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

Collecting area: UMass history

Braunthal, Gerard, 1923-

Gerard Braunthal Papers

1958-1894
6 boxes 7.25 linear feet
Call no.: FS 013
Depiction of Gerard Braunthal
Gerard Braunthal

Born in Germany in 1923, Gerard Braunthal was a scholar of German politics and taught as a professor in the Political Science department from 1954. Before receiving his B.A. from Queens College in 1947, Braunthal served in intelligence during World War II, going on to receive his M.A. from the University of Michigan in 1948 and Ph.D from Columbia University in 1953. While studying at Columbia, Braunthal worked as an interviewer for US Air Force intelligence. An expert on the German Social Democratic party (SPD), Braunthal published extensively on modern German politics. His work on the subject was well regarded in Germany as well as the United States. In parallel to his academic research, Braunthal was also an anti-war and anti-nuclear activist, serving on the executive committees of both the Valley Peace Center and the Citizens for Participation in Political Action (CPPAX). Braunthal received the Order of Merit from the German government.

The collection includes Braunthal’s correspondence, article manuscripts and research materials, as well as pamphlets, form-letters, and broadsides relating to anti-Vietnam war activism, interspersed with a small amount of personal correspondence from his own antiwar activities. Among his research materials is a collection of interview transcripts with members of the Federation of German Industry (BDI). There is also a significant collection of documents from his involvement with local activist groups, which includes minutes, form-letters, reports, conference proceedings, and leaflets.

Subjects

Peace movements--Massachusetts--AmherstUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst--FacultyUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst. Department of Political ScienceVietnam War, 1961-1975

Contributors

Braunthal, Gerard, 1923-
Brooks Farm

Summer Scenes, Brooke Farm, 1922

1922-1923
1 vol. 0.1 linear feet
Call no.: PH 037
Depiction of Haying at MAC
Haying at MAC

In 1922, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts appropriated $15,000 for the Massachusetts Agricultural College to purchase sixty acres of land lying immediately north of the existing Experiment Station. Known as the William P. Brooks Experimental Farm, the property was intended as a site for experimental work devoted to the dominant crops of the Connecticut Valley, tobacco and onions.

This small homemade photograph album documents a picnic and group outing at the Brooke (i.e. Brooks) Farm at Massachusetts Agricultural College in September 1922. Although the participants — over thirty of them — are unidentified, they took part in standard picnic activities, including a tug of war, three legged race, and rope jumping. The album contains labeled snapshots pasted onto thick brown paper, tied with a brown ribbon, and includes images of haying on the farm (with Stockbridge Hall in the background) and the homes of William P. Brooks and Prof. Arthur N. Julian.

Subjects

Amherst (Mass.)--PhotographsBrooks Experimental Farm (Amherst, Mass.)HayMassachusetts Agricultural College--PhotographsPicnics--Photographs

Contributors

Fay, Harry W.

Types of material

Photograph albumsPhotographs
Brooks, William Penn, 1851-

William Penn Brooks Papers

1863-1939
3 boxes 1.5 linear feet
Call no.: RG 003/1 B76
Depiction of Sapporo Ag. College students, 1881
Sapporo Ag. College students, 1881

Two years after graduating from Massachusetts Agricultural College in 1875, William Penn Brooks accepted an invitation from the Japanese government — and his mentor, William Smith Clark — to help establish the Sapporo Agricultural School. Spending over a decade in Hokkaido, Brooks helped to introduce western scientific agricultural practices and the outlines of a program in agricultural education, and he built a solid foundation for the School. After his return to the states in 1888, he earned a doctorate at the University of Halle, Germany, and then accepted a position at his alma mater, becoming a leading figure at the Massachusetts Experiment Station until his retirement in 1921.

Brooks’ papers consist of correspondence, photographs, newspaper clippings, an account book, and translations which provide rich detail on Brooks’ life in Japan, the development of Sapporo Agricultural College (now Hokkaido University), and practical agricultural education in the post-Civil War years.

Subjects

Agricultural colleges--Japan--HistoryClark, William Smith, 1826-1886Hokkaido (Japan)--HistoryHokkaid¯o DaigakuJapan--Description and travel--19th centuryJapan--History--1868-Massachusetts Agricultural College--HistoryMassachusetts State Agricultural Experiment StationSapporo N¯ogakk¯o--HistorySapporo-shi (Japan)--History

Contributors

Brooks, William Penn, 1851-

Types of material

Letters (Correspondence)
Brotherhood of the Spirit

Brotherhood of the Spirit Documentary

ca.1973
15.24 minutes
Call no.: Video

Beginning in a treehouse in Leyden, Mass., during the summer of 1968, the Brotherhood of the Spirit (later the Renaissance Community) grew to become the largest commune in the eastern United States. Founded by Michael Metelica and six friends, and infused with the spiritual teachings of Elwood Babbitt, the commune relocated several times during its first half decade, setting down at different points in Heath, Charlemont, Warwick, Turners Falls, and Gill, Mass., as well as Guilford, Vt.

Produced at UMass Amherst, this video (digitized from a 16mm motion picture original) provides a largely laudatory glimpse of commune life during the boom years of the Brotherhood of the Spirit, probably around 1973. Sound quality in the video is highly uneven, often poor, particularly in the first two minutes.

Subjects

Brotherhood of the Spirit (Commune)Communal living--MassachusettsMetelica, Michael

Types of material

Motion pictures (Visual works)
Brown, Alfred Alexander, 1908-

Alfred Alexander Brown Papers

1935-1979
2 boxes 0.75 linear feet
Call no.: FS 043

Before his graduate work at Amherst College and Harvard University, Alfred Brown received both his bachelor’s (1931) and master’s (1933) degrees from Massachusetts State College in animal husbandry and agricultural economics. In 1935, he returned to his alma mater as assistant research professor in Agricultural Economics, earning promotion to full professor in 1948, with a focus on Marketing and Transportation. During World War II, Brown served as a transportation economist with the War Food Administration and as a consultant for the Office of Defense Transportation. Although Brown retired from teaching in 1972, he continued to work as a consultant for the United States Department of Transportation in Africa until his death in 2000.

The Brown Papers include published and unpublished transportation writings, correspondence, biographical and personal notes as well as notes for research and teaching, newsclippings, motion picture films, and slides. Also included among the papers are files related to Brown’s university service, including the Alumni War Memorial Fund, the University Centennial Committee, and the Alpha Chapter of Phi Sigma Kappa.

Subjects

Massachusetts State College--FacultyMassachusetts State College. Department of Agricultural EconomicsUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst--FacultyUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst. Department of Agricultural Economics

Contributors

Brown, Alfred Alexander, 1908-
Burn, Barbara B.

Barbara B. Burn Papers

1966-2001
8 boxes 12 linear feet
Call no.: FS 112
Depiction of Barbara Burn, 1975
Barbara Burn, 1975

The founder of the the university’s International Program Office, Barbara Burn was widely recognized as an expert in international education. After attending the University of Michigan as an undergraduate, Burn received both her master’s degree and doctorate from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 1955. She worked for several years on the faculty of the Foreign Service Institute and as a program specialist at the Asia Foundation before coming to UMass Amherst in 1968 to study the feasibility of developing an international programs office, after which she was appointed Director of International Programs and in 1988, Associate Provost. Under her leadership, the number of UMass undergraduates studying abroad increased ten fold. Burn died on Feb. 24, 2002, at the age of 76, leaving a son and a daughter.

The Burn Papers include detailed information regarding the establishment of the International Programs Office, including background information and sometimes extensive correspondence with universities around the world. Approximately three quarters of the collection consists of alphabetically arranged files on foreign universities and subjects pertaining to study abroad, with particularly interesting material in the 1970s and 1980s on exchanges with the People’s Republic of China.

Subjects

American students--Foreign countriesForeign studyUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst. International Programs Office

Contributors

Burn, Barbara B
Butterfield, Kenyon L. (Kenyon Leech), 1868-1935

Kenyon Leech Butterfield Papers

1889-1945
26 boxes 12 linear feet
Call no.: RG 003/1 B88
Depiction of Kenyon L. Butterfield
Kenyon L. Butterfield

An agricultural and educational reformer born in 1868, Kenyon Butterfield was the ninth president of Massachusetts Agricultural College and one of the university’s most important figures. An 1891 graduate of Michigan Agricultural College and recipient of MA in Economics and Rural Sociology from the University of Michigan (1902), Butterfield entered university administration early in his career, becoming President of the Rhode Island College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts in 1903 and, only three years later, of the Massachusetts Agricultural College. Possessed of a Progressive spirit, Butterfield revolutionized the college during his 18 years in Amherst, expanding and diversifying the curriculum, quadrupling the institutional budget, fostering a dramatic increase in the presence of women on campus and expanding the curriculum, and above all, helping to promote the Smith-Lever Act of 1914 and developing the Cooperative Extension Service into a vital asset to the Commonwealth. Nationally, he maintained a leadership role in the field of rural sociology and among Land Grant University presidents. After leaving Amherst in 1924, Butterfield served as President at Michigan Agricultural College for four years and was active in missionary endeavors in Asia before retiring. He died at his home in Amherst on Nov. 25, 1936.

The Butterfield Papers contain biographical materials, administrative and official papers of both of his presidencies, typescripts of his talks, and copies of his published writings. Includes correspondence and memoranda (with students, officials, legislators, officers of organizations, and private individuals), reports, outlines, minutes, surveys, and internal memoranda.

Subjects

Agricultural education--Massachusetts--History--SourcesAgricultural education--Michigan--History--SourcesAgricultural extension work--Massachusetts--History--SourcesAgricultural extension work--United States--History--SourcesAgriculture--United States--History--SourcesEducation--United States--History--SourcesFood supply--Massachusetts--History--SourcesHigher education and state--Massachusetts--History--SourcesMassachusetts Agricultural College--Alumni and alumnaeMassachusetts Agricultural College--HistoryMassachusetts Agricultural College--StudentsMassachusetts Agricultural College. PresidentMassachusetts State College--FacultyMichigan Agricultural College--HistoryMichigan Agricultural College. PresidentRural churches--United States--History--SourcesRural development--Massachusetts--History--SourcesWomen--Education (Higher)--Massachusetts--History--SourcesWorld War, 1914-1918

Contributors

Butterfield, Kenyon L. (Kenyon Leech), 1868-1935
Canale-Parola, Ercole

Ercole Canale-Parola Papers

1957-1994
2 boxes 3 linear feet
Call no.: FS 166

Born in Rome, Italy, in 1929, Ercole Canale-Parola suspended his studies in 1951 to join his mother who had remarried and moved to Chicago. Continuing his education at the University of Illinois, Canale-Parola earned three degrees in microbiology in quick succession and marrying a fellow student, Thelma. On faculty in the Department of Microbiology at UMass Amherst from 1963 until his retirement in 1994, Canale-Parola’s research on the structure and metabolism of the cellulose cell walls of Sarcina helped him build a reputation as one of the world’s leading experts in the biology of spirochaetes. One of the crowning testimonies to his career was the naming of a spirochaete in his honor: Canaleparolinas. Thelma Canole-Parola died in 2011, followed by Ercole in March 2013.

A mixed assemblage of publications, lecture notes on microbial diversity, and specimens from a key figure in microbiology at UMass, this collection is highlighted by Canale-Parola’s notes on lectures delivered by Cornelius B. Van Niel (1961) and 52 (of 58) reel to reel tapes of lectures on microbiology and lab techniques by van Niel.

Subjects

Microbiology--Study and teachingSpirochetesUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst--FacultyUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst. Department of Microbiology

Contributors

Niel, Cornelis Bernardus van, 1897-1986

Types of material

Sound recordings
Cance, Alexander E. (Alexander Edmond), 1874-

Alexander E. Cance Papers

1911-1951
6 boxes 2.75 linear feet
Call no.: FS 045
Depiction of Alexander E. Cance
Alexander E. Cance

Professor and Head of the Agricultural Economics Department at the Massachusetts Agricultural College who also worked briefly for Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Herbert Hoover, as well as the United States Department of Agriculture.

Includes biographical materials, correspondence concerning Cance’s role in the agricultural cooperative movement, addresses, articles (both in typescript and published), lectures, book reviews, typescript of a Carnegie study of factors in agricultural economics, a summary of a U.S. Senate report of which he was co-author, “Agricultural Cooperation and Rural Credit in Europe,” and research material. No documentation of his role as a delegate to the Hoover Conference on Economic Crisis, 1920, or his position as Supervisor of Market Research with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1922.

Subjects

Massachusetts Agricultural College--FacultyMassachusetts Agricultural College. Department of Agricultural EconomicsMassachusetts Agricultural College. Department of Agricultural EconomicsMassachusetts State College--Faculty

Contributors

Cance, Alexander E. (Alexander Edmond), 1874-
Cannabis Reform Coalition

Cannabis Reform Coalition Records

1993-2013
2 boxes 2 linear feet
Call no.: RG 045/80 C3
Depiction of Extravaganja poster
Extravaganja poster

The Cannabis Reform Coalition at UMass Amherst was founded in 1991 and is considered the oldest student-run organization devoted to ending the prohibition on marijuana both locally and nationally and advocating for its industrial, medicinal, and recreational use for moral, environmental, and economic reasons. The CRC is one of the more active student organizations on campus and among other events, it sponsors the annual Extravaganja in April, which has attracted as many as 10,000 participants.

The CRC collection contains an assortment of fliers, posters, ephemera, and photographs, documenting the organization’s activities and activism, along with a small number of published and unpublished essays on the utility of hemp and cannbis products.

Subjects

Marijuana--Law and legislationMarijuana--Therapeutic use--Social aspectsUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst--Students

Types of material

Fliers (Printed matter)Photographs