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Hansen, Jacqueline

Jacqueline Hansen Papers

1970-2020
7 boxes 9.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1200

Jacqueline Hansen (born November 20, 1948) is a former long-distance runner from the United States who is recognized by the International Association of Athletics Federations as having set a world best in the marathon on two occasions. At California State University Northridge she became serious about long distance running and soon won 12 of her first 15 marathons. Among these victories, she won the prestigious Boston Marathon in 1973, the Honolulu Marathon in 1975, and the Avenue of the Giants Marathon in 1976. At age 36 she qualified for the 1984 Olympic Marathon Trials. Hansen was the president of the International Runners Committee from 1979-1986, which lobbied the International Olympic Committee to add women’s marathon and then sued them to include the 5,000 meter and 10,000 meters races for women. In 2009 she participated in a lawsuit against the Vancouver Organizing Committee to include women’s ski jumping at the 2010 Winter Olympics.

The Jacqueline Hansen Papers are primarily composed of documents and legal papers related to International Runners Committee and it’s lawsuit with the IOC in the early 1980s. Some files include Nike’s support of the International Runners Committee. Other materials include research files on the history of road racing for Hansen’s published and unpublished books and articles, programs and newspapers from the 1977 National Women’s Conference in Houston, Texas, and photographs and training journals of her running career.

Gift of Jacqueline Hansen, 2022.

Subjects

Long-distance running--HistoryMarathon running--HistoryOlympic Games (23rd : 1984 : Los Angeles, Calif.)--Litigation
Ruth Mansberg Collection of Bernard Bender

Ruth Mansberg Collection of Bernard Bender

1971-1973 Bulk: 1972
1 .2 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1204

Ruth Mansberg was a writer, editor, poet, mother, and ardent peace activist. She worked with several civic, social, service, and political organizations dedicated to social change including a Pound Ridge, NY Nuclear Freeze chapter, the League of Women Voters, and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. She lived with her husband Hyman Mansberg and children Laura and Daniel in Pound Ridge, NY until moving to Chapel Hill, NC in 1991. After sidelining a writing career due to family obligations, she returned to writing upon her children entering adulthood. She enrolled in a continuing education writing course at the University of Connecticut, Stamford, where, thanks to a teacher there named Mel Goldberg, she picked up freelance work with two trade journals, Dental Management and Optometric Management. In 1971 she pitched a story to Dental Management on Bernard Bender, a 52 year old Los Angeles dentist who was convicted of helping young men avoid the draft by applying braces to their teeth. He was convicted in February of 1972 and sentenced to 15 years in Federal prison, but was later released in late 1973. Mansberg worked for a number of newspapers and trade publications and co-authored two books. She died in November of 2000 in Chapel Hill

This small collection consists of Mansberg’s correspondence and research materials related to her article, “The Strange Case of Dr. Bender”, which was published in the June 1972 issue of Dental Management. This includes correspondence between Mansberg, Dr. Bender and his wife Bea discussing the article and other things. In addition, there is correspondence with Mel Goldberg, the editor of Dental Management and others, whom she wrote for information about the case. There is also a reporter’s transcript of the trial and the testimony of dentist Spiro J. Chacanos.

Subjects

Trials (Conspiracy)--California--Los AngelesWomen journalists--United States

Contributors

Bender, Bernard

Types of material

Clippings (information artifacts)Correspondence
Restrictions: none
Upperman, Mae

Mae Upperman Collection

3 boxes, ca. 200 books 3 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1194

Born in 1937, Mae Upperman grew up Asbury Park, New Jersey, a town segregated by race and wealth. She was educated at Tufts University, receiving a B.A. in adult education and physical therapy, and Boston University, receiving a Master’s degree in education. Her career features work in several fields, each one with a focus on improving lives of vulnerable individuals in society. These contributions include: working as a physical therapist for the Visiting Nurses Association of Boston; working at the Action for Boston Community Development, a non-profit dedicated to helping Boston residents out of poverty; researching new initiatives in Head Start; and developing and managing a center-based early intervention program for children with developmental disabilities. Alongside Upperman’s professional achievements, she is also an artist, poet, and book collector.

The Mae Upperman Collection consists of more than 200 books by Black women authors and Upperman’s artwork, much of which depicts abstract Black figures. An article about Upperman and her collection appeared in the Massachusetts Daily Collegian in 2023.

Gift of Mae Upperman, 2023

Subjects

African American women artistsAfrican American women authors

Types of material

PaintingsWorks of art
Judy Polan Papers

Judy Polan Papers

1962-2019 Bulk: 1979-1995
6 boxes 5.84 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1178
Judy Polan playing acoustic guitar
Judy Polan, ca. 1984

Judy Polan was a folk musician who performed primarily throughout Western Mass and New England in the 1980s and 1990s. Born in 1948 in Albany, New York, she graduated from Barnard College in 1970 with a degree in Russian. She worked as a translator in Cambridge, Massachusetts and taught guitar lessons part-time before eventually moving to teaching and performing full time. She married Michael Schonbach in 1975 and moved to Western Mass two years later, living first in Northampton and then Chesterfield. During this period, her music career blossomed. She quickly became a favorite at local coffeehouses and other venues such as the Iron Horse Music Hall in Northampton the Sounding Board Coffeehouse in West Hartford, and Passim in Cambridge, playing both original songs and covers from a wide variety of genres. She was a four-time recipient of the “favorite musician” award in the Valley Advocate Reader’s Poll in 1985, 1993, 1994, and 1995. She was frequently played on radio stations throughout New England and Upstate New York. Polan also performed at weddings and children’s events. Her husband, Michael Schonbach often accompanied her on violin.

She released her first album, Judy, Judy, Judy in 1984 on her own record label, Ruby Slippers Records. The name was an homage to her love of the Wizard of Oz, songs from which would often feature in her shows. She was known by her fans as the “Folk Glitter Queen of New England”, due to her eclectic style of both music and costume, which often featured glittery red high heels fashioned after Dorothy’s ruby slippers from the Wizard of Oz. Over the course of her career she released two more full-length albums and one EP, Look to the Starsin 1986, Dream Dances in 1992 and Daffodils in 1996. Also in 1996, she released a musical interpretation of the poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” by William Wordsworth, which was used in a tourism campaign for the Lake District in Northwest England. During the early 2000s, Polan’s career shifted to writing, and she worked as an editor and writer for magazines such as Style 1900, Modernism and Jewish Ledger. She mainly wrote about design and travel and maintained a website and blog, Mad for Mod, throughout the 2010s. She also wrote humorous audio memoir essays that were featured on the Albany, NY NPR affiliate, WAMC. She also published a book of poetry, Glasgow Colours at a Decorative Arts Programme at the University of Glasgow. Her husband Michael passed away on June 16, 2022.

The Judy Polan Papers contain material from throughout Polan’s career as a working musician. This includes promotional materials such as concert flyers, profiles in local publications, business and personal correspondence, sheet music, and lyrics. It also contains several dozen recordings contained on different formats such as reels, cassette tapes, records and CDs. These consist of commercial releases, live shows, radio appearances, demo recordings, and master tapes. Polan’s ruby slippers, that she wore during performances, are also part of the collection.

Aaron Mintz, 2022

Subjects

Folk music--MassachusettsFolk musicians--MassachusettsMusic--Massachusetts--NorthamptonWomen folk musicians--Massachusetts

Types of material

AudiotapesConcert programsCorrespondenceMusic postersNewspaper clippingsOpen reel audiotapesOptical disksPhotographsPoetry
Restrictions: none
Patai, Daphne

Daphne Patai Papers

1961-ca. 2007
94 boxes 47 linear feet
Call no.: FS 182

Daphne Patai joined the faculty of UMass Amherst in 1978, as assistant professor of Brazilian literature, and retired in 2017. She has published more than a dozen books, in a number of separate fields. These books reflect the range of her research interests, in Brazilian literature and culture; feminism and women’s studies;  utopian literature and thought; literary and cultural theory; higher education; and the “culture wars.”  In each of these areas she has produced substantive articles and books.  She has received several major national grants – from the NEH, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the National Humanities Center, in support of her scholarly work. In each area, the books she has produced have been considered significant contributions (and some have aroused considerable controversy) and have been widely reviewed.

The Daphne Patai Papers features an extensive collection of her research materials and notes, drafts of published works, book reviews, and professional correspondence. Also included is a vast family archive of correspondence with letters from Daphne Patai and family members: Naomi Nir, mother, Raphael Patai, father, and Jennifer Schneider, sister.

Gift of Daphne Patai, 2017.

Subjects

Brazilian literatureFeminismUtopian literatureWomen’s studies

Contributors

Nir, NaomiPatai, Raphael, 1910-1996Schneider, Jennifer

Types of material

Book reviewsCorrespondenceManuscripts
Amherst Friends for the Homeless

Amherst Friends for the Homeless Records

1989-2017
2 boxes .75 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1004

Amherst Friends for the Homeless, Inc. was a corporation committed to operating a shelter for homeless single women and started in 1989. After researching homelessness in the area, the Social Concerns Committee of the Unitarian-Universalist Society of Amherst decided that the needs for emergency shelter were not being met in the community of Amherst, Hadley, Pelham, and Shutesbury. To help this problem, Amherst Friends for the Homeless opened Rosemary’s Place on December 11, 1989. However, it was shut down after less than two years of operation in 1991 when the Grove Street Inn, a new shelter for men and women, had opened in Northampton. The corporation continued with one event a year, called Shelter Sunday, in which volunteers went door-to-door for donations for the Amherst Survival Center, First Call for Help, Grove Street Inn, and Not Bread Alone. The organization was dissolved in 2017.

Included in this collection are the documents pertaining to the operations of Amherst Friends for the Homeless, including financial records, meeting minutes, Shelter Sunday records, and Rosemary’s Place records.

Gift of Aaron Bousel, 2017.

Subjects

Shelters for the homeless

Types of material

Minutes
Irma McClaurin Black Feminist Archive

Irma McClaurin Black Feminist Archive

ca. 1920-2023
Call no.: MS 1182
Depiction of Maya Angelou at James Baldwin's birthday party, 1984. Photo by Irma McClaurin.
Maya Angelou at James Baldwin's birthday party, 1984. Photo by Irma McClaurin.

The Irma McClaurin Black Feminist Archive (BFA) is an archival home for Black women and their allies. Founded by Dr. Irma McClaurin, Black feminist anthropologist, academic administrator, award-winning poet and author, past president of Shaw University and leader in higher education, the BFA seeks to identify Black women from all walks of life who are artists, activists, and academics but may not be well known, and document their wide array of contributions at many levels: community, state, national, and global. In addition to being an ongoing resource for academic and community researchers, the BFA also aims to be a training center, where Black archivists can actively participate in their own history and uplift and protect the endangered legacy of Black women. Articles about Dr. McClaurin and the BFA have appeared in the Massachusetts Daily Collegian, UMass Magazine and on the the Black Presence website.

The BFA is an umbrella collection, made up of a growing and diverse group of collections documenting Black women, allies, movements, and organizations. Highlights include the papers of renown anthropologists Sheila Walker and Carolyn Martin Shaw; Belizean writer Zee Edgell; activist and educator Cheryl Evans, who founded the Black Pioneers Project documenting the experience of Black students at UMass Amherst during the late 1960s; Lawrence (Larry) Paros, a UMass alum and forerunner of the Alternative Education movement in America, past director of the 1968 Yale Summer High School (YSHS); and the papers of Dr. Irma McClaurin, BFA founder, which include her photographs of iconic Black figures. The development of the BFA has been supported by two grants from the Wenner Gren Foundation: The Historical Archive Grant and The Global Initiative Grant (GIG) for “The Black Feminist Archive Pandemic Preservation Project of Black Women Practicing Anthropologists” project

Collections include:

Kotts, Norine

Norine Kotts and Cheryl Lewis Papers

Ca. 1982-2013
2 boxes 2.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1177

Longtime partners in work and life, Norine Kotts and Cheryl Lewis met in San Francisco in 1980. Kotts, daughter of a law enforcement officer and a homemaker, whose family who moved frequently, was a freelance photographer; Lewis, a biracial Chicago native and daughter of a furniture maker and a schoolteacher, who grew up in Rockland County, N. Y., was an art student in the Bay Area and a lifelong cook. They moved back to the house Kotts was sharing with a group of lesbians, in Somerville, Mass., and eventually into the world of food collectives, restaurants, and hospitality. In 1982, along with two co-founders, Kotts and Lewis opened the cafe Beetle’s Lunch in Allston, a Boston neighborhood. Named “1983 Best Punk Restaurant” by Boston magazine, Beetle’s Lunch became known as a welcoming alternative community space situated at a convergence of queer and feminist politics, new concepts in art and music, and the changing food scene, with a dash of idealism, especially on the part of its young feminist founders. Relocating to Portland, Me., in 1985 Kotts and Lewis opened Café Always, playing a significant role in fostering and shaping that city’s burgeoning food culture: as Portland’s first restaurant to employ local farmers and incorporate local ingredients into the daily menu, Café Always garnered national attention. After selling the business in 1995, the couple opened Aurora Provisions, a gourmet food and wine shop with an in-store restaurant and catering service, which they ran until selling it in 2001. As consultants they continued to participate in and influence the food scene in Portland, helping to launch Portland favorite El Rayo Taqueria in 2009.

The Kotts and Lewis Papers provide glimpses into the formation and operation of several notable New England food establishments, documenting the creative, professional, and personal aspects, as well as the food itself. The collection contains menus, photographs, business plans, correspondence (including a set of letters Kotts wrote to her mother on the backs of menus), recipes and cookbooks, memorabilia, and a guest book filled with diners’ comments. Kotts and Lewis are also the subjects of a series of oral histories conducted by sociologist Janice Irvine.

Gift of Norine Kotts and Cheryl Lewis, Nov. 2022

Subjects

Lesbian businesswomenLesbian cooksRestaurants--Maine--PortlandRestaurants--New EnglandRestaurants--Social aspectsRestaurateurs

Contributors

Irvine, Janice M.Lewis, Cheryl

Types of material

Letters (Correspondence)MenusOral historiesPhotographs
Karen Lederer Political Button Collection

Karen Lederer Political Button Collection

1978-2018 Bulk: 1980-1998
1 .05 linear feet
Call no.: 1167
Assortment of buttons from the Karen Lederer Political Button Collection

Collection of 38 political buttons donated by Karen Lederer, UMass Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies Department faculty member, covering several social change issues including: gay rights, political candidates, unions, anti-nuclear activism, women’s rights, campaigns at UMass, racism, anti-war movement, AIDS, single payer health care, the environment, domestic violence, the Equal Rights Amendment, and other assorted events in Western Mass.

Gift of Karen Lederer, July 2022

Subjects

Anti-nuclear movements--MassachusettsGay Liberation MovementLabor unions--Massachusetts

Contributors

Karen Lederer

Types of material

Buttons (information artifacts)
Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft Records

Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft Records

1979-2021 Bulk: 1980-1987
5 boxes 4 linear feet
Call no.: 1156

Carol Jankhow, COMD member, at a Stop the Draft rally, ca. 1979

Formed in 1979 in the wake of a congressional vote on reinstating the draft, the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (COMD) was formed by San Diego-based anti-war activists Bill Roe, Hoppy Chandler, Norm Lewis, Fritz Sands, and Rick Jahnkow. Originally a chapter of the national Committee Against Registration and the Draft (CARD), the group formed as a grassroots effort to defeat draft registration legislation, organize opposition to future drafts, and expand the network of anti-draft/militarism work. Early successes included organizing around legislation proposed by President Jimmy Carter to begin draft registration in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, leafleting high schools over military recruiting, and supporting draft resisters, including Ben Sasway, a college student from North San Diego County who was among the first indicted for violating the Selective Service Act since the Vietnam War.
   
In addition to fighting prosecutions of draft resisters, S.D. CARD focused its efforts on counter recruitment campaigns in and around local high schools. In 1983-84, S.D. CARD began to broaden its focus beyond draft work to include the anti-nuclear movement, U.S. military involvement in Central America and the Caribbean, immigration, the militarism of the U.S./Mexico border, discrimination in the military, military impacts on the environment, and other militarism-related issues to become a more inter-sectional organization. This prompted the group to change their name to the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft and to joining other coalitions such as the San Diego Military Toxics Campaign, a coalition of groups educating the public on nuclear-powered aircraft carriers docked in San Diego, and the National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth (NNOMY). Today the group continues to fight state, local, and federal legislation related to the draft, including legislation in the 2020s that would expand draft registration to include women. COMD has also called for Congress to eliminate the Selective Service System and discontinue draft registration entirely.
  
This small collection consists of a run of COMD’s newsletter, Draft NOtices from 1979 to 2021 as well as clippings, photographs, circular letters, fliers, legal documents, press releases, correspondence, minutes, and pamphlets primarily from the 1979-1987 period. The material documents COMD’s campaigns, including the Ben Sasway campaign, as well as administrative material illustrating the inner workings of the group. There are also many newspaper clippings that document the national debate around the draft as well as COMD’s activities during this time.

Gift of Rick Jahnkow

Subjects

Draft registation--United StatesDraft resisters--United StatesMilitarismMilitary spending--United StatesUnited States--Armed Forces--Recruiting, enlistment, etc.United States.Army.Junior ROTC

Contributors

Rick Jankhow

Types of material

Clippings (information artifacts)CorrespondenceFliers (printed matter)NewslettersPamphletsPhotographs