Telephone: (413) 545-2780
Hours: 10:00–3:00, M–F
www.library.umass.edu/spcoll/spec.html
See the List of Collections
As the principal public archival repository in the western part of the Commonwealth, the department's historical manuscript collections focus upon: papers of people representing the broadly cultural—political, social, economic, literary, or artistic—life of the Commonwealth; records of organizations documenting the social history of the people of Massachusetts, with particular emphasis on the western part of the state; documentation of the history of the labor movement in Massachusetts; documentation of the history of the state's economic development, especially in the Connecticut River Valley region; papers of people prominent in African-American culture and politics; personal papers and organizational records documenting aspects of the history of Japan and Southeast Asia and of Southeast Asian immigrants to Massachusetts; and personal papers and organizational records documenting the social history of the former Yugoslavia and of East European immigrants to Massachusetts.
Particularly distinguished collections include the papers of W.E.B. Du Bois and Horace Mann Bond (African-American leaders and educators); the Hon. Silvio O. Conte (longtime congressman from Berkshire County); Benjamin Smith Lyman (19th-century geologist) and William Smith Clark (president of Massachusetts Agricultural College), both of whom spent time in Japan in the Meiji era; Jozef Obrebski (Polish ethnologist's field notes of Polesia, Macedonia, and Jamaica); poet Robert Francis; and social critic/novelist Harvey Swados.
A record of the University's transformation from Massachusetts Agricultural College to the dynamic, complex institution it is now can be found in the Archives' collections of University records. Many of them have broader implications for the history of the Commonwealth as well, documenting, for example, rural life, science and technology, and the education of women in a Land Grant coed institution.
The department maintains annotated lists of collections by subject. These lists are available in paper format from the department and will soon appear on an expanded Web page. The present Website is http://www.library.umass.edu/spcoll/special.html
For assistance in using the materials represented by the students' selections in this guide, or in discovering what other collections might serve your research interests, contact Linda Seidman, Head, Special Collections and Archives.
Return to: History Source Guide Main Page
Special Collections
and Archives W.E.B. Du Bois Library table of contents
Return to: History Source Guide Main Page