Collecting area: UMass faculty

Since his arrival at UMass in 1953, Lewis Mainzer has been an affable, influential, and well-respected member of the university community. He joined the faculty of four that at the time made up the department of government, later the department of political science. A dedicated educator, he was instrumental in the expansion of that department and demonstrated a profound commitment to education reform and social engagement against the backdrop of campus upheaval during the 1960s and 1970s. Mainzer retired in 1997 and is now a professor emeritus and author of several books of poetry.

The Lewis C. Mainzer papers consist of personal notes, correspondence, meeting minutes, memoranda, and other materials documenting Mainzer’s activities as a member of numerous Faculty Senate and other committees, and the administrative responses to such events as the Vietnam War protests, the civil rights movement, the expansion of the UMass system, and higher education reform in Massachusetts. There are also materials relating to his interests as a poet, his professional work as an educator, and documents relating to various campus events of the late twentieth century.

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

Born to Japanese parents in Tacoma, Washington, in 1909, John Maki was adopted as an infant by a white couple and raised on their farm. After receiving both his bachelors (1932) and masters (1936) in English literature at the University of Washington, Maki was persuaded to switch fields to the study of Japan. Following a fellowship from the Japanese government to study in Tokyo in the late 1930s, the war interrupted his plans. After being ordered to internment, he served with the Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service of the Federal Communications Commission and in psychological warfare planning with the Office of War Information, and after the war, he took a position with the occupation authority, assisting in the drafting of the Japanese Constitution. Returning stateside, he resumed his academic career, earning his doctorate in political science at Harvard in 1948. After eighteen years on the faculty at the University of Washington, Maki moved to UMass in 1966, where he served as chair of the Asian Studies Program and in administrative posts, including as vice dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. In recognition of his efforts to promote relations between the U.S. and Japan, he was awarded the Third Class Order of the Sacred Treasure by the emperor of Japan in 1983. Although he retired from the faculty in 1980, Maki remained active as a scholar until the time of his death in Amherst in December 2006.

The Maki Papers reflect a long career in the study of contemporary Japanese politics and culture. Beginning with his earliest academic work on Japan in the 1930s, the collection documents the range of Maki’s interests, from the origins of Japanese militarism and nationalism to the development of the post-war Constitution and his later studies of William Smith Clark and the long history of Japanese-American relations. The collection includes valuable documents from the early period of the Allied Occupation, including the extensive correspondence with his wife Mary (1946).

One of four young sociologists who joined the faculty at UMass Amherst in the years after the Second World War, John Manfredi carried the entire load of teaching theory from 1948 to 1967. A native of Philadelphia and graduate of the University of Pennsylvania (BA 1942), Manfredi came to Amherst after completing an MA at Harvard in 1948, teaching while simultaneously completing his dissertation, “The Relationship of Class-Structured Pathologies to the Contents of Popular Periodical Fiction, 1936-1940” (Harvard, 1951). A specialist in social theory and cultural systems, he taught anthropology for several years and both his research and teaching revolved around the sociology of religion and art. His best know work, The Social Limits of Art, appeared in 1982, three years before his retirement. Manfredi died in February 1993.

Consisting of essays and course notes from his days as a graduate student at Harvard, the John Manfredi collection documents the training and early professional work of a sociologist. Notable among these are materials relating to classes offered by eminent figures such as Talcott Parsons, Carle C. Zimmerman, and P.A. Sorokin.

A specialist in human genetics, Arthur P. Mange studied the population genetics of small villages, the genetics of fruit flies (Drosophila), worked on early computer applications of genetic models and statistics, wrote textbooks on genetics, taught in the Biology and Zoology departments at the University, and is a published photographer of gravestones and whimsical signs. Mange was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1931 and earned a B.A. in physics from Cornell, and an M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin. Mange joined the University faculty in 1964, teaching genetics until his retirement in 1995.

The Arthur Mange Papers are comprised of his extensive documentation of the inhabitants of villages in the northern United States and southern Canada, including information about certain genetic factors and their result on the population. His records cover the 1960s and in some cases the early 1970s. Mange was also a talented photographer, and his collection includes approximately 200 of his photographs, including abstract and nature photos and images of New England scenery and the UMass campus.

Arthur P. Mange taught in the Biology Department at University of Massachusetts Amherst for 31 years before retiring in 1995. A co-author of numerous works in human genetics, Mange served on the chair of the Conservation Committee in Amherst, and currently serves on the Burnett Gallery Committee. In 1983, his New England images were featured in Across the Valley (from Cummington to New Salem) held at the Burnett Gallery. This exhibition was followed at the Hitchcock Center in 1984 with Delight in Familiar Forms (celebrating some well-known plants and animals), with Ring Bell to Admit Bird at the Jones Library and Net Prophet at Cooley Dickinson Hospital. Architectural Sights — Big and Small, Mange’s most recent show (2002), appeared at the Burnett Gallery. In addition to exhibitions, Mange has also donated collections for fund-raising auctions at New York University, the Cooley Dickinson Hospital, the University of Massachusetts Fine Arts Center, the Amherst Historical Society, Jones Library, and the Amherst Community Arts Center.

His photographic collection spans more than half a century of subjects reflecting his varied interests in animals, plants, our region, gravestones, what he calls “whimsical signs,” and attention-grabbing shadows.

Joseph Sol Marcus arrived at UMass in 1948 as an Instructor in Civil Engineering and graduate student (MS 1954), remaining there for the rest of his career. Born in Oct. 29, 1921, he was educated at Worcester Polytech (BS 1944) and after war-time service with the Navy, he joined the rapidly growing engineering program at UMass. Although chemical engineer, he took responsibility for the fluid mechanics laboratory and taught in civil and mechanical engineering, and after gaining experience through courses from the Atomic Energy Commission and a year spent at Oak Ridge National Laboratories, he introduced nuclear engineering into the curriculum. As he rose through the academic ranks, Marcus became a key figure in university administration, serving as Associate Dean of Engineering, as preceptor for Emily Dickinson House on Orchard Hill, and Special Assistant to the Chancellor for long-range planning, while serving on committees for military affairs, Engineering hopnors, transfers and admissions, discipline, and Continuing Education. Marcus died of cancer on Nov. 1, 1985. Marcus Hall was named in his honor.

The Joseph Marcus Papers document Marcus’s extensive involvement in campus affairs at UMass Amherst, with an emphasis on the period 1965-1975. A small quantity of material relating to his profession activities and academic appointments is joined by well organized files relating to his participation in committees of Engineering honors, Military Affairs (1967-1968), the Orchard Hill residential college and Emily Dickinson House (1964-1969), ROTC and AFROTC curricula, transfers and admissions, the library, Upward Bound, Discipline (1964-1971), and Continuing Education (1970-1977).

Born in Gomel, Russia in 1912, Lazar Mayants earned a PhD in chemistry (1941) from the Karpov Institute for Physical Chemistry and a Doctor of Science in physics and mathematics (1947) at the Lebedev Institute for Physics (FIAN), both in Moscow. With primary research interests in theoretical molecular spectroscopy, applied linear algebra, quantum physics, probability theory and statistics, and the philosophy of science, he began his career as Professor and Chair of the Theoretical and General Physics Departments at Ivanovo, Saratov, and Smolensk Universities in Russia. Mayants came to University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1981 as a visiting professor, becoming an Adjunct in 1987. He taught at UMass for over six years, often forgoing a paycheck as a result of decreased funding in the sciences. He remained in Amherst until his death in November 2002.

The Mayants Papers are comprised of professional correspondence, drafts of articles, personal and financial records, and notes for research and teaching. Mayants’s dissertation from the Lebedev Institute for Physics is also included with the collection.

Author, English professor, and University of Massachusetts alumnus (class of 1941) Harold T. McCarthy taught at the University of Massachusetts from 1959 and into his retirement in the late 1980s. In addition to his books on Henry James (1968) and the expatriate perspective on the idea of America (1972), he wrote fiction and poetry as well as critical articles on Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain, Herman Melville, and Richard Wright.

The McCarthy collection includes correspondence, typescript manuscripts, poems, travel journals, and class materials including syllabi and lecture notes.

A specialist in agricultural marketing, Robert J. McFall arrived at the Massachusetts Agricultural College in January 1920 to take up work with the Extension Service. A graduate of Geneva College and Phd from Columbia University (1915), McFall had worked with the Canadian Bureau of Statistics for two years before his arrival in Amherst.

The McFall collection includes a suite of published and unpublished works in agricultural economics, including an incomplete run of Economic Reports from MAC on business conditions (1921-1925), and papers on agricultural cooperation in Massachusetts, municipal abattoirs, business regulation in Canada, agriculture and population increase, and the New England dairy market. Of particular note is a monograph-length work co-authored by McFall and Alexander Cance, entitled “The Massachusetts Agricultural College in its Relations to the Food Supply Program of the Commonwealth.”

Forest pathologist and arboriculturist Malcolm Arthur McKenzie was born in Providence, Rhode Island in April 1903. After attending Brown University (PhD Forest Pathology, 1935), he worked successively as a field assistant for the United States Forest Service forest products lab, as an instructor at the University of North Carolina, and finally with the University of Massachusetts Shade Tree Laboratory. He conducted important research on the diseases of shade trees, including Dutch elm disease, wood decay, and tree pests, as well as related issues in tree hazards in public utility work and municipal tree maintenance.

The McKenzie Papers document McKenzie’s association with the UMass Shade Tree Lab, along with some professional correspondence, research notes and publications, and McKenzie’s dissertation on willows.