The University of Massachusetts Amherst
Robert S. Cox Special Collections & University Archives Research Center
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Collections: H

Hicks, Adeline

Adeline Hicks Papers

1917-1987
3 boxes 1.25 linear feet
Call no.: FS 070

Professor of Physical Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst when it was known as Massachusetts Agricultural College who established the physical education program for women and helped to create the women’s gymnasium and athletic field. In her retirement she composed music that was performed by the University of Arizona orchestra.

Includes musical scores, lesson-plan photographs illustrating instruction in modern dance, correspondence, printed programs for performance of the musical compositions, text of an address, a history of physical education for women at Massachusetts State College by Mrs. Hicks, personnel records, and brief biographical items.

Subjects

University of Massachusetts Amherst--FacultyUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst. Department of Physical Education

Contributors

Hicks, Adeline
Hicks, Curry S.

Curry S. Hicks Papers

1914-1949
1 box 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: FS 069
Depiction of Curry S. Hicks
Curry S. Hicks

Curry S. Hicks pioneered the University’s athletics program as it transitioned from the Massachusetts Agricultural College to the University of Massachusetts. Hicks led the charge to build modern athletic fields and gymnasia and during his tenure, many of the University’s teams climbed to new heights of excellence. Born in 1885 in Enfield, New York, Hicks began undergraduate studies at Michigan State University but was forced to drop out because he was unable to pay tuition, beginning a teaching career that brought him from math teacher to high school principal. Returning to Michigan Normal School, Hicks earned his B.A. in physical education in 1909, followed by the Hitchcock Fellowship at Amherst College and eventually his assistant professorship in Physical Education and Hygiene at the University in 1911. On his retirement in 1949, Hicks left behind a thoroughly modernized athletics program and moved to Tucson, Arizona, where he passed away in 1963.

The Curry S. Hicks Papers consist of a bound volume of letters, sent to Hicks as a commemoration of his retirement in 1949 and a folder of correspondence related to his organization and fundraising efforts for a new physical education building at the University.

Subjects

University of Massachusetts Amherst--FacultyUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst. Department of Physical Education

Contributors

Hicks, Curry S
Higgins, Lyman

Lyman Higgins Account Book

1851-1886
1 vol. 0.15 linear feet
Call no.: MS 118

A resident of South Worthington, Massachusetts, Lyman Higgins appears in the Federal Census and in town histories as also pursuing a variety of other callings: mechanic, farmer, blacksmith, sawmill proprietor, and manufacturer. Higgins eventually devoted his work life to basket making, supplying textile mills and paper companies as far away as New York City with large batches of assorted baskets tailored to their needs.

Higgins’ account book includes records of jobs performed, payment (in goods and services as well as in cash), employees and their wages, and the local companies to which he sold his custom-made basket products.

Subjects

Basket industry--Massachusetts--South Worthington--History--19th centuryBasket making--Massachusetts--South Worthington--History--19th centuryHarris Woollen MillLawrence Duck Co.Paper industry--Equipment and supplies--History--19th centurySawmills--Massachusetts--History--19th centurySouth Worthington (Mass.)--Economic conditions--19th centuryStark MillsSugar River Paper Co.Textile industry--Equipment and supplies--History--19th centuryWages--Basket industry--Massachusetts--History--19th centuryWages-in-kind--Massachusetts--South Worthington--History--19th century

Contributors

Higgins, Lyman

Types of material

Account books
Hill, Aurin F.

Aurin F. Hill Papers

1885-1929
8 boxes 6 linear feet
Call no.: MS 579
Depiction of Aurin and Izetta Hill at Lake Pleasant,<br />ca.1928
Aurin and Izetta Hill at Lake Pleasant,
ca.1928

The self-styled “insane architect” Aurin F. Hill (b. 1853) was a free thinking carpenter and architect in Boston who waged a concerted campaign for his vision of social reform at the turn of the twentieth century. A Spiritualist, social radical, and union man, Hill carried the torch for issues ranging from the nationalization of railroads and corporations to civil rights and women’s rights, and joined in opposition to vaccination, Comstockery and censorship, capital punishment, and lynching. A writing medium, married to the Spiritual evangelist Izetta Sears-Hill, he became President of the National Spiritual Alliance in 1915, a Spiritualist organization based in Lake Pleasant, Mass.
Esoteric, rambling, and often difficult to follow, the Hill papers provide profound insight into the eclectic mind of an important Boston Spiritualist and labor activist at the turn of the twentieth century. Whether written as a diary or scattered notes, a scrapbook, essays, or letters to the editor, Hill’s writings cover a wide range of topics, from spirit influence to labor law, from his confinements for insanity to police strikes, hypnotism, reincarnation, and housing. More than just a reflection of one man’s psychology, the collection reveals much about broader social attitudes toward gender and race, sexuality, urban life, politics, and religion, and the collection is a particularly important resource for the history of the American Spiritualist movement between 1890 and 1920.

Subjects

Architects--Massachusetts--BostonBoston (Mass.)--HistoryCarpenters--Labor unionsHypnotismLabor unions--MassachusettsLake Pleasant (Mass.)--HistoryMediums--MassachusettsMontague (Mass.)--HistoryNational Spiritual AllianceSpiritualismUnited Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America

Contributors

Hill, Aurin F.Sears-Hill, Izetta B.

Types of material

DiariesScrapbooks
Hill, David W.

David W. Hill Diaries

1864-1885
1 box 0.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 496

A native of Swanzey, N.H., David W. Hill became a brass finisher in the years following his military service during the Civil War, working as a machinist for several concerns in Cambridgeport, Mass., New York City, NY, Newport, R.I., and Haydenville, Mass., through the mid-1880s.

The 13 pocket diaries in the Hill collection contain regular entries describing the weather, Hill’s work as a brass finisher, his travels, the state of his health, and miscellaneous mundane observations on his daily life.

Acquired from Peter Masi, Mar. 2005.

Subjects

Brass industry and trade--MassachusettsCambridge (Mass.)--History--19th centuryHaydenville (Mass.)--History--19th century

Types of material

Diaries
Historic Burying Grounds Initiative

Historic Burying Grounds Initiative Collection

1876-1985
2 boxes 0.75 linear feet
Call no.: MS 690

With the approach of the American Bicentennial in 1976, concern grew among historic preservationists in Boston that the city’s old cemeteries and grave markers were showing the damage of many decades of harsh weather and poor maintenance. Led by the Boston Parks and Recreation Department, the Boston Landmarks Commission, and The Bostonian Society, with the collaboration of the Massachusetts Historical Commission, and the Association for Gravestone Studies, among others, the Historic Burying Grounds Initiative was established to develop a plan to inventory over 15,000 markers and assemble a master plan (1985, updated 1998) to care for the cemeteries in the long term. Supported by both public and private funds, the HBGI focused initially on stabilization, preservation, and restoration of historic artifacts, tomb structures, and retaining walls, and their efforts continue today.
The HBGI Collection contains reports and inventories from the first phase of work carried out by the Initiative, focusing on the Dorchester North, Central, Copp’s Hill, Eliot, Granary, Kings Chapel, and Phipps Street Burying Grounds. The collection also contains two editions of the Manual for Preservation prepared by the HBGI.

Subjects

Sepulchral monuments--Conservation and restorationSepulchral monuments--Massachusetts

Contributors

Historic Burying Grounds Initiative
Hoag, Benjamin

Benjamin Hoag Records

1901-1915 Bulk: 1907-1914
3 boxes 4.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 710

Born at Ancram, N.Y., the merchant Benjamin Hoag (1865-1932) lived most of his life in Stephentown, N.Y., near the Massachusetts border. In 1900, he was listed as a dealer in bicycles, but by 1910, he was operating a broader retail trade in dry goods and grains. At the same time, he conducted a thriving trade in ornithological and oological supplies, announcing in journals such as The Oologist that he sold “books, periodicals, tools, supplies, eggs” as well as “fine line fish tackle and rods.” He also appears to have run a magazine subscription agency, offering everything from the Saturday Evening Post and Good Housekeeping to professional journals such as the Condor Magazine.

The Hoag collection consists of 1,345 letters, mostly incoming, and over 800 receipts, ephemeral items, and other documents, relating to Hoag’s oological and magazine businesses. Concentrated between 1901 and 1914, the collection offers a rich documentation of the oological trade in the years shortly before it was outlawed in 1918. The collection is organized chronologically.

Subjects

Birds--EggsEgg trade--New York (State)

Contributors

Hoag, Benjamin
Hoagland, Everett

Everett Hoagland Papers

1966-2022
4 boxes, 37 books 3 linear feet
Call no.: MS 910
Everett Hoagland
Everett Hoagland at the PAWA World Poetry Conference in Accra, Ghana, 1999.

Poet Everett Hoagland was born and raised in Philadelphia and attended and graduated from Lincoln University, and later Brown University on a full fellowship for pursuing his Masters of Arts. Hoagland’s poetry came of age during the civil rights struggles of the 1960s and the Black Arts Movement, and is often powerfully political. Driven by the history, music, rhythms, and both collective and individual stories from African and African American culture and experiences, Hoagland is one of the most significant African American poets of the late twentieth century. His second chapbook, Black Velvet, was published by the pioneering Broadside Press in 1970, and he has remained widely published and anthologized through to the present day, including his most recent anthology addition, a poem about the Black Lives Matter movement. In addition to his writing, Hoagland has given readings across the nation and globe, and also served as a teacher and mentor to many, primarily in his position as a Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth for over thirty years. He has won numerous awards and honors, including a 2023 American Book Award, the Award for Outstanding Achievement in Poetry from the American Literature Association’s Society for African American Literature and Culture, the Gwendolyn Brooks Award for Fiction, two state-wide poetry competitions for Massachusetts Artists Foundation fellowships, the Distinguished Service to University award from UMass Dartmouth, two MA Local Cultural Council grants for book publications, ForeWord Magazine’s Best Poetry Book award, and the 2015 Langston Hughes Society Award. Hoagland also served, from 1994 to 1998, as the inaugural poet laureate of his adopted hometown of New Bedford, MA.

The Everett Hoagland Papers include manuscript materials and over twenty books documenting Hoagland’s decades-long career as a poet and writer on racial politics and African American experiences. They consist of photographs; performance and presentation programs, reviews, and recordings; interviews and articles; and unpublished and published writings including copies of Hoagland’s column in the New Bedford The Standard Times, a draft of his Master’s thesis, short fiction stories, a scrapbook of unpublished poetry, and poetry in magazines, periodicals, Hoagland’s authored poetry books, and numerous anthologies.

Gift of Everett Hoagland, 2016

Subjects

African American poetsAfrican American writersAfrican Americans--PoetryAmerican poetry--African American authorsBlack Arts MovementPoetry--New England--Massachusetts

Types of material

AnthologiesBooksPoems
Hodges, Charles W.

Charles W. and Joseph F. Hodges Account Books

1862-1865
2 vols. 0.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 209

Brothers Charles W. and Joseph F. Hodges moved from Norton, Mass., to Foxboro, and established a successful retail grocery business just prior to the Civil War that became the basis for other mercantile enterprises.

These two account books appear to be customer ledgers of the grocery firm Hodges and Messinger, which was to become the Union Store of Charles W. and Joseph F. Hodges.

Subjects

Foxborough (Mass.)--History--19th centuryGrocers--Massachusetts--FoxboroughGrocery trade--Massachusetts--Foxborough

Contributors

Hodges, Joseph F. (Joseph Francis), 1827-1901

Types of material

Account books
Holden, Flora A. M.

Flora A. M. Holden Cookbook

ca.1870-1896
1 vol. 0.1 linear feet
Call no.: MS 488 bd

Born in Marlboro, Mass., on July 28, 1849, Flora Ann Martin Ellithorp married Frank B. Holden of the adjacent town of Hudson on Nov. 22, 1871. The couple had three children: Marion Carlton, Fred Tracy, and Beatrice Spurr. Flora was just 35 when she died of liver cancer on May 24, 1885.

Holden’s manuscript receipt book includes recipes for a variety of baked goods and desserts, but primarily cakes and custards. Although some of the recipes may be original to her or her family, others are clearly attributed to other writers and some may have been derived from published cookbooks. Among the recipes are some of the most popular dishes of the era, including Parker House rolls, Washington pie, and Graham bread.

Subjects

BreadCakeCooking, American--Massachusetts--HudsonDessertsPuddings

Contributors

Lockey, Marion Carlton

Types of material

CookbooksRecipes