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

Collecting area: Social change

Allen, Theodore W., 1919-2005

Theodore W. Allen Papers

1946-2005
47 boxes 64 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1021
Part of: Jeffrey B. Perry Collection
Depiction of Theodore W. Allen
Theodore W. Allen

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

An anti-white supremacist, working class intellectual and activist, Theodore W. “Ted” Allen was one of the most important thinkers on race and class in the twentieth century. He developed his pioneering class struggle-based analysis of “white skin privilege” beginning in the mid-1960s; authored the seminal two-volume The Invention of the White Race in the 1990s; and consistently maintained that the struggle against white supremacy was central to efforts at radical social change in the United States. Born in Indianapolis, Indiana, Allen was raised in Kentucky and West Virginia, where he was “proletarianized” by the Great Depression. A member of the American Federation of Musicians and the United Mine Workers, and a member of the Communist Party, Allen moved to Brooklyn after injuring his back in the mines, and spent the last fifty years of his life at various jobs including factory work, teaching, the post office, and the Brooklyn Public Library. In the 1960s, having broken from the Communist Party, Allen set out on his own independent research course. Inspired by the work of W. E. B. Du Bois he wrote on the “white blindspot” and “white skin privilege” and began what became forty years of work focused on white supremacy as the principal retardant of class consciousness among European-American workers. Over his last thirty years, Allen wrote hundreds of published and unpublished articles and letters challenging white supremacy, capitalist rule, sexism, and U.S. Imperialism, as well as numerous poems.

The Theodore W. Allen Papers are a comprehensive assemblage of correspondence, published and unpublished writings, audio and video materials, and research by one of the major theorists on race and class of the twentieth century. The Papers offer important insights on the Old and New Left and their relation to the labor and Civil Rights/Black Liberation Movements and have much to offer students, scholars, researchers, and activists.

Gift of Jeffrey B. Perry, May 2018

Subjects

Communists--New York (State)Historians--New York (State)Labor movementRaceRacism

Contributors

Ignatiev, NoelSojourner Truth Organization

Types of material

Photographs
Allman, Timothy

Timothy Allman Papers

1976-1983
5 boxes 2.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 060

Journalist, news editor, and author of Unmanifest Destiny: Mayhem and Illusion in American Foreign Policy — From the Monroe Doctrine to Reagan’s War in El Salvador (1984).

Includes notes on observations and interviews, background material including press releases, reports, transcripts of speeches and congressional committee hearings testimony, and articles and pamphlets that concern El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Honduras, Belize, and Panama, and focus on the Church, guerrillas, dissent, terrorism, and foreign policies of presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.

Subjects

Central America--Foreign relations--United StatesEl Salvador--History--1979-1992Guatemala--History--1945-1982Honduras--History--1982-Nicaragua--History--1979-1990United States--Foreign relations--Central America

Contributors

Allman, Timothy
Alternative Energy Coalition

Alternative Energy Coalition

ca.1975-1985
9 boxes 13.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 586

A product of the vibrant and progressive political culture of western Massachusetts during the early 1970s, the Alternative Energy Coalition played a key role in the growth of antinuclear activism. In 1974, the AEC helped mobilize support for Sam Lovejoy after he sabotaged a weather tower erected by Northeast Utilities in Montague, Mass., in preparation for a proposed nuclear power plant, and they helped organize the drive for a referendum opposing not only the proposed plant in Montague, but existing plants in Rowe, Mass., and Vernon, Vt. Forming extensive connections with other antinuclear organizations, the AEC also became one of the organizations that united in 1976 to form the Clamshell Alliance, which made an art of mass civil disobedience.

The AEC Records provide insight into grassroots activism of the 1970s and 1980s, galvanized by the seemingly unrestrained growth of the nuclear power industry. The records, emanating from the Hampshire County branch, contain both research materials used by the AEC and organizational and promotional materials produced by them, including publications, minutes of meetings, correspondence, and materials used during protests. Of particular interest are a thick suite of organizational and other information pertaining to the occupation of the Seabrook (N.H.) nuclear power plant in 1979 and minutes, notes, and other materials relating to the founding and early days of the Clamshell Alliance. The collection is closely related to the Antinuclear Collection (MS 547).

Subjects

Antinuclear movement--MassachusettsHampshire County (Mass.)--HistoryNonviolence--MassachusettsNuclear energy--MassachusettsPacifists--MassachusettsPolitical activists--MassachusettsRenewable energy sourceSeabrook Nuclear Power Plant (N.H.)Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station

Contributors

Alternative Energy CoalitionClamshell Alliance

Types of material

Realia
Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union. New England Joint Board

ACTWU New England Joint Board Records

1974-1987
8 boxes 12 linear feet
Call no.: MS 241

Records of the New England Joint Board of the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union include union administration files, company files, and publications. Company files document interactions between the union and companies such as Best Coat Co.; Healthtec, Inc.; Image Wear; M & M Pants Co.; Soloff & Son, Inc.; and Wear Well Trouser Co.

Subjects

Clothing trade--Labor unions--New EnglandLabor unions--New EnglandTextile workers--Labor unions--New England

Contributors

Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union
Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America. Boston Joint Board

ACWA Boston Joint Board Records

1926-1979
8 linear feet
Call no.: MS 002

The Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America originated from a split in the United Garment Workers in 1914 and quickly became the dominant force for union in the men’s clothing industry, controlling shops in Boston, Baltimore, Chicago, and New York. The Boston Joint Board formed at the beginning of the ACWA and included locals from a range of ethnic groups and trades that comprised the industry. It coordinated the activities and negotiations for ACWA Locals 1, 12, 102, 149, 171, 172, 173, 174, 181,183, 267, and 335 in the Boston area. In the 1970s the Boston Joint Board merged with others to form the New England Regional Joint Board.

Records, including minutes, contracts, price lists, and scrapbooks, document the growth and maturity of the ACWA in Boston and the eventual decline of the industry in New England. Abundant contracts and price lists show the steady improvement of conditions for workers in the men’s clothing industry. Detailed minutes reflect the political and social influence of the ACWA; the Joint Board played an important role in local and state Democratic politics and it routinely contributed to a wide range of social causes including the Home for Italian Children and the United Negro College Fund. Minutes also document the post World War II development of industrial relations in the industry and include information relating to Joint Board decisions to strike. Minutes also contain information relating to shop grievances, arbitration, shop committees, and organizing. The records largely coincide with the years of leadership of Joseph Salerno, ACWA Vice President and New England Director from 1941 to 1972.

Gift of the New England Regional Joint Board, through Edward Clark, Nov. 1984

Subjects

Boston (Mass.)--Economic conditions--20th centuryClothing trade--Labor unions--MassachusettsLabor unions--Massachusetts--BostonTextile industry--MassachusettsTextile workers--Labor unions--Massachusetts--BostonTextile workers--Massachusetts--Economic conditions--20th century

Contributors

Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America. Boston Joint BoardSalerno, Joseph, fl. 1907-1972

Types of material

ContractsFinancial recordsMinutes (Administrative records)Scrapbooks
Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America. Journeymen Tailors Union. Local 115

ACWA Journeyman Tailors Union Local 115 Records

1945-1984
2 boxes 1 linear feet
Call no.: MS 025

Local 115 of Connecticut was comprised of branches from Bridgeport, Hartford, New Haven, and Waterbury, and affiliated with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America.

The ACWA records consist of minutes of meetings, correspondence, reports, and contracts. Also included are a number of agreements between local businesses and the union identifying the union as the bargaining representative of their employees.

Subjects

Clothing trade--Labor unions--ConnecticutLabor unions--Connecticut

Contributors

Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America
Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America. Local 125

Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, Local 125 Records

1928-1984
16 boxes 8 linear feet
Call no.: MS 001

Based in New Haven, Connecticut, Local 125 was a chapter of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (ACWA) that worked to improve wages and hours of work, to increase job security, to provide facilities for advancing cultural, educational, and recreational interests of its members, and to strengthen the labor movement. Key figures in Local 125 included Aldo Cursi who, with Mamie Santora, organized the Connecticut shirtworkers and served as Manager from 1933 to 1954; John Laurie who served as Business Manager from 1933 to 1963; and Nick Aiello, Business agent in 1963 and Manager from 1964 to 1984.

The collection includes constitution, by-laws, minutes, contracts, piece rate schedules, accounts, subject files, scrapbooks, newsclippings, printed materials, photographs and a phonograph record. These records document the history of Local 125 from its founding in 1933 to 1984, when the Local office in New Haven was closed. Included also are correspondence and case materials pertaining to grievance and arbitration proceedings (access restrictions apply).

Subjects

Clothing trade--Labor unions--ConnecticutLabor unions--ConnecticutLabor unions--MassachusettsTextile industry--ConnecticutTextile workers--Labor unions--Connecticut

Contributors

Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America. Local 125

Types of material

PhotographsScrapbooksSound recordings
Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America. New England Joint Board

ACWA New England Joint Board Records

1939-1976
1 vol. 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 193

Organized in Chicago in 1914, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America was formed after a split in the United Garment Workers, and quickly became the dominant force for union in the men’s clothing industry. Within a decade of its founding, ACWA had more than 100,000 members across the U.S. and Canada.

Records of the New England Joint Board of ACWA consist of general correspondence, membership lists, press releases, and collective bargaining files for companies such as Arlan’s Department Stores, Bedford Shirtmakers Corporation, Ethan Ames Company, Holyoke Shirt Company, Lawrence Clothing Company, and Whitney Shirt Company.

Subjects

Clothing trade--Labor unions--MassachusettsLabor unions--MassachusettsTextile industry--MassachusettsTextile workers--Labor unions--New England

Contributors

Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America. New England Joint Board
Ambellan, Harold

Harold Ambellan Memoir

2005
1 item (75p.)
Call no.: MS 855

A native of Buffalo, N.Y., the expatriot sculptor Harold Ambellan was a participant in the Federal Art Project during the 1930s and a figure in the radical Artists’ Union and Sculptors Guild. After naval service during the Second World War, Ambellan left the United States permanently to escape the hostile climate of the McCarthy-era, going into exile in France. Although a friend of artists such as Pollock, de Kooning, and Rothko, Ambellan’s work was primarily figurative and centered on the human form. His work has been exhibited widely on both sides of the Atlantic. He died at his home in Arles in 2006 at the age of 94.

In 2005, Victoria Diehl sat with her friend, Harold Ambellan, to record his memories of a life in art. Beginning with recollections of his childhood in Buffalo, N.Y., the memoir delves into the impact of the Great Depression, Ambellan’s experiences in the New York art scene of the 1930s and his participation in the leftist Artists’ Union, his Navy service, and his expatriate years in France from the 1950s-2000s. Ambellan’s memoir also includes extended discussion of his views of democracy, patriotism, and art, and his career as a sculptor.

Subjects

Artists--20th centuryDemocracyDepressions, 1929Expatriate artists--FranceNew Deal, 1933-1939Sculptors--20th centuryWorld War, 1939-1945

Contributors

Diehl, VictoriaGuthrie, Woody, 1912-1967

Types of material

MemoirsOral histories
Amelia Earhart’s Underground Flying Society

Amelia Earhart’s Underground Flying Society Records

1986-2000
1 box 0.2 linear feet
Call no.: MS 940
logo
Amelia Earhart’s Underground Flying Society logo

Amelia Earhart’s Underground Flying Society, (a.k.a. the Amelia’s) was a lesbian social club based out of Lebanon, N.H., serving the Upper Valley area of Vermont and New Hampshire, and beyond. Reachable via an unnamed post-office box, the club began in 1979 and provided members not only with much sought after social, leisure, and entertainment opportunities, but also a unique community of peers for discussion and activities around political, educational, health, and legal issues of importance to women and lesbians. Like their famous namesake, the Amelia’s did not shy away from risks in supporting women, the feminist movement, or actions promoting and educating about lesbians. The group often overlapped with feminist and lesbian print shop and publishing company, New Victoria Press, and the Amelia’s often used the New Vic building for their meetings.

The Amelia Earhart’s Underground Flying Society Records consist of over 25 issues of the “Amelia’s Newsletter” from 1986-2000; two clippings covering news related to the group, including the repeated vandalization of their “Upper Valley Lesbians” Adopt-A-Highway Program sign; a 1994 audiocassette of interviews for an oral history of the Amelia’s; and a VHS tape of a community event held in 2003 to reflect on the women’s movement in the Upper Valley in the 1970s and 1980s. The newsletter offers detailed documentation of the group and their concerns, including calendars of their social gatherings and other local, regional, and national events of interest, and recaps of relevant news to the lesbian community including updates about politics, legal issues, civil rights and benefits, marriage, discrimination cases, women’s health, education and school issues, and lesbian focused social and entertainment events.

Subjects

Feminism--New England--HistoryLesbian community--New EnglandLesbian community--New HampshireLesbian community--Vermont

Contributors

Dingman, Beth

Types of material

AudiocassettesNewslettersVHS