes on American women’s autobiographical writing, and another on feminist teaching in the college classroom.

The Culley Papers offer a somewhat fragmentary glimpse into Culley’s academic career and her commitments to women’s literature. The collection includes selected notes for research and teaching, annotated bibliographies of women’s literature, a performance script for The Voices of Lost New England Women Writers, a federal grant proposal for The Black Studies/Women’s Studies Faculty Development Project (1981), and notes related to a study on minority women in the classroom. Letters collected by Culley’s students (late 18th and early 19th century) have been separated from the collection and designated as manuscript collections.

Subjects

University of Massachusetts Amherst--FacultyUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst--WomenUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst. Department of EnglishUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst. Program in Women's Studies

Contributors

Culley, Margo