Category Archives: From Our Collections

From Our Collections, Just for Fun, Manuscripts

The King’s Letter

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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.

Do Your Research, From Our Collections, University Archives

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.

Events, From Our Collections, Hartman Center

Mad Library

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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.

Archive of Documentary Arts, Events, Exhibits, From Our Collections, Human Rights Archive

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.

Do Your Research, From Our Collections, Manuscripts, News and Features

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!

Events, Exhibits, Franklin Research Center, From Our Collections

“‘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.

From Our Collections, Just for Fun, Rare Books

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!

Bingham Center, Events, From Our Collections

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.)

From Our Collections, Manuscripts, News and Features

A Long and Happy Life

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Reynolds Price in England.

Lines of Life

Various as roads, the lines life takes—
Twisting like the boundaries of lakes.
What we lack here, some god can there increase
With harmonies, amends, enduring peace.

—After Hölderlin

Post contributed by Will Hansen, Assistant Curator of Collections. “Lines of Life” by Reynolds Price. Photo from the Reynolds Price Papers, 1927-2006 and undated, bulk 1956-2006.

Archive of Documentary Arts, Events, Exhibits, From Our Collections, Human Rights Archive

“al margen: Photographs from Latin America and the Caribbean, 2004-2010”

Date: 17 January-1 May 2011
Location and Time: Special Collections Gallery during library hours and 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

al margen (“living on the margin”) is the result of seven years of photography by Petra Barth in fourteen countries of South America, Central America, and the Caribbean. 70 gelatin silver prints are on display in two campus venues: 40 prints at the Frederic Jameson Gallery in Friedl Building on East Campus and 30 prints in the Special Collections Gallery.

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

Barth’s photography aims “to tell stories about the everyday lives of people living on the margin—their struggles and their dreams.” In her own words,

I use a spontaneous, intimate approach to photograph the daily life of individuals. I look for quiet, reflective moments when people are unaware of the camera and my presence, and genuine feeling is conveyed. Pieced together, these moments describe, with extraordinary clarity, the living conditions all across Latin America and the Caribbean, from Haiti’s streets to the suburbs of Nicaragua and El Salvador, and from the favelas of Rio to the victims of the recent tsunami in Concepcíon, Chile.

My photographs reveal moments that are not often depicted because they happen every day. My camera simultaneously captures the unusual in the ordinary and the ordinariness of the unusual. We often see images of devastated landscapes and human suffering in the wake of disastrous events, but that is only one part of life. What happens before, after, and in between these times? Despite struggle, there is also happiness and the ability to move on and create new narratives every day.

al margen is a candid photographic work that attempts to establish documentary photography as an art form as well as a method of communication. I would like to raise awareness about the living conditions of those who are marginalized, but I am also interested in people and the beauty of ordinary life.

Petra Barth’s photographs are part of the Archive of Documentary Arts.

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.

Join us for an opening reception and panel discussion, as well as a gallery tour led by Petra Barth, on Thursday, Feburary 24th from 4:00-6:00 PM in the Frederic Jameson Gallery. Stay tuned to The Devil’s Tale for more details about this event!