Collecting area: UMass faculty

A plant morphologist and member of the Botany Department at Massachusetts Agricultural College, Ray Ethan Torrey was among the college’s most charismatic faculty members during the early twentieth century. Born in Leverett, Mass., and educated in the local public schools, Torrey graduated from MAC with the class of 1912, earning his PhD at Harvard six years later. After serving on the faculty of Grove City College and Wesleyan, he returned to his alma mater in 1919, where he remained for more than 36 years. A specialist in plant morphology and author or two widely used textbooks and numerous articles, Torrey’s introductory course in botany was among the most popular in the college. He was best known, however, for taking a broader, philosophical approach to science that encouraged students to explore the connections between philosophy, science, religion, and the humanities. Torrey died of leukemia in Boston on Jan. 16, 1956.

Correspondence, chiefly with former students and colleagues at other institutions; lecture notes and outlines; 27 pen and ink drawings; published writings and drawings; biographical material; class and laboratory notes taken by students; family and educational records (1832-1956); photographs, and other papers.

Trained as a teacher of physical education at the Sargent School in Boston, Ruth J. Totman enjoyed a career at state normal schools and teachers colleges in New York and Pennsylvania before joining the faculty at Massachusetts State College in 1943, building the program in women’s physical education almost from scratch and culminating in 1958 with the opening of a new Women’s Physical Education Building, which was one of the largest and finest of its kind in the nation. Totman retired at the mandatory age of 70 in 1964, and twenty years later, the women’s PE building was rededicated in her honor. Totman died in November 1989, three days after her 95th birthday.

The Totman Papers are composed mostly of personal materials pertaining to her residence in Amherst, correspondence, and Totman family materials. The sparse material in this collection relating to Totman’s professional career touches lightly on her retirement in 1964 and the dedication of the Ruth J. Totman Physical Education Building at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Supplementing the documents is a sizeable quantity of photographs and 8mm films, with the former spanning nearly her entire 95 years. The 8mm films, though fragile, provide an interesting, though soundless view into Totman’s activities from the 1940s through the 1960s, including a cross-country trip with Gertrude “Jean” Lewis, women’s Physical Education events at the New Jersey College for Women, and trips to Japan to visit her nephew, Conrad Totman..

Henry I. Tragle served in the United States Army from 1941 until his retirement in 1964. He was a company commander of the 8th Armored Division during World War II and earned a Bronze Star for singlehandedly capturing a German general and his staff. After his retirement from the Army, he earned a B.A. (1966), M.A. (1967), and Ph.D in history (1971) from the University of Massachusetts, where he became a professor of history and assistant dean of the graduate school. Tragle was born in Richmond, Virginia in 1914 and worked in the Virginia dairy industry before joining the Army. Tragle studied military history but wrote his dissertation on the slave revolt led by Nat Turner in 1831. Tragle continued his historical research after his retirement from the University in 1972, collecting material on General Douglas MacArthur as well as editing several of Jackdraw Publications’ history packets. Tragle died December 15, 1991.

The Henry I. Tragle Papers contain Tragle’s historical research from 1968 until 1978, which includes scrapbooks of photos, notes, and clippings, bound together by research topic. There are also several shrink wrapped editions of Jackdraw Publications packets that Tragle was likely to have edited.

Arnold Trehub, born in Malden, Mass. in 1923, was an active and very well respected cognitive scientist and researcher, artist, and World War II veteran. Trehub earned his BA from Northeastern University and his PhD from Boston University, though his undergraduate education was interrupted by the War. Serving in the Pacific Theater, he worked as a radio technician for B-29 bombers, two of which were the Enola Gay and the Bockscar. For most of his professional life, Trehub was the director of a research lab at the VA Hospital in Leeds, Mass. and an adjunct professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His research on the neurophysiology of the human brain and the nature of consciousness appeared in numerous journals and edited volumes and his best known book, The Cognitive Brain, was published by MIT press in 1991. Trehub was a resident of Amherst since 1954 and passed away on April 3rd, 2017.

The Arnold Trehub Papers primarily document his work as a cognitive scientist, including drafts and copies of articles, research data, research notes on paper and as digital files, and a rich collection of Trehub’s professional email correspondence. In addition to the content of his research, the Trehub Papers also exhibit the processes and approach of early personal computer-aided research design, data design, and research graphics. There is also a small amount of Trehub’s undergraduate student work.

Robert W. Tuthill taught epidemiology at UMass Amherst for nearly three decades and championed the libraries by both serving on the Friends of the Library board and bringing his students into the stacks for class assignments. Born in Wilkes-Barre, Penna., Tuthill attended high school in Newton, Mass., and earned an associate’s degree from Newton Junior College before coming to the University of Massachusetts. At UMass, he majored in sociology, graduating in 1956, and served at the Valley Forge Army Hospital before returning to academia at the University of Pennsylvania, where he received a master’s degree in sociology. At the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, he studied epidemiology, earning his Ph.D. in 1970. When Tuthill returned to UMass to join the faculty in 1970, it was to start the epidemiology program, which would be part of the School of Public Health and Health Sciences. Tuthill joined the Friends of the Library board in 1988 and served for nearly fifteen years, including a term as president. In 2003, he was honored with the Libraries’ Siegfried Feller Award for Outstanding Volunteer Service. Tuthill retired from UMass in 1998.

The Tuthill Papers contain teaching materials from some of the notable courses Tuthill taught at UMass, including Environmental Epidemiology and Biases in Epidemiologic Research; a small amount of research materials associated with an ADD/ADHD study; and copies of his publications, which included studies involving a variety of public health issues, from lead poisoning and smoking to family planning and cancer. Much of Tuthill’s research took place in the Western Massachusetts region.

As an undergraduate at Harvard, Maria Tymoczko was lured away from the study of biochemistry into medieval literature, remaining at Harvard through her doctorate and eventually making the subject into an academic career. Since joining the faculty at UMass Amherst in 1974, she has written or edited six books and has built an international reputation in three fields: Celtic medieval literature, Irish studies, and translation studies. A popular instructor, she has also played a leading role on several university committees.

The Tymoczko Papers document both the career and university service of a scholar of Irish literature and theorist of translation. In addition to her professional correspondence (1973-1980), the collection includes a significant quantity of material documenting Tymoczko’s university service, including notes from her time as chair of the General Education Council (1986-1994), from the Joint Task Force of UMass and Community College Relations, and the Rules Committee and Ad-hoc Committee on Retention of Administrators of the Faculty Senate. Additions to the collection are expected in the future.

In 1993, UMass Educational Television was created by Dean Bailey Jackson and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Jay Carey to establish a creative media outreach project for the School of Education. Professor Liane Brandon was asked to be the Director with Associate Dean Jay Carey as Co-director. Working in collaboration with staff member Scott Perry, they designed UMass Educational Television to provide the public with innovative, original, educational programming using the resources of the School of Education and the University, and to serve as a hands-on learning laboratory for students and teachers. They became the only School of Education in the country to produce original educational programming for cable/home audiences. Despite the positive reception of the programs produced, funding for the UMass Educational Television was cut and production ceased in 2003.

The UMass Educational Television Collection consists of many of the original programs they developed and created: Try This At Home, Fresh Ink, Who Knows? Pet Tales, Valley Vignettes, Hi Mom!, and Fine Print. Show flyers, posters, production files, and awards provide insight into the creation and reception of programs.

Established in western Massachusetts in 1863 as the Massachusetts Agricultural College, the University of Massachusetts Amherst is a national research university and the flagship campus of the state’s five-campus University system. UMass, one of the founding members of the Five College Consortium established in 1965, offers reciprocal student access among the University and Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and Smith Colleges. The University currently enrolls approximately 24,000 undergraduate and graduate students, and offers 87 bachelors degree programs, 6 associates, 73 masters, and 51 doctoral programs in 10 schools and colleges.

The Archives of the University of Massachusetts Amherst document the institutional memory of the campus and serve as the largest and most comprehensive source of information on the history and cultural heritage of the University. As the collective memory of the university, the repository contains official records and items having historical value such as records of governance, policy, operation of administrative offices, departments, research, programs, and publications. Unpublished materials in the Archives include photographs, films, memorabilia, administrative records of major university offices, and the papers of presidents, trustees, administrative officers, and members of the faculty.

Please note that collections for individual faculty members, administrators, and students, as well as selected groups and administrative units at the University are listed separately in UMarmot. The Concordance to the Archives is an alphabetical listing of University departments, centers, groups, and other units, providing call numbers, when appropriate. Researchers may also wish to consult the online guide to UMass Amherst collections. Our digital repository, Credo includes a growing number of oral histories and digitized collections of papers and organizational records. YouMass is a wiki devoted to the history of the University and its predecessors, the Massachusetts Agricultural College and Massachusetts State College.

View:

• Concordance to the archives
• YouMass wiki

Beginning in the 1970s, UMass Amherst began conducting oral histories to record the memories and experiences its community, and it has conducted several focused projects since, including projects tied to the 125th and 150th anniversaries of the university. The Department of Special Collections in the University Libraries regularly conducts audio and video interviews throughout the university and with members of the local community.

The interviews that comprise the this collection represent a lengthening history of oral historical work centered on the history of the UMass Amherst community. The topics of interviews range widely from administration, academic research teaching, state and local politics, student life, and activism

The academic departments at UMass Amherst are organized within ten schools and colleges. Among the more than 88 degree programs in 2009, 74 confer masters degrees, and 53 confer doctorates.

Containing the records of individual academic departments, programs, institutes, and centers, Record Group 25 documents the shifting history of disciplinarity and departmental affairs at UMass Amherst. The papers of individual faculty members are contained within the Faculty and Staff (FS) collections and are indexed separately in UMarmot.