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

Collecting area: UMass history

Stuart, Alastair M.

Alastair M. Stuart papers

ca.1960-2004
9 boxes 12.5 linear feet
Call no.: FS 147

A leading researcher on communication and social behavior in termites, Alastair MacDonald Stuart (1931-2009) was born in Glasgow, Scotland in Jan. 4, 1931. After study at Glasgow University and the University of Auckland, he entered Harvard to study entomology under E.O. Wilson, completing his dissertation, Experimental Studies on Communication in Termites, in 1960. Among the early students of the role of pheromones in termite communication, Stuart held appointments at North Carolina State and Chicago before joining the faculty of the Department of Biology in 1970, where he remained until his retirement in 2004.

The Stuart Papers document the career of the entomologist, Alastair Stuart, from his days as a graduate student at Harvard through his long tenure at UMass Amherst. The collection includes a full range of correspondence, manuscripts, and research notes, with some documentation of his teaching responsibilities.

Subjects

EntomologyTermites--BehaviorUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst--FacultyUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst. Biology Department

Contributors

Stuart, Alastair M.

Types of material

Laboratory notesPhotographs
Sutton, Gordon Francis, 1930-

Gordon Francis Sutton Papers

1970-2004
56 boxes 84 linear feet
Call no.: FS 111

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

Gordon Francis Sutton (1928-2012) began his tenure at the University of Massachusetts Amherst as an Assistant Professor of Sociology. Sutton was later appointed to serve as the Director of the Population and Ecology Studies Program. With an interest in social policy, Sutton’s work focused on evaluating statistical classification systems of metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas. His dissertation on travel patterns in urban communities earned him a PhD in Sociology from the University of Michigan Ann Arbor in 1959. In 1997 Sutton’s son Matthew created the Gordon and Dolores Sutton Scholarship Fund at UMass Amherst to promote ethnic diversity and economic opportunity.

The Sutton Papers contain a wealth of material relating to Sutton’s research in urban sociology, social statistics, and demography.

Subjects

University of Massachusetts Amherst--FacultyUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst. Department of Sociology

Contributors

Sutton, Gordon Francis, 1930-
Swados, Harvey, 1920-1972

Harvey Swados Papers

1933-1983
49 boxes 23 linear feet
Call no.: MS 218

The author and social critic Harvey Swados (1920-1972) was a graduate of the University of Michigan who embarked on a literary life after service in the Merchant Marine during the Second World War. His first novel, Out Went the Candle (1955), introduced the themes to which Swados would return throughout his career, the alienation of factory workers and the experience of the working class in industrial America. His other works include a widely read collection of stories set in an auto plant, On the Line, the novels False Coin (1959), Standing Fast (1970), and Celebration (1975), and a noted collection of essays A Radical’s America (1962). His essay for Esquire magazine, “Why Resign from the Human Race?,” is often cited as inspiring the formation of the Peace Corps.

The Swados collection includes journals, notes, typewritten drafts of novels and short stories, galley proofs, clippings, and correspondence concerning writings; letters from family, publishers, literary agents, colleagues, friends, and readers, including Richard Hofstadter, Saul Bellow, James Thomas Farrell, Herbert Gold, Irving Howe, Bernard Malamud, and Charles Wright Mills; letters from Swados, especially to family, friends, and editors; book reviews; notes, background material, and drafts of speeches and lectures; financial records; biographical and autobiographical sketches; bibliographies.

Subjects

Authors, American--20th century--BiographyJewish authors--United States--BiographyNational Book Awards--History--20th centurySocialists--United States--Biography

Contributors

Bellow, SaulFarrell, James T. (James Thomas), 1904-1979Gold, Herbert, 1924-Hofstadter, Richard, 1916-1970Howe, IrvingMalamud, BernardMills, C. Wright (Charles Wright), 1916-1962Swados, Harvey, 1920-1972
Swedlund, Alan C.

Alan C. Swedlund Papers

1971-2016
4 boxes 6 linear feet
Call no.: FS 197

Born in Sacramento, Calif., but raised in Colorado, the biological anthropologist Alan C. Swedlund received each of his degrees at the University of Colorado Boulder (PhD, 1970). After a brief stint at Prescott College, Swedlund joined the faculty at UMass Amherst in 1973, where he helped to develop the doctoral program in biological anthropology and chaired the department for five years in the early 1990s. A prolific scholar, he drew upon diverse methodologies drawn from demography, epidemiology, and physical anthropology to explore interactions between cultural processes and human biological conditions in populations ranging from the Ancient Pueblo of the southwestern United States, to contemporary Central America and Yucatan, and historical New England. Among dozens of publications, he was author or editor of seven books, including Shadows in the Valley: A Cultural History of Illness, Death, and Loss in New England, 1840-1916 (2010), Plagues and Epidemics: Infected Spaces Past and Present (2010), and Beyond Germs: Explorations of Indigenous Depopulation in North America (2015). He was granted emeritus status upon his retirement in 2008.

The Swedlund papers include extensive professional correspondence from his first professional appointment at Prescott College through the time of his retirement, along with numerous grant applications, unpublished papers and talks, and research data. Of particular note are extensive records and data files for his study of nineteenth century demography in the Connecticut River Valley and Franklin County, Mass.

Gift of Alan C. Swedlund, August 2019.

Subjects

Connecticut River Valley--PopulationDemographyPhysical anthrpologyUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst--FacultyUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst. Department of Anthropology
Sylvia Helen Forman Papers

Sylvia Helen Forman Papers

1966-1995 Bulk: 1970-1975
14 boxes 8.3 linear feet
Call no.: FS 211
image of Sylvia Forman

Sylvia Helen Forman (1944 or 1945-1992) was an anthropologist and educator at the University of California – Berkeley and at the University of Massachusetts – Amherst focusing primarily on the demography, genealogy, and health outcomes of Quechua and Spanish-speaking Indigenous and Mestizo peoples in the Andean regions of Ecuador. She received her Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in 1972 for her study of law and conflict in rural highland Ecuador and the following year she joined the faculty at UMass Amherst. Soon after, she began to teach at UMass Amherst until her death in 1992 at only 48 years old. Forman’s legacy at UMass exists today through her former students, her substantial research, and her contributions to the Department of Anthropology, namely its Junior Year Writing program and the Sylvia Forman Third World scholarship fund (which was initially funded by a $100,000 grant from her estate).

Throughout the entirety of her life and her career, Forman was passionately dedicated to feminist and other social justice causes in the United States, in Ecuador, and elsewhere. From early in her career, she stood out as an advocate for her students and was instrumental in building cross-connections among anthropologists in the Five Colleges Consortium to expand opportunities for study, and she also forged strong connections with academics in the developing programs in Women’s Studies. She would later be recognized posthumously as one the founders of the Association for Feminist Anthropology in 1998.

Sylvia Helen Forman’s work in Ecuador can generally be split into two periods, the first of which corresponds roughly to 1966-1975, and the second from around 1976-1981, but she continued to work with contacts in the region long after. The former period saw more direct involvement and travel in Andean Ecuador, while the latter saw fewer trips and less extensive fieldwork. Regardless, both periods focused on similar topics of demography, genealogy, and medical experiences. Forman also did continue to travel to the region after these main research periods, but fewer materials are available from after 1981. Each series in this collection contains different parts of Forman’s work in Ecuador, her professional life, her personal life, and an array of pamphlets, postcards, and other ephemera she collected along the way. The majority of the content available is research-related and typically consists of field notes, data, diaries, and journals.

Language(s): FrenchSpanishQuechuaChineseFrenchSpanish

Subjects

Feminism and science--EcuadorHealth expectancy--Ecuador

Contributors

Alliance for ProgressCentro de Motivación y Asesoría

Types of material

CorrespondenceField Notes
Restrictions: none
Talking Truth

Talking Truth Collection

2015-2018
2 boxes 0.75 linear feet
Call no.: RG 040/2 T35
Depiction of

Co-founded by Madeleine Charney, Lena Fletcher, and Kris Nelson, Talking Truth began as a workshop on climate activism held during the Fall of 2015. The original workshop focused on the overwhelming nature of the climate crisis and provided a three part discussion aimed at helping UMass Amherst students, faculty, and librarians find their individual voices as activists and to support collaboration among UMass community members in their efforts to combat climate change. The discussion included a letter writing activity asking writers to share their feelings about climate change. This activity originated in Fletcher’s Natural Resources Conservation course, “Environment and Society” and more letters were written at subsequent Talking Truth events. Through 2018, Talking Truth held a variety of other events including film screenings, author talks, and a booth at the Amherst, Mass. Sustainability Festival.

The Talking Truth Collection consists of letters written during Talking Truth workshops, events, and in Lena Fletcher’s classes. There is also a small group of drawings done as part of the “Teach-in, freak out: building power in a climate of urgency” on November 19th, 2015, which was sponsored by the UMass Fossil Fuel Divestment Campaign.

Subjects

Climatic change--Social aspects
Thatcher, Roscoe Wilfrid, 1872-1933

Roscoe Wilfrid Thatcher Papers

1900-1934
4 boxes 2 linear feet
Call no.: RG 003/1 T43
Depiction of Roscoe W. Thatcher
Roscoe W. Thatcher

The agronomist Roscoe Thatcher served as the last president of Massachusetts Agricultural College and the first when the institution changed its name to Massachusetts State College in 1931. Before coming to Amherst, Thatcher had extensive experience in both agricultural research and administration, having served as director of the agricultural station for the state of Washington, as professor of plant chemistry at the University of Minnesota (1913-1917), and as dean of the School of Agriculture and director of the Minnesota Experiment Station (1917-1921), and as director of the New York Agricultural Experiment Station at Geneva. Selected as President of the Massachusetts Agricultural College in 1927, he helped expand the two year program in practical agriculture to become the Stockbridge School of Agriculture and oversaw curricular reform, orienting vocational training toward citizenship education. The student health service also started during his tenure. Thatcher resigned due to ill health in 1933. Although he returned to research in agricultural chemistry at the College in April 1933, he died in his laboratory on December 6, 1933.

Official and administrative correspondence, memos, and other papers, relating to Thatcher’s service as president of Massachusetts State College together with writing and biographical material.

Subjects

Massachusetts State College. President

Contributors

Thatcher, Roscoe Wilfrid, 1872-1933
Thomas, R. Brooke

R. Brooke Thomas Papers

ca.1948-1990
118 boxes 177 linear feet
Call no.: FS 105

Born in Lancaster, Pa., in June 1939, the biological anthropologist R. Brooke Thomas earned both his BA (1963) and PhD (1972) from Penn State University. From his days as a graduate student, Thomas’ research centered on the biocultural adaptation of Andean peoples to life at high altitudes, including a suite of problems relating to hypoxia, cold, undernutrition, and disease.

The Thomas Papers are comprised of biological, ethnographic, and anthropometric survey data relating to Indian cultures in the Central Andes, particularly in Peru, along with Thomas’s dissertation and research data, notes for research and teaching, correspondence, and an extensive run of publications.

Subjects

Adaptation (Human)Altitude, Influence ofBiological anthropology--PeruNutrition--PeruUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst--FacultyUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst. Department of Anthropology
Thorne, Curtis B.

Curtis B. Thorne Papers

ca.1976-1989
2 boxes 3 linear feet
Call no.: FS 153

Before joining the faculty of the microbial genetics department at UMass Amherst in 1966, Curtis B. Thorne worked as the branch chief at the biolabs in Fort Detrick from 1948-1961 and 1963-1966 where his research focused on Bacillus anthracis, the microbe that causes anthrax. During his tenure at UMass, Curtis applied for and received numerous grants for his continued research on the bacterium, including funding from the U.S. Department of Defense. While his research was centered on the genetics and physiology of the anthrax bacillus, with an emphasis on developing a vaccine, it garnered the unwanted attention of local peace activists in 1989. Protestors, who feared Thorne’s research was linked to germ warfare, picketed outside of his laboratory and demanded that the university reject Pentagon funding. Even though the university and the town of Amherst refused to limit Thorne’s research, he decided not to seek an extension of his contract with the Army in 1990, a decision he regretted having to make. Four years later, Thorne retired from UMass and was honored by his former students with a symposium and dinner. Thorne died in 2008 at the age of 86.

Thorne’s papers consist of lab notebooks and materials relating to the classes he taught at UMass Amherst. Many of the notebooks are related to his research on Bacillus anthracis as well as other microbes including Bacills thuringiensis. His papers do not contain any information related to the funding of his research or the controversy that later surrounded it.

Subjects

Bacillus anthracisBiological weaponsGeneticists--MassachusettsUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst--FacultyUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst. Department of Microbiology

Contributors

Thorne, Curtis B
Tillis, Frederick, 1930-

Frederick Tillis Papers

1970-2010
10 boxes 8 linear feet
Call no.: FS 156
Depiction of Fred Tillis, Nov. 23, 1977
Fred Tillis, Nov. 23, 1977

A composer, performer, poet, educator, and arts administrator, Fred Tillis was one of the major influences on the cultural life at UMass Amherst for forty years. Born in Galveston, Texas, in 1930, Tillis began playing jazz trumpet and saxophone even before his teens. A product of segregated schools, he graduated from Wiley College at the age of 19, and received his MA and PhD in music at the University of Iowa. As a performer and composer of unusual breadth, his work spans both the jazz and European traditions, and he has written for piano and voice, orchestra, choral pieces, chamber music, and in the African American spiritual tradition, drawing upon a wide range of cultural references. After teaching at Wiley, Grambling, and Kentucky State in the 1960s, Tillis was recruited to UMass in 1970 by his former adviser at Iowa, Philip Bezanson, to teach music composition and theory. Earning promotion to Professor in 1973, Tillis was appointed Director of the Fine Arts Center in 1978, helping to jump start some of the most successful arts initiatives the university has seen, including the the Afro American Music and Jazz program, the New World Theater, Augusta Savage Gallery, Asian Arts and Culture Program, and Jazz in July. Upon retirement from UMass in 1997, he was appointed Emeritus Director of the Fine Arts and remains active as a musician and poet.

The Tillis papers document an extraordinary career in the arts, focused on Fred Tillis’s work as a composer. Consisting primarily of musical scores along with an assortment of professional correspondence relating to his publishing and miscellaneous notes, the collection offers insight into the evolution of Tillis’s musical vision from the 1970s into the new millennium.

Subjects

African American composersAfrican American musiciansFine Arts Center (University of Massachusetts Amherst)JazzUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst--FacultyUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst. Department of Music and Dance

Contributors

Tillis, Frederick, 1930-

Types of material

Scores