Background
During the 1970s, western Massachusetts was a fertile breeding ground for socially and politically conscientious, environmentally aware activists-organizers. Members of the Franklin Co. branch of the Liberation News Service, such as Raymond Mungo and Steve Diamond purchased a commune in Montague, Mass. where they produced books and publications, created organizations, organized protests, rallies, and worked with like minded domestic and international organizations that shared their world view of living in a nuclear free world. A catalyst that drew attention to the antinuclear movement was an act of civil disobedience by Sam Lovejoy, who in 1974 toppled a weather tower owned by Northeast Utilities. Northeast Utilities had proposed to build a nuclear power plant in Montague, Mass. and Lovejoy's actions drew the attention of a local antinuclear organization, the AEC. The AEC rallied support for Sam Lovejoy's legal defense and used the media coverage and local support to draft a referendum to stop construction not only the proposed Montague plant, also the existing Rowe, Mass. and Vernon, VT nuclear power plants.
The AEC (Alternative Energy Coalition) networked with other antinuclear organizations and formed the Clamshell Alliance in 1976. The Clamshell Alliance organized protests and occupations (1976-1980) of the Seabrook, N.H. nuclear power plant, which resulted in a number of people getting arrested and drawing worldwide attention and support for these acts of civil disobedience. Steve Diamond, who participated in the Clamshell-Seabrook N.H. protests, as well as along with Dan Keller, Chuck Light, and others started the Renewable Energy Media Service (REMS), an antinuclear, pro-clean energy publication and a film production company, Green Mountain Post Films (GMPF), which still exists today. Anna Gyorgy, who was a founding member of the Clamshell Alliance, also organized and participated in a number of other domestic and international antinuclear-clean energy groups, and pro-feminist groups and is still active today in progressive social and political causes. Harvey Wasserman, after the Seabrook protests, went on to continue his involvement in antinuclear and other progressive socio-political activism, including the No Nukes-MUSE concerts. Sam Lovejoy, after his antinuclear activism in the 1970s went on to be one of the organizers of the Musicians for Safe Energy concert, which featured well-known musicians like Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt in 1979-1980. Closely related to the AEC Collection (MS 586).
Scope of collection
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 Seabrook, NH and Rowe, MA. A group of activists associated with the Liberation News Service and Montague Farm commune, including Steven Diamond, Anna Gyorgy, Sam Lovejoy, Harvey Wasserman, Dan Keller, and Charles Light were instrumental in organizing popular opposition to nuclear power and they helped establish several antinuclear organizations, including the Alternative Energy Coalition (AEC) to the Renewable Energy Media Service (REMS), Clamshell Alliance, Green Mountain Post Films (GMPF), Nuclear Objectors for a Pure Environment (NOPE), and Musicians United for Safe Energy (MUSE).
The Antinuclear Activism Collection contains the results of the grassroots opposition to nuclear power in Western Massachusetts. The bulk of the collection consists of a variety of publications produced or collected by a group of antinuclear activists in Franklin County, Mass., In addition to a large number of newspapers (e.g. Clamshell Alliance News) and pamphlets, the collection includes t-shirts, bumper stickers, buttons, ephemeral publications, notes, photographs, correspondence, and other information collected both for research purposes and to aid in public campaigns. Of particular interest are early minutes from a meeting of the Clamshell Alliance Coordinating committee (1977-1978), information on protests and occupations (1976-1980) at the Seabrook Station Nuclear Power Plant and the proposed facility in Montague and other similar facilities (e.g. Three Mile Island, Rocky Flats, Vermont Yankee) both domestic and international. The collection is part of the Famous Long Ago Archives and closely related to the AEC Collection (MS 586).
- Series 1. Organizations
- Series 2. Seabrook
- Series 3. Organizers and Activists
- Series 4. Ephemera
- Series 5. Publications and Newspaper Clippings
Series 1 is organized into three major subcategories of antinuclear protest groups: local organizations (e.g. AEC, Clamshell, etc.), domestic organizations in the US at large, and international organizations. The local organizations are the main core of this series, and include the groups most closely related to antinuclear protests against the Seabrook Station Nuclear Power Plant specifically, and in New England more generally. These local organizations, while separate entities, were often closely interrelated and included overlap among both participants as well as founders. The domestic and international organizations reflect the wide reach of antinuclear sentiment in the 1970s and 1980s, and are sorted by state and country of origin respectively. The domestic and international groups often communicated with the local organizations via newsletters and correspondence, seeking contact, support, and advice from Clamshell founders and participants, and other local organizations.
Series 2 contains documents about the Seabrook occupation. Of special note are documents that outline the Clamshell Alliance's meeting notes, "occupier's handbook", planning, promotion, songs, and other correspondences related to the Seabrook protests and occupations between 1977-1980. Testimonials of protesters that were arrested, articles about Seabrook by Steve Diamond and Harvey Wasserman, photographs of the Seabrook occupation in 1977, published articles about the Seabrook protests, letters of support, and NRC and EPA reports about Seabrook are included in this series. More content about Seabrook is in the AEC collection (MS 586).
Series 3 consists of records relating to four major organizers and activists involved in multiple antinuclear organizations and movements: Steve Diamond, Anna Gyorgy, Sam Lovejoy, and Harvey Wasserman. The folders relating Diamond include personal correspondences about REMS, antinuclear protests, and letters from Raymond Mungo. More personal documents can be found in Series 1. Gyorgy, a member of the Montague Farm community, was an early leader in the protests against nuclear energy, helping to organize the AEC, and a founding member of the coalition that founded the Clamshell Alliance. The folders relating to Gyorgy include drafts and correspondence related to the publication of her book, NO NUKES: Everyone's Guide to Nuclear Power (South End Press 1979/1981), general correspondence with various individuals representing antinuclear and related groups worldwide, financial documents, and papers and notes from the Society for International Development (SID) Conference in Rome in 1985. The balance of the Gyorgy Papers are housed at SCUA with the Anna Gyorgy Papers, 1974-1988 (MS 631), and at Smith College. The folders relating to Lovejoy include published articles about nuclear energy, personal and official correspondences, and transcriptions from courtroom testimonials about nuclear power plants. The folders relating to Wasserman include drafts of articles he wrote on antinuclear topics, research documents, and correspondence.
Series 4 consists of ephemera items, such as antinuclear stickers, buttons, t-shirts, posters, photographs, comic books, song lyrics, and 45 rpm records. Of interest are stickers and buttons (in various languages) from various protests and gatherings.
Series 5 consists of undifferentiated newspapers and other publications (complete and partial) as collected by the members of the various local organizations. They were used for research into antinuclear, clean energy, and antiwar topics, as mementos of publicity related activities, and received unsolicited from other organizations both domestic and international. Of interest are domestic and internationally published antinuclear organizations newsletters (e.g. Abalone Alliance Newsletter, Liberation News Service). This series is incompletely processed and awaits inventorying.
Administrative information
Access
The collection is open for research.
Language:
EnglishProvenance
The Antinuclear Collection was gathered in November 2007 from storage spaces associated with the Bloom Institute for Media Studies and Green Mountain Post Films, organizations that were founded and led by members of the Montague Farm Commune. The contents of the collection came from many sources including Anna Gyorgy, Sam Lovejoy, Harvey Wasserman, Charles Light, Daniel Keller, and Steve Diamond, and the collection bears a strong, though often uncertain relationship to collections for those individuals as well as to the Green Mountain Post and Musicians United For Safe Energy Collections, both of which came from the same source. Accn. number 2007-233.
Processing Information
Processed by Zachary Lizee and Sara Karz Reid, May 2016.
Copyright and Use (More information
)
Cite as: Antinuclear Collection (MS 547). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.
Subjects
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