Collecting area: Arts & literature

The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Family Papers document the history of one extended family
over 270 years (or eight complete generations) and the family’s connection to its ancestral
home, “Forty Acres,” in Hadley, Massachusetts. Forty Acres was a working farm, its name not a
true description of the land under cultivation, which consisted of six hundred acres acquired
by its first owner, Moses Porter, and a significant growth in acreage under his son-in-law,
Charles Phelps. Subsequent generations produced a number of clergy, lawyers, a sea captain,
merchants, factory owners, army officers and doctors. There were artists, writers, publishers,
an actress, and numerous housewives, of necessity, multi-skilled.

The personal papers from these family members contribute valuable insights into our understanding of the evolution
of American society during the last 250 years. Letters and diaries reveal the significant
impact of major events in American history, beginning with the French and Indian War up
through the twentieth century. These writings provide scholars a glimpse into personal
perspectives on wars, political and economic upheavals, religious revivals, social
developments, family relationships, divisions of labor between men and women, as well as the
day-by-day domestic life of the family, their servants and enslaved people.

Related family collections include:

• Catharine Sargent Huntington Papers
• Gladys Parrish Huntington Papers
• Charles (Moses) Porter Phelps Farm Records

Klaus Postler was a visual artist and curator who lived and worked in New England. Born Michael Edward Postler on March 23, 1951, he grew up in Yonkers, New York, and Connecticut. He was an avid collector of paper ephemera, which he included in his large-scale paintings and collages. From the late 1970s he was an enthusiastic participant in the international mail art movement, labelling his enterprise the Social Artists Reality Empire (S.A.R.E.). One of the exhibitions he curated was the Ray Johnson Memorial Mail Art Show at UMass Amherst, in 1996, for which he put out an open call and received mailed responses from around the world. Postler traveled in Europe and forged relationships with artists there, especially in Germany. In addition to his art practice, he worked for many years picking apples and pruning trees at New England orchards. Postler pursued his education at a number of institutions, with some difficulty due to his dyslexia, and completed his bachelor’s degree in 1998 through the University Without Walls program at UMass Amherst. He was a MacDowell Colony fellow in 2000, and returned to UMass to earn his MFA in studio art in 2005. Late in his life he cared for the estate of the artist Robert Mallary. He died on January 6, 2013, at his studio in Conway, Massachusetts.

The Klaus Postler collection contains a variety of sketchbooks that also functioned as diaries, as well as daybooks and dream journals; slides of his work; and photographic prints. Also included is an assortment of mail art, some created by Postler but mostly work sent to him by other artists, which Postler included in exhibitions he curated in Brattleboro, Vermont, and at UMass Amherst. Thomas Jahn, known as Horsefeathers, is a prolific contributor of mail art. The collection also includes documentation from posthumous gallery shows and a commemorative book about his work published by his partner, Eileen Claveloux.

A devoted reader of newspaper cartoon strips, Jim Powell began collecting Peanuts cartoon books in the mid-1970s, prompted by obtaining two pure-bred beagles for his son.

The Powell cartoon book collection consists of 419 mass market paperback copies of popular cartoon books, representing the work of well-known cartoonists such as Charles M. Schultz, Johnny Hart, Gary Larson, Garry Trudeau, Jim Davis, and Berke Breathed. The collection has particularly rich runs of Peanuts, Garfield, and Doonesbury.

A pioneer of African dance in the United States and a vital scholarly voice, Pearl Primus burst onto the scene in the early 1940s as a choreographer, performer, composer, and teacher. Born in Trinidad in 1919 and raised in New York City, Primus was introduced to performance through the National Youth Administration and the New Dance Group. Her interest in the dance cultures of Africa and the African diaspora formed the conceptual center of her work throughout her career, drawing upon her deep scholarly research. In addition to her creative work, Primus earned a doctorate in anthropology from NYU and taught at a number of universities, including the Five Colleges. She died in New Rochelle, N.Y., in October 1994.

Conducted with Pearl Primus’ fellow dancers, musicians, friends, and collaborators between 1995 and 2005, the interviews comprising this collection were recorded by Peggy and Murray Schwartz for use in their book, The Dance Claimed Me: A Biography of Pearl Primus (New Haven, 2011). The oral histories provide insights into Primus’s sometimes controversial life career, her performances, teaching, and legacy.

Background

4to, 237 x 170 mm., 53 leaves, the complete Juzʾ (جزء) Qāla ʾalam (قال ألم) (XVI), containing text from the 18th Sūrah, Sūrat al-Kahf (ٱلْكَهْف), beginning with verse 57, up until the 20th Sūrah, Sūrah Ṭāʾ Hāʾ (طه), verse 135. This manuscript was likely part of a 30 volume section, sometimes copied into independent volumes. Each subsection, or Juzʾ, is a complete section of the Qurʾān itself. For manuscripts of this style, the Qurʾān is usually divided into 30 equal-length Juzʾ sections in order to preserve not only the whole work, but to produce a manuscript in a legible font, a manuscript that is not too large, and one that can be illuminated elegantly. This style of division is most popular in North Africa. 

This manuscript is an example of a Baḥrī Mamlūk Sulṭānate (1250-1382 CE/648-784 AH) Qurʾānic Juzʾ. The Baḥrī Mamlūks (al-Mamalik al-Baḥariyyah, المماليك البحرية), sometimes referred to as the Baḥrī dynasty, were the rulers of the Mamlūk Sultanate of Egypt following the earlier Ayyubid dynasty. These rulers were of Kipchaq Turkish origin, and their name, “Mamlūk,” derives from the Arabic word mamlūk (مملوك, plural mamālīk, مماليك), literally meaning “owned person/slave.” The Baḥrī component of their name comes from their connection to the Nile River. Baḥrī literally means “of the river,”  and refers to the location of their original barracks on Roda Island in the Nile (Nahr al-Nīl, نهر النيل) in Cairo, at the citadel of Ar-Rawdah which was built by the Ayyubid sultan aṣ-Ṣaliḥ Ayyūb. This particular manuscript was likely made for a wealthy member of the Baḥrī Mamlūk court.

The chapters (sūwar, سور, sing. sūrah,  سورة) include passages related to Maryam and ʿĪsā (Mary and Jesus), God’s call to Mūsā ibn ʿImrān (Moses), the Exodus of the Israelites and the crossing of the Red Sea. 

Contents of Collection

Text is in a single column throughout the manuscript, with 7 lines of fine scribal muḥaqqaq (محقَّق) script in black. Vocalization marks are in red. As is standard, all ḥarakāt  (حركات), i.e., diacritics, are provided to ensure proper pronunciation. The opening two pages feature text blocks framed with gold borders, each containing rectangular panels at the top with headings in white muḥaqqaq against blue, green, and orange arabesque designs. Likewise, there are three circular floral medallions extending into the margins on each side. Additionally, there is a recto of the first leaf with a large circular device heightened in gold with decorative rays extending outwards. Two of the Sūrah headings are illuminated in the text, each with white thuluth (ثلث) text against gold polychrome banners, with a circular device extending into the outer margins. Verses are marked throughout with gold roundels, each decorated with red and blue. The covers of the manuscript are in leather, with large medallions on each cover. These medallions contain floral imagery, which has been pressed into the leather. The border around each cover is in gold, with a swirling pattern surrounding the medallion. 

Some spotting can be found throughout the text, along with some smudging. Some page corners have been damaged, and wormholes appear on some pages without disrupting the text itself. Some of the paint has faded or scuffed since the manuscript’s creation. On occasion, spacing between words and letters is reduced to fit into the margins of the manuscript. Because of this, reading is ever so slightly impaired for certain verses. Lastly, there is additional commentary or notes toward the end of the manuscript. This text is in much smaller, black handwriting, notably different from the calligraphy of the Qurʾānic text.

Processing Information

Processed by Andrew Bielecki, May 2024.

Born on August 5, 1951, in Lebanon, Pennsylvania to Herman F. and Clara I. Rahn, Mildred “Millie” Rahn graduated from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (BA, American Studies) and Memorial University of Newfoundland (MA, Folklore). As a Boston-based folklorist and ethnographer, Rahn used her skills in foodways, oral histories, university teaching and public programs. A writer and reviewer on many topics related to folklife and traditional music, she developed projects and events involving living cultural traditions for cultural and educational organizations, government and economic development agencies and the tourism and heritage industries. For many years, Rahn directed the Foodways stage for the Lowell Folk Festival in Lowell, Massachusetts. She curated exhibits for many regional folk festivals, including the American Folk Festival in Bangor, Maine, the Boston Cultural Heritage Festival and the Working Waterfront Festival in New Bedford, MA. Rahn  was active in preserving the history of Club 47, a folk music coffeehouse in Cambridge, Massachusetts and performed fieldwork for the Northeast Archives of Folklore and Oral History, University of Maine.

The Millie Rahn Collection contains her thesis on the history of Club 47, a report she prepared as a cultural consultant entitled, Newfoundland and Labrador & “The Boston States,” and audiovisual materials including GIRO Studio of Video, ASCAP Foundation Celebrates Eric Von Schmidt, Don’t Look Back Tapes, Passim 50th Anniversary.

Martha Ramsey is the author of Where I Stopped, a memoir of rape in adolescence, and Blood Stories, a book of poems. Ramsey grew up in Flemington, New Jersey, a farming community 65 miles southwest of New York City. She had unusually creative, bohemian-minded, arts-oriented parents; her father was a pioneering jazz historian; both became alcoholics. She was a precociously intelligent child and was skipped two grades at her local elementary school; she escaped from the resulting loneliness and social insecurity into books and nature. She was happier as a day student at Solebury School, a progressive high school nearby in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. On a summer day in 1968, at age 13, while she was walking her bike up a back road near her home, she was attacked and raped by a 28-year-old man, a stranger. She insisted that her parents call the police immediately, “so it won’t happen to anyone else.” Her parents soon heard from neighbors that before Martha, the rapist had “molested other girls.” She endured a confrontation with him at the police barracks and giving testimony at the trial that resulted in his conviction and sentence of 15 years. Five years later she also endured the shock of learning on a visit home from college that he had, while released on parole, sexually assaulted and murdered a 16-year-old girl near the girl’s family’s farm, on the anniversary of the rape. This time he was sentenced to life. Where I Stopped, written when Ramsey was in her thirties, tells this story in detail and follows her attempts to understand what had happened to her and how it was affecting her over the years as she grew into adulthood, pursued her calling as a poet, and married. The memoir also chronicles her decision to return to the place where she grew up to speak with people who remembered the crime and who had participated in the trial and to unearth the police and trial records—all part of her effort to come to terms with what she remembered.

A powerful collection documenting the writing of her memoir, Where I Stopped, Ramsey’s papers include audio recordings of statements she and others made to the police shortly after her rape; a transcript of the trial; Ramsey’s notes from interviews she conducted with individuals who remembered the crime; and drafts of her memoir, containing comments from early readers and material cut from the final version. Ramsey’s unpublished writings, journals, and correspondence document her intellectual and emotional life from her teenage years forward, including the drafts of all her published and unpublished poems. Family papers focus on the author’s father, Frederic Ramsey, a noted jazz historian; they include correspondence, photographs, and the unpublished autobiography of Ethel Ramsey (1884–1965)—textile designer, painter, and participant in the artists’ colony in New Hope, Pennsylvania—that contains acerbic discussion of the struggles of women artists in the late nineteenth century and later.

Playwright, poet, historian, student theater director and professor of English, University of Massachusetts.

Correspondence, speeches, lectures, drafts of writings, reviews, publicity material, programs and playbills, scrapbooks, grade books (1917-1959), newsclippings, memorabilia, and other papers, relating to Rand’s teaching career, his writing of poetry, plays, and history, and his activities, as a dramatic coach and director. Includes material relating to the dedication of Rand Theater.

Listen to oral history with Rand's wife:
Oral history, part 1
Oral history, part 2

A long-time historian at UMass Amherst, Jane Meyer Rausch was widely recognized for her work on the frontier history of Colombia. A graduate of DePauw University (1962), Rausch joined a growing program in Latin American studies at UMass in 1969, shortly after receiving her doctorate in comparative tropical history from the University of Wisconsin Madison. The recipient of a Fulbright Award in 1987, she taught widely in the history of Latin America and the Caribbean, and wrote four major monographs on the Colombian frontier in the colonial and national periods: A Tropical Plains Frontier : the Llanos of Colombia, 1531-1831 (1984); The Llanos Frontier in Colombian history, 1830-1930 (1993); Colombia : Territorial Rule and the Llanos Frontier (1999); and From Frontier Town to Metropolis: A History of Villavicencio, Colombia, Since 1842 (2007).

Centered on the research and teaching, this collection documents the career of Jane Rausch from her days as a graduate student in the late 1960s through her retirement. In addition to a range of professional correspondence, unpublished works, teaching materials, and student notes, the collection includes several hundred 35mm slides taken by Rausch while traveling in Colombia.

The independent filmmaker Abraham Ravett has taught film and video at Hampshire College since 1979. Born in Poland in 1947 and raised in Israel, Ravett emigrated to the United States with his family in 1955. Since earning his BFA and MFA in Filmmaking and Photography, he has won wide recognition for his work, receiving major grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Marion and Jasper Whiting Foundation, among other organizations, and a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. His films have been screened internationally and have earned Top Prize at the Viennale 2000, the Ann Arbor Film Festival, and Onion City Film/Video Festival.

This small collection contains raw footage on open-reel videotape shot by Ravett and two dvds documenting local communities in eastern Massachusetts: the North End, Boston (1977-1978) and Haverhill High School (1978-1979), the latter taken while artist in residence.