Collecting area: Social change

A native of Buffalo, N.Y., the expatriot sculptor Harold Ambellan was a participant in the Federal Art Project during the 1930s and a figure in the radical Artists’ Union and Sculptors Guild. After naval service during the Second World War, Ambellan left the United States permanently to escape the hostile climate of the McCarthy-era, going into exile in France. Although a friend of artists such as Pollock, de Kooning, and Rothko, Ambellan’s work was primarily figurative and centered on the human form. His work has been exhibited widely on both sides of the Atlantic. He died at his home in Arles in 2006 at the age of 94.

In 2005, Victoria Diehl sat with her friend, Harold Ambellan, to record his memories of a life in art. Beginning with recollections of his childhood in Buffalo, N.Y., the memoir delves into the impact of the Great Depression, Ambellan’s experiences in the New York art scene of the 1930s and his participation in the leftist Artists’ Union, his Navy service, and his expatriate years in France from the 1950s-2000s. Ambellan’s memoir also includes extended discussion of his views of democracy, patriotism, and art, and his career as a sculptor.

Amelia Earhart’s Underground Flying Society logo

Amelia Earhart’s Underground Flying Society, (a.k.a. the Amelia’s) was a lesbian social club based out of Lebanon, N.H., serving the Upper Valley area of Vermont and New Hampshire, and beyond. Reachable via an unnamed post-office box, the club began in 1979 and provided members not only with much sought after social, leisure, and entertainment opportunities, but also a unique community of peers for discussion and activities around political, educational, health, and legal issues of importance to women and lesbians. Like their famous namesake, the Amelia’s did not shy away from risks in supporting women, the feminist movement, or actions promoting and educating about lesbians. The group often overlapped with feminist and lesbian print shop and publishing company, New Victoria Press, and the Amelia’s often used the New Vic building for their meetings.

The Amelia Earhart’s Underground Flying Society Records consist of over 25 issues of the “Amelia’s Newsletter” from 1986-2000; two clippings covering news related to the group, including the repeated vandalization of their “Upper Valley Lesbians” Adopt-A-Highway Program sign; a 1994 audiocassette of interviews for an oral history of the Amelia’s; and a VHS tape of a community event held in 2003 to reflect on the women’s movement in the Upper Valley in the 1970s and 1980s. The newsletter offers detailed documentation of the group and their concerns, including calendars of their social gatherings and other local, regional, and national events of interest, and recaps of relevant news to the lesbian community including updates about politics, legal issues, civil rights and benefits, marriage, discrimination cases, women’s health, education and school issues, and lesbian focused social and entertainment events.

The first faculty union at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) AFL-CIO, was established largely in response to the administration’s reluctance to recommend raises in faculty salaries (1958-1964) and due to the faculty’s desire for self-governance. The union was short-lived on the campus, but served to raise the consciousness of faculty to issues of faculty autonomy.

The collection includes historical sketches, memoranda, correspondence, resolutions, and treasurer’s reports.

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.

The Tour de Sol was created in Switzerland in 1985 to build awareness and support for solar electricity aka photovoltaics (PV) by demonstrating that they work and can power cars! The American Tour de Sol, America’s Green Car Competition & Festival, began four years later and ran for 18 years under the aegis of the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA). In 1990, it evolved into an annual 8-day road rally in the Northeast that demonstrated that practical electric vehicles recharged by renewably-produced electricity were viable, and could cut urban air pollution and climate change emissions. In later years, at the insistence and with support from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the event expanded to demonstrate all alternative fuel vehicles. The winners were determined by roadworthiness, driving range, energy efficiency (miles per gallon equivalent-MPGe), and low climate change emissions (carbon dioxide equivalent-CO2e). Vehicle categories encouraged entries made by major auto companies; entrepreneurs such as Solectria, and Solar Car Corp; as well as college, university, and high school student teams. In its final years, a Monte Carlo-style rally was added for new hybrid vehicle owners to demonstrate high mileage, and an electric bicycle category was added as well as an ‘Electrathon’ event to demonstrate non-auto options.

The American Tour de Sol collection includes annual Rule Books, magazines with full list of participants, reports, copies of 200-300 news clippings per year, videos of TV news coverage, and extensive collection of photographs. After the Tour de Sol in Switzerland closed its doors, the American Tour de Sol changed its name simply to ‘Tour de Sol.’ For clarity, we have retained the word ‘American’ in the collection title.

SCUA also houses The Michael H. Bianchi collection, which consists of an extensive assortment of interviews, reports, photographs, and videotapes documenting the Tour and its participants throughout its 18 year history, all created, conducted, and assembled by Bianchi.

Vigil for Peace and Justice group that peacefully protested the Vietnam War, nuclear weapons, and government policy in Central America and the Middle East by organizing a weekly vigil in downtown Amherst, Massachusetts. Includes handouts and news clippings.

Amherst Friends for the Homeless, Inc. was a corporation committed to operating a shelter for homeless single women and started in 1989. After researching homelessness in the area, the Social Concerns Committee of the Unitarian-Universalist Society of Amherst decided that the needs for emergency shelter were not being met in the community of Amherst, Hadley, Pelham, and Shutesbury. To help this problem, Amherst Friends for the Homeless opened Rosemary’s Place on December 11, 1989. However, it was shut down after less than two years of operation in 1991 when the Grove Street Inn, a new shelter for men and women, had opened in Northampton. The corporation continued with one event a year, called Shelter Sunday, in which volunteers went door-to-door for donations for the Amherst Survival Center, First Call for Help, Grove Street Inn, and Not Bread Alone. The organization was dissolved in 2017.

Included in this collection are the documents pertaining to the operations of Amherst Friends for the Homeless, including financial records, meeting minutes, Shelter Sunday records, and Rosemary’s Place records.

View of the proposed the Amherst Fields

In May 1971 Otto Paparazzo Associates announced their plans to develop 640 acres of land in East Amherst upon which a proposed 2,200 residential units, a commercial center, and a golf course would be built. Concerned about unnatural growth of the community and about the effect such a development would have on the environment, a group of residents formed the Amherst Growth Study Committee within a few months of the announcement. Despite these concerns, the Zoning Board of Appeals issued a formal permit for construction in December 1971, which the AGSC immediately appealed. Even though the group was unable to overturn the zoning board’s decision, they did achieve their ends, in part, when state and town agencies prevented the project from moving forward due to an overloaded sewage system. More importantly, the group increased public awareness about growth and housing in the town of Amherst.

Records include notes from AGSC meetings, correspondence, and newspaper clippings documenting coverage of the story in local papers.

Amherst Study Circles: Dialogues on Race and Class flier

The Amherst Study Circles: Dialogues on Race and Class were a series of dialogue and project action groups begun in 2002 to discuss and enact social change in the school districts and communities around Amherst, MA. They arose as a response by the Amherst Regional High School (ARHS) Parent Center to a question to their group: What were they going to do about racism in the Amherst Schools? The ARHS Parent Center Board suggested the study circle model, and a round of facilitated pilot groups were run in February 2003. The successful pilots stirred the organizers to seek additional support, and with funding from the Amherst Education Foundation and the Amherst Drugs Free Partnership, additional groups were organized each year, building awareness, trust, and power amongst those striving to improve the community’s schools for all students. Almost 200 people, including school administrators, teachers, staff, students, parents, and community members participated over the course of several years, and each group culminated in an action forum and set up action groups to propose and enact tangible steps towards specific goals. Action groups affected change in school climate, policies, and course offerings, and organized a standing committee of the ARHS Parent Center called RaDAR: Race and Discipline, Action, Rights.

The Amherst Study Circles: Dialogues on Race and Class Records consist of descriptive materials from the ARHS Parent Center; an organizer’s binder with sections on the origin in 2002, participants, action groups, finances, curriculum, and evaluations; and additional materials such as evaluations for study circle sessions and facilitators, newspaper clippings of articles about the group and their work, and documents for student study circles, such as advertisements, curriculum, and certificates.

In the mid-1970s, Western Massachusetts was a hotbed of antinuclear activism, sparked both by the proposal to build a nuclear power plant in Montague, Mass., and by the construction and operation of plants nearby in Rowe, Mass., and Seabrook, N.H. A group of activists associated with the Liberation News Service and Montague Farm commune, including Anna Gyorgy, Sam Lovejoy, Harvey Wasserman, Steven Diamond, Chuck Light, and Dan Keller, were instrumental in organizing popular opposition to nuclear power and they helped establish several antinuclear organizations, ranging from the Alternative Energy Coalition to the Renewable Energy Media Service, Clamshell Alliance, and Musicians United for Safe Energy.

The Antinuclear Activism Collection contains the results of the grassroots opposition to nuclear power in Western Massachusetts. The bulk of the collections consists of a variety of publications produced by or collected by a group of antinuclear activists in Franklin County, Mass. In addition to a large number newspapers (e.g. Clamshell Alliance News) and pamphlets, the collection includes t-shirts and bumper stickers, ephemeral publications, notes, sporadic correspondence, and other information collected both for research purposes and to aid in their public campaigns. Of particular interest are a set of early minutes of the Clamshell Alliance Coordinating committee (1977-1978), and information on protests at the Seabrook and Rowe nuclear facilities and the proposed facility at Montague. The collection is part of the Famous Long Ago Archive.