Collecting area: Printed materials

After joining Alcoholics and Anonymous in Springfield to regain control over his life, Gene Abair emerged a new man. And a bibliophile. A janitor with a limited education, Abair began to collect books relating to alcoholism and temperance, eventually devoting himself to making his growing collection available to alcoholics and non-alcoholics alike as a lending library. The collection was acquired by UMass in 1972 with the assistance of Abair’s friend, Mrs. Walter E. Carlson, and about 100 titles (of over 400) were transferred to SCUA.
The Abair Collection includes works on the physiology, psychology, ethics, and social history of alcohol consumption from the mid-19th through the mid-twentieth centuries. Among other items, it includes key works on medical aspects of inebriety, personal narratives and biographies of temperance leaders and alcoholics, and books on the formal temperance movement and prohibition.

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The Antislavery Collection contains several hundred printed pamphlets and books pertaining to slavery and antislavery in New England, 1725-1911. The holdings include speeches, sermons, proceedings and other publications of organizations such as the American Anti-Slavery Society and the American Colonization Society, and a small number of pro-slavery tracts.

View the the online collection.

In 1943 Col. Juan Peron took part in a successful military coup in Argentina, beginning over a decade in which he dominated the nation’s political life. After promoting populist policies as Minister of Labor under the military government, Peron built a deep well of support among the working classes that enabled him to win election to the presidency in 1946 and 1951, however political opposition to what was perceived as his Fascist sympathies, demagoguery, and authoritarianism increased. In 1955, Peron was ousted in a military coup and driven into exile in Spain.

Consisting of materials produced in Argentina just prior to and during the era of Juan Peron (1946-1974), this collection of pamphlets, fliers, broadsides, news clippings, and campaign literature provides a unique window onto political developments in the South American nation. The ephemera addresses a wide range of subject matter, from World War II to economics, political controversies, relations with the United States, the election of 1951, the Revolucion Libertadora coup of 1955, and Juan and Eva Peron. Both Peron’s Partido Justicialista and his opponents, including Communists and Socialists, are represented.

Founded in 1977, the Association for Gravestone Studies (AGS) is an international organization dedicated to furthering the study and preservation of gravestones. Based in Greenfield, Mass., the Association promotes the study of gravestones from historical and artistic perspectives. To raise public awareness about the significance of historic gravemarkers and the issues surrounding their preservation, the AGS sponsors conferences and workshops, publishes both a quarterly newsletter and annual journal, Markers, and has built an archive of collections documenting gravestones and the memorial industry.

The AGS collection contains scarce, out of print, and rare printed works on cemeteries and graveyards, epitaphs and inscriptions, and gravemarkers, with an emphasis on North America. The AGS Books Collection also includes the AGS publication, Markers. The collection is divided into three series: Series 1 (Monographs and Offprints), Series 2 (Theses and Dissertations), and Series 3 (AGS Publications).

View: AGS Quarterly Newsletters

View: AGS Conference programs

View: Markers: Journal of the AGS

View: the catalogued books

Carol Barton is a popular educator and policy advocate. She co-founded Alternative Women in Development/New York in the 1990s, which was active at the UN Beijing 4th World Conference on Women and helped create the Economic Literacy Action Network (ELAN). Barton served on the economic literacy team of the International Gender and Trade Network, active in the 2000s. With elmira Nazombe, she led the Women’s International Coalition for Economic Justice (WICEJ) from 2000 through 2005. WICEJ was active in the UN Commission on the Status of Women, the World Conference Against Racism, and the Financing for Development Conference as well as the Feminist Dialogues linked to the World Social Forums in India (2004) and Brazil (2005). Currently, Barton is co-convener of the International Women in Migration Network.

elmira Nazombe has worked in the areas of popular education, social, economic and racial justice for over five decades. With a degree in urban planning, after graduation, Nazombe lived and worked for 10 years in east and southern Africa working as an urban planner and journalist. She also held positions with the All Africa Conference of Churches and the National Christian Council of Kenya. Nazombe has worked as a social justice educator for the past 25 years. She was an Executive Secretary for Racial Justice for United Methodist Women and served as the Human Rights Education Director for the Center for Women’s Global Leadership at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Nazombe holds a doctorate in Education (Ed.D) from Rutgers. For the last 12 years, she has been teaching social justice courses at Rutgers, hoping to nurture a new generation of social justice activists.

The collection documents Barton’s and Nazombe’s involvement in a wide range of activist and advocacy engagement both nationally and internationally, in particular with the Women’s International Coalition for Economic Justice (WICEJ). At the heart of the collection is Barton’s contribution to a collaborative effort in feminist popular education. Together with Ying Ling Leung, elmira Nazombe, Pamela Sparr, and Mariama Williams, Barton organized and facilitated popular education programs in various movements to empower women worldwide.

A scholar of early modern British literature, Joe Black received his BA and PhD from the University of Toronto and taught for several years at the University of Tennessee Knoxville before joining the English faculty at UMass Amherst in 1994. Rooted in the history of the book, his research on seventeenth-century literature has examined the intersection between writing and the material and social context of production as well as the dialogue between print and manuscript culture.

The Black collection is an eclectic assemblage of American imprints designed to assist study and instruction in the history of the book. The collection includes two long runs of pulp novels, Beadle’s Frontier Series and the American Revolution-inspired Liberty Boys of ’76, examples of almanacs, prompt books, and works form the early national period in publishers’ bindings.

View the full Black collection in the library’s catalog.

A native of Waterloo, Quebec, Ella Dot Martin Blake emigrated to Worcester County, Mass., in about 1927. She and her husband Sydney farmed and raised two sons. Ella Blake died in 1987.

Assembled by Ella Dot Martin Blake, this collection consists of eighty pieces of sheet music, more than half with illustrated covers. Dating from the early 1900s, the collection covers both World Wars as well as the rise of Broadway and Hollywood’s golden age. Selections include military sheet music, “Good-Bye, Little Girl, Good-Bye” (1904) and music from Hollywood films, such as “Daddy Long Legs” dedicated to Mary Pickford (1919), and “By a Waterfall” from Footlight Parade (1933).

A constructed language developed by a Polish physician, L.L. Zamenhof, and first published in 1887, Esperanto is the most widely spoken auxiliary language in the world. Fundamentally utopian in origin, Esperanto is a simplified and highly rationalized language derived from a pastiche of languages, primarily European. By creating a universal second language, Zamenhof hoped that Esperanto would help transcend national and cultural boundaries and thus promote peace and understanding in a fractious world. Allan Boschen, an engineer with General Electric in Pittsfield, was a student and teacher of Esperanto and longtime officer with the Esperanto Society of New England.

The Esperanto book collection includes instructional materials in the language from around the world along with a diversity of imprints ranging from novels and poetry to travel books, histories and biographies, political writings, materials on China and Vietnam, children’s literature, and even a cookbook. We expect to add to the collection in future.

Sparked in January 1789 by the efforts of Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II to remake politics in the Austrian-dominated Low Countries, the Brabant Revolution began with a series of intense riots coupled with rising political opposition to foreign rule. After a rebel army defeated Austrian forces at the Battle of Turnhout in Oct. 1789, the revolution gained steam and by December, the Brabant declared its indepedence, forming the new United States of Belgium. Although resistance to Austrian rule spread throughout the region and several key towns fell to the rebels, the new state was fragile and gained little support from foreign powers. After dissension began to afflict the revolutionary ranks, pitting conservative “Statists” against allegedly anticlerical “Vonckists,” Emperor Leopold II (successor to Joseph) moved in in force. By the end of 1790, the rebellion was crushed.

The Brabant Revolution produced a vigorous literature on all sides, favoring and opposing revolution, representing the various factional interests, and the wide range of ideologies and political ideas wrapped up in the revolutionary struggle. The collection (also known as the Collection Brabançonne) consists of dozens of pamphlets and books issued in the years 1789 and 1790, many of exceptional scarcity, reflecting a rising national consciousness that resulted in the formation of the modern state of Belgium. The publications are written primarily in French or Dutch.

Liane Brandon is an award-winning filmmaker, photographer and University of Massachusetts Amherst Professor Emerita. She is a co-founder of New Day Films and was one of the first independent women filmmakers working in New England. She was also a founding member of FilmWomen of Boston and Boston Film/Video Foundation. Brandon’s groundbreaking films Sometimes I Wonder Who I Am (1970) Anything You Want To Be (1971) and Betty Tells Her Story (1972) were among the most frequently used consciousness raising tools of the Women’s Movement. Her films, which also include Once Upon A Choice and How To Prevent A Nuclear War have won numerous national and international awards, and have been featured on HBO, Cinemax and the Criterion Channel. They have twice received Blue Ribbons at the American Film Festival and have been presented at the Museum of Modern Art, the Barbican Centre in London, the Tribeca Film Festival and many other venues. In addition to her role as Professor at the University of Massachusetts and Chair of the Educational Technology Program in the College of Education, she was the Director of UMass Educational Television. Designed to provide the public with innovative, original educational programming, UMass Educational Television produced award winning, original educational programming for cable/home audiences throughout New England. The twelve original series (50 half-hour episodes) were carried by local and regional cable and were seen in over 40 cities and towns in Massachusetts and Connecticut. The College of Education became the first educational college in the country to produce original educational programming for cable/home audiences. Currently working as a photographer, her credits include stills for American Masters, Nova, and Unsolved Mysteries. Her photographs have been published in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe and many other publications.

The Liane Brandon Collection consists chiefly of printed materials related to the antinuclear movement, peace movement, labor unions and workers’ movement, feminism and the women’s movement, women filmmakers, student movements and organizing, as well as photographs and videotapes of shows produced by UMass Educational Television (1995-1999). For materials related to Brandon’s contributions to UMET, see the UMass Educational Television Collection.

Brandon’s historic films and papers are held at the Archive of Documentary Arts at Duke University.