The Packard collection includes approximately 2,500 discs created, produced, commissioned, or collected by Frederick C. Packard, Jr., during the years 1933-1963. The collection forms part of the Woodberry Poetry Room. While it does not contain a complete inventory of his work, the collection features substantial numbers of discs from all stages of the recording and production process, and constitutes the single-largest aggregate of his recordings of spoken literature. In addition to the discs he created for publication, the materials include rare outtakes; original recordings never reproduced or intended for commercial release; Harvard-related language lessons, lectures, sermons, theatrical, radio, and musical performances; and the voices of Harvard students and professors recorded in his role as Professor of Public Speaking. The collection also features listening copies that Packard (and Woodberry Poetry Room curator John Lincoln Sweeney) created based on exchanges he arranged with the Library of Congress, the British Broadcasting Corporation, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and Radio Éireann.
Content types:
Performed music and Spoken word
Formats:
Lacquer disc, Pressed LP disc, and Metal disc
Extent:
30 linear feet (90 boxes of discs, 17 boxes of original sleeves, and additional ephemera)
Consists of rehearsal, demo, and master recordings made by Green of motion picture soundtracks, television and radio broadcasts, and concert performances. Includes sound recordings made by others in which Green is featured. Also includes copies of motion pictures and television broadcasts that relate to Green's career.
Content types:
Performed music, Spoken word, and Two-dimensional moving image
Formats:
Open reel tape (unknown material), Analog audiocassette, U-matic (including U-matic S), and Motion picture film
The WFCR Collection contains nearly 4,500 reel to reel recordings of locally-produced radio programs, reflecting over fifty years of the cultural and intellectual life of western Massachusetts. Drawing upon the talents of the faculty and students of the Five Colleges (Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and Smith Colleges and UMass Amherst), the collection offers a remarkable breadth of content, ranging from public affairs to community and national news, cultural programming, childrens programming, news and current events, scholarly lectures, classical music, and jazz.
Content types:
Sounds and Other
Formats:
Reel-to-reel and Digital tape (DAT, DCC)
Extent:
462 linear feet
Repository/Collector:
UMass Amherst Libraries, Special Collections & University Archives
The American Revolution collection includes hundreds of hours of recordings from WBCN during the period 1968-1974, along with posters, ephemera, videos, oral histories, and other associated materials. The audio and video content has been digitized by our partners, Lichtenstein Creative Media, and will be made available to the public through our digital repository. Materials are currently in the process of being transferred to UMass.
Content types:
Sounds and Other
Extent:
Hundreds of hours
Repository/Collector:
UMass Amherst Libraries, Special Collections & University Archives
The BCMP collection consists of many dozens of reel to reel audiotapes of radio broadcasts aired over WMUA during the 1970s and early 1980s by and for the universitys African American community. Included is a range of locally-produced public affairs, cultural, and music programming, with some content licensed from around the country. A few of the tapes are associated with the Five Colleges National Public Radio affiliate, WFCR.
Content types:
Sounds and Other
Extent:
300 recordings
Repository/Collector:
UMass Amherst Libraries, Special Collections & University Archives
A professor of English at UMass Amherst, James A. Freeman is a scholar of seventeenth century British literature who has compiled an impressively eclectic array of publications and research projects. Educated at Amherst College (AB 1956) and the University of Minnesota (PhD 1968), Freeman joined the faculty in the English Department at UMass shortly after completing his doctorate. He has published on topics ranging from Latin and Greek poets to Shakespeare, Milton, Swift, Tennyson, James Agee, Donald Duck, 17th century regicides, and 1930s radio. He has also served as a regular contributor and editor for the Association for Gravestone Studies Quarterly. The Freeman collection consists of many hundreds of cassette tapes of radio broadcasts from the 1930s through early 1950s, reflecting the culture of commercial radio during its golden age. The collection includes representatives of most of the major genres, including comedy, drama, suspense and mystery, soap operas, and westerns. There is some depth popular programs such as Amos and Andy, the Great Gildersleeve, Philip Marlowe, and Nero Wolfe, but the collection also includes less common and short-lived shows.
Content types:
Spoken word
Formats:
Analog audiocassette
Extent:
27 linear feet
Repository/Collector:
UMass Amherst Libraries, Special Collections & University Archives
Airchecks of local and national radio programming up to 1979 with emphasis on years 1955-1969. Archive includes news,sports,interviews,DJ airchecks, documentaries and specials.
Content types:
Performed music and Spoken word
Formats:
Optical disc (including CD, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD, DVD-R, DVD-RW, VCD) and Analog audiocassette
Bulk of the collection is correspondence concerning rights to a Traven story adapted for radio and television by Ted Allan, a playwright who worked for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.