Author Archives: Melissa Watterworth Batt

About Melissa Watterworth Batt

Archivist for Literary Manuscripts, Natural History Collections and Rare Books Collections, Archives and Special Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, University of Connecticut Libraries

A new semester, and a poem by Marilyn Nelson

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No work is insignificant. All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.  – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

As classes begin today, we welcome back students, faculty and staff to the University by sharing the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and a poem by Marilyn Nelson.

faculty_nelsonBorn in Cleveland, Ohio, the daughter of a Tuskegee Airman, Marilyn Nelson is an accomplished and award-winning poet, children’s book author, and translator of over fourteen books of poetry. A professor emeritus at the University of Connecticut and Connecticut’s poet laureate from 2001 to 2006, Marilyn Nelson has won two Pushcart Prizes, fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, and the 2012 Frost Medal from the Poetry Society of America.  In 2013, she was elected as a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.  Today she is listed among the faculty of the  Cave Canem Foundation for young African American poets.  Marilyn Nelson’s literary manuscripts, letters, photographs and publications are being preserved and made accessible at the University of Connecticut in Archives and Special Collections.

 

Worth by Marilyn Nelson

 

Source: Poetry Magazine, September 2005, p. 403 and available online at http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse/186/5#!/20607120.

 

 

2016 Events Spring Into View

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edicionesvigiaArchives and Special Collections is excited to announce its preliminary schedule of programs and events for Spring 2016.  In the months and weeks ahead, handmade books, photographs, and rarely-displayed visual materials highlighting artists and artwork found in Archives and Special Collections will be featured in a series of exhibitions in the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center and Homer Babbidge Library.  Below is a list of exhibitions and events coming your way.  All are free and open to the public.

Flight by Force or Free Will (exhibition)
On view: 1 January – 26 February, 2016
Gallery: Thomas J. Dodd Research Center Gallery, UConn
Curator: Graham Stinnett, Archivist for Human Rights and Alternative Press Collections

Migration has occurred throughout human history.  The fluctuations of population from one geographic location to the next has occurred in times of tragedy, opportunity and emergency; by flight, by force and free will.  This exhibition highlights selections from Archives & Special Collections about expressions of displacement, forced migration, coercive settlement, asylum under the state and the globalization of refuge-seeking.  Prints, illustrations, pamphlets, artists books, multimedia, and photographs from the Human Rights Internet Collection, Mia Farrow Collection, University of Connecticut Films Collection, International Rescue Committee, (Central America) Records, Eric Reeves Papers, and Artist’s Book Collection, are represented.

“Of Mice and Men: Emerging Infectious Disease in a Warmer, More Fragmented World” (Lecture, Teale Lecture Series)
Date: 4 February 2016, 4:00 PM
Location: Konover Auditorium, Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, UConn
Speaker: Rick Ostfeld, Senior Scientist, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Millbrook, New York

Exhibition prepared by Guest Curator Elizabeth Barbeau (title forthcoming)
On view: 7 March – 13 May 2016
Gallery: Thomas J. Dodd Research Center Gallery, UConn

Cyborgology: Female Automata and Science Fiction (tent. title) (exhibition)
On view: 1 March – 29 April 2016
Gallery: John P. McDonald Reading Room, Archives and Special Collections, Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, UConn
Curator: Giorgina Paiella

“Comedy, Economics, and Climate Change” (Lecture, Teale Lecture Series)
Date: 3 March 2016
Location: Konover Auditorium, Thomas J. Dodd Research Center
Speaker: Yoram Bauman, Author, “standupeconomist,” and carbon tax activist

Cuban Bricolage: The Artists’ Books of Ediciones Vigía /
Bricolaje Cubano: Los libros artesanales de Ediciones Vígia (exhibition)
On view: 21 March – 21 May 2016
Gallery: Homer Babbidge Library, UConn
Curator: Marisol Ramos, Librarian for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Latino Studies, Spanish, and Anthropology

 

‘Slow Violence, Environmental Activism, and the Arts’: Teale Lecture happening today

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nixonToday November 19 at 4:00pm in UConn’s Konover Auditorium, the Edwin Way Teale Lecture Series on Nature and the Environment presents Dr. Robert Nixon, The Thomas A. and Currie C. Barron Family Professor in Humanities and the Environment at Princeton University.

Dr. Nixon will explore the imaginative and political challenges posed by slow violence, by the incremental casualties that shadow our most pressing environmental crises. His talk will focus on activists and artists who are responding with an urgent creativity to the challenge of representing unspectacular environmental violence in a spectacle-obsessed age.

A frequent contributor to the New York Times, Dr. Nixon’s writing has also appeared in The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, London Review of Books, The Nation, The Guardian, and Outside.  His book Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor has received several awards since its publication in 2011, including American Book Award, the 2012 Sprout prize from the International Studies Association for the best book in environmental studies, the 2012 Interdisciplinary Humanities Award for the best book to straddle disciplines in the humanities; and the 2013 biennial ASLE Award for the best book in environmental literary studies.

Co-sponsored by UConn’s Teale Series, Junior Faculty Forum of the Humanities Institute, and the Dodd Research Center, the event is free and open to the public.  

Since 1995, UConn presents the award-winning Edwin Way Teale Lecture Series that brings distinguished speakers to the University to speak in public lectures on various aspects of nature and the environment.  The Lecture Series is named in honor of the Pulitzer-prize winning naturalist and author, Edwin Way Teale, whose vast archive of literary manuscripts, letters, diaries and photographs is preserved and accessible at UConn’s Archives and Special Collections.

Connecticut Children’s Book Fair 2015: This Weekend!

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Lowly-reading_smSmiles, laughter, children’s books and their authors await you at the 24th Annual Connecticut Children’s Book Fair happening this Saturday, November 14 and Sunday, November 15 at the University of Connecticut.  The fun begins at 10:00am.  Check out this year’s exciting schedule of Authors and Illustrators featuring Ross MacDonald, Wendell Minor, Florence Minor, Cynthia Lord, P. J. Lynch, Jane Sutcliffe, Pamela Zagarenski, and Connecticut’s-own Barbara McClintock.  Parking, directions, and links to local attractions, including the Ballard Museum of Puppetry, are available on the Book Fair website.  Drop in to hear distinguished illustrators discuss their work, browse the latest releases, attend storytime and other events throughout the day including a visit by Clifford the Big Red Dog!

The Connecticut Children’s Book Fair is a program of the University of Connecticut Libraries and the UConn Co-op. Proceeds from sales at the event are used for the growth of the Northeast Children’s Literature Collection in the Archives and Special Collections at the University of Connecticut Libraries.

Connecticut Children’s Book Fair 2015: This Weekend!

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Lowly-reading_smSmiles, laughter, children’s books and their authors await you at the 24th Annual Connecticut Children’s Book Fair happening this Saturday, November 14 and Sunday, November 15 at the University of Connecticut.  The fun begins at 10:00am.  Check out this year’s exciting schedule of Authors and Illustrators featuring Ross MacDonald, Wendell Minor, Florence Minor, Cynthia Lord, P. J. Lynch, Jane Sutcliffe, Pamela Zagarenski, and Connecticut’s-own Barbara McClintock.  Parking, directions, and links to local attractions, including the Ballard Museum of Puppetry, are available on the Book Fair website.  Drop in to hear distinguished illustrators discuss their work, browse the latest releases, attend storytime and other events throughout the day including a visit by Clifford the Big Red Dog!

The Connecticut Children’s Book Fair is a program of the University of Connecticut Libraries and the UConn Co-op. Proceeds from sales at the event are used for the growth of the Northeast Children’s Literature Collection in the Archives and Special Collections at the University of Connecticut Libraries.

Armistice Day 1945 [70 Years After Nuremberg] | Human Rights Archives

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blog_11111945-300x96“This is Armistice Day–and I suppose a holiday at home. The first peace-time Armistice day in a long time. Here it is another day–another mark on the calendar.” [p. 192, 11/11/1945]

Tom Dodd spent the holiday working in an effort to “hasten these proceedings along” rather than sitting out in the cold watching two service teams play football. [p.192] The middle weeks of November saw regular clashes between General Donovan and Robert Jackson regarding the best way to present and try the case–Donovan preferring to emphasize witnesses and Jackson documents. Dodd felt caught in the middle. He liked both men and understood their individual perspectives while trying to stay out of the fray.  Continue reading …

 

TONIGHT: The Story of Richard Scarry’s Busytown with Special Guest Lecturer Huck Scarry

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Busytown, the bustling small town and home to such resident characters as Huckle Cat, Lowly Worm, Mr. Frumble, Police Sergeant Murphy, Mr. Fixit, and Hilda Hippo, was first depicted in the book Richard Scarry’s Busy, Busy World.  The fictional town was a central feature in several Richard Scarry books and has been depicted through time in a variety of formats, including games, toys, activity books, and an animated series.

Richard Scarry, the popular and much-loved American author and illustrator of over 300 children’s books, is known for such classics as Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever released in 1963, Richard Scarry’s Busy, Busy World(1965), Richard Scarry’s Storybook Dictionary (1966), and What Do People Do All Day (1968).  Selling millions of copies Huck Scarry 2during his lifetime, many Scarry books, though regularly updated and re-issused, have never been out of print.  Several have have been translated into over 20 languages.

Join us tonight Tuesday November 10, 6:00pm for a special guest lecture “The Story of Richard Scarry’s Busytown” with Scarry’s son, Richard “Huck” Scarry II. Also an artist and author of children’s books, Huck Scarry published a new Scarry picture book for the first time in the U.S. since the elder Scarry’s death in 1994.  With Richard Scarry’s Best Lowly Worm Book Ever! Huck Scarry began a season of re-releasing Scarry’s classics to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Richard Scarry’s best-known book, Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever.   Read more…

 

The Story of Richard Scarry’s Busytown with Special Guest Lecturer Huck Scarry

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ScarryBusiestpeopleeverP7Busytown, the bustling small town and home to such resident characters as Huckle Cat, Lowly Worm, Mr. Frumble, Police Sergeant Murphy, Mr. Fixit, and Hilda Hippo, was first depicted in the book Richard Scarry’s Busy, Busy World.  The fictional town was a central feature in several Richard Scarry books and has been depicted through time in a variety of formats, including games, toys, activity books, and an animated series.

Richard Scarry, the popular and much-loved American author and illustrator of over 300 children’s books, is known for such classics as Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever released in 1963, Richard Scarry’s Busy, Busy World (1965), Richard Scarry’s Storybook Dictionary (1966), and What Do People Do All Day (1968).  Selling millions of copies during his lifetime, many Scarry books, though regularly updated and re-issused, have never been out of print.  Several have have been translated into over 20 languages.

Join us tomorrow evening, Tuesday November 10, 6:00pm for a special guest lecture Huck Scarry 2“The Story of Richard Scarry’s Busytown” with Scarry’s son, Richard “Huck” Scarry II. Also an artist and author of children’s books, Huck Scarry published a new Scarry picture book for the first time in the U.S. since the elder Scarry’s death in 1994.  With Richard Scarry’s Best Lowly Worm Book Ever! Huck Scarry began a season of re-releasing Scarry’s classics to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Richard Scarry’s best-known book, Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever.  The guest lecture event will take place in the Class of 1947 Room, Homer Babbidge Library, University of Connecticut in Storrs.  The lecture is free and open to the public and is presented in conjunction with the 24th Annual Connecticut Children’s Book Fair taking place at UConn on Saturday and Sunday, November 14 and 15, 2015.

Richard Scarry’s personal papers and archives, preserved and available in Archives and Special Collections at the Dodd Research Center, document the creation, production, and distribution of his books for children. The archives are part of the Northeast Children’s Literature Collection and contain materials and correspondence concerning Scarry’s early work, with Western Publishing and Little Golden Books, beginning in the 1950s. The bulk of the material in the archives concerns the works produced by Scarry during his later association with Random House.

Can We Save the Botany Degree? Naturalist & Teale Researcher Richard Telford’s Latest Post, from Connecticut’s Trail Wood

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By Richard Telford, The Ecotone Exchange, 23 October 2015 (excerpt)

fungi-trail-wood-rOn October 17, 1959, less than six months after moving to Trail Wood, the beloved private nature sanctuary where he would spend the rest of his life, American naturalist writer Edwin Way Teale wrote the following entry in his private journal:

We are presented with life memberships in the Baldwin Bird Club and  given a fine vasculum for collecting plants. So we round out our long association with this nature group—over a period of more than 20 years.  Now we ‘have other lives to live.’  We watched them go with thankfulness in our hearts that we could stay.

I first read this passage two summers ago while researching Teale’s early days at Trail Wood with the generous support of the University of Connecticut, where Teale’s papers are permanently housed in the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center. At the time, I was examining the extraordinary transformation that occurred in the lives of Edwin and his wife and collaborator Nellie with their move to Trail Wood, a site Edwin would subsequently declare to be “our Promised Land” (September 8, 1959). Teale chronicled this transformation in The Hampton Journal, 1959-1961, the first of four 500-page unpublished observation journals he kept at Trail Wood over a period of twenty-one years.  Continue reading…

Human Rights Photographer’s Collection Donated to UConn

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by Suzanne Zack, University Libraries, for UConn Today

RomanoChildLaborersPickCoffeeOnACoffeePlantationThe late U. Roberto (Robin) Romano was an accomplished photographer, award-winning filmmaker, and human rights advocate who unflinchingly focused his eye and lens on children around the world, capturing the violation of their rights.

Since 2009, Romano had made a limited number of his images available to researchers through the UConn Libraries’ Archives & Special Collections. Now, two years after his death, his total body of work, including video tape masters and digital video files, hundreds of interviews, thousands of digital photos and prints, plus his research files have been given to UConn and will now be available to those who examine human rights issues.

More than 100 of Romano’s images of child labor originally exhibited at the UConn’s William Benton Museum of Fine Art in 2006 are available online from the University Archives & Special Collections. These are the first of the more than 130,000 still images that will be available online for research and educational use once the collection is processed. The Archives & Special Collections plans to digitize the entire collection of analog still images, negatives, and research files, creating an unprecedented online resource relating to documentary journalism, child labor and human rights, and other social issues that Romano documented during his lifetime.  Continue reading…

 

Leap Before You Look @ICAinBoston: National Exhibition of Black Mountain College Arts and Artists

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uconn_asc_1969-0001_gm_this_artThe teachers and students at Black Mountain College came to North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains from around the United States and the world.  Some stayed for years, others mere weeks. …They experimented with new ways of teaching and learning; they encouraged discussion and free inquiry; they felt that form in art had meaning; they were committed to the rigor of the studio and the laboratory; … They had faith in learning through experience and doing; they trusted in the new while remaining committed to ideas from the past; and they valued the idiosyncratic nature of the individual. But most of all, they believed in art, in its ability to expand one’s internal horizons, and in art as a way of living and being in the world.

Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College 1933–1957 is the first comprehensive museum exhibition on the subject of Black Mountain College to take place in the United States. Featuring works by more than ninety artists, from painting and sculpture to photography and ceramics, the exhibition will be accompanied by a robust program of music, dance, performance, lectures, and educational programs. The exhibition had its premiere on Saturday at the ICA/Boston and will be on view from October 10, 2015 to January 24, 2016.

Archives and Special Collections is thrilled to be a part of the exhibition, where items from the literary collections are on display together with works loaned from archives and museums throughout the United States and Europe. Items on loan from Archives and Special Collections include a painting by poet and artist Fielding Dawson titled “Cy Twombly.”  Dawson, whose papers reside here in the archives, was a student at Black Mountain College in the early 1950s along with fellow students Cy Twombly, Robert Rauschenberg, and Dan Rice.  Rare documents, manuscripts and “This” (pictured) a poetry broadside by Charles Olson printed at Black Mountain College are also on view in the exhibition. Charles Olson’s archive of manuscripts, letters, diaries, photographs and books resides here at the Dodd Research Center. A rich document of the poet’s life and work, the archive includes a variety of materials from his time at Black Mountain College where he began teaching in 1948 and assumed the role of rector (formally) in 1954. Olson’s poetics were very much influenced by the artists, faculty, students and atmosphere of experimentation that he encountered at Black Mountain College, and that in turn influenced a generation of writers that were later associated with, according to the New American Poetry editor Donald Allen, the “Black Mountain School.”

Organized by Helen Molesworth, the ICA’s former Barbara Lee Chief Curator, with ICA Assistant Curator Ruth Erickson, the exhibition argues that Black Mountain College was an important historical precedent, prompting renewed, critical attention to relationships between art, democracy, and globalism.  The college’s influence, and its critical role in shaping many major concepts, movements, and forms in postwar art and education, can still be seen and felt today.

Esphyr Slobodkina – Modernist (Children’s Book) Illustrator/Author

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by JoAnn Conrad, Recipient of the 2015 Billie M. Levy Travel and Research Grant

Part of my ongoing research into children’s picturebooks of the mid-twentieth century has to do with the ways in which the work of illustrators has insinuated itself into the public memory even as the names of individual artists may be relatively obscure. This is the case with the rare female artist and, particularly, Esphyr Slobodkina, as her influence is inversely proportional to the obscurity of her name.  “Esphyr Slobodkina . . .helped pave the way for the acceptance of abstract art in the United States and translate[d] European modernism into an American idiom.”[1]

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A simple and serendipitous anecdote demonstrates this: While researching her papers at UConn’s Archives and Special Collections this summer, I was living across the street from the UConn Bookstore. One day, I noticed a display in the window announcing “Caps for Sale” [Fig. 1], clearly alluding to one of Slobodkina’s most popular books of the same name [Fig. 2]. The power of the sale poster derives from and depends on the reference to the book, which is assumed to be automatic.

There is a fair amount about Slobodkina’s life and work available. The Finding Aid for the Slobodkina Papers at Archives and Special Collections provides a brief biography as does the website of the Esphyr Slobodkina Foundation.  The 2009 Rediscovering Slobodkina: A Pioneer of American Abstraction includes information on her life as well as her contributions to the art world, but the full biography has yet to be written.  Esphyr Slobodkina anticipated that it would be written, however, and drafted a comprehensive, detailed, 5-volume manuscript “Notes for a Biographer” which resides in her papers. The Slobodkina Papers contain much more than is in her books – things that would never be published but which give a researcher like me access to insights into the thoughts and motivations of the artist. One of the pleasures of this kind of archival research is not only this intimate and personal connection one makes across time, but also the unexpected revelations into the personality of the artist that informs her work. My intention here is to provide some of those “off the books” glimpses into the work and person – Esphyr Slobodkina.

Esphyr Slobodkina was born to a wealthy Russian-Jewish family in Russia before the Revolution.  Continue reading…