The New Babylon Times was a politically-informed countercultural literary magazine produced by members of the Montague Farm commune during the fall 1969. Edited by John Wilton, the first issue featured writing by commune stalwarts such as Ray Mungo, Verandah Porche, and Jon Maslow and photographs by Peter Simon, among others. Renamed the Green Mountain Post, the magazine appeared on an irregular basis until issue five in 1977, with writing and artwork by a range of associates of the commune, including Harvey Wasserman, Tom Fels, and Steve Diamond. In 1994, Fels edited a single issue of Farm Notes, in some ways a successor to the Post.

The Famous Long Ago Archive contains a complete run of the magazine, which have been digitized and made available on the SCUA website.

A private, non-profit corporation founded in 1965 in Northampton, Massachusetts to finance community action programs for eliminating poverty and assisting low income people. Programs included day care centers, Neighborhood Youth Corps, Summer Head Start, a drug addiction clinic at the jail, Legal Services, and the Foster Grandparent Program.

Records comprise bylaws and organizational charts, annual reports, board of directors minutes; administrative directors’ records, including correspondence with the federal agencies and state agencies granting funds, grant applications and awards, program plans, financial and legal documents, personnel records and staff training directives; the agency newsletter County Voice, Noticero Latina; and newsclippings about welfare programs.

Beth Hapgood and members of the Brotherhood, ca.1969

Daughter of a writer and diplomat, and graduate of Wellesley College, Beth Hapgood has been a spiritual seeker for much of her life. Her interests have led her to become an expert in graphology, a student in the Arcane School, an instructor at Greenfield Community College, and a lecturer on a variety of topics in spiritual growth. Beginning in the mid-1960s, Hapgood befriended Michael Metelica, the central figure in the Brotherhood of the Spirit (the largest commune in the eastern states during the early 1970s) as well as Elwood Babbitt, a trance medium, and remained close to both until their deaths.

The Hapgood Papers contain a wealth of material relating to the Brotherhood of the Spirit and the Renaissance Community, Metelica, Babbitt, and other of Hapgood’s varied interests, as well as 4.25 linear feet of material relating to the Hapgood family.

Physician who practiced in Upton, Massachusetts. Ledger includes two-column account entries mentioning the services he performed (such as the extraction of teeth, vaccination, and childbirth), the medicines he prescribed, and patients’ (primarily women and families) accounts, which were often settled in cash or promissory notes. Also contains notation of his work presumably for the town’s poor and a loose livery stable bill.

General storekeeper, town selectman, and member of the state General Court from Raynham, Massachusetts. Daybooks include customer names, goods sold (such as groceries, hardware, dry goods, and shoes) and the form of payment (principally cash, and although barter was declining at the time, some local exchange in a largely agricultural community).

Businessman from West Cambridge, Massachusetts with additional dealings in Charlestown, Quincy, Waltham, and Tyngsboro.

The volume includes lists of personal and business purchases, services provided for his family, and business services such as whitewashing, carting coal, sawing wood, carrying letters, collecting debts, relaying a brick fireplace, and “work loading Sloop Rapid,” and barter and cash transactions. References made to Locke’s involvement with Universalism and members of the Tufts family of Cambridge and Middlesex County.

Frank Lyman, ca.1945

A manufacturer of electronics and radio communications, Frank Lyman was a native of Northampton and graduate of the Williston Academy and Harvard (class of 1931). The grandson of Joseph Lyman and great-nephew of Benjamin Smith Lyman, Lyman joined Harvey Radio in the late 1930s, during a time when it was building radio transmitting equipment, purchasing the company in 1940 and becoming its president. An investor in Boston-area radio stations, Lyman oversaw the company’s post-transition into the manufacture of of autmomatic machines and tooling and its merger into the electronics firm, Cambridge Thermionic Corporation (later renamed Cambion) in 1968. Lyman died in 1992, followed by his wife, Jeanne (Sargent), in 2005.

The Lyman Papers contain business correspondence and associated documents relating to both Harvey Radio Corporation and Cambridge Thermionic Corporation, along with associated materials pertaining to Frank Lyman’s investments and personal interests. Beginning during his time at the Williston Academy and extending through his adult life, the collection includes Lyman’s diaries and a small amount of personal correspondence.

Geishas,
from Benjamin Smith Lyman Papers

The Department of Special Collections and University Archives collects and preserves textual, visual, and auditory materials of enduring historical value and makes them available to researchers at no charge.

Du Bois Central

The collections held by SCUA are rich and deeply interrelated, documenting four areas of historic and cultural interest: social change, New England, the University of Massachusetts, and innovation and entrepreneurship. Among other significant collections are the papers of:

• W.E.B. Du Bois and Horace Mann Bond (African American intellectuals and activists)
• Kenneth R. Feinberg (attorney and public figure)
• Congressman Silvio E. Conte and John Olver, and Sen. Stanley Rosenberg (politicians)
• Benjamin Smith Lyman, William Smith Clark, and William Penn Brooks (natural scientists)
• Mark H. McCormack and Sidney Topol (innovators)
• William Lederer, Charles Whipple, Leonard Lewin, and Harvey Swados (writers)
• Carl Oglesby, Mary Wentworth, Randy Kehler, the Liberation News Service, and the Alternative Energy Alliance (activists)

Information about all of our manuscript and photographic collections is included in UMarmot. Use the search box and menus to the right to navigate our collections and to locate collections of interest.

:: What SCUA collects
:: Research guides
:: Policies for use of the collections

Photo by Edward Cohen, 2002

New WORLD Theater was founded at UMass Amherst in 1979 by Roberta Uno with the mission of presenting innovative works of theater by contemporary artists of color, with the goal of fostering creative communities, promoting cultural equity, and embracing diverse cultural backgrounds, social engagement, and a commitment to justice. For more than thirty years New WORLD Theater produced many dozens of plays and other dramatic works representing new voices in the theater, as well as plays from the traditional multicultural repertory, and they have supported the arts through performance residencies, conferences and colloquia, and a variety of initiatives aimed at the diverse communities they serve, youth, and theater professionals. New WORLD Theater has contributed significantly to national conversations on cultural equity. After more than three decades of acclaim and recognition, New WORLD Theater was closed by UMass Amherst in summer 2010.

The bulk of the New WORLD Theater collection consists of administrative records documenting the day-to-day activities of the theater, however, it also contains an extensive and exceptionally rich archive of taped interviews, conferences, and theatrical productions. Taken together, the audiovisual material traces the history of New WORLD through the words and performances of artists who both contributed to and benefited from the theater.

The Northampton Cutlery Company was among the major firms in a region known for high quality cutlery manufacture. Incorporated in 1871 with Judge Samuel L. Hinckley, its largest stockholder, as its first President, the company was located along the Mill River in Northampton, Massachusetts, where operations continued until its closing in 1987.

Records document company operations and technology used in the cutlery manufacturing process, as well as details about employment of immigrant and working class families in the region. Includes administrative, legal, and financial records; correspondence; personnel and labor relations files; and production schedules and specifications.