Collecting area: Massachusetts (East)

One of the small number of Wilburite quarterly meetings, the Salem and Dover Quarter was established in 1851 when the Salem Quarterly Meeting and Dover Quarterly Meeting were merged. It oversaw two Wilburite monthly meetings: Berwick, Maine, and Salem, Massachusetts. When Salem and Dover was laid down in 1881, its remaining members were transferred to Sandwich Monthly Meeting (Wilburite).

This small collection is comprised solely of a complete set of minute from the men’s quarterly meeting.

Conflict over doctrinal matters in the Salem Monthly Meeting of Friends was endemic in the first half of the nineteenth century, beginning with the New Light agitation after the War of 1812. With the Separation of 1845, a Wilburite monthly meeting was established there that persisted until 1863. Part of the Salem Quarterly Meeting (Wilburite) from 1845-1851 and Salem and Dover Quarterly (1851-1863), Salem Monthly’s remaining members were officially transferred to Berwick, however many members chose to join the Otisite (or Primitive) Nantucket Monthly Meeting instead. Their worship group lasted until about 1911.

The slender collection for the Salem Monthly Meeting of Friends (Wilburite) include complete minutes for both the men’s and women’s meetings.

Among the oldest Quaker quarterlies in the United States, Salem Quarterly Meeting of Friends began meetings for business in 1705. Over the years, two additional quarterlies have been set off from Salem: Falmouth in 1794 and Dover in 1815. Salem Quarter currently oversees ten monthly meetings, all in Massachusetts, however historically it included meetings in both Maine and New Hampshire.

The records of Salem Quarter are a fairly robust cross section of the activity of one of the oldest quarterlies in New England. The records are relatively richer for the eighteenth century and quite sparse for the mid-twentieth.

Iron foundry in Taunton, Massachusetts that produced stoves for individuals and several large local companies. Includes monthly labor payments to workforce of thirteen, as well as monthly accounts of sales, merchandise on hand, and rent. Also documents the company’s worth, annual profits, and the worth of company partners in 1870.

The oldest continuously-organized Quaker meeting in North America, Sandwich Monthly Meeting began holding meetings for worship on 1657 and has been a center for the faith in Cape Cod ever since. Surviving the turbulence of nineteenth century Quakerism in relatively good order, the meeting today oversees three meetinghouses and four centers for worship on the Cape.

The records of Sandwich Monthly Meeting are suitably rich for a meeting of such age, including over three hundred years of minutes of meetings for business. Although the early years of the twentieth century are underdocumented and records of committees are mostly absence, coverage since the 1980s is relatively strong.

One of the first quarterly meetings to be established within the New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, Sandwich has been conducting meetings for business since 1705, with meetings for worship extending back to as early as 1680. Sandwich Quarterly oversees monthly meetings primarily in Bristol County, Mass., Cape Cod, and the Islands. The Wilburite Sandwich Quarterly separated in 1845 and remained apart until the general reunion of Friends in New England in 1945.

Spanning more than three centuries, the records of Sandwich Quarterly Meeting contain a nearly complete run of minutes of meetings, records of Ministers and Elders, and other miscellaneous materials.

Sandwich Quarterly Meeting was one of four original Quarterly Meetings comprising the New England Yearly Meeting (Wilburite), along with Rhode Island, Dover, and Salem. Formed in the split of 1845, Sandwich oversaw Monthly Meetings in Dartmouth, Nantucket, New Bedford, and Westport. It suffered its own split when the Nantucket Monthly Meeting separated to form an “Otisite” meeting between 1863 and 1911. Sandwich absorbed the Wilburite Salem and Dover Quarterly meetings in 1881, and was eventually merged itself into the combined Rhode Island and Sandwich Quarterly Meeting in 1935. After the reunification of New England Friends in 1944-1945, it became the Narragansett Quarterly Meeting.

The records of the Sandwich Quarterly Meeting (Wilburite) include minutes of the Men’s and Women’s meetings from the start of the meeting in 1845 to its merger into the Rhode Island and Sandwich Quarterly Meeting in 1934, along with two volumes of records of Ministers and Elders. One volume containing minutes of the Men’s Meeting (1845-1863) paired with the records of Ministers and elders (1845-1857) is part of the collections of the Nantucket Historical Association.

Prosperous, slave-owning farmer from Amesbury, Massachusetts, who also served as town warden, selectman, and representative. Includes details of the purchases of agricultural products (corn, potatoes, lamb, rye, hay, molasses, wood, cheese), and related services with some of the town’s earliest settlers, widow’s expenses, expenses in support of his grandmother, and family dates.

In October 1978 a group of clerical workers at Tufts united in an effort to organize their coworkers with Local 925, S.E.I.U. Isolated and scattered across campus, the clerical employees at the university greeted this call to unionize with support, hoping it would mean an improvement in salaries and in grievance procedures. By the summer of the following year, 60% of eligible employees signed authorization cards, more than required to vote on the issue, and an election early that fall was expected. Tufts administration, however, delayed the election by disputing the composition of the bargaining unit. Formal hearings took place from September through the end of the year, but instead of resolving the case, the Boston Labor Board referred it to Washington on January 25, 1980. Nine months later the election was finally held, but the results were not what were anticipated more than a year earlier. Rather than an easy victory to unionize, the majority of clerical staff at Tufts voted not to make Local 925 their exclusive bargaining representative. The administration’s anti-union campaign waged throughout 1979 and 1980 had a tremendous impact on the employees at the university, and a number of concessions made on wages, health insurance, and vacations further eroded support for organizing with Local 925.

The collection documents the efforts of Tufts clerical workers to unionize during 1978-1980. The group’s biweekly newsletter, Inside Tufts, written by the university’s employees and published by Local 925, offers an important behind-the-scenes look on two fronts: the issues and grievances of the clerical staff at Tufts and the reasons behind their decision to unionize. Materials relating to the efforts of other Boston-area institutions, in particular colleges and universities, are also included.

A key figure in the New England folk revival of the 1960s, Betsy Siggins (nee Minot) entered Boston University in the fall 1958 just at the music was taking off. Along with her college friend Joan Baez, she soon left school for the lure of the bohemian musical scene in Cambridge. At the age of 20, Betsy married the banjo player for the Charles River Valley Boys, Bob Siggins, who was also a founding member of Club 47, the most important venue for folk music in the region. For musicians from Baez and Bob Dylan to Jim Kweskin, Eric Von Schmidt, and Jim Rooney Club 47 was a career launching pad and despite the segregation of the era, it was a place where white northern audiences first encountered African American and blues musicians. Siggins worked full time at Club 47, filling a variety of jobs from office work to waitress to art gallery manager, eventually becoming program officer, arranging the schedules for musicians booked by Rooney or Byron Linardos. After Club 47 closed in 1968, Siggins went on to work for a succession of not for profit organizations, including the Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife and for programs for the homeless and poor.
The Siggins Collection contains important materials on Club 47 and its successor, Club Passim, including business records, ephemera, clippings, and some remarkable scrapbooks featuring performers such Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, and Richard Farina. The collection contains dozens of photographs (many taken by Charlie Frizzell), showing Siggins, her friends, and musicians at home, at Club 47, and at folk festivals in Newport, Brandeis, and Monterey. Of particular note in the collection is a remarkable series of 27 reel to reel tapes of performances at Club 47 featuring John Hammond, Doc Watson, Bill Monroe, Eric Von Schmidt, Jim Rooney, Jeff and Maria Muldaur, Jackie Washington, the Charles River Valley Boys, Joan Baez, and others. Additional material on Siggins and the Minot family was retained by the Cambridge Historical Society.