Last night’s episode of Mad Men features several characters whose elevated hopes for connections with others get dashed. Don flies out to Los Angeles after Megan’s agent calls him to say that she was desperate and demanding with a director after an audition. She is happy to see him, but then gets upset when she realizes why he came. He is forced to admit that SC&P put him on leave and she asks him to go for being dishonest. Peggy is upset that her St. Joseph’s commercial wasn’t nominated for a Clio, and later finds out that Lou only submitted work that he could claim as his own. Betty meets Francine for lunch and Francine brags about her new career as a travel agent. She tells Betty that working in an office is her reward for raising kids. Later Betty tells Bobby that she will chaperone his field trip the next day and he is thrilled to spend time with her. Harry exaggerates SC&P’s media capability to the clients from Koss, and later tells Jim that they need a computer to compete. Don meets with two men from Wells Rich Greene and gets an offer to work for them. Don takes that offer to Roger, who agrees to let Don come back the following Monday. Betty and Bobby have a good time on the field trip until Bobby gives away Betty’s sandwich to a friend. Don arrives at SC&P on Monday morning, and awkwardly greets the staff until Roger comes in around lunchtime. The partners are upset that Don is back, but realize it will cost them too much to fire him officially. Instead they agree to take him back only if he can adhere to several restrictive rules and reports to Lou. He agrees.
Last night’s episode featured references to typewriters, Kahlua, plaid jackets, and bras, among other things. Enjoy our selection of highlighted ads that reflect the brands and themes that Mad Men characters interacted with last night.
A gallery of our selected images may also be found on Flickr.
Every year we rely on a group of dedicated undergraduate student workers who do a little bit of everything to keep the Rubenstein Library running smoothly, but you might not know it since they’re usually working behind the scenes. Since it’s the end of the school year, we wanted to highlight our graduating seniors who will be leaving us. We’re grateful for all of their hard work and are consistently impressed by all that they accomplish in addition to working with us. Meet Rebecca Williams:
My days at Rubenstein Library begin in a routine fashion. I walk to the back office area, put my backpack in a locker, and begin a tour of the stacks. I scan the shelves to check for basic tasks that need to be completed: items to be re-shelved, books to be packaged for shipping, or items to be pulled for patrons. However the last year that I have spent working as a Student Assistant for the Research Services Department has been anything but routine. Sometimes books are not where I thought they would be. Sometimes an item does not arrive from the off campus site. I relish the time I get to spend solving these simple problems.
After completing my daily tasks, I turn my attention to a variety of long and short-term projects. Some of these projects or tasks have included making container lists for various collections, vacuuming books, or helping to process a new collection. I also help to unload the deliveries that come from the LSC, notify patrons of their arrival, and shelve them on-site. Many of my shifts are also spent at the front desk where I enjoy helping the patrons that come into Rubenstein Library. I really have gotten to do a little bit of everything here.
This fall I’ll be heading to Chapel Hill to pursue a Masters in Library Science at UNC’s School of Information and Library Science. I’m also very excited to have the opportunity to work there in the Special Collections Research and Instructional Services Department as well. Working at Rubenstein has helped to confirm I want to stay working in the library world for a long time to come. I will miss all of the wonderful staff here at Rubenstein Library, but I will not be that far away, so hopefully I will be back in the future!
The Rubenstein Library’s three research center annually award travel grants to undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, and independent scholars through a competitive application process. Congratulations to this year’s recipients, we look forward to working with all of you!
Courtney Thompson will use materials related to phrenology such as this small ivory bust in her research.
History of Medicine
Cali Buckley, Pennsylvania State University, Department of Art History, for dissertation work on, “Women of Substance: The Materiality of Anatomical Models and the Control of Women’s Medicine in Early Modern Europe.”
Alicia Puglionesi, Johns Hopkins University, Institute of the History of Medicine, for dissertation work on “The Astonishment of Experience: Americans and Psychical Research, 1885-1935.”
Courtney Thompson, Yale University, Department of the History of Science and Medicine, for dissertation work on “Criminal Minds: Medicine, Law, and the Phrenological Impulse in America, 1830-1890.”
John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History
FOARE Fellowship for Outdoor Advertising Research
Craig Lee, Department of Art History, University of Delaware, “Letter Building: Signage, Supergraphics, and the Rise of Semiotic Structure in Modern American Architecture”
Daniel Towns, Department of History, Stanford University, “The View and the Value: Historical Geography of Signs in San Francisco”
John Furr Fellowships for JWT Research
Lisa Haushofer, Department of History, Harvard University, “Edible Health: ‘Health Foods’ in Science, Industry, Culture in Britain and the United States, 1884-1950
Alvin A. Achenbaum Travel Grants
Dr. Cynthia Meyers, Department of Communications, College of Mount Saint Vincent, “Advertising Agencies and the Decline of Sponsorship in the Network Era of Television”
Dr. Cristina Ziliani: Economics, University of Parma, Italy, “Premium Sales Promotions: A History of Practice and Research, 1890-1990”
Cara Fallon, Department of History, Harvard University, “The Emerging Concept of Healthy Aging in the United States, 1920-1990”
Catherine Hennessey Wolter, Musicology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, “Sound Conversions in Print: A Cultural History of the Player Piano and Early Radio in America Through the Lens of Print Media”
Kelly Jones, History of Medicine, State University of New York – Stony Brook, “’New Hope for Headache Sufferers’: Pain and its Control in Advertisements for Headache Remedies, 1950s-1970s
Daniel McKay, Independent Scholar, “Trading Fears: Marketing the ‘Japan Brand’ to American Tourists and Consumers”
John Hope Franklin Research Center 2014-15 Travel Grant Awardees
Emilye Crosby, State University of New York-Geneseo Topic: “Anything I Was Big Enough To Do: Women and Gender in SNCC”
Paul Grant, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Topic: “Unimagining the Christian Nation: Alienation, Memory, and German-African Reciprocity in Akropong, Ghana 1835-1938”
Nicole Maurantonio, University of Richmond, Topic: “Ombudsman for Humanity: Chuck Stone, Mediation, and the Graterford Prison Hostage Crisis”
Gilet Rosenblith, University of Virginia, Topic: “Low Income African American Women in the South and the Carceral State”
Nicholas Syrett, University of Northern Colorado, Topic: “American Child Bride: A History of Minors and Marriage in the United States”
Adam Wolkoff, Rutgers University-New Brunswick, Topic: “Possession and Power: A comparative social and legal history of capitalist social relations in the late nineteenth-century United States”
Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture Mary Lily Travel Grants
Dr. Georgina Colby, linguistics and cultural studies, University of Westminster, for a book on Kathy Acker combining philosophical analysis with literary and critical theory, exploring connections between feminist theory, Acker’s use of philosophy, and her experimental writing practices.
From the Kathy Acker Papers
Dr. Donna Drucker, civil and environmental engineering, Technische Universität Darmstadt, for a journal article on sexual behavior and the science of contraceptive testing in the mid-twentieth century United States.
Sara Mameni, Ph.D. candidate, visual arts, University of California, San Diego, for dissertation research on Iran-US relations in the 1960s and 1970s—leading up to Iran’s Islamic Revolution of 1979—through the lens of queer theory, feminist theory, and postcolonial studies.
Ivy McIntyre, Ph.D. candidate, history, St. Louis University, for dissertation research on South Carolina families in times of personal crisis in the early Republic.
Andrew Pope, Ph.D. candidate, history, Harvard University, for dissertation research on radical social movements and the New South in Georgia from 1968-1996.
Dr. Jason Scott, Dr. Annalisa Castaldo, and Jennifer Lynn Pollitt, for an edited collection of essays looking at how kink identities, behaviors, and lifestyles are represented in popular and cultural studies.
Mairead Sullivan, Ph.D. candidate, women’s, gender, and sexuality studies, Emory University, for dissertation research on questions of breastedness in feminist and queer theory.
Hope Tucker, independent scholar, for an artist’s video on the fragility of reproductive rights in the American South, as seen through the work of those who documented and labored for these rights in the second half of the twentieth century.
Every year we rely on a group of dedicated undergraduate student workers who do a little bit of everything to keep the Rubenstein Library running smoothly, but you might not know it since they’re usually working behind the scenes. Since it’s the end of the school year, we wanted to highlight our graduating seniors who will be leaving us. We’re grateful for all of their hard work and are consistently impressed by all that they accomplish in addition to working with us. Meet Taylor Imperiale:
I’ve been working at the Rubenstein Library since the beginning of my junior year at Duke. I’m now a senior on my way out, so it feels like I’ve been here for quite a while. Over the past two years, the library has certainly undergone a whole lot of changes and the work I do has changed quite a bit as well.
I always enjoy working evening shifts helping patrons at the front desk. On my daytime shifts, you would usually find me in the stacks reshelving items, particularly in the old stacks, organizing some collection, or doing some sort of arts and crafts type activity. For the past year or so I have been working on a project to rehouse our sheet music collection to send it all offsite. I had hoped to finish it by the time I graduate, but alas, I am only about a third of the way through. I wish my successor the best of luck in this seemingly endless, but quite relaxing, task.
Taylor, hard at work rehousing sheet music
Now for a bit about me. In May I’ll be graduating (fingers crossed) with degrees in political science and history and a minor in Spanish. I’ll be spending the next two years teaching Spanish in Philadelphia through Teach for America. After my two-year stint as a teacher, I’ll be moving on to attend the University of Chicago Law School. As it turns out, the generosity of Mr. Rubenstein seems to follow me everywhere because I have been offered a law school scholarship that bears his name. I can’t help but think that having the Rubenstein name on my resume helped me get the scholarship offer.
I’ve enjoyed every minute of my time working here. The staff has always been really friendly and supportive and made me feel like a part of the family. I’d like to thank Josh and Liz especially for being great supervisors, as well as the rest of the staff that made my time here so pleasant. In a couple of months when I’m sure to be missing Duke, I’ll certainly be missing the great folks at the Rubenstein Library.
Last night’s episode of Mad Men depicts Valentine’s Day at SC&P. Several characters are upset when they are treated poorly or shuffled around, but by the end of the episode we see that there is housekeeping afoot that reveals new opportunities. Don’s day to day existence is exposed through sleeping late, cracker eating, and flipping through magazines. Only when he is preparing for Dawn to come by and brief him does he clean up and get dressed to preserve the illusion that he is his normal steely self. Sally and her friends are given leave to go to New York City to attend the funeral of another friend’s mother and subsequently sneak off to go shopping before their return. Once Sally realizes that she lost her purse, she goes to SC&P to ask Don for train fare. Her encounter with Lou Avery exposes Don’s subterfuge and gets Dawn unfairly demoted to reception. Sally waits for Don at his apartment and when he returns from lunch with a contact at Wells Rich Greene he drives her back to boarding school. Peggy mistakes Shirley’s roses as ones for her from Ted, which causes a chain reaction of frustration and awkwardness for the two women. Joan is aggravated when her colleagues keep demanding that she solve their problems with secretarial staff by shifting them around. Pete is angry that he has to defer to Bob Benson and Chevrolet’s permission when he lands the SoCal Chevy Dealers Association account. Sally and Don finally have a frank conversation on the way back to school that begins to repair their damaged relationship. Jim Cutler offers Joan the opportunity to focus on account management, which allows her to leave behind the frustrations of human resources. Joan’s parting gesture as she moves to her new office is to reward Dawn with a promotion to human resources. We see Dawn smile as she settles into her new office.
Last night’s episode featured references to Ritz crackers, Coffee Mate, Chevy Dealers Association, and Cutty Sark, among other things. Enjoy our selection of highlighted ads that reflect the brands and themes that Mad Men characters interacted with last night.
A gallery of our selected images may also be found on Flickr.
Dearest readers, do you ever feel that there’s not enough Rubenstein Library in your social media day? True, we’re on Facebook, and we have this wonderful blog, and many of our collecting centers also have extensive social media presences (check out the list in the right-hand column) . . . but what if you could follow our every rare-book-and-manuscript action on Twitter?
Well, do we have good news for you! We’ve joined the twitterverse! Come follow us @rubensteinlib, let us know about your research projects and your latest special collections discoveries, and get a behind-the-scenes look at how we spend our working days (and sometimes our non-working days).
My most recent project in the conservation lab has been a set of 32 newspapers, issues of the Charleston Courier from 1815 to 1851. Some time in the past, they had been damaged by water, mold, insects, and dirt. All of them had tears, and many also had large losses and were exceedingly fragile. When they arrived in the lab, I could tell immediately that they were going to require a lot of work, but that they would also be fun and rewarding. While modern newspapers are made of wood pulp which quickly degrades, turning brittle and yellow, old newspapers were printed on rag paper made from textile fibers like cotton and linen, and thus they are much more resilient and pleasant for a conservator to work with.
Charleston Courier newspapers before treatment
I knew I would need to do aqueous treatments, so, after cleaning off the surface dirt, I tested the inks to make sure they would not be soluble in water. While the black printing ink was stable, most of the papers had a collection stamp in turquoise ink that was sensitive to water. However, I was able to find three ionic fixatives, chemicals that are used to make certain dyes insoluble. I tested all three, and one (Mesitol NBS) turned out to be exactly what this ink needed. I used a brush to apply a small amount to the blue inked area, working over the suction platen to pull the chemical all the way through the paper, and then my newspapers were ready to wash.
Fixing soluble ink
Each newspaper was immersed in a bath of deionized water. Extensive discoloration and degradation products were washed out, turning the water peachy yellow. I changed the water in each tray until it stayed clear, signaling that washing was complete. It was rewarding to see what a visual and physical difference there was between the washed and unwashed papers.
Aqueous treatment to remove discoloration and degradation products. The upper left tray shows the extent of discoloration removed from a page in its first bath.Comparison of newspapers before and after washing
After washing and drying, I had many hours of mending to do, and many little puzzle pieces of newspaper to put in place. For my mends I used wheat starch paste and very thin Japanese papers which are almost transparent so as not to obscure the text on the newspapers. I did not fill all of the numerous losses, but I made the newspapers more stable for researchers to handle.
Aligning tears to prepare for mendingMending materials: wheat starch paste and lightweight Japanese paper
While working on the repairs, I was often confronted with fragments that would say something like “General / troops / fired” on one side and “congress / voted / article” on the back, and thus I would find myself reading the papers to know where the pieces might belong, which is something I rarely get the chance to do beyond a quick perusal. The earlier newspapers had battle reports, as the war of 1812 was still going on. The articles were fascinating, and the advertisements even more so. Many were similar to modern ads: houses for rent, job postings, theater listings, lost and found, dubious medical cure-alls, and sales of merchandise, often accompanied by decorative printed icons. Some were a little more unusual and interesting, like an ad for “Daguerreotype Paintings” or a woman offering her service as a wet nurse. But I was surprised to see ads for slaves, either for sale or wanting to buy, and many alerts for runaways. The runaways were the most intriguing as they gave personal details of the individuals, and I found myself wondering what happened to them, applauding their escape and hoping that they found a better life.
Advertisements including a young girl for sale and a runaway slave
When the mending was finished, I housed each of the newspapers in a clear Mylar sleeve so they can be handled with greater ease and safety. Even after treatment many of them are still fragile, but now they can be handled and used by researchers with much less risk of damage. And I hope they will be used, as they are fascinating! To see more images of treatment and examples of interesting advertisements, see our Flickr page.
The shocking shootings in Kansas City during the past weekend have brought renewed attention to Glenn Miller (Glenn Cross), a longtime white supremacist with ties to North Carolina. In Monday’s Washington Post, Robert Satloff, Trinity College class of 1983, wrote about his harrowing experience interviewing Miller in 1981 and the Chronicle article that resulted.
The first-hand account, from the April 15, 1981 issue of the Aeolus (the Chronicle’s weekly magazine of the period) is a frightening glimpse into Miller’s mindset. Satloff wrote, “Perhaps I didn’t think that such close-minded, violent, intolerant people still exist. Perhaps I am naïve. I’m not anymore.”
Read the chilling article below. This issue of the Aeolus, and other Chronicle issues from 1980 to February 1989, will soon be added to the Libraries’ Chronicle digital collection.
UPDATE: The April 15, 1981 issue is now available in full in our Chronicle digital collection.
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Post contributed by Valerie Gillispie, Duke University Archivist.
Wednesday, April 23 at 12:00pm: A Conversation with Vincent Cianni and Mariette Pathy Allen, Center for Documentary Studies, 1317 W. Pettigrew Street, Durham, N.C. Lunch will be provided.
Thursday, April 24 at 6:00pm: Artist Talk and Presentation, SPECTRE Arts green space, 1004 Morning Glory Ave., Durham, N.C.
Friday, April 25 at 6:00pm: Book Signing and Opening Exhibit, Daylight Project Space, 121 West Margaret Lane, Hillsborough, NC
The series will culminate in a book signing and exhibition of work by the artists to celebrate the release of the artists’ monographs TransCuba and Gays in the Military. The book signing and exhibit will take place at the Daylight Project Space on April 25 from 6 to 9pm. Refreshments will be served and the artists will be on hand to sign books and answer questions. More information at www.daylightbooks.org
About the Artists:
Through compelling photographs and interviews made over three years on road trips across the US, Vincent Cianni (born 1952) has created an important historical record of the struggles of gay and lesbian veterans and service members in the US military. As the Human Rights Commission attests, the US military has a long history of civil rights abuses against homosexuals, with harassment and discrimination frequently resulting in lost careers. In many cases, these men and women—highly skilled, well educated, patriotic, courageous and productive—had attained high rank, received numerous medals and held top-level jobs essential to the military. With essays by Alison Nordstrom, Don Bramer and Alan Steinman shedding light on the cultural, personal and political consequences of the ban on homosexuality, this volume tells the stories of men and women who served in silence and oftentimes were penalized and prohibited from receiving the benefits accorded them for serving in the military.
For more than 30 years, New York based photographer and painter Mariette Pathy Allen has been documenting transgender culture worldwide; in 2004 she won the Lambda Literary Award for her monograph The Gender Frontier. In her new publication, TransCuba, Allen focuses on the transgender community of Cuba, especially its growing visibility and acceptance in a country whose government is transitioning into a more relaxed model of communism under Raúl Castro’s presidency. This publication therefore records a cultural watershed within Cuba. In addition to color photographs and interviews by Allen, the book also includes a contribution from Raúl Castro’s daughter, Mariela Castro, who is the director of the Cuban National Center for Sex Education in Havana. In 2005, Castro proposed a project, which became law three years later, to allow transgender individuals to receive sex reassignment surgery and change their legal gender.
Post contributed by Kirston Johnson, Curator of the Archive of Documentary Arts.
Everyone’s favorite ad men and women are back with Season 7 of Mad Men! Join the Hartman Center as we look back at some ads that resonate with each episode of the new season in what we call Mad Men Mondays.
The episode begins in January 1969 with freelancer Freddy Rumsen pitching a commercial for Accutron watches to an enthusiastic Peggy. Later Peggy pitches a variation on the same ad to new SC&P creative director Lou Avery and is disappointed when he opts for a blander slogan.
Roger wakes up amongst a group of naked sleeping people on the floor of his messy hotel room when his daughter calls to invite him to brunch. A harried and overworked Ken asks Joan to meet with a representative from Butler Footwear in his stead.She quickly realizes that Butler’s marketing director intends to move all advertising in-house and dismiss SC&P.
Don visits Megan in Los Angeles for the weekend and they have a series of awkward encounters. Don also meets up with a happy, suntanned Pete, who shows him around the new office and brings him up to speed on SC&P gossip. Peggy and Ted have an awkward exchange when he visits the New York office. Joan meets with a Columbia University business professor to get an analysis of Butler Footwear’s plans.The professor’s ideas help Joan keep Butler’s account from firing SC&P right away.
Roger’s daughter forgives him for all of his transgressions over brunch, which doesn’t seem to sink in with him until later when he lies down with his lover and another man. Don meets a woman on the plane back to New York and they have a candid conversation about their lives, but he declines her offer of more. Peggy has to deal with her tenant’s toilet problems and is frustrated with her life.
Last night’s episode featured references to Accutron watches, Austin Healy, brunch, vodka, and sliding doors, among other things.Enjoy our selection of highlighted ads that reflect the brands and themes that Mad Men characters interacted with last night.
