Massachusetts
- Allan Block (1923-2013) was an accomplished dance fiddler, poet, and leatherworker. Originally from Wisconson, he studied classical violin before moving to New York’s Greenwich Village in the early 1950s. His sandal shop became legendary for its jam…
- The New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill has 171 acres of gardens and orchards and supports over 140,000 visitors per year. It was founded as the Worchester County Horticultural Society in 1842, providing exhibitions and programming throughout the…
- David A. Kaynor (1948-2021) of western Massachusetts was a self taught contra dance fiddler, caller, calligrapher, and dance organizer. The David A. Kaynor Collection reflects his lifelong passion for contra dancing, fiddle music, and calling through…
- Tom McNiff Jr. (1940-2017) was son of Thomas McNiff and Loretta M. Glennon. He researched the American side of the British-American intellegence Operation BGFIEND / OBOPUS (1949-1958), a western paramilitary attempt to infiltrate and arm the Albanian resistance against Communist dictator Enver…
- Special CollectionsJames Edward Vose (1836-1887) was a school teacher and justice of the peace born in Antrim, New Hampshire. His parents were Edward Luke Vose (1806-1868) and Aurelia Wilson (1813-1889). He married first his teaching assistant Mary Neville (1847-1875) of Antrim and second Lois Elizabeth Stickney…
- Special CollectionsDavid H. Millstone is a folk dance teacher, caller, and historian from northern New Hampshire, and a prolific author and documentarian on contemporary and historical New England contra and square dance. He maintains the Square Dance History Project at…
- Special CollectionsLt. Col. Nelson Cross (1824-1897) was born in Lancaster, N.H., and lived in Brooklyn New York by 1860. He was married to Mary (Whetten) Cross (1832-1911) and they had one daughter, Amy Cross (1856-1939). Nelson Cross was the half brother of Edward Cross, who commanded the 5th New Hampshire until…
- Special CollectionsNorman Stevens is a retired librarian, library historian, and has collected and researched extensively on various folklore and folklife topics. He is a member of the University of New Hampshire’s Class of 1954. This collection consists of history,…
- Special CollectionsFounded in 1971, the Boston-based New Black Eagle Jazz Band plays traditional-style jazz. Their prolific career has produced thousands of concerts and over 40 recordings. The New Black Eagle Jazz Band Collection contains concert materials,…
- Special CollectionsThe New Hampshire Account Book Collection creaters made their living through a variety of rural professions, mostly farmers, blacksmiths, doctors, town officials, tanners, cobblers, and other mixed income streams. The account books are organized by town within New Hampshire, Maine, Massachussetts…
- Special CollectionsKingsbury Machine Works was established in 1912, following the independent success of Albert Kingsbury’s design for a new type of mechanical thrust bearing. This year also marked the successful implementation of a Kingsbury bearing at McCall’s Ferry (…
- Special CollectionsTom Burke, a freelance writer, has been a sports writer for over 40 years, covering mostly college hockey. This collection is made up of three series: game summaries; reporter notebooks, miscellaneous published articles.
- Special CollectionsMarianne Taylor (1930-2008) was a dance leader and caller from New England. She taught English, Scottish, Contra, and International Folk styles, and was heavily involved in dance organizations such as the Folk Arts Center of New England (co-founder),…
- Special CollectionsLouise Winston (1917-1996) of Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, was a teacher and caller of square and contra dances. She was a co-founder of Country Dance Society-Boston Centre, and heavily involved in the New England Folk Festival (NEFFA) and camps…
- Special CollectionsViolet “Bunny” Buskey (1912-2007) and Elliott Buskey (1912-1988) started their dance careers in Fitchberg, MA in the 1940’s. They moved to the Chicago area in 1951 where they taught contra dancing. This collection contains programs from dance gatherings in the Chicago area from 1952 to 1959. Also…
- Special CollectionsThe diverse records in this collection relate to lumber trade in early 19th century Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts, and originate from the Amasa P. Niles Company of Haverhill, MA. They were kept by Ebenezer Carleton (Sr.) (1773-1849) and…
- Special CollectionsThe album contains photographs taken during two four-day road trips in New England taken by two couples, Edgar and Emily, Bob and Annis in 1925 and 1926.
- Special CollectionsThe Country Dance Society, Boston Centre (CDS-BC) was founded in 1915 as the English Folk Dance Society, Boston Branch (EFDS-BB). In 1940 the national organization of EFDS reincorporated as the Country Dance Society (now CDSS, the Country Dance and…
- Special CollectionsEleanor Wells wrote poetry and articles that she submitted for publication in various magazines. The Eleanor Wells Nudd papers contain correspondence and manuscripts.
- Special CollectionsMary Gillette was a close friend of Ralph Page who lived in Boston and was involved in founding both NEFFA and the Tuesday night Cambridge YWCA dances (founded 1943) which Page called. S Papers include NEFFA programs and news (1954-1986), posters from…
- Special CollectionsThe New England Folk Festival Association, Inc. was founded in 1944 and incorporated in 1950. Founders included Ralph Page. The festival has been held yearly since then; since 1988 NEFFA has also sponsored the annual Ralph Page Dance Legacy Weekend (…
- Special CollectionsKerry Elkin (1951-2009) was a fiddler, caller, and dancer from Cape Cod, Massachussetts. Most of the Kerry Elkin Papers consists of sheet music, reflecting a wide variety of styles and interterests.
- Special CollectionsThe Square Dance Foundation of New England (SDFNE) was formed 1973 under the leadership of Charlie Baldwin. The collection consists of organizational papers and display materials documenting the 42 year operations of the SDFNE and the Charlie and…
- Special CollectionsSamuel Whitney Hale was born in Fitchburg, Massachusetts on April 2, 1823. He was educated in a common school in Massachusetts and, in his twenties, moved first to Dublin, New Hampshire to start work in business. Hale died on October 16, 1891. This…
- Special CollectionsLeander G. Randall was born to Leander and Grace Randall in 1906 in Macwahoc, Maine. As a child, he grew up in Gorham, Coos County, New Hampshire, where he worked in a paper mill in his twenties. For a short time between about 1931 and 1935, he lived…
- Special CollectionsThe author and illustrator of this manuscript is self-identified as “Professor” R. W. Souter, A.M., R.A.Q. All geographical reference are to the New Hampshire seacoast and Salisbury/Newburyport, Massachusetts. According to the creator, it was “…
- Special CollectionsJohn Bucknam (of Medford, Massachusetts) and Susan Ann Warren (of Concord, New Hampshire) married in the spring of 1830 in Massachusetts. They had 3 sons, of whom 2 survived. In the fall of 1838, Susan and sons Warren and George moved – without John…
- Special CollectionsJack (Jean-Louis Lebris de) Kerouac (1922-1969), American novelist and memoirist, was born and grew up in Lowell, Massachusetts. He was a leading writer of the Beat Generation, and his second novel "On the Road" (1957) was the defacto manifesto of the movement. The…
- Special CollectionsRoland Douglas Sawyer, a Protestant minister and Massachusetts state legislator, was born in Kensington, New Hampshire on January 8, 1874. Sawyer graduated from Revere Lay College in 1898 and worked as pastor. During his ministerial career, Sawyer was…
- Special CollectionsThe Royal Scottish Country Dance Society, Boston Branch was formed in 1950 and was both the first branch of the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society established outside the United Kingdom and the first branch in North America. The collection, which…
- Special CollectionsPinewoods Camp in Plymouth, MA has been in operation since 1919 as a dance camp; before that it was a Girl Scout camp. The camp is owned by the Country Dance and Song Society, and has worked to promote Anglo-American traditional dance and music since…
- Special CollectionsCharles Theodore Russell (1881-1961) was the son of Joseph Ballister Russell, a merchant of Boston. He lived in Falmouth and Boston, Massachusetts. In 1906 he married Louise Rust and they had four children, Charles T. (b. 1907), Henry D. (b. 1910),…
- Special CollectionsErnie Spence (1925-2011) was a contra and square dancer and dance organizer in western New Hampshire, starting ca. 1950. He was responsible for first bringing to dances many young people who would later become important leaders of the dance scene in their own right. Ernie and his wife Jean…
- Special CollectionsLarry Jennings was a dancer, caller, dance organizer, author, and dance philosopher who had a nationwide influence through his writings, series of discussion sessions attended by callers and organizers, and individualized critiques of dance callers…
- Special CollectionsDaniel Hopkinson was born in Bradford, Essex County, MA on January 22, 1783, the son of Daniel and Hannah Hopkinson. He married Sarah Poore (1793-1867) in 1816. They had one daughter, Abigail. Hopkinson spent his entire life in Essex County, near the…
- Special CollectionsGeorge Fogg (1928-2022) of Boston, MA, was the recipient of Country Dance and Song Society Lifetime Contribution Award for 2012. He was a teacher of country dance beginning in 1968, and was an expert at getting beginners out onto the dance floor. The…
- Special CollectionsThe Green Harbor Fishermen's Association was founded in 1896 as a "temporary organization" and "compact body that shall advocate the interests of the villages contiguous to Green [H]arbor and the adjacent coast, and urge on the efforts for the…
- Special CollectionsGeorge Harrington Carter (1873-1910) was born in Montreal, Canada in 1873. After his mother died in 1880 he was sent to Waltham, Massachusetts to live with relatives. He returned to Canada to work selling paper and he later joined the Nashua Card and…
- Special CollectionsThe Hardy family of Nelson, New Hampshire, was a well-to-do group of farmers, schoolteachers, and ministers in nineteenth-century New England. The Hardy Family papers are almost entirely composed of the family's internal correspondence, dated 1862-…
- Special CollectionsW. Albert Rill (1910-1996)served in the United States Navy as a communications officer during the Second World War. He saw action at Iwo Jima and Okinawa in the course of his military career. The W. Albert Rill World War II papers is mostly comprised…
- Special CollectionsJoe Peidle is a professor of Scientific Instrument Making at Harvard University. He is also an avid photographer, with interests in a variety of subjects, and has his own darkroom. These photographs of contra dancing cover New England Folk Festival…
- Special CollectionsJim Mayo is one of the few western square dance callers who began dancing in the more traditional style taught by Ralph Page and was later mentored in calling by Al Brundage. Mayo went on to be a founding member and chairman of CALLERLAB (est. 1972).…
- Special CollectionsCharles Baldwin (1907-1986) was a square dance caller and teacher in the western or ‘modern’ square dance tradition. He was greatly influential in western square dancing starting in the 1940s. Baldwin founded Camp Becket (MA), editor of the New…
- Special CollectionsBorn 1835 in Milford, NH. He accepted a position in the Treasury Department in 1865 and in July 1874 he was appointed Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, being the first man to rise to the position after serving only a clerkship. From 1877 to 1880 he served as the department's funding agent,…
- Special CollectionsMembers of the Sterns Family of Epping NH included: Rev. Josiah Stearns (1732-1788), wife Sarah (Ruggles) Stearns (1731-1808), their son Rev. Samuel Stearns (1770-1834), Jonathan Stearns of Andover, MA, and Ebenezer S. Stearns. Also included is…
- Special CollectionsThe Browne family of Boston, MA consisted of Civil War veteran George Browne (1840-1912); Mountaineer/artist/author Belmore Browne (1880-1954) the youngest son of George and Nellie Browne; outdoor educator Evelyn Browne (1916-1994) the oldest child…
- Special CollectionsHockey East is a collegiate hockey league that was founded in 1983 by five institutions: Boston College, Boston University, the University of Maine, the University of New Hampshire and Providence College. Since then the league has expanded to include…
- Special CollectionsThe American Hockey Coaches Association was formed in May of 1947 in Boston, MA by a handful of college coaches concerned about the game they loved. It has grown to include professional, junior, high school, and youth hockey coaches, as well as…
- Special CollectionsJoe Bertagna played high school hockey in Arlington, Massachusetts for the legendary Eddie Burns, then at Harvard University, where he was a standout goaltender. He graduated from Harvard in 1973 and then studied journalism at Marquette University.…
- Special CollectionsThe Piscataqua Pioneers are descendants of the Piscataqua River basin’s original settlers. Families who moved to and helped develop any of the towns from Kennebunk to Dover Point and the Massachusetts border qualify. Across the United States, the…
