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

Lyman Family Papers

Lyman Family Papers

1839-1942
7 boxes 2.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 634
Depiction of Edward H.R. and Catharine A. Lyman on their wedding day
Edward H.R. and Catharine A. Lyman on their wedding day

The descendants of Joseph Lyman (1767-1847) flourished in nineteenth century Northampton, Mass., achieving social prominence, financial success, and a degree of intellectual acclaim. Having settled in Northampton before 1654, just a generation removed from emigration, the Lymans featured prominently in the development of the Connecticut River Valley. A Yale-educated clerk of the Hampshire County courts, Joseph’s descendants included sons Joseph Lyman (an engineer and antislavery man) and Samuel Fowler Lyman (a jurist), and three Harvard-educated grandsons, Benjamin Smith Lyman (a geologist and traveler in Meiji-era Japan) and brothers Joseph and Frank Lyman (both trained in the natural sciences).

Consisting of the scattered correspondence and photographic record of three generations of an intellectually adventurous Northampton family, the Lyman collection explores the ebb and flow of family relations, collegiate education, and educational travel in Europe during the mid-nineteenth century, with important content on antislavery and the Free State movement in Kansas. Although the family’s tendency to reuse names (repeatedly) presents a challenge in distinguishing the various recipients, the focal points of the collection include the geologist Benjamin Smith Lyman, his uncle Joseph (1812-1871), cousins Joseph (1851-1883) and Frank, and Frank’s son Frank Lyman, Jr. Antislavery is a major theme in the letters of Samuel F. Lyman to his son Benjamin, and in the letterbook of the Kansas Land Trust, an affiliate of the New England Emigrant Aid Company, of which the elder Joseph was Treasurer.

Gift of Christine Lyman Chase, 2009.

Subjects

Antislavery movements--MassachusettsGermany--Description and travel--19th centuryHarvard University--StudentsKansas Land TrustKansas--History--1854-1861New England Emigrant Aid Company

Contributors

Lawrence, Amos Adams, 1814-1886Lyman, Benjamin Smith, 1835-1920Lyman, Joseph B, 1812-1871

Types of material

Photographs
Lyman, Benjamin Smith, 1835-1920

Benjamin Smith Lyman Japanese Book Collection

1664-1898
87 linear feet
Call no.: RB 006

A prominent geologist and mining engineer, Benjamin Smith Lyman traveled to Japan in the 1870s at the request of the Meiji government, helping introduce modern surveying and mining techniques. Omnivorous in his intellectual pursuits, Lyman took an interest in the Japanese language and printing, collecting dozens of contemporary and antiquarian volumes during his travels.

Lyman’s book collection begins with his background in the natural sciences, but runs the gamut from language to literature, religion, the arts, and culture. With several hundred volumes, the collection includes a number of works dating to the eighteenth century and earlier, and while the majority were printed in Japan, a number, particularly of the older works, are in Chinese.

Language(s): Japanese

Subjects

Japan--History--1868-Printing--Japan--History

Contributors

Lyman, Benjamin Smith, 1835-1920
Lyman, Benjamin Smith, 1835-1920

Benjamin Smith Lyman Papers

1831-1921
52 boxes 42 linear feet
Call no.: MS 190
Depiction of Benjamin Smith Lyman, 1902
Benjamin Smith Lyman, 1902

A native of Northampton, Massachusetts, Benjamin Smith Lyman was a prominent geologist and mining engineer. At the request of the Meiji government in Japan, Lyman helped introduce modern geological surveying and mining techniques during the 1870s and 1880s, and his papers from that period illuminate aspects of late nineteenth century Japan, New England, and Pennsylvania, as well as the fields of geology and mining exploration and engineering. From his earliest financial records kept as a student at Phillips Exeter Academy through the journal notations of his later days in Philadelphia, Lyman’s meticulous record-keeping provides much detail about his life and work. Correspondents include his classmate, Franklin B. Sanborn, a friend of the Concord Transcendentalists and an active social reformer, abolitionist, and editor.

The papers, 1848-1911, have been organized into nine series: correspondence, financial records, writings, survey notebooks, survey maps, photographs, student notes and notebooks, collections, and miscellaneous (total 25 linear feet). A separate Lyman collection includes over 2,000 books in Japanese and Chinese acquired by Lyman, and in Western languages pertaining to Asia.

Language(s): JapaneseEnglish

Subjects

Geological surveys--AlabamaGeological surveys--IllinoisGeological surveys--India--PunjabGeological surveys--JapanGeological surveys--Japan--MapsGeological surveys--MarylandGeological surveys--Nova ScotiaGeological surveys--PennsylvaniaGeological surveys--Pennsylvania--MapsGeologists--United StatesGeology--Equipment and supplies--CatalogsGeology--Japan--History--19th centuryJapan--Description and travel--19th centuryJapan--MapsJapan--PhotographsJapan--Social life and customs--1868-1912Mining engineering--Equipment and supplies--CatalogsMining engineering--Japan--History--19th centuryMining engineers--United States

Contributors

Lyman, Benjamin Smith, 1835-1920Sanborn, F. B. (Franklin Benjamin), 1831-1917

Types of material

Account booksBook jacketsField notesLetterpress copybooksMapsNotebooksPhotographsScrapbooksTrade catalogs
Lyman, Florence Porter

Florence Porter Lyman Papers

1894-1931
10 boxes 5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 946
Depiction of Florence Porter Lyman with her dog (from the Lyman Family Papers)
Florence Porter Lyman with her dog (from the Lyman Family Papers)

Florence Porter Lyman (1870-1960) was born into the Chapin Moodey family in the late 19th century. She married Charles Wendell Porter, a Northampton lawyer who spent his summers in Northern Maine, in 1894. After her first husband’s death in 1899 she continued to spend her summers in Maine. She then married Frank Lyman of the prominent Lyman family in 1903. They had three children together and lived in both Northampton and Brooklyn. During her summers in Northern Maine, Florence Porter Lyman stayed in touch with her many family and friends who lived in Massachusetts and New York.

This collection contains almost forty years of Florence Porter Lyman’s in-coming correspondence. Letters refer primarily to domestic matters including: her first husband’s train accident and death, her engagement and re-marriage to Frank Lyman, and the birth of her three children.

Subjects

Northampton (Mass.)--HistoryNorthampton (Mass.)--Social life and customsPerry (Me.)--HistoryPerry (Me.)--Social life and customs

Contributors

Lyman, Frank, 1852-1938Porter, Charles Wendell, 1866-1899

Types of material

Correspondence
Lyman, Frank

Frank Lyman Papers

1927-1980
6 boxes 9 linear feet
Call no.: MS 735
Depiction of Frank Lyman, ca.1945
Frank Lyman, ca.1945

A manufacturer of electronics and radio communications, Frank Lyman was a native of Northampton and graduate of the Williston Academy and Harvard (class of 1931). The grandson of Joseph Lyman and great-nephew of Benjamin Smith Lyman, Lyman joined Harvey Radio in the late 1930s, during a time when it was building radio transmitting equipment, purchasing the company in 1940 and becoming its president. An investor in Boston-area radio stations, Lyman oversaw the company’s post-transition into the manufacture of of autmomatic machines and tooling and its merger into the electronics firm, Cambridge Thermionic Corporation (later renamed Cambion) in 1968. Lyman died in 1992, followed by his wife, Jeanne (Sargent), in 2005.

The Lyman Papers contain business correspondence and associated documents relating to both Harvey Radio Corporation and Cambridge Thermionic Corporation, along with associated materials pertaining to Frank Lyman’s investments and personal interests. Beginning during his time at the Williston Academy and extending through his adult life, the collection includes Lyman’s diaries and a small amount of personal correspondence.

Subjects

CambionCambridge Thermionic CorporationHarvey Radio CompanyRadio industry and trade--Massachusetts

Contributors

Lyman, Frank

Types of material

DiariesLetters (Correspondence)Photographs
Lynton, E. A. (Ernest Albert)

E. A. Lynton Papers

1951-1975
1 box 0.5 linear feet
Call no.: FS 132

An authority in the field of low-temperature physics and superconductivity, Ernest A. Lynton was brought to UMass Amherst in 1973 to serve as the first Vice President for Academic Affairs and Commonwealth Professor of Physics. Lynton was charged with diversifying the student body and broadening the curriculum to emphasize social issues. Born in Berlin Germany in 1926, Lynton received a doctorate in physics from Yale in 1951. He served in his administrative post until 1980, when he took a position as Commonwealth Professor at UMass Boston.

Centered largely on Ernest Lynton’s teaching, the collection contains lecture notes and handouts for Physics courses (Physics 107, 171, Concepts in Physics, Thermodynamics, Statistical Physics), a copy of his dissertation Second Sound in He3-He 4 mixtures, and copies of his book on superconductivity in English, German, and French editions.

Subjects

Physics--Study and teachingUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst--FacultyUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst. Department of Physics

Contributors

Lynton, E. A. (Ernest Albert)
Lyons Family

Lyons Family Correspondence

1859-1895
1 box 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 133

Includes letters addressed mostly to Mary Lyons or her brother Frederick D. Lyons about friends and family in Greenfield and Colrain, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa. Topics discussed are sickness, death, accidents, an instance of probable wife abuse, recipes, Greenfield scandals, clothing, quilting, Methodist/Universalist bickering, and Aunt Mary’s investments.

Subjects

Abused wives--United States--History--19th centuryClothing and dress--United States--History--19th centuryColrain (Mass.)--BiographyColrain (Mass.)--Social life and customs--19th centuryCookery--United States--History--19th centuryGreenfield (Mass.)--BiographyGreenfield (Mass.)--Social life and customs--19th centuryLyons familyMethodist Church--Relations--Universalist ChurchMethodist Church--United States--History--19th centuryQuilting--United States--History--19th centuryScandals--Massachusetts--Greenfield--History--19th centuryUniversalist churches--Relations--Methodist ChurchUniversalist churches--United States--History--19th centuryWife abuse--United States--History--19th centuryWomen--Massachusetts--Colrain--Correspondence

Contributors

Lyons, J. LLyons, Mary

Types of material

Letters (Correspondence)
Lyons, Louis Martin

Louis Martin Lyons Papers

1918-1980
9 boxes 4.5 linear feet
Call no.: RG 002/3 L96
Depiction of Louis M. Lyons
Louis M. Lyons

As a journalist with the Boston Globe, a news commentator on WGBH television, and Curator of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard, Louis M. Lyons was an important public figure in the New England media for over fifty years. A 1918 graduate of Massachusetts Agricultural College and later trustee of UMass Amherst, Lyons was an vocal advocate for freedom of the press and a highly regarded commentator on the evolving role of media in American society.

The Lyons Papers contain a selection of correspondence, lectures, and transcripts of broadcasts relating primarily to Lyons’ career in television and radio. From the McCarthy era through the end of American involvement in Vietnam, Lyons addressed topics ranging from local news to international events, and the collection offers insight into transformations in American media following the onset of television and reaction both in the media and the public to events such as the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, the war in Vietnam, and the social and political turmoil of the 1960s.

Subjects

Boston GlobeCivil rights movementsFreedom of the PressFrost, Robert, 1874-1963Johnson, Lyndon B. (Lyndon Baines), 1908-1973Journalistic ethicsJournalists--Massachusetts--BostonKennedy, John Fitzgerald, 1917-1963King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968TelevisionUniversity of Massachusetts. TrusteesVietnam War, 1961-1975WGBH (Television station : Boston, Mass.)World War, 1914-1918

Contributors

Lyons, Louis Martin, 1897-

Types of material

Letters (Correspondence)Speeches
Paul Lyons Papers

Paul Lyons Papers

1947-2009 Bulk: 2000-2009
1.5 boxes .63 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1186
Paul Lyons teaching in front of a chalk board
Paul Lyons

Paul Lyons was a passionate teacher, historian, writer, activist, and musician. He was born in 1942 into a lower middle-class Jewish family in Newark, New Jersey and attended Weequahic High School. He earned his undergraduate degree in history from Rutgers University in 1964. He then continued at Rutgers where he began studying law. After hearing a speech by Bayard Rustin, he quit law school to become a teacher and civil rights activist, participating in campus protests as part of the anti-Vietnam War movement. Between receiving his master’s degree in history at Rutgers in 1967 and his PhD in Social Work from Bryn Mawr College in 1980, Lyons taught history at Temple University and The Miquon Upper School, an independent middle and high school located in Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia, PA. He spent the bulk of his career teaching at Stockton University in New Jersey. While at Stockton, Lyons was involved in his union, and played saxophone and sang in the Stockton Faculty Band. He also helped establish The Sara and Sam Schoffer Holocaust Research Center.

During his career he published 5 books: Philadelphia Communists, 1936-1956 (1982); Class of ’66 (1994); New Left, New RightThe Legacy of the Sixties (1996), The People of This Generation (2003); and American Conservatism: Thinking It, Teaching It (2009). A historian of the Left, Lyons spent his career attempting to grapple with the successes and failures of the New Left in the United States during the latter part of the 20th Century. Literature on the New Left was long dominated by top-down narratives focusing on major organizations and their leaders. Lyons’ People of This Generation (Temple UP, 2003) was significant in that it presented a far different view of the movement as a neighborhood-level case study of the grassroots. His book American Conservatism: Thinking It, Teaching It grappled with the history/intellectual traditions of conservatism in America through the experience of teaching an interdisciplinary senior seminar in the spring of 2006. Much of his research focused on the teaching of social justice and present day events, such as 911, within the classroom. He was published in the Chronicle of Higher EducationInside Higher EducationThe Observer and The Journal of Historical Society.

Lyons was married to Mary Hardwick and had three children: a son, Max Lyons , step-daughter, Jenn Zelnick, and step-son, Nate Zelnick. He passed away at the age of 67 in 2009.

This small collection of published and unpublished papers assembles several of Lyons’ articles for publication including: Chronicle of Higher EducationInside Higher Education, and The Journal of Historical Society. Also included is a draft of an unpublished memoir, a copy of his 1980 master’s thesis The Communist as Organizer: The Philadelphia Experience, 1936-1956, drafts of American Conservatism, speeches given at anti-Iraq War rallies, and a draft of a manuscript entitled The Last Socialist in America. It also includes his poetry and other assorted writings. Many of these writings reflect his lifelong areas of interest such as the history of the Left and the rise of conservatism in the U.S. Also included are several articles from journals and web outlets that address September 11th, the Iraq war, teaching, John F. Kennedy, the 1960s, patriotism, and more.

Subjects

Communism--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia--HistoryCommunist Party of the United States of America--HistoryCommunist party workCommunists--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia--HistoryConservatism--United StatesIraq War, 2003-2011Labor unionsSeptember 11 Terrorist Attacks, 2001SocialismTeachingVietnam War, 1961-1975

Types of material

CorrespondenceManuscripts
Restrictions: none
Rural Lives audiotape collection

Rural Lives Audiotape Collection

1980
1 box 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 507

Rural Lives was a 13 part audio documentary series that aired on WFCR in the early 1980s and focused on rural communities throughout Western Massachusetts. Sponsored by the UMass Cooperative Extension Service, each episode focused on various aspects of rural life such as local business, jobs, the country fair, farming, the impact of development, etc. Some episodes featured local towns such as Hadley or the lost towns of the Quabbin Reservoir. The show was produced by Pat Lewis Zachary, Robbie Leppzer, and Gail Fuhrer.

Subjects

Farmers--Massachusetts--HistoryHadley (Mass.)--HistoryMassachusetts--Economic conditionsMassachusetts--Social life and customs--20th century

Types of material

Sound recordings