Collecting area: New England

Wilderness Monthly Meeting originated out of an independent worship group in Shrewsbury, Vermont, in 1972. Moving to the Farm and Wilderness Camps at Plymouth, Vt., in 1977, it came under care of Bennington Monthly as the Wilderness Meeting, setting off as a monthly meeting in the following year. It has subsequently moved to Ludlow, Rutland, Tinmouth, Wallingford, and (currently) Cuttingville, Vt.

The records for Wilderness Monthly Meeting in SCUA consist solely of state of the society reports, 1991-1994.

The human geographer, Richard Wilkie received his doctorate from the University of Washington in 1968, the same year he joined the faculty at UMass Amherst. His research has included a long-term longitudinal study of the assimilation of Argentine migrants, a study of the periodic market system in the Guatemalan highlands, and other projects that range from the European Mediterranean to Hawaii, Malaysia, and Ecuador. Beginning in the 1990s, he turned increasingly to analyzing the concept of attachment to place and the importance of place in the lives of people. Wilkie retired in 2009, but has remained active in teaching, mentoring graduate students, travel, and photography.

This collection consists of town maps excised from mid-nineteenth century atlases, including Smith’s Map of Hartford County (1855), Clark and Tackabury’s New geographical map of the State of Connecticut (1860), and F.W. Beer’ Atlas of Litchfield County (1874).

During the early decades of the nineteenth century, Roger Williams ran a ferry in West Springfield, Mass., carrying passengers and freight across the Connecticut River.

The Williams ledger is a combination daybook and account book, recording several dozen transactions of a Connecticut River ferryman, centered on the years around the War of 1812. Most of the entries are brief records of trips carrying individuals or freight across the river, however a few provide indications of other economic activity, including framing and joining, making a coffin, fixing sleds, and cidering.

A philosopher, writer, activist, and artist, Douglas Wilson founded the Rowe Conference Center affiliated with the Unitarian Universalist camp in Rowe, Mass. Born in Vancouver, B.C., in 1946, but raised primarily in California, Wilson earned degrees at UC Santa Barbara (1967) and the Starr King School for the Ministry in Berkeley (1970), before being ordained at the First Uniarian Congregational Society in Brooklyn. He first came to Rowe in 1971 to work as assistant director of the Junior High summer camp, but soon proposed building a center at Rowe modeled on the Esalen Institute which would offer year-round retreats and workshops founded in Unitarian Universalist principles of equality, justice, freedom, peace, and the respect for the interdependent web of all existence. Serving as Executive Director (and after 1985, as co-Executive Director with his partner Prue Berry), Wilson brought together people who were “politically aware, psychologically sophisticated, and religiously based,” ranging from the Berrigans and Nearings to Jean Houston and Abbie Hoffman. The Wilsons retired from Rowe in December 2012.

The Wilson collection contains nearly forty years of files accumulated during Douglas Wilson’s time as Director of the Rowe Conference Center. In addition to a nearly complete run of the Center newsletter, Wilson retained materials on dozens of the thinkers, writers, and activists who came to Rowe, with each file containing correspondence (usually both directions), background notes and clippings.

As an undergraduate at UMass Amherst, John S. Wilson undertook of study of gravestones in New Salem, Mass. Working under George Armelagos, he receiving a BA in Anthropology with honors (1971) for his work on the “social dimension of New England mortuary art,” and returned for an MA in (1976). Wilson later worked as Regional Historic Preservation Officer and Archaeologist for the Northeast Region of the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Part of the collections of the Association for Gravestone Studies, the collection includes two copies of John Wilson’s senior honors thesis, a card file associated with the thesis, and several dozen slides (both color and black and white) of New Salem headstones. Some images appear to be later prints of images taken in 1970-1971.

A union organizer and labor communicator, Rand Wilson became a rank and file organizer for the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union and helped win the first-ever contract for workers at Clinical Assays in Cambridge, Mass., in 1982. He has since taken part in dozens of successful organizing and contract campaigns, both regionally and nationally, for the Communications Workers of America, the Paperworkers, Carpenters, Teamsters and Service Employees International Union, and other unions. Wilson’s notable achievements include coordinating solidarity efforts with the CWA and IBEW during the massive NYNEX telephone workers’ strike in 1989; founding the Massachusetts branch of the community-labor coalition, Jobs with Justice; coordinating communications for the Teamsters in 1997 during the lengthy contract campaign and historic 15-day strike by the 185,000 workers at UPS; and organizing an AFL-CIO-led effort focused on financial institutions’ conflicts of interest that helped to thwart the Bush administration’s efforts to privatize social security. He served as national coordinator for “Labor for Bernie” during the presidential campaign on 2016, and currently works for SEIU Local 888 in Boston.

Documenting forty years of labor activism, the Wilson papers include important material from most of his major initiatives, including organizing campaigns with the CWA, files relating to the Justice at Work/Just Cause for All initiatives, organizing high tech, health care and telephone workers, and Jobs with Justice. Nearly half of the collection is comprised of a comprehensive collection of source materials and documents from the Teamsters’ UPS contract campaign and strike.

Quaker worship began in Windham, Me., around 1780, with a preparative meeting established there under the care of Falmouth Monthly Meeting. Windham was set off as a monthly meeting in 1803, and it had Limington Monthly set off from it in 1846. Windham has supported both a preparative meeting (1844-1889) and worship group (1903-1945) at nearby Casco, where the meeting continues to gather during the late summer months.

Windham Monthly Meeting is represented in SCUA by only two State of the Society reports, 1989 and 1993. The bulk of the records for Windham Monthly are held at the Maine Historical Society

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.

A long time professor of the Russian language, Marshall Winokur received his B.A. in Russian from the University of Massachusetts (1965) and his masters (1966) and doctorate (1973) in Slavic Linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania. While working on his doctoral thesis in 1969, he began teaching Russian and German at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa where he remained for the duration of his academic career. His research on Russian culture and the fate of Russian Orthodox churches, convents, and monasteries under the Soviet regime resulted in numerous publications and talks. After retiring from the University in 1994, Winokur and his wife Janice settled on an old farm in Deering, New Hampshire, consisting of an old house built circa 1800, a three-story barn dating back to 1850, and a carriage house, and has since been involved in the local community and exploring New Hampshire history.
The Winokur collection consists of hundreds of printed works pertaining to the history and culture of New Hampshire, about a quarter of which were published prior to 1900. Wide ranging in content, the collection includes state registers, directories, gazetteers, popular magazines, and a number of biographical works and local histories.

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With a complex history of names changes and switches in quarterly affiliation, Winthrop Monthly Meeting was founded in the Kennebec Valley, Maine, in 1813 as Leeds Monthly Meeting. It is currently a semi-programmed meeting under the care of Vassalboro Quarter.

SCUA’s holdings for Winthrop Monthly Meeting are limited to a single volume of meeting minutes (1944-1969); a volume recording births, death, and marriages; and two volumes of membership records. The bulk of the records for Winthrop are held in the collections of the Maine Historical Society.