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

Collecting area: Military

Waugh, Frederick V. (Frederick Vail), 1898-1974

Frederick V. Waugh Collection

1917-1919
6 items 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: PH 026
Depiction of Black cat logo
Black cat logo

In July 1917, prior to the American entry in the First World War, Frederick Vail Waugh joined a group of about fifty residents of Amherst, Mass., who enlisted for duty in the Ambulance Service of the French Army. From August 1917 through April 1919, SSU 39 (Service Sanitaire Unis) — redesignated SSU 539 and transferred to the American Expeditionary Service in January 1918 — served among the trenches of northern France and Belgium. Known as the Black Cat squadron, they took part in three major offensives with the AEF, the Aisne-Marne, Oise-Aisne, and Ypres-Lys. Waugh was among three members of the unit awarded the French Croix de Guerre for courage and energy during the last month of the war. After returning to the states, Waugh earned a bachelor’s degree from Massachusetts Agricultural College (1922), where his father Frank A. Waugh was a Professor of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, followed by an MA from Rutgers (1926) and PhD from Columbia (1929). He enjoyed a distinguished fifty-year career as an agricultural economist with the US Department of Agriculture.

A snapshot of life in the First World War, the Waugh collection includes Frederick Waugh’s army jacket (with Croix de Guerre), helmet, and puttees, and a remarkable history of the unit and photo album, Being the Book of S.S.U. 539. A second book, I Was There with the Yanks in France (1919), has been transferred for shelving to the Rare Books stacks.

Gift of Prudence Waugh Donovan, Oct. 2009

Subjects

Ambulance drivers--United StatesUnited States. Army Ambulance Service. Section 539World War, 1914-1918--Medical care

Contributors

Waugh, Frederick V. (Frederick Vail), 1898-1974
Whipple, Charles L.

Charles L. Whipple Papers

1925-1991
21 boxes 10.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 360
Depiction of Charles L. Whipple, ca.1935
Charles L. Whipple, ca.1935

Charles Lewis Whipple was a noted journalist, editor, and the first ombudsperson for the Boston Globe. As a student at Harvard in the 1930s, Whipple joined the Young Communist League, carrying his radical politics with him when he joined the Globe’s staff in 1936 and became an active member of the American Newspaper Guild. Although classified as unfit for military duty due to the loss of vision in one eye, Whipple joined the Red Cross during the Second World War, and served with distinction with over thirty months of overseas service. After returning to civilian life and severing ties with the Communist Party, he resumed his position at the Globe, rising steadily to become editor of the opinion page in 1962 and ombudsperson in 1975. An editorial he wrote in 1967 is considered the first editorial in a major American newspaper to oppose the war in Vietnam. Although he formally retired from the Globe in 1979. Whipple worked an additional three years with the Xinhua News Agency in Beijing as editor of the Beijing Review and the China Daily, China’s first English-language daily. Whipple died in Northampton, Mass., in 1991, following complications from surgery.

A mixture of personal and professional correspondence, writing, and subject and clipping files, the Charles Whipple Papers document a long and exceptional career in journalism. The diverse roles that Whipple filled at the Boston Globe from the 1930s through 1970s resulted in rich documentation of his work as an organizer for the American Newspaper Guild on the eve of the Second World War; his writing and editorial work during the Vietnam War and as the Globe’s Ombudsman in the 1970s; and the three years he spent in China setting up an English-language newspaper during the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Subjects

American Newspaper GuildBoston GlobeCommunists--MassachusettsJournalists--Massachusetts--BostonLabor unions--Massachusetts--BostonNewspaper employees--Labor unions--MassachusettsVietnam War, 1961-1975

Contributors

Whipple, Charles L.

Types of material

Photographs
Wood, Josiah

Josiah Wood Papers

1854-1874
1 box 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 363

A veteran of the Civil War and one time resident of the Hopedale community, Josiah Wood tried his hand at several lines of work during his life, including tin-peddler, farmer, and carpenter.

The Josiah Wood Papers consist primarily of letters between Wood, living in Hopedale and New Bedford, Massachusetts, and his relatives in Philadelphia and elsewhere in the northeastern and western parts of the country. While some of the correspondence contains references to larger-scale historical events, such as the Civil War or westward expansion, the majority concerns events and routines of everyday family life. The letters illustrate the considerable effort made to keep in touch with and informed about distant family members and friends.

Subjects

Spiritualism--United States--History--19th centuryUnited States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865West (U.S.)--History--19th century

Contributors

Wood, JosiahWood, Lurana P
Yeomans, Lawrence D.

Lawrence D. Yeomans Papers

1895-1946 Bulk: 1917-1919
1 box 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 873
Depiction of Lawrence D. Yeomans, nurse, and dog
Lawrence D. Yeomans, nurse, and dog

A native of Ontario, Lawrence D. Yeomans was working in New York when he volunteered for service in the U.S. Army Signal Corps during the First World War. For eighteen months, Yeomans served as a chauffeur with the Signal Corps in France, driving senior officers around Paris and to and from the front.

This small collection documents Lawrence Yeomans’ time as a chauffeur with the Signal Corps during the First World War. In addition to a handful of official documents relating to his service, Yeomans held onto a few pieces of ephemera as souvenirs, some postcards, and a set of photographs, including three depicting him in uniform and ten showing a display of German war material confiscated at war’s end.

Gift of Leslie Button, June 2015

Subjects

World War, 1914-1918

Types of material

EphemeraPhotographsPostcards