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

Collections: R

Ricci, James B.

James B. Ricci and Margaret E. McCarthy Collection

ca.1870-1970
17 boxes 25.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1075
Depiction of New Easy Lawn Mower trade card
New Easy Lawn Mower trade card

A graduate of UMass Amherst (’71) and the son of a faculty member, Jim Ricci had a childhood encounter with a Locke Power Lawn Mower that led to lifelong fascination with reel lawn mowers. As an historian ofthe field, Ricci has written extensively on mowers and the industy, culminating in his book Hand, Horse, and Motor: The Development of the Lawn Mower Industry in the United States (2016). He and his wife Margaret McCarthy are also advanced collectors of vintage lawn mowers and associated paper and ephemera.

The Ricci and McCarthy collection cuts a wide swath through the subject of pre-World War II lawn mowers, and includes materials ranging from scarce catalogs, trade publications, and letters and documents, as well as Ricci’s extensive research files organized by manufacturer. The collection is rich in visual content, with early tradecards, advertisements, postcards, and photographs.

Gift of James B. Ricci and Margaret E. McCarthy, April 2019

Subjects

Lawn mowers

Contributors

McCarthy, Margaret E.

Types of material

PhotographsPrinted ephemera
Richards family

Richards Family Collection

1692-1818
2 vols. 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1030 bd

A prosperous farmer in the southern reaches of Massachusetts Bay Colony, James Richards was born on June 2, 1658, and never ventured far from his from his home in Weymouth or the adjoining town of Braintree. The son of William Richards and his wife Grace Shaw, and a member of the third generation of Richards in the new world, James was characteristically diverse in his economic activities, raising livestock (sheep and pigs), harvesting salt grass, making salt, and raising crops including rye, corn, and barley, which he malted, presumably for the production of beer. Although most of his transactions were local, he traded as far away as Charlestown and Barnstable.

The Richards family ledgers include a daybook from James Richards kept between 1692-1710 and an account book from his great grandson Jacob Richards kept a century later, along with loose receipts from generations of Richards in between. The volume associated with James Richards records sales of goods produced on his Weymouth farm, including barley, rye, “Indian corn,” salt, mutton and lamb, pork, and eggs, along with occasional records of the sale of goods such as shingles, “board nails,” clapboards, molasses and sugar, lamp oil, tobacco, and cloth. The sparser records from Jacob Richards include accounts that include the sale of cider; cord wood; pine, oak, and maple boards; and shoes.

Gift of Carolyn Taylor, June 2017, through the UMass Press.

Subjects

Agriculture--Massachusetts--WeymouthAgriculture--Massachusetts--WeymouthWeymouth (Mass.)--Economic conditions--17th centuryWeymouth (Mass.)--Economic conditions--18th century

Contributors

Richards, Jacob, 1778-Richards, James, 1658-1711

Types of material

Account booksDaybooks
Richardson, Charley

Charley Richardson Papers

ca.1985-2012
32 boxes 48 linear feet
Call no.: MS 862

A shipfitter and union activist, Charley Richardson was a visonary labor educator. After working for a time in a machine shop and driving a school bus, Richardson hired on as a shipfitter at Sun Ship in Philadelphia in 1976, and grew active in the labor movement as a steward for the United Steelworkers. After relocating to the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy seven years later, he sustained a workplace injury that ended his career, but he remained active in the workers’ cause. Helping served as director of the Labor Extension Program at UMass Lowell and helped to create the Technology and Work Program where he and his wife Nancy Lessin developed educational programs to aid unions in countering harmful workplace changes and build strength and solidarity for the union. An advocate for social and economic justice, he became a vocal opponent of the U.S. war in Iraq in 2002, and was co-founder of Military Families Speak Out. After a long battle with cancer, Richardson passed away in May 2013.

The Richardson papers document over thirty years of work as a labor educator and United Steelworkers activist. At the heart of the collection are materials relating to Richardson’s research and instruction at UMass Lowell, teaching “continuous bargaining” and other techniques for unions coping with economic and political change. The collection is informed throughout by Richardson’s concerns for workplace safety and health and the impact of technology, downsizing, deregulation, and globalization.

Gift of Susan Winning, Apr. 2015

Subjects

Industrial safetyLabor unions and educationUnited Steelworkers of AmericaUniversity of Massachusetts at Lowell. Labor Education Prograss

Contributors

Lessin, Nancy
Richardson, Mary Ann Moore

Mary Ann Moore Richardson Collection

1842-1854
1 folder 0.1 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1072 bd
Depiction of Program of the student exhibition, Quaboag Seminary, 1847
Program of the student exhibition, Quaboag Seminary, 1847

The Quaboag Seminary was founded in Warren, Mass., in 1842 by two of Amherst College’s early graduates, and was incorporated eight years later. During its relatively brief period of operation, its best-known student may have bene the abolitionist and feminist Lucy Stone, who enrolled in 1841 to prepare for entrance examinations at Oberlin College. In 1856, the school was purchased by the town to serve as the local high school.

This small collection consists primarily of printed materials associated with the short-lived Quaboag Seminary of Warren, Mass. In addition to a school catalogue for 1847, the collection includes two issues — apparently all that were printed — of the student literary periodical, the Quaboag Quarterly Offering (1845); eight programs for school exhibitions (1842-1854); a flier announcing the spring term 1848; and two writing exercise books kept by Mary Ann Moore (later Richardson) while a student at the Seminary.

Gift of I. Eliot Wentworth, Mar. 2019

Subjects

Boarding schools--Massachusetts--WarrenSchools--Massachusetts--WarrenWarren (Mass.)--History--19th century

Contributors

Quaboag Seminary

Types of material

Broadsides (Notices)Catalogues (Documents)PeriodicalsPrograms (Documents)
Richmond Monthly Meeting (Society of Friends)

Richmond Monthly Meeting (Society of Friends) Records

1792-1850
6 vols. 1 linear feet
Call no.: MS 902 R534

Meetings for Quaker worship began in Richmond, N.H., as early as 1766. Situated in a small town on the border of Massachusetts, the new meeting was initially placed under the care of Smithfield Monthly meeting, transferring to Uxbridge Monthly in 1783. Having achieved a degree of stability, the meeting was set off as the Richmond Monthly Meeting in 1792, although it was laid down in 1850. Its remaining members were attached to Uxbridge Monthly Meeting.

The records of Richmond Monthly Meeting contain a complete set of minutes from both the men’s and women’s meetings, along with records or births, deaths, marriages, and transfers within the membership.

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, Apr. 2016

Subjects

Quakers--New HampshireRichmond (N.H.)--Religious life and customsSociety of Friends--New Hampshire

Contributors

New England Yearly Meeting of Friends

Types of material

Minutes (Administrative records)Vital records (Document genre)
Ridlen, Susanne S.

Susanne S. Ridlen Photograph Collection

1985-1991
11 boxes 5.5 linear feet
Call no.: PH 025
Depiction of In Memory of the Orphans
In Memory of the Orphans

A folklorist at Indiana University Kokomo for many years, Susanne S. Ridlen is noted for her research on grave markers in the Midwest. Her dissertation at Indiana University was on tombstones carved to mimic tree-stumps, a rustic form of funerary monument that enjoyed a vogue during the late nineteenth century. Ridlen’s research culminated in publication of her book Tree-Stump Tombstones: A Field Guide to Rustic Funerary Art in Indiana (Kokomo, 1999).

The Ridlen collection provides an extensive visual record of tree-stump tombstones in Indiana. Organized by county, town, and cemetery, the collection typically includes several views of each marker along with documentation of the individual(s) interred, the date of creation, inscriptions, and any other design motifs employed. These images and data form the basis for Ridlen’s Tree-Stump Tombstones.

Subjects

Sepulchral monuments--Indiana

Contributors

Association for Gravestone StudiesRidlen, Susanne S

Types of material

Photographs
Riggs, Maida L.

Maida L. Riggs Papers

1925-2000
8 boxes 4.5 linear feet
Call no.: FS 095
Depiction of Maida Riggs, ca.1944
Maida Riggs, ca.1944

Maida Leonard Riggs, class of 1936, taught women’s physical education at UMass before shifting to teacher preparation. Riggs was a beloved member of the UMass faculty for 28 years before her retirement. An adventurous spirit took Riggs around the globe: to Europe with the Red Cross during World War II; as a bicycling tour leader after the war; on a trek across Nepal at age 62; to Russia, China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and Uzbekistan. After retiring, Riggs, a self-described compulsive traveler, embarked on a more personal journey to explore her roots. Riggs transcribed more than 250 letters by her pioneer great-grandmother, Mary Ann Clark Longley, and published them under the title A Small Bit of Bread and Butter: Letters from the Dakota Territory, 1832-1869, an absorbing and sometimes heartbreaking account of life on the frontier. An avid photographer, Riggs took advantage of any opportunity to use her camera. These images, particularly from World War II, tell as many stories as do her correspondence. Her memoir, Dancing in Paratrooper Boots, contains typed copies of her letters from her days as a Red Cross volunteer during the war.

The Riggs Papers are a rich documentary history of the World War II era, both in America and Europe, as well as an engrossing study (in transcripts) of the American frontier. Included with extensive correspondence and photographs are published and unpublished prose, and Lovingly, Lucy: Vignettes of a Pioneer Woman’s Life, an essay on Riggs’s paternal grandmother, Lucy Dodge Riggs. Additional items in the collection include handwritten journals, one detailing a trip to China and Japan in 1982, and Riggs’s photographs of young children at play taken for her book on child development, Jump to Joy: Helping Children Grow Through Active Play. Riggs also took her genealogical research seriously, meticulously charting her family’s 1638 immigration from England to Massachusetts. With camera in hand, she later traveled to England in search of more evidence of the Longleys’ English roots.

Gift of Maida Riggs, 2000-2006

Subjects

China--Description and travelLongley familyRiggs familyUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst--Alumni and alumnaeUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst--FacultyUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst. Department of Physical EducationWomen physical education teachersWorld War, 1939-1945World War, 1939-1945--Women

Contributors

Riggs, Maida L.

Types of material

Photographs
Ring, Hans Joachim

Hans Joachim Ring Collection of East German Cinema

1945-1990
10 boxes 4.75 linear feet
Call no.: MS 566
Depiction of Bummi
Bummi

Born in Germany on Aug. 4, 1934, Hans Joachim Ring was a film enthusiast with an encyclopedic knowledge of German cinema. During the Second World War, movie theatres became a refuge for the young boy, whose family was forced several times to flee due to Allied bombing. The hardships of post-war life cemented the role of film in his life and as he grew older, he became an ardent collector of materials relating to film.

The Ring Collection includes hundreds of programs, fliers, and handbills published by the official East German film distributors Progress Film-Vertrieb and the Deutsche Film Aktiengesellschaft (DEFA) and sold to patrons at theatres. This extraordinary assemblage includes several hundred programs covering the immediate post-war period (1945-1950) and hundreds more relating to films released up to and beyond the end of the Communist era. Offering insight into the evolution of graphic design in East Germany and the marketing of film, the collection is one of the largest of its kind in the United States.

Acquired from Ann Langevin, May 2008
Language(s): German

Subjects

Children's films--Germany, EastMotion pictures--Germany, East

Contributors

Deutsche Film AktiengesellschaftProgress Film-VertriebRing, Hans Joachim

Types of material

Fliers (Printed matter)HandbillsPrograms
Risser, Pat

Pat Risser Papers

1987-2015
4 boxes 4 linear feet
Call no.: MS 987

A leading voice in the psychiatric survivor movement, Pat Risser worked for years in the cause of civil rights and peer self-help for people with psychiatric disabilities. An Ohioan by birth, Risser suffered severe abuse as a child and was diagnosed with “schizophrenia” in his twenties, although he wrote that his diagnosis changed with each new doctor or therapist. Finding his condition worsen the deeper he became involved in the mental health system, Risser discovered the value of peer self-help in the early 1980s and became one of the first students in the Consumer Case Manager Aide program, where he trained to work as a professional mental health provider. A dynamic leader, he helped start dozens of self-help peer support groups in Colorado, founded several drop-in centers, and established seventeen Alliance for the Mentally Ill groups. His reputation led to his recruitment to become Director of Mental Health Consumer Concerns, a patients-rights advocacy program in California, with which he enjoyed enormous success. In 1996, he relocated to Oregon and although “semi-retired” due to poor health, he continued to work at the state and national level on mental health issues, becoming chair of Clackamas County Mental Health Council, acting as a mental health consultant, and writing and speaking on a range of topics. Risser died in 2016 at the age of 63.

Primarily a digital archive, the Pat Risser papers contain the writings and correspondence of a significant figure in the history of disability rights. Working in Colorado, California, Oregon, and Ohio, Risser was an early adopter of online technologies to communicate with fellow activists and to raise awareness about the pitfalls of the mental health system. The collection includes several important autobiographical essays by Risser.

Gift of Patricia Sandoval through Steve Stone, Oct. 2017

Subjects

AntipsychiatryEx-mental patientsPeople with disabilities--Civil rightsPsychiatric survivors movement

Types of material

Born digital
Ritter, Hope T.

Hope T. Ritter Papers

1947-1987
6 boxes 9 linear feet
Call no.: MS 572

The protistologist Hope T. Ritter (1919-2007) is recognized for his important research on the evolution of mitosis. A native of Allentown, Pa., Ritter received his doctorate at Lehigh University in 1955 for a study of the gut fauna in a subterranean termite. Building on this research during the 1950s, he became the first scientist to successfully culture Barbulanympha, a hindgut flagellate symbiont of the wood-eating cockroach Cryptocercus, which has since become a model organism for study of the evolution of mitosis. After teaching at Harvard (1957-1961) and SUNY Buffalo, Ritter moved to the University of Georgia in 1966, where he remained until his retirement from teaching in 1987.

The Ritter Papers contain valuable professional correspondence, lab notebooks, and a large number of electron micrographs documenting his research.

Gift of Linda Ritter, Aug. 2008

Subjects

BarbulanymphaProtozoans--Composition

Contributors

Ritter, Hope T

Types of material

Scanning electron micrographs