Today’s blog post was written by Lindsay Fasce, a senior history major and Heritage Protocol & University Archives intern.

As of 2017, the Florida State University has a vast international studies program, which offers just under 50 programs in over 15 countries around the world. This program has grown rapidly since the launch of the first study abroad program in the fall of 1966, when 120 university students traveled to Florence, Italy for an 8-month program in the historical city. While in Florence, the students and faculty witnessed the flooding of the city when the Arno River broke its banks and poured into the city streets. They joined the aid effort to help the city protect, salvage, and preserve the priceless works of art and manuscripts damaged in the flood.

As an intern with Heritage Protocol & University Archives, I was given the task of researching these students and the efforts they made to help the city of Florence. This project began just in time for the former students to return to Florida State University in April of 2017 for a 50th reunion celebration.

I started from the beginning, searching through the existing materials in the archives for information on the inaugural Florence program. I then read through and studied all the donated materials from the alumni. I was able to use the materials I found with those donated to the archives recently to attain a better understanding of what happened leading up to the flood and the events succeeding the flood.

In 1964, Dean Dr. Ross Oglesby brought a group of Flying High Circus students on a performance tour through Europe. While in Europe, Dr. Oglesby was inspired by his surroundings and developed the idea for a study abroad program that would be conducted in the historical Italian city of Florence. The idea developed into a program, and with the help of a Florence Committee under President Blackwell, the program opened in the fall semester of 1966 headed by Dr. Conrad Tanzy.

Students interested in the program received brochures with information on the program costs, the curriculum, faculty, the facilities, and the application process. Once the applications were turned in and interviews conducted, 120 students were chosen to participate in the inaugural Florence study abroad program. Not only were the students and their families excited about the Florence program, the communities of the chosen students began to cover their stories and interview them on their upcoming historical trip. After months of preparation, the selected students flew out of New York on August 1, 1966, and arrived in Florence on September 1, 1966, for eight months of study in Italy.

The students and faculty were housed in the Hotel Capri, located close to the heart of Florence, just west of the Arno River. The Hotel Capris was not the first facility considered to house the program when Dr. Oglesby was developing and planning the idea of a study abroad program with the Florence Committee. While in Europe in 1964, he met an Italian Countess in Florence who wanted to sell her Villa to the University to use for the program. Florida State University officials informed the committee that the University, as an institution, could not buy property and they would have to find accommodations elsewhere. The program was then moved to the Hotel Capri, as its size could efficiently handle the program and its location was advantageous to the students and faculty studying in Florence.

The first days of November brought unwavering heavy rains that filled the dams along the Arno River. On November 4, 1966, the waters of the Arno River broke through the embankment and flooded Florence. Flood waters reached threatening levels in the blocks surrounding the river and caused damage as well as casualties. When the flood waters receded, it left deep deposits of mud and silt in its wake, mixed with spilled oil from cars caught in the flood. The mud made rescue and clean-up efforts difficult, and every passing day added to the destruction of the priceless art works and manuscripts housed in Florence. The Hotel Capris, the home of the FSU Florence program, was far enough away from the river where damage was minimal and all the students were safe, but the hotel was without power. The students had the choice to travel back home, but all the students and faculty decided to remain in Florence. President John E. Champion sent letters to the guardians of the students informing them of the situation and the students’ decision to stay in Florence.

Volunteers that aided in flood relief efforts were later called the “gli angeli del fango,” or “Mud Angels.” Among these Mud Angels were Florida State students who assisted volunteers with digging through the mud and oil to preserve priceless artwork and manuscripts. The students trudged through the mud every day to libraries and churches to help with disaster recovery, then returned to their hotel covered in mud which still had no power or running water. After many days of aid work, the risk to the student’s health grew too great and the students and faculty were sent to Rome until conditions improved. In Rome, the students were awarded a certificate by the City of Rome officials for all their efforts to aid Florence and were even thanked by Pope Paul VI. In March 1967, the students left Florence and returned home safe. In 2016, the 50th anniversary of the flood, the students were invited back to Florence to be awarded and thanked for all their efforts.

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Today’s long-overdue impeccable science is drawn from a pleasantly-sized 1832 volume entitled The Youth’s Book on Natural Theology; Illustrated in Familiar Dialogues, With Numerous Engravings. 

For those who don’t know, natural theology argues for God’s existence based on observations of nature, so, while not a purely “scientific” tome by contemporary definitions, this book does contain highly-detailed descriptions of entomology, human anatomy, animal behavior, electricity, and air pressure, all of which the author relates to intelligent design.

The chapter descriptions are truly brilliant litanies. My favorites are “Radius. Ulna. Button-head. Joint-oil. Gristle. Ligament. Wisdom and goodness of God.” and (not pictured here) “Mouth of animals; particular design in forming them. Wood-pecker. Cross-bill. Bills of ducks and geese. Oyster-catcher. Choetodon. Chance. Atheism.”

I will give an extremely special prize as well as certain micro-celebrity to any blog reader who can provide documentation of herself reciting these enumerations at a poetry reading.

As for the impeccable science that I’ve promised you: after a lengthy description of the nerves of the face and the ways that nerves control muscles, author Rev. T. H. Gallaudet proceeds to explain facial expressions, which “seem to be the very coming out of the soul.”

You, like me, may be thinking, “but I want my soul to stay in, where it belongs,” but that’s not what Rev. T. H. Gallaudet wants to talk about! No, he wants us to understand how uniquely human are facial expressions:

Many animals, you know, have no such expressions of face at all; and none of them have any thing like the different kinds,–the beauty, the strength, and the meaning, which the expressions of the human face have… a dog expresses a very few things by his face. A man can express,–oh! how many different kinds of thoughts, and feelings, in his countenance.

To which I say:

Gallaudet has proof, though! Just look at these lifelike engravings of a woman with soulful eyes and a disenchanted pup with Farrah Fawcett hair:

Why, you may ask, does that dog look so vacuous? In part, explains Gallaudet, it’s because animals don’t have souls, which I’m not prepared to debate here. In other part, it’s because:

Some [beasts] have some muscles and nerves, in their faces, like ours; but none of them as many; and most of them have very few, indeed… They do not think and feel, as we do… even, if they had a soul like ours, it could not show itself, its thoughts and its feelings, on their faces, as our souls do; because they have not the muscles and nerves, that are necessary to give all kinds of expressions to the face.

Hmmm. We may have to agree to disagree here, sir.

What about human facial expressions, though? What do those do, besides proving that we have souls?

Well, they can show our habits of expression, which I think is an old-fashioned way of saying that if you make a funny face for too long, you’ll get stuck that way. For instance, look at this disheveled man who apparently strikes strange children in the street. He’s been angry for so long that “he can hardly look pleasant, if he tries”:

And here’s the same man after brushing his hair and putting on a less-floppy collar:

Just kidding! That’s a different man. That’s Uncle John, who’s full of kind and benevolent feelings. That’s why his eyebrows look so neat.

On a completely different note, I would be loathe to sign off without showing you this engraving–demonstrating the difference between instinct and behavior–of a woman frightening off a tiger with her parasol. It’s science! Impeccably!

One of our most meaningful projects in Special Collections & Archives is the management of the Emmett Till Archives.  The Till Archives collects, preserves, and provides access to primary and secondary source material related to the life, murder, and memory of Emmett Louis Till, whose death in 1955 is significant in the history of the African-American Civil Rights Movement.  Our most comprehensive resource for researchers interested in national press coverage of the Till murder and related events is the Davis Houck Papers.

Dr. Davis Houck joined the faculty of the College of Communication & Information at Florida State University in 2000, and in 2016 was named Fannie Lou Hamer Professor of Rhetorical Studies.  Dr. Houck’s research interests include rhetorical criticism, presidential rhetoric, the Black Freedom Movement, historiography and archival research.  In the course of his academic career, Dr. Houck has written several papers and a book on the Emmett Till case.  While researching these works, Dr. Houck amassed thousands of pages and bytes of newspaper clippings, government files, photographs, scholarly articles, monographs, and creative works related to Till.  In 2015, Dr. Houck donated these research materials to the FSU Libraries Special Collections & Archives division, where they are available to FSU students, faculty, visiting scholars, and the general public alongside other resources on Emmett Till and the civil rights movement.

Researchers can see the Davis Houck Papers by visiting the Special Collections Research Center in Strozier Library.  Some materials from the Houck Papers are available through the FSU Digital Library.  For more information on the collection, please visit the online finding aid or contact Special Collections & Archives staff at lib-specialcollections@fsu.edu or (850) 644-3271.

“I don’t feel seventy and I never shall,” Sir Thomas Beecham declares in this 1948 birthday tribute. The famous British conductor is interviewed by British poet, memoirist, and travel writer Sir Osbert Sitwell. Beecham, known for his blunt speech, does not disappoint. Asked about the future of the large orchestra, he says it “depends upon the production of good music,” which is sadly lacking in this age. Without more masterpieces, “players will gradually lose much of their interest.” Grand opera is in similar straits, although here the danger lies less in not having enough material as in the quality of today’s singers. They have been lured away by “radio, gramophone, and musical comedy,” all of which offer  an “easier means of livelihood.” Sitwell then takes him through his recent recordings and concerts. Beecham gives short descriptions of works by Gounod, Mozart, Dvorak, and others. Liszt’s tone poem Orpheus “has the further merit of being comparatively brief.” Excerpts from The Bartered Bride have the advantage of being “tolerably unfamiliar.” The talk takes a political turn, with Beecham being asked about state support of the arts. While allowing that such patronage is “admirable,” he notes how all arts institutions controlled by government end up with “the wrong people in charge, with devastatingly unsatisfactory results.” In conclusion he makes a plea for organizations “devoted to the pursuit and achievement of excellence.”

This is a scripted talk. Half the fun is hearing these two aristocrats trot out their carefully cultivated upper class opinions and elocutions. While the emphasis is on music, there is a sense of Beecham as, if not a “character,” certainly a British institution. One might even venture to detect a note of self-parody.

Sir Thomas Beecham (1879-1961) did not climb the ranks of the music world through arduous apprenticeships. Rather, when the heir to the Beecham’s Pills fortune wished to conduct he simply used his wealth to form an orchestra and installed himself on the podium. A musical prodigy, he quickly became the face of British classical music. As the website allmusic.com relates, this collection of players, the London Philharmonic,

…quickly became a top-rank ensemble and successfully toured the Continent. He became artistic director at Covent Garden in 1932, and ruled there in his customary autocratic manner. When the war began, Beecham toured the United States and Australia. He was appointed music director and conductor of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra (1941-1943) and was a frequent guest conductor at the Metropolitan Opera Company until he returned to England in 1944. Upon his arrival in England, Beecham discovered that the orchestras there weren’t overly enthusiastic at the prospect of working permanently in proximity to his withering tongue and dictatorial manner. Even the London Philharmonic Orchestra, with a new charter that permitted it to make some of its own decisions, showed little interest in having him at the helm full-time. So, typically, Beecham founded a new orchestra in 1946 — the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra — and maintained his relationship with this group for the remainder of his career.

Reading about Beecham now takes one back to a different time, the “great man,” male-dominated, somewhat juvenile world of Brahms as opposed to the present-day emphasis on orchestral teamwork and collaboration. It is difficult to imagine a conductor today being applauded for such dubious remarks as these, reported by the Guardian:

During a rehearsal, conductor Sir Thomas…thought that his female soloist was playing less than adequately on her fine Italian cello. He stopped the orchestra and declared: “Madam, you have between your legs an instrument capable of giving pleasure to thousands, and all you can do is scratch it!” Once he described the sound of the harpsichord as “two skeletons copulating on a tin roof”; on another occasion he declared that “the British may not like music, but they absolutely love the noise it makes”. His pointed goatee beard, his proud and portly stature and, most of all, that dry, acerbic wit have passed into musical mythology. No other conductor could possibly have got away with saying: “There are two golden rules for an orchestra: start together and finish together. The public doesn’t give a damn what goes on in between.”

But to dismiss Beecham as an amusing relic is to deny his true musical gift. Beneath all the showmanship (which was really no different, for its time, than Leonard Bernstein’s well-documented public persona several generations later) was a dedicated promoter and interpreter of the arts. As the critic Charles Spencer writes in the Telegraph:

What I admire most about Beecham, and I have been collecting his recordings for many years now, is the palpable sense of style and enjoyment he and his orchestras almost always communicate. There may be more searching interpreters of classical music but for sheer pleasure Beecham often strikes me as unbeatable.

Audio courtesy of the NYC Municipal Archives WNYC Collection.

WNYC archives id: 150201Municipal archives id: LT5525

Yesterday, President Trump presented Argentine President Mauricio Macri with a CD containing approximately 3,300 pages of records relating to human rights abuses committed in Argentina between 1975 and 1984.  The documents are part of a comprehensive interagency project by 14 Government departments and agencies to search their archives and identify and review for public access records documenting these abuses.  They have been long sought by the Government of Argentina and researchers.

The documents released today are grouped into two collections.  The first group contains newly available information from previously withheld documents.  They were originally reviewed by the State Department in 2002 but reviewers determined they could not be released to the public at that time.  They provide new details on U.S. policies, information on specific abuse cases, and U.S. efforts to end abuses.  These documents are integrated into a database titled, “Argentina Declassification Project” and can be viewed here.

The second group of documents consists of records identified by State Department historians as they compiled the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) South America, 1977-1980 volume.  They document high-level policy discussions and deliberations as the Carter administration sought to deal with the Argentine dictatorship.  These documents were identified for inclusion in the Argentina and Latin American Region chapters and can be viewed here.

The Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB) has long recommended the importance of prioritizing records for declassification.  In 2012, we wrote our report to the President on Transforming the Security Classification System and focused on this recommendation in our 2014 report to the President titled Setting Priorities: An Essential Step in Transforming Declassification.  The recommendations in these reports advocated that the best use of department and agency resources should be spent on reviewing relevant topics of historical interest. The PIDB commends the cooperative effort by all departments and agencies undertaking exemplary projects like this one which are of great historical value and should become a prototype for the declassification of significant government information.

Other Links of Interest

The Department of State publicized these documents with a press release as well as through a DipNote blog post

IC on the Record has publicized the release on their official blog.

The release was publicized in Argentina, including in the Buenos Aires Herald, an English language newspaper.

In the U.S. the National Security Archive blogged about it and posted an Electronic Briefing Book here.

The Digital Library Center partnered with the Department of Art History to host a UROP student this semester, Chase Van Tilburg. Here is a bit about him and his work over the last two semesters.

My name is Chase Van Tilburg, I am working towards my Bachelor’s of Arts in Art History and my Masters of Arts in Museum and Cultural Heritage Studies. I currently work for University Housing as a Resident Assistant. In Fall 2016 I was granted the life changing opportunity to be a part of the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP). Through UROP I was introduced to the John House Stereograph Collection.

Going into this project, I was both excited and nervous. I truly did not know what to expect. I began with little knowledge of digital archival work and of what a Digital Archivist was. While working with the John House Stereograph Collection, I really looked deep into the images when identifying them. With each card I wrote metadata for, it felt as if I was a part of the image. Documenting each card forced me to dig deep into the historical and visual context of each image and do detailed research into each card to properly identify the locations, monuments, and architecture.

Working with this collection I realised that it is not enough to just look at the cards on the computer. The experience of physically handling each card and viewing them stereoscopically is an extraordinary and vital experience, one in which I want to make available to everyone. To do this I am taking this collection beyond the 2D digital image and am taking these cards into the 3D realm by scanning each card into a 3D model with the help of the FSU Morphometrics Lab. This project helped me to discover a passion for Museum and Cultural Heritage Studies, and for that, I will be forever grateful.

Approaching eighty, Socialist icon and perennial US Presidential candidate Norman Thomas surveys the political and moral state of America. Speaking at this 1964 Book and Author Luncheon, Thomas offers an interesting mix of unvarnished pessimism and Christian-Socialist uplift. He is able to discern “no straight moral progress of Man.” Indeed, wars of exploitation with their subsequent accumulations of capital are responsible for what we call “civilization.” But what are we to do now that large-scale war, with the invention of nuclear weapons, is no longer an option? On the other hand he complains we are not “elated” enough. We do not “rejoice.” With technological advances we are in a position to do away with poverty. What stands in our way? The population explosion, because of improvements in health and sanitation, threatens to overwhelm the world’s resources. The “religion of nationalism” still leads to small wars, “our time-honored arbiter of disputes.”

What he calls for is a massive expression of public opinion, which he insists is fundamentally good. “There is conscience,” although, “there is very little excuse for us being as dumb as we are.” Specifically, he calls for the passing of the current Civil Rights Bill. In closing, he warns against a pervasive feeling of helplessness, the attitude that nothing can be changed and that it would be best if the whole rotten corrupt system were simply swept away. The biblical Flood, he reminds the audience, was unsuccessful, so why wish for another? Instead he pleads for “…fraternity and, yes, love!” 

Norman Thomas (1884-1968) typified the Ivy League-educated gentleman-Radical of the twentieth century. A product of Princeton and the Union Theological Seminary, he started out as a Presbyterian minister before pacifism in the face of World War I lost him his congregation and gained him the attention of the Socialist Party. Thomas eventually left the ministry and developed a distinctive style of political engagement. The Nation reported: 

In last autumn’s campaign Thomas made more than sixty speeches in two months, most of them out-of-doors, and he wrote enough words to fill a double-decker novel—all because he had been nominated for alderman by a small local of the Socialist Party in a strong Tammany district. When the votes were counted, an ignorant Tammany optometrist, whose boast was “I never go outdoors during a campaign,” was sent back to the aldermanic chamber with a big majority. And now Thomas is running for President of the United States, as the leader of a party whose death has been officially announced time and again these past few years by conservatives and liberals and extreme radicals alike. No one need feel sorry for Norman Thomas. There is little glory in what he is doing. Long nights in stuffy sleepers, long days filled with speech-making in labor halls, at farmers’ picnics, at Socialist rallies; party conferences; newspaper interviews; pamphlet-writing; handshaking (at which, by the way, in spite of long practice Thomas is still singularly inept)—this is not most people’s idea of a good time. But Thomas is having a magnificent time. He is doing what he wants to do and doing it well. 

Thomas ran for Alderman, Mayor, Governor, Senate, and then six times for President. He presented left-leaning voters with a non-threatening alternative to Communism. Although he never amassed the totals of his predecessor Eugene V. Debs, he made respectable showings throughout the Twenties and Thirties and influenced the debate on where the country was heading. As Encyclopedia.com notes: 

As the Socialist candidate for president every 4 years, Thomas at least had the satisfaction of seeing much of his program taken over by Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. Many Socialists joined Roosevelt and the Democratic party, others left the party to endorse the Popular Front movement of the late 1930s, and still others left because Thomas opposed United States involvement in the European and Asian wars after 1939. Thomas gave his “critical support” to the American war effort after Pearl Harbor. Yet he also denounced the forced relocation and internment of Japanese-Americans, attacked big business dominance in the war production effort, and argued that Roosevelt’s “unconditional surrender” doctrine handicapped prospects for a just and lasting peace. 

In the post-War years Thomas became the Grand Old Man of Socialism, a benign, patriarchal figure whose stances prefigured much of the Sixties radicalism to come. This is the Thomas we are listening to here. His views are still uncompromising and perhaps unpopular with the well-heeled audience, but they are presented with all the spirit and optimism of a former minister. As the Educational Technologies Center of Princeton website reports, in a speech given to the students of thirty countries just before his 83’rd birthday he:

…castigated the United States for its policies in Vietnam and its inadequate antipoverty efforts, but he insisted nevertheless that he had affection for his country as well as criticism. He didn’t like the sight of young people burning the American flag. “A symbol?” he asked, “if they want an appropriate symbol they should be washing the flag, not burning it.” He thought loyalties necessary in life. “Most of us live by our group loyalties . . . but we have to rise above them to the values of humanity so that we can co-exist lest we don’t exist at all.”

Audio courtesy of the NYC Municipal Archives WNYC Collection.

WNYC archives id: 150523Municipal archives id: RT159

This week’s featured magician isn’t technically a magician, but rather a magician’s most classic, well-loved, time-honored sidekick: the rabbit.

There’s a bit of debate about the first magician to pull a rabbit from a hat–some say it was Louis Comte, in 1814, while others claim it was John Henry Anderson, “The Great Wizard of the North”. Either way, rabbits in hats have become synonymous with stage magic, as evidenced by the expressively-eyebrowed fellow above.

Today’s featured rabbits span decades, but all are taken from various covers of Ireland’s Magic Company Yearbook. We made a rabbit-y collage to showcase some of these soft sidekicks!

You can find issues of Ireland’s Magic Company Yearbook, along with innumerable other rabbit illustrations, in our John H. Percival Collection on Magic.

The Institute on World War II and the Human Experience has partnered with the Digital Library Center to bring selections of its holdings to DigiNole. Some of the recent additions are from the Frederick C. Jackson collection. We welcome guest contributor Emily Woessner, the student who is processing the Jackson collection and completed the description for the digital items.

Frederick C. Jackson was a 21 year old infantry soldier from Connecticut when he was shipped to Anzio with the 180th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division during World War II. I myself am 21 years old, but instead of fighting in the Battle of Anzio I am processing Jackson’s collection here at the archives of the Institute on World War II and the Human Experience at Florida State University. After researching the battle and connecting the dots, I am reminded and beyond grateful for the service and sacrifice of these brave men.

Beginning on January 22, 1944 the Battle of Anzio would be a four month long ordeal between British and American Allies against the Germans in Italy. The main goal of this campaign was to break through the Gustav Line just south of Cassino, Italy. Another potential aim was to take Rome. The Allied campaign was led by British General Holder Alexander, American Lieutenant General Mark Clark with the help of American Major Generals John P. Lucas and Lucian Truscott.

The Battle of Anzio, unfortunately, turned into a poorly executed campaign that saw too few Allied troops assigned to such a major task. The Allies had roughly 75,000 troops compared to the German’s 100,000+. After four months of fighting, gridlock, and a command change the Allies were eventually able to capture Rome, but ultimately unable to break the Gustav Line. The Battle of Anzio saw the death of 7,000 and wounding/missing of 36,000 Allied soldiers. The Germans sustained losses of 5,000, wounding/missing of 36,000, and the capture of 4,500 soldiers. Although the campaign was widely criticized afterwards for its poor handling and communication, Churchill defended it saying it accomplished the goal of keep German troops occupied and away from Northwestern Europe where the invasion of Normandy was to take place several months later.

Frederick C. Jackson was not left unscathed by the battle, however he did survive. On March 23, 1944 he was hit by shrapnel causing damage to both of his arms and the loss of his right eye. He was subsequently evacuated and returned to the U.S.

We are fortunate enough today though that the letters between Frederick and his parents along with a few other personal belongings have found their way to our Institute. The new digital collection includes those letters as well as a diary from 1944. We are given a chance to revive this young man’s story and reflect on all he and his fellow soldiers did for this country and the world. I recommend anyone taking the time to glimpse into the past so that they may better understand and appreciate the present.

Emily is a third year international affairs major with minors in German, museum studies, and art history. Since August 2016, she has worked as an assistant archivist at the Institute on World War II and the Human Experience at FSU and will continue to do so until she graduates in spring 2018. This summer she looks to expand her archiving experience as she embarks on an internship at the National Museum of American History in Washington D.C.

I’ve known her — from an ample nation —
Choose One —
Then — close the Valves of her attention —
Like Stone —

I have heeded beautiful tempters…*

All 25 graduates of the Class of 1850.

Open the valves of your attention and heed the beautiful tempters of the Class of 1850, William Austin Dickinson’s class. These students were all known to the Dickinsons, some better than others, some mentioned in Emily Dickinson’s surviving correspondence, some not.  The class had 25 graduating members,** and there are daguerreotypes for all of them in the Archives and Special Collections.  Unfortunately, most of them are unidentified.  Even worse, the class members graduated into a world of extreme facial hair, so in trying to put names to the 22 unidentified daguerreotypes one must attempt to match a smooth-shaven 22-year-old with a hirsute 75-year-old who left off shaving upon leaving Amherst and never picked it up again.  Believe me, it hurts:

Daniel Worcester Faunce at his 50th Reunion.

Even so, we know or have good guesses for many of the graduates, in particular those who wear a fraternity pin in their daguerreotype. For example, there were four students known to be in Alpha Delta Phi, Austin’s fraternity. Three of them had been identified earlier, but the fourth remained unidentified until the daguerreotypes were conserved and their details became clear and allowed us to see the fourth student wearing the Alpha Delta Phi pin. By elimination, then, this would be John Howland Thompson, Austin’s roommate in their sophomore and junior years.

Delta Upsilon had three members, Albert Beebe, John Cory, and Daniel Faunce. Beebe had a photograph taken when he became a missionary about five years later, so there’s something to compare against the daguerreotypes showing the Delta Upsilon pin. Faunce had three photographs online, and even though they showed him quite a bit older, they were helpful. Once again, we identified a potential Cory daguerreotype by the third pin.

When all the daguerreotypes were sorted by fraternity pins – or by no pin at all – and sorted against all the identified photographs of class members we found online, we were left with a small group of No Hopers.  For this handful, we couldn’t even guess their identities within two possibilities, the way we could with (for example) the five members of Delta Kappa Epsilon, three of whom were comfortably identified (Avery, Garrette, and Newton) with two that had to be one person or the other (Hodge or Nickerson). Even if we had tentative identification for the No Hopers, it wasn’t comfortable. Three of the five remaining are Augustine Milton Gay, Sylvester John Sawyer, and Thomas Morrill Stimpson.  They may be these three men — but which is which?

Another man we couldn’t identify is the Seed King, James J.H. Gregory. Yes, the charitable, ahead-of-his-time Seed King belongs to Amherst, which suggests that we may have missed the opportunity for a cruciferous mascot.  Although there are three older photographs of Gregory online, he still proved difficult to identify and we remain of mixed opinion about which student he might be.  Unfortunately for our purposes, he doesn’t seem to have belonged to a fraternity, so there was no help available that way either.  If we can agree on a match in the future, he should have his own blog post.

One student identified in a half-proven, half-hopeful way is Henry Shipley, apparently the bad-boy of the class. Shipley spent 1846-47 at Harvard studying medicine (he appears in a catalogue) before he transferred to Amherst in early May of 1847, when he shared a room with Martin Root ’49 in North College (“Shipley is my chum,” wrote Root in his diary).  While at Amherst, Shipley was an editor of the student paper the Indicator, which published Emily Dickinson’s valentine in February, 1850. Shipley commented on the valentine coyly, suggesting that he didn’t know the author when–even if Carlo the dog was the only tip-off–he probably knew perfectly well who it was.  After Dickinson signs off with “C.,” Shipley answers the valentine in the same romping style.

Shipley proves to be quite a character.  William Gardiner Hammond’s “Remembrance of Amherst, 1846-48” describes Shipley and another student sliding into campus drunk after a sleigh ride to and from Northampton:

It would appear from this account that Shipley’s nickname was “Chicken,” and I wish I knew why but I don’t. Now, you know the administration must’ve heard about Chicken’s caper, and sure enough, the Early Presidents Collection contains Henry Shipley’s required “confession,” a document unexamined until now:

Here’s what the letter says:

To the Faculty of Amherst Col.

Gentlemen

In addressing you upon a subject which has weighed heavily upon my mind I shall not attempt any palliation of the fault[.] But wish to express to you as a body, the sincere regret I feel in having thus wounded your feelings by committing such an open violation of your laws.

I know that I have disgraced myself. I feel it deeply. And that alone will I think deter me from the commission of a like offence. But the gratitude, which I owe you for your undeserved clemency in this affair is even a stronger barrier[,] and must not be expressed by me in words, but I shall endeavor to let my actions speak [“for” scratched out] That I may not abuse but repay your kindness is the heartfelt wish of your much obliged & humble sevt’,

H Shipley

Amherst Col’ Feb 29th 1848

The faculty minutes record the request for his confession and the result:

March 1st…A confession from Shipley was read, upon which Voted — that it be accepted.

Shipley got off rather lightly: he wasn’t expelled and his confession seems to have been the end of the matter.  However, John Thornton Wood, his partner in crime, was escorted off the property — the faculty minutes record that “Profs Warner & Snell be a com. [committee] to see that he leaves town tomorrow” — and sent home. The minutes are full of notes detailing which faculty member was assigned to write to the fathers of other students to describe their “deficiencies,” “deliquencies,” and “misdemeanors,” and often to take them home. It may be that Shipley’s talents kept him from being dismissed – Hammond mentions Shipley several times and describes him as “a first-prize man,” and Dickinson biographer Al Habegger pegs him as “a gifted reprobate,” identifying Shipley as the student whom Professor Tyler described as “one of the most hardened & hopeless & at the same time one of the most talented men of the Senior Class.” (Wars, p 237.)

Of course, despite the religious nature of the early college, drinking had always been at least an occasional problem. In “the Seed and the Sowers,” F. Curtis Canfield writes of the fall of 1821, shortly after Zephaniah Swift Moore had arrived in Amherst on a cropped-tail horse to take on the presidency of the new college, when “an [Amherst] Academy pupil, one Charles Jenks, had invited certain college students [including a young Edward Dickinson]***…to his rooms after nine o’clock for an oyster supper and ‘that after supper they had cherry rum and gin, that they drank to excess, and that about twelve o’clock they all of them came to the institution and behaved in a very indecent and riotous manner and made great disturbance until one o’clock or later.’ Which goes to show that the authorities couldn’t be too sure, always, that Old Scratch had been driven off Mt. Zion. ‘Segars’ and cherry rum and oyster suppers were a mighty potent combination – the road to infamy and ruin was paved with them.” (Seed, p. 19.)

Shipley seems to have remained on the straight and narrow enough to graduate, even though in his final months at Amherst he managed to insert a story in the Indicator that quotes Swift on the subject of inebriation — it was as if he couldn’t resist poking a finger in the eyes of the administrators who would read the piece:

To be continued,” indeed.  Shipley’s subsequent career sounds suitably adventurous.  Initially, he returned to Harvard and briefly studied law (he appears in a catalogue for 1850-51), then he is said in later accounts to have been a druggist in Kentucky (presumably using what he learned at Harvard before he went to Amherst).  Then he headed west and worked as an editor on several newspapers in California and Oregon.  In 1854 we find him as the editor of “the Grass Valley Telegraph,” the newspaper for a gold mining town in Nevada County, California.  It was at this post where he met dancer-actress-adventuress Lola Montez, who, in a respite from her career, also took up residence in Grass Valley.  In November 1854 Lola and Henry Shipley had at least two documented encounters: in the first, she pulled a gun on him, and shortly thereafter she took a horsewhip to him.  The story was recounted in several newspapers — his account and her account were repeated enough to reach Amherst and the eyes and ears of the Dickinsons.  They both left Grass Valley in 1855.   Shipley’s old acquaintances would have heard of him again in November 1859, when he committed suicide almost a year after he fell off a horse, sustained severe injuries, and suffered from depression.  Montez’s earlier taunt, reframed from one Shipley had thrown at her, seemed apt — “Sic transit gloria Shipley.”  To recap his career, then:

In attempting to identify Shipley among our daguerreotypes, we must go by a fraternity pin, the number of students attached to a given fraternity, and one source that refers to him as a blonde. And then there is that flamboyant personality.  All these things lead me to hope with all my heart that the following image is Shipley because no other daguerreotype suits his biography so well.  Note his rings, his manicured fingers, his fancy, patterned neckcloth, and the fraternity pin, gilded by the photographer no doubt at the sitter’s request since no other daguerreotype in this group has this detail.   Is he not a beautiful tempter?

************************************************************

* Quotations above from Emily Dickinson, excerpts from Johnson Poem 303 and Letter 35 (April 3, 1850).

**The graduating members of the Class of 1850 are: William Fisher Avery, Albert Graham Beebe, Henry Walker Bishop, John Edwin Cory, Minott Sherman Crosby, William Austin Dickinson, John Graeme Ellery, Daniel Worcester Faunce, Thomas Legare Fenn, Edmund Young Garrette, Augustine Milton Gay, Archibald Falconer Gilbert, George Henry Gould, James John Howard Gregory, Leicester Porter Hodge, George Howland, Jacob Merrill Manning, Jeremiah Lemuel Newton, Joseph Nickerson, David Temple Packard, Sylvester John Sawyer, Henry Shipley, Thomas Morrill Stimpson, John Howland Thompson, and Lyman Richards Williston.

***Polly Longsworth reminds me that Edward Dickinson was among the cherry-rum drinkers in this affair and that his friend Osmyn Baker alludes to it in a letter to Dickinson from this period (the letter is at Harvard’s Houghton Library) .

Have you planned your next holiday? Do you enjoy poring over travel books, dreaming about exotic locations? If so, you might want to take a look at the display in the library stairwell.

The display of 19^th century books on travel and exploration includes several beautiful books about India, Jamaica, Morocco and New Guinea. There is also a book about David Livingstone’s explorations in Africa.

The books are all from Innerpeffray Library in Perthshire ( http://www.innerpeffraylibrary.co.uk/).

Have you planned your next holiday? Do you enjoy poring over travel books, dreaming about exotic locations? If so, you might want to take a look at the display in the library stairwell.

The display of 19^th century books on travel and exploration includes several beautiful books about India, Jamaica, Morocco and New Guinea. There is also a book about David Livingstone’s explorations in Africa.

The books are all from Innerpeffray Library in Perthshire ( http://www.innerpeffraylibrary.co.uk/).

As the weather’s warming up, you may be considering a refresh to your spring and summer wardrobe. Luckily, we have an 1869 issue of The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine to help you find the season’s most stunning looks.

First and foremost, of course, one must consider the proper bonnets: billowy, floral, and decidedly dainty.

Once one’s coiffure is properly obscured, it’s time to shop for the essentials–layered silhouettes, miles of ruffles, and all the best trends to try this spring!

Embrace the season in this breezy day-to-night look, which includes ample tassels and a wee parasol to help you keep your cool street-side.

If you’re ready to trade in your sarong and get creative with this season’s swimwear, our magazine has some beach-ready looks for you:

For those who prefer strolling to swimming, we have an airy ensemble that also sounds like a spooky plumbing malfunction:

If you’re searching for hot summer looks for the whole family, may we suggest these voluminous ensembles for your young lady’s puppet-watching needs?

This smart and wearable ensemble is perfect for feeling giddy near swans:

We hope these bold styles and versatile classics will help inspire your new look!

Future New York City Mayor Ed Koch opens this 1969 Conference on Marijuana at the Guggenheim Hall of the Mount Sinai Medical Center School of Nursing.1 He hopes it will be

“a blue-ribbon panel to examine the medical, social and legal questions involved—an authoritative study that sweeps away old myths and shibboleths and establishes in their place intelligent, up-to-date conclusions and recommendations.”

Mitchell Krause, host of Channel 13’s nightly news, moderates the panel of lawyers, doctors and advocates—with a break for a “cigarette or whatever.”

Dr. Joel Fort, professor at the University of California School of Welfare in Berkeley, and Bardwell Grosse, Director of the National Student Association’s drug studies program, both dismiss the “gateway drug” concept, and assert that marijuana is no more harmful than legal drugs like alcohol and tobacco. Harold Rothwax, a lawyer and director of the Mobilization for Youth Legal Services, shies away from providing a medical opinion, but believes that if it is harmful, the medical profession should treat abuse of the substance rather than the legal system.

Dr. Sidney Cohen, Director of the National Institute of Mental Health, and Dr. Henry Brill, Psychiatrist and Director of the Pilgrim State Hospital, both agree that there is a correlation between marijuana use and further experimentation with drugs like heroin. Brill further argues that consumption can result in aggressive behavior. Cohen, however, argues that there is no tendency to be aggressive but rather to withdraw and furthermore, no pharmacological quality in marijuana that leads to crime. Frederick M. Garfield, Assistant Director at the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, believes that a link between marijuana and further drug use is inconclusive.

With regard to the legal aspects of marijuana use, however, Garfield takes the most conservative approach. He declares that there is statistical evidence showing that marijuana use causes damage to individuals and society, argues that there is too much freedom to conduct drug experiments by “amateur investigators,” and that the public should not have “unrestrained freedom in the drug area.”

Garfield maintains that the benefits of laws regulating the use of marijuana outweigh the risks, but that there should be a clear and rational review of laws that penalize drug possession as well as proposed laws. Brill and Cohen similarly concede that current laws pertaining to marijuana are too excessive and deserve review—Cohen describes them as “…draconian, doing more harm than good.”

Grosse and Rothwax stand on the other side of the issue, arguing for full legalization; Rothwax qualifies marijuana use as an “invisible crime” and therefore too difficult to regulate. Criminalization of marijuana consumption, he further argues, is used as a tool to harass people of color, inhibits medical research, and represents a too-great invasion of privacy. Meanwhile, Dr. Fort calls for the decriminalization of all drugs in favor of focusing on broader social problems, riffing, “We should encourage people to turn on to the world around them, to tune into knowledge and feeling, and to drop into changing and improving the quality of American life.”

Reporting on the conference for the New York Times, C. Gerald Fraser separated the opinions of the speakers based on an age gap: “under 40 years of age supported legalization. The three others, over 40, opposed total decontrol.”2 Listening to the recording begs the question: If those “under-40-year-olds” supporting legalization are today the same “under-90-year-olds,” why haven’t the legal and medical questions surrounding marijuana been settled by now?

At the beginning of the recording, Koch—then a US Representative—mentions his hopes that the House of Representatives will pass a bill, under his co-sponsorship, to create a presidential commission on marijuana. Indeed, in the early 1970s, shortly after this conference, President Nixon appointed the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse, also called the Shafer Commission.3 In a report released in 1972, the commission concluded that marijuana is not addictive, does not lead to further drug use or crime and advocated for the decriminalization of marijuana possession, which would have vastly eased state and federal sentences. The commission did not recognize any medical benefit to marijuana nor was the goal to create a path for legalization, but rather to “de-glorify, de-mythologize, and de-emphasize the use of marijuana and other drugs.”5 

The report failed, however, to elicit a response from the White House. The commission was just beginning its research when Nixon declared the so-called “War on Drugs,” with marijuana being added to the most punitive classification of drugs in the Controlled Substances Act of 1970. Later, Nixon indicated his opposition a year before the report was released, stating that “Even if the commission does recommend that it be legalized, I will not follow that recommendation.”4

President Richard M. Nixon turns to Attorney General John Mitchell, right, after signing the Controlled Substances Act in Washington, Oct. 27, 1970, as others look on.
(Associated Press/AP Photo)

Each president has since continued the policies created by the war on drugs, particularly President Ronald Reagan who signed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 and 1988. These laws created mandatory minimum sentences and focused on increasing penalties for possession of crack cocaine, a provision that disproportionately affected those with low income and people of color. According to a 2000 report by Human Rights Watch: 

The war on drugs precipitated soaring arrests of drug offenders and increasing racial disproportions among the arrestees. Blacks had long been arrested for drug offenses at higher rates than whites. Throughout the 1970s, for example, blacks were approximately twice as likely as whites to be arrested for drug-related offenses. By 1988, however, with national anti-drug efforts in full force, blacks were arrested on drug charges at five times the rate of whites.6

In 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act, which reversed the mandatory five year minimum sentence for possession of crack cocaine and directed the United States Sentencing Commission to review its guidelines. Marijuana, however, is still considered an illegal Schedule I substance under federal law and is not considered medicine by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, despite becoming legal in several states for medical and recreational use. In a March 15th speech, Attorney General Jeff Sessions signaled an increase in federal enforcement of drug policies. 

I realize this may be an unfashionable belief in a time of growing tolerance of drug use. But too many lives are at stake to worry about being fashionable. I reject the idea that America will be a better place if marijuana is sold in every corner store. And I am astonished to hear people suggest that we can solve our heroin crisis by legalizing marijuana – so people can trade one life-wrecking dependency for another that’s only slightly less awful. Our nation needs to say clearly once again that using drugs will destroy your life.7

Learn more about the War on Drugs from On the Media.

–

[1] Unfortunately this recording is incomplete. The five open reel tapes that comprise this recording were found in a previously uncataloged group of recordings, mainly ranging in date from 1968 to 1970. 

[2] “Easing of Laws on Marijuana Proposed at a Conference Here,” New York Times, June 21, 1969

[3] Dr. Henry Brill, a panelist at the Conference on Marijuana, was also a member of the Shafer Commission.

[4] “Excerpts From the Report of National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse,” New York Times, March 23, 1972

[5] “National Commission to Propose Legal Private use of Marijuana,” New York Times, February 13, 1972

[6] Punishment and Prejudice: Racial Disparities in the War on Drugs, “VII. Racially Disproportionate Drug Arrests,” Human Rights Watch, 2000, Vol. 12, No. 2

[7] Attorney General Jeff Sessions Delivers Remarks on Efforts to Combat Violent Crime and Restore Public Safety Before Federal, State and Local Law Enforcement, Richmond, Virgina, Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Audio courtesy of the NYC Municipal Archives WNYC Collection.

WNYC archives id: 150790Municipal archives id: T7805-T7809

We are pleased to announce that descriptions and accompanying scans for the records of prominent Vancouver-based jeweller Toni Cavelti are now available. The Toni Cavelti fonds contains over 2,400 drawings and design materials, promotional materials, correspondence related to the design of a necklace for Queen Elizabeth, and an unpublished autobiography. We have made a small subset of his drawings and transparencies available on flickr.

A promotional photograph showing a gold necklace.
Reference code: AM1670-S2-F3-: 2016-051.385

Cavelti was born in Illanz, Switzerland in 1931. When he was fifteen he began his apprenticeship with the goldsmith Richard Bolli in St. Gallen, Switzerland. He completed his apprenticeship in 1950. Soon afterward he moved to Geneva and began work at a watch and jewellery atelier in an industrial setting. There he felt unable to fully utilize his skills and expand his craftsmanship. After seeing a painting of the Vancouver Harbour in a display at a hotel, he made the decision to move to Canada. He arrived in Vancouver on June 13, 1954.

Designs from Cavelti’s first workbook, 1946-1950. Photo by Kristy Waller. Workbook described at Reference code AM1670-S1-: 2017-005.03

After his arrival in Canada, Cavelti worked as a goldsmith for another jeweller for just over a year until he had saved enough to open his first shop. Never interested in mass production, he operated his jewellery business with a vision of quality and craftsmanship guiding his practice. Between 1956 and 1999 he ran his jewelry shop and though the location moved, one thing remained; he established connections and friendships with his clients, artists and neighbours wherever he went.

View of Cavelti’s storefront at 692 Seymour Street. He operated out of this location between 1971 and 1991. Reference code: COV-S509-: CVA 778-418

Always in a jacket and a tie, often his white coat, Cavelti maintained a sense of respect for his customers that was central to his business. During one of my conversations with him, he demonstrated the way he would sit down across from a customer and draw a piece for them upside-down so that they could see the drawing as he was completing it. Cavelti considers himself a craftsman and emphasizes that he designed jewellery for his clients, many of whom he maintained very close relationships with over the years.

Drawing by Cavelti showing the necklace he designed for Queen Elizabeth, winner of a Diamonds International Award. Reference code: AM1670-S1-F18-: 2016-051.466

The Toni Cavelti fonds contains over 1850 original drawings of jewellery. Included is the original drawing of the necklace that he designed for Queen Elizabeth. In 1971 the government of British Columbia commissioned him to create the design. He also designed a bracelet for Princess Anne. Princess Anne was ill the day her appearance in the bracelet was scheduled and there are no photographs showing her wearing the design.

Album page showing a quartz brooch by Cavelti that was on display at Goldsmith Hall, London in 1961. Reference code: AM1670-S1-F19-: 2016-051.444

Cavelti had a very successful career and worked hard to make a name for himself in Vancouver. In 1961 he was the only Canadian participant to show work in an exhibition of contemporary jewellery at Goldsmith Hall in London, England. The work shown was a brooch with natural quartz from Switzerland. Cavelti told me that this was his favourite piece he ever designed. He was the recipient of four Diamonds International Awards; considered to be the ‘Oscars’ of the jewellery industry, they are awarded for excellence in diamond jewellery design and craftsmanship. The first award won by Cavelti was for a ring design in 1957 and he was awarded another for a brooch design in 1963. He won his third Diamonds International Award for his necklace design for Queen Elizabeth and his fourth was awarded in 1977 for a pavé-set platinum necklace.

18-carat gold brooch, influenced by the contrast of the density of downtown Vancouver and the natural landscape. Reference code: AM1670-S2-F3-: 2016-051.321

Although Cavelti considers himself a craftsman, his work displays impeccable technique and a unique vision. This style was not only influenced by his training and background, but also by his surroundings. Both the physical and social landscape of Vancouver informed his work. He became friends with local artists and architects and what he learned from them can be seen in his designs.

Gold bear mask pin, design by Bill Reid.
Reference code: AM1670-S2-F3-: 2016-051.461

After a successful and long career, Cavelti sold his company to Birks in 1999. Cavelti continued to design and consult there until early 2008. Since 2008 he has been working on wire sculptures, spending time with his family and managing a building he owns in downtown Vancouver. We would like to thank Toni Cavelti for donating his records to the City of Vancouver Archives, and for his subsequent generous financial support of their description and digitization.

Jazz pianist, publisher and educator Art Hodes (1904-1993) took over hosting WNYC’s Metropolitan Revue jazz show from Ralph Berton on April 6, 1942. The weekday broadcast specialized in playing jazz records by pioneering musicians. The longer Saturday broadcasts showcased many of the same performers live in the studio. Among them: Eddie Condon, Max Kaminsky, Pee Wee Russell, Brad Gowans, Bill Davison, George Wettling, Miff Mole, Tony Parenti, Mezz Mezzrow, Red Allen, James P. Johnson, Leadbelly and Charles ‘Cow Cow’ Davenport.

Writing in the December 1972 Esquire magazine, Hodes described his year-long stint as host and disc-jockey.

Lunch is on you; so is carfare.  They do furnish the needle.  You bring your own records. But if you want the music to live you got to do somethin’ about it.  So there I am; a six-day week.[1]

Hodes would later expand on this in his 1992 memoir explaining the half-hour weekday slot and hour-long Saturday afternoon shows.

Now when I first took the show I had my little wind-up Victrola, like all the other musicians, and about twenty-five records that I always carried around, maybe a few more. Gene [Williams] and Ralph [Gleason] supplied me with records and wrote me a script, daily. All I had to do was talk. And I could play the piano too. We use Louis Armstrong’s intro to West End Blues as my theme, and usually I played myself off the air. Saturday afternoon I had guests. And in no time I had a lot of listeners, thousands of younger people, plus the players who got up in the middle of the night (1:30 in the afternoon) to give a listen. I remember Pee Wee Russell telling me, ‘I catch your show all the time. Keeps me from having to play my records.’ [2]

Hodes was spinning records other stations couldn’t or wouldn’t, including King Oliver, the Dodds brothers, Jimmie Noone, Earl Hines, Jelly Roll Morton, Jimmy Yancey, Pinetop Smith, and Fats Waller. After a few months he was comfortable and didn’t need Gleason and Williams to prepare a script for him. Still, he had a lot of help from the jazz, blues and boogie woogie legends who came to the studio as Saturday guests. The above audio is a rare sampling of the Saturday show from the Fall of 1942. It opens with Leadbelly doing the theme song Goodnight Irene from his 1940-1941 WNYC program, Folksongs of America. He follows it with Don’t You Love Your Daddy No More, Christmas is Coming, and  Fannin Street (Mr. Tom Hughes Town). Then stepping up to the mic is Gene Hall with a wonderful rendition of Pinetop Smith’s Boogie Woogie. He follows that with a portion of his own Gene Hall Blues before the aircheck cuts out.

The photograph above of Hodes with Charles ‘Cow Cow’ Davenport originally appeared with an article by music critic John S. Wilson in the progressive tabloid PM on June 8, 1942. In that piece, Wilson wrote that Davenport, who had been on the Metropolitan Revue a few days earlier, laid claim to the name ‘boogie-woogie.’ He wrote: “Blues tunes, in Cow Cow’s home, were not considered respectable. So, when he secretly knocked out a little blue stuff, he called it ‘boogie music’ in honor of a current synonym for the devil. Later, playing in honky tonks where the dancers were addicted to the scraunch, a rhumba-like step, Cow Cow referred to both the dancing and his piano accompaniment as ‘boogie-woogie.’ ” [3]  Unfortunately, performances like this didn’t last. What we now consider a typical record show with the host introducing or back-announcing a track’s album label and title was, as Hodes writes, misconstrued by the powers-that-be over WNYC.

“We have an audience we can’t count. So now the letters pour in.  I can’t answer ’em.  I have to do it over the air.  I’m mentioning, ‘This is a Decca recording; or Victor; Columbia. Well now, La Guardia (Mayor La Guardia) usually is on and off the air long before my stint.  But this one time he follows me on.  So he hears me.  And he’s mad.  ‘Get him off the air; he’s commercial.’  (He heard mention of the record labels. )  Hell, I couldn’t afford a secretary to answer all the inquiries.  And (well, he didn’t know) those records I mentioned were either my own or loaned to me.  So I was there a year before the good mayor heard me once more and there went the gig.”[4] [5]

It is unfortunate that Mayor La Guardia thought Hodes was promoting records he’d been given by the record companies like some kind of payola. Hodes wrote of the show’s demise and what he considered the paucity of listenable jazz radio at the time.

There was a lot of heat generated, and many letters poured into WNYC. All to no avail. I could resign or get fired. I slid off gracefully. But while I was there I accomplished a lot. It’s barren. If it were food, I wouldn’t eat it; if it were a book, I wouldn’t read it. Why do we settle for such trash where our ears are concerned?[6]

Before the WNYC gig went belly-up, Milton Roseman, writing in PM, called Hodes a “man with a message” and said that ever since he took on the radio show, “he has been a New York voice of the jazz cognoscenti.”[7]

Hodes went on to edit The Jazz Record for five years and play with his own band in the Chicago area for some forty years. In the 1960s he appeared in the TV series Jazz Alley and toured in Europe in the 1980s. He was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame in 1998. Art Hodes died in 1993 at the age of 89. 

__________________________________________

[1] Hodes, Art, “Jazz: The Sweet, Slow Comeback,” Esquire, December 1, 1972.

[2] Hodes, Art and Chadwick Hansen, Hot Man: The Life of Art Hodes, University of Illinois Press, 1992, pgs. 55-56.

[3] Wilson, John S., PM, June 8, 1942, pg.23.

[4] Hodes, Art, Esquire, December 1, 1972.

[5] The cancellation of the Metropolitan Revue wasn’t the first time Mayor La Guardia brought about the end of a WNYC program. A few years earlier ‘The Little Flower’ did not appreciate musicologist Theodor Adorno’s music appreciation series. See: Frankfurt School Theorist on WNYC in 1940.

[6] Hodes, Art, Hot Man, pg. 57.

[7] Roseman, Milton, “Just a Hot Man Playing for Kicks,” PM, February 2, 1943, pg. 19.

The Florida State University Heritage Museum exhibit Degrees of Discovery examines the history of science at Florida State, tracking the school’s development from early educational institution to twenty-first century research facility. Since the late nineteenth century, science has served as a fundamental aspect of education at Florida State University and its predecessors. After World War II, a surplus of wartime laboratory equipment and veterans allowed FSU to meet the increasing demand for science education across the country. Early programs focusing on physical sciences laid the groundwork for the development of advanced courses in a variety of fields, including meteorology, oceanography, chemistry, and physics. The creation of innovative research facilities offered new avenues for interdisciplinary collaboration and continues to encourage scientists from around the world to take advantage of the advanced technologies offered on and around the Tallahassee campus.

The process of creating this exhibit included extensive research into both the history of the University and scientific trends throughout the past century. Though Heritage Protocol & University Archives contains a wide array of scientific photographs from the 1950s and 60s, locating a variety of primary source material to tell a cohesive narrative was a challenge. In addition, as a literature student, my scientific knowledge was sorely lacking. In order to contextualize FSU’s developments, I interviewed faculty and current students involved in the sciences to gain a wider understanding of practice and principle. Research also involved reading transcripts of oral histories, scanning negatives from laboratory photo sessions, tracking the development of honor societies, and comparing a century’s worth of course catalogs to determine how science education changed over time.

Another challenge of working with such a broad subject was that relevant items were spread throughout the collections of both HPUA and Special Collections. A newsletter published by the 1973 Speleological Society was tucked away in the Archives, for example, while a postcard donated by two alumni offered an early look at the Science Hall. Perhaps one of the most interesting finds was a set of hand-crafted lab equipment from the 1960s; as part of a chemistry class, students were responsible for creating their own glass stirring rods and tube connectors. During this time period, glassblowers on campus would even create unique, made-to-order equipment for scientists who needed a particular shape or style of instrument.

The practical side of installing the exhibit, however, limited some of our object selections. Because we cannot regulate the natural light from the large, albeit beautiful, stained glass windows in the Heritage Museum, older photographs were digitally reproduced and mounted to avoid damaging the original items. Adhering images to foam board for support and cutting them down to size was more difficult than I anticipated – straight lines and I clearly don’t get along – but with the help of the Archives Assistant, the resulting photos offered an impressive visual timeline of the school’s scientific evolution. Curating this exhibit was an incredible learning process about creative design, museum principles, and even some scientific facts. Degrees of Discovery offers visitors a glimpse into the ever-changing world of science while reminding us that the basis of discovery – curiosity, inquiry, and creativity – will always be a part of human nature.

Degrees of Discovery: The History of Science at Florida State will be on display in the Heritage Museum in Dodd Hall beginning in mid-April. The museum is open Monday-Thursday, 11AM to 4PM. An online exhibit with additional content will follow.

News from the front, is how this 1941 meeting of the Town Hall Club and Cercle Français could be characterized. With World War Two raging, a representative of the Free French fighting in Africa has come to inform American audiences about that army’s progress. After a nervous welcome from Josephine Robb Ober, Society Editor for the New York World, toastmaster Paul Phelps-Morand starts off the proceedings by railing against a “stream of Vichy agents” who have been coming to United States in order to sway public opinion. He is pleased to present, in contrast, Dr. Raoul Aglion, a representative of the French government in exile, whose talk is optimistically titled Victories in the Desert.

Dr. Aglion describes how he was fighting with French forces in Syria when the infamous armistice agreement between France and Nazi Germany was signed. He and many other soldiers immediately made their way to Egypt, offering their services to the British. He then speaks more generally of “desertions” that followed, including an anecdote about French soldiers smuggling cup after cup of gasoline past guards so as to fill the tank of a nearby airplane which they then used to cross the border into British-controlled Palestine. He describes the earliest beginnings of what later became the organized Free French Forces. He then launches into an admiring description of the tactics employed in North Africa by Field Marshal Wavell. Straying somewhat from the main thrust of his remarks, he recounts the gaffe he made in referring to the language of Malta as a dialect of Italian. He was reprimanded by a native speaker of that island who informed him that Maltese is, in fact, Phoenician. At this point, unfortunately, the recording breaks off.

Raul Aglion (d. 2004) was a lawyer and politician before the war. As the Los Angeles Times relates in its obituary:

…Aglion served as a delegate of Gen. Charles de Gaulle in the United States, where he represented the Free French government in exile. After the war, he was appointed to the French Embassy in Washington and, working with the U.S. secretary of state and others, helped coordinate postwar planning. He also participated in drafting the charter of the United Nations, and he addressed the closing session of the U.N. General Assembly in 1945 in the name of France.

Afterwards, Aglion wrote several books on the Free French. His study of the relationship between Roosevelt and de Gaulle was awarded the History Prize by the Academie Française. 

Paul Phelps-Morand is remembered today for his controversial book The Effects of His Political Life on John Milton, in which, as quoted by Milton scholar Robert Thomas Fallon, he concluded, “Though not Machiavellian in character, he could, on occasion, for the Great Cause, stoop to Machiavellian means.”

Perhaps, disparate though these men’s writings may be, we can discern a way of dealing with what must have been, for each, the central historical event of his life.

…Maltese is, in fact, a Semitic language, related to Arabic, and may indeed have come to the island, via Sicily, from Phoenicia. 

Audio courtesy of the NYC Municipal Archives WNYC Collection.

WNYC archives id: 150203Municipal archives id: LT5700

On many personal notes, this collection is cool. One, I was a theater nerd in high school and I’ll be honest, I never gave much thought to the stage rigging. This collection is changing things. Two, J.R. Clancy calls my hometown its hometown. So, I’ve enjoyed getting to work with this collection which is a very good thing because we’ll be working with it in the Digital Library Center (DLC) for a long time into the foreseeable future.

The J.R. Clancy stage rigging firm was established by stagehand John Clancy in Syracuse, New York, in 1885. The firm is known for innovating products and techniques for stage design including the Welch tension floor block, the automatic fire curtain, and automated stage rigging. The collection itself includes architectural and engineering drawings related to construction and renovation projects managed by the firm, including theatrical designs, drawings for standard parts, wiring diagrams, and standard assemblies for stage rigging systems. You can see the finding aid for the collection in Archon.

The collection here at Florida State University was acquired through the School of Theatre several years ago with the idea that the collection would be digitized in its entirety in the future. Due to the nature of materials, and the scope of the collection (numbering in the the tens of thousands of drawings!), we’ve been doing some major planning and thinking through the digitization project. The collection itself is still in processing which adds another challenge on top of the volume of it. So, for the moment, the collection is being digitized by patron request through the Clancy firm. The first batch of materials is now available online through this process. This set of drawings are for rigging components for the Centennial Concert Hall in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada which is getting ready for a renovation project and wanted the original rigging plans for their upcoming work.

As we add more to this collection, we’ll be sure to highlight it here on the blog. In the meantime, the collection does have a finding aid and is available upon request in the Special Collections Research Center Reading Room.

The Claude Pepper Library highlights the life and legacy of Reubin O’Donovan Askew.

Reubin Askew was an American politician, who served as the 37th governor of the State of Florida from 1971-1979. During his administration, he became a tenacious advocate of tax reform, consumer protection, financial transparency, education financing, and civil rights. Most importantly, throughout Askew’s career he maintained an impeccable reputation for his integrity and loyalty to his family and all Floridians.

Reubin O. Askew, was born on September 11, 1928 in Muskogee, Oklahoma. In 1937, he and his mother moved to Pensacola, where Reubin graduated from Pensacola High School in 1946.  Later in 1946, he entered the United States Army as a paratrooper and was discharged as a Sergeant. Askew then attended college at Florida State University where he received a B.S. in Public Administration before joining the United States Air Force in 1951. Askew also served as president of FSU’s Government Association and student body president during his years at FSU. In 1951-2 he received his Masters’ degree in Public Administration from the University of Denver and Florida State University. In 1956, he received his LLB from the University of Florida. Over the course of his lifetime, Askew was granted 15 Honorary Degrees from multiple institutions.

Askew’s public official career began when he served as Assistant County Solicitor for Escambia County from 1956-1958. In 1958, he was elected to the Florida House of Representatives and then to the State Senate in 1962. During his tenure in the State Senate, he served as President Pro Tempore from 1969-1970. Askew was elected Governor in 1970 and again in 1974, making him the first Governor to be elected for a second, consecutive 4-year term.

After retiring as Governor in early 1979, Askew joined the Miami law firm of Greenberg, Traurig, Askew, Hoffman, Lipoff, Rosen and Quentell. In October of 1979, he was appointed by President Jimmy Carter as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary as a United States Trade Representative. In 1984, Askew became the first Floridian to run for President of the United States and in 1987 he announced his candidacy for United States Senate.

Following his political campaign activities, he and his wife, Donna Lou Askew, resided in Tallahassee, Florida, where Askew served as the Professor and Eminent Scholar Chair in Florida Government and Politics.

If you are a student or researcher, who needs primary resources on Reubin O. Askew, please feel free to come by the Claude Pepper Library to view the collection in its entirety. The collection consist of congressional correspondence during the time he served in the House of Representatives, Florida State Senate, and as Governor of Florida. The Pepper Library also has Askew’s campaign files, newspaper articles, photographs, audiovisual materials, memorabilia, and copies of speeches. A finding aid for the collection can be viewed online. The collection was donated by Reubin O’Donovan Askew in 2008.

Is Pornography a Threat to Today’s Moral Climate? is the question addressed in this 1967 panel discussion. Moderator Harry Lipsig is joined by Assistant District Attorney Elliott Golden, Neil Fabricant, Legislative Director of the ACLU, and James McGuinness, a representative of the anti-pornography group Operation Yorkville. McGuinness outlines his group’s campaign against local “smut dealers” who are corrupting today’s youth. Golden, while faintly endorsing Operation Yorkville’s actions, cautions that the DA’s office is not a censor, just enforcing the law. The ACLU’s Fabricant, noting that Operation Yorkville considers his organization “Public Enemy #1,” argues for “free expression” and questions why there are only lawyers on the panel, no psychologists or psychiatrists. McGuinness’s focus is on the vulnerability of children and their susceptibility to the “deviant” practices advocated in these magazines. Fabricant feels it’s up to the parents, not the state, to protect their children. Lipsig seems determined to bring the conversation around to miniskirts, should their length be regulated? When that fails to elicit much comment (other than one panelist smirking it would depend on the size and shape of the woman in question), he points out that Roman frescoes at Pompeii depict bacchanalian orgies. Should they be suppressed? McGuinness ripostes that the viewers of those frescoes got their comeuppance via the lava of Mount Vesuvius. He then lumps lesbianism with sadism and masochism. The conversation goes from the absurd to the surreal when the four start discussing one of Charlotte Morman’s avant-garde cello performances, speculating if her playing a bowed instrument topless had any relation to the myth of Amazons cutting off one breast to better draw the bow of their weapon in combat. It is, Golden of the DA’s office confesses, “beyond my musical imagination.”

Today’s audience-driven talk radio may have a lot wrong with it but one can hear in this well-intentioned bit of buffoonery what it is reacting against: a bunch of self-appointed experts, all of the same gender, race, and class, chummily debating what is “right” for the society as a whole.

Harry Lipsig (1902-1995) was a well-known attorney, though pornography and freedom of speech issues were not his specialty. Rather, he was valued for his ability to gain large settlements for accident victims. As the New York Times recounted:

In a career that spanned six decades, Mr. Lipsig became famous for his heart-wrenching courtroom depictions of the plight of accident victims and the huge jury awards his eloquence often elicited. The total amount of the awards he won is not known, partly because many of them were sealed out-of-court settlements agreed to by rival lawyers eager to avoid the open-ended uncertainty of a Lipsig-coaxed jury verdict. As they knew, once Mr. Lipsig got wound up and started vividly describing the years, even decades, of hour-by-hour agony and day-by-day suffering faced by his clients, there was no telling how unhinged a jury might become.

Elliott Golden (1926 – 2008) went on to become Judge of the Civil Court in 1976 and then a Justice of the Supreme Court in Kings County, NY. He served on the bench until 1999.

According to the website Hacks and Flacks, Neil Fabricant:

…was the New York Civil Liberties Union legislative director, chief counsel to New York’s Environmental Protection Administration, special counsel to a New York state senate majority leader,  a  member of the graduate faculty of the business school at  Baruch College, City University of New York, where he also directed a legislative policy institute and was the editor-in-chief of a monthly magazine on New York government and politics begun by the Ford Foundation. In 1987, together with a small team of faculty and consultants, he organized The Graduate School of Political Management as an independent, degree-granting institution. In 1995, George Washington University acquired the school and he retired as president emeritus.

The Yorkville Project was founded by Father Morton A. Hill (1917-1985.) James Sullivan, in his book Seven Dirty Words, The Life and Crimes of George Carlin, tells how Hill:

…a Jesuit priest with snow-white hair…spearheaded an effort to found a local anti-pornography campaign. Then known as Operation Yorkville, Hill’s group was created as an interfaith coalition, including as rabbi and a Lutheran minister. By 1967 the neighborhood group had grown into a national organization, renamed Morality in Media.

In 2015 the group changed its name again, to The National Center on Sexual Exploitation.

Audio courtesy of the NYC Municipal Archives WNYC Collection.

WNYC archives id: 8714Municipal archives id: T2094

April 6, 2017 marks the 100th anniversary of the U.S. entry into World War I. As the largest repository of American World War I records, the National Archives holds a wealth of content and information documenting the U.S. experience in this conflict, including photographs, documents, audiovisual recordings, educational resources, articles, blog posts, lectures, and exhibits.

In commemoration of this event, we’ve launched a World War I research portal with the goal of creating a central space for all National Archives resources and content related to World War I for use by researchers, students and educators, and those curious about the War.

Here you will find World War I records organized by subject and topic area, including newly digitized photographs and films, references, subject guides and finding aids. Throughout the portal you can find links to more information such as articles, blog posts, genealogy resources and online exhibits from the National Archives and Presidential Libraries.

Learn more about the news, events, and exhibits happening at the National Archives related to World War I, and browse our interactive timeline of World War I events.

Educators can find World War I documents and lesson plans using our DocsTeach tool, and we invite you to engage with our extensive collection of World War I moving and still images using our Remembering WWI app.

The app allows people nationwide to contribute their own stories and play a part in the centennial commemoration of the First World War. Building on an amazing moving image and photographic archive being digitized and preserved as part of a larger Wartime Films Project, the app features thousands of rarely seen public domain images and films to encourage discovery and creative reuse.

The National Archives is leading this national collaborative effort with participation from the Library of Congress and National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, the WWI Centennial Commission, the American Association for State and Local History, and the National WWI Museum and Memorial. This mobile app project was made possible through a generous gift from an anonymous donor.

Would you like to help make records more discoverable? We’ve created special tagging and transcription missions and challenges using World War I content for our citizen archivists.

While many resources are available online for research, there are many more records to discover in National Archives research rooms across the country. We will be updating our research portal as new resources become available online. You can also consult our Catalog to browse more records, and contact the Reference Unit listed in each description for more information.

From April 4 through May 3, 2017, the National Archives is commemorating the 100th anniversary of America’s entry into World War I with a featured document display in the East Rotunda Gallery of the National Archives Building. Learn more about the U.S. entry into World War I on our Prologue blog. 

‘Musical roots’: Creating a guide to family history resources in the MU Archive

The University of Stirling Archives is delighted to introduce a new graduate trainee programme supported by the Musicians’ Union which will provide hands-on experience working with the union’s extensive archive, improving access to this unique research resource. This three year project will provide an annual paid archive trainee post, each placement lasting eight weeks and including a stipend of £3,000.

Since its transfer to the University of Stirling Archives in 2009 the Musicians’ Union Archive has been one of our most used collections with researchers from around the UK (and further afield) using the collection for a wide variety of research projects. The archive also receives a large amount of enquiries from members of the public engaged in family history research whose relatives were professional musicians. In 2016 a new history of the Union was published which has generated further interest in the collection (Cloonan, M. & Williamson, J., Players’ Work Time – A Social History of the Musicians’ Union, Manchester University Press).

This year’s archive trainee will open up resources for family historians contained within the union’s records. The Musicians’ Union Archive contains a huge amount of historical information on its members. This material is of great interest to people researching their family history. However these records are scattered throughout the collection with the information being of varying detail and quality. The post holder will carry out a survey of the Archive, identifying material of genealogical interest, and create a guide to the family history resources available.

The timing of the eight week placement is flexible but we expect it to be completed before the end of July 2017.

Application information:

Please send a CV and supporting statement detailing why you are interested in the post and how it would benefit your future career to karl.magee@stir.ac.uk, marking your email MU Trainee 2017.

Closing date for applications is Friday 21 April 2017

Interviews will be held on Friday 28 April 2017

For further information please contact the University Archivist, Karl Magee at 01786 466619 / karl.magee@stir.ac.uk

The Musicians’ Union Archive provides a unique perspective on the cultural history of Britain over the last 130 years through the experiences and struggles of the musicians and performers who entertained a nation.

In 1982, a construction crew started what was supposed to be a routine de-mucking of a small pond in preparation for road construction of Windover Way. It is located in east central Florida, about 16 miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean. However, in the course of the construction work, human remains were discovered. Once it was determined they were not of forensic interest, the construction company contacted Florida State University anthropology faculty to create a research proposal for the landowners.

What followed was three field seasons at Windover from 1984-86 that uncovered the remains of 168 individuals as well as other culturally significant objects from a mortuary pond dated from between 6000-5000 BC. Because of the peat and small pond nature of the site, not only skeletal material but also normally perishable organic artifacts were also discovered. Perhaps most interestingly, enough brain matter was recovered from some skulls to conduct DNA sequencing on the remains.

A partnership with the Department of Anthropology is bringing data from the Windover digs to DigiNole. We have loaded the first batch of materials which includes field notes and excavation forms from the digs. More field notes and forms will follow shortly. We’ve also working with Digital Support Services at the University of Florida to digitize x-rays of the bones found at Windover. Maps and digitized slides from the seasons will come at a later date as well.

The DLC has been excited to work on this project as it lets us continue to develop models for these sorts of “split” projects where digitization is happening both in the Department of Anthropology and the DLC, allowing each group to work in their area of expertise as well as splitting the work to move forward in a more efficient way.

For more information about the Windover site and the work done there, see Doran, G. H., & Thomas, G. P. (2015). Windover: an overview. Tagungen des landesmuseums fur vorgeschichte halle, 13, 1-19. To see the digital collection, visit DigiNole.

It’s finally been feeling like spring in Rhode Island this week, which has everyone feverishly thinking about crocuses and tulips, budding trees, mud puddles, and every other seasonal motif one can list.

For instance, we’ve been dreaming about soft, fuzzy chicks…

Novellus Libellus institutionum pro tyronibus. Cologne: Thomas Odendall, 1742.

And loveable, huggable bunnies.

Conference program, New England Convention of Magicians. Boston: NECM, 1947.

Phew! Yikes! Happy spring!

The class of 1877 in Barrett Gymnasium in their class uniforms holding dumbells, February 1875. In physical education classes at this time, students stood in formation and executed synchronized calisthenic routines in time to live piano music.

Archives and Special Collections is pleased to announce the newly available Department of Hygiene and Physical Education Records. This collection documents Amherst’s groundbreaking Physical Education program from its early development in 1861 to the 1930s.

Amherst’s Hygiene and Physical Education department was the first of its kind in the nation. Interest in organized exercise had been growing for decades, along with concern about the perceived ill health of college students, who were presumed to spend all their time hunched over their books. Following the deaths of two Amherst students in 1855, President Stearns began advocating for a formal department of physical education to improve the strength and stamina of the student body. This department was approved by the Trustees in 1860 and, following a brief stint by John Hooker, Edward Hitchcock, Jr. (son of the former president and graduate of the class of 1849) was appointed professor of Hygiene and Physical Education in 1861.

Hitchcock developed a system (later known as the “Amherst Plan”) of mandatory group calisthenics (known as light gymnastics) four days a week for all students, along with voluntary strength training (heavy gymnastics), classes in anatomy and healthy living (“hygiene” courses), and extensive measurements of all students taken throughout their college careers. These measurements were used to demonstrate the progress made by individual students and to prove the efficacy of the program as a whole.

Hitchcock’s passion was for the application of scientific methods to the field of strength training and health building. Anthropometry is the study of the human body using detailed measurements; this field was developing when the Amherst program started and came into its heyday in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Hitchcock was a notable figure on the national stage, writing articles and presenting at conferences about the anthropometry program at Amherst.

In addition to collecting measurements of individual students physical size and capacity, Hitchcock and his successors also recorded extensive health histories, and gathered statistics on a variety of topics like handedness, tobacco use, and eyesight. Most concerning, from a more modern perspective, they also gathered information on students’ national and ethnic backgrounds. The use of anthropometry for measuring and promoting physical health and development was a positive face of what eventually developed into the eugenics movement and this darker aspect can be seen in places throughout the collection.

In the 1890s, additional faculty joined the department, but the format of the courses and philosophy of the department didn’t start changing for a couple more decades. Eventually the mandatory daily classes were dropped along with calisthenics and hygiene courses; the measurement of students ended in the 1940s. By the late 1940s, the Physical Education department more closely resembled its modern counterpart, with courses in team sports and a focus on athletic training and coaching. This collection covers the period to 1933, the year when the department changed its name to drop the “Hygiene”, this symbolic shift was chosen as a cut-off point for the collection. More recent Physical Education records are also available in Archives & Special Collections.

The records of the Hygiene and Physical Education department contain a wide variety of records, from syllabi for hygiene courses and record books showing gymnasium attendance to student measurements and annual reports presented to the Board of Trustees on the department’s activities. Of particular interest are more than a dozen volumes of bound memorabilia created by Professor Hitchcock to document the history of the department, many of the items in these volumes have Hitchcock’s notes on them. Hitchcock was an avid collector (or, less kindly, a real hoarder) and his collections of college history materials formed the foundation of the current College Archives.

These records are a rich resource in many areas: not just the history of physical education, but also student health and understandings of health, the development and promotion of the study of anthropometry, constructions of masculinity, muscular Christianity, and the student experience at Amherst in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The interior of Pratt Gymnasium in 1885. Visible in this picture is gymnastic equipment, the piano for accompanying group classes and bleachers on the balcony for public exhibitions.

Today marks the start of the countdown to Gold Coast 2018, with one year to go to the Games. This morning we visited the Scottish Government building at Victoria Quay, Edinburgh, where our Hosts and Champions exhibition is currently on display to celebrate the occasion. The event provided an opportunity to meet with the Active Scotland Legacy 2014 team who have been great supporters of our Hosts and Champions project, and legacy partners Street Soccer Scotland.

Celebrating #1YTG at Hosts and Champions exhibition, Scottish Government, Victoria Quay, Edinburgh.

With another Commonwealth Games on the horizon we’re delighted with the continued interest in our Hosts & Champions exhibition, which celebrates Scotland’s contribution to the competition, with a number of additional venues across Scotland confirmed for 2017 and 2018.  For further information check our project page and updates on Twitter using #HostsandChampions

Material collected during the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games.

Over the next twelve months we will also be collecting material relating to Team Scotland, preserving a record of Scotland’s participation in the 2017 Commonwealth Youth Games and the 2018 Commonwealth Games. This material will be added to our Commonwealth Games Scotland Archive, which preserves over 80 years of Scottish sporting heritage.

Material from the Edinburgh 1970 Commonwealth Games held in the Commonwealth Games Scotland Archive.

Theater critic, playwright, singer and editor Eric Bentley will turn 101 later this year. Throughout his long and distinguished career, he is perhaps best known as one of the preeminent experts on Bertolt Brecht. Bentley is also known for his works of criticism, as well as his scholarship and opposition to the House Un-American Activities Committee.

We’ve pulled two interviews with him from our collections.  The first (player above) was by Eleanor Fischer, who produced reports and documentaries for the CBC in the 1960s and opened NPR’s New York city bureau in the early 1970s.

 Wolf Biermann auf dem Stadtteilfest in Hamburg-Eimsbüttel 1977
MoSchle/Wikimedia Commons

In this 1967 interview they begin by discussing the banned East German singer and poet Karl Wolf Biermann and how Bentley came to meet him. He likens Biermann to Bob Dylan and Joan Baez and says he is among a new style of poets under 30 who sing their poems and circulate the text on mimeographed sheets.  Bentley suggests he is a rebel who has not broken with communism but seeks a newer and more libertarian type of communism akin to Rosa Luxembourg. Bentley suggests that the economic situation in East Germany has improved for workers but become more repressive for intellectuals, that, in fact, the East German state is far more Stalinist than anywhere else in the east. Still Bentley believes the regime is afraid of Biermann, which is why they want to silence him. He suggests the poet and singer is ‘a sleeping beauty, waiting for his kiss’ and that his silencing is only temporary. 

Fischer and Bentley talk about the need for international publicity that acts to protect artists who are under attack from the state. If the artist or activist is forgotten, then the leadership can do away with them. Bentley argues, however, that Biermann isn’t looking to be a hero of anti-communists. He is and remains a communist who supports anti-colonial wars of national liberation. Bentley describes Biermann’s style of music as reminding him of traditional cabaret and American folk music, and sometimes classical German lieder seeps through.

The discussion turns to how Bentley got involved with Brechtian scholarship and Brecht’s politics. Fischer wants to know how and why Brecht is now popular in the United States. Bentley suggests Brecht’s anti-war themes and the war in Vietnam and ‘drift of world politics’ are factors, as well as the current climate and appearance of political satire attacking President Johnson.  Bentley talks about Brecht’s communist sympathies and criticism from critic Martin Esslin and his disagreement with Esslin. The veteran critic believes Brecht’s irony, spirit, anarchism, cynicism, biting wit, and discontent all feed into Brecht’s current popularity. He ads that the portrayal of homosexuality is also a factor.  Bentley suggests that the more modest efforts at rendering Brecht’s work have been more successful than the more established productions.

The two discuss Brecht’s reconciling his pacifism and sympathies with communism. The discussion wraps up with Bentley’s plans for the future, including a political cabaret on the upper west side of Manhattan.

 ____________________________

In a May 31, 2000 interview with Leonard Lopate, Eric Bentley talks about a recently published compilation of his theater criticism, What is Theatre? incorporating dramatic events and reviews he wrote between 1944 and 1967.

Eric Bentley circa 1960.
(Courtesy of Eric Bentley with thanks to American Theatre.)

As the caretakers of Special Collections, staff work diligently to preserve the integrity of materials for future researchers. This includes reducing materials’ exposure to light and preventing fluctuations in temperature and humidity within carefully controlled environments. Interaction with collections usually occurs in the Reading Room to ensure these conditions can be regulated. Sometimes, though, materials leave the Special Collections vault in order to venture into the wider world. Class instruction sessions are a way to bring collections directly into the hands of students who might otherwise never know of their existence.

Recently I led an instruction session with the Manuscript Archivist for the course Travel in the Ancient World. The class was held in the Special Collections instruction room where students observed several types of ancient texts, including cuneiform tablets, papyrus fragments, and Greek and Latin ostraka. For many students, this was their first experience with Special Collections materials; as some of the oldest items in the library, the ancient texts arguably offered one of the more dramatic introductions to our holdings. The 2,000 year old papyrus fragments, for instance, were previously used as mummy cartonnage – layers of linen or papyrus covered in plaster as part of Ancient Egyptian funerary masks. Seeing these objects up close allowed students the chance to create tangible, meaningful connections to otherwise distant ideas.

When collaborating with professors about class visits, it’s often helpful to communicate in advance so Special Collections can provide the best supporting materials for the course. In this case, a course on travel meant we wanted to highlight letters and other mobile documents. Preparing for the session involved studying translations of the materials to cultivate a selection that would match this need while also representing the collection as a whole. Class sessions offer the Special Collections instructors just as much opportunity to learn about the collection as the students – and perhaps even more so. In an effort to prepare for any questions that arise, we study the stories and context of our materials as diligently as possible. That way, if a student wants to know how our cuneiform tablets compare to the Flood Tablet, or why some ostraka were written in Latin instead of Greek, we can provide the answer.

So while teaching assistants teach and research assistants research, graduate assistants get the best of both worlds. We not only learn more about our collections every day, but we then get to teach others about the incredible histories behind our objects, hopefully inspiring students to visit us again after class lets out.

“Peace with Russia depends on us,” the former ambassador and governor declares in this talk on American-Soviet relations. Speaking at a 1959 Books and Authors Luncheon to promote his book Peace with Russia, Averell Harriman reflects on his recent visit to Russia and his meetings with Khrushchev.He attempts to explain the difference between the “new” Russia of Khrushchev and that of Stalin. While both leaders were committed to world revolution, Stalin relied on the failures of capitalism to stoke the flames of revolt, whereas Khrushchev now feels the visible successes of the Soviet economy will attract like-minded leaders to emulate the communist system. Stalin felt he was the equal of Lenin, a “creator of the religion.” Khrushchev, by contrast, is “a disciple,” well-versed in Marxist-Leninist ideology but not possessed by the same messianic fervor. Instead of the Terror, there is party discipline.

Harriman disagrees with the then-fashionable Powder Keg Myth, that the Soviet Union is so rotten and volatile that a single spark will lead to its collapse. On the contrary, this patrician millionaire, businessman, veteran diplomat, and politician, seems to have a very clear-eyed grudging respect for our adversary. He admits there are lots of “gripes,” particularly about housing, but admits that people are generally accepting of the regime. Because such a tight grip is maintained on education there is no radical student class. Though the people are “brainwashed” by incessant propaganda, it is up to the United States to deal with the USSR as an equal, not feed the frenzy of anti-communism by name-calling and needlessly aggressive acts. Throughout this speech, delivered in Harriman’s much mocked hesitating monotone, one feels he is not talking down to the audience but genuinely attempting to make his points. It’s an interesting counterpoint to the Red Scare hysteria which dominated so many headlines of the day. 

Averell Harriman (1891-1986) had a career in public service that appears almost unimaginable today. Heir to enormous wealth (his father was a railroad baron), Harriman was an indifferent student noted mostly for his polo prowess when he was swept up in the idealism of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. He worked his way through a series of increasingly high-level appointments in the Roosevelt administration, eventually becoming this country’s wartime ambassador to the Soviet Union. An important figure in the Truman administration as well, he is credited (or charged) with encouraging the Truman Doctrine of containment which contributed to the Cold War. When Eisenhower came into office, Harriman surprised many by showing political ambitions. In 1954, running as “Honest Ave,”  he was elected Governor of New York. His presidential ambitions were thwarted in both 1952 and 1956 when he lost the Democratic party nomination to Adlai Stevenson. He then returned to positions of diplomatic power under the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, focusing on peace missions to Southeast Asia.

The New York Times, in its obituary, notes that:

Patience, persistence, resourcefulness, a grasp of detail and a shrewd sense of how to get things done were among the qualities that helped Mr. Harriman win his high government appointments in the administrations of four Democratic Presidents – Roosevelt, Truman, Johnson and Kennedy – and to get his work done, decade after decade, with a striking degree of success. He also benefited from much hard work and, notably as Ambassador in Moscow, from an independent-mindedness that was nourished by the awareness that he did not need his salary. As he put it: ”Fortunately, I’m not dependent on my job to eat and, therefore, have a certain independence. That is a great advantage.” And there was his sheer gusto: Neither age nor shifting political winds could wither the enthusiasm of William Averell Harriman for affairs of state. His lanky, somewhat stooped figure was present in the highest councils of the nation and the world for four decades, so long that to many Americans he was the country’s superdiplomat.

As noted above, Harriman does not sound like a politician, neither hectoring nor pleading with his listeners. He does not weasel or waffle like a career State Department employee, either. There is something endearingly uncharismatic about his public persona. Despite his fantastic wealth and fascination with power, which enabled him to “bond” with such disparate types as Churchill and Stalin, he seems to have inspired an almost universal loyalty in those who served under him. Thomas W. Wilson, the Information Officer during Harriman’s stint implementing the Marshall Plan, recalls:

I did know Harriman very well and worked with him several times. I don’t know anybody who worked with him, if they could work with him, who didn’t love him. He was a man who was absolutely totally committed to what he was doing. He worked like a dog. He expected you to also, but he didn’t expect you to do anything he didn’t do himself. He was really a wonderfully effective person. Everybody felt they had to respect him.

Audio courtesy of the NYC Municipal Archives WNYC Collection.

WNYC archives id: 150521Municipal archives id: LT8896