University of Massachusetts Amherst. All rights reserved.
William L. Machmer.
Enjoying one of the longest tenures of any administrator in the history of the University of Massachusetts, William Lawson Machmer served under five presidents across 42 years, helping to guide the university through an economic depression, two world wars, and three name changes. During his years as Dean, Machmer witnessed the growth of the university from fewer than 500 students to almost 3,800, and helped guide its transformation from a small agricultural college into Massachusetts State College (1931) and finally into the University of Massachusetts (1947).
Born in Moselem, Pa., on January 30, 1883, Machmer was trained as a teacher at Keystone State Normal School before receiving both his bachelors and masters degrees in languages (Latin and Greek) from Franklin and Marshall College. Having gained experience teaching for several years in the public school system in Pennsylvania and at the Franklin and Marshall Academy, Machmer was brought to Massachusetts Agricultural College in 1911 as instructor of mathematics, one of a small crop of younger faculty brought in to build the curriculum. Well regarded throughout the college and a favorite of the students, Machmer rose steadily up the academic ladder and in 1921, he was chosen by President Kenyon Butterfield to become Assistant Dean, followed four years later by his promotion to Dean.
For nearly thirty years, Machmer was centrally involved in the academic affairs of campus. Although many of the curricular innovations and reforms introduced by Butterfield were never fully realized, Machmer was a steadfast advocate of raising academic standards, and he was highly effective in dealing with the changes brought by the Great Depression, the Second World War, and the return of war veterans in the late 1940s and early 1950s, as well as the gradual shift in emphasis away from agricultural education toward the liberal arts and sciences. As a close advisor to the college president, he oversaw both the curriculum and the student body, writing that philosophically, he wished to emphasize the "development of the complete individual," including the mental, physical, social, and moral aspects.
As Machmer grew into the Dean's role, he took part in a number of regional and national organizations and initiatives, including the federal survey of Land Grant Colleges and Universities in 1928, the Association of Land Grant Colleges and Universities, the American Conference on Academic Deans, and the Eastern Association of Deans and Advisors of Men. Although his teaching load was reduced by his administrative responsibilities, he remained active as well in the Department of Mathematics, serving as Department head from 1935-1940. Outside the University, his slate was no less full. Deeply involved in the Amherst community, he took an interest generally in educational and Congregational Church matters, heading the Parent-Teachers Association and the Amherst School Committee at various times, and working with the local Democratic Party and the Masonic fraternity.
On January 24, 1953, less than a month after retiring from the University, Machmer died of a heart attack while fighting a grass fire at his summer home at Chequesett Bluff, Wellfleet, Mass. In 1956, a new classroom building was named Machmer Hall in his honor.
The papers of long-time Dean of the University William L. Machmer chronicle the fitful development of UMass Amherst from the presidency of Kenyon Butterfield just after the turn of the twentieth century until the time of the GI Bill. During his tenure, Machmer helped the university weather the effects of two World Wars and the Great Depression, and to navigate the changes as it evolved first into Massachusetts State College and then into the University of Massachusetts. Throughout, he was a humane and effective voice for high academic standards and for the life of the student.
Machmer's papers contain information on student academic achievement, educational expectations and challenges, and the efforts of the university to take part in regional and national organizations. As such, the collection offers a perspective on the evolution of thinking at the University during the transition from a narrowly defined mission as an agricultural college into a more broadly conceived liberal arts curriculum. Of particular interest is the relatively large quantity of material relating to the adjustments at the university during and after World War II and the efforts to meet the demand of returning veterans. The collection includes substantial information on the organization of courses at Fort Devens and Westover Air Force Base; statistics, letters, and other documents relating to returning veterans; and (especially in Series 2) information on the adaptation of the individual academic units at the university.
The collection is open for research with the exception of files containing the academic records of individual students.
Please use the following format when citing materials from this collection: William L. Machmer Papers (RG6/1 M33). Special Collections and University Archives, W.E.B. Du Bois Library, University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Acquired from William L. Machmer.
Collection processed by Katherine Emerson, Linda Seidman (1984), Mike Milewski (1988), and SCUA staff, September 2007.
The bulk of the subject files in Series 1 pertains to Machmer's activities as Dean at the University of Massachusetts during the 1920s through 1953, and particularly his oversight of the changing curriculum and student academic success. From the controversy over introducing an BA degree (as opposed to the BS formerly granted to agricultural students) to the introduction of new ideas in how best to serve the citizens of the Commonwealth, the series documents the slow and sometimes agonizing reorganization of the university.
Machmer was a strong proponent of student academic standards, and his files from his work on the Scholarship Committee (reviewing the academic standing of students), his annual reports as Dean, statistical summaries of student standing, and reports from various other committees provides a sense of academic life at the university during the 1930s and 1940s. To a lesser degree, the series also documents aspects of student non-academic life.
The impact of World War II on the University can be seen throughout the series in terms of the dramatic impact on a student body mobilizing for war and the equally dramatic impact of integrating veterans back into the university following demobilization. Of particular note are a fine series of letters written by former Mass. State students in the service (filed under "Letters from soldiers") and a poignant file of requests from Japanese American students from the western states seeking to continue their education. In most cases, Machmer responded to say that while the university was willing to admit Japanese American students, the already strained facilities at Mass. State would not permit them to admit additional out of state students.
Series 2 contains an effective snapshot of the state of the academic departments at UMass, concentrated in period 1950-1952, when the university was experiencing an influx of returning veterans from World War II. The files provide some insight into the efforts of each department, often with mixed success, to meet the educational demands of the post-war generation and their efforts to innovate or adapt the curriculum.