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

Collecting area: Massachusetts (East)

Belcher Family

Belcher Family Account Books

1847-1858
2 vols. 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 208 bd

Owners of a butcher shop in Foxborough, Massachusetts. Includes customer names, prices of meat, form of payment (principally cash), and Belcher family information.

Subjects

Belcher familyButchers--Massachusetts--FoxboroughConsumers--Massachusetts--FoxboroughDiet--Massachusetts--FoxboroughFoxborough (Mass.)--Economic conditions--19th centuryMeat--Prices--Massachusetts--FoxboroughShopping--Massachusetts--Foxborough

Contributors

Belcher, Lewis T., b. 1798Belcher, Lewis W., b. 1826

Types of material

Account books
Bigelow, Lambert

Lambert Bigelow Daybook

1822 Sept.-1823 May
1 vol., 169 p. 0.1 linear feet
Call no.: MS 975 bd

Lambert Bigelow (1821-1869) was proprietor of one of the most profitable general stores in Marlborough, Mass. Entering into partnership with his brother Levi in 1822, Bigelow grew to significant wealth, eventually joining with a friend and neighbor to establish the long-lasting firm, Morse, Bigelow, and Co. He died in 1869, survived by his wife and seven of eight children.

An early daybook maintained by the Lambert Bigelow’s newly established firm, and perhaps the first, this volume covers just over half a year of transactions (169 pages) typical of a New England country store of the 1820s. Bigelow’s customers purchased small quantities of goods ranging from molasses and rice to cotton and muslin, flour, sugar, tobacco, rum, “Holland gin,” and (rarely) brandy. Occasionally, Lambert dealt in daintier products such as cinnamon, raisins, and “cake chocolate,” or in specialty items like pudding pans, pitchers, and a black bean pot.

Subjects

General stores--Massachusetts--MarlboroughMarlborough (Mass.)--Economic conditions--19th century

Contributors

L. and L. Bigelow

Types of material

Daybooks
Bolton Monthly Meeting of Friends

Bolton Monthly Meeting of Friends Records

1799-1972
6 vols. 1 linear feet
Call no.: MS 902 B658

A Quaker worship group was formed in Bolton, Mass., in 1763 and grew into a separate monthly meeting in 1799. Always a small outpost, regular worship continued there until 1954, when the meetinghouse was sold to the museum at Old Sturbridge Village. The meeting was formally laid down to Worcester Monthly Meeting in 1972.

The surviving records of Bolton Monthly Meeting include relatively complete minutes from 1799 to 1972, plus records of marriages, births, and deaths into the latter years of the nineteenth century.

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, April 2017

Subjects

Bolton (Mass.)--Religious life and customsQuakers--MassachusettsSociety of Friends--Massachusetts

Contributors

New England Yearly Meeting of Friends

Types of material

Minutes (Administrative records)Vital records (Document genre)
Borchers, Kathy

Kathy Borchers Photojournalism Collection

1977-2018
7 boxes 2.75 linear feet
Call no.: PH 083
Depiction of Boy dressed as an eagle for the Fourth of July parade, Bristol, R.I., 1993
Boy dressed as an eagle for the Fourth of July parade, Bristol, R.I., 1993

An award-winning photojournalist, Kathy Borchers began a thirty year career with the Providence Journal in the mid-1980s. A native of Dayton, Ohio, she and her twin sister Karen (also a photojournalist) took up photography in high school and refined their technique as undergraduates at Bowling Green State University. After receiving her master’s degree at the Indiana University School of Journalism in 1981, Borchers worked for three years with the Topeka Capital-Journal before landing in Providence. In addition to covering general news and sports, she took on a number of special assignments and longer-form photoessays over the years in southern New England. She retired in 2015.

A rich sampling from a long career in photojournalism, the collection includes photographic negatives and prints along with associated published materials. Centered primarily on her time with the Providence Journal, the collection reflects the breadth of Borchers’ assignments, including general news, sports coverage, and longer-form photoessays, in both black and white and color. The collection also includes five self-made books: three on long-term photographic projects for the Journal and two career retrospectives.

Gift of Kathy Borchers, July 2018

Subjects

Photojournalists--Rhode IslandRhode Island--Photographs

Contributors

Providence Journal

Types of material

Photographs
Boston AIDS Consortium

Boston AIDS Consortium Records

1991-2005
12 boxes 18 linear feet
Call no.: MS 458

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

In the fall 1987, a working group was formed in Boston to help coordinate planning for HIV-related services, prevention, and education. The Boston AIDS Consortium began operations the following January with the goal of ensuring effective services for people affected by HIV/AIDS and enabling them to live healthy and productive lives. In its eighteen year existence, the Consortium worked with over seventy public and private agencies and two hundred individuals.

The Records of the Boston AIDS Consortium provide valuable insight into community-based mobilization in response to the AIDS epidemic.

Subjects

AIDS (Disease)AIDS activists--MassachusettsAcquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome--Prevention and control

Contributors

Boston AIDS Consortium
Boston Jazz Society

Boston Jazz Society Records

ca. 1973-2014
6 boxes 10 linear feet
Call no.: MS 880
Depiction of

Founded in 1973, the Boston Jazz Society grew from a small group of enthusiasts listening to music in living rooms to a thriving organization that “kept Jazz alive” in New England. As Jazz’s popularity began to fade in the late 1960s, local Jazz societies formed to provide support to artists and give them the means and venues to continue to perform on the road. The Boston Jazz Society was originally inspired by one of the earliest, the Left Bank Jazz Society of Baltimore. Like the Left Bank, BJS produced concerts in clubs, theaters, and hotels but expanded their efforts to include exhibits, television and radio shows, and a Jazz education program for grade school students. The longest running BJS activities, however, were the annual Jazz Barbecues and starting in 1975, the BJS Scholarships. The scholarship program raised funds for young Jazz musicians to attend the New England Conservatory of Music’s Jazz Department and the Berklee School Of Music and began the musical careers of many important musicians, composers, and teachers. BJS was also deeply connected to the local music scene, celebrating Roxbury, Mass. natives Alan Dawson and Roy Haynes, whose brother Vincent was a long-time board member, among many others. After 42 years of promoting Jazz music in Boston, the Boston Jazz Society, Inc. dissolved in 2015.

The Boston Jazz Society Records extensively document BJS’s meetings, events, business dealings, and scholarship administration through meeting minutes, posters, correspondence, photographs, recordings, videos, and BJS’s own propaganda and publications. The majority of the BJS records came from the collection of founding member and longtime president Aureldon Edward Henderson and also represents his involvement in promoting Jazz in the Boston area.

Gift of Aureldon Edward Henderson, July 2014, Aug. 2015

Subjects

Jazz musicians--Massachusetts--BostonJazz--Massachusetts--Boston

Contributors

Berklee School of MusicHaynes, RoyHenderson, Aureldon EdwardNew England Conservatory of Music
Boston Monthly Meeting of Friends

Boston Monthly Meeting of Friends Records

1870-1974
37 vols., 1 box 3.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 902 B678

Although Quakers first worshipped in Boston in 1661, they were late in the game in organizing a formal meeting. A preparative meeting operated in the city for just over a hundred years (1707-1808) under the auspices of the Salem Monthly Meeting, and a second attempt at building a community began in 1870 with authorization of an indulged meeting in Roxbury. Set off formally as the Boston Monthly Meeting Friend in 1883, this meeting continued until 1944, when it merged with an independent meeting in neighboring Cambridge to create the current Friends Meeting at Cambridge.

The records in this collection offer thorough documentation of the Boston Monthly Meeting of Friends from its establishment as an indulged meeting in 1870 through to its merger in 1944 and change of name to the Friends Meeting at Cambridge. In addition to the meeting minutes, the collection includes substantial records of the monthly’s Friends Guild and Women’s Foreign Missionary Society.

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, April 2017

Subjects

Boston (Mass.)--Religious life and customsQuakers--MassachusettsSociety of Friends--Massachusetts

Contributors

New England Yearly Meeting of Friends

Types of material

Minutes (Administrative records)Vital records (Document genre)
Brackett and Shuff

Brackett and Shuff Ledger

1844-1846
1 vol., 270p. 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 487 bd

The firm of Brackett and Shuff manufactured moldings, doors, and sashes in Lowell, Massachusetts, during the 1840s.

This slender ledger includes sparse accounts (fewer than 30p.) of millwork done by Brackett and Shuff, documenting the manufacture of moldings, doors, and sashes. Crudely kept and only partly filled out, it includes some records of setting up machinery, including tempering plane irons and truing shoulder saws.

Subjects

Lowell (Mass.)--Economic conditions--19th centuryMillwork (Woodwork)--Massachusetts

Contributors

Brackett and ShuffBrackett, John BShuff, Allison S

Types of material

Ledgers
Bridgewater (Mass.)

Bridgewater (Mass.) Merchant's Daybook

1837
1 vol. 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 222 bd

Perched at the western boundary of Plymouth County, Bridgewater, Massachusetts, grew rapidly during the antebellum period, spurred by the growth of its industry. During the mid-nineteenth century, the town’s most valuable products revolved around the local iron industry, with large manufacturers like Lazell, Perkins, and Co. producing iron and heavy machinery as early as 1810.

The daybook of this unidentified trader and merchant in Bridgewater, Mass., reveals the quickening pace of economic activity connected to the burgeoning Plymouth County iron industry. While many of the transactions at the store are small purchases of consumable goods such as flour, fabric, sugar, tobacco, meats, and molasses, more substantial purchases ae interspersed throughout for bar iron, nails, metal plates, and other manufactured metal items.

Acquired from Charles Apfelbaum, 1987

Subjects

Bridgewater (Mass.)--Economic conditions--19th centuryMerchants--Massachusetts--Bridgewater

Types of material

Daybooks
Briggs, Benjamin, 1760-1834

Benjamin Briggs Account Book

1805-1820
1 vol. 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 173 bd

Ship’s captain and cobbler from Scituate, Massachusetts. Includes list of ship expenses (harbor master’s fees, wages, wharf fees, provisions, carpenter and blacksmith bills, and bills for loading labor, rigging, and mending the sails), debt accounts with individuals, and accounts for making and mending shoes and boots.

Subjects

Barter--Massachusetts--Scituate--19th centuryBrown, JonathanCook, IchabodDebtor and creditor--Massachusetts--Scituate--19th centuryLitchfield, NathanielOzbon, AbsalomScituate (Mass.)--Economic conditions--19th centuryShip captains--Massachusetts--Scituate--19th centuryShipping--Massachusetts--Scituate--19th centuryShoemakers--Massachusetts--Scituate--19th centuryTalon, LewisWilcott, Daniel

Contributors

Briggs, Benjamin, 1760-1834

Types of material

Account books