“Tití Doris taught me dance…”

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Jean Cardinale

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Collections in archives and special collections come to life when researchers visit us and use our archival holdings. They turn what seem like a cluster of old, unrelated books and papers into meaningful stories and histories. Case in point is the recent visit to the archives by Margarita Barresi, a novelist doing research for her first book. The setting of the book is in Puerto Rico and she wanted to learn more about the social and cultural life of Puerto Rico during the first half of the 20th century.

“I’ve always wanted to write a novel based on the story of my grandparents,” says Barresi. “They lived during a time of great change in Puerto Rico, when a group of young idealists headed by Luis Muñoz Marín led the island from widespread poverty to great prosperity during the 1940s. I remember Luis Muñoz Marín having dinner at our house, and attending Christmas Eve parties at the house of Don Jaime Benítez, chancellor of the University of Puerto Rico, and a great educator and statesman. Knowing these people did not seem remarkable to an eight-year old child. They were just family friends. I am so grateful for the archives like the Dodd Research Center where I can go to hear their voices once again.”

Barresi wanted access to several rare books and pamphlets from the Puerto Rican Collection, a rich collection of 19th and early 20th century books, pamphlets and government documents assembled by three generations from the Géigel Family from Puerto Rico. “It was particularly helpful to me that the Géigel Family was from Ponce. Part of my grandmother’s story is set in the Ponce of the 1920s, and having access to books that recounted the time, such as Ponce y su Historial Geopolítico-Económico y Cultural by Manuel Mayoral Barnes, was invaluable,” says Barresi.

In addition to gathering information about Puerto Rico in the first half of the 20^th century, Barresi found an actual family connection while delving in these books and newspapers. She tells me, “Your archive resources were very useful and fascinating, as were the back issues of ‘El Imparcial’ and ‘El Mundo’ in the library. I will probably come back to review more of the newspapers once I am further along in my research. On a fun note, I was surprised to see my grandfather’s cousin, Doris Ortiz, listed in the first PR Ballet program. I knew she was a dancer of some renown, who was even in a Hollywood movie dancing Flamenco, but I didn’t know she was also in the first Puerto Rican ballet company. Tití Doris taught me dance in her Hato Rey studio when I was a young girl.”

We look forward to reading Ms. Barresi’s novel in the future and see Puerto Rico’s social and cultural life comes to life in her work.

Note: Images from: Les Presages : anunciación de un arte nuevo en Puerto Rico : [programa de ballet]

Marisol Ramos, Curator for Latin American & Caribbean Collections

The New Haven Railroad and the Bracero Program — a source for teaching and learning

Posted on March 27, 2012 by Laura Smith

In 1942 the United States government, then in the midst of fighting World War II, and Mexico entered into an agreement for Mexican citizens, predominantly men, to provide labor in the U.S. in industries that were most severely affected when many American men went to fight in the war. This program and the men, who became known as braceros, provided desperately needed labor for many industries that were pivotal to U.S. war efforts. While many of the Mexican men worked in agriculture, almost 100,000 braceros worked for the nation’s railroads, mostly providing track labor.

The New Haven Railroad participated in the program, hiring several hundreds of workers in 1944 and 1945. The railroad company built housing for the workers in the Montowese section of North Haven, Connecticut. This document from January 26, 1945, submitted to the company trustees, tells the company president that it is necessary to hire more than the original 650 men that were originally alloted to them, and that another 550 men are needed.

Here are some questions to think about when you study this document:

What were the conditions that led to the hiring of Mexican men during World War II?

What were the benefits of hiring the braceros to the railroads? What were the benefits to the men themselves? What might have been negatives in the hiring of the men?

What do you think happened to the men after the war, when the American soldiers came home and wanted their jobs back?

Do you think this is a good example of how countries can cooperate?

This resource conforms to the Connecticut Social Studies Curriculum Framework standards for high school students, 1.3 — significant events and themes in world history/internatonal studies, number 21 (analyze conflict and cooperation in world affairs).

This letter is from the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Records.

Laura Smith, Curator for Business, Railroad and Labor Collections

New Acquisitions: Business Collections

Posted on March 19, 2012 by Jean Cardinale

Archives & Special Collections acquires new collections and additions to existing collections throughout the year. Periodically, I will be posting information about collections that have been acquired or are newly available for your researching enjoyment. First up are those documenting Connecticut businesses:

John Francis O’Brien Papers

Potographs, correspondence and certificates, most involving Mr. O’Brien’s service as an employee of the Southern New England Telephone Company. http://doddcenter.uconn.edu/asc/findaids/obrien/MSS20100030.html

Southern New England Telephone (SNET) Collection

Memorabilia and realia from the collections of people who were employed by the company. The collection includes antique telephones and telephone equipment, include a climbing belt and lanyard of a lineman, an employee service pin and memorabilia of the Telephone Pioneers, a volunteer organization and service club made up of U.S. and Canadian telecommunications industry employees and retirees, a commemorative telephone directory, the cellphone used to make the first cellphone call in Connecticut, and a dress and a shirt made of pages from the SNET Yellow Pages. http://doddcenter.uconn.edu/asc/findaids/snetcoll/MSS20100118.html

Thomas Dublin Collection of the Jewett City Cotton Manufacturing Company

Research notes and datasets compiled by Thomas Dublin while he conducted research in the 1980s about workers at the Jewett City Cotton Manufacturing Company in Jewett City, Connecticut. (Finding aid not yet available)

–Betsy Pittman, University Archivist

“The Case Against Franklin D. Roosevelt”…and a pamphlet that does quite the opposite: a source for classroom instruction

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Laura Smith

The election of 1936, when Franklin D. Roosevelt ran against Alf Landon, may not have been as contentious as some — Roosevelt swept the election by winning 46 of the then 48 states and 98.48% of the electoral votes — but like all elections had its share of accusations and claims hurled against the incumbent. By 1936 Roosevelt had served for almost one full term and his political opponents now had ammunition to use to discredit him and his record. Among other things, he was accused of not being a good steward of the people’s money, of disregarding the Constitution, of being a dictator, and of breaking his promises.

Shown here is a page from a pamphlet titled “The Case Against Franklin D. Roosevelt.” You may first think that this writing would try to prove Roosevelt’s incompetence, but look again. The case the pamphlet makes is that FDR “Wastes the Public Money,” but upon closer reading we see that the pamphlet is really comparing similar claims made to other presidents of the past, such beloved ones as Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln, with the inference that if such claims were made against presidents who we now revere then surely Roosevelt’s policies will also stand the test of time. Also, in the back of the pamphlet we see that it was published by the National Democratic Committee, and such rhetorical language now makes sense.

Here are some questions to ask as you study this page:

How does comparing the record of previous presidents disprove Roosevelt’s opponents’ claims that he wastes public money?

Does this kind of rhetoric work well in making an argument? Do you think the writer’s argument is stronger, in showcasing words used against other presidents, then if he or she just answered the claims in a plainer way?

Also in the pamphlet was a political cartoon from 1861 lampooning Abraham Lincoln for printing “greenbacks”, with a worker saying “These are the greediest fellows I ever saw. With all my exertions I cant satisfy their pocket, though I keep the Mill going day and night.”

Here are some questions:

How does this political cartoon strengthen the National Democratic Committee’s contention that Roosevelt is a good steward of the public’s money, and makes good fiscal policies?

What was the situation that caused Lincoln to print greenbacks? Are the circumstances of Lincoln the same, or worse, for Roosevelt?

This pamphlet comes from the personal papers of Herman Wolf, a Connecticut political consultant who in his youth worked for the Roosevelt campaign.

Laura Smith, Curator for Business, Railroad and Labor Collections

And Then There Were Two – March 1914

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Jean Cardinale

From its beginnings as the Storrs Agricultural School in 1881, Connecticut Agricultural College operated on a trimester system, with fall, winter, and spring terms. That came to an end in 1914, when a meeting of the faculty (this was well before creation of the University Senate), voted to change to a two semester academic calendar. The three semester system had terms of uneven duration – a 15 week fall term, 11 week winter term, and 13 week spring term. After the change to two semesters, the calendar was virtually unchanged for decades. Until 1972, the fall semester began in late September and ended by mid-January. Students went home for the Christmas/New Year break, came back for final exams, then went home again for semester break.

–Mark J. Roy, University Communications (retired)

Celebrate the Opening of the Michael Rumaker Papers

Posted on March 8, 2012 by Jean Cardinale

Michael Rumaker was born in South Philadelphia in 1932. The fourth of nine children, he grew up in National Park, New Jersey, a small town on the Delaware River, and later attended the school of journalism at Rider College in Trenton on a half-scholarship. After hearing artist Ben Shahn speak enthusiastically of Black Mountain College during a lecture at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, he applied to the college and was granted a work scholarship. In September 1952 he transferred to Black Mountain–washing dishes seven days a week, managing dishwashing crews–and studied in the writing classes of Charles Olson and Robert Creeley.

His breakthrough was “The Truck,” written for Olson’s writing class in October 1954: “after two years of confused false starts and superficial scratchings, I wrote my first real short story, although, in what was to become usual for me, I didn’t know it till after the fact.” He had “reached back,” by his own account, into his adolescence in the mid-1940s and a street gang he knew in the northern section of Camden, New Jersey, “to get it.” Olson’s response was enthusiastic, and he suggested that Rumaker send the story to Robert Creeley for the Black Mountain Review.

Since 1955, Rumaker has published works of fiction, poetry and non-fiction in literary periodicals, novels including A Day and a Night at the Baths (1979), My First Satyrnalia (1981), and To Kill a Cardinal (1992), a collection of short stories, and the memoirs Robert Duncan in San Francisco (1996) and Black Mountain Days (2003).

According to George Butterick, who began collecting Michael Rumaker’s literary papers at the University of Connecticut in 1975, where they reside today, “Rumaker has proceeded from writing about disengaged youth in a generation willing to declare its difference, to being a celebrant of total life and human joy. Actively participating in his own destiny, he has left a glowing trail of work to document the struggle toward identity. He represents, in his later writings, one extension of the Beat revolution: the embracing of sexual diversity. Governing all his work is an indefatigable spirit that gives the creative life reward.”

Join Archives and Special Collections and special guest — novelist, poet, short-story writer, and Black Mountain College alumnus Michael Rumaker — as we celebrate the much-anticipated opening of the Michael Rumaker Papers. The event will feature an interview with and readings by Michael Rumaker, an exhibition of the author’s manuscripts, letters and photographs, ribbon-cutting ceremony, and reception with students and special guests. All are welcome. This event is free and open to the public

April 10, 2012
4:00 to 6:00pm
McDonald Reading Room
Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, University of Connecticut

– Melissa Watterworth Batt, Curator of Literary Collections

Malka Penn Children’s Book Collection on Human Rights

Posted on February 28, 2012 by Jean Cardinale

In 2005, Michele Palmer of Storrs, Connecticut, established the Malka Penn Children’s Book Collection on Human Rights as part of the Northeast Children’s Literature Collection at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center. The picture books, young adult novels and non-fiction works address issues such as the Holocaust, racism, prejudice, war and conflict. The works below were published in 2010 or were made available in the U.S. for the first time in 2010. Ms. Palmer, who has written several children’s books under the pseudonym Malka Penn, is also a volunteer for the Windham Textile and History Museum.

Chapman, Fern, Is It Night or Day? (New York : Farrar Straus Giroux, 2010).

Ellis, Deborah, No Safe Place. (Toronto : Groundwood Books/House of Anansi Press, 2010).

Engle, Margarita, The Firefly Letters: A Suffragette’s Journey to Cuba. (New York : Henry Holt and Co., 2010).

Jablonski, Carla, Resistance: Book 1 (New York : First Second, 2010).

Lottridge, Celia, Home is Beyond the Mountains. (Toronto : Groundwood Books/House of Anansi Press, 2010).

Molnar, Haya, Under A Red Sky: Memoir of a Childhood in Communist Romania. (New York : Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2010).

Shimko, Bonnie, The Private Thoughts of Amelia E. Rye. (New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010).

Warner, Jody, Viola Desmond Won’t Be Budged. (Toronto : Groundwood Books/House of Anansi Press, 2010).

Terri J. Goldich, Curator, Northeast Children’s Literature Collection

The “Wicked Picket” Takes a Walk – February 25, 1968

Posted on February 25, 2012 by Jean Cardinale

It was the height of the war in Vietnam, and when the lead singer of the vocal group “The Happenings” was drafted, their appearance at UConn’s Jorgensen Auditorium was canceled. In their place was a concert on February 25 by soul singer Wilson Picket, whose hits included “Mustang Sally” and “In the Midnight Hour”, among others. As the concert progressed, Picket encouraged UConn students to get up and dance – but an auditorium manager concerned about safety had the house lights turned up and asked that Picket tell students to get back in their seats. Picket refused, the manager cut power to the stage, and Picket walked off and never returned.

–Mark J. Roy, University Communications (retired)

UConn’s First Computer Network 1968

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Jean Cardinale

We take it for granted now, but in 1968 the networking of computers was cutting edge, and UConn had it first network was in development in 1968. Actually, there was only one computer, an IBM 360 mainframe, and the network was comprised of 30 remote terminals. The Connecticut Daily Campus noted in February that the network was “being developed here allow students and staff to plug into the huge new IBM 360 computer.” Funding of $366,000 came from the National Science Foundation for the then-University Computer Center. Started in 1962, the UCC was headed by John L. C. Lof in the late 1960s. At the time it must have seemed amazing – the network would allow use of the mainframe by 30 people at the same time.

The “Voice with a Smile” returns to her telephone switchboard

Posted on February 14, 2012 by Laura Smith

Mary Cullen Yuhas Anger and her niece Kay Cullen, visiting the reading room at Archives & Special Collections on Monday, February 13, 2012

In 1952 Mary Cullen, a 25-year-old telephone operator with the Southern New England Telephone Company, received the “Voice With a Smile” award, given to operators for superior public service and demeanor. The award came with a distinctive white headset — Mary said allowed her to stand out and made her feel very special.

Mary Cullen, SNET operator and the “Voice with a Smile,” 1952

On Monday, February 13, 2012, the “Voice With a Smile,” now Mrs. Mary Cullen Yuhas Anger, visited Archives & Special Collections with her niece Kay Cullen to view photographs, documents and employee magazines in the Southern New England Telephone Company (SNET) Records in the archives. Mrs. Anger reminisced about her happy days as an employee of SNET, from 1944 to 1956, and then off and on, on night shifts, when her children were young.

Mrs. Anger topped off her visit with the gracious gift of a dial pencil, a mechanical pencil with a metal ball at the end, which operators used to work the rotary dials (for efficiency as well as to preserve their manicures, she told us).

Update of Item of the Month (August 2009) Women’s Magazines and Fashion in 19th Century Spain collection

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Marisol Ramos

Women’s Magazines and Fashion in 19th Century Spain – A Snapshot of the Spanish Periodicals and Newspapers Collection

In 2009 I wrote my first Item of the Month regarding our holdings of Spanish women fashion magazines and our intention to digitize a selection of the collection to increase its access. Two years later we have completed this project successfully. Today many researchers from Spain have been downloading these unique titles. In the last two years some titles have been downloaded over 1,000 times! This numbers showcases the great popularity that this project have generated. We are proud to have made accessible this cultural heritage of the people of Spain and open up the opportunity to many other users (such as Spanish language teachers, women studies scholars, etc.) to experience these outstanding titles.

Below I am re-posting the information I wrote in 2009 with update information regarding where to find these digitized titles. Enjoy!

Marisol Ramos

Curator for Latin American and Caribbean Collections

Archival collections are fascinating not only for their content but for the context of their creation and acquisition. The Spanish Periodicals and Newspapers is no exception. This unique collection of Spanish magazines and newspapers is just a tiny part of the huge book and periodical collection that was assembled by renowned Spanish bibliophile Juan Perez de Guzman y Boza, Duque de T’ Serclaes. Born in 1852 in the town of Jerez de los Caballeros, the Duke was well known by antiquarian booksellers in Spain for his exquisite taste and voracious appetite for all types of Spanish books and publications. His ability to find and acquire unique and rare materials was legendary and it was not uncommon to find specialized bibliographies of Spanish materials citing that the only copy available was in the hands of the Duke*. Toward the end of his life, the Duke collection was in deposit at the National Library in Spain, but after his death in 1934, his collection was sold in lots by his heirs. In the 1970s the Special Collections Department at the Wilbur Cross Library (the predecessor to Archives & Special Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center) acquired this collection of periodicals and newspaper through H.P. Kraus Periodicals.

Today, this collection is housed in the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center. The variety of magazines and newspapers amassed by the Duke of T’ Serclaes include a great variety of literary magazines, general interest magazines (literature, sciences, and politics), religion, women and fashion magazines, and other subjects. The collection spans three centuries (18th to early 20th century) of Spanish life, culture and politics. The bulk of the collection falls between the 1800-1840, which reflects major events in history of Spain (the Napoleonic period and the Wars of Independence in Spain).

Of great interest is the wide selection of women magazines written by men to appeal to a female elite audience. Ranging from literary and general interest magazines, full of short historical stories, poems, and good advice for both men and women about the proper behavior of ladies at any age, to beautiful colored and engraved fashion magazines with the latest news of Paris fashion, with music sheets of polkas and other music specifically composed for the magazines and patterns for needlework, these magazines are a window to understand the Romantic Period in Spain.

A selection of these women magazines (20 titles) were digitized in 2010 and now available through the Internet Archives. To see the complete listing of title digitized visit, http://doddcenter.uconn.edu/asc/collections/spanwomen.htm

For more information regarding the Spanish Periodicals and Newspaper Collection, contact Marisol Ramos, Curator for Latin American and Caribbean Collections.

*See Hartzenbusch, D. Eugenio. Apuntes para un catalogo de periódicos madrilenos desde el año 1661 al 1870 and Gomez Imaz, Manuel. Los periódicos durante la Guerra de la Independencia (1808-1814).

The Lyman Viaduct, a technological marvel

Posted on January 3, 2012 by Laura Smith

The Lyman Viaduct under construction, July 4, 1871

It’s hard to gauge just how high the Lyman Viaduct is until you click on the photograph to get a larger view and look closely at the bottom. See the man and the horse (or maybe it’s a mule, it’s hard to tell)? Then compare them to the enormity of the trestle, then under construction. Amazing, isn’t it?

At 1100 feet long and 137 feet high, the Lyman Viaduct iron railroad trestle was built 1872-1873 to span the valley of Dickinson Creek near Colchester, Connecticut. Named after David Lyman, the man who built the New Haven, Middletown & Willimantic section of the Air Line Railroad, the trestle was a major link in a railroad line that was billed as the fastest route between Boston and New York City.

In 1912, as trains became heavier and the railroad became concerned about the stability of the trestle, the Lyman Viaduct was filled in with sand and gravel. It is now part of the Air Line State Park Trail, on the Rails-to-Trails network. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in August 1986.

The Lyman Viaduct is a technological marvel, showing the great lengths Americans went to to take advantage of the most powerful mode of transportation of the time. By the early 1900s almost every town in Connecticut had a railroad line easily accessible, enabling travel among the towns and cities as well as across the nation.