Post contributed by Meredith Mobley, University Archives Intern for Student Engagement
In the early months of 1931, the students of Duke’s East Campus, at the time the home of the Woman’s College, decided they would begin publishing their own literary magazine. It would be called “Distaff,” a nod to their understanding of the creative, traditional work of women. The literal definition of distaff is “a staff for holding the flax, tow, or wool in spinning,” (Merriam-Webster) but more colloquially refers to domestic, “women’s” work. The new magazine was announced in the Chronicle on January 14th, 1931. The first issue of the bi-monthly literary magazine would be released in March 1931, but not without pushback. The student publications board, which at the time consisted of members from the three student publications (the Archive, the Chanticleer, and the Chronicle), in addition to faculty members and two representatives from the woman’s student government, sought out an explanation. Backed by Dean Wannamaker, the board was charged with regulating the publishing activities of the student body, requiring each potential publication to obtain permission from them to gain legitimacy and the “go-ahead” to put their work into print.
WSGA Publication Board Petition, 1934
Despite support from faculty in the Woman’s College, Distaff did not gain the proper permissions from the publication board prior to announcing their first issue. Distaff’s goal as a publication was to give editorial experience to women, at a time when the field was almost entirely male dominated. In the editorial note of the March 1931 issue, Distaff’s editorial team stated “It has been customary in all organizations in which both the men and women have a part for the men to hold the responsible positions[…] This has been especially true in the line of publications where the positions which women have been allowed to hold have been designated. These positions have always been minor and lacking in responsibility. It is the purpose of this magazine not only to create a medium through which the women students of the University may express themselves more freely than a publication edited by the men, but also that they may learn something of the responsibility of editing” (11). Prior to the founding of Distaff, there was also a push by the Woman’s Student Government Association (WSGA) to obtain more representation on the Undergraduate Publications Board, and effort which was successful (Alice Mary Baldwin Papers Box 12).
Distaff 1991 cover
Distaff 1991 Preface
Although the publications board claimed to be in support of Distaff, they expressed their concerns in a way that subtly cast doubt on the capabilities of the women to run their own publication and make sound business decisions. Despite these hurdles, Distaff began its publishing tenure in 1931, and made sure to address the concerns of the publishing board in their editorial note, saying, “The present may seem an unwise time to some to begin such an undertaking as the bringing out of a magazine; yet, it seems to us that the best policy is to fill a need at the present while there is need plus enthusiasm, rather than to divert the enthusiasm into other channels until business conditions are better” (11-12). This run continued until 1934, when the magazine reached a stopping point, due to lack of interest from contributors and advertisers (WSGA Records, Box 1). For 70 years, Distaff did not release a new edition, but in 1991, Distaff started up again. This revival, however, only lasted until 1993, when the magazine again went dormant. On the second run of Distaff, the goal of the editorial team was slightly altered. Instead of focusing exclusively on the creative outputs of women students, they also wanted Distaff to be a space for anyone whose voice was suppressed and not being adequately platformed elsewhere (Vol. 5, No. 1, pg. 2).
Women’s literary publications have been a popular source of student and cultural engagement at Duke. Since the late 1990s, several magazines have been published with the support of the Duke Women’s Center as well as the Center for Sexuality and Gender Diversity, two of which include Womyn and Muse. Distaff being the first publication to center the experiences and creativity of women students may have contributed to the successes of these future publications.
If you’re interested in learning more about student publishing at Duke, be sure to stop by the Sperling Case (outside the Biddle Suite) to see “Power of the Press: Student Publications in Duke University Archives,” which will be on display until August 2026. The exhibit highlights publications from student groups throughout different time periods and provides an introduction to the world of politics behind student publishing.
Looking for a place to store your student group’s records, your cloud storage is filling up, or you want your group’s legacy to be documented? Donate your group’s records to the University Archives! To learn more about the student archiving initiative, visit this LibGuide, or email AskRL@duke.edu.
Post contributed by Meredith Mobley, University Archives Intern for Student Engagement.
Duke’s University Archives (UA) houses many endlessly interesting artifacts from the history of the University. The collection that houses these materials, the Artifacts and Relics collection, contains everything from rolling pins and trowels to ESP testing cards and boxers with the library’s logo printed on them. As part of my role as UA Intern for Student Engagement, I interact with these and similar materials on a daily basis, but this collection in particular never ceases to pique my curiosity and send me tumbling down a rabbit hole.
These past few weeks I’ve been intrigued by a specific locket in Box 13 of this collection. The Artifacts and Relics collection contains a fair amount of jewelry, mostly having to do with student organizations, such as Tombs (an athletic honor society)
or various Greek letter organizations. The locket that I am writing about, though, seems to be a personal commemorative piece, perhaps meant to celebrate a person’s class and graduation from Trinity College, the predecessor to Duke University. The locket prominently features a woman with bat ears and bat wings, exemplifying the popular art nouveau style of the early 1900s. On the back of the locket the following is engraved: “Trinity June 1903.” Inside the locket a four-leaf clover has been lovingly placed.
Front of Locket
Back of Locket
Many of the objects in the Artifacts and Relics collection were collected by individuals or other organizations before being passed on to the University Archives. Documentation by these parties may not detail the history of the item or who donated it. This means that their histories are blurry, and we rarely have detailed information about who originally owned them or the story of their creation. This locket is no different. All the information that is available is found on the envelope that the locket is stored in, which reads, “Trinity College Archives, Locket, June 1903, Source unknown.”
I decided to try to find out more about the locket itself. Was it purchased from a local jeweler? There are ads for local jewelers in college publications from the time, could this be a piece they sold? I imagine a student in their senior year at Trinity, meandering down Main St. and seeing the locket displayed in a window, instantly enamored. Are there more of these lockets out there, or is it one of a kind? My search commenced by looking through online catalogs and finding aids of other nearby institutions’ university archives. Looking for something so exact, though, is a “needle in a haystack” endeavor. I was unable to find anything of note — no lockets to be found at all! It was time for some help from a colleague. Together, we reverse image searched the locket and found that it was indeed mass produced, but that the locket in our collections had been made unique through after-market add-ons. On the front of the locket, almost appearing to be held by the Bat-Woman,
is an equal armed cross with “T” in the middle, surrounded by engraved alpha and omega letters. The back features the previously mentioned engraving. The locket was made by Unger Brothers, who are most famous for their art nouveau silver sterling jewelry and utensils, produced in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
There are some things we likely will never know about this locket. Was it a graduation gift from the owner’s family? Part of a student organization’s welcome to new members? What was the experience of this student at Trinity College? Are there more of these out there, still being cherished by families? The life of whoever cherished this locket remains unknown. I think that is part of what makes the objects in the Artifacts and Relics collection so entrancing – their material histories are definite and simultaneously unknown to the viewer. They are physical embodiments of the personal experiences of those who studied and worked at Duke, yet the experiences that made many of these objects dear enough to survive until this point are “fogged over” to our present eyes. Imaginations (and potential research questions) flow abundantly.
If you are interested in learning more about how student records are preserved in the University Archives, please reach out to AskRL@duke.edu! Documenting the impact that students and student organizations have on Duke University is integral to the mission of the University Archives. More information about sharing student group records with the University Archives can be found here.
Citations
Trinity College Locket (front), 1903, Box 13, Artifacts and Relics collection, Duke University Archives, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.
Trinity College Locket (back), 1903, Box 13, Artifacts and Relics collection, Duke University Archives, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.
The Corinthian Poster, 1974, Box 1, University Archives Poster Collection, Duke
Post contributed by Meredith Mobley, University Archives Intern for Student Engagement.
In February of 1974, the Duke Players, who were founded as an independent student theater group in 1931, brought to Durham the premiere of a new, world-class production: The Corinthian. The new play was based on the myth of Oedipus: the age-old tale of a man who murders his father and marries his mother. In the newspaper Durham Sun, Philip Lawrence, the author and director of the play, called it “a complete and new play” — instead of adapting Sophocles’ existing work, he aimed to create an entirely new work that prioritized the themes of the myth rather than the dialogue and directions provided by Sophocles millennia ago.
The play starred two professional Broadway actors, John Callum (Oedipus) and Laura Stuart (Jocasta), with a supporting cast made of local and student talent. News of the play’s premiere was met with much fanfare across the Triangle, but the Players worried as ticket sales failed to meet their expectations and opening night crept closer. But audiences flocked to the production, intrigued by the investment that Duke Administration had made by supporting external, professional talent. Local reviewers noted that a standing ovation was received on opening night, but they themselves were reluctant to give the same praise to the play. In The Chronicle on February 28, 1974, Sally Austen Tom made the evaluation that The Corinthian was a “fine production of a flawed play.” She added that “Its faults, however, do not make the original goals, to have a world premiere of a play at Duke, and to undertake a large Page production, any less exciting or any less laudable.”
The Corinthian Program, 1974, Box 1, University Archives Poster Collection
The Corinthian was the first time in Duke’s history that a world premiere was held on campus. Since then, student written plays, in addition to classics and emerging works, are given by the Players. The Duke Players, through their commitment to artistry and pursuit of good theater, helped to further establish the drama program at Duke, culminating in the formal establishment of the Department of Theater Studies in 2003.
The story of The Corinthian can be found in the scrapbook kept by the Duke Players during the 1973-1974 academic year. The scrapbook is located in Box 7 of the Duke Players records collection of the University Archives, housed in the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library. More information about the Duke Players can be found in their collection guide. The University Archives relies on donations from student organizations to document and preserve the history of Duke University and the impact of its students. If you are interested in donating your organization’s records (physical or electronic) to the University Archives, follow this link to learn more.
Header Image: Duke Players Scrapbook, 1973-1974, Box 7, Duke Players Records
Ah-ha! I haven’t been stopped yet as I continue my series on the Woolworth sit-ins (both in Greensboro and Durham) and Duke’s ties to civil rights movements in the early 1960s. I have finally moved forward in time, jumping from 1960 all the way to…1964.
In 1964, we see some Duke faculty get involved in the Civil Rights movement, this time, integrating a restaurant just a few miles down the road (near that…other university) in Chapel Hill. Professors Peter Klopfer, Robert Osborn, and Frederick Herzog, along with a young Black student, sat in the Watts Grill in Chapel Hill. In what started as a simple protest would later include Klan activity, and would even turn into a court case on trespassing, a case that would later go to the Supreme Court.
I’ll let Peter Klopfer describe the court case further, here:
And finally, highlighting some of the great finds from the archives, is a copy of the subpoena so graciously gifted to Robert Osborn, Harmon Smith, Frederick Herzog, and Peter Klopfer, found in the Robert Osborn papers.
Post contributed by Ani Karagianis, Centennial Archivist.
Hello again! You may have noticed if you follow the Devil’s Tale with as much fervor as I do, that this is a continuation of a blog series on Civil Rights, a series that will end whenever somebody stops me. This blog post highlights one person who had simultaneously stayed in the Georgian East Campus and spent time in prison for her participation in the Freedom Rides.
They say well behaved women seldom make history. Joan Mulholland, in the eyes of a segregated Duke in 1959, certainly fit that mold. A woman who was deemed odd for not rushing a sorority would later become a crucial member of the Freedom Rider movement, and has advocated for civil rights all her life.
Joan’s story begins in Washington D.C. in 1941. She was born to working parents, a father from Iowa and a mother from rural Georgia. Joan spent her early years in Arlington, VA, which she claimed, according to a 2013 oral history now housed at the Library of Congress and part of the Museum of African American History and Culture, “was definitely the South, maybe not the Deep South, but everything by law and custom was segregated.”[1] Growing up in a Presbyterian church, Joan would later become annoyed at the perceived hypocrisy of the church preaching equality in a segregated town. The church became an early place for her growing interest in civil rights, starting with Black students attending her then all white church, a move that had to be kept secret to maintain the safety of both Black and white students.[2] Joan would later note that “as a Southerner, that we needed to change. And when I had my chance to do something, I would seize it”[3] after viewing the stark differences between Black and white schools.
Fast forward a few years, and Joan started to look at colleges. While Joan wanted to go to a small school in Ohio, her mother, “a product of her environment” pushed Joan towards Duke University, a school that, according to Joan, “was safely segregated.”[4] At this point (1959), Duke University was still two years away from desegregating the graduate schools, and three years away from desegregating the undergrad population. Duke students had begun advocating for desegregation in 1948, when members of the Divinity School sent around a petition calling for desegregation. Unfortunately, these early efforts and the efforts throughout the 1950s fell on mostly deaf ears in the Board of Trustees.
Joan Trumpauer from the 1960 Chanticleer yearbook. It’s digitized here!
Joan attended Duke for a year—1959-1960. Durham proved to be a great place for Joan to build on her growing desire to make things right, and North Carolina was a good spot for the growing Civil Rights movement. Not long after four students from North Carolina A&T in Greensboro integrated their lunch counter at Woolworth’s, Joan and some other white students attended sit-ins at segregated lunch counters in Durham with students from North Carolina Central University.
Article from the July 2, 1960 edition of the Durham Herald about sit-ins at the S.H. Kress Store.
More news coverage of the Kress Store sit-in, including a list of students who participated.
[1] Mulholland, Joan Trumpauer, Interviewee, John Dittmer, and U.S Civil Rights History Project. Joan Trumpauer Mulholland oral history interview conducted by John Dittmer in Arlington, Virginia. 2013. Video. https://www.loc.gov/item/2015669178/.
Post contributed by Ani Karagianis, Centennial Archivist.
As a continuation of my series, I have decided to highlight Duke students and their activism around Civil Rights. Likely inspired by the Greensboro sit-ins, Duke and NC Central students joined in their own civil disobedience, participating in sit-ins at Woolworth’s and Kress in Durham and boycotting local theaters.
In the early 1960s, some Duke students took part in Civil Rights movements and organized as such on the campus. One example was the Human Relations Coordinating Committee, creating a group that was interesting in human relations and race relations. In this document, found in our Student Activism Reference Collection, box 1, co-chairman Lucia Brunn calls for the creation of a newsletter for their committee.
Lucia Brunn, from the Chanticleer yearbook, 1960.
Within this document is a note received by a Duke Divinity student, Edward Opton Jr, who picketed Durham theaters. Here’s his call to action:
Feeling the Cold War vibes, his notes about nations choosing between “Democracy and Communism” does feel more than a bit pointed, considering the idea that some people viewed Communism as a greater threat than the racism in their own backyards.
Opton also asked for some support from the Divinity school administrators, hoping for an increase in faculty participation, as found in this letter from the Divinity School records, box 29.
Opton and Brunn were just a few motivated members of the Duke community committed to advancing the cause of civil rights. Stay tuned for more!
Post contributed by Ani Karagianis, Centennial Archivist, Duke University Archives.
[A small exhibit related to this blog post can be viewed near the Perkins Library service desk for the next month.]
Recently, the Rubenstein Library put up a small exhibit about the Greensboro Woolworth Sit-ins in February 1960. Since I participated in the creation of the exhibit, naturally, I wanted to look more into the early sit-ins and other movements of the early 1960s. It is here where I can say that there is a Duke angle to some subsequent events after the sit-ins. Duke angle #1: Professor William Chafe of the history department. Bill Chafe, who wrote a great book that I was able to devour during the holidays (Civilities and Civil Rights) interviewed three of the four members of the Greensboro Four: Ezell Blair Jr. (known as Jibreel Khazan), Joseph McNeil, and David Richmond. Rather than having me write about their interviews and their experiences of the sit-in, I have provided the readers with some snapshots of them speaking about their experiences in Greensboro, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, and the Woolworth sit-ins. These oral histories can be found in box two of the William Chafe Oral History collection.
Some good soundbites courtesy of these interviews:
Jibreel Khazan (labeled as “Jabriel Kajan”, 1974, speaking about his youth NAACP council and providing a little background of the idea behind the protest:
Joseph McNeill, 1978, reflecting on the movement the role of the Greensboro community:
David Richmond, 1972, providing a breakdown of the day’s plans:
Post contributed by Shaina Leverett, Harry H. Harkins Intern for the Duke Centennial, Duke University Archives
If someone approached you and asked- “What is this thing you call Duke University? What does it mean? Where does it come from? Who makes it? Who continually makes it?” How would you respond to that?
Four undergraduates applied to create an exhibit showcasing the last 100 years of Duke history. As part of a Story+ summer research program, their jobs were to comb through the University Archive and chose 100 items that evoked Duke’s last 100 years, and subsequently curate an exhibit. Now, to give you some perspective on what that task entails, the university archive contains about 11,000 linear feet of records (including digital records).
Here’s the moment where we scratch the track and ask “Wait, hasn’t Duke been around more than 100 years?”, and the answer is yes, technically speaking Duke began as Brown’s Schoolhouse in the year 1838. Instead, the Duke Centennial celebrates the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Duke Endowment by James B. Duke. This charitable organization supports a number of causes and organizations, one of them being Trinity College. The college quickly changed its name to Duke University to reflect the transformative nature of this ongoing gift. The Story+ scholars looked back through the records since that pivotal year, and their work resulted in a rich and kaleidoscopic narrative of our school, which is now on display in Chappell Gallery in Perkins Library and online.
The students tasked with this project are Caroline Edmondson (T’26), Prisha Gupta (T’ 26), Zoe Tishaev (T’ 24), and Melody Tzang (T’ 25). Their project was managed by Jessica Orzulak, PhD, and they were further assisted by a team of staff at the Rubenstein. I sat down with each of the four undergraduates and asked them a series of questions ranging from the practical and philosophical struggles of the task. Their responses highlighted the difficulty in attempting to tell a ‘complete’ story about our institution, and the reasons we try to do it anyway.
Student Curators (L to R): Melody Tzang, Zoe Tishaev, Caroline Edmondson, and Prisha Gupta
Interviewer: Your task was to create an exhibit showcasing the last 100 years of Duke’s history. How did you find a focus for that wide of a time period?
Caroline: Yeah, that was definitely a big challenge. We came up with a list of themes that we knew we wanted to cover, as well as events that we already knew about just from our experience being here. Then it was a little easier to narrow the search and say, okay, let’s find some stuff that talks about the Woman’s College. Okay, let’s find some stuff that talks about the Graduate School or the Duke Forest. Also, we would look at collections that interested us, or that we thought might contain some insights. We tried to find objects that sort of spoke for themselves or spoke to parts of the stories that we didn’t necessarily know.
Interviewer: Part of looking back, especially over the course of a century, means we have to sometimes look upon some disappointing parts of history. How did you consider including the parts of our history that are more difficult to engage with?
Zoe: I think I’m a big believer that we criticize the institutions that we love. Because we want to learn from our past and we want to make them better, right? So it’s good to look back and to reflect and to see where things have changed and how we can learn from our past and the shortfalls of things that we’ve tried that haven’t worked. Something that’s easy to forget about when we step into leadership positions is [that] we forget to think about what’s been tried already and how we got to where we are, and all the mistakes and all the successes that have led us here. Until we understand that, it’s difficult for us to truly move forward.
Interviewer: How do you hope people will react to this exhibit?
Prisha: [Looking at] the Trinity Archive from the 1920’s, the editor had written their editor’s letter on Duke’s name change. I loved getting to read that. That person was definitely only here for 4 years, but what they had written meant a lot to somebody–to me! I’m somebody in the future! Even small pins, T-shirts, and the photos that people take, I think it builds such an impact on what we understand to be Duke’s history. I just hope that people realize after they leave the exhibit that they matter to this institution in some way.
Interviewer: What have you learned about Duke’s past 100 years that most surprised you?
Caroline: There are some smaller stories that were definitely surprising, like my mind was totally blown when we found out about the parapsychology lab. I was also struck by how frequently I found things that were so similar to what’s happening today. I’m a member of Duke Players, which is our oldest student theater organization. One of the objects that we pulled out to represent that group is a script in a Playbill from a production of the Glass Menagerie. Like decades and decades ago, and now we still read that play all the time!
Interviewer: What advice would you give to your fellow undergraduates, who maybe haven’t utilized the archive yet?
Zoe: You should absolutely do it. At least once in your career. It’s so touching and grounding to connect yourself back to the students who roamed the same halls as you and walked the same ground. There’s something very humbling about that and it’s just so fascinating to see. I think the library staff are nothing but helpful. Just go into the archives, they’re open for everybody. And ask the staff member to walk you through it. They will be delighted and thrilled that you have taken an interest, and honestly, our library system is probably one of the best in schools of our caliber.
Interviewer: Are there any skills you gained from this experience that you see yourself using in your education or your future job?
Melody: For sure, all of the soft skills that are super important in the workplace- collaboration, problem solving, also, just being able to communicate properly with so few words. [My] writing skills definitely came in handy with the label writing. It’s a really difficult learning how to be concise in your writing with so little space, especially for the [artifact] labels. Cutting it to 100 to 150 words is really tough because we’re doing all that primary source research we come across. Maybe we only write 10% of what we’ve actually researched, and so [from] that whole breadth of knowledge [it] is really hard to pick and choose what our general audience would want to take away from an artifact. Or maybe there’s too much information that we just can’t put in there that we actually really wanted to share. So, a lot of it was how do we be concise with our writing? How do we also be creative in combining information together and spread it across different labels [so] that information still gets out there.
Interviewer: What is your favorite artifact in the exhibit?
Melody: My personal favorite item in the exhibit is this printing plate of the Duke alma mater. The alma mater was originally titled “Hymn to Trinity” by a graduate student named Robert H. James. It was a devotional for Trinity College before Trinity College became Duke University. He was inspired to write a hymn to Trinity in order to show his own gratitude and devotion to his college, and then also to express the feelings of his fellow students and others in what he called “the little worlds of Trinity.” It kind of mirrors that sort of same devotion and gratitude that I have for Duke.
Zoe: I change my answer on this every time. I think my traditional answer has been the roller skates. [Follow the link for more details on a 1949 bus boycott against the rise in bus fares between East and West Campus.] I am a very pedestrian centered person. My whole thing on campus is fighting for more pedestrian access and less auto-centrism. So just seeing the energy people went through to walk from East to West campus because of a fare hike . . . it was more about the principal than the affordability of it. It’s a combination of civic engagement and people standing up for what they thought was right. Today, [that protest] could never happen. Students would not get that outraged. Or maybe they’d get outraged, but they wouldn’t organize around something of that scale. People drive from East to West Campus every day, and I just think it’s a strange shift because the distance hasn’t changed, but the students have.
Prisha: The picture of Jelly Leftwich and the Blue Devil is . . . [imagine here Prisha’s facial expression of palpable glee and adoration]. I’m a notorious Jelly Leftwich fan. I did a small research project on his scrapbook a while back and we don’t have the scrapbook in the exhibit, but that’s also an object worth checking out. Basically, he came here in 1926 to direct the three main bands at Duke. He’s kind of credited with revitalizing the music department at Duke. His scrapbook is really funny. Newspapers would also often call him handsome or something, and he would underline it every time.
Caroline: One of my favorite things that I totally found by chance was a glass lantern slide from 1935 of the Duke Forest. It’s meant for a projector, so it’s just kind of like tiny green glass image that you would put in front of a projector that would get displayed on a wall. When I checked out the collection, I thought it was going to be documents, but it was all these little glass lantern slides. It’s stunning and it honestly took my breath away a little bit. Because it looks just like it does now, like in 1935, the Duke Forest had as much beauty in it as it does now and I thought there was something remarkable about that. The Forest isn’t one of the institutions at Duke that I engage with very frequently, but it really put things into perspective for me. How lucky we are to have this resource that has been preserved for so long and will hopefully be preserved for decades to come. And to have this image of it from almost 100 years ago that looks so identical to how it looks now . . . it honestly made me a little emotional, this tiny image that someone took for research purposes in 1935 tells such a beautiful story of almost 100 years of the Duke Forest, which I thought was really cool.
The exhibit titled Our Duke: Constructing a Century will have its kick-off event on January 24th, 2024 from 4-6, with our curators set to give remarks at 4:45. On behalf of my fellow staff members in the University Archives department, we are exceptionally proud of the work of these four bright students. You can see from the exhibit, the level of care and gravity they considered when telling their story of Duke. We look forward to officially celebrating the fruits of their several months of hard work, and hope you will join us. To see more on the exhibit, including a virtual exhibition and the curator’s statements, please visit it OUR DUKE: Constructing A Century.
Post contributed by Michelle Wolfson, Research Services Librarian for University Archives.
For as long as I have worked at the Rubenstein Library, I have heard about the Test Kitchen—staff members trying out recipes from our collections and experiencing the complete surprise or regret of trying the tastes of a simpler time.
When I joined the Rubenstein as a full-time staff member (I was an intern before), I thought it would be a safe time to dip into the archives and get cooking. Loving the #girldinner trend, I gathered as many cookbooks that seemed to fit that particular bill, such as The American Girl Cookbook, The Barbie Party Cookbook, and The Political Palate: A Feminist Vegetarian Cookbook (all from the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture). I also pulled from University Archives the Law Dames records, 1951-1973. The Duke Law Dames was an organization mainly made up of law student wives (though it was also open to women law students and wives of the law school faculty and alumni) and the records contain two member-made cookbooks.
Example of a #girldinner, which are, essentially, a bunch of snacks that you maybe put on a charcuterie board if you are feeling fancy. The centerpiece of mine is a cinnamon cranberry goat cheese. Also loads of sugar.
Again, feeling safe as a full-time staff member, I decided it would be perfectly fine to subject my taste testers to…the asparagus cream mold.
The unfortunate photo I sent in the group chat to entice the team to come to the official cutting and tasting of my first Test Kitchen/#girldinner experiment. That is Cool Whip and mayonnaise. Together. Ready to be mixed up.
This simple dish needed only four ingredients (Cool Whip, mayonnaise, gelatine, and canned asparagus) and minimal time. Perfect for a busy gal who wants to entertain new friends on an unassuming Monday afternoon.
The asparagus flopped out as I cut into it. It was equally terrifying and unappetizing, and I am pretty sure I screamed.
The first observation from the small but supportive group that had gathered was that the color of it was…unexpected. It looked in color and texture a bit like tofu, which many of us are big fans of, but we were not big fans of the canned asparagus that flopped out as I cut the cream mold into bite-size chunks. The asparagus had floated down to the bottom of the dish, like a mysterious and dangerous deep-sea creature lying in wait.
I still feel sick just looking at these photos.
Three of us (out of maybe ~70 people) tasted the asparagus cream mold. It was described as “shocking”, “special”, and “wild”, three adjectives I pictured in explosive bubbles on a poster featuring the latest 1950s movie monster, The Asparagus Cream Mold. For me, the asparagus taste was overwhelming, while a coworker found the mayonnaise flavor to be prevalent. 0/10, do not recommend you put on a charcuterie board and serve to your besties.
Would the cream mold have tasted better garnished with tomatoes, radishes, and cream cheese? I somehow doubt it.
Luckily, right above the asparagus cream mold recipe was the recipe for Bing cherry/Coca-Cola salad. (Have I mentioned we are in the salad section of the cookbook?? We are so healthy.) The very next week, to clear the palates and memories of my coworkers, I made this, another quick and minimal-ingredient dish. I did not have Coca-Cola in my fridge, so I went with the Wild Cherry Pepsi that I did have because who can say no to extra cherries? (Some people might say ‘no’ to Pepsi and I would not blame them.)
The leftover cherries are still in my fridge, front and center when you open the doors, and I obnoxiously shout, “Bada Bing! Cherries!” each time.
I attempted to make the Bing cherry/Coca-Cola salad into a more appealing shape, on a prettier dish (as if that was the main problem with the previous recipe). At least six people participated in the official taste test, and we were all surprised with how it was actually…good? I do not think we would have been as surprised if we did not have the asparagus monstrosity to compare it to, because how can one go wrong with a salad made of Jell-O and soda? Mostly we were all wondering how the pineapple would taste, as we had some self-proclaimed canned pineapple-haters (barely noticeable!) and how the pecans fared (the texture they provided was nice!). It was declared by some to be a bit too sweet (but it’s salad!) and it was not as tasty the next day (when two of your taste-testers were actually kind of craving it??).
Say it with me now, “Bada Bing! Cherries!”
The Rubenstein Library Test Kitchen: Once again, up and running to provide both regret and surprise from the archives.
Post contributed by Rebecca Pattillo, Assistant University Archivist
To celebrate Native American Heritage Month, let’s delve into the archives and explore how Duke’s Native and Indigenous students built a community on campus and took the lead in advocating for more representation among faculty, staff, and students. The first officially recognized student group, American Indians at Duke (A.I.D.), emerged in the 1970s, with ten students, 95% of them being undergraduates. Regrettably, the archives lack additional information about this early student group, leaving us uncertain about its official founding and disbandment dates.
However, we do have knowledge that in 1992, a group of six students founded the Native American Student Coalition (NASC), which received official charter status in 1993. The official charter states, “NASC’s goals and mission are to raise awareness of all Native American cultures and to provide a voice on Duke’s campus concerning Native American issues. NASC also started with the purpose of enhancing the recruitment and retention of Native American faculty, students, and curriculum.”
Throughout the 1990s, NASC organized various well-attended programs at Duke, including visits by Ojibwa activist Winona LaDuke, Lakota musician and hoop dancer Kevin Locke, and Muscogee poet Joy Harjo, among others. One such event, as depicted in a flyer found in the Student Organizations Reference Collection, was an evening symposium titled “As Long as the Grass Grows or Water Runs,” held in 1995.
Flyer for symposium entitled “As long as the grass grows or water runs,” 1995, Native American Student Coalition, Student Organization Reference Collection, Box 6.
In 2000, NASC presented “A Proposal for Native American Student and Community Development at Duke” during the annual Unity Through Diversity event. The proposal centered on recruiting and retaining Native students, increasing Native staff and faculty, and securing additional resources for programming. An April 6 Chronicle article from the same year gives insight into the leaders of NASC and their struggles at a predominantly white institution. Despite these obstacles, in the spring of 2001, NASC hosted its first-ever Duke Powwow, which has since become an annual tradition.
By 2003, another report from NASC indicated that due to Duke’s limited recruitment efforts, the group was nearly defunct, as there were only a few Native students on campus, who were too busy with their studies to sustain the group. Sometime between 2003 and 2007, the group experienced a revival and was renamed the Native American Student Alliance, subsequently adopting the name Native American/Indigenous Student Alliance (NAISA), which it is known as today.
