Steve Post was the antidote to an industry riddled with chronic cheerfulness. With the world going to hell in a hand basket, how could we possibly  listen to a morning radio personality who sounds like they’re smiling or even about to chuckle or laugh?  For the hard-core tsoris-laden New Yorker there was only one choice and that was Morning Music host Steve Post. His sarcasm, wit, rants, puns, droll observations and commentary with a classical playlist even made listening to fundraising perversely entertaining.

Like a lot of people, I grew up listening to Post on WBAI. There he honed his dyspepsia and futilitarian world view only to release it, fully matured (or immature as the case may be) on WNYC listeners couched in a kind of cranky poise and resonant voice that somehow made my half empty glass, half full.

What exactly was it in Steve’s live nihilist radio recipe through the 1980s and 90s that somehow girded us to face another modern day in New York City and its environs?  Could it have been the artful station identifications?

Perhaps it was his style of news delivery developed long before Howard Beale’s Network rant.

Or, maybe it was Steve’s insights into the weather?

His respect for authority?

Could it have been his keen sense of self?

Or maybe it was just the theme (Chopin’s Marzurka in C Major (Op. 24 No. 2)) and tone set at the beginning of each Morning Music program?

And just how did Steve, as he liked to say, “get away with it?” After all, he was pretty much free to say whatever entered his head, within the bounds of the law. Indeed, he retained creative control over the spoken portion of his program, a rare thing in broadcasting. Remember, this is before XM and Sirus radio, before webcasting and podcasting. In a 1996 tribute to former WNYC President Mary Perot Nichols, Post explained it this way:

After the demise of Morning Music in the wake of 9/11,  Steve went on to many more years of perfecting his art of broadcasting on The No Show, a weekly compendium of whatever was on his mind. Sadly, Steve passed away August 3, 2014 at the age of 70. He is recalled here, by Executive Producer and former Sunday Best host, Sara Fishko.

There will be a memorial for Steve this Friday evening at 6 PM at Symphony Space. For more information see: Post Memorial.

Steve, you are missed.

Steve Post in the WNYC Studio in 1988

(Andrew Lichtenstein/WNYC Archive Collections)

 Thanks to Irene Trudel and Sara Fishko for contributing some of these vital bits of Steve.

I am currently putting the finishing touches on our new exhibition: Race & Rebellion at Amherst College. This exhibition explores the history of student activism and issues of race, beginning with the founding of the Anti-Slavery Society in 1833 and the “Gorham Rebellion” of 1837 through the takeover of campus buildings by black student activists in the 1970s. No exhibition on a subject as broad and complicated as race can ever claim to be truly comprehensive and all-inclusive. This exhibition focuses on recovering the deeper history of African-American lives at Amherst College between 1826 and the late 1970s; we could just as easily have mounted an entire exhibition about more recent events of the last 25 – 50 years.

Two books about Amherst’s black alumni have been published: Black Men of Amherst (1976) by Harold Wade, Jr. and Black Women of Amherst College (1999) by Mavis Campbell. Both of these books need to be revised and brought up to date. One theme in the exhibition is the recovery of black lives at the college that were not included in either published volume. In some cases, we have identified African-American students who graduated from Amherst in the 19th century who were not included in Black Men of Amherst, but there are entire categories of people who were intentionally left out of both books.

The first category is that of service staff at the college. Charles Thompson, for example, was born in Portland, Maine in 1838, spent some time in Boston then worked on three long sea voyages before returning to Boston to work as a coachman. Sometime in 1856 or 1857, Charles Thompson came to work at Amherst College, where he spent the rest of his life in service.

As fraternities began to build and manage their own houses in the 1870s and 1880s, many employed black servants.

The solitary black figure at the back of this group portrait of the members of Beta Theta Pi fraternity in 1890 is identified as “Olmstead Smith ‘The Dark’” on the back of this photograph. The large feather duster in his hand emphasizes Smith’s position as the fraternity custodian.

This fraternity group portrait also includes a single African-American, Perry Roberts. Perry Roberts served as the custodian for Delta Upsilon from approximately 1882 until the early twentieth century. Delta Upsilon group photos regularly show Roberts seated front and center holding the fraternity seal.

Although Edward Jones was the first African-American to graduate from Amherst back in 1826, it wasn’t until 1964 that the college hired its first black faculty member. Professor James Q. Denton taught mathematics and statistics at Amherst until his retirement in 2005.

Poet, activist, and scholar Sonia Sanchez was the first African-American woman to join the faculty at Amherst College. She arrived as a visiting assistant professor in 1972 and left for a position at Temple University in 1975.

Professor Sanchez was soon followed by Andrea Rushing who was hired in 1974 to teach Black Studies and English. She retired in 2010.

Mavis Campbell, author of Black Women of Amherst College, came to campus in 1976 to teach Black Studies and History. She retired in 2006.

These names and faces just scratch the surface of the multiple lives of people of color at Amherst College. In this exhibition we have chosen to focus specifically on African-American individuals, but we encourage others to use the resources of the Archives to explore other minority groups and their experiences at the college.

In 1938, Mary Agnes Harding transferred to FSCW from Florida Southern College. Little did she and her family know that she would be the first in line of Harding siblings to attend Florida State – her four sisters Winnie, Doris, Lena, and Lucy, and her brother Edward, would also attend Florida State over a 17 year period. From 1938 through 1955, there was always a Harding at Florida State.

When Mary first moved to Tallahassee, she lived in an off campus house for college students. She recalled a time in winter, when it was particularly cold out, leaving a heater near the bottom of the stairs and a fire breaking out. Because the students weren’t able to go down the stairs to exit the building, they jumped out the windows or climbed onto tree limbs. Mary remembers that she jumped into a ligustrum that was just outside her window. After the fire, FSCW found room for everyone on campus, and Mary moved into Reynolds Hall. Aside from studying for her major in home economics, Mary enjoyed going to Camp Flastacowo on the weekends, and walking to see movies at the theatre with her friends.

The Harding family tradition of attending Florida State was carried on by Winifred (or “Winnie”) who went on to be a laboratory technician; Lena, who taught business education; Lucille (or “Lucy”), who taught physical education; Doris, the sister they all called “the brain” (Mary remarked that Doris “graduated Cum Laude – the rest of us just graduated”) worked for the U.S. Geological Survey; and Edward, the last Harding sibling to graduate from FSU studied industrial arts education.

After graduating in 1940, Mary married Ken Galbreath, and they started a dairy farm in Fruitland Park, FL, and also taught for over 40 years. She continues to live on the farm they started with her family.

To see more photographs, ephemera, and artifacts related to the history of Florida State, check out the FSU Heritage Protocol Digital Collections or like the Heritage Protocol Facebook page.

We are pleased to announce the Presidential appointments of Ms. Laura A. DeBonis and Mr. Solomon B. Watson, IV as members to the PIDB on March 12, 2015.  It is fitting that the newest members of the PIDB are able to participate in our executive session meeting being held today.  As we reflect on the significance of Sunshine Week and public access to Government information, we intend to use our meeting today to both review what has happened in the past year and decide on plans for the coming year.  We will take a detailed look at past year Government accomplishments to see what policymakers and practitioners have made to advance open government initiatives, particularly those committed to the transformation of the security classification system.  We will also take this opportunity to see what challenges and impediments still exist and see where we may be able to advocate for more change and modernization.

The National Archives and the Central Intelligence Agency earned well-deserved praise for the pilot projects they spearheaded at the Center for Content Understanding (CCU). We were able to view firsthand their accomplishments when we traveled to the Applied Research Laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin in September 2014.  Some of the technologies developed at the CCU are already in use at the CIA and are leading to improved efficiency and better reviews overall.  Still, we will continue to advocate for the adoption and use of these technologies across declassification programs in the Government, including at the National Declassification Center.  Although the records included in the pilot project are not yet publicly available, the results are an important step forward to declassification modernization.

Another open government commitment of particular interest to the PIDB is for change in the treatment of obsolete historical nuclear information.  We were excited to hear that the Department of Defense (DoD) created the Formerly Restricted Data (FRD) Working Group in response to this National Action Plan commitment and were pleased to learn that DoD made reviewing obsolete FRD information for declassification its flagship open government initiative.  Just last week, the DoD updated its website to show the eight facts it declassified through the working group process and in cooperation with the Departments of Energy and State.

Still, we believe there is more work to be done on both these important initiatives to wholly fulfill their commitments included in the Second National Action Plan for Open Government.  We urge senior leaders to increase actions, allow for wider implementation, and greater public access to the Reagan email collection and no longer sensitive nuclear information that is of historical interest.  Additionally, we hope to see agencies increasing public access to Government information of interest to the public, a focus of our Setting Priorities report to the President last year.

As Sunshine Week continues, we will comment more on open government initiatives. We want to thank the hardworking professionals who conduct declassification and access reviews at the agencies for their dedication to Government transparency and thank them for their work on behalf of the public.

Besides Scotch tape of the sticky kind, those in the audio world know about Scotch audio tape. But what about Irish brand tape? Turns out that its creator, John Herbert Orr, survived a land mine and near financial ruin in order to pursue his dream: bringing audio tape technology to the United States.

It all started on a fateful day in late spring 1945, when thirty-five American and British men, most of whom worked in war intelligence or propaganda, gathered in the studios of Radio Luxembourg. The station, which during the war had been one of the most powerful stations in Europe, had recently been captured from German hands; but the retreating army had willfully destroyed much of the facilities. As a consequence it had taken a team of Allied engineers a few months to rebuild the station, during which they had learned firsthand about advances in German technology —advances which had, until then, been hidden behind enemy lines. But nothing had prepared the thirty-five men present for what they witnessed that day: a rebuilt German Magnetophon, or tape recorder, played back sound that was virtually indistinguishable from the original, with a lifelike presence far beyond what American and British recording technology allowed at the time.

Among the seventeen engineers present at that demonstration was John Herbert Orr, the son of Alabama farmers whose passion for radio and electronics had led him, through a tortuous path, to work for the Anglo-American Psychological Warfare Division. For Orr, the demonstration only confirmed his suspicion that Adolf Hitler’s speeches were often not broadcast live, but recorded using this technology. Orr, charged with tracking Hitler’s movements, had been puzzled at the speed with which the Nazi leader had seemingly moved from the location of one broadcast speech to another. He had learned about German tape recording technology the previous year, and had strongly suspected that this was the answer. Now he was certain, and he became obsessed with the technology.

A spectacular blunder gave Orr the opportunity to put his obsession to work. Radio engineers at Radio Luxembourg, who often re-used the plentiful stock of audio tape from the studios, were broadcasting a pre-recorded speech by Eisenhower when suddenly the general’s voice faded and instead an animated voice took over the airwaves –the sound of a previously recorded speech by the Führer, once again broadcast over the most powerful station in central Europe. This went on for several minutes before the engineers realized their gaffe; Eisenhower, none too pleased, issued an order that only new tape be used for broadcasting. Orr was the logical man to be put in charge of re-starting tape manufacturing, and consequently he traveled around occupied Germany learning all about the technology from local engineers. –especially BASF’s Karl Pfaulmer, with whom he became friends.

During one of these research trips, Orr almost lost his life when his Jeep hit a land mine. But the accident brought an unexpected result: while recuperating in a hospital, Pfaulmer gave Orr his version of the philosopher’s stone —all the known formulas for tape manufacturing, contained in a small envelope.

Armed with all this knowledge (and some machines), John Hebert Orr returned to Alabama in late 1945 and continued to experiment with tape manufacturing. Four years later he founded OrRadio and started selling Irish brand audio tape (The name incited controversy for its perceived parallels with 3M’s Scotch tape, but Orr always claimed sprung from an Irish nurse, Molly, he befriended while at hospital). Orr’s nascent company was plagued by technical and financial difficulties for years, but the years 1952-53 proved to be a turning point. In 1952 he hired engineer Herbert Hard, who two years later developed the “Ferro-Sheen” process.

F. R. O’Sheen conquers the 7 Villains of Recording

(Popular Electronics / Orradio)

    

Thanks to this process, which involves heating the tape during manufacturing (during his experiments, Hard ruined at least one of his wife’s irons), Irish brand tape became 60 years ago one of the world’s finest. But Orr knew that technical advances were only part of the equation: he also hired Nathaniel Welch, who designed clever advertising campaigns (including the leprechaun F. R. O’Sheen) and focused on the home “hi-fi” market. Swiftly, sales went up 307% in two years, and OrRadio became an established competitor to manufacturing giants 3M and Ampex. Orr’s dream had finally come true.

For the rest of the twentieth century, the magnetic recording industry would blossom into what we have today —a world of data tape, massive servers and solid state cards (one of Orr’s original designs was a primitive magnetic disk very much like today’s hard drives). Orr would later claim that the men who developed this entire industry in the U.S. were all —to a man— at that fateful presentation in 1945. As for Orr himself, in 1960 Ampex bought his company, and he went on to pursue other technologies (including early prototypes of the 8-track). An industrial park in Opelika, Ala., is named after him –and the colorful designs of his tape boxes live on in innumerable collections.

You can hear above some Irish tape being put through its paces in a recording of a 1957 concert by WNYC’s David Randolph of Bach’s B-minor Mass–definitely some oversaturation and dropouts going on, but not bad!

Calling all history enthusiasts and citizen archivists! Participate in the Transcription Challenge this week and help us meet — and surpass! — our goal of transcribing more than 1000 pages.

Join us in celebrating Sunshine Week and transcribe records in our new National Archives Catalog. We’ll be tracking our progress every day this week, so help us get to 1000 pages by Monday, March 23.

Visit the Transcription Challenge webpage for more information. Use the hashtag #1000pages and tweet us @USNatArchives. Share with us what you discover in the records.

We have millions of pages of handwritten and typed documents that are waiting for you. Check out all of our Transcription Missions, or search for your favorite records.

You could work on transcribing more than 100 pages of the widow’s pension file for Harriet Tubman Davis or use your skills to read the difficult handwriting in the Papers of the Continental Congress.

Deposition of John Robins Regarding Hostilities at Lexington.
Transcribe this record. 

You can transcribe any record in the catalog by using the “View/Add Contributions” button underneath the digitized records. You’ll need to create a login to transcribe.

Since it’s Sunshine Week, it’s a great time to work on transcribing declassified records we have online.  You’ll see a classification and declassification markings, along with evidence of important historical events.  You can help transcribe National Security Decision Directives (NSDDs), like the image below:

NSDD 42 National Space Policy, 7/4/1982.
Transcribe this record.

Transcribing is fun, but also an important open government activity.  Celebrate Sunshine Week with the National Archives and help us get to #1000pages!

In 2002 WNYC’s Steve Post celebrated Pete Seeger’s 84th birthday with a double show featuring the legendary singer in conversation and song. We present selections from those conversations and the original liner notes (below) from the limited-release CD that ensued the following year, entitled Little by Little.

PERHAPS NO OTHER SINGLE PERSON HAS DONE MORE TO preserve the heritage of folk music and to pass it down to generations of young people than has Pete Seeger. / I have had the good fortune to meet Pete Seeger several times through the years, but it was not until last spring, on the occasion of his 84th birthday, that I had the opportunity to get him into a studio and interview him. I was surprised when he showed up carrying his banjo, and I was delighted that he played and sang for much of the hour I spent with him. / That hour was a highlight of my generally low-lit life. And these two CDs preserve the experience and provide a sketch—in music and conversation—of the man, his life, and his work. / The first CD deals with Pete’s early years on the folk scene from the time he dropped out of Harvard to accompany Alan Lomax on a field recording trip through the American south, to his travels with Woody Guthrie, and his association with first the Almanac Singers and later The Weavers. Pete discusses his lifelong commitment to social activism and how he developed “cultural guerilla tactics” to counter McCarthyism’s attack on his career and his art. This CD also contains a rare recording of my producer and me singing along with Seeger on his new composition, “Take It From Dr. King.” (The reason for the rarity of the occasion will be self-evident.) / This CD concludes with Pete reciting—from memory—a poem that sums up much of Pete’s philosophy: “The Republic of Conscience,” by Seamus Heaney. / The second CD continues to examine the marriage of art and politics that forms Seeger’s social activism. He relates his experience at a Paul Robeson concert in 1949 in Peekskill, New York, when he and his wife, Toshi, barely escaped a stone-throwing mob, as his most formative political experience. Pete used some of the stones that smashed into his car to build the fireplace in his home, and the song, “Hold the Line,” which he wrote with Lee Hays, commemorated the attack. Although Pete was always there, his music and activism first had an impact on people of my generation during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s and the Vietnam War. He discusses the role of music in the struggles of the 60’s and segues into a discussion of his later work on behalf of the environment. But it was in response to my question as to what has sustained him in the face of many political setbacks that Pete demonstrated a deep faith in the unprovability of human society. His parting words to us express both his personal determination and summarize his moral philosophy: “Well, you keep on keepin’ on.”

I should be so lucky.

Steve Post September 2003

PRODUCER FRANK MILLSPAUGH / ENGINEER GEORGE EDWARDS / RECORDING ENGINEER IRENE TRUDEL / CONSULTANTS EDWARD HABER & LAURA ROSENBERG /

We are pleased to announce the public release of the third batch of records from the British Columbia Sugar Refining Company fonds (BC Sugar), donated to the Archives in 2011 by Lantic Inc.

The records of BC Sugar document the activities of Vancouver’s first large-scale industrial operation that was not a sawmill or related to the railways. The company continues to operate its historic refinery on Vancouver’s waterfront to this day.

This third release focuses on the holdings of the BC Sugar Museum, founded as a unit at BC Sugar in the mid-1970s. This release predominantly consists of photographs that document the full range of activities at BC Sugar and its Canadian subsidiaries, the life of the Rogers family, and other sugar refineries in Canada, including:

• photographs documenting construction and renovations at the refineries in Vancouver; Raymond, Taber, and Picture Butte, Alberta and Fort Garry, Manitoba; and photographs of staff and operations in the refineries;
• photographs acquired from and about the Rogers family;
• material displayed by the BC Sugar Museum at their purpose-built display rooms at the Vancouver refinery; and
• small additions to a number of non-photographic records series.

We hope to make most of the photographs available online later this year; for now they are available only in their original format in the Archives’ reading room.

Finds in this third release of records include photographs from the Rogers family, many of them documenting the family’s active social life. These photographs, acquired by the BC Sugar Museum, complement the many photographs in the Rogers family fonds (AM1368).

B.T. [Benjamin Tingley] Rogers and Margaret swimming; Reference code: AM1592-1-S2-F08 : 2011-092.3807.

In the 1940s, BC Sugar embarked on a twenty-year reconstruction program, replacing or expanding many of the original structures at the refinery. These projects are well documented in this release, which includes a large body of progress photographs.

Construction of new office building: framing second floor; Reference code AM1592-1-S2-F06: 2011-092.1976.

A variety of photographs which document the staff of the Vancouver and other refineries, both at work and at play, are included in this release. This release includes a number of photographs of staff picnics and other social events, as well as staff at work in the refinery.

Women workers in cube department; Reference code: AM1592-1-S2-F01 : 2011-092.0467.

Additions to the fonds will be released over time as the records are processed. These later additions will include the company’s extensive collection of sugar-related publications and periodicals, more architectural drawings of the various refineries and small additions to various records and photograph series. Stay tuned for further information!

The City of Vancouver Archives would like to thank Lantic Inc. for its financial support for the archival processing of the BC Sugar fonds, which has made it possible for the Archives to make these records available to the public at this time.

The Florida State University Digital Library (FSUDL) has been a contributing member of the Digital Library of the Caribbean (DLOC) since its formation in 2004. Since then, the FSUDL has uploaded historic and rare maps of the islands to DLOC. These maps were created by some of the world’s most talented cartographers and explorers and our oldest map, created by Abraham Ortelius, dates all the way back to 1584.

The FSU Digital Library Center was asked by DLOC to contribute to the collection by selecting and photographing some of the unique maps held here in Special Collections & Archives at Florida State University. The intention was to expand the scope and geographic area of the existing DLOC collection and, once the maps were uploaded to the Digital Library, they would be made viewable to the public. The availability of these digital images will help reduce the wear-and-tear caused by repeated handling of these fragile maps.

In addition to adding more maps to the collection, the Digital Library Center at FSU decided to re-photograph its previously digitized maps that were originally captured on a now-obsolete piece of scanning equipment. The updated images were photographed by a more powerful overhead, medium-format camera and lighting kit which ensured the maps were digitized at a higher resolution. Now these high-quality images in the collection accurately represent the true detail and colors of these works of art.

Most of the maps in FSU’s previous contribution consisted mainly of the West Indies, Eastern Caribbean, Cuba and the Bahamas. However, the Digital Library Center has since included some areas of the Western Caribbean as well as parts of Central and South America.

Some of the images in the Caribbean Maps collection display detailed drawings, etchings and engravings printed with vibrant colors. Other maps are equipped with informative, color-coded keys that show which countries controlled the islands at the time. In these maps, each island is painted according to the colors in the key.

To view the maps in our Caribbean Collection, click here. To view other FSUDL material, including historic books, photographs and ephemera, head over to the Florida State University Digital Library.

Stuart Rochford is the Digital Library Center manager at FSU and has worked with Strozier Library since 2011. He graduated from FSU with a BFA in graphic design and is currently working on his Master’s Degree in Library Science.

Sunshine Week is an annual initiative designed to raise awareness of the importance of citizen access to Government information.  This commemoration coincides with National Freedom of Information Day and James Madison’s birthday (March 16).

We reaffirm the principle that an Open Government is essential in our democracy.  An informed citizenry, actively participating in debating and discussing the actions of its government leaders, is only possible when they have all necessary access to government information.  In December, we issued our supplemental report, Setting Priorities: An Essential Step in Transforming Declassification, as an aid to government policymakers and practitioners.  This report provided six recommendations to support improved declassification policies.  The recommendations focused on prioritizing declassification to those records that are most sought-after by the public and those records that are historically significant and of interest to policy makers, citizens, historians and researchers.

We continue to advocate for new policies to implement an improved declassification system.  These new policies are necessary as government information generation increases.  We believe that technological solutions offer the only answer to the long-term challenge of managing this exponential growth of information across government.  There remains an ever-increasing amount of government records and digital information inaccessible to the public.  Prioritization will set-up this information for a public access review, but providing real access will require automated workflow tools, advanced search and retrieval capabilities, and content understanding technologies if we want to seriously amend the system and increase declassification to an acceptable level.

In 2015, the PIDB intends to focus on learning more about these technologies and how they can be used to increase and improve declassification.  The PIDB will continue advocating for their testing and implementation at the National Declassification Center and at agencies.  We have long-supported the idea that modernization requires the adoption of these technologies.  We look forward to working with the Security Classification Reform Committee, agencies and the public to advance our mutual goal of reforming our policies and practices for today’s digital age.

The Georgia Sea Islands may not be known for too many things, but music is certainly one of them. An area of relative isolation, it’s a region steeped in the cultural history of the Gullah – descendants of African slaves with a unique language, history and musical tradition all their own. And it’s music from the Sea Islands that’s of particular interest to scholars, partly because it provides an authentic representation of slavery-era songs of the lowland and coastal regions of Georgia and South Carolina.

Perhaps the most well known singer from the Sea Islands was Bessie Jones, who along with Mabel Hillary and others in the 1960s, travelled the U.S. performing songs and other elements of the Gullah culture. This recording is unique because it captures a stirring solo performance by Hillary.

Listen to the entire interview and performance below. Audio courtesy of the Dave Sear Folk Music Collection.

WNYC Adventures In Folk Music with Guest Mable Hillery. 1967

(NYPR Archive Collections)

The Hosts and Champions Podium

As we prepare to open our touring Hosts & Champions exhibition at Trinity Church, Irvine, to the public this Friday, Jocelyn Grant, one of our Exhibition Assistants, provides a re-cap of the opening preview. 

For Commonwealth Day on Monday, a preview of the Hosts and Champions Exhibition went ahead before its full opening this Friday.

Our medal display

After several weeks of arranging the displays, creating additional iPad materials and the preparation of captions, the preview was opened by a few notable speakers:

• Lesley Forsyth – Cultural development manager for North Ayrshire Council welcomed and introduced the exhibition and each guest

• Margaret Burgess – Minister for housing and welfare, MSP for Cunninghame South

• Michael Cavanagh – Chair of Commonwealth Games Scotland

• The baton bearers from North Ayrshire Suzanne Fernando and her daughter shared their experience of carrying the baton for Glasgow 2014, and why they were chosen

• Joan Sturgeon – The provost, North Ayrshire Council rounded off the speeches by officially opening the exhibition

Kuala Lumpur Uniforms

The opening preview on Monday 9th March

The opening preview on Monday 9th March

The exhibition will now be open every Monday, Friday and Saturday between 10am to 4pm in Trinity Church, Bridgegate, Irvine, starting this Friday 13th. The exhibition will run from March 13 to April 17.

This is the first venue of the Hosts and Champions touring exhibition, and after Irvine this show will travel to:

Carnoustie – April 20th – May 25th

Back to Stirling to the MacRobert Centre – July 20th – September 7th

Dalkeith – September 14th – October 26th

Dumfries – October 26th – November 30th

Stranraer December 7th – 28th

Some unique banners created from Glasgow 2014 flags and signs by members of the North Ayrshire community

So if you cannot make it through to see the exhibition in Irvine, watch out for it visiting a town near you, as more venues and tour stops are still being arranged. Up to date information about the tour can be found here and on the University of Stirling Archives twitter, with #Hostsandchampions.

It was a momentous time in our country’s history when the Pulitzer Prize-winning American historian, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. delivered a talk about the United States Constitution at the New York Public Library on October 6, 1987. Not only was it the year in which the nation celebrated the 200th anniversary of the Constitution’s existence, but it was also a period when Ronald Reagan’s presidency was testing the integrity of the cherished document. The ongoing revelations of the Iran-Contra affair were the back drop for Schlesinger’s remarks.

Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. was the former speechwriter for Adlai Stevenson who left a professorship at Harvard in 1961 to become an adviser to President John F. Kennedy. Schlesinger found a teachable moment in the Reagan Administration’s scheme to covertly trade weapons with Iran in return for the release of American hostages and to fund the Contras, the anti-Socialist rebels in Nicaragua. He noted that the clandestine presidential provision of aid to the Contras violated a law recently enacted by Congress and proved wrong those who claimed the Executive Branch had grown too weak. Furthermore, Schlesinger saw the scandal as a stark reminder of the wisdom of the Constitution’s Framers, who understood the fundamental importance of separation of powers between three co-equal branches of our national government. The Congressional inquiries and the Federal Court trials that shed light and imposed punishment on Contra-gate operatives served to block, albeit imperfectly, Executive overreach.

Schlesinger says the Framers wanted a strong central government but also knew that checks and balances were needed to preclude any president from becoming too strong. Alexander Hamilton, for instance, forcefully argued against granting a president arbitrary power to rush into conflict with other nations. Congress, vested with the exclusive power to establish armed forces and make war, was meant to have equal power with the president in guiding foreign policy. What this means, according to Schlesinger, is that decisions about war and peace are not to be made hastily; they must be made within the framework of discussion and deliberations between the president and Congress.

“It is a delusion to think that on matters of foreign policy the president is better informed than Congress,” Schlesinger asserts. He has firsthand knowledge of the type of blunders a president can make when deciding foreign policy from within a bubble: Schlesinger attended the 1961 meetings JFK held with the Armed Forces Joint Chiefs as they planned the infamous, covert Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. To his profound regret, the historian did not raise objections at these meetings, which led to one of America’s greatest military and foreign policy fiascoes.

Schlesinger does see uses for covert action. (Indeed, as an analyst just after World War II for the Office of Strategic Services, the precursor of the Central Intelligence Agency, he worked closely with America’s first Spymaster, William Casey). But he emphasizes that “there should be a presumption against Executive secrecy”: Schlesinger believes a president who operates in secret subverts our Constitution — the oldest in the world — by creating an imperial Executive Branch. His acclaimed book, The Imperial Presidency, analyzes the furtive methods President Richard Nixon relied upon to abuse power and undercut the Constitution. Unfortunately, the tactics developed by the Nixon Administration formed a template for the Reagan Administration.

The author of numerous books about American Liberalism in the 20th Century as embodied in the administrations of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and JFK, Schlesinger says that truly effective presidents know what needs to be done and are able to make their case to Congress and, thus, the American people. In his view, Reagan and his advisers decided that their landslide second term victory entitled them to act in secrecy. The Administration came to believe that it was “the savior of the world.” Quoting JFK, Schlesinger notes a wise president must understand that “we are not omnipresent or omnipotent [and there] . . . cannot be an American solution to every world problem.”

While Schlesinger states “the Constitution can’t guarantee against presidential incompetency or stupidity,” this unabashed liberal believes Americans should be proud of how the checks and balances built into our much admired system of government blocked further secret excesses by Reagan. “What better way to celebrate the Constitution’s Bicentennial?”

One of the amazing things about New York City’s Cinemobile program was that it operated all year round.  Unlike the seemingly endless outdoor screenings that take place here in the summer, the Cinemoble showed movies all winter long in a converted, and presumably unheated, school bus. 

Operating from 1966 to 1971, the bus showed mostly children’s movies but staff also offered art activities and reading programs. This audio is taken from a 1971 WNYC special report and includes interviews with two Cinemobile employees at a time when the program was ending due to budget cuts. 

New York City’s Cinemobile 1968

(New York Parks Department)

New York City’s Cinemobile 1968

(New York Parks Department)

New York City’s Cinemobile 1968

(New York Parks Department)

In honor of the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Natural Bridge, we are re-posting an entry that was originally published on March 6th, 2013 by Eddie Woodward.

Almost from its inception, there had been a military and cadet component at West Florida Seminary (1851-1901), predecessor to Florida State University. With the commencement of the Civil War in 1861, this aspect of the school’s curriculum increased in importance, so much so that the State Legislature proposed changing the name of the institution to the Florida Collegiate and Military Institute. Throughout the War, the students served as something of a home guard, occasionally guarding Union prisoners of war and always on call in the event of a Federal threat to the capitol. In early March 1865, that threat was realized when word came that a Union fleet had landed troops on the Gulf coast at the St. Marks lighthouse with the probable intention of capturing the capitol in Tallahassee.

The invading forces, commanded by Brigadier General John Newton, moved northward from the coast, hoping to cross the St. Marks River at Newport and attack St. Marks from the rear. Local militia was called out to delay the Union advance, and among those were cadets from West Florida Seminary. At noon on March 5, the cadet corps assembled at the school and marched to the state capitol where they were enlisted and sworn into Confederate service. The cadet’s principal, Captain Valentine M. Johnson then led them to the Tallahassee train station for their journey southward to meet the invaders. Johnson was a veteran and had served honorably in the Confederate Army until 1863 when he was forced to resign for health reasons. It is nearly impossible to accurately determine the number of cadets that participated in the campaign. However, reasonable estimates put the number at around twenty-five, with their known ages ranging from eleven to eighteen. At the train station, Johnson filtered out those cadets, mostly the youngest of the corps, that would not participate. Others were left behind to continue their home guard duties and to man fortifications as a last line of the capitol’s defense.

The cadets and other Confederate troops boarded a train in Tallahassee which carried them south to Wakulla Station on the St. Marks Railroad. From there, they marched six miles to the small village of Newport. There, in the late afternoon on March 5, they joined forces with a portion of Lieutenant Colonel George Washington Scott’s 5th Florida Cavalry Battalion and a small contingent of Confederate marines and militia. Scott’s men had skirmished with the Federal troops the previous day, gradually falling back from the East River Bridge toward Newport. It was at that bridge that the Union forces hoped to cross the St. Marks River, enabling them to move against St. Marks and perhaps Tallahassee. At Newport, the cadets occupied a line of breastworks running parallel to the river along its west bank. From there, they commanded the approaches to the East River Bridge, which Scott’s men had partially burned. Federal troops on the opposite side of the river still hoped to force their way across and a skirmish soon developed. By nightfall, the firing diminished, and everyone waited in their positions to see if the Federals would resume the conflict the next morning. It was in those trenches on the banks of the St. Marks River that the young cadets from the West Florida Seminary received their baptism of fire.

Newton, frustrated in his efforts to cross the St. Marks River at Newport, learned of another crossing upriver at Natural Bridge. At that location, the St. Marks River ran underground for a short distance, creating a natural crossing point. In anticipation of such a move, the Confederate General William Miller positioned Scott’s cavalry at Natural Bridge with orders to delay a crossing until reinforcements could arrive. At dawn on March 6, a battle erupted with the Federal forces unable to force their way across the span. The cadets were soon ordered out of their entrenchments at the East River Bridge and marched along the Old Plank Road to reinforce Scott’s men at Natural Bridge. One mile from the battlefield, two cadets peeled off to aid the wounded at a field hospital. The rest continued on, all the while the sounds of cannon and musket fire growing louder.

When they reached the battlefield, the cadets were positioned near the center of the Confederate line, a giant crescent enveloping the Natural Bridge. There they immediately dug trenches to protect them from enemy fire and were instructed not to fire unless a charge was made on an adjoining Confederate battery. In these early stages, the battle was primarily an artillery engagement and the cadets could do little more than wait it out with the rest of the defenders. All attempts by the Federal troops to cross at Natural Bridge were stymied with heavy losses. The worst fighting occurred in front of the Confederate line in a dense hammock that covered the crossing. The cadets were not heavily involved in this action but remained under constant artillery and musket fire. Cadet Lieutenant Byrd Coles credits the Seminary’s teachers on the battlefield with the safety of the cadets: “no doubt many of the cadets would have been struck if our teachers had not watched us constantly and made us keep behind cover.”

With the arrival of reinforcements, the Confederate troops counterattacked, charging across the bridge and driving the Federal troops a short distance. At this instance, the Union General Newton, realizing that Natural Bridge, like the East River Bridge at Newport, was too heavily defended to cross, ordered a retreat back to the St. Marks lighthouse and the protection of the Federal fleet. The cadets were then ordered to return to Newport to guard against another attempted crossing there. However, the Federal forces had had enough, and the cadets’ active duty had come to an end.

The Confederate victory against the Federal invasion was complete. Confederate casualties numbered three killed and twenty-three wounded (three mortally), with Federal losses totaling 148. The cadets from West Florida Seminary suffered no casualties. With the battle won, some of the cadets returned to Tallahassee, while others remained at Newport where they guarded two Confederate deserters that had crossed over to the Federal army and had been captured during the campaign. After the cadets witnessed their trial and execution, they escorted a group of around twenty-five Federal prisoners of war back to Tallahassee. On their return to Tallahassee, the cadets were welcomed as conquering heroes. A ceremony was held in the State House of Representatives chamber of the state capitol, where the cadets were presented with a company flag. Cadet Hunter Pope accepted the flag in the name of his comrades. It is uncertain what became of the flag, and it is thought that it returned with the cadets to the Seminary and was probably taken by Federal troops when they occupied Tallahassee after the War.

The Confederate victory at the Battle of Natural Bridge had no effect on the outcome of the War, and in less than a month, Robert E. Lee would surrender the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House in Virginia. The terms of Joseph E. Johnston’s surrender of the Army of Tennessee seventeen days later, included the surrender of Confederate troops in Florida as well. On May 10, Federal troops under the command of Brigadier General Edward McCook took possession of Tallahassee. The Federal army captured and paroled approximately 8,000 Confederate soldiers, including twenty-four cadets. It is thought that some of the cadets simply returned home after the surrender and before being formally paroled.

Tallahasseeans fondly remembered the service provided by the West Florida Seminary cadets. Beginning in 1885, the state of Florida granted pensions to Confederate veterans, and two years later, they were also extended to home guard units, which included the cadets. Sixteen former cadets applied for pensions, while several others endorsed the applications of their comrades. The Tallahassee chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy issued Southern Crosses of Honor to the former cadets who applied for the award, and they received tributes as “The Youngest of the Young Who Wore the Gray.” That phrase, forever associated with their participation in the battle, is inscribed on a monument at Natural Bridge Battlefield, which is today a state park.

As a result of the cadet/students participation in the engagement, on February 28, 1957, the FSU Army and Air Force ROTC units were officially presented with battle streamers by Governor LeRoy Collins in a ceremony at Doak Campbell stadium. Today the Florida State University Reserve Officers’ Training Corps detachment is permitted to fly a battle streamer as a result of the School’s participation in the action at Natural Bridge. It is one of only three colleges and universities in the United States which is permitted to do so. In the 1990s, the campus ROTC Building was renamed the Harper-Johnson Building in honor of Captain Valentine M. Johnson and a twentieth century Air Force ROTC graduate who rose to the rank of general.

Recently, the Museum Objects course installed an exhibit in Strozier Library commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Natural Bridge, and will is open until late March. There is also a digital companion to the exhibit which can be viewed at http://naturalbridge150.omeka.net/.

For a fuller account of the battle, see David J. Coles,  “Florida’s Seed Corn: The History of the West Florida Seminary During the Civil War,” Florida Historical Quarterly 77, no. 3 (Winter 1999): 283-319.

It’s time for our March blog post, so I have crawled out of the dark recesses of the archives to bring you a selection of books on Texas Independence to commemorate Texas Independence Day which was on March 2nd!   Several of our collections have a nice swath of different books and materials on Texas history—especially about the Alamo, to no one’s surprise.  While I didn’t pull out any of those, (how can I pick between “The Alamo” and “The Fall of the Alamo”?) I did find a few firsthand accounts of Texas at the time of its revolution which, if you’re anything like me, you will find more engaging than ten books about the battle at San Jacinto.

But first, since this is about independence, we cannot forget to mention the document asserting such a concept.  The Signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence is a thorough series of biographies for each man who signed the declaration back in 1836.  If you’re looking to go a little beyond Sam Houston, you might like to take a look at this book.  Also of interest might be The Men Who Made Texas Free, an older book on the same subject.

If you’d like to read about the whole thing from beginning to end, but not out of a textbook, then I would suggest checking out our signed copy of Texas Independence by Andrew Jackson Houston, the son of the famous Sam Houston.  Obviously a biased report on the subject, but a rare and interesting version to peruse.

Now, I know I promised firsthand accounts, so here they are.  First, I have two books from men who traveled from Austria and Germany to Texas and found themselves fighting in the revolution.  The first is Memoirs of George B. Erath.  Erath recounts how his draft-dodging in Austria and thirst for something new and far away led him to Texas, and how his job surveying land led him to fighting Comanches and then in the Battle at San Jacinto, and even past that to the time of the Civil War.  Often I believe we forget that not all of the men in Texas were originally American or Mexican.  The other, With Milam and Fannin, tells a similar tale of the German Harman Ehrenberg, who joined the Greys, a volunteer militia from New Orleans who fought alongside the Texans.  These firsthand accounts of the fighting provide a more human look into what it was like to be among those fighting for independence.

If you’re looking for someone a little more famous, then we do have a copy of The Life of Colonel David Crockett, an autobiography/diary which follows Davy Crockett from his youth all the way up to just before his death at the Alamo, tied up by an epilogue of sorts from the editor.  Unfortunately, I could find no official record of his supposed quote “You may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas,” but it is an interesting read all the same.

As before, I like to save my favorite find for last, so here’s a little something I pulled off the shelf on accident and knew I had to include.  It’s titled The General’s Tight Pants and no, it’s not a romance novel about Sam Houston, though for a brief moment I had to wonder.  It is two letters sent from Edward Warren, a man from Maine who was on a trip in Texas in the winter of 1836, right before the signing of the declaration.  His letters include a description of Sam Houston, whom he met, and explain that his pants were much too wet and too small—which I find to be a strange detail to include in a letter to your father, and yet, I know I would have said the same.  The most fascinating bit about these letters, besides the idea that a man from Maine would up and decide to just check Texas out for no clear reason, is that he very nearly avoided being in San Antonio at the Battle at the Alamo.  Had his party not changed routes at the last minute, he may well have been killed there by the Mexican forces.  It’s the sort of thing that makes you think, what if?

Of course, we have a lot more about the Texan Revolution (so many books about the Alamo! So many!) in our Beretta and Beretta-Nicholson collections, so if you’d like to check any of them out, come on by Special Collections any weekday during the school year between 1:15 and 5pm.  We hope to see you here!

–Darcie Marquardt, Class of 2016