Collections: mss

Contains bylaws, incorporation papers, minutes, budgets, reports, and correspondence relating to the administration and fundraising activities of the Amherst Community Association, including the Community Chest fund drive. Also included are budget proposals and agency profiles documenting organizations such as the Amherst Boys Club and Girls Club, Children’s Aid and Family Service, Hampshire County Association for Retarded Citizens and Camp Anderson.

Vigil for Peace and Justice group that peacefully protested the Vietnam War, nuclear weapons, and government policy in Central America and the Middle East by organizing a weekly vigil in downtown Amherst, Massachusetts. Includes handouts and news clippings.

Amherst Friends for the Homeless, Inc. was a corporation committed to operating a shelter for homeless single women and started in 1989. After researching homelessness in the area, the Social Concerns Committee of the Unitarian-Universalist Society of Amherst decided that the needs for emergency shelter were not being met in the community of Amherst, Hadley, Pelham, and Shutesbury. To help this problem, Amherst Friends for the Homeless opened Rosemary’s Place on December 11, 1989. However, it was shut down after less than two years of operation in 1991 when the Grove Street Inn, a new shelter for men and women, had opened in Northampton. The corporation continued with one event a year, called Shelter Sunday, in which volunteers went door-to-door for donations for the Amherst Survival Center, First Call for Help, Grove Street Inn, and Not Bread Alone. The organization was dissolved in 2017.

Included in this collection are the documents pertaining to the operations of Amherst Friends for the Homeless, including financial records, meeting minutes, Shelter Sunday records, and Rosemary’s Place records.

View of the proposed the Amherst Fields

In May 1971 Otto Paparazzo Associates announced their plans to develop 640 acres of land in East Amherst upon which a proposed 2,200 residential units, a commercial center, and a golf course would be built. Concerned about unnatural growth of the community and about the effect such a development would have on the environment, a group of residents formed the Amherst Growth Study Committee within a few months of the announcement. Despite these concerns, the Zoning Board of Appeals issued a formal permit for construction in December 1971, which the AGSC immediately appealed. Even though the group was unable to overturn the zoning board’s decision, they did achieve their ends, in part, when state and town agencies prevented the project from moving forward due to an overloaded sewage system. More importantly, the group increased public awareness about growth and housing in the town of Amherst.

Records include notes from AGSC meetings, correspondence, and newspaper clippings documenting coverage of the story in local papers.

Founded in 1963 and chartered one year later, the Amherst Railway Society is a non-profit organization of railroad enthusiasts based in the Pioneer Valley, Massachusetts. Meeting monthly, the Society sponsors lecturers and programming on railroad-related topics, and since 1968 it has hosted the annual Amherst Railway Society Railroad Hobby Show, now held at the Eastern States Exposition. Some of the proceeds from the Hobby Show are used to provide grants to support historic preservation and other railroad-related projects throughout the country.

Documenting the history of the ARS from its founding, this collection contains organizational materials, minutes of meetings, membership lists, officers’ reports, mailings and correspondence, and other materials relating to the Society’s programs.

Amherst Study Circles: Dialogues on Race and Class flier

The Amherst Study Circles: Dialogues on Race and Class were a series of dialogue and project action groups begun in 2002 to discuss and enact social change in the school districts and communities around Amherst, MA. They arose as a response by the Amherst Regional High School (ARHS) Parent Center to a question to their group: What were they going to do about racism in the Amherst Schools? The ARHS Parent Center Board suggested the study circle model, and a round of facilitated pilot groups were run in February 2003. The successful pilots stirred the organizers to seek additional support, and with funding from the Amherst Education Foundation and the Amherst Drugs Free Partnership, additional groups were organized each year, building awareness, trust, and power amongst those striving to improve the community’s schools for all students. Almost 200 people, including school administrators, teachers, staff, students, parents, and community members participated over the course of several years, and each group culminated in an action forum and set up action groups to propose and enact tangible steps towards specific goals. Action groups affected change in school climate, policies, and course offerings, and organized a standing committee of the ARHS Parent Center called RaDAR: Race and Discipline, Action, Rights.

The Amherst Study Circles: Dialogues on Race and Class Records consist of descriptive materials from the ARHS Parent Center; an organizer’s binder with sections on the origin in 2002, participants, action groups, finances, curriculum, and evaluations; and additional materials such as evaluations for study circle sessions and facilitators, newspaper clippings of articles about the group and their work, and documents for student study circles, such as advertisements, curriculum, and certificates.

The Ancient Order of United Workmen, a fraternal benefit society, was originally founded in Pennsylvania in 1868. The Massachusetts lodge was founded in 1879 with the Deerfield Valley Lodge incorporated in 1880.

The collection consists of records dating from 1895–1920, including financial documents, membership information, and correspondence.

As a staffer for Congressman Silvio Conte, Angelo researched numerous small business and economic development issues, both for constituents and for national legislation, prepared subcommittee and committee hearings, and wrote numerous articles and floor statements for Conte. The collection provides an overview of Conte’s work with and for small businesses, as well as Angelo’s contributions to the Small Business Act.

Born in Cork, Ireland to a prosperous family, the Anglin siblings began immigrating to Canada and the United States in 1903. The first to relocate to Canada, brothers Will and Sydney pursued vastly different careers, one as a Presbyterian minister and the other as a salesman at a Toronto slaughterhouse. George and Crawford both served in the military during World War I, the former in the British Infantry as a medical officer and the latter in the 4th University Overseas Company first in France and later in Belgium where he died saving the life of a wounded soldier. Gladys Anglin trained as a nurse, but worked in a Canadian department store and at the Railway Office before suffering a mental breakdown and entering the Ontario Hospital as a patient. Ethel remained in Ireland the longest where she taught Domestic Economics at a technical school. The only Anglin to immigrate to the United States and the only female sibling to marry, Ida and husband David Jackson settled in Monson, Massachusetts where they raised four daughters.

The Anglin siblings were part of a close knit family who stayed in contact despite their geographic separation through their correspondence. Siblings wrote and exchanged lengthy letters that document not only family news, but also news of local and national significance. Topics addressed in their letters include World War I, the Irish revolution, medicine, religious ministry, and domestic issues from the ability of a single woman to support herself through work to child rearing.

Anne Wiley, a lifelong feminist, taught women’s studies and psychology at Greenfield Community College (GCC) for over 40 years. She received her bachelor’s degree in sociology from LeMoyne College in Syracuse New York in June 1971, her MA in education at the State University of New York in 1975, and her PhD in education from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1993. From 1977 to 2013 she was a full time Gender and Women’s Studies and Psychology professor at GCC. She strove to make the curriculum more inclusive and received several grants in order to fund projects to this end such as GCC’s Women’s Resource Center and the Gender and Women’s Studies program. She also coordinated the Women’s Reentry Program for three years and helped organize the New England Women’s Studies Conference. She was also an adjunct professor at Keene State College. She has published many articles in feminist publications and the journal Women’s Studies Quarterly and was a member of the board and president of the New England Learning Center for Women in Transition (NWLCWIT). When she retired from full-time teaching in 2013, she was given the title of Professor Emerita and the Anne M. Wiley Gender and Social Justice Scholarship was set up in her honor. She continued to teach following her retirement and won awards for her online psychology course.

This collection is centered around the professional life of Anne Wiley as a women’s studies professor at Greenfield Community College from 1976 to 2014. This includes summaries of department meetings and conferences for women’s studies, event descriptions and flyers, some course information, administrative material related to Wiley career such as resumes and sabbatical requests, and reports on programs designed to change GCC’s curriculum. It also includes material collection by Wiley related to her interest in women’s issues. It is organized into three series: Programs and Events, Publications and Clippings, and Academics.