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

Collecting area: Rhode Island

Tenney, Thomas W.

Thomas W. and Margaret Tenney Photograph Collection

1858-2003 Bulk: 1960-1979
228 boxes 126 linear feet
Call no.: PH 045
Depiction of Submit Gaylord, 1766, Hadley, Mass.
Submit Gaylord, 1766, Hadley, Mass.

Long-time residents of Berkeley, California, Thomas W. Tenney and his wife Margaret took up photography in a serious way in the early 1960s. Photographing the Bay Area scene and publishing in the New York Times and elsewhere, Thomas Tenney became a full-time photographer by about 1960. His photographic interests ranged from urban landscapes and advertising signs to the popular culture of the 1960s and 1970s. Margaret Tenney, also a photographer, was a visual artist who worked in collage and monoprint. For over a decade, the couple took summer trips to New England to photograph colonial and early national gravestones, culminating in a public exhibition of their work in 1972 at the Bolles Gallery in San Francisco.

A vast array of the Tenneys’ photography, artwork, and collection of historic photographs, including thousands of photographs and negatives ranging from the mid-19th century to the early 2000s.

Subjects

California--PhotographsSepulchral monuments--ConnecticutSepulchral monuments--MassachusettsSepulchral monuments--Rhode IslandSepulchral monuments--VermontSigns and signboards--Photographs

Contributors

Tenney, Margaret K.Tenney, Thomas W.

Types of material

Collages (Visual works)Drawings (Visual works)Paintings (Visual works)Photographs
Wanton, Gideon, 1693-1767

Gideon and John Wanton Cashbook

1753-1759
1 vol. 0.2 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1114

Gideon Wanton, a two-time governor of colonial Rhode Island, and his son John were Quaker merchants from Newport. During the middle years of the eighteenth century, they carried on an active trade who took an active part in the triangular trade.

This diminutive cash account book offers a window onto the business ventures of a powerful Newport Quaker family during the mid-eighteenth century. Kept during a five-year period, 1753-1759, the book contains terse records of cash expenditures in exchange for goods and services to Gideon and John Wanton. Records of the coastwise trade in commodities such as pork, flour, and mackerel to Philadelphia and other ports accompany notices of molasses from Surinam and rum. The lack of payments relating directly to enslaved people is likely the result of the sale of the human cargo in the West Indies prior to returning to Newport.

Acquired from Garrett Scott, Jan. 2020

Subjects

Merchants--Rhode IslandNewport (R.I.)--History--18th centurySlave trade--Rhode Island

Contributors

Wanton, John, 1729-1799

Types of material

Cashbooks
Westerly Monthly Meeting (Society of Friends)

Westerly Monthly Meeting (Society of Friends) Records

1766-2009 Bulk: 1995-2009
1 box 0.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 902 W478

The present-day Westerly Friends Meeting can trace its roots to a Preparative Meeting established in 1744 under the care of South Kingstown Monthly Meeting. As the home meeting of John Wilbur, Westerly was deeply immersed in the Separation of 1845, with the South Kingstown Wilburite meeting persisting until the great reunion of New England Friends a century later. South Kingstown Monthly Meeting (Wilburite) was renamed Westerly Monthly Meeting after the reunion and continues under that name to the present.

The records of Westerly Monthly Meeting are incomplete, but include minutes recording its transition from its Wilburite predecessor, the South Kingstown Monthly Meeting, and sporadic minutes since.

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, April 2016

Subjects

Quakers--Rhode IslandSociety of Friends--Rhode IslandWesterly (R.I.)--Social life and customs

Contributors

New England Yearly Meeting of Friends

Types of material

Minutes (Administrative records)Newsletters
White, Willis H.

Willis H. White Papers

1874-1966 Bulk: 1919-1942
1 box 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 929

A convinced Friend who became an advocate for peace, Willis H. White was a member of the East Greenwich Monthly Meeting. A secretary in the Providence-based real estate firm William H. White & Sons, White was active in several organizations promoting peace and spiritual renewal within the Society of Friends in the years after the First World War.

The bulk of Willis H. White’s papers are concentrated on his activities on behalf of peace, social justice, and the Society of Friends in the period 1919-1922. The collection includes materials documenting White’s work with the American Friends Service Committee and on invigorating the Society through the London Conference of All Friends and the evangelical Forward Movement of Friends, and there is a relatively small, but interesting series of letters from the labor and peace activist, A. J. Muste.

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, 2016

Subjects

Conference of All FriendsForward movement (Evangelical movement)PacifismPeace movementsQuakers--Rhode IslandWorld War, 1914-1918

Contributors

American Friends Service CommitteeBonell, Harold C. (Harold Charles), 1908-1977Muste, A. J. (Abraham John), 1885-1967

Types of material

Ephemera