The Vice Chancellor for University Advancement oversees the campus’s Development and Alumni Relations areas and is responsible for operation of the UMass Amherst Foundation and of Advancement Communications, the group that produces the University’s website, UMass Amherst Magazine, and a variety of other print and online publications. Beginning in September 1983, the unit was administered by the Vice-Chancellor for University Relations and Development, which was renamed Vice Chancellor for University Advancement in 1993.

Richard Archambault conducted interviews of various citizens of Ashfield, Massachusetts, under the direction of Joel Halpern of the University of Massachusetts Amherst Anthropology Department. Contains copies of typed notes from interviews, as well as names of the citizens who were interviewed.

Generations of the Bates and Church families based in North Amherst and Ashfield, Massachusetts. Papers include deeds, a will, correspondence, account books (recording day-to-day expenditures on food, clothing, postage, housekeeping supplies, and laborer’s wages), diaries, an oral history, photographs, genealogical notes, and memorabilia related to the family.

The first faculty union at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) AFL-CIO, was established largely in response to the administration’s reluctance to recommend raises in faculty salaries (1958-1964) and due to the faculty’s desire for self-governance. The union was short-lived on the campus, but served to raise the consciousness of faculty to issues of faculty autonomy. The collection includes historical sketches, memoranda, correspondence, resolutions, and treasurer’s reports.

Group comprised of students from the University of Massachusetts and community members who sought to develop and promote cultural, literary, charitable, educational and public affairs television programming. Records include by-laws, articles of organization, organizational histories, annual reports, meeting minutes, correspondence, program schedules, subject files, brochures, handbills, news clippings, and materials relating to a proposed merger with University of Massachusetts Cable Vision. In 1989, CCATV was renamed Amherst Community Television (ACT).

Mission

Judging cattle at Mass. Agricultural College

To preserve a robust record of social experience and the ideas and activities of past and present generations, the Department of Special Collections and University Archives collects, curates, preserves, and provides access to the broad record of social change in America, innovation and entrepreneurship, the people of New England, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst community.

Regardless of the format of the original material, the staff in SCUA seek to provide free and unfettered access to our collections for all who wish to use them, using the highest professional standards and practices and the best technology available.

Department history

African dancers
From the Horace Mann Bond Papers

In 1931, nearly half a century after Librarian Henry Hill Goodell first authorized the permanent retention of the official records of Massachusetts Agricultural College, the Library established a College History Collection. Documenting the activities of the administration and faculty and the life of its students, this collection grew steadily, until in 1953, the Library dedicated a room named in honor of Dean William L. Machmer to serve as the first true home of the University Archives.

The timing of Goodell’s proposal to preserve the College archives coincided roughly with the Library’s first efforts to assemble a collection of rare books to support its educational mission. Although the campus had no separate library building until 1885, the College accepted several significant gifts of books, beginning as early as 1868, when the apiarist and state Adjutant General Henry K. Oliver donated twenty scarce volumes on bee culture, followed by other donations of important works in agriculture, history, and science. By the time the library published its first catalogue in 1875, rare books were a small, but distinctive part of the collections. Among the Library’s earliest acquisitions were the first London edition of William Bartram’s Travels Through North and South Carolina (1792), François Augier de Marigny’s The History of the Arabians (London, 1758), and two early bee manuals by John Keys, The Practical Bee-Master (London, 1780) and The Antient Bee-Master’s Farewell (London, 1796) — both courtesy of Oliver. All remain part of the collections today.

David B. Axelrod, ca.1980
Class of 1965, poet, author of
The Man who Fell in Love
with His Chicken (1980)

From its initial focus on agriculture, horticulture, and the natural sciences, the Library soon extended its collections to encompass the history and culture of New England. With the acquisition of the records of the Valley Peace Center and the papers of ethnographer Jozef Obrebski in 1973, the Library began to acquire collections of personal papers and organizational records of historical significance. The rare book and manuscript collections were combined administratively with the University Archives in the early 1990s to form the current Department of Special Collections and University Archives. Today, SCUA oversees a growing research collection of primary materials that includes rare books and manuscripts, historic maps, photographs, prints, and the official records of the campus at UMass Amherst.

MAC postcard

Established in western Massachusetts in 1863 as the Massachusetts Agricultural College, the University of Massachusetts Amherst is a national research university and the flagship campus of the state’s five-campus University system. UMass, one of the founding members of the Five College Consortium established in 1965, offers reciprocal student access among the University and Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and Smith Colleges. The University currently enrolls approximately 24,000 undergraduate and graduate students, and offers 87 bachelors degree programs, 6 associates, 73 masters, and 51 doctoral programs in 10 schools and colleges.

The Archives of the University of Massachusetts Amherst document the institutional memory of the campus and serve as the largest and most comprehensive source of information on the history and cultural heritage of the University. As the collective memory of the university, the repository contains official records and items having historical value such as records of governance, policy, operation of administrative offices, departments, research, programs, and publications. Unpublished materials in the Archives include photographs, films, memorabilia, administrative records of major university offices, and the papers of presidents, trustees, administrative officers, and members of the faculty.

Please note that collections for individual faculty members, administrators, and students, as well as selected groups and administrative units at the University are listed separately in UMarmot. The Concordance to the Archives is an alphabetical listing of University departments, centers, groups, and other units, providing call numbers, when appropriate. Researchers may also wish to consult the online guide to UMass Amherst collections. Digital UMass includes a growing number of oral histories and digitized collections of papers and organizational records. YouMass is a wiki devoted to the history of the University and its predecessors, the Massachusetts Agricultural College and Massachusetts State College.

Collegian editorial staff, 1921-1922

Since almost the time of first arrival of students at Massachusetts Agricultural College in 1867, the college’s students have taken an active role in publishing items for their own consumption. Beginning with the appearance of the first yearbook, put together by the pioneer class during their junior year in 1870 and followed by publication of the first, short-lived newspaper, The College Monthly in 1887, students have been responsible for dozens of publications from literature to humor to a range of politically- and socially-oriented periodicals.

This series consists of the collected student publications from Massachusetts Agricultural College, Massachusetts State College, and UMass Amherst, including student newspapers, magazines, newsletters, inserts, yearbooks, and songbooks. Publications range from official publications emanating from the student body to unofficial works by student interest groups or academic departments. Links to digitized versions of the periodicals are supplied when available.

The academic departments at UMass Amherst are organized within ten schools and colleges. Among the more than 88 degree programs in 2009, 74 confer masters degrees, and 53 confer doctorates.

Containing the records of individual academic departments, programs, institutes, and centers, Record Group 25 documents the shifting history of disciplinarity and departmental affairs at UMass Amherst. The papers of individual faculty members are contained within the Faculty and Staff (FS) collections and are indexed separately in UMarmot.

This record group contains materials that document alumni and alumni activities throughout the history of the Amherst campus. Included are annual reports, constitutions and by-laws, board and committee minutes, cash books and financial statements, correspondence, alumni directories, class lists, obituaries, biographies, bibliographies of alumni writings, photographs, alumni periodicals, brochures from alumni events, newsclippings, handbooks and manuals, reunion and dinner programs, scrapbooks, memorabilia and artifacts.