It was forty years ago this week that the world lost Donny Hathaway, the recording artist remembered by most for his top-40 hits with Roberta Flack, Where is the Love and The Closer I Get to You.  But to fans of 1970s soul and R&B, Hathaway is remembered first as a consummate artist, a musician whose technical ability and expressive powers produced a body of work like no other. Atlantic Records producer Jerry Wexler said, “I used to think we had two geniuses on Atlantic: Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles. When Donny Hathaway signed up, I announced to one and all that I think we’ve found our third genius.”[1]

Donny Edward Hathaway was born on October 1, 1945 in Chicago.  He was raised in St. Louis by his grandmother, Martha Pitts, a gospel singer and guitarist.  By the time he reached age four, Hathaway’s grandmother recognized his musical gift, bought him a piano, and nurtured his talent. His youth was immersed in an array of music making. He sang at his family’s Pentecostal church, Trinity Baptist; he performed on the St. Louis gospel circuit under the stage name “Little Donnie Pitts”; he studied classical piano, and in high school performed Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor; [2] and after graduating from high school he attended Howard University, where he studied music on an academic scholarship.

It was while studying at Howard that Hathaway formed some of his most important and enduring artistic relationships: with Roberta Flack —his classmate and the collaborator on his most popular recordings; with Leroy Hutson —his roommate and the writing partner on his first major single, The Ghetto, Pt. 1; and with Ric Powell —his classmate, band mate and the co-producer of his first album, Everything is Everything.

In 1969, after a successful two-year period working as an arranger, producer, and session musician at both Chess Records and at Curtis Mayfield’s Curtom Records, twenty-three-year-old Donny Hathaway was signed as a solo artist by Atlantic Records to its Atco division. Over the course of the next four years, he released three critically acclaimed solo studio albums, as well as the million-selling duet album, Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway, his legendary album, Live, the holiday classic This Christmas, the film score for the Samuel Goldwyn Jr. production Come Back, Charleston Blue, and the theme song for CBS Television’s hit series Maude. In those same years, he remained in demand and active as an arranger and session musician for the recordings of a diverse group of major artists, including Lena Horne, Willie Nelson, Aretha Franklin, and Freddie King.

Donny Hathaway at a promotional event at the Plaza Hotel in 1971
(Cash Box, 5 June 1971/NYPR Archives)

The thread running through Hathaway’s prolific and diverse output is, of course, the artistry of Atlantic Records’ “third genius.”  It is an artistry built on a synergy of craft (“the most brilliant musical theorist I ever encountered,”[3] according to Wexler), virtuosity, roots in the music traditions that came before him, and a commanding voice imbued with fearless expression. His songs, whether originals or covers, have the sublime quality of being at once deeply personal and universal: Someday We’ll All Be Free, I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know, A Song for You, Giving Up.

In a 1971 review, the New York Times critic Don Heckman seemed almost at a loss to describe his encounter with Hathaway’s music. His extremely brief review begins:

Donny Hathaway, appearing at the Bitter End this week, should be heard.  That’s the way one usually ends a review, but in this case I’m much more concerned with urging you to go experience his music for yourself than I am with making critical points.

 He concluded, four sentences later:

So, to repeat myself, Donny Hathaway should be heard.[4]

Excerpt of the New York Times review of Donny Hathaway’s 1971 appearance at The Bitter End
(Don Heckman, New York Times, 29 October 1971)

But as his creative and professional life flourished, Hathaway’s mental health began to decline. According to his wife, Eulaulah Hathaway, “He was hospitalized on several occasions. I guess by ’73 or ’74 it was determined that he was a paranoid schizophrenic.” [5] From 1974 until 1979, Donny Hathaway’s recording career and public performances were largely halted by the debilitating effects of the disease and of its treatment.

Late in 1978, after a nearly four-year hiatus, plans were underway to resume Hathaway’s career. He would return to the recording studio to reunite with his old friend and collaborator, Roberta Flack; they would produce another duet album, a follow-up to their 1972 gold record.  The sessions for the new album began in January of 1979 and some takes were recorded, including those for the singles Back Together Again and You Are My Heaven. But part way into the session of January 13th, Hathaway became irrational, overwhelmed by an episode of the mental illness that plagued his life. The session was canceled, the musicians sent home.  Later that evening, at the age of 33, Donny Hathaway ended his life.

In 2011, Hathaway’s daughter, the singer Lalah Hathaway, spoke to Studio 360’s Eddie Robinson about her father, his legacy, and the transcendent quality of his music.

Lalah Hathaway on Studio 360, December 9th, 2011

Studio 360’s full interview with Lalah Hathaway is available here and is part the New York Public Radio Archives collection.

____________________________________________

[1] Unsung, season 1, episode 3, “Donny Hathaway,” A. Smith & Co. Productions, 2 December 2008

[2] Cheers, D. Michael, “The Mysterious Death of Donny Hathaway,” Ebony, April 1979

[3] Kandia Crazy Horse, “Donny Hathaway: a soul man who departed too soon,” The Guardian, 8 January 2014

[4] Heckman, Don, “Donny Hathaway Plays Bitter End,” The New York Times, 29 October 1971

[5] Wells, Chris, “Eulaulah Hathaway Exclusive,” Echoes, 24 October 2013

On January 1st, the copyright expired for some of our holdings: these are now in the public domain in Canada. These digital materials may now be legally re-used for any purpose. Here’s a quick look at some of the images and maps that have become easier to re-use. There are many more!

Ross Lort was a Vancouver architect who began his career with the firm of Maclure and Fox, and spend the latter part of his career as the principal of the firm Ross A. Lort Architect. He was also an accomplished artist and we have a few of his works digitized.

“False Creek”, by Ross Lort, 1933. Linocut showing sawmills on False Creek. Reference code AM1562-: 2010-084

Hugh Pickett was a legendary local impresario. We have recently made his records available and will be digitizing some of the photographs in that fonds. Here is a photograph of Hugh with American actor-singer-dancer Mitzi Gaynor.

Hugh Pickett and Mitzi Gaynor. 1950s. Barry Glass, photographer. Reference code AM1674-S9-F06-: 2014-089.0933

This map, published by C.D. Shultz and Company, is in the form of an aerial photograph overlaid with annotations to show landmarks, tourist sites and trails in Stanley Park.

Stanley Park, Vancouver, B.C., 1968. Reference code AM1594-: MAP 1059

This map was created by the Office of the City Engineer by adding colour-coded information to a copy of a base map.

Sheet E : University Endowment Lands to Wallace Street and Sixteenth Avenue to Twenty-seventh Avenue. Date of creation is ca. 1925, with revisions to Nov. 23, 1943. Reference code: COV-S303-MAP 343-: MAP 343.30

This is just a small selection of the items which have recently come into the public domain.

The recent publicity surrounding the rediscovery of a time capsule buried in the University’s Gannochy Sports Pavilion during its construction in 1969 highlights the value of our archives in preserving the institutional memory of the university. The current redevelopment of the university’s sports facilities brought the presence of this item to light, the university being alerted to the presence of the time capsule in the building by Campbell Chesterman, former University Facilities Manager.

The exact location of the capsule was determined by checking the administrative records for the university for 1969 held in the University Archives. A file relating to the official duties of Lord Robbins, the first Chancellor of the University of Stirling, was found to contain a document entitled ‘University of Stirling – Gannochy Trust Pavilion Ceremony’ (ref. UA/A/4/1/1).

The document describes in detail the arrangements for the event which included the laying of the foundation stone for the building, the filling of the time capsule with a selection of items chosen to represent the University of Stirling in 1969 and the securing of the capsule within the walls of the building. A full list of the contents of the time capsule (or ‘casket’ as it was referred to in the document) is also included. With the date of the event established as 18 June 1969 a search through our press cutting files unearthed an article from the Stirling Observer which provided further details and also included a photograph of the ceremony taking place (ref. UA/H/1/3).

Armed with the information gleaned from the archival records the time capsule was located and removed from the building site. The University Archives was delighted to host the event where the capsule was re-opened, guests including Mr Chesterman, who had alerted the university to its presence in the Gannochy building.

The capsule captured a snapshot of the University in the
summer of 1969 its remarkably well preserved contents including sporting
equipment, exam papers, university publications, local and national newspapers,
stamps and currency (both decimal and pre-decimal denominations). Also included
was a bottle of Bells Old Scotch Whisky, in recognition of the support of the
Gannochy Trust for the new university (the Trust being founded in 1937 as a
charitable institution by the Bells Whisky family). 

The time capsule and its contents will be stored in the University Archives for the duration of the current redevelopment of the university sports facilities. It is planned to rebury the capsule in the new building, which is due for completion in 2020, adding a number of contemporary items to the original 1969 memorabilia. With these plans in place we will continue the tradition started in 1969, add to the history of the institution and preserve the record of the capsule and its contents in the University Archives (ref. UA/TC).

Side 4 of 8 of Eugene Plotnikoff conducting WPA FMP concert airing on WNYC May 29, 1938.
(WNYC Archive Collections)

Eugene Plotnikoff conducted musical performances heard regularly over WNYC for more than half of the 1930s and into the forties, when he was with the WPA’s Federal Music Project [1] —including the broadcast above, Tchaikovsky’s Overture to Romeo and Juliet. The recording, pieced together from eight 12-inch 78rpm lacquer disc sides, comes from an all-Tchaikovsky concert by the New York Civic Orchestra on May 29, 1938. The full concert also featured material from the opera Mazeppa; Lensky’s aria from Eugene Onegin; and Symphony No. 5 in E minor. The soloists were Ruth Peters, soprano and Charles Heywood, tenor. It is just one of the hundreds of live concerts that WNYC broadcast during the WPA era.Plotnikoff, a veteran of the Moscow Imperial Theater’s orchestra pit, knew Tchaikovsky, whom he called “the kindest man I have ever known.”[2] But the great Russian composer wasn’t alone on Plotnikoff’s celebrity list of friends and acquaintances, which included Serge Rachmaninoff, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Reinhold Glière, Alexander Glazounov, and Mill Balakireff.Plotnikoff began as a cello student at the Imperial Music School in Odessa. Progress there led to the Moscow Conservatory, where he was a student of the composer Vasily Sergeyevich Kalinnikov and played in the orchestra under Tchaikovsky’s baton. Out on his own, Plotnikoff took up the conducting reins at Moscow’s Imperial Theater, where he directed the world premiere of Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera Sadko. The Imperial is also where he was ballet director for five years, when Rachmaninoff was the theater’s general operatic director. [3]

A poster for the WPA Federal Music Project Russian symphony concert series conducted by Eugene Plotnikoff in 1938.
(Library of Congress)

Plotnikoff left the Soviet Union in 1921 to conduct a series of operatic performances in Paris and toured the United States as a conductor for the Chaliapin Opera Company before joining the WPA Federal Music Project soon after its inception.

The Daily Worker described Plotnikoff as the “conductorial mainstay” of the New York City Federal Music Project. He began his tenure leading the Festival Orchestra (later known as the Federal Symphony) and then the 100-member New York Civic Orchestra. The New York City Symphony Orchestra followed that, and in April 1941 he took over the directorship of the WPA Manhattan Chorus.  It was the WNYC broadcast of Plotnikoff’s Brooklyn Museum concert performance that was famously interrupted by the first domestic news bulletin announcing the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He also conducted the WNYC Concert Orchestra at least a dozen times for American Music Festival and Brooklyn Museum concerts.  In spite of the hard times during the Depression, Plotnikoff was impressed by the wealth of talent and energy among the city’s unemployed musicians.

I can’t help but think that merit alone or lack of it, was not the factor that put these men and women out of work. It must have been unfortunate circumstances, for assuredly the musicians that come to me are qualified to play in any orchestra anywhere. Honestly, I think that if I had the financial backing to form a symphony orchestra, I would audition my artists from the ranks of the unemployed. I am sure I could get as good an orchestra there as elsewhere. [4]

In a February 1940 interview with Etude Music Magazine, Plotnikoff said it was impossible to give enough praise to the WPA Federal Music Project.

Organized some time ago, in the hope of bringing dignified assistance to unemployed musicians, they have rapidly become a splendid means of furthering music education. My orchestra numbers one hundred expert performers, many of whom have been ‘spotted’ and engaged for ranking symphonic organizations. Our programs are chosen for their purely musical value, without regard to box office popularity.[5]

Plotnikoff went on to emphasize that his experience had shown that catering to what is ‘popular’ was not a factor for winning a loyal and sizeable audience. He added that the concerts, which were at first free and later charged a nominal fee (35 to 55 cents), were regularly sold out.

This is a true test of the public interest in good music. It is satisfying to report that these concerts, which are attended solely for their musical worth, and not for any reasons of fashion or glamour, are reaching the very people who need them most. Perhaps only in America would a project of this kind be possible today. [6]

Label from a 16″ WPA Federal Music Project Radio Division transcription disc with Eugene Plotnikoff conducting
(WNYC Archive Collections)

Although New York-based, Plotnikoff’s conducting prowess could be heard throughout the United States via the WPA Federal Music Project’s distribution system. This pre-satellite ‘syndication’ relied on the U.S. Post Office delivering thousands of 16-inch broadcast transcription discs like this one (left) to participating radio stations around the country. The music follows below.

Eugene Plotnikoff conducting a WPA Federal Music Program orchestra.
(Courtesy of The New York Times)

Eugene Plotnikoff died tragically of a heart attack September 29, 1951 while conducting The New York City Amateur Symphony Orchestra at their City Center rehearsal of Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony. He was 73.[7]

__________________________________________

[1] For more details please see: The WPA Federal Music Project is a Major Presence at WNYC.

[2] Heylbut, Rose, “Medallions of Russian Masters of Yesteryear by Eugene Plotnikoff,” The Etude Music Magazine, February 1940, pg. 137.

[3] “Russian Program at Museum,” The Brooklyn Eagle, June 4, 1939, pg. 6.

[4] “Let There Be Music —Despite Pink Slips,” Daily Worker, October 31, 1939, pg. 7.

[5] Heylbut, Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] “E Plotnikoff Dies Leading Symphony,” The New York Times, September 29, 1951, pg. 14.

In collaboration with Leon High School, we just finished digitizing the first batch of their newspapers which date from 1920-1956. As with most collaborative efforts, this was a multi-step process involving several parties and today we’re going to briefly discuss the digitization portion of this project. The goal is to have the entire Leon High Newspaper Collection digitized, loaded into DigiNole and made accessible to the community.

The first step in the process was to take a glance at what we were working with and to prep the papers for digitization. The newspapers were picked up from Leon High and delivered to Strozier Library neatly sorted and grouped by decade, with most stored in protective mylar. Considering their age, the papers themselves were in decent condition and they arrived stored in several large archival boxes.

The plan was to efficiently digitize these objects using multiple pieces of equipment at once; larger issues would be digitized with our overhead reprographic camera set up while the smaller ones would be scanned on our Epson 11000XL flatbed scanners.

In order to get started, we sorted the newspapers by size and had them distributed to their respective scanning stations. This allowed us to save time by not having to manually refocus and position our overhead IQ180 camera each time a different-sized newspaper was encountered. Leaving the camera in one position allowed for faster capture time and guaranteed each photo would be captured at the specified resolution.

When photographing this sort of material, it’s important to reduce as much depth as possible. Peaks and valleys caused by folds or creases in the objects can sometimes cause problems when trying to achieve evenly-sharp focus throughout the frame. Thankfully, most of the newspapers from this first batch laid relatively flat without too many folds or bumps.

We were able to flatten the few troublesome papers by carefully utilizing a set of custom-sized glass plates. By lowering the angles of the lights and by using low-glare glass, we were able to prevent any unwanted reflections from showing up in the final images.

These problems typically don’t occur when using flatbed scanners since closing the lid does a good job of flattening most objects. The scanners also allow for even lighting across the entire object without the risk of unwanted reflections, especially with non-glossy material such as these newspapers.

Images from the flatbed scanner were cropped and saved to our servers directly from the VueScan software while images captured with our camera setup were edited and processed with Capture One CH.

While both pieces of software are quite powerful, they both have very different features. We primarily use VueScan as a scanning/processing software, while Capture One has the added bonus of offering file management and batch processing features as well as powerful capture tools. This allows us to quickly capture hundreds of photos consecutively and apply a set of edits/crops to the entire project at once. Capture One CH also offers specialized auto-crop and batch-crop features, which can be a massive time saver.

Once the images are all processed and saved onto our servers, they move onto final steps which include quality control, metadata creation, and loading of the images into DigiNole. Once the project has been safely uploaded, we will be ready to start all over with the second batch of newspapers! These newspapers will become part of the Leon High School Collection where we already have a full set of yearbooks for our users to browse.

We are ready to start digitizing the second batch of Leon High Newspapers after the holiday break, so keep an eye out for them to show up in Diginole later in 2019!

New York City’s Capitol Dance Orchestra was among the most publicized of the Federal Music Project’s units for the blind. Organized in August 1936, it consisted of five musicians (with an additional four slots), and it listed WNYC as its leading performance venue. Clarinet and saxophone player James Sumner told the Daily News at the time, “I made a good living before the Depression, playing at clubs and dances…I guess I can satisfy radio audiences.”[1]

The group’s size fluctuated over its seven-year run and included some thirty different blind or sight-impaired musicians. Most members of the group had been graduates of the New York Institute for the Education of the Blind but some, like accordion player Oscar England and banjo/guitar player Ray Dinsmore, (pictured above) went to the Indiana State School for the Blind before coming to New York. They all, however, learned their repertoire from Braille music and popular records. 

“The musicians believed that the project had rescued them from oblivion and poverty and had given them equal treatment. Like most other Americans, these musicians wanted ‘jobs we are equipped to handle…[The] Federal Music Project is a fair project and ours is a fair job,’ said Oscar England, unofficial leader of the group.”[2] They were each paid $23.86 for their weekly WNYC broadcast.

Headline from The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, December 30, 1936..
(WNYC Archive Collections)

Unfortunately, Oscar England’s last performance at WNYC was on December 29, 1936, when a tragic accident ended his life. After the performance, England left the broadcast studio with his bandmate James Sumners. With their white canes, the two musicians were headed home to Brooklyn by subway; while transferring from the BMT to the Broadway-Canarsie line at Union Square, a misstep tragically landed England between the platform and the train. The New York Times assigned Meyer Berger, one of its best reporters, to cover the story of the accident. His heartfelt piece was on page one the next day. Oscar England was 34 years old, married, and a father of three. [3]  By January 1943, the Federal Music Project was coming to an end. The band’s last concert was on January 18th. The ‘WPA unit’ tallied more than 3,000 performances and in retrospect was noted as being one of the more popular WPA-sponsored dance bands. Towards the end, the remaining six members of the group changed their name to the Musical Bombardiers with the hope of getting paying gigs entertaining workers at defense plants.[4]

Clipping from the Radio Guide of July 24, 1937, pg.21.
(Internet Archive)

____________________________________

[1] “WPA Organizing Band of Blind to Go on Air,” Daily News, September 27, 1936, pg. 151.

[2] Bindas, Kenneth J., All of this Music Belongs to the Nation: The WPA’s Federal Music Project and American Society, University of Tennessee Press, 1995. pg. 39.

[3] Berger, Meyer, “Blind Musician, Groping in Subway, Miscounts Steps, Is Killed By Train,” The New York Times, December 30, 1936, pg. 1.

[4] “Concert and Opera Asides,” The New York Times, February 14, 1943, pg. X5.

Usually when people think of preservation work in archives and special collections, the first thing that comes to mind is crumbling old letters and ancient volumes, but the reality is that modern materials can pose even greater preservation challenges. The last 50 years has seen an explosion in the kinds of materials used in books and book arts: from the huge variety of plastics to experimental inks, dyes and paints; new photographic processes to unusual substrates like metal or concrete; books that include electronics to books that include dirt and seeds. It is clear that caring for modern books is not for the faint of heart!

A couple months ago, I attended a conference titled “Now! And Then? Preserving Modern and Contemporary Collections in Libraries and Archives“. It gave me a great excuse to pull together many of the modern items in our collections that pose particular preservation challenges. I’ve put together a photo montage of some of my favorites, click on an image to learn more about the item and its preservation concerns.

A number of these artist books have been explored in greater depth in other posts on this blog:

• Earth Clock and The/Rapist
• Your House is Mine
• 2013
• Newton’s Principia and other works by Didier Mutel

A rousing introduction to 1941 by New York City Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia. Although there’s a little problem with the balance of volume between His Honor is the live band by the end. Nevertheless, “New York City is America!”

The story of Lancelot and Elaine is based on Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem Idylls of the King.

The production features Christopher Cartmill and Kathleen O’Grady. It was edited and adapted for radio by Christopher Cartmill and produced by WNYC’s Scott Borden and Gads Hill for a broadcast on February 11, 2001.  Jo Ann Allen introduces the production. Engineering by George Wellington.

_____________________________

From the original proposal, July 7, 2000:

Courtly love developed during the twelfth century in France. It celebrated an intensely idealized form of ‘falling in love’ with every society in every age is familiar in a highly elaborate code of behavior. It permanently influenced our culture and society and the way we think about romantic love. 

It was during the great flowering of the troubadours in the twelfth century that the tale of Lancelot and the Lily Maid of Astolat were added to the legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. 

To the Victorian, both English and American, this story of love and honor took a place of central importance. And for it, Tennyson created some of his most beautiful and bittersweet verses.

We are brought up from birth with the idea that romantic love makes life worthwhile. It seductively promises the most intense happiness and personal fulfillment. Yet the various pains of disappointment, rejection, jealousy and betrayal are the other side of the coin and the cause of oft-told suffering to those unlucky in love. Is romantic love merely an artistic expression of something deeper in the human soul? Is it all an elaborate game or the true business of life?

WNYC Radio and Gad’s Hill bring back the lovely and moving tale of Sir Lancelot and Elaine and the art of storytelling as only radio can do in this adaptation of Lancelot and Elaine from Tennyson’s Idylls of the King by Kennedy Center award-winning playwright Christopher Cartmill. This intimate treatment captures all the drama, charm, irony, heartbreak, and transcendence of Tennyson’s poetry using just two voices and musical accompaniment. 

From the Winter 1999 WNYC Program Guide:

“As we stand poised on the edge of a new millennium, travel back to another world on the verge of change. The Idylls of the King, based on the poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson is a radio play that gloriously recreates the legend of King Arthur, his queen Guinevere, and the dawn of a new age.”

The production was edited and adapted for radio by Christopher Cartmill and features Christopher Cartmill and Kathleen O’Grady. It was directed by Tom Palumbo and produced by WNYC’s Scott Borden and Gads Hill for a first broadcast on December 31, 1999.  The late great Margaret Juntwait announces. Engineering was by Wayne Schulmister.

_________________________________________

From the original proposal:

A Story So Big It Only Fits on Radio

As we approach the year two thousand many people are trying to make meaning out of the present by looking to the future and remembering the past. It is a powerful time and a powerful dramatic radio program is needed.

The tales of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table sprung up early in this millennium – in the turmoil and chaos of Europe in the eleventh century. William the Conqueror captured the English throne and established a dynasty that rules to this day. The old order changed giving place to new thus tying the end of life clearly to the start of life and creating a profound mix of nostalgia and hopefullness

For these last thousand years King Arthur, Queen Guinevere and their knights have served as models and mirrors for the changing values and realities of the western world. The human spirit longs to look closely in this mirror as we anticipate the end of one millennium and the start of another. What better time to bring Idylls of the King to life!

The Adaptation

A long and august line of wordsmiths has been drawn to this legend. Geoffrey of Monmouth, Cretien de Troyes, Wolfram von Eschenback, Mallory, Blake, Marion Bradley, and others have all set their hand to this story. Even some modern comic book heroes and video games have their roots in Arthurian legend.

Of all those who have been moved by Arthur, Tennyson stands out. His Idylls of the King captures a sense of the momentous and the humourous; majesty and modesty; the best in human virtue and the worst in human treachery.

In addition, Tennyson wrote on the very brink of the modern age and so there is a contemporary quality. At the same time, he was very much a Victorian, adding a gentle sentimentality to his voice. But most of all, he captured the timeless spirit of the legend. 

Author/Actor Christopher Cartmill has done more than just cut and paste Tennyson’s words. This dramatic moving adaptation represents a distillation of Idylls of the King. It keeps much of what is best, orders it in a consumable way, and bridges some gaps that might have been common knowledge in Tennyson’s time, but are not today.

The festive season always brings it end-of-year polls and ‘best of’ lists. We’re partial to a good list @unistirarchives so we have reviewed our user statistics recording visits to our archives reading room and enquiries received about our collections to come up with our annual rundown of our most popular collections.

In 2018 our most used and enquired about collection is the NHS Forth Valley Archive. Since the original transfer of material in 2012 it has consistently been one of our most popular collections (also topping our end-of-year chart in 2013, 2014 and 2015). The collection includes historical patient records that are of great interest to family historians. Alongside the regular genealogical enquiries we receive 2018 also brought a marked increase in the use of the collection by students at Stirling for dissertations and project work. This year also marked the 70^th anniversary of the NHS and the 21^st anniversary of Nursing at Stirling, both events generating further interest in our medical collections.

The University of Stirling celebrated its 50^th anniversary in 2017 and the interest generated in the history of the institution continued into 2018 with the university’s own archives taking second place on our list. Another anniversary of note occurred in 2018 with the university celebrating the 40^th anniversary of the establishment of Film & Media Studies as a subject at Stirling. With this anniversary in mind its fitting that the final entry in our top three of 2018 is our film archive collections which include the personal and working papers of John Grierson, Norman McLaren and Lindsay Anderson. 2018 also marked the 50^th anniversary of the release of If…., Lindsay Anderson’s iconic tale of rebellion at an English public school. The anniversary generated much research interest in the film and we were also invited to contribute to a number of events, screenings and exhibitions relating to the film during the year.

Other Archives & Special Collections highlights in 2018 included: the award of an Honorary Degree to the writer Patrick McGrath by the University in June in recognition of the generous donation of his literary papers to the University Archives to support learning and research; the display of a specially-curated version of our Hosts & Champions exhibition at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, Gold Coast, Australia in April; and the fantastic exhibition created by our ARTUHR5 students in November – Pop and Protest: the Musicians’ Union in the 1980s showcases material from the Musicians’ Union Archive (and is on display in the University Library until March 2019).

Finally we would like to thank our team of volunteers who have worked so hard throughout the year to support us making our collections more accessible to all. And a big thank you to Lucy, our Heritage Studies student, who raised the profile of our collections on Wikipedia.

We wish all our users and supporters a very happy Xmas.

The University Archives will reopen on 3 January 2019.

Previous years:

2017: 1. University of Stirling; 2. NHS Forth Valley; 3. Peter Mackay

2016: 1. NHS Forth Valley; 2. University of Stirling; 3. Lindsay Anderson

2015: 1. NHS Forth Valley; 2. Musicians’ Union; 3. University of Stirling

The Archives will be closed for the holidays from 5pm on Friday, December 21, 2018, and reopen at 9am on Wednesday, January 2, 2019.

A delightful Season’s Greetings card depicting a woman in a poinsettia dress holding a wreath with a man in a black top coat. Reference code: AM968–

This year’s season’s greetings card comes from the Lorne Brown fonds. Lorne Ellis Brown (1908-1976) was a teacher in the Vancouver public school system when this card was sent to him in 1930 or 1931. Later in his career, he became the Provincial Superintendent of Physical Education in the Department of Education (1944-1946), the Director of Health and Physical Education at the Provincial Normal School (1946-1955), and Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia (1955-1973), and Vancouver Park Board Commissioner (1967-1968).

Lorne Brown married Annie May Adams (better known as May Brown) in the 1940s. May shared Lorne’s interest in physical education, and has had a highly distinguished career in her own right. Highlights of her impressive career include faculty member of UBC’s School of Physical Education and Recreation and coach of the UBC women’s field hockey (1947-1955), Park Board Commissioner (1973-1976), and Alderman on the Vancouver City Council (1980-1986). She also has received a number of accolades, including the Order of Canada (1986). The Archives’ holdings contain records from her time in civic office (City of Vancouver fonds, series 462).

Inside of greeting card, sent from Captain Westy. Reference code: AM968–

Together, Lorne and May ran Camp Deka, a private boys’ camp in BC’s interior, from 1961-1976. May donated the Camp Deka records to the Archives in 2011.

As a testament to this couple’s commitment to physical education and Vancouver’s Park Board, the May & Lorne Brown Park located on Beach Avenue, was named in their honour in 1998.

Today’s Bad Child of History is taken from The Farmer’s Boy, illustrated by Randolph Caldecott.

Look at these scamps! Are they bathing beneath hams? Is that a cider press behind them? Why don’t I have a braid of garlic near my bath?

Our Reading Rooms will be closed until January 2, 2019. Please note Strozier Library is also closed until this date starting December 17, 2018.

Our hours January 2-4, 2019 will be 10am to 4:30pm. We will resume normal operating hours on Monday, January 7, 2019.

We wish you all a safe and merry holiday season!

Editor’s Note: This post was written by Celita Summa who was our Shaw expert this semester as she shifted through his personal papers to select for a digitization project. She’s going abroad in the spring and we’ll miss her. Bon Voyage Celita!

While sifting through the Shaw manuscript collection, I discovered that many of Shaw’s collecting practices were driven by nostalgia and the important human connections formed during childhood. Although his manuscript collection is vast, both in scope and length (it measures over 46 linear feet in length), Shaw was clearly incentivized to collect in order to preserve the things he held most dear- friends, family, and childhood memories.

One of the objects in the collection is a small pocket calendar used by the 14-year-old Shaw to record his immigration to America. In the margins, he indicated his family’s last day in Scotland, their voyage at sea, and their first day in America. He noted that his devoutly Presbyterian family did not fail to miss Sunday service their first weekend in America. The inclusion of this object represents Shaw’s own passage from his Scottish childhood to American manhood, as he would begin employment shortly after settling down in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Shaw indicates another motivator for the collection as he attempts to preserve memories that will forever remain in his childhood years. Throughout the collection, correspondence with some of his childhood best friends is featured heavily. There is a map of Shaw and Jimmy Macaulay’s childhood stomping grounds, mock newsletters the two drew up for each other, and even one of Macaulay’s commonplace books. I wondered what the reason for this might be, until I stumbled across wartime letters between the two long-time friends, along with a notice of Macaulay’s death.

Both men served in World War I, and Jimmy was not Shaw’s only loss due to the war. Another friend, Alfred Hendricks, was in frequent correspondence with Shaw. One day Shaw’s letter was returned unanswered, in an envelope marked “deceased.” Shaw’s inclusion of Macaulay and Hendricks in the collection depicts the unbreakable bond forged between childhood friends.

Another aspect that drove Shaw’s manuscript collection was his own children. In fact, his kids were the very catalyst for the book collection and his own published works of poetry. In the manuscript collection, he includes his own children’s poems along with those he wrote specifically for them. By creating the “Childhood in Poetry” collection, Shaw preserved the themes he valued the most in his life, from friendship and fatherhood to memories of his childhood home and relatives.

Edwin Franko Goldman
(WNYC Archive Collections)

On June 21, 1954 The New York Times reported that the Goldman Band would premiere the ‘WNYC March’  on July 9th in Central Park to mark the station’s 30 years of broadcasting.  The work was scored for brass instruments and drums. The composer, Dr. Edwin Franko Goldman, said it was written  “as a tribute to WNYC for the fine work it has been doing.” Goldman echoed this remark on WNYC’s Speaking of Music program where he talked about his career, WNYC’s regular broadcasts of his band’s concerts from Central Park, and this tribute march.

Listen to the March for Brasses a.k.a. The WNYC March by the University of Michigan Symphony Band in a 1955 performance: YouTube

Edwin Franko Goldman (1878–1956) was one of the leading American band composers of the early 20th century. He composed more than 150 works, but is best known for his marches. He founded the renowned Goldman Band and the American Bandmasters Association. His works are known by their catchy tunes, as well as their trios and solos.
Bandleaders John Philip Sousa and Edwin Franko Goldman (WNYC Archive Collections)

Audio courtesy of the NYC Municpal Archives. 

Earlier this year I wrote up a brief description of the Class Albums we will digitize for the upcoming Bicentennial celebration in 2021. This week I spent a little more time reviewing these materials and came up with some interesting tidbits.

Our class albums range from the 1850s through 1906, but they change considerably over that span. The earliest volumes include photographs printed directly onto the pages of the book, usually with a blank facing page that was used for autographs and personal messages. Here’s an example from 1859:

The inscription from Fred Billings to Thomas Boss (both Class of 1859) reads, in part:

“…we have drank the fragrant mocha in clouds of the divine smoke and I can remember of nothing which has interrupted our friendship through college life.”

After the 1850s, the format of these albums changes. For the 1860s through the 1880s, the albums are commercially produced blank photo albums into which separate printed images were filed, like this example from 1887:

Addison Allen’s album from 1887 is among the very largest in our collection, which makes these items from 1888 really stand out:

Instead of a massive volume filled with individual prints, these two slim volumes include just a handful of pages.

The volume of “Views” holds just two photographs that are composite images of several photographs of campus. Similarly, the pictures of the graduating class have been compressed into just three pages:

Similar albums of composite photographs were produced for the next couple of years, but another big change came with the 1893 “Amherst Portfolio”:

These volumes are remarkably similar to what we think of as yearbooks, featuring photographs of students and faculty along with extensive coverage of student groups.

Although this volume closely resembles a modern yearbook, a glance into the 1893 Olio shows how different the two books are. The 1893 Olio contains very few photographs and contains much more extensive text.

The name of the book changes over the next decade or so — “The Class Book,” “The Class Portfolio,” and “The Senior Class Book” for instance — but the last one appears in 1906. By that point, the Olio included many more photographs and continued to include extensive text about student activities and college life. It appears that demand for two books that reproduced essentially the same information waned in the early 20th century and no class albums were produced after 1906.

Our plan for the Bicentennial is to digitize one class album per year from 1853 through 1906. If anyone has an album from the class of 1892, that is the one year for which we have no class albums!

Today’s magician is not technically a magician, but rather an Italian spiritualist and medium named Eusapia Palladino.

Palladino’s “phenomena” referenced in Carrington’s book, above, included levitating tables and stools, bells ringing in the air, mysterious hands touching observers, sounds of ghostly tapping on furniture, and the like.

An orphan and former wife of a traveling conjurer, she was brought to public attention in 1888 by a Professor Chiaia of Naples who wrote a letter to a Professor Lombroso claiming that he had investigated Palladino’s phenomena extensively, was convinced of their legitimacy, and requested Lombroso to investigate them in turn. This led to more than a decade of investigatory seances in which various researchers (including a number from the Society for Psychical Research, and even, at one point, Pierre and Marie Curie) tried to prove or disprove Palladino’s methods. She attracted huge numbers of both skeptics and supporters.

Wikipedia has an extensive entry on Eusapia Palladino, which I won’t summarize here, although I do highly recommend it. Instead, I offer this tidbit from Eusapia Palladino and her Phenomena, in which the author describes an incident Palladino’s early life, based on her own recollection:

The villagers took little care of the orphan. Once when she was only a year old, she was allowed to fall, so that a hole was made in her head. That is the famous cranial opening from which, in moments of trance, a cold breeze is felt to issue. On this scar has grown a tress of hair that has always been white since infancy, and which is easily distinguishable in her photographs.

I will also leave you with a quote from psychical researcher Eric Dingwall (nicknamed “Dirty Ding”, according to Wikipedia), who was not convinced of Palladino’s powers, nor awed by her apparent cranial wind tunnel, but rather thought that she was “vital, vulgar, amorous and a cheat.”

This December is the 85th anniversary of Paul Dirac’s Nobel Prize for Physics. Dirac was an English theoretical physicist who became a fundamental contributor to the development of quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics. The Dirac Equation, which was formulated in 1928, described the behavior of fermions, or subatomic particles, and predicted the existence of antimatter.

In 1933, just a few years after the creation of this equation, Dirac became the youngest theoretical physicist to receive the award. He received the Nobel Prize for Physics alongside Erwin Schrödinger, an Austrian physicist who, like Dirac, developed a number of fundamental results in quantum and atomic theory. Dirac’s discoveries led to him being famously known as the “Father of Modern Physics.”

FSU Special Collections & Archives houses The Paul A.M. Dirac Papers which contains photographs, correspondence, books, manuscripts of scientific papers, and calculations. Images of Dirac with famous individuals within the scientific community such as Albert Einstein or Werner Heisenberg and dozens of letters to Dirac after his receiving of the Nobel Prize can also be found in the collection. You can also explore more of the collection’s Nobel Prize materials, as well as other digitized materials, in DigiNole, FSU’s digital repository.

Written by Michaela Westmoreland, an Editing, Writing, and Media undergraduate student working as a Library and Museum Assistant with the Special Collections & Archives of FSU’s Strozier Library. This semester, she has been working directly with The Paul A.M. Dirac Papers to create metadata records for the photographs of the collection for future digitization.