Happy Halloween from FSU Special Collections! The students at FSCW loved a good costume, and didn’t feel the need to wait until Halloween to dress up, often getting gussied up for class demonstrations, club initiations, or just because they wanted to have some fun. Please enjoy some photographs of FSCW students in costume!

If you like these photographs, be sure to check out our latest exhibit “That I May Remember: Scrapbooks of the Florida State College for Women 1905-1947″ in the Special Collections & Archives Gallery, open Monday-Friday 10AM-6PM.

On October 17, 1964, the world woke up to the shocking news that Communist China had tested a nuclear weapon. Codenamed “596”, the test had successfully detonated a Uranium atom bomb in the remote Lop Nur desert the day before. “In delivering a heavy blow at the imperialist United States and its lackeys, the success of China’s nuclear test lends firm support to those oppressed nations and people in their struggle for liberation”, an official communique stated.

How surprised was the U.S. administration? Although most in the Lyndon Johnson administration knew a test was more or less imminent, as late as one week earlier they were not sure of when to expect it; that summer many in the CIA had doubted it would happen before the end of the year, while the State Department had estimated an October 1 date. But to most citizens the news was shocking, in light of the American and Russian efforts on nuclear disarmament and especially the signing of the Limited-Test Ban Treaty the previous summer (although China never signed it). As you can hear in the two snippets above, President Johnson had to toe the line between disapproval and alarm.

The President’s tone may have been more than a façade. Months before and after the Chinese test, top advisers had discussed the possibility of attacking Chinese nuclear test facilities. But President Johnson seems to have sided with those suggesting a more diplomatic approach; he even disliked even the comparatively mild 1965 report from the Committee on Nuclear Proliferation (the Gilpatric Report), barring it from circulation beyond his cabinet. We should be happy that cooler heads prevailed; pulling the trigger on perceived nuclear threats has often meant trouble at other times.

Insitutiones chirurgicae… by Lorenz Heister, 1739.

Forget witches, goblins and ghouls, for a truly terrifying time there is nothing like a stroll through medical history.

De morbis acutis et chronocis by Caelius Aurelianus, 1709.

For instance, perhaps you’d prefer a doctor who wasn’t nostalgic for the era of the toga-clad practitioners?

The miraculous conformist by Henry Stubbe, 1666.

Perhaps “Marvailous Cures performed by the stroaking of the Hands” sounds like a euphemism you’d rather not explore further? (At least not with him.)

Opera Omnia by Thomas Willis, 1682.

Seventeenth century brain surgery anyone?

The medical and surgical history of the war of the rebellion, United States Surgeon-General’s Office, 1879.

The civil war wasn’t a real good time to need a doctor either, although they were really trying hard and taking LOTS of notes. A+ for effort.

The medical and surgical history of the war of the rebellion, United States Surgeon-General’s Office, 1879.

A treatise of the first part of Chirurgerie by Alexander Reed, 1638.

Not sure whether to be more concerned about the idea of “the reunition of the parts of the bodie disjoyned” or the fact that you could still check this book out of the library in 1941.

The English house-wife by Markham Gervase, 1683.

It wasn’t just doctors undertaking questionable cures, of course. This compendium of all the knowledge necessary to be a good English house-wife in 1683 has cures for hundreds of day-to-day complaints. Say you’re pissing in bed, just drink dried kid hoof in beer four or five times a day.

The English house-wife by Markham Gervase, 1683.

Burnt your man parts? (And who hasn’t?) Linen ash in egg oyle ought to do it.

The English house-wife by Markham Gervase, 1683.

Plague, on the other hand, you’ll have to find some Dragon water for that.

An elementary compendium of physiology by Francois Magendie, 1831.

Let’s not even discuss where they got their cadavers in 1831.

Insitutiones chirurgicae… by Lorenz Heister, 1739.

And, last but not least, the mother-lode of terrifying old medicine: this surgical manual from 1739 and its dozens of large illustrations of surgical tools and techniques. Click through to see much more detail than you really want.

Insitutiones chirurgicae… by Lorenz Heister, 1739.

Eye surgery, anyone?

Insitutiones chirurgicae… by Lorenz Heister, 1739.

What really gets me is how calm all these patients look.

Insitutiones chirurgicae… by Lorenz Heister, 1739.

I think this might be treppaning. It is certainly ALL WRONG.

Insitutiones chirurgicae… by Lorenz Heister, 1739.

Why? WHY?

Insitutiones chirurgicae… by Lorenz Heister, 1739.

What even?

Insitutiones chirurgicae… by Lorenz Heister, 1739.

Eighteenth century obstetrics. Stuff of nightmares.

Believe it or not there were a good half dozen pages of this book that were too horrible to share even here.

Observations, anatomical and physiological by Alexander Monro, 1758.

(tongue-out-of-cheek, these medical pioneers laid the foundation for all the wonders of hygiene, precision, and efficacy that we now enjoy. They were doing the best they could. Really…. Except maybe Mr. Hands up there…)

All these book (and many more) are available in Archives and Special Collections. Come on over and disturb yourself in living color!

Pulitzer Prize winner Galway Kinnell dies at the age of 87.

Nearly fifty years ago, Galway Kinnell read Walt Whitman’s “To the States” during a rally protesting the Vietnam War.  In 2003, on the eve of the United States invasion of Iraq, Kinnell was reminded of Whitman’s words again.    

I think particularly of his words “resist much, obey little” — don’t do what people tell you. Don’t believe what the government tells you to believe…test it against your own instincts, your own sense of what is right and what is practical and what is responsible and refuse to do what seems reckless and actually not in the interests of our own country.

To The States
To the States or any one of them, or any city of the
States, Resist
much, obey little,
Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved,
Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city of this earth, ever
afterward resumes its liberty.

Galway Kinnell from the Academy of American Poets
The Walt Whitman archive

Some readers may remember the crime-fighting David Hasselhoff driving an artificially intelligent 1982 Pontiac Trans Am in the ’80s TV show Knight Rider and a few may even recall the ’60s sitcom with Jerry Van Dyke and his loquacious maternal 1928 Porter touring car in My Mother the Car. But, before them all was Josephine, the talking Jeep on WNYC.

During World War II WNYC was cranking out war-related programming on a full-time basis. These broadcasts included afternoon music shows made for playing over the P.A. systems of local defense plants, programs about food rationing and metal collection as well as dramas about refugees and battlefield encounters.  Echoes of War was one such series. Airing on Tuesday evenings in 1944 the show was billed as an “attempt to portray some of the background history and interesting sidelights of America’s great current struggle in the cause of freedom.”

The first radio play in the series was Come Josephine. Written by WNYC news director Mitchell Jablons, the drama takes a whimsical approach to its serious subject by having the story told from the point of view of a ‘female’ army Jeep named Josephine. She describes her relationship with “her” soldier, Joe and their various exploits fighting fascists. The production scores relatively high on the hokum meter, but is typical of the patriotic material that was broadcast at the time.

The program originally aired on WNYC, July 11, 1944. Edie Kroll played the role of Josephine and Delmar Knutzman played the American soldier Joe. The drama was produced and directed by Nathan M. Rubin.

This is what you look like when you mix Schlitz and wine

You’ve got five fingers. Why would you smoke just one pipe?

Halloween is days away, so this seemed like a good time to revive our Magician of the Week series. These images are taken from M-U-M: Magic, Unity, Might magazine:

And just a reminder that if you’re still figuring out your Halloween plans, we’ll be having a good time here at the library that night. Tickets are still available.

What was the state of cancer in mid twentieth century America? There was no “cure,” nor was there a consensus on causation; but in the mind of the American public, with its almost unwavering faith in science and medicine, cancer had shifted from being a death sentence, whispered about as the “c” word, to an often treatable disease. The mantra from public officials became “many cancers are treatable if caught early enough.”

When Dr. Leona Baumgartner, the new NYC Health Commissioner, stepped on the podium at the New York Academy of Medicine on October 26, 1954, cancer had moved up to the second leading cause of death in New York City and nationally. Death rates due to cancer had more than tripled in 50 years, but Dr. Baumgartner, expertly threading the line between reassurance and concern, assures the audience (including WNYC listeners) that the statistics provide a somewhat false impression of cancer mortality. She explains that the numerical rise is attributable to three factors: (1) better diagnosis, (2) more accurate reporting of the causes of death and (3) the conquest of most communicable diseases, which allowed a much larger proportion of the population to live into late middle age and old age —precisely the age at which many cancers strike.

By the time of this speech, cancer awareness and education were not new, having formally begun before World War I; the Second World War and the subsequent Cold War led to significant investment by the federal government in scientific and medical research (as well as a concern about the effects of radiation, but that’s another story). The best defense, it seemed, was an early offense, so public cancer control strategies focused on early detection and mass screenings. Commissioner Baumgartner saw cancer control as a four-part program: her speech focuses on the interdependency of (1) the Department of Health, (2) voluntary agencies, (3) private practice physicians and (4) educated New Yorkers. Thus it would be through mass and individual action —through agencies, professionals and people— that the dread disease could be tamed.

Widespread education was seen as a prerequisite of cancer control, so the Department of Health‘s role in this respect was threefold. It tried to educate the public, individuals and family doctors about possible cancer symptoms; to encourage individuals to get in the habit of seeing the family physician annually; and to make the family doctor aware of his important role in the process of early detection. The Department also ran three cancer detection centers: the first opened in 1947 and two more were added in 1951. Admission was restricted to women 30 years and over and men 35 years and over, who had no cancer symptoms.

Of equal importance was the support provided by voluntary agencies, particularly the New York City Cancer Committee. This organization, founded in 1926 as a local branch of the American Society for the Control of Cancer (later the American Cancer Society), focused on early detection. The Cancer Committee funded a cytological service for indigent patients in Manhattan and the Bronx. Doctors could take a Papanicolaou smear (the pap smear) in their offices and send it for analysis free of charge. The Cancer Committee funded some of the Department’s cancer detection centers as well.

Because the detection centers could only serve a fraction of the population needing annual examinations, the private practitioner’s role in cancer detection was paramount. In her speech Dr. Baumgartner reminds family physicians that they are in the best position to examine what she calls “accessible sites” —the skin, oral cavity, breast, rectum, prostate and uterus— during routine visits. “Every Doctor’s Office a Detection Clinic” was the goal of the New York City Department of Health’s cancer control program.

The final component to a successful plan of early detection, control and treatment was the patient. Dr. Baumgartner believed the plan would only work if individuals were equipped to take the first step. She did not believe in fear as a tactic but wanted to encourage all New Yorkers to take advantage of the health care resources of their city. This started with an annual visit to the family doctor’s office. An educated patient would be aware of potential symptoms related to cancer and would report them to the doctor, who, in turn, would start the process of initial testing to reach a diagnosis. According to Dr. Baumgartner, the “individual must assume personal responsibility” for his or her health and “seek care in an intelligent way.” In this regard the Health Department, in conjunction with the Cancer Committee, taught women the correct method by which to examine their own breasts monthly using films and leaflets. And long before the women’s health movement of the 1970s, the Department initiated a pilot program, in which women would prepare their own slide for a pap smear and send it to a laboratory for analysis. It was called S.O.S. – self-obtained smear. Dr. Baumgartner was clear that this was not a substitute for a visit to the doctor but may have served as an incentive to get women to make a visit. Finally, the Department also provided free kits for all interested physicians in Manhattan and the Bronx and the Cancer Committee funded the analysis of the smears at New York University – Bellevue College of Medicine and at Harlem Hospital.

Where does that leave us today in terms of cancer control? Cancer deaths are still the number two cause of death in New York City, but the death rate has declined. Perhaps more interestingly, data on cancer incidence vs. mortality show that Leona Baumgartner and other public health leaders were correct: when caught in time, the most common forms of cancer are quite treatable. Moreover, the same four prongs of cancer control are still as essential today as they were in 1954. Public health campaigns must remind us of potential symptoms; voluntary health agencies still remind us to be ever vigilant (pink is everywhere); primary care physicians, who are the only contact with the medical profession for many Americans, need to be on the lookout for these symptoms and must make recommendations for further testing and treatment when appropriate; and we, as individuals, must absorb all of this information and have a duty to ourselves to act on it.

The Baumgartner speech also provides us with a glimpse of the time when a tidal shift occurred in the focus of many health departments, from the containment of contagious diseases to the control of chronic diseases, like cancer, heart disease and diabetes. This shift has prevailed until today.

New York City, 2007-2011, rate per 100,000 people

(https://www.health.ny.gov/statistics/cancer/registry/vol1/v1rnyc.htm)

Are we living out Norbert Wiener’s worst nightmares? Wiener, the inventor of cybernetics, is often thought of as the expansive (and partially jealous) counterpart to Claude Shannon, the reclusive, meticulous goldsmith of the mathematics behind communication theory. Indeed, although both men were the primary architects of information theory (which, among other things, allows you to reliably read these words on your screen), Wiener was far more willing to appear in public —and to publicly express his misgivings about the ways in which communications (and science in general) were being used within a human society. When he says in 1950 “The idol is the gadget and I know very great engineers who never think further than the construction of the gadget and never think of the question of the integration between the gadget and human beings in society,” is he taking a stab at the insular Claude Shannon?

Two broadcasts on WNYC from the New York Academy of Medicine are classic Wiener. Ever aware (not to say fond) of connections between apparently-disparate realms, his 1953 “lecture to the laity” expounds on causality in Newtonian physics, operational analysis, quantum mechanics, and homeostatic disruptions as a possible cause of cancer (all of this, of course, while repeatedly going off-mic —something he was famous for).

His earlier 1950 lecture is perchance an even more expansive and virtuosic gem, building a grand arc from the minutiae of anti-aircraft ballistics to automatic safety systems and to gadget worshiping. The final, grand message —that machines are really powerful, that they must be understood, and that human power should be used for “an end to which we can give a justifiable human value” is then brilliantly connected (spoiler alert!) back down to the earthy medieval notion of the wish-granting talisman, the monkey’s paw.

In the lecture Wiener also references an image from a New Yorker cartoon which shows a factory in which an assembly line of robots is building the same robots, while the two lone humans wonder what it is all about. In our cybernetic era of self-reflective echo chambers, where information begets more information with no apparent purpose or control mechanisms —not to mention gadget worshiping—, Norbert Wiener may well be turning in his grave. We can’t say he did not warn us. He may have been off-mic, but he was seldom off-target.

The Claude Pepper Library is home to a collection of over 2,000 photographs from Spessard Holland’s long career representing Florida in the United States Senate and as its 28th governor. These images provide a glimpse into his work on behalf of the state of Florida and with many of the preeminent political figures of the 20th century.

Holland was a lifelong resident of Bartow, Florida. He was born in the central Florida town to Benjamin F. and Virginia Holland in 1892. Despite leaving several times – to Atlanta to earn a bachelor’s degree at Emory University, then to Gainesville to study Law at the University of Florida, and to France during his service in the Army Air Corps during World War I – he always returned to his hometown. He was interred in Bartow in 1971 upon his death. The earliest photographs in the series include portraits of Holland as a child and with his fellow service men while stationed in Paris. However the majority of the images, taken during his thirty years in office, are devoted to Holland’s political work.

During the United States involvement in World War II, Holland served as the 28^th Governor of Florida. He oversaw Florida’s participation in the wartime defense effort and the development of infrastructure to support this growth. The series of photographs illustrates Holland’s term in office from Election Day in 1940 through his departure in 1945. These images document Florida’s vital work during World War II at military bases, air fields, and shipyards; as well as Holland’s work on issues of tax reform and sponsoring Florida agriculture, which would remain central policy positions throughout his career. The collection also contains several family photos taken during Holland’s term as governor. These depict Mary Groover Holland in her duties as first lady as well as informal photos of family life in the Governor’s mansion in Tallahassee and throughout Florida.

Governor Millard Caldwell appointed Spessard Holland to the United States Senate on September 25, 1946 following the death of Charles O. Andrews. Holland was formally elected to the seat in November of that year and served four consecutive terms until his retirement in 1971. The political changes that occurred over this quarter century can be witnessed in the collection. Holland’s relationship with the each Presidential administration, working most closely with fellow Democrats Truman and Johnson, is tacit in the images. Frequent travel, a significant part of the Senator’s life, is documented in this collection. Holland would attend events throughout Florida before returning to his senatorial office in Washington D.C., as well as congressional trips to Central America and up to the Pacific Northwest and Alaska.

Holland was committed to the success of the Florida space program. The collection contains images from his frequent trips to the Florida Space Coast taken during his ten years of service on the National Aeronautical and Space Committee. These show visits to launch and training sites as well as the crowds watching the subsequent lift-off. Holland met with the crew of Apollo 11 and the Mercury 7 astronauts, receiving inscribed photographs from Gus Grissom, John Glenn, and Alan Shepard.

Over three decades, the photographs document Spessard Holland’s close relationships with many prominent political figures in Florida, Washington, D.C., and Latin American. Perhaps the most visible of his colleagues were his corresponding Florida Senator Claude Pepper and later George Smathers. The public life of a United States congressman – attending committee meetings, visiting with constituents, luncheons with interest group, and campaign banquets – were often done in conjunction with these men and his fellow Florida representatives.

The images are only part of the Spessard Holland collection. The photographs are held at the Claude Pepper Library along with biographies on Holland’s life, personal correspondence, campaign files, Floridiana, and memorabilia. More images of Spessard Holland during his terms of office can be seen in the Claude Pepper Digital Photograph Collection.

Three years pass and Mary Perot Nichols returns to helm of WNYC. John Beck’s efforts to emphasize new music over traditional classical music and Black-oriented programming on WNYC TV, among other things, did not go over well with the Koch Administration. City Hall had made a major commitment to WNYC by undertaking the renovation of its WPA-era facilities before Nichols’ departure, and that work was well under way by her return. The WNYC Foundation she jumpstarted in her first term was now bringing in a significant amount of money for a variety of special projects and programming. Here too Nichols was able to hit the ground running, with key staff and procedures in place for expanded programming.  But first, there was some old business to address.

Small Things Considered

One of the first things Nichols did when she came to WNYC in 1978 was take Ireene Wicker, ‘The Singing Lady’, off the air. She felt the show was antiquated and not reaching New York’s kids. “When I was a child I listened to The Singing Lady, and I hated her!” she said.[1] It’s true, Wicker had been doing a children’s radio broadcast since the 1930s, first on the networks and then on WNYC from the late 1950s, receiving a Peabody Award in 1961. Her approach could be considered a bit dated and Nichols had other ideas about what constituted award-winning children’s programming. Shortly after her return in 1984, she launched, Small Things Considered with just $1,500 in discretionary funds. With additional funding and development, the kids program quickly turned into a popular, fast-paced aural potpourri of games, music, call-ins, and banter between jovial hosts Cathy O’Connell and Larry Orfaly. The duo was complemented by frequent visits from characters like the Duke of Words, Z-Know the Alien, and Dr. Rita Book — all with their own peripatetic definitions, geography lessons and reading recommendations.

Small Things Considered won a Peabody and other major awards after its first year on the air but generated some heat between WNYC and NPR, prompting the show to change its name to Kids America. Distributed nationally by American Public Radio, the show was a success as the nation’s only live daily radio program for children. It ended after nearly four years on the air. Replacement funding failed to materialize, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) was no longer willing to underwrite half of the show’s budget in an increasingly competitive public radio marketplace.[2]

The Fiorello H. La Guardia Telecommunications Center

Fortunately for Nichols, the bulk of the studio renovations took place while she was in Philadelphia, sparing her the headache of ad hoc operations in the midst of major construction. What was state-of-the-art for radio in 1937 was replaced with state-of-the-art in 1985; a real sea-change going from tubes to solid state and transistors. With significant planning and support from Chuck Corcoran, Chief of Operations, and Nichols’ dedicated staff, the ribbon cutting ceremony (below) of December 11, 1985 was made possible.

WNYC Director Mary Perot Nichols at the opening of WNYC’s new studios, December 11, 1985.

(WNYC Archive Collections)

Nichols oversaw the revamping of the FM schedule to emphasize live series like the “Mostly Mozart” concerts from Lincoln Center and New York Cabaret Nights, as well as existing broadcasts from the Frick Collection, the BAM Chamber Music Series, New Sounds at Merkin Hall, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Collaborations with a variety of cultural institutions resulted in special programs like “Censorship,” based on the New York Public Library’s major exhibition in 1984. Nichols brought Leonard Lopate on board in 1985. Her programming for women gained a brief funding foothold with Speaking for Ourselves, and then New Sounds began national distribution. Radio listenership spiked for both AM and FM. The FM and TV transmitters were moved to the World Trade Center by the end of 1986. The following year David Garland launched Spinning on Air.

During this period, major changes came to WNYC-TV as well, bringing it into its own, rather than being a shadow of WNET. About 18 months after Nichols’ return, Channel 31’s viewership had increased more than seven-fold from 90,000 to 698,000. By July of 1986, much of WNYC TV’s daytime air was being leased out to independent Japanese, Italian and Chinese producers aiming shows at those particular foreign language communities in the city. To be sure, it was an unusual arrangement for a public television station, but doable since Channel 31 was a commercial license.  Along with the non-for-profit WNYC Foundation, this was welcome change for the WNYC Communications Group cash flow.

WNYC’s 65th Anniversary

The station’s 65th anniversary year in 1989 provided an opportunity to really highlight some gems from the past while also revitalizing the seemingly quaint medium of radio drama. The Radio Stage debuted in April of that year, the result of a two year collaboration between WNYC and many of the city’s finest theaters. The eleven-part series featured new works by Elizabeth Swados, Wendy Wasserstein, Thomas Babe, Len Jenkin and Eric Overmyer and included Joan Allen, Victor Garber, Carol Kane and ensembles like Mambou Mines and John Houseman’s The Acting Company. 1989 also saw the hiring of Brian Lehrer as host of On The Line.

On the legal and technical side, Nichols worked closely with Execuitive Officer Evelyn Junge and Operations Chief Chuck Corcoran to get WNYC-AM to a place where it no longer had to sign off at sundown, a vestige of the longest running frequency dispute in FCC history. This included moving the transmitter to New Jersey and a frequency shift from 830 to 820 kilocycles. But perhaps more radical was the brief jolt she sent through the listening audience shortly before she left in 1990 by announcing the firing of Morning Music host Steve Post during a station fundraiser in late March. She claimed the dismissal was based on a variety of crimes, including allegations of “financial and military ties between myself and various fascist dictators.” The announcement was soon revealed to be an early April Fools Day prank, as she said Post would be restored to the air if enough listeners pledged to become members.[3]

____________________________________

[1]  Reminiscences of Mary Perot Nichols, Columbia University Center for Oral History Collection (hereafter CUCOHC), pg. 6.

[2] Yarrow, Andrew, “Children’s Radio Show is Canceled,” The New York Times, January 2, 1988, pg. 17.

[3] Andersen, Susan Heller, “Chronicle,” The New York Times, March 29, 1990, pg. B24.

Special thanks to Eliza Nichols, Evelyn Junge, Mary Daly and B.J. Kowalski.

Mary Perot Nichols, a former muckraking columnist and city editor of The Village Voice, served two separate terms as head of WNYC. Strong-willed with a no-nonsense approach to leadership, she advanced WNYC’s independence from the City of New York through the creation of the WNYC Foundation after years of fiscal cutbacks. While Nichols also launched new award-winning programming, she is perhaps best known, unfortunately, for being sabotaged by Mayor Edward Koch on the issue of ‘The John Hour.’ This occurred on October 23, 1979, when WNYC broadcast the names of men convicted of patronizing prostitutes.

The WNYC Foundation

When Ed Koch appointed Nichols to run WNYC in 1978, the stations (AM, FM & TV) were in a dismal state of affairs, both physically and economically. Taking charge during the city’s fiscal crisis and renewed calls for the sale of WNYC (a perennial appeal by station opponents and fiscal conservatives since its founding) proved to be a major challenge. Just four months into the job, Nichols was thoroughly frustrated. In a confidential 10-page memo to Koch she wrote, “I cannot hope to achieve this administration’s twin goals for WNYC–improved programming and financial self-sufficiency without a way to spend my federal and other potential grant funds quickly and creatively.”[1] She went on to attach an appendix of ‘horror stories’ and concluded, “If you want WNYC to become self-sufficient, you must give me the tools to do the job, i.e., a foundation.” [2] Despite the frustration, Nichols was both excited and challenged by WNYC, saying working at the station “was like cooking a gourmet meal while standing on a floor covered with glue.”[3] Thus came a solution that would mark the beginning of the end of WNYC’s relationship with the City of New York. The WNYC Foundation was established on August 10, 1979.[4]

New Programming

Until the foundation took root and funding started to come in Nichols and her staff initiated a number of efforts to support new programming that would expand listenership. Among these were Senior Edition, New York Considered, Morning Pro Musica (from WGBH), a storytelling festival, NPR’s new Morning Edition, and in response to the August, 1978 newspaper strike, The Sunday Papers. Teaming up with NPR and reporters from the Times, News and Post, WNYC produced a news program to fill the gap created by the walkout. The show was patterned after the Sunday newspapers, with a mixture of news and features that New Yorkers were unable to read, including local politics and the courts. It was WNYC’s first effort at national programming in partnership with NPR and the station’s first significant syndication since the 1950s when it was working closely with the National Association of Educational Broadcasters. She obtained a Ford Foundation grant to review radio programming. Nichols and her legal team also seriously looked into the leasing of television air time as a way of broadening the communications group’s revenue stream. She created a development office to bring in non-city monies for renovating the facilities and, with guidance from veteran engineer Chuck Corcoran, established WNYC’s earth station, one of fifteen for the NPR satellite system. The station’s outward identity changed as well. WNYC AM, FM and TV became known as the ‘WNYC Communications Group’ in order to distance itself from the city-bound ‘Municipal Broadcasting System.’ But just as Nichols was gaining some momentum for significant change, she was undermined by her boss.

The John Hour

It has become a part of city folklore as WNYC’s most notorious series. The truth be told, it ran only once and wasn’t an hour, but just under two minutes. The broadcast was announced by Mayor Koch and Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morganthau while Nichols was on vacation in a remote part of Nebraska and not easily reached in this pre-cell phone, pre-Internet period. They argued the airing of the names of convicted ‘Johns’ would act as a deterrent to prostitution by cutting into the demand and that this sort of mayoral dictate over programming was reasonable. For Nichols, it was a foolish bit of political grandstanding by the mayor at a time when she was wooing critical public and foundation support for the stations and needed to demonstrate to donors that WNYC was insulated from whims and abuses of City Hall. News of the pending broadcast spread like wildfire. There was a spoof on Saturday Night Live and an essay by William Safire in the New York Times comparing Ed Koch’s sense of justice with that of Ayatollah Khomeini.[5] Meanwhile, Nichols’ absence left her lieutenants fielding a cascade of calls from the press, and sadly, women who wanted to find out if their husband’s names were on the list. 

Both WMCA and The Daily News voluntarily complied with the appeal by Koch and Morganthau and publicized the names with little fanfare. But Koch himself made the broadcast controversial by effectively ordering WNYC to air it. With of all the hoopla, Nichols made a desperate attempt to make it appear that programming wasn’t being dictated by City Hall, but that WNYC was airing the segment because it was “news.” (The now infamous segment read by announcer Joe Rice below has had the surnames and addresses of individuals obscured.)

Behind the scenes, Nichols demanded Koch hold a breakfast at Gracie Mansion for the directors of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) to assure them he wasn’t dictating programming.[6] In the end, she salvaged the $1.1 million she was hoping for from CPB[7] but lost out on a quarter-of-a-million from the Revson Foundation, a key player in the foundation community. Nichols would later say, “I had worked for two years to build the station up to this, to get this $1.1 million, and here Ed, in some stupid moment, had just about destroyed everything.”[8] NPR head Frank Mankiewicz called it “the most expensive minute and forty-five seconds in the history of public radio”[9] Soon afterward, Nichols decided to accept a job as Director of Communications for the University of Pennsylvania. The Koch Administration brought in WGBH chief John Beck as her replacement.

New York Post headline for the ‘John Hour’ story.

(WNYC Archive Collections)

But that’s not the end of the story!  For more, go to Mary Perot Nichols: Guiding WNYC’s Rebirth and Renewal – Part 2

_______________________

[1] Nichols, Mary Perot, Confidential memo to Edward Koch, October 5, 1978, pg. 1. La Guardia and Wagner Archives, Edward I. Koch collection.

[2] Ibid. pg. 10.

[3] Phone conversation with Mary Daly, October 21, 2014.

[4] Nichols’ predecessor Arnold Labaton had tried to free up funding for WNYC by making the station a public benefit corporation, a move requiring legislation from Albany. Language was drafted but there were some concerns with the civil service status of employees as well as operating in a public building with equipment purchased with public funds. As a result, the effort got little traction. By the time Nichols was appointed by Koch, the station had been raising money on the air in an effort to get around some of more onerous municipal government rules. Still, there were a number of issues to address in order to keep that private money from going into the city’s byzantine financial structure.

[5] Safire, William, “The John Hour,” The New York Times, October 11, 1979, pg. A2.

[6] Reminiscences of Mary Perot Nichols, Columbia University Center for Oral History Collection (hereafter CUCOHC), pgs. 74-75.

[7] On December 2, 1979 CPB awarded WNYC a $1.1 million five-year station improvement grant. The money was earmarked for increasing the quality and variety of programming. It was the fourth and largest single grant of its kind that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting had ever given. Programs supported by these funds included: a series of live concert broadcasts; the “Broadway Radio Hour,” a thirteen-part history of the American musical theater, hosted by Dorothy Rodgers; the “WPA Writers Project;” an oral history of the 1930s federal arts program for the elderly; “O’ Aural Tradition,” a dramatization of the Tristan and El Cid myths; and the “Lonely Passion of Simple Simon,” an original opera for radio by Eric Salzman. Funds were also to be used for showcasing the work of the nation’s best independent radio producers.

[8] Reminiscences of Mary Perot Nichols, CUCOHC, pg. 75.

[9] Ibid. pg. 73.

Special thanks to Eliza Nichols, Evelyn Junge, Mary Daly and B.J. Kowalski.

The holdings of the National Archives are vast. With more than 12 billion pages of textual records alone, it is essential that we continue to explore and employ innovative strategies to provide effective access. By understanding how you currently access our records and better understanding your unique needs, we will be better positioned to ensure your success in using the country’s records.

Analyzing our work.
From Record Group 208: Records of the Office of War Information, 1926 – 1951. National Archives Identifier: 535579

Here’s what some of our data shows:

Physical Visits:

Number of visits to all NARA facilities in FY2014: 4,163,905; up from 4,112,813 in FY13

• Number of visits to our exhibits in FY2014: 3,451,044; up from 3,204,642 in FY13
• Number of researcher visits to all NARA facilities in FY2014: 104,366; down from 114,096 in FY13

Number of written requests answered by all NARA offices in FY2014: 1,065,513; down from 1,132,525 in FY13

• Number of written requests (includes fax, letter, email) received by all NARA archival offices in FY2014: 114,577; down from 122,442 in FY13
• Number of written requests received by the St. Louis Military Personnel Records Center in FY2014: 950,936; down from 1,010,083 in FY13

Website and Online Catalog:

• Traffic to Archives.gov: We had 31,093,042 visits from 22,869,469 visitors who viewed 86,729,808 pages, up 6% from FY13
• Percentage of online users

… [ Read all ]

Here in Archives & Special Collections we have a large and interesting collection of fine press books — that is, the work of small presses that produced, in limited numbers, books featuring design, typography, paper, ink and illustrations of the finest quality. It has been my lucky task this week to organize and catalog our wonderful collection of one of those fine printers, the Harbor Press, which operated in New York City from 1925 to 1942.  Specifically, I am working on our collection of Harbor Press ephemera — not its books, but all the flyers, greeting cards, advertisements, labels, letterheads, trade cards, bookplates, etc., which the Press produced for hundreds of commercial businesses, individuals, and, as we shall see, for itself, too.

The Harbor Press was the creation of two young men, John Fass and Roland Wood (AC 1920), together with his wife Elizabeth Wood. The two men had formerly worked together at the printing and publishing house of William Edwin Rudge at Mount Vernon, New York. While at Rudge, they had worked alongside renowned book designer Bruce Rogers, and it is clear that Rogers’ modernist yet classical design sensibility had a significant influence on the consistently precise, elegant, and finely crafted ornamental style for which the Harbor Press became famous. Fass was mainly responsible for the design, and Roland Wood for the printing.

The Harbor Press was famous for its logo featuring a seahorse. The seahorse appeared in dozens of different versions on many Harbor Press productions. Often it appeared astride an anchor — a visual homage, perhaps, to the dolphin-and-anchor device of the Aldine Press, founded by the master printer of the Italian Renaissance, Aldus Manutius.

The Harbor Press designed and printed special editions of works by famous authors for large commercial publishers like Random House and Harper and Brothers, as well as for New York’s most influential bibliophiles: the members of the Grolier Club and the Typophiles.

The Harbor Press Ephemera Collection offers a wealth of typographic loveliness and lots of mid-20th-century whimsy:

The collection also includes dozens of original printing plates and samples of letterpress type.

Fass and Wood ceased their partnership and closed the Press at the beginning of World War II. Wood pursued a career in acting, while Fass continued working as a leading book designer for leading American publishers as well as a graphic designer specializing in typography for advertising.

The finding aid to the collection will be available soon. In the meantime, enjoy this visual sampling!

In the Institute’s archive there is an old album of postcards collected by Francis Haverfield (1860-1919). We were looking through it when we came across this poignant postcard from Salomon Reinach. Reinach confirms the news that the great archaeologist Joseph Déchelette had been killed in action.

Reinach writes: “Alas! it is true; Déchelette, aged 53 … insisted on going to the front and was struck dead by a shell. It is an immense … loss, but his manuscript was almost finished.”

This month marks the centenary of Déchelette’s death: he died on the 4th October 1914. He was one of the first scholars to identify the link between La Tène culture and the Celts.

This is the third and final installment of Pan Am’s audio walking tour of New York City.  The clip features areas of the Lower East Side, Greenwich Village, and Washington Square Park, and much like the two previously posted tours (Midtown and Central Park), the audio offers a lighthearted jaunt that belies the big changes these neighborhoods would face in the near future.   The guide describes the influx of artists into post-manufacturing districts like Soho, the rapidly changing ethnic enclaves of the Lower East Side, and the newly minted “East Village”, a neighborhood that was just beginning to develop its own identify. Listen to highlights of the three neighborhoods described below and see the interactive map for the full tour.  

The Lower East Side
This section describes the recent influx of Puerto Ricans into the traditionally Jewish areas of the LES as a rather pleasant and relaxed transition.  “Spanish and Yiddish now seem to be locked in a benevolent struggle for the right to be called the official language of the neighborhood. If there was ever a part of New York that deserved the name international melting pot, then the Lower East Side is it. This district, with its unpretentious, congested living quarters has given the city some of its most successful people in all walks of life.” 

SoHo and The Cast Iron District
Moving on from the LES, the guide takes you to the corner of West Houston and Broadway, an area that was still full of artists inhabiting the huge loft spaces and cast iron district buildings where the upscale shops of boutiques of SoHo now reside. The guide offers a rather strange suggestion that tourists should randomly knock on doors of buildings and that “the artists would welcome a visit from you, in the hope that their creations might attract your attention.”

Washington Square
Young People, Guitars, and Protest Signs —they are part of village life.  The guide describes the village as New York’s counter part of the Left Bank, despite the fact that “most of the serious artists have moved to an area now called the East Village.”