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

Collecting area: Photographs

Geisler, Bruce

Bruce Geisler Collection

1969-1984
21 boxes 30 linear feet
Call no.: PH 049
Depiction of Renaissance Community, ca.1974
Renaissance Community, ca.1974

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

In the early 1970s, the documentary filmmaker Bruce Geisler dropped out of Pomona College one semester short of graduation, drove across country, and joined the Brotherhood of the Spirit commune, then the largest commune in the eastern United States. During his four years living with the Brotherhood, later renamed the Renaissance Community, Geisler learned the craft of filmmaking, before returning west to earn an MFA at the film school of the University of Southern California. Geisler has received a number of awards as a screenwriter and filmmaker including the Grand Prize for Best Screenplay from Worldfest Houston and the Dominique Dunne Memorial Prize for Filmmaking, and, in 2007, he released his feature-length documentary, Free Spirits, about the Brotherhood of the Spirit/Renaissance Community and its ill-fated founder, Michael Metelica Rapunzel. Geisler is currently a Senior Lecturer in the UMass Amherst Department of Communication.

Documenting everyday life in a Massachusetts commune and performances by the commune bands (Spirit in Flesh and Rapunzel), the Geisler collection was assembled in conjunction with the making of the film Free Spirits. In addition to many hours of both raw and edited film footage taken by members of the Brotherhood of the Brotherhood of the Spirit and Renaissance Community, the collection includes a rich assemblage of still photographs, ephemera, and newspaper clippings relating to the commune.

Subjects

Brotherhood of the Spirit (Commune)Communal living--MassachusettsRenaissance Community (Commune)

Contributors

Geisler, Bruce

Types of material

PhotographsVideotapes
German Military Personnel

German Military Personnel Photograph Collection

ca. 1930-1939
2 boxes 0.75 linear feet
Call no.: MS 384

Photographs from the 1930s and 1940s featuring both major government officials such as Hitler, Goebbels, and Himmler, and lower ranking officials such as regional party leaders. Photographs of German soldiers with their various weapons, some possibly fighting, are also depicted. Includes film stills from the Allied invasion of Normandy and German Communist refugees in the Soviet Union.

Subjects

Germans--PhotographsNazis--PhotographsWorld War, 1939-1945

Types of material

Photographs
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
Goldfarb, Theodore D., 1935-

Theodore D. Goldfarb Collection

1978 June-July
389 digital images 0.1 linear feet
Call no.: PH 071
Part of: Science for the People Collection
Depiction of Oil processing plant machinery, June 1978
Oil processing plant machinery, June 1978

An environmental chemist, Ted Goldfarb was a founder of the Science for the People chapter at SUNY Stony Brook and an organizer of the group’s second trip to the People’s Republic of China in June 1978. The twelve delegates from SftP went with the intention of studying the organization of science and technology in China with respect to how it met people’s needs, and they were toured through a succession of factories, production facilities, farms, schools, and institutes in Guangzhou, Shanghai, Changsha, and Beijing, among other locations.

The nearly 400 slides in this collection were taken by Ted Goldfarb (and handful by his colleague Judith Weinstein) when they were members of the second Science for the People delegation to the People’s Republic of China in June 1978. Reflecting their interests in science and technology, the slides document a succession of factories, production facilities, schools, and institutes they visited, but include shots of typical street scenes, markets, artisans and factory workers, and tourist sites such as the Great Wall, Ming Tombs, and Forbidden City. In addition to the images of China, a handful were taken during a stopover in Delhi and Agra, India, on the way back to the United States.

Subjects

Acrobats--China--ShanghaiChina--PhotographsCotton manufacture--China--Shanghai--PhotographsFactories--China--PhotographsForbidden City (Beijing, China)--PhotographsGreat Wall of China (China)--PhotographsIndia--PhotographsMing Tombs (China)--PhotographsScience for the PeopleTextile factories--China--Shanghai--Photographs

Contributors

Weinstein, Judith

Types of material

Photographs
Graham, Julie

Julie Graham Papers

1918-2009
33 boxes 49.5 linear feet
Call no.: FS 144

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

The economic geographer Julie Graham (1945-2010) and her colleague Katherine Gibson have been influential in envisioning alternatives to capitalist economics and economic development. After studying at Smith College (BA, 1965) and Clark University (PhD, 1984), Graham joined the faculty at UMass Amherst where she helped shape the new graduate program in geography. From early in her career, she worked so closely with her Australian colleague Gibson that they often published jointly under the pen name J.K. Gibson-Graham, and Graham developed close working relationships across several departments at UMass. A prolific author and inspiring mentor for students, Graham’s academic work drew upon an innovative mix of political economy, poststructuralist theory, feminism, and community-based research. Among her more significant publications are the now-classic The End of Capitalism (As We Knew It): A Feminist Critique of Political Economy (1996), on representations of capitalism and their political effect, A Postcapitalist Politics (2006), which explores alternatives to capitalism, and two edited volumes, Class and Its Others (2000) and Re/Presenting Class (2001). Graham died in Nashville on April 4, 2010.

The Graham Papers offer a detailed perspective on the radical geographer Julie Graham. The collections documents Graham’s life and career beginning in her undergraduate years and extending through her last research projects in community economies. Through correspondence and writings, photographs, and research — closely intertwined with her colleague Katherine Gibson — the collection gives shape of Graham’s radical challenge to human geography tinged with an optimistic economic and social possibility. The collection also includes letters, photographs, and genealogical matter relating to Graham’s family, extending back to the time of the First World War.

Subjects

CapitalismEconomic geographyFeminist economicsMarxian economicsSocial classesUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst--FacultyUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst. Department of GeosciencesWomen geographers

Contributors

Gibson, KatherineGibson-Graham, J. KGraham, Julie
Greenwich (Mass.)

Greenwich (Mass.) Collection

1734-1940
3 folders (plus digital) 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 011

Granted in 1737 and incorporated in 1754, Greenwich, Mass., was the first town in the Swift River Valley settled by Europeans. Sitting astride the East and Middle branches of the Swift River and forming the eastern boundary of Hampshire County, Greenwich was primarily an agricultural town with light manufacturing and, beginning in the later nineteenth century, an active tourist trade. The town’s population peaked at over 1,100 early in the nineteenth century, declining slowly thereafter.

The records of Greenwich, Mass., offer a long perspective on the history of the region inundated to create the Quabbin Reservoir. The core of this collection consists of the records of town meetings and the Selectmen of Greenwich from the Proprietary period in the 1730s through disincorporation in 1938, but there is some documentation of the town’s Congregational Church, a local school, the library, and the Greenwich Improvement Society. This finding aid reflects both materials held by SCUA and materials digitized in partnership with the Swift River Valley Historical Society in New Salem, Mass.

Subjects

Congregational churches--Massachusetts--Greenwich--HistoryEducation--Massachusetts--Greenwich--HistoryFires--Massachusetts--Greenwich--HistorGreenwich (Mass.)--HistoryGreenwich (Mass.)--Politics and governmentGreenwich (Mass.)--Religious life and customsGreenwich (Mass.)--Social life and customsLibraries--Massachusetts--GreenwichQuabbin Reservoir Region (Mass.)--HistoryQuabbin Reservoir Region (Mass.)--Social life and customs

Contributors

Greenwich (Mass. : Town)Greenwich (Mass. : Town). School CommitteeGreenwich (Mass. : Town). TreasurerGreenwich Improvement Society

Types of material

Account booksChurch recordsPhotographs
Haigis, John W., 1881-1960

John W. Haigis Papers

1903-1974
12 boxes 6 linear feet
Call no.: MS 304

Western Massachusetts political leader, publisher, and banker (1881-1960), trustee of the University of Massachusetts (1940-1956), and founder, editor and publisher of the Greenfield Recorder newspaper (1912-1928); political positions included State Representative (1909-1913), State Senator (1913-1915, 1923-1927), and State Treasurer (1929-1930); in 1934, was Republican candidate for Lieutenant Governor, and in 1936, candidate for Governor.

The Haigis collection includes scrapbooks (1903-1936), chiefly of clippings, together with speeches (1936), posters, badges, campaign material, and photographs, mainly from Haigis’s unsuccessful campaigns for lieutenant governor (1934) and governor (1936); and tape of an interview (1974) with Leverett Saltonstall about Haigis, conducted by Craig Wallwork.

Subjects

Campaign speeches--MassachusettsLegislators--Massachusetts--History--20th centuryMassachusetts--Politics and government--1865-1950Montague (Mass. : Town)--Politics and government--20th centuryPolitical candidates--Massachusetts--History--20th centuryRepublican Party (Mass.)--History--20th century

Contributors

Haigis, John W., 1881-1960Saltonstall, Leverett, 1892-Wallwork, Craig

Types of material

Phonograph recordsPhotographsPostersScrapbooks
Halley, Anne

Anne Halley Papers

1886-2004
12 boxes 8.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 628

Writer, editor, and educator, Anne Halley was born in Bremerhaven, Germany in 1928. A child during the Holocaust, she relocated with her family to Olean, New York during the late 1930s so that her father, who was Jewish, could resume his practice of medicine. Graduating from Wellesley and the University of Minnesota, Halley married a fellow writer and educator, Jules Chametzky, in 1958. Together they raised three sons in Amherst, Massachusetts where Chametzky was a professor of English at UMass and Halley taught and wrote. It was during the late 1960s through the 1970s that she produced the first two of her three published collections of poetry. The last was published in 2003 the year before she died from complications of multiple myeloma at the age of 75.

Drafts of published and unpublished short stories and poems comprise the bulk of this collection. Letters to and from Halley, in particular those that depict her education at Wellesley and her professional life during the 1960s-1980s, make up another significant portion of her papers. Publisher’s correspondence and a draft of Halley’s afterward document the Chametzkys effort to release a new edition of Mary Doyle Curran’s book, The Parish and the Hill, for which Halley and Chametzky oversaw the literary rights. Photographs of Halley’s childhood in Germany and New York as well as later photographs that illustrate the growth of her own family in Minnesota and Massachusetts offer a visual representation of her remarkable professional and pesonal life.

Subjects

Curran, Mary Doyle, 1917-1981Jews--Germany--History--1933-1945Poets, American--20th centuryWomen authors, AmericanWomen poets, AmericanWorld War, 1939-1945

Contributors

Chametzky, JulesHalley, Anne
Harding, William E.

William E. Harding Collection

1972-2003 Bulk: 1972-1981
2 boxes 1 linear feet
Call no.: MS 843
Depiction of

As an undergraduate at Williams College, William (Bill) Harding undertook a research project on the Bennington Centre Cemetery in Vermont to document its stones, through which he became engaged in a longer-term study of the most important carvers represented there in the years after the American Revolution, Zerubbabel Collins and Samuel Dwight. Harding’s work was an important contribution to understanding the transition from death’s head imagery to the gentler cherubs of the early national period and he unearthed significant detail on the lives of noted carvers. Harding went on to study medicine, but remained active in the early conferences of the Association for Gravestone Studies and as a lecturer on the topic for several years until the demands of his professional life gradually intervened.

Centered on his study of Vermont carvers and early gravestone iconography, the Harding collection includes photographs, research and lecture notes, some correspondence, and a sampling of published material. The collection contains Harding’s bachelor’s thesis, “The graveyard at Old Bennigton, Vermont, and the gravestones of Zerubbabel Collins” (1972) and his later, more comprehensive study “Bennington Gravestones” (1975), and notably, two fine prints of gravestones by his colleague, Daniel Farber.

Subjects

Bennington (Vt.)--HistoryBennington Centre CemeteryCollins, ZerubbabelSepulchral monuments--VermontStone carvers--Vermont

Types of material

Photographs
Harris, Carl C.

Carl C. Harris Papers

1898-1960
14 boxes 19 linear feet
Call no.: MS 667
Depiction of A slencil
A slencil

An inventor, entrepreneur, and corporate executive, Carl C. Harris was the third of four generations of his family to help manage the Rodney Hunt Company, a major manufacturer of waterwheels, turbines, and textile machinery based in Orange, Mass. While still in high school in 1898, Harris already displayed a sharp business and technical eye, establishing the first telephone company in Orange, and he began his career after graduation from Worcester Polytechnical Institute, working as a draftsman for GE and then as a superintendent at Rodney Hunt. After a brief stint at the Simplex Time Recorder Company in Gardner, Harris returned to Rodney Hunt for good in 1912. After acquiring a controlling interest in 1917, he remained with the company in several capacities through the Depression and Second World War, serving as general manager, vice president, and treasurer, and from 1938-1947, as president. Throughout his career, Harris remained active in developing or improving a variety of new products and processes, registering a total of 99 patents, and he regularly used his offices at Rodney Hunt to launch other, smaller enterprises, including the Slencil Company,which manufactured mechanical pencils; Riveto, which produced toys and a paper fastening device; and Speed-Mo, a manufacturer of a moistening pad system. Harris retired in 1956 and died four years later in Orange at the age of 79.

The Harris Papers are centered closely on the entrepreneurial activity of Carl C. Harris, and include a particularly thick set of business records for the Slencil Company (ca.1935-1960) and the Riveto Company (1930s-1940s), and the slender record book of the Home Telephone Company. In addition to these, the collection includes many dozen slencils, including prototypes, speciality models, presentation sets, store displays, and marketing designs; examples of Riveto toys, Simplex inventions, flotation devices, and other oddities invented by Harris, along with the associated patents.

Subjects

Orange (Mass.)--Economic conditionsOrange (Mass.)--HistoryToys

Contributors

Harris, Carl C.Riveto CompanyRodney Hunt Machine CompanySlencil CompanySpeed-Mo Company

Types of material

Realia