The University of Massachusetts Amherst
Robert S. Cox Special Collections & University Archives Research Center
CredoResearch digital collections in Credo

Collecting area: Religion

Rufus Jones: A Luminous Life Collection

Rufus Jones: A Luminous Life Collection

2000-2002
2 boxes 1.75 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1181
Rufus Jones: A Luminous Life documentary cover image, with portrait of Jones
Rufus Jones: A Luminous Life documentary

The 2001 documentary Rufus Jones: A Luminous Life was produced by members of Wellesley Friends Meeting in Massachusetts. Documentary film maker Sharon Mullally recorded interviews with people who knew Jones as a colleague, teacher, or mentor, and with Quaker scholars about placing Jones’s life and legacy into context. Mullally and Barbara Attie served as Producers and Directors, and Frederic G. Corneel served as Executive Producer of the 40-minute documentary. A 28-minute broadcast version aired on PBS in 2002.

Rufus Matthew Jones (1863-1948) was a Quaker leader, mystic, philosopher, and activist, born in Maine. One of the most influential Quakers of the 20th century, Jones was widely published; helped found the American Friends Service Committee; was a world traveler, lecturer, and learner; helped instigate the Quäkerspeisung feeding program after World War I; and worked to heal the divide between two branches of American Quakerism that split in the mid-19th century. Jones attended the Providence Friends School in Rhode Island and Haverford College in Pennsylvania, and having obtained an MA from Harvard, returned to Haverford as a professor of Psychology and Philosophy.

The Rufus Jones: A Luminous Life Collection consists of the raw, edited, and final versions of the materials used to create the documentary, Rufus Jones: A Luminous Life. It contains videotaped interviews with people who knew Jones as well as Quaker scholars, archival film footage and archival audio of Jones and the places he lived and worked, as well as several copies of the completed documentary. Formats include Betacam SP, DVCAM, and DVD.

Gift of Sharon Mullally, January 2023.

Subjects

American Friends Service CommitteeJones, Rufus M. (Rufus Matthew), 1863-1948QuakersSociety of Friends

Types of material

Betacam-SPVideo recordings (physical artifacts)
Abu al-Barakat Hafiz al-din Abdallah ibn Ahad ibn Mahmud al-Nasafi

Kanz al-daquia'iq fi'l-furu

1413
1 volume ; 28 x 18 cm ; 110 ff.
Call no.: MS 1118
Depiction of Detail of leaf from Kanz al-daqua'iq fi'l-furu
Detail of leaf from Kanz al-daqua'iq fi'l-furu

Abu al-Barakat Hafiz al-din Abdallah ibn Ahad ibn Mahmud al-Nasafi was a Hanafi legist and theologian. He was born in Nasaf (now southern Uzbekistan) in CE 710, taught in the Madrasa al-Kutbiya al-Sultaniya in Kirman, and wrote the Kanz al-daquia’iq fi’l-furu (Treasure of niceties of the branches of jurisprudence), which became a frequently consulted tract of Hanafi law by fiqh scholars for many generations. Al-Nasafi died in Idjadj (Khuzestan Province, Iran), apparently on a return journey from a trip to Baghdad in CE 1310.

This small folio manuscript of al-Nasafi’s Treasure of niceties of the branches of jurisprudence was calligraphed by Ahmad ibn Amîr in the naskh script just over a hundred years after the death of al-Nasafi, making it a very early example of the important legal work. The manuscript is written in black ink with captions in red and extensive marginal and interlinear glosses throughout, typical for an Islamic legal manuscript of this period. Exact origin is unclear but the the first leaf includes entries in Ottoman Turkish.

Acquired from Antiquariat INLIBRIS, 2020.
Language(s): Arabic

Subjects

HanafitesIslamic law--Manuscripts
Acadia Friends Meeting

Acadia Friends Meeting Records

1978-2007
1 box 0.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 902 A233

The Acadia Friends Meeting in Northeast Harbor, Maine, began as an independent worship group in 1975 under the care of Vassalboro Quarterly Meeting. It was accorded status as a monthly meeting in 1978.

This small collection consists of an imperfect run of meeting minutes and newsletters for the Acadia Monthly Meeting.

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, April 2017

Subjects

Northeast Harbor (Maine)--Religious life and customsQuakers--MaineSociety of Friends--Massachusetts

Contributors

New England Yearly Meeting of Friends

Types of material

Minutes (Administrative records)Newsletters
Acton Monthly Meeting of Friends

Acton Monthly Meeting of Friends Records

1954-2012
3 boxes 1.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 902 A286

Acton Monthly Meeting of the Society of Friends began in 1956 as a worship group under care of Cambridge Monthly. By 1965, Acton was set off as a monthly meeting of its own, part of Salem Quarterly.

The records of Acton Monthly Meeting include a nearly complete set of minutes from its days as a worship group through its formal establishment as a monthly meeting to the present, along with less complete material on membership and finances. The minutes are somewhat sporadic in the early years, but have been regularly maintained since 1965.

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, April 2017

Subjects

Acton (Mass.)--Religious life and customsQuakers--MassachusettsSociety of Friends--Massachusetts

Contributors

New England Yearly Meeting of Friends

Types of material

Minutes (Administrative records)Newsletters
Allens Neck Monthly Meeting of Friends

Allen's Neck Monthly Meeting Records

1990-2010
1 box 0.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 902 A454

Desiring a more convenient place of worship in 1758, Quakers in Allen’s Neck, Mass., built a meetinghouse on a hill overlooking Buzzards Bay, six miles from the Apponegansett Meeting House of their parent meeting, Dartmouth Monthly. A relatively small worship group, the meeting was designated the West Preparative Meeting under Dartmouth in 1813, but after experiencing modest growth during the mid-twentieth century, they were formally set off as a monthly meeting in 1956.

The sparse records for Allen’s Neck Monthly Meeting consist of a broken run of newsletters with three annual directories and a brief run of State of the Society reports, all from the 1990s.

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, April 2017

Subjects

Dartmouth (Mass.)--Religious life and customsQuakers--MassachusettsSociety of Friends--Massachusetts

Contributors

New England Yearly Meeting of Friends

Types of material

Newsletters
American Friends Service Committee. Western Massachusetts

American Friends Service Committee Records

1960-2007 Bulk: 1975-2005
25 boxes, 1 oversized folder 36.2 linear feet
Call no.: MS 459

Established in 1968 in response to the war in Vietnam, the AFSC office in western Massachusetts did not limit its focus to draft and military counseling, instead the organization broadened its focus over time to include educational and outreach programs for a variety of peace and socal justice issues. Today the chapter focuses on economic justice, campaigns against U.S. military intervention, and actions to combat racism and classism. With an emphasis on serving the community of western Massachusetts, the program is equally committed to calling attention to issues of both national and local importance. Recent campaigns range from ending the war in Iraq and supporting peace in Columbia to preventing the construction of a new jail in Chicopee.

The collection consists chiefly of subject files that together provide a picture of the various issues in which the western Massachusetts AFSC was involved. Topics range from the organization’s earliest focus, the Vietnam War, to the first Gulf War, landlord/tenant relations, immigration, and landmines. The collection also includes materials relating to public figures, some of whom traveled to the region to speak.

Subjects

Activists--MassachusettsMassachusetts--Economic conditionsPeace movements--MassachusettsSocial justice--Massachusetts

Contributors

American Friends Service Committee. Western Massachusetts
Amesbury Friends Meeting

Amesbury Friends Meeting Records

1700-2010
11 vols., 3 boxes 2.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 902 A447

The Amesbury Monthly Meeting of the Society of Friends, tied historically to the Hampton and Seabrook Monthly Meetings, has met on the coast of Massachusetts and New Hampshire for over three hundred years.

The records of Amesbury (Hampton and Seabrook) Monthly Meeting document over three centuries of Quaker practice in New England coastal communities. The meeting minutes for both men’s and women’s meetings are relatively complete for the period 1701 to the late 1880s, and after nearly a century-long hiatus, pick up again in the mid-1980s.

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, April 2017

Subjects

Amesbury (Mass.)--Religious life and customsHampton (N.H.)--Religious life and customsQuakers--MassachusettsQuakers--New HampshireSeabrook (N.H.)--Religious life and customsSociety of Friends--MassachusettsSociety of Friends--New Hampshire

Contributors

Hampton Monthly MeetingNew England Yearly Meeting of FriendsSeabrook Monthly Meeting

Types of material

Minutes (Administrative records)NewslettersVital records (Document genre)
Austin, Samuel

Samuel Austin Collection

1718-1920
2 boxes 1 linear feet
Call no.: MS 937

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.

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, 2016

Subjects

Antislavery movementsBrown, Moses, 1738-1832Friends Boarding School (Providence, R.I.)Peace movements--Rhode IslandQuaker women--Rhode Island--18th centuryQuakers--Education--Rhode IslandRhode Island--History--18th centurySociety of Friends--History--Rhode Island

Contributors

Thornton, Elisha, 1748-1816Wilbur, John 1774-1856

Types of material

CorrespondenceMinutes (Administrative records)
Babbitt, Elwood, 1922-

Elwood Babbitt Papers

1974-2000
2 boxes 3 linear feet
Call no.: MS 517
Depiction of Elwood Babbitt, 1970.  Photo by Gary Cohen
Elwood Babbitt, 1970. Photo by Gary Cohen

Clairvoyant from youth, Elwood Babbitt developed his psychic abilities at the Edgar Cayce Institute, and by the mid-1960s, was well known in Western Massachusetts through his readings and lectures, often opening his home to other seekers. Charles Hapgood, a professor at Keene State College, worked closely with Babbitt studying the physical effects of the medium’s trance lectures, and by 1967, he began to take on the painstaking process of transcribing and copying them. With communications purporting to come from Jesus, Albert Einstein, Mark Twain, and the Hindu god Vishnu, among others, these lectures formed the basis for several books by Hapgood and Babbitt, including Voices of Spirit (1975) and Talks with Christ (1981). Babbitt ultimately established a non-profit, alternative school, the Opie Mountain Citadel, which was essentially run out of Babbitt’s home in Northfield.

The collection consists of proofs of publications, lectures, some correspondence, film reels, and transcripts of spiritual communications for which Babbitt was the medium.

Language(s): German

Subjects

Channeling (Spiritualism)Hapgood, Charles HMediums–Massachusetts

Contributors

Babbitt, Elwood, 1922-
Beacon Hill Friends Meeting

Beacon Hill Friends Meeting Records

1960-2008
3 boxes 1.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 902 B433

The Beacon Hill Friends Meeting began in 1958 as a worship group in Boston under the care of Cambridge Monthly Meeting and was set off as its own monthly meeting in 1980. Since that time it has fallen under the aegis of Salem Quarterly Meeting.

Since their establishment as a monthly meeting in 1980, Beacon Hill Friends have regularly maintained minutes of business meetings and published a newsletter, although some gaps persist.

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, April 2017

Subjects

Boston (Mass.)--Religious life and customsQuakers--MassachusettsSociety of Friends--Massachusetts

Contributors

New England Yearly Meeting of Friends

Types of material

Minutes (Administrative records)Newsletters