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

Collecting area: New England

Millers River Publishing Co.

Millers River Publishing Co. Records

1983-1989
2 boxes 3 linear feet
Call no.: MS 805

The journalist and activist Allen Young founded Millers River Publishing Co. in 1983 to produce “fine books about New England.” Nearly a one person shop, the company began in Athol, Mass., with what would become the most successful of its publications, North of Quabbin, Young’s own guidebook to the nine towns rimming the Quabbin Reservoir. Over the next five years, Millers River issued at least fifteen titles in regional and local history, fiction, and children’s books. Soon after Young left his job at the Athol Daily News in 1989 to accept a position in public relations at the community hospital, the company ceased its operations.

The records of the Millers River Publishing Co. document the active years of a small regional press in northern Massachusetts. In addition business records, the collection includes correspondence from authors and readers along with book proposals and manuscripts, including some for works not published. Most of the Millers River publications are available in SCUA.

Gift of Allen Young, Dec. 2013

Subjects

Publishers and publishing--Massachusetts

Contributors

Young, Allen, 1941-
Miscellaneous Manuscripts

Miscellaneous Manuscripts

1717-2003
6 boxes 5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 719

Miscellaneous Manuscripts is an artificial collection that brings together single items and small groups of related materials. Although the collection reflects the general collecting emphases in SCUA, particularly the history of New England, the content ranges widely in theme and format.

Subjects

Massachusetts--Economic conditions--18th centuryMassachusetts--Economic conditions--19th centuryMassachusetts--HistoryMassachusetts--Politics and governmentMassachusetts--Social conditions--18th centuryMassachusetts--Social conditions--19th centuryMassachusetts--Social conditions--20th century

Types of material

Account booksCorrespondencePhotographs
Monadnock Quaker Meeting

Monadnock Quaker Meeting Records

1957-2012
1 vol., 3 boxes 1.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 902 M663

In 1957, a group of Quakers in Rindge, New Hampshire, established an independent worship group affiliated with the Connecticut Valley Quarter which became the Monadnock Quaker Meeting in the following year. From 1957 to 2011, members of the meeting supported the Meeting School in Rindge, a co-educational boarding school run on Quaker principles.

The records of Monadnock Quaker meeting offer a perspective on the growth of the Society of Friends in southern New Hampshire over more than half a century. As kept by the meeting clerks, the records for the early 1980s include a jumble of newsletters, notes, drafts, and minutes of meetings which appear to be nearly complete.

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, April 2017

Subjects

New Hampshire--Religious life and customsQuakers--New HampshireSociety of Friends--New Hampshire

Contributors

New England Yearly Meeting of Friends

Types of material

Minutes (Administrative records)Newsletters
Montague (Mass.) Nuclear Power Station

Montague Nuclear Power Station Environmental Report

1975
1 box 1 linear feet
Call no.: MS 061

Planning for construction of a nuclear power plant in Montague, Mass., in 1973, Northeast Utilities was required to conduct an environmental impact survey of the site, building a 500-foot tall weather monitoring tower to gather data. Their plans, however, were thwarted by the rise of a powerful antinuclear opposition, symbolized by a renowned act of civil disobedience in February 1974. On Washington’s Birthday, a member of the Montague Farm commune, Sam Lovejoy, took down the tower using simple farm tools, turning himself in to the police immediately afterward. The ensuing trial, the effective organizing by his colleagues, and the success of their effort to prevent construction of the power plant is often regarded as a formative moment in the history of the modern antinuclear movement.

This environmental report for the proposed Montague Nuclear Power Station includes an accounting of the purpose of the facility, its environmental, archaeological, and social impact, and an analysis of the costs and benefits of operation.

Subjects

Antinuclear movement--United StatesLovejoy, SamMontague (Mass.)--HistoryNortheast UtilitiesNuclear power plants--Massachusetts
Montague, Holland

Holland Montague Diary

1857-1877
1 vol. 0.15 linear feet
Call no.: MS 257 bd

A lifelong diarist, Granby farmer Holland Montague wrote chiefly about life on the farm where he made a comfortable living supplying produce to surrounding towns. While most of his entries are bland accounts of the weather and agricultural duties, Montague occasionally offers a glimpse into his personal life, especially on the diary’s endpapers, where he records medicinal remedies for humans and livestock, purchases made and payments received, as well as a valuation of his property in 1872. Very few references are made to political events of the day, including the Civil War, although he does note on April 16, 1865 that President Lincoln is dead.

Laid into the volume is a manuscript copy of the 1826 document listing depositions to be taken from individuals in the petition of the town of Granby against the town of South Hadley relating to a dispute over the boundary line between the two towns.

Transferred from Dartmouth College Special Collections, July 1989

Subjects

Farmers--Massachusetts--GranbyGranby (Mass.)--History

Types of material

Diaries
Morley, Cathrin

Cathrin Morley Poetry Album

1832-1837
1 vol. 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 136 bd

Possibly a worker who boarded in Van Duesenville, a growing industrial area of Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Notebook consists of poems, most of which concern religious faith and local events that were written in Cathrin Morley’s hand but may not have been created by her. Also includes a list of significant family dates.

Subjects

Christian poetry, American--Massachusetts--Great BarringtonDeath--PoetryGreat Barrington (Mass.)--HistoryMorley familySex role--Massachusetts--Great Barrington--PoetrySpiritual life--PoetryVan Duesenville (Great Barrington, Mass.)Women--Poetry

Contributors

Morley, Cathrin

Types of material

NotebooksPoems
Morris, Mary McGarry

Mary McGarry Morris Papers

1958-2012 Bulk: 1987-2012
25 boxes 31.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1046

When her first novel, Vanished, was published in 1988, Mary McGarry Morris was immediately celebrated as a haunting and powerful writer of character-rich novels. A finalist for the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, Vanished was followed by seven more acclaimed novels: A Dangerous Woman (1991; released as a feature film in 1993), Songs in Ordinary Time (1995; a selection of Oprah’s Book Club), Fiona Range (2000), A Hole in the Universe (2004), The Lost Mother (2005), The Last Secret (2009), and Light from a Distant Star (2011). Morris was born in Connecticut, grew up in Rutland, Vermont, and with her lawyer husband, Michael, has long lived—and raised five children—in Andover, Massachusetts. In her forties when Vanished was published after years of writing in near-secret, Morris has a gift for illuminating and shading the banalities, the urges, and the often fragile relationships that define and disrupt her characters’ lives and the fictional New England towns they inhabit. Her work has drawn comparisons to Steinbeck and McCullers.

The Mary McGarry Morris Papers consist of numerous drafts of her novels, including many handwritten pages and notes, as well as correspondence, book covers, clippings, and other material relating to the publication and promotion of her works. In addition, there are many early stories and some poems.

Gift of Mary McGarry Morris, 2016

Subjects

Fiction--20th century--Stories, plots, etcFiction--21st century--Stories, plots, etc

Contributors

Morris, Mary McGarry
Morton, Cyrus

Cyrus Morton Account Book

1828-1838
1 vol. 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 185 bd

The physician Cyrus Morton, (1797-1873) came from a notable medical family from Plymouth County, Mass. His father Nathaniel and son Thomas were both physicians, and his sister-in-law, Julia A.W. (Drew) Winslow was one of the first female medical doctors in the Commonwealth. Morton’s second wife, Lydia Hall (Drew) Morton, was one of the first teachers at the Perkins School for the Blind, and a member of the first graduating class of the Lexington Normal School. Morton died in Halifax on May 18, 1873.

Morton’s account book contains records of frequent visits to his patients, dispensing medicine, his fees and receipts for payment (often received in kind as pigs, fish, beef, hay, wood, the use of a horse, spinning done by widows or wives, digging a well, carpentry, etc.), and a copy of a prayer in Morton’s hand. Among Morton’s patients were Timothy Wood, Stafford Sturtevant, Jacob Thompson, Capts. Knapp and Cushman, and Cyrus Munroe.

Subjects

Halifax (Mass.)--Social life and customs--19th centuryPhysicians--Massachusetts--Halifax--19th century

Contributors

Morton, Cyrus, 1797-1873

Types of material

Account books
Mosakowski, Ken

Ken Mosakowski Papers

1970s-2006
80 boxes 120 linear feet
Call no.: MS 560

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

As a student at the University of Massachusetts in the late 1960s, Ken Mosakowski first became a political activist when he protested the Vietnam War. Seeking an outlet to spread his message of peace and justice, he reached out to the student radio station WMUA, and started a weekly talk show Focus. For 38 years Mosakowski hosted the radio program every Sunday afternoon discussing topics of both local and national significance. Deeply involved in Amherst politics, he ran for the Amherst Select Board and lost; the loss, however, did not diminish his passion for serving the town and community he loved. Vocal on many issues, Mosakowski was known for being an activist in electoral politics and more recently an advocate for the homeless in Amherst, urging the creation of the Emergency Homelessness Task Force created in April 2006.

The Ken Mosakowski Papers document more than thirty years of his political activism. Saving everything from flyers and newspaper clippings to campaign buttons and posters, the collection documents a wide array of local and national issues. More importanly, it sheds light on issues of personal importance to Mosakowski, and as such chronicles his contributions as a lifelong activist.

Subjects

Activists--MassachusettsAmherst (Mass.)--HistoryAmherst (Mass.)--Politics and governmentPolitical activists--MassachusettsSocial action--Massachusetts--History

Contributors

Mosakowski, Ken
Restrictions: The Mosakowski collection has temporarily been moved offsite; it is closed to research. Contact SCUA for more information.
Mosely, Luther, 1807-

Luther Mosely Daybook

1842-1846
1 vol. 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 249 bd

Homeopathic physician from Arlington, Vermont. Daybook contains patients’ names, including many women, identification of some cases (such as vaccination, extraction of teeth, treatment of swellings, fractures, and burns, and the delivery of babies), methods of treatment (such as purges, bleeding, cupping, and the use of blistering ointments), prices for his services, and method and form of payment (including goods such as fruits, vegetables, meats, clothes, and services such as butchering and timbering). Also contains personal entries and notation of goods he sold such as poultry, leathers, and fabrics.

Subjects

Arlington (Vt.)--Social conditions--19th centuryCanfield familyContraception--Vermont--Arlington--History--19th centuryHard familyHomeopathic physicians--Vermont--ArlingtonMatteson familyMedicine--Practice--Vermont--19th centuryMilligan familyOatman familyPessariesPurdy familyWomen--Medical care--Vermont--Arlington--19th century

Contributors

Mosely, Luther, 1807-

Types of material

Account booksDaybooks