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.

Bingham Center, Events, Readings and Talks

Mind the Pay Gap

Date: Tuesday, 1 March 2011
Time: 4:30 PM
Location: Perkins Library 217
Contact Information: Kelly Wooten, 919-660-5967 or kelly.wooten(at)duke.edu

Lilly LedbetterLearn more about the equal pay debate from one of the nation’s leading advocates. Lilly Ledbetter was the plaintiff in the employment discrimination case, Ledbetter v Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company. Her historic experience resulted in the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, President Barack Obama’s first piece of legislation, which restored workers’ rights to challenge wage discrimination.

Professor Nancy Zisk of the Charleston School of Law will offer opening and closing remarks about the current landscape of pay equity reform and moderate a question-and-answer session with Ms. Ledbetter.

This event is sponsored by the Duke University Women’s Center and co-sponsored by the Office of Institutional Equity, Baldwin Scholars, and the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture.

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

Events, Franklin Research Center, News and Features, Symposia and Conferences

Atelier@Duke

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Date: Friday-Saturday, 25-26 February 2011
Time: please see schedule
Location: Gothic Reading Room, Perkins Library
Contact Information: Jennifer Thompson, 919-660-5922 or jennifer2.thompson(at)duke.edu

As part of the 15th anniversary celebration of the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture, Duke University Libraries and the Office of the Provost present the first Atelier@Duke: “The Idea of Archive—Producing and Performing Race.”

The event will be a “series of conversations that reproduce what might happen in a workshop—an ‘atelier’—of ideas. Our panelists’ conversations will engage the moments before ideas become text, fixed images, documented policies or remembered spectacle,” said Atelier@Duke organizer Karla F C Holloway, the James B. Duke Professor of English and a professor of law at Duke. The series of panel discussions will also consider what and how histories are saved and shared.

This occasion also marks the inaugural John Hope Franklin Research Center Book Award, which will be presented to author Paula J. Giddings for her critically-acclaimed biography, Ida: A Sword Among Lions (2008). For more information about the award, please see the Duke University Libraries’ announcement.

The Atelier@Duke panel discussions are free and open to the public. Please visit the conference’s website for registration and schedule information.

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

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!

Events, Human Rights Archive, Readings and Talks

From Protest to (PRODUCT)RED

From Protest to (PRODUCT) RED: Generational Shift in U.S. Human Rights Activism

Date: Thursday, 10 February 2011
Time: 5:00 PM
Location: Rare Book Room
Contact Information: Patrick Stawski, 919-660-5823 or patrick.stawski(at)duke.edu

WOLA Logo

The Consortium in Latin American and Caribbean Studies conference kicks off with a celebration of anniversaries: 30 years of human rights activism by the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA); the 50th anniversary of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission; and the 100th anniversary of the Organization of American States.

Since WOLA’s founding in 1974, both the human rights community and the community of nongovernmental organizations working on Latin American issues have grown and evolved. Joe Eldridge, Alex Wilde, George Vickers, and Joy Olson—all current and former Executive Directors of WOLA—will discuss how the organization rethinks its position within these overlapping sectors to determine the best contribution it can bring to their collective work. The panel, moderated by Robin Kirk, Director of the Duke Human Rights Center, will explore how human rights challenges and the activism(s) that address them have changed and adapted to the shifting currents of national and international policy and history.

WOLA is the premier U.S.-based human rights organization working on Latin America. The Archive for Human Rights is the repository for the WOLA archives. Since 2008, WOLA and Duke University have co-sponsored the WOLA-Duke Book Award for the best non-fiction work on human rights and social justice in Latin America.

This event is presented by the Archive for Human Rights and co-sponsored by the Duke Human Rights Center and the Consortium in Latin American and Caribbean Studies.

Post contributed by Patrick Stawski, Human Rights Archivist.

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.)

Dispatches from the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Duke University