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

Collecting area: Massachusetts (East)

Fall River Loom Fixers’ Association

Fall River Loom-Fixers' Association Records

1895-1917
2 boxes 1 linear feet
Call no.: MS 003

Members of the Fall River Loom Fixers Association included some of the most skilled workers in the New England textile industry. The association, on behalf of its members, sought to improve poor working conditions, to provide assistance for members affected by pay reductions or layoffs, and to intervene in conflicts between members and management. The union also served a social function, organizing parades, social gatherings, and excursions. In the 1910s it became affiliated with the United Textile Workers for America.

Records of the Loom Fixers Association include executive committee minutes (1900-1901 and 1911-1917), a treasurer’s book (1901-1905), and six dues books (1895-1907).

Subjects

Labor unions--MassachusettsTextile workers--Labor unions--Massachusetts
Farber, Daniel

Daniel and Jessie Lie Farber Photograph Collection

1973
12 boxes 7.25 linear feet
Call no.: PH 022
Depiction of Jonathan Butterfield, Chelmsford, 1750
Jonathan Butterfield, Chelmsford, 1750

A businessman from Worcester, Mass., Daniel Farber (1906-1998) was among the best known photographers of early American gravestone art. Over the course of twenty years beginning in about 1970, he and his wife Jessie Lie Farber (a faculty member at Mount Holyoke College) took thousands of photographs of gravestones throughout New England and the eastern United States, eventually extending their work internationally. Interested in both the artistic and cultural value of gravestones, the Farbers were founding members of the Association for Gravestone Studies in 1976 and influenced a generation of fellow researchers in gravestone studies.

Printed in 1973, the Farber Collection includes 326 black and white prints (5×7″),mounted on rag board, of of colonial and early national gravestones in Massachusetts. The towns represented, most by multiple images, include Auburn, Billerica, Boylston, Brookfield, Cambridge, Charlestown, Chelmsford, Concord. Holden, Leicester, Lexington, Marlboro, Northboro, North Brookfield, Oxford, Paxton, Rutland, Shrewsbury, Sudbury, Watertown, Wayland, and Westboro.

Subjects

Sepulchral monuments--Massachusetts

Contributors

Association for Gravestone StudiesFarber, DanielFarber, Jessie Lie

Types of material

Photographs
Flint and Lawrence Family

Flint and Lawrence Family Papers

1642-1798
2 boxes 1 linear feet
Call no.: MS 273

Personal, financial and legal papers of Flint and Lawrence families of Lincoln, Massachusetts including wills, estate inventories, indenture documents, receipts of payment for slaves and education, correspondence; and records of town and church meetings, town petitions and receipts relating to the construction of the meeting house. Papers of Reverend William Lawrence include letter of acceptance of Lincoln, Massachusetts ministry, record of salary, a sermon and daybook. Personal papers of loyalist Dr. Joseph Adams, who fled to England in 1777, contain letters documenting conditions in England in the late 1700s and the legal and personal problems experienced by emigres and their families in the years following the Revolutionary War.

Subjects

American loyalists--Great BritainAmerican loyalists--MassachusettsChurch buildings--Massachusetts--Lincoln--CostsEngland--Emigration and immigration--18th centuryFlint familyImmigrants--England--17th centuryLand tenure--Massachusetts--LincolnLandowners--Massachusetts--LincolnLawrence familyLincoln (Mass.)--Economic conditions--18th centuryLincoln (Mass.)--HistoryLincoln (Mass.)--Social conditions--18th centuryMassachusetts--Emigration and immigation--18th centurySlaves--Prices--Massachusetts--Lincoln

Contributors

Adams, Joseph, 1749-1803Flint, Edward, 1685-1754Flint, Ephraim, b. 1714Flint, Love Adams, d. 1772Flint, Thomas, d. 1653Lawrence, William, 1723-1780

Types of material

AccountsGenealogiesIndenturesInventories of decedents estatesWills
Fowler, Robert

Robert Fowler Diary

1831-1854
1 vol. 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 174 bd

A native of Salisbury, Massachusetts, Robert Fowler (b.1805) was a prosperous shipbuilder and merchant with a trade extending from Nova Scotia to the Gulf South. He and his wife Susan Edwards, whom he married in 1830, had at least four children.

Kept by Robert Fowler between 1831 and 1854, the volume includes both diary entries (primarily 1841-1846) and accounts. With occasional commentary on local political matters, commerce, weather, and family matters, the diary is largely a record of Fowler’s spiritual concerns and his wrestling with doctrinal matters and the relationship of religion and daily life. An ardent temperance man, he commented on religious topics ranging from the Millerite movement to the resurrection, salvation, and the duty of prayer.

Subjects

FatherhoodFitch, Charles, 1805-1844Merchants--Massachusetts--SalisburyMillerite movementReligious life--Massachusetts--SalisburySalisbury (Mass.)--HistorySecond AdventTemperance

Types of material

Account booksDiaries
Framingham Friends Meeting

Framingham Friends Meeting Records

1963-2023
4 boxes 3 linear feet
Call no.: MS 902 f736

Beginning as an informal gathering in the home of Margaret Welch in 1959, Framingham Friends Meeting of the Society of Friends evolved organizationally into a formal worship group under the care of Cambridge Monthly Meeting in 1961 and then a preparatory meeting (1964). It was set off as an independent monthly meeting in 1979.

A newer monthly meeting, Framingham is well documented through a continuous set of meeting minutes from 1983-2022 (with some extending back to 1963) and a long run of newsletters and directories of members. The minutes often include official reports and other documents.

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, April 2017

Subjects

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

Contributors

New England Yearly Meeting of Friends

Types of material

Minutes (Administrative records)Newsletters
Fresh Pond Monthly Meeting of Friends

Fresh Pond Monthly Meeting of Friends Records

1995-2010
1 box 0.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 902 F747

Since the merger of the Boston Monthly Meeting with the Independent Cambridge Monthly during the second quarter of the twentieth century, the Society of Friends has expanded in the Boston area. Fresh Pond began as an allowed meeting under Cambridge Monthly in 1989 and was set off as a monthly meeting of its own in 1991. It has been under care of Salem Quarterly Meeting since its inception.

The records from Fresh Pond include a nearly complete set of minutes for the meeting’s first five years and a nearly comprehensive set of newsletters.

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, April 2017

Subjects

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

Contributors

New England Yearly Meeting of Friends

Types of material

Minutes (Administrative records)Newsletters
Friends Meeting at Cambridge

Friends Meeting at Cambridge Records

1911-2010
8 vols., 15 boxes 10 linear feet
Call no.: MS 902 C363

The present-day Friends Meeting at Cambridge began as an independent, informal, unprogrammed meeting for worship that met between 1899 and 1901, and then again beginning in 1911. After holding joint meetings with neighboring Boston Monthly Meeting starting in 1926, Cambridge became an official independent monthly meeting in 1937, and during the Quaker union of 1944, merged with Boston Monthly to create the new Friends Meeting at Cambridge.

Although records from Cambridge are beset with significant gaps, they nevertheless provide a rich opportunity for examining the growth of a monthly meeting in New England during the post-World War II era and the commitment shown by its members to creating social justice. The collection includes extensive records of the Peace and Social Concerns Committee (and related endeavors), documenting peace activism during the Cold War and Vietnam years, and initiatives to fight poverty and racial injustice.

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, April 2017

Subjects

Cambridge (Mass.)--Religious life and customsPeace movements--Massachusetts--CambridgeQuakers--MassachusettsSociety of Friends--MassachusettsVietnam War, 1961-1975--Protest movements--Massachusetts--Cambridge

Contributors

New England Yearly Meeting of Friends

Types of material

Minutes (Administrative records)NewslettersPhotographs
Fuglister, Cecilia Bowerman

Cecilia Bowerman Fuglister Collection

1797-1983 Bulk: 1797-1844
1 box 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 964

A Cape Cod Quaker, and lifelong member of the West Falmouth Friends Meeting, Cecilia Bowerman Fuglister was born in West Falmouth, Mass., in 1906. After receiving a BA in mathematics and biology at Earlham College in 1928, she went on to earn an MA in Library Science from Columbia (1932), where she remained as a librarian. Two years after marrying the oceanographer Frederck C. Fuglister in 1939, however, she returned to Cape Cod when he took a position at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. She helped to establish the document library at Woods Hole and served as its librarian until her retirement in 1977. She died in Falmouth on Jan. 14, 2005, at the age of 98.

The Fuglister collection consists of a miscellaneous assemblage of records, mostly from Sandwich Monthly Meeting from 1797 through the 1840s, with a few later items. The collection also included fifteen memoirs and memorials for Friends, nearly all from the mid-nineteenth century.

Gift of NEYM, April 2016

Subjects

Smithfield Monthly Meeting (Society of Friends)
Gale, Amory, 1800-1873

Amory Gale Ledgers

1840-1872
2 vols. 0.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 259 bd

A physician and native of Warwick, Mass., Amory Gale worked as an allopath after his graduation from Brown College in 1824, before turning to homeopathy in the mid-1850s. Often struggling with ill health, Gale plied his trade in a long succession of towns, including Canton, Scituate, Mansfield, and Medway, Massachusetts, as well as towns in Rhode Island and New Hampshire. Between 1844 and 1853, he interrupted his medical practice for a turn in the pulpit.

Gale’s surviving ledgers include accounts with patients, their form of payment, lists of medical fees, and a draft of a business agreement with a fellow homeopath in Woonsocket, J.S. Nichols.

Subjects

Physicians--Massachusetts

Types of material

Account books
Garboden, Clif

Clif Garboden Collection

ca.1965-2011
72 boxes 12 linear feet
Call no.: PH 075
Depiction of Clif Garboden, ca.1968. Photo by Jeff Albertson
Clif Garboden, ca.1968. Photo by Jeff Albertson

A noted figure in the alternative press and a former president of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, Clif Garboden was a long-time editor and writer for the Boston Phoenix. Arriving as a student at Boston University in 1966, Garboden was drawn into a close-knit, creative community on the BU News staff that included Raymond Mungo, Peter Simon, and Joe Pilati, filling a versatile role that entailed work as writer, editor, and photographer. After graduating in 1970, Garboden moved immediately to the Phoenix where he applied his signature wit and occasional snark to a wide range of topics. Apart from a six year period when he worked for the Boston Globe, Garboden was an indispensable part of the Phoenix editorial team until he was laid off in cost cutting moves in 2009. After a lengthy struggle with cancer, Garboden died of pneumonia on Feb. 10, 2011. He is survived by his wife, Susannah (Price), and children Molly and Phil.

The Garbdoen collection consists of hundreds of photographic prints, including work for both the Boston University News and the Phoenix and many personal images of family and friends.

Gift of Susannah Garboden, April 2017

Subjects

Boston PhoenixBoston University News

Types of material

Photographs