The Devil's Tale

We're Moving!

2011-01-10T21:19:00.003-05:00

So long, Blogger, and thanks!

Dear readers, you'll now be able to find The Devil's Tale at http://blogs.library.duke.edu/dukelibrariesrbmscl/. Update your feed readers, change your bookmarks, and we'll see you soon at our new online home!

A Snowy Saturday at Duke

2010-12-06T15:57:00.000-05:00

On Saturday afternoon, Durham saw its first snowfall of the season. Sadly, most of the snow melted before we made it to the RBMSCL this morning. Lucky for us, Duke Yearlook, the Duke University Archives' Flickr photostream, has come to our rescue with a flurry of photos of a snowy Gothic Wonderland.

There are funny ones...

And pretty ones...

Stop by the "Winter at Duke" set on Flickr for more pictures of the campus in snow.

Thanksgiving in Pittsburgh

2010-11-25T05:30:00.000-05:00

A wooden postcard (ca. 1910) from our Postcard Collection.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

(Click images to enlarge.)

Charley the Bell

2010-11-16T17:20:00.000-05:00

Visit Duke University’s West Campus any weekday at 5:00 PM and you’ll hear the 50 bells of the Duke University Chapel’s impressive carillon.

But there’s a 51st bell on West Campus. Hung in the Kilgo Quadrangle belfry sometime in October or early November of 1950, Charley came to Duke (according to legend) from Cherley Myncherry in Oxfordshire, where it had been part of this Benedictine priory’s set of bells. The bell was a gift of Furman G. McLarty (Trinity College Class of 1927 and Duke professor of philosophy from 1933 until his death in 1952), who had purchased it in 1929 while a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University.

Perhaps overshadowed by its Duke Chapel brethren, our Charley does have one particular point of pride: with Cherley Myncherry dating from the 12th century, the bell may very well be one of the oldest in the New World. We were lucky to record a peal from this historical treasure.

Additional Resources:

Duke Magazine "Retrospective" on Charley by former Associate University Archivist Tom Harkins

Rights! Camera! Action!: Rain in a Dry Land

2010-11-15T10:26:00.004-05:00

Date: Tuesday, 16 November 2010
Time: 7:00 PM
Location: Rare Book Room
Contact Information: Patrick Stawski, 919-660-5823 or patrick.stawski(at)duke.edu, or Kirston Johnson, 919-681-7963 or kirston.johnson(at)duke.edu

Rain in a Dry Land (82 min.) chronicles the first 18 months of the new American lives of two families finally allowed to immigrate to the United States after over a decade in a Kenyan refugee camp. Beginning with "cultural orientation" classes in Kenya, where they are introduced to such novelties as electric appliances and the prospect of living in high-rise apartment buildings, the film follows the families as they learn that the streets in America are definitely not paved with gold. The families' sponsors—Jewish Family Services in Springfield, Massachusetts, and World Relief in Atlanta—have pledged six months of support, which makes for a daunting learning curve as the families settle into their new homes.

A discussion with director Anne Makepeace and Suzanne Shanahan, Associate Director of Duke's Kenan Institute for Ethics, will follow.

The Rights! Camera! Action! film series, which is sponsored by the Archive for Human Rights, the Archive of Documentary Arts, the Duke Human Rights Center, the Franklin Humanities Institute, and Screen/Society at Duke's Arts of the Moving Image Program, features documentaries on human rights themes that were award winners at the annual Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. The films are archived at the RBMSCL, where they form part of a rich and expanding collection of human rights materials.

Scrapbooking for Victory

2010-11-11T12:47:00.002-05:00

"Every Girl Pulling for Victory."

"Back Up the Boys."

"Keep Him Smiling!"

"Morale is Winning the War."

These chipper slogans grace the 20 posters, handbills, brochures, stickers, song lyrics, newspaper ads, and cartoons found in a United War Work Campaign Scrapbook recently acquired by the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History. This collection of fundraising and morale-boosting materials was produced for a multi-institutional drive during the final months of World War I. Only one other copy is known to exist at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution Archives.

On September 9, 1918, President Woodrow Wilson wrote to Raymond Fosdick, coordinator of the War Department’s Training Camp Activities, requesting that aid organizations pool their resources on a massive single campaign to raise funds for soldier morale programs "in order that the spirit of the country in this matter may be expressed without distinction of race or religious opinion in support of what is in reality a common service."

The campaign coordinated the efforts of seven organizations that had previously managed individual fundraising drives: the YMCA, YWCA, American Library Association, War Camp Community Service, National Catholic War Council (Knights of Columbus), Jewish Welfare Board, and Salvation Army. Each organization would continue to address their traditional demographic or service focus (for example, the Knights of Columbus worked primarily with Catholic communities, and the American Library Association sent books to soldier encampments) while organizing their activities around a central set of promotional messages.

The goal was to raise $170 million during a campaign scheduled for the week of November 11-18, 1918 (whether prescient or brilliantly planned, November 11 was also the day that Germany signed the Armistice, officially ending hostilities.) The end of the war was already in sight during the campaign-planning period, but it was estimated that the demobilization of nearly four million U.S. troops would require at least two years and a staggering sum for programs to maintain the morale of returning soldiers. With a nearly $1 million operating budget, a National Publicity Committee was formed and chaired by Bruce Barton, a journalist and magazine editor who had been an active official with the YMCA. All media would be employed: print, outdoor advertising, leaflets, stickers, lapel pins, radio spots, motion picture shorts, even a women-run telephone brigade. The campaign was a resounding success, raising over $203 million dollars that funded soldier aid programs through 1920. It was hailed in the press at the time as the largest fundraising event in human history.

As an advertising history-related aside, the United War Work Campaign may have been the launching platform for one of America’s most successful advertising agencies. Ad men Roy Durstine and Alexander Osborn worked on the campaign alongside Bruce Barton. In early 1919, just a few months after the campaign wrapped up, the three men founded ad agency Barton Durstine & Osborn, which merged in 1928 to become Batton, Barton, Durstine & Osborn (BBDO). BBDO rapidly grew to become one of the largest and most respected advertising agencies in the United States. The Hartman Center is proud to add this important scrapbook to its growing collection of war-related advertising materials.

For more photos from the scrapbook, take a look at the scrapbook's set on the RBMSCL's Flickr photostream.

Post contributed by Rick Collier, Technical Services Archivist for the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History.

Final Papers, Meet New Finding Aids

2010-11-09T09:12:00.001-05:00

Time to get cracking on those final papers? Start your research with one of the collections described in these brand-new finding aids!

African American Miscellany, 1757-1983

This collection of approximately 400 print and manuscript items relating to African and African American history was assembled over a number of decades by the staff of the RBMSCL. These documents—largely from the southern United States—speak to the sales, escapes, and emancipations of slaves from colonial times through the Civil War, the civil rights era from 1950-1970, and to a lesser extent, the period in between the 1870s and the 1950s.

South Africa Documentary Photographs Collection, 1940s-2007 and undated

Metal artist Titus Moteyane, Atteridgeville, Pretoria, 1984. Gisele Wulfsohn. From the South Africa Documentary Photographs Collection.

Acquired as part of the Archive of Documentary Arts, the South Africa Documentary Photographs Collection consists of four series of photographs documenting South African social conditions under and after apartheid, dating from approximately the 1940s-2007: Beyond the Barricades, The Cordoned Heart, Then and Now, and Underexposed. Each series originated in an exhibition, book, or project developed jointly by Duke University and South African institutions. The collection represents work by 45 South African photographers, many of whom were members of Afrapix, a collective photography agency that was politically active in the 1980s, or were otherwise active in documenting anti-apartheid struggle.

Louanne Watley Photographs, 2002-2010

The photographs and supporting materials created by Louanne Watley depict communities of Catholic nuns in Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Virginia, and images of their religious life in those communities. She typically focuses on the women’s individual faces, hands, and feet. There are also a few images of monks and their communities as well. The formats are primarily black-and-white prints with some color prints, contact prints, Polaroids (diffusion transfer process), large color inkjet prints, and negatives. As with many Archive of Documentary Arts collections acquired in recent years, digital scans of Watley’s work are also included.

Walter McGowan Upchurch Papers, 1841-1977

Walter McGowan Upchurch, Jr. served as a member of Duke's Board of Trustees and was senior vice-president of Shell Companies Foundation, Inc. This collection contains personal correspondence among members of the Upchurch family, including correspondence between Upchurch and his brother during World War II, when they were both serving in the U.S. Navy; professional correspondence concerning Duke University administrative affairs; and genealogical materials for the Upchurch, Daniel, and Meadows families of North Carolina. Additional materials include Shell Development Company records on personnel issues such as labor relations and salary administration at the progressive Emeryville Laboratories; and Shell Companies Foundation records from 1963 to 1974, chiefly relating to the foundation's endowments, scholarships, grants, and donations. The Duke University Archives also holds a smaller collection of Upchurch's papers.

Please remember that many RBMSCL collections are stored off-site in our wonderful Library Service Center and need to be requested by RBMSCL staff members at least 24 hours before your research visit. We encourage you to e-mail special-collections(at)duke.edu for assistance.

Research for Human Rights

2010-11-05T16:58:00.000-04:00

A continuing goal of the Archive for Human Rights at the RBMSCL is to explore how archives can help sustain and nurture human rights and social justice. Over the past few months, we have had the exciting opportunity to provide our knowledge and services to the staff of the Center for Death Penalty Litigation (CDPL), a Durham, NC-based non-profit that provides post-conviction legal representation to indigent defendants accused or convicted of capital crimes in the state of North Carolina.

On August 11, 2009, Governor Bev Purdue signed into law the North Carolina Racial Justice Act, which will allow defendants facing the death penalty to present evidence of racial bias, including statistics, in court. Since the act was signed into law, CDPL lawyers have been working with the CDPL case files archived here at the RBMSCL to uncover evidence of such bias. CDPL staff easily accessed the well-arranged collection through its online finding aid to determine which boxes and files contained relevant material. They then worked with RBMSCL staff to call boxes for review in our research room and to take advantage of our duplication services.

In addition to research for the Racial Justice Act, CDPL and ACLU lawyers have been reviewing case files in our reading room to research how broader discovery and prosecutorial issues may impact future death penalty cases. We hope our services will continue to aid their efforts.

Post contributed by Patrick Stawski, Human Rights Archivist.

A Worthy 100 Years

2010-11-04T10:58:00.002-04:00

Date: Tuesday, 9 November 2010
Time: 4:00 PM
Location: Rare Book Room
Contact Information: Tim Pyatt, 919-684-8929 or tim.pyatt(at)duke.edu

William Preston Few

On November 9, 1910, William Preston Few was inaugurated as the sixth president of Trinity College. Few accepted the presidency of Trinity College promising "to keep the future worthy of the past." This would be no hollow promise as, over the next three decades, he would transform the strong and growing liberal arts college into a major research university.

To celebrate this pivotal moment in the history of Duke University, Michael Schoenfeld, Vice President for Public Affairs and Government Affairs and Stephen Nowicki, Dean of Undergraduate Education, will give brief remarks on Few’s legacy and lasting impact. University Archivist Tim Pyatt will introduce members of the Few family attending and talk about the materials documenting Few’s life and presidency that will be on display.

Our National Sweepstakes

2010-11-02T10:14:00.002-04:00

In the spirit of election day, we are highlighting a new acquisition: the James Cartoons Posters, a series of political cartoon posters created by the New Process Electro Corporation in 1920 and 1921.

They are remarkable for a number of reasons—including their large size (21 x 31 inches) and their beautiful colors. Originally offered as a subscription for $1.25 per week, the posters feature not-so-subtle commentary on everything from the League of Nations, prohibition, Russian aggression, and the Ponzi scheme. One common topic is the 1920 presidential election, where Warren G. Harding challenged James Middleford Cox. One of our favorites, "The Home Stretch!," stars Harding (riding on the GOP Elephant) and Cox (being pulled in a wagon by the Democratic Donkey) racing towards the Election Day finish line.

Detail from "The Home Stretch!"

Many of the posters reflect America’s increasing isolationism, particularly regarding Europe and the League of Nations. Harding’s campaign for a "return to normalcy" struck a chord with voters who were exhausted by World War I and disillusioned by global politics. He defeated Cox in a landslide on November 2, 1920.

The James Cartoons Posters collection has only a sampling of the originally published series, so unfortunately we don’t know what the artist had to say about Harding and the Republicans post-election.

Detail from "The Home Stretch!"

Post contributed by Meghan Lyon, Accessioning Associate.

D is for Diaries, Drama, and Dracula

2010-10-31T08:33:00.004-04:00

Buck and his chewing gum.

I’m lucky. As a volunteer at the RBMSCL, I’ve been creating finding aids for small manuscript collections—collections such as love letters and travel diaries from the 19th century—which can be more compelling than any historical novel. One in particular I found to be especially memorable is the John Buck Diary.

Elaborate script and comic sketches recount the eight week long vacation in England and Scotland in 1887 of John Buck, an affluent, young American who spent several days in close company with Henry Irving, the famous English actor; the equally famous actress and Irving’s rumored paramour, Ellen Terry; and the business manager of the Lyceum Theatre as well as Irving’s personal assistant, Bram Stoker. Yes, the Bram Stoker who later wrote Dracula. His visit begins with the Royal Lyceum's performance of another popular demonic tale:

I reached Edinburgh at seven o’clock and was met by Mr. Stoker. He took me to the Edinburgh Hotel (close by the station) where Mr. Irving was staying. . . . Mr. Stoker after fixing me comfortably hurried away to the theatre and I had my dinner served in Mr. Irving’s dining room. The dinner was good but I was so anxious to see some of "Faust" that I left at the end of the third course and jumping into a hansom drove to the Royal Lyceum Theatre, where I found Mr. Stoker “laying” [?] for me. He . . . took me into the only remaining private box. Mephistopheles was just transforming Faust into a young man as I entered the box, so I had not missed much of the play. . . . At the end of the act Mr. Stoker took me around [to the stage] to see Mr. Irving and Miss Terry. . . . While we were chatting and I was being questioned about “home affairs” the scene shifters were building Marguerite’s room around us, and very soon I was compelled to "skip" as the curtain was about to be rung up. . . . Mr. Irving was grand, and he will make a tremendous hit with Faust in America. (pages 67-70)

The diary is so extraordinarily descriptive and entertaining; it is as if Buck, who loved the theater, were writing the storyline for his own theatrical play. At times, I could imagine his diary recast as a BBC period drama! Equally remarkable is the extent to which Buck’s personality is so clearly revealed. He was sometimes irreverent and informal, even when visiting the Duke of Beaufort at Badminton House in Gloucestershire, highly competitive, a bit arrogant, and more interested in pretty young women, having fun, and socializing than sightseeing; he seemed so American, and so amazingly like a few modern young men that I have known.

One of Buck's sketches.
Happy Halloween!

Post contributed by Danielle Moore, RBMSCL Technical Services volunteer.

Devil's Food

2010-10-29T14:19:00.000-04:00

Our celebration of National Dessert Month has been surprisingly chocolate-free, so we're aiming to correct that today with recipes from Chocolate and Cocoa Recipes, published around 1922. Instead of boring candy bars, we at The Devil's Tale want our plastic pumpkins filled with Devil's Food cake!

Devil's Food

2 cups sugar
3/4 cup butter
4 ounces Baker's Premium No. 1 Chocolate
4 eggs (3 may be used)
2 1/4 cups flour
4 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon clove
1 1/4 cups milk

Cream butter and add sugar gradually, while beating to a cream; add chocolate, melted, and beaten yolks and mix thoroughly. Sift together flour, salt, cinnamon, clove and baking powder and add to butter mixture, alternately with the milk. At the last, fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites and bake in a deep pan and ice when cold.

And, just because you can never have too many chocolate recipes (and because there were no pictures of the Devil's Food cake):

Chocolate Jelly

1 pint boiling water
Pinch salt
1 square Baker's Premium No. 1 Chocolate
2 tablespoons gelatine
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

Put the water, salt and chocolate in a saucepan. Cook, stirring until the chocolate melts, then let it boil for three or five minutes. Soften the gelatine in a little cold water and pour the boiling mixture over it. Stir until disolved, then add sugar and vanilla. Pour into a mould and set aside to harden, serve with cream and powdered sugar or sweetened whipped cream.

RBMSCL Travel Grants: $$$ to Visit Us!

2010-10-27T10:43:00.002-04:00

Photo by Mark Zupan.

Good news, researchers! The RBMSCL is now accepting applications for our 2011-2012 travel grants.

The Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture, the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture, and the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History will award up to $1,000 per recipient to fund travel and other expenses related to visiting the RBMSCL. The grants are open to undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, independent scholars, artists, and activists living outside a 100-mile radius from Durham, NC with research projects that would benefit from access to the centers’ collections.

More details—and the grant application—may be found on our grants website. Applications must be postmarked or e-mailed no later than 5:00 PM EST on January 31, 2011. Recipients will be announced in March 2011.

We're also excited to announce that the RBMSCL will be offering three new grants this year for scholars interested in using our German Studies and Judaica collections. Additional information about applying for one of these three grants will be available on our grants website soon. These new grants will have a later deadline.

Congratulations to the 2010 Middlesworth Award Winners!

2010-10-25T19:28:00.001-04:00

On Friday, the RBMSCL celebrated with students and parents at one of our favorite events of the year: the Middlesworth Award and Durden Prize Reception.

Given annually, the Middlesworth Awards recognize the authors of the best undergraduate and graduate student papers based on research in the collections of the RBMSCL. Funding for the awards has been generously provided by Chester P. Middlesworth (A.B., 1949) of Statesville, NC.

2010 Middlesworth Award winners Adrienne Niederriter, Bonnie Scott, and Hannah Craddock.

Undergraduate student winner Adrienne R. Niederriter plumbed the depths of the Hartman Center's Ad*Access image database for her paper, "Speak Softly and Carry a Lipstick: Government Influence on Female Sexuality through Cosmetics during World War II."

Undergraduate student winner Hannah C. Craddock received her award for her senior honors thesis, "'A New Self-Respect and a New Consciousness of Power': White Nurses, Black Soldiers, and the Danger of World War I.” Craddock's study focused upon the Ann Henshaw Gardiner Papers and the Samuel Loomis Hypes Papers.

Graduate student winner Bonnie Scott's paper began at the heart of Duke's West Campus, as she compared sermons preached in the Duke Chapel to those preached by North Carolina minister Kenneth M. Johnson during the Civil Rights Movement.

Their papers will now become part of the RBMSCL's collections.

We know that great papers are being researched and written this semester as well. If you are a Duke student, submit your paper and we might be toasting you next fall! Details about submitting your paper can be found here.

Rights! Camera! Action!: Brother Towns

2010-10-25T16:32:00.004-04:00

Date: Monday, 1 November 2010
Time: 7:00 PM
Location: Carolina Theatre
Contact Information: Patrick Stawski, 919-660-5823 or patrick.stawski(at)duke.edu, or Kirston Johnson, 919-681-7963 or kirston.johnson(at)duke.edu

Brother Towns / Pueblos Hermanos (59 min.) is a story of two towns linked by immigration, family, and work: Jacaltenango, Guatemala, a highland Maya town, and Jupiter, Florida, a coastal resort town where many Jacaltecos have settled. The docunmentary film chronicles how and why people migrate across borders, how people make and remake their communities when they travel thousands of miles from home, and how people maintain families despite their travel. To learn more, visit the film's website.

This screening is part of the Latin American Film Festival sponsored by the Consortium in Latin American and Caribbean Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill and Duke University, the Center for Documentary Studies, and the Carolina Theater and will be followed by a panel discussion (panelists TBD).

The Rights! Camera! Action! film series, which is sponsored by the Archive for Human Rights, the Archive of Documentary Arts, the Duke Human Rights Center, the Franklin Humanities Institute, and Screen/Society at Duke's Arts of the Moving Image Program, features documentaries on human rights themes that were award winners at the annual Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. The films are archived at the RBMSCL, where they form part of a rich and expanding collection of human rights materials.

Not Even Covered in Chocolate Sauce

2010-10-22T17:23:00.001-04:00

Wonders never quite cease at the RBMSCL. If ever there were a foodstuff that we strongly believed should not be associated with dessert, it was cauliflower. And then we discovered The Dessert Book: A Complete Manual from the Best American and Foreign Authorities with General Economical Recipes (written by a Boston Lady in 1872). So, in honor of National Dessert Month, we present:

Meringues in the Form of Cauliflowers

Not dessert.

Fill a biscuit-forcer with Italian meringue-paste, and push this out upon bands of paper, in knobs, or large dots, superposed or mounted one upon the other in such form or fashion, that, when complete, it shall represent, as nearly as possible, the head, or white part, of a cauliflower (of course, on a very diminished scale, of the size of a pigeon's egg, for instance): this pat of the cauliflower, when fashioned, is to be sprinkled over with rather coarse granite sugar. The under part, or green leaves, which envelop a cauliflower, are imitated in a somewhat similar manner to the above by pushing out the paste in pointed dots upon bands of paper, in the manner and form as directed for the imitation of the heads, only somewhat flatter: these, in order the better to represent green leaves, are to be sprinkled over with green granite sugar; and when both parts have been dried in the closet, or screen, stick the head, or white part, upon the leafy or green part; thus you will form more or less truthful imitation of a cauliflower, according as in a greater or lesser degree you may have displayed your taste.

Should you want to make these for your next dinner party—imagine the aghast looks on your guests' faces!—you'll find the recipe for Italian Meringues after the jump.

Italian Meringues

Ingredients: 1 1/4 lb. of sugar, 4 whites of eggs, and any kind of flavoring.

Boil the sugar to the blow degree, and then set the sugar-boiler standing in a soup-plate containing cold water. Whip the whites of eggs into a stiff snowy froth; and having worked the sugar with the back part of the bowl of a tablespoon continuously up against the sides of the pan, fetching it up from the bottom at the same time, in order that the whole of the sugar may be equally worked so as to become semi-opalized, add the whipped whites, and afterwards the juice of a lemon, and a liqueur-glass of any kind of liqueur, and thoroughly, through lightly, mix all together. You will find, that, as the paste cools, it will become sufficiently firm to enable you to lay it out in a similar manner to that described for the moulding of ordinary meringues, excepting that, as a general rule, Italian meringues should be small. They are susceptible of being made in almost an infinite variety of forms; using, in that case, a biscuit-forcer for the purpose of shaping the meringues to represent hearts, rings, crescents, diamonds, trefoil, grapes, and other fruits, &c. This meringue-paste may be colored rose-pink by adding a few drops of cochineal, yellow with saffron, brown with chocolate. Italian meringues require to be dried only, rather than baked: due care must therefore be taken, previously to using the oven for this purpose, to ascertain that the heat is not sufficient to color a piece of white paper.

As the proportion of sugar contained in the Italian meringues is greater than in the ordinary meringue, it does not require dredging after being shaped, possessing already sufficient consistency; yet, when fruits or vegetables are intended to be imitated, different colored granite sugars are sprinkled on their surface to effect such resemblance. In all ordinary cases, when not desirable to ornament, or in any way vary the original color of the Italian meringues, as soon as their surfaces have become sufficiently dry to admit of a slight pressure of the finger without giving way, remove them from the oven, and use a broad-bladed knife having a rounded tip, with which to lift the meringues off their paper; the first half so lifted to be laid upon its back in the palm of your left hand, gently withdrawing the knife without damaging its form; and then, as you remove the fellow-half from the paper, and place it upon that already in your left hand, gently press both together, and set the perfect ring, heart, &c., out of hand upon a wire tray, to be further dried for a few minutes.

(Proof, we think, that any recipe can be greatly improved with a generous sprinkling of commas.)

In Conversation: Michael Cuscuna

2010-10-21T12:38:00.002-04:00

Date: Wednesday, 27 October 2010
Time: 7:00 PM
Location: Regulator Bookshop
Contact Information: Jeremy Smith, 919-660-5839 or jeremy.smith(at)duke.edu

Grammy Award winning record producer Michael Cuscuna (Blue Note Records, Mosaic Records) will discuss his work producing the recordings of jazz pianist Horace Silver.

Silver was one of the leading composers and pianists of the hard bop era of jazz, and his music will be the focus of a concert by the SFJAZZ Collective the following evening at Page Auditorium.

SFJAZZ Collective

This event is co-sponsored by Duke Performances and the Jazz Archive.

Pictures at an Exhibition

2010-10-20T10:03:00.002-04:00

Click to enlarge.

On Friday, library staff members and UNC SILS students gathered for an impromptu gallery talk for our new exhibit, "Book + Art: Artists' books from the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture," led by curators Christine Wells and Kelly Wooten and exhibits coordinator Meg Brown. For more pictures from the gallery talk, visit the Bingham Center's Flickr photostream.

And remember: book artist and photographer Bea Nettles will be speaking tomorrow at 5:30 PM in the Rare Book Room as part of this fall's Book + Art series of events!

Stories of SNCC

2010-10-18T17:15:00.001-04:00

Date: Sunday, 24 October 2010
Time: 3:00 PM
Location: Durham County Library Auditorium, 300 N. Roxboro Street
Contact Information: Will Hansen, 919-660-5958 or william.hansen(at)duke.edu

To celebrate the publication of the essay collection, Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC, editor Faith S. Holsaert (whose papers are held by RBMSCL) and contributor Margaret Herring will speak along with Nia Wilson, Executive Director, and Mya Hunter, member of SpiritHouse, a local grassroots organization that supports the empowerment, transformation, and self-determination of marginalized communities of color.

In Hands on the Freedom Plow, fifty-two women—northern and southern, young and old, urban and rural, black, white, and Latina—share their courageous personal stories of working for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) on the front lines of the Civil Rights Movement. Along with these stories, participants in the panel will discuss the legacy and continuing work of women for civil rights and equality.

This event is co-sponsored by the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture, the North Carolina Collection at Durham County Library, and The Regulator Bookshop.

Voting = Cake

2010-10-15T17:09:00.001-04:00

In honor of National Dessert Month (which everyone celebrates, right?), we'll be posting recipes from the RBMSCL's collection every Friday this month. Last Friday—The Devil's Tale's first birthday—we started the celebration with a recipe for a pretty pink birthday cake.

Today's recipe comes from an advertising brochure with a marvelous title: How to Make Bread (But Not in This Disagreeable Old-Fashioned Way). Really, we're not making that up:

You see, this brochure advises the smart homemaker to purchase The Universal Three Minute Bread Maker from Landers, Frary & Clark (of New Britain, Connecticut). The transformation is nothing short of astonishing:

And, of course, no advertisement for an absolutely revolutionary bit of kitchen gadgetry would be complete without a few recipes to make with said gadgetry. So, in honor of a certain approaching first Tuesday in November, we offer this fine recipe:

Loaf, or Election Cake

Put into the Bread Maker one and one-half cups milk, one cup potato yeast, one cup sugar, five cups flour, turn crank three minutes, put on cover and raise till light. When light, add one cup shortening, (half butter and lard), one cup sugar, whites of two eggs, nutmeg to season, turn crank five minutes, cover and raise again till light. Fill pans with batter and fruit (raisins or citron, or both), well floured alternately, until pans are two-thirds full, add also fruit on top.

The cake should stand in the pans about one-half hour and then be baked in a moderate oven.

Now we're off to eBay to find a 100-year-old Universal Three Minute Bread Maker.

"To Keep the Future Worthy of the Past"

2010-10-15T13:47:00.001-04:00

Date: 14 October-3 January 2011
Location and Time: Rare Book Room cases during library hours
Contact Information: Tim Pyatt, 919-684-8929 or tim.pyatt(at)duke.edu

William Preston Few, undated

"'To Keep the Future Worthy of the Past': The Legacy of William Preston Few" celebrates the centennial of Few’s inauguration as President of Trinity College on November 9, 1910.

Few accepted the presidency of Trinity College promising ". . . to keep the future worthy of the past." This would be no hollow promise as, over the next three decades, he would transform the strong and growing liberal arts college into a major research university and help shape James B. Duke’s transformative gift.

Memorabilia from the inauguration, as well as documents and images pertaining to the growth of Trinity College into Duke University, will be on display in this exhibit.

The Duke University Archives will also commemorate the anniversary of President Few's inauguration with a special event on Tuesday, 9 November 2010 at 4:00 PM in the Rare Book Room. Watch The Devil's Tale in the coming weeks for further details about this event.

Post contributed by Tim Pyatt, Duke University Archivist.

Book + Art

2010-10-14T15:56:00.004-04:00

Date: 13 October 2010-9 January 2011
Location and Time: Perkins Library Gallery during library hours
Contact Information: Kelly Wooten, 919-660-5967 or kelly.wooten(at)duke.edu

During your next visit to Perkins-Bostock Library, be sure to stop by the Perkins Library Gallery to see the eclectic selection of artists’ books on display in "Book + Art: Artists' Books from the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture." Or if you can’t visit in person, you can enjoy the online exhibit!

R & J: the txt msg edition. Elizabeth Pendergrass. J. Hastings, 2006.

So what exactly is an artists’ book? In the most general terms, it is an original work of art that that incorporates or innovates upon the book form in some—often dramatic—way. These books combine traditional arts, such as graphic design, printmaking, and bookbinding, with the full spectrum of contemporary art practice and theory, expanding and redefining the form. In this exhibit, you’ll see books in the form of a cell phone, a grandmother clock, women’s underwear, and even the traditional paperback book structure. The themes highlighted in this exhibit and in the Bingham Center’s artists’ book collection as a whole reflect the strengths of our broader collection of print and manuscript materials documenting women’s lives: motherhood and family, the domestic sphere, women’s bodies, sexuality, and women’s health.

This exhibit is part of this fall's Book + Art series, part of a semester-long celebration of book arts in collaboration with UNC Libraries. In the coming weeks, the Bingham Center will be sponsoring several events about the book arts:

Aging Gracefully. Bea Nettles, 2002.

Bea Nettles, Book Artist and Photographer
Date: Thursday, 21 October 2010
Time: 5:30 PM
Location: Rare Book Room

Bea Nettles is a book artist and photographer whose work addresses issues of family relationships, the body, and the ways in which personal identities reflect political and social realities. She will give a lecture with book signing and light reception to follow. For more about Bea Nettles, visit her website.

Careers in Book Arts
Date: Wednesday, 10 November 2010
Time: 9:30 AM
Location: Room 217, Perkins Library

Panel discussion about making a career out of a love of book arts, featuring Laurie Corral, founder of Asheville Bookworks, Dave Wofford of Horse and Buggy Press, and Meg Brown, Duke conservation librarian and exhibits coordinator. Moderated by Beth Doyle, Duke conservation librarian.

Post contributed by Kelly Wooten, Research Services and Collection Development Librarian for the Sallie Bingham Center of Women's History and Culture.

Filmmaker James Longley: Portraits from the Middle East

2010-10-13T10:56:00.001-04:00

Date: Friday, 29 October 2010
Time: 6:30 PM
Location: Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University
Contact Information: Kirston Johnson, 919-681-7963 or kirston.johnson(at)duke.edu

Join the Archive of Documentary Arts for an evening with documentary filmmaker James Longley. Known for his intimate and poetic portraits of individuals and families caught in the political turmoil of Iraq, the Gaza Strip, and Pakistan, Longley was awarded a MacArthur "Genius" Grant in 2009. His Oscar-nominated film, Iraq in Fragments, won the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival Grand Jury Prize in 2006. Arts advocate, author, and accomplished television interviewer Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel will facilitate the discussion.

This event inaugurates the Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel Visiting Filmmaker Series, established by Duke University with generous funding from the Diamonstein-Spielvogel endowment fund. The series will feature artists whose work addresses significant contemporary topics of social, political, economic, and cultural urgency. Filmmakers chosen to participate will have a recognized body of work and show promise of future contributions to documentary filmmaking. Visiting filmmakers will be invited to Duke for a two-day residency.

The Diamonstein-Spielvogel series is unique in its exclusive attention to documentary filmmakers with a global perspective. By giving Duke faculty and their students an opportunity to explore the films of socially-engaged filmmakers and discuss the work with them, this new series hopes to inspire and encourage the next generation of young documentarians.

The series is co-sponsored by the RBMSCL, the Program in the Arts of the Moving Image, and the Center for Documentary Studies.

Screen / Society will screen several of Mr. Longley's films in the weeks leading up to his visit. Check the Screen/Society Fall 2010 schedule for additional details and contact information:

Iraq in Fragments **TONIGHT!**
Date: Wednesday, 13 October 2010
Time: 7:00 PM
Location: Griffith Film Theater, Bryan Center, Duke University

Sari’s Mother and Gaza Strip
Date: Wednesday, 20 October 2010
Time: 7:00 PM
Location: Griffith Film Theater, Bryan Center, Duke University

Having Our (Birthday) Cake....

2010-10-08T17:15:00.001-04:00

The Devil's Tale's birthday (today!) happens to coincide with National Dessert Month. In honor of these two very important occasions, we're going to be publishing dessert recipes from our collections every Friday this month. We'll begin today, of course, with a birthday cake recipe from Gold Medal Flour's 1931 New Party Cakes for All Occasions, part of the fine Nicole Di Bona Peterson Collection of Advertising Cookbooks.

It might be slightly more . . . normal than some of the recipes we've previously posted (frozen cheese, anyone?), but it sure is pretty.

Birthday Cake

3/4 cup shortening
2 cups sugar
3/4 tsp. salt
3 1/2 cups cake flour
5 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 cups milk
1 1/2 tsp. flavoring
5 egg whites

Cream the shortening and add the sugar gradually. Sift the flour once before measuring. Mix and sift the flour, salt, and baking powder, and add alternately with the milk. Add the flavoring—vanilla and almond together are good. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Pour into well greased and floured pans and bake. Cool and frost with pink and white icing.

NOTE: Part of icing may be colored pink with vegetable coloring matter and used on sides of cake with white icing on top and between layers. Pink candles to match sides can be placed on top of cake for birthday party.

Happy birthday, Devil's Tale!

Special thanks to Lynn Eaton, Hartman Center Reference Archivist, for helping us find this recipe.

The Devil's Tale Turns One!

2010-10-08T14:47:00.003-04:00

Virginia Dare Advertising Card. From the Advertising Ephemera Collection.

Today The Devil’s Tale turns one year old, and it seems only fitting to pause for a moment and celebrate. (It’s also National Dessert Month, so we will be celebrating with a cake here in the RBMSCL.)

Where else would you hear about extracting sunbeams from cucumbers or hear the real back story of the Duke-Alabama football rivalry? Blog followers were the first to hear that Duke had acquired the papers of South Carolina author Dorothy Allison, Nobel-laureate economist Paul Samuelson, and jazz master Frank Foster. Together we marked holidays large and small with selections from our collections, from Thanksgiving to Free Comic Book Day, proving that there’s something in our collections for every occasion (and almost every research interest).

Thank you to everyone who has posted a comment or passed on a post to a friend. We invite you to become a Devil’s Tale follower so we can keep you up-to-date on upcoming events and exhibits and all the latest news. Happy birthday, Devil’s Tale! (And three cheers for our intrepid blog editor Amy McDonald!)

Post contributed by Naomi Nelson, Director of the RBMSCL.

(Intrepid editor's note: And thanks to everyone at the RBMSCL for their daily help with the care and feeding of The Devil's Tale!)

Special Screening of The Ants

2010-10-04T13:33:00.006-04:00

Date: Tuesday, 5 October 2010
Time: 8:00 PM
Location: White Lecture Hall, East Campus (map and directions)
Contact Information: Kirston Johnson, 919-681-7963 or kirston.johnson(at)duke.edu

Cine-East: East Asian Cinema and Screen/Society present The Ants (Ari no Heitai), winner of the Humanitarian Award (Documentary) at the 2006 Hong Kong International Film Awards. Kaoru Ikeya’s documentary tells the story of Waichi Okumura, one of over one thousand Japanese soldiers (the "ants" of the title) to remain in China after the conclusion of World War II, ostensibly to "incubate new military cells" but really to be used by the Chinese Nationalists in the battle against Mao’s forces.

This special presentation is made possible by the Full Frame Archive, part of the RBMSCL's Archive of Documentary Arts, and will be introduced by Tanya Lee, Full Frame Archive intern.

The Asian/Pacific Studies Institute, the Program in the Arts of the Moving Image, and the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies are co-sponsors of the screening.

Founders' Day Traditions

2010-09-30T13:38:00.003-04:00

(click to enlarge)

The practice of honoring the benefactors of Trinity College and Duke University was formalized by the Board of Trustees on June 4, 1901, when October 3 was designated as Benefactors' Day in honor of Washington Duke. The original intent "to honor Washington Duke forever" has been kept in spirit, but the name and date of the annual observance has changed over the years. It has been called Benefactors' Day (1901-1924), Duke University Day (1926-1947), and, since 1948, Founders' Day. The most elaborate celebrations occurred during the year-long Centennial Celebration of 1938-1939, and on the 100th anniversary of James B. Duke's birth in 1956.

After the creation of Duke University in 1924, the date shifted to December 11 in honor of the signing of the Indenture of The Duke Endowment. For several decades, tree-planting ceremonies were a traditional part of the festivities. In 1997, the ceremonies were moved back to a date in the early fall, usually the weekend closest to October 3rd. Events include a memorial for members of the community deceased during the year passed, recognition of outstanding students, faculty, and staff, and the presentations of awards for teaching, the Distinguished Alumni Award, and the University Medal for Distinguished Meritorious Service at Duke.

Post contributed by Tim Pyatt, Duke University Archivist.

The RBMSCL Celebrates Banned Books Week

2010-09-29T17:18:00.000-04:00

In honor of Banned Books Week, we've asked the staff of the RBMSCL to reflect upon their favorite banned or challenged book:

"To me, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the quintessential banned book. Hilarious, heartfelt, and packed with classic scenes, it has also been seriously offensive in very many ways to very many people in the 125 years since its publication. And yet there has never been any consensus on what, exactly, makes it worth burning—its immorality, poor spelling and grammar, racism, homoeroticism, and encouragement of juvenile delinquency have all come under fire. The book itself remains as tricksy as its narrator, and as its native time and place."

—Will Hansen, Assistant Curator of Collections

"One challenged book that I enjoyed reading and discussing in school was Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. Not only does this book break away from many literary norms, but I think it also succeeds in charging its readers to think about aspects of community, identity, and survival."

—Jennifer Thompson, Research Services and Collection Development Librarian for the Franklin Research Center

"Widespread celebrations have marked the 50th anniversary of the publication of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, one of the American Library Association’s Top 100 banned or challenged novels of the 20th century. As a girl in 1960s Alabama, I was deeply troubled by the pervasive racial inequity that was so much a part of the social fabric. I felt a powerful identification with Scout and her father, Atticus, gave me hope that, eventually, individuals might change that fabric."

—Elizabeth B. Dunn, Research Services Librarian

"While not a banned book (banned broadside), Martin Luther's 95 Theses which he nailed on the Wittenberg Church door on Oct. 31, 1517 greatly influenced me. As an undergraduate at Duke just after the period of social protests in the 1960s, the idea that a provocative list of concerns by an early 16th century monk could transform the establishment inspired me. I went on study Luther and wrote my senior theses on the use of hymnody for protest. Perhaps those protest songs of the 1960s were not so novel after all!"

—Tim Pyatt, Duke University Archivist

"Thomas Paine's Rights of Man, a rejoinder to Edmund Burke's 1790 denunciation, Reflections on the Revolution in France, was so popular that it was published multiple times in 1791 and caused a furor in England. Paine argued that human rights are natural (not given) rights and that government's are a product of and always accountable to the people. Not unexpectedly, Rights of Man was banned by the British crown for supporting the French Revolution and led to the prosecution of Paine who wisely had left England prior to his conviction. In a time when our nation's human rights record is questionable to say the least, I am heartened, encouraged, and inspired by Paine's courage and conviction in arguing that human rights are the foundation of a just society and the publication of Rights of Man reminds me that human rights have been with us since the birth of this country."

—Patrick Stawski, Human Rights Archivist

Take a look at the lists of Frequently Challenged Books available at the American Library Association's website and tell us about your own favorite banned or challenged books!

Honoring Jean O'Barr

2010-09-27T19:26:00.002-04:00

Date: Thursday, 30 September 2010
Time: 3:00 PM
Location: Duke Women's Center (map and directions)
Contact Information: Kelly Wooten, 919-660-5967 or kelly.wooten(at)duke.edu

Professor Jean O'Barr. Photo by Eleanor Mills.

The Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture and the Duke Women's Center invite you to a gathering in celebration of Professor Jean O'Barr, founder of Duke's Women's Studies Program and co-founder of the Bingham Center.

Professor O'Barr will be honored with the University Medal for Distinguished Meritorious Service at this year's Founder's Day Convocation, which will follow this reception at 4:00 PM in Duke Chapel.

The First Homecoming

2010-09-24T17:49:00.000-04:00

On November 11, 1924—exactly one month before James B. Duke would make the gift that would transform Trinity College into Duke University—Trinity held its first official homecoming. It was also Armistice Day, which commemorated the end of World War I, and was a holiday for most folks. Football was the centerpiece of the day and the largest crowd to ever see a Trinity athletics event gathered at Hanes field (site of today’s Williams Field on East Campus) as the Blue Devils lost to Wake Forest. Nearly 1,000 alumni attended the events that day, which included a gathering of alumni clubs as well as the screening of the film, "A Year at Trinity."

Homecoming Parade, 1941.

Over the years parades, skits, and musical performances have been added to the homecoming festivities. One thing has not changed—the chance for alumni to return home to their alma mater and relive those glory days of college.

To see photographs of homecomings past, visit the University Archives' "Homecoming Celebrations" set at Duke Yearlook, our Flickr photostream.

Post contributed by Tim Pyatt, Duke University Archivist.

Treasures of the TCHS

2010-09-23T09:33:00.001-04:00

Date: Tuesday, 28 September 2010
Time: 3:30 PM
Location: Rare Book Room and Perkins Library Gallery
Contact Information: Amy McDonald, 919-681-7987 or amy.mcdonald(at)duke.edu

Piece of Wood, undated. From the Trinity College Historical Society Collection.

Ever wonder how the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library got its start? When faculty started using primary sources in their teaching? Why the University Archives keeps a seemingly random chunk of wood in its collections?

Find out all this and more as the co-curators of "'As Far As Possible from Forgetfulness': The Trinity College Historical Society" lead a gallery tour and talk about this popular exhibit, on display in the Perkins Library Gallery through October 10.

University Archivist Tim Pyatt will start the celebration with a brief history of the TCHS. Then co-curators Meghan Lyon, Amy McDonald, and Kim Sims will lead a tour of exhibit in the Perkins Library Gallery, sharing some of the stories behind the artifacts in the cases and the people who collected them. A reception in the Rare Book Room will follow their remarks.

Post contributed by Tim Pyatt, Duke University Archivist.

Duke Jazz Ensemble Celebrates Frank Foster

2010-09-22T09:57:00.002-04:00

Date: Friday, 1 October 2010
Time: 8:00 PM
Location: Baldwin Auditorium (map and directions)
Contact Information: Jeremy Smith, 919-660-5839 or jas5(at)notes.duke.edu

Frank Foster, ca. 1970s. From the Frank Foster Papers.

The Duke University Jazz Ensemble, led by John Brown, presents a concert celebrating living jazz legend Frank Foster.

This concert will include Foster's new arrangements of compositions by North Carolina musicians, completed to commemorate his association with Duke University. Duke Jazz Studies Program alums and past guest artists will join the performance with the Duke Jazz Ensemble.

Foster's papers were recently acquired by the RBMSCL's Jazz Archive. A Grammy Award-winning composer and saxophonist, Foster was a member of the Count Basie Orchestra, and lead the group from 1986 to 1995. In 2002, he was presented with a Jazz Master Award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

For more details, including information about purchasing tickets, visit the Duke Department of Music's event webpage.

Rights! Camera! Action!: After Innocence

2010-09-20T11:33:00.000-04:00

Date: Thursday, 23 September 2010
Time: 7:00 PM
Location: Rare Book Room
Contact Information: Patrick Stawski, 919-660-5823 or patrick.stawski(at)duke.edu, or Kirston Johnson, 919-681-7963 or kirston.johnson(at)duke.edu

The Rights! Camera! Action! film series begins its fall season with this screening of After Innocence, the compelling story of seven men wrongfully imprisoned for decades and finally exonerated after DNA evidence proved their innocence. The men—including a police officer, an army sergeant, and a young father—are thrust back into society with little or no support from the system that put them behind bars. After Innocence shows that the human toll of wrongful imprisonment can last far longer than the sentences served.

The film will be followed by a panel discussion featuring recently-exonerated Shawn Massey and Theresa Newman, co-chair of Duke School of Law’s Wrongful Convictions Clinic.

The Rights! Camera! Action! film series, which is sponsored by the Archive for Human Rights, the Archive of Documentary Arts, the Duke Human Rights Center, the Franklin Humanities Institute, and Screen/Society at Duke's Arts of the Moving Image Program, features documentaries on human rights themes that were award winners at the annual Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. The films are archived at the RBMSCL, where they form part of a rich and expanding collection of human rights materials.

Alabama v. Duke

2010-09-16T11:21:00.002-04:00

This Saturday’s football game with Alabama recalls the historic ties between our two programs. In 1930, shortly before the opening of the new Gothic West Campus, President William Few sought the advice of the celebrated Alabama coach Wallace Wade on potential names for a football coach and director of athletics. Wade, who had led Alabama to two Rose Bowls and a record of 51-13-3, surprised Few by replying that he would be interested in the vacancy. Wade brought his Alabama success to Duke, leading the Blue Devils to two Rose Bowls as well. He would post a record of 110-36-7 in his sixteen years as coach at Duke.

The Coin Toss. From the Edmund M. Cameron Records.

While Wade served in the U.S. Army as major during World War II, his assistant Eddie Cameron took over as head coach and continued the Blue Devils' gridiron success. He led the 1944 team to a Sugar Bowl showdown with Alabama on January 1, 1945. In what sportswriter Grantland Rice called "one of the greatest thrillers of all time" Duke edged the Tide 29 to 26. Cameron kept a scrapbook filled with images from the game, which now forms a part of the Edmund M. Cameron Records. You can relive those glory days in New Orleans by visiting our Flickr set of photos from Cameron's scrapbook.

Duke’s connections to Alabama continue with current Coach David Cutcliffe, an Alabama native and graduate of the University of Alabama who also served as an intern to legendary Alabama coach Bear Bryant. Duke fans will be hoping that Coach Cutcliffe will rekindle some of that "Sugar Bowl magic" and will lead us to another thrilling victory over Alabama this Saturday!

Post contributed by Tim Pyatt, Duke University Archivist.

Opening Reception for "Deena Stryker: Photographs of Cuba, 1963-1964"

2010-09-14T15:11:00.001-04:00

Date: Thursday, 16 September 2010
Time: 4:00 PM
Location: Rare Book Room
Contact Information: Karen Glynn, 919-660-5968 or karen.glynn(at)duke.edu

A café and store in Birán, Fidel Castro’s home town, Holguín Province, December 1963. From the Deena Stryker Photograph Collection.

Photographer and journalist Deena Stryker brings her reminiscences of the Cuban Revolution to this opening celebration for "Deena Stryker: Photographs of Cuba, 1963-1964," on display through 12 December 2010 in the Special Collections Gallery.

Following Stryker's remarks, exhibit curators Holly Ackerman and Heather Settle will lead a panel of several local experts on Cuba in discussing the photographs and placing them in their historical context. Panelists include:

Lars Schoultz, William Rand Kenan, Jr. Professor of Political Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Monika Gosin, Program in Latino/a Studies in the Global South, Duke University
Linda Howe, Department of Romance Languages, Wake Forest University

A reception and gallery tour, led by Stryker, will follow.

Can’t visit the exhibit in person? Check out the virtual exhibit, which includes an additional eleven photos from the Deena Stryker Photograph Collection, part of the RBMSCL's Archive of Documentary Arts.

My RBMSCL: Reading Dorothy Allison

2010-09-13T13:31:00.000-04:00

Today, we're starting a new feature: mini-essays from friends of the RBMSCL on the collections they've used and treasured. Below, Sharon Holland's mini-essay about Dorothy Allison was inspired by the RBMSCL's recent acquisition of Dorothy Allison's papers.

Photo courtesy of Sharon Holland.

I first encountered Dorothy Allison's major work, Bastard Out of Carolina, on an overnight train (the Orient Express, no less) from Vienna to Paris. I wasn't prepared for what would eventually happen in the book and when I got to the fateful scene in the car outside the hospital, I impulsively threw the book out of the window—it is still in a field somewhere along the train line. My reaction is a testament to the importance of the scene of violation that Allison wanted to construct for the reader—it was real, and sudden and devastating. I purchased the book upon my return to the United States and it has been one of my favorites since. Acquiring her papers is a serious accomplishment for Duke. Thank you for preserving the work and ultimately the memory of one of the most important feminist authors of the 20-21st century.

Post contributed by Sharon Holland, Associate Professor, English and African and African American Studies, Duke University.

Interested in contributing a mini-essay? E-mail me at amy.mcdonald(at)duke.edu!

Dorothy Allison Papers Arrive at Duke

2010-09-10T09:35:00.001-04:00

In the early 1990s Ginny Daley, then director of the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture, was convinced that Duke should acquire Dorothy Allison’s papers. "I saw her as the quintessential Southern writer,” Daley wrote recently. “Her personal papers and literary works fit well with Duke’s collections of Southern literature and women’s culture, while bringing fresh perspectives on queer culture and truth-telling to the mix.” Through campus visits and other seed-planting efforts, Ginny Daley introduced Ms. Allison to the possibility of Duke as the permanent home for her collection.

Photo by Brett Hall.

Now, after a nearly twenty year period of considering this momentous decision, Dorothy Allison, author of Bastard Out of Carolina and other works and renowned activist in the LGBTQ community, has selected the RBMSCL to be the repository for her papers. Bingham Center and literary curatorial staff collaborated on the initial acquisition of nearly 60 boxes of Allison's papers, including drafts of her writings, extensive correspondence and research files, personal journals documenting her life and creative process, and more. For Allison, a South Carolina native now living in California, it's a relief to have the papers at the RBMSCL: “All I know is that now I feel that all that . . . I saved is going to be safe and of use. Since we are entering high summer here with 90 degree temperatures and high risk of fire, I can also stop worrying that a wildfire might sweep through the redwoods and erase all that history. Safe and of use is infinitely preferable.”

The papers will be a rich resource for those interested in Allison’s life and work, as well as for researchers exploring the development of LGBT and Southern literatures, lesbian communities and families, and the history of American sexuality, among many other topics. Materials will be added to the collection as Allison continues to write and publish (a new book of short stories and a novel coming soon!).

A preliminary finding aid for the collection is now available here. In the coming months staff will review, process, and revise the finding aid for the collection to make it available for research. Researchers interested in using the papers should contact the Bingham Center staff to discuss their availability.

Post contributed by Will Hansen, Assistant Curator of Collections.

Hostage Nation Receives WOLA-Duke Book Award for Human Rights in Latin America

2010-09-09T14:16:00.004-04:00

Hostage Nation: Colombia’s Guerrilla Army and the Failed War on Drugs, written by Victoria Bruce, Karin Hayes and Jorge Enrique Botero, has won the third annual WOLA-Duke Book Award for Human Rights in Latin America.

The book, published last month by Alfred A. Knopf, is the story of three American contractors and Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt held hostage by the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) for over five years before their rescue in 2008. The book draws on Botero’s exclusive interviews with the American contractors, as well as extensive research on the FARC and the Colombian drug trade, to illustrate the impact of Colombia’s war and the U.S. war on drugs in Colombia.

The Washington Office on Latin America and Duke University created the prize to honor the best current, non-fiction book published in English on human rights, democracy and social justice in contemporary Latin America.The WOLA-Duke Book Award aims to draw the general public’s attention to good writing on contemporary Latin America. Francisco Goldman won the first award in 2008 for his book, The Art of Political Murder. Heraldo Muñoz’s The Dictator’s Shadow was last year’s winner.

Later this fall, the authors will visit the Duke University Libraries for an event co-sponsored by the Archive for Human Rights at the RBMSCL and the Duke Human Rights Center. We'll have all the event details as they are announced here at The Devil's Tale!

To read the entire press release from the Washington Office on Latin America, click here.

Nell Irvin Painter Reflects

2010-09-05T08:02:00.002-04:00

Date: Monday, 13 September 2010
Time: 4:00 PM
Location: Rare Book Room
Contact Information: Amy McDonald, 919-681-7987 or amy.mcdonald(at)duke.edu

Photo by Robin Holland.

With a career that has stretched from top public universities and the Ivy League to institutions in Italy, Ghana, and France, Nell Irvin Painter brings her rich experience to a personal consideration of African American women in academia. In "Alone and Together: One African American Woman's Experiences in the Academy," Dr. Painter will reflect upon her professional successes and challenges, as well as her career-long exchanges with several fellow African American women scholars.

Dr. Painter’s professional and personal papers, which are held by the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture, have recently been opened to public research. For more information about her papers, visit the collection inventory or contact special-collections(at)duke.edu.

This program, part of a year-long celebration of the 15th anniversary of the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History, is the first in a series of two events co-sponsored by the Franklin Research Center and the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute.

For more information about the second event, hosted by the Franklin Humanities Institute the following day, please visit the event's webpage.

"Deena Stryker: Photographs of Cuba, 1963-1964"

2010-09-01T10:21:00.005-04:00

Date: 31 August-12 December 2010
Location and Time: Special Collections Gallery during library hours
Contact Information: Karen Glynn, 919-660-5968 or karen.glynn(at)duke.edu

Journalist and photographer Deena Stryker’s black-and-white photographs of Revolutionary Cuba open a window into an unsettled time in that country’s history, after the Bay of Pigs and before Che Guevara's departure for the Congo, when Fidel Castro was solidifying his control over the new revolutionary government.

A woman watching a military parade, Havana, January 1964. From the Deena Stryker Photograph Collection.

This new exhibit of thirty gelatin silver prints from the Archive of Documentary Arts’ Deena Stryker Photograph Collection documents this extraordinary change, bearing witness to both the vitality of Cuba's leadership and the optimism of the Cuban people. The exhibit is curated by Holly Ackerman, Librarian for Latin America and Iberia, and Heather Settle, visiting scholar in Cultural Anthropology.

Can’t visit the exhibit in person? Check out the virtual exhibit, which includes an additional eleven photos from the Deena Stryker Photograph Collection.

Keep up with The Devil’s Tale for news about the exhibit’s opening reception on Thursday, September 16th at 4:00 PM in the Rare Book Room. Deena Stryker, the exhibit’s curators, and several local experts on Cuba will come together to discuss the photographs and place them in their historical context.

Selling a Coke and a Smile

2010-08-27T09:20:00.001-04:00

Photo by Mark Zupan.

As the adage goes, Coca-Cola sells itself. The John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising and Marketing History’s recently-acquired Coca-Cola Star Salesman Kit might just suggest otherwise. This collection of training materials—including scripted manuals, 35mm film strips with accompanying phonographs, and other training memorabilia housed in a special green suitcase—was created by the Coca-Cola Company’s Sales Promotion Department between 1949 and 1951. The company encouraged route managers to purchase the Star Salesman Kit as a subscription program to educate their salesmen in the latest marketing techniques.

Designed as a series of one hour sessions, the Star Salesman Kit covers eight topics relevant to the company’s goal of increasing route sales, such as merchandising (“It’s Got to Be Sold”), and advertising (“What’s on Your Mind”). In addition, the kit includes training material for best practices in stocking product, refrigeration, and the use of the “red cooler” and vending machines in various outlets.

While most of the Star Salesman Kit is geared toward increasing sales to vendors, the materials do give special attention to instructing route salesmen how to promote Coca-Cola sales to the home market—particularly to the housewife. The session, “The Woman in Your Life,” encouraged the route salesman to market directly to women through techniques such as floor displays and product placement in outlets where women shopped for the home.

The Star Salesman Kit provides a glimpse into the sales and marketing culture of the Coca-Cola Company, the organization of its sales department, training practices, and even refrigeration technology. At the same time, the Star Salesman Kit offers some insights into mid-20th-century social and cultural issues, demonstrating, perhaps, why no other consumer product is a more iconic symbol of American culture than Coca-Cola.

Post contributed by Diana Poythress, RBMSCL Technical Services graduate student volunteer. Thanks to Alexandra Bickel, RBMSCL Technical Services graduate student volunteer, for her assistance with this post.

From the RBMSCL Wire

2010-08-24T10:51:00.003-04:00

Boy lying on couch, reading comics. From the William Gedney Photographs and Writings, 1950s-1989.

Sure, you could lie on a couch and read comic books, but why not have a look at some of the articles and blog posts about the RBMSCL that have been published recently?

A profile of Susie King Taylor appears at TheAtlantic.com. (Read the post here). Taylor's Reminiscences of My Life in Camp is part of the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture's Black Voices Collection.

Our new exhibit, "'As Far as Possible from Forgetfulness': The Trinity College Historical Society," found itself on the front page of the Durham Herald-Sun. (Read the article online.)

And Hartman Center travel grant recipient Ari Samsky wrote about his two-week research visit to the RBMSCL for web magazine Splice Today. You'll find his essay—which makes us glad that Durham's cooled off considerably in the past few days—here.

Let us know if you find any other mentions of the RBMSCL during your wanderings across the Internet and through print.

Photo Op with the AOTUS

2010-08-20T16:48:00.003-04:00

During the recent Society of American Archivists (SAA) meeting in Washington, D.C., several RBMSCL staff members received a very special tour of the National Archives. Former Duke University Librarian and current Archivist of the United States, David Ferriero, gave the group a personal tour of his office.The group (click photo to enlarge) is gathered here under the portrait of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, which hangs in Ferriero’s office. (The National Archives began during Roosevelt’s administration.)

Ferriero, who has been AOTUS since last November, regaled the group with stories of great documents housed in the Archives. He recently examined Walt Whitman’s federal employee file (he was briefly employed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs). In the file was a five page letter of reference—written by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Post contributed by Tim Pyatt, Duke University Archivist.

Books, Boys, and Beastly Bats

2010-08-12T14:12:00.002-04:00

We were charmed by this advice from educator Marcius Willson's The School and Family Primer, published in 1860 as an introductory text to his series of four readers for children. It sounds very much like the advice we give to our researchers on a daily basis. (Click on the image to view a larger version.)

(We're also agog at the two pictures chosen to illustrate the letter "B." Confronted by such a gigantic bat, the boy's nonchalance is decidedly impressive.)

"'As Far as Possible from Forgetfulness': The Trinity College Historical Society"

2010-08-05T14:59:00.000-04:00

Date: 3 August-10 October 2010
Location and Time: Perkins Library Gallery during library hours
Contact Information: Meg Brown, meg.brown(at)duke.edu

Arrows, Possibly from the Fiji Islands. From the Trinity College Historical Society Collection. Photo by Mark Zupan

The Duke University Archives is home to scores of manuscripts, records, and publications documenting Duke University's history—and a set of fierce arrows possibly from the Fiji Islands; a pair of wooden shoe soles bought by a former slave in 1865; and two cloth-covered buttons from the clothing of Louis XVI.

These and other artifacts—along with manuscripts and historically-significant publications—once belonged to the collection of the Trinity College Historical Society, a student organization established in 1892 to encourage original research in Southern history. Their collection, the precursor to the RBMSCL and the University Archives, forms the subject of our new exhibit, "'As Far as Possible from Forgetfulness': The Trinity College Historical Society."

Pewter Wig Sprayer. From the Trinity College Historical Society Collection. Photo by Mark Zupan.

Assuming the leadership of the Society in 1894, professor of history John Spencer Bassett renewed the Society’s charge to collect manuscripts, books, pamphlets, and objects of enduring historical value, including those artifacts mentioned above. He addressed his undergraduate collectors and historians in 1897, telling them that they would "be doing work for eternity . . . [and] centering the eyes of the centuries on this institution." This exhibit is proof of their legacy.

For more information about the Trinity College Historical Society and its collections, or if you won't be able to visit the exhibit in person, visit the exhibit website. Photos of the exhibit’s installation are available on the RBMSCL's Flickr photostream.

And remember to mark your calendars for a gallery talk with the exhibit's curators on Tuesday, September 28 at 3:30 PM in the Rare Book Room!

Celebrating Feminists of Faith

2010-08-03T21:54:00.016-04:00

Date: Wednesday, 11 August 2010
Time: 3:00 PM
Location: Rare Book Room
Contact Information: Kelly Wooten, 919-660-5967 or kelly.wooten(at)duke.edu

Tibbie Roberts and B Holt at the 75th Anniversary of the NC Council of Churches. Courtesy of Jeanette Stokes.

Please join the staff of the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture for an afternoon honoring women of faith who have contributed their papers to the Center's growing collection of materials documenting women's religious experiences and activities, particularly personal spiritual struggles and women's involvement in Protestant religious organizations.

We will be celebrating the contributions of Diane Weddington, Bett Hargrave, Bertha "B" Holt, Tibbie Roberts, Nancy Peeler Keppel, and the Resource Center for Women and Ministry in the South.

This program is sponsored by the Bingham Center and the Resource Center for Women and Ministry in the South. Light refreshments will be served.

Post contributed by Kelly Wooten, Research Services and Collection Development Librarian for the Sallie Bingham Center of Women's History and Culture.

In the Lab: Boxing the Blue Devil

2010-07-27T21:03:00.000-04:00

I love the sort of projects that start with a co-worker saying, “We have something special we want you to box,” because I always know it'll be anything but a regular book. When I saw this little Blue Devil Doll, I knew a fun project lay ahead.

This doll was donated to the Duke University Archives this spring. It was purchased on campus in 1938 and is made of straw with a wax (I think) head and dressed in a smart blue felt outfit. The devil’s tail has floral wire wrapped around it to provide stiffness. The doll itself is in fair condition but, as you can see below, it has sustained some damage to the felt, most likely from insect activity.

Because of its condition, I wanted to make a sturdy box that had a cushioned interior to protect the fragile doll. The end result would be a drop-spine box, also called a cloth-covered clamshell. Before constructing the outer box, I would have to make an inner box with a cushioned interior.

The inner box is constructed of buffered corrugated board, lined with polyester quilt batting with a cotton fabric liner. The fun part was making the side bolsters to keep the doll from rolling around. These are made from rolled up polyester batting and then encased in a polyethylene pocket using our CoLibri book cover machine to make tubes. These provide enough structure to hold their shape but are still soft should the doll shift. Who knew that all my sewing experience would come in handy this way?

Once done with the inner tray, I constructed a clamshell box around it. The final enclosure is sturdy and keeps the doll firmly in place. The creative use of the CoLibri pockets worked really well. I’ll remember that should another devil cross my path.

For more photos of the Blue Devil Doll in his new home, visit the Conservation Lab's "Boxing the Devil" set on Flickr!

Post contributed by Beth Doyle, Collections Conservator, as part of our ongoing "In the Conservation Lab" series.

O Pioneers!

2010-07-24T11:34:00.009-04:00

Seth reads the Book of Mormon. Photo by Beth Doyle.

For many members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the experience of holding and reading a first edition copy of the Book of Mormon—including one of the two held at the RBMSCL—elicits reverence and profound emotion. According to the church, the Book of Mormon is the record of ancient Americans and their relationship to God, and includes a visit from Christ after his resurrection. Joseph Smith, under God's direction, received and translated the work before its 1830 publication in Palmyra, New York, and reestablished the priesthood and Christ’s church. While the information contained within the Book of Mormon can be found in any of the over one hundred million copies (in 108 different languages), a copy of the first edition represents a physical connection to a prophet, the church’s origins, and God. Indeed, it is among the most requested of our holdings.

From the start, the church suffered intense persecution, moving several times from New York to Kirtland, Ohio to Missouri to Nauvoo, Illinois. This persecution eventually resulted in the death of Joseph Smith and the start of a great western migration lead by religious leader Brigham Young (in time, Young would be sustained as a prophet and Joseph Smith’s successor as the president of the church).

Beginning in April of 1847, Young lead approximately 70,000 pioneers on a western migration from Illinois. On July 24th of that year, weary pioneers arrived in the Great Salt Lake Valley, their new home and the future capital city of Utah. This day is celebrated annually by the Latter-Day Saints as Pioneer Day.

Brigham Young prayed that God would grant the pioneers 10 years of peace, which they received almost to the day. In 1857, based on fictitious reports of a “Utah Rebellion,” President James Buchanan appointed Alfred Cumming to replace Young as governor of Utah Territory and sent 2,500 soldiers to quell the supposed uprising. Upon arrival, Cummings discovered a people fearful of attack but respectful of his new position as governor. This experience is documented in the correspondence between Young and Cumming found in the RBMSCL's Alfred Cumming Papers. These letters, like the first edition copies of the Book of Mormon, represent a relationship to a prophet and a history and are available for you to come see.

Post contributed by Seth Shaw, Electronic Records Archivist. Thanks to Kelly Wooten, Research Services and Collection Development Librarian, for suggesting this post and to Beth Doyle, Collections Conservator, for the photograph.

New and Improved AdViews!

2010-07-20T14:09:00.016-04:00

Just in time for the premiere of the fourth season of Mad Men, the last batch of 3,200 newly digitized D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles (DMB&B) commercials has been uploaded to AdViews!

More commercials than ever! Now there are almost 8,800 commercials in AdViews.

Essential new products! New ads for Oreo, Continental Airlines, Raisin Bran, Mattel, Fresca, Pop Rocks, Legos, Clearasil, Volkswagen, Budweiser, Hardee's and so much more!

Act now and see expert interviews! Professors Jason Chambers of the University of Illinois and Peggy Kreshel of the University of Georgia give context to advertising targeted towards African Americans and women.

But wait, there's more! Highlighted content includes a 20-minute film about the creation of a 1970s Post Grape Nuts commercial featuring Euell Gibbons.

After you’ve checked out AdViews, stop back here and let us know your favorite commercials!

Dear Diary: Girls Rock!

2010-07-16T14:02:00.001-04:00

7/13/10

Dear Zine Diary,

Today was one of my favorite days of the year: zine workshop day at Girls Rock Camp. Amy and I spent the morning doing a zine workshop for about 45 young girls at Durham’s Girls Rock Camp. The day started with everyone standing in a circle, holding hands, and then turning to the person beside them and telling them "You rock!" What a way to start the day. We were able to talk with the girls about zines, as well as more about the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture and how they can come and look at zines in our collection. The girls were so excited to work on their own zine pages. We brought tons of markers, stickers, stamp pads, magazines, and glue sticks for them to make their own zine pages, and they did not disappoint! The zine pages they created included lots of things, such as their band names (Black Lizards, Beach Girls, 24/7, and The Flaming Moonshiners) and stickers proclaiming their love of music (and animals), and included statements like "I want to be a singer, an actress, and an architect." I was asked how to spell words like "appreciate" and "different." It was so great. Oh Zine Diary, every day should be like this!

Until next year. . .
Rachel

7/14/10

Dear Zine Diary,

Kelly and I spent yesterday morning at Girls Rock Camp in Chapel Hill. I was amazed at how eager, smart, and enthusiastic the girls were to learn about women’s history and zine-making! We went around the room and introduced each other and Kelly and I found out the names of the girls’ bands. We talked about the three waves of feminism and we even did the wave! We also talked about female stereotypes and how we can fight them together. Then the girls got down to business with markers, stickers, magazines, glue sticks, and stamps. They made pages for their bands as well as individual pages, and as Rachel mentioned, their pages were creative and inspiring. I was so excited to hear the girls talk about everyday injustices and how they want to fix them. Kelly told them that since they are part of the Third Wave they are the future of feminism and will help to decide the future for women. After yesterday, I’m glad to know the future is in good hands.

Rock on,
Alex

For more photos from Girls Rock Camp, visit the Bingham Center's Flickr photostream!

Post contributed by Rachel Ingold, former Bingham Center intern and Conservation Technician, and Alex Krensky, Bingham Center intern.

Joyeux Quatorze Juillet!

2010-07-14T15:46:00.004-04:00

Joyeux Quatorze Juillet à nos amis français!

(This wonderful 1918 postcard is one of approximately 65,000 postcards in our Postcard Collection.)

Networks for Freedom

2010-07-12T22:18:00.009-04:00

Date: Wednesday, 21 July 2010
Time: 3:30 PM
Location: Rare Book Room
Contact Information: Amy McDonald, 919-681-7987 or amy.mcdonald(at)duke.edu

1862 broadside.

Join the staff of the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture for a program with historian Deborah Lee, recipient of a 2010-2011 Franklin Research Center travel grant.

Dr. Lee's research traces the networks of anti-slavery activists that operated between 1810 and 1865 in the upper Potomac River basin. As Dr. Lee writes, "these white and black anti-slavery men and women used sophisticated peaceful means—persuasion, law, philanthropy, colonization, and the underground railroad—to help thousands of individual bondspeople obtain freedom, fray the institution of slavery locally, and advance the movement nationally."

Dr. Lee's visit to the RBMSCL will allow her to examine a number of our 19th century manuscript collections, including the Rankin-Parker Papers, the John Rutherfoord Papers, and the Funkhouser Family Papers.

Light refreshments will be served.

Hot New Finding Aids!

2010-07-08T17:08:00.014-04:00

Is the heat wave getting to be too much to bear? Head on over to the RBMSCL and do some research in our cool reading room!

Full Frame Festival Program, 2007. From the Full Frame Archive Film Collection.

Full Frame Archive Film Collection, 1998-2010

The largest film festival in the United States entirely devoted to documentary film, the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival has been an annual highlight of Durham's cultural scene since 1998.

In 2007, Duke University Libraries and Full Frame, with support from Eastman Kodak and Alpha Cine Labs in Seattle, announced the creation of the Full Frame Archive, to be housed at the RBMSCL, with the aim of acquiring, archiving, and preserving copies of all of the Festival's award-winning films. The Full Frame Archive Film Collection comprises preservation masters of documentary films that won awards at the Full Frame Film Festival between 1998 and 2010. Each year's festival will bring new additions to the collection!

Confederate States of America Collection, 1850-1876

One of our older collections has a brand new finding aid. This perennially-popular collection includes a wide variety of records from the administrative bodies within the Confederate States of America, including original and typed copies of acts and statutes of the C.S.A. Congress, Army soldiers' correspondence and papers of several Army units, and records from the Treasury Department. There might even be a clue about the lost Confederate gold!

Rights! Camera! Action!: Trouble the Water

2010-07-06T17:30:00.001-04:00

Date: Tuesday, 13 July 2010
Time: 7:00 PM
Location: Sarah P. Duke Gardens (map and directions)
Contact Information: Patrick Stawski, 919-660-5823 or patrick.stawski(at)duke.edu, or Kirston Johnson, 919-681-7963 or kirston.johnson(at)duke.edu

As Hurricane Katrina bore down on New Orleans, 9th Ward resident Kimberly Rivers Roberts, an aspiring rap artist, and her husband Scott, used their Hi 8 camera to film their experience of the storm, from the trepidation of the day before the storm's landfall to the failing of the levees. Trouble the Water weaves this home movie footage with archival news segments and verite footage shot over the next two years to tell the story of a community struggling to rebuild itself.

The film screening will be preceded by a panel discussion with Wahneema Lubiano and Mark Anthony Neal, both of Duke’s Department of African and African American Studies.

The Rights! Camera! Action! film series, which is sponsored by the Archive for Human Rights, the Archive of Documentary Arts, the Duke Human Rights Center, the Franklin Humanities Institute, and Screen/Society at Duke's Arts of the Moving Image Program, features documentaries on human rights themes that were award winners at the annual Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. The films are archived at the RBMSCL, where they form part of a rich and expanding collection of human rights materials.

The Star-Spangled Cucumber

2010-07-04T08:00:00.000-04:00

As archivists, we know that we're supposed to mark the Fourth of July with a remembrance of that most celebrated of documents, our Declaration of Independence. We think, though, that we'll leave the remembering and celebrating to our fine colleagues at the National Archives, and give some attention to a document of a completely different sort—a pamphlet bearing one of the most wonderful titles we've ever come across:

Lest you think we're joking, here's a link to the catalog record. The pamphlet reprints an oration delivered by David Daggett to the citizens of New Haven, Connecticut on the Fourth of July, 1799.

Of course, at the risk of spoiling the fun, we have to note that the title is actually a reference to Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels. Since Swift was a pretty funny guy himself, we're hoping you'll forgive us.

Happy Fourth of July from the RBMSCL!

Thanks to Beth Ann Koelsch, who brought this treasure to our attention many years ago.

Happy United Nations Charter Day!

2010-06-26T08:45:00.002-04:00

The United Nations Conference on International Organization officially convened between April 25 and June 26, 1945 in San Francisco. On 26 June 1945, delegations from 50 countries signed the United Nations Charter, a constituent treaty by which all member nations are bound in an international body and in which organization’s mission and commitment to peaceful resolution are defined.

The Veil by Julie Chen, 2002.
Photo courtesy of Vamp and Tramp Booksellers.

Over fifty years later, book artist Julie Chen wove the text of the famously eloquent Preamble into her 2002 free-standing concertina, The Veil. This carousel book offers the artist's reflections on the political conflicts in the Middle East through both words and abstract visual meditations which unfold over the text of the charter. The Veil will be featured in the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture’s Book + Arts Exhibit this October.

Post contributed by Christine Well, UNC SILS graduate student volunteer, Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture.

Preserving Duke’s Webpages (At Least 457,009 of Them)

2010-06-16T16:02:00.007-04:00

Archive-It's capture of www.duke.edu/web/joecollege

As I was preparing for my last year at the School for Information and Library Science (SILS) at UNC, I knew that I needed to gain some practical experience in the library field in addition to my current part-time job. At SILS, I became fascinated with electronic records and how they are being preserved for the future. The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) defines electronic records as “any information that is recorded in a form that only a computer can process and that satisfies the definition of a record.” The actual definition of a record can vary slightly depending on who is consulted (i.e., NARA or the Society of American Archivists).
I contacted Duke’s University Archivist, Tim Pyatt, who put me in touch with Seth Shaw, the Electronic Records Archivist. Unbeknownst to me, Tim and Seth had been discussing the need of preserving information found on Duke’s various websites. When I approached them about a possible field experience, they felt that this would be a good project for me to assist with.

Online material has become an integral part of many institutions and Duke is no different. In order to preserve this information, web sites need to be collected and archived. Out of all the ways to do this (and there are many), we decided that the Internet Archive’s tool, Archive-It, would be the best option. Before starting to capture websites, we created a policy that defined what types of materials we wanted to collect. I used that policy to select the websites of 350 out of 500 Duke student organizations for capture.

This project provided me with a good amount of hands-on experience that will definitely be beneficial as I pursue my career in library science. Although I've finished my field experience, there will soon be a new field experience student to take up the reins and assist Seth in making sure that part of Duke’s cultural heritage is preserved.

Post contributed by Stephanie Brantley, RBMSCL Technical Services field experience student.

Gee, Paperclips are Expensive...

2010-06-10T11:46:00.011-04:00

Archival supplies are often the overlooked backbone of special collections. Imagine if we didn’t have boxes to hold all those priceless papers, or rubber stamps to warn everyone that the enclosed tintypes were “FRAGILE”?

Stainless Steel Paperclips

Boxes, folders, envelopes, interleaving paper: all of these things have been specially made treated to be acid-free, lignin-free, and archivally safe for the materials we store in them. They are designed to extend the life of our collections by preventing items from shifting during transport, or letting users grab a sturdy folder instead of a delicate manuscript. Some boxes and folders are chemically engineered to absorb oxidative gases from items like old newspapers, preventing them from yellowing or damaging other papers that might be stored in the same box.

Specially designed supplies usually result in extremely expensive supply costs for a special collections library. Regular cardboard boxes can cost as little as a dollar, while our archival boxes for letter-sized paper cost as much as $10. Oversized material requires extra-large folders and boxes, which can run as much as $40 per box! Even tiny supplies pack a punch: stainless steel paper clips, for example, cost a whopping 8 cents per paper clip. Regular paper clips are much cheaper (less than 1 cent), but they also rust and damage paper.

As archivists, we want to protect our collections so they will last as long as possible. Special supplies, while expensive, are critical to our success.

Post contributed by Meghan Lyon, Technical Services Assistant.

Commercials in the Classroom

2010-06-09T15:58:00.001-04:00

How have TV commercials changed over time? The answer to part of that question is found in this video about AdViews. Five Duke undergraduates discuss their small group project using commercials found in AdViews as primary sources for a fall 2009 Markets & Management Studies class taught by George Grody.

Using AdViews, the students compared a number of historic 1960s and 1970s commercials with corresponding ones from today. The students analyzed commercials for Hardees, Schick, Bounce, Pledge, and perfume, finding both interesting similarities and drastic contrasts that reflect the branding strategies of each time period.

AdViews, a digital archive of over 8,000 vintage television commercials dating from the 1950s to the 1980s, is one of the newest resources available from the Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History.

The Hartman Center collects and provides access to commercials, print ads, books, and other documents chronicling the advertising and marketing of products from the mid 19th century to the present. Our staff also provides targeted presentations to a wide range of classes each semester, helping to integrate primary source material into subjects ranging from Anthropology to History to Visual Studies, and most anything in between. Students are able to discover not only how TV commercials have changed, but how advertising tracks the evolution of not only the ad industry but also of society itself.

If you are interested in learning more about AdViews, classroom presentations, or research assistance, please contact the Hartman Center Reference Archivist at hartman-center(at)duke.edu or 919-660-5827.

Post contributed by Lynn Eaton, Hartman Center Reference Archivist.

Drawing Feminism

2010-06-08T19:25:00.009-04:00

Date: Tuesday, 15 June 2010
Time: 3:30 PM
Location: Rare Book Room
Contact Information: Kelly Wooten, 919-660-5967 or kelly.wooten(at)duke.edu

Detail of portrait of Irene Peslikis by Alice Neel. From the Irene Peslikis Papers.

The summer research project season is in full swing!

Next Tuesday, Katie Anania, graduate student in Art History at the University of Texas-Austin and recipient of a Mary Lily Research Grant, will discuss her research on the feminist adoption of drawing as an intimate means of artistic expression.

Anania's research at the RBMSCL has focused on the Irene Peslikis Papers and the Kate Millett Papers.

Light refreshments will be served.

For more about feminism and art, visit "Stretching the Canvas: Women Exploring the Arts" and "The Feminist Art Movement, 1970s-1980s," online versions of two exhibits prepared for the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture's 2007 symposium, Neither Model Nor Muse: Women and Artistic Expression.

Calling All Campers!

2010-06-04T15:10:00.005-04:00

"Canoeing at Camp Teconnet." From the New England Girls' Summer Camps Photograph Album.

These days are filled with happiness,
Encouragement, and zest.
Companionship we never lack,
Or chance to play—or rest;
No silly rules there are, and yet,
No doubt of loving care.
Each girl has opportunities
To serve, enjoy, and share.

—From a 1917 brochure about Camp Teconnet

In 2008, we made a lucky find in a rare book dealer’s catalog: a lovely New England girls' summer camp photograph album. We were utterly charmed by this album of black and white photos of girls at Camp Mascoma, in New Hampshire in 1916 and Camp Teconnet Maine in 1917. The unidentified teenage girl who created this album clearly had a wonderful time swimming, canoeing, and sitting around campfires with the friends she made, each with her own nickname like “Parsnips.”

The album also included material clipped from a promotional brochure about Camp Teconnet, which described camp life as “the wisest and sanest solution of the vacation problem for girls.” The brochure also proclaimed, “Physical measurements are taken at the beginning of the season for each camper and from these the 'Missus' and councilors form the foundation for the work with the individual, encouraging here and holding back there, so that the end of the season may bring its own reward in better health and physique.” These girls certainly do look healthy and fit!

You'll find a detailed description of this album here. If you'd like to look through the album yourself and reminisce about your own days at camp (or if you have any questions about the album), e-mail us at special-collections(at)duke.edu.

Post contributed by Kelly Wooten, Research Services and Collection Development Librarian for the Sallie Bingham Center of Women's History and Culture.

"Waiting for Dinner." From the New England Girls' Summer Camps Photograph Album.

A Jazz Master's Papers Come to Duke

2010-06-03T15:44:00.010-04:00

Frank Foster, ca. 1970s.
From the Frank Foster Papers.

The Jazz Archive at Duke University announces the recent arrival of the Frank Foster Papers. Foster is one of the leading jazz saxophonists, big band leaders, and composer/arrangers of the post-World War II era. While serving as the primary arranger for the Count Basie Orchestra since the 1950s, Foster continued to compose and arrange for a variety of ensembles, receiving two Grammy Awards in the 1980s for his work. In 2002, Foster received the Jazz Masters Award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

The papers (which range from 1927 to 2009) reveal Foster's personal and professional lives. Scores and parts composed or arranged by Foster for jazz big bands, as well as business records, publicity, reviews, and news clippings documenting Foster's career, are complemented by personal correspondence, photographs, and a variety of Foster's own prose writings. There are also roughly fifty hours of concert recordings featuring various bands Foster performed in.

While portions of the papers are currently open for research, the entire collection should be processed and available for use by the fall of 2010. If you'd like to arrange a visit to view the collection, or if you have any questions, please e-mail us at special-collections(at)duke.edu.

Post contributed by Jeremy Smith, Jazz Archivist.

Global Women, Local Women

2010-06-01T08:40:00.001-04:00

Date: Thursday, 10 June 2010
Time: 3:00 PM
Location: Rare Book Room
Contact Information: Kelly Wooten, 919-660-5967 or kelly.wooten(at)duke.edu

Please join us for a program featuring Mary Lily Research Grant recipients Karen Garner and Lori Brown.

Karen Garner, Assistant Professor of Historical Studies at SUNY Empire State College, will discuss her research on U.S. global gender policy in the 1990s using the Sisterhood is Global Institute Records, Robin Morgan Papers, and Robin Chandler Duke Papers.

Lori Brown, Associate Professor of Architecture at Syracuse University, will also present her examination of relationships between space, abortion, and issues of access to reproductive health services based on research using our women's health clinic records.

Light refreshments will be served.

Post contributed by Kelly Wooten, Research Services and Collection Development Librarian for the Sallie Bingham Center of Women's History and Culture.

Your Bloomers Are Showing

2010-05-27T09:55:00.004-04:00

Cover of "The Bloomer's Complaint," 1851.

According to an informal and completely unscientific survey, five out of the eight women who work in the RBMSCL's reading room are wearing pants today. This might not be the case were it not for the efforts of Amelia Bloomer, early feminist and fashion pioneer, who celebrates her 192nd birthday today.

To honor Amelia, we quote from a 6 August 1851 letter from University of North Carolina chemistry professor Benjamin Sherwood Hedrick to his future wife, Mary Ellen Thompson (from our Benjamin Sherwood Hedrick Papers). Remarking on current cultural matters from his position at the Nautical Almanac in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he writes:

There is something said every day or two about 'Bloomers.' I have seen several of them and like them. The young ladies have changed the fashion of putting up their hair, combing it up and back, something like what is vulgarly called a 'cow-lick.' I do not like it.

Professor Hedrick's progressive opinion on the bloomer suit was not widely shared. Witness the chorus of "The Bloomer's Complaint," a charming song also from 1851:

I'll come out next week, with a wide Bloomer flat
Of a shape that I fancy will fright them,
I had not intended to go quite to that,
But I'll do it now, only to spite them—
With my pants "a la Turque,"
And my skirts two feet long
All fitting of course, most completely
These grumblers shall own after all, they are wrong,
And that I, in a Bloomer, look sweetly,
And that I, in a Bloomer, look sweetly.

Thanks to Mitch Fraas, RBMSCL Research Services intern, for suggesting this post.

Who Is That Mustached Man?

2010-05-25T08:25:00.002-04:00

I wasn't looking for a "superstar" photograph in a collection, but I found it anyway. I'm Josh Hager, a student in North Carolina State University's Public History Masters Degree program and an alumnus of Duke (B.A., History and French Studies). For a class at NCSU, I was working with the RBMSCL's Technical Services department to process the James Thomas Powers Papers. By process, I had to examine each item in the collection, arrange the items in fashion that made professional and practical sense, and write a finding aid for the collection so that users could examine the papers. (By the way, Powers was a famous Vaudevillian and all-around entertainer on Broadway from the late 19th to the early 20th centuries.)

John Wilkes Booth, undated. From the James Thomas Powers Papers.

The best part of the collection is its photographs. There are over 200 prints, including tintypes, cartes-de-visite, and cabinet cards. These prints depict Powers and his family in theater settings, as well as in personal shots depicting social life in the early 20th century. One photograph stands out as a unique find. Within some photos of relatives of Powers' wife Rachel Booth Powers, I ran into a familiar image. There was neither a label nor a date on the back, which isn't unusual in archival collections. However, I knew this picture was one of the most infamous men in American history. After doing a Google Image search to confirm the identity and conferring with other staff members, we reached a definite conclusion: I had found a new photograph of John Wilkes Booth. The albumen cabinet card, taken in New York state, shows the famous assassin in profile. I can’t be sure, but because of the style of Booth’s clothing, his personal history, and the history of the cabinet card format, I’d place this photograph in the early 1860s; it could be before the Civil War or near its conclusion, making the lack of a recorded date frustrating.

What is this photo doing in James Thomas Powers' papers? Rachel Booth and John Wilkes Booth were likely (distant) relatives in the famous Booth acting family, although I cannot find any definite proof of this. No matter its provenance, the find itself is quite exciting. I can find no exact duplicates of it online so it might be unique. Even if it isn't, it is yet another exciting addition to the Powers papers and to the RBMSCL's collections.

Post contributed by Josh Hager, RBMSCL Technical Services field experience student.

Class of 2010, Where Will You Be in 100 Years?

2010-05-15T09:29:00.005-04:00

The Class of 1910 files into Craven Memorial Hall.
From the Duke University Archives.

This weekend, over 3,500 accomplished students will receive degrees from Duke University. So much has changed in the 100 years since the Class of 1910 received their degrees (32 Bachelors of Arts and 3 Masters of Arts) on Wednesday, June 8th. Then, Duke was still known as Trinity College and John C. Kilgo was finishing his sixteen-year term as college president (William P. Few would assume the presidency in November). The Trinity Chronicle (now the Duke Chronicle) was only five years old.

We thought we'd revisit those school days of long ago by reprinting a few headlines from that fledgling paper for the 1909-1910 school year.

"Fortnightly Club Meets: Good Attendance at Postponed Meeting Last Friday Evening: Prof. Webb Selected Dante Theme," October 27, 1909

"Doctor Kilgo's Sermon: President Gives Masterly Defense of Faith Faculty of Our Mind," November 17, 1909

"Watts Hospital Opening: Thousands View the Various Rooms and Listen to Addresses," December 8, 1909

"Ninety Nineteen Initiate: Six New Men Taken through the Mysteries of the Order: Candidates Undergo Mystic Stunts," February 23, 1910

"Mr. Nash on Fertilizers: Good Attendance at Regular Meeting of Science Club: Growing Interest in Club Work," March 9, 1910

"Chronicle vs. Archive: Yearly Exhibition of Strictly Amateur Players, a Few Ringers Excepted: Most Exciting Game, Chronicle Wins," April 20, 1910. (Yes, as the headline says, the Trinity Chronicle staff won that baseball game 8-5.)

"Commencement Program: All Arrangements for the Last Week Have Been Completed: Secretary Nagel to Make Address," April 27, 1910

"Mr. Brogden Speaks: Popular Durham Attorney Makes Forcible Talk to a Large Assemblage—His Subject: 'Habit and Thought,'" May 4, 1910

The RBMSCL warmly congratulates the Class of 2010!

Additional Resources:

"Commencement Traditions" by former University Archivist Bill King

"Commencement," a set on the Duke University Archives' Flickr photostream

Black Petticoats and Bold Protests

2010-05-13T10:47:00.003-04:00

Date: Wednesday, 19 May 2010
Time: 3:00 PM
Location: Rare Book Room
Contact Information: Kelly Wooten, 919-660-5967 or kelly.wooten(at)duke.edu

The first Staff & Scholars Tea of the summer, hosted by the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture, will feature Mary Lily Research Grant recipients Rebecca Mitchell and Michelle Moravec.

Rebecca Mitchell will present her findings on the proto-feminist aspects and eroticism of Victorian mourning attire. Mitchell is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Texas-Pan American.

Michelle Moravec will speak about feminist art activism as a U.S. social movement. Moravec is Assistant Professor of History and Women’s Studies at Rosemont College.

These two diverse topics will be sure to spark a lively conversation! Light refreshments will be served.

For more about other happenings at the Bingham Center, check out the latest issue of the center's newsletter!

Post contributed by Kelly Wooten, Research Services and Collection Development Librarian for the Sallie Bingham Center of Women's History and Culture.

$999.99 More Than a Penny for Your Thoughts

2010-05-10T12:32:00.008-04:00

Just think how many loads of laundry you could do or how many cases of . . . soda you could buy with $1,000.

If you, like the gentlemen on the left, have pored over RBMSCL manuscripts, books, broadsides, maps, etc. (with or without a magnifying glass) and turned your brilliant discoveries into a brilliant paper, why not submit it for a chance to receive one of two Chester P. Middlesworth Awards?

The two awards, one for an undergraduate and one for a graduate student, each carry a cash prize of $1000.00. The awards will be given at a reception held during Parents' and Family Weekend (22-24 October 2010). Click here for our post about last year's happy recipients!

A few stipulations:

Your paper must have been prepared to meet requirements of a course in any academic department at Duke University or of an independent study project for credit at Duke University.

Your paper must be based largely or wholly on sources in the RBMSCL.

Your paper must be nominated by a faculty member. Faculty may use this nomination form.

Oh, and the deadline for submissions is Saturday, May 15th!

For Mom

2010-05-09T08:00:00.001-04:00

On this special day, we're sharing this cover from the sheet music from 1915 song (words by Edward Morton and James S. Donahue and music by Newton B. Heims). We love the sweet chorus:

Just write her a nice little letter,
Tell her you hope she is well,
Send her some little remembrance,
Something to make her heart swell,
Pet her and call her your sweetheart,
Cheer her and make her feel gay,
Don't say a word that will grieve her,
Let this be your Mother's Day.

Of course, we can't write about mothers without mentioning one of the beloved treasures of the RBMSCL: enslaved woman Vilet Lester's 1857 letter to her former mistress (from the Joseph Allred Papers). Vilet asks about her precious daughter, whom she had to leave behind when she was sold (ultimately) to a Georgian family. Each time we read it, our eyes get teary and our hearts break all over again.

Happy Mother's Day, Vilet. Happy Mother's Day to moms everywhere!

2010-2011 Franklin Research Center Travel Grants Awarded

2010-05-06T13:45:00.012-04:00

John Hope Franklin. From the John Hope Franklin Papers.

The John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture is pleased to announce the recipients of this year’s travel grants. These grants allow scholars to travel to Durham to conduct research using the Franklin Research Center’s collections.

Shanna G. Benjamin, Department of English, Grinnell College, for work on a biography of the late Nellie Y. McKay, Bascom Professor of English and Afro-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Derek Charles Catsam, Department of History, University of Texas of the Permian Basin, for a chronicle of the events of 1985 in South Africa, a tumultuous year in that country's history.

Jametta Davis, Department of History, Howard University, for research for her dissertation detailing the effects of New Deal policies and programs on African American women.

Jacob S. Dorman, Department of History, University of Kansas, for an examination of the formation and development of black Jewish religions in the past 45 years.

Elizabeth Herbin, Department of History, St. John’s University, for an analysis of racial conflicts and segregation among small Southern farmers from 1900 to 1945.

Karen Kossie-Chernyshev, Department of History, Geography, and Economics, Texas Southern University, for an account of "boomerang migration": the return of African American Southerners from their new homes in the North to participate in social and political uplift activities during the Jim Crow era.

Deborah Lee, independent scholar, for a study tracing the networks of anti-slavery activists in the Potomac River basin from 1810 to 1870.

Joseph Moore, Department of History, University of North Carolina at Greensboro,for research on the 1850 trial of George Grier, an enslaved South Carolina man, for seditious speech, with emphasis on an exploration of the community of Abbeville County, South Carolina.

Watch The Devil's Tale for news about upcoming discussions with several of the travel grant recipients from the Bingham, Hartman, and Franklin Research Centers.

RBMSCL Photos: It's MayDay!

2010-05-01T10:38:00.003-04:00

Today, archives and other cultural heritage institutions across the country will be celebrating MayDay, our annual reminder to re-examine our strategies for protecting our valuable collections in the event of an emergency. To honor the day, we're posting this picture of a range of pH-neutral archival boxes and papers, just waiting to house our new acquisitions. Proper housing is one of the many steps that the RBMSCL takes to ensure that our collections will be around for generations.

Over at Preservation Underground, our colleagues in the Preservation department have prepared a handy list of online resources on library emergency planning.

Free Comic Books!

2010-05-01T08:00:00.002-04:00

Today is Free Comic Book Day, which means that comic book shops all over the world will be giving away free comics. But every day is Free Comic Book Day at the RBMSCL, where everyone can use all of our 56,000 comic books (in the Edwin and Terry Murray Comic Book Collection) for free! You can’t take them with you, but you can spend as much time with them as you want in our reading room.

If you do want to take home some free comics (and who doesn't?), the closest participating store is Ultimate Comics on Ninth Street in Durham.

Post contributed by Megan Lewis, Technical Services Archivist for the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture.

A Sculptor in the Stacks

2010-04-28T14:16:00.009-04:00

A photo of Rodin's Psyche et l'Amour. From the Dawson Family Papers.

All of the hoopla surrounding the grand opening of the North Carolina Museum of Art's expansion this past weekend, including the unveiling of 29 sculptures by Auguste Rodin, reminds us of a few items in the RBMSCL stacks: a 1911 volume of Rodin's conversations with Paul Gsell entitled L’Art, inscribed by Rodin to Warrington Dawson, and two caches of Rodin letters.

Warrington Dawson (formally, Francis Warrington Dawson, Jr.) was an American novelist and journalist who lived in Paris for most of his life. He tells of how he came to know Rodin in a 1913 letter to James Brand Pinker, printed in Duke Professor Emeritus Dale B.J. Randall’s volume Joseph Conrad and Warrington Dawson: The Record of A Friendship:

I first met him [Rodin] in 1899. . . . I called as a newspaper correspondent to write an article about his work, but he was struck by my comments and invited me out to his house at Meudon. He told me that I had the knack of expressing in words just what he had expressed in stone or bronze. . . . Some ten or eleven years ago I was first privileged to see his notes, and I recognized their great value; I proposed to him then that he should allow me to prepare them for publication. He promised me that I alone should do this work when he was ready for it, but did not feel that the time had yet come when the public was prepared.

This collaboration was never completed, and the friendship dissolved, but Dawson’s transcriptions and translations of Rodin’s French notes and his correspondence with Rodin survive in the Dawson Family Papers here at the RBMSCL. The papers also include a few striking contemporary photographs of Rodin’s sculptures.

There are also seventeen letters from Rodin to Marie Hopkins, dating from 1904 to 1915, in the Field-Musgrave Family Papers. Rodin’s gorgeous penmanship in many of these letters is a lovely and understated accompaniment to his epic sculptures now on display down the road in Raleigh.

Post contributed by Will Hansen, Assistant Curator of Collections.

The Story of the 6,487 Books

2010-04-24T08:13:00.006-04:00

On this day in 1800, Congress approved the creation of the Library of Congress (here's the birthday blog post from the Library of Congress Blog). By 1814, the collection numbered some 3,000 volumes, many of which burned when the British army invaded the capital city in in August.

On 30 January 1815, Congress and President James Madison turned to former President Thomas Jefferson to help rebuild the library's collection. Jefferson was offered $23,950 for his Monticello library of 6,487 volumes.

That very week, on February 3rd, Francis Calley Gray and George Ticknor arrived at Monticello to pay a visit of a few days to their friend Mr. Jefferson—a visit which Mr. Gray meticulously recorded in his diary, which we hold here at the RBMSCL.

Francis Calley Gray's diary. Nice handwriting!

The morning after a welcoming dinner—complete with silver goblets engraved "from G.W. to T.J."—Mr. Jefferson had prepared a special treat for his guests, both bibliophiles and collectors. As Gray wrote in his diary:

Mr. Jefferson gave me the catalogue of his books to examine + soon after conducted us to his library, + passed an hour there in pointing out to us its principal treasures. His collection of ancient classics was complete as to the authors but very careless in the editions. They were generally interleaved with the best English Translations. The Ancient English authors were also all here + some very rare editions of them. a black letter Chaucer + the first of Milton’s Paradise Lost divided into ten books were the most remarkable. . . . Of all branches of learning however relating to the History of North + South America is the most perfectly displayed in this library. The collection on this subject is without a question the most valuable in the world. Here are the works of all the Spanish [travelers?] in America + the great work of De Brie in which he has collected latin translations of the smaller works published by the earliest visitors of America whose original publications are now lost. It is finely printed + adorned with many plates. Here also is a copy of the letters of Fernando Cortes in Spanish, one of a small edition, + the copy retained by the Editor the Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo for himself, but given by him to the American Consul for Mr. Jefferson.

On February 27, following his friends' departure, Mr. Jefferson wrote to bookdealer Joseph Milligan (letter provided by the Library of Congress) to request his assistance in transporting the entire collection to Washington, D.C. These 6,487 books, some of which Mr. Gray had the good fortune to see, now belonged to the American people.

Sadly, an 1851 fire destroyed much of the Library of Congress' collection, including two-thirds of Jefferson's library. Which prompts us to remind everyone that MayDay is coming!

Thanks to Crystal Reinhardt, University Archives Graduate Student Assistant, for helping with this post.

Re-installing The Trial of Sylvia Likens

2010-04-23T13:31:00.000-04:00

The Trial of Sylvia Likens by Kate Millett, 1978.
Photo by Mark Zupan.

For the first time since its initial exhibition in 1978, Kate Millett's chilling installation, The Trial of Sylvia Likens, has been reassembled. On Monday, the staff of the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture and Art History instructor Laurel Fredrickson joined with filmmakers Sophie Keir-Thompson and Mary Beth Ross to film the piece for a documentary about Millett's life. The installation forms part of the Kate Millett Papers, which are held by the Bingham Center.

The installation marks Millett's response to the horrific 1965 torture and murder of sixteen-year-old Sylvia Likens by the Baniszewski family and their neighborhood friends. Called "the most terrible crime ever committed in the state of Indiana," the story of the murder and subsequent trial transformed Millett, laying the groundwork for her revolutionary work, Sexual Politics. Fredrickson writes, "For Kate, the case of Sylvia Likens exemplified in a very potent way how women are taught to accept punishment for real and imagined digressions from the cultural and social roles imposed upon them by patriarchal societies."

In the photo essay below, Kelly Wooten, the Bingham Center's Research Services and Collection Development Librarian, narrates Monday's recreation.

The first step in reconstructing The Trial of Sylvia Likens was locating all the various mannequin parts, clothing, and panels, and then loading everything onto book trucks to convey to Room 217 in Perkins Library.

Once we delivered all the materials to Room 217 and the filmmakers set up their equipment, it was time to assemble the five defendants and get them dressed for court. Technical Services Archivist Megan Lewis and Art History instructor Laurel Fredrickson are putting on Johnnie's jacket.

After all of the characters were ready, filmmakers Mary Beth Ross and Sophie Keir took shots of each mannequin in front of a green screen. This is Gertrude Baniszewski.

Filmmaker Mary Beth Ross prepares to capture images of the mannequins seated at the table.

For the original installation, Kate Millett created a death mask of her own face and dressed a mannequin in her own clothing to be arranged on a mattress as an embodiment of empathy for the victim, Sylvia Likens, who was found on a mattress in the family's basement.

The trickiest part of this re-creation was hanging the panels that formed the backdrop in the original courtroom scene without damaging the library walls. Fortunately, Laurel Fredickson's partner, Brad Johnson, is the Chief Preparator at the Nasher Museum of Art and had the time and the tools to hang the large newspaper reproductions.

For more photos, visit the RBMSCL's Flickr photostream!

Thanks to the Bingham Center staff and Laurel Fredrickson for helping with this post!

2010 Hartman Center Travel Grants Awarded

2010-04-22T07:07:00.002-04:00

The John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History is pleased to announce the recipients of this year’s Hartman Center Travel Grants. These grants allow scholars to travel to Durham to conduct research using the Hartman Center’s collections.

JWT Fellows:

Ferdinando Fasce: Department of Modern and Contemporary History, University of Genoa
“JWT Italy between Reconstruction and the First Oil Shock, from the late 1940s through the 1970s”

Eva von Wyl: Social and Economic History, University of Zurich
“Rationalization, Self-Service and American Way of Life: American Eating Habits in Postwar Switzerland (1950-1970)”

Faculty Recipients:

Shannan Clark: Department of History, Montclair State University
“The Creative Class: White-Collar Workers and the Making of America’s Culture of Consumer Capitalism”

Liza Featherstone: Journalism School, New York University; School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
“Behind The Mirror: Focus Groups and What They Reveal, 1930s to present”

Michelle Ferranti: Division of Fine and Performing Arts, Marymont Manhattan College
“History of Women’s Motivations for Douching following the Medicalization of Birth Control in the U.S.”

Ann McDonald: Department of Art Design, Northeastern University
“The Role of Publically Displayed Information Visualization in Eliciting Individual and Communal Action”

Ari Martin Samsky: Global Health Studies Program, University of Iowa
“Working Through Responsibility: Advertising, Medicine and The Social Good, World War II-the Present"

Student Recipients:

Abby Bartholomew: College of Journalism and Mass Communications, Advertising Department, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
“JWT’s Application of Psychological Principles to Advertising, the Work of John B. Watson and his Behaviorist Theories”

Rebecca Burditt: Program in Visual and Cultural Studies, Department of Art and Art History, University of Rochester
“Seeing Difference: Postwar Hollywood and the Commercial Delay”

Berti Kolbow: Institute for Economic and Social History, Georgia Augusta University Goettingen
“Transatlantic Transfers of Marketing Concepts between Eastman Kodak and Agfa, 1880-1945”

Shawn Moura: Department of History, University of Maryland
“Target Market Brazil: Postwar Advertising and Consumer Culture in the Country of the Future”

Cory Pillen: Department of Art History, University of Wisconsin-Madison
“WPA Posters: A New Deal for Design, 1936-1943”

Elizabeth Spies: Department of English, University of California, Riverside
“Advertising Stigmatas: The Evolution of Poetic Advertising throughout the Twentieth Century, 1890-1980”

Watch The Devil's Tale for news about upcoming discussions with several of the travel grant recipients from the Hartman, Bingham, and Franklin Research Centers.

April Showers Bring New Finding Aids!

2010-04-20T18:03:00.005-04:00

Our technical services archivists have created a veritable deluge of new finding aids for some of our older collections. All of the following collections are open for research. Please contact the Special Collections Library at special-collections(at)duke.edu with any questions.

Japanese Matchbox Label Collection, circa 1910

400 vividly-colored Japanese matchbox labels are mounted in a contemporary paper album and housed in a custom-made cloth box. Unfortunately, the name of the person who created this marvelous collection is unknown.

Ann Atwater Interviews, 2006

Master and use copies of Jeff Storer's oral interviews with Ann Atwater, an African-American civil rights activist based in Durham regarding her friendship with Ku Klux Klan leader C. P. Ellis.

Montrose Jonas Moses Papers, 1789-1960

The papers of this drama critic, journalist, and author of works on American and European drama and on children's literature includes correspondence with giants of the turn-of-the-20th-century theater, including Eugene O'Neill, Percival Wilde, David Belasco, and Margaret Anglin.

Thomas Lee Settle Papers, 1795-1949

The papers of this Virginia surgeon, said to have pronounced the death of abolitionist John Brown, shed light on the practice of medicine in the 19th century. Of particular interest are documents detailing Settle's own medical service for the 11th Virginia Cavalry.

RBMSCL Photos: The Scribe is Here!

2010-04-19T15:42:00.000-04:00

Above, Abigail, who is on loan to us from the Internet Archive, begins our Scribe scanning project. Over the next few months, we'll be digitizing our collections of Utopian Literature and Confederate imprints—and so much more! Remember to visit The Devil's Tale often for more news about the Scribe.

And have a look at Beth Doyle's post about the Scribe installation over at Preservation Underground. We're glad they finally got the Scribe through the doorway.

Photo by Mark Zupan.

On This National Day of Silence

2010-04-16T10:46:00.001-04:00

Guide to the William Gedney Photographs and Writings, 1950s-1989

[www.dayofsilence.org]

Women's Education Symposium Redux: Pedagogy Panel

2010-04-14T15:42:00.002-04:00

Date: Friday, 23 April 2010
Time: 12:00 PM
Location: Perkins Library Room 118
Contact Information: Kelly Wooten, 919-660-5967 or kelly.wooten(at)duke.edu

Next Friday, join the staff of the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture to watch videos from their 30 October 2009 symposium, "What Does It Mean to Be an Educated Woman?"

This month, we'll be watching the "Pedagogy Panel." The full list of speakers, which include RBMSCL Research Services Librarian Elizabeth Dunn, is available on the online symposium schedule. Desserts will be provided!

We'll miss you if you can't attend, but—just in case—videos for all three panels are also available online.

"You've Got . . . Personality: Testimonial and Celebrity Endorsement Advertisements"

2010-04-09T14:21:00.002-04:00

Date: 8 April-30 June 2010
Location and Time: Rare Book Room cases during library hours
Contact Information: Jackie Reid, 919-660 5836 or j.reid(at)duke.edu

Testimonial advertisements, today seemingly reserved for fading actors, retired politicians, and late-night cable infomercials, were once a mark of innovation and prestige in advertising. This exhibit, a complement to “The Power of Refined Beauty: Photographing Society Women for Pond’s, 1920s-1950s," highlights some examples of this style of advertising, as documented in the collections of the Hartman Center.

In 1923, JWT created a new advertising campaign for Pond’s creams, based on the testimonials of leading American society women and European titled nobility. That campaign lasted for over thirty years and is the focus of half of the exhibit. Newsletters, internal memos, publications, ads and other items allow the viewer a behind-the-scenes look at bringing a concept to fruition in a long-standing advertising campaign.

Taking a broader view, the other half of the exhibit documents an overview of the use of testimonials and celebrity endorsements in advertising for a range of products. From an 1893 endorsement by arctic explorer Lieutenant Peary for Kodak, to Count Basie for Camel cigarettes, to Coach K for American Express, a wide variety of well-known celebrities are shown endorsing products. Advertisements, reports, and memos illustrate advertisers’ belief that celebrity testimonials could lend products a feeling of familiarity and credibility, while also creating the illusion that to purchase a given product was to belong to an elite cast.

Post contributed by Jackie Reid, Director of the Hartman Center, and Lynn Eaton, Hartman Center Reference Archivist

2010-2011 Mary Lily Research Grants Awarded

2010-04-08T14:48:00.003-04:00

The Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture is pleased to announce the recipients of this year’s Mary Lily Research Grants. These grants allow scholars to travel to Durham to conduct research using the Bingham Center’s collections.

Katie Anania, Art History, University of Texas-Austin, for dissertation research on the rise of feminism as a framework for evaluating contemporary art.

Lori A. Brown, Architecture, Syracuse University, for research for a book examining the relationships between space, abortion, and issues of access.

Kate Eichhorn, Culture and Media Studies, The New School, for research comparing zines and scrapbooks as archival collections of ephemera.

Julie Enszer, Women’s Studies, University of Maryland, for an examination of lesbian-feminist print culture in Durham, NC, 1969-1989 as part of a historical narrative of lesbian-feminist publishing.

Karen Garner, Historical Studies, SUNY Empire State College, for an examination of U.S. global gender policy in the 1990s.

Rebecca N. Mitchell, English, University of Texas – Pan American, for research for an article examining the proto-feminist aspects and eroticism of Victorian mourning attire.

Michelle Moravec, History and Women’s Studies, Rosemont College, for research on feminist art activism as a U.S. social movement, 1967-1991.

Whitney Strub, Women’s Studies and American Studies, Temple University, for research for a book examining the relationships between queer sexuality, LGBT activism, and antigay activity in post-WWII United States.

Watch The Devil's Tale for news about upcoming discussions with several of the travel grant recipients from the Bingham, Hartman, and Franklin Research Centers.

Patricia Derian Papers Coming to Duke

2010-04-07T13:33:00.002-04:00

The Archive for Human Rights has signed an agreement with Patricia Murphy Derian to serve as the repository for her papers, which document her long career in human rights.

Patt, as she is known to friends and family, was involved in the civil rights struggles in Mississippi prior to being tapped by President Jimmy Carter to head the newly-minted Bureau for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs. In 1977, she became the nation's very first assistant secretary for human rights.

Her papers consist of country files, general files, correspondence, and a collection of audio and video interviews. Processing of the collection will begin immediately and should be complete by summer of 2010. If you'd like to arrange a visit to view the collection, or if you have any questions, please e-mail us at special-collections(at)duke.edu.

Post contributed by Patrick Stawski, Human Rights Archivist

Freedom Politics: From Jim Crow through Civil Rights and Black Power

2010-04-06T15:32:00.004-04:00

Date: Wednesday, 14 April 2010
Time: 1:30 PM (please see schedule)
Location: Room 240, John Hope Franklin Center (directions)
Contact Information: fhi(at)duke.edu

"After a cross is burned in front of a freedom house,it is turned into a freedom sign." Photographed by Tamio Wakayama.

2009-2010 Mellon HBCU Fellows Rhonda Jones and Dirk Philipsen will bring together leading African American Studies scholars for the Franklin Humanities Institute's 2nd Annual HBCU Fellowship Program Symposium. The symposium will explore the relationship between education and democracy, from the history of student-led social movements like SNCC to the use of African American oral histories in civic education today.

The symposium is co-sponsored by John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture and the Mary Lou Williams Center for Black Culture.

Please register by e-mailing fhi(at)duke.edu by Friday, 9 April. A light dinner will be provided for participants in the 5:30 PM workshop, so please indicate in your e-mail if you plan to attend that session. Registration is free.

"The Power of Refined Beauty: Photographing Society Women for Pond's"

2010-04-05T12:16:00.011-04:00

Date: 5 April-22 August 2010
Location and Time: Special Collections Gallery during library hours
Contact Information: Jackie Reid, 919-660 5836 or j.reid(at)duke.edu

Nadejda, Marchioness Milford Haven, n.d., by Edward Steichen. Photograph courtesy of the J. Walter Thompson Company Archives.

Nadejda Mikhailovna Romanov Mountbatten, Marchioness of Milford Haven, won a Charleston dance competition at Cannes in 1921 with the future King George VI.

Anne Tracy Morgan organized the American Fund for French Wounded, earning the Croix de Guerre and recognition from the French Legion of Honor.

Clare Josephine O’Brian Egerton, Duchess of Sutherland, lost $84,000 of jewels on the morning of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation.

Along with other socialites, heiresses, and royalty from families such as the Vanderbilts and the Roosevelts, these women appeared in Pond's socialite endorsement campaign, masterminded by the J. Walter Thompson Company. The Hartman Center's new exhibit,"The Power of Refined Beauty: Photographing Society Women for Pond's, 1920s-1950s," charts the course of this wildly-successful thirty-year campaign.

Adding to the prestige of the campaign, the women's photographs were taken by distinguished fashion photographers such as Edward Steichen, Baron Adolph de Meyer, Louise Dahl-Wolfe, and Cecil Beaton.

A print catalog of these photographs will complement the exhibit. Please e-mail hartman-center(at)duke.edu to request a copy.

Sam Stephenson and The Jazz Loft Project

2010-04-01T14:19:00.003-04:00

Date: Monday, 12 April 2010
Time: 12:00 PM
Location: Rare Book Room
Contact Information: Jeremy Smith, 919-660-5839 or jas5(at)notes.duke.edu

Join us as the Jazz Archive hosts Sam Stephenson, director of the Jazz Loft Project.

Sam will discuss the history of his work on this fascinating audio and photographic archive and will highlight some of the recent project results, including a new book, radio series, and traveling photography exhibition. The Gothic Bookshop will provide copies of The Jazz Loft Project at a 20% discount and Sam will be available to sign copies.

Guests are invited to bring their own lunches, but dessert and drinks will be provided.

Pharaoh Peepses II

2010-03-30T15:38:00.003-04:00

Meghan Lyon, our technical services assistant, just came back from a week in the Land of the Pharaohs. Just for fun, she and her husband Vaughn took along a packet of Peeps. "The weirdest part," she notes, "was that they never melted, despite it being over 100 degrees on most days."

This photograph, taken at the Ramesseum, is included in National Geographic Traveler's Peeps in Places contest. We hope she wins! (Go vote!)

And, lest you object that this post doesn't relate to the RBMSCL's collections, we offer this fragment of a literary text from our papyri collection. It dates from Ramesses II's lifetime.

"The Library, The Archive, The Collection" with David Gatten

2010-03-29T14:10:00.006-04:00

Date: Tuesday, 6 April 2010
Time: 12:30 PM
Location: Rare Book Room
Contact Information: Kirston Johnson, 919-681-7963 or kirston.johnson(at)duke.edu

A still from "The Great Art of Knowing" showing Byrd's bookplate

Award-winning filmmaker and Guggenheim Fellow David Gatten will present his 2004 film, "The Great Art of Knowing."

The film belongs to a series exploring the extensive library of William Byrd II, a prominent 18th-century Virginian landowner and author. Taking as a point of departure Athanasius Kircher's Ars Magna Sciendi (often translated as The Great Art of Knowing), the film attempts a reconstruction of the lives of William Byrd and his daughter Evelyn, and underlines the centuries-old desire to build systems of total knowledge and complete understanding.

Gatten is the 2010 Distinguished Visiting Filmmaker for Duke's Program in the Arts of the Moving Image. His residency is funded by the Provost's Council for the Arts Visiting Artist Residency grant.

In addition to his 2005 Guggenheim Fellowship, Gatten has shown his films at the Whitney Biennial, the Toronto International Film Festival, the London Film Festival, and several other international film festivals. His work belongs to the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Whitney Museum of American Art, as well as those of numerous university and private collections.

Talking Toward Common Ground

2010-03-25T10:32:00.001-04:00

Date: Thursday-Friday, 25-26 March 2010
Time: please see schedule
Location: Friedl Building, East Campus
Contact Information:

This timely conference will bring together the worlds of social sciences and humanities research for a conversation about how the two can mutually benefit in improving our knowledge of race, inequality, and social difference. Speakers include Duke professors Mark Anthony Neal, Wahneema Lubiano, Dante James, Michael Hardt, and Lee Baker.

The conference is free and open to the public, but attendees are asked to register in advance. Public parking information and directions are also available here.

Sponsored by the Center of African American Research in the Department of African and African American Studies. Co-sponsored by the Research Network on Racial and Ethnic Inequality, Sanford School of Public Policy, Mary Lou Williams Center, Department of Sociology, John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture, John Hope Franklin Institute for the Humanities, and the Department of Cultural Anthropology.

Solidarity with Incarcerated Women

2010-03-24T12:00:00.000-04:00

Date: Monday, 29 March 2010
Time: 6:00 PM
Location: Duke Women's Center (map and directions)
Contact Information: Kelly Wooten, 919-660-5967 or kelly.wooten(at)duke.edu

When we think of prisoners, we generally think of men. Yet according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, over 114,000 women are currently incarcerated in the United States.

In Monday's discussion, Victoria Law, author of the newly-released Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women and publisher of Tenacious: Art and Writings from Women in Prison, will examine the particular challenges facing incarcerated women and discuss their past and present strategies of resistance.

Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Duke graduate student and member of the organizing committee for Durham's Harm Free Zone, will talk about the Harm Free Zone process and facilitate interactive writing exercises based on some of the writings in Tenacious.

This event is co-sponsored by Duke's Women's Center, the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture, and the Archive for Human Rights.

Because Thomas Jefferson Said So

2010-03-23T09:43:00.015-04:00

And now for a brief history lesson. George Walton was the governor of Georgia for two months in 1779 and then from 1789 to 1790. We found this letter (click image to enlarge) from then-Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson among the small collection of Walton's papers housed at the RBMSCL. Jefferson writes that he is sending Walton "two copies duly authenticated of the Act providing for the enumeration of the inhabitants of the United States." Jefferson is referring, of course, to the Census Act of 1790, which authorized the first census of the inhabitants of the new United States.

The census, you see, is very dear to the archivist's heart. We often use census records, whether it's to learn about families from long ago whose papers we're processing or to help researchers discover information about their great-great-great grandparents. So we hope you won't mind our appeal to you to carefully fill out and mail your census forms. After all, we have Thomas Jefferson's authority behind us.

Women's Education Symposium Redux: Scholarship Panel

2010-03-18T15:47:00.001-04:00

Date: Friday, 26 March 2010
Time: 12:00 PM
Location: Perkins Library Room 118
Contact Information: Kelly Wooten, 919-660-5967 or kelly.wooten(at)duke.edu

Bring your bag lunch to the library and join the staff of the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture to watch videos from their 30 October 2009 symposium, "What Does It Mean to Be an Educated Woman?"

This month, the "Scholarship and Education" panel will be shown. The full list of speakers, which include University Librarian Deborah Jakubs, is available at the online symposium schedule. Desserts will be provided!

A viewing of the third panel has been scheduled for 23 April. Stop by The Devil's Tale in the coming weeks for reminders and more information.

We'll miss you if you can't attend, but—just in case—the videos are also available online.

Q & A with Andrew Kahrl

2010-03-16T10:20:00.003-04:00

Tomorrow, the Franklin Research Center will host Dr. Andrew Kahrl, who will present"Losing the Land: African American Ownership of Coastal Property." We asked him a few questions in anticipation of his talk, which is based on his research in our Behind the Veil oral histories collection.

Q: Could you give us a preview of your talk?

Andrew: I'm going to trace the history of African American coastal land ownership from the late 19th century to the present in order to better understand the relationship between race and real estate development in the making of the modern Sunbelt South and the long civil rights movement. I plan to discuss the rise of coastal black landownership in the post-emancipation era; African Americans' economic and emotional investment in coastal property and leisure space under Jim Crow; and the impact of changes to the region's political economy on black landownership and notions of land-based empowerment. I'll highlight some of the more revealing interviews in the Behind the Veil collection that speak to the struggle of African Americans to acquire and defend coastal property under Jim Crow and the role of black-owned leisure spaces in shaping class and culture behind and along the color line, as well as the various strategies of expropriation black coastal landowners faced—and continue to face—at the hands of real estate developers, the courts, and public officials from the 1970s to the present. Overall, I hope to use the story of African American beachfront property to offer new insights into the intertwined stories of Jim Crow, civil rights, and the making of the Sunbelt, and to stimulate discussions on the spatiality of race, wealth, and privilege in modern America.

Q: Tell us more about your research in the Behind the Veil oral histories. Have you made any surprising discoveries?

Andrew: I have made some fascinating discoveries in the Behind the Veil collection. Two years ago, I listened to a small sampling of interviews conducted with residents of coastal cities. Interviewees recounted stories of the places that are the subject of my research that I simply could not have found elsewhere, and offered clues to the hidden history of places and cases of land acquisition and expropriation that led me to pursue other records and, in the end, make fascinating discoveries. In particular, their personal stories of the different strategies real estate developers and their allies in public office employed to seize valuable, black-owned coastal property have helped me piece together a broader set of land-use practices and legal strategies that transformed America's coastlines in the second half of the 20th century. The Behind the Veil Collection offers rich and moving stories of African Americans' struggles to carve out spaces for pleasure and relief under Jim Crow, and reinforces, in my mind, the importance of land ownership in the black freedom struggle and the impact of African Americans' steady loss of land in recent decades on relations of political and economic power in the South and the nation.

Thanks, Andrew!

RBMSCL Scholars: Emily Herring Wilson

2010-03-15T10:20:00.002-04:00

We're beginning a new feature today! We've asked some of the wonderful authors and scholars that the RBMSCL has hosted over the years to contribute a few words on their new books and research projects. We're going to start with an essay from Emily Herring Wilson, editor of the newly-released Becoming Elizabeth Lawrence: Discovered Letters of a Southern Gardener.

Years of research for a life of North Carolina garden writer Elizabeth Lawrence (1904-1985) led me many places, but none more inviting than my trips to Duke’s Special Collections Library, where I found hundreds of letters in the Ann Preston Bridgers Papers that brought Lawrence to life as no other materials, including interviews with family and friends who had known her. As I went through box after box of letters from Elizabeth to Ann (all beautifully catalogued by Janie Morris), I discovered a collection that not only informed the biography I wrote about Lawrence (No One Gardens Alone) but gave vivid testament to the importance of women’s friendships. (Bridgers, a successful playwright and a founder of the Raleigh Little Theatre, was teaching young Elizabeth how to write and how to live, all vividly revealed in the letters.) This month John F. Blair, Publisher, released my edited collection, Becoming Elizabeth Lawrence: Discovered Letters of a Southern Gardener. Among the books I have been privileged to write or edit, it is my favorite because of the charm and intelligence of a private life.

These letters from Elizabeth to Ann are lively with gossip, anecdote, reflection, regret, aspiration, and love—the love of friends, the love of gardens, and the love of literature. I still regard it as a miracle that they were not destroyed after Ann’s death in 1967 but ended up in the Bridgers Papers. I hope that you will read them and enjoy them as much as I did.

New Audubon Birds on Display

2010-03-11T12:53:00.007-05:00

We've just turned the pages of our double elephant folio edition of John James Audubon's Birds of America. This month, stop by the RBMSCL's reading room (103 Perkins) during open hours to view these new prints:

• Red-headed Woodpecker (Picus erythrocephalus)
• Hooping Crane (Grus americana; at left)
• Rough-legged Falcon (Buteo lagopus)
• Blue Jay (Corvus cristatus)

Visit this earlier blog post for a brief explanation of the monthly page turning.

RBMSCL Photos: Frog Attack!

2010-03-09T09:32:00.005-05:00

A frog beanbag holds open the pages of a register from the Congress of the Confederate States of America.

Thanks to Lynn Eaton, Hartman Center Reference Archivist, for suggesting this photo!

Rights! Camera! Action!: The Self-Made Man

2010-03-05T16:36:00.000-05:00

Date: Tuesday, 16 March 2010
Time: 7:00 PM
Location: Rare Book Room
Contact Information: Patrick Stawski, 919-660-5823 or patrick.stawski(at)duke.edu, or Kirston Johnson, 919-681-7963 or kirston.johnson(at)duke.edu

The Self-Made Man, the fifth film in the Rights! Camera! Action! series, Bob Stern decides to end his life after being diagnosed with a potentially terminal illness.

Susan Stern, the film's director (and Bob's daughter), will lead discussion following the film.

The Rights! Camera! Action! film series, which is sponsored by the Archive for Human Rights, the Archive of Documentary Arts, the Duke Human Rights Center, the Franklin Humanities Institute, and Screen/Society at Duke's Arts of the Moving Image Program, features documentaries on human rights themes that were award winners at the annual Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. The films are archived at the RBMSCL, where they form part of a rich and expanding collection of human rights materials. Additional support for this screening is provided by the Kenan Institute for Ethics and the Divinity School Institute on Care at the End of Life.

Ashkar-Gilson Manuscript in the News

2010-03-05T09:37:00.004-05:00

The RBMSCL's Ashkar-Gilson Manuscript is currently on display at Jerusalem's Israel Museum where it has been reunited with another fragment from the same 1,300-year-old scroll.

The story of the reunion of these two manuscripts, which contain portions of the Song of the Sea, was picked up on the AP wire. Here's a link to the article as it appeared in the Miami Herald.

This photo of the Ashkar-Gilson manuscript was taken with special lighting so that the writing on the aged manuscript could be seen.

Visit the Jazz Archive on Flickr!

2010-03-02T09:49:00.014-05:00

The Jazz Archive now has its very own Flickr photostream! Stop by to view images and other documents from the collection (including digitized liner notes from Rosetta Reitz's Rosetta Records, which released this album from movie star Mae West), as well as photos of Jazz Archive events and exhibits.

"Losing the Land" with Andrew Kahrl

2010-03-01T10:04:00.008-05:00

Date: Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Time: 3:00 PM
Location: Rare Book Room
Contact Information: Janie Morris, 919-660-5819 or janie.morris(at)duke.edu

From the Davis Family Papers.

Dr. Andrew Kahrl will discuss the rise and demise of black beaches and coastal property ownership from the early 20th century to the present. Kahrl's talk, titled "Losing the Land: African American Ownership of Coastal Property," is based in part on his findings in the Behind the Veil oral history collection at the RBMSCL.

This event is part of the celebration of the 15th anniversary of the RBMSCL's John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture.

Kahrl is assistant professor of history at Marquette University and a former fellow at the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation/American Council of Learned Societies.