A.C. Bent, 1929

An avid birder and eminent ornithologist, Arthur Cleveland Bent was born in Taunton, Massachusetts, on November 25, 1866. After receiving his A.B. from Harvard in 1889, bent was employed as an agent for the Safety Pocket Company and from 1900 to 1914, he was General Manager of Mason Machine Works. His passion, however, was birds. An associate in Ornithology at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University, Bent became a collaborator at the Smithsonian and president (1935-1937) of the American Ornithologists’ Union. The culmination of his research was the massive, 26 volume Life Histories of North American Birds (1919-1968).

The Bent collection is a glimpse into the birding life of a remarkable amateur ornithologist. It contains the field notebooks of his collaborator, Owen Durfee (1880-1909), his own journals (1887-1942), photographs and negatives (1896-1930), correspondence concerning the photographs (1925-1946), and mimeographed and printed material. Bent’s records cover nest observations, egg measurements, bird sightings, and notes on specimens provided to organizations such as the Massachusetts Audubon Society, the Bristol County Agricultural School, and the United States National Museum.

Horace Mann Bond, ca.1930

Educator, sociologist, scholar, and author. Includes personal and professional correspondence; administrative and teaching records; research data; manuscripts of published and unpublished speeches, articles and books; photographs; and Bond family papers, especially those of Horace Bond’s father, James Bond. Fully represented are Bond’s two major interests: black education, especially its history and sociological aspects, and Africa, particularly as related to educational and political conditions.

Correspondents include many notable African American educators, Africanists, activists, authors and others, such as Albert C. Barnes, Claude A. Barnett, Mary McLeod Bethune, Arna Bontemps, Ralph Bunche, Rufus Clement, J.G. St. Clair Drake, W.E.B. Du Bois, Edwin Embree, John Hope Franklin, E. Franklin Frazier, W.C. Handy, Thurgood Marshall, Benjamin E. Mays, Pauli Murray, Kwame Nkrumah, Robert Ezra Park, A. Phillip Randolph, Lawrence P. Reddick, A.A. Schomburg, George Shepperson, Carter G. Woodson and Monroe Work.

The Boston and Albany Railroad was formed between 1867 and 1870 from the merger of three existing lines, the Boston and Worcester (chartered 1831), the Western (1833), and the Castleton and West Stockbridge (1834). The corporation was a primary east-west transit through the Commonwealth, with branches connecting towns including Athol, Ware, North Adams, and Hudson, N.Y.

The nineteen atlases comprising this collection include detailed plans documenting the location and ownership of rights of way, land-takings, and other land transfers to or from the railroad company. Dating from the early years of operation for the corporation to just after the turn of the century, the atlases include maps of predecessor lines (Boston and Worcester Railroad Corporation and Western Rail-Road), as well as the Grand Junction Railway Company (Charlestown, Somerville, Everett, and Chelsea), the Ware River Railroad, and the Chester and Becket Railroad.

Sadie Campbell and sons Harold and Robert Leslie

A housewife, mother and active community member, Sadie Campbell was born in 1881 and lived at 1 Depot Street in Cheshire, Massachusetts for most of her life until she died in 1971. Sadie was closely tied to the Cheshire community where she had a large circle of friends and acquaintances, and was active in a a number of organizations, such as: the Cheshire Ladies Reading Club, the Merry Wives of Cheshire Shakespeare Club, and the Cheshire Cash Tearoom.

The collection documents three generations of a western Massachusetts family. The variety and nature of the materials in this collection offer a good view into the local and social history of western Massachusetts through the lives of Sadie Campbell and her family.

Founded in 1977, the Association for Gravestone Studies (AGS) is an international organization dedicated to furthering the study and preservation of gravestones. Based in Greenfield, Mass., the Association promotes the study of gravestones from historical and artistic perspectives. To raise public awareness about the significance of historic gravemarkers and the issues surrounding their preservation, the AGS sponsors conferences and workshops, publishes both a quarterly newsletter and annual journal, Markers, and has built an archive of collections documenting gravestones and the memorial industry.

Consisting of self-published and limited-run compilations of gravestone transcriptions from historical cemeteries, the AGS Cemetery Inscriptions Collection offers rich documentation of epitaphs and memorial language, with an emphasis on colonial and early national-era in New England and Ohio. The collection is arranged by state and town.

Digital UMass contains the results of several initiatives to document the history of the University of Massachusetts Amherst and its predecessors the Massachusetts Agricultural College and Massachusetts State College. In addition to an on-going project to capture the oral history of the University’s administrators and reflections on student life, the archives has digitized materials relating to the early years of co-education at MAC and women’s education at the University. Additional materials will be added as they become available.

Annual Reports, 1864-1932/33

College Monthly

Student newspaper, 1887-1889

Distinguished Visitors Program, 1972-1979

Invited lectures on current topics by distinguished speakers (audio files in mp3 format).

Oral Histories

• Barnard, Ellsworth and Mary, Classes of 1928 and 1934
  Transcript
  Audio:

  Barnard oral history
• Bromery, Randolph W., Chancellor
  Audio:

  Oral history
• Class of 1919: Mary E. Garvey, Willard K. French, Anna Liebman Shore, E. Sidney Stockwell
  Transcript
  Audio:

  Class of 1919 oral history
• Conant, Eudora V., Nutritionist and wife of Ralph Van Meter, UMass President, 1947-1954
  Transcript
  Audio:

  Conant oral history
• Curtis, Helen, Dean of Women, 1945-1973
  Transcript
• McLaughlin, Fred, Class of 1911.
  Audio:

  McLaughlin oral history
• Mitchell, Helen, Nutritionist; Dean, School of Home Economics
  Transcript
• Rand, Mrs. Frank Prentice, wife of Frank Prentice Rand, poet, writer, and UMass Professor of English. Reminiscences about Robert Frost, faculty lives, MAC.
  Audio:

  Rand oral history
• Wheeler, Mae Holden, Class of 1916
  Transcript

President Kenyon L. Butterfield

• Selected records related to women’s education at Massachusetts Agricultural College, 1906-1924

Dean of the College William L. Machmer

• Selected records related to women’s affairs at the Massachusetts Agricultural College (MAC), Massachusetts State College (MSC), and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, 1924-1951

Student Handbooks, 1890-1950

• (See also Record Group 45/4: Women’s Student Government Association — Handbooks for Women)

Student Affairs — Dean of Women Helen Curtis

• Records, 1902-1993 (bulk, 1940-1973)

Student Affairs

• Advisory Council of Women. Records, 1921-1964
• Women in Agriculture. Records, 1917-1958

Faculty Papers

• Hicks, Adeline. Papers, 1917-1987
• Skinner, Edna L. Papers, 1930-1997

Women’s Student Government Association

• Handbooks for Women, 1925/27-1941
  
  (See also Record Group 30/00/2: Student Handbooks, 1890-1950)

Student Research Papers:

• Keith, Vicky, “Mass Aggie Women, 1910-1923” (Fall 1983)
• O’Donnell, Robert, “Undergraduate Women and the Post-War College: The University of Massachusetts” (December 3, 1996)

Bold Stroke for a Wife

Since its founding, Double Edge Theatre has embraced a two-fold mission: to develop and promote the highest quality of original theatre performance, and to create a permanent center of performance, practice, training research, and cultural exchange.

The collection documents the Theatre’s focus on research, international collaboration, and the elevation of artistic performance above and beyond stage work into the realm of cultural exchange.

Collection of historical documents compiled by Charles Taylor, author of the 1882 town history of Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Includes Court of Common Pleas cases, deeds, estate papers, indentures, land surveys, sheriff’s writs, town history reference documents, Samuel Rossiter’s financial papers, and genealogical research papers for over 40 families.

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.