Category Archives: Featured

Thursday, October 30th #AskAnArchivist Day

October 30, 2014 Kate Collins

Always wondered what is involved in processing an archival collection? Want to know the best things we’ve come across in our collections? Are you still hanging on to a very special mix tape from high school and want to make sure it stays well-preserved? Wondering what’s up with the white gloves? Or just curious about what goes on behind the scenes at archives?

Today is the day to ask! On October 30, archivists around the country will take to Twitter to answer your questions about any and all things archives!

To participate, just tweet a question and include the hashtag #AskAnArchivist in your tweet. Your question will be seen instantly by archivists around the country who are standing by to respond. If you want to hear from us here at the Rubenstein specifically, include our handle @RubensteinLib. We may not know every answer right away, but we’ll get back to you after we’ve had a chance to do some digging!

Featured, Films, From Our Collections, Human Rights Archive

Rights! Camera! Action! presents “Wasteland”

October 27, 2014 Meghan Lyon

Rights!Camera!Action! Presents “Wasteland” (2010)
Director: Lucy Walker Producers: Angus Aynsley and Hank Levine
Full Frame Audience Award 2010
Total running time: 95:00

Artist Vik Muniz, known for painting with nontraditional materials, returned to his native Brazil to portray workers in one of the world’s largest garbage dumps, Jardim Gramacho, on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. He collaborated with these “catadores”–self-designated scavengers of recyclable materials–to create portraits of them made entirely of garbage, returning the profits from their sale to his subjects. Over three years, the filmmakers followed Muniz and this eclectic band of catadores, revealing both the dignity and despair of their lives, in a multivalent collaborative work engaging with issues of artistic process, social justice, responsibility to one’s subjects, class mobility, activism, and beauty. In English and Portuguese with English subtitles.

There will be a reception at 6:30 p.m. and the screening will begin at 7 p.m. A panel discussion with Professor Pedro Lasch follows the screening.

Date: Thursday October 30th, 2014
Time: 6:30pm-8:30pm
Location: Smith Warehouse, Bay 4, Franklin Garage

Sponsors: The Duke Human Rights Center@ FHI, the Human Rights Archive, and the Archive of Documentary Arts and Screen/Society. Co-sponsored by the Global Brazil Humanities Lab.

For further information contact Patrick Stawski, Duke University patrick.stawski@duke.edu 919-660-5823.

Featured, From Our Collections, Just for Fun, Rubenstein Library Test Kitchen

Rubenstein Library Test Kitchen: World War I Soldiers’ Soup

October 24, 2014 Kate Collins

Allied Cookery Cover — Grace Glergue Harrison. *Allied Cookery: British, French, Italian, Belgian, Russian.* New York and London: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1916.

A century ago, the Great War was causing massive casualties and destruction in France. Allied Cookery, the product of an international collaboration, was written as a fundraiser. The proceeds were distributed by Le Secours National, the French organization created immediately after war was declared in 1914. The brainchild of banker and arts patron Albert Kahn, Le Secours raised funds to provide food and warm clothing to French soldiers and their families and to civilians in the country’s devastated regions. The cookbook’s introduction explains that any money raised will go to those areas that had been invaded by the Germans and subsequently retaken by the Allied forces. The impact of the damage was all the more horrific because these were France’s most fertile agricultural regions. With the buildings destroyed and the farm implements, livestock, and food stores seized, the surviving farmers could not produce food. With armies to supply, shortages were a real danger. Allied propaganda posters encouraged citizens to grow vegetable gardens and to restrict their consumption of wheat, meat, sugar, fats, and fuel. (French propaganda posters included the wine and tobacco products so badly needed by the military!) Fittingly, the recipes in this cookbook emphasize vegetables, beans, and soups. The section on meats includes many dishes using the less choice bits: tripe, kidneys, sheep’s head and the like.

In addition to the countries listed in the title, Allied Cookery includes recipes from Commonwealth countries and Eastern Europe. Hence, there is a whole section on curries and dishes such as Pilau (pilaf) and Serbian Cake. I decided to try the Soldiers’ Soup (Soupe à la Battaille); it seemed altogether fitting when highlighting a World War I cookbook and also potentially tasty.

The ingredients were, for the most part, easily obtained at my usual supermarket. I was unable to find chervil for the garnish, and so simply left it out. The note at the bottom suggests that “a bone of ham or the remains of bacon improve this soup immensely.” I therefore purchased a bone of ham from our local HoneyBaked Ham. The instructions were extremely simple to follow and it is easy to imagine an army cook preparing the soup over an open fire using vegetables that had been requisitioned from nearby farms.

There was a great deal of washing, peeling, and chopping and I needed to use my largest cooking pot. After everything was added, I left the soup to simmer, with only occasional stirring, for two hours. I pulled out the ham bone and skimmed the fat. The recipe says that the mixture should be quite smooth at that point, and if it is not, the cook should “beat it well with a whisk.” Mine was not smooth, so I cheated a bit and used my 21^st century immersion blender. The result was a beautiful jade green silky concoction.

The flavor was absolutely delightful—a fresh vegetable taste with a little smoky depth from the ham and a creaminess from the potatoes. I shredded the ham and served it on the side, but the soup was delicious without it. My husband ate three full bowls. I would rate this soup a five out of five. Without the ham, it would be a perfect vegan dish. It makes so much that I refrigerated enough for another two or three meals and froze several large containers for later consumption. Civilians were called upon to sacrifice for the war effort, but preparing and eating this soup was no sacrifice whatsoever!

You can explore Allied Cookery in the Rubenstein Library or on the Internet Archive.

Every Friday between now and Thanksgiving, we’ll be sharing a recipe from our collections that one of our staff members has found, prepared, and tasted. We’re excited to bring these recipes out of their archival boxes and into our kitchens (metaphorically, of course!), and we hope you’ll find some historical inspiration for your own Thanksgiving.

Post contributed by Elizabeth Dunn, Research Services Librarian.

Featured, From Our Collections

An Unlikely Alliance: Medical Civil Rights Reformers and Southern Senators in the Age of Deluxe Jim Crow

October 22, 2014 Meghan Lyon

Date: Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Time: 5:30 p.m.
Location: Room 217, Perkins Library
Contact: Rachel Ingold, rachel.ingold@duke.edu or (919)684-8549

Please join us on Wednesday, October 29 at 5:30 p.m. for our next Trent History of Medicine lecture. Karen Kruse Thomas, Ph.D., will present An Unlikely Alliance: Medical Civil Rights Reformers and Southern Senators in the Age of Deluxe Jim Crow. A reception will follow the talk.

How could Jim Crow segregation ever be described as “deluxe”? Thurgood Marshall, lead counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, used the term “deluxe Jim Crow” to refer to the efforts of southern state and local governments to shore up segregation by spending money to improve separate black facilities and programs. This strategy was applied to the fullest extent in health care, with federal assistance from the Hill-Burton hospital construction program and other health initiatives. Although the majority of civil rights history scholarship has focused on issues that captured extensive media attention such as school desegregation, public accommodations, and voting rights, the story in health care was largely overlooked, at the time and since. Yet the unlikely alliance during the mid-twentieth century between medical civil rights activists, southern policymakers, and New Deal liberals has much to teach us about the possibilities and limits of political compromise, especially in the context of our own era of Congressional deadlock.

Karen Kruse Thomas has served as Historian of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health since 2012. Dr. Thomas earned her doctorate in history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and has taught U.S. history at the universities of North Carolina, Minnesota, and Florida. Her publications in the history of medicine and public health have received national awards from the American Association for the History of Medicine and the Southern Historical Association. She’s also received grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library. In 2011, the University of Georgia Press published her first book, Deluxe Jim Crow: Civil Rights and American Health Policy, 1935-1954.

The event is sponsored by the History of Medicine Collections and the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture.

Archive of Documentary Arts, Events, Featured, Readings and Talks

Tomorrow! Sound performance by lowercase music pioneer Steve Roden

October 20, 2014 Meghan Lyon

Tuesday, October 21, 7:30pm
The Carrack Modern Art
111 W Parrish St., Durham
Cost: Free!

Steve Roden—a renowned sound artist, painter, writer, and collector of photographs and 78s—is in residence at Duke this month. He’s giving a talk and visiting classes, but this is the only performance he’s giving of his lowercase style of music in which quiet, usually unheard, sounds are amplified to form complex and rich soundscapes.

Roden’s solo exhibitions include the Chinati Foundation, Marfa; the Henry Art Museum, Seattle; and the San Francisco Art Institute. Roden has been part of group exhibitions at the Fellows of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Mercosur Biennial in Porto Allegre, Brazil; the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego; the Serpentine Gallery, London; the Sculpture Center, New York; the Centre Georges Pompidou Museum, Paris; and Miami MOCA, Miami. Check out his website here and more examples of his work here, and be sure to come tomorrow to hear him perform!

Featured, From Our Collections, Just for Fun, Rubenstein Library Test Kitchen

Rubenstein Library Test Kitchen: Ice Cream No. 3 (1899)

October 17, 2014 Amy McDonald 3 Comments

Welcome back to the Rubenstein Library Test Kitchen! Every Friday between now and Thanksgiving, we’ll be sharing a recipe from our collections that one of our staff members has found, prepared, and tasted. We’re excited to bring these recipes out of their archival boxes and into our kitchens (metaphorically, of course!), and we hope you’ll find some historical inspiration for your own Thanksgiving.

With the warm North Carolina temperatures hanging on for dear life, now seems like the perfect time for a summer throw-back recipe, to take us back to moments hanging out by the pool and lingering over sweet, crisp ice cream. And what could better conjure up those images than a dairy free, nut based ice cream from Mrs. Almeda Lambert’s A Guide for Nut Cookery; together with a brief history of nuts and their food values?

I didn’t intend to make a dairy free recipe. When searching through our catalog, I hoped to find a rich, creamy dessert, preferably one containing my two favorite foodstuffs: heavy cream and sugar. While I did find lots of those, Almeda Lambert and her 1899 work ultimately piqued my interest. And once I noted the brevity of “Ice-Cream No. 3,” I knew there was no other recipe for me.

The story of how Almeda Lambert became a vegetarian cookbook author begins in Cereal City (Battle Creek, Michigan) and could fill an entire weeks’ worth of blog posts. Her husband, Joseph Lambert, worked for the famous John Harvey Kellogg (he of famous cereals) at the Battle Creek Sanitarium, a health and wellness center dedicated to Seventh-day Adventist principles. While there, Mr. Lambert saw the birth of peanut butter unfold at the Sanitarium. The Lamberts were quick studies and knew then what we all know now: peanut butter is delicious. They soon decided to strike out on their own, opening up their own nut mill business, “Joseph Lambert & Co.” (Smith, 2007.)

They were also fans of built-in advertising! An ad for “wholesome nut foods” created by the Lamberts can be found at the back of A Guide for Nut Cookery:

Although peanut butter became the Lamberts’ bread and butter (I’m so sorry!), Mrs. Lambert also had higher ambitions for her 434 page tome:

“It is the object of the author [Almeda Lambert] to place before the public a book treating upon the use of nuts as shortening, seasoning, etc., to be used in every way in which milk, cream, butter or lard can be used, and fully take their place.” (p. 6).

Within her work, Mrs. Lambert tested out recipes for mock fish, for the exotically named meat substitute “nutmeato,” and for custards, pies, drinks, and many other imaginative takes on traditional recipes. And while I’m not sure that her recipes have taken the world by storm since 1899, I hope that the proliferation of nut butters, flours, and oils out there would be a balm to her soul.

And now, on to the recipe! Below are some glamour shots of the recipe and the main lineup of ingredients:

Luckily for me, “Ice-Cream No. 3” only calls for six, very common ingredients: nut butter, water, sugar, vanilla extract, egg, and corn starch. While there are recipes for nut butter in A Guide for Nutcookery, I was not bold enough to make my own and instead bought natural peanut butter from my local store.

As noted in Aaron’s and Patrick’s blog posts, historical recipes don’t tend to provide a lot of context, and “Ice-Cream No. 3” stays true to that established form. After assembling all the ingredients and reading the directions, I was still a little confused but decided to go with my gut instinct. This was pretty easy to do when there were only six ingredients involved.

To create the nut cream, I boiled until the nut butter and water reached a thick, seemingly ice cream like consistency. A small snafu with the eggs and sugar ensued (I forgot to pre-mix them), but vigorous whisking saved the day and the ice cream. Vanilla extract and cornstarch were then added, and my cream(y) concoction was ready to go into the freezer. All told, the entire recipe came together in twenty minutes. Now, that’s my kind of cooking.

Only after I put the cream in the freezer did I begin to wonder about how the ice cream would taste. Some in my household speculated that it would freeze into a giant ice cube, and that it would only be edible after melting. My fervent hope was that the egg would lend the ice cream a custard-y texture, so that I would never have to buy custard again.

Sadly, my dream proved elusive. In texture and in taste, “Ice-Cream No. 3” bore a strong resemblance to an Italian ice. My spoon did not glide through the ice cream; rather, I chiseled away at the block, making small inroads until a suitable amount had accumulated. It was the best workout I’d had in quite a while, and by the end, I felt like I had really earned my dessert.

Verdict: Although not quite ice cream by today’s creamy standards, “Ice-Cream No. 3” is a deliciously easy variation. The peanut butter taste runs strong and true, and it tasted exactly what you would imagine something combining peanut butter, sugar, and water to taste like: wonderfully.

Does the thought of a Nineteenth Century vegetarian cookbook pique your interest? Good news, readers! Almeda Lambert’s A Guide for Nutcookery also lives on the Internet Archive. You too can try out any number of ice creams or even dare to be bold and make nutmeato sandwiches!

Citations:

Lambert, A. (1899). Guide for nut cookery; together with a brief history of nuts and their food values. Battle Creek, Mich.: J. Lambert & Co.

Smith, A. (2007). Peanuts: The Illustrious History of the Goober Pea. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Post contributed by Liz Adams, our awesome Stacks Manager.

Bingham Center, Featured, From Our Collections, Just for Fun, Rubenstein Library Test Kitchen

Rubenstein Library Test Kitchen: Rice Apples (1777)

October 10, 2014 Amy McDonald 4 Comments

Want to make history this Thanksgiving? Every Friday between now and Thanksgiving, we’ll be sharing a recipe from our collections that one of our staff members has found, prepared, and tasted. We’re excited to bring these recipes out of their archival boxes and into our kitchens (metaphorically, of course!), and we hope you’ll find some historical inspiration for your own Thanksgiving.

For my shift in the Rubenstein Library Test Kitchen, I wanted to try something truly old-school. (When the idea for this series of blog posts was first proposed, one of the names we considered calling it was “Antiquarian Culinarian,” with the idea of recreating the flavors of times gone by.) Browsing the library catalog for cookbooks of yore, I came across a title that looked promising: The Young Ladies’ Guide in the Art of Cookery, Being a Collection of useful Receipts, Published for the Convenience of the Ladies committed to Her Care, by Elizabeth Marshall (T. Saint: Newcastle, England: 1777).

The 200-page volume is part of the collections of the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture, and it’s one of many titles the Bingham Center holds that offer a fascinating window into the domestic and social life of women in the eighteenth century.

Marshall (1738-?) ran a cooking school in Newcastle-upon-Tyne from 1770 to 1790. Such schools were not uncommon at the time and catered to women who aspired to work as housekeepers or cooks for the wealthier class. As Marshall explains in her preface, the book came about after frequent solicitations from her former pupils to put her most sought-after recipes in writing:

LADIES,

It is at your urgent and frequently repeated request that the following Receipts have at length come abroad. – You were sensible of the necessity of having an assistance of this sort to your memory; and the difficulty as well as expense of procuring the Receipts in manuscript, suggested the present form as the most proper and convenient for answering your intentions. – I hope this will be considered as a sufficient apology for the design. For its execution I have less to say. – The subject does not admit of elegance of expression, though I acknowledge the language might have been more correct. It was my wish to have rendered it so, but the various other duties in which I am engaged, would not allow me leisure sufficient for the purpose. – Such as the work is, I hope it will be received with candour, and consulted with advantage.

The eighteenth century wasn’t exactly the heyday of British cuisine, and many of the dishes in Marshall’s book hopefully won’t be making a comeback anytime soon. There are entries on how to make Herring Pudding, Calf’s Foot Jelly, Stewed Turbot’s Head, Eel Pye, and something called “White Soop.”

Inspired by the changing of the seasons, I opted for something a little more autumnal (and less zoological): Rice Apples! The recipe not only looked relatively easy and tasty, but it also presented a rare opportunity to use my apple-corer, a handy but sadly neglected implement in my kitchen that only gets a chance to shine once every couple of years.

Here’s the recipe, which I’ve transcribed below in case it’s difficult to read the old-fashioned ligatures:

Boil a quarter of a pound of rice in three pints of water for a quarter of an hour
Strain off the water, and put to the rice, one pint of milk, one pint of cream, a stick of cinnamon, and lemon skin
Let them boil, and sweeten to your taste
Beat four eggs, leaving out two whites, put them to the rice, and let it stand on a slow fire a little
Keep it stirring till cool
Pare and cut the core out of your apples, put them in a dish well buttered, and strewed over with grated bread and sugar
Fill them with the above mixture, and cover them over with it
Strew it over with bread crumbs and sugar, and bake it a fine brown
Melt butter with sack and sugar, and cover them before they go to table

One thing you immediately notice about eighteenth-century recipes is their lack of helpful specifics. How many apples should you use, and what kind? Should the lemon skin be peeled or grated? (I went with grated.) Exactly how many minutes is “a little”?

Modern cookbooks don’t leave much room for interpretation. They give exact measurements, precise times and temperatures, and sometimes even brand-name ingredients, so that your dish looks and tastes as close as possible like the one in the book.

Not so with Mistress Marshall. Her instructions are more like general guidelines. A little this, a little that. But I actually appreciated that about her style. Cooking is more fun when it’s improvisational and you have to use your own judgment. In keeping with m’lady’s free-spiritedness, I even made a few modifications along the way, whenever I thought they might improve the final result. I’ll describe those here.

The recipe calls for three pints of water to cook the rice. That’s six cups of water, which is way more than you need for less than a cup of rice, and it would take forever to boil. I reduced the water to two cups, which was enough for the rice to absorb without having to strain any off.

I chose small snack-size Golden Delicious apples, the kind you can buy in a bag, instead of the jumbo-sized genetically modified ones you often see in the grocery store. The smaller ones seemed more historically authentic, closer to the size of apples you would probably find two hundred years ago. After coring and peeling the apples, I put them in a bowl of water with a little lemon juice to keep them from browning.

After adding the eggs to the milky rice mixture, you’re supposed to let it stand over low heat for “a little” and stir. I did this for about 15 minutes, until it started to thicken. Then I took it off the burner and stirred periodically for another 15 minutes or so, until it had the consistency of lumpy cottage cheese.

Instead of store-bought breadcrumbs, I bought a baguette and used a food processor to make fresh ones. And before popping the whole thing in the oven, I sprinkled a little ground cinnamon on top for good measure, because cinnamon and apples were made for each other. I think this was a good addition. I used a 350-degree oven and baked the dish for one hour.

The final step of the recipe calls for pouring over the apples a mixture of butter, sugar, and “sack.” I had to look up what sack was. Turns out it was a kind of sweet, fortified white wine from Spain, the forerunner of sherry. I’m not a big sherry fan, but I picked up a cheap golden variety in the wine aisle at the grocery store.

The verdict: Quite delectable, by Jove! The apples were tender and sweet, and the milky-rice-breadcrumb mixture was like an envelope of bread pudding. The sherry added a subtle boozy kick that seemed especially English. I would have no qualms serving this to company, however high or low their station.

Guest post by Aaron Welborn, Director of Communications, Duke University Libraries. Special thanks to Gwen Hawkes (T’16), Library Communications Student Assistant, for her help in researching this recipe and its historical context.

Featured, From Our Collections, Manuscripts, News and Features

Our Fifth Birthday

October 8, 2014 Amy McDonald

Happy birthday to our super blog, which turns five today! We took a quick look at some numbers (although apparently age is more than just that) and found that the blog racked up 54,901 pageviews this year—so thank YOU, dear readers, for coming along with us on our explorations of the Rubenstein Library’s very cool collections (and the very cool people who work with them). We hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as we have!

We went looking for something appropriately celebratory to share, and didn’t have to look farther than the papers of our own Benjamin N. Duke. Isn’t this just about the fanciest birthday party you’ve ever seen?

The photo dates from around 1916 and includes Mr. Duke himself (he’s standing behind the bouquet on the table). It was taken in New York City, at the house next door to Mr. Duke’s own mansion at 1009 Fifth Avenue (2 East 82nd Street, to be exact).

We’re not certain, but we’re wondering if this might be a birthday party for Mr. Duke’s grandson (and future U.S. ambassador), Angier Biddle Duke, who was born in 1915. If only the baby seated at the head of the table on a plump cushion had his head turned toward the camera. . . . If you have any information about the photo, send us an email!

Also, inspired by this photograph, we are thinking of trying to invent the combination piñata-chandelier. If you have any ideas about that, send them to us in an email as well.

Hat tip to Mary Mellon, Technical Services Intern, who found and scanned the photo!

Featured, Students and Interns, University Archives

Thank You, Isobel Craven Drill

October 7, 2014 Amy McDonald

Isobel Craven, ca. 1937. From the 1937 Chanticleer. — Isobel Craven, ca. 1937. From the 1937 *Chanticleer*.

I work each day under a portrait of Braxton Craven, the first president of Trinity College. Braxton and Irene Leach Craven, his wife, were visionaries in forming a degree-granting college out of what had been a tiny schoolhouse. The Craven family has remained involved in Duke University, and last week, we learned that Braxton and Irene’s great-granddaughter, Isobel Craven Young Lewis Drill, had passed away at the age of 98.

Isobel Craven Drill was a woman of astonishing ambition and strength. She graduated from—where else?—Duke in 1937, and married Baxter Clay Young, Jr. in 1939. Widowed with two children in 1960, she took over the Maybelle Transport Company and Buck Young Oil Company. A natural leader, she excelled in running these companies, as well as participating in numerous charities and groups, including the Duke Board of Trustees. She was an exceedingly generous donor to many units of Duke University, and to progressive political causes including civil rights and women’s rights.

Duke University Board of Trustees, 1977. Mrs. Drill is seated second from the left. From the University Archives Photograph Collection.

We in the University Archives will be always grateful for Isobel Craven Drill’s interest in documenting Trinity and Duke history, and her establishment of the Isobel Craven Drill fund, which provides income for the University Archives to use in collecting, processing, describing, preserving, and sharing historical information. Funding from the Drill Endowment helped us publish Duke Illustrated, host events and meetings, purchase special archival supplies, and so much more.

One very special way that we have employed the funds is through the Drill Internship, an internship that allows graduate students to learn about all aspects of institutional archives. I myself was a Drill Intern in 2003 and 2004-2005. The experience was the most important one of my entire education, one which provided me with deep insight into what it means to be the custodian of a cultural heritage institution, especially within a university as complex as Duke University. I received a hands-on education and the opportunity to work with archival professionals on all components of institutional archives. The experience of the Drill Internship is very much what brought me back to Duke in 2011 as University Archivist, and I am proud to continue this legacy of training new professionals.

We asked several of our current and former Drill Interns to comment on the role of the internship in their careers, which reveal the deep and lasting impact of Mrs. Drill’s gift. We send our condolences to her family, and remember, with respect and affection, the woman that University Archivist Emeritus William King called a “Patron Saint of the Archives.”

The Drill Internship gave me the opportunity to work with the incredible collections and caring staff of the Duke University Archives. It was an invaluable experience during the transition between my archival studies and professional work as an archivist. I still appreciate the knowledge, skills, and professional network of colleagues I gained during this internship.

—Jill (Katte) Vermillion, Drill Intern, 2002, and current Education Content Relations Manager, Apple Inc.

Even though I didn’t know Mrs. Drill personally, I will always be grateful to her for the opportunity to be the Drill intern from 2007-2008. Under the guidance of former Duke University Archivist Tim Pyatt, I gained valuable, “real-life” experiences that laid a solid foundation for my first professional position as an archivist. As a Drill intern I also developed a deep appreciation and fondness for Duke history which served me well when I returned to Duke in 2010 to process the Doris Duke Collection. Regardless of where my career takes me in the future I will always remember my beginnings as a Drill intern.

—Mary Samouelian, Drill Intern, 2007-2008, and current Project Processing Archivist, Rubenstein Library

I was the Isobel Craven Drill Intern in the University Archives during the 2008-2009 academic year. Although I never had the opportunity to meet her, I was extremely honored to have been chosen for the internship that bears her name. The internship served as my introduction to the field and provided me with the skills and experience that have propelled my professional career. Perhaps of more importance to me, the internship introduced me to a wonderful group of passionate professionals at Duke that I will forever value as mentors, colleagues, and friends. I will always be grateful for the experience that Isobel Craven Drill’s generosity provided me and many other young professionals.

—Joshua Larkin Rowley, Drill Intern, 2008-2009, and current Reference Archivist, John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History, Rubenstein Library

The internship Mrs. Drill endowed was one of the best opportunities I have had professionally. Her gift has made it possible for graduate students training to be Archivists to get the experience necessary for entry into a challenging, competitive field and job market. Not only did we learn the nuts and bolts of processing, but we got to work with great people and awesome material. The training and experience I received as a Drill Intern helped me land my first professional job out of graduate school. I never got to meet Mrs. Drill but I will be forever thankful for her generosity and the boost it has given me as an early professional.

—Matthew Shangler, Drill Intern, 2009-2010, and current Assistant Archivist, Duke University Medical Center Archives

Just before the internship began I had the opportunity to have lunch with Mrs. Drill, her daughter and a few colleagues in the Biddle Rare Book Room. Getting to spend some time with the family was a truly inspiring kick off to my intern year.

The internship was a huge opportunity that continues to pay off four years later. I honed my archival skills processing collections, fielding reference questions, and even collaborated on an exhibit. Throughout the year I studied university history, got to know the campus through a construction research project, and learned from fabulous colleagues, many of whom I have the good fortune to still work with today.

Early on in my internship, I remember telling a friend (not a librarian or archivist) how much I enjoyed the internship and how happy I was to be taking this new direction in my life. I still feel that way today. Thank you Mrs. Drill, for your generosity and for helping me find such professional happiness.

—Molly Bragg, Drill Intern, 2010-2011, and current Digital Collection Program Manager, Duke University Libraries

The Drill Internship was my first paid job after graduating from library school–I got hired right out of library school and the impact on me was tremendous. Having the opportunity to become immersed in the University Archives at Duke was a formidable experience that provided me with incredible mentors, whose guidance continues to help me personally and professionally. Ms. Drill’s generosity gave me the chance to learn new techniques firsthand, work with amazing archival collections, and become part of a professional community. I count myself very lucky to have benefited from her kindness and support.

—Rosemary K. J. Davis, Drill Intern, 2011-2012 and Samuel French Collection Processing Archivist, Amherst College

My time as the 2012-2013 Drill intern at Duke has been invaluable to my career. As an intern, I was able to get hands-on experience in all aspects of archival work, including curating an exhibit, processing collections, and conducting reference work in the reading room and remotely. The experience was incredibly important to me, and remains the job on my resume that people ask about most frequently. After completing my Drill internship, I worked at Duke for another three months preparing and curating an exhibit on Duke’s 175th anniversary. From there, I was a member of the first cohort of National Digital Stewardship Residents in Washington, DC, working at the National Library of Medicine in their History of Medicine Division. And now, I’m the Digital Librarian at PBS (the Public Broadcasting Service). I still use the skills I honed at Duke daily in my work. None of this would have been possible without Mrs. Drill’s generosity, and I’m so grateful to her for giving me the opportunity to work at Duke in the University Archives.

—Maureen McCormick Harlow, Drill Intern, 2012-2013, and current Digital Librarian, PBS

Mrs. Drill’s generous support of the internship has helped aspiring archivists like me and others before me to put theory into practice as students, offering the chance to immediately apply what are learning in classes. It is one thing to discuss concepts like original order and appraisal in class, and quite another to apply them to real collections! I feel I have learned just as much, if not more, about the profession from my internship as from my coursework. I appreciate the opportunity to learn new skills, gain experience in the many different roles that archivists play, and be surrounded and mentored by the excellent staff in University Archives and the Rubenstein Library, thanks to Mrs. Drill’s gift.

—Jamie Patrick-Burns, Drill Intern, 2014-2015

Post contributed by Valerie Gillispie, Duke University Archivist, with help from our Drill interns!

Featured, From Our Collections, Just for Fun, Rubenstein Library Test Kitchen, Students and Interns, University Archives

Rubenstein Library Test Kitchen: Apple Kuchen

October 3, 2014 Kate Collins 6 Comments

Happy Oktoberfest! To kick off our Rubenstein Library Test Kitchen series, I prepared a recipe to celebrate the German festival, which runs this year from September 20^th to October 10^th.

The Recipe and Duke History

I found a recipe for apple kuchen, or apple cake, in the Ted Minah Papers. The recipe was grouped with a series of recipes apparently intended for Duke’s Woman’s College, [1] ranging from barbecued meatballs to a lemon soufflé pudding. Although a sweet cake, interestingly, the recipe was labeled as a bread recipe rather than a dessert.

The recipe helped me learn more about some of the culinary history at Duke, especially about the influential Theodore W. “Ted” Minah. Minah was the director of Duke University Dining Halls from 1946 to 1974. By his retirement in 1974, Minah had transformed the dining halls at Duke University from a small operation to 12 dining halls serving approximately 15,000 meals each day.

The context for the recipe collection wasn’t clear – the ingredient proportions were for smaller portions, usually 4 to 6 servings. Since it was coming from the collection of the Dining Hall director, I expected the recipe to be scaled to serve large groups of students, but perhaps the recipes were designed for a Woman’s College cookbook? I’ve seen university-related cookbooks in other collections, like the “Culinary Casebooks” in the Duke Law Dames records (possibly a topic for a future “Rubenstein Library Test Kitchen” post!).

Like many older recipes, it was short and to the point – no lengthy descriptions of methods or ingredients to coddle the home cook. I did encounter an interesting culinary term I’d never seen before, but which continues to appear in other archival collections I’m processing: Oleo. Oleo was a common colloquial term used to refer to margarine, whose full name is oleomargarine. I admit that I strayed from the recipe and used butter rather than margarine, but that substitution didn’t seem to hurt the recipe.

The Results

As often happens in the archives, I learned a variety of interesting new facts that I would have never guessed I’d encounter – from the history of the university, to colloquial cooking terms!

Overall, the recipe was perfect for fall – the tart apples, cinnamon, and somewhat unusual cake batter made a tasty seasonal treat. The recipe was easy and quick to make, used common ingredients found in any grocery store, and should appeal to even the pickiest eater.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars!

Stay tuned for more tasty recipes from our collections!

1. The Woman’s College was established at Duke in 1930 as a parallel to Trinity College for men. The Woman’s College fostered a community that allowed for shared university faculty, curriculum, and educational facilities with the men’s college, while giving women an opportunity for leadership through separate student government, social standards committees, and judicial board. The Woman’s College merged with Trinity College in 1972.

Post contributed by Patrick Dollar, Drill Intern, Duke University Archives.

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