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

Collecting area: Peace

New Song Library

New Song Library Collection

1960-2018
16 boxes 24 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1043

New Song Library letterhead

Founded by Johanna Halbeisen in 1974, the New Song Library was a collaborative resource for sharing music with performers, teachers and community activists, who in turn shared with a wide variety of audiences. Based initially in Boston, the Library was devoted to the music of social change and particularly music that reflected the lives and aspirations of workers, women and men, elders and young people, gays and lesbians, other minorities, and Third World people.

This collection contains over forty years of organizational and operational records of the New Song Library along with hundreds of sound recordings, primarily audiocassettes made at concerts, music festivals, song swaps, and gatherings of the People’s Music Network. The Library also collected newsletters and magazines on folk music, and most importantly dozens of privately produced songbooks and song indexes.

Gift of Johanna Halbeisen, 2017-2022

Subjects

Folk music

Types of material

AudiocassettesCatalogsClippings (information artifacts)CorrespondenceMagazines
Northampton Committee to Stop the War in Iraq

Northampton Committee to Stop the War in Iraq Records

2000-2006
4 boxes 6 linear feet
Call no.: MS 551

Protesting the war since before it began, the Northampton Committee to Stop the War in Iraq continues not only to speak out against the war, but to educate the community about the effects of the war on Iraqi civilians, especially children. Advocates for lifting the sanctions against Iraq in the years leading up to the war, members of the Committee have since called for an end to the war, supporting a Northampton City Council resolution to renounce the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and a subsequent proclamation to honor the dead and wounded on all sides in 2005.

Flyers, signs, and banners document the Committee’s weekly peace vigils protesting the war, and subject files provide background on the group as well as on related issues, such as financing the war, fasting for peace, and the children of Iraq.

Subjects

Activists--MassachusettsIraq War, 2003- --Protest movements--United StatesPacifists--MassachusettsPeace movements--Massachusetts
Ogden, Don

Don Ogden Collection

1972-2000
1 box 0.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 440

Don Ogden is a poet, writer and activist who lives in Leverett, Massachusetts. The collection consists of newspaper clippings, pamphlets, an unpublished book, and letters that document primarily anti-war protests in Amherst dating from 1972-2000.

Gift of Don Ogden, Sept. 2005

Subjects

Demonstrations--MassachusettsPacifists--MassachusettsPeace movements--MassachusettsPolitical activists--Massachusetts

Contributors

Ogden, Don

Types of material

Photographs
Oglesby, Carl, 1935-2011

Carl Oglesby Papers

ca.1965-2004
96 boxes 67.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 514
Depiction of Carl Oglesby, 2006. Photo by Jennifer Fels
Carl Oglesby, 2006. Photo by Jennifer Fels

Reflective, critical, and radical, Carl Oglesby was an eloquent voice of the New Left during the 1960s and 1970s. A native of Ohio, Oglesby was working in the defense industry in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1964 when he became radicalized by what he saw transpiring in Vietnam. Through his contacts with the Students for a Democratic Society, he was drawn into the nascent antiwar movement, and thanks to his formidable skills as a speaker and writer, rose rapidly to prominence. Elected president of the SDS in 1965, he spent several years traveling nationally and internationally advocating for a variety of political and social causes. Oglesby died of lung cancer on September 13, 2011.

In 1972, Oglesby helped co-found the Assassination Information Bureau which ultimately helped prod the U.S. Congress to reopen the investigation of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. A prolific writer and editor, his major works include Containment and Change (1967), The New Left Reader (1969), The Yankee and Cowboy War (1976), and The JFK Assassination: The Facts and the Theories (1992). The Oglesby Papers include research files, correspondence, published and unpublished writing, with the weight of the collection falling largely on the period after 1975.

Gift of Carl Oglesby, 2006-2008

Subjects

Assassination Information BureauGehlen, Reinhard, 1902-1979Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963--AssassinationKing, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968PacifistsPolitical activistsStudent movementsStudents for a Democratic Society (U.S.)United States--Foreign relationsVietnam War, 1961-1975Watergate Affair, 1972-1974

Contributors

Oglesby, Carl, 1935-2011
Peace Development Fund

Peace Development Fund Records

1981-2010
53 boxes 79.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 427
Depiction of Traprock Peace Center and PDF<br />arms race flip chart
Traprock Peace Center and PDF
arms race flip chart

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

First conceived in 1980, the Peace Development Fund (PDF) was founded by a small group of activists and donors with a vision: to raise money to fund grassroots organizations promoting peace, global demilitarization, and non-violent conflict resolution. During the foundation’s first funding cycle, PDF awarded 19 grants to projects designed to increase understanding of the arms race; some to organizations as nearby as Deerfield and Northampton and others to organizations as far away as California. With the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s, PDF changed focus. Instead of thinking of peace as the absence of war, the Foundation began to see peace as “the presence of equitable relationships among people, nations, and the environment.” Since that time, PDF has developed a new perspective on peacework, one centered on fostering social, environmental, and economic justice.

The records of the Peace Development Fund consist chiefly of grant-making files documenting the many organizations that submitted and received awards. Also included is a nearly complete run of PDF’s annual reports, newsletters, and other publications, which together offer a full picture of the foundation’s funding and programmatic history. Exchange Project files record PDF’s efforts to provide training, not just money, to organizations lacking the skills necessary for effective fund-raising, strategic planning, instituting sound organizational structures, and dismantling racism.

Gift of the Peace Development Fund, 2001, 2011

Subjects

Antinuclear movementCharitable uses, trusts, and foundations--United StatesPeace movements--United StatesSocial change--United StatesSocial justice--United States

Contributors

Peace Development Fund
Perry, Henry H.

Henry H. Perry Papers

1940-1942
4 boxes 2 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1019

A Quaker investment broker and attorney, Henry H. Perry was born in Rhode Island in about 1885. A prominent figure in the New England Yearly Meeting, Perry was called upon by the American Friends Service Committee to act as director of three of the Massachusetts Civilian Public Service Camps: Royalston, Petersham, and Ashburnham. Under the Selective Service Act of 1940, negotiations between the Selective Service and the major peace churches resulted in the creation of a system by which conscientious objectors were allowed to refrain from direct participation in the war, by serving instead in Civilian Public Service camps. Assigned to “work of national importance,” they filled in for war-related manpower shortages in a variety of areas, including the Forest Service, Soil Conservation Service, mental hospitals, telephone line maintenance and repair, fire-fighting, and clearing fire debris that was left in the wake of the 1937 New England hurricane. Living in Petersham with his wife Edith (Nicholson), Perry served as director of the camps from June 1941 until they were discontinued in October 1942. Perry writes, in a letter dated November 1942, that he is “no longer connected to CPS;” his correspondence is addressed from Dover, MA, showing that he relocated to the Boston area. However, little information is available about him after the camps closed.

This collection consists of administrative and business records concerning the start up, operation, and shut down of the AFSC-run CPS Camps in Royalston, Ashburnham, and Petersham, Mass. Camp Directors were under mandatory orders to keep the strict records that make up the bulk of this collection—administrative documentation, correspondences, health records, itineraries, financial reports and budgets, all pertaining to camp operations. This documentation acted as a deliberate gesture, demonstrating the competency and legitimacy of CPS camp work to Selective Service authorities. However, this collection also contains some personal correspondence and notes not directly related to camp administration, that give a personal, everyday-life, glimpse at the stresses, struggles, and emotional labor, on the part of Quakers, who had to step up, come together, and make the best of a terrible situation: protecting and caring for conscientious objectors during a time of war.

Part of the New England Yearly Meeting of Friends Records, April 2017.

Subjects

Civilian Public ServicePacifists--MassachusettsQuakers--MassachusettsWorld War, 1939-1945--Conscientious objectors

Contributors

American Friends Service CommitteeSociety of Friends

Types of material

Newsletters
Pioneer Valley Activists

Pioneer Valley Activist Collection

2000-2007
2 boxes 1 linear feet
Call no.: MS 474

Collection of posters and newspaper clippings documenting the work of activists throughout the Pioneer Valley. Although the bulk of the materials relate to protests against the war in Iraq, other issues include rallies and protests at UMass, revival of SDS, the Valley Anarchist Organization, and pro-union demonstrations.

Subjects

Political activists--MassachusettsStudents for a Democratic Society (U.S.)
Post-War World Council

Post War World Council Collection

1942-1961
1 box 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 307

Founded and chaired by Norman Thomas in 1942, the Post-War World Council sought to lay the groundwork for a democratic and anti-imperialist end to the Second World War. As the face of the organization, Thomas promoted the pacifist ideals of internationalism, disarmament, and decolonization, however his failing health in the early 1960s led to the decline of the Council and its formal dissolution in 1967.

This collection consists of pamphlets from the Post War World Council that document a range of opinions concerning the war and the world, including titles such as “Saboteurs of Victory,” “The Case Against Compulsory Peacetime Military Training,” “The Future of the Far East,” and “Disarmament in the Post War World.”

Gift of Stephen Siteman, 1990

Subjects

Anti-imperialist movementsPeace movementsWorld War, 1939-1945

Contributors

Post-War World Council

Types of material

Pamphlets
Quakers of Color

Quakers of Color International Archive

2019
14 interviews
Call no.: MS 1095

Launched by Harold D. Weaver in 2019, the Quakers of Color International Archive is part of a global initiative to document the beliefs, experiences, and contributions of people of color within the Society of Friends. Supported collaboratively by the New England Yearly Meeting of Friends and the archives at UMass Amherst and Haverford College, the archive uses oral history and other approaches to document as fully as possible, the range of ideas and practices from all faith traditions within the Society.

An on-going project, the oral histories comprising the archive were conducted by Weaver and associates beginning in 2019. Representing Friends from several Yearly Meetings, the interviews include discussions of faith background and spiritual growth, theological orientation, Quaker identity, relations with monthly and yearly meetings, and the conduct of Quaker “business.”

Subjects

African American QuakersQuakers--Religious lifeSociety of Friends--BoliviaSociety of Friends--HistorySociety of Friends--KenyaSociety of Friends--MaineSociety of Friends--MassachusettsSociety of Friends--Pennsylvania

Contributors

Lapsansky-Werner, EmmaWeaver, Harold D.

Types of material

Motion pictures (Visual works)Oral histories (Literary works)
Radical Student Union (RSU)

Radical Student Union Records

1905-2006 Bulk: 1978-2005
22 boxes 14.5 linear feet
Call no.: RG 045/80 R1

Founded by Charles Bagli in 1976, the Revolutionary Student Brigade at UMass Amherst (later the Radical Student Union) has been a focal point for organization by politically radical students. RSU members have responded to issues of social justice, addressing both local, regional, and national concerns ranging from militarism to the environment, racism and sexism to globalization.

The RSU records document the history of a particularly long-lived organization of left-leaning student activists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Beginning in the mid-1970s, as students were searching for ways to build upon the legacy of the previous decade, the RSU has been a constant presence on campus, weathering the Reagan years, tough budgetary times, and dramatic changes in the political culture at the national and state levels. The RSU reached its peak during the 1980s with protests against American involvement in Central America, CIA recruitment on campus, American support for the Apartheid regime in South Africa, and government-funded weapons research, but in later years, the organization has continued to adapt, organizing against globalization, sweatshops, the Iraq War, and a host of other issues.

Subjects

Anti-apartheid movements--MassachusettsCentral America--Foreign relations--United StatesCollege students--Political activityCommunismEl Salvador--History--1979-1992Guatemala--History--1945-1982Iraq War, 2003-Nicaragua--History--1979-1990Peace movements--MassachusettsPersian Gulf War, 1991Political activists--Massachusetts--HistoryRacismSocialismStudent movementsUnited States--Foreign relations--Central AmericaUnited States. Central Intelligence AgencyUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst

Contributors

Progressive Student NetworkRadical Student UnionRevolutionary Student Brigade

Types of material

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