Account book of Selectmen of the town of Enfield, Massachusetts from when it was incorporated in 1816 to 1846. Includes expenses of the town and orders drawn for services such as ringing the bell, supporting paupers, building coffins, or providing a yard to serve as a pound. The recorded names of many townspeople represent the full spectrum of society-tradespeople, laborers, paupers, town officers, and wealthy townsmen.

Erected in 1832 in the business district of Enfield, Massachusetts, the Swift River Hotel began as a mealtime stopping place for travelers on stagecoaches running to and from Boston. The Quabbin Inn in Greenwich was built in 1900, and served as a vacation spot in summer, offering farm-fresh food and cool breezes off Quabbin Lake.

The collection consists of a menu from the Swift River Hotel proprietorship of William H. Galvin and two brochures depicting the bucolic setting and atmosphere of the Quabbin Inn in Greenwich.

In 1885, women of the Enfield Congregational Church formed a woman’s missionary society to disseminate information on, increase interest in and raise funds for missionary work. The Society sponsored lectures with missionary workers and distributed funds to women’s missions associations and smaller, local charities. In 1927, the Society merged with similar groups in Hatfield and Northampton, Mass., forming the Hampshire County Branch of the Women’s Board of Missions.

The records of the Woman’s Missionary Society of the Enfield Congregational Church consist principally of minutes of meetings and one account book.

Established in 1968 in response to the war in Vietnam, the AFSC office in western Massachusetts did not limit its focus to draft and military counseling, instead the organization broadened its focus over time to include educational and outreach programs for a variety of peace and socal justice issues. Today the chapter focuses on economic justice, campaigns against U.S. military intervention, and actions to combat racism and classism. With an emphasis on serving the community of western Massachusetts, the program is equally committed to calling attention to issues of both national and local importance. Recent campaigns range from ending the war in Iraq and supporting peace in Columbia to preventing the construction of a new jail in Chicopee.

The collection consists chiefly of subject files that together provide a picture of the various issues in which the western Massachusetts AFSC was involved. Topics range from the organization’s earliest focus, the Vietnam War, to the first Gulf War, landlord/tenant relations, immigration, and landmines. The collection also includes materials relating to public figures, some of whom traveled to the region to speak.

Minutes and correspondence of the Executive Committee, correspondence and general files of chairmen Philip Eddy, David E. Matz, and Donn Kesselheim, as well as correspondence, briefs, and clippings related to legal cases and inquiries undertaken by the chapter.

Documenting Communist Party activities in Massachusetts during the 1940s-1950s, this small collection consists of pamphlets, broadsides, and election materials, which cover issues such as housing, freedom of speech, McCarthyism, and the war in Korea.

With a population of nearly a million French Americans, Massachusetts bears witness to the largest continental migration experienced in the Northeast. Under a grant from the Massachusetts Foundation for Humanities and Public Policy, 44 interviews of Franco Americans in the region were conducted from August 8, 1982 to January 18, 1983.

These interviews document the lives of those individuals, covering a period beginning in the late nineteenth century through 1984.

Materials, such as clippings, maps, and photographs, relating to Amherst, but also including items from other western Massachusetts towns. Topics covered include are Amherst writers such as Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost, town history, trees and birds of Amherst, and Connecticut River Valley history.

Studies were conducted by departments of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, Massachusetts State College, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst campus in conjunction with various other college departments and agencies of the state and federal governments. The surveys encompass a number of agricultural study areas such as land use, business and farm management, dairy farm and cost of milk production, tobacco and onion production, and poultry and livestock disease surveys. Supplemental statistical information and aerial photographs are also included.

Formed in 1887 as the Massachusetts branch of the American Federation of Labor, the Massachusetts AFL-CIO currently represents the interests of over 400,000 working people in the Commonwealth. Like its parent organization, the national AFL-CIO, the Mass. AFL-CIO is an umbrella organization, a union of unions, and engages in political education, legislative action, organizing, and education and training.

The official records of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO provide insight into the aims and administrative workings of the organization. These includes a nearly complete run of proceedings and reports from its conventions since 1902, except for a five year gap 1919-1923, minutes and agendas for the meetings of the Executive Council, and the President’s files (1982- ). The collection is particularly strong in the period since about 1980.