Collections: A

In 1943 Col. Juan Peron took part in a successful military coup in Argentina, beginning over a decade in which he dominated the nation’s political life. After promoting populist policies as Minister of Labor under the military government, Peron built a deep well of support among the working classes that enabled him to win election to the presidency in 1946 and 1951, however political opposition to what was perceived as his Fascist sympathies, demagoguery, and authoritarianism increased. In 1955, Peron was ousted in a military coup and driven into exile in Spain.

Consisting of materials produced in Argentina just prior to and during the era of Juan Peron (1946-1974), this collection of pamphlets, fliers, broadsides, news clippings, and campaign literature provides a unique window onto political developments in the South American nation. The ephemera addresses a wide range of subject matter, from World War II to economics, political controversies, relations with the United States, the election of 1951, the Revolucion Libertadora coup of 1955, and Juan and Eva Peron. Both Peron’s Partido Justicialista and his opponents, including Communists and Socialists, are represented.

George Armelagos, expert on the diet of prehistoric humans and author of the book Consuming Passions: the Anthropology of Eating (1980) was a professor in the University’s Anthropology Department from 1971 until 1989. Armelagos was born in Lincoln Park, Michigan in 1936 and earned his B.A from the University of Michigan in 1958, his MA and PhD from the University of Colorado in 1963 and 1968 respectively. Armelagos became the face of physical anthropology in the 1980s, publishing popular works on forensic studies of prehistoric man and his research in the field of paleopathology attempted to apply the findings of skeletal research to contemporary nutrition and medicine. While at the University, Armelagos undertook a forensic study of the towns flooded by the Quabbin Reservoir. Armelagos left the University for a position at the University of Florida in 1989.

The George Armelagos papers include correspondence, grant proposals, and lecture notes from his time at the University of Massachusetts. There is a folder of materials from his study of the Quabbin Reservoir and photographs from the Mesa Verde Path. The remainder of the collection contains Armelagos’ published and unpublished works, stretching from his time as a Ph.D. student through his time at the University.

An alumnus of both the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Boston College, Victor Aronow was involved with the anti-draft and anti-war movement during the Vietnam War, and the movement against U.S. involvement in Central America. Aronow was also involved with socialist, anarchist, and other leftist movements and organizations. Some of these organizations include the United States Socialist Labor Party, the Peace and Freedom Party, and the New America Movement. Most of his activism was focused in Massachusetts, but he also engaged with organizations that offered support to Central American movements in Nicaragua and El Salvador. Aronow practiced law, serving as defense counsel for Arthur Montour also called Kakwirakeron in U.S. vs. Kakwirakeron, as well as a member of the Wounded Knee Legal Defense team.

Aronow’s collection consists of a series of subject files containing magazines, books, leaflets, correspondence, clippings, newspapers, and fliers from a range of national and international leftist organizations. Aronow was a member of The Boston Draft Resistance Group, Newton Draft Counseling Center, and the American Friends Service Committee. As a member, Aronow collected files from these groups including correspondence, publications, meeting minutes, newspaper clippings, and his personal notes. While practicing law, Aronow gathered court records for cases he worked on, including both his work as a member of the Wounded Knee Legal Defense team, where he worked defending the rights of the Oglala Sioux tribe members who were involved in the attempted liberation of Wounded Knee in 1973, as well as a member of the defense counsel in U.S. vs. Kakwirakeron in 1990. The collection contains files gathered from multiple trials related to Wounded Knee including correspondence between lawyers and defendants, court records and legal filings, newsletters, press releases, funding appeals, and fliers.

Materials written by or pertaining to W.E.B. Du Bois, collected by James Aronson, who was executive editor of the “National Guardian” from 1948 to 1967. Includes correspondence, speeches by Du Bois in published form, articles by Du Bois, biographical sketches and tribute articles about Du Bois, photographs, and newspaper clippings.

Artists-Research-Technology, Inc., was a collaboration of printmakers based in western Massachusetts, that in the late 1970s, began using mechanized offset lithography as an alternative to more traditional lithographic techniques in the production of limited-edition fine art prints. On the commercial press of Hamilton I. Newell, the artists avoided merely adapting artistic processes to offset, placing innovative demands on themselves to explore the intersections of technology and fine art. An extensive body of prints by the key participants (Ron Michaud, Hanlyn Davies, Oriole Feshbach, Hiroshi Murata, John Roy, Dale Schlaeppi, and Larry Spaid) were exhibited nationally and internationally.

The ART collection consists of photographs and original prints by the key members of the ART collaborative, along with phootgraphs, scans, correspondence, minutes of meetings, publicity, a videotape, and other material relating to the project.

Over the years, SCUA has become home to both two-dimensional and three-dimensional works of art pertaining to three of its key thematic collecting areas: the University of Massachusetts Amherst, New England, and social change.

The Artwork Collection is comprised of miscellaneous works visual art, realia, and decorative arts, relating primarily to figures in UMass or to leftist or proletarian artists. Among the artists represented are Michael Russo, Cook Glassgold, Lydia Gibson Minor, Laura Wheeler Waring, Daniel Chester French, and Laurence Bradshaw. For reference purposes, we have cross-listed paintings belonging to other SCUA collections.

A graduate of the Northfield Mount Hermon School, Wake Forest University, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst (MA, 1966), Barr Gallop Ashcraft (1940-2005) lived what he called a “gypsy” life in the late 1960s, traveling through the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, and eventually settling on a career in photojournalism. As a stringer for news organizations and magazines, he covered the war in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos from 1972 to 1975, taking other assignments throughout Asia for magazines ranging from Life to National Geographic, Newsweek, and Time. For several years, he lived in Japan, working as a teacher, but returned to Amherst to join his father in the building trade. He remained in Amherst, lecturing occasionally on his experiences as a war correspondent, until his death at his home in Shutesbury in 2005.

The Ashcraft Photograph Collection represents a small fraction of the images he took as a freelance photographer in Southeast Asia during the early 1970s. In both black and white and color prints, the collection provides stark and often graphic evidence of the destruction of the war in Vietnam, emphasizing its latter years and the period of Vietnamization, but also includes documentary work on Cambodia. The remainder of Ashcraft’s 22,000 negatives and accompanying notes were destroyed in a house fire in 1995.

Founded in 1915, the Associated Industries of Massachusetts (AIM) is the largest non-profit, nonpartisan association of employers in the state and a “voice for business.” As a lobbying organization, the AIM focuses on issues affecting employers of all size in the state with goal of supporting job growth and economic activity and advocates for fair and equitable public policy. The organization also provides services for management and human relations professionals to increase workforce productivity and to improve workforce recruitment and retention.

Approximately half of this small collection consists of AIM newsletters from the 1940s and 1950s, with the other half consisting of newsletters relating to lobbying efforts in the early- to mid-1980s.

Founded in 1977, the Association for Gravestone Studies (AGS) is an international organization dedicated to the study and preservation of gravestones of all periods and styles. Based in Greenfield, Mass., the AGS sponsors conferences, workshops and exhibits, and publishes an annual journal, Markers, and quarterly bulletin. Their mission is to promote the study of gravestones from historical and artistic perspectives, expand public awareness of the significance of historic grave markers, and encourage individuals and groups to record and preserve gravestones.

The AGS Collection consists of the central records of the organization plus a growing number of photographic archives of gravestone art donated by members and associates. Offering critical documentation of gravestones, tombs, and cemeteries throughout the country, but especially New England.

Collections include:

• AGS Printed Materials Collection
• AGS Ephemera Collection
• Friedrich Karl Azzola Collection
• Alford Marble Works Records
• Carol D. Andrews Collection
• Peter Benes Collection
• Alex Beron Collection
• Eric J. Brock Collection
• Warren F. Broderick Collection
• Alice Bunton Collection
• Frank Calidonna Collection
• Cemetery Inscriptions Collection
• Paul and Olive Colburn Collection
• Brian A. Conley Collection
• Michael Cornish Collection
• Edwin S. Dethlefsen Collection
• Robert W. Drinkwater Collection
• Edward H. Duane Collection
• Joseph Dudley Memoir and Diary
• L. Sidney Eslinger Collection
• Daniel and Jessie Lie Farber Collection
• Laurel K. Gabel Collection
• George and Kent Records
• Jonah B. Griswold Ledgers
• Roberta Halporn Collection
• William E. Harding Collection
• Historic Burying Grounds Initiative Collection
• Margaret R. Jenks Collection
• Sharon Keim Collection
• Allan I. Ludwig Collection
• Richard E. Meyer Collection
• Nanette Napoleon Collection
• Cora M. Ott Collection
• Carol A. Perkins Collection
• Portland Granite Company Records
• Susanne S. Ridlen Collections
• Barbara Rotundo Collection
• Robert Bayard Severy Collection
• Small Collections
• Thomas W. and Margaret Tenney Collection
• James Tibensky Collection
• Ralph L. Tucker Collection
• Una F. Weatherby Collection
• Elizabeth W. Whitaker Collection
• Gray Williams Collection
• John S. Wilson Collection
• Robert A. Wright Collection

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The AGS publications, Markers
and Newsletter of the AGS are digitized and available online through Credo

Founded in 1977, the Association for Gravestone Studies (AGS) is an international organization dedicated to furthering the study and preservation of gravestones. Based in Greenfield, Mass., the Association promotes the study of gravestones from historical and artistic perspectives. To raise public awareness about the significance of historic gravemarkers and the issues surrounding their preservation, the AGS sponsors conferences and workshops, publishes both a quarterly newsletter and annual journal, Markers, and has built an archive of collections documenting gravestones and the memorial industry.

The AGS Ephemera Collections contains a mix of materials relating to gravestones and the slate and marble industries. Most of the items relate to the marble and slate industries in Western Massachusetts and adjacent areas in Vermont and New Hampshire.