Collecting area: Military

The writer William Manchester interrupted his undergraduate education at Massachusetts State College to serve in the Marine Corps during the Second World War. After training in the V-12 Program at Dartmouth College and at Parris Island, and then washing out in Officers Candidate School, he was assigned to the 29th Marine Regiment. Sent to the South Pacific in July 1944, the 29th Marines became part of the landing force on Okinawa on April 1, 1945. After helping to clear the northern part of the island, they turned to the difficult operations on the Shuri line, including the capture of Sugar Loaf Hill, but on June 5, 1945, Manchester was severely wounded and spent the remainder of the war in hospital. He completed his degree at Mass. State after returning to civilian life, and went on to a graduate degree at the University of Missouri. During his years as a journalist, historian, and professor of Wesleyan University, he published 18 books ranging from biographies of H.L. Mencken, John F. Kennedy, and Winston Churchill, to a memoir of his experiences as a Marine. A recipient of the National Humanities Medal, Manchester died in 2004 at the age of 82.

This small, but noteworthy collection consists almost exclusively of letters written by William Manchester to his mother during his service with the 29th Marines in World War II.

The activist George Markham was born in Wisconsin on Aug. 15, 1909. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin, he began working with the Associated Press in 1936 where he became an ardent member of the American Newspaper Guild. During the Second World War, he served with distinction on the aircraft carriers Saratoga and Yorktown in the South Pacific, however after the war, his leftist politics and associations with Communists led to his dismissal with less than honorable discharge. Following the trial, Markham returned to college to earn a masters degree in social studies and began teaching middle school in Pelham, NY, but was released, probably for political reasons. He later taught in colleges in New York before he and his second wife, Arky, moved to Northampton in the 1960s. George and Arky remain active on behalf of peace and social justice.

The Markham Papers contain materials relating to George Markham’s McCarthy-era trial and dismissal from the Navy, along with documents relating to other aspects of his life and career and the Markham family in Wisconsin. Among these is a fine Civil War unit history of the 20th Indiana Regiment written by Markham’s grandfather, William Emery Brown.

A pioneer in African American history, August Meier was a model of an engaged academic, a prolific writer, active participant in the civil rights struggle, and staunch member of the NAACP, SNCC, and CORE. While pursuing graduate work at Columbia under Henry Steele Commager, Meier taught at a succession of Historical Black Colleges, including Tougaloo (1945-1949), Fisk (1953-1956), and Morgan State (1957-1964). His dissertation, completed in 1957, became the first of eleven books he wrote or edited, Negro Thought in America, 1880-1915 (1963), with much of later work conducted in collaboration with Elliott Rudwick and John Bracey. Meier joined the faculty at Kent State University in 1967 and remained there until his retirement in 1993. His much-anticipated monograph on the history of the NAACP had not been completed at the time of death in 2003.

Organized in two discrete parts, the Meier collection bookends a long career in the study of African American history. The first part of the collection is centered on Meier’s association with the Pioneer Youth summer camp in Rifton, N.Y., and his growing consciousness of the fundamental problems of race and class in American society, with some materials from his wartime years as an undergraduate at Oberlin College. The second part of the collection includes books collected by Meier during his academic career, mostly on African American history and culture. Titles range from works on the Civil Rights movement to literature and poetry of the late nineteenth century and Harlem Renaissance, works on slavery and antislavery, race theory, the South, and African American education and religion.

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Of the six letters that make up this collection, five date from 1862-1863 and are addressed to Frank Metcalf, teacher and soldier in the Union Army during the Civil War. These letters are from friends and family in New York, and relay local news, in particular updates on area schools and students. The final letter dated June 30, 1866 is from Hannah J. McLintock, to her brother, John.

Born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1919, George Millman attended Massachusetts State College briefly, but was forced to drop out after his freshman year due to financial hardship. After attending a three-month intensive training course, Millman was employed by the War Department in 1941 as a civilian inspector in the munitions plant in New London, Connecticut. In the months that followed the attack on Pearl Harbor, he felt it was his patriotic duty to join the armed forces and enlisted on May 28, 1942. Called to active duty six months later, Millman was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Army Air Corps on April 29, 1943. Already dating his soon-to-be-bride Lillian, the couple decided to marry immediately before he could be sent overseas. Assigned to a class on the theoretical aspects of radar at Harvard University, Millman was ordered to report to the Army Air Force Technical School in Boca Raton in late 1943. On June 24, 1944, he received secret travel orders assigning him to the 5th Air Force Service Command in Brisbane, Australia. There he began training fighter pilots on the use and operation of the newly developed airborne radar, AN/APS-4. Throughout his tour in the Pacific, which ended in early 1946, Millman traveled throughout the region, including time in Australia, the Netherlands East Indies, the Netherlands New Guinea, and the Philippines.

Containing almost 400 letters written to his wife Lillian during World War II, Millman’s papers detail nearly every aspect of life in the service during wartime. From chronicling extreme environmental conditions to his feelings of frustration while awaiting assignment, Millman’s letters offer a personal perspective of the impact of war on an individual and his loved ones. While his letters carefully avoid any details about his work that could have been censored, they capture in extraordinary detail the day-to-day life of a serviceman in the Pacific theater during WWII. Millman published his letters to his wife in 2011 in a book entitled Letters to Lillian.

Miscellaneous Manuscripts is an artificial collection that brings together single items and small groups of related materials. Although the collection reflects the general collecting emphases in SCUA, particularly the history of New England, the content ranges widely in theme and format.

Living in Keswick, England, at the start of the second world war, parents Jack D. and Audrey S. Monro were separated from their children, Elspeth and Robin, for nearly six years. Throughout this time they each wrote letters fairly consistently, detailing the war itself and personal news. Elspeth and Robin traveled from England to the United States in the summer of 1940, aged 8 and 10, as fears of bombings and violence from Germany dominated the news in Europe. They moved in with the family’s close friends to a house in Baltimore, Maryland. By moving to the United States, they left behind a whole life in England: a majority of their family, their friends, and a culture with which they were familiar with.

The collection details civilian life via letters written in England during the second world war from the perspective of parents separated from their children. Spanning from 1938 through 1946, they document the general instability that was faced during this time, including personal family news, everyday life during a time of war, issues regarding divorce, and issues relating ot the separation with their children.

Coin and medal collection of UMass Amherst graduate Class of 1973 and long-time supporter of the
library, Paul R. Murphy. Collections consists chiefly of coins and medals that commemorate historic moments, achievements, places, and individuals in U.S. history.

Wallace Haslett Myers was born in Worcester, Massachusetts on November 21, 1929, the elder of two sons of Roscoe and Priscilla Myers. Myers received his Bachelor’s Degree from Clark University in Worcester in 1951. He attended Boston University Law School in the summer of 1951, then enrolled in Harvard Law School, and received a law degree in 1954. Of note, he survived a close brush with the Worcester Tornado of 1953, classified as the 21st deadliest tornado in U.S. history. After graduating from law school, he served in the U.S. Army from 1954-1956 and was stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia. Upon his return from the Army, Myers began practicing law, specializing in probate, taxation and real estate matters. On August 23, 1985, he married Irene Healy in Worcester. He belonged to the Worcester Republican 21 Club, was active in the Episcopal Church, and was a supporter of the church’s summer retreat house, Bucksteep Manor in Washington, Massachusetts.

This collection covers the years 1941-1975, with the bulk of the collection between 1945-1957. Myers frequently exchanged letters with many individuals, so the majority is personal correspondence between family and friends, documenting daily life, and notably including one friend’s marriage to a Korean woman during the era of the Korean War. Other papers in the collection pertain to his attendance at Clark, Boston University and Harvard, social activities and clubs, and stamp collecting and trading.

Long-time residents of Hadley, Massachusetts, the Nash and Scott families were united in 1881 when John Nash, a farmer, married Lizzie Scott. Of their seven children, Herman B. Nash, graduated from the Massachusetts Agricultural College in 1917, and immediately enlisted in the army, serving in France at the close of World War I. His youngest sister, Helen, kept the family connected during these years by writing and distributing a family newsletter, the Plainville News.

The Nash-Scott Family Papers contain a number of photographs, including an album capturing a trip to the west coast in 1915 and a canoe trip to Labrador in 1920. Herman B. Nash’s scrapbook documents not only his time as a student at M.A.C., but also his service in France, featuring candid photographs taken by Nash during and after the war as well as identification cards, company rosters, and a German propaganda leaflet picked up near the front. Pamphlets, genealogical notes and postcards complete the collection.