Behind the Scenes: Intern Angela DiVeglia

Most people associate Victorian women with high tea and corsets, not with struggles for justice and equality. However, Angela DiVeglia, graduate intern at the Sallie Bingham Center and co-curator of “I Take Up My Pen: 19th Century British Women Writers,” spends much of her days examining the relationships between current feminist thought and the work done by early feminists in the United States and Great Britain.

Angela DiVeglia gives this Frances Power Cobbe pamphlet a thumbs-up.

Several of the items in the library’s current exhibit, such as the pamphlet above (Our Policy: An Address to Women Concerning the Suffrage by Frances Power Cobbe), were produced by strong and outspoken feminists who wrote and lectured widely during a time when women were still expected to remain within the domestic sphere.

DiVeglia writes, “It’s really inspiring and grounding to work with these kinds of materials; it’s easy to think of our own struggles outside of their historical contexts, to feel like we’re the only people fighting these particular fights. Seeing pamphlets and books produced by people like Frances Cobbe and Annie Wood Besant—women who were often ostracized for their work, and who occupy marginal places in history—reminds us that we’re actually part of a huge, rich legacy of people who want to create a better world.”

If you haven’t had a chance to visit the exhibit yet, it will be on display in the Perkins Library Gallery until February 21!

A Valentine’s Day Puzzle

William Tell Steiger, undated
William Tell Steiger, undated

In November 1828, William Tell Steiger wrote in his notebook that he had presented his beloved Anna Maria Shriver with an anagram: “O evil here I am at.”

He continues, “she deciphered it and returned an anagram in answer containing the following: ‘That love deserves to be returned.'”

Three years later, the couple married on September 20th.

We leave you to puzzle out the first anagram (which you can find in our Steiger-Shriver Family Papers). And yes, Anna Maria Shriver was the great-great-great aunt of journalist and First Lady of California Maria Shriver.

Hot Toddy Weather

What with all of the cold and the snow, RBMSCL folks have been craving warming beverages. Luckily, the Nicole Di Bona Peterson Collection of Advertising Cookbooks (which contains over 1800 cookbooks!) has come to our rescue. We thought we’d share this Hot Toddy recipe from Fine Cocktails Made Easy:

Place in 5 oz. glass: 2 cloves, 1 lump of sugar.

Add 2 oz. bourbon, rye, or blended whiskey.

Fill with hot water.

Stir.

Add thin slice of lemon.

Serve with a small spoon.

And, of course, please sled responsibly.

Afghanistan in Pictures

Jirga with Kaniguram in background.
From the R. B. Holmes Afghan War Photographs, 1919.

The harsh and beautiful landscape of Afghanistan has been the site of many conflicts, including the Anglo-Afghan Wars of the early 20th century. The RBMSCL’s Archive of Documentary Arts has recently acquired a collection of 34 black-and-white prints of the 1919 war taken by British photographer Randolph Bezzant (R. B.) Holmes, who owned a photography studio in Peshawar, Pakistan. The majority of these well-preserved, highly detailed, and skillfully composed images depict large British military camps and vast landscapes, sometimes with camel caravans or military convoys. Some scenes show the remains of villages, military features such as towers, and religious structures. The landscape views include the Khyber Pass, Tanai Gorge, Kabul River, and Khargali Ridge. Military camp views, many in grand panoramic scale with fine detail, include Landi Khana, Dakka Plain, and Landi Kotal.

For more information about the collection, take a look at the collection guide. If you’d like to arrange a visit to view the collection, or if you have any questions, please e-mail us at special-collections(at)duke.edu.

Post contributed by Tim Pyatt, University Archivist and Associate Director of the RBMSCL

A Glorious Revolution

Early in Gloriana; or The Revolution of 1900, a rare 1890 novel recently acquired by the RBMSCL, the heroine, twelve-year-old Gloria de Lara, stands on the seashore, plotting:

“I was imagining the foam flakelets to be girls . . . and I looked upon them as my audience. I told them . . . of all the wrongs that girls and women have to suffer, and then I bade them rise as one to right these wrongs. I told them all I could think of to show them how to do so, and then I told them that I would be their leader, and lead them to victory or die. And the wavelets shouted. . . . I seemed to hear them cheer me on, I seemed to see them rising into storm, the wind uprose them, and their white foam rushed towards me, and I seemed to see in this sudden change the elements of a great revolution.”

Years later, posing as a man named Hector l’Estrange, Gloria wins a seat in Britain’s Parliament . . . and you’ll just have to visit the RBMSCL and read the book to find out the rest.

Lady Florence Dixie
Lady Florence Dixie. From the Illustrated London News, March 1883.


The novel’s author, Lady Florence Dixie, was a prominent travel writer and advocate for women’s rights. At her death in 1905, British women were denied the right to vote. 92 years ago today, the Representation of the People Act, which granted voting rights to women over 30, received Royal Assent.

The book joins the Glenn Negley Collection of Utopian Literature as an especially interesting example of feminist utopian writing.

Bundled Up and Ready for School


These cheerful and warmly dressed children, enrolled in Durham’s Scarborough Nursery School, were posed on the front steps for a class photograph on a chilly day in 1932. But this was 1932, during the depths of the Great Depression. Durham was in the heart of the Jim Crow South.

The significance of this progressive school is tremendous. Founded by Mrs. Clydie Fullwood Scarborough, it provided effective and healthy daycare for African American children. With a safe place for their children, mothers could confidently work and help provide the family with necessities, including these little coats and hats.

The detailed inventory of the Clydie F. Scarborough Papers, 1818-1984, which documents her work, is available here. For more information on using this collection, contact the RBMSCL staff at special-collections(at)duke.edu.

Post contributed by Elizabeth Dunn, Research Services Librarian

Tea with Trailblazers: MaryAnn Black

Date: Wednesday 3 February 2010
Time: 2:30 PM
Location: The History of Medicine Reading Room, Duke Medical Center Library (map and directions)
Contact Information: Jessica Roseberry, 919-383-2653 or jessica.roseberry(at)duke.edu

MaryAnn BlackIn celebration of Black History Month, the Duke Medical Center Library and Archives has partnered with the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture to present a special guest, MaryAnn Black, MSW, LCSW. In an informal talk, Ms. Black will share some of her “trailblazing” experiences at Duke and in the Durham community. Ms. Black, who has worked for Duke University since 1981, is the Associate Vice President for Community Relations for the Duke University Health System. Tea and light refreshments will be served.

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).

Remembering the Woman’s College

Alice Mary Baldwin’s 95-page memoir, “The Woman’s College as I Remember It,” is now online! As the first dean of the Woman’s College at Duke University, Dean Baldwin had a unique opportunity to work for the equality of women and men students. She came to Trinity College in 1923 as the first woman to have full faculty status, and her efforts on behalf of equality allowed Duke to be very progressive. Her memoir illustrates her beliefs and efforts to mold the Woman’s College into an elite institution and shows her effect on Duke University as a whole.

Alice Mary Baldwin’s memoir is an essential resource for understanding the history of Duke University or the history of women in higher education. For more about Dean Baldwin, take a look at this brief biography on the University Archives’ website.

Post contributed by Crystal Reinhardt, University Archives Graduate Student Assistant

Rights! Camera! Action!: Escuela

Date: Tuesday, 26 January 2010
Time: 7:00 PM
Location: Rare Book Room
Contact Information: Patrick Stawski, 919-660-5823 or patrick.stawski(at)duke.edu, or Kirston Johnson, 919-681-7963 or kirston.johnson(at)duke.edu

Courtesy of Women Make Movies


Rights! Camera! Action! is starting off the spring semester with a screening of Hannah Weyer’s 2002 documentary, Escuela. This film centers on Liliana Luis, the daughter of Mexican American farm workers, as she begins her first year of high school.

The Rights! Camera! Action! film series, which is sponsored by the Archive for Human Rights, the Archive of Documentary Arts, the Duke Human Rights Center, and the Franklin Humanities Institute, features documentaries on human rights themes that were award winners at the annual Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. The films are archived at the RBMSCL, where they form part of a rich and expanding collection of human rights materials.

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