Most of us are familiar with the sad story of the passenger pigeon: the North American bird whose immense numbers (believed to have been up to forty percent of the wild bird population) and intensely social habits (being unable to thrive or breed successfully in small groups) prevented its recovery from the indiscriminate hunting practices of the 1800s. As the large forests which had sustained and housed the passenger pigeon were converted to farmland, man and bird were put in close proximity and closer competition with one another. Farmers, irate over complete crop losses to the avian hordes, retaliated in wholesale destruction of passenger pigeon breeding colonies. As a result, pigeon meat was cheap and common fare in the late 1800s, and pigeon feather beds and bedding were popular home furnishings.

            By 1900, the species had all but vanished, leaving in its place a lesson in conservation for future generations. John R. Saunders, the Adult Education Director for the American Natural History Museum presents here on the fate of the passenger pigeon and the plight of similarly endangered animals.

We thank you for your continued interest in prioritization and for the many comments from our followers we have received about what topics you would like to see declassified.  Today, we present you with a new list of topics that involve information classified as Formerly Restricted Data (FRD) information.

View the List Here: Topics Re: Formerly Restricted Data (FRD) Information

Like our previous prioritization topics, this list of FRD topics captures what we heard from Agency declassifiers, experts from the Presidential Libraries and the requester community.  The topics are listed in alphabetical order, not by ranking.

All lists will remain active for comment while the blog is live.  Please continue to make comments on this new list and also any other topics you think are important for prioritization.

Your comments will be posted as soon as possible.  Please review our blog’s Comment and Posting Policy for more details.  Thank you for your continued interest and participation.

Signed photographic portrait of Vachel Lindsay, from the Lawrence H. Conrad Vachel Lindsay and Robert Frost Collection.

Amherst College recently received the donation of a small, fascinating collection of correspondence and other materials related to Robert Frost and the now lesser-known poet (Nicholas) Vachel Lindsay. Vachel Lindsay styled himself as a twentieth-century troubadour. He traveled around the Midwest performing his poetry, which he chanted or sang, sometimes in costume. Few recordings of Lindsay exist, but there are several short clips online at the PennSound project. Lindsay originally trained as a visual artist, and often sold or traded illustrated pamphlets of his poetry in exchange for food and lodging.

This collection of material belonged to Lawrence H. Conrad, and was donated to Amherst by Conrad’s granddaughter, Angela Conrad. Lawrence Conrad was an undergraduate at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, when Robert Frost held the position of poet-in-residence at the University. During the same time period, Lindsay gave a reading at the University. Conrad served as an assistant to the poets and helped with their arrangements while in Michigan. In a May 9, 1928 letter from Conrad to Lindsay, he writes, “You probably remember that I was a sort of pet of Robert Frost when he was here [at the University of Michigan].” Conrad later became president of the Michigan Author’s Association and arranged further Michigan appearances for Frost and Lindsay. Conrad corresponded with both men and appears to have become a personal friend of both, who were also friends with each other. He continued corresponding with Lindsay’s widow, Elizabeth Connor Lindsay after Vachel Lindsay committed suicide in 1931.

Photographic portrait of Robert Frost, from the Lawrence H. Conrad Vachel Lindsay and Robert Frost Collection

Among the papers in this collection is a two-page document which will be of particular interest to Vachel Lindsay and Robert Frost scholars: an apparently collaborative poem composed by the two men. The poem is written in Lindsay’s handwriting and entitled, “The Maelstrom Flower Blooms.” The second page is an illustration of the poem, also by Lindsay. At the bottom of the page of text are both Frost’s and Lindsay’s signatures: “Robert Frost and Nicholas Vachel Lindsay to Lawrence Conrad.” The poem is undated, but given the dates of the rest of the correspondence, it was likely written between 1928 and 1930.

A transcript of the poem, along with images of the text and illustration, are below. Tell us what you think!

The Maelstrom-Flower Blooms

The maelstrom flower blooms
On soft waves round the ship
The flame-petals leap and
The bird[?]-petals skip—
And the nine looking down in their ease through the sea
Think the flower is a friend—and is free—
But a voice from the ocean-bed
Calls to the flower,
And it turns to the
Maelstrom of fate in an hour.

Manuscript of The Maelstrom Flower Blooms. This poem is written in Vachel Lindsay’s handwriting and signed by both Robert Frost and Lindsay. From the Lawrence H. Conrad Vachel Lindsay and Robert Frost Collection.

Illustration by Vachel Lindsay of the poem “The Maelstrom Flower Blooms.” The poem was apparently written by Lindsay and Frost. From the Lawrence H. Conrad Vachel Lindsay and Robert Frost Collection.

On Friday, the President issued the Second Open Government National Action Plan (NAP) as part of the Open Government Partnership, a cornerstone of his administration.  I am very happy to report that the NAP contains the specific initiative, “Transform the Security Classification System.”  Under this initiative, the President pledges to implement reforms that will keep classification to the “minimum required to meet legitimate national security needs.”  He also reiterates his position that all classified information will be made available to the public through declassification once the need for secrecy has passed.

The NAP specifically references the PIDB’s report on Transforming the Security Classification System as a way forward to reduce classification and simplify the classification system for users.  It includes the primary recommendation from the PIDB in our report: to establish a White-House led Security Classification Review Committee to drive reform and oversee the vetting of the fourteen recommendations in our report.  We are pleased that the White House has taken our report seriously and is reviewing it in the inter-agency process. We understand Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Lisa Monaco will be in charge of ensuring a full review. We look forward to a continuing dialogue on our report’s recommendations.

I am also gratified that the NAP specifically tasks the newly established Security Classification Review Committee to work with the Department of Defense, Department of Energy, and Department of State to develop and implement a systematic review process for the declassification of historical information on nuclear programs (Formerly Restricted Data or FRD) that are obsolete.  The process will focus on reviewing specific events and topics of historical nuclear policy interest and include ways for the public to identify priorities for declassification review.

When the President tasked the PIDB with studying the security classification system and recommending changes for transformation, he clearly intended to modernize and reform the system to one that will function today and in the future.  We share the President’s vision of a security classification system that limits secrecy and promotes transparency whenever and wherever possible.  We congratulate the President and thank him for his continued commitment to open the government and reform secrecy in the interest of both the national security and transparency and accountability of government.

From the November, 1942 WQXR Program Guide.

We take pleasure in presenting another article from the pen of America’s outstanding popularizer of good music, Dr. Sigmund Spaeth. He last appeared in these columns with a strong plea for the American composer. This time he takes up the cause of the interpreting artist, whose work is of such importance in the fields of radio and records alike. Dr. Spaeth recently began a new series of programs over Station WQXR, sponsored by the Columbia Recording Corporation. These broadcasts are heard every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday evening from 7:30 to 8 o’clock under the title of “Dr. Sigmund Spaeth and His Record Library.” The detailed programs for November will be found in this issue.

The interpreters of great music are not like lilies of the field. They toil ceaselessly in the service of their art, and there is real labor involved in the spinning of their seemingly magic tonal web. Consider them frankly and sincerely in relation to the composers whose creative genius they make intelligible, as well as the public whose responsive appreciation is needed to complete the musical triangle.

It may seem strange and perhaps unnecessary to draw attention to the importance of the interpreter, for we Americans have often been accused of glorifying the performers of music, the singers, the instrumental soloists and orchestra conductors, at the expense of the music itself. We have been called prima donna worshipers, and there still is a widespread suspicion that “name value” and clever publicity mean more to American listeners than the greatest of creative inspirations.

Perhaps there was a time when “temperament” and “personality” were passwords in the camps of concert and opera. Eccentricities of behavior and appearance were doubtless given some significance in the past, and “glamour” still persists in the vocabulary of the press agent. But today, the educated American music-lover demands something more than the headlines of well-built reputations. He insists on musical proof of the abilities of famous artists and he makes up his own mind as to how far their reputations are deserved.

Phonograph records and radio broadcasts have in recent years given the interpreter of music an importance almost equal to that of the composer himself. Granting that the music itself would not exist except through the interpreter. If the colors of the sunset achieve reality only when there are human eyes to enjoy them, then certainly the tones of music, represented by the notes written or printed on paper, become significant only when they have been made audible to human ears.

There may be some music which is so obvious in its appeal, so completely “self-playing,” that the interpretation makes little or no difference. Conversely, there are interpretive artists whose skill is such that even the most commonplace sequence of tones will acquire beauty in their hands. But these are the exceptions, not the rule.

Modern standards of musical taste demand of the virtuoso and the prima donna not only that their material be worth hearing, but that its performance shall emphasize and perhaps enhance the value of the composition that is interpreted. The up-to-date listener has too many opportunities for comparison to be satisfied with merely adequate interpretations of great music. He has found out for himself that there is a real reason for the solid fame of recognized conductors, pianists, violinists, cellists and singers, as well as the major symphony orchestras and various other instrumental and vocal ensembles of reputation.

The manufacturers of phonograph records and the managers of artists are well  aware of this. When they deal with the great names of music, they know that they are offering something more than a well-advertised product. They are actually submitting to connoisseurs a better or at least a more interesting and individual performance than is to be found in the average, routine interpretation.

An orchestra like the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Society represents far more than the prestige of a century of existence. There is an actual quality of tone and a technical mastery clearly apprehended even by listeners who might be totally unaware of the orchestra’s reputation. The musicianship of a Bruno Walter or a Fritz Reiner asserts itself even when such a conductor is invisible, and the excitement of a performance under the baton of a Beecham, a Mitropoulos or a Rodzinski is imparted to the microphone as unerringly as it would be to the actual audience in a concert hall.

Consider therefore the interpreter of music and give him his due, for without his labors the vineyards of composition would be barren indeed. Consider not only the enormous talent but the sheer drudgery that goes into the preparation and performance of a single work, particularly in the orchestral field. Consider the endless detail of rehearsal and the myriad mechanical problems of recording and broadcasting.

When you hear the finest records broadcast over station WQXR, you are not only getting the ideal performance by each interpreter, perfected in the recording studio before it is released to the public; you are given what is even more important–the chance to compare one interpretation with another, to differentiate between legitimate individuality and mere eccentricity, and to discover for yourself the things that are enduring and inviolable in the creation and presentation of great music.

Florida State University’s Special Collections presents A Century of Seasons: The History of Florida State Athletics.  Visitors are invited to explore the history of Florida State athletics, which spans over ten decades, from the turn of the century to the modern day.  Beginning in 1905 and ending in 1947 Tallahassee’s campus was a women’s college, then known as Florida State Women’s College (F.S.C.W.).  These forty-years were marked by energetic school spirit, enthusiastic intramural rivalries and vibrant traditions.   A Century of Seasons highlights this age of intramural competition between Odd and Even classes with images, documents and artifacts.

F.S.C.W.’s 1914 intramural basketball teams compete as fans watch from the sidelines.

Basketball was phenomenally popular during the F.S.W.C years and, arguably, the most anticipated event of the year was the Thanksgiving Day competition.  Photographs of the game and the athletes tell the story of this highly anticipated event and the women who competed in it.  The exhibit also includes photographs and artifacts documenting minor and non-traditional sports played on campus over this period, including archery and an aquatic sport known as prelo.  Wooden dumbbells from the early twentieth century have survived and are displayed next to an image of the tumbling class putting them to use.

A collection of student scrapbooks, which contain unique photographs and ephemera from sporting events and provide a fascinating look at the way athletics, affected the daily lives of students.  Each of the scrapbooks displayed portrays the personality of its owner and the collected photographs, newspaper clippings and ephemera with the scrapbooks shows a unique perspective on the athletes and fans who attended the university when it was yet young.

A Century of Seasons: The History of Florida State Athletics is open from 10am-6pm in the Strozier Exhibit Room until February 2014.

Earlier this year, Jessie Kratz was appointed Historian of the National Archives—our first!  Jessie has been with the Archives nearly 15 years—most recently on staff at the Center for Legislative Archives.

Over the years, many staff members have informally filled that role in various capacities and I want to thank them for recognizing the importance of our own history.  Ironically, the National Archives, the repository of the nation’s history, had no historian of its own.  I have come to appreciate the work that the historians across the Federal government do and am so pleased that we join the ranks of those Agency and Congressional historians.

Upon accepting the job, Jessie’s first priority was to create the National Archives History Office to ensure our agency’s history is retained. She is working to make sure the official records created by the National Archives are preserved and accessible for research.

“What is Past is Prologue”, inscribed on Future (1935, Robert Aitken) located on the northeast corner of the National Archives Building in Washington, D.C. Photo courtesy of user: Salticidae on Flickr

Jessie’s office will also be accepting non-record material— this includes memoirs, collections of original photographs and letters, memorabilia, diaries, maps and other historical documents that help tell the story of the National Archives but would not otherwise be preserved in the official records of the National Archives. Please contact her if … [ Read all ]

In recent months, it seems that team mascots have stolen the media spotlight. Whether it be the Washington Redskins or the Amherst College Lord Jeffs, mascots and their connotations have become a hot topic. In light of the recent debate surrounding the Amherst College mascot (see this article in The Amherst Student), I thought it might be interesting to explore the man at the center of the maelstrom: Lord Jeffery Amherst, Commander in Chief of British Forces in North America during the French and Indian War, and according to some, the Adolf Hitler of the 18^th century.  Currently, the Amherst College Archives and Special Collections at Frost Library has some five boxes of original historical documents and artifacts related to Jeffery Amherst and his descendants.  Here are 7 interesting facts about Jeffery Amherst, taken straight from the documents:

1)      Jeffery Amherst liked to travel.

Okay, this might be a slight exaggeration, but he was most assuredly a well-traveled man. From the forests of Germany to the cities of France and our fair shores here in North America, Jeffery Amherst traveled around the globe in service to king and country.

Letter addressed from Crown Point, New York, regarding 14 Canadian soldiers

 He served in many different wars during his lifetime, including the War of the Austrian Succession, the Jacobite Uprising, the Seven Years’ War, the American War of Independence, and the French Revolutionary Wars.

Letter addressed from Whitehall, London, later in Amherst’s career

Amherst was recalled to service as Commander-in-Chief of the British Forces in 1793, at the advanced age of 76, and served until a year before his death. Here are a few letters written by Amherst from different locations, including Buxtehude (Germany),  Crown Point (New York), and Whitehall (London, England):

Letter addressed from Buxtehude, Germany, early in Amherst’s career

2)      If Jeffery Amherst liked to travel, his first wife most certainly did not.

In a letter to his sister-in-law, Jane Dalison, Lady Amherst,  Jeffery Amherst’s younger brother William shares the news that his brother has received a commission from King George II appointing him “General Commander in Chief of all America.” According to William, if his sister-in-law “could conquer your dislike of water, you might be a Queen there, but I know your little ambition.”

Jeffery Amherst, “Commander in Chief of all America”

Note where the wax seal tore a hole through the center of the letter.

3)      Jeffery Amherst was often depicted in his military uniform, including, yes, an actual suit of plate armour. Here are a few of the different caricatures and engravings of Amherst:

4)      Amherst had numerous Native American allies, including members from the Oneida, Onondaga and Caughnawaga tribes in northern New York Colony.

He appointed William Johnson as British Superintendent of Indian Affairs in the northeast, and along with Johnson, consulted with his Native American allies on a regular basis. As seen in the following letter, Amherst discusses a recent conference with the Oneidas and Onondagas and considers a future conference with Native American tribes in New England. While Amherst displays a condescending attitude towards Native Americans in general and disapproves of selling alcohol to them, he does display a surprising sense of fairness regarding the treatment of Britain’s Native American allies. In the letter, he approves of bringing Native American land grievances before the colony’s governor and even offers to personally speak to the governor. While this does not negate the now-famous series of letters sent to Colonel Bouquet in Philadelphia from June 23rd to July 19th, 1763, in which Amherst mused, “Could it not be contrived to send the small pox among the disaffected tribes of Indians?”, it appears that Jeffery Amherst had a very different opinion when it came to the British Native American allies compared to the Native American tribes allied with his enemies, the French. This perspective of allies versus enemies may provide a more nuanced picture of Amherst’s thoughts on Native Americans.

“You did certainly right to lay their complaint before the Lt. Governor, who, I doubt not, will address any grievances of this kind.”

“I am hopfull [to] put an end to all complaints arising from the sale of this Destructive Liquor.”

5)      Amherst had interesting allies and friends, including many people in high places and even some he may have later regretted.

Perhaps one of Amherst’s most interesting allies was Thomas Hancock, Boston merchant and book seller. As you may have already guessed, Thomas Hancock was the uncle of John Hancock, prominent signer of the Declaration of Independence and famous Patriot during the American Revolution. Besides his famous signature, John Hancock was known as one of the wealthiest men in the thirteen colonies. Hancock had the great luck to inherit his fortune from his wily uncle, who took advantage of lucrative shipping contracts with the British Army and kept in regular contact with the Army’s Commander in Chief.

Letter from King George III to “Our Right Trusty & Welle Loved Councillor General Jeffery Lord Amherst”

Later in his career, Jeffery Amherst was promoted to Commander in Chief of all British Forces during the French Revolutionary Wars, a position that entitled him to a seat on the Prime Minister’s Cabinet. During this period, Amherst was stationed at St. James’s Square, London, the seat of government in England. Many of his later letters are addressed from St. James’s Square, and several of the letters in the Jeffery Amherst Collection in the Amherst Archives and Special Collections are from King George III of Great Britain.

The cover of one of Amherst’s order books – note the doodle of a soldier wearing a coat with buttons on the right side.

6)       Jeffery Amherst was obsessively well-organized. While stationed in Ghent, Belgium during the War of Austrian Succession from 1740-1748, Jeffery Amherst kept a field diary in which he made daily, personal notations. In this flip-style journal, Amherst recorded such things as troop movements and marches, general daily orders, watch schedules and supply requirements.  On occasion, he even went so far as to include what could be considered an 18th century doodle.

Another order book, written from Ghent, Belgium, 1742-1743

“May 19, 1743 Sunday”

“May 20, 1743 Monday”

7)       If Jeffery Amherst never visited Amherst, Massachusetts, he was a major property owner in neighboring New York. In addition to his estate in Kent, England, which Amherst called “Montreal” in honor of his victory over the French in 1760, Amherst was gifted “twenty two thousand five hundred and forty acres of land, and the usual allowance for highways” in thanks for his service by the Colony of New York. According to the official land grant, Amherst’s property was measured from a rather precarious starting point, namely a “Birch Tree, marked No. III”. From this beginning, the property was then measured in “chains and links”.

“Which said tract or parcel of land so set out for the said Sir Jeffery Amherst begins at a Birch Tree”

ACC Championship ring from 1996

Excitement is in the air at Florida State! With the Seminoles finishing their regular season undefeated, heading to the ACC Championship Game on Saturday, and favored to play in the BCS National Championship, FSU fans have renewed pride after what some call the “Lost Decade.”

The Atlantic Coast Conference, or ACC, was created in 1953, and its charter members included Clemson, Duke, Maryland, North Carolina, North Carolina State, South Carolina, and Wake Forest. FSU didn’t join the conference until 1991, but immediately began to dominate the competition and have been ACC champions 13 times, making the Seminoles the most victorious team in the conference.

Championship rings have been a tradition in America since the 1920s. Because a sports team is only awarded one trophy, players, coaches, and staff are presented rings as a token of their victory. Prior to rings, teams were often given pocket watches or pins.

ACC champion rings that were presented to President D’Alemberte. Years left to right: 2000, 1995, 1997.

FSU’s Heritage Protocol is fortunate to have accessioned FSU President Sandy D’Alemberte’s championship rings from his tenure from 1994-2003. President D’Alemberte’s time as a president is synchronous to the Seminole’s reign as ACC Champs.

We here at Special Collections don’t have a crystal ball (well, on second thought, we might have one in our collection somewhere!), but sure hope that after Saturday the Seminoles have another ring to add to their collection.

Nearly forty years ago, Walter James Miller, host of WNYC’s “Reader’s Almanac” program, conducted four interviews with Kurt Vonnegut.

The first one took place on June 30, 1974, soon after Vonnegut had published Breakfast of Champions, the follow-up to his most famous and probably most accomplished novel, Slaughterhouse Five. After years of obscurity in the 1950s and early 1960s, Vonnegut now found himself one of the handful of most-talked about writers in America. This interview reveals him at the top of his game—confidently proclaiming the novelist’s ability to “make up new myths that people will believe,” easily dealing out anecdotes about Twain, Hemingway, and James Jones, freely moving from topic to topic with élan and self-deprecating humor. It’s an impressive performance, especially considering the fact that Vonnegut’s personal life was just then coming apart under the intense pressures of divorce, loneliness, the wild admiration and expectations of millions of readers, and the persistent voices of some critics denouncing him as a hack.

Miller’s interview begins by setting up a question about Breakfast of Champions being a retelling of the Book of Job, with car salesman Dwayne Hoover as the sufferer of all sorts of undeserved catastrophes. But when Vonnegut begins to talk, it’s not about Job but about the irony of his teaching students how to write conventionally, despite his being such an experimental writer. Next, Vonnegut proposes the idea that the conventional presentation of “major” and “minor” characters in fiction is unrealistic, and probably the result of our persistent belief in the class system—the common notion that some people are just inherently less important than others. Next, he theorizes that our brains don’t just see people and fictional characters in a faulty way but reality itself when we imagine it’s divided into past, present, and future. Finally, he explains that as a writer he wants to comfort people with the idea that their loved ones who have died are really still alive—in what we call the past. So it seems that Vonnegut in his round-about way has answered the initial question about the relationship of Breakfast of Champions to the Book of Job after all: Job could have been comforted over the loss of his family if he’d known about the idea of the simultaneity of past, present, and future presented in Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions. Presumably, in that way, Job’s wife and children could have been rescued from their Biblical fate as minor characters.

And this rollercoaster ride of ideas happens in the first few minutes of the interview. Listen for yourself to learn what happens in the rest of the conversation. As the punch line of one of Vonnegut’s favorite jokes puts it: “Keep your hat on—we may end up miles from here!”

Special thanks to Mary Hume, Donald Farber and Ana Maria Allessi at Harper Collins for making the release of these broadcasts possible.

Walter James Miller was affiliated with the NYU Program in Liberal Studies.

Athletics at Florida State College and Florida State College for Women had always been popular, but after the inception of FSU, sports exploded. Now able to have varsity teams because of the addition of men to the student body, the Tallahassee past time of Seminole fanaticism began. In the exhibit A Century of Seasons: The History of Florida State Athletics, photos, artifacts and ephemera from FSU’s favorite sports teams are on display, as well as forgotten athletic groups like Tarpon Club, the women’s synchronized swimming club, and Gymkana, FSU’s premier gymnastics show troupe.

A Century of Seasons traces the history of FSU athletics, like the incredible growth of FSU football. The excitement was palpable in 1947 when after a 40 year hiatus, FSU hosted its first football game against the Stetson Hatters. While the first season was a dismal bust (the Seminole squad lost all five of their games), the love for football had been instilled in FSU students and Tallahassee citizens alike. It didn’t take long for Florida State football to develop into a powerhouse team: winning the Cigar Bowl in 1950, their first undefeated season in 1950, starting in the top 20 in 1971, and the decades of winning teams under the coaching of Bobby Bowden.

A Century of Seasons also highlights the illustrious career of the Tarpon Club, FSU’s oldest club. The synchronized swimming team was created in the 1920s, originally with the name Life Saving Corps. The club hosted exhibitions that would demonstrate form swimming, figure swimming, speed swimming, lifesaving techniques, diving, and canoe handling. The group adopted the name Tarpon Club in 1937, and developed into a highly-regarded club that garnered awards from national organizations, featured in Hollywood films, and eagerly anticipated water pageants. Tarpon Club disbanded in 1994 and left Florida State with a unique and well-loved history.

A Century of Seasons: The History of Florida State Athletics is open from 10am-6pm in the Strozier Exhibit Room until February 2014.

Imagine a newly constructed hospital with room for over 300 occupants, sitting idle and standing empty in a time of great need.

By the mid-1920s the Bronx Hospital, originally founded in 1911, had outgrown its original facility and began construction on a state-of-the art hospital at Fulton Avenue and 169th Street. The new hospital was a “monument to the medical profession” and boasted the latest in medical technology and hospitable accommodations for patients: “Everything is in readiness for rendering service, the humanitarian service of saving lives and ministering to the needs of the ill and injured. Every room, every utility compartment, every laboratory, every scientific device of proved merit, in fact, every needed facility of modern hospitalization stands ready to become useful for the particular purpose for which it has been conceived, contemplated, planned and constructed.”

The now familiar pink and white building was completed in 1930, but was unable to open until 1932 due to a lack of funds and stood empty and unused except for guided tour groups. In this radio address, Isidor Teitelbaum, a member of the hospital’s Board of Directors, issues an impassioned plea for donations.

In 1962, privately-owned Bronx Hospital joined forces with Lebanon Hospital to become the Bronx-Lebanon Hospital.

The Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB) recently hosted an open meeting to discuss its recommendations to the President on Transforming the Security Classification System, focusing on declassification prioritization. PIDB continues to advocate for public discussion on the report. This meeting represented opportunities to highlight recommendations from the report, continue the conversation about the current declassification system, and discuss the topics citizens want prioritized for declassification.

The meeting also hosted a panel discussion on “Perspectives on Prioritizing Government Records for Declassification and Public Access,” featuring Stephen Randolph, Historian at the Department of State; Joseph Lambert, Director of Information Management Services at the Central Intelligence Agency; Michael Dobbs, Journalist and Scholar-in-Residence at the Holocaust Museum; and Stephen Aftergood from the Federation of American Scientists.

My opening remarks at the meeting were an opportunity to emphasize the importance of the National Archives’ role in this democratic process, and to highlight the work we are doing to eliminate the declassification backlog and modernize records management practices:

When people have open access to government information, they are able to hold government accountable for its actions. This is an essential part of our democracy. As Thomas Jefferson wrote from Paris in 1789: “whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government…whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on … [ Read all ]

From the December, 1943 WQXR Program Guide:

When you think of interesting approaches to music you think of Mme. Stokowski, whose Layman’s Music Course at Town Hall, New York, has been famous for years. To know why she is so successful in her method, we suggest you listen to her WQXR program every Sunday morning at 10 A.M.

In the Oxford Dictionary, we find the definition of the word high-brow is “adjective and noun, (U.S. slang), (person) of detached intellectual views on politics, etc.”

Unhappily, we have to include great music in that all embracing “etc.,” although there is nothing “intellectually detached” about this art to which the word is so often applied. Definitions of words are not nearly so important as the reasons behind their use. The word “impressionistic” was originally applied by a waggish critic in Paris as a term of ridicule to certain paintings exhibited by a group of artists whose works had been rejected by the reactionary Parisian Academy. In the course of time it became the serious designation of an important school of painting.

The word “high-brow” (strangely adolescent for present-day America) may have been invented by one of those unhappy husbands who found himself more or less obligated to accompany his enthusiastic wife to concerts and operas when his own longings took the direction of vaudeville and musical comedy. There are many such musically uninterested and rebellious males in the United States–perhaps more than in European countries, where parental authority was strong enough in the past to force unwilling little boys to make friends with art music through playing the piano or the violin. In the new world, on the other hand, we allowed the legend to persist that music is an unmanly pursuit.

As far as I can make out, the word “high-brow” in its current connection with music is a synonym for “undesirable.” It is used by some as a term of ridicule, much as the traditional tourist of former times in Europe regarded every language he did not understand as funny. Every world traveler has met such tourists and heard them make feeble jokes about “parley-voo.” Still other people use the word “high-brow” as a term of rejection. Among these we find the aforementioned unhappy husbands whose frame of mind before the ordeal of sitting for an hour-and-a-half on stiff chairs at a symphony concert is probably akin to that of a woman who said (before being taken to a political meeting), “I have a perfectly unprejudiced and unbiased mind. Therefore I am going to listen to what I am firmly convinced is utter rubbish.”

It is amazing how vigorously and tenaciously people who think they cannot understand great art music will resist the possibility of enjoying it!

The most musically unhappy husband I ever knew endured symphony concerts in Boston for twenty-five years and managed to keep his prejudice against them completely intact. Instead of listening to the music, he took refuge (paradoxically enough!) in the “intellectual detachment” of reading the program notes and disagreeing with every word. Once–according to his own account–he turned over two pages instead of one and ‘was sad at the wrong time,” a neat satire on the futility of telling people what they should feel while listening to music!

Perhaps we are at the crossroads where the word “high-brow” will either change its meaning or be dropped altogether. Looking back along the road we have already traveled, we find grave errors committed by professional musicians in what might be called the field of music public relations. People who could not carry a tune were pronounced by them to be tone-deaf and were cast into outer darkness. By the same token people who were not endowed with a singing voice they cared to listen to, or people who did not play an instrument were made to feel that they were rank outsiders. Professional musicians, while constantly stressing performance, neglected the development of intelligent listening.

Peering ahead on the road we must still travel in our changing world, things look very different. The radio and phonograph are doing for music what the invention of printing did for literature. They are making it universally accessible as one of the great experiences of life. The invention of printing would have been of little avail if there had not been the increase in literacy that accompanied it. The wonderful possibilities created by the radio and phonograph demand a musical equivalent of literacy–and everyone who has a real contact with the every-growing public for art music realizes how keen is the demand for such a development of receptive powers. The first efforts in this direction were christened “music appreciation.” This is undoubtedly a misnomer. People can no more be taught to “appreciate” than they can learn how to react emotionally. What is really important is to become aware of the element that “gives sense to sound”–not through association of ideas with things outside of music, but through recognition of the fundamental elements of one of the greatest means of expression of joy, grief, love, anger, and jealousy. Human beings not only experience emotion but have the capacity to express it in one way or another; and when a Shakespeare expresses those same emotions, the inspirational way in which he does it achieves immortality. An appreciation of the way in which musical geniuses express emotion proves that the same thing is true of music. In order to have a complete experience, the listener must react not only emotionally but must also be aware of the magic of the art through which he receives the composer’s message. The listener who has found the road to such musical awareness will have no place in his vocabulary for the word “high-brow.”

Photo: Olga Samaroff-Stokowski circa 1917, Library of Congress.

We have already received many comments from our followers about what topics you would like to see declassified.  Today, we present you with anew  list of topics OLDER than 25 years.

View the List Here:  Older Than 25 Years

Like our first category of topics 25 years old and younger, this list of older topics captures what we heard from Agency declassifiers, experts from the Presidential Libraries and the requester community.  The topics are listed in alphabetical order, not by ranking.

All lists will remain active for comment while the blog is live.  Please continue to make comments on this new list and also any other topics you think are important for prioritization.

Your comments will be posted as soon as possible.  Please review our blog’s Comment and Posting Policy for more details.  Thank you for your continued interest and participation.

Peterson, Roger Tory, and Virginia Marie Peterson. The Audubon Society Baby Elephant Folio: Audubon’s Birds of America. London: Heinemann, 1981.

The Amherst College Archives and Special Collections has an extensive ornithology rare books collection, containing many images of turkeys!

You can see a full listing of volumes from the Richard L. Soffer (Class of 1954) Ornithology Collection.

We also have an Audubon Double Elephant Folio on display in the Archives foyer.  Come check it out!

Happy Thanksgiving from the Archives!

Two hundred years ago on this day, Giambattista Bodoni, the great Italian typographer, died. The Updike Collection includes one of the United States’ best collections of books published by Bodoni, as well as ephemera and a few manuscripts, and we’re going to be celebrating with an exhibition this February (so stay tuned for more information and mark your calendars for February 27th for the opening reception).

Having such a fine Bodoni collection means that in some cases we have multiple copies of items he printed. Why would anyone need more than one, you ask? Here’s an example, with two copies of a 1799 broadside side-by-side:

On the left is a copy with hand-written annotations, in this case possibly by Bodoni himself. On the right is a copy with the emendations called for in the copy on the left. In other words, this is a chance to see a great printer at work. Here are some of the details:

In many cases Bodoni (we’ll just assume that’s who made the correction marks) is indicating letters that need to be replaced, as in the case of the damaged “I” in Austria:

Or the “D” in “Ducum” with the wandering lead at the bottom of its bowl (say that ten times fast) and changes to letter spacing:

Sometimes you’ll have a letter like the “A” not keeping up with the baseline:

Or punctuation that needs to disappear completely (plus a shift closer to the center):

Here’s the full page view (Click for animation):

The devil is in the details.

(And if you find yourself wanting more bookish animated gifts, there’s no place better than the University of Iowa Special Collections tumblr.)