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

Collections: M

McNeal, Robert Hatch, 1930-

Robert Hatch McNeal Papers

1955-1986
8 boxes 4 linear feet
Call no.: FS 079

Robert H. McNeal, a renowned expert on the history of the Soviet Union, joined the University faculty in 1969 and served as the head of the History department from 1971 to 1975. McNeal wrote authoritative works on Soviet leadership, contributed to the World Book and a number of other reference works, and taught many History courses on Russian and Soviet history. His work, however, came to a tragic end in 1988 when his car was broadsided pulling out of a gas station near Princeton University. Born in 1930 in Newark, New Jersey, McNeal earned his B.A. From Yale University in 1952, his M.A. from Columbia in 1954, and Ph.D. from the same school in 1958.

Representing mainly his work as a teacher at the University of Massachusetts, McNeal’s papers include lecture notes, ordered alphabetically by topic as well as several folders of research and article manuscripts on Pushkanen. Also included in the collection are two years of professional correspondence from 1968-1970, biographical sketches and photographs of important historical figures, and several Soviet Christmas cards from the 1950s.

Subjects

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

Contributors

McNeal, Robert Hatch, 1930-
McQueen, Madge

Madge McQueen Papers

ca.1935-2023 Bulk: 1975-2023
100 linear feet
Call no.: MS 825
Depiction of Madge McQueen and her papers <br> Photo by Laura Wulf
Madge McQueen and her papers
Photo by Laura Wulf

I was born in Washington, D.C., in an unwed mother’s home. I spent my earliest months living with my maternal grandmother and two teenage aunts–one of whom was abusive. My mother married my step-father in 1960; I was eleven years old when I discovered he was not my biological father. My mother suffered from psychotic schizophrenia; my step-father was frequently violent in our home; my younger, half-brother struggled with a severe learning disability, early drug addiction, and later untreated paranoid schizophrenia. After years of physical and sexual abuse, I escaped my destructive, troubled family when I was fourteen–having previously run away twice. I became a ward of the state of Maryland (my family had moved into Prince George’s County when I was much younger). I lived with three foster families until I was nineteen. I was determined to use education as a way out of poverty and violence. I attended Prince George’s Community College, then the University of Maryland in College Park where I earned a BA in Hearing and Speech Sciences in 1982. I worked at the radical Maryland Food Collective from 1981 to 1984 which profoundly impacted my life: politically, socially, and sexually. In 1985, I moved to Plainfield, Vermont, where I attended graduate school at Goddard College, receiving an MFA in Writing and Women’s Literature in 1987. After teaching for five years in Boston, at Fayerweather Street School and at the Jamaica Plain Community Centers–Adult Learning Program, I went to Massachusetts College of Art, earning a BFA in Three Dimensional Fibers in 1997. I lived for a year in Germany, 1980-1981, and in Honduras, 1997-1998, where I taught cognitively disabled adults and 8th graders, respectively. In 2002, after living in Boston for four more years, I moved to Twin Oaks Community in Louisa, Virginia. During my long membership, I left twice for extended periods. In 2006-2007, I traveled for eight months in the U.S. and in New Zealand. In 2014, I spent seven months in Amherst and in Boston working on my papers, followed by four months of travel across country and back visiting loved ones as I wrote my autobiography. In the beginning of 2015, I again made Twin Oaks my home.

My collection consists of nearly 300 journals (which include copies of my letters sent), all correspondence received since 1972, many of my artist books, as well as some of my other art work. My bequest is also comprised of my educational documents, my personal health records, my photographs, some family papers, Twin Oaks ephemera, a family tree, a friendship web, a few favorite books, two interviews, etc. What I have written and saved since I was twelve years old fills 84 linear feet: it is my life’s work. I have given, and will continue to give, my papers to UMass Amherst for safekeeping and so that my life–as an incest and battering survivor, as someone raised working class, as a daughter of a mentally-ill mother, as a radical feminist, as a diarist, as an avid letter writer, as an artist, as a bisexual, as a woman who chose neither to be a wife nor a mother, as an attentive niece, as a communitarian, as a traveler, and as a devoted friend–will not be erased.

Subjects

Adult children abuse victimsCommunal living--VirginiaDiaristsFamily violenceTwin Oaks (Louisa, Va.)Women artists

Types of material

Artists' books (Books)CorrespondenceJournals (Accounts)PhotographsTextile art (Visual works)
McVeigh, Kevin

Kevin McVeigh Papers

1974-2010
15 boxes 22.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 668

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

A lifelong activist for social and environmental justice, Kevin McVeigh was among the founders of two prominent antinuclear and environmental organizations in Northern California, the Pelican Alliance (1978) and Interhelp (1981). After relocating to Massachusetts, he continued in environmental activism, founding the Green River Center in Greenfield in 1987, but in response to the intense public health crisis, he gradually shifted his focus to become an advocate for persons with HIV/AIDS. As a founder of the AIDS Community Group of Franklin County (Mass.), he has coordinated AIDS services for Tapestry Health, a not-for-profit organization providing affordable health care to in Western Massachusetts.

The McVeigh Papers document a career as a committed antinuclear activist and advocate for persons with HIV/AIDS. The collection includes organizational materials from each of the groups McVeigh helped found: The Pelican Alliance, Interhelp, the Green River Center, the AIDS Community Group of Franklin County, and Tapestry Health, as well as correspondence, newspaper clippings, journals and magazines related to the issues concerning, notes from HIV/AIDS caregivers’ conferences, materials relating to men’s support groups, and other material related to environmental protection and anti-war activism. Finally, the collection includes audio files of an oral history (approximately two hours) conducted with McVeigh in July 2010, and a small collection of antinuclear books from small publishing houses.

Subjects

AIDS (Disease)AIDS Community Group of Franklin CountyAIDS activists--MassachusettsAntinuclear movement--CaliforniaGreen River Center (Greenfield, Mass.)InterhelpPelican AlliancePublic health--MassachusettsTapestry Health

Contributors

McVeigh, Kevin

Types of material

Oral histories
Medieval and Early Print Studies

Medieval and Early Print Studies Collection

1504-2016
79 titles 24 linear feet
Call no.: RB 030

Although SCUA’s book collections are focused heavily on modern printing, the evolution of the book and the history of production and spread of the printed word are critical to our instructional mission.

The Medieval and Early Print Studies Collection consists of a growing body of facsimiles of medieval manuscripts and early printed books selected for use in teaching about the history of printing and reading. Emphasizing high quality reproduction, the facsimiles represent a variety of regional styles and traditions in text and illustration, primarily in Europe, from the 11th century through the incunable era. A handful of post-incunables have been included. A spreadsheet list of available titles can be consulted online.

Subjects

Manuscripts, Medieval--FacsimilesPrinting--History
Meier, August, 1923-2003

August Meier Collection

1837-1984
3 boxes, 329 titles 34.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 844
Depiction of

A pioneer in African American history, August Meier was a model of an engaged academic, a prolific writer, active participant in the civil rights struggle, and staunch member of the NAACP, SNCC, and CORE. While pursuing graduate work at Columbia under Henry Steele Commager, Meier taught at a succession of Historical Black Colleges, including Tougaloo (1945-1949), Fisk (1953-1956), and Morgan State (1957-1964). His dissertation, completed in 1957, became the first of eleven books he wrote or edited, Negro Thought in America, 1880-1915 (1963), with much of later work conducted in collaboration with Elliott Rudwick and John Bracey. Meier joined the faculty at Kent State University in 1967 and remained there until his retirement in 1993. His much-anticipated monograph on the history of the NAACP had not been completed at the time of death in 2003.

Organized in two discrete parts, the Meier collection bookends a long career in the study of African American history. The first part of the collection is centered on Meier’s association with the Pioneer Youth summer camp in Rifton, N.Y., and his growing consciousness of the fundamental problems of race and class in American society, with some materials from his wartime years as an undergraduate at Oberlin College. The second part of the collection includes books collected by Meier during his academic career, mostly on African American history and culture. Titles range from works on the Civil Rights movement to literature and poetry of the late nineteenth century and Harlem Renaissance, works on slavery and antislavery, race theory, the South, and African American education and religion.

Subjects

African Americans--HistoryAntislavery movementsCamps--New York (State)Civil rights movementsCommunists--United StatesDepressions--1929Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt),1868-1963Oberlin College--StudentsPioneer Youth of AmericaRace relationsWorld War, 1939-1945

Contributors

Braunthal, Gerard, 1923-

Types of material

NewslettersSongbooks
Melcher, Dale

Dale Melcher Papers

1975-1981
2 boxes 3 linear feet
Call no.: FS 178

The labor educator and activist Dale Melcher was both a graduate of UMass Amherst and a longtime member of staff and faculty. Melcher began her career at UMass Amherst as a student and then staff member in the newly formed program in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, before joining the Labor Relations and Research Center in 1987 as its Labor Extension Coordinator. Interested in leadership development for union women, she taught courses over the years on women and work, immigration, and race and gender. She also maintained an array of other commitments to social justice organizations, including the Northeast Summer School for Union Women, the Women’s Institute for Leadership Development (WILD), and the Professional Staff Union/MTA.

Focused on the year just prior to the Reagan era, this collection contains an assortment of manuscript and printed materials relating to Melcher’s involvement with Socialist feminism and the women’s movement, economic justice, and he movement for Puerto Rican independence. The collection includes particularly valuable materials on feminism in the Pioneer Valley and the Valley Women’s Union, records of the People for Economic Survival, and a significant body of material for the Puerto Rican Solidarity Committee.

Gift of Dale Melcher, Aug. 2016

Subjects

Feminism--MassachusettsPeople for Economic SurvivalPuerto Rico--History--Autonomy and independence movementsSocialism--MassachusettsValley Women's Union
Memory Corps

Memory Corps oral histories

2011-2012
Call no.: Digital

Memory Corps was launched in 2011 to collect brief oral histories of the alumni of UMass Amherst. Interviews will include alumni from throughout the history of the university and center on memories of their experiences at UMass and their careers since.

Subjects

University of Massachusetts Amherst--Alumni

Types of material

Oral histories
Men's Resource Center for Change

Men's Resource Center Records

ca. 1982-2007
6 boxes 7.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 813

In 1982, Steven Botkin, who had done his doctoral work in the social justice program at UMass Amherst’s School of Education, co-founded the Men’s Resource Connection (MRC) in Amherst, Mass., to promote healthy ideas of masculinity and male leadership by challenging harmful stereotypes involving violence, sexism, and oppression and creating a local network of men as well as of men and women. In 1983 MRC started a newsletter, Valley Men, which became the magazine Voice Male, with a circulation of 10,000. Incorporated as a nonprofit in 1988, MRC developed programs to serve and educate men, with a focus on violence and domestic violence in particular, notably Men Overcoming Violence (MOVE), later called Moving Forward. In 1993 the MRC changed its name to the Men’s Resource Center of Western Massachusetts, and by 2005 it was known as the Men’s Resource Center for Change. Both a social service agency and a social justice organization, MRC made an impact in communities around and far beyond western Massachusetts. It offered workshops, classes, support groups, trainings, and consultations for adult men and youths, on issues relating to violence, anger, surviving abuse, emotional well-being, race, fatherhood, sexuality, and more. In 2016, after several years of financial struggle in the wake of the recession of the late 2000s, MRC announced its plans to merge with Men’s Resources International (MRI), founded by Botkin in 2004, to form MERGE for Equality, Inc. Voice Male, now a national magazine, has a robust online presence as an independent publication.

The MRC Records span most of the organization’s history and include correspondence and memos, background reading and training material, fliers and other ephemera, annual reports, newsletters and copies of Voice Male, clippings (including Voice Male articles organized by subject), and audio and video tapes.

Subjects

MasculinityMen’s movementViolence in men

Contributors

Okun, Rob A.

Types of material

Annual reportsClippings (information artifacts)Fliers (printed matter)Newsletters
Mercantile House (Portland, Me.)

Mercantile House Ledger

1792-1804
1 vol. 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 285

Firm based in Portland, Maine, that supplied “merchandize” to local merchants in Maine, as well as in several locations in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and northeastern Massachusetts. Firm undertook international “adventures” as well. Ledger includes general accounts for merchandise, bills receivable and payable, cash, profit and loss, storage, and truckage, as well as accounts generated with certain ships.

Subjects

Maine--Commerce--18th centuryMaine--Commerce--Massachusetts--18th centuryMaine--Commerce--New Hampshire--18th centuryMassachusetts--Commerce--Maine--18th centuryMerchants--Maine--Portland--18th centuryNew Hampshire--Commerce--Maine--18th centuryPortland (Me.)--Commerce--18th centuryShipping--Accounting--18th centuryStorage and moving trade--Maine--18th century

Types of material

Account books
Metcalf, Frank

Frank Metcalf Papers

1862-1866
1 box 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 529

Of the six letters that make up this collection, five date from 1862-1863 and are addressed to Frank Metcalf, teacher and soldier in the Union Army during the Civil War. These letters are from friends and family in New York, and relay local news, in particular updates on area schools and students. The final letter dated June 30, 1866 is from Hannah J. McLintock, to her brother, John.

Subjects

Education--New York (State)United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865

Contributors

McLintock, JohnMetcalf, Frank

Types of material

Letters (Correspondence)