The University of Massachusetts Amherst
Robert S. Cox Special Collections & University Archives Research Center
CredoResearch digital collections in Credo

Collections: mss

Holyoke Consumer Health Library

Holyoke Consumer Health Library Records

2000-2006
2 boxes 2 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1091

Funded by a grants from the National Library of Medicine and other agencies, the Holyoke Consumer Health Library was a freely-available community resource that provided the general public with access to reliable health information. With the goal of enabling citizens to make informed decisions about their health needs, the Library collaborated with six community partners (the Holyoke Public Library, Holyoke Health Center, Mercy Women’s Health Center, Girls Incorporated of Holyoke, and the Holyoke Council on Aging), training the staff at each site to use the available resources and to conduct outreach to potential clients.

The HCHL collection contains organizational records from an experiment in health information equity in the earliest years of the internet, including planning documents, grant applications, and promotional materials.

Gift of Sandra Ward, 2011.

Subjects

Holyoke (Mass.)--HistoryPublic health--Massachusetts--Holyoke
Hood, Otis A. (Otis Archer)

Otis A. Hood Papers

1941-1957
1 box 0.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1056
Depiction of Otis Hood for Boston School Board, 1949
Otis Hood for Boston School Board, 1949

A long-time leader in the Communist Party in Massachusetts, Otis A. Hood (1900-1983) was a frequent candidate for public office between the late 1930s and early 1950s. At a time of increasing repression, he stood openly for Communist principles, speaking regularly on the radio and at public forums. In 1954, he was one of several activists arrested for violating the state ban on the Communist Party, winning acquittal, and he was acquitted again after a second indictment in 1956 on charges of inciting the overthrow of the federal government.

The Hood papers are a slender reflection of Communist politics during the height of McCarthy-era repression. The collection centers around Otis Hood’s public espousal of Communist ideals as a candidate for public office in Boston, and particularly his runs for the city School Board in 1943 through 1949, but it includes fliers, handbills, and other materials relating to Communist-led campaigns relating to the war, housing, public transportation, and education, but most importantly, transcripts of radio broadcasts made by Hood during his political campaigns and relating to a variety of social issues.

Gift of Bruce Rubenstein via Eugene Povirk, Oct. 2018

Subjects

Boston (Mass.)--History--20th centuryCommunists--MassachusettsRacism--MassachusettsSchools--Massachusetts--BostonWorld War, 1939-1945

Contributors

Hood, Frances A.Lipshires, SidneyMassachusetts. Special Commission to Study and Investigate Communism and Subversive Activities and Related Matters in the Commonwealthommunist Party of the United States of America (Mass.)

Types of material

Fliers (Printed matter)Printed ephemeraRadio scripts
Horace Pierce and Son

Horace Pierce & Son Ledger

1828-1857
1 vol. 0.1 linear feet
Call no.: MS 234

Starting out as a blacksmith in Royalston, Mass., in 1828, Horace Pierce established a successful pail manufacturory. Taking his son Milo as a partner, he employed a work force of eight by 1870, selling over $6,000 of pail annually with capital of nearly $3,500. Horace Pierce died in Royalston in 1883 at the age of 78.

This ledger includes records of work performed as a blacksmith (shoeing horses, fixing irons, mending sleighs, shovels, or chains, sharpening tools), records of manufacturing pails, forms of payment received (cash, labor, agricultural produce, wood, shoes, coal, and old iron), lists of customers, accounts of employees (monthly wages, charges for boarding, and days lost to work), and accounts of supplies purchased.

Subjects

Blacksmiths--Massachusetts--RoyalstonPails--Massachusetts--RoyalstonRoyalston (Mass.)--History

Contributors

Pierce, Horace, 1805-1883Pierce, Milo, b. 1829

Types of material

Ledgers
Horsch, Annie C.

Annie C. Horsch Cookbook

1897-1941
1 vol. 0.2 linear feet
Call no.: MS 217 bd

Born in Germany in 1866, Annie C. Horsch worked for many years as a servant and housekeeper in the home of the Dummer family in Rowley, Mass. Listed as a domestic in the Rowley City Directories as early as 1888, Horsch began to work for the miller Nathaniel N. Dummer (1824-1907) and his wife Elizabeth (b. 1839) prior to 1900 and was retained well into the 1940s. Horsch died of cerebral arteriosclerosis in Newburyport on Jan. 23, 1956, at the age of 89.

Scrappy and well used, the Horsch cookbook was the working reference for a domestic employed by an old Rowley family, the Dummers. The cookbook consists primarily of recipes for breads and desserts, with a slight nod to healthy eating (including Graham Bread and “Health bread”) followed by a succession of pies, cakes, and puddings. The book includes recipes for Spider Johnny Cake; lemon, raisin, various minces (mock mince, pear mine, tomato mince), sour milk, rhubarb, cranberry, coconut, pineapple, and caramel pies; and then the cakes: dark cake, French cake, fruit cake, apple sauce cake, Harrison cake, chocolate cake, ribbon cake, Bangor cake, and marble cake, among many others.

Gift of Melinda McIntosh, Oct. 2008

Subjects

BreadCakeCookbooks--Massachusetts--RowleyPiesRowley (Mass.)--History

Types of material

Cookbooks
Howard, James E.

James E. Howard Collection

1947-1953
1 box 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1085

An advertising man from Brooklyn, and a neighbor and friend of W.E.B. Du Bois, James E. Howard was an active supporter of the Committee for the Negro in the Arts during its brief period of activity. Organized in 1947 with Communist Party support, the Committee was an arts-focused civil rights organization, opposing degregation and promoting the employment of African Americans in the performing and visual arts. Criticized by the House Un-American Activities Committee as a Communist front, the Committee was also criticized by the intellectual Harold Cruse, a former member, as a “sad flop,” a patronizing and opportunistic endeavor of white radical that was so constrained by the desire to appeal to white audiences that it was incapable of exploring work of deeper significance to African American audiences.

This small collection contains printed materials from the Committee for the Negro in the Arts (CNA), a politically progressive interracial cultural organization. The collection includes CNA newsletters, event programs, invitations, and an assortment of mailings and other items used in publicity and public relations.

Gift of Jonathan Howard, Sept. 2017.

Subjects

African American theater

Contributors

Committee for the Negro in the Arts
Howe Family

Howe Family Papers

1730-1955
7 boxes 4.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 019

Personal, business, and legal papers of the Howe family of Enfield and Dana, Massachusetts, including correspondence between family members, genealogies, account books and printed materials. Account books record transactions of various family members whose occupations included general storekeeper, minister, printer, postmaster, telephone exchange and gas-station owner, and document the transactions of community businesses and individuals, some of whom were women involved in the beginnings of the local palm leaf hat and mat industry.

Subjects

Bookkeeping--History--SourcesEnfield (Mass.)--BiographyEnfield (Mass.)--Economic conditions--19th centuryEnfield (Mass.)--HistoryEnfield (Mass.)--Social life and customsHowe family--GenealogyMoneylenders--Massachusetts--Enfield--HistoryQuabbin Reservoir Region (Mass.)--HistorySwift River Valley (Mass.)--HistorySwift River Valley (Mass.)--Social life and customs

Contributors

Howe, Donald W. (Donald Wiliam), 1982-1977Howe, Edwin H., 1859-1943Howe, Henry Clay Milton, b. 1823Howe, John M.Howe, John, 1783-1845Howe, Theodocia Johnson, 1824-1898

Types of material

Account booksBusiness recordsDeedsGenealogiesScrapbooksWills
Howes, Jeanne C., 1916-

Jeanne Howes Papers

1967-2006
2 boxes 0.75 linear feet
Call no.: MS 471

Independent Melville scholar, Jeanne Howes proved that Herman Melville’s first book, Redburn, or, The Schoolmaster of Morning, was published anonymously in 1844. This collection contains her published articles and book about Melville, as well as a self-published work about Nathan and Seth Howes who were credited with creating the first American tented circus.

Also a poet, her papers include letters from Robert Francis, with whom she carried on a regular correspondence for nearly a decade, as well as unpublished typescripts of her own poems.

Subjects

Poetry

Contributors

Francis, Robert, 1901-1987Howes, Jeanne C., 1916-
Howland family

Howland Family Papers

1727-1886 Bulk: 1771-1844
2 boxes 0.75 linear feet
Call no.: MS 923

The Howland family of East Greenwich, R.I., figured prominently in New England Quakerism during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and contributed to the state’s public affairs. Brothers Daniel (1754-1834), an approved minister, and Thomas Howland (1764-1845), an educator, were active members of the Society during the tumultuous years between the 1780s and 1840s, caught up in the moral demands for a response to slavery and other social issues and in the divisions wrought by evangelical influences.

Centered largely on the lives of Thomas Howland, his brother Daniel, and Daniel’s son Daniel, the Howland collection is an important record of Quaker life in Rhode Island during trying times. As meeting elders, the Howlands monitored and contributed to the era’s major controversies, and the collection is particularly rich in discussions of the impact of slavery and the passionate struggle between Friends influenced by the evangelically-inclined Joseph John Gurney and the orthodox John Wilbur. Thomas’ complex response to his commitment to the antislavery cause and his fear of disrupting meeting unity is particularly revealing. Also of note is a series of responses from monthly meetings to queries on compliance with Quaker doctrine, obtained during the decade after the American Revolution.

Subjects

Antislavery movements--Rhode IslandEast Greenwich (R.I.)--HistoryPeace movements--Rhode IslandTemperance--Rhode Island

Contributors

Bassett, William, 1803-1871Brown, Moses, 1738-1836Friends' Boarding School (Providence, R.I.)Gurney, Joseph John, 1788-1847Howland, DanielHowland, Daniel, 1754-1834Howland, Thomas, 1764-1845Moses Brown SchoolNew England Yearly Meeting of FriendsShearman, Abraham, 1777-1847Society of Friends--Controversial literatureSociety of Friends--HistoryTobey, Samuel Boyd, 1805-1867Wilbur, John, 1774-1856
Hrdlicka, Ales, 1869-1943

Ales Hrdlicka Collection

1995
1 box 2 linear feet
Call no.: MS 149

Fourteen panels used in a public exhibition depicting the life and work of the Czech-born American anthropologist Ales Hrdlicka through photographs, documents, and narrative.

Subjects

Hrdlicka, Ales, 1869-1943
Hubbard and Lyman

Hubbard and Lyman Daybook

1844-1847
1 vol. 0.1 linear feet
Call no.: MS 237 bd

Partners who manufactured harnesses, saddles, and trunks in Springfield, Massachusetts. Includes the prices paid for harnesses, whips, trunks, valises, and a variety of repair jobs such as splicing, coupling, and repairing of the hoses of the Springfield Fire Department. Also contains method and form of payment (principally cash, but also wood, leather, and leather thread in exchange) and twenty pages of clippings with the names of Lyman’s daughters, Mary and Frances, written on them.

Subjects

Aaron P. Emerson Co. (Orland, Me.)Barter--Massachusetts--Springfield--History--19th centuryHarness making and trade--Massachusetts--Springfield--History--19th centuryHarnesses--Prices--HistorySpringfield (Mass.)--Economic conditions--19th centurySpringfield (Mass.). Fire DeptTrunks (Luggage)--Prices--HistoryWages--Leatherworkers--Massachusetts--Springfield--History--19th centuryWhips--Prices--History

Contributors

Hubbard and LymanHubbard, Jason, b. 1815Lyman, Moses, b. 1815

Types of material

Daybooks