The Right to Remain Private: Challenges to Protecting Health Information in Historical Research

Join us for a round table discussion on how the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) impacts research conducted in libraries and archives.

Thursday, April 16, 5:30 pm, Room 217 of Perkins Library

Panelists include:

  • Cynthia Greenlee, Post-Doctoral Fellow, Richards Civil War Era Center and the Africana Research Center, Penn State
  • Phoebe Evans Letocha, Collections Management Archivist of the Alan Mason Chesney Archives of the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions
  • Laura Micham, Merle Hoffman Director of the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture, Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University Libraries
  • Stephen Novak, Head of Archives & Special Collections at Columbia University’s Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library
  • Kevin Smith, Director of Copyright and Scholarly Communication, Duke University Libraries

Scholars and researchers encounter issues with accessing information when researching 20th century materials containing sensitive health information. Archivists grapple with how to collect and describe sensitive health information. This roundtable discussion will discuss the legal and ethical implications of HIPAA and how to move forward in a scholarly community.

Sponsored by the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture and History of Medicine Collections.

This event is free and open to the public.

“The Journey” of Reverend Jeanne Audrey Powers’ Papers at Duke

Since August of 2014 I’ve had the pleasure of arranging and describing the papers of Reverend Jeanne Audrey Powers. In 1958, Rev. Powers became one of the first women to be ordained in the United Methodist Church, and in 1995, she publicly came out as a lesbian in her most famous sermon, “The Journey.” The reactions she faced as a result of coming out were mixed. Many, like the GCCUIC (General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns) supported her unswervingly, while others, most notably the Institute on Religion & Democracy, campaigned against her, hoping to force Powers into an early retirement.

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Interchurch Center Chapel in New York City, 1980

Reverend Powers was involved in organizing the Re-Imagining Conference, the Minneapolis interfaith conference of clergy, laypeople, and feminist theologians that stirred controversy in U.S. mainline Protestant denominations. “Re-Imagining: A Global Theological Conference By Women: For Men and Women,” grew out of a response to the World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Decade: Churches in Solidarity with Women 1988–1998. The conference aimed to encourage churches to address injustices to women worldwide and promote equal partnership with men at all levels of religious life. Participants met at the Minneapolis Convention Center from November 4-7, 1993. It brought together 2,200 people, one third of them clergy, and most of them women. 83 men registered. Attendees represented 16 denominations, 27 countries, and 49 states.

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From a card distributed by OLOC, Old Lesbians Organizing for Change. Taken by Lynn Carpenter Schelitzhe in 2001 when Powers was 69. There is a quote on the back of the card by Gloria Steinem that reads, “One day, an army of grey haired women may quietly take over earth.”

Jeanne Audrey Powers’ papers include planning materials, conference recordings (on cassette tapes, which I hadn’t seen for years!), and material documenting the backlash from the conference by opposing groups. These materials are set aside as their own series to facilitate use by researchers and other readers. The conference also garnered considerable attention from the mainstream media including this 1994 article in the New York Times about the conference and the controversy that erupted afterward.

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Riverside Church, from part of a “pre-article” for People Magazine, 1980

Rev. Powers’ papers also document her extensive professional accomplishments and contributions as well as her personal history. Photographs from her childhood, stories about her family, and even two locks of hair can be found within the 98 boxes of material. The materials related to Rev. Powers’ activism, including her support for equal treatment for all persons in the church, are my favorite feature of the collection.

For example, the collection includes Rev. Powers’ files associated with the group, Affirmation: United Methodists for Lesbian/Gay Concerns. In 1984, in response to “unwelcoming policies toward lesbian, gay, and bisexual persons,” the group issued a call to local churches to “reaffirm that their ministry was open to all persons, including gays and lesbians.”  The “Open the Doors” campaign was sponsored by the Reconciling Congregation group. The goal was to go to the United Methodist Church’s 1996 General Conference in Denver, Colorado to foster discussion around creating a more welcoming atmosphere in the church for lesbian and gay members. The campaign had a moderate level of success with several hundred people attending “Open the Doors” events at the General Conference.  However, the UMC policies discriminating against gays and lesbians were not changed.

The Jeanne Audrey Powers Papers is a treasure trove of materials that I have greatly enjoyed processing.  It’s hard to believe that they will be ready for researchers to use quite soon—an exciting prospect!

2007
Rev. Powers in 2007, age 75

Post contributed by Rachel Sanders, Technical Services Intern for the Sallie Bingham Center.

Palette Play with Jennie Chambers

Are you interested in painting but aren’t sure how to mix your colors? The Jennie Chambers Papers might be able to help. The Chambers family lived in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, in the mid-nineteenth century. Jennie Chambers was an author and amateur artist who went on to write for Harper’s Magazine, publishing “What a School-Girl Saw of John Brown’s Raid” in 1902 (still available online today). Duke has held the Jennie Chambers Papers for several decades, but I recently revisited the collection to enhance its online description and update its housing to our current standards. Most of the papers are letters between Jennie and her family or drafts of Jennie’s writings. But I most enjoyed finding this kind-of-grimy paper that includes all of her notes about mixing paint colors. It looks like she frequently used these notes for her paintings. I love the spots of paint and the smears of oil that stain the page, and it was really fun to see what sorts of things she painted. For foliage, mix deep green, Prussian blue, and yellow ochre. Do you want to paint mahogany? Mix Indian red, vermillion, and Vandyke brown.

cropped page mahogany
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My archivist’s heart also loves that she signed and dated the page. The only thing missing from the collection are her actual paintings.

signature

Post contributed by Meghan Lyon, Technical Services Archivist.

Mad Men Mondays: Season 7, Episode 8 “Severence”

Mad Men Mondays logo

Mad Men is back!  This half-season premier felt like an extended dream sequence with Peggy Lee’s eerie hit “Is That All There Is?” bookending the episode.

The episode opens with Don holding a cup of vending machine coffee and a lit cigarette while posing a woman wearing nothing but a pricy fur coat—Don, the eternal misogynist.  The scene widens to reveal that he is in fact working a casting call at the office.

Mathis attempts to set up Peggy on a blind date with his brother-in-law.  After some initial resistance she eventually acquiesces.  While something of a milquetoast—he won’t even return an incorrect food order—the date goes well and, after some wine and a bottle of Galliano, the date nearly culminates in a spontaneous trip to Paris.  Instead, the couple settles for a phone call in two weeks.

Fearing the toll that the advertising industry is taking on his psyche, Ken Cosgrove’s wife tries to persuade him to get out of the advertising business and focus on his writing.  The following day, at the behest of a McCann-Erickson executive, Ken is fired by Roger.  While expressing some bitterness at Roger’s lack of loyalty, he chooses to interpret the moment as kismet, an opportunity.  Rather than focus on his writing he listens to his competitive instincts and accepts a position as director of advertising for Dow Chemical.  Rather than pulling Dow’s business from the SC&P he vows to be a difficult client to please in the future.

Peggy and Joan have an encounter of their own with the heavy-handed and none-to-subtle staff of McCann.  On behalf of SC&P’s client Topaz pantyhose, together they pitch the possibility of McCann introducing them to some of their department store clients.  After a few minutes of crude innuendo from the McCann reps, Peggy finally persuades them to take a look at the proposal.  Rather than a bonding experience the meeting results in an elevator argument between Peggy and Joan over the meeting’s takeaway lessons.

After a vision (dream?) of Rachel Katz, his brief fling from season 1, in Chinchilla fur, Don attempts to set-up a meeting with her under the auspices of a potential partnership between her department store and Topaz pantyhose only to learn that she has recently passed from an illness.  Perhaps it’s the memory of Rachel that informs his continued attraction to the mysterious waitress at the late-night diner.   With Rachel’s family sitting shiva, Don attempts to pay his respects only to be cast out.  Finding his way to the diner, he attempts to connect with the waitress only to be told that the tryst was merely just compensation for the large cash tip from a previous evening.

Last night’s episode featured references to toasters, L’eggs hosiery, wine stained carpet, veal, pop tarts, and Paris.

A gallery of our selected images may also be found on Flickr.

1-Topaz008
2 Carpet009
3-McGregor010
4-Pop-tart011
5-Fleischmans012
6-Veal013
7-Galliano014
8 Paris015

ABC’s of John Hope Franklin – (H) Honorary Degrees

Over the course of his lifetime, John Hope Franklin Franklin would be awarded over 130 honorary degrees from colleges and universities across the United States. In several instances, Franklin was the first African American to receive an honorary degree from the institution. John Hope Franklin received his first honorary degree from Morgan State College in 1960 and his last honorary degree from Wesleyan University in 2006.  The collection of honors and letters represents not only the length of Franklin’s career, but the respect of his contributions to scholarship and society from his peers in the academy.

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Franklin served as a professor of history at Howard University from 1947-1956
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Franklin’s first honorary degree from Morgan State College (now Morgan State University). Franklin delivered the commencement address and fellow Fisk alumni, W.E.B. DuBois received an honorary degree that same day.

 

JHFpapers_H2_Honorary_011a
John Hope Franklin being hooded at the Roosevelt University commencement in 1978

Notable institutions that bestowed an honorary degree upon John Hope Franklin include: American University, Bennett College, Columbia University, Duke University, Emory University, Fisk University, Georgetown University, Harvard University, Lincoln College, Morehouse College, New York University, North Carolina State University, and University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

This series is a part of Duke University’s John Hope Franklin@100: Scholar, Activist, Citizen year-long celebration of the life and legacy of Dr. John Hope Franklin

Submitted by Gloria Ayee, Franklin Research Center Intern

Medicine Cabinet of Curiosities Quiz

How well do you know your old medical instruments? Take our quiz and find out!

 

medicine cabinet of curiostiy

The History of Medicine Collections has over 850 unique medical instruments and artifacts. These items compliment our incredible book and manuscript collections. Along with the largest collection of ivory anatomical manikins in North America, we hold numerous surgical instruments and devices, microscopes, and an assortment of other unusual items.

Check out our collection guide for descriptions and thumbnail images of these items. And stay tuned – as our renovation nears completion, a number of these items will be on display in the Josiah Charles Trent History of Medicine Room.

Post contributed by Rachel Ingold, Curator of the History of Medicine Collections

Archive of Documentary Arts Photobook Club Meeting

Archive of Documentary Arts Photobook Club Meeting

Date: Tuesday, May 5, 6:00-7:30 p.m.

ADA-Photobook-ClubLocation: Center for Documentary Studies Library, 1317 W Pettigrew Street, Durham, NC 27707

Join us for the third meeting of The Archive of Documentary Arts Photobook Club where we will be discussing Henri Cartier-Bresson’s, The Decisive Moment.

Book Discussion Group, Free and Open to the Public, byo beverage and/or snack

The book is on reserve for public use prior to the meeting in the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

Examine these editions for yourself in person, and/or read more about the book and Cartier-Bresson online at the links below:

Time    The Guardian   Magnum Photos

**Please note – Discussion will take place at the Center for Documentary Studies while the books themselves are held at The Rubenstein Library.**

Contact: Lisa McCarty, Curator of the Archive of Documentary Arts | lisa.mccarty@duke.edu

Fall 2015 Archives Alive Courses

6258172244_c31f8f5955_oWe’re excited to announce the first series of Archives Alive courses for Duke Undergraduates. These courses will enable students to develop innovative and significant projects based on original materials held in the Rubenstein Library. These courses are open to first-year and upper-class undergraduate students and range from the arts and humanities to the socials sciences. Scholar-teachers guide students’ explorations, providing first-hand exposure to advanced research practices and immersive learning that goes beyond traditional coursework. Students produce signature products that demonstrate their capabilities for in-depth investigation, team collaboration and communicating the significance of their work to others.

Classes for the Fall 2015 semester are:

Modern & Contemporary African American Art
ARTHIST 283/AAAS 227.  Curriculum Codes: CCI, EI, ALP, CZ
WF 10:05-11:20
Instructor: Richard J. Powell

Gender and Philosophy
PHIL 222/WOMENST 222.  Curriculum codes: CZ, EI
Monday 3:20-5:50PM
Instructor: Andrew Janiak

Topics in Digital History & Humanities: NC Jukebox
HISTORY 390S-1/ISIS 390S/MUSIC 290S-1. Curriculum Codes: ALP, CZ,
Thursday 10:05-12:30
Instructors: Trudi Abel/Victoria Szabo

Read the full course descriptions at Trinity College Arts & Sciences

Shin of Beef Stewed with Wow Wow Sauce (1823) – Rubenstein Library Test Kitchen

“DINNER is the only act of the day, which cannot be put off without Impunity, for even FIVE MINUTES.”

William Kitchiner, The Cook’s Oracle, “Invitations to Dinner,” p. 39.

English cooking is a punch line. You don’t even need a joke to set it up. Just say, “English cooking,” and people start smirking, or chortling, even suppressing laughter. It hardly seems fair.

After all, Great Britain boasts its share of culinary scores. The Scotch egg is a triumph of human ingenuity, I’ll take a ploughman’s lunch any day of the week, and the standing rib roast with Yorkshire puddings rates as a time-proven classic. Really, America, with your pit-cooked barbeques and New York-style slices, don’t be so glib. Arthur Treacher would like a word.

When I volunteered to write a Rubenstein Test Kitchen post, I had no real ideas for it, but set out on a path of discovery, like Walter Raleigh sailing for Carolina.1 I can’t remember how I came across William Kitchiner’s proto-Victorian cookbook, The Cook’s Oracle, in our catalog, and learned that the History of Medicine Collection holds a copy of the Fifth Edition, published in 1823. But I can tell you that I was drawn to it by one word: Wow.

More particularly, it was that word, twice. I learned that Kitchiner is credited as the inventor of a thing called Wow Wow Sauce, an accompaniment for boiled meat dishes. Intriguingly, the recipe includes two English condiments I never knew existed: pickled walnuts, and mushroom catsup.

How – I asked myself – could I not cook something called Wow Wow Sauce? The answer is, I couldn’t. I couldn’t not cook Wow Wow Sauce.

Kitchiner was a physician by profession, but seems to have been stern and serious in his approach to cooking and socializing. His cause was to bring scholarly and scientific order to the chaotic affairs of households and kitchens. Wikipedia claims his name was a household word and the book a best-seller. Chambers’ Book of Days, a miscellany published in 1879, provides background on his life and habits.

So the two recipes I select from Kitchiner’s book are Shin of Beef Stewed (No. 493), and Wow Wow Sauce for Stewed or Bouilli Beef (No. 328). The first order of business is to secure the ingredients, and in this effort I turn to two eminent local suppliers. First, I head to Southern Season in Chapel Hill, on whose shelves I locate both Opie’s brand pickled walnuts and George Watkins brand mushroom catsup.

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Second, I need meat. Now, I happen to live in the town of Pittsboro, where I’m lucky to shop with Lilly Den Farm at the Chatham Mills farmers’ market each week. Tucker and Mackenzie’s place is out past Goldston, down in what’s called Deep Chatham. They hook me up with a nice-looking foreshank, a shin indeed, nearly two feet long and heavy with marbled meat. It’s covered in a tough membrane, which I skin off with a knife. Then I coat the whole thing in a generous amount of kosher salt, wrap it, and store it in the fridge overnight.

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The next day, just before noon, I set the shank in a pot, cover it with cold water, and bring it to a simmer.

Usually, one buys a beef shank this size cut crosswise into two or maybe three discs. The flat surfaces from these cuts are convenient for seasoning and placing in a hot, oiled pan for browning, which produces the Maillard reaction, enhancing the flavor of the meat and leading to a rich, brown broth.

But that’s not what I’m looking for here. Yes, Kitchiner himself recommends a shank cut into sections (and doesn’t mention browning), but I prefer the shin intact. No fancy Maillard crust for my Test Kitchen project. I honestly can’t describe my vision better than this Guardian author: “The grisly, gristly spectre of an ashen Victorian joint – a lump of cracked cement flanked by dismal sprigs” – Yes! That’s exactly what I’m going for, and by the way, I love your accent, please do continue – “speaks of cabbagey kitchens and bones poking out of stockpots, of puritan blandness and the unfashionably old-fashioned.” Swoon! You had me at “bones poking out.”

I’ll leave it to other Test Kitchen authors to write up dishes that are “delicious,” or “good.” I’m going for something else entirely – “English.”

Okay, that was a cheap shot. But let’s just say the target aesthetic here is more steampunk than “Top Chef.”

Kitchiner was a staunch pro-boiling partisan; he begins the “Rudiments of Cooking” section of his book with a chapter on it. His main points of advice are time-tested – skim the pot and keep it low and slow. He also shares data from his own experiments comparing the loss of mass for roasting (more) versus boiling (less, especially when the broth is reserved and used).

Kitchiner’s entry for Beef Bouilli (No. 5) is really more of a polemic in favor of boiling than it is a recipe. “Meat cooked in this manner,” he says

affords much more nourishment than it does dressed in the common way, is easy of digestion in proportion as it is tender, and an invigorating substantial diet, especially valuable to the Poor, whose laborious employments require support.

He continues in this vein, excoriating the poor for neglecting the “coarser cuts of meat” and choosing roasting over boiling, losing mass and nourishment in the process. Why, he wonders, can’t the miserable, hard-boiling, hard-drinking English be more like the French, who – despite having access to all the best booze – simmer and sip their way to perpetual good grace and humor?

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When the pot begins to simmer, per Kitchiner’s instructions, I skim the top with a ladle, then add a quartered onion, two stalks of celery, a dozen berries each of black pepper and allspice, and a few sprigs of thyme. About four hours later, I remove the shank. I would say that I pull the meat off the bone, but more accurately it slides off onto the platter. At this point, I figure the shin bone has a few more hours of good boiling left in it, so I return it to the pot and let it go at a rolling pace for a while. The result is three quarts of rich, heady broth.

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I’m sorry to report that I’ve completely failed in my efforts to turn the shin into a bland, dun-colored, flinty gnarl of meat. The beef I taste is flavorful, moist, and tender. Here’s my hot take on the Maillard reaction – it’s overrated.

Now it’s time to whip up the Wow Wow Sauce. I sample the mushroom catsup: liquid, salty, redolent of clove. It’s reminiscent of Worcestershire sauce, but in a different shape of bottle. The pickled walnuts are … unusual. The balsamic vinegar in which they’re packed dominates the initial touch on the palate, followed by traces of woodiness and tannin, like pine bark softened in mouthwash. Are they packed in the jars by smelly feet? I can’t say for sure. The texture is wet, crumbling clay.

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Kitchiner’s Wow Wow recipe is fairly specific:

Chop some Parsley leaves very finely, quarter two or three pickled Cucumbers, or Walnuts, and divide them into small squares, and set them by ready; put into a saucepan a bit of Butter as big as an egg; when it is melted, stir to it a tablespoonful of fine Flour, and about half a pint of the Broth in which the Beef was boiled; add tablespoonful of made Mustard; let it simmer together till it is as thick as you wish it, put in the Parsley and Pickles to get warm, and pour it over the Beef, or rather send it up in a Sauce-tureen.

He then describes a series of optional ingredients one could add to make it more “piquante.”

Here’s a summary of what I ended up doing:

2 T chopped parsley
3 pickled walnuts, diced
2 T butter
1 T flour
1 c beef broth at room temperature
1 T vinegar from walnuts
1 T mushroom ketchup
1 t horseradish
2 T beer

Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat. Whisk in the flour and cook for 2 minutes, stirring frequently. Add the broth all at once, whisk into the roux, and allow the mixture to come to a simmer. Add the remaining ingredients except for the parsley and simmer for several minutes, until the sauce is thick and blended through. Finish with the parsley.

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I spoon some of the sauce over the beef and serve it with mashed potatoes (No. 106) and green beans (No. 133, more or less). I’m usually someone who likes things, but to be honest, I’m not a fan of the Wow Wow Sauce. It’s essentially gravy with pickled walnuts, and since I don’t love the pickled walnuts, the gravy isn’t working for me. One Internet commenter refers to it as “basically adding all the strong stuff the Victorians might have found in their kitchen together,” and I think that sounds about right.

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In the end, I mince the leftover meat, combine it with the stock, some vegetables, a splash of the mushroom catsup, and a cup of pearled barley, to make a substantial soup that – in the spirit of economy attested by Kitchiner – provides for lunches all week. This quality, the versatility of the boiled beef, is my main takeaway from my Test Kitchen endeavor, and it echoes in this proverb – with which I’ll conclude – quoted by the ever class-conscious doctor:

“Of all the Fowls of the Air, commend to me the SHIN OF BEEF, for there’s Marrow for the master, Meat for the mistress, Gristles for the servants, and Bones for the dog.”

1. Raleigh never came to Carolina, and in the interest of full disclosure, I didn’t visit the Rubenstein reading room until after I’d made the dish and drafted half this post. I did lay hands on the Fifth Edition in Duke’s collection. I also pulled out the single folder of Kitchiner manuscripts in the Trent Collection, and perused the five handwritten notes on social and mundane matters. But for the cooking activities of this project, and the quotations and references in this post, I made use of an Internet Archive version of the Fourth Edition, published in 1822.

Post contributed by Will Sexton, Head, Digital Projects and Production Services

Capturing the Duke Web

Post contributed by Matthew Farrell, Digital Records Archivist.

I can claim without controversy that the web is among the more popular avenues for communicating, publishing, and otherwise interacting with information. Although professionals involved in the creation of websites often have titles (engineer, web designer, information architect) that borrow the language of corollaries in the physical world, information on the web and how one experiences it is inherently ephemeral. Relics of the early web still extant online often owe their continued life to chance, such as the website for the 1996 film Space Jam or the long-thought-lost-until-a-copy-was-discovered-on-a-floppy-disk first website.

In order to preserve Duke’s web presence, in 2010 the University Archives partnered with Archive-It, a service of the Internet Archive, to take snapshots of various websites. In the five years since we have captured close to 500 Duke-related websites. Comparing a site’s evolution over time can be striking. This portal allows one to compare Duke homepages at different times. For example:

Duke University homepage, 2010
Duke University homepage, 2010

 

Duke University homepage, 2015
Duke University homepage, 2015

 

The following screencaps are for the Duke Chapel’s website.

Duke University Chapel homepage, 2010
Duke University Chapel homepage, 2010

 

Duke University Chapel homepage, 2015
Duke University Chapel homepage, 2015

 

While the above examples are changes that are, at least in part, cosmetic changes to information, capturing web content allows us to preserve and provide access to the social and intellectual conversations on campus. We have had success capturing Develle Dish in both DukeGroups and their more recent Sites.Duke iteration.

Because the Duke Fact Checker was not officially associated with the university, his blog went down after his passing in early 2014. Though its no longer available at its original URL, we were able to get annual captures of his commentary between 2012 and 2014.

All of this is great but was previously difficult to access without knowing how to use the system. As of February 2015, there are two easy ways to browse and search through the Duke Web Archives. First, the University Archives created a collection guide to the Duke-related websites. The 500 or so URLs are arranged loosely by organizational type and can be browsed here.

Because of the way the web is crawled, some sites may have been crawled that don’t appear in the collection guide. To help address this problem as well as provide another avenue into the collection, there is a search function provided by Archive-It and their Wayback Machine here. Using the Wayback search, one can search for any URL. If the site appears in our collection, even if only partially, the search will return it.

We are currently at work to address Social Media, so look for future posts around that subject.

Post contributed by Matthew Farrell, Digital Records Archivist.

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