Collections: R

A long-time member of the English Department at the University of Albany, Barbara Rotundo was a 1942 graduate in economics at Mount Holyoke College. After the death of her husband, Joseph in 1953, Rotundo became one of the first female faculty members at Union College, and after earning a master’s degree in English at Cornell University and a doctorate in American Literature from Syracuse University, she served as an associate professor of English at the University of Albany, where she founded one of the first university writing programs in the United States. Avocationally, she was a stalwart member of the Association for Gravestone Studies, helping to broaden its scope beyond its the Colonial period to include the Victorian era. Her research included the rural cemetery movement, Mount Auburn Cemetery, white bronze (zinc) markers, and ethnic folk gravestones. Her research in these fields was presented on dozens of occasions to annual meetings of AGS, the American Culture Association, and The Pioneer America Society. In 1989, after residing in Schenectady for forty-six years, she retired to Belmont, NH, where she died in December 2004.

Consisting primarily of thousands of color slides (most digitized) and related research notebooks, the Rotundo collection is a major visual record of Victorian grave markers in the United States. The notebooks and slides are arranged by state, with an emphasis on the eastern states, and white bronze (zinc) markers also are represented in photographs and a separate research notebook. The collection also includes several rare or privately published books.

Founded as a Unitarian camp in 1924 for high school students and later adding a junior high component in 1947, the Rowe Camp and Conference Center now offers retreat programs in a variety of areas, including health care, exploration of rituals and dreams, astronomy, and workshops for families, couples, men and women.

This collection consists of newspaper clippings and the Rowe Conference Center and camp annual bulletin.

Courier for the underground in Nazi occupied Poland during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising who was apprehended and placed in a concentration camp. After the war she and her husband moved from England to Holyoke, Massachusetts. Includes typescripts and photocopies of short stories; “Ameryce”, a booklet of poems; Poklosie, a book of poems published in Polish and English (Artex Press, 1987); audiotaped oral histories of Leokadia and Stanley Rowinski (primarily in Polish) done by their children; and photographs, audiotape, program and text of poems read at a public reading.

The Roxbury Action Program and Black Panther Party of Boston were both founded in the Roxbury section of Boston following the riots of 1968. RAP pursued community revitalization through Black self-determination and enjoyed success in its housing initiatives and in providing social services ranging from support for Black businesses to Black draft counseling, health and legal referrals, a Black library, and community awareness program.

Although the exact provenance of this small collection is uncertain, the materials appear to have been collected by an individual, possibly a woman, associated with the early days of the Roxbury Action Program and Boston branch of the Black Panther Party. Steeped in Black Power ideology, the collection includes publications of the Black Panther Party, the Nation of Islam, and other organizations, as well as an insightful series of transcripts of Roxbury Action Program meetings held during its first few months of operation.

Emanuel Rubin was a professor of Musicology and Judaic Studies at UMass Amherst from 1986 until his death in 2008. From 1986-1987 he served as Head of the Department of Music and Dance. In addition to teaching, he performed frequently as a soloist and an ensemble member on the French horn, Viola da Gamba, and as a choral member. He actively conducted and composed works for solo performers and ensembles. Rubin was originally from Pittsburgh, and attended Carnegie Mellon University for his undergraduate work. He received a Master’s Degree in Music composition from Brandeis University, and a doctorate in musicology from University of Pittsburgh. Prior to arriving at UMass Amherst, he taught at Ball State University, University of Milwaukee Wisconsin, and Bowling Green State University. His research interests were the relationship between Judaism and music, and the history of glees, which was the topic of his doctoral dissertation.

The Emanuel Rubin Papers contain records of extensive research in the area of Georgian glees, including historical background, scores, lyrics, and correspondence regarding the research. The collection also includes programs and newspaper clippings from many of Rubin’s performances throughout his career, manuscripts of his publications and compositions, as well as some teaching materials and course information from his time at UMass.

Access restrictions: Temporarily stored offsite; contact SCUA in advance to request materials from this collection.

A resident of Oakmont, Pa., near Pittsburgh, Ellie Rudolph has worked with a number of grassroots organizations to oppose fluoridation of the water supply. One of the activists in the landmark 1978 case that prevented fluoridation in the borough of West View, Pa., Rudolph has worked with the Pennsylvania Environmental Network, was a founding member of the Fluoride Action Network, and a former director of the Pennsylvania Chapter of Health Alliance International.

The Rudolph Papers document almost three decades of grassroots antifluoridation activism, primarily in western Pennsylvania. The collection includes a wide array of material relating to the antifluoridation struggle, including several feet of topical files, some correspondence, reprints of scientific and popular articles on the subject and videotapes.

The painter Johann Moritz Rugendas was born in Augsburg, Germany, in 1802, and achieved fame for his depictions of the landscape, natural history, and cultural history of South American early in the era of independence. Beginning as a member of George Heinrich Langsdorff’s scientific expedition to Minas Gerais in 1821, and then on his own, Rugendas traveled widely in Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, and Peru. His best-known published work is the monumental four-volume set, Malerische Reise in Brasilien (1827-1835).

The Rugendas collection consists of 192 letters and 4 poems written to Rugendas by four of his South American artist friends who shared his passion for the country and culture of Argentina.

A teamster from Newburyport, Mass., Samuel H. Rundlett operated a substantial business as a teamster and “truckman” from the 1830s through 1880s.

The three daybooks in this collection document Rundlett’s work for local businesses, including hauling bales of raw cotton and finished cloth, delivering coal, produce, fertilizer, and goods; as well as prices paid for freight handling and forms of payment (cash, credit at a store, and produce from a local farmer). Of note is Rundlett’s delivery of goods to the Newburyport branch of the Sovereigns of Industry, a workingmen’s cooperative association.

Feeling the frustrations of millions of women and girls in rural America who lacked the support or resources necessary to combat unemployment, inadequate medical care, and domestic violence, Jane Threatt along with several other women decided to form a non-profit organization that would unite these women and give them a national voice. Established in 1978, Rural American Women (RAW) was organized to promote the interests of rural women in the areas of equal rights, employment, education, family life, and freedom of all forms of discrimination.

In 1981 RAW held a series of five regional conferences throughout the country, and the bulk of this collection consists of records relating to the New England meeting. The records also include some materials documenting the group’s activities at their national headquarters in D.C., such as minutes, correspondence, newsletters, and pamphlets.

Although printing requires a substantial capital investment in equipment before any hope of profitability can be entertained, there have been numerous attempts over the years to set up printing houses in communities with astonishingly small population bases. In even the most remote Massachusetts towns, people like John Metcalf (Wendell), Ezekiel Terry (Palmer), and John and Solomon Howe (Enfield and Greenwich) operated as printers during the nineteenth century, specializing in a quotidian array of broadsides, song sheets, almanacs, toy books, and printed forms, hoping to supplement, or provide, a decent living.

This small, but growing collection consists of materials printed prior to the twentieth century in small Massachusetts towns, defined as towns with populations less than about 2,500. Although few of these houses survived for long, they were important sources for rural communities. Typically simple in typography, design, and binding, even crude, the output of such printers provides an important gauge of the interests and tastes of New England’s smallest and often poorest communities.

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