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

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
Lewis, David L., 1936-

David Levering Lewis Papers

ca.1955-2012
54 boxes 81 linear feet
Call no.: MS 827
Depiction of David Levering Lewis
David Levering Lewis

The historian David Levering Lewis is the author of eight remarkably diverse monographs. Raised in an academic family, his father was president of Morris Brown College, Lewis enrolled at Fisk University at the age of 15 and was only 26 when he was awarded a doctorate in modern European history from the London School of Economics (1962). Through an academic career that has included numerous stops, including Morgan State, Notre Dame, Howard, the University of the District of Columbia (1970-1980), and Rutgers (1985-2003), Lewis remained consistently productive. Author of the first academic biography of Martin Luther King (1970) and a history of the Dreyfus Affair (1974), he wrote an influential study of the Harlem renaissance (1981) and important works on colonialism in Africa (1987) and Islamic Spain (2008), but he is best known for his two monumental biographies of W.E.B. Du Bois (1993, 2000), each of which was awarded a Pulitzer Prize. One of the most lauded African American historians of his generation, Lewis was recipient of the Bancroft Prize, the Francis Parkman Prizes, the 2009 National Humanities Medal, and a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, and he was elected as a Fellow of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. Lewis was Julius Silver University Professor in History at New York University from 2003 until his retirement.

The papers of David Levering Lewis document a long and productive career as an academic historian and scholar of African American history and culture. Beginning with his years in college and graduate school, the collection offers a rich perspective on the evolution of his career. Lewis’s essential biographies of W.E.B. Du Bois are particularly well documented, however the collection includes abundant materials for each of his earlier projects, including correspondence, research notes, and drafts.

Subjects

African Americans--HistoryColonies--Africa--HistoryDu Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt), 1868-1963Harlem RenaissanceHistorians--United StatesKing, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968United States--History--20th century

Types of material

Photographs
Lewis, Edward M.

Edward M. Lewis Papers

1910-1936
6 boxes 2.5 linear feet
Call no.: RG 003/1 L49

A one time baseball player, Edward M. Lewis was hired as a Professor of Language and Literature at the Massachusetts Agricultural College, serving as the College’s President from 1924 to 1927.

Includes personal and official correspondence primarily while Dean and President of Massachusetts Agricultural College, particularly with President Kenyon Leech Butterfield (1868-1935); administrative memoranda; student records; other records generated while Dean and President of MAC on such subjects as relations of the college with state officials, curriculum, purpose of the college, desirability of compulsory chapel, establishment of Jewish fraternities, and women’s education; also, transcripts of addresses, newspaper clippings, and biographical material. The collection includes nothing relating to Lewis’s baseball or teaching careers.

Subjects

Massachusetts Agricultural College. FacultyMassachusetts Agricultural College. President

Contributors

Lewis, Edward M
Lewis, Gertrude Minnie, 1896-

Gertrude M. Lewis Papers

ca.1920-2001
6 boxes 3 linear feet
Call no.: FS 096
Depiction of Gertrude
Gertrude "Jean" Lewis, ca.1935

Overcoming a deeply impoverished childhood, Gertrude Lewis struggled to build a career in education, putting herself through college and graduate school. At the age of 32, she earned a bachelor’s degree from Ohio State, continuing on to a masters degree at New York University (1933), and finally, at age 51, a PhD from Yale (1947). For many years after receiving her doctorate, Lewis was employed as a Specialist for Upper Grades with the U.S. Office of Education in Washington. Among other career highlights, Lewis spent two years in Japan (1950-1951) as a Consultant in Elementary Education in the Education Section of the Allied Occupation government (SCAP). Lewis outlived her life partner, Ruth Totman, dying at home on December 10, 1996, a few months after her one hundredth birthday.

The Lewis Papers document the work and life of an educator of the masses, a traveler of the world, and a woman of the twentieth century. Documents pertaining to her work as an educator of both young students and veteran teachers show the changes within the theory and practice of pedagogy over time, over various geographic locales, and also highlight her role in that change. This collection also documents the numerous on-going side projects on which Lewis worked, including fostering creativity in schoolchildren, a biography of Franklin D. and Eleanor Roosevelt, and her own poetry and prose.

Subjects

Education, Elementary--JapanEducation, Elementary--United States--HistoryEducation--EvaluationEducation--United States--HistoryHealth Education--United StatesJapan--Civilization--American influencesStudents--Health and hygiene

Contributors

Lewis, Gertrude Minnie, 1896-Totman, Conrad DTotman, Ruth J

Types of material

Motion pictures (Visual work)Photographs
Lewis, J. Roy

J. Roy Lewis Papers

1910-1949
1 box 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 024

A native and long-time resident of Holyoke, Mass., J. Roy Lewis was a prominent businessman in the lumber trade and a model of civic engagement during the decades prior to the Second World War. A 1903 graduate of Phillips Academy, Lewis worked as an executive with the Hampden-Ely Lumber Company and was active in trade associations as well as civic and political groups such as the Kiwanis Club, the Chamber of Commerce, the Tax Association, and the Holyoke Planning committee. Locally, he may have been best known as the writer of hundreds of letters and opinion pieces to the editors of the Holyoke Transcript-Telegram and the Springfield Republican. An ardent conservative, Lewis was a vocal opponent of women’s suffrage, prohibition, and anything he deemed contrary to the interests of business.

This small collection, consisting of a scrapbook and a handful of miscellaneous letters from J. Roy Lewis are a testament to the mindset of a conservative businessman during a progressive age. Lewis’s letters to the editor and his small surviving correspondence touch on a wide range of political and social issues of the day, most notably women’s suffrage, prohibition, business support, the New Deal, and the Depression.

Subjects

Depressions--1929Holyoke (Mass.)--HistoryUnited States--Economic policy--1933-1945

Contributors

Lewis, J. Roy

Types of material

Letters to the editorScrapbooks
Lewis, Patricia Lee, 1937-

Patricia Lee Lewis Photograph Collection

1977-1979
3 boxes 2 linear feet
Call no.: PH 059
Depiction of Cotton Mill no. 2, Beijing, 1977
Cotton Mill no. 2, Beijing, 1977

A co-founder of the Valley Women’s Center and the Everywoman’s Center at UMass Amherst, Patricia Lee Lewis has been an important part of the vibrant activist culture in the Pioneer Valley since her graduation from Smith College in 1970, advocating for women, civil rights, peace, the environment, for small farms and rural communities, and for art. Her varied career has included service as Supervisor of Community Development for the Massachusetts Office for Children (1974-1976), as Rural Development Specialist for the Massachusetts Cooperative Extension Service, and as County Commissioner for Hampshire County (1984-1988). After receiving an MFA from Vermont College, she founded Patchwork Farm Writing Retreat in Westhampton in 1992, which offers workshops and retreats in creative writing and yoga.

As a member of a National Women’s Delegation, Lewis visited the People’s Republic of China in 1977. Having been invited by the All China Women’s Federation, Lewis and her colleagues toured the country, seeing the sights and examining the role of women, education, and agriculture, visiting Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Tachai, and Guilin. The many hundreds of photographs she took during the tour are a powerful visual record of the country only a few months after the Gage of Four were arrested and the Cultural Revolution declared ended. The collection also includes approximately 100 photographs taken of agriculture and rural life in Louisiana and Texas in 1979.

Gift of Patricia Lee Lewis, Mar. 2014

Subjects

China--PhotographsLouisiana--PhotographsTexas--Photographs

Types of material

Photographs
Lewiston Monthly Meeting of Friends

Lewiston Monthly Meeting of Friends Records

1980-1993
1 box 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 902 L495

The Society of Friends has had a long, but discontinuous history in Lewiston, Maine. After periods of activity from 1785-1851 and 1867-1911, Quaker worship in Lewiston was revived in 1972, leading to reinstatement of a monthly meeting in 1980. Oxford Hills Monthly Meeting was set off from Lewiston in 1993.

The records of the Quaker meeting in Lewiston, Maine, cover its third and most recent iteration, including minutes from 1980 to 1993 ad a handful of state of society reports. The collection also include limited documentation of the Oxford Hills Worship Group prior to its setting off as a monthly meeting in 1993.

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, April 2017

Subjects

Lewiston (Me.)--Religious life and customsQuakers--MaineSociety of Friends--Maine

Contributors

New England Yearly Meeting of Friends

Types of material

Minutes (Administrative records)
Libera, John

John Libera Collection

1934-1988
1 flat box 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 048
Depiction of Polish Tigers baseball team, ca.1935
Polish Tigers baseball team, ca.1935

A member of the Polish community in Southbridge, Mass., John Libera (1919-2007) was a long-time employee of American Optical Company, but was best known as a promoter of polka music and dancing. A performer, song writer, and host of a radio show for over thirty years, Libera was inducted into the Polka Music Hall of Fame in 1982 and invited to perform at the American Folklife Festival in 1988.

The Libera collection consists of four photographs of the Polish community in Southbridge during the 1930s along with fourteen photos, a videotape, and some correspondence and ephemera relating to the American Folklife Festival.

Subjects

Baseball teams--Massachusetts--Southbridge--PhotographsPolish Americans--Massachusetts--Southbridge--PhotographsSouthbridge (Mass.)Women--Societies and clubs--Massachusetts--Southbridge--Photographs

Contributors

Libera, John

Types of material

Photographs
Liberation News Service

Liberation News Service Records

1966-1977
11 boxes, 1 oversize folder 9 linear feet
Call no.: MS 546
Depiction of Arrest of Jon Higgenbotham (Milwaukee 14), Sept. 24, 1968
Arrest of Jon Higgenbotham (Milwaukee 14), Sept. 24, 1968

In 1967, Marshall Bloom and Raymond Mungo, former editors of the student newspapers of Amherst College and Boston University, were fired from the United States Student Press Association for their radical views. In response they collaborated with colleagues and friends to found the Liberation News Service, an alternative news agency aimed at providing inexpensive images and text reflecting a countercultural outlook. From its office in Washington, D.C., LNS issued twice-weekly packets containing news articles, opinion pieces, and photographs reflecting a radical perspective on the war in Vietnam, national liberation struggles abroad, American politics, and the cultural revolution. At its height, the Service had hundreds of subscribers, spanning the gamut of college newspapers and the underground and alternative press. Its readership was estimated to be in the millions.

Two months after moving to New York City in June 1968, the LNS split into two factions. The more traditional Marxist activists remained in New York, while Bloom and Mungo, espousing a broader cultural view, settled on farms in western Massachusetts and southern Vermont. The story of LNS, as well as of the split, is told in Mungo’s 1970 classic book Famous Long Ago. By 1969 Bloom’s LNS farm, though still holding the organization’s original press, had begun its long life as a farm commune in Montague, Mass. Montague (whose own story is told in Steve Diamond’s What the Trees Said) survived in its original form under a number of resident groups until its recent sale to another non-profit organization. Mungo’s Packer Corners Farm, near Brattleboro, the model for his well-known book, Total Loss Farm, survives today under the guidance of some of its own original founders.

The LNS Records include a relatively complete run of LNS packets 1-120 (1967-1968), along with business records, miscellaneous correspondence, some artwork, and printing artifacts, including the LNS addressograph.

Subjects

Activists--MassachusettsCommunal living--MassachusettsJournalists--MassachusettsLiberation News Service (New York, N.Y.)News agenciesPeace movements--MassachusettsStudent movementsUnderground press publicationsVietnam War, 1961-1975--Protest movements--Massachusetts

Contributors

Liberation News Service (Montague, Mass.)
Liberation News Service (New York, N.Y.)

Liberation News Service (New York, N.Y.) Records

1968-1975
6 boxes 4.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1007
Cover of Liberation News Service issue 441, June 10, 1972.
Cover of Liberation News Service issue 441, June 10, 1972.

Founded in 1967, Liberation News Service, an alternative news agency, issued twice-weekly packets aimed at providing inexpensive images, articles, and art reflecting a countercultural outlook. First from its office in Washington, D.C., and then from New York City, LNS provided underground and college papers around the globe with radical and unconventional coverage of the war in Vietnam, global liberation struggles, American politics, and the cultural revolution. Two months after moving to New York City in June 1968, LNS split into two factions, with the sides mirroring common points of dispute within the New Left. The more traditional political and Marxist activists remained in New York, while those more aligned with the counterculture and “hippie” movement settled on farms in western Massachusetts and southern Vermont. For a year each faction put out competing versions of LNS news packets, until the winter conditions and small staff at the farm in Montague caused their production to end in January 1969. LNS-New York continued its production of unique leftist coverage of national and international issues throughout the 1970s, closing in 1981.

The LNS-NY Records include a relatively complete run of packets 102-701 (1968-1975) sent to the subscribing underground press newspaper the Indianapolis Free Press. Some packets and years are more complete than others, and these New York packets are especially dense with photographs compared to earlier LNS packets from before the split in 1968. The collection also includes a small selection of other artwork, articles, and materials kept by the Indianapolis Free Press.

Gift of Ron Haldeman, courtesy of Thomas P. Healy, January 2018

Subjects

News agencies--New York (State)Press and politicsRadicalismUnderground press publications

Contributors

Indianapolis Free PressLiberation News Service (New York, N.Y.)