Sunshine Week is an annual initiative designed to raise awareness of the importance of citizen access to Government information.  This commemoration coincides with National Freedom of Information Day and James Madison’s birthday (March 16).

We reaffirm the principle that an Open Government is essential in our democracy.  An informed citizenry, actively participating in debating and discussing the actions of its government leaders, is only possible when they have all necessary access to government information.  In December, we issued our supplemental report, Setting Priorities: An Essential Step in Transforming Declassification, as an aid to government policymakers and practitioners.  This report provided six recommendations to support improved declassification policies.  The recommendations focused on prioritizing declassification to those records that are most sought-after by the public and those records that are historically significant and of interest to policy makers, citizens, historians and researchers.

We continue to advocate for new policies to implement an improved declassification system.  These new policies are necessary as government information generation increases.  We believe that technological solutions offer the only answer to the long-term challenge of managing this exponential growth of information across government.  There remains an ever-increasing amount of government records and digital information inaccessible to the public.  Prioritization will set-up this information for a public access review, but providing real access will require automated workflow tools, advanced search and retrieval capabilities, and content understanding technologies if we want to seriously amend the system and increase declassification to an acceptable level.

In 2015, the PIDB intends to focus on learning more about these technologies and how they can be used to increase and improve declassification.  The PIDB will continue advocating for their testing and implementation at the National Declassification Center and at agencies.  We have long-supported the idea that modernization requires the adoption of these technologies.  We look forward to working with the Security Classification Reform Committee, agencies and the public to advance our mutual goal of reforming our policies and practices for today’s digital age.

The Georgia Sea Islands may not be known for too many things, but music is certainly one of them. An area of relative isolation, it’s a region steeped in the cultural history of the Gullah – descendants of African slaves with a unique language, history and musical tradition all their own. And it’s music from the Sea Islands that’s of particular interest to scholars, partly because it provides an authentic representation of slavery-era songs of the lowland and coastal regions of Georgia and South Carolina.

Perhaps the most well known singer from the Sea Islands was Bessie Jones, who along with Mabel Hillary and others in the 1960s, travelled the U.S. performing songs and other elements of the Gullah culture. This recording is unique because it captures a stirring solo performance by Hillary.

Listen to the entire interview and performance below. Audio courtesy of the Dave Sear Folk Music Collection.

WNYC Adventures In Folk Music with Guest Mable Hillery. 1967

(NYPR Archive Collections)

The Hosts and Champions Podium

As we prepare to open our touring Hosts & Champions exhibition at Trinity Church, Irvine, to the public this Friday, Jocelyn Grant, one of our Exhibition Assistants, provides a re-cap of the opening preview. 

For Commonwealth Day on Monday, a preview of the Hosts and Champions Exhibition went ahead before its full opening this Friday.

Our medal display

After several weeks of arranging the displays, creating additional iPad materials and the preparation of captions, the preview was opened by a few notable speakers:

• Lesley Forsyth – Cultural development manager for North Ayrshire Council welcomed and introduced the exhibition and each guest

• Margaret Burgess – Minister for housing and welfare, MSP for Cunninghame South

• Michael Cavanagh – Chair of Commonwealth Games Scotland

• The baton bearers from North Ayrshire Suzanne Fernando and her daughter shared their experience of carrying the baton for Glasgow 2014, and why they were chosen

• Joan Sturgeon – The provost, North Ayrshire Council rounded off the speeches by officially opening the exhibition

Kuala Lumpur Uniforms

The opening preview on Monday 9th March

The opening preview on Monday 9th March

The exhibition will now be open every Monday, Friday and Saturday between 10am to 4pm in Trinity Church, Bridgegate, Irvine, starting this Friday 13th. The exhibition will run from March 13 to April 17.

This is the first venue of the Hosts and Champions touring exhibition, and after Irvine this show will travel to:

Carnoustie – April 20th – May 25th

Back to Stirling to the MacRobert Centre – July 20th – September 7th

Dalkeith – September 14th – October 26th

Dumfries – October 26th – November 30th

Stranraer December 7th – 28th

Some unique banners created from Glasgow 2014 flags and signs by members of the North Ayrshire community

So if you cannot make it through to see the exhibition in Irvine, watch out for it visiting a town near you, as more venues and tour stops are still being arranged. Up to date information about the tour can be found here and on the University of Stirling Archives twitter, with #Hostsandchampions.

It was a momentous time in our country’s history when the Pulitzer Prize-winning American historian, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. delivered a talk about the United States Constitution at the New York Public Library on October 6, 1987. Not only was it the year in which the nation celebrated the 200th anniversary of the Constitution’s existence, but it was also a period when Ronald Reagan’s presidency was testing the integrity of the cherished document. The ongoing revelations of the Iran-Contra affair were the back drop for Schlesinger’s remarks.

Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. was the former speechwriter for Adlai Stevenson who left a professorship at Harvard in 1961 to become an adviser to President John F. Kennedy. Schlesinger found a teachable moment in the Reagan Administration’s scheme to covertly trade weapons with Iran in return for the release of American hostages and to fund the Contras, the anti-Socialist rebels in Nicaragua. He noted that the clandestine presidential provision of aid to the Contras violated a law recently enacted by Congress and proved wrong those who claimed the Executive Branch had grown too weak. Furthermore, Schlesinger saw the scandal as a stark reminder of the wisdom of the Constitution’s Framers, who understood the fundamental importance of separation of powers between three co-equal branches of our national government. The Congressional inquiries and the Federal Court trials that shed light and imposed punishment on Contra-gate operatives served to block, albeit imperfectly, Executive overreach.

Schlesinger says the Framers wanted a strong central government but also knew that checks and balances were needed to preclude any president from becoming too strong. Alexander Hamilton, for instance, forcefully argued against granting a president arbitrary power to rush into conflict with other nations. Congress, vested with the exclusive power to establish armed forces and make war, was meant to have equal power with the president in guiding foreign policy. What this means, according to Schlesinger, is that decisions about war and peace are not to be made hastily; they must be made within the framework of discussion and deliberations between the president and Congress.

“It is a delusion to think that on matters of foreign policy the president is better informed than Congress,” Schlesinger asserts. He has firsthand knowledge of the type of blunders a president can make when deciding foreign policy from within a bubble: Schlesinger attended the 1961 meetings JFK held with the Armed Forces Joint Chiefs as they planned the infamous, covert Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. To his profound regret, the historian did not raise objections at these meetings, which led to one of America’s greatest military and foreign policy fiascoes.

Schlesinger does see uses for covert action. (Indeed, as an analyst just after World War II for the Office of Strategic Services, the precursor of the Central Intelligence Agency, he worked closely with America’s first Spymaster, William Casey). But he emphasizes that “there should be a presumption against Executive secrecy”: Schlesinger believes a president who operates in secret subverts our Constitution — the oldest in the world — by creating an imperial Executive Branch. His acclaimed book, The Imperial Presidency, analyzes the furtive methods President Richard Nixon relied upon to abuse power and undercut the Constitution. Unfortunately, the tactics developed by the Nixon Administration formed a template for the Reagan Administration.

The author of numerous books about American Liberalism in the 20th Century as embodied in the administrations of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and JFK, Schlesinger says that truly effective presidents know what needs to be done and are able to make their case to Congress and, thus, the American people. In his view, Reagan and his advisers decided that their landslide second term victory entitled them to act in secrecy. The Administration came to believe that it was “the savior of the world.” Quoting JFK, Schlesinger notes a wise president must understand that “we are not omnipresent or omnipotent [and there] . . . cannot be an American solution to every world problem.”

While Schlesinger states “the Constitution can’t guarantee against presidential incompetency or stupidity,” this unabashed liberal believes Americans should be proud of how the checks and balances built into our much admired system of government blocked further secret excesses by Reagan. “What better way to celebrate the Constitution’s Bicentennial?”

One of the amazing things about New York City’s Cinemobile program was that it operated all year round.  Unlike the seemingly endless outdoor screenings that take place here in the summer, the Cinemoble showed movies all winter long in a converted, and presumably unheated, school bus. 

Operating from 1966 to 1971, the bus showed mostly children’s movies but staff also offered art activities and reading programs. This audio is taken from a 1971 WNYC special report and includes interviews with two Cinemobile employees at a time when the program was ending due to budget cuts. 

New York City’s Cinemobile 1968

(New York Parks Department)

New York City’s Cinemobile 1968

(New York Parks Department)

New York City’s Cinemobile 1968

(New York Parks Department)

I previously shared the story of Keio University, who benefited from attending our 2013 partner meeting — I wanted to share two more “member stories” which have roots in the OCLC Research Library Partnership.

• La Trobe University talks about the importance of tracking researcher activity (something we heard about in our “Registering Researchers in authority files” activity.
• UCLA’s member story focuses on their need to deal with born digital materials (and, of course, we’ve done a lot of work in the born digital zone).

OCLC member stories are being highlighted on the OCLC web page — there are many other interesting and dare I say inspiring stories shared there, so go check them out.

In honor of the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Natural Bridge, we are re-posting an entry that was originally published on March 6th, 2013 by Eddie Woodward.

Almost from its inception, there had been a military and cadet component at West Florida Seminary (1851-1901), predecessor to Florida State University. With the commencement of the Civil War in 1861, this aspect of the school’s curriculum increased in importance, so much so that the State Legislature proposed changing the name of the institution to the Florida Collegiate and Military Institute. Throughout the War, the students served as something of a home guard, occasionally guarding Union prisoners of war and always on call in the event of a Federal threat to the capitol. In early March 1865, that threat was realized when word came that a Union fleet had landed troops on the Gulf coast at the St. Marks lighthouse with the probable intention of capturing the capitol in Tallahassee.

The invading forces, commanded by Brigadier General John Newton, moved northward from the coast, hoping to cross the St. Marks River at Newport and attack St. Marks from the rear. Local militia was called out to delay the Union advance, and among those were cadets from West Florida Seminary. At noon on March 5, the cadet corps assembled at the school and marched to the state capitol where they were enlisted and sworn into Confederate service. The cadet’s principal, Captain Valentine M. Johnson then led them to the Tallahassee train station for their journey southward to meet the invaders. Johnson was a veteran and had served honorably in the Confederate Army until 1863 when he was forced to resign for health reasons. It is nearly impossible to accurately determine the number of cadets that participated in the campaign. However, reasonable estimates put the number at around twenty-five, with their known ages ranging from eleven to eighteen. At the train station, Johnson filtered out those cadets, mostly the youngest of the corps, that would not participate. Others were left behind to continue their home guard duties and to man fortifications as a last line of the capitol’s defense.

The cadets and other Confederate troops boarded a train in Tallahassee which carried them south to Wakulla Station on the St. Marks Railroad. From there, they marched six miles to the small village of Newport. There, in the late afternoon on March 5, they joined forces with a portion of Lieutenant Colonel George Washington Scott’s 5th Florida Cavalry Battalion and a small contingent of Confederate marines and militia. Scott’s men had skirmished with the Federal troops the previous day, gradually falling back from the East River Bridge toward Newport. It was at that bridge that the Union forces hoped to cross the St. Marks River, enabling them to move against St. Marks and perhaps Tallahassee. At Newport, the cadets occupied a line of breastworks running parallel to the river along its west bank. From there, they commanded the approaches to the East River Bridge, which Scott’s men had partially burned. Federal troops on the opposite side of the river still hoped to force their way across and a skirmish soon developed. By nightfall, the firing diminished, and everyone waited in their positions to see if the Federals would resume the conflict the next morning. It was in those trenches on the banks of the St. Marks River that the young cadets from the West Florida Seminary received their baptism of fire.

Newton, frustrated in his efforts to cross the St. Marks River at Newport, learned of another crossing upriver at Natural Bridge. At that location, the St. Marks River ran underground for a short distance, creating a natural crossing point. In anticipation of such a move, the Confederate General William Miller positioned Scott’s cavalry at Natural Bridge with orders to delay a crossing until reinforcements could arrive. At dawn on March 6, a battle erupted with the Federal forces unable to force their way across the span. The cadets were soon ordered out of their entrenchments at the East River Bridge and marched along the Old Plank Road to reinforce Scott’s men at Natural Bridge. One mile from the battlefield, two cadets peeled off to aid the wounded at a field hospital. The rest continued on, all the while the sounds of cannon and musket fire growing louder.

When they reached the battlefield, the cadets were positioned near the center of the Confederate line, a giant crescent enveloping the Natural Bridge. There they immediately dug trenches to protect them from enemy fire and were instructed not to fire unless a charge was made on an adjoining Confederate battery. In these early stages, the battle was primarily an artillery engagement and the cadets could do little more than wait it out with the rest of the defenders. All attempts by the Federal troops to cross at Natural Bridge were stymied with heavy losses. The worst fighting occurred in front of the Confederate line in a dense hammock that covered the crossing. The cadets were not heavily involved in this action but remained under constant artillery and musket fire. Cadet Lieutenant Byrd Coles credits the Seminary’s teachers on the battlefield with the safety of the cadets: “no doubt many of the cadets would have been struck if our teachers had not watched us constantly and made us keep behind cover.”

With the arrival of reinforcements, the Confederate troops counterattacked, charging across the bridge and driving the Federal troops a short distance. At this instance, the Union General Newton, realizing that Natural Bridge, like the East River Bridge at Newport, was too heavily defended to cross, ordered a retreat back to the St. Marks lighthouse and the protection of the Federal fleet. The cadets were then ordered to return to Newport to guard against another attempted crossing there. However, the Federal forces had had enough, and the cadets’ active duty had come to an end.

The Confederate victory against the Federal invasion was complete. Confederate casualties numbered three killed and twenty-three wounded (three mortally), with Federal losses totaling 148. The cadets from West Florida Seminary suffered no casualties. With the battle won, some of the cadets returned to Tallahassee, while others remained at Newport where they guarded two Confederate deserters that had crossed over to the Federal army and had been captured during the campaign. After the cadets witnessed their trial and execution, they escorted a group of around twenty-five Federal prisoners of war back to Tallahassee. On their return to Tallahassee, the cadets were welcomed as conquering heroes. A ceremony was held in the State House of Representatives chamber of the state capitol, where the cadets were presented with a company flag. Cadet Hunter Pope accepted the flag in the name of his comrades. It is uncertain what became of the flag, and it is thought that it returned with the cadets to the Seminary and was probably taken by Federal troops when they occupied Tallahassee after the War.

The Confederate victory at the Battle of Natural Bridge had no effect on the outcome of the War, and in less than a month, Robert E. Lee would surrender the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House in Virginia. The terms of Joseph E. Johnston’s surrender of the Army of Tennessee seventeen days later, included the surrender of Confederate troops in Florida as well. On May 10, Federal troops under the command of Brigadier General Edward McCook took possession of Tallahassee. The Federal army captured and paroled approximately 8,000 Confederate soldiers, including twenty-four cadets. It is thought that some of the cadets simply returned home after the surrender and before being formally paroled.

Tallahasseeans fondly remembered the service provided by the West Florida Seminary cadets. Beginning in 1885, the state of Florida granted pensions to Confederate veterans, and two years later, they were also extended to home guard units, which included the cadets. Sixteen former cadets applied for pensions, while several others endorsed the applications of their comrades. The Tallahassee chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy issued Southern Crosses of Honor to the former cadets who applied for the award, and they received tributes as “The Youngest of the Young Who Wore the Gray.” That phrase, forever associated with their participation in the battle, is inscribed on a monument at Natural Bridge Battlefield, which is today a state park.

As a result of the cadet/students participation in the engagement, on February 28, 1957, the FSU Army and Air Force ROTC units were officially presented with battle streamers by Governor LeRoy Collins in a ceremony at Doak Campbell stadium. Today the Florida State University Reserve Officers’ Training Corps detachment is permitted to fly a battle streamer as a result of the School’s participation in the action at Natural Bridge. It is one of only three colleges and universities in the United States which is permitted to do so. In the 1990s, the campus ROTC Building was renamed the Harper-Johnson Building in honor of Captain Valentine M. Johnson and a twentieth century Air Force ROTC graduate who rose to the rank of general.

Recently, the Museum Objects course installed an exhibit in Strozier Library commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Natural Bridge, and will is open until late March. There is also a digital companion to the exhibit which can be viewed at http://naturalbridge150.omeka.net/.

For a fuller account of the battle, see David J. Coles,  “Florida’s Seed Corn: The History of the West Florida Seminary During the Civil War,” Florida Historical Quarterly 77, no. 3 (Winter 1999): 283-319.

It’s time for our March blog post, so I have crawled out of the dark recesses of the archives to bring you a selection of books on Texas Independence to commemorate Texas Independence Day which was on March 2nd!   Several of our collections have a nice swath of different books and materials on Texas history—especially about the Alamo, to no one’s surprise.  While I didn’t pull out any of those, (how can I pick between “The Alamo” and “The Fall of the Alamo”?) I did find a few firsthand accounts of Texas at the time of its revolution which, if you’re anything like me, you will find more engaging than ten books about the battle at San Jacinto.

But first, since this is about independence, we cannot forget to mention the document asserting such a concept.  The Signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence is a thorough series of biographies for each man who signed the declaration back in 1836.  If you’re looking to go a little beyond Sam Houston, you might like to take a look at this book.  Also of interest might be The Men Who Made Texas Free, an older book on the same subject.

If you’d like to read about the whole thing from beginning to end, but not out of a textbook, then I would suggest checking out our signed copy of Texas Independence by Andrew Jackson Houston, the son of the famous Sam Houston.  Obviously a biased report on the subject, but a rare and interesting version to peruse.

Now, I know I promised firsthand accounts, so here they are.  First, I have two books from men who traveled from Austria and Germany to Texas and found themselves fighting in the revolution.  The first is Memoirs of George B. Erath.  Erath recounts how his draft-dodging in Austria and thirst for something new and far away led him to Texas, and how his job surveying land led him to fighting Comanches and then in the Battle at San Jacinto, and even past that to the time of the Civil War.  Often I believe we forget that not all of the men in Texas were originally American or Mexican.  The other, With Milam and Fannin, tells a similar tale of the German Harman Ehrenberg, who joined the Greys, a volunteer militia from New Orleans who fought alongside the Texans.  These firsthand accounts of the fighting provide a more human look into what it was like to be among those fighting for independence.

If you’re looking for someone a little more famous, then we do have a copy of The Life of Colonel David Crockett, an autobiography/diary which follows Davy Crockett from his youth all the way up to just before his death at the Alamo, tied up by an epilogue of sorts from the editor.  Unfortunately, I could find no official record of his supposed quote “You may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas,” but it is an interesting read all the same.

As before, I like to save my favorite find for last, so here’s a little something I pulled off the shelf on accident and knew I had to include.  It’s titled The General’s Tight Pants and no, it’s not a romance novel about Sam Houston, though for a brief moment I had to wonder.  It is two letters sent from Edward Warren, a man from Maine who was on a trip in Texas in the winter of 1836, right before the signing of the declaration.  His letters include a description of Sam Houston, whom he met, and explain that his pants were much too wet and too small—which I find to be a strange detail to include in a letter to your father, and yet, I know I would have said the same.  The most fascinating bit about these letters, besides the idea that a man from Maine would up and decide to just check Texas out for no clear reason, is that he very nearly avoided being in San Antonio at the Battle at the Alamo.  Had his party not changed routes at the last minute, he may well have been killed there by the Mexican forces.  It’s the sort of thing that makes you think, what if?

Of course, we have a lot more about the Texan Revolution (so many books about the Alamo! So many!) in our Beretta and Beretta-Nicholson collections, so if you’d like to check any of them out, come on by Special Collections any weekday during the school year between 1:15 and 5pm.  We hope to see you here!

–Darcie Marquardt, Class of 2016

In 1937, WNYC’s popular Sunday morning program was dedicated to the “shut-ins” of New York City. Whisperings and Musings spoke to those who were bound to the home or hospitalized and in need of a little entertainment, a word of cheer, and of course, “greetings upon the celebration of birthdays and anniversaries.” Many listeners sent in their own poems about forgotten love, historical events, boyhood memories, and even about how cars were going too fast on the streets in the 1930s.

From the About Page in the program notebook:

Whisperings and Musings – Fan Mail About Page

(NYPR Archives Collection/NYPR Archive Collections)

Station chief, Commissioner Frederick Kracke, reached out to fellow Commissioner of Hospitals, Dr. Sigismund Goldwater, to promote the radio show in various hospitals.

Whisperings and Musings – Fan Mail Commissioner Letter

(NYPR Archives Collection/NYPR Archive Collections)

Most listeners wrote they were pleased with the various poems read or the singers featured on the show. Among the most requested performers were: Dorothy Wood, Connie Alba, and the Chordsters. Who were they? We’re looking into it.

Whisperings and Musings – Speed on the Streets Poem

(NYPR Archives Collection/NYPR Archives)

While most letters praised the show, helping the lonely find solace with the radio program, some were displeased, like this letter from David:

Whisperings and Musings – Fan Mail May 9, 1937

(NYPR Archives Collection/NYPR Archive Collections)

David was dissatisfied with the way the song “Old Man River” was played on air. “Now I think that the song should never have been allowed to be played in such a manner. The song should be played in the original and only way, and records of the song can still be obtained!”

Some letters pleaded with program producer J. Berger to be given the opportunity to perform on the show, like this butcher who really just needed to catch a break:

Whisperings and Musings – Fan Mail Butcher Letter

(NYPR Archives Collection/NYPR Archives)

This is just a brief glimpse of the many letters sent to Whisperings and Musings. Although there are no extant broadcast copies of the show, these letters do help provide the reader with a sense of program and what it meant to its listeners in 1937.

To see more fan mail, check out the Whisperings and Musings Tumblr Page!

During World War II a number of WNYC staff went to serve in the armed forces. To keep them up to date with what happening at the station, The Transmitter newsletter was launched in early 1944. Edited by newsman Mike Jablons, it was a typical in-house publication featuring staff updates, happenings, changes and challenges for the municipal station in wartime New York. Recurring columns included “Patch Chords”, “The Mailbag”, and “Behind the Mike”, which Jablons wrote himself. 

The Transmitter was sprinkled with humor (often sexist) and generally made an effort to kep the news upbeat, while informing its uniformed readers of marriages, births, adventures and incidents within the WNYC community. “The Mailbag” consisted of letters addressed to the station from staffers abroad. The radiomen tell of their training, trials and travails, but mostly of how much they missed their radio home and “that lady atop the Municipal Building,” a reference to the gilded copper statue of a woman called Civic Fame.

From April 1944 Transmitter “Mailbag”

(WNYC Archive/WNYC Archive Collections)

Because of wartime security the newsletter was prohibited from publishing the addresses of those abroad but Jablons would connect those in the service with the addresses of their fellows in arms if they wished to correspond with each other.

Letters from abroad

(WNYC Archive/WNYC Archive Collections)

Among the highlights mentioned are a fire in the Municipal Building, election night, D-Day, and WNYC’s 20^th Anniversary. But for the most part it’s an informal effort by staffers to stay in touch in “this war-torn world” with news of familiar spaces and co-workers happenings, no matter how common place. Details of a broken water cooler and Jablons accidentally flipping the power switch in Master Control are included.

We’ve created a page where you can read through all of the issues of The Transmitter that we have from 1944, generously donated to the WNYC Archives by former newsman Edward Goldberger. You can read an excerpt of a letter from Edward himself in this post.

The depths of the East River have long been a treasure trove of unexpected finds. In this episode of New York: A Portrait in Sound, you’ll hear from some of the divers who braved its murky waters in the 1960s.  

From the 1950s to the 1970s, Barney Sweeney was an independent professional diver, hired to recover items lost in New York Harbor and its adjoining rivers. He surfaced many items, both strange and mundane, and collected some good stories along the way. Barney was one of the divers interviewed for this episode on East River Divers.

Submerged in the waters of the river, visibility is low, as sediment clouds the water, and divers would have to go very much by feel. Barney Sweeney would float above the riverbed and probe the mud with a long pole to avoid raising clouds of unsettled muck around him. 

In his day, Sweeney made newspaper headlines with some of his finds, which included cars, washing machines, and a murder weapon he found stuck in the branches of a submerged Christmas tree—a pistol that shone there “like an ornament.” (New York Magazine did an article more recently about strange things found in the river.)

Below you can hear Barney tell the intriguing tale of recovering a diamond worth $25,000.

Sweeney also frequented the pages of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Tugboats beware!

1953 mention in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle

(Brooklyn Daily Eagle/Brooklyn Newstand)

Below you can hear Sweeney discuss the dead bodies he’s resurfaced, and the death of his father, who was also a professional diver. You can read an article here about an 8-year-old boy Sweeney found in 1957 who had drowned in the Hudson River. He also briefly discusses his diving gear, which you can learn more about here.

Sweeney graces the Brooklyn Daily Eagle again in 1957, looking for a sunken freight car.

1957 article from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle

(Brooklyn Daily Eagle/Brooklyn Newstand)

Towards the end of his career, work for independent divers was beginning to thin. Companies that required it would have their own diving crews on call, rather than turning to freelancers like Sweeney. He tells the interviewer that there are only 3 or 4 other New York independent divers that he knows of at the time in the 1960s. But divers still explore the river today. The NYPD has their own scuba division and ecologists probe the river for life and pollution levels.

Cataloging Special Collections is like digging through a box of Cracker Jacks. You purchase a snack hoping that an additional prize is contained inside. After picking through your edible treat, you fingers grasp a hidden prize- maybe a decoding ring, a sticker, or some other trinket. Sometimes that prize has value, other times it is simply fun to find the prize, even if it has no value; and then there are times when the Cracker Jack assembly line forgot to put a prize in your box. A similar thing happens in cataloging. The university purchases old items and special collections, and many times, there are unexpected objects to be found in the collections. Sometimes, you find an academic’s notes, an old photograph used as a bookmark, or some newspaper clippings. Other times, you find less rewarding prizes, like spiders, dust, cobwebs, and more spiders.

Recently, through the cataloging of the Asian Religions Collection (ARC), catalogers stumbled upon some of fun finds. While the Asian Religions Collection was purchased by FSU, it previously had many homes. One of these earlier owners was Galen Eugene Sargent. As a professor of philosophy and comparative literature at Indiana University, Sargent kept multiple notes and bookmarks in his ARC books. Many of these items managed to remain inside the books throughout the years. Cataloger Elizabeth Richey was lucky enough the stumble upon many of these hidden treasures.

The most commonly found items within these books were annotations and handwritten notes. In fact, we found enough notes to fill a small box. These notes appear to be written by Sargent, and they provide us with a glimpse into his work and research interests. There was also a small collection of bookmarks. Actual bookmarks from the Indiana University bookstore and Lagniappe Book Shop in New Orleans were found, while other items used as bookmarks were found. A few favorite bookmark finds include cigarette cards, bookstore receipts, a sleeve of Rokusei Ryokan tissues, and a photograph of actress Marianne Hold.

While these found items within the collection were used for more academic purposes, like annotating and marking passages of note, other finds were more aesthetically pleasing. Hidden in the pages of some books were pressed flowers. Others included pressed butterflies. While we cannot pin an exact date to these pressed pieces of nature, we can guess that some date back to the 1960s.

When cataloging older, previously owned materials, you never know what you will find. You’re sure to come across a lot of dust and spiders, but that just makes finding notes and photographs all the more rewarding.

Last month, Mike posted about a recent gift of books from alumnus Peter Webb. I have cataloged them and they can be found via this search. Mike mentioned in passing that the gift included copies of some of Charles Eastman’s books in their original dust jackets:

E98.R3 E15 1911 c.2 and E99.D1 E183 1909 c.2

Since dust jackets on hardcover books are common today, these may not seem all that exciting. But dust jackets from the early 1900s and before are quite rare, even in special collections libraries. See this recent post from the University of Virginia about a collection of 19th-century books in original dust jackets, donated by Tom Congalton.

Current research on the history of dust jackets agrees that “they are a phenomenon associated with, and resulting from, the introduction of publishers’ cloth in 1820 … It is natural that publishers should have thought of furnishing protective wrappings after they began issuing books in cloth-covered boards, for these casings (bindings) were more permanent and soon became more decorative than plain boards, and any means for keeping them in their original condition until they reached the hands of buyers would be to the publishers’ advantage.”¹

So publishers’ production and use of the dust jacket was driven by practical reasons, and became widespread. Today they are scarce because buyers in the 19th-century thought of dust jackets only as disposable packaging. Still, they are an important component to consider when studying the book as an artifact.

G. Thomas Tanselle, the expert in this subject area, has compiled a list of 1,888 surviving examples of dust jackets from prior to 1901 in his Book-Jackets: Their History Forms and Use. It is hoped that an online database may be created and built upon for further research.

Here are a few of the examples held by Amherst College:

The New England Country / Clifton Johnson (Boston : Lee and Shepard, 1897) PS3519.O225 N6 1897  (#97.79 in Tanselle’s published list)

Equality / Edward Bellamy (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1897) HX811 1887 .B5 c.2 (Tanselle #97.6)

3 views of volume 1 of Letters of Emily Dickinson / ed. by Mabel Loomis Todd (Boston : Roberts Brothers, 1894) PS1541.Z5 A3 1894 (Tanselle #94.85) (Note in the picture on the far right that the discoloration of the endpapers gives evidence that this jacket is most likely original to this copy)

Print appears only on the spine of this dust jacket on Strangers and Wayfarers / Sarah Orne Jewett (Boston and New York : Houghton Mifflin, 1890) PS2132.S8 1890 (Tanselle #90.23)

Lastly, two examples from the 1930s, by which time publishers had long since figured out that placing graphics and advertising on paper dust jackets was much more economical than elaborately decorating cloth bindings.

PS3507.O827 C38 1934 and PS3507.O827 C37 1936

¹ Tanselle, G. Thomas, Book-Jackets: Their History, Forms, and Use (Charlottesville, Va. : The Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia, 2011), 8-9.   The book contains three essays originally published in 1971, 2006, and 2010. For a concise overview of the subject, Tanselle himself also recommends the chapter “Book-Jackets” in Anthony Rota’s Apart from the Text (New Castle, Del. : Oak Knoll Press, 1998) 124-141.

We have a very large and rare 1905 map in our holdings that was dirty and falling apart. Last year, we collaborated with the Land Title & Survey Authority of British Columbia (LTSA) and the BC Archives to conserve and digitize it. This is the story of why that conservation treatment happened and how it was done.

Low-resolution version of Map of New Westminster District, 1905. Reference code AM1594-: MAP 138. A high-resolution version is available from our online search.

The 1905 Map of New Westminster District is almost 1 metre wide and over 2 metres long. It shows District Lots and other divisions of land for all of Metro Vancouver and as far east as Hope.

The LTSA has been actively conserving and digitizing the maps in its custody. Its own copy of this map is in very poor condition. The map was originally published for distribution but there are only a handful of copies left in public institutions. Although our copy was in bad condition, it was better than the others. LTSA proposed a pilot inter-institutional collaboration: the best available copy of the map would be conserved and digitized, the digital file would be distributed to the partners, and our paper map would be returned to us for storage and long-term preservation. Conservation and digitization work would be paid for by the BC Archives and LTSA.

The conservation work was complicated, as the map was in rough shape (and huge!). It needed to be cleaned so that all the information would be readable. Many pieces had fallen off or were barely clinging to the worn-out cotton backing fabric. The pieces had to be put back together so that it could be digitized safely. The work was done by Jean Topham, a Victoria conservator with decades of experience, with the assistance of Carly Wemyss. They provided us with photographs of the treatment process.

Detail of edge tear before treatment. Photograph Sue Bigelow.

Detail of staining and tears before treatment.

The surface of the map was cleaned by hand. This had to be done carefully, since the paper was brittle and the map was in pieces in many places.

This shows the contrast of the light area that has already been cleaned with the area darkened by surface dirt and mold. Fragments of eraser are visible on the surface.

After cleaning with erasers, the surface was wet-cleaned with distilled water. The surface is fragile and becomes more delicate while it is wet.

Cleaning with Q-tips and distilled water.

The old backing fabric was not capable of providing stable support for the paper map and needed to be removed. Before that could happen, the torn areas of the plan needed to be reinforced temporarily so they would stay in place.

Hollytex polyester fabric applied to the front surface with an adhesive that won’t dissolve in water.

The map could then safely be flipped over. The old backing fabric was removed slowly, in sections, with water. Once it was gone, pieces of thin Japanese tissue were applied to the back where there were tears and losses.

The cotton backing fabric has been removed from the left and front sections and tissue strips have been stuck down with starch paste.

With the tears and loose pieces secured with tissue on the back, the map could be flipped over and the Hollytex fabric on the front removed.

The adhesive on the Hollytex fabric was dissolved with solvent and the pieces peeled off.

Deacidification solution was sprayed on the back of the map to make the paper less acidic.

Spraying a water-based deacidification solution.

While the map was still damp, the back was reinforced with sheets of thick Japanese mulberry paper with wheat starch paste. The map was too large for this to be done easily by one person.

Jean and Carly lay down a sheet of backing paper. It looks very thick because it is being supported by a sheet of polyester fabric during this step.

The backing paper layer, without its polyester fabric support, was tapped to make sure it was well bonded with the map and there were no loose areas or air bubbles.

Jean and Carly tap the damp backing paper in place with brushes made for that purpose.

Excess water was removed from the backing paper using blotters.

Jean removes dampness. The map is not perfectly flat at this point.

Paper strips were pasted along the edges and the map was flipped face-up again. The edge strips were pasted to the table and it was left to dry. The pasted edges provided light tension as it dried, keeping it flat.

Last, translucent heat-set tissue was applied around the outer edges and linen tape was applied at both ends for added protection.

Heat-set tissue has been applied along the edge shown at left.

Now this map, which could only be viewed on a large table at the Archives, is available online in high resolution for everyone to use. We’d like to thank the LTSA and the BC Archives for their financial contributions and for managing this successful collaboration.

It’s a pleasure to announce that Sandra Carrera is the first ever winner of the Updike Prize for Student Type Design!

You may have noticed that the trophy is also a fully-functional composing stick. We had a great evening with a lecture from Tobias Frere-Jones last Thursday, but if you missed it you can still visit the level 3 gallery cases to take a look at the type specimens of our four finalists:

Sandra Carrera, Picara (First Prize)
Chae Hun Kim, Hodoo
Prin Limphongpand, Rizvele (Runner-Up)
Yeon Hak Ryoo, Tranche

The specimens will be on display, with items from the Updike Collection that influenced the type design, until March 19th. Kudos to all four finalists who did a great job!

Picara, the winning typeface, was influenced by a type specimen published sometime in the 1770s by Antonio Espinosa, and we’re happy to announce that we’ve made the book available in its entirety online:

If you’re a student interested in type design, don’t forget that the 2016 competition starts now! Stop in to work with the collection or just learn more about it and the rules for the prize.

And if you want to be notified about next year’s Updike Prize ceremony, stay tuned to this blog, or send us your email address to be added to our mailing list.

Now that our Heritage Lottery Funded project has come to an end, we wanted to write one final post to thank our readers who followed along with the National Union of Women Teachers archive collection.  Both the cataloguing and education outreach projects have allowed us to increase accessibility to the collection, and shed a bit more light on these formidable women, determined to level the playing field of gender equality.  If you’d like to keep up to date with archive related education resources and blog updates (including classroom lesson plans and activities), head to our new site Archives For All, or the Newsam Library & Archives’ blog Newsam News. Archives get the reputation for being dusty, stuffy places.  What collections like the NUWT prove is that archives are anything but useless papers of the past.  History’s tendency to repeat itself, as issues of the past continue to present themselves as issues in the present, is no more evident than in collections like the NUWT.  The NUWT disbanded in 1961, after achieving equal pay for men and women teachers.  Yet, 50+ years on, women continue the fight for equal pay, equal representation, and equal opportunity. During a recent school workshop about life during the First World War, I asked a group of Year 3s, ‘Why are archives important?  Why do we bother saving – and looking – at all of this stuff?’  One very clever student raised his hand, and gave the following impassioned explanation:

we need the archives… because we need to learn from our old mistakes so we don’t make them again! – Year 3 student at St Joseph’s in Camden, positioning himself to take my job

On a personal note, this is my last week as the Archive’s Education Coordinator.  I have been so lucky to be a part of this team, this archive, and to have had the opportunity to work with such dynamic schools and community members. While working with school pupils (whether they’re Year 2 or university students), the focus has always been on the archives – of course.  But alongside that, our objective has been to encourage critical enquiry, investigative skills and above all, to encourage students to question everything both in and outside the history classroom.  Go to the source, and then question that source, that issue, that argument. I was recently reading Angela’s Ashes, and was struck by this passage, where Frank describes his teacher.  Mr O’Halloran’s words pretty much sum up why we think history education, which fosters all of those above skills, is so important…

He says, You have to study and learn so that you can make up your own mind about history and everything else but you can’t make up an empty mind.  Stock your mind, stock your mind. It is your house of treasure and no one in the world can interfere with it – Frank McCourt, Angela’s Ashes

You can also page through a final typescript of a Willa Cather title, ready to be sent off for printing.  Looking at the typescript, the thought comes to mind of how it must have felt to hold a completed novel before sending it on its final journey to the printers and subsequent release to the public.  Do you hope to someday find yourself in the same position – holding that completed story you have so carefully crafted before sending it off for publication?  Of course, now you’ll probably hit a key on a keyboard, rather than viewing a typed manuscript as did Ernest Hemingway and Willa Cather, along with so many others. 

Image courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Carl Van Vechten Collection, LC-USZ62-42538

Yesterday, the President announced his intention to appoint Laura A. DeBonis and Solomon B. Watson IV to each serve three-year terms as members of the Public Interest Declassification Board.  You can find a link to the White House press release announcing the appointments here.  The members of the PIDB look forward to working with Ms. DeBonis and Mr. Watson as they continue their efforts to improve declassification and modernize the classification system.

As we prepare our touring programme for the Hosts & Champions exhibition that will open on the 9th march in Trinity Church, Irvine, Jocelyn Grant, one of our Exhibition Assistants, provides an update on some of the material she has been researching working with the Commonwealth Games Scotland Archive.

During the 84 year history of the Commonwealth Games, Scotland has now had the honour of hosting this event a total of 3 times. Twice in Edinburgh for the 1970 and 1986 Games, and of course in Glasgow this past year. For 11 days Edinburgh and Glasgow came alive in a flurry of sporting events that engaged and inspired the whole country. However the effect of these Games did not disappear after each closing ceremony, instead each Games has sought to provide a lasting legacy that would continue to encourage and support the surrounding community. In particular each city has often benefited from the addition of new venues.

Edinburgh 1970

The 1970 Games is often considered the Commonwealth Games of ‘firsts’. It was the first to use metric measurements, the first to use new technology to provide an electronic photo finish, and the first Games that the Queen attended. However it also produced two purpose-built venues that continued to serve its community during, after, and for the next Edinburgh Games in 1986! These venues are the Royal Commonwealth Pool and Meadowbank Stadium.

Meadowbank Stadium

Newsletter 9, May 1970

At the grand cost of £2.8 million Meadowbank Stadium was built to accommodate athletics, fencing, wrestling and had its own dedicated velodrome.

Meadowbank Stadium under construction

While this facility was purpose built, the Edinburgh Newsletters in the archive provide an insight into how this stadium was intended to serve its surrounding community after the Games had finished. As the first newsletter released states:

“This centre has been designed to be a lasting asset to the capital city of Edinburgh and the whole of Scotland”

Seen as a ‘Capital Asset’ this centre was refurbished for the 1986 Games and once again played host to a number of sporting events, before continuing to provide a facility for the surrounding sport community. It was this community that launched a petition when threats of closure became imminent (Save Meadowbank Campaign) and helped to ensure that the stadium stayed open. Today it continues to host multiple sporting events such as the Scottish Judo Open, Karate competitions and roller derby (See here for more information about current events).

Royal Commonwealth Pool

Royal Commonwealth Pool

Royal Commonwealth Pool being finished for the upcoming Games

Costing a totally of £1.6 million at the time, the Royal Commonwealth Pool is now a listed building and has created a lasting impact, with the facility also being used for both the 1970 and 1986 Games. Recently a major refurbishment – costing £37 million – was completed in 2012,  and the pool continues to provide an exceptional facility and venue for events, continuing it long tradition of participating in the Commonwealth Games by hosting the Glasgow 2014 diving competition! Now considered one of Scotland’s key monuments of the post-war period the pool continues to host diving competitions, waterpolo championships and more (the Commonwealth Pool’s events page can be found here).

Glasgow 2014

For the 2014 Commonwealth Games, Glasgow received a number of impressive venues and additions that have now gone on to host or benefit the local community. A particular highlight was the transformation of the exciting venue at Hampden Park.

Hampden Park

Hampden Park during te Games Closing Ceremony

Hampden Park is well known in Scotland as the home to the national football team and was once the largest stadium in Europe. While this venue is not new, it underwent an impressive transformation for Glasgow 2014 with the playing surface being raised a total of 1.9m to transform the venue from a football stadium to a track and field facility.

This venue has contributed to the Game’s lasting legacy by giving its track to another venue! As part of the Glasgow 2014 iniative to distribute sporting equipment across the country, the track is finding a new home in Grangemouth Stadium and Crownpoint in Glasgow’s East End (more can be read about this story here), adding to the legacy created by the Games that looks to encourage a world-class sporting system.

There were many more venues involved in Glasgow 2014 that are still contributing to the sporting community in Scotland, and will allow the excitement of the Games to continue! If you have any stories of your time playing sports or watching them at these venues, get in touch!

The Historic Environment Image Researcher, Dr Janice Kinory, has been thinking about a particular image…

‘As a guest blogger, I’d like to use this venue to write about how old images in the HEIR Project collection can provide a fresh perspective on things we think we know as archaeologists.

I first learned about the innovative Roman rotary quern from text books. Having excavated at several Roman sites I have even found bits of rotary querns. I’ve seen complete rotary querns in museum showcases. I even had a fully developed mental model of the use of this implement, envisioning it being used by a solitary individual, possibly a slave, working indoors, grinding grain. In short, I thought I “knew” about rotary querns.

This image, showing a scene from 1930s Palestine, hit me like a thunderbolt for several reasons. Clearly, the presence of the working rotary quern at that date was the first shock, making me think of the Monty Python movie “The Life of Brian,” in which the question what have the Romans done for us is answered at length; the quern clearly needed to be added to that list.

The second thought was that grinding was shown as a social activity, with the two women, possibly a mother and daughter, sharing the work, each with a hand on the wooden drive handle. My third insight was that the work was clearly being performed outdoors, which undoubtedly minimised the inhalation of flour dust.

Most importantly, though, was my final thought: the recognition of the organic mat and cloth beneath the quern on which to gather the flour being produced. I’d never thought about needing a containment mechanism for the flour. I had virtually no chance of finding an organic mat of any type with a quern fragment in an archaeological context and had never seen one included in a museum display beneath a quern. This was, as they say, a paradigm-shifting moment for me.

This image came from the collection of Harris Manchester College at the University of Oxford. It was part of their collection of pictures from the Holy Land, with many of the pictures in that group showing sites associated with Christianity. Some, such as this one, focus on the people living in that region in the early to mid-20^th century.

The picture leaves many questions unanswered; we do not know whether or not the photographer was aware that the grinding process dated back to the Roman period, nor do we know whether this was an illustration of contemporary 1930’s life or a staged representation of how things were done when the older woman was a child. Was this an activity for the household, or was the grain being ground in sufficient quantity so as to produce a saleable surplus, generating cash income? The longer one stares at the picture, the more questions come to mind.

With almost 10,000 images already available, I believe that the HEIR Project images have the potential to shift many paradigms. I would love to hear from those who read our blog with their thoughts about this picture.’

The cataloguing work on the Continuity of Care project is still going on, with work well under way on the 3000+ applications. The database to the collection now holds over 1000 items. But the number of items that show the abilities of the children themselves can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

Opposite is a rare example of the literacy and numeracy skills of one applicant. His name

Handwriting and long division by George Aitken, 1886

was George Aitken as he was fully able to write himself, along with his date of birth. To include an example of his numeracy skills is even more unusual. In his note accompanying these samples, A J Fitch, secretary to the Institution writes:

‘I have seen this lad and have difficulty in discovering his imbecility. The boy reads fairly well – writes and does sums. He is a backward lad consequent upon elipeptic [sic] attacks which prevents his attendance at an ordinary school.’

The Institution had a policy of refusing admission to epileptics. At the bottom of the medical certificate that accompanies most of the applications is the declaration:

‘Cases of Insanity, of confirmed Epilepsy, of the Deaf and Dumb, and of the Blind, are ineligible for admission, except upon payment’.

In reality this policy was readily overlooked. As Fitch himself commented in a note to an 1889 application:

‘ you have however somewhat relaxed your rule as to epilepsy and may be disposed to look favourably’.

Although easy to dismiss this change of heart as motivated by the payments anticpated from the parents, one application from 1891  shows an other side of the Institution. Subject to fits and ‘unable to make any payment’, she was still admitted.

Schoolroom at the Scottish National Institution, c1915

In early 1939 advance tickets to the upcoming World’s Fair were made available in a pre-sale at “bargain prices.” Mayor La Guardia sent his check in, and on February 23, 1939 received ticket No. 1  from Grover Whalen at the steps of City Hall. During the ceremony, La Guardia and Whalen took the opportunity to criticize the practice of giving free passes to city employees, politicians and other people with connections. La Guardia made it clear that this was part of his administration’s stand against corruption. Listen to excerpts from the WNYC broadcast above, or to the complete audio here.

(Audio from the Vincent Voice Library, Michigan State University)

Cathmar Prange is the daughter of John MacKay Shaw, the donor and curator for the childhood in poetry collection that bears his name in Special Collections & Archives. Every winter, Cathmar volunteers to continue organizing and curating her father’s collection and has been doing so for 18 years. She is still discovering things to this day. Here is one of her recent mysteries:

The John MacKay Shaw Collection at Florida State University has the manuscript for a book by Stephen Graham. It is two or three inches thick. Recently a colleague asked me the source of this manuscript, but we remain confused about its subject and whence it came. About the author, we knew little. Looking for something else a few days later, I opened the Third Supplement of Dr. Shaw’s bibliography Childhood in Poetry near the middle. Surprise! The page revealed the illustration of a letter penned by poet Vachel Lindsay to Mrs. Stephen Graham. The book that the illustration was copied from, Lindsay’s Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty, is described on the facing page of the Shaw bibliography. FSU’s library catalog revealed its call number and Special Collections staff retrieved the book from the closed stacks. The letter begins on the flyleaf and continues onto the half title page of the book. It is dated February 13, 1920 and reflects Lindsay’s memories of tramping with Graham and sharing their search for the meaning of life beside their campfires. There is no mention of anything related to the manuscript.

I was familiar with Graham’s name. In 1998, one of FSU’s English professors came into Special Collections and handed me some materials related to Stephen Graham. If the manuscript was part of this offering, it had been handed to somebody else and I never saw it until several years later. Most of these materials I received related to Graham’s leadership of a group who met in the out of doors and shared their poetry not only by reading it, but by performing it as well. These pages too shed no light on the mysterious manuscript.

Further searches of Stephen Graham in FSU’s catalog and in the John MacKay Shaw Collection Finding Aid yielded information but still did not answer my questions. I turned to the Internet. On Wikipedia, an article by Michael Hughes carries a lode of information; Graham’s whole life with titles of many books he had written about his travels all over the world. Hughes wrote this article for the love of it because he felt that Graham has not been given the attention he deserves. He mentions the long “tramps” that Graham and Lindsay shared and their mutual interest in the spiritual aspect of life. After ten years enjoying each other’s company, changes separated them, but they continued their friendship by mail until Lindsay’s death in 1930. Hughes says nothing on Wikipedia about Graham’s interest in poetry however.

Dr. Hughes remarks that late in his life Stephen Graham visited a friend in Tallahassee. Was this friend the professor who gave me the Graham materials?

Hughes has written a biography of Graham, Beyond Holy Russia: The Life and Times of Stephen Graham. I have scanned this book on line fairly thoroughly several times and have yet to find any mention of our manuscript or an expose of The Poetry Society. I remain in contact with Dr. Hughes in hopes of some avenue opening up to the manuscript.  The latest from Dr. Hughes is that the Harry Ransom Institute in Texas has a copy of it. Stay tuned!

Perhaps the manuscript was written too late in Graham’s life for him to pursue publication, so he had given it to our professor in hopes that he could arrange it. I have written to Dr. Hughes; perhaps between us we can solve the mystery of the Graham manuscript.

Sudden discovery occurs often in my work in Special Collections – far often enough to keep the interest level up and set me off on new adventures each year. The library life is an exciting one – new mystery leaping out while research lays another mystery back to rest.

Hear the voices of the Coney Island barkers, inviting you to experience the World in Wax, the Fabulous Himalaya, the Magic Carpet Fun House, and the Cyclone. They will also entice you to bathe in the ocean, buy an ice cream cone, and take a train ride around the park.

In 1962, Joan Franklin, with her husband Robert, established Cinema Sound, Ltd., an audio recording studio based out of their own home – a town house on the Upper West Side – where they produced documentary portraits of New York City. They explored a very wide range of topics in their programming, and this tape of Coney Island barkers performing is just one of many held in the NYPR archive.

Nathan’s Hot Dogs from the boardwalk, 1954

(Al Ravenna/Library of Congress)

Coney Island was transformed in the 1920s by the completion of the New West End Terminal, now known as the Stillwell Avenue – Coney Island terminal. The then-five-cent subway ride gave the city’s poorer citizens newfound access to the park and boardwalk, giving Coney Island the nickname the Nickel Empire. In 1923, the beaches opened to the public, and the opening of the Cyclone soon followed in the summer of 1927. This shift in the culture of Coney Island transformed the park into the icon it is today.

The raw tape of this particular Cinema Sounds recording features barkers from all over the park, performing specifically at the audio engineer’s request, so in this way it is not entirely candid. You can hear the engineer ask barkers to repeat themselves and have other off-mic exchanges. In the recording mash-up above, you’ll hear clips cut from the repetitive raw tape, including the voice of the engineer. While the exact recording date of the tape is unknown, we can deduce that it must have been made sometime between 1962, when Cinema Sound, Ltd., was established, and 1984, when the World in Wax closed.

In 1997, for the Cyclone’s 70^th Anniversary, WNYC’s Richard Hake did a piece on the roller coaster, a clip of which can be heard in this mash-up piece – the sound of the Cyclone ascending to its famous 85 foot drop. Also, featured at the end is a recording of the song Coney Island Baby, sung by the Excellents in 1962.

The Fabulous Himalaya with Cyclone in background, 2009

(Flickr/Flickr)

Washington Market dated back to 1812 and operated until the early 1960s when the marketplace structures in Tribeca were demolished. The market specialized in produce, and stalls were usually family-run. These small vendors lasted in downtown Manhattan even after their convenience had begun to wane in the shadow of more consolidated business and higher city traffic.

Washington Market property to be sold at auction, 1958

(Walter Albertin/Library of Congress)

In 1962, the market was forced to relocate to Hunts Point in the Bronx. The politics of the relocation and demolition were fraught and the episode above captures some of the animosity surrounding the marketplace at the time, with the scripted voice-over taking a negative view of the old market, full of congestion and confusion, and heralding the Bronx relocation as a bright future for it, spacious and new.

Here is a transcript of the closing exchange on the recording. The exchange is well-placed in this piece, which almost seems to be a propaganda piece in favor of the market’s closing–with this clip aiming to highlight the antiquated presence of the market.

The market was indeed a rugged sort of place, crowded and loud with the hollering of vendors and delivery trucks. It captured and encapsulated more than a century of New York history, but as one vendor is caught saying here, “Nobody, but nobody, can stop progress.”

Produce vendor with his horse-drawn cart at Washington Market, 1960

(Phyllis Twachtman/Library of Congress)

If you want to read a little more about the market, the Project for Public Spaces offers a brief history.

Dr Isao Ichige has donated a beautiful set of books, Nihon Bijutsu Zenshu (Japanese art: the complete works) – essentially a history of Japanese culture – to Stirling University.

This valuable set of books contains a comprehensive list of Japanese art objects in full colour and with detailed information for each item from throughout Japan’s long history.

Dr Ichige taught Japanese History and Archeology at Waseda University and its affiliated high school until his retirement in 2008. He is well-known in Japan for his NHK programmes (Japan’s equivalent to the BBC) about archeology and introducing his various discoveries at pre-historical excavations and sites across Japan.

Dr Ichige is a member of the Japan Scotland Association and life-long friend of its president, Dr Taeko Seki. He decided to donate the books when he learned about “Japan Week” at the University of Stirling.

The books are on display outside the Archives Reading Room in the Library.

We are looking forward to a talk by our researcher, Dr Janice Kinory, who will be exploring the relationship between commercial photographers in the late 19th century and the Roman ruins they photographed. She will be showcasing many of the beautiful slides from the HEIR database:

If you are a member of the Roman Discussion Forum, we look forward to seeing you at the Institute of Archaeology, Oxford next week, but if not, Janice will be blogging about her talk here in the near future (and no doubt there will be a paper forthcoming…)

While assisting with Special Collections & Archives instruction classes as part of my graduate assistantship, I have found the following quote from Michael Suarez, director of the Rare Book School, full of plenty of food for thought:

How is the way that your collections are mediated telling those who are in contact with them about their treasureful-ness? About the power of materiality that’s ritually taken out and placed in someone’s hands (or not)? … If we don’t understand our institutions as places of pilgrimage, as places of material embodiments that have profound effects on community, identity, and the expression of humanities, then we do not understand the vocation of the librarian … a high and noble vocation in which we are the custodians of a materiality that is absolutely intrinsic to the identity of our civilization (as cited in Overholt, 2013, p. 19-20).

If at first this seems like an overly lofty vision, I am happy to report that, as a graduate assistant, I have been lucky enough to catch glimpses of this lofty vision in action. Whether it’s watching students interact with 4,000 year old cuneiform tablets or discussing how a 21st-century artist’s book pushes the boundaries of what we think a “book” should be, I am in a privileged place  to help mediate what are many students’ first interactions with rare books and manuscripts.

For FSU Special Collections & Archives, instruction classes are an invaluable means of outreach. By taking materials out of the secured stacks and setting them up in a classroom setting, we are bringing them to students who might not know where we are located, what we have, and what we can offer. Most importantly, we want students to know we exist for them!

When we bring rare books and manuscripts to the classroom, we want to communicate the “treasureful-ness” of these items, many of which are one-of-a-kind. The value of the items means they must be handled with respect and care, and yes, this means rules (no pens, markers or highlighters, no food and drinks), but perhaps these rules can be thought of as part of the ritual of scholarship rather than an imposition designed to make people stay away. Along with the commitment to preservation comes the commitment to providing access, and one of the most exciting things about working in Special Collections & Archives is learning to find the balance between these seemingly polarized goals.

The description of Special Collections & Archives as a place of pilgrimage is an apt one. Students and scholars come to us from across campus, across the country, and sometimes from across oceans; they come from across disciplines. Sometimes they come in person, sometimes they call us, and sometimes they come digitally. During instruction classes, we get to come to them. No matter how simple or complicated their information needs are, Special Collections & Archives has the awesome privilege of putting our unique and distinctive materials in their hands and on their screens.

Katherine Hoarn is a graduate assistant in Special Collections & Archives. She is working on her Master of Library and Information Science degree at Florida State University.

Sources

Overholt, J. (2013). Five theses on the future of special collections. RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, & Cultural Heritage, 14(1), 15-20.