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

Collecting area: Literature & language

Culley, Margo

Margo Culley Papers

1973-1985
1 box 1.5 linear feet
Call no.: FS 103

A former Professor of English at UMass Amherst and contributor to the Program in Women’s Studies, Margaret (Margo) Culley was a specialist in women’s literature, particularly in women’s autobiography and diaries as a literary form. Her research drew variously upon work in literature, history, American studies, and religion, exploring gender and genre, language, subjectivity, memory, cultural diversity, and narrative. Between 1985 and 1994, she edited three volumes on American women’s autobiographical writing, and another on feminist teaching in the college classroom.

The Culley Papers offer a somewhat fragmentary glimpse into Culley’s academic career and her commitments to women’s literature. The collection includes selected notes for research and teaching, annotated bibliographies of women’s literature, a performance script for The Voices of Lost New England Women Writers, a federal grant proposal for The Black Studies/Women’s Studies Faculty Development Project (1981), and notes related to a study on minority women in the classroom. Letters collected by Culley’s students (late 18th and early 19th century) have been separated from the collection and designated as manuscript collections.

Subjects

University of Massachusetts Amherst--FacultyUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst--WomenUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst. Department of EnglishUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst. Program in Women's Studies

Contributors

Culley, Margo
Diamond, Arlyn, 1941-

Arlyn Diamond Papers

1976-1988
1 box 1.5 linear feet
Call no.: FS 118

As a member of the faculty in the English Department at UMass Amherst in 1972, Arlyn Diamond became one of the founding members of the Program in Women’s Studies. A scholar of medieval European literature, Diamond received her doctorate from Berkeley in 1970 and became an early proponent of feminist criticism. Among other works, she was author of Authority of Experience: Essays in Feminist Criticism (1988) and editor (with Lee Edwards) of American Voices, American Women (1973). Diamond retired from the University in 2004.

This small collection consists primarily of notes for research and teaching. Of particular interest is a series of women’s studies bibliographies, readings for the Five College Women’s Studies Faculty Seminar (Autumn 1977), graduate level feminist theory courses, and notes related to the history of women’s studies. Also included among the papers are financial records from the 1977 Five College Women’s Studies Faculty Seminar.

Subjects

Feminist CriticismUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst--FacultyUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst. Department of EnglishUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst. Program in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Donohue, Joseph W., 1935-

Joseph W. Donohue Papers

1963-2003
37 boxes 55.5 linear feet
Call no.: FS 110

Theater historian and critic, Joseph W. Donohue, Jr., was appointed Associate Professor of English at UMass Amherst in 1971. An alumnus of Princeton (PhD, 1965), Donohue specialized in British drama and theater, with an emphasis on the period from the Restoration to the present day, with a particular interest in the study of the performed play and its relationship to the audience, community, and society. While at UMass, he taught courses ranging from Shakespeare on Film to The Vitality of British Drama. Donohue remained at UMass until his retirement in May 2005.

The papers reflect Donohue’s professional life from his time at Princeton through his years as a Professor of English at UMass. Among the papers are course notes, teaching materials, and a myriad of materials relating to the history of British theater.

Subjects

Theater--History--Great BritainUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst--FacultyUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst. Department of English

Contributors

Donohue, Joseph W., 1935-
Finkelstein, Sidney Walter, 1909-1974

Sidney Finkelstein Papers

1914-1974
11 boxes 5.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 128

Noted critic of music, literature, and the arts, as well as a writer and an active member of the Communist Party U.S.A. Includes letters to and from Mr. Finkelstein; original manuscripts of reviews, articles, essays, and books; legal documents, educational, military, and personal records, financial papers, contracts, photographs, and lecture and course notes.

Gift of Maynard Solomon, 1986

Subjects

Art criticism--United States--History--20th centuryCommunism--United States--HistoryCommunist Party of the United States of America--History--20th centuryCommunist aesthetics--History--SourcesCulture--Study and teaching--United States--History--20th centuryMusic--History and criticismMusical criticism--United States--HistorySocialist realism--History--Sources

Contributors

Cohen, R. S. (Robert Sonné)Finkelstein, Sidney Walter, 1909-1974Gorton, Sally Kent, 1915-2000Hille, Waldemar, 1908-Kent, Rockwell, 1882-1971Lawson, John Howard, 1894-Richmond, Al, 1913-1987Selsam, Millicent Ellis, 1912-Siegmeister, Elie, 1909-Thomson, Virgil, 1896-Veinus, Abraham

Types of material

Letters (Correspondence)Photographs
Francis, Robert, 1901-1987

Robert Francis Papers

1891-1988
17 boxes 8.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 403
Depiction of Robert Francis, by Frank A. Waugh,<br />Nov. 1939
Robert Francis, by Frank A. Waugh,
Nov. 1939

The poet and essayist Robert Francis settled in Amherst, Mass., in 1926, three years after his graduation from Harvard, and created a literary life that stretched for the better part of half a century. An associate of Robert Frost and friend of many other writers, Francis occasionally worked as a teacher or lecturer, including a brief stint on the faculty at Mount Holyoke College, but he sustained himself largely through his writing, living simply in “Fort Juniper,” a cottage he built on Market Hill Road in North Amherst. A recipient of the Shelley Award (1939) and the Academy of American Poets award for distinguished poetic achievement (1984), Francis was a poet in residence at both Tufts (1955) and Harvard (1960) Universities. He died in Amherst in July 1987.
The Francis Papers contains both manuscript and printed materials, drafts and finished words, documenting the illustrious career of the poet. Of particular note is Francis’s correspondence with other writers, publishing houses, and readers, notably Paul Theroux. Also contains personal photographs and Francis family records and a small number of audio recordings of Francis reading his poetry. Letters from Francis to Regina Codey, 1936-1978, can be found in MS 314 along with two typescript poems by Francis.

Connect to another siteListen to interviews with Francis on Poems to a Listener", 1977-1978

Subjects

Amherst (Mass.)--HistoryPoetry--PublishingPoets--MassachusettsUniversity of Massachusetts Press

Contributors

Brown, RosellenCiardi, John, 1916-De Vries, PeterFitts, Dudley, 1903-Francis, Robert, 1901-1987Hall, Donald, 1928-Humphries, RolfeMoore, Marianne, 1887-1972Moss, Howard, 1922-Shawn, Ted, 1891-1972Theroux, PaulWilbur, Richard, 1921-

Types of material

AudiotapesPhonograph recordsPhotographs
Gates, John Edward

John Edward Gates Papers

1982-1991
2 boxes 3 linear feet
Call no.: MS 518

Lexicographer and former English faculty at Indiana State University, John Edward Gates is the author of numerous scholarly articles on idiomatic phrases and the principles and practice of dictionary making, as well as the co-editor of the Dictionary of Idioms for the Deaf. Reflecting his work as a lexicographer, this collection consists of research notes and proofs of articles and book reviews.

Subjects

LexicographyLinguistics

Contributors

Gates, John Edward
Gerzina, Gretchen

Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina Papers

ca. 1989-ca. 2011
3 boxes 3.75 linear feet
Call no.: FS 203

Gretchen Gerzina, Paul Murray Kendall Chair in Biography and Professor of English at UMass Amherst, served as dean of Commonwealth Honors College for five years before joining the English department full-time. A native of Ann Arbor, Mich., who grew up in Springfield, Mass., Gerzina is the child of a white mother and Black father who, in her research and writing, has often engaged with issues of race and the lives of those affected by racial and other boundaries. She is known for her biographies, including those of Dora Carrington and Frances Hodgson Burnett; her work on Black Britain including Black England: A Forgotten Georgian History (a revised and reissued version of Black London: Life Before Emancipation); and the acclaimed Mr. and Mrs. Prince: How an Extraordinary Eighteenth-Century Family Moved Out of Slavery and Into Legend. Gerzina hosted public radio’s nationally syndicated program “The Book Show,” interviewing many of contemporary literature’s notable figures, from 1997 to 2012, and a ten-part BBC radio series, “Britain’s Black Past,” which aired in 2016. She has also taught at Vassar, Barnard, and Dartmouth, where she was the first Black woman to chair an Ivy League English department.

The Gerzina Papers consist of materials relating to some of Gerzina’s research and published books and include notes, correspondence, draft manuscripts, and publication-related material, as well as approximately 400 recordings on CD of “The Book Show.” Additions to the collection are expected.

Gift of Gretchen H. Gerzina, 2021.

Subjects

Authors--MassachusettsUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst--FacultyUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst. Department of English
Gibson, W. Walker

W. Walker Gibson Papers

1936-1993
3 boxes 3.5 linear feet
Call no.: FS 062
Depiction of Walker Gibson
Walker Gibson

Walker Gibson, a professor of English at the University from 1967 to 1987, was a passionate teacher of writing and rhetoric and author of humorous verse. Gibson was born in Jacksonville, Florida in 1919 but was raised in Albany, New York. He earned his B.A. from Yale in 1940 and began graduate work at Harvard, however, his studies were interrupted by World War II, where he served in the U.S. Army Air Corps. After the War, Gibson earned his M.A. from the University of Iowa, where he was a research assistant for the Iowa Writers Workshop. For the next twenty years, Gibson taught English and writing at Amherst College and published prose and his signature humorous verse in the New Yorker, Atlantic, Harpers, and the New York Times Magazine among others. Gibson also published several books, including collections of verse, as well as prose works on writing, teaching composition, and literary criticism. Gibson died at the age of 90 in February, 2009.

The Walker Gibson Papers document the writer and teacher’s career through published and unpublished early writings during his years at Yale, binders including his published writings from the 1950s, correspondence with Theodore Baird, his supervisor at Amherst College, and lecture notes from his University writing and English classes. Completing the collection are three folders of miscellaneous correspondence and a folder of Gibson’s unpublished manuscripts from the late seventies and early eighties.

Gift of W. Walker Gibson, 1999

Subjects

National Council of Teachers of EnglishUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst--FacultyUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst. Department of English

Contributors

Gibson, W. Walker
Golden, Morris

Morris Golden Papers

1977-1992
14 boxes 8 linear feet
Call no.: MS 030
Depiction of

Romanian-born Morris Golden earned his doctorate in English from New York University in 1953. Golden authored six books of literary criticism on 18th and 19th century writers, including Henry Fielding, Samuel Richardson, and Charles Dickens. Appointed Associate Professor of English at UMass Amherst in 1962 and promoted to full professor in 1965, Golden taught at UMass for 24 years. Golden retired from UMass in 1986, the year he was a Guggenheim Fellow, but he continued to teach literature at the Amherst Senior Center until his death in 1994.

The Golden Papers are a collection of Golden’s writings as a student at NYU, a draft of his dissertation and other manuscripts as well as many of his publications. Also included in the collection are grade books, professional correspondence, and extensive notes for research and teaching in the area of English and world literature.

Subjects

University of Massachusetts Amherst--FacultyUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst. Department of English

Contributors

Golden, Morris
Goldspinner, Jay

Jay Goldspinner Collection

1973-2012
3 boxes 3 linear feet
Call no.: MS 909

1977 Spring Equinox cover of WomenSpirit

All social change and cultural movements have their associated resources for the exchange of information, ideas, stories, and art. Particularly in the women’s movement, the effort to create newsletters, journals, and other forms of information dissemination was a proactive step taken to assert women’s stories and to locate the power of the press within women-run communities. These periodicals, both large and small in scale, reveal the ways women connected to each other and to larger spiritual and cultural concepts. Local artist, activist, and feminist Jay Goldspinner was engaged with many of these communities, particularly those characterizing the spiritual elements of the women’s liberation and feminist movements, and collected and saved their periodicals. Her collection includes journals focusing on feminist linguistics, goddess myths and spirituality, Wiccan and witch traditions, progressive politics, and women’s spirituality and community in local and international settings. Each is a unique window into discourses of women’s history, feminist movements, and social change work.

The Jay Goldspinner Collection consists of issues of feminist and progressive periodicals, journals, and newsletters from over five decades, along with correspondence, ephemera, and scrapbooks from Goldspinner’s life, especially her work as a storyteller. Published titles represented include Always in Season, Goddessing, The Lonesome Node, The People’s Voice of Franklin County, Themis/Thesmophoria, Wicked Word, and an almost complete run, including the two indexes, of the seminal magazine of feminist spirituality, WomenSpirit.

Subjects

Feminism--PeriodicalsFranklin County (Mass.) --PeriodicalsGoddess religion--PeriodicalsNeopaganism--PeriodicalsSpiritual feminism--PeriodicalsWicca--PeriodicalsWitchcraft--PeriodicalsWomen and spiritualism--PeriodicalsWomen's rights and spiritualism--Periodicals

Types of material

Periodicals