The University of Massachusetts Amherst
Robert S. Cox Special Collections & University Archives Research Center
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Collections: Students

Glow, Lewis L.

Lewis L. Glow Photograph Album

1936-1939
1 photograph album 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: RG 050 G53
Depiction of Lewis L. Glow, May 1939
Lewis L. Glow, May 1939

Born in East Pepperell, Mass., on May 1, 1916, the son of Edward and Angela Glow, Lewis Lyman Glow studied chemistry at Massachusetts State College during the latter years of the Great Depression. Graduating with the class of 1939, Glow continued his studies at Norwich University before serving aboard the USS New Jersey during the Second World War and Korean conflict. Glow died in East Pepperell on Sept. 23, 1986.

A well-labeled, thorough, and thoroughly personal photograph album, this documents the four years spent at Mass. State College. In addition to numerous images of Glow’s classmates and friends, his rooms at the Colonial Inn, beer parties and student highjinks such as the annual rope pull and horticultural show, the album includes numerous images of the cattle barn fire of September 1937 and the extensive damage to the MSC campus and surrounding town from the Hurricane of 1938.

Subjects

Fires--Massachusetts--AmherstMassachusetts State College--StudentsNew England Hurricane, 1938

Contributors

Glow, Lewis L.

Types of material

Photographs
Livers, Susie D.

Susie D. Livers Papers

1903-1907
1 flat box 1.5 linear feet
Call no.: FS 122

Susie D. Livers arrived at Massachusetts Agricultural College in 1903 as a member of one of the college’s first co-ed classes. After graduating in 1907, Livers worked at Ginn & Company Publishers in Boston and then as a Detail Officer at the State School for Girls in Lancaster, Massachusetts.

Included in the scrapbook are handwritten personal correspondence in the form of letters, postcards, holiday cards, and telegrams; unidentified photographs; MAC report cards dated 1904 and 1907; class papers and a class notebook; and programs and tickets for sporting events, weddings, and campus socials. In the back of the scrapbook are 35 herbarium samples which include dried plants with notations of plant names as well as dates and locations indicating where the plants were found.

Subjects

Massachusetts Agricultural College--Students

Contributors

Livers, Susie D

Types of material

EphemeraHerbariaScrapbooks
Massachusetts State College Glee Club

Massachusetts State College Glee Club

ca.1935
1 sound recording (78 rpm)
Call no.: RG 185/1

The Massachusetts State College Glee Club recorded ten songs onto 78 r.p.m. disk in the mid-1930s. One of the few early recordings of the group, the recording includes the Massachusetts State College alma mater, fight songs, and other typical collegiate fare.

Subjects

Massachusetts State College--StudentsMen’s choral societies--Massachusetts

Contributors

Massachusetts State College. Glee Club

Types of material

Sound recordings
Parker, George A.

George A. Parker Photograph Album

1876
1 vol., 90 images 0.5 linear feet
Call no.: RG 130 P37
Depiction of The Giant Squash
The Giant Squash

A prominent member of the Massachusetts Agricultural College Class of 1876, George A. Parker (1853-1926) began a career in landscape gardening and the development of parks shortly after graduation. Shortly after the turn of the century, he was appointed Superintendent of Parks in Hartford, Conn., helping to develop Colt Park and a number of smaller properties that turned the city into one of the models for New England. He resigned from his post in January 1926 and died later that year from heart disease.

The Parker Album is a more extensive version of the standard class album for 1876, featuring not only albumen portraits mounted on thick stock of the faculty and students, but almost fifty views of campus. Among these are uncommon images of the major academic buildings, the chapel, and hash house, but also interior and exterior shots of buildings on campus, such as the Botanic Museum and the Durfee greenhouses, and images of the students in military drill. All photographs were taken by John L. Lovell of Amherst.

Gift of George A. Parker, Sept. 1915

Subjects

Massachusetts Agricultural College--Photographs

Contributors

Lovell, John L., 1825-1903Parker, George A

Types of material

Albumen printsPhotographs
People for a Socially Responsible University (PSRU)

People for a Socially Responsible University Records

1988-2009 Bulk: 1989-1990
1 box, 1 folder 0.5 linear feet
Call no.: RG 045/80 P5

Student protesters hold up a sign during a demonstration against military funded research at UMass, April 24, 1989. Photo by David Wettengel

Founded in 1988 as the anti-CIA protests began to wind down, the People for a Socially Responsible University (PSRU) was a student movement that started at UMass and saw participation from Hampshire College students as well as members of the community. The group began when students started to research the university’s military ties and funding from the United States Department of Defense. Concerned about the militarization of higher education, the group organized several non-violent protests. Over the course of six sit-in occupations of UMass campus buildings in the spring of 1989, around 200 students were arrested. After the UMass administration refused to acknowledge PSRU, a chapter was started at Hampshire College, and students opened an office in Amherst. The group also collaborated on demonstrations with the Central American Solidarity Association, and was involved in issues including budget cuts, school investment policy, economic conversion, and environmentalism. PSRU continued to be active until the graduations of the remaining students involved in the group in 1992. 

A small collection, the PSRU Records document an important period of student activism in the history of UMass. News clippings serve as a window to the community’s reaction to protests and student arrests, while correspondence, statements, and newsletters written by members of PSRU capture the passion of those involved in the demonstrations against military-funded research on campus. There are also records from the trials of a few of the UMass and Hampshire students arrested during the protests. The collection includes a number of photographs depicting protesters and the police force during the 1989 sit-ins. A copy of Randy Viscio’s book, Under the Bridge: Notes from a Me Generation Dropout, is also part of the collection.

Majority of material gift of Randy Viscio, 2024

Subjects

College students--Political activityStudent movementsStudent protestersUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst--Students

Contributors

People for a Socially Responsible UniversityViscio, Randy LouisWettengel, David

Types of material

Clippings (information artifacts)Fliers (printed matter)NewslettersPhotographs
Radical Student Union (RSU)

Radical Student Union Records

1905-2006 Bulk: 1978-2005
22 boxes 14.5 linear feet
Call no.: RG 045/80 R1

Founded by Charles Bagli in 1976, the Revolutionary Student Brigade at UMass Amherst (later the Radical Student Union) has been a focal point for organization by politically radical students. RSU members have responded to issues of social justice, addressing both local, regional, and national concerns ranging from militarism to the environment, racism and sexism to globalization.

The RSU records document the history of a particularly long-lived organization of left-leaning student activists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Beginning in the mid-1970s, as students were searching for ways to build upon the legacy of the previous decade, the RSU has been a constant presence on campus, weathering the Reagan years, tough budgetary times, and dramatic changes in the political culture at the national and state levels. The RSU reached its peak during the 1980s with protests against American involvement in Central America, CIA recruitment on campus, American support for the Apartheid regime in South Africa, and government-funded weapons research, but in later years, the organization has continued to adapt, organizing against globalization, sweatshops, the Iraq War, and a host of other issues.

Subjects

Anti-apartheid movements--MassachusettsCentral America--Foreign relations--United StatesCollege students--Political activityCommunismEl Salvador--History--1979-1992Guatemala--History--1945-1982Iraq War, 2003-Nicaragua--History--1979-1990Peace movements--MassachusettsPersian Gulf War, 1991Political activists--Massachusetts--HistoryRacismSocialismStudent movementsUnited States--Foreign relations--Central AmericaUnited States. Central Intelligence AgencyUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst

Contributors

Progressive Student NetworkRadical Student UnionRevolutionary Student Brigade

Types of material

Banners
Science Fiction Society

Science Fiction Society Collection

1934-2003 Bulk: 1947-1990
ca.3,000 items 120 linear feet
Call no.: RB 010
Depiction of Astounding Science Fiction, Sept. 1954
Astounding Science Fiction, Sept. 1954

Temporarily stored offsite; contact SCUA to request materials from this collection.

Founded in 1964, the Science Fiction Society at UMass Amherst is one of the oldest university based clubs of its kind in the United States. From the beginning, the members of the Society built a library to share books and periodicals, eventually amassing one of the largest circulating science fiction collections on the east coast, and they encouraged members to write their own fiction, at various points publishing their own magazine.

The Science Fiction Society Collection contains thousands of issues of science fiction periodicals from the golden age of the 1940s through the late 1990s. The collection includes essentially complete runs of major titles such as Galaxy and Analog, as well as minor and more ephemeral magazines.

Subjects

Pulp literatureScience fiction
Stockwell, E. Sidney

E. Sidney Stockwell Papers

1910-1928
7 boxes 3.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 691
Depiction of Sid Stockwell
Sid Stockwell

A member of the Massachusetts Agricultural College class of 1919, Ervin Sidney Stockwell, Jr. (1898-1983) was born in Winthrop, Mass., to Grace Cobb and E. Sidney Cobb, Sr., a successful business man and owner of a wholesale dairy. Entering MAC as a freshman in 1915, Stockwell, Jr., studied agricultural economics and during his time in Amherst, took part in the college debate team, winning his class award for oratory, and dramatics with the Roister Doisters. He performed military service in 1918 at Plattsburgh, N.Y., and Camp Lee, Va. Stockwell went on to found a successful custom-house brokerage in Boston, E. Sidney Import Export, and was followed at his alma mater by his son and great-grandson.

The extensive correspondence between Sidney Stockwell and his mother, going in both directions, provides a remarkably in-depth perspective on a typical undergraduate’s life at Massachusetts Agricultural College during the time of the First World War, a period when MAC was considered an innovator in popular education. The letters touch on the typical issues of academic life and social activity, Stockwell’s hopes for the future, his military service and the war. Following graduation, Stockwell undertook an adventurous two year trip in which he worked his way westward across the country, traveling by rail and foot through the Dakotas, Wyoming and Montana, Washington state and California, taking odd jobs to earn his keep and writing home regularly to describe his journey. An oral history with Stockwell is available in the University Archives as part of the Class of 1919 project.

Subjects

Agricultural education--MassachusettsMassachusetts Agricultural College--StudentsMontana--Description and travelNorth Dakota--Description and travelWashington--Description and travelWorld War, 1914-1918

Contributors

Stockwell, E. SidneyStockwell, Helen Cobb
Tracy, Susan

Susan Tracy Papers

1966-1985
9 boxes 4.5 linear feet
Call no.: FS 005

Susan Tracy, Dean of Humanities, Arts, and Cultural Studies and Professor of American Studies and History at Hampshire College, received a B.A. in English and an MA. in history from the University of Massachusetts Amherst before earning her PhD. in history from Rutgers University. Her primary interests are in American social and intellectual history, particularly labor history; Afro-American history; and women’s history. She has taught United States history and women’s studies courses at the UMass Amherst.

The Susan Tracy Papers consist largely of Tracy’s files during her tenure as a student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (ca. 1966) and her time as a member of the University staff (ca. 1984). Included in the collection are documentation of the campus Everywoman’s Center and the Chancellor’s Committees on Sexual Harassment and Human Relations; issues of the “What’s Left” newsletter; records of the Women’s Studies Policies Board; and research for a student project on the Southwest Residential area.

Subjects

University of Massachusetts Amherst. Everywoman's CenterUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst. StudentsWomen college students

Contributors

Tracy, Susan
UMass Amherst. Dean of Students

UMass Amherst. Dean of Students, 1948-1987. 27 boxes (13.25 linear feet).

The Office of the Dean of Students at UMass Amherst was established by President John Lederle in 1961 to replace the separately structured offices of the Dean of Men and Dean of Women, and to provide more effective, more flexible support for a growing and changing student body. In the 1960s, the Dean of Students had responsibility for almost all operational units related to student life, including Admissions, Records, Residence Halls, Dining Halls, Student Union, Student Activities, Placement, and Financial Aid. As the University became a statewide administrative unit with the opening of UMass Boston and the Medical School, there was an increasing conflict between the Office of the Dean of Students on the Amherst campus and the growing demands for a responsive administrative hierarchy. In 1970, the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs was therefore created to provide an appropriate level of supervision for the various Student Affairs divisions with regard to budget, personnel and administration. The Office of the Dean of Students then became a student contact-based office, which cooperated and collaborated with the other divisions. The first Dean of Students, William Field came to UMass in 1951 as a guidance counselor and assistant professor of psychology. His tenure coincided with the massive expansion of campus and the turbulent years of the late 1960s and early 1970s, during which he played an important mediating role. The recipient of the Chancellor’s Medal in 1983, Field retired from office in 1988.

An important series of records documenting student life on the UMass Amherst campus, with an emphasis on the 1960s and 1970s. Among these are an extensive series of bylaws and charters for residence halls and registerred student organizations (RSOs) at UMass, as well as subject files on campus protests and demonstrations, students of color, and student groups of various sorts.

Subjects

  • African American students–Massachusetts.
  • Field, William.
  • Student movements–Massachusetts.
  • University of Massachusetts Amherst. Dean of Students.
  • University of Massachusetts Amherst–Students.
Call no.: RG 30/2