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Spread out across the early national landscape, the Beach and Cooke families were bound by the ties of family, friendship, and business. The brothers-in-law Samuel Beach, from Branford, Conn., and Samuel G. Cooke, from Mendon, Illinois, both served in the Civil War. As a corporal in the 27th Connecticut Infantry, Beach saw action at the battles of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, while Cooke served in the west with the 50th Illinois before taking a captain’s commission in the 44th U.S. Colored Troops. Farmers and fruit growers, the two settled in Branford after the war, with Beach establishing Pawson Park, a day resort and picnic grounds that prospered in the 1880s.

The paper of Samuel and Harriett Beach contain family correspondence from two generations of Connecticut family in the mid-nineteenth century. Of particular note are 31 war-date letters and a post-war memoir of the battle of Fredericksburg from Samuel Beach, and three war-date letters from Samuel G. Cooke. The collection also includes an interesting, though scattered series of letters relating to the creation and operation of the day resort, Pawson Park.

Granted in 1737 and incorporated in 1754, Greenwich, Mass., was the first town in the Swift River Valley settled by Europeans. Sitting astride the East and Middle branches of the Swift River and forming the eastern boundary of Hampshire County, Greenwich was primarily an agricultural town with light manufacturing and, beginning in the later nineteenth century, an active tourist trade. The town’s population peaked at over 1,100 early in the nineteenth century, declining slowly thereafter.

The photographic postcards in this collection all relate to the Quabbin town of Greenwich and were originally housed in an album of uncertain provenance. Primarily “real photo” postcards and dating between approximately 1908 and 1928, they were labeled by a knowledgeable, but unknown person at a later date to identify the houses, roads, stores, and views. Unlike many of the commercial postcards of the day, they present a very down-to-earth view of the town, its rocky fields, mills, houses and stores, and its summer hotels.

The dissolution of the Soviet bloc after 1989 was hastened in the Baltic republics by mass popular resistance waged through non-violent cultural and political means. In Lithuania, the revolutionary efforts that began in the spring 1988 culminated in a formal declaration of independence in March 1990. After demands to submit to Soviet authority were ignored, the Soviets sent troops to occupy key buildings in Vilnius killing fourteen protesters in the process. In the face of a resilient resistance and international pressure, the Soviets held on to power for several months, until turmoil at home forced them to recognize Lithuanian independence on September 6, 1991.

This small collection contains a selection of publications dating roughly from the time of the Lithuanian revolution of 1988-1991. Along with a series of mostly pro-independence newspapers and magazines, the collection includes some interesting ephemera, including a series of scarce appeals for independence issued by Sajudis and their Latvian and Estonian partners, a pair of buttons, posters, fliers, and pamphlets. Although most of the materials are in Lithuanian, the collection includes a few written in Russian or English, and there are a few items relating to Lithuania reflecting a Soviet provenance.

A theater company of older adults based in Oakland, Calif., Stagebridge is recognized as a pioneer in the field of creative aging. Founded by Stuart Kandell in 1978, the organization sponsors workshops, performances, and other opportunities for lifelong learning that provide a creative means to transform the lives of older adults and their communities through the performing arts. Organized “for and of” older adults, Stagebridge is testimony to the ways in which elders enrich our culture and communities.

The Stagebridge collection contains scrapbooks, photograph albums, news clippings, and some scripts beginning in the earliest years of the organization. Digital materials in the collection are even richer, ranging from videos of performances to promotional materials and organizational records.

Gene Bruskin arrived at Princeton in 1964 as a basketball player and left as a political radical. After taking part in the Second Venceremos Brigade, Bruskin got involved in antiracist and labor organizing in Boston. As president of the United Steelworkers of America local during the busing crisis of the 1970s, he helped win overwhelming support among the city’s bus drivers to have the union represent them, leading successful campaigns for better wages and working conditions. In the years since, he has held numerous high-profile positions nationally and internationally, including as labor director for Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition, Secretary Treasurer for the Food and Allied Service Trades Department of the AFL-CIO, and co-convener of U.S. Labor Against the War, an organization promoting peace and the demilitarization of U.S. foreign policy. Bruskin was a major figure in the largest private union election in the history of the United Food and Commercial Workers when he led the successful campaign to unionize 5,000 workers at Smithfield Foods in North Carolina. Since retiring in 2012, he has continued to consult with unions. In addition he has returned to some of his earlier undertakings in producing cultural works as a poet, songwriter, and playwright, centered on social justice and working class themes.

Documenting nearly fifty years of activism, Gene Bruskin’s papers are an exceptional resource for the labor movement in the 1970s through early 2000s, and particularly its radical end. Although Bruskin’s early years are relatively sparsely represented, there is a significant run of Brother, the first anti-sexist, “male liberation” journal that he helped found while in Oakland, and the collection includes important material from his work in Boston with the Hyde Park Defense Committee, the Red Basement Singers, and especially with the School Bus Drivers and their tumultuous three-week strike in 1980. The collection also contains a rich assortment of material on labor left and antiwar organizing in the 1990s and 2000s, the Justice at Smithfield campaign, and Bruskin’s work on behalf of single payer insurance, for International Solidarity, the American Federation of Teachers, and the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees.

Cover of Liberation News Service issue 441, June 10, 1972.

Founded in 1967, Liberation News Service, an alternative news agency, issued twice-weekly packets aimed at providing inexpensive images, articles, and art reflecting a countercultural outlook. First from its office in Washington, D.C., and then from New York City, LNS provided underground and college papers around the globe with radical and unconventional coverage of the war in Vietnam, global liberation struggles, American politics, and the cultural revolution. Two months after moving to New York City in June 1968, LNS split into two factions, with the sides mirroring common points of dispute within the New Left. The more traditional political and Marxist activists remained in New York, while those more aligned with the counterculture and “hippie” movement settled on farms in western Massachusetts and southern Vermont. For a year each faction put out competing versions of LNS news packets, until the winter conditions and small staff at the farm in Montague caused their production to end in January 1969. LNS-New York continued its production of unique leftist coverage of national and international issues throughout the 1970s, closing in 1981.

The LNS-NY Records include a relatively complete run of packets 102-701 (1968-1975) sent to the subscribing underground press newspaper the Indianapolis Free Press. Some packets and years are more complete than others, and these New York packets are especially dense with photographs compared to earlier LNS packets from before the split in 1968. The collection also includes a small selection of other artwork, articles, and materials kept by the Indianapolis Free Press.

When The Broadside first appeared in March 1962, it immediately became a key resource for folk musicians and fans in New England. Written by and for members of the burgeoning scene, The Broadside was a central resource for information on folk performances and venues and throughout the region, covering coffeehouses, concert halls, festivals, and radio and television appearances.

Assembled by Folk New England, the collection contains a complete run of the Boston- and Cambridge-based folk music periodical, The Broadside, with the exception of the first issue, which has been supplied in photocopy.

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.

Established in 1901, the New England Association of Teachers of English (NEATE) was the first association of English teachers in America. Through conferences, executive board meetings, and the regular publication of The Leaflet, NEATE aimed to bring together New England’s English teachers to study the methodology and history of the field, as well as observe innovations and new practices in the world of education.

While the collection is expected to grow, it currently consists of meeting minutes, conference records, correspondence between members, issues of The Leaflet, two published histories of the organization, and two early record books of NEATE ranging in date from 1901-1938.

A pioneer of African dance in the United States and a vital scholarly voice, Pearl Primus burst onto the scene in the early 1940s as a choreographer, performer, composer, and teacher. Born in Trinidad in 1919 and raised in New York City, Primus was introduced to performance through the National Youth Administration and the New Dance Group. Her interest in the dance cultures of Africa and the African diaspora formed the conceptual center of her work throughout her career, drawing upon her deep scholarly research. In addition to her creative work, Primus earned a doctorate in anthropology from NYU and taught at a number of universities, including the Five Colleges. She died in New Rochelle, N.Y., in October 1994.

Conducted with Pearl Primus’ fellow dancers, musicians, friends, and collaborators between 1995 and 2005, the interviews comprising this collection were recorded by Peggy and Murray Schwartz for use in their book, The Dance Claimed Me: A Biography of Pearl Primus (New Haven, 2011). The oral histories provide insights into Primus’s sometimes controversial life career, her performances, teaching, and legacy.