Global Women, Local Women

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

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?

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?

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

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.