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

Collecting area: Travel

Allison, John R.

John Russell Allison and Marion Sellers Allison Papers

1941-2018 Bulk: 1942-1952
4 boxes 3 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1117

In August 1945, U. S. Army second lieutenant John R. “Jack” Allison was on a troop ship headed for the final invasion of Japan. By the time he arrived, the war had ended. Allison, a native of Ontario and the main provider of his family since he lost his father at 18, had immigrated to Evanston, Ill., in 1933. While taking evening classes at Northwestern University, he worked in a bank, rising from courier to internal auditor, before leaving for the printing firm R.R. Donnelley. He married Marion Sellers, formerly of Missouri, in 1942. When World War II began, Allison enlisted in the army. In Japan, with the war over, he became part of the American Occupation under General Douglas MacArthur, helping in a series of roles to rebuild and stabilize the Japanese economy. Eventually, he became director of finance, supervising the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry and the Central Bank of Japan. Marion and their three-year-old daughter, Jacqueline, joined him in Japan in 1947. While there, Marion studied the Japanese language, visited museums, learned crafts, taught English to new Japanese friends and acquaintances, and had two more children. After the family returned to the U.S. in 1951, the Allisons had another two children.

The Allison Papers richly document the family’s experience of American-occupied Japan from their different perspectives, one as a member of military and government operations, the other as a parent raising children and immersing herself in the culture. The collection includes materials from Jack Allison’s military service and work and letters written by Marion, mostly to her parents, along with two photograph albums, a scrapbook, and family histories in print and audiovisual form.

Gift of Jacqueline A. Osborne, March 2020
Language(s): Japanese

Subjects

Japan--Description and travelJapan--Economic conditions--1945-1989Japan--History--Allied occupation, 1945-1952World War, 1939-1945

Types of material

Administrative reportsLetters (Correspondence)Photograph albumsPhotographsScrapbooks
Burgett-Irey family

Burgett-Irey Family Papers

1832-2010 Bulk: 1929-2008
4 boxes 2 linear feet
Call no.: MS 605

Born in 1908 to Louis and Sarah Kessel Burgett, Katherine grew up on the family farm outside of Oquawka, Illinois. In 1924 her parents purchased their own farm in Monmouth, which they later lost due to the devastating impact of the Depression on agriculture, and it was there that she first met her future husband, Kenneth Monroe Irey, a student at Monmouth College. The newlyweds moved to New Jersey in 1931 where Kenneth was transferred for work. As a chemical engineer, Kenneth enjoyed a successful career and comfortably supported his wife and two children. Retiring in 1970, he and Katherine spent their later years pursuing two passions: traveling and bird-watching. Kenneth and Katherine’s eldest daughter, June Irey Guild, spent most of her adult life in Massachusetts where she has married twice, raised six children, and operated her own business. During her retirement years, June focused on preserving her family’s history by collecting letters and recoding family narratives.
The Burgett-Irey Family Papers chronicle the changes that many twentieth-century American families experienced as the nation descended into an economic depression, entered into a world war, and emerged as one of the most powerful countries in the world. The collection, which will continue to grow, includes approximately 65 letters between Katherine Burgett Irey and her family. Most of the letters exchange family updates, particularly precious after Katherine relocated to New Jersey. Among the earliest letters is an account of Katherine and Kenneth’s first meeting described as “fast work,” since he asked her out on the spot. Also included are autobiographical writings by Kenneth describing his cross-country trip to California in 1927 and a brief history of his life and career.

Subjects

Bird watchingBurgett familyIrey familyMarriage--United StatesMotherhood--United States--History--20th centuryMothers--United States--History--20th centuryWomen--United States--History--20th century

Contributors

Guild, June IreyIrey, Katherine BurgettIrey, Kenneth Monroe, 1905-1994

Types of material

DiariesLetters (Correspondence)Slides
Chrisman, Miriam Usher

Miriam Chrisman Papers

1937-2007
13 boxes 9 linear feet
Call no.: FS 128
Depiction of Miriam U. Chrisman, 1964
Miriam U. Chrisman, 1964

A long-time historian at UMass Amherst, Miriam Usher Chrisman graduated from Smith College in 1941 and spent the war years as an intern and research assistant in various agencies, including the National Resources Planning Board. With the return of peace, Chrisman took master’s degrees in economics (American University) and education (Smith), before earning her doctorate in history from Yale in 1962 for a study of Reformation-era Strasbourg. From Yale, she landed a faculty appointment at UMass Amherst, where she remained for her ennitre career. As a historian of the 16th century, she was awarded a Prix d’honneur by the Societe des Amis de Vieux Strasbourg, an honorary doctor of humane letters by Valparaiso University, and the Wilbur Cross Medal from Yale. Chrisman retired from active teaching in 1985 and remained an active friend of the Du Bois Library until her death in November 2008.

A faithful and colorful correspondent, the bulk of Miriam Chrisman’s papers consist of letters written to family and friends stretching from her college days at Smith through the year before her death. The bulk of the correspondence is with her husband, Donald Chrisman, an orthopedic surgeon who was enrolled at Harvard Medical School during their courtship. Soon after the Chrismans married in November 1943, Donald left for active duty in the Navy on the U.S.S. Baldwin. The couple’s war correspondence is unusually rich, offering insight on everything from the social responsibilities of married couples to their opinions on the progression of the war. Of particular note is a lengthy letter written by Donald during and immediately after D-Day in which he provides Miriam a real-time description of the events and his reactions as they unfold. Later letters document Miriam’s extensive travels including a trip around the world.

Subjects

Smith College--StudentsUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst--FacultyUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst. Department of HistoryWorld War, 1939-1945

Contributors

Chrisman, Miriam Usher

Types of material

Letters (Correspondence)
Clapp, Lyman

Lyman Clapp Diary

1825 August 8-25
1 vol. 0.1 linear feet
Call no.: MS 709 bd

When Lyman Clapp and Lucia Cowls agreed to marry in 1825, they took a celebratory tour of western Massachusetts and northern Connecticut. Over nine days, they traveled from Mt. Pleasant, Mass. (possibly in Worcester County) through Brimfield to Stafford, Tolland, Vernon, Hartford, and Litchfield, Connecticut, before returning home by way of Springfield and Northampton. The Clapp’s party consisted of the engaged couple chaperoned by Lucia’s parents, and they were joined by a relative, Edward, near Hartford.

Filled with interesting vignettes of travel in western New England during the 1820s, Clapp’s diary includes fine descriptions of the various taverns and inns they visited en route and the range of natural and cultural sites, from rolling hills to modern milling technology. Among other sights that caught Clapp’s eye were the the Charter Oak, a hermit living in the hills near Avon, the Walcott Factories at Torrington, Northampton, and the extraordinary view from the top of Mount Holyoke.

Acquired from Michael Brown, April 2011

Subjects

African Americans--ConnecticutBrookfield (Mass.)--Description and travel--19th centuryConnecticut--Description and travel--19th centuryFerries--MassachusettsHartford (Conn.)--Description and travel--19th centuryHermits--ConnecticutLitchfield (Conn.)--Description and travel--19th centuryMassachusetts--Description and travel--19th centuryMount Holyoke (Mass.)--Description and travel--19th centuryNorthampton (Mass.)--Description and travel--19th centurySpringfield (Mass.)--Description and travel--19th centuryStafford (Conn.)--Description and travel--19th centuryTaverns (Inns)--ConnecticutVernon (Conn.)--Description and travel--19th century

Contributors

Clapp, Lyman

Types of material

Diaries
Klaw, Alonzo

Alonzo Klaw Photograph Collection

1929-1931
3 boxes 1.5 linear feet
Call no.: PH 048
Depiction of New York street scene, ca.1931
New York street scene, ca.1931

A landscape painter and photographer, Alonzo “Lon” Klaw was born in 1885 to Antoinette Morris and Marc Klaw, the attorney, theatrical impresario, and partner in the powerful Broadway production partnership of Klaw and Erlanger. Lon and his wife Alma (Ash) lived on a farm, Almalon, near Carmel, New York, but spent large parts of each year at their home in Santa Barbara, California, traveling frequently to Europe, particularly after his father’s retirement in 1927.

The several hundred photographic prints from Lon Klaw reflect his interests in landscape and travel and the influence on his work of the Photo Secession on his aesthetic. Approximately half of the collection consists of American views, primarily from southern California, depicting bucolic scenery, grazing cattle, and trees, but there are occasional portraits and views of the built environment in California and street scenes from New York. Taken during a European trip in 1929 or 1930, the remainder of the collection includes images of Cannes and Paris. Klaw typically printed each image several times to produce different visual effects.

Gift of Thomas W. Tenney and family, Nov. 2012

Subjects

California--PhotographsCannes (France)--PhotographsCows--PhotographsParis (France)--PhotographsTrees--Photographs

Contributors

Klaw, Alonzo

Types of material

Photographs
Maslow, Jonathan Evan

Jonathan Evan Maslow Papers

ca.1978-2008
20 boxes 30 linear feet
Call no.: MS 639
Depiction of Jon Maslow
Jon Maslow

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

A man of diverse and interests, Jon Maslow was a naturalist and journalist, an environmentalist, traveler, and writer, whose works took his from the rain forests to the steppes to the salt marshes of his native New Jersey. Born on Aug. 4, 1948, in Long Branch, Maslow received his MA from the Columbia University School of Journalism (1974), after which he spent several years traveling through South and Central America, studying the flora and fauna, reporting and writing, before returning to the States. Always active in community affairs, he was a reporter with the Cape May County Herald (1997-2002) and the West Paterson Herald News (2002-2008). The author of six books, including The Owl Papers (1983), Bird of Life, Bird of Death, a finalist for the National Book Award in 1986, and Sacred Horses: Memoirs of a Turkmen Cowboy (1994), he often combined an intense interest in natural history with a deep environmentalist ethos and, particularly in the latter two cases, with a deep concern for the history of political turmoil. He died of cancer on Feb. 19, 2008.

A large and rich assemblage, the Maslow Papers document his career from his days as a young journalist traveling in Central America through his community involvements in New Jersey during the 2000s. An habitual rewriter, Maslow left numerous drafts of books and articles, and the collection includes valuable correspondence with colleagues and friends, including his mentor Philip Roth, as well as Maslow’s fascinating travel diaries.

Subjects

Authors--New JerseyCentral America--Description and travelJournalists--New JerseyNew Jersey--HistoryReporters and reporting--New Jersey

Contributors

Maslow, Jonathan EvanRoth, Philip
Nichols, Reuben

Reuben Nichols, The adventures and ramblings of a sailor

1840
1 vol. 0.1 linear feet
Call no.: MS 901 bd

The son of a Revolutionary War veteran from Fairfield County, Conn., Reuben Nichols went to sea as teenager and spent a quarter of a century sailing the Atlantic aboard merchant ships and privateers. After rising to become master of the New York and Savannah packets Exact and Angelique in the 1830s, he retired to a life on shore near Bridgeport.

This vigorous account of a life on the antebellum seas runs Nichols’ childhood hardships through a series of adventures at sea in war and peace. An observant and effective writer, Nichols describes voyages to western and northern Europe, the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, and South America during and after the War of 1812. During a colorful career, he took part in the operations of warships and privateers, witnessed attempted mutinies and desertions, rescued the abolitionist John Hopper from a mob in Georgia, and was drawn into the struggles for colonial liberation. His experiences aboard the privateer Kemp and descriptions of Haiti, Cape Verde, Spain, Gibraltar, Turkey, and Argentina are particularly evocative.

Acquired from William Reese, Mar. 2016

Subjects

Abolitionists--GeorgiaArgentina--Description and travel--19th centuryAruba--Description and travel--19th centuryGibraltar--Description and travel--19th centuryHaiti--Description and travel--19th centuryHopper, John, 1815-1865Merchant ships--ConnecticutMutinyPrivateeringSailors--ConnecticutSpain--Description and travel--19th centuryStratford (Conn.)--HistoryTurkey--Description and travel--19th centuryUnited States--History--War of 1812--Naval operations

Types of material

AutobiographiesMemoirs
Noyes, Helen Haskell

Helen Haskell Noyes Diary

1885
1 vol. 0.1 linear feet
Call no.: MS 072 bd

A fine bookbinder and daughter of New Thought dietary reformer Charles C. Haskell, Helen Haskell Noyes (“Nellie”) was raised in privilege in Deer Isle, Maine, and Norwich, Conn. At the age of 21, Nellie and a group of friends embarked on a grand tour, visiting Switzerland, Italy, France, and England over the course of several months, taking in the usual fare of art and antiquities, cathedrals, palaces, fortifications, museums, and hotels.

In her diary for 1885, Noyes kept a careful record of her experiences while on her grand European tour. In sometimes perfunctory, but often interesting and humorous detail, she notes the challenges and pleasures of European travel, but more importantly, she offers a reflection of a young American woman’s first encounter with a foreign culture and her growing fascination with the deep art history in Italy.

Subjects

France--Description and travel--19th centuryGrand tours (Education)Great Britain--Description and travel--19th centuryItaly--Description and travel--19th centurySwitzerland--Description and travel--19th century

Contributors

Haskell, Nellie Gowan

Types of material

Diaries
Ozer Family

Ozer Family Papers

ca. 1935-2015
10 boxes 13.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1002
Ruth and Abe Ozer celebrating their 90th birthdays in 2010.
Ruth and Abe Ozer celebrating their 90th birthdays in 2010.

Born five days apart in June 1920 in Manhattan, Abraham Jay Ozer (born Abraham Ozersky) and Ruth Sydell Ozer (born Ruth Sydell Newman) married in 1947 after Abe returned from his army service in Australia, New Guinea, and the Philippines. Abe received the Purple Heart after being wounded by shrapnel from a kamikaze attack on his ship after the Battle of Leyte Gulf in 1944. Returning to New York, Abe and Ruth began their romance, after being friends earlier as part of a Workmen Circle teen group, and lived almost the entirety of the rest of their lives in the Amalgamated Housing Cooperative in the Bronx, the country’s oldest nonprofit housing cooperative. The Ozers were involved in the social, cultural, and financial community of the cooperative, originally founded by Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union members, and decidedly Jewish and progressive in its early decades. Working for RKO Pictures Inc. and as a substitute teacher, Ruth also volunteered at the local Amalgamated nursery school, which her daughters Alison and Stephanie attended as children. Self-employed in the insurance business, Abe served on several of the community’s boards and societies, and later volunteered as a dispatcher for ambulances in the Amalgamated, and as a tour guide at the Bronx Zoo. The two were also able to pursue their passion for travel, beginning their adventures in 1969 with a trip to the United Kingdom. Over the next thirty-five years they would take more than fifty international and national trips.

The Ozer Family Papers primarily document the lives of Abe and Ruth Ozer, including their high school and college years, their correspondence and other records from Abe’s military service in the 311th and then 168th Ordnance Depot Company, additional war correspondence between Ruth and other parties, and extensive documentation of the couple’s many years of travel, including selected slides, photographs, travel planning documents, and Ruth’s detailed travel journals for each trip from 1969 through 2005. Additional materials cover the Amalgamated Housing Cooperative, RKO Pictures Inc., and other aspects of the Ozer’s lives, including numerous oral history interviews and home movies on formats ranging from 8mm film to digital. The greater Ozer family is also represented, from a family tree back to Abe’s grandparents from Belorussia, to content and interviews with his mother, Sadie Uretsky, and several folders of clippings about Abe’s brother, Bernard Ozer, an important figure in fashion, and former vice-president of Associated Merchandising Corporation. Additional content on the Ozer’s children, grandchildren, and extended family rounds out the collection. An additional two boxes of family photographs and albums, added to the collection later, remain unprocessed.

Gift of Alison Ozer, November 2017

Subjects

Bronx (New York, N.Y.)--Social life and customsHousing, CooperativeHunter College--StudentsJews--New York (State)--New YorkLeyte Gulf, Battle of, Philippines, 1944TourismTravelUnited States. Army. Ordnance CorpsWorld War, 1939-1945

Types of material

Letters (Correspondence)Oral historiesPhotographsSlides (photographs)
Sawin-Young Family Papers

Sawin-Young Family Papers

1864-1924
1 box 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 583
Depiction of Atop Mt. Tom
Atop Mt. Tom

At the turn of the twentieth century, Albert Sawin and his wife Elizabeth (nee Young) lived on Taylor Street in Holyoke, Massachusetts, with their three children, Allan, Ralph, and Alice. Elizabeth’s brother, also named Allan, traveled in the west during the 1880s, looking for work in Arizona, Utah, and Montana.

The bulk of the Sawin-Young Family Papers consists of letters exchanged between Elizabeth “Lizzie” Sawin, her sisters, and Jennie Young of nearby Easthampton. Later letters were addressed to Beatrice Sawin at Wheaton College from her father Walter E. Sawin, who contributed to the design for the Holyoke dam. The photograph album (1901) kept by Alice E. Sawin features images of the interior and exterior of the family’s home, as well as candid shots of family and friends and photographs of excursions to nearby Mt. Tom and the grounds of Northfield School.

Subjects

Holyoke (Mass.)--Social life and customsMontana--Description and travelSawin familyUtah--Description and travelYoung family

Contributors

Sawin, Alice E.Sawin, BeatriceYoung, AllanYoung, Elizabeth

Types of material

Letters (Correspondence)Photographs