Collecting area: UMass history

Henry I. Tragle served in the United States Army from 1941 until his retirement in 1964. He was a company commander of the 8th Armored Division during World War II and earned a Bronze Star for singlehandedly capturing a German general and his staff. After his retirement from the Army, he earned a B.A. (1966), M.A. (1967), and Ph.D in history (1971) from the University of Massachusetts, where he became a professor of history and assistant dean of the graduate school. Tragle was born in Richmond, Virginia in 1914 and worked in the Virginia dairy industry before joining the Army. Tragle studied military history but wrote his dissertation on the slave revolt led by Nat Turner in 1831. Tragle continued his historical research after his retirement from the University in 1972, collecting material on General Douglas MacArthur as well as editing several of Jackdraw Publications’ history packets. Tragle died December 15, 1991.

The Henry I. Tragle Papers contain Tragle’s historical research from 1968 until 1978, which includes scrapbooks of photos, notes, and clippings, bound together by research topic. There are also several shrink wrapped editions of Jackdraw Publications packets that Tragle was likely to have edited.

Arnold Trehub, born in Malden, Mass. in 1923, was an active and very well respected cognitive scientist and researcher, artist, and World War II veteran. Trehub earned his BA from Northeastern University and his PhD from Boston University, though his undergraduate education was interrupted by the War. Serving in the Pacific Theater, he worked as a radio technician for B-29 bombers, two of which were the Enola Gay and the Bockscar. For most of his professional life, Trehub was the director of a research lab at the VA Hospital in Leeds, Mass. and an adjunct professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His research on the neurophysiology of the human brain and the nature of consciousness appeared in numerous journals and edited volumes and his best known book, The Cognitive Brain, was published by MIT press in 1991. Trehub was a resident of Amherst since 1954 and passed away on April 3rd, 2017.

The Arnold Trehub Papers primarily document his work as a cognitive scientist, including drafts and copies of articles, research data, research notes on paper and as digital files, and a rich collection of Trehub’s professional email correspondence. In addition to the content of his research, the Trehub Papers also exhibit the processes and approach of early personal computer-aided research design, data design, and research graphics. There is also a small amount of Trehub’s undergraduate student work.

Robert W. Tuthill taught epidemiology at UMass Amherst for nearly three decades and championed the libraries by both serving on the Friends of the Library board and bringing his students into the stacks for class assignments. Born in Wilkes-Barre, Penna., Tuthill attended high school in Newton, Mass., and earned an associate’s degree from Newton Junior College before coming to the University of Massachusetts. At UMass, he majored in sociology, graduating in 1956, and served at the Valley Forge Army Hospital before returning to academia at the University of Pennsylvania, where he received a master’s degree in sociology. At the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, he studied epidemiology, earning his Ph.D. in 1970. When Tuthill returned to UMass to join the faculty in 1970, it was to start the epidemiology program, which would be part of the School of Public Health and Health Sciences. Tuthill joined the Friends of the Library board in 1988 and served for nearly fifteen years, including a term as president. In 2003, he was honored with the Libraries’ Siegfried Feller Award for Outstanding Volunteer Service. Tuthill retired from UMass in 1998.

The Tuthill Papers contain teaching materials from some of the notable courses Tuthill taught at UMass, including Environmental Epidemiology and Biases in Epidemiologic Research; a small amount of research materials associated with an ADD/ADHD study; and copies of his publications, which included studies involving a variety of public health issues, from lead poisoning and smoking to family planning and cancer. Much of Tuthill’s research took place in the Western Massachusetts region.

As an undergraduate at Harvard, Maria Tymoczko was lured away from the study of biochemistry into medieval literature, remaining at Harvard through her doctorate and eventually making the subject into an academic career. Since joining the faculty at UMass Amherst in 1974, she has written or edited six books and has built an international reputation in three fields: Celtic medieval literature, Irish studies, and translation studies. A popular instructor, she has also played a leading role on several university committees.

The Tymoczko Papers document both the career and university service of a scholar of Irish literature and theorist of translation. In addition to her professional correspondence (1973-1980), the collection includes a significant quantity of material documenting Tymoczko’s university service, including notes from her time as chair of the General Education Council (1986-1994), from the Joint Task Force of UMass and Community College Relations, and the Rules Committee and Ad-hoc Committee on Retention of Administrators of the Faculty Senate. Additions to the collection are expected in the future.

In 1993, UMass Educational Television was created by Dean Bailey Jackson and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Jay Carey to establish a creative media outreach project for the School of Education. Professor Liane Brandon was asked to be the Director with Associate Dean Jay Carey as Co-director. Working in collaboration with staff member Scott Perry, they designed UMass Educational Television to provide the public with innovative, original, educational programming using the resources of the School of Education and the University, and to serve as a hands-on learning laboratory for students and teachers. They became the only School of Education in the country to produce original educational programming for cable/home audiences. Despite the positive reception of the programs produced, funding for the UMass Educational Television was cut and production ceased in 2003.

The UMass Educational Television Collection consists of many of the original programs they developed and created: Try This At Home, Fresh Ink, Who Knows? Pet Tales, Valley Vignettes, Hi Mom!, and Fine Print. Show flyers, posters, production files, and awards provide insight into the creation and reception of programs.

Although the precise origins of UMass Peacemakers are murky, by 1982, the group was an active presence on the UMass Amherst campus organizing opposition to militarism and the nuclear arms race and providing support for the nuclear freeze movement. Organizing vigils, demonstrations, informational workshops, and providing civil disobedience training, the Peacemakers were the most visible pacifist group on the UMass Amherst campus in the 1980s.

The UMass Peacemakers Records focus on the activities of the student group between 1983 and 1990, documenting their role in confronting the aggressive international expansionism of the Reagan administration and its “Star Wars” program, while also engaging at the local and national level by organizing rallies, lectures, poetry readings, and film screenings. At UMass, Peacemakers was part of the larger Progressive Student Network, and worked alongside other student organizations including the Radical Student Union.

Founded in September 1989, the University Anti-Intervention, Disarmament & Conversion Project was developed by individuals in the UMass Amherst community who wanted to eliminate the university’s dependence on defense research. The purpose of the project was to serve as a resource center for students, faculty, and community activists working to break the link between the nation’s institutions of higher learning and the military industrial complex.

The collection consists of a resource guide created by the group.

Established in western Massachusetts in 1863 as the Massachusetts Agricultural College, the University of Massachusetts Amherst is a national research university and the flagship campus of the state’s five-campus University system. UMass, one of the founding members of the Five College Consortium established in 1965, offers reciprocal student access among the University and Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and Smith Colleges. The University currently enrolls approximately 24,000 undergraduate and graduate students, and offers 87 bachelors degree programs, 6 associates, 73 masters, and 51 doctoral programs in 10 schools and colleges.

The Archives of the University of Massachusetts Amherst document the institutional memory of the campus and serve as the largest and most comprehensive source of information on the history and cultural heritage of the University. As the collective memory of the university, the repository contains official records and items having historical value such as records of governance, policy, operation of administrative offices, departments, research, programs, and publications. Unpublished materials in the Archives include photographs, films, memorabilia, administrative records of major university offices, and the papers of presidents, trustees, administrative officers, and members of the faculty.

Please note that collections for individual faculty members, administrators, and students, as well as selected groups and administrative units at the University are listed separately in UMarmot. The Concordance to the Archives is an alphabetical listing of University departments, centers, groups, and other units, providing call numbers, when appropriate. Researchers may also wish to consult the online guide to UMass Amherst collections. Our digital repository, Credo includes a growing number of oral histories and digitized collections of papers and organizational records. YouMass is a wiki devoted to the history of the University and its predecessors, the Massachusetts Agricultural College and Massachusetts State College.

View:

• Concordance to the archives
• YouMass wiki

The new Massachusetts Agricultural College welcomed its first contingent of 34 students to campus on October 1, 1867, resulting in the first graduating class of 28 — the Pioneer Class of 1871. The student body waxed and waned in ensuing years as the college slowly began to diversify its curriculum and the students population itself, admitting international students as early as 1870, followed by graduate students (first degree awarded 1896), African Americans (class of 1901), and women (class of 1905). Enrollment at the university first topped 1,000 in 1945 rising to 6,000 by 1960. Following a tumultuous period of great expansion, UMass had over 23,000 students in 1970.

Organized by class year, this series includes a diverse body of material generated by undergraduate students at Massachusetts Agricultural College, Mass. State College, and UMass Amherst from its beginning to the present day. Although the content varies widely from class to class and by period of time, typical years includes basic data on the graduating class, publications by alums, reunion information, class notes, photographs, or small collections of letters written while in school. In a few cases, the quantity representing an individual almuna or alumnus has led SCUA to treat the materials as a separate collection with its own finding aid.