Collections: U

One of the oldest programs of its kind in the country, the MFA Program for Poets and Writers at UMass Amherst was established by the poet Joseph Langland in 1963, offering students an opportunity for intensive focus on their creative work. Unlike the Iowa Writers Workshop, where Langland had studied, students in the UMass program were required to take coursework outside of writing workshops. Over its first fifty years, the program has grown into one of the top ten in the nation and its graduates and faculty have been recognized with awards from the Pulitzer to the National Book Award, Pushcart Prize, the PEN/Faulkner Award, and US Poet Laureate.

The MFA collection contains a growing body of work from students, alumni, and faculty affiliated with the Program for Poets and Writers at UMass Amherst. Among the hundreds of volumes are novels, collections of short stories, plays, and poetry, including a large number of chapbooks and small press imprints.

Chartered in 1835, the Boston and Maine Railroad was one of the largest and most successful railroad operations in northern New England for over a century, hauling both freight and passengers. The Railway began a slow decline as early as the 1930s with the decline in manufacturing in the region and later with the decline of passenger service. It came through a bankruptcy in 1970 and continues as a non-operating ward of Pan Am Railways.

This collection consists of blueprint valuations of the assets of the Boston and Maine Railroad, compiled by the Bureau of Valuation of the U.S. Interstate Commerce Commission in 1931.

The collection consists of audio and visual tapes of radio and television coverage of U.S. presidential elections in 1972, 1980, and 1988. In total there are more than 250 tapes containing interviews with the candidates, election commercials, speeches, party conventions, and news media commentary.

In 1993, UMass Educational Television was created by Dean Bailey Jackson and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Jay Carey to establish a creative media outreach project for the School of Education. Professor Liane Brandon was asked to be the Director with Associate Dean Jay Carey as Co-director. Working in collaboration with staff member Scott Perry, they designed UMass Educational Television to provide the public with innovative, original, educational programming using the resources of the School of Education and the University, and to serve as a hands-on learning laboratory for students and teachers. They became the only School of Education in the country to produce original educational programming for cable/home audiences. Despite the positive reception of the programs produced, funding for the UMass Educational Television was cut and production ceased in 2003.

The UMass Educational Television Collection consists of many of the original programs they developed and created: Try This At Home, Fresh Ink, Who Knows? Pet Tales, Valley Vignettes, Hi Mom!, and Fine Print. Show flyers, posters, production files, and awards provide insight into the creation and reception of programs.

Although the precise origins of UMass Peacemakers are murky, by 1982, the group was an active presence on the UMass Amherst campus organizing opposition to militarism and the nuclear arms race and providing support for the nuclear freeze movement. Organizing vigils, demonstrations, informational workshops, and providing civil disobedience training, the Peacemakers were the most visible pacifist group on the UMass Amherst campus in the 1980s.

The UMass Peacemakers Records focus on the activities of the student group between 1983 and 1990, documenting their role in confronting the aggressive international expansionism of the Reagan administration and its “Star Wars” program, while also engaging at the local and national level by organizing rallies, lectures, poetry readings, and film screenings. At UMass, Peacemakers was part of the larger Progressive Student Network, and worked alongside other student organizations including the Radical Student Union.

A small town situated on the Southegan River in the southern tier of New Hampshire, Wilton had a population of over 1,300 in 1860. Fed by an influx of Irish and Canadian immigrants, the economy at the time was based on a mix of agriculture and small-scale manufacturing, including woolen and yarn mills and factories for furniture and shoes and boots.

Although the identity of the undertaker who kept this volume is nowhere recorded, research into the names of his clients strongly suggests that he operated in or near Wilton (Hillsborough County), New Hampshire. The entries are invariably brief but informative, noting the name of the deceased, date of death and age, notes on the services provided (coffin plate, handles, “sexton service,” “grave”), and the cost of those services. On rare occasions, there are notes on the cause of death, including a cluster of deaths by consumption in the winter of 1858-1859.

Owner of business (identity unknown) who served in the vicinity of Wrentham, Massachusetts, as a purveyor of home decorating supplies and furnishings and as an undertaker. The account book includes records of goods for sale and services provided (repairing and upholstering furniture, packing bodies in ice, carrying to tomb, grave digging, etc.); forms of payment (cash, exchange of goods such as soap, eggs, tables, and chairs, and exchange of services); and lists of customers, including City Mills Felting Company, A.H. Morse, J.A. Guild, Joseph Hutchinson, Charles Scott, and Foster Smith.

UVC logo

Founded in 1976, originally under the name of the Student Video Project, UMass’ Union Video Center was planned as early as 1972 and quickly gained popularity alongside the general rise of public access television in the late 70s. The UVC’s mission has been consistent throughout its existence, emphasizing their ability to offer students the opportunity to work in/with video production in a structured and organized manner that, at the time, was not generally accessible. Through the UVC’s workshops, students are taught the various aspects of the video production process, surrounding areas such as cinematography, lighting, editing, screenwriting and more. Through these UVC workshops the organization created a community through media made by UMass students. The variety of programs created through UVC are extremely diverse and include original programs like UMass This Week, the UMass Sports Weekly Show, a comedy sketch show known as Yak Back, dating shows and others, as well as documenting hundreds of events on campus. The organization was shepherded in its early years by early founders/directors such as Mark Chesak, David Skillicorn, Irene Starr, Mark Gunning, and Dennis Martin, in addition to many student staff and volunteers.

UVC began with an investment of $30-$40,000 of half inch reel to reel EIAJ video equipment. They were, and still are, one of the few student agencies that receives funding from the Student Government Association, as opposed to other student run organizations that have a budget allocated for them. This difference in funding is specifically garnered for student agencies that are seen as integral to strengthening the student experience at UMass.

Throughout the UVC’s extensive history, they have covered an array of important UMass and community events such as concerts/festivals, distinguished lectures, campus protests, independent student films, sporting events and much more. This collection contains over 3,000 recordings and are on an array of different video formats such as Betamax, VHS, SVHS, EIAJ, CDs, DVDs, VHSC, miniDV, and eventually to digital files and a YouTube channel.  Some highlights from the collection include substantial coverage of artists who have performed at UMass including the Sun Ra Orchestra, Archie Shepp, Jonathan Richman, Black Flag, The Wailers, Dinosaur Jr., Max Roach, Sweet Honey in the Rock and countless others. Other highlights include sizable coverage of UMass’ diverse community events such as the Asian American Student Association’s Asian night celebrations. Furthermore, UVC’s vast coverage of activism and political speakers on campus is documented through lectures by Noam Chomsky and James Baldwin as well as student protests against the invasion of Grenada, the US presence in El Salvador, and Iraq invasion teach-ins. Beyond the events that UVC documented, the collection also sheds light on the inner workings of the organization through correspondence, financial documents , and training material. The collection also includes extensive budget planning, yearly reports of the organization’s goals and accomplishments, video workshop teaching materials, guidelines/manuals, UVC alumni networks, and fliers.

The decision of clerical and technical workers at Boston University to organize with District 65 of the UAW was as rooted in the labor movement as it was in the womens movement. By the early 1970s, office workers at B.U. were dissatsified with working conditions that included — among other grievances — sexual harassment and a classification system that did not value “women’s work.” In 1979 after an intense struggle with the administration, B.U. finally recognized the union and signed their first contract.

The collection includes a printed history and videotape documenting unionization activities at Boston University’s Medical Campus.

The first local of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners to be founded in western Massachusetts was chartered in 1885 as Springfield Local 96, followed in quick order by locals in Holyoke (390) and Chicopee (685). With the pace of unionization picking up at the turn of the century, the Springfield District Council was established in 1906 to coordinate collective bargaining efforts and apprenticeships, and to enforce work rules in the local construction industry. Holyoke carpenters formed their own District Council soon thereafter. Tthe logic of consolidation and a unified voice eventually led the Springfield locals to consolidate as Local 32 in 1968, which in turn merged with the Holyoke District Council in 1973 to form Local 108.

The records of the Western Massachusetts locals and district councils of the UBCJA documents the rise of unionization among carpenters in the Connecticut River Valley since the 1880s. This collection represents a merger of separate accessions for the District Councils in Springfield (MS 110), the Pioneer Valley (MS 231), and Holyoke (MS 108), along with post-merger records for Local 108. In general, each has been maintained as a distinct series