Fred Taylor Papers
Fred Taylor made Boston a center for jazz and popular music. The impresario opened the Jazz Workshop and Paul’s Mall in the mid-1960s, bringing huge acts to Boston, including Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter, Sonny Rollins, Charles Mingus, and Bob Marley’s first publicized U.S. appearance in 1973. His story is one of championing great musicians, both established and up-and-coming. His collection, shows the experience of an entrepreneur in the music business and how Boston became a key stop on the tours of many of the most important artists.
William Corey Collection
William Corey is a photographer unlike any other. As an American, he became one of the most respected photographers of traditional Japanese gardens. He adapted a century-old, large format camera to capture the full impact of his subject, and was able to take photos at a massive scale, almost bringing the viewer completely into the garden itself. Corey’s widow, Reimi Adichi, donated Corey’s life work to SCUA, including all of his massive 8 x 20 inch negatives, prints, beautifully constructed Japanese art books, and his camera equipment. A selection of his largest prints, which were on display at the Denver International Airport, will be displayed throughout the Libraries.
Renny Cushing Papers
Renny Cushing is a founder of the Clamshell Alliance, one of the earliest and most influential anti-nuclear organizations; a nationally important and recognized activist against the death penalty, and a long-time New Hampshire state representative. It is hard to overstate just how big an impact Cushing has had through his activism and public service. Cushing’s papers span his entire life and fit right in with the collections of other major Clamshell Alliance members in SCUA, and immediately become one of the most important anti-death penalty collections in the country.
William Craighead Photograph
Tucked away in a photograph album depicting members of the Halligan family was a never-before-seen photograph of one of the university’s first Black students, William Hunlie Craighead. Craighead was a captain of the football team, and a teammate of Charles P. Halligan. The photograph, taken in approximately 1902, depicts Craighead lined up in formation with the team, possibly during practice. We were able to purchase the album from an auction house, and continue to fill out the picture of the historical—and contemporary—Black presence at UMass Amherst.
Frankie Ziths Collection
Frankie Ziths and his wife, Barbara Heller, had a revelation in 1970, when Ziths was covering the Panther 21 trial in New York for The Black Panther, the national newspaper for the Black Panther Party. They were at the center of a historical moment that had to be preserved for the legacy of the struggle for Black liberation. From that point on, they saved everything, including the entire contents of the Harlem Branch of the Black Panther Party when it closed in 1981. Ziths was a key member of the Party and also a professional photographer, working for decades as a stringer for The New York Times and the Associated Press. The Ziths Collection includes his Black liberation material and all his photographic negatives and prints.
Jim Tobias Collection
Our history of science collections received a boost this last year with a donation of science games and propaganda from Jim Tobias. According to Emily Hamilton, assistant professor in the Dept. of History and a scholar of the history of science, the addition of Jim Tobias’s collection is “a welcome one for researchers studying the history and material culture of American education.” The collection is filled with colorful games, books, and puzzles, which, Hamilton points out, “highlights the increasing commercialization of K-12 education in the 20th century.”