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

Collecting area: Photographs

Levy, Donald

Donald Levy Papers

1966-1987
2 boxes 2 linear feet
Call no.: MS 878
Depiction of Richie Havens at Krackerjacks, ca. 1968
Richie Havens at Krackerjacks, ca. 1968

The co-owner with Alan Peterson of Krackerjacks, a psychedelic clothing store in Boston, Donald “Jack” Levy grew the boutique he started in 1966 into a staple of the counterculture in the Boston area and eventually a franchise. Levy was at the center of a controversy in Cambridge when the city tried to ban “obscene” buttons. Though several stores removed the buttons, Levy refused and with community support, fought the city’s ban. Levy also opened several clothing stores in the Boston-area: Garbo, a women’s clothing store; Dazzle in 1973, a vintage clothing store; Goods in 1976, a natural fiber and novelty store; and purchased and refurbished the Blue Diner in 1986 (now the South Street Diner). He currently owns diners in Newton, Framingham, and Watertown Mass.

The Donald Levy Papers contain ephemera, photographs, and clippings primarily documenting Krackerjacks as well as Levy’s other clothing stores and the opening of Blue Diner. Of particular interest is a petition circulated by Levy during the city’s attempt to ban “obscene” buttons. Included among the signatures is a 15-year-old Jonathan Richman, who called the button ban, “an example of lingering Victorianism.”

Subjects

Counterculture--United States--20th centuryFashion--United States--20th centuryMassachusetts--Cambridge--History--20th centuryStores, Retail--Massachusetts

Contributors

Richman, Jonathan (Vocalist)

Types of material

ClippingsPetitionsPhotographs
Lewis, Gertrude Minnie, 1896-

Gertrude M. Lewis Papers

ca.1920-2001
6 boxes 3 linear feet
Call no.: FS 096
Depiction of Gertrude
Gertrude "Jean" Lewis, ca.1935

Overcoming a deeply impoverished childhood, Gertrude Lewis struggled to build a career in education, putting herself through college and graduate school. At the age of 32, she earned a bachelor’s degree from Ohio State, continuing on to a masters degree at New York University (1933), and finally, at age 51, a PhD from Yale (1947). For many years after receiving her doctorate, Lewis was employed as a Specialist for Upper Grades with the U.S. Office of Education in Washington. Among other career highlights, Lewis spent two years in Japan (1950-1951) as a Consultant in Elementary Education in the Education Section of the Allied Occupation government (SCAP). Lewis outlived her life partner, Ruth Totman, dying at home on December 10, 1996, a few months after her one hundredth birthday.

The Lewis Papers document the work and life of an educator of the masses, a traveler of the world, and a woman of the twentieth century. Documents pertaining to her work as an educator of both young students and veteran teachers show the changes within the theory and practice of pedagogy over time, over various geographic locales, and also highlight her role in that change. This collection also documents the numerous on-going side projects on which Lewis worked, including fostering creativity in schoolchildren, a biography of Franklin D. and Eleanor Roosevelt, and her own poetry and prose.

Subjects

Education, Elementary--JapanEducation, Elementary--United States--HistoryEducation--EvaluationEducation--United States--HistoryHealth Education--United StatesJapan--Civilization--American influencesStudents--Health and hygiene

Contributors

Lewis, Gertrude Minnie, 1896-Totman, Conrad DTotman, Ruth J

Types of material

Motion pictures (Visual work)Photographs
Lewis, Patricia Lee, 1937-

Patricia Lee Lewis Photograph Collection

1977-1979
3 boxes 2 linear feet
Call no.: PH 059
Depiction of Cotton Mill no. 2, Beijing, 1977
Cotton Mill no. 2, Beijing, 1977

A co-founder of the Valley Women’s Center and the Everywoman’s Center at UMass Amherst, Patricia Lee Lewis has been an important part of the vibrant activist culture in the Pioneer Valley since her graduation from Smith College in 1970, advocating for women, civil rights, peace, the environment, for small farms and rural communities, and for art. Her varied career has included service as Supervisor of Community Development for the Massachusetts Office for Children (1974-1976), as Rural Development Specialist for the Massachusetts Cooperative Extension Service, and as County Commissioner for Hampshire County (1984-1988). After receiving an MFA from Vermont College, she founded Patchwork Farm Writing Retreat in Westhampton in 1992, which offers workshops and retreats in creative writing and yoga.

As a member of a National Women’s Delegation, Lewis visited the People’s Republic of China in 1977. Having been invited by the All China Women’s Federation, Lewis and her colleagues toured the country, seeing the sights and examining the role of women, education, and agriculture, visiting Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Tachai, and Guilin. The many hundreds of photographs she took during the tour are a powerful visual record of the country only a few months after the Gage of Four were arrested and the Cultural Revolution declared ended. The collection also includes approximately 100 photographs taken of agriculture and rural life in Louisiana and Texas in 1979.

Gift of Patricia Lee Lewis, Mar. 2014

Subjects

China--PhotographsLouisiana--PhotographsTexas--Photographs

Types of material

Photographs
Libera, John

John Libera Collection

1934-1988
1 flat box 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 048
Depiction of Polish Tigers baseball team, ca.1935
Polish Tigers baseball team, ca.1935

A member of the Polish community in Southbridge, Mass., John Libera (1919-2007) was a long-time employee of American Optical Company, but was best known as a promoter of polka music and dancing. A performer, song writer, and host of a radio show for over thirty years, Libera was inducted into the Polka Music Hall of Fame in 1982 and invited to perform at the American Folklife Festival in 1988.

The Libera collection consists of four photographs of the Polish community in Southbridge during the 1930s along with fourteen photos, a videotape, and some correspondence and ephemera relating to the American Folklife Festival.

Subjects

Baseball teams--Massachusetts--Southbridge--PhotographsPolish Americans--Massachusetts--Southbridge--PhotographsSouthbridge (Mass.)Women--Societies and clubs--Massachusetts--Southbridge--Photographs

Contributors

Libera, John

Types of material

Photographs
Lillydahl, Sandy

Sandy Lillydahl Venceremos Brigade Photograph Collection

1970-2005 Bulk: 1970
1 box 0.5 linear feet
Call no.: PH 056

A 1969 graduate of Smith College and member of Students for a Democratic Society, Sandy Lillydahl took part in the second contingent of the Venceremos Brigade. Between February and April 1970, Lillydahl and traveled to Cuba as an expression of solidarity with the Cuban people and to assist in the sugarcane harvest.

The 35 color snapshots that comprise the Lillydahl collection document the New England contingent of the second Venceremos Brigade as they worked the sugarcane fields in Aguacate, Cuba, and toured the country. Each image is accompanied by a caption supplied by Lillydahl in 2005, describing the scene and reflecting on her experiences; and the collection also includes copies of the file kept by the FBI on Lillydahl, obtained by her through the Freedom of Information Act in 1975.

Subjects

Cuba--PhotographsStudents for a Democratic Society (U.S.)--PhotographsSugarcane--Harvesting--Cuba--PhotographsVenceremos Brigade--Photographs

Types of material

Photographs
Lipshires, Sidney

Sidney Lipshires Papers

1932-2012
7 boxes 3.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 730
Depiction of Sidney Lipshires
Sidney Lipshires

Born on April 15, 1919 in Baltimore, Maryland to David and Minnie Lipshires, Sidney was raised in Northampton, Massachusetts where his father owned two shoe stores, David Boot Shop and The Bootery. He attended the Massachusetts State College for one year before transferring to the University of Chicago and was awarded a BA in economics in 1940. His years at the University of Chicago were transformative, Lipshires became politically active there and joined the Communist Party in 1939. Following graduation in 1941, he married Shirley Dvorin, a student in early childhood education; together they had two sons, Ellis and Bernard. Lipshires returned to western Massachusetts with his young family in the early 1940s, working as a labor organizer. He served in the United States Army from 1943 to 1946 working as a clerk and interpreter with a medical battalion in France for over a year. Returning home, he ran for city alderman in Springfield on the Communist Party ticket in 1947. Lipshires married his second wife, Joann Breen Klein, in 1951 and on May 29, 1956, the same day his daughter Lisa was born, he was arrested under the Smith Act for his Communist Party activities. Before his case was brought to trial, the Smith Act was ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. Disillusioned with the Communist Party, he severed his ties with it in 1957, but continued to remain active in organized labor for the rest of his life. Earning his masters in 1965 and Ph.D. in 1971, Lipshires taught history at Manchester Community College in Connecticut for thirty years. During that time he worked with other campus leaders to establish a statewide union for teachers and other community college professionals, an experience he wrote about in his book, Giving Them Hell: How a College Professor Organized and Led a Successful Statewide Union. Sidney Lipshires died on January 6, 2011 at the age of 91.

Ranging from an autobiographical account that outlines his development as an activist (prepared in anticipation of a trial for conspiracy charges under the Smith Act) to drafts and notes relating to his book Giving Them Hell, the Sidney Lipshires Papers offers an overview of his role in the Communist Party and as a labor organizer. The collection also contains his testimony in a 1955 public hearing before the Special Commission to Study and Investigate Communism and Subversive Activities, photographs, and biographical materials.

Subjects

Communism--United States--HistoryCommunists--MassachusettsJews--Massachusetts--Northampton--HistoryJews--Political activity--United States--History--20th centuryLabor movement--United States--History--20th centuryLabor unions--United States--Officials and employees--Biography

Contributors

Lipshires, David MLipshires, Joann BLipshires, Sidney

Types of material

AutobiographiesPhotographsTestimonies
Ludwig, Allan I.

Allan I. Ludwig Collection

1956-1966
10 boxes 10 linear feet
Call no.: PH 034

An historian and photographer, Allan I. Ludwig’s book Graven Images: New England Stonecarving and Its Symbols, 1650-1815 (1966) played a critical role in the rise in interest in gravestone studies in the 1960s. Born in Yonkers, N.Y., in 1933, Ludwig received his PhD in art history from Yale in 1964 and became involved with the Association for Gravestone Studies beginning with the initial Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife in 1976. He received the AGS Forbes Award in 1980 in recognition of his contributions to gravestone studies. He has been a professor of art history at Dickinson College, Bloomfield College, Rhode Island School of Design, Yale University, and Syracuse University. In addition to his books Reflections Out of Time: A Portfolio of Photographs (1981) and Repulsion: Aesthetics of the Grotesque (1986), Ludwig has curated numerous art exhibitions and exhibited his own photographs worldwide.

The Ludwig Collection consists of many hundreds of photographs of New England and English gravemarkers organized either by the deceased’s name or by the town, as well as copies of all photos used in Graven Images. Also included in the collection is a copy of Ludwig’s dissertation on gravestone iconography and offprints of several of his articles.

Subjects

Sepulchral monuments--New England

Contributors

Association for Gravestone StudiesLudwig, Allan I

Types of material

Photographs
Lyman Family Papers

Lyman Family Papers

1839-1942
7 boxes 2.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 634
Depiction of Edward H.R. and Catharine A. Lyman on their wedding day
Edward H.R. and Catharine A. Lyman on their wedding day

The descendants of Joseph Lyman (1767-1847) flourished in nineteenth century Northampton, Mass., achieving social prominence, financial success, and a degree of intellectual acclaim. Having settled in Northampton before 1654, just a generation removed from emigration, the Lymans featured prominently in the development of the Connecticut River Valley. A Yale-educated clerk of the Hampshire County courts, Joseph’s descendants included sons Joseph Lyman (an engineer and antislavery man) and Samuel Fowler Lyman (a jurist), and three Harvard-educated grandsons, Benjamin Smith Lyman (a geologist and traveler in Meiji-era Japan) and brothers Joseph and Frank Lyman (both trained in the natural sciences).

Consisting of the scattered correspondence and photographic record of three generations of an intellectually adventurous Northampton family, the Lyman collection explores the ebb and flow of family relations, collegiate education, and educational travel in Europe during the mid-nineteenth century, with important content on antislavery and the Free State movement in Kansas. Although the family’s tendency to reuse names (repeatedly) presents a challenge in distinguishing the various recipients, the focal points of the collection include the geologist Benjamin Smith Lyman, his uncle Joseph (1812-1871), cousins Joseph (1851-1883) and Frank, and Frank’s son Frank Lyman, Jr. Antislavery is a major theme in the letters of Samuel F. Lyman to his son Benjamin, and in the letterbook of the Kansas Land Trust, an affiliate of the New England Emigrant Aid Company, of which the elder Joseph was Treasurer.

Gift of Christine Lyman Chase, 2009.

Subjects

Antislavery movements--MassachusettsGermany--Description and travel--19th centuryHarvard University--StudentsKansas Land TrustKansas--History--1854-1861New England Emigrant Aid Company

Contributors

Lawrence, Amos Adams, 1814-1886Lyman, Benjamin Smith, 1835-1920Lyman, Joseph B, 1812-1871

Types of material

Photographs
Lyman, Benjamin Smith, 1835-1920

Benjamin Smith Lyman Papers

1831-1921
52 boxes 42 linear feet
Call no.: MS 190
Depiction of Benjamin Smith Lyman, 1902
Benjamin Smith Lyman, 1902

A native of Northampton, Massachusetts, Benjamin Smith Lyman was a prominent geologist and mining engineer. At the request of the Meiji government in Japan, Lyman helped introduce modern geological surveying and mining techniques during the 1870s and 1880s, and his papers from that period illuminate aspects of late nineteenth century Japan, New England, and Pennsylvania, as well as the fields of geology and mining exploration and engineering. From his earliest financial records kept as a student at Phillips Exeter Academy through the journal notations of his later days in Philadelphia, Lyman’s meticulous record-keeping provides much detail about his life and work. Correspondents include his classmate, Franklin B. Sanborn, a friend of the Concord Transcendentalists and an active social reformer, abolitionist, and editor.

The papers, 1848-1911, have been organized into nine series: correspondence, financial records, writings, survey notebooks, survey maps, photographs, student notes and notebooks, collections, and miscellaneous (total 25 linear feet). A separate Lyman collection includes over 2,000 books in Japanese and Chinese acquired by Lyman, and in Western languages pertaining to Asia.

Language(s): JapaneseEnglish

Subjects

Geological surveys--AlabamaGeological surveys--IllinoisGeological surveys--India--PunjabGeological surveys--JapanGeological surveys--Japan--MapsGeological surveys--MarylandGeological surveys--Nova ScotiaGeological surveys--PennsylvaniaGeological surveys--Pennsylvania--MapsGeologists--United StatesGeology--Equipment and supplies--CatalogsGeology--Japan--History--19th centuryJapan--Description and travel--19th centuryJapan--MapsJapan--PhotographsJapan--Social life and customs--1868-1912Mining engineering--Equipment and supplies--CatalogsMining engineering--Japan--History--19th centuryMining engineers--United States

Contributors

Lyman, Benjamin Smith, 1835-1920Sanborn, F. B. (Franklin Benjamin), 1831-1917

Types of material

Account booksBook jacketsField notesLetterpress copybooksMapsNotebooksPhotographsScrapbooksTrade catalogs
MacConnell, William Preston, 1918-

William P. MacConnell Aerial Photograph Collection

ca.1950-2000
ca.24,000 items
Call no.: FS 190

In the 1950s, William P. MacConnell (Class of 1943), and his photogrammetry students in the Dept. of Forestry began using aerial photography to map forests, agricultural fields, wetlands, and other land cover in Massachusetts. Their work was eventually expanded to include the mapping of all land use for Massachusetts, making this state the first in the nation to be completely mapped in this fashion, and laying the foundation for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Wetlands Inventory.

The MacConnell Collection includes a comprehensive set of stereopair photographs derived from multiple transects of the state taken between 1950 and 2000. In addition to some original field notes, a stereoscope, and other project materials, the collection includes the following series:

  • 1951: Massachusetts, black and white prints (1:20,000 scale)
  • 1971: Massachusetts, black and white prints (1:20,000)
  • 1985: Massachusetts and Rhode Island, infrared transparencies (1:25,000)
  • 1990: Boston, Cape Cod, Buzzard’s Bay, infrared transparencies (1:12,000)
  • 1991-1992: Massachusetts, infrared transparencies (1:40,000)
  • 1991-1992: Merrimack River Valley, North Shore, MDC-1, infrared transparencies (1:12,000)
  • 1993: Massachusetts, Cape Cod, MDC-2, Nantucket, Dukes and Plymouth Counties, Naushon, West Metro, infrared transparencies (1:12,000)
  • 1999: Massachusetts. infrared transparencies and prints (1:25,000)

We are in the process of digitizing the aerial photographs — the 1951-1952 photographs are currently available online. Use the searchable map index to find all available digital images.

Subjects

Land use--MassachusettsMacConnell, William Preston, 1918-Maps--MassachusettsWetlands--Massachusetts

Types of material

Aerial photographyMaps