All posts by Amy McDonald

Archive of Documentary Arts, Events, Exhibits, From Our Collections, News and Features

“Deena Stryker: Photographs of Cuba, 1963-1964″

Date: 31 August-12 December 2010
Location and Time: Special Collections Gallery during library hours
Contact Information: Karen Glynn, 919-660-5968 or karen.glynn(at)duke.edu

Journalist and photographer Deena Stryker’s black-and-white photographs of Revolutionary Cuba open a window into an unsettled time in that country’s history, after the Bay of Pigs and before Che Guevara’s departure for the Congo, when Fidel Castro was solidifying his control over the new revolutionary government.

A woman watching a military parade, Havana, January 1964. From the Deena Stryker Photograph Collection.

This new exhibit of thirty gelatin silver prints from the Archive of Documentary Arts’ Deena Stryker Photograph Collection documents this extraordinary change, bearing witness to both the vitality of Cuba’s leadership and the optimism of the Cuban people. The exhibit is curated by Holly Ackerman, Librarian for Latin America and Iberia, and Heather Settle, visiting scholar in Cultural Anthropology.

Can’t visit the exhibit in person? Check out the virtual exhibit, which includes an additional eleven photos from the Deena Stryker Photograph Collection.

Keep up with The Devil’s Tale for news about the exhibit’s opening reception on Thursday, September 16th at 4:00 PM in the Rare Book Room. Deena Stryker, the exhibit’s curators, and several local experts on Cuba will come together to discuss the photographs and place them in their historical context.

From Our Collections, Hartman Center, New at the Rubenstein Library

Selling a Coke and a Smile

Photo by Mark Zupan.

As the adage goes, Coca-Cola sells itself. The John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising and Marketing History’s recently-acquired Coca-Cola Star Salesman Kit might just suggest otherwise. This collection of training materials—including scripted manuals, 35mm film strips with accompanying phonographs, and other training memorabilia housed in a special green suitcase—was created by the Coca-Cola Company’s Sales Promotion Department between 1949 and 1951. The company encouraged route managers to purchase the Star Salesman Kit as a subscription program to educate their salesmen in the latest marketing techniques.

Designed as a series of one hour sessions, the Star Salesman Kit covers eight topics relevant to the company’s goal of increasing route sales, such as merchandising (“It’s Got to Be Sold”), and advertising (“What’s on Your Mind”). In addition, the kit includes training material for best practices in stocking product, refrigeration, and the use of the “red cooler” and vending machines in various outlets.

While most of the Star Salesman Kit is geared toward increasing sales to vendors, the materials do give special attention to instructing route salesmen how to promote Coca-Cola sales to the home market—particularly to the housewife. The session, “The Woman in Your Life,” encouraged the route salesman to market directly to women through techniques such as floor displays and product placement in outlets where women shopped for the home.

The Star Salesman Kit provides a glimpse into the sales and marketing culture of the Coca-Cola Company, the organization of its sales department, training practices, and even refrigeration technology. At the same time, the Star Salesman Kit offers some insights into mid-20th-century social and cultural issues, demonstrating, perhaps, why no other consumer product is a more iconic symbol of American culture than Coca-Cola.

Post contributed by Diana Poythress, RBMSCL Technical Services graduate student volunteer. Thanks to Alexandra Bickel, RBMSCL Technical Services graduate student volunteer, for her assistance with this post.

Exhibits, Franklin Research Center, Hartman Center, News and Features, RL Wire, Travel Grants

From the RBMSCL Wire

Boy lying on couch, reading comics. From the William Gedney Photographs and Writings, 1950s-1989.
Boy lying on couch, reading comics. From the William Gedney Photographs and Writings, 1950s-1989.

Sure, you could lie on a couch and read comic books, but why not have a look at some of the articles and blog posts about the RBMSCL that have been published recently?

A profile of Susie King Taylor appears at TheAtlantic.com. (Read the post here). Taylor’s Reminiscences of My Life in Camp is part of the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture’s Black Voices Collection.

Our new exhibit, “‘As Far as Possible from Forgetfulness’: The Trinity College Historical Society,” found itself on the front page of the Durham Herald-Sun. (Read the article online.)

And Hartman Center travel grant recipient Ari Samsky wrote about his two-week research visit to the RBMSCL for web magazine Splice Today. You’ll find his essay—which makes us glad that Durham’s cooled off considerably in the past few days—here.

Let us know if you find any other mentions of the RBMSCL during your wanderings across the Internet and through print.

Just for Fun, RL Photos

Photo Op with the AOTUS

During the recent Society of American Archivists (SAA) meeting in Washington, D.C., several RBMSCL staff members received a very special tour of the National Archives. Former Duke University Librarian and current Archivist of the United States, David Ferriero, gave the group a personal tour of his office.The group (click photo to enlarge) is gathered here under the portrait of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, which hangs in Ferriero’s office. (The National Archives began during Roosevelt’s administration.)

Ferriero, who has been AOTUS since last November, regaled the group with stories of great documents housed in the Archives. He recently examined Walt Whitman’s federal employee file (he was briefly employed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs). In the file was a five page letter of reference—written by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Post contributed by Tim Pyatt, Duke University Archivist.

From Our Collections, Just for Fun

Books, Boys, and Beastly Bats

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We were charmed by this advice from educator Marcius Willson’s The School and Family Primer, published in 1860 as an introductory text to his series of four readers for children. It sounds very much like the advice we give to our researchers on a daily basis. (Click on the image to view a larger version.)

(We’re also agog at the two pictures chosen to illustrate the letter “B.” Confronted by such a gigantic bat, the boy’s nonchalance is decidedly impressive.)

Events, Exhibits, From Our Collections, University Archives

“‘As Far as Possible from Forgetfulness’: The Trinity College Historical Society”

Date: 3 August-10 October 2010
Location and Time: Perkins Library Gallery during library hours
Contact Information: Meg Brown, meg.brown(at)duke.edu

Arrows, Possibly from the Fiji Islands. From the Trinity College Historical Society Collection. Photo by Mark Zupan

The Duke University Archives is home to scores of manuscripts, records, and publications documenting Duke University’s history—and a set of fierce arrows possibly from the Fiji Islands; a pair of wooden shoe soles bought by a former slave in 1865; and two cloth-covered buttons from the clothing of Louis XVI.

These and other artifacts—along with manuscripts and historically-significant publications—once belonged to the collection of the Trinity College Historical Society, a student organization established in 1892 to encourage original research in Southern history. Their collection, the precursor to the RBMSCL and the University Archives, forms the subject of our new exhibit, “‘As Far as Possible from Forgetfulness’: The Trinity College Historical Society.”

Pewter Wig Sprayer. From the Trinity College Historical Society Collection. Photo by Mark Zupan.

Assuming the leadership of the Society in 1894, professor of history John Spencer Bassett renewed the Society’s charge to collect manuscripts, books, pamphlets, and objects of enduring historical value, including those artifacts mentioned above. He addressed his undergraduate collectors and historians in 1897, telling them that they would “be doing work for eternity . . . [and] centering the eyes of the centuries on this institution.” This exhibit is proof of their legacy.

For more information about the Trinity College Historical Society and its collections, or if you won’t be able to visit the exhibit in person, visit the exhibit website. Photos of the exhibit’s installation are available on the RBMSCL’s Flickr photostream.

And remember to mark your calendars for a gallery talk with the exhibit’s curators on Tuesday, September 28 at 3:30 PM in the Rare Book Room!

Bingham Center, Events

Celebrating Feminists of Faith

Date: Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Time: 3:00 PM
Location: Rare Book Room
Contact Information: Kelly Wooten, 919-660-5967 or kelly.wooten(at)duke.edu

Tibbie Roberts and B Holt at the 75th Anniversary of the NC Council of Churches. Courtesy of Jeanette Stokes.

Please join the staff of the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture for an afternoon honoring women of faith who have contributed their papers to the Center’s growing collection of materials documenting women’s religious experiences and activities, particularly personal spiritual struggles and women’s involvement in Protestant religious organizations.

We will be celebrating the contributions of Diane Weddington, Bett Hargrave, Bertha “B” Holt, Tibbie Roberts, Nancy Peeler Keppel, and the Resource Center for Women and Ministry in the South.

This program is sponsored by the Bingham Center and the Resource Center for Women and Ministry in the South. Light refreshments will be served.

Post contributed by Kelly Wooten, Research Services and Collection Development Librarian for the Sallie Bingham Center of Women’s History and Culture.

From Our Collections, In the Conservation Lab, New at the Rubenstein Library, University Archives

In the Lab: Boxing the Blue Devil

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I love the sort of projects that start with a co-worker saying, “We have something special we want you to box,” because I always know it’ll be anything but a regular book. When I saw this little Blue Devil Doll, I knew a fun project lay ahead.

This doll was donated to the Duke University Archives this spring. It was purchased on campus in 1938 and is made of straw with a wax (I think) head and dressed in a smart blue felt outfit. The devil’s tail has floral wire wrapped around it to provide stiffness. The doll itself is in fair condition but, as you can see below, it has sustained some damage to the felt, most likely from insect activity.

Because of its condition, I wanted to make a sturdy box that had a cushioned interior to protect the fragile doll. The end result would be a drop-spine box, also called a cloth-covered clamshell. Before constructing the outer box, I would have to make an inner box with a cushioned interior.

The inner box is constructed of buffered corrugated board, lined with polyester quilt batting with a cotton fabric liner. The fun part was making the side bolsters to keep the doll from rolling around. These are made from rolled up polyester batting and then encased in a polyethylene pocket using our CoLibri book cover machine to make tubes. These provide enough structure to hold their shape but are still soft should the doll shift. Who knew that all my sewing experience would come in handy this way?

Blue Devil Doll in His Box

Once done with the inner tray, I constructed a clamshell box around it. The final enclosure is sturdy and keeps the doll firmly in place. The creative use of the CoLibri pockets worked really well. I’ll remember that should another devil cross my path.

For more photos of the Blue Devil Doll in his new home, visit the Conservation Lab’s “Boxing the Devil” set on Flickr!

Post contributed by Beth Doyle, Collections Conservator, as part of our ongoing “In the Conservation Lab” series.

From Our Collections, Rare Books

O Pioneers!

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Seth reads the Book of Mormon. Photo by Beth Doyle.

For many members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the experience of holding and reading a first edition copy of the Book of Mormon—including one of the two held at the RBMSCL—elicits reverence and profound emotion.

According to the church, the Book of Mormon is the record of ancient Americans and their relationship to God, and includes a visit from Christ after his resurrection. Joseph Smith, under God’s direction, received and translated the work before its 1830 publication in Palmyra, New York, and reestablished the priesthood and Christ’s church.

While the information contained within the Book of Mormon can be found in any of the over one hundred million copies (in 108 different languages), a copy of the first edition represents a physical connection to a prophet, the church’s origins, and God. Indeed, it is among the most requested of our holdings.

From the start, the church suffered intense persecution, moving several times from New York to Kirtland, Ohio to Missouri to Nauvoo, Illinois. This persecution eventually resulted in the death of Joseph Smith and the start of a great western migration lead by religious leader Brigham Young (in time, Young would be sustained as a prophet and Joseph Smith’s successor as the president of the church).

Beginning in April of 1847, Young lead approximately 70,000 pioneers on a western migration from Illinois. On July 24th of that year, weary pioneers arrived in the Great Salt Lake Valley, their new home and the future capital city of Utah. This day is celebrated annually by the Latter-Day Saints as Pioneer Day.

Brigham Young prayed that God would grant the pioneers 10 years of peace, which they received almost to the day. In 1857, based on fictitious reports of a “Utah Rebellion,” President James Buchanan appointed Alfred Cumming to replace Young as governor of Utah Territory and sent 2,500 soldiers to quell the supposed uprising. Upon arrival, Cummings discovered a people fearful of attack but respectful of his new position as governor. This experience is documented in the correspondence between Young and Cumming found in the RBMSCL’s Alfred Cumming Papers. These letters, like the first edition copies of the Book of Mormon, represent a relationship to a prophet and a history and are available for you to come see.

Post contributed by Seth Shaw, Electronic Records Archivist. Thanks to Kelly Wooten, Research Services and Collection Development Librarian, for suggesting this post and to Beth Doyle, Collections Conservator, for the photograph.

Digital Collections, From Our Collections, Hartman Center, News and Features

New and Improved AdViews!

Just in time for the premiere of the fourth season of Mad Men, the last batch of 3,200 newly digitized D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles (DMB&B) commercials has been uploaded to AdViews!

More commercials than ever! Now there are almost 8,800 commercials in AdViews.

Essential new products! New ads for Oreo, Continental Airlines, Raisin Bran, Mattel, Fresca, Pop Rocks, Legos, Clearasil, Volkswagen, Budweiser, Hardee’s and so much more!

Act now and see expert interviews! Professors Jason Chambers of the University of Illinois and Peggy Kreshel of the University of Georgia give context to advertising targeted towards African Americans and women.

But wait, there’s more! Highlighted content includes a 20-minute film about the creation of a 1970s Post Grape Nuts commercial featuring Euell Gibbons.

After you’ve checked out AdViews, stop back here and let us know your favorite commercials!