Alvah, Walter, and George Howes brothers traveled the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts in the last two decades of the 19th century, taking photographs of the residents and documenting the customs, fashions, architecture, industry, technology, and economic conditions of rural New England.
The Howes collection includes 200 study prints selected from 20,000 negatives held by the Ashfield Historical Society. An inventory of the study prints is available online.
Independent Melville scholar, Jeanne Howes proved that Herman Melville’s first book, Redburn, or, The Schoolmaster of Morning, was published anonymously in 1844. This collection contains her published articles and book about Melville, as well as a self-published work about Nathan and Seth Howes who were credited with creating the first American tented circus.
Also a poet, her papers include letters from Robert Francis, with whom she carried on a regular correspondence for nearly a decade, as well as unpublished typescripts of her own poems.
Fourteen panels used in a public exhibition depicting the life and work of the Czech-born American anthropologist Ales Hrdlicka through photographs, documents, and narrative.
Partners who manufactured harnesses, saddles, and trunks in Springfield, Massachusetts. Includes the prices paid for harnesses, whips, trunks, valises, and a variety of repair jobs such as splicing, coupling, and repairing of the hoses of the Springfield Fire Department. Also contains method and form of payment (principally cash, but also wood, leather, and leather thread in exchange) and twenty pages of clippings with the names of Lyman’s daughters, Mary and Frances, written on them.
Subjects
Aaron P. Emerson Co. (Orland, Me.)Barter--Massachusetts--Springfield--History--19th centuryHarness making and trade--Massachusetts--Springfield--History--19th centuryHarnesses--Prices--HistorySpringfield (Mass.)--Economic conditions--19th centurySpringfield (Mass.). Fire DeptTrunks (Luggage)--Prices--HistoryWages--Leatherworkers--Massachusetts--Springfield--History--19th centuryWhips--Prices--History
Contributors
Hubbard and LymanHubbard, Jason, b. 1815Lyman, Moses, b. 1815
Three generations: including Erasmus Darwin Hudson Sr. and Jr.
Born in Torringford, Connecticut in 1806, and educated at the Torringford Academy and Berkshire Medical College (MD 1827), Erasmus Darwin Hudson became well known as a radical reformer. While establishing his medical practice in Bloomfield, Conn., and later in Springfield, Mass., and New York City, Hudson emerged as a force in the antislavery struggle, hewing to the non-resistant line. Touring the northeastern states as a lecturing agent for the Connecticut Anti-Slavery Society and general agent of the American Anti-Slavery Society, he regularly contributed articles to antislavery periodicals and befriended many of the movement’s leaders. In his professional life as an orthopedic surgeon, Hudson earned acclaim for his contributions to the development of modern prosthetics. During the carnage of the Civil War, he introduced remarkable improvements in artificial limb technology and innovations in the treatment of amputations and battle trauma, winning awards for his contributions at international expositions in Paris (1867) and Philadelphia (1876). Hudson died of pneumonia on Dec. 31, 1880.
Spanning five generations of a family of physicians and social reformers, the Hudson Family Papers include particularly significant content for Erasmus Darwin Hudson documenting his activities with the Connecticut and American Anti-Slavery societies. Hudson’s journals and writings are accompanied by a rich run of correspondence with antislavery figures such as Abby Kelley, Wendell Phillips, Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Isaac Hopper, and Samuel May and a unique antislavery campaign map of New York state and surrounding areas (1841). Hudson’s medical career and that of his son Erasmus Darwin Hudson, Jr. (1843-1887), a thoracic physician, is equally well documented through correspondence, medical notes, and handwritten drafts of lectures, with other material ranging from family records and writings of and other family members to genealogies of the Hudson, Shaw, Clarke, Fowler, and Cooke families, and printed material, memorabilia, clipping and photographs.
A pioneer in the chemistry of protists, Seymour H. Hunter (1911-2003) was among the founders of the Haskins Laboratories in 1935, helping to establish its programs in microbiology, genetics, and nutrition (now affiliated with Pace University). His diverse research interests centered on protist nutrition, and he is credited with significant advances in understanding the ecology of marine plankton and the development of culturing methods for algae and protists. Stemming from his work on nutrition in Euglena, he developed microbiological assays for the determination of vitamin B12 in human tissues, and other research was foundational for understanding of the role of chelation for metals in culture systems and clinical use. Sometimes called a “protozoology missionary,” Hutner was a founding member of the Society of Protozoologists And was noted for his ability to recruit and inspire students and colleagues.
The Hutner Papers contain a significant run of scientific correspondence concentrated in the 1970s and 1980s, relating to Hutner’s research, publications, and the Haskins Lab, along with a small amount of material relating to his position at Pace University and some personal correspondence.
Little is known about Dan Hyde other than he appears to have been a resident of Ontario County, New York, during the period of the Second Great Awakening, probably in either the town of Farmington or Manchester.
This small paper-bound booklet includes some miscellaneous accounts along with three poems, “The Genesee song,” “Remember Lot’s wife,” and “Encouragement to pray.”
Independent Condenser Workers Union Local 2 Records
1946-1973
4 boxes2 linear feet
Call no.: MS 315
Local 2 of the Independent Condenser Workers Union represented employees of the Sprague Electric Company in North Adams, Massachusetts. Beginning in the 1930s, Sprague was one of the largest employers in the Berkshires. Employing 4,000 workers, Sprague provided one-third of the area’s jobs, many of them held by women. By the 1960s, however, Sprague began increasing layoffs, and in 1985 the company moved its world headquarters out of North Adams, closing all but two small facilities.
Records of Local 2 include by-laws, constitutions, correspondence, company publications, and minutes of meetings between management and union representatives.
Subjects
Electricians--Labor unionsLabor unions--MassachusettsSprague Electric Company
Following the Japanese invasion of China in 1937, the New Zealand expatriate Rewi Alley threw his considerable talents behind the war effort. Building upon knowledge acquired over a decade of living in China, Alley helped organize the Chinese Industrial Cooperative Movement (CIC). The CIC coordinated the creation of industrial cooperatives throughout unoccupied China to keep industrial production flowing, and it sponsored a series of industrial schools named after Alley’s friend Joseph Bailie to provide training and support.
The Indusco Bailie School Collection includes documents and photographs relating to the establishment and operation of the Bailie Schools in China during and immediately after the Second World War. Probably associated with the Indusco offices in New York City, these documents include a model constitution for industrial cooperatives, typewritten reports on Bailie Schools, and published articles describing the schools’ efforts. The reports extend through 1949, and include three mimeographed newsletters from the Shantan Bailie School for the months immediately following the school’s liberation by Communist forces. Also included are printed works by Alley and eighteen photographs taken between 1942 and 1944 of students and scenes at Bailie Schools.
Subjects
China--History--1937-1949Chinese industrial cooperativesCooperative societies--ChinaShantan Bailie School (Kansu, China)Sino-Japanese War, 1937-1945World War, 1939-1945
David R. Inglis enjoyed a distinguished career in nuclear physics that ranged from theoretical work on the structure of the nucleus in the 1930s to the development of the atomic bomb in the 1940s and work on renewable energy in the 1960s and 1970s. A Professor of Physics at UMass from 1969-1975, Inglis was a founding member of the Federation of American Scientists and from the mid-1940s on, he dedicated himself to informing public policy on the dangers of nuclear technologies.
The Inglis Papers offer a perspective on the life and career of a theoretical physicist who grew from an early involvement in the Manhattan Project to becoming a committed critic of nuclear weaponry and nuclear power. Although the collection is relatively sparse in unpublished scientific work, it includes valuable correspondence relating to Inglis’s efforts with the Federation of American Scientists and other organizations to influence public policy on issues relating to disarmament and nuclear power.
Subjects
Allegiance--United StatesArgonne National LaboratoriesCondon, Edward Uhler, 1902-1974Federation of American ScientistsLos Alamos National LaboratoryNuclear disarmamentNuclear energyNuclear warfareOppenheimer, J. Robert, 1904-1967Physics--MassachusettsUnited States--History--1945-1953United States--History--1953-1961University of Massachusetts Amherst. Department of PhysicsUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst. Institute for Man and His EnvironmentWorld Association of World FederalistsWorld Federation of Scientific Workers
Contributors
Bohr, AageInglis, David Rittenhouse, 1905-Teller, Edward, 1908-2003Wigner, Eugene Paul, 1902-1995
