Same view (2016):

Same view (2016):

Same view (2016):

Same view (2016):

Same view (2016):

Same view (2016):

Same view (2016):

We get asked this question a lot from people. Most are simply curious. However, to the staff of the FSU Digital Library (FSUDL), this is actually an important question. Understanding what our most viewed objects are can help us decide what materials to digitize and make public next for our users as well as understand where current research interests lie within the FSU community.

However, it’s not quite as simple as looking at Google analytics or the basic collection usages statistics that our digital library platform gives us. We’ve only had some of our statistic reporting tools in place for a short amount of time so what Google says is our most viewed collection doesn’t necessarily match what the Digital Library itself tells us. For example, Google says that our Yearbook collection is the most viewed collection in the Digital Library; our Digital Library tells us it’s the Heritage Protocol & University Archives collection, the Yearbook’s parent collection, that is most viewed. This shows the different granularity upon which the two systems collect information; one is looking at the entirety of the Digital Library; the other is looking only at a certain level at any given time. That difference is why we need both systems tracking together to get us the information we need to make decisions about projects moving forward in the FSUDL. It’s also helping us to continue to refine how we collect usage information from the FSUDL.

While the Digital Library platform might not be the best fit for tracking what collection is most viewed, it is the platform which can tell me the answer to the question that prompted this blog post: what is the most viewed object in the Digital Library? Right now, this still is not an easy question to answer (takes a bit of work to get it out of the DL system) but I can say that the Tally-Ho of 1952 (the FSU student yearbook) has been viewed 990 times since we started tracking at object level at the beginning of this year.

In second place is Paul Dirac’s dissertation with 755 views and rounding out the top 3 is a Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey clown college (because who doesn’t love clowns?) In fact, this item is also in our top ten of exit pages meaning this object is often what people are looking for so they leave the FSUDL after finding it.

We’ll continually be working on tracking usage in the Digital Library to make sure the materials we share in the digital environment are the most useful and interesting to all our users. What do you think we should digitize next?

2016 Portals Creative Fellow Walker Mettling put together an amazing, Special Collections-themed comics compilation and story night– and you’re invited!

The event, coming up on Monday, June 6th, will feature stories written and read by local artists Veronica Santos, Caitlin Cali, Dailen Williams, Jim Frain, Keegan Bonds-Harmon, Jeremy Ferris & Julia Gualtieri. Library friend and neighbor Joe DeGeorge will provide musical interludes. This event will also feature the release of a brand new, Special Collections-themed issue of the Providence Sunday Wipeout, a large-format comics newspaper. Wow!

This not-entirely-literary evening will be hosted by Walker Mettling. See you on June 6th at 6:30 p.m. in the PPL Auditorium!

Yesterday, PIDB member Sanford Ungar attended a briefing by Dr. Cheryl Martin entitled, Decision Support Technology for Records Declassification Review and Release. Dr. Martin’s briefing was jointly sponsored by the ODNI and CIA as part of the research supporting the Congressionally-Directed Action tasked by House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to the Director of National Intelligence in Section 321 of the IAA for FY2015: Report on Declassification Process.

Dr. Martin’s briefing expanded on the findings she presented at the PIDB’s June 25, 2015 public meeting concerning declassification technology pilot projects conducted at the Applied Research Laboratories at the University of Texas at Austin. As part of the President’s Second Open Government National Action Plan, the CIA and NARA teamed with Dr. Martin and the CCU to develop a Sensitive Content Identification and Marking (SCIM) tool to assist the declassification review of over 87,000 emails from the Reagan Administration.

After successfully demonstrating the capabilities of the SCIM tool, the CCU continues supporting the CIA in its efforts to develop and apply the technology to its declassification review processes. Dr. Martin’s briefing brought agency officials together to hear an in-depth description of the piloting efforts and to discuss as a community the potential next steps for developing the SCIM tool and expanding its application at agencies.

The PIDB has a history of making recommendations for improving technological capabilities in support of declassification. The work of the CCU will have significant implications on how agencies grapple with the challenges of performing declassification in an increasingly digital world. The new challenges brought on by the exponential growth of digital information require new solutions routed in technology and automation. Not only will technology support declassification decision making in the future, it likely will replace some components of the declassification process in its entirety. Developing these technologies requires new policies that favor an increase in automation and improved risk management across government. As importantly, agencies requires resources (i.e. funding) devoted to declassification modernization to ensuring the public has access to government information now and in the future.

The PIDB thanks Dr. Martin and the CCU, as well as the ODNI, CIA, NARA, and all the agencies who attended the briefing. The participation of agencies at this briefing and at the meetings of the PIDB’s Declassification Technology Working Group demonstrate the commitment the government shares to improve public access to its information in support of transparency and openness.

One of the most rewarding parts of my work is sharing the treasures of the National Archives with kids and their families.

Through the support of the National Archives Foundation, we continue to host sleepovers in the Rotunda of the National Archives. These events give kids the chance to spend the night next to America’s most precious treasures: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, while engaging them in activities that help them learn about our nation’s history, and explain the important role of the National Archives.

One of the activities during our sleepovers provides an opportunity for kids to write letters, as I did, to the President of the United States, which are then delivered to the White House.

Kids at the National Archives sleepover write letters to the President of the United States. February 6, 2016. Photo by Jeffrey Reed.

Our latest delivery received a response directly from the President!

It is a privilege to continue to host these events for kids and their families, and encourage them to become more involved in their government. For more information, please visit archivesfoundation.org/sleepover.

“Race Relations in America,” is the self-proclaimed theme of the 1962 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award winners. The prize, whose mission is to recognize works of social justice, goes to three books, Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin, The Forbidden Man, by Gina Allen, and Anti-Slavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America by Dwight Lowell Dumond.

As the books represent three different genres (memoir, novel, and work of history) the host has a difficult time getting the conversation going. Gina Allen speaks of her novel being about how “barriers lead to a lack of understanding, and in the lack of understanding you have the germs of hate.” Dumond, a professor of history, starts out with a rather dry exposition of the anti-slavery movement, before characterizing the institution itself as “a form of social insanity.” Griffin, the most well-known of the three, whose “stunt” of having a dermatologist to darken his skin so he could travel throughout the South as a black man, is a more passionate, voluble witness.

Griffin describes the hardship of simply having nowhere to eat, to get a glass of water, or answer any other bodily needs, of the dread he felt leaving his room, of having to think very carefully before taking any action, with the threat of violent consequences lurking behind the most innocent impulse. Of blacks and whites in America he proclaims, “We know nothing whatsoever about each other!” Allen refers to an apparently common phrase of the time, the “hate stare” blacks encounter from racist whites. She also points out how racism destroys white families and as well as black. Dumond speaks of the brain drain the South has suffered for many years as any white with the conscience or intelligence to question the system of apartheid is forced to leave.

There is still, in 1962, a widely-held belief that the Negro is genetically inferior. Much time is devoted to debunking these and other myths. Griffin speaks of how, when hitch-hiking, he was invariably asked about the black man’s enormous sexual appetite. The conversation, with its conspicuous lack of black representation (this in a year that saw the publication of James Baldwin’s Another Country) is a well-intentioned but disturbing snapshot of the white literary community trying to formulate a response without engaging the very people whose predicament is being discussed.

Gina Allen (b. 1918) was the author of many books and articles. The Forbidden Man was her first novel. Kirkus Review called it:

An earnest, angry and often moving novel about integration in the Spanish-White-Negro-town in the southwest…There is a touch too much melodrama and too many side plots in this story, but the author has right, knowledge and indignation on her side, and the central scenes, of a Negro teacher at bay among the disturbed from an even more disjointed background, are frequently stirring.

Dwight Lowell Dumond (1895-1976) taught for many years at the University of Michigan. Anti-Slavery was his magnum opus. As the university’s memorial tribute notes:

Dumond’s antislavery publications were cited in oral argument by counsel for the plaintiffs in the school segregation cases to supplement their written briefs.

John Howard Griffin (1920-1980) was a novelist, journalist, and social activist. It is hard to overstate the impact Black Like Me had in a time when the inequities of the South were not widely reported and, even when done so, not widely believed. Something about the bizarreness of Griffin’s self-willed transformation, perhaps the very urgency such a drastic act implied, made his revelations more than mere muckraking. Jonathan Yardley, book critic for the Washington Post, recalled its effect when revisiting the book fifty years later.

I was 21 years old, newly graduated from Chapel Hill. I had written sympathetically about the emerging black protests for the student newspaper, but I was deeply ignorant about the truths of black life in America. That it took a white man to begin my awakening is, in hindsight, distressing, but Griffin’s story managed to put me in a black man’s shoes as nothing else had. …”Black Like Me” had a transforming effect on me, as apparently it did on innumerable others. That it has remained in print for more than four decades is testimony to its continuing influence, in great measure because it is taught in high schools and colleges.

Fittingly, the last word is given to Griffin, who states, “We don’t have a race problem in the United States, we’ve got a problem of racism.”

Audio courtesy of the NYC Municipal Archives WNYC Collection.

WNYC archives id: 150268
Municipal archives id: LT9452

“I left Harpoot the 17th of May, going alone three days’ journey to Diarbekir, somewhat to the scandal of the missionaries along the way. However, I knew the road well and was not in the least afraid, and after all nothing happened.” (Dora Mattoon, letter of Dec 3, 1915)

What inspires a woman to throw over her life from one day to the next, to go from apparent comfort and a great job in a big city to a remote post in a country she’s never been to, where they speak a language she hasn’t studied at all?  And what would possess her to leave the first country after five years of hard work for an entirely different one, retraining herself all over again?  How does she go from here:

to here:

–and from being this person (I love the body language here):

to becoming this person:

What percent of her decision springs from a spirit of adventure, and what percent from “missionary zeal”?

In the case of Dora Mattoon, it was 110% of each.  She couldn’t be contained.

Broadway Tabernacle, ca. 1905

On March 2, 1911, the 27-year-old Dora read an obituary in the New York Times for missionary Maria B. Poole.  Maria, who had earlier attended Dora’s church, the Broadway Tabernacle, had died at the mission station in Harpoot, Turkey, of a heart attack after complications from pneumonia.  According to Dora’s diary, the story of Maria’s life and work inspired Dora to take her place, almost from one day to the next.  She thought quietly over the idea for a few months before announcing her decision in early May.  Dr. Charles Jefferson, her pastor at the Broadway Tabernacle, wrote to console her worried parents:

“Your daughter seems to have worked this problem out all by herself.  I never once spoke to her on the subject of missions, and was quite surprised when a short time ago she came to me, and told me she was going to apply for the position left vacant by our missionary, Miss Poole.  I do not believe that anybody talked to her, or coaxed her into it, or even persuaded her, but that she worked it all out alone in her own heart.  And she seems to be quite firm in her decision, feeling convinced in her own mind that she is doing what is right and best.  She does not like to go so far from you and her mother, but she feels that you have four other girls… Under the circumstances, then, I do not see what is to be done but to let her carry out her plan.  She is a mature woman, in good health, old enough to know her own mind, and to measure her own powers, and however hard it may be for you to have her go so far from you, I believe that in time you will become adjusted to it… She can write to you often, and every seven years she can come home… Having been in Turkey once myself, I do not think of it as far away.”  (Letter of May 2, 1911 from Charles Jefferson to Alfred Mattoon.)

By October, Dora was on a ship heading for Turkey to take Maria Poole’s place in Harpoot.

Harpoot mission station, ca. 1910.

Dora thrived in Turkey. She loved the people – the natives and her colleagues – and she loved the work. Her particular job was to be a touring missionary, to visit small villages in the region and to meet with the “Bible women” there. The Bible women were native Armenians who taught Bible lessons to their fellow citizens for a small salary, and it was Dora’s job to be sure they had what they needed, spiritually and materially. At first she used an interpreter, but over time she learned Armenian and Turkish and was able to conduct meetings herself.

Armenian family in Turkey.

Dora’s work required that she travel from Harpoot across land that was often dangerous from snowstorms, rainstorms, flash floods, and dense fog, not to mention Kurdish tribesmen, who in Dora’s letters seem to alternate between rescues and robbery. Dora traveled by horseback, often for days at a time between one village and the next, and for months at a time over the course of an entire tour. Finding shelter usually meant a stay in a native khan (an extremely rustic inn) where she would share a blanket with fleas on the floor in a smoky, windowless room, separated from other occupants by a blanket curtain. She almost always had a male escort, usually the long-time missionary Henry Riggs, but occasionally she went alone on shorter trips or was accompanied by Mariam Varzoohi, a native teacher in the girls’ college. Dora traveled across hills, jumped off falling horses, waded up to her thighs in snow, got soaked to her skin, and seems to have relished all of it. Whether she’d been a mountaineer before she came to Turkey or whether she realized her love for it in Harpoot, it became a lifelong attachment.

“The northern way is pleasanter than the southern in that one passes over mountains most of the way, and the khans are better on the whole…I was absent from Harpoot almost five weeks, and two days was the longest time I spent in any one place, so you may know life in one way did not become monotonous. Our principal topic of conversation between here and Sivas was our rascally arabdaji [guides]. This was my first experience of traveling in Turkey without a man, and I find a woman has to do a deal of fighting to get along alone.” (Letter of Nov 13, 1913.)

The work of a traveling missionary was Dora’s favorite work, “the cream of missionary work,” but with the departure of several colleagues from the station she had to give it up in order to teach at the girls’ school in Harpoot. She loved this work too, but she never ceased to miss touring, which seems to have been the highlight of her career. Nevertheless, she threw herself into teaching with enthusiasm, embracing her “eagerness to tread in unknown paths.”

“You ask about my orphanage correspondence. Our orphans are each supported by people in America, and so every once in a while I have to get the children to write letters to their caretakers, have the letters translated, and send them off with a personal word of my own.” (Letter of Aug 14, 1913.)

Recess at Girls School in Harpoot.

Harpoot’s attractions included Earl Ward, who had been in Turkey since 1909. Dora had met Earl’s twin Mark (both Amherst Class of 1906) before she left for Turkey, so finding Earl at Harpoot would’ve been no surprise. Falling in love with him might’ve been a surprise, though:

“You remember, mother, I used to say men were a nuisance – though I did find them ever so good chums as you know…” (Letter of Oct 17, 1912.)

“Mark [Ward] talked to me more than once about Earl and how much he needed me, though I wouldn’t have it that way at all and came out here with my mind fully made up that whatever happened I simply wouldn’t marry Earl Ward.” (Letter of Oct 17, 1912.)

“…his faults loomed clearer than his virtues for some time!” (Letter of Aug 14, 1913.)

Good chums Dora and Earl worked and played together for the few years they overlapped in Harpoot.

“I hope none of you in this enlightened age and generation picture a missionary as a man who wears a frock coat and a long face and goes around preaching of fire and brimstone. The missionaries I have known are the finest, most earnest, whole-souled, jolly people I’ve met in many a long day.” (From left, Dora, Mary Riggs, Earl. Letter of Mar 1, 1913.)

Dora and Earl near a well (?) on the plain outside Harpoot.

Earl’s tour in Harpoot ended in July of 1913, when he returned to the U.S. and began to work for the YMCA.  When he left, Earl and Dora were already engaged and planned to marry when Dora’s tour was up a long two years later.

Dora left Turkey in the spring of 1915, by which time the war had reached Harpoot. That winter, from her home in Massachusetts, she wrote to her sisters, reflecting on what had happened in the brief time since she’d left:

“I wonder where all those dear [Harpoot] friends are now? Many if not most of them killed, I suppose. How dear they all were, and how I loved and admired them! When I came away three of our professors and one of our teachers were in prison, along with eight or ten others of the prominent Armenians, and torture and massacre and deportation had not yet then begun. They came with full force later!” (Letter of Dec 3, 1915.)

In March of 1916, after a brief furlough in the United States, the newlyweds headed for Calcutta, India, on YMCA business. It’s difficult to be certain from only her letters home, but at first Dora seems to have struggled to find her place in India. The climate was hard on her, but in addition she seems to have become an adjunct to Earl’s work in Calcutta rather than having her work equal to his as it had been in Turkey. Her letters suggest that her role was to be primarily a helpmeet to Earl, especially as hostess to people associated with his work, and to do this work so regularly that it was exhausting. Dora needed to be busy, to do her own work, and to feel useful, and while she loved Earl and supported his work, her frustration is apparent in her letters to family.

After a few years and another brief furlough, the Wards were sent to Bombay, and here Dora seems to have gotten back into a role she loved. While Earl devised programs for men and boys, Dora did the same for women and girls.  Their duties introduced them to the “chawls” in neighborhoods where their work would take place:

“The chawls are great blocks or tenements of concrete, four storeys high, with twenty rooms on a floor and about five persons to a room probably!  We figure there are about 8,000 people in the 22 chawls in that particular area.”

Earl in front of chawls.

The Wards also traveled around India to inspect other social work sites:

“We had three weeks in Nagpur and spent practically all the time studying the welfare work.  I visited the day nursery, or creche, which is being done at the mill, and I also spent some time at an infant welfare center which is being run by the municipality.  Then I went to the villages with Irene’s trained nurse and some of her teachers, and Earl spent a lot of evenings, and I some too, visiting the night schools, which is the big approach to people.  The welfare work is financed by Empress Mills, who employ 25,000 workers.  They live in villages, or bustees, and the welfare work is being done in the bustees.  I also looked into the Project Method of teaching…”

Dora was back in business. Click on an image below for gallery.

During vacations the Wards traveled in India as they had in Turkey. Over time Dora became “an old India hand,” familiar with the ways of India – its history, religions, customs, foods, and how to get around. Click for gallery:

After another tour of duty in Calcutta from 1930-32, the world economy forced the YMCA to downsize and the Wards were called home. They were never again posted abroad but remained very active in the U.S. with social work similar to what they had done in Turkey and India.

The Dora Judd Mattoon Ward Papers contain diaries, correspondence, photographs, a nearly full set of the “Harpoot Newsletter” by Ernest Riggs, and other materials about the lives of Dora and Earl Ward. One of its chief strengths is in showing how the lives of missionaries evolved in response to circumstances and changing needs. Dora and Earl started out as “missionaries” in Turkey, but in India they referred to themselves as “social workers” or “welfare workers,” and their work seems distinctly less religious and more specifically related to health, education, and welfare. Where Dora’s work as a touring missionary in Turkey involved a lot of religious teaching, her work in India was more about setting up programs for women and children, and Earl’s was the same for men.

The papers are also important as a record of events in Turkey and India in the first third of the twentieth century. Although the couple seems not to have been especially “political,” their letters contain many comments about the state of affairs first in Turkey during World War I, and later in India during the declining years of the British Raj.

We welcome researchers seeking to use the many Ward collections at Amherst College — those of Edwin St. John Ward (AC 1900), Earl Ward (AC 1906), Mark Hopkins Ward (AC 1906, his papers to be processed soon), and Dora J.M. Ward — or one of the many other missionary collections in our holdings.

Note:

Most of the photographs in this post are by Earl Ward, a few probably by Dora Ward or Fay Emmett Livengood, a fellow missionary in Turkey.  Many of Earl’s photographs, including several used in this post, were digitized by his nephew Richard Ward, Class of 1942.

 All of the letters in the Dora Judd Mattoon Ward Papers were transcribed by Dora’s faithful niece and our donor, Nancy Kline.

The following testimony is excerpted from the U.S. Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce hearing on S. 814 to amend the Communications Act of 1934, December 8, 1943.*

My name is John V. L. Hogan. I am by training and occupation a consulting engineer. I have been interested in radio, first as an amateur, as far back as 1902. My first professional connection was with Dr. de Forest. That was when I was still in school. I was his laboratory assistant.

I left Yale to join the National Electric Signaling Company as a telegraph engineer, and then I worked through the position of chief research engineer and finally manager, and then, in 1921, just before broadcasting became a beginning industry in the United States, I established my own practice as an independent consulting engineer with a laboratory and office in New York, which I still maintain.

I happen to be the controlling stockholder of Station WQXR in New York, which was an outgrowth of laboratory work in television, strangely enough. We had an experimental sound channel as a part of our television work and it was found that radio listeners who had no television receivers could hear the sound portion of our program, even though they could not see the pictures, and they liked the kind of music that we put on the air and they asked for more of it. So I came down and had talks with Lieutenant Jett and Commander Craven about the possibilities of a broadcasting station which would put emphasis on better engineering, I think I might say, than had been common in the broadcasting art up to that time and which would therefore reproduce not only music but speech more clearly, more realistically, more naturally than was common in broadcasting.

I pointed out that the phonograph was improving, that the talking pictures were improving with respect to the realism of their sound, but that radio did not seem to be doing all it could. So with the blessing of the Commission, we tried to do that very thing, and since about eight years ago the station has grown from a very modest beginning to a cleared-channel independent 10,000-watt station in New York with a very large audience, and for the past two years or more it has been not merely successful from the audience point of view, but it has also been earning its salt.

_____________________________________

*Source: U.S. Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce hearing on S. 814 to amend the Communications Act of 1934,U. S. Government Printing Office, 1944, pg. 810.

See also: A Report to Listeners by John V. L. Hogan.

Happy 119th birthday to John MacKay Shaw, founder of our Childhood in Poetry book collection and bibliophile extraordinaire.  To celebrate Mr. Shaw, and in our ongoing commemoration of 400 Years of Shakespeare, we present a Scope and Content Note for John Shaw’s papers in the style of title pages from the early hand-press era.  Mr. Shaw would surely appreciate our gesture, as the Shaw rare book collection feature works by Shakespeare along with many, many other authors.

Further Reading on Mr. Shaw and his collection:

• A Book Collector’s Legacy
• Research Guide on the Shaw Collection
• Rare Books and Manuscripts from the Shaw Collection

The George Foster Peabody Awards are among the most prestigious awards in broadcasting. The awards “recognize distinguished achievement and meritorious public service by radio and television stations, networks, producing organizations and individuals.  They perpetuate the memory of the banker-philanthropist whose name they bear. The awards program is administered by the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication of the University of Georgia, as it has been since the award’s inception in 1939. Selections are made by the Peabody Awards Board a committee of experts in media, culture, journalism, and the arts following review by special screening committees of the faculty, staff and students.”

WNYC has a proud tradition of Peabody-award winning programs dating back to 1944. WQXR’s recognition goes back to the first year the awards were given in 1940 with an Honorable Mention. Below, read the Peabody Committee’s award citations and listen to the original audio submitted for consideration. (Special thanks to Archives Director Ruta Abolins and Archivists Mary Miller and Margie Compton at the J. Walter Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection at the University of Georgia for their assistance with this page which was produced by the New York Public Radio Archives).

2015: WQXR Radio/Q2 Music

Meet the Composer

Meet the Composer is the Q2 Music podcast that takes listeners into the minds and creative processes of the composers making some of the most innovative, compelling and breathtakingly beautiful music today. The Peabody Awards committee called the series, “Fascinating, intelligent, enlightening podcasts devoted to the work of current classical composers. The show integrates music with thoughtful conversation about it without distracting from either.”

Launched in 2014, the show is hosted by critically acclaimed violist Nadia Sirota, and has delved into the minds of composers such as John Luther Adams, Caroline Shaw, Meredith Monk and Nico Muhly. Both seasons were funded in part by a successful Kickstarter campaigns. Part of WQXR, Q2 Music is a New York-based online station devoted to the music of living composers. 

The Meet The Composer team: Hannis Brown, Curtis MacDonald, Alex Ambrose, Alex Overington, Carol Ann Cheung and Nadia Sirota. This is WQXR’s first Peabody Award since 1962.

Meet The Composer staff: Hannis Brown, Curtis MacDonald, Alex Ambrose, Alex Overington, Carol Ann Cheung, Nadia Sirota and Graham Parker
(WQXR Selfie Collection)

 
2014: WNYC Radio

Radiolab

RADIOLAB’S “60 WORDS” has garnered a second Peabody Award for Radiolab, WNYC’s popular podcast and radio program — created and produced by Jad Abumrad, co-hosted by Robert Krulwich — which first won in 2011. Produced by Radiolab’s Kelsey Padgett and Matt Kielty and reported by BuzzFeed’s Gregory Johnson, this episode pulls apart a single sentence that has led to the longest war in U.S. history. These 60 words of legal language, drafted in the hours following the September 11 attacks, continue to blur the line between war and peace. Said the Peabody Awards judges: A “Radiolab” collaboration with Buzzfeed reporter Gregory Johnsen, it takes a hard, disturbing look at the broad, malleable wording of the Authorization of Use of Military Force Act, approved by near-unanimous Congressional vote shortly after the 9/11 attacks, and how its interpretation has expanded military power and secrecy.

Radiolab’s Matt Kielty and Kelsey Padgett pose with award during The 74th Annual Peabody Awards Ceremony at Cipriani Wall Street on May 31, 2015 in New York City.
(Jemal Countess/Getty Images)

WNYC News

“CHRIS CHRISTIE, WHITE HOUSE AMBITIONS AND THE ABUSE OF POWER” has also earned WNYC a Peabody Award, its first specifically for news coverage since 1944, when WNYC won for Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia’s weekly addresses to the City. This series of reports, which examines the exercise of power by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and his administration, was the work of a team of WNYC and New Jersey Public Radio reporters, producers and engineers, including Andrea Bernstein and Matt Katz. The effort was led by Nancy Solomon, managing editor of New Jersey Public Radio, and overseen by Jim Schachter, WNYC’s Vice President for News. WNYC’s sustained investigation helped establish the narrative for the local and national media’s reporting on the Christie administration’s politicization of traffic control at the busiest bridge in the world, of operations at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and of federal Sandy aid in Hoboken. These reports prompted state and federal investigations and spurred legislative reform efforts.

Said the Peabody Awards judges: “In a series of pithy news reports about the “Bridgegate” scandal, WNYC helped to link a disruptive bridge closure to a broader pattern of questionable political operations by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s office. Its coverage sparked national news coverage, high-profile resignations in the Christie administration, and criminal investigations into the Port Authority.”

NJPR Reporter Scott Gurian, NJPR Managing Editor Nancy Solomon, NJPR Reporter Matt Katz, WNYC News Senior Editor for Politics and Policy Andrea Bernstein and NYPR Data News Producer Jenny Ye
( Mike Coppola/Getty Images for Peabody Awards)

2012: WNYC Radio

The Leonard Lopate Show

“For more than two decades, Leonard Lopate has quizzed and bantered live on the radio with architects and assemblymen, chefs and climatologists. With his guests he has knowledgeably and enthusiastically monitored the vital signs of New York City’s cultural and civic life. But the thing that truly sets his daily shows apart is Lopate and his producers’ knack for recognizing and explicating issues and activities that are being neglected by other media outlets despite their potential impact on the residents’ lives. In 2012, he engaged in spirited conversations about what a proposed multi-million dollar renovation and reorganization at the main branch of the New York Public Library would truly mean to its users. He analyzed the potential impact on Greenwich Village of New York University’s plans for a two-and-a-half million square foot expansion. And no one, before or after Hurricane Sandy swamped the city, did a more thorough, creative job of brainstorming how to waterproof Gotham. For considering all things New York in lively broadcasts that, like the host, value light more than heat, The Leonard Lopate Show receives a Peabody Award.”

Controversy at the New York Public Library

NYPL President Anthony Marx

Debate Over New York University’s Expansion

The Future of New York’s Waterfront

Lopate show staff l to r: Executive Producer, Melissa Eagan; Associate Producer, L. Blakeney Schick; Assistant Producer, Steven Valentino; Assistant Producer, Julia Corcoran; and Host, Leonard Lopate at the Podium. (Photo by and courtesy of Daniel Eagan)

2012: WNYC Radio, Public Radio International

Studio 360 – Inside the National Recording Registry

“Each year, the Library of Congress chooses 25 recordings to be preserved as part of its National Recording Registry, ranging from obscure cult albums (Love’s psychedelic pop opus Forever Changes) to inescapable musical gems (Vince Guaraldi’s soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas) to seminal historical artifacts (Eduoard Léon-Scott’s phonautograms from the 1850s). Aired nationally on Studio 360, Inside the National Recording Registry is a series of short documentaries that celebrates these historically significant works through interviews with creators, scholars, and notable fans. Hearing songwriter Giorgio Moroder break down the electronic musical roots of Donna Summer’s” 1 Feel Love” or actor Hugh Laurie rhapsodize about the mysterious lyrics of Professor Longhair’s “Tipitina” gives the listener a sense both of what inspired these recordings and what it’s like to be inspired by them. Producer Ben Manilla and his crew create an engaging listening experience that, in each installment, makes a strong case for the importance of the record in question, whether it’s freak folk, college rock, or cowboy music. Inside the National Recording Registry earns a Peabody Award for its commitment to the preservation of American audio culture”

The Winners: Studio 360 Senior Editor, David Krasnow; Studio 360 Host, Kurt Andersen; Producers Ben Manilla, Erik Beith and Devon Strolovitch. (Photo: Studio 360)

2010: WNYC Radio

Radiolab

“As that rare program that probes the nature of human experience, WNYC’s Radiolab would function well enough. But it’s the marriage of topic (each more thought-provoking than the last) and design (amazingly robust soundscapes and perfect pacing) that makes Radiolab a true work of art. Hosts Jad Abrumad and Robert Krulwich address scientific questions in almost impossibly abstract terms, letting guests and their stories fill in the blanks. Through an exploration of a chimpanzee raised in a human household in “Lucy,” Krulwich and Abrumad seek out the essential qualities that separate animal and human (with surprising results), while “Words” questions the function of language in human development, turning its gaze to such wide-ranging sources as Shakespeare and a Nicaraguan school for the deaf. The beauty is all in the telling. True to its name, Radiolab functions experimentally, constantly testing out new ways to unveil its stories through seamlessly edited interviews, classic “theater of the mind” sound effects, and the well-timed banter of its hosts. Each episode is by turns witty and poignant, and, always, completely engrossing. For providing weekly updates on the human condition with an unending yen for philosophical exploration, Radiolab receives a Peabody Award.”

<h4>Radiolab’s “Lucy,” from February 20, 2010</h4>

<h4>Radiolab’s “Words,” from August 9, 2010</h4>

Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich express their disbelief at winning a Peabody Award…at the Peabody Awards.

2007: WNYC Radio

The Brian Lehrer Show

“Talk radio these days is so overwhelmingly polarized — or polarizing — that ‘The Brian Lehrer Show‘ can seem more like an artifact than an anomaly. But it’s very much in the present, reuniting the estranged terms ‘civil’ and ‘discourse’ five mornings a week like no other show on the air. Lehrer makes the most of New York’s enormous, sometimes fractious diversity. He takes on the most nettlesome issues of the day, from immigration to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to cops-and-minorities, and deftly keeps his studio guests and his call-in contributors both on point and respectful. On his show, New Yorkers of vastly different backgrounds and circumstances get to know each other. In 2007, Lehrer and his production team experimented with new features such as ‘Follow-Up Friday,’ in which an issue from earlier in the week was reconsidered, and ‘Democracy’s Living Room,’ a two-day event during which listeners of all political stripes took turns explaining their stances. Another feature, dubbed ‘Crowdsourcing,’ included such practical applications as using listeners’ reports to expose wild disparities in the price of milk, lettuce and beer from neighborhood to neighborhood. For facilitating reasoned conversation about critical issues and opening it up to everyone within earshot, a Peabody Award goes to ‘The Brian Lehrer Show’.”

<h4>”Gentrification and the Black middle class,” April 25, 2007</h4>

<h4>”Baghdad: View from the ground,” May 24, 2007</h4>

<h4>”Democracy’s living room,” July 5, 2007</h4>

<h4>”From Baghdad to New York,” July 6, 2007</h4>

<h4>”Follow-up Friday,” September 7, 2007</h4>

<h4>”Are you being gouged? The results,” October 11, 2007</h4>

<h4>”The middle ground on the Middle East,” November 28, 2007</h4>

<h4>”Out of Africa,” December 12, 2007</h4>

Executive producers: Brian Lehrer (Host), Nuala McGovern, Chris Bannon (Program Director). Producers: Jim Colgan, Lisa Allison, Priya George, Kate Hinds. Web designer: Amy Pearl.

Left to right: Lisa Allison, Ilya Maritz, Jim Colgan and Kate Hinds, Brian Lehrer, Debbie Fountain, Amy Pearl, Priya George, Chris Bannon, Nuala McGovern and Jody Avrigan.

2005: WNYC Radio

Radio Rookies

“Radio Rookies is ingenious. In the short term, the six-year-old WNYC project generates illuminating feature article/essays by, for, and about teenagers, a radio audience rarely catered to by anyone but music programmers and advertisers. Long term, it may produce a multicultural new generation of audio journalists. New York City teens trained in WNYC workshops take home tape recorders and microphones with which to record interviews with family and friends, ambient sound, and their own ideas and thoughts. With guidance from executive producer Czerina Patel, associate producer Miguel Macias, consultant editor Karen Michel, and mix engineer Wayne Shulmister, they assemble highly personal, 12-15 minute reports characterized by startling candor. The 2005 broadcasts included 16-year-old Catalina Puente’s tale of her obsession with a female classmate she nicknamed “K-licious.” Her account includes her coming out as bisexual to her parents, whose reactions she records as well. Sierra Leone-born Veralyn Williams, 19, reports on her illegal-immigrant status and frustrating quest for a green card, which initially angers her nervous, secretive parents but ultimately prompts them to take action themselves. Derrick Hewitt, 14, captures an instance of his own bad temper on tape and ends up reporting about his feelings of alienation and anger and how he deals with them. For teaching teens the fundamentals of radio reporting and giving listeners unvarnished insights into worlds ignored and disregarded, Radio Rookies is awarded a Peabody.”

<h4>Radio Rookies’ “Moshulu series” from 2005</h4>

Rookies Carlos “Chico” Gonzalez,  Veralyn Williams,  Derrick “Honeybun” Hewitt and Catalina “Cat” Puente  

2004: WNYC Radio, National Public Radio

On The Media

“For one hour each Saturday, On the Media hosts Bob Garfield and Brooke Gladstone take listeners of 185 National Public Radio stations on an insightful journey into the inner workings and outer effects of the media. In a world where a handful of corporations own all of the major media outlets and the need for media literacy is ever increasing, this show provides candid and straightforward examinations of those whose job is to provide the facts of the day. On the Media deconstructs the often black and white presentation of “the way things are,” holding standard media practices up to penetrating critique. On the Media examines these presentations outside their self-generated boxes. Significantly, On the Media also takes on the challenge of addressing international media coverage, offering new perspectives on various topics. The show is comprised of interviews, reported pieces, commentary, and occasionally satire, all marked by vivid language and sound. Gladstone and Garfield rely on the assistance of executive producer Dean Cappello, producers Tony Field, Janeen Price, Arun Rath, Katya Rogers, and Megan Ryan, and web designer Amy Pearl. For filling an important and much neglected need in broadcasting, On the Media receives a Peabody Award.”

<h4>OTM’s <i>The Good Soldier</i>, May 21, 2004</h4>

<h4>OTM’s November 19, 2004 broadcast</h4>

OTM’s Megan Ryan, Dylan Keefe, Katya Rogers, Arun Rath, Bob Garfield, Dean Cappello and Brooke Gladstone.

2004: WNYC Radio, Public Radio International

Studio 360 – American Icons – Moby Dick

“In an effort to reexamine what it means to be American, Studio 360 launched a constructive series aimed at understanding American cultural benchmarks, American Icons. This debut installment guides us through Herman Melville’s classic tale of compulsion, rage, and rapture, Moby-Dick. Host Kurt Andersen employs Studio 360’s distinctive format to contextualize the work through modern artists including performance artist Laurie Anderson; playwright Tony Kushner; sculptor and painter Frank Stella; jazz scholar Stanley Crouch; science fiction writer Ray Bradbury; and playwright David Ives, who summarized the mammoth novel in the two-minute world premiere radio play, Moby Dude. Listeners are further brought into the account by actor Edward Herrmann, who gives a visceral performance as the voice of Ishmael. Scholars Samuel Otter and Andrew Delbanco reflect on how the image of Ahab’s maddened pursuit of the whale was widely mentioned in the press after September 11th – as a metaphor for both the attack and retaliation. [The show was] produced by WNYC radio for Public Radio International with executive producer/writer Julie Burstein; director Kerri Hillman; writer Peter Clowney; consulting producer Mary Beth Kirchner; technical director Leital Molad; and writer Edward Lifson. For illuminating and revitalizing a masterpiece with energy, humor, imagination, and verve, and for making “great radio,” the Peabody Board honors Studio 360 American Icons: Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick.”

<h4><i>Studio 360’s</i> Moby Dick from November 5, 2005</h4>

Studio 360’s David Krasnow, Michele Siegel, Kerrie Hillman, Arun Rath (OTM), Ave Carrillo, Leital Molad, Julie Burstein, Dean Cappello, and PRI’s Melinda Ward.

Studio 360 Host Kurt Andersen and Executive Producer Julie Burstein

1984: WNYC Radio

Small Things Considered

“In recent years radio programmers have tended to overlook a very important part of the listening audience: children. WNYC Radio is a notable exception. “Small Things Considered” is a live three-hour daily radio program designed especially for children ages 6 to 12. The program successfully combines contemporary, classical and children`s music with bright, informative and creative educational segments. There is also telephone dialogue between the hosts, Kathy O`Connell and Larry J. Orfaly, and children who live in the station`s listening area. For catering to an oft forgotten audience with a program that is both entertaining and educational and for regarding children as an important and worthy audience for radio, a Peabody Award to WNYC Radio for ‘Small Things Considered.'”

<h4>A 1984 broadcast of Small Things Considered</h4>

<h4>A 1984 broadcast of Small Things Considered</h4>

<h4>A 1984 broadcast of Small Things Considered</h4>

<h4>A 1984 broadcast of Small Things Considered</h4>

<h4>1984 selections from Small Things Considered</h4>

Dean J. Thomas Russell and President Fred C. Davison of The University of Georgia present the Peabody Award to WNYC Director Mary Perot Nichols. (Photo: Linda Naklicki, WNYC Archive Collections)

Children’s programming has been a regular aspect of WNYC’s programming for decades. In the station’s Peabody application Program Director Larry Orfaly and Producer Keith Talbot wrote that Small Things Considered “has created a new ‘prime-time’ for children with its carefully balanced product of ambitious adult planning and spontaneous contributions from children. The live production and program’s daily presence; the appealing music; the innovative educational features; and the caring, likable, dedicated hosts have resulted in overwhelming responses.”

WNYC Program Guide, June, 1985

1962: WQXR Radio

“Consistently excellent in its news coverage at all times, WQXR, New York City, merits special praise for lighting a candle in the darkness every night during the New York newspaper strike with its concise, authoritative digest of the day’s news. And in recognition, a Peabody Award for radio news.”

1961: WNYC Radio and The New York Public Library

 Teenage Book Talk and The Reader’s Almanac

“It is the considered opinion of the Peabody Awards Board that television and radio, far from being the ogres book publishers once labeled them, are actually a stimulant to the cause of good book reading in America. Proof of the pudding is the resounding success scored by two radio programs devoted entirely to books by station WNYC, New York’s fine municipal broadcasting system. One of the programs is “The Reader’s Almanac,” conducted since 1938 by Professor Warren Bower of the New York University Writing Center [and later by Walter James Miller]. The other is “Teenage Book Talk,” presented, unrehearsed, every Saturday morning by New York Public Library and produced by Lillian Okun. To station WNYC and these two programs goes a richly deserved Peabody Award, with a special vote of appreciation from the Chairman of the Peabody Board.”

<h4>A Teenage Book Talk broadcast from 1961</h4>

<h4>Interview with Marianne Moore, Reader’s Almanac, December 14, 1961</h4>

WNYC’s Director Seymour N. Siegel accepting the awards at the Peabody ceremony on April 10, 1962.

1960: WQXR Radio

“During 1960, the line, ‘For 25 Years, America’s Number One Good Music Station,’ was more than a slogan for WQXR. Its Musical Spectaculars and its total programming of music were indeed of a high order. In recognition, this station has again been chosen for a Peabody Award for radio entertainment.”

1960: WNYC Radio

Personal Award for Children`s Programs

“Ireene Wicker brings to her weekly program, “The Singing Lady,” literate taste, tender understanding, wit, gaiety, and style. A benign sorceress as well as an artist of consummate skill, Miss Wicker has been a steadfast foe of violence and brutality and a true friend to children everywhere. In recognition, [she receives] the Peabody Award for radio children’s programs.”

<h4>A Singing Lady broadcast from 1960</h4>

Ireene Wicker accepts the Peabody Award on May 25, 1961 with WNYC Director Seymour N. Siegel at far left. (WNYC Archive Collections)

(Audio of acceptance below courtesy of the NYC Municipal Archives WNYC Collection)

<h4>Ireene Wicker accepts the 1961 Peabody Award</h4>

1956: WNYC Radio

Books in Profile

“In “Books In Profile,” which is broadcast by WNYC, New York City, Miss Virgilia Peterson, the well-known critic, author, and lecturer, provides a stimulating insight into the world of books and the persons who write them. This she does with book reviews, interviews with prominent literary personalities, and news items from publishing circles. Her program has charm, perspicacity, authority, and listener interest. In recognition of this important contribution to one of the oldest and most important of the media of communications, books, by one of the newest, radio, the George Foster Peabody Radio Award for education for 1956 goes to “Books In Profile,” WNYC, and Miss Virgilia Peterson.”

<h4>Books in Profile, December 27, 1956</h4>

1956 WNYC Radio

Little Orchestra Society Concerts

“With all the horrible noises, erroneously labeled music, that pollute the airwaves these days, it is a particular pleasure to salute an organization like The Little Orchestra, and its distinguished young conductor, Thomas Scherman. They are providing really beautiful music for a new generation that needs it desperately. For seven years, The Little Orchestra has broadcast six children’s concerts a season over WNYC. The same programs are now picked up by the National Association of Educational Broadcasters, and used with gratifying results by over 100 non-commercial college radio stations all over the country. Long may Mr. Scherman’s baton wave! And here is the George Foster Peabody Radio Award for the outstanding youth and children’s program for 1956.”

<h4>Little Orchestra Society Concert, December 22, 1956</h4>

1951: WQXR Radio

“The New York Times Youth Forum has featured unrehearsed discussion by students selected from private, public and parochial schools, on topics ranging from the political, educational and scientific to the international and the United Nations. These have been broadcast not only locally, but before distinguished audiences in major American cities, coast to coast and over trans-Atlantic facilities. In recognition of the quality and importance of this series, the George Foster Peabody Award for radio youth programs is hereby awarded to WQXR of The New York Times with a special word of recognition to Dorothy Gordon, Moderator, and Mrs. Iphigene Ochs Sulzberger, Director of Special Activities for the Times.”

1950: WNYC Radio

Institutional Award for Contribution to International Understanding for United Nations Coverage

Honorable Mention

“A citation for the promotion of international understanding to station WNYC of the City of New York, for its public service in bringing the official daily proceedings of the United Nations to those in the metropolitan area, and for its consistent UN news coverage and frequent presentation of feature material about the United Nations, in their struggle to bring about lasting peace.”

<h4>A 1950 UN broadcast</h4>

“WNYC’s gavel-to-gavel coverage of the United Nations was more extensive than any other station in the United States at the time. In WNYC’s original application to the Peabody Committee, Program Director Bernard Buck wrote that the station had devoted “an imposing portion of its broadcast time to the United Nations….OVER 1500 HOURS in the past year,” adding that these broadcasts “gave us exclusive coverage of the historic ‘Korean Sunday’ meeting called…just as the news of the invasion reached Secretariat headquarters to meet the exigencies of the South Korean invasion.”

1949: WQXR Radio

“Radio generally has done much to increase and uplift musical appreciation in this country. But no station anywhere has devoted more time or more intelligent presentation to good music than has WQXR. All types of the best in music—instrumental, chamber, solo, opera, and symphonic—have been brought to half a million families in New York alone, plus homes in 14 other states and Canada. And the performing artists have been a veritable Who’s Who in world music. Prominent in 1949 offerings was the Our Musical Heritage Series. In recognition not merely of this and other programs, but primarily to single out and honor the station for its over-all contribution to musical appreciation and good music, the George Foster Peabody Radio Award for outstanding entertainment in music goes to WQXR of New York.”

1944: WNYC Radio and Mayor La Guardia

Institutional Award for Outstanding Public Service by a Local Station

“The Award for the outstanding public service for a local station is to be a double award. The first goes to Station WNYC for having caught the attention and the conscience of our greatest community, and to Mayor La Guardia for his courage and common sense in telling us what is wrong.”

<h4>Mayor La Guardia on November 26, 1944</h4>

WNYC’s first Peabody Award. (Photo courtesy of the La Guardia Photo Collection, La Guardia and Wagner Archives, La Guardia Community College, CUNY )

This was WNYC’s first Peabody Award. In WNYC’s original application, Station Director Morris S. Novik wrote that the Mayor’s WNYC broadcast covered “a multitude of problems and exigencies that arise in a tremendous city like New York. He is constantly seeking to improve the welfare of the community and feels that the most direct contact with the people he serves is through the medium of radio.”  Novik added that the broadcast reached “an audience unequaled by any other program on the air at that hour,” noting that the Pulse of New York survey gave his broadcast a rating more than three times that of its closest competitor. (Pulse was a source for measuring local radio audiences at the time)

At the award ceremony in the Commodore Hotel, City Council Newbold Morris gave a stirring tribute to the station. Morris Novik also spoke:

Newbold Morris and Morris Novik speak at the 1945 Peabody Awards Ceremony

Audio courtesy of the NYC Municipal Archives WNYC Collection.

WNYC’s first Peabody Award shared with Mayor F.H. La Guardia.

(La Guardia Artifact Collection, La Guardia and Wagner Archives, La Guardia Community College, CUNY)

Peabody award given to Mayor La guardia and WNYC Director Morris S. Novik by John E. Dewey, April 5, 1945.
(The La Guardia & Wagner Archives, La Guardia Community College/The City University of New York)

 
1940: WQXR Radio

Honorable Mention

Institutional Award: WQXR Radio for High Standards of Musical Progress

(no citations written for 1940)

The financial crash of 1929 had many unintended consequences, perhaps none more so than the subsequent efflorescence of the arts under the auspices of various Works Project Administration programs. In these recordings from 1937 and 1939, the Juanita Hall Choir and Negro Melody Singers, unemployed people on the “relief rolls,” present rousing programs of spirituals under the direction of soon to be famous singer and actress Juanita Hall. Neither Hall nor the choir members ever speak. In these recordings, the announcer gingerly mediates the ground between the presumably white listeners and this drastically “other” music. Introducing “Free At Last” in this recording of the Juanita Hall Choir, he explains that the lyric is not just about slavery, that it has “a two-fold meaning, as it also refers to the emancipation of our souls from sin.” The arrangements (by Hall) are complex and the performances gleamingly polished. This is not the almost anthropological type of on-site recording that would become popular in the following decades, but an attempt to “mainstream” a vibrant but still ghettoized art form.

In the middle of each program is a plug for the WPA, the announcer reminding the audience that people on relief “want permanent jobs just as sincerely as the man or woman who has one.” What strikes the listener now simply as extremely moving and technically accomplished music seems to have had a far more charged import at the time. Presenting black spirituals on the radio, subsidized by the government, as wholesome fare for the community at large was itself a political act. Indeed in his book about the history of the Federal Music Project All of this Music Belongs to the Nation, Kenneth J. Bindas notes:

In NYC the audition board took great pains to point out that it had lowered the audition standards to allow the Juanita Hall Melody Singers to perform.

Yet Hall and her singers performed regularly on WNYC. Thus, even such a tragic event as the Depression did allow new voices to be heard…and new emotions to be experienced by those willing to listen.

(Juanita Hall as Madam Liang in Flower Drum Song, 1958. Billy Rose Theatre Division/From The New York Public Library )

Juanita Hall (1901-1968) was an extraordinarily talented woman at a time when opportunities for black performers were limited. Encyclopedia.com relates how:

At age 14 Hall began teaching singing at Lincoln House in East Orange, New Jersey. … She moved to New York City and studied orchestration, harmony, theory, and voice at the Juilliard School of Music. She also took private lessons in voice and acting. Hall did choral work and spent many years appearing in minor stage roles before achieving stardom.

That stardom came with her being cast as Bloody Mary in the musical South Pacific. Masterworksbroadway.com recalls how:

“Come away, come away,” Bloody Mary sings in one of the most mysterious, exotic, and seductive songs in musical theater – “Bali Ha’i,” from South Pacific. The part of Bloody Mary will forever be linked with Juanita Hall, who created the role on stage in 1949. The show won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, as well as Tony Awards in numerous categories, including those for Best Musical, Best Original Score, and Libretto. The leads, Ezio Pinza and Mary Martin, both won Tonys – as did Hall, for Best Featured Actress in a Musical.”

Hall went on to perform in several other Broadway plays including Flower Drum Song and House of Flowers, as well as appearing on film, in nightclubs, and making records. In her entry in the reference work Notable Black Women, the composer Richard Rodgers wrote, “I think everyone who had anything to do with her loved her. As an actress, she was…a joy to work with.”

Hear more WPA recordings directed by Juanita Hall:

Negro Melody Singers, Program No. 13

Negro Melody Singers, Program No. 4

Negro Melody Singers, Program No. 17

Negro Melody Singers, Program No. 16

The groups directed by Juanita Hall were not the only African American singers commissioned by the WPA.

Listen to a Federal Music Project Mixtape: Black Voices on the Air.

Yesterday, at our annual Archivist’s Achievement Awards ceremony, we celebrated Public Service Recognition Week by recognizing staff across the country for their exceptional contributions to the mission of the agency.

In my remarks, I said:

As you have heard me say before:  for me every week of the year is Public Service Recognition Week because I am so proud of the work that you all do across our agency in service to the American people.  Whether you are redacting pages from a service record in St. Louis, or refiling an IRS return in Lenexa, or helping someone navigate the FOIA process, or connecting someone with their family history, or ensuring that our staff and users are safe, or restoring a deteriorating film, or ensuring the a First Lady’s correspondence is accounted for, or educating a school group about how our government works, or safeguarding NARA holding from leaks, condensation, and frost problems, or doing any one of the hundreds of tasks the comprise the work of the National Archives—thank you for your passion and commitment to our mission.

Since 1985, the first week of May has been set aside to honor the men and women who serve our nation as Federal, state, county, and local government employees.  In this year’s proclamation, President Obama writes:

“Our Nation’s progress has long been fueled by the efforts of selfless citizens who come together in the service of their fellow Americans to change our country for the better.  At the birth of our Nation, our Founders fought to secure a democracy that represents the people, and the civil servants who pour everything they have into making a difference are the individuals who keep that democracy running smoothly and effectively.  During Public Service Recognition Week, we honor those who dedicate themselves to ensuring America’s promise rings true in every corner of our country, and we recommit to upholding the values they fight for every day.”

“Throughout this week, we recognize the tireless efforts of the women and men who strive to make ours a government that stays true to its founding ideals.  With 85 percent of the Federal Government jobs located outside the Washington, DC area, our Federal workers…play key roles in ensuring the voices of the American people are heard.  And even in the toughest of circumstances, including a politics that does not always fully recognize the value of their work, our public servants—often at great personal sacrifice—continue striving to build a better country and to bring lasting change to the lives of ordinary people across America.”

“Serving the public is not just a paycheck—it’s contributing to the steady effort to perfect our Union over time so our democracy works for everyone.  This week, let us embrace the hopeful spirit that embodies the extraordinary work of our civil servants.  It is the same spirit that built America, and because of the hard work of compassionate and determine public servants, it will continue to build us up for generations to come.”

More than 50 nominations were submitted for this year’s awards.  144 NARA staff were recognized for their individual or group accomplishments ranging from improving employee engagement to volunteer service to citizen archivist to information technology quality assurance to reduction of declassification backlogs to customer service to a Presidential Library digital pilot project to helping a record number of researchers to safeguarding records at risk to creating a training program for archives technicians eligible for promotion, for example.  The ceremony was broadcast to our sites across the country and staff enthusiastically celebrated the accomplishments of their colleagues—a true One NARA event! I am so proud of this staff.

In our final farewell post to our graduating student assistants, view the previous post by Mary Kate here, Blaise Denton and Shelby Yant reflect on their experience in Special Collections. Both work exclusively in Special Collections with our rare books, manuscripts, historical artifacts, Napoleon, Shaw and various other collections. I should also add that both have found time, between graduate school, to stay with us for part of the summer. And we are happy to have them for a bit longer.

Blaise

“My name is Blaise Denton and I have been working here for a little under two years. I had walked into Special Collections before, but been scared off by an unfriendly and perhaps confused receptionist. When I came back for my interview, Lisa Girard was so friendly and painted such a glowing picture of Special Collections, I was excited to work here. My first week I went through the Special Collections Vault, pulling out and examining the rarest and most valuable books in the collection. It was incredible. There were ancient pirate biographies, 4,500 year old stone sale receipts and [Salvador] Dali paintings. It was like being in a museum, except you can touch the art and you’re getting paid. The artists’ books are definitely my favorite collections. All the books that fit under N7433 are designed less to be read but more as pieces of art. They’re beautifully made and bizarrely interesting.
After graduation I am hoping to go to graduate school here at FSU, for Urban Planning and Public Administration. I am going to be very sad to leave Special Collections. This is by far the best job I’ve ever had. If there were one thing I wish more people knew about Special Collections it would be that we want you to come in and we are happy when you get to look at something unique.”

Shelby

“Prior to working at FSU’s Archives and Special Collections, I was a little apprehensive about applying for the job. While I loved all literature, I knew very little about what occurred “behind the scenes” of a