Happy St. Patrick’s Day from the Rubenstein! Here are the “Irish Quick Step” and “St. Patrick’s Day in the Morning” to enhance your celebrations. These dances and more can be found in the Thomas F. Perry Music Collection, dating from about 1833.
Post contributed by Alice Poffinberger, Archivist/Original Cataloger in the Technical Services Dept.
Date: Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Time: 5:00 PM reception, 6:00 PM talk
Location: Gothic Reading Room
Contact information: Jacqueline Reid Wachholz, 919-660-5836 or j.reid@duke.edu.
The John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History at Duke University celebrates its 20th Anniversary in 2012 with a lecture series of advertising luminaries. Please join us next Tuesday for the first talk in the series. Kenneth Roman, former CEO of Ogilvy & Mather and author of The King of Madison Avenue will present “David Ogilvy: The Original Mad Man” and sign books afterwards. The event is free and open to the public.
For more information go to the lecture series website: http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/hartman/lecture-series.html.
The 20th Anniversary Lecture Series is sponsored by the Duke University Office of the Provost, Fuqua School of Business, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences, Markets & Management Studies, Duke Marketing Club, Alpha Kappa Psi, American Advertising Federation-Raleigh Durham, Association of Women in Business, Baldwin Scholars and the Duke Administrative Women’s Network.
For the past two years, I’ve been working with Technical Services on the Frank Baker Collection of British Methodism and Wesleyana. Baker, a religion professor at Duke, was the preeminent scholar on the foundations of Methodism, specifically its founder, John Wesley. The collection is vast: it contains research for Baker’s many books and articles, original Wesleyan and Methodist documents from the 18th and 19th centuries, teaching materials, correspondence with other prominent religious minds, and a variety of items that simply fit no category.
Perhaps the most interesting part of working with the Frank Baker collection is this treasure trove of miscellany collected by Baker throughout the years. Though primarily a Wesleyan scholar, Frank Baker had a penchant for all religious historical materials, and his collection is frequently peppered with unidentifiable portraits, letters, and notes relating to religion.
One such enigmatic finding was a folded, faded map that, at first, appeared rather unimpressive. Tucked away in a box of other large maps, our subject was folded, torn, and in pretty bad shape. Once unfolded, however, I was instantly drawn to it.
Self-titled, the map reads: “A Map of all the Earth And how after the Flood it was Divided among the Sons of Noah.” Though faded, brittle, and torn, the value of this map is instantly obvious. From the fascinating religious motifs around the sides (some familiar, some indecipherable), to the labeling of each continent with a son’s name, the map certainly sucks you in.
Some of my favorite parts of this map aren’t readily obvious, either. For example, take a good look at the West Coast of the United States. It’s subtle, but California is depicted as an island! It was actually this feature that helped me to date the map. With a little research as to when the name California came into usage, I discovered that our finding probably dates to the 1680s or 1690s. A little more research revealed that California was often depicted as an island in the 16th and 17th centuries: I even found a whole book full of maps with this cartographic error!
As a religion minor, I often found myself returning to the stunning religious motifs decorating the borders of this map. Some are familiar scenes, like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the Tower of Babel, the Crucifixion, etc. Others are less familiar, such as a shining city as viewed from a hill, or an unidentified man kneeling next to a tree.
I could spend hours trying to figure out the motivations behind the map, or its motifs, or why Japhet, son of Noah, got all of North America, but there’s many more mysteries to find and catalog in the Frank Baker Papers!
Post contributed by Chloe Rockow, a junior majoring in Public Policy Studies with a double minor in Religion and Political Science.
According to Wikipedia, “finding aids are a concept dating back to ancient clay tablets.” While I certainly didn’t learn that factoid in library school, I suppose that if you’re writing on tablets, then you probably need a special tablet (a finding aid?) that tells you where you put all of the other tablets, right? Maybe…
Whatever their origins, finding aids are an important tool for locating material in archival collections and last month the Rubenstein Library’s online finding aids got a major facelift. We’ve brought them out of the Stone Age by completely overhauling the layout and introducing some new functionality. With these improvements, we hope our finding aids are more attractive and usable for both researchers and staff.
Some of the major enhancements:
Take a moment and let us know what you think about our new finding aids site. We appreciate your feedback.
Post contributed by Noah Huffman, Archivist for Metadata and Encoding.
Perhaps I just run with the bibliophiles, but when I tell people I work in a library, they usually say, “You’re lucky, you get to read books all day!” For most of my colleagues this is probably not the case, but I am one of the fortunate few for whom it is true. I am responsible for cataloging small or single-volume collections. They generally arrive with little or no description, so I must read the material to some extent in order to provide access to it. I also train others to catalog these collections, and I urge them to verify any information accompanying a new acquisition. In particular, I ask them to confirm the sex of any journal or diary author. Those describing these items before they reach our library still tend to assume that creators are male rather than female. Here is a case in point.
According to the description provided to us, Rev. James Lee-Warner of Norfolk, England, was the author of this travel journal. I needed to confirm this. The wrinkle was that, although I’ve often deciphered 19th-century handwriting in both quill and pen, this hand was rather difficult to read. With a little persistence I was able to read passages, including the one that provided the confirmation I was seeking.
In the entry for Friday, March 15, the traveling party joined a crowd of 10,000 people waiting at St. Peter’s to see Pope Pius IX. The author noted that “[The pope] did not arrive punctually, so we had ample leisure to look round on the vast crowds…,” then went on to describe what happened later that day:
In the afternoon we drove with the [W?]abryns to Santa Maria della Pace where the braid of my dress formed an attachment to a tin bucket full of water—and I found myself, unconscious of the impending disaster, calmly descending a flight of steps into the church. The graceful sweep of my dress gradually tightened as I descended, and in another moment with a terrific crash down came the unfortunate bucket [tolling?] down the steps into the church with a small cataract of water preceeding [sic] it and announcing to all the world the melancholy nature of the catastrophe. The Sacristan good-naturedly rushed to the rescue with a somewhat dilapidated broom and swept back the torrent with great promptitude.
I searched the journal and found no one else’s handwriting, so the volume’s sole author was a well-educated woman. Unfortunately, despite consulting entries for the Lee-Warner family and their relations in Burke’s Peerage and his Landed Gentry, I have not been able to identify her, although I am more certain that at least some members of the traveling party were Lee-Warners. To learn more about this journal and its content, visit our library’s catalog record.
Post contributed by Alice Poffinberger, Archivist/Original Cataloger in the Technical Services Dept.
Date: Friday, March 16, 2012
Time: 9:00 AM to 7:00 PM
Location: Gothic Reading Room
Contact information: Dr. Shauna Devine, shauna.devine[at]duke.edu
Prominent historians from Duke University, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, North Carolina State University, and Ohio State University will gather at Duke for a one-day symposium marking the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War. It will feature talks and presentations on a wide range of topics related to the war and its ongoing impact a century and a half later. This event is free and open to the public. See the symposium’s website for additional information.
The symposium coincides with the Rubenstein Library’s acclaimed exhibit, “I Recall the Experience Sweet and Sad: Memories of the Civil War,” on display through March 30. Additional materials focused on Civil War medicine from the Rubenstein Library’s History of Medicine Collections will also be displayed in the Gothic Reading Room on the day of the exhibit.
Date: Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Time: 4:00 PM
Location: Biddle Rare Book Room
Contact information: Kelly Wooten, 919-660-5967 or kelly.wooten[at]duke.edu
Sallie Bingham’s Mending: New & Selected Stories spans a career of 50 years, ranging from the fecund Kentucky of her youth to the starker landscapes of New Mexico. In addition to reading selections from this volume, Sallie will discuss her current project, The Blue Box: Three Lives in Letters based on letters from her maternal forebears. Books will be available for purchase courtesy of the Gothic Bookshop.
Sponsored by the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture.
Oreo celebrates its 100th birthday today, marking the anniversary of its introduction on March 6, 1912, by the National Biscuit Company (Nabisco). It went on to become the best-selling cookie in the United States during the 20th century. To commemorate the occasion, Nabisco, now owned by Kraft, has launched a new birthday-cake flavored Oreo and a website where you can share Oreo moments or send Oreo-grams.
A hundred years of twisting and dipping the black and white cookie also means a hundred years of advertising Oreos to potential consumers. The Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History has a number of historic Oreo advertisements in its collections. The earliest print ads show Oreos alongside other Nabisco products, such as the Uneeda Biscuit and Lorna Doone Shortbread. These advertisements typically featured a young boy in a yellow raincoat. This character was developed by Philadelphia-based advertising agency N.W. Ayer & Son to highlight the effectiveness of Nabisco’s innovative moisture-proof packaging (called In-er-seal) in an era when other biscuits were packed by grocers in paper bags. Ads urged consumers to “look for the red seal.”
Oreo has had several name variations during its long life. It entered the world as “Oreo Biscuit,” changed to “Oreo Sandwich” in 1921 and then to “Oreo Creme Sandwich” in 1948. Now it’s just “Oreo” and billed as “Milk’s Favorite Cookie.” Nabisco introduced Double Stuf Oreos in 1975 and the Fudge Covered Oreos (pictured, below right) in 1987, just in time for the cookie’s 75thbirthday. Now the brand is sold worldwide – you can even get Green Tea Oreos in China and Japan!
Post contributed by Liz Shesko, Reference Intern, Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising, and Marketing History.
Date: Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Time: 7:00 PM
Location: The FHI Garage, Smith Warehouse Bay 4, 114 S. Buchanan St. (map)
Contact information: Patrick Stawski, 919-660-5823 or patrick.stawski(at)duke.edu
Co-Director Heidi Ewing and Carey Pope (Executive Director of NARAL Pro-Choice North Carolina) will lead a discussion following the film.
12th and Delaware takes its name from an intersection in Fort Pierce, Florida, where an abortion clinic named A Woman’s World sits across the street from the pro-life Pregnancy Care Center. Pregnant teenagers and women often mistake the pro-life center for the abortion clinic, and are patiently and persuasively counseled by its staff, often with deceptive tactics, to keep their pregnancies. Meanwhile, the medical staff of the clinic try to counsel patients to make their own choices and to perform their work as pro-life protesters walk the sidewalk in front of the clinic day and night. Turning a non-judgmental lens on both camps, filmmakers Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing use the extraordinary access they gained to practitioners, protestors, and patients to show us a conflict with seemingly no possible resolution.
The screening will be followed by a discussion panel. Heidi Ewing has been making critically acclaimed documentary films and television programs with co-director and -producer Rachel Grady for over ten years. Their film Jesus Camp, a candid look at Pentecostal children in America, was nominated for a 2007 Academy Award for best documentary feature. Two years earlier, The Boys of Baraka, about a group of “at-risk” pre-teens from Baltimore who attend an experimental boarding school in Kenya, was nominated for an Emmy. 12th and Delaware premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and, among other honors, won the Kathleen Bryan Edwards Award for Human Rights at the 2010 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival.
Carey Pope is the Executive Director of NARAL Pro-Choice North Carolina. She has worked in the fields of reproductive and sexual health education, research and advocacy for more than eight years in Houston, Washington, DC, and North Carolina. She holds a master’s degree in public policy and women’s studies from The George Washington University and a B.A. in English and women’s studies from North Carolina State University.
About Rights! Camera! Action!: Featuring award-winning documentaries about human rights themes from Durham’s annual Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, the series explores issues ranging from the immigration and refugee rights to the justice system and the environment. All films featured in the series are archived at the Duke Library and are part of a rich and expanding collection of human rights materials. Co-sponsors include The Human Rights Archive, the Duke Human Rights Center, the Archive of Documentary Arts, the Franklin Humanities Institute and the Program in Arts of the Moving Image (AMI). Special co-sponsor for this screening: Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture.
Former Duke men’s basketball team captain Kenny Dennard came to visit the Duke University Archives today. We gave him a refresher on his Duke basketball career (1977/78-1980/81), with the help of the Sports Information Office’s Basketball Records.
Here’s Kenny reading the 1981 Chanticleer. Check out Kenny’s reflections on his time at Duke (brought to you courtesy of the digitized edition of the 1981 volume).
Here’s Kenny and Lynn Eaton, the Hartman Center’s research services archivist. She’s 5′ 6″, by way of comparison.
Thanks for visiting, Kenny, and come back soon!
(By the way, Kenny is a fan of the Duke University Archives on Facebook. Are you? We have only 29 hours left in our Facebook competition with the UNC Archives!)
