It has been a while since I’ve posted, and things have been very busy with the Claude and ZerNona Black Papers project. We’ve finished work on one grant, and are beginning work with another grant-funded 16mm film preservation project. Preparations are underway for a busy Spring 2014 semester, which includes an official unveiling celebration of the Claude and ZerNona Black Papers; an academic panel discussion of the legacy of Reverend Black; and increased use of the collection in classes in the curriculum.

Along with my two exceedingly industrious student workers, Brandi Russell (’15) and Darcie Marquardt (’16), we have met our halfway mark to get 5,000 additional digital files into the digital collections.  Before I share the Christmas sermon, I want to share the goal-marking poster that Brandi was inspired to create completely on her own initiative — it provides encouraging words along the way, and helps us appreciate our progress. With young people like this, we need not worry (as much!) about the future…Needless to say, it is a gift to have both Brandi and Darcie working on the project.

 

In the last few months we have put in hundreds of digital files of sermons into the digital collections. In this undated Christmas sermon entitled “Hours of God” from Sermons by Bible Book: Matthew (part 3) [image 14], Reverend Claude W. Black, Jr. preaches that the practice of love is redemptive of all the woes in the world:

Happy Holidays!

Illuminating-Devices for Christmas Trees, Patent 194421, August 21, 1877. Records of the Patent and Trademark Office. National Archives and Records Administration (Page 1)

Illuminating-Devices for Christmas Trees, Patent 194421, August 21, 1877. Records of the Patent and Trademark Office. National Archives and Records Administration (Page 2)

Illuminating-Devices for Christmas Trees, Patent 194421, August 21, 1877. Records of the Patent and Trademark Office. National Archives and Records Administration (Page 3)… [ Read all ]

The Archives will be closed from noon Tuesday December 24 to 9am Thursday January 2.

Card from the Orpheum Theatre, 1913. Reference code AM1519-: PAM 1913-10.

This holiday card is not from the Orpheum Theatre we have today but from the second of three theatres in Vancouver which had the Orpheum name. That theatre  was built in 1891 as the Vancouver Opera House and was renamed Orpheum in 1913.

This May 1, 1978 interview was the third one Vonnegut had with Walter James Miller for WNYC’s “Writers’ Almanac.” This time, however, Vonnegut shared the microphone with journalist/novelist L. J. Davis. The topic was “the novelist’s relationship to his community.”

Miller gets things going by contrasting famously reclusive writers like J.D. Salinger and Thomas Pynchon with gregarious ones like Davis and Vonnegut. An interesting interplay among Miller and his two guests ensues as Davis seems determined not to play second fiddle during the interview while Vonnegut reacts to that with patience and the occasional lightly sardonic jab.

Davis starts by talking about the perils of being a humorist. He recounts the time he read a story to an audience at a writers’ conference that he claimed at the time actually happened (he tells Miller and Vonnegut the story was pure fiction). It was about a man who needed money and so went to a blood bank that turned out to be run by doctor who instead of removing blood from the donors actually injected them with something. Davis says that as he was reading what he considered a great piece of black humor, he was surprised when no one laughed–during the entire twenty minutes of his performance. He later decided that the audience had been the wrong one, since it consisted mostly of people in their sixties beginning to worry about dying who’d probably already had disturbing visits to their doctors.

When Vonnegut gets his turn, Miller questions him about how he’d felt about his many visits to college campuses in the 1970s, usually to make graduation speeches. Vonnegut recalls how Saul Bellow had visited the University of Iowa’s Writers’ Workshop to give a talk while Vonnegut was in residence there in the mid-1960s. When Kurt asked Bellow why he’d come out to the middle of nowhere to lecture, Bellow replied that he didn’t want to become isolated from society. Since Vonnegut had already developed his belief in the importance of extended families in graduate school, he was receptive to this answer, and emulated Bellow’s example when he got the chance. He found it was “important to get out of Cape Cod and see people.” Talking with students, most often about the War in Vietnam, was a great opportunity for Vonnegut to keep his hand on the racing pulse of public sentiment of the times. Vonnegut’s campus visits were a great success, as one can understand after reading some of his unvaryingly funny graduation speeches, several of which appear in his nonfiction collection Palm Sunday.

Davis then raises a problem with reading publicly: During the question and answer portion of the program, somebody will “inevitably want to debate with you—and not productively.” Vonnegut agrees, recalling the time at the Library of Congress when a questioner asked him “What right have you to make American young people so pessimistic and cynical?” Vonnegut says that he “had no reply,” and simply sat down. After a pause, Vonnegut explained to Miller and Davis that he “of course had no such right,” and that he “had no intention of making anyone pessimistic or cynical.” It’s probably the best moment in the interview: Vonnegut refusing to engage with a hostile question in a public setting, even when he had plenty of ammunition for a harsh comeback.

Special thanks to Mary Hume, Donald Farber and Ana Maria Allessi at Harper Collins for making the release of these broadcasts possible.

Walter James Miller was affiliated with the NYU Program in Liberal Studies.

How is the digital world affecting the role of audiovisual archives? Last week the Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO) and New York University’s Moving Image and Preservation Program (MIAP) presented a workshop on preserving locally-produced digital audiovisual content, which tried to provide some answers. Hosted by MIAP’s Howard Besser, it featured four other speakers dealing with relatively small, community-based projects:

• Sady Sullivan, of the Brooklyn Historical Society’s “Crossing Borders, Bridging Generations“;
• Natalie Milbrodt, of the Queens Memory Project;
• Brendan Allen, of Democracy Now!; and
• Yvonne Ng, of WITNESS.

The latter two, being broadcast archives, touched on issues we face daily at the New York Public Radio Archives.

The workshop directly and indirectly sparked some thoughts on the subject. Below are three of them.

1. Digital preservation is young

The first “wax” cylinders identified performers only through a slate in the recording itself; unless the user manually labeled them, the only way to know what was on the recording was to play it. As people’s collections grew, it was clear that this was impractical, so pretty soon cylinders had some information engraved on their edges and on a label affixed to the (otherwise generic) box. Similarly, “78” shellac discs used to only have labels affixed to their center; but even though the label had much more detailed information than what you could engrave on a cylinder’s edge, you still had to pull the disc out of the shelf to get an idea of the content. Eventually, “albums” (as well as vinyl LPs and Compact Discs) developed sleeves with spines that could be read on a shelf, without having to pull out the disc. Note that as collections grew in quantity, so did the ease of access (although that does not mean that collectors did not have to do a little organizing).

Howard Besser showed that with digital audiovisual materials, created in staggering numbers, our current discovery methods are still primitive. However, they keep getting better: inexpensive speech, music and image recognition are surely coming soon. Will neatness count? As big data discovery methods become more sophisticated, neatness may count only if you want to be independent of profit-driven discovery methods.

2. The onus on preservation will always be on those interested in accession

A challenge common to broadcast archives is the ingestion of files inconsistently formatted and named by disparate producers (what, in OAIS terms, would be disparate SIPs). This frustrates broadcast archivists, but we need to realize that producers have developed methods that usually work: most of the time  they find what they need. Archives will necessarily have to implement different ways of dealing with information which may actually hinder an individual producer’s workflow or even their ability to access their own materials.

More broadly, the complexity of archiving depends on the scope of potential access:

• how long we want to keep that file and
• how wide is the circle of our potential consumers.

As Yvonne Ng pointed out, the longer we need to keep a file, the more complex its archiving. If a producer wants to make sure her heirs can benefit from her copyrighted work, she will probably take extra steps to ensure the safeguarding and viability of her files. For example, hopefully she will not expect her hard drive to function long after she is gone.

Similarly, a producer may have a quirky naming convention for his footage, but if it works for him, he has no reason to change it. However, if he wants to publish his finished story on a national platform, he will have to submit a description along, and possibly transcode his product into a different format. Finally, if he wants to post it on youtube, he will probably have to add some tags that youtube recognizes. Each widening circle of potential consumers requires a different approach.

What all this means is that, although archives can try to suggest strategies that follow the principle that “archiving starts at creation” (a laudable principle that theoretically gives good results), it will often be an imposition on other workflows and thus hard to justify. Which brings us to our third point:

3. Archives need to make friends

Digital preservation requires a constant commitment of resources. This translates into having to justify preservation much more frequently than in the old days, when a tape on a shelf could almost be forgotten without much investment (or dire consequences).

Due to the staggering volume of material being produced, archives need to be smart about managing the complex processes in digital preservation. This means creating automated workflows when possible, and also creating a consortium of stakeholders that can ensure a longer life for the digital assets. Stakeholders can be the umbrella organization, individual producers, access platforms, copyright holders, the public at large, etc. Working together will aid in developing consistent workflows that will result in long-term benefits for everyone. Now more than ever, no archive is an island.

Richard Serra was not a happy man in 1985.  His public sculpture, Tilted Arc, was the focus of an on-going controversy in New York City and in this interview with Jenny Dixon on WNYC’s Artists in the City, Serra defends himself against the critics who would eventually call for the sculpture’s removal. Serra v. the Office of Operations, GSA and subsequent appeals and lawsuits became some of the more notorious cases in the history of art law in the United States – addressing the complex issues of artist’s moral rights, state censorship, and the limits of free speech in a public art context.

Background

In 1972, the General Services Administration established its Art in Architecture program, which mandated that one half of one percent of all new federal building projects budgets be allocated to the incorporation of publicly-sponsored art. In 1979, the GSA asked Richard Serra to create and install a public sculpture on a plaza adjacent to a federal office complex in lower Manhattan – a service for which Serra would be paid $175,000.  The GSA had a history of commissioning well-respected sculptors: Both Claes Oldenberg’s Batcolumn in 1977 and Alexander Calder’s Flamingo in 1974 were paid for by the GSA and installed in large outdoor public spaces in Chicago.  After about a year of interviews, drafts, and reviews by both art-world appointed civilians and government officials, Serra installed Tilted Arc, a 120 foot long by 12 foot high curved steel structure, in the middle of Federal Plaza.

The Controversy

It didn’t take long for the sculpture to become an object of derision in the eyes of area office workers.  Two months after its installation, a petition requesting the removal of the sculpture was signed by 1,300 federal employees working in and around the plaza. Outspoken critics included the architect of the Javits Building, Alfred Easton Poor, and William Diamond, the regional administrator of the GSA.  Over the next few years, Diamond gathered an additional 4,000 petition signatures, and in 1984, a New York congressman and a federal judge also asked for its removal.

The Hearing and Subsequent Lawsuits

In 1985, Diamond convened a public hearing to discuss the removal of the artwork from the plaza.  In Serra’s mind, the deck was stacked. Diamond had already decided to remove the sculpture and had populated the public hearings panel with GSA appointees and lawmakers sympathetic to Diamond’s views.  The main public criticism was that the sculpture had a generally disruptive nature; its scale and location bifurcated the plaza, obstructing views and making it difficult for pedestrians and office workers to commute between buildings.  Its overwhelming size and mass was aesthetically unpleasing to many and some felt that Serra had destroyed the work of another artist (the plaza designers) for his own artistic conceit.

Well known artists like Oldenberg, William Rubin, Frank Stella, and Serra himself spoke at the hearing defending the integrity of Tilted Arc. Serra argued that the work was built as a response to the plaza and as such was so inextricably linked to its environs that to alter it or move it from its original intended location, would be “to destroy it.”  In other words, the sculpture’s meaning and artistic values were derived from its site-specificity. 

In this WNYC interview, Serra states that the GSA knew what they were getting into: the project had been subject to numerous reviews and approvals and it was too late in the game to allow the general public to alter or change the GSA’s commission.  Serra was also skeptical that everyone in the community was against the sculpture.  He had lived within four blocks of the plaza for almost 20 years, and he saw the site as not just an areas for federal workers, but a place where international tourists and local residents interacted, gathered, and participated.

Conclusion and Ramifications

In the end, both Serra’s and his advocate’s pleas fell on deaf ears.  The judge for the city ruled that since the GSA owned the work, they could essentially do whatever they wanted with it.  There was nothing in the contract that Serra had signed that guaranteed the sculpture’s permanence in the plaza, and the public interest in its removal trumped any aesthetic or free speech considerations.

Serra responded with an appeal and a 30 million dollar lawsuit, claiming that by removing the work, the GSA had breached their contract, broke established trademark and copyright laws, and violated his First and Fifth Amendment rights. But these attempts to rescue the work failed and in 1989 Tilted Arc was removed. 

To this day Serra insists that the work can never be installed anywhere other than the Federal Plaza. And although the GSA has made attempts to reinstall the sculpture at an alternate location, organizations have been reluctant to go against the wishes of the artist. As a result, Tilted Arc has remained in storage for the last 24 years.

W. O. Tewson was an editor and literary critic heard regularly on WNYC between March, 1928 and September, 1934 discussing literature and books. He wrote for The New York Times, Hearst newspapers, and was the editor of The New York Evening Post‘s literary review.

The Brookly Daily Eagle’s radio reviewer wrote the following about one of Tewson’s earliest WNYC broadcasts:

“The peculiar lilt of the rhymes of the always delightful English versifier, A.A. Milne, was admirably illustrated last evening at WNYC by the affable gentleman from Merrie England who bears the tongue-twisting name of W. Orton Tewson. Mr. Tewson is calm, cool and collected, as a rule, but when he hit the Milne trail he took on a joyous tone that was almost playful. We felt like believing him when he declared very earnestly that ‘nobody can be perfectly happy without having read some of Milne’s poems.’ The King’s Breakfast was one of the Milne poems read by Mr. Tewson, and he delivered it in a way that we imagined must have warmed the cockles of A. A.’s heart if he chanced to be sitting up listening in-that is, if WNYC’s wave length stretches over the waves that Britannia claims, in song at least, to rule.
 
“Mr. Tewson’s topic was Literary Cocktails, and he served them from a full shaker in which he had mixed odd bits of chit-chat, anecdote and verse from many sources.  He held out much encouragement to young writers by mentioning the more or less humble occupations that had been followed by Twain, Harte, Dickens, Wells, Barrie, Poe, Thackeray, Hardy, Gilbert and many others who won fame with their pen or typewriter.  Mr. Tewson has what the young person of the day would call an ‘adorable’ English accent. It has just enough of the drawl to identify it and not enough to make it tiresome.”
 
Source: “On the Radio Last Night,” The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, March 27, 1928, pg. A9.

UNCG is saddened to note the passing of Adelaide Fortune Holderness, a member of the Woman’s College class of 1934 and former Alumni Association preseident and member of the Board of Governors of the Consolidated University of North Carolina System. Ms. Holderness was a tireless advocate for her alma mater and for higher education in North Carolina.

In 1990, Mrs. Holderness was interviewed as part of the UNCG Centennial Oral History Project. In the interview, she discusses her life as a student, working in the offices of Dr. Walter Clinton Jackson and Dean Harriet Elliott and her presidency of the Alumni Association. She remembers friendships made with faculty, the administrations of Chancellors Walter Clinton Jackson, Otis Singletary, Edward Kidder Graham Jr., James Ferguson, Gordon Blackwell and William Moran and Dean Katherine Taylor. She talks about her love of the Alumni House, its décor and purpose, and her time on the Board of Governors when the Consolidated University of North Carolina System was instituted. She recalls coeducation, integration, the changes they brought to the college and the controversy between the Alumni Association and Chancellor Moran regarding funding and the Alumni Association’s relationship with the Development Office.

You can read the text of this interview with Ms. Holderness here. Her obituary in the Greensboro News & Record can be read here.

Adelaide Fortune Holderness will be greatly missed. A memorial service will take place at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, Dec.18, at First Baptist Church in Greensboro. The family will receive friends following the service. The family requests that in lieu of flowers, memorial gifts be made to: First Presbyterian Church, 617 N. Elm St., Greensboro, N.C. 27401; University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 1000 Spring Garden St., Greensboro, N.C. 27403; Hospice of the Piedmont, 1801 Westchester Dr., High Point, N.C. 27262; or the charity of your choice.

“May heaven speed the day when the length and breadth of our United States shall be peopled with men and women, and boys and girls, solely by those of this type: strong bodied, true hearted, big souled patriots, athletes all for the land they love and the God they worship.”

     The Honorable William F. Hagarty of the New York State Supreme Court, Appellate Division and President of the now-defunct Crescent Athletic Club in Brooklyn speaks about athletics and the importance of “vigorous, daily, muscular exercise.”

      In his wide-ranging and passionate speech, Hagarty praises the purported physical prowess of the New York Police Department and of  American presidents Washington, Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. He presents them as role models for the “red-blooded boys of our land” and as a positive alternative to idolizing Prohibition-era gangsters such as Al Capone and “Legs” Diamond. (Side note: this speech aired less than a week before Diamond’s violent and unsolved murder in Albany, New York.)

       The 1932 Olympic Games, both Winter and Summer, are mentioned in Hagarty’s address and are used to compare amateur athletics in the United States with the tradition of athletic competition in ancient Greece.

       Hagarty (who would later become an important figure in the relocation of Japanese Americans to Brooklyn) apparently prided himself in his accomplishments on horseback, and was reportedly often seen on the bridle paths of Prospect Park, Brooklyn. For those who are inclined, a few of these bridle paths remain.

As we approach the end of the year it’s time to look back and discover what have been our most popular collections in 2013. As in previous years we’ve combined the information recorded in our enquiries database with the records of visitors to our reading room to create our end of year chart. It’s all change at the top with a new No. 1 pushing last year’s chart topper, the Musicians’ Union Archive, into second place.

In 2013 our most used collection was the NHS Forth Valley Archive. This collection, which was transferred to the University Archives in 2012, contains the historical records of two local hospitals, the Stirling District Asylum (Bellsdyke Hospital) and the Royal Scottish National Institution, Larbert. Over the past year a team of student volunteers has helped to make the archives of Stirling District Asylum accessible to researchers through a programme of cleaning and cataloguing. The material has been particularly heavily used by family historians, keen to explore this previously inaccessible material.

The records of Stirling District Asylum have been well-used by family historians in 2013.

The Royal Scottish National Institution Archives were recognised by UNESCO this year, being designated a collection of national importance and added to the UK Memory of the World Register. We have also recently received funding from the Wellcome Trust for the conservation and cataloguing of the RSNI Archive. We hope to start this work in the spring of 2014 and will post further information about the project on the blog in the new year.

The Musicians’ Union Archive continues to be heavily used by researchers, particularly Glasgow University’s History of the MU project. 2013 was the 120^th anniversary of the union and the MU also made great use of their archive during the year. An exhibition featuring images from the collection was put together for the union’s conference in June in Manchester (where the Amalgamated Musicians’ Union was founded in 1893) and was also displayed at the TUC conference, while articles on the history of the union featured in The Musician magazine.

A new entry in our end-of-year review at No. 3 is the Norman McLaren Archive. McLaren’s presence in the Top 3 reflects the increased interest in the life and work of the Stirling-born filmmaker in the run-up to the centenary of his birth in 2014. Our McLaren Archive has continued to grow in recent years with letters to friends and family, artwork and family photographs being added to the collection. In April 2014 a major celebration of McLaren’s career will begin in Stirling with the unveiling of a heritage plaque on his childhood home and an exhibition of material from our collection at the Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum. McLaren 2014 will present an exciting programme of events across Scotland including educational workshops, film screenings and public events culminating in a celebration of his ground-breaking, award-winning films at the Edinburgh International Film Festival.

The filmmaker Norman McLaren at work. 2014 will see a major celebration of his life and films in Scotland.

Those results in full:

2013:

1. NHS Forth Valley Archives
2. Musicians’ Union
3. Norman McLaren

2012:

1. Musicians’ Union
2. John Grierson
3. Lindsay Anderson

2011:

1. John Grierson
2. Lindsay Anderson
3. University of Stirling

From the June 1944 WQXR Program Guide:

Mr. Caesar has been before the public as lyricist and librettist for twenty-five years. Among his better-known lyrics are “Tea for Two,” “Sometimes I’m Happy,” “Lady Play Your Mandolin,” “Swanee,” “Crazy Rhythm,” and a series of children’s songs. “Sing a Song of Safety,” in wide use throughout our public school system. He is a member of the Board of Directors of ASCAP, and a former president of the Songwriters’ Protective Association.

PLAY, DOCTOR, PLAY –When I was a very little boy I had two ambitions. I wanted to be a pianist and a surgeon, the general idea being to operate with my right hand and bring comfort and joy to the poor victim by concertizing for him with my left. These were to be simultaneous performances. Neither of my ambitions was achieved, but they are by way of being achieved for me.

While there is as yet no record of a symphonic background to a surgical operation, there are growing signs of music being introduced in the treatment of the sick, of war casualties and others. Excellent results have already been obtained in the case of the neuro-psychiatric, of course, and there is every reason to presume that after further research and experimentation, the music publishers of tomorrow may be firms like McKesson & Robbins, Squibbs, Lilly, et al. Then, if you are suffering from low blood pressure, you will send little Abner to the apothecary’s with your doctor’s prescription calling for one Toscanini recording, to be played every hour on the hour. And at the Mayo Clinic we may find listed as consulting members of the staff, the names of Bing Crosby, Leopold Stokowski, Dinah Shore, and Lily Pons. Perhaps Dr. A.A. Berg, who has been donating libraries lately, will get Mount Sinai Hospital to sponsor Symphony Hall. Incidentally, we have reason to believe that there are already a sufficient variety of compositions to prescribe for all cases of acute insomnia.

WIQXR — How about a survey to establish the I.Q. of radio audiences? I leave it to others to work out the formulae that shall govern the research, but I offer the suggestion that a council of educators, psychologists and advertising wizards might, with profit to all, lay the groundwork for the undertaking. Naturally, I expect WQXR to embrace my notion with enthusiasm because the results would make especially pleasant reading and listening for the WQXR family. The call letters of the station might then be changed to WIQXR.

REPETITION IS REPUTATION — The other evening at the home of a friend we were listening to the broadcast of a program featuring currently popular songs. This friend turned to me after a particular song had been played and said, “I guess it’s a hit…I hear it all the time.” He didn’t say, “I like that song; it should be a hit…I think I’ll buy a copy” but, shrugging his shoulders and shaking his head as though he had resigned himself to the inevitable, he merely observed that the song must be a hit because he had heard it so often, or rather, could not escape hearing it. On investigation, I discovered that the item under discussion had received no less than thirty network performances in one week, even though it was only five or six weeks old.

REPUTATION MAKES REPETITION — Now, WQXR has solved the problem for itself and its listeners. In the course of the year it repeats many compositions. But they are those master works of established greatness, of indestructible vitality that have persisted through the decades not as the result of commercial plugging, but rather through the slowly gathering momentum that is the rhythm of longevity for all true art. These great works created for themselves the demand for repetition.

MUSIC DOES IT — In Great Britain for several years now, and here too, lately, music has been used in many large industrial plants with astonishing results. Production has been speeded up, absenteeism cut down, general morale improved, and accidents reduced. We recall when a New York department store introduced music in its various departments, suiting the type of music to the activity of the floor. For instance, a very crowded floor was treated to languorous waltzes, and we know the waltz is not the rhythm of the shove and push. For departments where the patron was tempted to linger beyond the endurance of the patient salesclerk, music of a more exciting nature was the rule. It worked. A friend of ours, the owner of a leading Fifth Avenue bazaar, advises us that he has had his wares flattered by the attentions of a disproportionate number of kleptomaniacs, and is now thinking seriously of introducing a round-the-clock rendition of the song, “Lay That Package Down, Lady, Lay That Package Down.”

I know a jockey who, when he is exercising his horse in the early dawn, sings to the animal, which he tells me in the case of two-year-olds, seems to steady them, and at the same time gets more speed out of them than by the whip. Now I don’t know what that jockey’s repertory consists of, but if that horse doesn’t hurry up and win a race soon, I am going to suggest a change of composers.

We continue to receive comments and feedback on the topics posted on our blog.  We have a new list of general topics of interest to share with our followers.  This list contains topics of interest that do not fall squarely into one of the other categories we have featured on the blog.

You can view the list here: General Topics of Interest

The topics are listed in alphabetical order, not by ranking.  This list captures topics we heard from Agency declassifiers, experts from the Presidential Libraries and the requester community.  We still are seeking more public participation.

All of the categories are still open for comment and we invite your continued participation.  Remember, this is your opportunity to ensure the PIDB hears your ideas for prioritization.

Your comments will be posted as soon as possible.  Please review our blog’s Comment and Posting Policy for more details.  Thank you for your continued interest and participation.

Beginning in February 1957, a new influenza strain virus (known to virologists as H2N2) emerged in China.  Throughout April, May, and June, it spread steadily and rapidly across Asian and Middle Eastern countries.  There was one question in everyone’s minds: Would the new virus behave like the feared 1918 virus, which had caused tens of millions of deaths? Or would it behave like the ordinary influenza strains with which physicians were familiar? This November 1957 conference, organized by the New York Academy of Medicine and broadcast by WNYC, attempted to provide some answers.

In March 1957, a strain of the new influenza virus had been obtained at the Walter Reed Medical Research Center.  Analyses confirmed that this was indeed a new strain, different from the Type A strains that had been prevalent since 1918, a period of nearly 40 years.  Vaccine manufacturers went into emergency operations to adapt the virus for production of a vaccine, and worldwide surveillance went into high gear.

In July and August, outbreaks of the new strain erupted in U.S. naval ships and military camps on both the East and West Coasts; one notable outbreak was among 50 exchange students aboard the ship Arosa Sky (later Bianca C, the “Titanic of the Caribbean”), which docked in New York harbor August 12. Soon there were reports of epidemics in summer vacation camps and college meetings —however, the cases were generally mild, and few cases occurred among the general population.

The fact that the summer cases were mild was somewhat reassuring, but few could ignore that there were some disturbing similarities to the great 1918 pandemic. One parallel (as Dr. George Hirst points out in this recording) was that the 1918 epidemic had been the result of an abrupt change in the strain of the virus comparable to that being witnessed in 1957; likewise, the early spring and summer outbreaks in 1918 had been geographically scattered, mild, and with few deaths, but by autumn the number of deaths had ballooned to devastating proportions¹.

How would the new virus behave when schools opened in the autumn of 1957?  Speculation ranged widely, but as Dr. Morris Greenberg recalls here, “the thing came down with a bang.”  Outbreaks developed rapidly beginning in early to mid-September, and within a month, epidemic influenza had spread across the country.  School absenteeism rose abruptly, reaching levels of 30% to 50% in some schools.  Hospitals and out-patient clinics were filled to over-flowing; there were so many calls for ambulances that “police was unable to keep up.”  It is reasonable to speculate that planning for this November conference probably started at this time:  the idea was to provide a comprehensive overview of the status of the epidemic as preparation to laying out plans for the coming months, especially the usual January to April influenza season. 

However, after mid-October the numbers of cases occurring weekly began to fall as rapidly as they had risen. Moreover, much to everyone’s relief, the cases had been generally mild. Indeed, by the time of the conference the schools were all back in session; deaths directly due to influenza had been no more than usually occurred; and the vaccine was beginning to be delivered (although far too little and too late to have any bearing on the course of the epidemic).

The clinicians and scientists at this meeting were grappling with many unknowns at the time, and their relief over the disease’s downward trend at the time is palpable, if cautious. Issues ranging from clinical recognition of the disease to vaccine efficacy are discussed. Dr. Harry M. Rose perhaps summarizes it best, declaring that “one of the astonishing things indeed is that the epidemic proportions were not even larger,” while later advising to “hope and pray” that the number of incurable cases does not grow. Although there is much advice given on clinical treatment and immunization guidelines, no one sounds snug or sure-footed —these are professionals who clearly have experienced a few rough weeks.

There is, however, a puzzling postscript to the expectations at the November meeting.  Between January and April  1958, the other usual seasonal time for influenza, there was (despite Dr. Greenberg’s predictions here) a nationwide surge in flu-related  deaths that almost equaled the autumn outbreak. However, during the January to April period, no community-wide epidemics were reported; industrial absenteeism was normal; and no schools closed.  A reasonable explanation for this epidemiological curiosity has never been provided².

¹It is estimated that the pandemic of 1957-58 eventually killed at least 1 million people worldwide.

²In another surprising turn of events, in 2004 and 2005 an error resulted in the worldwide distribution of test kits of the 1957 H2N2 virus, now officially classified by the CDC as Biosafety Level 3, or “potentially lethal.” It is believed all samples have been destroyed.

Last night we opened the David M. Rubenstein Gallery, the home of our new Records of Rights permanent exhibit.

The new David M. Rubenstein Gallery, hosting the “Records of Rights” permanent exhibit, which discusses the rights of women, immigrants, and African Americans.

David Rubenstein is a passionate advocate for the National Archives and for educating all Americans about our shared history. His many gifts to us and to other cultural institutions have done much to promote public awareness of our nation’s history. And we are deeply grateful to him for his generous gift to the Foundation for the National Archives that made possible this new gallery, which showcases the long struggle to secure and exercise individual rights for all Americans.

Ribbon cutting ceremony for the new Rubenstein Gallery. From left to right: President of the Foundation’s Board of Directors A’Lelia Bundles, Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero, David M. Rubenstein, and Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi. (Photo by Margot Schulman from the Foundation for the National Archives)

David is a firm believer in the power of public-private partnerships and I am thankful for the support from our Senate and House Appropriations Committees in matching his gift for this project.

The centerpiece of “Records of Rights” is the 1297 Magna Carta, which David purchased five years ago because he believed the one copy of this … [ Read all ]

In early November, I attended the annual conference of the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA) in Richmond, Virginia. Here are a few of the highlights.

Buttons from AudioVisual Preservation Solutions, consultants specializing in AV preservation.

The Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA) is an association for many different types of professionals involved in the preservation and access of moving image heritage. Members come from all over the world to attend the conference.

HACK DAY

In partnership with the Digital Library Federation, AMIA held its first Hack Day. Software developers and non-developers (like me!) spent a day solving problems. I was part of the group of non-developers that created a guide to using FFmpeg software which was aimed at archivists who would like to use it but find it too complex. We put the guide on a wiki, expecting it to become more useful as information is added. Our group won one of the jury prizes.

We now have a Raspberry Pi, the prize from Hack Day. We welcome suggestions for archival use.

The other jury prize (and the audience award) went to the group that created a tool, MediaWalker, for gathering information on audiovisual materials within forensic images. We’ve written about the use of digital forensics tools in archives before. Creating a forensic image is the safest way to acquire records from media such as external disks, but special tools are required for looking inside the image. This tool will give archivists an over of what types of audiovisual media were acquired, so they can start planning for preservation and access.

The Future of Film Stock for Archival Preservation

This session presented several points of view: Kodak’s intention to continue to be in the business of making film, which is still profitable; the idea that film is not necessary for preservation at all, only for a more authentic access experience; that film can be viable as a preservation medium if it is culturally valued as an art form; and an update on AMIA’s Film Advocacy Task Force, which is, among other initiatives, advising theatres how to retain traditional projection booths while adding digital projection.

Improvising the Archive

Some film genres are more difficult to acquire, describe and preserve than others. This session looked at especially challenging ones. LGBTQ history was often ignored or marginalized by institutions in the past. Stag films were created and distributed secretly, many were seized and destroyed, and the credits were often pseudonyms, so finding and then accurately describing these films is a problem. Video remixes are not always seen by institutions as worth preserving, and there are usually copyright issues with the material, so now most are found on YouTube but not in archives.

Documentation of game play from Wikimedia Commons. Image created by user Pbroks13 from image by user Dammit.

The 2007 video game Portal is difficult to recreate in a playable state, so documenting the different states of the game as well as the source code may be all we can do to preserve it.

Archival Television

AMIA President Caroline Frick noted that “archival television is the new sexy”: it seems to be everywhere and it’s very popular. Presenters spoke about some of the problems television video has, such as the large variety of video formats used. Another problem arises because television programs are usually restored to be suitable for Blu-Ray sales and often the incidental music only had a short-term copyright licence. That music can be replaced with similar (but licenced) music. The example shown was of background music at a party in a scene from Beverly Hills 90210 using Xtracks music replacement. The archivists always keep a copy of the production in its original state, with the original music, but it can’t be legally distributed.

Quality Control Tools for Video Digitization

The Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC) has just started a 2-year project, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, for research and development of open source software tools that assist in the work of checking the product of video digitization. The goal is to make tools affordable and to streamline the work, as well as providing many types of analytical tools in one package.

The main page of the AV Artifact Atlas.

Magnetic Media Stream

Time is running out for the preservation of magnetic media. In response, AMIA formed a Magnetic Media Crisis Committee and programmed a stream of presentations to address this problem, curated by Peter Brothers, a magnetic tape specialist. The stream had six sessions, including the above session on Quality Control Tools, one on prioritizing video for preservation, and one about digitizing VHS tape. Sessions were well attended, as many institutions have a lot of magnetic media that has not yet been preserved.

It was good to see other institutions using or building on the open source tools we use for preservation and access: Archivematica and AtoM.

This conference provided, as usual, plenty of useful information to help us preserve our moving images.

This second of four interviews Walter James Miller conducted with Kurt Vonnegut for WNYC took place on October 25, 1976. Vonnegut’s novel Slapstick had just come out, but it received withering reviews in the Village Voice and The New York Times.  Here Miller takes on the critics in defense of Vonnegut’s strange sci-fi tale of fraternal twins who are brilliant when they can interact with each other but only “dull normal” when separated. In the interview Vonnegut reveals that his portrait of these fictional twins was based on his deep real-life bond with his only sister, Alice.

A brief outline of this lesser-known novel’s plot will help the listener better understand the interview. Even as children, protagonist Wilbur Swain and his twin Eliza are monstrous in appearance: freakishly tall, awkward, sporting six fingers on each hand, possessed of “Neanderthal features.” Their distressed parents at first consider them of subnormal intelligence, and remain ashamed of them even after the twins reveal their precocious theories about gravity, evolution, and extended families. The parents soon take the advice of an obviously twisted child psychologist and separate the twins. They are of course bereft without each other, but get back together as adults to publish a book on good child rearing. (Vonnegut reveals to Miller that his model for Wilbur Swain was Vonnegut’s friend Dr. Benjamin Spock, of baby-book fame.) Long into the future in a decaying U.S.A., Wilbur runs for president under the slogan “Lonesome no more.” He wins and takes office, but his creation of artificial extended families for every American can’t stop the demise of a society under a twin assault by microscopic Chinese, who have found a way to shrink themselves so they can invisibly invade the U.S. , and by microscopic invading Martians who, when inhaled by humans, give us a disease called the “Green Death.”

For Miller, who ignores all the spacey space opera in the novel, the “twin metaphor” is the most insightful trope in Vonnegut’s literary canon, one reflecting the Jungian animus and anima idea of modern man’s “divided self” and thus perfectly diagnosing our “national disease” of loneliness. While this iffy observation may have some truth to it, the sci-fi excesses and thematic dead ends of the last half of Slapstick clearly reveal a writer at the lowest creative ebb he would ever reach in his career—even by Vonnegut’s own admission. In his nonfiction collection Palm Sunday Vonnegut gave grades to his work: Slaughterhouse-Five got an A, and Slapstick a D. But this interview nevertheless shows how Vonnegut struggled to deal with being largely undervalued by “serious” critics, even at the height of his international fame, and that even his lesser works have considerable humor, psychological insight, and levels of invention.

As always in an interview with Kurt Vonnegut, the ideas fly out like sparks from a bonfire: film is the ideal medium for “people who have never developed an imagination,” “prostitutes and pimps exist because of loneliness,” “the secret of unity in art is writing as if you’re speaking to one person.” In Vonnegut’s case, that one person was his sister Alice, with whom he shared slapstick humor until her death from cancer in 1958. Freakishly, her husband had died just one day earlier when his commuter train plunged off an open drawbridge into the Hudson River. Kurt and his wife Jane reacted to this family disaster by adopting Alice’s four children despite already having three kids of their own. It’s not surprising Vonnegut so often wrote about the importance of extended families since as a child he had lived in one and then created one himself as an adult. Perhaps the most notable thing about Slapstick is that it was, as Vonnegut confesses in the book itself—”the closest thing to an autobiography I’ll ever write.”

Special thanks to Mary Hume, Donald Farber and Ana Maria Allessi at Harper Collins for making the release of these broadcasts possible.

if there’s one thing more frustrating than interesting manuscripts hiding away with no way for researchers to find them, it’s when those manuscripts are also being stored in acidic folders and boxes, slowly self-destructing.

That was the case with the Arnold Autograph Collection until Stephanie Knott, a library student at the University of Rhode Island, arrived at the beginning of this semester and set to work on the collection. The Arnold Autograph Collection is a miscellaneous group of about 150 manuscript items (not to be confused with this nasty kind of autograph collection). They focus mostly on Rhode Island history, going back all the way to the 1600s and including items relating to the American Revolution, a bill of sale for a slave, and the deed to a pew.

In addition to moving items to new acid-free folders and boxes and creating an online collection guide, Stephanie has scanned the entire collection, and created an online exhibition focusing on a dozen items. The collection as a whole should be online in 2014.

Ted Cott was just 17 in 1934 when Seymour N. Siegel hired him to be the station’s Drama Director. Cott had been a volunteer doing weekly radio plays with other City College students when his promising work came to the attention of Mayor La Guardia, who insisted ‘the young man’ be hired. La Guardia had only been Mayor about six or seven months and had campaigned to shut WNYC down, believing it was a waste of money. But Siegel had engineered a stay of execution and needed to bring in some fresh ideas and talent to further convince La Guardia that the station was worth keeping. Since there was no equivalent civil service post at WNYC’s parent agency, the New York City Department of Plant and Structures, Cott was hired as a ticket taker for Staten Island Ferry and reported for work at WNYC. [1]

Once there, Siegel promptly bolstered the teenager’s immersion into radio drama. According to Cott, the Assistant Program Director had been looking at a book of plays, whose cover warned against them being performed for profit without the permission of the copyright holder. Reasoning that WNYC was non-profit and had clearance from someone in the city law department, Siegel gave Cott the green light. The teenager began borrowing multiple copies of various dramatic works from a host of neighborhood libraries so that the WNYC Radio Playhouse was well supplied. “If you should ever find some old plays in public libraries that are marked up, you’ll know who did it,” Cott later said. After a while radio drama reviewers took notice and liked what they heard. The Shubert Organization got word as well, only they were less than thrilled and called Mayor La Guardia to say their plays were being produced without their permission. Soon afterwards, Cott’s frequent trips to the library came to an end. [2]

Given the need for original material as well as demands for more variety, Cott and his radio playhouse set to work on a weekly musical serial called On the Wings of Song. The New York Post described it as having “a flying field setting and original music,” launching on May Day 1936.[3] Throughout 1937 Cott and company’s adaptations for the radio included: Julian Thompson’s Warrior’s Husband; Philip Barry’s Paris Bound; Maxwell Anderson’s Elizabeth the Queen and Winterset; and Robert Browning’s The Barretts of Wimpole Street, the Radio Playhouse’s 210th production. Variety’s radio reviewer said the production “is distinguished by one outstanding performance, that of Ted Cott, who also did yeomanship work in adapting a piece that is not extremely palatable material for a full hour of radio consumption. As presented here, the absence of action in the play is stressed. Bulk of action is wrapped up in the harsh verbal gyrations of Edward Barrett, pater of the Wimpole Street family. It’s not enough. Probably the most arresting passages are those between Robert Browning, portrayed by Cott and Elizabeth Barrett, the part taken by Eugenia Cammer.  Latter does fairly well in upholding her end opposite an ingratiating characterization by Cott…who directed as well as adapting the story, did nicely all considered, though about 4 minutes shy of his skedded [sic] time.” [4 ]

But the trade paper was less impressed with Playhouse’s production of Irwin Shaw’s Bury the Dead, which was successfully produced two seasons earlier on Broadway.  “While the play carried a telling punch and considerable force as an anti-war argument, it seemed not as well suited to radio as to the stage. However, that may have been the fault of the adaptation, direction or playing–or a combination of all three. Whatever the quality, it did make interesting fare, particularly with current headlines as a backstop.” [5] The play was part of an anti-war series called We the Living, comprised of Hans Chlumberg’s Miracle at Verdun, Robert Sherwood’s Idiot’s Delight, Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front and Humphrey Cobb’s Paths of Glory.  

The New Radio Drama

By January 1938 Cott began writing new material based on important but little-known Americans and historical events and places. The 39-script series, America’s Hours of Destiny, was reportedly well received by radio drama critics and was picked up for national distribution by the National Park Service, who wrote, “It has proved of especial interest to colleges in connection with their radio and dramatic work.”[6]   Cott’s unsung heroes and episodes from the past included a lot national parks, monuments, and battlefields. Among them: Zion, Yellowstone and Acadia National Parks, Major L’Enfant and the nation’s capitol, the Statue of Liberty; and Death Valley Monument. And if that wasn’t enough, in early 1938 Film Daily reported that Cott would also be adapting movies for the radio beginning with Monogram’s Boy of the Streets, with Broadway actor Charles Bellin taking the role played by Jackie Cooper in the film. [7]

Cott had an interested and sympathetic ear in The Brooklyn Eagle‘s radio columnist Jo Ranson, who outlined the workings of the WNYC Radio Playhouse and its workshop, “formed for the purpose of carrying on experiments in the writing and production of radio drama embodying new departures in drama technique.”[8] Ranson wrote of the regular Friday evening meetings at WNYC where Cott and his crew hashed out scripts debating the merits of various narratives, dialogue and production techniques: 

“Too many sound effects in your script,” says one. The author keeps silent but some one else rushes to his defense. “I don’t agree. I think he’s made very effective use of sound.” From all sides the battle continues. “The dialogue is stilted.” “Characterizations weak,” “Ending lacks punch.”  The author defends himself sometimes; on other occasions criticizes his own work. Finally, the most pertinent criticisms are summed up and the playwright is told to rewrite his script. In two weeks, three weeks, even two months, the script will be ready for production by WNYC’s Radio Playhouse Experimental Workshop…Cott serves as chairman for the meetings and acts as coordinator between the actors and playwrights. He’s also written some of the best Workshop shows himself.” [9]

In 1938 Cott and the Playhouse initiated an Ibsen cycle of dramas which included A Doll’s House. They also embarked on The White Legion, a series by former newspaperman Jack Bishop, who had spent time as a researcher for the popular radio show Gangbusters. Weary of showing how criminals worked, Bishop focused the series as a showcase for police and federal gang-busting activities and tactics in New York. The dramas reportedly won praise from penologists and parents. 

Less than a month after Orson Welles was on the front page of the nation’s papers for the CBS War of The Worlds broadcast, Cott made it to the front page of The Brooklyn Eagle under the headline: “Poison Gas Rocket Lands Here, But Fails to Panic Radio Fans.” Cott had decided to produce a radio play in which a man and woman turn on their living room radio and hear reports on a foreign power sending a lethal poison gas rocket into the United States. When their friends arrive, the couples panic and plan an escape by airplane, but the rocket lands first. One can be sure Cott’s foley man provided sound effects to paint an the appropriately horrific picture for the mind’s eye. Still, the paper reported “listeners took it in stride” with neither police in Manhattan and Brooklyn nor WNYC receiving a single call of panic or complaint. “Mr. Cott explained later that the radio group had no fear that the fantasy would be taken for the real thing. ‘The audience should be trained against panic by this time,’ he said.” [10] 

At the end of each year Cott adapted for radio the Mayor’s annual report, New York Advancing. This dramatization of the previous year’s civil service highlights was called New York Advances and was among Cott’s most challenging productions since it involved La Guardia playing himself and predictably telling everyone else what to do and how to do it. But Cott would have none of it.

“Finally I stopped it and I said, ‘Look, you may be the Mayor of New York, but right now I’m the mayor of this studio, and to me you’re just another actor in this show. Only somebody very young could have said this to [him].                                                                                                                                                                                “He said, ‘You’re right,’ and sat in the corner. He was just marvelous every year on this thing.” [11]

Ted Cott could also be counted on as a reporter for the News Department. He recalled one especially insane episode covering the July 14, 1938 parade celebrating Howard Hughes and his record-breaking flight around the world. With a portable shortwave transmitter, Cott and colleague Dick Pack were on top of the WNYC remote truck feeding the studio a constant stream of color about the parade.

“Everything was fine up to around 8th Street, and suddenly, instead of going about 10 miles an hour, they decided we’re going to go at 40 miles an hour. Standing on top of a truck with a round roof is not the most pleasant place for such an activity. We finally were forced down onto the top of the roof, lying flat on our stomachs, with the misguided notion that ‘the show must go on.’ We kept describing all these things, and finally got off at 61st Street, very tense and very bruised, very shaken and nervous –but very proud.” [12]

Unfortunately, no one heard them. The shortwave reception was so bad Radio Master Control cut them off around 6th Street. We do, however, have the following brief example of Cott’s reporting acumen from Election Night, 1938 at Times Square.

Radio’s First Music Quiz Show

About the time Cott risked his life covering the Howard Hughes parade he had also been doing announcing shifts during the weekly WNYC broadcast of City Council meetings.  Whenever the session ended early, he filled in the remaining time by playing records and commenting informally about the music.  It wasn’t long before the shift included a quiz on serious music with questions solicited and supplied by listeners, who mailed them in by the hundreds. By late 1938 Symphonic Varieties was a regular and popular WNYC quiz show done before a live audience.[13]

The quiz pitted a professional musician against a well-informed layman in a good-natured contest of musical knowledge. Among the musical geniuses on the show were David Randolph,  a regular WNYC host by 1946, Jonathan E. Sternberg, an NYU Senior who is now known as the distinguished Maestro Sternberg. Since they were on a shoestring budget to begin with, no prizes were offered. When Cott left for CBS about a year later, he took the show with him, where it became known as So You Think You Know Music. In 1940, the liberal tabloid PM commented that the show also landed Cott in Who’s Who in Music even though he couldn’t read a note.[14] 

[The first So You Think You Know Music from June 4, 1939]

Cott also produced and emceed the RCA Victor Sounding Board over WEAF and What’s the Good Word over Mutual Radio into 1943. He was then hired by the independent WNEW to be their Vice President of Programming for seven years. Afterwards, he left for NBC, where he was manager of WNBC Radio and WNBT – TV. Cott later was Vice President for National Telefilm Associates, operating WNTA Channel 13 in New York before it was WNET. He had been President of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and was the author of several media related books. Ted Cott died at the age of 56 in June, 1973.

   Ted Cott soon after he left WNYC for CBS in 1940. (WNYC Archive Collections)

___________________________________________________

[1] “Reminiscences of Ted Cott,” 1960 and 1961, on pages 4-8 in the Columbia University Center for Oral History Collection (hereafter CUCOHC).

[2] Ibid., pg. 14.

[3] The New York Post, April 28, 1936, pg. 34.

[4] “Barretts of Wimpole Street,” Variety,  June 30, 1937, pg.39.

[5] “Bury The Dead-WNYC Drama,” Variety, September 15, 1937. pg. 36.

[6] The National Park Service, The Regional Review, October 1938, Vol 1., No. 4.

[7] The Film Daily, January 22, 1938, pg. 1.

[8] Ranson, Jo, “Radio Dial Log,” The Brooklyn Eagle, February 5, 1938.

[9] Ranson, Jo, “Radio Dial Log,” The Brooklyn Eagle, June 25, 1938, pg. 18.

[10] “Poison Gas Rocket Lands Here, But Fails to Panic Radio Fans,” The Brooklyn Eagle, November 27,1938, pg. 1.

[11] “Reminiscences of Ted Cott,” pg. 17.

[12] Ibid., pg. 16.

[13] Scher, Saul Nathaniel. “Voice of the City: The History of WNYC, New York City’s Municipal Radio Station, 1924-1962,“ NYU Ph.D. Thesis, 1965. pgs. 199-200.

[14] “Champagne Music Quiz Gets a Beer Sponsor,” PM September 25, 1940, pg. 13

Special thanks to Mary Marshall Clark, Director of the Columbia University Center for Oral History and her staff for their assistance. Thanks too to James and Jonathan Cott, who, by the way, hosted a program on WNYC in the early 1960s called, Music Not to Read By.

Most of us are familiar with the sad story of the passenger pigeon: the North American bird whose immense numbers (believed to have been up to forty percent of the wild bird population) and intensely social habits (being unable to thrive or breed successfully in small groups) prevented its recovery from the indiscriminate hunting practices of the 1800s. As the large forests which had sustained and housed the passenger pigeon were converted to farmland, man and bird were put in close proximity and closer competition with one another. Farmers, irate over complete crop losses to the avian hordes, retaliated in wholesale destruction of passenger pigeon breeding colonies. As a result, pigeon meat was cheap and common fare in the late 1800s, and pigeon feather beds and bedding were popular home furnishings.

            By 1900, the species had all but vanished, leaving in its place a lesson in conservation for future generations. John R. Saunders, the Adult Education Director for the American Natural History Museum presents here on the fate of the passenger pigeon and the plight of similarly endangered animals.

We thank you for your continued interest in prioritization and for the many comments from our followers we have received about what topics you would like to see declassified.  Today, we present you with a new list of topics that involve information classified as Formerly Restricted Data (FRD) information.

View the List Here: Topics Re: Formerly Restricted Data (FRD) Information

Like our previous prioritization topics, this list of FRD topics captures what we heard from Agency declassifiers, experts from the Presidential Libraries and the requester community.  The topics are listed in alphabetical order, not by ranking.

All lists will remain active for comment while the blog is live.  Please continue to make comments on this new list and also any other topics you think are important for prioritization.

Your comments will be posted as soon as possible.  Please review our blog’s Comment and Posting Policy for more details.  Thank you for your continued interest and participation.

Signed photographic portrait of Vachel Lindsay, from the Lawrence H. Conrad Vachel Lindsay and Robert Frost Collection.

Amherst College recently received the donation of a small, fascinating collection of correspondence and other materials related to Robert Frost and the now lesser-known poet (Nicholas) Vachel Lindsay. Vachel Lindsay styled himself as a twentieth-century troubadour. He traveled around the Midwest performing his poetry, which he chanted or sang, sometimes in costume. Few recordings of Lindsay exist, but there are several short clips online at the PennSound project. Lindsay originally trained as a visual artist, and often sold or traded illustrated pamphlets of his poetry in exchange for food and lodging.

This collection of material belonged to Lawrence H. Conrad, and was donated to Amherst by Conrad’s granddaughter, Angela Conrad. Lawrence Conrad was an undergraduate at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, when Robert Frost held the position of poet-in-residence at the University. During the same time period, Lindsay gave a reading at the University. Conrad served as an assistant to the poets and helped with their arrangements while in Michigan. In a May 9, 1928 letter from Conrad to Lindsay, he writes, “You probably remember that I was a sort of pet of Robert Frost when he was here [at the University of Michigan].” Conrad later became president of the Michigan Author’s Association and arranged further Michigan appearances for Frost and Lindsay. Conrad corresponded with both men and appears to have become a personal friend of both, who were also friends with each other. He continued corresponding with Lindsay’s widow, Elizabeth Connor Lindsay after Vachel Lindsay committed suicide in 1931.

Photographic portrait of Robert Frost, from the Lawrence H. Conrad Vachel Lindsay and Robert Frost Collection

Among the papers in this collection is a two-page document which will be of particular interest to Vachel Lindsay and Robert Frost scholars: an apparently collaborative poem composed by the two men. The poem is written in Lindsay’s handwriting and entitled, “The Maelstrom Flower Blooms.” The second page is an illustration of the poem, also by Lindsay. At the bottom of the page of text are both Frost’s and Lindsay’s signatures: “Robert Frost and Nicholas Vachel Lindsay to Lawrence Conrad.” The poem is undated, but given the dates of the rest of the correspondence, it was likely written between 1928 and 1930.

A transcript of the poem, along with images of the text and illustration, are below. Tell us what you think!

The Maelstrom-Flower Blooms

The maelstrom flower blooms
On soft waves round the ship
The flame-petals leap and
The bird[?]-petals skip—
And the nine looking down in their ease through the sea
Think the flower is a friend—and is free—
But a voice from the ocean-bed
Calls to the flower,
And it turns to the
Maelstrom of fate in an hour.

Manuscript of The Maelstrom Flower Blooms. This poem is written in Vachel Lindsay’s handwriting and signed by both Robert Frost and Lindsay. From the Lawrence H. Conrad Vachel Lindsay and Robert Frost Collection.

Illustration by Vachel Lindsay of the poem “The Maelstrom Flower Blooms.” The poem was apparently written by Lindsay and Frost. From the Lawrence H. Conrad Vachel Lindsay and Robert Frost Collection.

On Friday, the President issued the Second Open Government National Action Plan (NAP) as part of the Open Government Partnership, a cornerstone of his administration.  I am very happy to report that the NAP contains the specific initiative, “Transform the Security Classification System.”  Under this initiative, the President pledges to implement reforms that will keep classification to the “minimum required to meet legitimate national security needs.”  He also reiterates his position that all classified information will be made available to the public through declassification once the need for secrecy has passed.

The NAP specifically references the PIDB’s report on Transforming the Security Classification System as a way forward to reduce classification and simplify the classification system for users.  It includes the primary recommendation from the PIDB in our report: to establish a White-House led Security Classification Review Committee to drive reform and oversee the vetting of the fourteen recommendations in our report.  We are pleased that the White House has taken our report seriously and is reviewing it in the inter-agency process. We understand Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Lisa Monaco will be in charge of ensuring a full review. We look forward to a continuing dialogue on our report’s recommendations.

I am also gratified that the NAP specifically tasks the newly established Security Classification Review Committee to work with the Department of Defense, Department of Energy, and Department of State to develop and implement a systematic review process for the declassification of historical information on nuclear programs (Formerly Restricted Data or FRD) that are obsolete.  The process will focus on reviewing specific events and topics of historical nuclear policy interest and include ways for the public to identify priorities for declassification review.

When the President tasked the PIDB with studying the security classification system and recommending changes for transformation, he clearly intended to modernize and reform the system to one that will function today and in the future.  We share the President’s vision of a security classification system that limits secrecy and promotes transparency whenever and wherever possible.  We congratulate the President and thank him for his continued commitment to open the government and reform secrecy in the interest of both the national security and transparency and accountability of government.

From the November, 1942 WQXR Program Guide.

We take pleasure in presenting another article from the pen of America’s outstanding popularizer of good music, Dr. Sigmund Spaeth. He last appeared in these columns with a strong plea for the American composer. This time he takes up the cause of the interpreting artist, whose work is of such importance in the fields of radio and records alike. Dr. Spaeth recently began a new series of programs over Station WQXR, sponsored by the Columbia Recording Corporation. These broadcasts are heard every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday evening from 7:30 to 8 o’clock under the title of “Dr. Sigmund Spaeth and His Record Library.” The detailed programs for November will be found in this issue.

The interpreters of great music are not like lilies of the field. They toil ceaselessly in the service of their art, and there is real labor involved in the spinning of their seemingly magic tonal web. Consider them frankly and sincerely in relation to the composers whose creative genius they make intelligible, as well as the public whose responsive appreciation is needed to complete the musical triangle.

It may seem strange and perhaps unnecessary to draw attention to the importance of the interpreter, for we Americans have often been accused of glorifying the performers of music, the singers, the instrumental soloists and orchestra conductors, at the expense of the music itself. We have been called prima donna worshipers, and there still is a widespread suspicion that “name value” and clever publicity mean more to American listeners than the greatest of creative inspirations.

Perhaps there was a time when “temperament” and “personality” were passwords in the camps of concert and opera. Eccentricities of behavior and appearance were doubtless given some significance in the past, and “glamour” still persists in the vocabulary of the press agent. But today, the educated American music-lover demands something more than the headlines of well-built reputations. He insists on musical proof of the abilities of famous artists and he makes up his own mind as to how far their reputations are deserved.

Phonograph records and radio broadcasts have in recent years given the interpreter of music an importance almost equal to that of the composer himself. Granting that the music itself would not exist except through the interpreter. If the colors of the sunset achieve reality only when there are human eyes to enjoy them, then certainly the tones of music, represented by the notes written or printed on paper, become significant only when they have been made audible to human ears.

There may be some music which is so obvious in its appeal, so completely “self-playing,” that the interpretation makes little or no difference. Conversely, there are interpretive artists whose skill is such that even the most commonplace sequence of tones will acquire beauty in their hands. But these are the exceptions, not the rule.

Modern standards of musical taste demand of the virtuoso and the prima donna not only that their material be worth hearing, but that its performance shall emphasize and perhaps enhance the value of the composition that is interpreted. The up-to-date listener has too many opportunities for comparison to be satisfied with merely adequate interpretations of great music. He has found out for himself that there is a real reason for the solid fame of recognized conductors, pianists, violinists, cellists and singers, as well as the major symphony orchestras and various other instrumental and vocal ensembles of reputation.

The manufacturers of phonograph records and the managers of artists are well  aware of this. When they deal with the great names of music, they know that they are offering something more than a well-advertised product. They are actually submitting to connoisseurs a better or at least a more interesting and individual performance than is to be found in the average, routine interpretation.

An orchestra like the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Society represents far more than the prestige of a century of existence. There is an actual quality of tone and a technical mastery clearly apprehended even by listeners who might be totally unaware of the orchestra’s reputation. The musicianship of a Bruno Walter or a Fritz Reiner asserts itself even when such a conductor is invisible, and the excitement of a performance under the baton of a Beecham, a Mitropoulos or a Rodzinski is imparted to the microphone as unerringly as it would be to the actual audience in a concert hall.

Consider therefore the interpreter of music and give him his due, for without his labors the vineyards of composition would be barren indeed. Consider not only the enormous talent but the sheer drudgery that goes into the preparation and performance of a single work, particularly in the orchestral field. Consider the endless detail of rehearsal and the myriad mechanical problems of recording and broadcasting.

When you hear the finest records broadcast over station WQXR, you are not only getting the ideal performance by each interpreter, perfected in the recording studio before it is released to the public; you are given what is even more important–the chance to compare one interpretation with another, to differentiate between legitimate individuality and mere eccentricity, and to discover for yourself the things that are enduring and inviolable in the creation and presentation of great music.