Category Archives: Do Your Research

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.

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.

$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!

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.

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.

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.

2010-2011 Mary Lily Research Grants Awarded

Duke University cheerleaderThe Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture is pleased to announce the recipients of this year’s Mary Lily Research Grants. These grants allow scholars to travel to Durham to conduct research using the Bingham Center’s collections.

  • Katie Anania, Art History, University of Texas-Austin, for dissertation research on the rise of feminism as a framework for evaluating contemporary art.
  • Lori A. Brown, Architecture, Syracuse University, for research for a book examining the relationships between space, abortion, and issues of access.
  • Kate Eichhorn, Culture and Media Studies, The New School, for research comparing zines and scrapbooks as archival collections of ephemera.
  • Julie Enszer, Women’s Studies, University of Maryland, for an examination of lesbian-feminist print culture in Durham, NC, 1969-1989 as part of a historical narrative of lesbian-feminist publishing.
  • Karen Garner, Historical Studies, SUNY Empire State College, for an examination of U.S. global gender policy in the 1990s.
  • Rebecca N. Mitchell, English, University of Texas – Pan American, for research for an article examining the proto-feminist aspects and eroticism of Victorian mourning attire.
  • Michelle Moravec, History and Women’s Studies, Rosemont College, for research on feminist art activism as a U.S. social movement, 1967-1991.
  • Whitney Strub, Women’s Studies and American Studies, Temple University, for research for a book examining the relationships between queer sexuality, LGBT activism, and antigay activity in post-WWII United States.

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.

Q & A with Andrew Kahrl

Tomorrow, the Franklin Research Center will host Dr. Andrew Kahrl, who will present”Losing the Land: African American Ownership of Coastal Property.” We asked him a few questions in anticipation of his talk, which is based on his research in our Behind the Veil oral histories collection.

Q: Could you give us a preview of your talk?

Andrew: I’m going to trace the history of African American coastal land ownership from the late 19th century to the present in order to better understand the relationship between race and real estate development in the making of the modern Sunbelt South and the long civil rights movement.

I plan to discuss the rise of coastal black landownership in the post-emancipation era; African Americans’ economic and emotional investment in coastal property and leisure space under Jim Crow; and the impact of changes to the region’s political economy on black landownership and notions of land-based empowerment. I’ll highlight some of the more revealing interviews in the Behind the Veil collection that speak to the struggle of African Americans to acquire and defend coastal property under Jim Crow and the role of black-owned leisure spaces in shaping class and culture behind and along the color line, as well as the various strategies of expropriation black coastal landowners faced—and continue to face—at the hands of real estate developers, the courts, and public officials from the 1970s to the present.

Overall, I hope to use the story of African American beachfront property to offer new insights into the intertwined stories of Jim Crow, civil rights, and the making of the Sunbelt, and to stimulate discussions on the spatiality of race, wealth, and privilege in modern America.

Q: Tell us more about your research in the Behind the Veil oral histories. Have you made any surprising discoveries?

Andrew: I have made some fascinating discoveries in the Behind the Veil collection. Two years ago, I listened to a small sampling of interviews conducted with residents of coastal cities. Interviewees recounted stories of the places that are the subject of my research that I simply could not have found elsewhere, and offered clues to the hidden history of places and cases of land acquisition and expropriation that led me to pursue other records and, in the end, make fascinating discoveries. In particular, their personal stories of the different strategies real estate developers and their allies in public office employed to seize valuable, black-owned coastal property have helped me piece together a broader set of land-use practices and legal strategies that transformed America’s coastlines in the second half of the 20th century.

The Behind the Veil Collection offers rich and moving stories of African Americans’ struggles to carve out spaces for pleasure and relief under Jim Crow, and reinforces, in my mind, the importance of land ownership in the black freedom struggle and the impact of African Americans’ steady loss of land in recent decades on relations of political and economic power in the South and the nation.

Thanks, Andrew!

“Losing the Land” with Andrew Kahrl

Date: Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Time: 3:00 PM
Location: Rare Book Room
Contact Information: Janie Morris, 919-660-5819 or janie.morris(at)duke.edu

From the Davis Family Papers.

Dr. Andrew Kahrl will discuss the rise and demise of black beaches and coastal property ownership from the early 20th century to the present. Kahrl’s talk, titled “Losing the Land: African American Ownership of Coastal Property,” is based in part on his findings in the Behind the Veil oral history collection at the RBMSCL.

This event is part of the celebration of the 15th anniversary of the RBMSCL’s John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture.

Kahrl is assistant professor of history at Marquette University and a former fellow at the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation/American Council of Learned Societies.

Historical Photography Display

Dates and Times: Wednesday, 27 January 2010, 1:00-5:00 PM and Thursday, 28 January 2010, 9:00 AM-5:00 PM
Location: Rare Book Room
Contact Information: Karen Glynn, 919-660-5968 or karen.glynn(at)duke.edu

Unidentified man wearing a blue tie. Quarter-plate tintype, ca. 1850s. From the Jarratt-Puryear Family Papers.
Unidentified man wearing a blue tie. Quarter-plate tintype, ca. 1850s. From the Jarratt-Puryear Family Papers.

The Archive of Documentary Arts‘ annual display showcases the numerous formats that document the evolution of the photographic process from early daguerreotypes to modern digital prints. The display will include photographs by Mathew Brady, Timothy O’Sullivan, Edward Curtis, Doris Ulmann, Eudora Welty, Lewis Hine, Manual Alvarez Bravo, Minor White, and Walker Evans.

Please note that the display is open by appointment only during the hours noted above. Contact Karen Glynn (919-660-5968 or karen.glynn(at)duke.edu) to schedule your appointment.

Unable to visit the display? Over 100 images from the archive’s collection have been reproduced in Beyond Beauty: The Archive of Documentary Arts at Duke University. This full-color, 128-page publication is our gift to you with a $50 minimum donation to the archive (donation form here).