From Our Collections

Black Presence in the Picture File

The Picture File is a collection that covers an expansive scope of visual history. With over 6,000 items spanning the 17th to 20th centuries, it is the kind of collection that makes mining the African American experience both exhaustive and exciting. This reality is best exemplified by the presence of this photograph located in the Geographic Series.

From Picture File, 1600s-1979, Box 4, folder m162.1
From Picture File, 1600s-1979, Box 4, folder m162.1

At first glance, the photograph is rather striking, if not disturbing. An African American man standing with hands shackled, surrounded by four uniformed white men. The back of the photo however describes a different story, “Members of the Georgia Hussars with [unidentified African American man] at Clyo, GA in 1908(?) to prevent lynching of prisoner.” The inscription further notes, “This negro afterward died of tuberculosis and syphilis in Chatham County Jail while awaiting a new trial on appeal.”

Note on back of photoraph
Note on back of photograph

The historical record of local protection against the lynching of African Americans is indeed a controversial one. But this interesting image at least captures the actual presence of authorities standing guard against violence against this incarcerated man.

Post contributed by John Gartrell, Director of the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture.  This is the third in a series of posts on interesting documents in our collections to celebrate Black History Month. 

Bingham Center, Events, Readings and Talks

The Power of This Story: Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality in Durham 1960-1990

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Whole Women Carologue

 

The Sallie Bingham Center has partnered with the Women’s Studies Senior Seminar to present a series of public conversations exploring how social change happened here in Durham. Each panel features individuals and representatives of organizations whose papers are held by the Bingham Center.  Please note the different locations for each panel.

 

 

Panel 1:

Joanne Abel, YWCA’s Women Center, Triangle Area Lesbian Feminists, and War Resisters League
Barb Smalley, Ladyslipper Music
David Jolly, NC Lesbian and Gay Health Project

Date: Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Time: 5:30-6:30 p.m. (Reception to follow)
Where: East Duke Parlors, East Campus, Duke University

 

Panel 2:

Jeanette Stokes, Resource Center for Women and Ministry in the South
Kat Turner, Lesbian Health Resource Center and NC Lesbian and Gay Health Project
Donna Giles, Triangle Area Lesbian Feminists and Feminary

Date: Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Time: 5:30-6:30 p.m. (Reception to follow)
Where: Perkins Library, Room 217, West Campus, Duke University

 

Panel 3:

Mandy Carter, Southerners On New Ground (SONG) and War Resisters League
Caitlin Breedlove, Southerners on New Ground (SONG)
Steve Schewel, Founder, Independent Weekly

Date: Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Time:  5:30-6:30 p.m. (Reception to follow)
Where: Durham County Library, 300 N. Roxboro Street, Durham, NC

 

Sponsored by Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture, Rubenstein Library; Durham County Library; Duke Program in Women’s Studies; Vice Provost of Academic Affairs; the Pauli Murray Project; and in conjunction with Women’s Studies Senior Seminar.

Renovation

The Move by the Numbers

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After a month of intensive activity, the largest and most complicated phase of the Rubenstein Library move wrapped up, and we bid farewell to William B. Meyer, our wonderful library movers, on Feb 12.  In the 24 days that these 15 movers were onsite they relocated more than 30,000 linear feet of rare books, manuscript collections, university archives, pamphlets, and other material to both our temporary library and the Library Service Center.

Map Cases
Our map cabinets in their new home

We are excited to report that we have a considerable amount of our collection up in our new home on the 3rd floor of Perkins:

  • 17,600 linear feet of books, manuscripts, university archives and other collections
  • 39 map cabinets
  • 4-volume, double-elephant edition of Audubon

The movers transported 836 large blue trucks of material to our offsite Library Service Center!

  • The team at LSC has already ingested 148,727 items!  Thank you LSC team!!

Please note that due to the HUGE amount of material sent to LSC, some items are still being processed into their system.  As such, it may take longer than usual for some materials to be pulled..   Researchers are encouraged to contact the Rubenstein Library to confirm that their collections have arrived before coming to the reading room.  Please call the Rubenstein Library at 919.660.5822 or send us a message. Thank you to all our patrons, researchers, colleagues, friends and fans for their continued patience and support as we finalize the Rubenstein Library move!

But that’s not all!

Although one phase of the move is complete, there is still plenty of work and moving to be done between now and the start of the Rubenstein Library Renovation.  We are still prepping our newspaper collection for transport to LSC, and we still need to move the art collection, including the portraits in the Gothic Reading Room.  Stay tuned for more updates as we complete these projects.

Last but not least, you can always relive the exciting events from the last 6 weeks anytime on our blog:  http://blogs.library.duke.edu/rubenstein/tag/movediary/

 

Post contributed by Molly Bragg, Collection Move Coordinator.

 

 

Franklin Research Center, From Our Collections, Research Tips, Technical Stuff

John Hope Franklin’s Grownup School List

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We are in the middle of processing the John Hope Franklin Papers, and it has been inspiring to see Franklin’s wide range of intellectual interests and community engagements. He was a very busy man! One recent discovery, mixed in with folded programs and family correspondence, is Franklin’s “Grownup School List,” an all-encompassing list he created of must-reads in African American history. Always a humble scholar, he omitted his own monumental works. We’ve reproduced the Grownup School List here, along with Franklin’s annotations. You can find all of these books, along with Franklin’s own extensive scholarship, online or in the Duke Libraries.

PicMonkey Collage

Post contributed by Meghan Lyon, Technical Services Archivist.  This is the second in a series of posts on interesting documents in our collections to celebrate Black History Month.

Digital Collections, From Our Collections, TRLN CCC Project

Digitizing the LCRM Update #8 – A Preserved Love Story

Dried rose with correspondence, Asa Spaulding to Elna Bridgeforth, circa December 1931. Asa and Elna Spaulding Papers, Box EC-4, Folder 3: esgms04003022
Dried rose with correspondence, Asa Spaulding to Elna Bridgeforth, circa December 1931. Asa and Elna Spaulding Papers, Box EC-4, Folder 3: esgms04003022

Elna Spaulding is a central figure in the materials that Duke has digitized for the Content, Context, and Capacity Grant.  The records of the Women-in-Action for the Prevention of Violence and Its Causes, an organization that Mrs. Spaulding founded and led from 1968 until 1974, are available now.  In addition, all of Mrs. Spaulding’s personal papers have been digitized and will shortly become available for viewing.

In anticipation of both the publication of Elna Spaulding’s myriad professional accomplishments and Valentine’s Day, this month’s update focuses on the personal connections underlying the accomplished careers of Elna and Asa Spaulding. In the years prior to their wedding on June 24, 1933, Asa Spaulding and Elna Bridgeforth corresponded regularly.  The following two quotes are from letters that Mr. Spaulding sent to Miss Bridgeforth:

“I would not put you out of my life if I could, and I could if I would…Do you know the song: ‘I wouldn’t change you for the World.’  The words are quite significant.” (December 30, 1931)

“As I start out upon the first day of a New Year it is with thoughts of you and with [a] heart full of thanksgiving for what the past year has meant to us and with much anticipation as to what lies before us.  I wish I might look into the future and see.” (January 1, 1932)

Unfortunately, we do not have Elna Bridgeforth’s replies, but we know that she kept a rose that Asa gave her with one of these letters (pictured here) throughout her life.  We encourage readers to peruse the correspondence between the future Mr. and Mrs. Spaulding to gain a unique look into one of the most influential couples in the modern history of Durham.  You may even find inspiration for a Valentine’s Day note of your own.

Post contributed by Josh Hager, CCC Project Graduate Assistant.

Renovation

Game Day

The big game — UNC vs. Duke — may be tonight at Cameron, but we’ve been preparing for weeks with our school-colored Big Blues. Normally, we use these carts to transport library materials around the Triangle. Lately, these carts have been helping us get Rubenstein collections to the LSC as quickly as possible.

Rival library trucks battling it out during the move.
Rival library trucks battling it out during the move.

Although our move is wrapping up this week, we would like to remind researchers that materials may still be in transit and that delays in retrieving our collections may continue for the next few weeks as we ingest everything into the LSC. Please continue to contact Research Services as early as possible if you are planning a research visit to the Rubenstein Library so that we can be sure to have what you need on hand when you arrive.

Rare Books, Renovation

Audubons on the move

One of the last (but not least!) collections to move during our Big Move was our set of John James Audubon’s Birds of America. The Rubenstein Library is fortunate to have a complete double elephant folio set, published between 1827 and 1838. Only 120 sets are known to exist. Our conservation staff was on hand yesterday as the movers carefully lifted and transported the very heavy Audubons to their temporary home. We’re looking forward to them being back on display after the renovation.

IMG_1812
Birds of America folios in their cases in the Rare Book Room.
IMG_1820
Safely storing the Birds of America until after the renovation.

Can’t wait until after the renovation to see these great books? The University of Pittsburgh has digitized them.

News and Features, Renovation

Week 5 is Done!

We have rounded the final turn and are in the homestretch of our collections move!  Consequently, we’re seeing a lot more of this:

Empty shelving in our former stacks.
Empty shelving in our former stacks.

And of this:

Folio volumes from the History of Medicine Collections, in their new shelf locations.
Folio volumes from the History of Medicine Collections, in their new shelf locations.

And a lot less of these!

Trays used to move and store our books. The need to put more and more of them together: almost gone!
Trays used to move and store our books. The need to put more and more of them together: almost gone!
News and Features, Renovation

Standing Up (and Kneeling) for Our Collections

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It’s week five of our collections move, and the Rubenstein is a flurry of activity.  We won’t sit down until all of our collections are moved!

Joshua Larkin Rowley and Noah Huffman: too busy checking materials into our new stacks to find a chair.
Joshua Larkin Rowley and Noah Huffman, too busy checking materials into our new stacks to find a chair.

 

The oversize items in our flat files may lie down, but we won't rest yet.
The oversize items in our flat files may lie down, but we won’t rest yet.

 

We'll all be ready for a futon (but not the book variety pictured here) when the move is completed.
We’ll all be ready for a futon (but not the book variety pictured here) when the move is completed.

 

Franklin Research Center, From Our Collections

“Let Their Names Go Down in the World”

While researching a reference request among the William Mahone Papers, an interesting piece of ephemera was discovered that gives us a peek at the opinions of one African American politician regarding the lingering shadows of the Confederacy almost 15 years after the Civil War ended. On December 20, 1879, a letter was sent to Mahone, who was the recently elected US Senator for the state of Virginia.

Letter in William Mahone Papers 1853-1895, Box 17, folder 1879, Dec. 16-20.
Letter in William Mahone Papers 1853-1895, Box 17, folder 1879, Dec. 16-20.
Portion of clipping attached to above letter, in William Mahone Papers.
Portion of clipping attached to above letter, in William Mahone Papers.

The author of the letter, who decided not to sign their name, seemed to take issue with Mahone and the idea that he had turned his back on the Confederacy. He/she noted, “…you who once so nobly lead the Virginia troops to battle could now turn against them is a shame…The wrath of God is upon you.” What could have stirred up such vitriol from the sender of this brief but contemptuous letter? The answer lies in the article that was attached to the letter.

The clipping, though undated, was likely printed in the same year. The bold call of State Senator Cephas Davis, himself a former slave, for a resolution “prohibiting the use of the words one-legged, two-legged or four-legged Confederate soldier,” was undoubtedly newsworthy. Davis would only serve one year in the VA State Senate, but it is interesting that he not only saw himself a victor in the Civil War, but also an agent to ensure the Confederacy would not be remembered.

Post contributed by John Gartrell, Director of the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture.  This is the first in a series of posts on interesting documents in our collections to celebrate Black History Month. 

Dispatches from the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Duke University