The other week, while perusing our oversize materials, I ran across a drawer that had previously escaped my notice. It was labelled “Dr. Phillips’ Figure Study Charts” and was full to overflowing with great big pages of simply drawn figures, obviously advocating for the health and aesthetic benefits of proper posture and unrestrictive clothing. These charts are a fantastic example of the complicated, contradictory character of nineteenth century science, medicine and health advice.

These charts, “Outline Studies of the Human Figure,” are a published collection of teaching tools created by J. H. Kellogg and published in 1898 (2nd edition) by Kellogg’s Modern Medicine Publishing Company in Battle Creek, Michigan. John Harvey Kellogg is a well known character in the late nineteenth century health craze. Best known as a co-inventor of corn flakes (with his brother), he also ran a sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan with a focus on healthy eating, exercise and enemas. He published extensively and advocated for many causes, from the very reasonable to the merely quirky to the downright terrible. He was a champion of vegetarianism, an anti-smoking advocate, and was clearly opposed to corsets. However, he also promoted almost complete abstinence, was so opposed to masturbation that he recommended genital mutilation to prevent it, and was a significant player in the American eugenics movement.

A prospectus for the Figure Study charts reads:

“This series of charts… illustrating the influence of dress, bad posture, and the neglect of physical development, in the production of disease and deformities. These original studies are selected from the results of a careful observation of thousands of different nationalities, including the following: American, English, Welsh, Scotch, German, French, Italian, Icelandic, Scandinavian, North American, Mexican, Chinese, Samoan, Egyptian, Nubian, East Indian, and Congo.

These outlines are not diagrams but

Tracings made Directly from the Human Body

By an apparatus devised by the author for the purpose.”

It goes on to promote the utility of the charts to all teachers of physical culture and the appropriateness of the charts for all schools and gymnasiums. From the final page of the prospectus, we learn that the charts can be purchased for $6.00, or $10.00 with an exhibition and carrying case.

Even in the service of the admirable anti-corset movement and the goal of proper posture, these materials point out the tenuous relationship that science once held with objectivity in evidence collection and presentation (for instance, how was he making these tracings, exactly? Of whom?). To me, the most astonishing piece of  scientific “evidence” presented in these charts are the following graphs… nowhere could I find any explanation of what these graphs were measuring! (Also, holy sexism and racism batman!)

Because I’m in the process of arranging the Physical Education Department Records (I’ll tell you all about it when I’m done, promise), I knew right away that these charts would have been used in Dr. Phillips’ Hygiene classes.

Hygiene classes?

Dr. Phillips, Professor of Hygiene and Physical Education from 1896 to 1929, also class of 1888.

Why yes, the Amherst College Hygiene and Physical Education Department was founded in 1859, not just for the teaching of muscular development, but also the teaching of a healthful and wholesome lifestyle, which was encompassed by the dubious title of “Hygiene.” The courses seem to have resembled our modern high school health classes – they covered nutrition, the importance of exercise, the evils of alcohol and drugs, the dangers of sexually transmitted diseases, a certain amount of anatomy – although they also covered good manners, actual bathing tips, the horrible dangers of masturbation, how to properly address faculty and upperclassmen and, of course, what to wear and proper posture. Hygiene was a required course from the founding of the department up to World War II. I like to hope that generations on Amherst men told their wives to burn their corsets, all on account these charts…

Amherst’s hygiene courses and Kellogg’s charts are both artifacts from a larger societal interest in modern, “scientific,” healthful living in the nineteenth century (some of the goofier products of which can be found in our Pseudo-science post); they are artifacts from a time when science and medicine were still young, when “evidence” lived in quotation marks, and anyone could be an expert.

We here at Florida State University’s Special Collections & Archives division would like to wish you a happy holiday season!

Our Special Collections Research Center will be available by appointment only December 22-23, 2014. Please contact Lisa Girard at (850) 645-0909 or email her at lgirard@fsu.edu to schedule an appointment. The Norwood Reading Room and the Special Collections Exhibit Room will maintain their normal operating hours on those dates.

Special Collections & Archives division will be closed starting Wednesday, December 24th. We’ll resume normal operating hours on Monday, January 5, 2015.

The Pepper Library Reading Room will be closed starting Tuesday, December 23rd and resume normal operating hours on Monday, January 5, 2015.

We’ll see you in the new year!

The Archives will be closed from noon December 24 to 9am Monday, January 5.

Card from Charles Marega fonds, AM1416.

This Christmas card was created by the sculptor Charles Marega, who created many sculptures and memorials in Vancouver including the lions at the Lions Gate Bridge. The card is part of a file called “sketches and drawings” in the Charles Marega fonds.

Throughout the halls of government, perhaps no word is more often cited than ‘innovation.’ While there’s no doubt that innovation holds the key to envisioning government’s work in the future, I’ll admit that innovation itself can be a challenging word, given that it has so many meanings to so many people.

At its core, I believe innovation is the ability to think, envision and act audaciously, to set far-reaching, often disruptive goals and enlist a collaborative, multi-disciplinary team to meet them. At the National Archives and Records Administration, our mission is to drive openness, cultivate public participation, and strengthen our nation’s democracy through public access to high-value records. In order to do this, and to do it well, we must be audacious.

One way NARA is working toward this vision is by partnering with the Presidential Innovation Fellows program. Established by the White House in 2012 and now led by a dedicated program office at 18F in the General Services Administration, the Presidential Innovation Fellows program brings the principles, values, and practices of the innovation economy into government through the most effective agents of change we know: our people. This highly competitive program pairs talented, diverse individuals from the innovation community with top civil servants to tackle many of our Nation’s biggest challenges, and to achieve a profound and lasting social impact.

Out of a competitive search involving over 2,000 applicants and over 100 potential agency projects since the Program’s inception, 27 Presidential Innovation Fellows were chosen this year to partner with 12 federal agencies. In September 2014, two of these Fellows – Ashley Jablow and David Naffis – joined NARA to support our efforts to bring innovative thinking and action to our work.

Ashley Jablow is an open innovation and online community strategist with a passion for social impact. Most recently Ashley served as challenge and business development lead at OpenIDEO – an online open innovation platform developed by IDEO where people design better, together for social good. In this capacity, Ashley served as an online community mobilizer, digital communications specialist, client coach, and design thinking facilitator. Prior to IDEO, Ashley worked in corporate philanthropy and in nonprofit fundraising. Ashley is originally from the San Francisco Bay Area and holds a BA in Sociology and Spanish from University of Michigan and an MBA in Marketing and Corporate Responsibility from Boston University.

David Naffis is an entrepreneur and software developer with experience in software services, product development, strategy, and operations. He is a founder of Intridea, an Inc 500 winning software development firm where he oversaw several successful product spinouts and acquisitions. Before starting Intridea, David worked as a software engineer and architect at companies including AOL, Cisco, and McKinsey. He holds a masters in Systems Engineering from The University of Virginia, has contributed to a number of open-source projects, and has spoken at numerous regional and national conferences. He lives in Washington, DC with his wife, Aubrey.

David has been working with us on our application programming interface for the online catalog. He has also been working on a dog bot for the White House holiday decorations! Ashley has been conducting brainstorming sessions for the office of Innovation. We are honored to have Ashley and David join us, and look forward to further defining what innovation looks like at the National Archives in months and years to come.

Thanks to the efforts of our graduate assistants, Katherine and Rebecca, Volumes 38 and 39 of The Girl’s Own Annual is now available in the FSU Digital Library as part of our Poetry during World War I collection.

Published in Britain from 1880 until 1956, The Girl’s Own Annual, alternatively known as the Girl’s Own Paper, was a story paper catering to girls and young women. It includes serialized fiction, advice columns, current events, life and fashion tips for its readers. The issues published during World War I were titled The Girls Own Paper and Woman’s Magazine.

For more information about the collection, see Katherine’s post on Christmas in the magazine and Rebecca’s post on the effect of World War I on the paper’s contents.

This is the first serial we hope to digitize and make available as part of our Poetry during World War I collection so stay tuned for more additions in the coming year!

Phew! Well that was 2014. It was a year in which a combination of cultural centenaries, major sporting events and academic projects resulted in a huge increase in demand for our collections (and the political events of the past twelve months also kept our colleagues in the Scottish Political Archive pretty busy!) As in previous years we’ve put together an end-of-year chart of our most popular collections in 2014 by combining the information recorded in our enquiries database with the records of visitors to our archives reading room.

Interest in our most used collection in 2014 has been growing recent years (it was our third most popular collection in 2013) and it’s quite fitting that in a year when the centenary of his birth was celebrated with a Scotland-wide series of events our No. 1 is the Norman McLaren Archive. Born in Stirling in 1914 McLaren was an award-winning filmmaker whose work has inspired generations of animators and artists. The film screenings, talks, animation workshops and events presented during the year by McLaren 2014 provided a fitting tribute to his extraordinary career. We were delighted to be able to contribute to the celebrations with our exhibition A Dream of Stirling: Norman McLaren’s Scottish Dawn at the Stirling Smith.

Exhibition poster for A Dream of Stirling: Norman McLaren’s Scottish Dawn

Last year’s most popular collection continued to be one of our most-used with the NHS Forth Valley Archive taking second place in our end-of-year chart. Genealogical interest in the historical records of Stirling District Asylum has remained constant with an increase in academic interest in the material also being noted. Access to this collection will be increased in 2015 with our Wellcome Trust funded project to conserve and catalogue the archives of the Royal Scottish National Hospital opening up the records of a hospital of international importance.

A new addition to our end-of-year lists sees the archives of Commonwealth Games Scotland take third spot (or should that be the bronze). In the year of Glasgow 2014 it was inevitable that this collection that documents over eighty years of participation and achievement by Scotland in the Commonwealth Games would generate a certain degree of interest! During the Games our Hosts and Champions exhibition was on display in Glasgow, providing an historical perspective on a modern international sporting event. In 2015 we look forward to putting together a touring version of the exhibition which will be updated with a selection of material from the Glasgow 2014 Games (which we are currently collecting).

Memorabilia from Glasgow 2014 recently added to our Commonwealth Games Scotland Archive

Those results in full:

2014:

1. Norman McLaren

2. NHS Forth Valley

3. Commonwealth Games Scotland

2013:

1. NHS Forth Valley

2. Musicians’ Union

3. Norman McLaren

2012:

1. Musicians’ Union

2. John Grierson

3. Lindsay Anderson

2011:

1. John Grierson

2. Lindsay Anderson

3. University of Stirling

Two new additions to our digital cello music collections premiered this morning as we added selections from the Laszlo Varga Musical Score Collection and the Janos Scholz Musical Score Collection.

These are sixth and seventh additions, respectively, to the cello music project, which made its first appearance in 2011 with selections from the Bernard Greenhouse Collection.

UNCG’s Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives is home to the largest single holding of cello music-related materials in the world.

We asked for suggestions for gifts that would be suitable for librarians or archivists and the community responded! Thank you so much for all the wonderful and thoughtful gift ideas!

Here are the nominations: if you have other ideas please leave them in the comments below. To ensure that you get what you want, think about leaving this page on computers in your reading room or information commons — I’m sure that certain someone will get the hint.

Lumio Book Lamp

Practical gifts: some information professionals are very focused on getting the job done. For these folks, a gift that helps them do the work at hand is just the thing. Gifts in this category include:

• A mobile scanner: Laura suggests that perhaps the Flip-Pal might be useful for those who are zipping around “scanning madly.”
• Of course it’s not all about shelving books or arranging collections. We also attend lots of meetings and conferences. How about a fountain pen? Nadia Nasr suggests the Cross Stratford as a nice looking model that’s affordable.
• For all that professional reading, what about a book shaped lamp? Lumio’s book lamp (although pricey) was suggested by Stephanie as being “pretty rad.” Comes in dark walnut and blonde maple to compliment any decor.
• What is more painful that losing your place in a book? Hunting around for a bookmark. Lynn Jones suggests the Albatros Bookmark — you never need to look for your bookmark because it’s in the book — it also places itself.  Comes in packs of 6.
• What about a card catalog shaped flash drive? These will be available soon from Unshelved. Thanks to Carol Street for the suggestion.

The Archivist Wine

Food and drink: everyone likes to eat and drink. Here are some suggestions vetted by librarians and archivists

• The chefs among us might appreciate cookbooks from historical societies. Melissa M. loves her cookbooks from the King’s Landing Historical Settlement in New Brunswick. I couldn’t find those online but you can find plenty of good ideas in Cookbook Finder. I noted that King’s Landing does have an historic inn that serves period food, so check with your local historical society!
• Beer for archivists: Although I normally hate to reinforce stereotypes about archivists that involve either attics or cellars, I was pleased to hear Jill Tatem’s nomination for Cellar Dweller, which is only available at the Great Lakes Brewing Company in Cleveland. Since this is the site of the 2015 Society of American Archivists annual meeting, I know many archivists will take a rain check on this brew.
• A toast to archivists! From Sonoma Estate Vintners, the Archivist. Pick your poison: cab, chardonnay, or pinot noir. The description includes the word “appraise” so you know you are in the right place.

Pride and Prejudice Tote

Clothing and accessories: suggestions range from items that are practical to those that show your style.

• Melissa M. says, “every processing archivist could use steel-toed boots (required for the first archival job I ever had, and I actually managed to find quite a stylish pair).” Melissa was not able to find her boots, which fetched compliments outside the workplace, but perhaps something like these engineer boots would work.
• To go with your boots, perhaps some library card socks from NYPL? (Hat tip to Bruce Washburn.)
• You can wear your heart on your sleeve, and now you can wear your favorite book, as a t-shirt, or water-resistant tote. From Lithographs. Also available, posters and (temporary) tatoos. From Lorcan Dempsey and Pam Kruger.
• A favorite from last year was the microfiche jewelery from Oinx. Styles have been updated and now you and spread the “I’d rather be fiching” message via t-shirt and bumper sticker.

Mini Hollinger Document Cartons

Little luxuries: sometimes it’s the little things

• Candles are a great seasonal gift. You can choose between The Archivist candles from Greenmarket (lots of choose from, particularly if you like the idea of “fragrance records accumulated to preserve moments, stories, and people they represent”) and Library candles from Paddywax (which feature scents that will conjure your favorite author). Thanks to Casey Davis and Carol Street for calling these to our attention!
• Hollinger boxes are a staple for archivists, and mini document boxes have long been a popular giveaway at conferences — so popular that Hollinger now sells them as a separate item. Jennifer suggests that in addition to being just plain adorable, they would be the perfect way to pop the question.
• Cream for hands, dried out from processing documents and handling other materials, was a popular item on last year’s list. This year, Melissa M. recommends Lush’s Charity Pot lotion.

Can’t buy happiness: of course, the things that everyone really wants can’t be purchased. At the top of almost every information professional’s wish list is space (to put anything, as our anonymous contributor put it). Another thing that we’d all like to see is reflected in this lovely blog post by Maarja Krusten:

…the greatest gift you can give archivists and librarians is the opportunity to share physically and virtually the knowledge found in their collections and holdings.

Now, that sentiment is something I think we can all get behind! Happy holidays to all of you!