Collecting area: UMass faculty

A literary scholar and much admired teacher, Normand Berlin joined the faculty at UMass Amherst in 1965, four years after receiving his doctorate at the University of California for his study of Elizabethan drama. The author of five books and numerous articles on topics ranging from medieval poetry to contemporary film, Berlin was known equally for his work on early modern drama and for his work on Eugene O’Neill, for which he was awarded the Eugene O’Neill Bronze Medal. He was equally popular in the classroom, where his course on Shakespeare became a campus staple for many years, earning the university’s highest teaching award in 1976, the UMass Amherst Distinguished Teaching Award. After retirement in 1995, Berlin remained in Amherst. He died at home on July 13, 2015, at the age of 83.

This small collection contains scattered notes, writings, and correspondence from Normand Berlin’s career, much of which pertains to his research on drama.

Access restrictions: Temporarily stored offsite; contact SCUA in advance to request materials from this collection.

A composer, Professor of Composition, and Director of the Electronic and Computer Music Studios at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Charles Bestor has also taught at Juilliard School of Music and other universities, won international awards for his music, and collaborated with contemporary installation artists.

The Bestor Papers includes scores and sound recordings for two of his compositions, Suite for Alto Saxophone and Percussion and In the Shell of the Ear, as well as correspondence, concert programs, and reviews, all relating to the publication and performance of the works.

An influential educator and composer, Philip Bezanson helped guide the Department of Music at UMass Amherst through its period of rapid expansion in the late 1960s and early 1970s. After graduate study (PhD 1954) and appointment to the faculty at the University of Iowa, Bezanson was brought to UMass in 1964 to become Head of the Music Department and helped to expand and reorient the program, recruiting an increasingly accomplished faculty, including his former student Frederick Tillis.

The Bezanson papers include materials relating to the development, performance, and publication of much of Bezanson’s musical work, including scores and parts for 46 of his 47 instrumental and vocal compositions. The collection also includes a sampling of correspondence, programs and posters for performances, papers relating to the development of the opera Golden Child and his collaboration with Paul, the score of the opera Stranger in Eden (libretto by William A. Reardon), and one sound recording.

After receiving a doctorate from the University of London in 1962, Geoffrey Boothroyd was invited to join the faculty in Mechanical Engineering at UMass in 1967. An expert in automated assembly, mechanization, and automation, Boothroyd quickly became a leading figure in manufacturing engineering at the University. Active in a variety of professional organizations, he was author of dozens of articles and two textbooks.

The Boothroyd collection consists almost exclusively of two of his major publications from the late 1970s: Feeding and Orienting Techniques for Small Parts and Design for Assembly.

Vincent Clinton Brann was a Professor of Dramaturgy and Directing at UMass Amherst. Born Feb. 19, 1927 in Knoxville, Iowa, Brann served in the United States Army during WWII. After completing his B.A. at the University of Iowa in 1950 he was again called to serve in the Army during the Korean Conflict (1950-1951). Brann held faculty positions at Carnegie Institute of Technology, University of Maryland Overseas Program Europe, and Smith College before joining the faculty at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in the Speech Department in 1964. Brann remained in the Speech Department until 1972 when it became the Department of Theater; he continued to teach in the Department of Theater until his retirement in 1988. Brann was well-known for his oral interpretation and performance classes as well as his productions and original scripts. At the time of his death in 2007 he was Professor Emeritus of Dramaturgy and Directing.

The Brann Papers are a collection of genealogical materials dating to the early 20th century, correspondence, family and travel photographs (particularly of Spain and France), play scripts with director’s notes, musical theater scores, and Brann’s college yearbooks.

Access restrictions: Temporarily stored offsite; contact SCUA in advance to request materials from this collection.

Sigrid Brauner was born in Hofheim, Germany, earning her BA from the University of Frankfurt before immigrating to the United States. Brauner completed her PhD in German literature at the University of California Berkeley in 1989 and later the same year joined the faculty at UMass Amherst in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literature. Brauner, who served on the executive committee of the Women’s Studies Program, remained at UMass until her death in December 1992.

The papers reflect Sigrid Brauner’s interest in race and gender as well as her research in anthropology and theology. “Witches: Myth and Reality,” the popular course Brauner taught during the fall 1992 semester, is represented in the collection along with other notes for research and teaching. Professional correspondence as well as political and social change periodicals comprise the remainder of the Brauner Papers. A fair portion of the collection is in German.

Born in Germany in 1923, Gerard Braunthal was a scholar of German politics and taught as a professor in the Political Science department from 1954. Before receiving his B.A. from Queens College in 1947, Braunthal served in intelligence during World War II, going on to receive his M.A. from the University of Michigan in 1948 and Ph.D from Columbia University in 1953. While studying at Columbia, Braunthal worked as an interviewer for US Air Force intelligence. An expert on the German Social Democratic party (SPD), Braunthal published extensively on modern German politics. His work on the subject was well regarded in Germany as well as the United States. In parallel to his academic research, Braunthal was also an anti-war and anti-nuclear activist, serving on the executive committees of both the Valley Peace Center and the Citizens for Participation in Political Action (CPPAX). Braunthal received the Order of Merit from the German government.

The collection includes Braunthal’s correspondence, article manuscripts and research materials, as well as pamphlets, form-letters, and broadsides relating to anti-Vietnam war activism, interspersed with a small amount of personal correspondence from his own antiwar activities. Among his research materials is a collection of interview transcripts with members of the Federation of German Industry (BDI). There is also a significant collection of documents from his involvement with local activist groups, which includes minutes, form-letters, reports, conference proceedings, and leaflets.

Two years after graduating from Massachusetts Agricultural College in 1875, William Penn Brooks accepted an invitation from the Japanese government — and his mentor, William Smith Clark — to help establish the Sapporo Agricultural School. Spending over a decade in Hokkaido, Brooks helped to introduce western scientific agricultural practices and the outlines of a program in agricultural education, and he built a solid foundation for the School. After his return to the states in 1888, he earned a doctorate at the University of Halle, Germany, and then accepted a position at his alma mater, becoming a leading figure at the Massachusetts Experiment Station until his retirement in 1921.

Brooks’ papers consist of correspondence, photographs, newspaper clippings, an account book, and translations which provide rich detail on Brooks’ life in Japan, the development of Sapporo Agricultural College (now Hokkaido University), and practical agricultural education in the post-Civil War years.

Before his graduate work at Amherst College and Harvard University, Alfred Brown received both his bachelor’s (1931) and master’s (1933) degrees from Massachusetts State College in animal husbandry and agricultural economics. In 1935, he returned to his alma mater as assistant research professor in Agricultural Economics, earning promotion to full professor in 1948, with a focus on Marketing and Transportation. During World War II, Brown served as a transportation economist with the War Food Administration and as a consultant for the Office of Defense Transportation. Although Brown retired from teaching in 1972, he continued to work as a consultant for the United States Department of Transportation in Africa until his death in 2000.

The Brown Papers include published and unpublished transportation writings, correspondence, biographical and personal notes as well as notes for research and teaching, newsclippings, motion picture films, and slides. Also included among the papers are files related to Brown’s university service, including the Alumni War Memorial Fund, the University Centennial Committee, and the Alpha Chapter of Phi Sigma Kappa.

The founder of the the university’s International Program Office, Barbara Burn was widely recognized as an expert in international education. After attending the University of Michigan as an undergraduate, Burn received both her master’s degree and doctorate from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 1955. She worked for several years on the faculty of the Foreign Service Institute and as a program specialist at the Asia Foundation before coming to UMass Amherst in 1968 to study the feasibility of developing an international programs office, after which she was appointed Director of International Programs and in 1988, Associate Provost. Under her leadership, the number of UMass undergraduates studying abroad increased ten fold. Burn died on Feb. 24, 2002, at the age of 76, leaving a son and a daughter.

The Burn Papers include detailed information regarding the establishment of the International Programs Office, including background information and sometimes extensive correspondence with universities around the world. Approximately three quarters of the collection consists of alphabetically arranged files on foreign universities and subjects pertaining to study abroad, with particularly interesting material in the 1970s and 1980s on exchanges with the People’s Republic of China.