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

Collections: mss

Thresholds to Life

Thresholds to Life Records

1983-1986
1 box 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 156

Thresholds to Life is a program developed by psychiatrist Milton Burglass for training prison inmates and offenders on probation about decision making, problem solving, and life planning. It is operated by volunteers in 30 locations in the United States.

The Thresholds to Life collection includes records of the program in Greenfield, Mass., and contains newsletters, minutes, by-laws, treasurer’s reports, correspondence, news clippings, brochures, and lists of volunteers, board members, and staff.

Subjects

Prisoners--Massachusetts--GreenfieldPrisoners--Rehabilitation--Massachusetts--Greenfield
Thurber, George, 1821-1890

Thurber-Woolson Botanical Manuscripts Collection

1803-1918
4 boxes 2.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 065 bd

Largely self-educated, George Thurber (1821-1890) began a career as a pharmacist before signing on as botanist to the U.S. Boundary Commission from 1850-1854. After completing a masters degree at Brown University, he emerged as a important horticultural writer and editor of American Agriculturist from 1863 to 1885.

Letters, photographs, engravings, and clippings compiled primarily by George Thurber and bequeathed to George Clark Woolson (MAC class of 1871) who added to it and donated it as a memorial to his class, the first to graduate from the College. The collection includes 993 letters written by 336 correspondents, and 35 photographs and engravings, primarily botanists and other scientists, including Asa Gray, Louis Agassiz, John Torrey, Frederick Law Olmsted, John James Audubon, Henry Ward Beecher, Jefferson Davis, Edward Payson Roe, Donald G. Mitchell, and George Brown Goode.

Subjects

Botany--HistoryHorticulture--History

Contributors

Thurber, George, 1821-1890Woolson, George Clark

Types of material

Photographs
Tibensky, James

James Tibensky Collection

1973-1974
3 boxes 1.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1050
Depiction of Chapinville Cemetery, Salisbury, Conn., April 25, 1974
Chapinville Cemetery, Salisbury, Conn., April 25, 1974

After working for a year on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in the Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) program, James Tibensky returned to college, declared a major in anthropology, and soon began to focus on gravestones. For his masters degree at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Tibensky took up an ambitious project, systematically documenting every pre-1800 grave marker in western Connecticut, photographing each stone, and noting the name, date of death, orientation, style, and material. Painstakingly entering and analyzing the data on the computer using Hollerith cards, he completed his thesis, “The colonial gravestones of western Connecticut,” in 1977. During the latter stages of his research, he became a charter member of the new Association for Gravestone Studies.

The Tibensky collection contains the complete product of James Tibensky’s remarkably thorough study of western Connecticut colonial-era gravestones, including approximately 350 rolls of negative film with the accompanying original field nates, printounts, and statistical data, all meticulously maintained.

Gift of James Tibensky, Oct. 2018

Subjects

Sepulchral monuments--Connecticut

Types of material

Photographs
Tilton, Hannah

Hannah Tilton Account Book

1845-1885
1 vol. 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 250 bd

Born into a working class family from New Bedford, Mass., in Nov. 1829, Hannah Sisson was the daughter of a cooper Job Tilton and his wife Patience, and was raised in the multigenerational home owned by her grandparents John and Nancy Tilton. In April 1853, Hannah married George Oliver Tilton, a farmer from Chilmark on Martha’s Vineyard, and moved to the island.

The first 340 pages of this daybook detail the daily transactions of a general store in New Bedford between 1845 and 1847. The store traded in very small quantities of consumable goods, ranging from a gallon of molasses to 150 crackers, a pound of butter, a peck of potatoes or apples, flour, pork, and fish. Most purchases were for less than a dollar.

Acquired from Charles Apfelbaum, 1987

Subjects

General stores--Massachusetts--New BedfordNew Bedford (Mass.)--History

Types of material

Daybooks
Topol, Sidney

Sidney Topol Papers

1944-1997
52 boxes 78 linear feet
Call no.: MS 374
Depiction of Sidney Topol
Sidney Topol

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

An innovator and entrepreneur, Sidney Topol was a contributor to several key developments in the telecommunications industries in the latter half of the twentieth century. A graduate of the University of Massachusetts (1947) and an engineer and executive at Raytheon and later Scientific-Atlanta, Topol’s expertise in microwave systems led to the development of the first effective portable television relay links, allowing broadcasts from even remote areas, and his foray into satellite technologies in the 1960s provided the foundation for building the emerging cable television industry, permitting the transmission of transoceanic television broadcasts. Since retiring in the early 1990s, Topol has been engaged in philanthropic work, contributing to the educational and cultural life in Boston and Atlanta.

The product of a pioneer in the telecommunications and satellite industries and philanthropist, this collection contains a rich body of correspondence and speeches, engineering notebooks, reports, product brochures, and photographs documenting Sidney Topol’s forty year career as an engineer and executive. The collection offers a valuable record of Topol’s role in the growth of both corporations, augmented by a suite of materials stemming from Topol’s tenure as Chair of the Electronic Industries Association Advanced Television Committee (ATV) in the 1980s and his service as Co-Chair of a major conference on Competitiveness held by the Carter Center in 1988.

Subjects

Boston (Mass.)--Social conditions--20th centuryCable televisionElectronic Industries AssociationRaytheon CompanyScientific-Atlanta

Contributors

Topol, Sidney
Toppan, C. S.

C.S. Toppan Account Book

1845-1861
1 vol. 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 084

A wealthy merchant from Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Includes details of his ventures in ship owning and his investments in manufacturing companies and real estate. Also contains total assets of his “property in possession” as of January 1845, and lists of debtors, including men, women, businesses, religious groups, and political groups.

Subjects

Debtor and creditor--New Hampshire--Portsmouth--History--19th centuryInventories of decedents' estates--New Hampshire--PortsmouthMerchants--New Hampshire--Portsmouth--Economic conditions--19th centuryPortsmouth (N.H.)--Economic conditions--19th centuryShipowners--New Hampshire--Portsmouth--Economic conditions--19th centuryToppan, C. S. (Christopher S.)--Estate

Contributors

Toppan, C. S. (Christopher S.)

Types of material

Account books
Totman, Conrad D.

Conrad D. Totman Papers

1800-2005
65 boxes 53 linear feet
Call no.: MS 447
Depiction of Conrad Totman in his office
Conrad Totman in his office

A scholar of the history and culture of early modern Japan, Conrad Totman began his career as a student of ornamental horticulture at the University of Massachusetts. After graduation in 1953, Totman served in the army for three years in South Korea where got his first taste of Japanese culture during leave. His experiences in Japan piqued his scholarly interest, and upon his return to the states with his new wife Michiko, he finished college at UMass and did his graduate work at Harvard where he received a doctorate in 1964 for a study of politics during the Tokugawa period. Totman held academic positions at UC Santa Barbara, Northwestern, and Yale before retiring in 1997.

The bulk of the collection documents Professor Totman’s education and professional work as a scholar and teacher of Japanese history. Dispersed throughout is a treasure trove of information on Japan in general, and particularly on his specialties: early modern Japan and forestry and environmental management. An enormous, highly influential, and cherished part of Totman’s life is his family, and the Totman clan is well represented in this collection. Reams of genealogical material document the rich heritage of the Totman family, including the transcribed love letters and diaries of his paternal grandmother and biographies of Totman ancestors, as well as hundreds of letters written between Michiko and her family in Japan.

Subjects

Afforestation--Japan--Akita-ken--HistoryAgriculture--Japan--HistoryAgriculture--Korea--HistoryConway (Mass.)--GenealogyDairy farms--MassachusettsFamily farms--United StatesFarm life--United StatesForest management--Japan--Akita-ken--HistoryForest policy--JapanForests and forestry--JapanHuman ecology--Japan--HistoryHuman ecology--Korea--HistoryJapan--Civilization--American influencesJapan--Environmental conditionsJapan--History--1952-Japan--History--Restoration, 1853-1870Japan--History--Tokugawa period, 1600-1868Japan--Politics and government--1600-1868Korea--American influencesKorea--Environmental conditionsKorea--History--1948-1960Lumber trade--Japan--HistoryTokugawa, Ieyasu, 1543-1616Totman familyUnited States--Army--Medical personnel--Correspondence

Contributors

Drew, Raymond Totman, 1923-1981Lewis, Gertrude Minnie, 1896-Totman, Conrad DTotman, Ruth J

Types of material

GenealogiesLetters (Correspondence)MemoirsPhotographs
Towle, Gifford H.

Gifford H. and Marjorie B. Towle Papers

1970-1987 Bulk: 1945-1980
24 boxes 33 linear feet
Call no.: MS 881
Depiction of Gifford and Marjorie Towle, 1957
Gifford and Marjorie Towle, 1957

As a student at Mount Hermon School in the late 1920s, Gifford Hoag Towle met Marjorie Ripley Blossom, a young woman at the Northfield School for Girls. When Giff went on to the Massachusetts Agricultural College (BS 1932) and Marjorie to a midwestern Bible College for a year (before being called home due to a family crisis), they remained connected and after Giff’s graduation in 1932, they married. By the time that Giff graduated from Hartford Seminary, he had left his Quaker upbringing to enter the Congregationalist ministry, and he and Marjorie filled three pulpits near Pelham, Mass. In 1939, however, they were called by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to serve as missionaries in the American Marathi Mission in Maharashtra State, central India. Following two years of intensive study of the Marathi language in Ahmednagar, they settled in Vadala, a rural village on the semi-arid plains, where they worked for thirty-four years, counting furloughs. In 1946 on furlough in the U.S., Giff earned a master’s degree in agricultural engineering from Cornell while pastoring a small church in the suburbs of Ithaca. In his agricultural work in India, Giff used the mission farm to demonstrate crop diversity and farm animal improvement; created co-operatives to enable poor farmers to use appropriate modern tools and machinery for pennies; taught good irrigation and soil conservation; and later built a Mechanical Unit and trained local Indians as mechanics to repair machinery and drill wells. Giff also invented a pump for which he never filed a patent, wanting instead to make it as widely available as possible. He built networks with relatives, churches, and non-profits to fund these efforts and get supplies.

The Towle Collection contains a wealth of information for research in three distinct areas: missions and religious matters; agriculture in “developing” countries; and the cultural and socio-economic context of social change in rural India. The Towles’ voluminous correspondence and reports offer a particularly rich view into mission life in India, including American participation through churches, relations between Hindus and Christians or between Christians, and the viability of these efforts. Marjorie’s letters are particularly vivid, adding significantly to our understanding of mission lives and experiences. The collection is equally rich in revealing the impact of the Towles’ agricultural work and for study of the efficacy of government agencies and non-profits seeking to understand cross-cultural issues.

Gift of Jean Reed, 2015

Subjects

Agriculture--IndiaIndia--Description and travelMaharasthra (India)--Economic conditionsMissionaries--India

Contributors

Towle, Marjorie Blossom, 1907-1994

Types of material

Photographs
Traprock Peace Center

Traprock Peace Center Records

1979-2008
ca.50 boxes 75 linear feet
Call no.: MS 080

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

The Traprock Peace Center is a grassroots organization based in Deerfield, Massachusetts, that trains and educates people locally and globally in matters relating to disarmament and nonviolence. In 1980, the Center organized the first successful attempt in the United States to get a nuclear weapons moratorium referendum on the ballot, and the Center has served as a focal point for organizing on a wide array of issues in peace and social and environmental justice.

The records of Traprock Peace Center include correspondence, campaign materials (resolutions, organizing committee records, legislative packets), program reports, newsletters, newsclippings, and posters relating to the nuclear freeze campaign and many subsequent initiatives. Recent additions to the collection document the group’s work to end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; these later additions are open for research, but are not processed.

Subjects

Antinuclear movement--MassachusettsDeerfield (Mass.)--Social conditions--SourcesNonviolence--Massachusetts--History--SourcesNuclear disarmament--History--SourcesPacifists--MassachusettsPolitical activists--Massachusetts

Contributors

Traprock Peace Center
Restrictions: unprocessed materials in this collection have been temporarily moved offsite; these boxes are closed to research. Contact SCUA for more information.
Travel Brochures

Travel Brochures Collection

1916-1949
1 box 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 490

Long a favored destination for travelers due to its scenic coastline and rural landscapes, New England’s tourist industry evolved in parallel with transportation technologies. Rail lines opened summering opportunities in the interior of the region in the nineteenth century, and the expansion of roadways and the automobile after the First World War drove the industry further, leading to a proliferation of summer camps, inns, and tourist sites, even in remote locales, serving shorter-term vacationers from the working class through the moneyed elite.

This small collection of travel brochures gathered by Faith Brainard and her husband Homer W. Brainard in the 1920s and 1930s, documents camps, inns, hotels, and touristic sites throughout New England. Most of the brochures advertise accommodations or attractions in a natural setting, including room rentals at farms, hiking in the White Mountains, and the rivers and mountains of Vermont. The target audience for many of the brochures was women traveling alone, featuring the promise of clean accommodations and wholesome activities.

Gift of Sharon Domier, 2004

Subjects

Hotels, motels, etc.--New EnglandSummer resorts--New EnglandTaverns (Inns)--New EnglandTourism--United States

Types of material

BrochuresPamphletsPostcards