Category Archives: From Our Collections

Happy International Women’s Day!

International Women's Day Flier, 1973
This flier is from a 1973 event sponsored by the Atlanta Anti-Imperialist Coalition celebrating International Women’s Day. From the flier: “International Women’s Day dates back over 100 years of struggle to March 8, 1857, when women garment and textile workers went on strike in New York. . . . People have continued to celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8 since 1910.”

Activists have used this holiday to celebrate the achievements of notable women in history as well as to advocate for women’s equality, particularly labor issues such as better child care, maternity leave, and equal pay for equal work.

(The flier is from the Atlanta Lesbian Feminist Alliance Archives, box 14.)

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

An Anonymous Author Unveiled, 125 Years Later

Title Page of The Fall of the Great Republic
Title Page of The Fall of the Great Republic.

It’s not often that we acquire two copies of the same work at the Library.  Sometimes, however, a second copy can have unique characteristics that make it nearly irresistible—as in the case of a copy of The Fall of the Great Republic recently acquired for the Glenn R. Negley Collection of Utopian Literature, which may have solved the 125-year-old mystery of its author’s identity.

A well-known anti-socialist and xenophobic dystopian work published in 1885 and foretelling the demise of the United States, the book was published under the pseudonym Henry Standish Coverdale.   The copy now at Duke seems to establish the author as New Lebanon, N.Y. newspaperman Abner Hitchcock (1851-1936).  The volume comes from his library, bears the ownership signature “Hitchcock,” and includes a penciled note in the rear, dated from August 1924, stating that “Authorship [was] kept a complete secret.”

The specially-bound volume contains clippings and reviews of the work from across East and parts of the Midwest, including a suspiciously positive review from the Boston Journal, a paper for which Hitchcock wrote.   Of the various reviews, the owner has written in the volume: “The most striking thing about it is in the illustration the pasted-in comments give of the impression it made on different readers. – One sees in me an ass, and one a prophet. I suspect there is some basis for both judgements.”

Clippings pasted into The Fall of the Great Republic
Clippings pasted into The Fall of the Great Republic.

The volume was discovered by a bookseller cleaning out of the attic of the Hitchcock House in New Lebanon, now a bed-and-breakfast inn.  It has now found its permanent home at Duke, where it will remain a one-of-a-kind resource for future generations of scholars.

Special thanks to Garrett Scott for permission to quote from his description of this item.

Post contributed by Will Hansen, Assistant Curator of Collections.

The King’s Letter

The King’s Speech, the film dramatizing King George VI’s efforts to conquer his stutter, is thrilling cinephiles, history buffs, and Colin Firth admirers. On Sunday, the film received four Oscars: Best Picture, Best Actor in a Leading Role (Firth), Best Directing (Tom Hooper), and Best Original Screenplay (David Seidler). It was nominated for an additional eight Oscars, making it the most-nominated film this year.

Our Herbert Henry Asquith Papers contain letters written to this former Prime Minister and his second wife, Emma, by George VI’s father, King George V (played in the film by Michael Gambon), and brother, Prince George, the Duke of Kent. We’d like to share a letter from King George V to Emma Asquith, written from perhaps one of the more recognizable home addresses in the RBMSCL’s collections.

George V Letter, page one

George V Letter, page two

Post contributed by Elizabeth Dunn, Research Services Librarian. With special thanks to Sam Hammond, Original Cataloger of Rare Materials.

You Can’t Take It with You

Wallace Fowlie in 1968.
Wallace Fowlie in 1968. From the University Archives Photograph Collection.

“Cleaning my apartment,” wrote Wallace Fowlie (1908-1998) in his memoir Aubade, “means discarding each week an object, a book, and even a notebook that has served its purpose.” In other words, the influential Duke faculty member destroyed many of his own manuscripts.

Still, something of Fowlie’s archive was recovered from his Durham home at Valley Terrace Apartments and survives in the Wallace Fowlie Papers, a modest collection of his correspondence and later manuscripts.

Fowlie arrived in Durham in 1964 and taught French literature at Duke until his death in 1998; he was named the James B. Duke Professor of French in 1968. Fowlie is best known for his critical readings and translations of Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Cocteau, and other French writers.

The Wallace Fowlie Papers include highlights from his correspondence, such as letters from Jean Cocteau, Anaïs Nin, and other important literary figures.

Letter from Jean Cocteau to Wallace Fowlie, 1957. From the Wallace Fowlie Papers.
Letter from Jean Cocteau to Wallace Fowlie, 1957. From the Wallace Fowlie Papers.

Two spiral notebooks—apparently the only notebooks not discarded by the self-described “eccentric” scholar—contain Fowlie’s notes on Marcel Proust, Dante, and other writers. Most notable, perhaps, is Fowlie’s personal reminiscence of his relationship with the novelist Henry Miller.

For further details about the Wallace Fowlie Papers, consult the collection’s finding aid or contact RBMSCL staff.

Post contributed by David Pavelich, Head of Research Services.

Mad Library

Are you a Mad Men fan? Do you like ’60s themed parties? Then come on out to the Mad Men & Mad Women library party on February 25th from 9PM-12AM!

Mad Men & Mad Women Party LogoThe party will highlight the best of the Duke Marketing Club and the Perkins-Bostock library, with special emphasis on the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising, and Marketing History. It’s open to the whole Duke community and faculty and staff are encouraged to attend.

I’m Tammy Leung, a junior at Duke and decorations chair for the upcoming party, and I am delighted to have used the Competitive Ads Collection provided by the Hartman Center for a majority of the party’s decorations.

Gilbey's Gin Ad
Gilbey's Gin Advertisement. From the Competitive Ads Collection.

In the past few months, I frequented the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library searching for vintage ads to use as decorations for the party. Going through dozens of boxes of newspaper and magazine ads arranged by product category, I discovered a plethora of ads for the occasion. The ads ranged from funny, classy, unique, and sometimes strange (some of the things they made with Jell-O back in the day are downright disgusting) and gave me unexpectedly great insight into life during the ’60s. The ads I picked out for the party ultimately gives guests a similar glimpse of the ’60s, touching upon sexism, dietary habits, fashion, technology, and mindset during the time.

Without the Hartman Center, the content for our party would’ve been extremely lackluster and I would’ve never been aware of such a rich resource here on campus. I hope that other students will also take advantage of this resource after seeing all of the vintage ads at the party.

Opening Reception for “al margen”

Date: 24 Feburary 2011
Time: 4:00 PM
Location: Frederic Jameson Gallery, Friedl Building
Contact Information: Karen Glynn, 919-660-5968 or karen.glynn(at)duke.edu, or Patrick Stawski, 919-660-5823 or patrick.stawski(at)duke.edu

Patagonia, Argentina, April 2010
Patagonia, Argentina, April 2010

Join photographer Petra Barth, the Archive of Documentary Arts, and the Archive for Human Rights for an opening reception celebrating “al margen.”

The reception will include a panel discussion on issues of poverty, marginalization, environmental degradation, and responses to disaster and crisis in Latin America and the Caribbean. Panelists will include Dennis Clements, Erika Weinthal, and Sandy Smith-Nonini.

Following the discussion, Barth will lead a gallery tour.

“al margen” was organized by the Archive of Documentary Arts and the Archive for Human Rights. The exhibit is sponsored by the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, the Program in Latino/a Studies in the Global South, the Department of Cultural Anthropology, International Comparative Studies, and the Duke Human Rights Center.

Mystery Solved!

A few months ago, UNC-Chapel Hill graduate student Adam Domby spent a morning at the RBMSCL studying several of our manuscripts collections, including a heretofore unidentified North Carolina farm woman’s diary. “You know,” he said as he prepared to leave, “I think I could figure out who wrote that diary.”

Read the full story in the most recent issue of the Duke University Libraries Magazine!

“‘Brave Deeds Are Proudly Spoken of’: African American Military Service”

Date: 1 February-1 May 2011
Location and time: Rare Book Room cases during library hours
Contact information: Jennifer Thompson, 919-660-5922 or jennifer2.thompson(at)duke.edu

Colored tintype of a Civil War soldier, ca. 1860s. From the Picture File, 1600-1979.

African Americans have had an important, if not always publicized, role in every American war. Our new exhibit, “‘Brave Deeds Are Proudly Spoken of’: African American Military Service,” explores some of the ways in which the stories of these men and women have been recorded and asks the question, “How should this story be told for future generations?”

During the wars of the 18th and 19th centuries, many African Americans sought to gain freedom by enlisting in the military, which they believed would eventually ensure them rights and privileges as American citizens. In the conflicts of the 20th century, African Americans fought bravely to defend their nation abroad only to return home to discrimination and segregation. On display are artifacts, documents, photographs, and printed material that reveal these struggles and triumphs of African Americans in the U.S. military.

This exhibit highlights one of the collecting interests of the John Hope Franklin Research Center, which is currently celebrating its 15th anniversary.

Post contributed by Jennifer Thompson, John Hope Franklin Research Center Librarian.

Choose Your Own Adventure: High Seas

You are the captain of a ship bound for Carolina. As you near the coastline, your normally brave crew begins to mutter about treacherous waters—and possible mutiny.

What do you decide to do?

Onward! The sea is no place for cowards!

Turn around and head for safe harbor!

(Details from A New Discription [sic] of Carolina, ca. 1671.)

Should you be lucky enough to make it to land, our friends at Preservation Underground reveal the terrors that await you!

On Feminist Artists, Activists, and Archivists

Date: Wednesday, 26 January 2011
Time: 3:00-4:00pm
Location: Rare Book Room
Contact Information: Kelly Wooten, 919-660-5967 or kelly.wooten(at)duke.edu

Fond by Kate Eichhorn

Kate Eichhorn, Assistant Professor of Culture and Media at The New School and Mary Lily Research Grant recipient, will speak during her research visit to use the zine collections at the Bingham Center.

Based on over fifteen years of ethnographic and archival research, Dr. Eichhorn’s talk, “Feminist Artists, Activists, and Archivists: Redefining Feminism through the Archive since 1990,” will examine how and why young feminist artists, activists, archivists, and librarians adopted the archive and library as sites of feminist activism in the early 1990s—a period when many established feminist institutions, including presses and bookstores, were collapsing under the pressure of neoliberal restructuring. Her talk will bebased on her book-length project, The Order of Resistance: Redefining Feminism through the Archive, 1990-2010.

(Details about Kate Eichhorn’s 2008 book of poetry, Fond, are available on her website.)