Collections: mss

Klaus Postler was a visual artist and curator who lived and worked in New England. Born Michael Edward Postler on March 23, 1951, he grew up in Yonkers, New York, and Connecticut. He was an avid collector of paper ephemera, which he included in his large-scale paintings and collages. From the late 1970s he was an enthusiastic participant in the international mail art movement, labelling his enterprise the Social Artists Reality Empire (S.A.R.E.). One of the exhibitions he curated was the Ray Johnson Memorial Mail Art Show at UMass Amherst, in 1996, for which he put out an open call and received mailed responses from around the world. Postler traveled in Europe and forged relationships with artists there, especially in Germany. In addition to his art practice, he worked for many years picking apples and pruning trees at New England orchards. Postler pursued his education at a number of institutions, with some difficulty due to his dyslexia, and completed his bachelor’s degree in 1998 through the University Without Walls program at UMass Amherst. He was a MacDowell Colony fellow in 2000, and returned to UMass to earn his MFA in studio art in 2005. Late in his life he cared for the estate of the artist Robert Mallary. He died on January 6, 2013, at his studio in Conway, Massachusetts.

The Klaus Postler collection contains a variety of sketchbooks that also functioned as diaries, as well as daybooks and dream journals; slides of his work; and photographic prints. Also included is an assortment of mail art, some created by Postler but mostly work sent to him by other artists, which Postler included in exhibitions he curated in Brattleboro, Vermont, and at UMass Amherst. Thomas Jahn, known as Horsefeathers, is a prolific contributor of mail art. The collection also includes documentation from posthumous gallery shows and a commemorative book about his work published by his partner, Eileen Claveloux.

The American Civil Liberties Union has played a significant role in working with the courts, legislatures, and the public to protect civil liberties in the United States. Founded in 1920, the organization has a membership of more than a million.

An extensive run of press releases issued by the national office of the ACLU between 1961 and 1984, this collection reflects the organization’s priorities and public communications strategies during a critical time in the struggle for civil liberties. The topics range from organizational changes within the ACLU to the major issues in civil liberties of the day, including those pertaining to the civil rights movement, civic unrest, freedom of the press, the Vietnam War, and the counterculture.

A devoted reader of newspaper cartoon strips, Jim Powell began collecting Peanuts cartoon books in the mid-1970s, prompted by obtaining two pure-bred beagles for his son.

The Powell cartoon book collection consists of 419 mass market paperback copies of popular cartoon books, representing the work of well-known cartoonists such as Charles M. Schultz, Johnny Hart, Gary Larson, Garry Trudeau, Jim Davis, and Berke Breathed. The collection has particularly rich runs of Peanuts, Garfield, and Doonesbury.

Grace Eleanor (O’Neill) Pratt was born in Ware, Mass., in 1924. By the early 1940s, her father’s work brought his family to Greenfield, Mass., where Grace continues to reside.

The Pratt Scrapbook Collection represents several decades of intense interest in unusual news-makers. Pratt’s primary interests included “unusual” marriages and loves, but centered on multiple births, sparked by her youthful fascination with the Dionne Quintuplets. Pratt also clipped accounts of the U.S. space program in its early years, stories on U.S. presidents and British royalty, and accounts of local Catholic church leaders. Clipped from newspapers, tabloids, and magazines, this collection captures Pratt’s fascination with popular culture and “other” lives as entertainment. Most of the items are clipped and tucked between scrapbook pages.

Rural and sparsely populated, Prescott, Massachusetts, was founded in 1822 along the ridge separating the West and Middle branches of the Swift River. Its three villages (North Prescott, Atkinson Hollow, and Prescott Hill) never amounted to more than a few houses each, and the town’s total population never exceeded 500. Prescott became the first of four towns to vacate after the Swift River Valley was ordered cleared and dammed to create the Quabbin Reservoir, ceding its administration to the state in 1928 before formally disincorporating in 1938.

The records of Prescott, Mass., document the history of the smallest of the four towns inundated to create the Quabbin Reservoir. Held by the Swift River Valley Historical Society, the materials in this collection consist of records of town meetings and of the activities of the town Selectmen, 1822-1938, as well as sparser records of the School Committee, the Treasurer, and Overseers of the Poor.

A pioneer of African dance in the United States and a vital scholarly voice, Pearl Primus burst onto the scene in the early 1940s as a choreographer, performer, composer, and teacher. Born in Trinidad in 1919 and raised in New York City, Primus was introduced to performance through the National Youth Administration and the New Dance Group. Her interest in the dance cultures of Africa and the African diaspora formed the conceptual center of her work throughout her career, drawing upon her deep scholarly research. In addition to her creative work, Primus earned a doctorate in anthropology from NYU and taught at a number of universities, including the Five Colleges. She died in New Rochelle, N.Y., in October 1994.

Conducted with Pearl Primus’ fellow dancers, musicians, friends, and collaborators between 1995 and 2005, the interviews comprising this collection were recorded by Peggy and Murray Schwartz for use in their book, The Dance Claimed Me: A Biography of Pearl Primus (New Haven, 2011). The oral histories provide insights into Primus’s sometimes controversial life career, her performances, teaching, and legacy.

Established in 1968, PATCO was certified as the exclusive representative for all FAA air traffic controllers. A little more than a decade later, union members went on strike demanding better working conditions despite the fact that doing so was in violation of a law banning strikes by government unions. In response to the strike, the Reagan administration fired the strikers, more than 11,000, and decertified the union. Over time the union was eventually reformed, first in 1996 as an affiliate with the Federation of Physicians and Dentists union, and later as an independent, national union in 2004.

Correspondence, financial records, notes and memos documenting the activities of the Boston area branch of PATCO. Letters, announcements, and planning documents leading up to the 1981 strike shed light on the union’s position.

The Providence monthly meeting began in 1705 as a preparative meeting under the care of the East Greenwich Monthly. Set off in 1718, Providence Preparative became Smithfield Monthly Meeting by 1731, when the town of Smithfield was formed from Providence. At its inception in 1718, it joined the Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting, and has continued with this quarterly meeting–in various forms–ever since. Almost 50 years later, in 1783, this meeting split into four groups, one of which continued as the Providence Monthly. The Wilburite Separation of 1844-1845 affected Providence significantly, but the meeting has remained viable to the present day.

A large and particularly rich collection for a Quaker monthly meetingin New England, the Providence Friends Meeting records include a substantial series of minutes of meetings, vital records, records of Ministry and Counsel, the Women’s Foreign Society, and the run of business with respect to epistles, cautions, admissions and denials, and transfers.

Formed in the Separation of 1844-1845, the Providence Monthly Meeting (Wilburite) was, for a time, a significant presence in the Wilburite community. As part of the Rhode Island Quarterly, Providence oversaw worship groups or preparative meetings in Fall River, Greenwich, Newport, North Providence, Pawtucket, and Warwick. During the challenging years of the Civil War, Providence absorbed the smaller Swansea Monthly (1863) and Rhode Island Monthly (1864), but it persisted only until 1881.

The records of the Wilburite Providence Monthly Meeting consist of a complete set of minutes from both its men’s and women’s meetings.

Founded in 1789, the Providence Society for Abolishing the Slave Trade was an early antislavery organization forged in the unique political and social climate of post-Revolutionary Rhode Island. An interdenominational organization with a membership comprised largely of Quakers, the Society served as a self-appointed watchdog for violations of the act abolishing the slave trade and they provided funds to prosecute violators and to support African Americans fighting for their rights in state courts. The Society lay essentially dormant from 1793 to 1824 , when it was revived as an all-purpose antislavery organization, and it appears to have ceased operations in 1827.

The minute book of the Providence Society for Abolishing the Slave Trade are an essentially complete record of the organization’s formal meetings. The volume begins by laying out the organization’s constitution and includes listings of officers and members and summary records of their activities.