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New Salem (Mass.) General Store Daybook

1841 June-1845 Aug.

1 vol. 0.2 linear feet

Call no.: MS 1090 bd

A town at the eastern periphery of Franklin County, Mass., New Salem was incorporated in 1753 and has never strayed far from its rural roots. In the 1840s, agriculture supplied much of the town’s work, supplemented by lumbering, hide tanning, and a cottage industry in palm-leaf hats, of which over 79,000 were manufactured in 1837 alone.

Although this daybook covers only a brief span of four years, it offers a fascinating glimpse into the vibrancy of a country store in antebellum Western Massachusetts. The store’s owner is not recorded, however the names of dozens of men and women from New Salem appear as purchasers of small quantities of consumable goods and the occasional luxury items like peppermint and candy. The last several pages of the ledger include accounts for particularly active customers, including several who supplied the store with large numbers of palm-leaf hats, which the store’s owner may have exported, and records of receipt for various kinds of paper, almanacs, toy books, and textbooks in mathematics and spelling.

Acquired from M&S Rare Books, May 2006

Subjects

Country stores--Massachusetts--New SalemGeneral stores--Massachusetts--New SalemNew Salem (Mass.)--Economic conditions--19th centuryPalm-leaf hats--Massachusetts--New Salem

Types of material

Account booksDaybooks

Related collections: Massachusetts (West), Mercantile

Brewer, D. Chauncey

D. Chauncey Brewer Account Book

1848-1869

1 vol. 0.1 linear feet

Call no.: MS 1089 bd

Finding aid

Born into a wealthy and prominent family from Springfield, Mass., Daniel Chauncey Brewer became a prodigy in the antebellum nursery trade. While still in his teens, he was running a substantial traffic in fruits trees and ornamentals. After marrying in 1853, Brewer moved to Boston, where he died of an infection in 1862.

The accounts of Chauncey Brewer’s Springfield-based nursery operation record substantial sales of cherry, peach, apple, and fruit trees, ornamentals such as arbor vita, spruce, and rose, and seeds, vegetables, and grapes. The sales appear to have extended throughout southern New England, as far as Providence, and include charges from grafts and labor.

Acquired from M&S Rare Books, May 2006 (2006-072).

Subjects

Nurseries (Horticulture)--Massachusetts--SpringfieldSpringfield (Mass.)--Economic conditions--19th century

Types of material

Account books

Related collections: Botany & horticulture, Business & industry, Massachusetts (West)

Smith, Daniel

Daniel Smith Account Book

1773-1801

1 vol. 0.1 linear feet

Call no.: MS 1088 bd

Finding aid

A chair-maker and Revolutionary War veteran, Daniel Smith lived on High Street in Ipswich, Mass. As early as 1774, Smith was bottoming and repairing chairs, and for several decades, he produced chairs of various sorts, including waist chairs, four-back chairs, “green chairs,” great chairs, round chairs, and low chairs. Smith died in Jan. 1844.

This rough, but noteworthy volume records nearly two and half decades of production by a Massachusetts chair maker in the early National period. The volume begins as a cipher book, apparently kept by Smith in his late teens, but by the earliest accounts in 1774, Smith records “bottoming and mending” chairs and, by 1785, making “six four back chairs & a grat chair” for Thomas Smith.

Acquired from M&S Rare Books, May 2006 (2006-072).

Subjects

Chair-makers--Massachusetts--IpswichIpswich (Mass.)--Economic conditions--18th century

Types of material

Account books

Related collections: Massachusetts (East), Trades

Holland, Jeff. C.

Jeff C. Holland Collection

1988-1990

2 boxes 1 linear feet

Call no.: PH 090

During his undergraduate years at UMass Amherst (1988-1993), Jeff Holland was active as a photographer for both the Daily Collegian and the student yearbook, the Index. For a time during and after his college years, Holland worked as a professional photographer, doing freelance work in and around Northampton. Since moving to Minnesota in 1996, he has worked in various capacities in the airline industry and earned a Master of Public Affairs from the University of Minnesota in 2018.

This small collection consists of photographic negatives, contact sheets, slides, and prints taken by Holland during his undergraduate years at UMass Amherst. Taken primarily for use in the college newspaper and yearbook, much of the work is focused on UMass athletics, student protests, and concerts.

Gift of Jeff C. Holland, July 2014

Contributors

University of Massachusetts Amherst--Photographs

Types of material

Photographs

Related collections: Massachusetts (West), Photographs, Photojournalism, UMass (1947- )

Cohen, Gene D.

Gene D. Cohen Papers

1956-2014 Bulk: 1970-2014

9 boxes and books 13.5 linear feet

Call no.: MS 1079

Digital

Finding aid

Depiction of Gene D. Cohen: keynote speaker at the White House Conference on Aging, 2005 — Gene D. Cohen: keynote speaker at the White House Conference on Aging, 2005

A pioneer in geriatric psychiatry with a polymathic imagination, Gene D. Cohen was born in Brockton, Mass., in 1944, and educated at Harvard, Georgetown University School of Medicine (1970), and the Union Institute (PhD, Gerontology). Cohen began his career with the U.S. Public Health Service out of medical school, and from the outset, set a novel course in his research, becoming one of the first psychiatrists to specialize in study of the impact of aging on the brain and Alzheimer’s disease. Recognized for administrative prowess as well as the originality of his scholarship, he was selected as the first chief of the Center on Aging at the National Institute of Mental Health (1975-1988), and went on to leadership positions at the National Institute on Aging (NIH) and in the profession more generally. In 1994, he left government employment to found the Center on Aging, Health, and Humanities at George Washington University. The impact of Cohen’s research was felt widely and catalyzed a change in the field from viewing aging as a disease to recognizing the creative potential of the older mind. His demonstration of the health benefits to older people of engagement in the arts made him one of the intellectual architects of the field of Creative Aging. The author of more than 150 articles and monographs, he earned numerous awards for his work, including the highest award bestowed by the U.S. Public Health Service, the Distinguished Service Medal. Cohen died of metastatic prostate cancer at the age of 65 in Nov. 2009, leaving his wife, Wendy Miller, two children, and four grandchildren.

A significant collection for study of the growth of geriatric psychiatry and the field of creative aging, the collection includes materials from throughout Gene Cohen’s pathbreaking career. The collection offers insight into the development of gerontological research particularly during Cohen’s years at the NIMH and NIH. In addition to an extensive set of publications by and about Cohen, the collection includes background materials for Cohen’s books The Creative Age, The Mature Mind, and Sky Above Clouds, and a significant corpus relating to some of his major research projects. Finally, the collection includes a selection of videotapes of interviews with Cohen, including several presentations and talks.

Gift of Wendy Miller, May 2019

Subjects

Creative agingGeriatric psychiatryPsychiatrists--Maryland

Contributors

George Washington University. Center for Aging, Health, and HumanitiesNational Institute of Mental Health (U.S.)Washington D.C. Center on Aging

Types of material

PhotographsVideo recordings (Physical artifacts)

Related collections: Aging, Arts management, Science & technology

Kweskin, Jim

Jim Kweskin Papers

1907-2018 Bulk: 1960-2018

57 boxes, flat files 85 linear feet

Call no.: MS 1064

Digital (+)

Part of: Folk New England Collection

Depiction of Jim Kweskin playing guitar at Fort Hill, 1967 — Jim Kweskin playing guitar at Fort Hill, 1967

The Jug Band visionary Jim Kweskin was one of the major lights of the 1960s folk revival, and an influential figure in Americana music since. A native New Englander, Kweskin was born in Stamford, Conn., in 1940. As a student at Boston University, he was drawn into the Boston-Cambridge folk scene and inspired to learn the guitar, developing a ragtime-blues fingerpicking technique that he inflected with jazz and blues that became a bedrock style of the folk revival. Following a sojourn in California, he returned to Boston in 1963 and formed the Jug Band with Fritz Richmond, Geoff Muldaur, Bob Siggins, and Bruno Wolfe, later joined by Maria Muldaur, Mel Lyman, Bill Keith, and Richard Greene. The Jug Band developed a national following performing pre-World War II American music, laced with a sense of humor and 1960s sensibility. At the height of their popularity, the Jug Band dissolved in 1968. For several years in the 1980s and 1990s, Kweskin was relatively removed from recording, but he resumed work as a soloist, as a member of the U & I Band, the Texas Sheiks, the Jug Band; and as fellow performer with a long list of artists.

A rich record of eclectic musical tastes and a passion for American music, the Kweskin collection offers important documentation of a major figure on the folk scene. The collection includes scrapbooks, newsclippings, concert posters and fliers, and ephemera from throughout Kweskin’s career, along with hundreds of personal and professional photographs of Kweskin, the Jug Band, U and I, and later collaborations. As an historian of American music, Kweskin also assembled discographies of major artists and labels and built a library of works on blues, country, and other forms of popular music, along with hundreds of 78 rpm records, 45s, LPs, and compact disc recordings. Finally, there are hundreds of reel to reel, cassette, CD, and DVD recordings of Kweskin from throughout his career.

Gift of Jim Kweskin, 2018

Subjects

Blues (Music)Folk musicians

Types of material

Open reel audiotapesPhotographsSound recordings

Related collections: Folk music, Photographs, Printed materials

University of Massachusetts Amherst. Department of Theater

University of Massachusetts Amherst Department of Theater Records

1962-2010

41 boxes 60.5 linear feet

Call no.: RG 025 T3

Although theater has been part of community life at UMass Amherst since the early days of the school, the move to formalize study came only during the boom years of the 1960s. Initially connected to the Department of Speech, Theater was set off as a separate department in 1972. Its goal is to expose students to different perspectives and varied aspects of the field though classes in acting, directing, play analysis, dramaturgy, design, theater technology and stage management. The Bachelor of Arts degree offers concentrations in Dramaturgy, Performance, or Design and Production, while the M.F.A. program includes Directing, Dramaturgy, Costume Design, Lighting Design, or Scenic Design. The Department stages productions throughout the year on their two stages, The Rand and The Curtain, enabling students to share their work widely.

The records of the UMass Amherst Theater Department include play files, administrative communications, publications, and other documentation from the beginning of the department to recent years. Along with files for many individual performances, the collection contains information on academic service by faculty members, honors and achievements, correspondence with alumni, departmental operations, news clippings, and publications. There is also a wealth of audio and visual materials (still photographs and video) documenting individual performances.

Subjects

Theater--Massachusetts--AmherstUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst--Faculty

Related collections: Performing arts, UMass (1947- )

Lewis, Benjamin F.

Benjamin F. Lewis Collection of Robert Frost

1901-1986

301 items 24 linear feet

Call no.: RB 036

An avid collector of Robert Frost, Benjamin F. Lewis was born in Boston, on 23, 1941, to Leo and Anne (Starr) Lewis, Benjamin Lewis. Lewis enjoyed a distinguished career as a social worker, an adminstrator, a researcher in drug and alcohol abuse, and on the AIDS epidemic, working in his latter years as a member of the Department of Psychiatry at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. Lewis died on Jan. 29, 2019, leaving his life partner Karen Orsini and two children. While working at Goodspeeds in Boston as a college student, Lewis was presented with a Robert Frost first edition, beginning a lifelong collecting habit.

The collection assembled by Lewis includes first and early editions of Frost’s books (many inscribed), early printings and later (life-time) editions of most, selected first appearances of his poetry in magazines and anthologies, scarce ephemeral printings of his work and association pieces, a handful of letters and holograph poems, and phonograph recordings of Frost reading his own work.

Gift of Benjamin F. Lewis and Karen Orsini, 2018-2019

Contributors

Frost, Robert, 1874-1963

Related collections: New Hampshire, Poetry, Printed materials

Calin, Roswell A.

Roswell A. Calin Collection

1907-193 Bulk: 1918-1919

1 box 0.25 linear feet

Call no.: MS 1086

Digital (+)

Finding aid

Depiction of Roswell A. Calin in uniform, 1918 — Roswell A. Calin in uniform, 1918

Shortly before his twentieth birthday in 1918, Roswell “Ross” Calin joined the 44th Coast Artillery Corps and was sent overseas for service. Arriving in France in August 1918, Calin took part in the St. Mihiel offensive and was wounded in action. He returned to his home in Providence, R.I., early in 1919 and was active in veterans’ organizations for years, including serving as Rhode Island State Adjutant of the Disabled American Veterans in the mid-1920s.

The Calin collection consists of two scrapbook “volumes,” now disbound, assembled by Ross Calin to document his experience in the First World War. Labeled a “memoir,” the volumes consist primarily of photographs and postcards (including many real photo postcards) depicting American troops in the field, war damage, and sites visited by Calin in France. Also included are a selection of medals received by Calin, including a Victory Medal with St. Mihiel clasp, and some newspaper clippings, primarily from the post-war years.

Gift of Ed and Libby Klekowski, May 2018.

Subjects

United States. Army. Coast Artillery Corps. Regiment, 44thWorld War, 1914-1918

Types of material

MedalsPhotographic postcardsPhotographsPostcards

Related collections: Photographs, Rhode Island, World War I

Paros, Lawrence

Larry Paros Papers

1965-2015

6 boxes 7 linear feet

Call no.: MS 1081

Finding aid

Part of: Irma McClaurin Black Feminist Archive

Yale Summer High School brochure, 1968

The educator and writer, Lawrence “Larry” Paros was born in Springfield, Mass., in 1934. After undergraduate work at UMass Amherst (1958), Paros earned his masters degree from Yale in American Diplomatic History and Russian Studies, and began teaching high school in Connecticut, where he became a lightning rod for promoting discussions of the Vietnam War among his students. The Yale Summer High School came calling in 1967, giving Paros the reins to a three-year old program that brought underprivileged youth from across the country for rigorous pre-collegiate study at the Yale Divinity School. Begun as a progressive response to the federal “War on Poverty,” Paros soon sought to move the school in a more radical direction. Along with a small group of concerned educators, he redesigned the curriculum to deal directly and deeply with the most challenging contemporary issues in America and to address fundamental questions about the human condition, race, and the future of the country. Paros subsequently founded and led two experimental schools in Providence, R.I., and has written prolifically on topics ranging from education to etymology.

The Paros papers are the product of an innovator in alternative education and a advocate for social justice, and are particularly rich in documenting the efforts of educators in the 1960s and 1970s to make education relevant to contemporary students. The collection includes a rich record of Paros’s brief time as director of the Yale Summer High School (YSHS), including organizational, pedagogical, and administrative documents, dozens of photographs, and an important set of DVDs and transcripts of interviews with former students, teacher, and administrators from the 1968 cohort, recorded for the film Walk Right In. Paros’s work in alternative education is also well represented, with materials from his two schools in Providence (School One and the Alternative Learning Project).

Subjects

African American high school studentsAlternative EducationAlternative educationYale Summer High School

Types of material

Oral histories (Literary works)PhotographsVideo recordings (physical artifacts)

Related collections: African American, Civil rights, Connecticut, Education, Oral history, Social justice