Collecting area: Massachusetts (West)

Shortly after the end of the Second World War, a small group of residents formed a corporation to build an airport in West Springfield, Mass. Chartered on June 3, 1946, and based on Riverdale Street, the corporation attracted a small group of investors, but appears never to have prospered. After many months of attempting to sell off their real estate, the corporation voted to liquidate in August 1954.

The records of the West Springfield Airport, Inc., offer a brief, but relatively complete history of small, failed corporation. Although sparsely detailed, the collection documents the financial and organizational uncertainties that led to the early cessation of operations.

Established in 1957, the Western Massachusetts Bridge Association (WMBA) Unit 196 was created by founding members of the Springfield Bridge Club eager to share their love for the game with the wider western Massachusetts area. The unit played a prominent role in teaching interested individuals to learn to play contract bridge by reaching out to colleges, clubs, and churches. Over the years, WMBA has remained an active unit in the New England Bridge Conference District 25, one of the largest districts of the American Contract Bridge Association.

Records of the WMBA and District 25 document the growth of contract bridge in New England. From the earliest days of the unit, members drafted by-laws, oversaw membership services, organized tournaments, and tracked finances. Materials in the collection shed light on every aspect of these activities.

Records of the Western Massachusetts Health Planning Council consist of health system plans, determination of need reports, and subjects files realting to various regional hospital and health care facilities.

Situated in a region known for its progressive spirit, the Western Massachusetts Library Club was established in 1898 to respond to the unique needs of librarians overseeing small or rural libraries, and to foster camaraderie among local colleagues. Almost immediately, however, the club expanded its focus, taking positions on issues ranging from modern library practices to national legislation and leading the way in the expansion of services for public libraries, all while maintaining its identity as an advocate for local libraries and librarians.

The collection is richest in records that document the early history of the club including detailed meeting minutes, news clippings, programs, and circulars. Beginning in the late 1960s, the club’s activities are captured primarily through membership lists and meeting notices and programs. Taken together, the records trace the growth of the WMLC for more than a century from its establishment to the present.

The Western Massachusetts Regional Library System was formed in 1962 as the Western Regional Public Library System, one of two organizations that provided professional support for the public librarians of the Commonwealth. Through the years, the two regions increased to three and then six, with the west consistently serving as a voice for the many small libraries that comprise its membership. Supported by funds from the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners, WMRLS provided a range of services, including continuing education for librarians; bookmobiles, delivery services, and interlibrary loan; reference support; catalog support and online databases; and youth services; as well as a purchasing cooperative. Following the national economic crisis in 2008-2009, WMRLS was consolidated with the other five regional library systems in Massachusetts and in June 2010, merged into the Massachusetts Library System.

The WMRLS collection contains a complete run of its newsletter from 1962 to 2010, copies of newsletters for continuing education and youth services, and a small assortment of administrative documents relating to its history and the services it provided.

Originally settled by Europeans in 1762, the town of Westhampton, Massachusetts, was separated from adjacent Northampton and incorporated in September 1778. Situated in the western reaches of Hampshire County, it was principally an agricultural town until the later twentieth century, producing apples, other fruit, and maple sugar, with only minor industry. The town still retains its rural character: a century after incorporation, the population had grown to just over 500, and nearly 1,500 by 2000.

The Westhampton collection provides an extensive record of public life and local governance in a typical small Hampshire County town. Spanning from 1779, just after the date of incorporation, through the turn of the twentieth century, the collection includes extensive records of town meetings, including warrants, agendas, and summaries; records of the Overseers of Poor, the schools, militia service, and parish; materials on roads and highways; and a large quantity of financial records.

The Congregational Church in Westhampton, Mass., was formally organized on Sept. 1, 1779, with the installation of a young graduate of Yale, Enoch Hale, brother of the patriot Nathan Hale. At the end of Hale’s fifty years in the Westhampton pulpit, the church experienced a crisis that resulted in the separation of a portion of the membership as the Union Church, led by the charismatic evangelical preacher John Truair. The churches were reunited in 1850.

The records of the Westhampton Congregational Church document nearly two hundreds of religious life in a rural western Massachusetts community. Beginning with the founding of the church in 1779, the collection include a nearly unbroken record of church activities including thorough records of membership, transfers, marriages, baptisms, deaths, and church discipline, and for the latter century, a complete record of church finances. Of particular note is a volume recording the activities of the secessionist Union Church, 1829-1849.

David Kenneth Wetherbee was a naturalist and local historian who lived for many years in the small town of New Salem, Mass. Receiving a doctorate in ornithology from the University of Connecticut in 1959, Wetherbee worked as an adjunct instructor in Wildlife Biology at UMass Amherst and pursued his eclectic research agenda that ran from butterflies in the Caribbean to the history of his adopted New Salem. He died in 1997 at the age of 70.

This unusual collection is the result of David K. Wetherbee’s concerted effort to collocate data on the early settlement of New Salem, Mass., and his attempt to “reconstruct” the record book of the town’s Proprietors that had succumbed to fire in 1856. In addition to a scarce copy of his eccentric summary of his findings, Heare Lies Salim New Grant, the collection includes notes on the original divisions of land among the early settlers, arranged by division; and information on each of the early settlers and their landholdings, arranged alphabetically by name.

Temporarily stored offsite; contact SCUA to request materials from this collection.

The first public radio station in western New England, WFCR Five College Radio has provided a mix of high quality, locally-produced and nationally syndicated programming since May 1961. In 2012, the station reached over 175,000 listeners per week, with a mix of classical and jazz music, news, and entertainment.

The WFCR Collection contains nearly 4,500 reel to reel recordings of locally-produced radio programs, reflecting over fifty years of the cultural and intellectual life of western Massachusetts. Drawing upon the talents of the faculty and students of the Five Colleges (Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and Smith Colleges and UMass Amherst), the collection offers a remarkable breadth of content, ranging from public affairs to community and national news, cultural programming, children’s programming, news and current events, scholarly lectures, classical music, and jazz.

Television station WGBY began broadcasting in Springfield, Massachusetts, in May 1955, as the public television station for the residents of the Pioneer Valley and western Massachusetts. Owned by Boston’s WGBH, the station produces its own original content and maintains its own web presence.

The WGBY collection consists entirely of photographic stills sent to the station for use in promoting its broadcasts. Featured artists include a number of actors and musicians popular during the 1980s and 1990s, including Judy Collins, Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis, the Three Tenors, and Oprah Winfrey. Most of the shows represented were produced or distributed by PBS.