Local chapters of the International Union of Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers representing workers in Connecticut. Records document a full range of union activities from elections and contract negotiations to arbitration and grievances. Also includes some union realia such as button, t-shirts, and bumper stickers.
Union that represented workers at the American Bosch plant in Springfield, Massachusetts, affiliated with the International Union of Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers after 1949.
Records include by-laws, minutes of the Executive Board, General Council, and Membership meetings, correspondence, membership reports, grievance and arbitration records, contract negotiation proposals and counter-proposals, strike materials, and publications documenting the administration, activities, and membership of Local 206. Effects of changing national economy and international trade on workers and union affairs, through time, are evident.
Local chapter of the International Union of Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers that represented workers at the Chapman Valve Manufacturing Company of Indian Orchard, Massachusetts. Records include detailed minute books of general and executive board meetings as well as several ledgers that reflect the activities of the credit union and the Chapman Valve Athletic Association.
Obscure in origin, the Ireland Lyceum appears to have been a fairly typical antebellum debating society, organized as an intellectually stimulating social activity for the benefit of its members. Meeting regularly, probably in the city of Holyoke, members formally debated a pre-assigned topic such as “Has America arrived at the zenith of her glory” (decided in the negative) or “are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness inalienable rights,” after which the members might hear an address.
A mangled, fragmentary echo of its former self, the Constitution, by-laws, and regular proceedings of the Ireland Lyceum contains the slender records of a typical antebellum men’s debating society. The volume was later used as a scrapbook with newspaper clippings covering the pages, however the clippings have been removed from the first several pages by a conservator, revealing some of the original content.
Janice M. Irvine, professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, is known for her research in the areas of social knowledge production, culture, politics, and sexuality studies. She earned her Ph.D. from Brandeis University, and an MPH in biostatistics and epidemiology from Boston University. She has received two Fulbright Scholarships; a Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America Oral History Grant; a Rockefeller Fellowship at the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies at CUNY; and an award for Career Achievement and Distinguished Scholarship by the Sexualities Section of the American Sociological Association. Irvine’s books include Talk About Sex: How Sex Ed Battles Helped Ignite the Right; Marginal People in Deviant Places: Ethnography, Difference, and the Challenge to Scientific Racism; and Disorders of Desire: Sexuality and Gender in Modern American Sexology. Irvine is also the author of numerous articles, and editor or coeditor of several volumes of essays.
The Janice M. Irvine Oral History Collection consists of oral histories conducted by Irvine over the course of more than a decade. Including interviews that were part of the research for her book Marginal People in Deviant Places, the collection also emphasizes experiences of people researching, using, or prescribing psychedelics for medical, psychological, spiritual, or mystical purposes, as well as individuals and groups engaged in or welcoming difference and creating or inhabiting alternative spaces. Interviews will go online as the files and metadata are prepared.
A member of the American Expeditionary Force during the First World War, Charles Edward Jackson was the son of Irish immigrants and a native of Northampton, Massachusetts. Drafted into the 76th (Liberty Bell) Division and assigned to the 301st Ammunition Train of the 151st Field Artillery Brigade, he served in France for a full year beginning in June 1918, seeing front line duty only in the last few days of the war. After the Armistice, he was reassigned to a classification camp in central France where he helped process American soldiers heading home. After making his back in June 1919, he worked as a clerk in a hardware store in Northampton until his death in 1930.
Written entirely while in the military service, Charles Jackson’s letters describe his exploits during the First World War. An optimist, strong Catholic, and good soldier, Jackson describes his year overseas, from mustering at Camp Devens through life in an ammunition train and the long post-war months spent on duty in a classification camp in central France. Although nearly devoid of actual battle content due to the role his unit played and the reach of censorship, Jackson’s letters are descriptive and entertaining, describing day to day life, the late offensives of the war, the influenza epidemic and Armistice, and his growing sense of impatience while awaiting demobilization.
Access restrictions: Temporarily stored offsite; contact SCUA in advance to request materials from this collection.
An attorney and activist, Wayne Jaquith has been a prominent figure in the environmental and peace movements since the 1980s. A graduate of Cornell University and the Northeastern University School of Law (1977), Jaquith served as an officer in a remarkable series of organizations, including as executive director of the Nantucket Land Council, Physicians for Social Responsibility, the Lawyers Alliance for Nuclear Arms Control, and the Ploughshares Fund. He was also a co-founder of Professionals Coalition for Nuclear Arms Control, the Coalition for the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers, and the Arms Transfer Working Group.
Reflecting Jacquith’s diverse interests, this collection includes important materials relating to the peace, environmental, and antinuclear movements, including the Nuclear Freeze movement of the early 1980s. The collection has a rich assortment of newsletters and communications between activist organizations, along with background information, research, and writing.
Margaret R. Jenks has been a family genealogist since 1964 and a cemetery transcriber since 1978. A prolific writer, she has published books listing all the cemetery inscriptions of the twenty-seven towns in Rutland County, Vermont, and of Granville, Washington County, New York, and she has conducted research on the stonecarvers of Rutland County. She served six years as a trustee of the Association for Gravestone Studies.
The Jenks collection is comprised of eighteen volumes containing exhaustive documentation of gravestone inscriptions from the following cemeteries in Vermont: Benson, Brandon, Castleton, Chittenden, Clarendon, Danby, Fair Haven, Granville (Washington County), Hubbardston, Ira, Mendon, Middleton, Mount Holly, Mt. Tabor, Pawlet, Pittsfield, Pittsford, Poultney, Proctor, Putney, Rutland, Sherburne, Shrewsbury, Sudbury, Tinmouth, Wallingford, Wells, West Haven, West Rutland.
Allen Hale Johnson, known professionally as Hale Johnson, was born on December 25th of 1937 to parents Louise and Lawrence Johnson. Hale reflects on his childhood, writing “The key is to have passion. What a gift that is. My parents gave me a little talent and I’ve tried not to abuse it. I feel lucky”. This appreciative nature and desire to nurture his creativity would go on to define all corners of Hale’s life – from his career, to his marriage, to the way he loved his golden retrievers.
He married his wife, Lorraine Karaffy on October 7, 1961 at Narrow Memorial Methodist Church of Maplewood, New Jersey. Hale spent some of the early years of his marriage stationed at Fort Dix, New Jersey, with both the ins and outs of his experiences there as well as the dynamics of his relationship beautifully encapsulated within the abundance of correspondence within this collection.
Their lives, both as a unit and as individuals, were defined by their love for art, beautiful places, and each other. Lorraine went on to work as a florist, spending her free time giving back to the community through volunteer work at places like the Greenfield Public Library. Hale went on to have a successful career painting very detailed landscapes – booking one-man exhibitions with galleries such as, but not limited to, The Tilting Windmills, The Harrison Gallery, William Baczek Fine Arts, and The Greylock Gallery. The subject matter of these works typically revolve around Western Massachusetts, broadly New England, and coastal Maine, aiming to capture the richness of the landscapes, void of people.
Lorraine and Hale eventually settled at a home in Colrain, Massachusetts, which is where they would stay for the remainder of their adult lives. This property and the many people who would come to visit it over the years, are a recurring subject in his personal photographs.
Hale and Lorraine stayed together until her passing on November 10, 2019. Hale made a large donation of $500,000 in her name to the Greenfield Public Library, which at the time was undergoing a major reconstruction project. The reading room of the Greenfield Public Library is now dedicated to Lorraine Johnson due to this hefty contribution.
The A. Hale Johnson Papers consists of a mix of documents and ephemera spanning from the mid-19th century to 2022. Included in the collection is correspondence, records and photographs covering two main categories: his professional work as a landscape painter and his personal life, spanning from his time as a young man in the military all the way through his older years as an established member of his community.
Father and son wood turners, manufacturers of ladders, and general wood workers from the Loudville section of Westhampton, Massachusetts. Includes names of customers and businesses (bulk of the accounts are with local lumber and furniture dealers S.M. Smith Co., E.H. Lyman, Medad Pomeroy, and Charles Loud & Co.), items sold (such as bureaus, tables, and lumber), furniture that they repaired, and supply items which they acquired (such as varnish, stain, glass, tacks). Also contains documentation of employee payment, flour, tow, sugar, and coffee purchases, and employee lost work days.
