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Beach, Samuel

Samuel and Harriett Beach Papers

1829-1903
2 boxes 0.75 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1032
Finding aid
Depiction of Business card for J.S. Stannard Oysters, ca.1885
Business card for J.S. Stannard Oysters, ca.1885

Spread out across the early national landscape, the Beach and Cooke families were bound by the ties of family, friendship, and business. The brothers-in-law Samuel Beach, from Branford, Conn., and Samuel G. Cooke, from Mendon, Illinois, both served in the Civil War. As a corporal in the 27th Connecticut Infantry, Beach saw action at the battles of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, while Cooke served in the west with the 50th Illinois before taking a captain’s commission in the 44th U.S. Colored Troops. Farmers and fruit growers, the two settled in Branford after the war, with Beach establishing Pawson Park, a day resort and picnic grounds that prospered in the 1880s.

The paper of Samuel and Harriett Beach contain family correspondence from two generations of Connecticut family in the mid-nineteenth century. Of particular note are 31 war-date letters and a post-war memoir of the battle of Fredericksburg from Samuel Beach, and three war-date letters from Samuel G. Cooke. The collection also includes an interesting, though scattered series of letters relating to the creation and operation of the day resort, Pawson Park.

Acquired from William Reese, April 2018
Related collections: Agriculture, Civil War, Connecticut
Richards family

Richards Family Collection

1692-1818
2 vols. 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1030 bd
Digital
Finding aid

A prosperous farmer in the southern reaches of Massachusetts Bay Colony, James Richards was born on June 2, 1658, and never ventured far from his from his home in Weymouth or the adjoining town of Braintree. The son of William Richards and his wife Grace Shaw, and a member of the third generation of Richards in the new world, James was characteristically diverse in his economic activities, raising livestock (sheep and pigs), harvesting salt grass, making salt, and raising crops including rye, corn, and barley, which he malted, presumably for the production of beer. Although most of his transactions were local, he traded as far away as Charlestown and Barnstable.

The Richards family ledgers include a daybook from James Richards kept between 1692-1710 and an account book from his great grandson Jacob Richards kept a century later, along with loose receipts from generations of Richards in between. The volume associated with James Richards records sales of goods produced on his Weymouth farm, including barley, rye, “Indian corn,” salt, mutton and lamb, pork, and eggs, along with occasional records of the sale of goods such as shingles, “board nails,” clapboards, molasses and sugar, lamp oil, tobacco, and cloth. The sparser records from Jacob Richards include accounts that include the sale of cider; cord wood; pine, oak, and maple boards; and shoes.

Gift of Carolyn Taylor, June 2017, through the UMass Press.

Subjects

Agriculture--Massachusetts--WeymouthAgriculture--Massachusetts--WeymouthWeymouth (Mass.)--Economic conditions--17th centuryWeymouth (Mass.)--Economic conditions--18th century

Contributors

Richards, Jacob, 1778-Richards, James, 1658-1711

Types of material

Account booksDaybooks
Related collections: Farming & rural life, Massachusetts (East)
Klekowski, Edward J.

Ed and Libby Klekowski World War I Postcard Collection

1917-1919
1 box 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1029
Digital
Finding aid
Depiction of American soldier creeping through barbed wire with grenades
American soldier creeping through barbed wire with grenades

A professor of Biology at UMass Amherst with and interest in the mangrove ecosystems of the Caribbean and the deep water environments of the Connecticut River, Ed Klekowski has become well known as a videographer and writer. He has produced documentary for PBS station WGBY on the Quabbin reservoir and the great flood on the Connecticut River in 1936, and on the Yankee Division during the First World War. He and his wife Libby have co-written two books on the First World War, Eyewitness to the Great War (McFarland Press, 2012) and Americans in Occupied Belgium (McFarland Press, 2014).

This small collection of postcards consists primarily of images of American military involvement during the First World War. The scenes depicted range from the first contingent of American soldiers to arrive in 1917 to gas attacks, tanks, and American soldiers and Marines in the trenches and combat during the summer and fall 1918. Among the more unusual form postcards are two cartoon images intended for use by soldiers on their return home, one each from the Knights of Columbus and the Jewish Welfare Board. The postcards were collected by the Klekowskis during preparations for their documentary on the Yankee Division.

Gift of Ed and Libby Klekowski, Nov. 2017.

Subjects

Belleau Wood, Battle of, France, 1918--PhotographsChemical warfare--France--PhotographsFrance--PhotographsSoldiers--United States--PhotographsTanks--United States--PhotographsTrenches--France--PhotographsWorld War, 1914-1918--Photographs

Types of material

Postcards
Related collections: World War I
Skinner, Kenneth G.

Kenneth G. Skinner Collection

ca.1908-1928
1 box 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1027
Digital
Finding aid
Depiction of Spiritualist Church and Lucy Parker's house, ca.1908
Spiritualist Church and Lucy Parker's house, ca.1908

Granted in 1737 and incorporated in 1754, Greenwich, Mass., was the first town in the Swift River Valley settled by Europeans. Sitting astride the East and Middle branches of the Swift River and forming the eastern boundary of Hampshire County, Greenwich was primarily an agricultural town with light manufacturing and, beginning in the later nineteenth century, an active tourist trade. The town’s population peaked at over 1,100 early in the nineteenth century, declining slowly thereafter.

The photographic postcards in this collection all relate to the Quabbin town of Greenwich and were originally housed in an album of uncertain provenance. Primarily “real photo” postcards and dating between approximately 1908 and 1928, they were labeled by a knowledgeable, but unknown person at a later date to identify the houses, roads, stores, and views. Unlike many of the commercial postcards of the day, they present a very down-to-earth view of the town, its rocky fields, mills, houses and stores, and its summer hotels.

Subjects

Dwellings--Massachusetts--Greenwich--PhotographsGeneral stores--Massachusetts--Greenwich--PhotographsGreenwich (Mass.)--PhotographsQuabbin Reservoir Region (Mass.)--PhotographsSwift River Valley (Mass.)--Photographs

Types of material

Photographic postcardsPhotographs
Related collections: Quabbin
Arbib, Michael A.

Michael A. Arbib Papers

1960-1985
26 boxes 76 linear feet
Call no.: FS 188
Depiction of Arbib at his desk in the UMass Amherst Dept. of Computer Science, ca. 1985
Arbib at his desk in the UMass Amherst Dept. of Computer Science, ca. 1985

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

The founding director of UMass Amherst’s Computer Science Department, Michael Arbib’s research on neuroscience and computing has been significantly influential and led to work on early neural networks and advances in both our understanding of the brain and artificial intelligence and computing. Born in 1940, Arbib was raised and educated in New Zealand and Australia, earning a BSc in 1960 at the University of Sydney. He then came to the US, earning his PhD at MIT and working closely with Warren McCulloch. Arbib was an assistant professor at Stanford University for five years before joining the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he helped found the Computer and Information Science Department. He left UMass in 1986 for the University of Southern California, where he is currently the Fletcher Jones Professor of Computer Science. Arbib has been prolific, publishing almost forty books and hundreds of articles and continues to do research on the coordination of perception and action in both human cognition and machine vision, neural networks, and robotics.

The Michael Arbib Papers are a rich documentation of Arbib’s work while at Stanford and the University of Massachusetts, including his complete professional correspondence during that period, research files and notes, manuscript drafts of his publications, and the records of his administration of the Computer Science Department at UMass.

Subjects

CyberneticsMachine theoryNeural networks (biology)Neural networks (computing)University of Massachusetts Amherst--Faculty

Contributors

University of Massachusetts Amherst . Department of Computer Science
Related collections: Cognitive science, Computer science, Science & technology, UMass (1947- ), UMass academics, UMass faculty
Adams, Maurianne

Maurianne Adams Papers

1973-2015
8 boxes 12 linear feet
Call no.: FS 171
Depiction of Maurianne Adams
Maurianne Adams

Maurianne Adams was one of the pioneers in social justice education at UMass Amherst. Arriving at the university in 1973 as Coordinator of Academic Affairs for Project 10, the experimental residential education program in the Southwest Residential Area, she developed an elective curriculum focused on racism, sexism, heterosexism, classism, and ableism. When that project was ended in 1982, she took her ideas to the School of Education, where she became the Director for Social Issues and Instructional Development for Residential Academic Programs (RAP). Over the next several years, she and her colleagues developed one of the first general education diversity courses and she became part of the founding faculty for the graduate program in Social Justice Education. Since her retirement in 2015, she has remained active in promoting social justice activities working with the Coalition of Amherst Neighborhoods (CAN) and the Amherst Community Land Trust, which provides opportunities for affordable homeownership.

The Maurianne Adams Papers document a career committed to teaching, learning, and writing about diversity and equality on this campus and in the residential neighborhoods nearby. The papers offer an important perspective on the emergence of social justice courses in the General Education Program and the formation of the Social Justice Education Program within the College of Education, and given the extensive collaboration among social justice education faculty, it includes materials from several of Adams’ colleagues. The collection includes early drafts of curricula; course and workshop materials on diversity, inclusive teaching, religious oppression, anti-Semitism, and classism; and materials relating to grants to support her efforts.

Gift of Maurianne Adams, Dec. 2015

Subjects

Diversity in higher educationSocial justice--Study and teachingUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst--FacultyUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst. College of Education
Related collections: Antiracism, Education, Massachusetts (West), Social justice, UMass (1947- ), Women & feminism
Allen, Theodore W., 1919-2005

Theodore W. Allen Papers

1946-2005
47 boxes 64 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1021
Finding aid
Part of: Jeffrey B. Perry Collection
Depiction of Theodore W. Allen
Theodore W. Allen

Temporarily stored offsite; contact SCUA to request materials from this collection.

An anti-white supremacist, working class intellectual and activist, Theodore W. “Ted” Allen was one of the most important thinkers on race and class in the twentieth century. He developed his pioneering class struggle-based analysis of “white skin privilege” beginning in the mid-1960s; authored the seminal two-volume The Invention of the White Race in the 1990s; and consistently maintained that the struggle against white supremacy was central to efforts at radical social change in the United States. Born in Indianapolis, Indiana, Allen was raised in Kentucky and West Virginia, where he was “proletarianized” by the Great Depression. A member of the American Federation of Musicians and the United Mine Workers, and a member of the Communist Party, Allen moved to Brooklyn after injuring his back in the mines, and spent the last fifty years of his life at various jobs including factory work, teaching, the post office, and the Brooklyn Public Library. In the 1960s, having broken from the Communist Party, Allen set out on his own independent research course. Inspired by the work of W. E. B. Du Bois he wrote on the “white blindspot” and “white skin privilege” and began what became forty years of work focused on white supremacy as the principal retardant of class consciousness among European-American workers. Over his last thirty years, Allen wrote hundreds of published and unpublished articles and letters challenging white supremacy, capitalist rule, sexism, and U.S. Imperialism, as well as numerous poems.

The Theodore W. Allen Papers are a comprehensive assemblage of correspondence, published and unpublished writings, audio and video materials, and research by one of the major theorists on race and class of the twentieth century. The Papers offer important insights on the Old and New Left and their relation to the labor and Civil Rights/Black Liberation Movements and have much to offer students, scholars, researchers, and activists.

Gift of Jeffrey B. Perry, May 2018

Subjects

Communists--New York (State)Historians--New York (State)Labor movementRaceRacism

Contributors

Ignatiev, NoelSojourner Truth Organization

Types of material

Photographs
Related collections: African American, Antiracism, Civil rights, Communism & Socialism, Labor, Political radicalism, Social justice
Wilson, Rand

Rand Wilson Papers

1977-2004
15 boxes 22.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1026
Finding aid

A union organizer and labor communicator, Rand Wilson became a rank and file organizer for the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union and helped win the first-ever contract for workers at Clinical Assays in Cambridge, Mass., in 1982. He has since taken part in dozens of successful organizing and contract campaigns, both regionally and nationally, for the Communications Workers of America, the Paperworkers, Carpenters, Teamsters and Service Employees International Union, and other unions. Wilson’s notable achievements include coordinating solidarity efforts with the CWA and IBEW during the massive NYNEX telephone workers’ strike in 1989; founding the Massachusetts branch of the community-labor coalition, Jobs with Justice; coordinating communications for the Teamsters in 1997 during the lengthy contract campaign and historic 15-day strike by the 185,000 workers at UPS; and organizing an AFL-CIO-led effort focused on financial institutions’ conflicts of interest that helped to thwart the Bush administration’s efforts to privatize social security. He served as national coordinator for “Labor for Bernie” during Sen. Sanders’ presidential campaigns and currently works as an organizer for the CHIPS Communities United coalition.

Documenting forty years of labor activism, the Wilson papers include important material from most of his major initiatives, including organizing campaigns with the CWA, files relating to the Justice at Work/Just Cause for All initiatives, organizing high tech, health care and telephone workers, and Jobs with Justice. Nearly half of the collection is comprised of a comprehensive collection of source materials and documents from the Teamsters’ UPS contract campaign and strike.

Subjects

Labor unions--MassachusettsNYNEX CorporationStrikes and lockoutsUnited Parcel Service

Contributors

Communications Workers of AmericaInternational Brotherhood of TeamstersJustice at Work
Related collections: Labor, Massachusetts (West)
Bridegam, Marybeth

Marybeth Bridegam Collection

1989-2002
17 boxes 23.5 linear feet
Call no.: PH 063

Temporarily stored offsite; contact SCUA to request materials from this collection.

A long time teacher in the schools in Amherst, Mass., Marybeth Bridegam operated tour agency, Cross-Culture Inc., from the late 1980s through early 2000s. Cross-Culture ran small-group tours of locations around the world led by local tour leaders and specialized guides that were distinguished by itineraries that included sites outside the usual tourist routes.

The Bridegam collection consists of thousands of images taken by Bridegam during her travels, many in preparation for Cross Culture tour groups. Locations include China, Japan, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, Scandinavia, and Russia.

Gift of Marybeth Bridegam, Dec. 2014

Subjects

Australia--PhotographsChina--PhotographsGreece--PhotographsJapan--PhotographsNew Zealand--PhotographsRussia--PhotographsTibet--PhotographsTurkey--Photographs

Types of material

Photographs
Related collections: China, Japan, Photographs
Holmes, Francis W.

Francis W. Holmes Southern Student Project Collection

1964-1972
1 box 0.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1008
Finding aid
Depiction of Deborah Craig as majorette, ca.1966
Deborah Craig as majorette, ca.1966

Between 1957 and 1968, the Southern Student Project of the American Friends Service Committee brought academically gifted African American high school students from the south to live and study in the north. Working initially through its New York office, the AFSC announced its desire to bring “to promising young people, thwarted by the doctrine of the separation of the races, the fullest development of their gifts” while providing northern whites with “an experience which will increase our understanding and deepen our involvement with the human community.”

A dense and nearly comprehensive record of participation in the Southern Student Project of the American Friends Service Committee, the Holmes collection documents a Quaker response to the civil rights crisis of the late 1950s and 1960s. Holmes carefully filed nearly every relevant piece of paper associated with his participation, from the fliers that introduced him to the project to listings of eligible students, his lengthy letter of inquiry and application, and his numerous exchanges with his support committee, the local high school, and the American Friends Service Committee. Perhaps more important, he kept both sides of an extensive and often lengthy correspondence with the Craig family, describing Deborah’s adjustment and progress in Amherst and the response of the local community. The collection also includes Holmes’ report of the Friends Conference on Race Relations and some correspondence between Holmes and Craig during her time in college, when Holmes attempted to provide counsel and financial support to help Craig continue her education.

Gift of Becky Holmes, May 2018

Subjects

African Americans--EducationCivil rights movementsRace relations

Contributors

American Friends Service Committee. Southern Student ProjectCraig, DeborahMount Toby Monthly Meeting of Friends
Related collections: African American, Civil rights, Education, Massachusetts (East), Quakers
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