The University of Massachusetts Amherst
Robert S. Cox Special Collections & University Archives Research Center
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Collecting area: Massachusetts (East)

WBCN and the American Revolution Documentary Collection

WBCN and the American Revolution Documentary Collection

ca.1968-2010
Call no.: MS 788
Depiction of

On March 15, 1968, a failing classical music station, WBCN-FM, was reinvented as Boston’s first voice in radical underground radio, and its influence quickly spread nationally. Its characteristic blend of cultural chaos, including rock, folk, blues, and jazz, interspersed with news, radical politics, and community programming, provided a soundtrack for a generation fighting to remake its world. WBCN earned its nickname, “The American Revolution.” The station’s eclectic and unpredictable broadcasts included music from little-known performers who would emerge into the biggest acts of the day; regularly scheduled live musical performances from local clubs; trenchant political analysis and newscasts of the major events of the day; interviews with legendary cultural figures; and innovative new shows including one of the first women’s programs and the Lavender Hour, the nation’s first regularly broadcast LGBT radio show. Music, politics, culture, and community were intensely interconnected through WBCN, while its “listener line,” which took calls and answered questions on any subject, helped make it a virtual two-way hub for countercultural Boston.

While producing a documentary film about WBCN, and the music, politics, and social change during the period 1968-1974, former WBCN newscaster and announcer Bill Lichtenstein recognized the importance of archiving the wealth of primary materials that told the story of WBCN, its community and the dramatic changes of the era. The American Revolution Documentary Collection is the product of Lichtenstein’s energy, serving as an umbrella for a suite of interrelated collections focused on the impact of underground media in the Boston area and the profound social, political, and cultural changes of that time. These collections include the work of photographers, journalists, and writers who would go on to prominence, as well as activists, artists, and everyday people who witnessed and took part in an extended public conversation on the direction of our nation during the period of profound social, political, and cultural upheaval and who used media to help change it.

WBCN and the American Revolution collections include:

Subjects

Alternative radio broadcasting--MassachusettsBoston (Mass.)--History--20th centuryCambridge (Mass.)--History--20th centuryNineteen sixtiesRock musicVietnam War, 1961-1975--Protest movementsWBCN (Radio station : Boston, Mass.)

Types of material

PhotographsSound recordings
Weatherby, Una F.

Una F. Weatherby Collection

1924-1934
1 box 0.5 linear feet
Call no.: PH 036
Depiction of Gravestone in Putnam, Conn.
Gravestone in Putnam, Conn.

The botanical illustrator and writer Una Foster Weatherby (1878-1957) was an early student of New England gravestones. Born in Texas in 1878, Una Leonora Foster met a young pteridologist Charles Alfred Weatherby (1875-1949) while traveling abroad in 1910, and seven years later, the couple wed. As Charles advanced in his career to a position at the Gray Herbarium at Harvard, Una became his close associate, working with in the field and as illustrator and photographer. Among the many interests the couple developed was a fascination with photographing early American gravestones, and over the last three decades of her life, Una published occasionally on the subject. She died in Cambridge on August 17, 1957, and is interred with her husband at Center Cemetery in East Hartford, Conn.

The Weatherby collection consists of a substantial typed manuscript illustrating early American gravestones, mostly from New England. Meticulously assembled, the manuscript is divided into six thematic sections based on gravestone design (death’s heads, winged cherubs, wingless cherubs, portrait stones, symbolic stones, and designs and willows). Each stone is represented by a single photograph pasted onto a page, along with a transcription of the epitaph and occasional comments on the design and date on which the information was recorded. Although most stones are from Connecticut and Massachusetts, a few stones from Virginia and South Carolina are included.

Subjects

Sepulchral monuments--ConnecticutSepulchral monuments--MassachusettsSepulchral monuments--New Hampshire

Contributors

Association for Gravestone StudiesWeatherby, Una F

Types of material

PhotographsScrapbooks
Wellesley Monthly Meeting (Society of Friends)

Wellesley Monthly Meeting (Society of Friends) Records

1954-2010
5 vols., 3 boxes 2.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 902 W455

The Wellesley Monthly Meeting (Society of Friends) was set off from Cambridge Monthly Meeting in 1958 after fourteen years of worship. Since the outset, Wellesley has been a member of Salem Quarterly Meeting and since 1992, it sponsored a worship group (now a Recognized Meeting) at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Norfolk until 2020.

The records of Wellesley Monthly Meeting are comprised of relatively complete set of meeting minutes from 1954 (when Wellesley was a Recognized Meeting under the care of Cambridge) to 2004, along with newsletters from 1965-2010.

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, April 2016

Subjects

Quakers--MassachusettsSociety of Friends--MassachusettsWellesley (Mass.)--Religious life and customs

Contributors

New England Yearly Meeting of Friends

Types of material

Minutes (Administrative records)Newsletters
Westport Monthly Meeting (Society of Friends)

Westport Monthly Meeting (Society of Friends) Records

1766-2004
18 vols., 1 box 2.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 902 W4787

In 1699, Quaker meeting for worship began in Acoaxet, Mass., a coastal village within the boundaries of what would become the town of Westport. The worship group was set off from Dartmouth Monthly as a monthly meeting of its own in 1766, and became affiliated with Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting. Gradually between 1803 and 1812 Acoaxet became known as Westport Monthly Meeting.

Westport Monthly Meeting of Friends is well documented, with nearly continuous minutes of business meetings stretching from 1766 to 1989, a collection of vital statistics from the establishment of the meeting through 1887, and over fifty years of newsletters (1961-2004).

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, April 2016

Subjects

Quakers--MassachusettsSociety of Friends--MassachusettsWestport (Mass.)--Religious life and customs

Contributors

New England Yearly Meeting of Friends

Types of material

Minutes (Administrative records)NewslettersVital records (Document genre)
Westport Monthly Meeting of Friends (Wilburite: 1845-1851)

Westport Monthly Meeting of Friends (Wilburite) Records

1845-1850
2 vols. 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 902 W553 W4787

A product of the Wilburite separation of 1845, the Westport Monthly Meeting of Friends (Wilburite) was short lived, gathering only until it was laid down in 1850. Members of the meeting continued for another year as a preparative meeting under the aegis of Dartmouth Monthly Meeting (Wilburite).

The records of this ephemeral Wilburite monthly include complete minutes of both the men’s and women’s meetings.

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, Apr. 2016

Subjects

Quakers--MassachusettsSociety of Friends--MassachusettsWestport (Mass.)--Religious life and customs

Contributors

New England Yearly Meeting of Friends

Types of material

Minutes (Administrative records)
Whittemore, Amos, 1759-1828

Amos Whittemore Daybook

1817-1819
1 vol. 0.1 linear feet
Call no.: MS 153 bd

Wagonwright and celebrated inventor of a machine that made cotton and wool cards from West Cambridge (now Arlington), Massachusetts. Includes records of services provided, such as repairing, cleaning, painting and varnishing chaises; providing wheels, springs, waterhooks, whippletrees, bellybands, and carpet; and mending reins and harnesses. Also contains lists of customers (including many prominent families from the town) and records of cash transactions.

Subjects

Arlington (Mass.)--Economic conditions--19th centuryArlington (Mass.)--History--19th centuryCarriage and wagon making--Massachusetts--Arlington--History--19th centuryCarriage manufacturers and dealers--Massachusetts --Arlington--History--19th centuryHarness making and trade--Massachusetts--Arlington--History--19th century

Contributors

Whittemore, Amos, 1759-1828

Types of material

Daybooks
Wing, Paul, 1792-1822

Paul Wing Account Book

1805-1824
1 vol. 0.2 linear feet
Call no.: MS 215 bd

Seaman from Rochester, Massachusetts. Accounts provide information on work done, cargo and passengers carried, wages, ship expenses, and port charges. Also includes accounts of Philip Wing, Paul’s older brother, for agricultural, butchering, and ship carpentry work, as well as a loose sheet concerning probate court proceedings probably relating to the settling of Paul Wing’s estate after his death.

Subjects

Agriculture--Accounting--History--19th centuryHarbors--Port charges--History--19th centuryMerchant mariners--Salaries, etc.--History--19th centuryRochester (Mass. : Town)--Commerce--History--19th centuryRochester (Mass. : Town)--Economic conditions--19th centuryShipping--Accounting--History--19th centuryShips--Cargo--History--19th centuryShips--Equipment and supplies--History--19th centuryShips--Maintenance and repair--History--19th century

Contributors

Wing, Paul, 1792-1822Wing, Philip, 1788-

Types of material

Account books
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
Woodbury House

Woodbury House Boarding Register

1804-1920
1 vol. 0.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 172 bd

Boarding house on Folly Cove in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and boarding house at Echo Hill Cottage, perhaps also in Gloucester. Includes names of visitors, callers, boarders, and lodgers (some family friends and neighbors, others unknown guests) who hailed primarily from Massachusetts but also from states around the country. Also contains early accounts from 1804, guests at a Christmas party, lists of members of the Lanesville Universalist Church and Society who died or moved away, moral and religious verses entered by “Grand Ma”, and numerous preserved dried flowers and foliage, among other notations.

Subjects

Boardinghouses--Massachusetts--GloucesterGloucester (Mass.)--History

Types of material

Guest registers
Woodward, John

John Woodward Account book

1838-1868
1 vol. 0.1 linear feet
Call no.: MS 063 bd

John Woodward was a farmer in Groton, Mass., during the middle decades of the nineteenth century. Although little is known of his life, it appears that Woodward was born in nearby Tyngsboro on March 7, 1813, and that he married twice: first to Rebecca Sawtelle of Groton in 1823 and second to Mary Jane Nutting — almost 30 years his junior — in Dec. 1866. With Mary Jane, at least, he was highly reproductive, fathering his first son, a seventh child, at the age of 66. Woodward died in Groton on Apr. 20, 1895, and was buried in his family’s ancestral home of Dunstable.

John Woodward’s accounts document the financial transactions of fairly typical farmer in Groton over the period of three decades. Raising an array of produce, from cranberries and chestnuts, to squash, barley, apples, and turnips, Woodward also raised poultry and a variety of livestock. The ledger documents the day to day exchanges of food and labor that comprised the core of the local economy. Noteworthy among his customers are locally prominent families such as Blood and Swett and at least two Nuttings.

Subjects

Farmers--Massachusetts--GrotonGroton (Mass.)--Economic conditions--19th century

Types of material

Account books