We are happy to announce that a new exhibit is on display in the Norwood Reading Room on the history of the Florida State University Schools, also known as Florida High.

In 1851 the Florida Legislature voted to establish two institutes of higher learning: the East and West Florida Seminary. The Legislature required the cities which would receive state funding for these seminaries to provide the infrastructure and startup money. In order to compete for the West Florida Seminary, Tallahassee built a school. Finished in 1855 and located near the present day Westcott building, the school was commonly known as the Florida Institute.

The Florida Institute was the earliest incarnation of Florida High. The Florida Institute educated both college and high school aged students. Since the Florida Institute became the West Florida Seminary in 1857, Florida High has been an integral part to the history of FSU.

In 1954 the high school department got its own building on campus, designated as the Florida State University School (FSUS or Florida High). Despite the moniker “Florida High,” FSUS was created to be a school for grade levels K-12. FSCW and FSU students in the Education program interned at Florida High until Florida High left the campus in 2001.

In an effort to make learning fun, the teachers would often assign creative projects. The students created newsletters and journals for their various clubs and classes. Florida High also had its own yearbooks: The Flahisco, which was published in the 1940’s, and the Demon’s Flame, which was published in the 50’s and 60’s.

In 2001, Florida High left the main FSU campus and moved to its own campus. Despite its change of location, Florida High maintains its close connection with FSU. Research performed by FSU faculty and graduate students largely takes place at FSUS. Research is a constant presence at FSUS, and important findings have been found in the fields of Literacy Acquisition and Mathematical Pedagogy.

The Florida High Exhibit can be viewed Monday – Friday 10am – 6pm in the Norwood Reading Room, located on the second floor of Strozier Library.

Colin Behrens is a student assistant in the Heritage Protocol & University Archives. He is currently working on a BA in Classics.

In the 1960s, a number of New York City’s historic buildings were slated for demolition. Pennsylvania Station was demolished in 1963 to much public outrage, and the original Ziegfeld Theatre followed a few years later. In 1960, Carnegie Hall was threatened with a similar fate when the planned construction of Lincoln Center put the future of the concert hall in jeopardy.

Violinist Isaac Stern’s successful campaign to save Carnegie Hall is legendary. This episode of New York: A Portrait in Sound was produced at a unique time, after the City of New York purchased Carnegie Hall as result of Stern’s 1960 campaign, but before the formation in 1965 of the New York City Landmark Commission, which would honor Carnegie Hall with protective landmark designation in 1967.

The music hall was erected in 1891, and while it was recognized as a world class concert hall, it quickly became clear to Andrew Carnegie, who financed the project, that an alternative source of income would be necessary. The two tower additions were completed in 1894 and 1896 to serve as housing and studio spaces for working artists, with the intention of bringing in additional revenue.

57th Street & Seventh Avenue, southeast corner

(NYPL/The New York Public Library)

These studios, 170 in all, populated the hall with a lively community of artists. The towers made for a more affordable artistic lifestyle, providing a space where an artist could comfortably both live and practice their craft. There was a ballet studio, which you can hear in the above clip, neighboring an author’s club just down the hall that Mark Twain used to frequent. Painters, poets, photographers and composers lived and worked there.

You can listen to the raw interviews with tenants here, which are featured in the clip above.  

In 2007, the city began the process of eviction for the hall’s remaining studio tenants as the Carnegie Hall Corporation moved forward with plans to construct education facilities in their place, and in 2010 the last few residents – poet Elizabeth Sargent, and photographers Bill Cunningham and Editta Sherman – were displaced.

The Resnick Education Wing, which occupies the space these artists once inhabited, is in its inaugural year. Its 24 practice rooms and teaching studios opened in September of last year with the mission of cultivating young talent and their love of classical music.

Much like the famed Hotel Chelsea, also a designated landmark, the Carnegie Hall studios are no longer the mecca for great resident artists they once were, but Carnegie Hall continues to support young artists.

In 1966, in the midst of the blues revival, Reverend Gary Davis was arguably at the height of his fame.  “Height” being a relative word here – the average American music fan, then or now, probably wouldn’t recognize his name. But Davis was a hugely influential figure, as evidenced by his effect on the pop and rock music of the 60s: Bob Dylan recorded one of his songs, so did Peter Paul & Mary. The Grateful Dead were big fans, and Jorma Kaukonen of Jefferson Airplane still plays a lot of Davis’s songs to this day.  So the discovery in the WNYC archives of this 1966 studio visit is definitely one to take a closer look at.   

Reverend Gary Davis Live on WNYC

(NYPR Archives/NYPR Archives)

Reverend Gary Davis, who also recorded as Blind Gary Davis, was in fact an ordained Baptist minister (and blind), from the Piedmont region of South Carolina. He grew up playing the distinctive style of Piedmont blues and taught one of that style’s best-known figures, Blind Boy Fuller. But he moved to New York in the 50s, and for the next two decades, a series of (mostly white) guitarists beat a path to his door, to study the blues and to occasionally hear a little sermon.  Dave Van Ronk, David Bromberg, Stefan Grossman… the list of his students is long and littered with well-known folk and blues musicians.  At least one of whom confided that it was Mrs. Davis who was the more likely one to lay a little ol’ fashioned religion on you.  The good reverend seems to have preferred sharing a drink and a song.

Anyway, this 1966 in-studio performance is notable for several reasons: first, the hosts. Henrietta Yurchenco will be a familiar name to fans of the WNYC Archives; she helped bring Lead Belly, Woody Guthrie, and others to a larger audience through WNYC in the early 1940s.  And the folk musician Dave Sear, who would later go on to host the long-running Folk Music Almanac on WNYC, appears here as her co-host.

And second, there are the songs.  Of the five tunes played here, two are hits; two more will be known to Davis fans; but the opener is a song that for the life of me I cannot identify, even after a Google search. 

UNITED KINGDOM – JANUARY 01: KEELE FOLK FESTIVAL Photo of Rev Gary DAVIS, Reverend Gary Davis performing at the Keele Folk Festival (Photo by Brian Shuel/Redferns)

(Photo by Brian Shuel/Redferns/Getty)

There is very little chat – the session sounds like it has been edited with a heavy hand.  Davis launches into one of those moralizing, early gospel-tinged numbers where the different verses are actually mostly the same; usually a different first line in each verse leads to a repeat of the first verse’s conclusion.   The Carter Family did a lot of this kind of singing – a song like “Sow ‘Em On the Mountain,” for example. 

The second song is “There’s Destruction In This Land,” also known as “There’s Destruction On That Land.”  Davis had a large repertoire, and this is one of a fairly large number of tunes from the country-ragtime tradition.  Davis’s two-fingered picking technique is especially impressive in these songs. 

After that comes one of the hits, though perhaps not one associated with Rev. Gary Davis.  “You Got To Move” is a traditional blues that was popularized by Mississippi Fred McDowell, and then made famous by the Rolling Stones. 

Next is “Children of Zion.”  While the song moves along at a good clip, there’s a dark, almost ominous quality to the chord sequence.  One of the things I’ve always loved about Davis’s songs is the elliptical but ecstatic imagery he often uses.  In “The Light Of This World,” for example, he sings: “got fiery fingers/got fiery hands/when I get to heaven I’m gonna/play in the fiery band.”  Here, after wondering in the first verse where his mama went, he sings: “she’s somewhere sitting in glory”  (or in this performance, it sounds like he’s saying “she’s somewhere around in glory,” which is even more unusual and ecstatic.)

His grand finale is “Samson and Delilah” – also known as “If I Had My Way.”  Originally associated with Blind Willie Johnson, Rev. Gary Davis’s version reached a much wider audience when it was covered by Peter, Paul & Mary in 1962. 

Listening to the rough-hewn sound of Davis’s voice and his surprisingly intricate guitar technique is, for me, something that never gets old.  I learned a couple of Davis’s songs, including “The Light Of This World” and “Death Don’t Have No Mercy,” from the playing of Jorma Kaukonen on one of my New Sounds Live concerts some years ago.  The former took a bit of time to work out, and I was pretty damn pleased with myself for eventually getting it.  I later told Jorma I’d figured out how to play his arrangement and he immediately said “oh, I’m almost embarrassed at how easy that one is.” 

Oh well.  We can’t all be guitar geniuses.  But listen here to a man who truly was.  

By Stephen Catlett

Our first “In The Field” session took place last night (April 16) at the law office of local lawyer Richard Gabriel, of Gabriel Berry Weston and Wells. Mr. Gabriel’s father, George, operated two small grocery stores on East Market and East Washington Streets after 1940. Richard worked closely with his father and mother and has wonderful stories and information about East Greensboro, especially the vibrant business community as it existed before Urban Renewal destroyed it in the 1960s and 1970s. His father was well respected in the community, especially with the Bennett College students. They autographed Mr. Gabriel’s personal copies of the Bennett yearbook, thanking him for his generosity, especially in providing store credit. As one student wrote: “Without your store I would have gone hungry plenty of nights.”

We plan to capture more history in the next two months, but it has been especially gratifying working with these young students, who are very inspiring.

The Landmarks Preservation Commission was born 53 years ago this week, on April 22, 1962 with Municipal Art Society of New York (MAS) member Geoffrey Platt as Chairman. However, it was not until Mayor Wagner signed the Landmarks bill into law three years later, on April 19, 1965 that the Commission became a city agency with legal authority. When Platt sat down for this interview with Seymour Siegel on WNYC’s City Close-up in November 1964, the Commission was, in Platt’s words, “purely an advisory body.”

Of course, the history behind this groundbreaking legislation—the first historic preservation law of its kind—goes back many more years. Contrary to popular belief, the preservation movement and the desire for Landmarks legislation were not born out of the destruction and rubble of the original Penn Station. As far back as 1951, Municipal Art Society of New York (MAS) President Edgar I. Williams declared to the MAS membership:

“The accumulated evidence that New York’s architectural and historic monuments must be protected by direct action suggests that the Municipal Art Society take the lead in nominating structures for preservation. The controversy over Castle Clinton made many civic-minded citizens aware of the need for intelligent protection of such monuments, and more recently the destruction of the Rhinelander houses, St. Nicholas’ Church and the Ritz Carlton building have emphasized the desirability of an immediate expression of opinion on this important subject.”[1]

By 1953, through its Committee on Historic Sites, Monuments, and Structures and the work of its members, MAS assembled an Index of Architecturally Historic Buildings that it sought to preserve. The following year, MAS began to survey and document all of the buildings and structures on its Index.

MAS Index survey reports for Carnegie Mansion, 1955 & De Vinne Press Building, 1956.

(Municipal Art Society Archives)

Architectural historian and MAS board member Agnes Gilchrist spearheaded the project to document the MAS Index. In addition, at a board meeting in September 1955 she “advanced the suggestion of a ‘walking tour’ for the members of the Society” to educate and raise awareness about historic buildings. The first MAS walking tour occurred in 1956, the same year that the New York State Legislature passed the “Bard Act,” named after the lawyer, curmudgeon, and MAS board member, Albert S. Bard. “The Bard Act provided localities across New York State the authority they needed to regulate the built environment based on aesthetics, and was the New York State legislation that enabled the creation of a New York City Landmarks Law.”[2]

In January 1957 MAS published the first edition of New York Landmarks: Index of Architecturally Historic Structures in New York City that expanded on its 1951 list.

First edition of Municipal Art Society’s New York Landmarks: Index of Architecturally Historic Structures in New York City, January 1957.

(Municipal Art Society Archives/Municipal Art Society)

This eventually grew into the 1963 publication of Alan Burnham’s New York Landmarks: A Study and Index of Architecturally Notable Structures in Greater New York, published by Wesleyan University Press under the auspices of the Municipal Art Society. With the razing of Penn Station as a background, the book helped rally the preservation movement in New York City. It is also the book Platt cites and uses as a reference during the City Close-up interview.

It’s hard to remember today—with 1,347 individual landmarks, 117 interior landmarks, and 10 scenic landmarks across the five boroughs—that at the time of its passage, New York’s landmarks preservation law was a truly revolutionary concept. It would serve as a model for similar laws that were enacted around the country and forever change the way cities treat historic spaces.

________________________________

[1] See Anthony Wood’s Preserving New York: Winning the Right to Protect A City’s Landmarks (Routledge, 2007)

[2] For more information, see the NY Preservation Archive Project.

Our touring Hosts & Champions Exhibition will be on display at Trinity Church, Irvine, until this Friday 17th April. In this article Jocelyn Grant, one of our Exhibition Assistants, looks at the some of the exhibition items from the Commonwealth Games 2014.

This is the final tour of the series looking at the Hosts and Champions Exhibition in Irvine, Trinity Church. Each of these tours has looked to highlight some of the iconic and exciting materials from the Commonwealth Games Scotland Archive that the Exhibition displays, and it would be remiss of me not to include the most recent and local of the Commonwealth Games; Glasgow 2014!

The Hosts and Champions Exhibition moves on to Carnoustie, Dundee this weekend, so if you would like to see this display before it ends, go now!

The neighborhood we now call Boerum Hill was once nicknamed Little Caughnawaga, for the growing Mohawk community that took up residence there. As the steel industry grew and the U.S. became a world leader in steel production in the early 20^th century, Mohawk ironworkers came down to New York City from the Kahnawake Reservation just south of Montreal.  

In this episode of New York: A Portrait in Sound, you’ll hear voices of the Caughnawaga, singing a song of welcome and describing their work in the steel industry.

In the late 1800s, the Mohawk became well-regarded for their skill as ironworkers after helping build the Victoria Bridge over the Saint Lawrence River in Quebec. When the bridge opened, it was the longest railway bridge in the world, and it played a vital role in connecting Montreal to the U.S. market. The Caughnawaga Mohawk’s growing skills and desire for more work would bring them to all parts of the U.S., including Brooklyn, NY.

The Caughnawaga Mohawk frequented the now-closed Nevins Bar and Grill, which became known at The Wigwam and, just a few blocks away, they attended church service held in the Mohawk dialect at Cuyler Presbyterian Church. Grocery stores began carrying a specific brand of corn meal Caughnawaga used to make a traditional Indian bread, and bars began serving Montreal ales. The neighborhood transformed around them.

From 1920-1960, many Caughnawaga would split their time between the Reservation and Brooklyn as they took more and more construction jobs, and some still do today! Mohawk workers were fundamental in the building of such landmarks as the United Nations, Lincoln Center, the Empire State Building and the World Trade Center. After 9/11, Mohawk came to the site of Ground Zero to help clean up the fallen structures they had helped build and one Mohawk worker helped lower the beam that made the new One World Trade Center the tallest building in New York. 

You can read more about the Mohawks in Brooklyn here, as well as in this recent piece by WNYC reporter Stephen Nessen. 

Stickers for sale at a shop in Kahnawke.

(Stephen Nessen/Flickr)

 

On Friday, April 10, 2015, the National Declassification Center held a public forum, NDC Prioritization: What Secrets Do People Want to See? to discuss prioritization of its holdings as a way forward since the completion of the 351 million page backlog in February 2014.

The public forum featured remarks from the Archivist of the United States, David Ferriero, and commentary from the Director of the NDC, Sheryl Shenberger.  In her remarks, Ms. Shenberger outlined the five goals of the NDC moving forward (in no particular order):

1. Making sure another backlog of records awaiting declassification review never accumulates at the National Archives again,
2. Increasing public access to previously reviewed and exempted records by focusing on document-level referral review at the Interagency Referral Center,
3. Standing up a review process for the earliest withdrawn items, particularly those withdrawn before the NDC began using a computerized data capture system in 2002,
4. Fostering an improved and more direct relationship with researchers at the National Archives and
5. Continuing to prioritize series of records based on researcher/government requests, the significance of the historical topic and the quality of the earlier review to provide special historical themed collections.

David Langbart, Senior Archivist, provided his thoughts on topic-based prioritization as it relates to archival processing and description.  Supervisory Archivist Martha Murphy was also a presenter, discussing how the National Archives is currently processing the remaining withheld records related to the JFK Assassination.  You can view more information about the work of the National Archives and the processing of the JFK assassination records here.

PIDB member and Acting Chair, William Leary, participated as a member of a panel discussing prioritization for declassification.  In his remarks, Mr. Leary discussed the six recommendations made by the PIDB in its 2014 supplemental report, Setting Priorities: An Essential Step in Transforming Declassification.  In this report, the PIDB advocates for a coordinated, government-wide approach to declassifying information based on those records most sought after and of most historical significance to the public.  To this end, Mr. Leary discussed the need for experts in the declassification community and requester community to work cooperatively to determine how to set priorities, acknowledging that useful models exist already, including that which drives the review of records for inclusion in the Foreign Relations of the United States series (FRUS).  He noted that ending pass/fail declassification determinations, which inevitably lead to wasteful re-reviews of records, should be a part of the adopted model for prioritization.

Mr. Leary discussed the need for improved records and information management practices.  He successfully argued that the NDC has the ability to incorporate topical declassification without compromising archival principles, including those related to provenance and the idea of original order.  Indeed, selecting topics by series as priorities is feasible, practical and in concert with archival processing.  Mr. Leary noted that this is one way, among many ways, to improve public access to high-value records, noting that agencies will need to use better risk management strategies and eliminate or severely restrict review of specific records found to have little value.  He also discussed the importance of prioritizing Presidential records as these are arguably the most complete and accurate source of information about our nation’s history and role in the world.

Mr. Leary’s remarks during the forum reflect the PIDB’s shift in focus from the quantity of records reviewed to the quality of records declassified.  Moreover, the challenges posed by electronic records and the volume of information the government now creates mean that changes in declassification processes, from a variety of standpoints, are necessary to effectively transform the system to one that is sustainable in the digital age.

To view the entire NDC public forum online, please visit   (best viewed via Chrome browser).

The panel discussion featuring Mr. Leary begins at 32:00, and Mr. Leary’s specific remarks begin at 1:17:00.

For more information about the NDC public forum and comments from the Director of the NDC, please visit the NDC blog.

Please continue to follow our blog, Transforming Classification, to learn more about the PIDB’s recommendations concerning prioritization.

In addition to my work as a Graduate Assistant in the Special Collections & Archives Division, I’m a full time student studying for a Master of Science in Library and Information Science at The School of Information at Florida State University.  As a Graduate Assistant, I’ve been able to apply the academic knowledge gained from my library classes to the different projects I’ve worked on as a Graduate Assistant in Special Collections & Archives.  Additionally, my work in Special Collections & Archives has given me a richer, more practical understanding of the opportunities and challenges that librarians face today.

As a graduate student, I’m gaining the knowledge needed to succeed in the library profession.  I’ve taken a number of great courses, but some of the classes that have been particularly relevant to my work in Special Collections are the following:

LIS 5703 Information Organization

This is a required course in the School of Information’s Master of Science in Information Science program, and for good reason.  After taking this course, future librarians better understand the theoretical framework for organizing and accessing information.  Much of the first half of the course focuses on the organization of various systems–such as article databases, like JSTOR, and the FSU Libraries online catalog.  Understanding how records are organized in the library catalog means that I’m better able to help Special Collections patrons find the information they need.  Sometimes patrons only have a vague idea of what they need, or a topic they’re researching and are not aware of all the resources Special Collections has to offer.  And while I might not be an expert in every area that Special Collections encompasses, as a librarian, I am able to find you the resources that that you need.

This course also introduces the concept of metadata, or “data about data.”  Understanding the administrative role that metadata plays in the access and retrieval of a resource was essential for the work I did with the Digital Library Center, in which I digitized 12 issues of The Girl’s Own Annual , and made those issues available to the broader community through FSU’s Digital Library.  You can find out more about that project from this blog post.

LIS 5472 Digital Libraries

This is an elective in the School of Information, and provides students with the guiding principles behind the construction and management of a digital library.  This course also provides students with some “hands on” experience.  Using the open source platform Omeka, students in this class create their own small-scale digital library.  There has been a lot of overlap between my classwork for Digital Libraries and the work I’ve done as a Graduate Assistant.  For my second project as a GA in Special Collections, I created an online exhibit with the platform Omeka, which can be found at fscwscrapbooks.omeka.net.

HIS 5082 Introduction to Archives

Because it is my hope to continue working in a Special Collections & Archives department after graduating, I wanted to take the opportunity to take formal coursework in archival science.  This course is offered through the History Department, and is taught at the State Archives of Florida.  My work in Special Collections & Archives provided me with a solid foundation to start with, to which this course has given me a richer understanding of the principles that guide an archivist’s work.

LIS 5511 Management of Information Collections

One major focus of this class was the Collection Development Policy, the formal document which guides a library’s collecting policies.   As a GA, one of my projects this semester has been to make an initial assessment of various rare book donations, according to FSU Special Collections & Archives procedures.  Understanding the role and purpose of a Collection Development Policy has been helpful in understanding the process for donation to cataloged item.

This is just a sample of the coursework I’ve completed for my Master of Science in Library and Information Science.  It has been a privilege to apply the knowledge I’ve gained in my classes to my work as a Special Collections & Archives Graduate Assistant.  Moreover, working as a Graduate Assistant has given me a better understanding of the practical applications of the knowledge I’ve gained.

Rebecca L. Bramlett is a graduate assistant in the Special Collections & Archives Division.  She is working on her Master of Library and Information Science at Florida State University.

On April 24 Armenians commemorate the genocide of 1915. The event is marked every year, but the centenary in 2015 has particular resonance and will be widely noted.

Even so, what happened in 1915 and the years that followed was not the first time of troubles for Armenians in Turkey. The nineteenth century had seen many massacres and had ended with several years of intense conflict now known as the “Hamidian Massacres” (named for Sultan Abdul Hamid II and the troops, mostly Kurdish, he used against the Armenians).

Since several Amherst College missionaries were in the region for decades, the Archives and Special Collections contains many eyewitness accounts of what happened during the last years of the century. Most of the missionary accounts are in fairly obvious places, in what we think of as “missionary collections.” But there was one folder in another collection that lay quietly for many years, a folder in the Harrison Griswold Dwight Papers.

Harry Dwight (1875-1959; AC 1898) was born in Turkey to a family of missionaries but was not a missionary himself. His life was a more literary one, and his papers are filled with interesting correspondence and other writings from his career. Sometime in 1941 Harry wrote his cousin Mary W. Riggs (1873-1943) to ask for a packet of letters that had belonged to his father, Henry Otis Dwight (1843-1917), an important missionary based in Constantinople who married two of the Bliss sisters, thus linking him with our Bliss-Ward family of missionaries.

Mary sent the letters to Harry Dwight with a letter saying essentially, here, take them, I can’t stand to be reminded of what happened in those awful days. Her letter was short, typed, and persuasive, but most of the letters she sent Harry were in cursive, and in faded ink at that. So for several reasons (location of letters in an unexpected collection, difficult handwriting, insufficient description), and despite Mary’s urgency, the letters seem to have remained unread and untranscribed.

Given the centenary of the Armenian Genocide, it seemed that the letters might prove of interest or use to people interested in Armenian and Turkish history, and it would remind us too that the Armenians were being massacred in the region well before 1915. What follows below are excerpts (long enough as it is) from the transcriptions, with pdfs to the full transcriptions and a separate pdf of the originals for anyone who wants to read the letters in full and see what the manuscripts look like. A little of the punctuation has been changed, and it would be hard to claim complete accuracy in some of the names of places and people, but the transcriptions in the pdfs are otherwise unaltered and unabridged.

Henry Otis Dwight, ca. 1880

It’s important to note a few things about Henry Otis Dwight, who either wrote or received the letters. Turkey was home to him – he knew how to “gad about” (as he says) and how to obtain and report information. As the letters show, he was a serious man and, I think, someone who always had in mind “the big picture.” In Dwight’s case, the big picture involved protecting his “flock” (the Armenians) and the missionaries stationed precariously across a vast empire, and he feared for the safety of both groups during conflicts. In all that transpired during the years the letters cover, Dwight’s view of the situation – and the criticisms he offered – were directly connected with the impact on his larger mission. He was evenhanded: if the reader feels insulted on one occasion, he will be soothed on another. Dwight had harsh words for Turks, Kurds, and Armenians (as well as the reporter for the New York Herald), and he was self-critical too, but he was also very willing to praise when praise was due. Although he knew high-ranking leaders on all sides, he doesn’t come across as especially political, except to use the tools of politics to help his cause when he could (and often he couldn’t). He was both eyewitness and gatherer of information from other eyewitnesses, and in these letters he reveals all he knows.

*****************

The Bliss Bible House in Constantinople, H.O.Dwight’s base of operations

Letter of September 30, 1895:

HOD-1895-Sep-30

I went over to Pera about 11, and in coming back could see that something was astir of an unusual nature. The police swarmed in the streets and on the bridge and eyed me in a very embarrassing manner. Just then a fire broke out in Beshik-tach, and it was impossible to tell whether the excitement of the people was on account of the fire or not. While I was on the bridge the Grand Vezir, Said Pasha, came along on his way to the Porte. He had evidently waited at his house until the demonstration should have time to be broken up. Aside from the multitude of police and the unusual crowd at the head of the bridge, I could not see that any great thing was taking place. After I reached the Bible House, I was told that the demonstration had occurred, and had been attacked at Nouri Osmaniye by the troops, when about twenty Armenians had been sabred by the cavalry. Shortly after, a man came in who said that he had seen two fights between Armenians and the police at the Sublime Porte. The first was at the upper door, where the ministers enter. He saw one man carried off as if dead. Later the second fight occurred at the lower door of the Porte, and there he saw two or three fall. He thought it dangerous to linger in that region and left. After the Grand Vezir reached the Porte the police began to make arrests of Armenians. They seemed to search for arms and to seize those who had anything that could be called a weapon, if only a large pocket-knife. I went out from the Bible House rather late, to go to the steamer, and saw nothing but a rather anxious look on the faces of the people. The police were everywhere but I saw no arrests made although I went the longest way to the bridge in order to observe the signs of the atmosphere. The Turks were whispering together and the Armenians were conspicuous by their absence. Many stories were afloat about the result of the fights. The Armenians are said to have killed a Turkish major who fired upon them. Tuesday, Oct. 1. The Turks at the steamer landing at Hissar were very much occupied with secret whispering, and I thought eyed me askance as I went to the steamer. There was nothing in the paper about the affair of yesterday except a bland sort of declaration that the Armenian hamals and firemen had gathered together at two or three places in the city and had been dispersed by the police, and that under the shadow of the sultan quiet was perfect in the city. There were no Armenians on the steamer and the Armenian shops in the city were mostly shut. A general hush ruled the streets. Everyone spoke in low tones and the coffee houses were deserted. The impression was of a sultry day absolutely still before a thunderstorm. I encountered a number of Softas on the streets who looked very savage and who I observed had revolvers under their long gowns. Altogether the impression of my morning jaunt in the city was not reassuring. It was evident that the Turks are angered by the affair of yesterday and are on the lookout for more trouble, or to make it. The police are patrolling the streets but only by twos, except once in a long while a mounted patrol passes of more men.

Scutari neighborhood of the Dwight and Bliss families (image from the Mark Hopkins Ward Papers).

…A number of our Bible House people came to me, thinking that I could do something, to beg that I would get protection for them. They were in utter terror of their lives. They say that the Softas are going to make a general massacre, and that at the same time that the police are arresting every Armenian who has anything like a weapon they are allowing the Turkish mob to buy revolvers unmolested. I found from other sources that this was true as to the purchase of revolvers. Then came word that two of the Bible House men, one a printer and the other a hamal, had been arrested and very badly beaten. Help was wanted to secure their release, for it is rumored that they are killing the prisoners in cold blood at the Ministry of Police. A few minutes later word came that Garabed Senakirinian, one of the leading Protestants of Gedik Pasha, was arrested last night and no one knows whether he is alive or dead. He was at the new Gedik Pasha chapel when some Softas came in and ordered the people to stop working in the chapel. “We are not going to allow you to have a chapel here,” they said. Garabed Eeffendi went out and spoke to the women of the congregation who have been doing watchman’s duty there while the men were at work, telling them to go inside because the Softas looked so fierce. The Softas at once went and complained to the police that he had told the women to stone them, which was false, and the police arrested him. Happily, a Turk standing by had seen the whole performance and told the police that the Softas had lied and got him released. Shortly afterward on some threat from the Softas, the police rearrested him and sent him to prison.

All these things come to me, and everyone looks to me to right all wrongs, as if I were their father or their advocate with the powers that be. They were very bitterly disappointed when I told them that I should not go to the British Embassy to present their case because it is already known, and that I did not believe that the British fleet would necessarily be summoned at once to restore order. The feeling that the appeals of these people produces is one of terrible anxiety, for the stories are heart-rending and the possibility that I might with a clearer inspiration find some way to help them is very wearing upon the nerves. It is very much as if we were in the midst of a military campaign and oppressed with the weight that belongs to the period just before the battle begins, when no one knows just what he will have to do in the next minute. It is a little curious that I have not been disturbed by a sense of fear for ourselves.

Several of H.O. Dwight’s family members were with him in Constantinople well into the mid-1890s: Isabella Bliss, widow of Edwin Elisha Bliss (AC 1837) with granddaughters Isabel and Helen, ca. 1895.

…Last evening a man came to the Bible House in great terror, from Donjian’s shop, to say that the police had just made a raid upon the shop as a place where arms are being sold to the Armenians. Donjian is a jeweler and curio merchant, a leading member of the Y.M.C.A. and son in law to Pastor Avedis Constantian. All the antique weapons were gathered up by the police as evidence of treason and carried off with Donjian himself to the Minstry of Police. What to do for this poor fellow was the problem and we could do nothing. We concluded that at the Ministry of Police there would be someone wise enough to see that swords from the time of the Crusades and flint-lock pistols of two or three centuries ago are not arms in the sense of the law. This morning I found that he had been released and went around to his shop on my way to the Bible House to congratulate him on his escape. He was badly frightened and nervous but thankful to get off with the loss of his goods, which had been kept by the police, to the value of £20.

…Later in the day I went over to Gedik Pasha, ostensibly to call on Mrs. Newell on the occasion of her arrival from America, but really to get a clear idea of the general situation and of theirs in particular. Just before I left the Bible House, there was a rather sharp shock of an earthquake. As soon as Mrs. Newell saw me she said, “It takes an earthquake to bring you here.” I then remembered that since the earthquakes of July 1894, when I went over to see how the ladies had passed the danger, I had been only once in their house. The three ladies were in good spirits and full of pluck. They had not seen any disposition to attack their house and felt that there would be no such attack. They had seen the Softas roaming in parties of ten or more through their street, armed with revolvers, daggers, and clubs of a uniform pattern. They had heard the horrid sound of the blows of the clubs striking on the heads of the victims in the street, which they said sounded like pistol shots, and they had comforted and helped the poor women left alone in their houses by the arrest of their men. But no harm had come near them and they were not inclined to wish any help.

…. Numbers of Armenians have asked us when the fleet will be here, and I have been obliged to tell them that I am inclined to think that the rising of the Hunchagists [Armenian revolutionaries] has made its coming now impossible unless the government ceases to show the purpose to protect the people generally from the mob. The appeals of these people for advice, the terrible nature of their position, and the utter uselessness of their hoping help from me, make a combination of influences that crush me under the sense of responsibility and impotence. I feel like crying aloud, “Oh, Lord, my burden is greater than I can bear.”

Letter of October 7, 1895:

HOD-1895-Oct-7

Thursday, Oct. 10. The other day Dr. Matteosian asked me what I would advise him to do about his family who are in Biryukdere. Should they stay where they are, or should they return to their Pera home? I told him that for the moment Pera is less safe than the Bosphorus because of the tendency of the Armenians at the church of the Holy Trinity to make trouble. I told him the only way was to do as I do every day – feel the pulse of the city and so judge of dangers. He said the difficulty was to get hold of the pulse. This morning he met me on the steamer and asked me how the pulse is this morning. I told him it was less violent, but that I had not yet been to the city to find out. Just then I met Mr. Dimitrof, the Bulgarian agent here, and asked him about the situation. Dr. Matteosian listened with all his ears and understood something of how I work to get the situation every day.

Certain men I know to be well informed and to be willing to tell me what they know. One of these is Mr. Dimitroff; another is the agent of the Reuter News Agency, who gives me news and I give him items that he cannot otherwise get. Then I go among the people of all classes and hear what they have to say; their experience with the police, and with the common Turks or Armenians, and their preposterous ideas on all subjects. From this it is easy to get a general notion of how the mind of the city is acting and if there is anything that seems to have special danger in it. I take pains to learn if it is known at the Embassies. What Mr. Dimitroff told me was that yesterday afternoon Said Pasha, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, called on the Austrian Ambassador, who is Dean of the Diplomatic Corps, and asked him to get the ambassador to negotiate with the Armenians about leaving the churches and going to their homes, authorizing the Ambassador to promise that none of them should be arrested by the Turks if they leave the churches. This involves a tacit admission by the Turks that the Armenians have been driven into their present position by abuse, and that therefore they are not to be punished for refusing to submit at the order of the Government. Upon this, the ambassador held a meeting at the French Embassy and decided to undertake the negotiation. This morning early the dragomen of the six Powers were sent to the city to go to the churches and advise the people to go home, promising that they will not be molested by the police. I have not been able to learn what the result has been, but I am afraid that the effort has failed. The Hunchagists are determined to keep up the demonstration until the Turks yield consent to the reformers. Today the Hunchagists went around and informed Armenians who opened their shops that they have been fined by the revolutionary committee for doing so. Several men paid considerable amounts to save their necks from the Hunchagists. All the shopkeepers received orders to close their shops on pain of death from these same revolutionists. They commonly obey meekly for they are terrified at the fear of secret assassination.

Letters from (apparently) Armenians, probably pastors or other employees of the missions:

HOD-1895-Dec-28-29

From Arabkir
December 28, 1895

It was a great comfort that some friends escaped the fatal massacre (Nov. 6) but the five Nalbandian brothers were taken by guile to the government house. They were bound together and shot and many others in the same manner. These have been killed and that is past but many others remain in prison hungry, naked and miserable and they have no means of comfort whatever. Call, oh call for assistance. There are women who were accustomed to dress well and adorn their persons with costly ornaments now naked and miserable hunt[ing] through the ruined buildings to collect the charred wood to sell to cover their nakedness. The churches and schools have become the refuge of many refugees who wander about from morning till evening begging and they return in the evening empty-handed, hungry, weary, cold, and almost dead and they sleep on the stones. Dear friend my eyes fill, my hand refuses to move and how can I write more?

From Keghi
December 29, 1895

I have begun to distribute the £50 which you sent. But the number of the plundered is more than 10,000 of whom 5000 are in the extremest destitution. To whom will I give this £50?

From Erzingan
December 21, 1895

I received your letter with the 15£ draft but it was impossible to cash it and so I return it to you. The only way is to send money by post. As this is the case you better send directly to Kemakh anything you decide to send there.

As to your question: As far as I have been able to find out there are 15,000 persons who are in need of bread and who cry out “bread, bread.” Some have food for a month, some for two weeks. As time passes, the destitute will greatly increase. At present we are in great fear and terror. Oh, we have become wearied with this uncertain life. Every day the fear of death is upon us. We call out, “My God, my God, has though forgotten us?” The pain of this terror is very great. To live upon the earth has become a weariness. What shall the end be? If you have a word of encouragement, write us quickly.

No. 17 [Station report: H.O. Dwight’s summary of information he has received from various stations]:

HOD-1896-Feb-15

Map of The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM).

Constantinople, Feb. 15, 1896

Dear Friends,

Marsovan Station, the Western Mission, and in fact the whole mission force in Turkey is grievously smitten in the death from small pox of Miss King of Marsovan on the 1st of Feb. She was a devoted Christian, skilled to work and win souls, and the Providence which calls her away brings her associates quite as much amazement as it does pain and grief.

Ramazan [Ramadan] gives occasion for some anxiety as to the preservation of the peace. There is real danger of disturbance here also which is too serious to be ignored. But it should be borne in mind by all that the Government is now evidently doing its best to prevent any further misdeeds of the character that we all know to the extent of losing our confidence in the good intentions of those we have trusted hitherto. The Government will not now connive at any outbreaks. At BITLIS the situation is not agreeable. Calumnies against Mr. Knapp have reached a point now that leads Armenians in the villages to believe him the cause of all the troubles which have overwhelmed them. The Porte wishes to try him there on definite charges. He will probably come on here under British protection for conference with Mr. Terrell, who refuses, naturally, to admit any right to try him. At AINTAB (Jan. 30) threats of massacre are continued. The wife of the pastor at Birijik and the two girl school teachers were taken by Gov’t order under escort to Aintab and delivered safely. They saw awful things. Mr. Sanders reached OURFA safely, Miss Shattuck has had Pneumonia but its better. She writes (Jan. 29) that she feels she must stay with the stricken people there, at least [for]] a time. The slaughter at Ourfa was greater than first reported. The Protestants of the Birsjik and Roumkale region have become Muslims along with the others. At Aintab there are about 3500 destitute receiving aid. At MARASH (Jan. 28) there are over 5000 receiving aid and an expectation of 20,000 more as soon as the settlement at Zeitoun question [?] opens up that region to access. At HAJIN (Jan. 29) 1500 people are receiving aid, about half of them from outside the town. SIVAS (Feb. 5) cries for more money, having learned more fully the destitution at Gurun and other places. At CESAREA (Jan. 27) Messrs. Fowle and Wingate have visited ten villages in the Gemerek region where 1000 houses will have eaten up their last grain by the end of this month. About 75 bales of clothing sent from here have reached Cesarea, and the most part have gone on to Sivas and Harpoot. At ERZROUM Mr. Chambers is crushed under the relief work, and Mr. Mac Naughton of Smyrna goes on today to reinforce Erzroum. Dr. Andrus of MARDIN telegraphs of 10,000 destitute in the Kurdish mountains, needing £2000. Mr. Peet has telegraphed promising the money. HARPOOT (Jan. 30) has about 100,000 destitute in 200 places dependent on it. Mr. Gates says he does not get time to eat, but does not mind that, if only he can be sure that he will not be told there is no more money. Up to that date Mr. Peet has received Zt. [zolota] 14,300 for relief from abroad. Besides this, £10,000 has passed through his hands from native sources.

Letter of August 26, 1896:

HOD-1896-Aug-26

An Armenian shop, probably in Harpoot ca. 1910 (image from the W.E.D.Ward Papers)

One of our Armenian neighbors at Roumeli Hissar was in the street back of the custom house in Stamboul when the Kurds were rushing out in pursuit of the fleeing Armenians. He sprang into the shop of a Turk who hid him. Soon after a Jew also took refuge in the shop and the Turk hid him, but the mob hunted him out. The Jew begged for mercy, explaining that he was an innocent Jew, but the ruffians said that Jew or Christian he was a Giaour, and killed him. They did not find the Armenian, who came home to Hissar nearly dead with fright.

…Thursday, Aug. 27.
It is the day for my making up the local news for the Avedaper [an Armenian newspaper] today, and it seemed necessary to go to the Bible House, although I was quite sure that none of the translators or printers would be there. I have had a curious feeling all day exactly like the feeling at the beginning of every battle during the war. It is a profound desire to be somewhere else than in the disagreeable midst of disturbance. I am a coward by nature, I suppose, and am only able to be anything else by the grace of God.

…I went to meet Misses Webb and Montgomery at the train and found that the word had reached the family in spite of my negligence. So they were all there at the station before me and there was a joyful scene when the train came in for the ladies had been told at Philippopolis that 7,000 people had been killed in Cons’ple. All the trouble seems to be over for the moment and we can now count up the losses, first sending a telegram to Boston for the reassurance of our friends. The affair as a whole is the crowning infamy of the infamous reign of Abdul Hamid. For 36 hours the lowest rabble have been allowed to wreak their hate on the Armenians in all parts of the city without hindrance. Of course the folly of the revolutionists was the excuse. But the men who made the outbreak were in general allowed to escape, and the cowardly assassination of near 5,000 unarmed and defenseless people who feared the revolutionists more than the Turks do was a crime which throws into the shade entirely any folly or crime of the anarchist Armenians whom the Turkish troops could have disposed of in an hour without shedding a drop of innocent blood.

…Today I have seen family after family walking the streets weeping, barefoot, bareheaded men, women and children alike dressed only in their night garments with some dressing gown or old shawl thrown over them, these being all that is left to them of their property, and they left to seek some shelter where they can hide their shame of abject poverty and seek a beggar’s crust. The men who did these things were not men but devils. They stripped the houses and in every case destroyed with axes pianos, tables, bookcases, chairs and other property that they could not carry away. They were not content to kill with clubs, they cut to pieces with knives. I have come across more than one large stone with a bloody point that told the story of its use to crush some wretch’s skull. There was no pity, no conscience, no thought of anything but glee in the festival of gratified hate and bloodthirsty passion for gore.

…I have nothing more to say of these horrors. There are no words left in which to describe them. I feel like a sneak for being here, protected by my flag, while these poor wretches have been butchered for looking longingly at the freedom which those have who have flags of their own.

…In town I found all quiet but a terrible fear among all the people. I forgot to say that in the morning a young woman came up to me who declared that she knew the plans of the revolutionists and that a new outbreak was to take place about the middle of the afternoon, which would exceed anything yet seen in violence. She therefore begged to be allowed to move into the college premises. I gave the usual answer, that people may not come merely for fear but that if there is a real massacre commenced in Scutari they will all be received at the college. “Yes,” she said, “after we are all killed you will open the gates for us.”

…I made this journal in three copies in order to send to all the different centres of our family. But just before I went to Scutari Sunday, Mr. Terrell told me that I must destroy any papers which I did not care to have the Turks see, for a search of the houses might be made. So I tore up the two other copies and by mistake tore up clearest one. Please let this go the rounds and reach Grandma and Uncle William and Cousin Charlie as well. Let it be understood that no part of it must be given to the newspapers on any consideration whatever. We are all well and hopeful that the Hand which has been our guard hitherto will still keep us safe. But I am very glad that Isabel and Helen have not had the horrors of these days to go through.

Additional letters and pdf of originals:

HOD-1893-Mar-8

HOD-1893-Mar-16

HOD-1893-Mar-17

HOD-1893-Apr-2

Dwight-HG-BxX-F9-sm

When the United Nations formed in 1945, there was a lot of interest in creating an affiliated educational initiative.  Advocacy for a specialized school came from both within and without the organization, and after some debate about pedagogy, the United Nations International School (UNIS) was established in 1947.

In this episode of New York: A Portrait in Sound, you’ll hear the many voices of students as they describe their education and their relationships with their peers of other nationalities.

Two main concerns arose in the discussion of establishing a UN School; first, who would be allowed to participate? A committee of New York educators proposed to UN officials a school open not only to children of UN diplomats, but also to American children from outside the UN community. Arthur Sweetser, co-founder of a school in Geneva with similar international values, provided an alternate view based on his own experience, suggesting the school be lead under the advisement of UN parents, and that admission be limited to UN children.

The second concern regarded the mission of the school itself: would its goal be to create educated, international “citizens of the world”? Or would the school emphasize student’s cultural roots, maintaining their connection to their unique language and culture while growing up in the US? In the above clip from the 1960s, you’ll hear the headmaster and various teachers talk about the wide range of nationalities represented and the school’s focus on teaching world history.

In the end, of the approximately 1,000 children of UN officials in 1948, 70% were under the age of nine, and the UN’s private International Nursery School opened in 1947 with twenty pupils of fifteen nationalities. Today, the private International School has over 1,550 students of 125 nationalities, accepting applications from children both within and without of the UN community.

Grunge textured flag of the United Nations on vintage paper.

(Nicholas Raymond/Freestock)

Within the John Mackay Shaw Childhood in Poetry Collection is a small but substantial sub-collection of sacred music books. From Sunday School primers to hymnals meant to be used at home, Shaw collected these as examples of what was often a child’s first introduction to poetry, hymns on Sundays.

In his bibliography which lists the Sacred Music portions of his collection, compiled in 1972, Shaw noted that “when hymns are examined without benefit of music, it becomes clear that much of the best poetry written for children, and perhaps also some of the worst, has been the production of the hymnwriters.”

We recently completed a digitization of 64 books from this sub-collection, culled from the 450 books listed in Shaw’s original bibliography. These books were selected for their rarity and also because no other repository found had a digital copy available currently.

These are some of the smallest materials we’ve digitized to date as well as some of the most beautiful. Hymnals were often decorated with lovely artwork and etchings, some on an incredibly small and intricate scale such as The Lyre from the 1820s, which is just shy of the same length and width as an iPhone6.

You may explore the new collection of Sacred Music books in the Florida State University Digital Library.

Remain in your seat, eyes on your own paper and print your answers neatly.

We’ve reproduced a selection of questions from the exam given to the people vying to become WNYC radio announcers back in 1948. The exam was an all-day affair. Part one was comprised of 100 multiple-choice questions that fell into four main categories: station policy, radio history, classical music, and world news. 

Test your announcer skills with the four quizzes below and let us know how you do! 

You can read more about the history of the exam itself here.

Station Policy Quiz

Station Policy (20 Questions): If you answered 15 or more correctly, consider yourself a contender for that coveted Announcer position!

Radio History Quiz

Radio History (12 Questions): If you answered 8 or more correctly, you’re a sure radio buff! I’d trust you on the board in the Master Control Room!

Classical Music Quiz

Classical Music (21 Questions): If you answered 16 or more correctly, you could be our next WQXR host!

World News Quiz

World News (9 Questions): If you answered 7 or more correctly, you’ve reached News Reporter status!

A true candidate will tally up all four quizzes.

Full Announcer Exam (All 62 Questions!): You show true dedication! Find your ranking below!

If you got at least 25 questions correct, consider yourself…

Anthony Marvin, WNYC Announcer

If you got 26-37 questions correct, consider yourself…

Lloyd Moss, WXQR Announcer

If you got 38-49 questions correct, consider yourself…

Shirley Zak Hayes, WNYC’s first woman staff announcer

If you got 50-62 questions correct, consider yourself…

Tommy Cowan, WNYC Chief Announcer