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

Collections: B

Brotherhood of the Spirit

Brotherhood of the Spirit Documentary

ca.1973
15.24 minutes
Call no.: Video

Beginning in a treehouse in Leyden, Mass., during the summer of 1968, the Brotherhood of the Spirit (later the Renaissance Community) grew to become the largest commune in the eastern United States. Founded by Michael Metelica and six friends, and infused with the spiritual teachings of Elwood Babbitt, the commune relocated several times during its first half decade, setting down at different points in Heath, Charlemont, Warwick, Turners Falls, and Gill, Mass., as well as Guilford, Vt.

Produced at UMass Amherst, this video (digitized from a 16mm motion picture original) provides a largely laudatory glimpse of commune life during the boom years of the Brotherhood of the Spirit, probably around 1973. Sound quality in the video is highly uneven, often poor, particularly in the first two minutes.

Subjects

Brotherhood of the Spirit (Commune)Communal living--MassachusettsMetelica, Michael

Types of material

Motion pictures (Visual works)
Brown & Brothers Livery Stable

Brown and Brothers Account Book

1862-1873
1 vol. 0.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 092

Freight haulers from Dana, Massachusetts. Includes information about products that were hauled (such as palm leaf hats, mats, lumber, railroad ties, and waste) and the companies for which they were carried. Also contains information about how Brown was paid (cash, barter, manure, chopped wood, stone) and the names of many people and places with whom Brown and Brothers conducted business.

Subjects

Dana (Mass.)--Economic conditions--19th centuryFreight and freightage--MassachusettsFurniture industry and trade--MassachusettsPanama hat industry--MassachusettsSwift River Valley (Mass.)--Economic conditions--19th century

Contributors

Brown and BrothersBrown, Harry

Types of material

Account books
Brown, Alfred Alexander, 1908-

Alfred Alexander Brown Papers

1935-1979
2 boxes 0.75 linear feet
Call no.: FS 043

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.

Subjects

Massachusetts State College--FacultyMassachusetts State College. Department of Agricultural EconomicsUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst--FacultyUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst. Department of Agricultural Economics

Contributors

Brown, Alfred Alexander, 1908-
Brown, Daniel A.

Daniel A. Brown Photograph Collection

1968-2003
ca.450 items
Call no.: PH 011
Depiction of Meditation on Blueberry Hill, 1971. Photo by Gary Cohen
Meditation on Blueberry Hill, 1971. Photo by Gary Cohen

Having joined the the Brotherhood of the Spirit commune in 1973, Dan Brown remained a member for a decade as it evolved first into Metelica’s Aquarian Concept and then into the Renaissance Community. Throughout his time as a member, he photographed his fellow communards as they moved through a variety of localities, including Turner’s Falls, Gill, and Warwick, Mass. Since leaving the community in 1983, he has written and lectured regularly on its history for audiences throughout the region.

One of the principle photographers of the Brotherhood and Renaissance Community during the period 1973-1983, Brown preserved an archive of approximately 450 photographs documenting the commune from its founding in 1968 through the time of Michael Metelica’s death in 2003. In addition to his own work, he collected and preserved images of many other photographers, most notably Gary Cohen.

Subjects

Babbitt, Elwood, 1922-Brotherhood of the Spirit (Commune)Communal living--MassachusettsMetelica, MichaelRenaissance Community (Commune)

Contributors

Brown, Daniel ACohen, Gary

Types of material

Photographs
Brown, John, 1800-1859

John Brown Research Collection

1826-1942
10 reels of microfilm 0.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 308 mf

Microfilm containing documents drawn from various repositories including John Brown’s correspondence with family, friends, and others; court records and testimony; transcripts of interviews and other personal reminiscences; drafts of narratives; memorandum book; drafts of speeches; church records; minutes of Anti-slavery Society of Lawrence, Kansas; financial and legal records; broadsides and circulars; newspaper clippings; other miscellaneous records.

Subjects

Abolitionists--United States--HistorySlavery--United States--HistoryUnited States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Causes

Contributors

Brown, John, 1800-1859
Brown, Ken

Ken Brown Collection

1971-2021
Call no.: MS 1141

Ken Brown, born March 12, 1944 in Dayton, Ohio, is a filmmaker, photographer, cartoonist, designer and collector. He was raised in Amherst, Massachusetts, where he briefly attended UMass Amherst, before moving to Cambridge where he also attended Boston University. In the late 1960s he joined the thriving arts scene in Boston, where his most notable contribution was his film work, now known as Psychedelic Cinema. This live music project was projected onstage at the Boston Tea Party while musical acts like the Velvet Underground and Jimi Hendrix played. Brown made experimental films, using tricks like double exposure and stop motion, with a Super 8mm camera. He also worked as a film teacher in the early 1970s.  

In 1975 his career took a fortuitous turn when he started to sell postcards featuring his own drawings. This venture was so successful that he expanded the postcard line to include photographs and collages, mining his own collections, which are characterized by kitsch. From there he expanded the business further to include rubber stamps, eventually adding t-shirts, coffee mugs, tea towels, and wrapping paper to the line; he worked with local businesses to put his art and designs on the products. His unconventional business model attracted the attention of the Harvard Business School, which conducted and published a study of his work. He also continued to make films, which have been featured on MTV and Sesame Street. Since 1985 he has lived in New York City with his wife and frequent collaborator, artist and filmmaker Lisa Crafts. He continues to take photographs and make films about life in the city. 

The collection comprises a wide variety of the products Brown has produced and marketed throughout his career. It includes near-complete runs of his postcards, rubber stamps, and wrapping paper; a selection of t-shirts, tea towels, placemats and magnets; published books; and a variety of editioned screen prints made from his cartoons and drawings. The collection also contains ephemera documenting Brown’s career and early artwork in an anti-nuclear publication. The collection is expected to grow over time to include drawings, films, and recent digital photographs.

Acquired from Ken Brown, October 2021

Contributors

Brown, Ken, 1944-

Types of material

Postcards
Brown, Moses, 1738-1832

Moses Brown Papers

1713-1840
3 boxes 1.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 930

In the early Republic, Moses Brown emerged as an ardent abolitionist, a social reformer, and one of the best known philanthropists in his native Providence, R.I. A Baptist who converted to the Society of Friends in 1774, Brown had made a fortune as a merchant, partly in the triangular trade, but a crisis of conscience brought on by the ghastly results of an attempted slaving voyage in 1765 and the death of his wife in 1773 led him to reexamine his life. Withdrawing from most of his business affairs, Brown joined the Society of Friends and emancipated his slaves. He was a founder of the Providence Society for the Abolition of Slavery in 1786 and a strong voice for peace, temperance, and universal education.

A small, but rich archive of the personal papers of Moses Brown, this collection centers on Brown’s activities in antislavery, peace, and educational reform and his connections to the Society of Friends between the 1760s and 1830s. In addition to significant correspondence with major figures in early antislavery cause, including Anthony Benezet, George Benson, William Dillwyn, and Warner Mifflin, and some material relating to the Providence Society for the Abolition of Slavery, the collection includes outstanding content on peace activism. In addition to materials from Moses Brown, the collection includes letters to Moses’ son Obadiah Brown and some fascinating letters and manuscripts relating to Moses’ friend and fellow Friend, Job Scott.

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, 2016

Subjects

Antislavery movements--Rhode IslandPeace movements--Rhode IslandQuakers--Rhode IslandRhode Island--History--18th century

Contributors

Benson, George W., 1808-1879Brown, Moses, 1738-1832Brown, Obadiah, 1771-1822Mifflin, WarnerProvidence Society for Abolishing the Slave-TradeProvidence Society for the Abolition of SlaveryScott, Job, 1751-1793
Brown, Robert E.

Robert E. Brown Southbridge (Mass.) Collection

1973-1977
1 box 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 029

During the mid-1970s, Robert Brown worked as a fifth grade teacher at the West Street School, Southbridge, Mass., while pursuing a graduate degree in anthropology at UMass Amherst under Joel Halpern. Part of Brown’s research involved conducting oral histories with Southbridge families identified as “ethnic,” including Albanian, Greek, Polish, Portuguese, Italian, and Puerto Rican, as well as the only African American family in town at the time. Brown published his work in local newspapers and ultimately in the book, The New New Englanders (Worcester, Mass.: Commonwealth Press, 1980).

The Brown collection includes copies of his newspaper articles, profiles of the families he studied, and apparently complete transcripts of two oral history interviews. Also included are copies of two papers by Brown on Southbridge, possibly for an anthropology class, analyzing the education of Puerto Rican students and the lives of Rumanian Americans.

Subjects

African Americans--Massachusetts--SouthbridgeGreek Americans--Massachusetts--SouthbridgeImmigrants--MassachusettsItalian Americans--Massachusetts--SouthbridgeRumanian Americans--Massachusetts--SouthbridgeSouthbridge (Mass.)--History

Contributors

Brown, Robert E

Types of material

Oral histories
Brunswick Friends Meeting

Brunswick Friends Meeting Records

1990-1994
1 box 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 902 B786

The Brunswick Friend Meeting was established in 1983 after a year of unaffiliated worship under Falmouth Quarterly Meeting.

The records for the Brunswick Friends Meeting consist solely of State of the Society reports for the years 1990-1994.

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, April 2017

Subjects

Quakers--MaineSociety of Friends--MaineTopsham (Me.)--Religious life and customs

Contributors

New England Yearly Meeting of Friends
Brush, Robert

Robert Brush Ledger

1793-1819
1 vol. 0.1 linear feet
Call no.: MS 195 bd

Robert Brush (1751-1835) operated a sawmill in North Salem, Westchester County, N.Y., at the turn of the nineteenth century, sawing and selling board, timber, and logs to the local community.

This double-entry account book documents an active sawmill and gristmill in Westchester County, N.Y. at the turn of the nineteenth century.

Subjects

Grist mills--New York (State)Sawmills--New York (State)

Types of material

Account books