Collecting area: New England

Since 1989 the Arcadia Players have been performing Baroque music with the aim of providing an authentic experience both for the musicians and the audience by employing instruments and performance practices that draw from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In residence at the Massachusetts Center for Renaissance Studies at UMass Amherst, the ensemble performs an annual series of concerts in several communities throughout western Massachusetts.

The collection consists of brochures, programs, photographs, videorecordings of performances, and financial and administrative records. Together the items provide a behind-the-scenes look at the operations of a small but successful professional ensemble of musicians.

Richard Archambault conducted interviews of various citizens of Ashfield, Massachusetts, under the direction of Joel Halpern of the University of Massachusetts Amherst Anthropology Department. Contains copies of typed notes from interviews, as well as names of the citizens who were interviewed.

George Armelagos, expert on the diet of prehistoric humans and author of the book Consuming Passions: the Anthropology of Eating (1980) was a professor in the University’s Anthropology Department from 1971 until 1989. Armelagos was born in Lincoln Park, Michigan in 1936 and earned his B.A from the University of Michigan in 1958, his MA and PhD from the University of Colorado in 1963 and 1968 respectively. Armelagos became the face of physical anthropology in the 1980s, publishing popular works on forensic studies of prehistoric man and his research in the field of paleopathology attempted to apply the findings of skeletal research to contemporary nutrition and medicine. While at the University, Armelagos undertook a forensic study of the towns flooded by the Quabbin Reservoir. Armelagos left the University for a position at the University of Florida in 1989.

The George Armelagos papers include correspondence, grant proposals, and lecture notes from his time at the University of Massachusetts. There is a folder of materials from his study of the Quabbin Reservoir and photographs from the Mesa Verde Path. The remainder of the collection contains Armelagos’ published and unpublished works, stretching from his time as a Ph.D. student through his time at the University.

Founded in 1915, the Associated Industries of Massachusetts (AIM) is the largest non-profit, nonpartisan association of employers in the state and a “voice for business.” As a lobbying organization, the AIM focuses on issues affecting employers of all size in the state with goal of supporting job growth and economic activity and advocates for fair and equitable public policy. The organization also provides services for management and human relations professionals to increase workforce productivity and to improve workforce recruitment and retention.

Approximately half of this small collection consists of AIM newsletters from the 1940s and 1950s, with the other half consisting of newsletters relating to lobbying efforts in the early- to mid-1980s.

Founded in 1977, the Association for Gravestone Studies (AGS) is an international organization dedicated to the study and preservation of gravestones of all periods and styles. Based in Greenfield, Mass., the AGS sponsors conferences, workshops and exhibits, and publishes an annual journal, Markers, and quarterly bulletin. Their mission is to promote the study of gravestones from historical and artistic perspectives, expand public awareness of the significance of historic grave markers, and encourage individuals and groups to record and preserve gravestones.

The AGS Collection consists of the central records of the organization plus a growing number of photographic archives of gravestone art donated by members and associates. Offering critical documentation of gravestones, tombs, and cemeteries throughout the country, but especially New England.

Collections include:

• AGS Printed Materials Collection
• AGS Ephemera Collection
• Friedrich Karl Azzola Collection
• Alford Marble Works Records
• Carol D. Andrews Collection
• Peter Benes Collection
• Alex Beron Collection
• Eric J. Brock Collection
• Warren F. Broderick Collection
• Alice Bunton Collection
• Frank Calidonna Collection
• Cemetery Inscriptions Collection
• Paul and Olive Colburn Collection
• Brian A. Conley Collection
• Michael Cornish Collection
• Edwin S. Dethlefsen Collection
• Robert W. Drinkwater Collection
• Edward H. Duane Collection
• Joseph Dudley Memoir and Diary
• L. Sidney Eslinger Collection
• Daniel and Jessie Lie Farber Collection
• Laurel K. Gabel Collection
• George and Kent Records
• Jonah B. Griswold Ledgers
• Roberta Halporn Collection
• William E. Harding Collection
• Historic Burying Grounds Initiative Collection
• Margaret R. Jenks Collection
• Sharon Keim Collection
• Allan I. Ludwig Collection
• Richard E. Meyer Collection
• Nanette Napoleon Collection
• Cora M. Ott Collection
• Carol A. Perkins Collection
• Portland Granite Company Records
• Susanne S. Ridlen Collections
• Barbara Rotundo Collection
• Robert Bayard Severy Collection
• Small Collections
• Thomas W. and Margaret Tenney Collection
• James Tibensky Collection
• Ralph L. Tucker Collection
• Una F. Weatherby Collection
• Elizabeth W. Whitaker Collection
• Gray Williams Collection
• John S. Wilson Collection
• Robert A. Wright Collection

Or View all

The AGS publications, Markers
and Newsletter of the AGS are digitized and available online through Credo

Founded in 1977, the Association for Gravestone Studies (AGS) is an international organization dedicated to furthering the study and preservation of gravestones. Based in Greenfield, Mass., the Association promotes the study of gravestones from historical and artistic perspectives. To raise public awareness about the significance of historic gravemarkers and the issues surrounding their preservation, the AGS sponsors conferences and workshops, publishes both a quarterly newsletter and annual journal, Markers, and has built an archive of collections documenting gravestones and the memorial industry.

The AGS Ephemera Collections contains a mix of materials relating to gravestones and the slate and marble industries. Most of the items relate to the marble and slate industries in Western Massachusetts and adjacent areas in Vermont and New Hampshire.

Access restrictions: Temporarily stored offsite; contact SCUA in advance to request materials from this collection.

The largest division of the American Library Association, the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) is an organization of information professionals employed in the wide variety of academic libraries. In 1972, the ACRL authorized formation of regional chapters, including one in New England, as a means of supporting professional growth among academic and research librarians by sponsoring workshops, conferences, and other opportunities for learning, consultation, and collaboration.

Representing over forty years of records of a regional chapter of the ACRL, this collection offers thorough documentation. The collection includes a nearly complete run of bulletins, information on the organization and administration of the chapter, and some “historical” materials gathered for the chapter’s tenth anniversary.

This collection consists chiefly of published booklets and reports documenting land use and preservation in Massachusetts and across New England. As a member of the Rural Development Committee (RDC), Bob August was involved in improving the effectiveness of public and private rural development efforts. Correspondence, reports, and minutes for other groups, such as the Lower Pioneer Valley Reginal Planning Commission and the Committee on Development of Western Massachusetts, are also part of the collection.

An historian and educator, Samuel Austin (1816-1897) was known for his long association with the Friends Boarding School in Providence, R.I. (later renamed the Moses Brown School). An alumnus who married an alumna, Elizabeth H. Osborn, Austin taught at the Boarding school for decades and was instrumental in gathering and preserving documents relating to the school. He wrote and lectured regularly on the history of Friends’ education and on the Boarding School, and its noted teachers and alumni.

A product of the historical work of Samuel Austin, the collection contains both essays, notes, and talks on the Friends’ Boarding School in Providence and on Moses and Obadiah Brown, and some significant original documents used by Austin in his research. Noteworthy among the original materials are a fascinating series of records from monthly and quarterly meetings in and near Rhode Island, mostly in 1787-1793; a rich series of epistles received by Smithfield Monthly Meeting from other meetings in New England (1718-1767); some key printed epistles from Yearly Meetings, including those on war (London, New England, and Philadelphia Yearly) and slavery (London and Philadelphia). Of equal note are a series of letters from Elisha Thornton (a New Bedford merchant, educator, and antislavery advocate), a lengthy letter on doctrine from John Wilbur, and a 1765 sermon from Rachel Wilson.

Arlene Avakian arrived at UMass in 1972 as a graduate student working on the social history of American women, but quickly became a key figure in the creation of the university’s new program in Women’s Studies. As she completed her MA in History (1975) and EdD (1985), she helped in the early organization of the program, later joining the faculty as professor and program director. Through her research and teaching, she contributed to an engaging departmental culture in which the intersection of race, class, gender, ethnicity, and sexuality were placed at the center, building the program over the course of 35 years into the nationally-recognized Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Avakian has written and taught on topics ranging from the lives and experiences of Armenian American and African American women to culinary history and the construction of whiteness. She retired in May 2011.
Documenting the growth and development of Women’s Studies at UMass Amherst, the collection includes valuable material on the creation of the department (and Women’s Studies more generally), second- and third-wave feminism, and Avakian’s teaching and research. The collection includes a range of correspondence, memoranda, notes, and drafts of articles, along with several dozen oral historical interviews with Armenian American women. Also noteworthy is the extensive documentation of ABODES, the Amherst Based Organization to Develop Equitable Shelter, which established the Pomeroy Lane Cooperative Housing Community in South Amherst in 1994.