Category Archives: Do Your Research

Do Your Research, Events, Franklin Research Center, Readings and Talks, Travel Grants

Networks for Freedom

Date: Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Time: 3:30 PM
Location: Rare Book Room
Contact Information: Amy McDonald, 919-681-7987 or amy.mcdonald(at)duke.edu

1862 broadside.

Join the staff of the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture for a program with historian Deborah Lee, recipient of a 2010-2011 Franklin Research Center travel grant.

Dr. Lee’s research traces the networks of anti-slavery activists that operated between 1810 and 1865 in the upper Potomac River basin. As Dr. Lee writes, “these white and black anti-slavery men and women used sophisticated peaceful means—persuasion, law, philanthropy, colonization, and the underground railroad—to help thousands of individual bondspeople obtain freedom, fray the institution of slavery locally, and advance the movement nationally.”

Dr. Lee’s visit to the RBMSCL will allow her to examine a number of our 19th century manuscript collections, including the Rankin-Parker Papers, the John Rutherfoord Papers, and the Funkhouser Family Papers.

Light refreshments will be served.

Archive of Documentary Arts, Do Your Research, From Our Collections, Manuscripts, New Finding Aids, Technical Stuff

Hot New Finding Aids!

Is the heat wave getting to be too much to bear? Head on over to the RBMSCL and do some research in our cool reading room!

Full Frame Festival Program, 2007. From the Full Frame Archive Film Collection.

Full Frame Archive Film Collection, 1998-2010

The largest film festival in the United States entirely devoted to documentary film, the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival has been an annual highlight of Durham’s cultural scene since 1998.

In 2007, Duke University Libraries and Full Frame, with support from Eastman Kodak and Alpha Cine Labs in Seattle, announced the creation of the Full Frame Archive, to be housed at the RBMSCL, with the aim of acquiring, archiving, and preserving copies of all of the Festival’s award-winning films. The Full Frame Archive Film Collection comprises preservation masters of documentary films that won awards at the Full Frame Film Festival between 1998 and 2010. Each year’s festival will bring new additions to the collection!

Confederate States of America Collection, 1850-1876

One of our older collections has a brand new finding aid. This perennially-popular collection includes a wide variety of records from the administrative bodies within the Confederate States of America, including original and typed copies of acts and statutes of the C.S.A. Congress, Army soldiers’ correspondence and papers of several Army units, and records from the Treasury Department. There might even be a clue about the lost Confederate gold!

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

Commercials in the Classroom

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxFv29qzEGc]

How have TV commercials changed over time? The answer to part of that question is found in this video about AdViews. Five Duke undergraduates discuss their small group project using commercials found in AdViews as primary sources for a fall 2009 Markets & Management Studies class taught by George Grody.

Using AdViews, the students compared a number of historic 1960s and 1970s commercials with corresponding ones from today. The students analyzed commercials for Hardees, Schick, Bounce, Pledge, and perfume, finding both interesting similarities and drastic contrasts that reflect the branding strategies of each time period.

AdViews, a digital archive of over 8,000 vintage television commercials dating from the 1950s to the 1980s, is one of the newest resources available from the Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History.

The Hartman Center collects and provides access to commercials, print ads, books, and other documents chronicling the advertising and marketing of products from the mid 19th century to the present. Our staff also provides targeted presentations to a wide range of classes each semester, helping to integrate primary source material into subjects ranging from Anthropology to History to Visual Studies, and most anything in between. Students are able to discover not only how TV commercials have changed, but how advertising tracks the evolution of not only the ad industry but also of society itself.

If you are interested in learning more about AdViews, classroom presentations, or research assistance, please contact the Hartman Center Reference Archivist at hartman-center(at)duke.edu or 919-660-5827.

Post contributed by Lynn Eaton, Hartman Center Reference Archivist.

Bingham Center, Do Your Research, Events, Readings and Talks, Travel Grants

Drawing Feminism

Date: Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Time: 3:30 PM
Location: Rare Book Room
Contact Information: Kelly Wooten, 919-660-5967 or kelly.wooten(at)duke.edu

Detail of portrait of Irene Peslikis by Alice Neel. From the Irene Peslikis Papers.

The summer research project season is in full swing!

Next Tuesday, Katie Anania, graduate student in Art History at the University of Texas-Austin and recipient of a Mary Lily Research Grant, will discuss her research on the feminist adoption of drawing as an intimate means of artistic expression.

Anania’s research at the RBMSCL has focused on the Irene Peslikis Papers and the Kate Millett Papers.

Light refreshments will be served.

For more about feminism and art, visit “Stretching the Canvas: Women Exploring the Arts” and “The Feminist Art Movement, 1970s-1980s,” online versions of two exhibits prepared for the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture‘s 2007 symposium, Neither Model Nor Muse: Women and Artistic Expression.

Bingham Center, Do Your Research, Events, Readings and Talks, Travel Grants

Global Women, Local Women

Date: Thursday, June 10, 2010
Time: 3:00 PM
Location: Rare Book Room
Contact Information: Kelly Wooten, 919-660-5967 or kelly.wooten(at)duke.edu

Please join us for a program featuring Mary Lily Research Grant recipients Karen Garner and Lori Brown.

Karen Garner, Assistant Professor of Historical Studies at SUNY Empire State College, will discuss her research on U.S. global gender policy in the 1990s using the Sisterhood is Global Institute Records, Robin Morgan Papers, and Robin Chandler Duke Papers.

Lori Brown, Associate Professor of Architecture at Syracuse University, will also present her examination of relationships between space, abortion, and issues of access to reproductive health services based on research using our women’s health clinic records.

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.

Bingham Center, Do Your Research, Events, Readings and Talks, Travel Grants

Black Petticoats and Bold Protests

Date: Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Time: 3:00 PM
Location: Rare Book Room
Contact Information: Kelly Wooten, 919-660-5967 or kelly.wooten(at)duke.edu

The first Staff & Scholars Tea of the summer, hosted by the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture, will feature Mary Lily Research Grant recipients Rebecca Mitchell and Michelle Moravec.

Rebecca Mitchell will present her findings on the proto-feminist aspects and eroticism of Victorian mourning attire. Mitchell is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Texas-Pan American.

Michelle Moravec will speak about feminist art activism as a U.S. social movement. Moravec is Assistant Professor of History and Women’s Studies at Rosemont College.

These two diverse topics will be sure to spark a lively conversation! Light refreshments will be served.

For more about other happenings at the Bingham Center, check out the latest issue of the center’s newsletter!

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

Do Your Research, News and Features

$999.99 More Than a Penny for Your Thoughts

Just think how many loads of laundry you could do or how many cases of . . . soda you could buy with $1,000.

If you, like the gentlemen on the left, have pored over RBMSCL manuscripts, books, broadsides, maps, etc. (with or without a magnifying glass) and turned your brilliant discoveries into a brilliant paper, why not submit it for a chance to receive one of two Chester P. Middlesworth Awards?

The two awards, one for an undergraduate and one for a graduate student, each carry a cash prize of $1000.00. The awards will be given at a reception held during Parents’ and Family Weekend (October 22-24, 2010).

Click here for our post about last year’s happy recipients!

A few stipulations:

  • Your paper must have been prepared to meet requirements of a course in any academic department at Duke University or of an independent study project for credit at Duke University.
  • Your paper must be based largely or wholly on sources in the RBMSCL.

Oh, and the deadline for submissions is Saturday, May 15th!

Do Your Research, Franklin Research Center, News and Features, Travel Grants

2010-2011 Franklin Research Center Travel Grants Awarded

John Hope Franklin. From the John Hope Franklin Papers.

The John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture is pleased to announce the recipients of this year’s travel grants. These grants allow scholars to travel to Durham to conduct research using the Franklin Research Center’s collections.

  • Shanna G. Benjamin, Department of English, Grinnell College, for work on a biography of the late Nellie Y. McKay, Bascom Professor of English and Afro-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
  • Derek Charles Catsam, Department of History, University of Texas of the Permian Basin, for a chronicle of the events of 1985 in South Africa, a tumultuous year in that country’s history.
  • Jametta Davis, Department of History, Howard University, for research for her dissertation detailing the effects of New Deal policies and programs on African American women.
  • Jacob S. Dorman, Department of History, University of Kansas, for an examination of the formation and development of black Jewish religions in the past 45 years.
  • Elizabeth Herbin, Department of History, St. John’s University, for an analysis of racial conflicts and segregation among small Southern farmers from 1900 to 1945.
  • Karen Kossie-Chernyshev, Department of History, Geography, and Economics, Texas Southern University, for an account of “boomerang migration”: the return of African American Southerners from their new homes in the North to participate in social and political uplift activities during the Jim Crow era.
  • Deborah Lee, independent scholar, for a study tracing the networks of anti-slavery activists in the Potomac River basin from 1810 to 1870.
  • Joseph Moore, Department of History, University of North Carolina at Greensboro,for research on the 1850 trial of George Grier, an enslaved South Carolina man, for seditious speech, with emphasis on an exploration of the community of Abbeville County, South Carolina.

Watch The Devil’s Tale for news about upcoming discussions with several of the travel grant recipients from the Bingham, Hartman, and Franklin Research Centers.

Do Your Research, Hartman Center, News and Features, Travel Grants

2010 Hartman Center Travel Grants Awarded

The John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History is pleased to announce the recipients of this year’s Hartman Center Travel Grants. These grants allow scholars to travel to Durham to conduct research using the Hartman Center’s collections.

JWT Fellows:

  • Ferdinando Fasce: Department of Modern and Contemporary History, University of Genoa
    “JWT Italy between Reconstruction and the First Oil Shock, from the late 1940s through the 1970s”
  • Eva von Wyl: Social and Economic History, University of Zurich
    “Rationalization, Self-Service and American Way of Life: American Eating Habits in Postwar Switzerland (1950-1970)”

Faculty Recipients:

  • Shannan Clark: Department of History, Montclair State University
    “The Creative Class: White-Collar Workers and the Making of America’s Culture of Consumer Capitalism”
  • Liza Featherstone: Journalism School, New York University; School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
    “Behind The Mirror: Focus Groups and What They Reveal, 1930s to present”
  • Michelle Ferranti: Division of Fine and Performing Arts, Marymont Manhattan College
    “History of Women’s Motivations for Douching following the Medicalization of Birth Control in the U.S.”
  • Ann McDonald: Department of Art Design, Northeastern University
    “The Role of Publically Displayed Information Visualization in Eliciting Individual and Communal Action”
  • Ari Martin Samsky: Global Health Studies Program, University of Iowa
    “Working Through Responsibility: Advertising, Medicine and The Social Good, World War II-the Present”

Student Recipients:

  • Abby Bartholomew: College of Journalism and Mass Communications, Advertising Department, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
    “JWT’s Application of Psychological Principles to Advertising, the Work of John B. Watson and his Behaviorist Theories”
  • Rebecca Burditt: Program in Visual and Cultural Studies, Department of Art and Art History, University of Rochester
    “Seeing Difference: Postwar Hollywood and the Commercial Delay”
  • Berti Kolbow: Institute for Economic and Social History, Georgia Augusta University Goettingen
    “Transatlantic Transfers of Marketing Concepts between Eastman Kodak and Agfa, 1880-1945”
  • Shawn Moura: Department of History, University of Maryland
    “Target Market Brazil: Postwar Advertising and Consumer Culture in the Country of the Future”
  • Cory Pillen: Department of Art History, University of Wisconsin-Madison
    “WPA Posters: A New Deal for Design, 1936-1943”
  • Elizabeth Spies: Department of English, University of California, Riverside
    “Advertising Stigmatas: The Evolution of Poetic Advertising throughout the Twentieth Century, 1890-1980”

Watch The Devil’s Tale for news about upcoming discussions with several of the travel grant recipients from the Hartman, Bingham, and Franklin Research Centers.

Do Your Research, From Our Collections, Manuscripts, New Finding Aids, Technical Stuff

April Showers Bring New Finding Aids!

Our technical services archivists have created a veritable deluge of new finding aids for some of our older collections. All of the following collections are open for research. Please contact the Special Collections Library at special-collections(at)duke.edu with any questions.

Japanese Matchbox Label Collection, circa 1910

400 vividly-colored Japanese matchbox labels are mounted in a contemporary paper album and housed in a custom-made cloth box. Unfortunately, the name of the person who created this marvelous collection is unknown.

Ann Atwater Interviews, 2006

Master and use copies of Jeff Storer’s oral interviews with Ann Atwater, an African-American civil rights activist based in Durham regarding her friendship with Ku Klux Klan leader C. P. Ellis.

Montrose Jonas Moses Papers, 1789-1960

The papers of this drama critic, journalist, and author of works on American and European drama and on children’s literature includes correspondence with giants of the turn-of-the-20th-century theater, including Eugene O’Neill, Percival Wilde, David Belasco, and Margaret Anglin.

Thomas Lee Settle Papers, 1795-1949

The papers of this Virginia surgeon, said to have pronounced the death of abolitionist John Brown, shed light on the practice of medicine in the 19th century. Of particular interest are documents detailing Settle’s own medical service for the 11th Virginia Cavalry.