Announcing a new digitization project

Posted on by
Reply

TV interviews by Billie Levy featuring authors, illustrators, editors, collectors and curators in the field of children’s literature are now available via the Libraries’ video streaming service.  The interviews are from the “Children’s Books: Their Creators and Collectors” series filmed at WHC-TV. Go to http://www.lib.uconn.edu/services/video/streams.php and scroll down, or go directly to the web page at http://www.lib.uconn.edu/services/video/levy.php.  New interviews will be added as they are completed at the television station.  Miss Billie, as she is known here in the Dodd Center, is one of the founders of the Northeast Children’s Literature Collection and has donated  thousands of books, posters, greeting cards, and ephemera over the years the NCLC has enjoyed her support.  

This project was made possible by the generosity of Susan Aller of West Hartford in honor of Miss Billie, with support from West Hartford Community Television. Ms. Aller is the author of more than a dozen biographies for young people, including the stories of J. M. Barrie, Florence Nightingale, George Eastman, Louisa May Alcott, and Mary Jemison.  She has worked as a magazine editor in New York City, and her essays on a variety of topics have appeared in The New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, and other publications.  Ms. Aller is a graduate of the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and lived for extended periods in Spain and France, before coming to Connecticut in 1979.   As a collector of antique children’s books, she has been an active supporter of the Northeast Children’s Literature Collection and the Billie M. Levy Travel and Research Grants endowment fund.  Ms. Aller participates weekly in a long-standing writers’ group and is a member of the Saturday Morning Club of Hartford, a women’s writing group founded in 1876.  The NCLC is grateful for the support from Ms. Aller and West Hartford Community Television.  Thanks go especially to Nicholas Eshelman for all the tech work that made this project possible, and also to Miss Billie for her help in tracking down some of the interviews for digitization and for supplying recent interviews for inclusion in the project.   

Terri J. Goldich, Curator

You asked, we listened

Posted on by
Reply

In a continual effort to listen to and better serve all students, faculty, staff, and researchers, we constantly review and analyze our services to see what you want and what we can do better.  We are pleased to announce new changes and additions to our reproduction service offerings. 

Self Service Photography: Free

This service is free, quick, and easy.  This is a great service to utilize. Staff will review your equipment (camera and/or tripod) and the materials you want to copy. Once approved, you may photograph with the flash off, at the reading room tables. Sorry, no acrobatics! We also have a copy stand to assist researchers in photographing materials which is available for 3 hour bookings by appointment.  To book call: 860-486-4506 or email:archives@uconn.edu.

PDFs: Paperless and Affordable

Consider going paperless with our PDF services.  Black and white PDFs are now only $.25 per scan, the same price as photocopies!  Even more exciting is the addition of a new color PDF service for those who want a higher quality but still affordable option.  Color PDFs are available for $.35 per scan.  As we test out our newly expanded PDF services, we hope to have a 24 hour turnaround time for most PDF orders. 

High Resolution Scans: Choice

We’re still offering high resolution TIFF files at 300 ppi and 600 ppi, but we’re offering JPEG files as well now.  The pricing for 300 ppi remains at $7 and 600 ppi at $10 per scan. We’ll gladly fill your request and send you a choice of a compressed or an uncompressed file. 

For more information about all our services, check out our reproduction information page.

Stay tuned for more changes to in the future.

Marisa Gorman, Assistant Archivist

The Thermos Company in Connecticut

Posted on by
3

Thermos Company workers, ca. 1940s

The vacuum flask, better known by the trade name Thermos, is fairly ubiquitous in the United States.  Virtually every household has a few, to keep food at the desired temperature, be it hot or cold.  The vacuum flask was invented in 1892 by Scottish inventor Sir James DeWar and its popularity quickly spread.

William Walker, founder of the American Thermos Bottle Company, established a Thermos plant in Brooklyn, New York, in 1907, but moved in 1913 to Norwich, Connecticut, where it became the city’s largest employer.  After World War II the company built another plant in nearby Taftville, Connecticut, and became known as Thermos Company.

In 1969 Thermos was bought by Household International and in the 1980s production moved to Illinois.  The collection held in Archives & Special Collections are not the company records but a collection of publications, photographs, company newsletters, and annual reports, gathered by the company’s workers to celebrate their pride in the company that they, and many of their family members, worked for for much of the 20th century.

You can read more about the company and the collection in its finding aid, at https://archivessearch.lib.uconn.edu/repositories/2/resources/701

March 2011 Item of the Month: Photograph from the Romano Human Rights Digital Photograph Collection

Posted on by
Reply
A child laborer picks cocoa pods in the Ivory Coast. Photograph by U. Roberto Romano, 2006. 
 
Image from the Romano Human Rights Digital Photograph Collection, Thomas  J. Dodd Research Center, University of Connecticut Libraries.

Photograph by U. Roberto Romano, 2006.

The West African country of Ivory Coast is the world’s largest producer of cocoa, with over 40% of the world’s production. Despite the signing of the Cocoa Protocol in 2001, child labor is still rampant in the cocoa industry, often involving the illegal trafficking of children from Mali and Niger to work in the cocoa fields of Ivory Coast. Children as young as seven work in the fields, facing dangerous tasks of cutting down cocoa pods with machetes and carrying heavy loads. Most children are never paid for their work.

American photographer and documentary filmmaker U. Roberto (Robin) Romano has documented human rights issues for advocacy organizations around the world including GoodWeave, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, The International Labor Organization, Stop The Traffik, The Hunger Project, The Farm Labor Organizing Committee, Council on Foreign Relations and Antislavery International.

Romano’s most recent film, The Dark Side of Chocolate (2010), co-directed with Danish journalist Miki Mistrati, documents the continued allegations of trafficking of children and child labor in the international chocolate industry, despite a voluntary protocol to end abusive and forced child labor on cocoa farms by 2005.

However, in 2005, the cocoa industry failed to comply with the protocol’s terms, and a new deadline for 2008 was established. In 2008 the terms of the protocol were still not met, and yet another deadline for 2010 was set. Meanwhile, child labor in the cocoa industry continues.

For more information, see the International Labor Rights Forum’s information on child labor in the cocoa industry.

Human rights documentation is a focus of the Archives & Special Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center. More information about the Romano Papers and other human rights collections can be found on the Dodd Center’s website.

Romano’s film, The Dark Side of Chocolate, will soon be available at the University of Connecticut Libraries as part of the Human Rights Film Collection, which contains approximately 500 films on an array of human rights themes.  An annotated listing of films is available on the UConn Libraries’ website.

–Valerie Love, Curator for Human Rights and Alternative Press Collections

African American Music Film Series Presents: The Spirit Moves

Posted on by
1
  

The Spirit Moves is a rare and vital social document providing a living record of the men and women who crafted American social dance styles and jazz music into an improvisational art form. The Spirit Moves is a compilation of Mura Dehn’s raw footage of directed improv from 1900-1950, previously only available for viewing at the Dance Collection of the New York Public Library. 

The film presents demonstrations of ragtime and jazz dances by artists made famous at the Savoy Ballroom including James Berry, Pepsi Bethel, Teddy Brown, Sandra Gibson, Leon James, Al Minns and Frankie Manning. Dances include the Cakewalk and Charleston Black Bottom, Susie Q, Shake Blues, Gutbucket Blues, Trunky Doo, Big Apple and some aerial Lindy Hop.

 

 
 The Spirit Moves: Jazz Dance from the Turn of the Century to 1950 

 

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

 4:00 pm

Konover Auditorium, Dodd Research Center

  

 
 
 

 

Papers of African-American Poet Allen Polite Now Available for Research

Posted on by
1

Archives and Special Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center is pleased to announce the literary manuscripts and personal papers of writer and artist Allen Polite have been made available for research. 

Recently donated to the Dodd Research Center by Allen Polite’s widow Helene Polite, the collection dates from 1955 to 1993 and contains unpublished manuscripts of his poetry, prose, songs, and a play for voices, early writing and student work, notebooks including drafts and notes, transcriptions of poetry by Helene Polite, as well as a selection of his published works.  This rich collection offers researchers ample source material for exploring Polite’s extensive body of work, for illuminating his life as an expatriate artist and his affiliations with the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s, and for revealing his contributions to African-American literature and culture.   An inventory to the collection can be viewed here.

Born in 1932 and raised in Newark, NJ, Allen Polite was drafted into the United States Army in 1952.  After serving in Korea and Japan, Polite settled in Greenwich Village and between 1954 and 1956, studied philosophy at Columbia University.   The writer LeRoi Jones acknowledged Polite as his ‘mentor’ in Jones’ Autobiography and first published Polite’s poetry in 1958 in the little magazine Yugen.  In the early 1960s, Polite worked on a novel, which he never completed, and a long cycle of poetry and prose called “The Dead Seeds”.  He refused, however, to publish his work. 

Polite’s writing was included in Sixes and Sevens, An Anthology of New Poetry (1962) and in Langston Hughes’ New Negro Poets, U.S.A. published in 1964.  In 1963 Polite left New York for Paris, London, and eventually Stockholm, where he visited his friend the painter Harvey Cropper.  He decided to settle in Stockholm, where he joined an international group of artists centered around a small community of African-Americans already resident there.  Polite began a life of drawing and painting, in addition to his writing, and in 1964 organized and sponsored the exhibition “10 American Negro Artists Living and Working in Europe” at Den Frie, the largest gallery in Copenhagen.  In Sweden he met Helene Etzelsdorfer who remained his companion, and later his wife, from 1963 until his death in 1993. 

The Dodd Research Center at the University of Connecticut welcomes visitors, students, and scholars between the hours of 10:00am and 4:00pm, Monday through Friday.  Travel grants are available to researchers interested in using the Center’s collections and are awarded on a rolling basis; see application details for more information.

Melissa Watterworth Batt, Curator of Literary, Natural History and Rare Books Collections

The nature of Archives and the delight of discovery

Posted on by
Reply

One of the most fascinating aspects of working in an archives is what you discover while looking for something else.  And I’m always looking for something!  As University Archivist and Curator of a wide variety of collections, I am frequently poking around in boxes and folders in our (secure and climate-controlled!) stacks in search of the odd document, image, report, study, letter or bit of ephemera needed to answer a question, illustrate a point or present to a class.   On a recent hunt for something interesting and unique to post for the January “Item of the Month” I thought to combine the desire to highlight a recent acquisition and resulting inventory with the upcoming 150th anniversary of the American Civil War (hostilities began April 12, 1861).  Recalling a series of notecards labeled “Connecticut Civil War soldiers” in the recently inventoried Albert Van Dusen papers, I thought how perfect this would be.  A newly accessible collection and primary materials brought to light in time for this significant anniversary!

As you can see from the images below, our conscientious copying of Dr. Van Dusen’s box labels  was not useful in my search for Civil War materials but I did discover a new resource to share with those interested in Connecticut’s involvement in the American Revolution.   A wonderfully unique and delightful discovery–but not what I was looking for.  And so it goes.   Keep this in mind if you’re interested in commemorating the 236th anniversary of the beginning of the War for American War of Independence on April 19, 2011!

     Betsy Pittman, University Archivist

Ensign Nathan Haynes Whiting, 9th Connecticut Continental Line, 1777-1781

 

Private Stockman Sweat, 2nd Light Dragoons, 6th Troop, 1777-1783

Testimony, Oral History, and Human Rights Documentation Conference: March 24-25, 2011

Posted on by
Reply

Testimony, Oral History, and Human Rights Documentation:
A Conference Workshop at the University of Connecticut

Sponsored by the Human Rights Institute and the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center

Thursday, March 24 – Friday, March 25, 2011
Homer Babbidge Library, University of Connecticut, Storrs

Flame outside the Kigali Memorial Centre, Kigali, Rwanda. Photograph by Valerie Love, 2009.

The first day of the conference will consist of a day-long workshop for academics and practitioners currently engaged in oral history work on human rights themes. 

On the second day, selected participants will present their work to a larger audience of students, faculty, librarians, and interested members of the public. 

Non-UConn affiliated attendees are requested to register.  The Thursday workshop is now full, but space is available for the Friday sessions.

Schedule for Public Presentations on Friday, March 25, 2011:

9:30 – 10:00 AM:  Tea and continental breakfast

10:00 – 10:05 AM:  Welcome: Valerie Love, Curator for Human Rights and Alternative Press Collections, University of Connecticut

10:05- 10:10 AM: Opening: Bruce Stave, Director, Oral History Office, University of Connecticut

10:10 – 11:00 AM: Presentation by Mary Marshall Clark, Director of the Oral History Research Office at Columbia University, and co-founder of the of the September 11, 2001 Oral History Narrative and Memory Project

11:00 AM – 12:00 PM: Presentation by Daniel Rothenberg, Professor of Practice and Executive Director, Center for Law and Global Affairs, Arizona State University, and former head of the Iraq History Project, which collected over 8,000 testimonies from Iraqis following the US invasion  

12:00-1:00 PM:  Lunch Break

1:00- 1:45 P.M: Presentation by Lee Ann De Reus, Associate Professor of Women’s Studies at Penn State Altoona, and 2009 Carl Wilkens Fellow with Genocide Intervention Network, who has interviewed women survivors of rape in Chad and the Democratic Republic of the Congo

1:45-2:30 P.M: Presentation by Socheata Poeuv, Founder, Khmer Legacies, which documents stories from the Cambodian genocide

2:45- 3:15 P.M: Closing: Emma Gilligan, Professor of History and Human Rights, University of Connecticut

More information is available on the Dodd Research Center’s website.

10th Anniversary of the Charters Archives of Vernacular African American Music

Posted on by
1

The Samuel and Ann Charters Archives of Blues and Vernacular African American Musical Culture was established at the University of Connecticut in 2000. The archives, housed at Archives & Special Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, comprise the collection of scholar and producer Samuel Charters, one of the pioneering collectors of jazz, blues and folk music. The Archives sound recording holdings include 1500 discs, 900 cassettes, 300 tape reels and 2000 compact discs. To explore the archives, watch this interview with Samuel Charters and browse the guide to the archives. 

Kristin Eshelman, Curator of Multimedia Collections

February 2011 Item(s) of the Month: Voices of the Harlem Renaissance

Posted on by
1



Explore the Harlem Renaissance through the poetry, novels and music that emerged between 1917 and 1934, a period in American history characterized by an “unprecedented mobilization of talent and group support in the service of a racial arts and letters movement,” according to historian and author David Levering Lewis.  First editions by Arna Bontemps, Countee Cullen, Jessie Fauset, Rudolph Fisher, Langston Hughes, Nella Larsen, Alain Locke, Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, Wallace Thurman, Zora Neale Hurston, and George Schuyler, as well as original pamphlets, periodicals, audio recordings and reference sources are now available at the Dodd Research Center.  The rich collection of materials was recently donated to Archives and Special Collections by Ann and Samuel Charters.

Among the recordings in the collection are record albums featuring poets reading their work and a rare Black Swan recording of Marianna Johnson singing “The Rosary” and “Sorter Miss You”, accompanied by the Black Swan Symphony Orchestra recorded between 1921 and 1922.  Black Swan Records, established in January 1921 as a subsidiary of the Pace Phonograph Corporation, was the first record label owned and managed by African-Americans and issued material recorded exclusively by African-American musicians.  Board members of the Pace Phonograph Corporation included W. E. B. Du Bois and James Weldon Johnson.  The record label was named after the opera singer Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, nicknamed “the Black Swan”.  The Black Swan catalog included European classical, jazz and blues.  Fletcher Henderson served as the house accompanist.  In March 1923 the Pace Phonograph Corp. was renamed the Black Swan Phonograph Co.  This was the last year any new records were issued, although Pace reissued Black Swan recordings through 1926.

Listen to the Black Swan recording of soprano Georgia Gorham singing ‘A Little Kind Treatment (Is Exactly What I Need)’ with Maceo Pinkard, composer, issued between May 1921 and June 1922:

A Little Kind Treatment

Melissa Watterworth, Curator of Literary, Natural History, and Rare Books Collections

African American Music Film Series Begins Thursday February 3, 2011

Posted on by
Reply

The third annual African American Music Film Series, hosted by Archives & Special Collections at the Dodd Research Center, begins Thursday February 3, 2011 with the screening of The Bob Marley Story, Caribbean Nights: a documentary on the life of Bob Marley. 

Bob Marley died in 1981 at the age of 36, and was buried in the parish of Nine Miles, in the heart of rural Jamaica where he was born. In his brief life he went from a poor upbringing to international stardom, the first artist from the Third World to be acclaimed to that degree. He brought the music of Jamaica and his deep beliefs to the rest of the world. This award winning documentary traces the life of Bob Marley, from interviews with his friends and family to rare archive footage of interviews with Bob Marley himself capturing the feel and timelessness of his music and the man himself.

The Bob Marley Story, Caribbean Nights: a documentary on the life of Bob Marley

Thursday, February 3, 2011

4:00 pm

Konover Auditorium, Dodd Research Center

 

The 1906 Wire Gang Crew of the Southern New England Telephone Company

Posted on by
Reply
1906 work crew, Southern New England Telephone Company

The records of the Southern New England Telephone Company held in Archives & Special Collections have a historical depth that archivists and historians alike find amazing.  The collection not only can give a comprehensive overview of the company itself, but the materials can also speak to other histories — of Connecticut, of the beginnings of the telephone industry, of the introduction of women into the storied profession of telephone operator (“Number, please”), and many many others.

Established as the District Telephone Company of New Haven, the company opened on January 28, 1878, with a mere twenty-one subscribers.  It was the world’s first commercial telephone exchange, the brainchild of Civil War veteran  George Coy along with Herrick Frost and Walter Lewis.  By the time these men distributed the world’s first telephone directory three weeks later the company had 50 subscribers.  The company took the name of the Southern New England Telephone Company in October 1882 and lasted until it was taken over by SBC Communications in 1998.  After that it merged with AT&T.

Wire Gang journal, 1906, Southern New England Telephone Company Records

There are many extraordinary documents and photographs in the collection and it was hard to choose among them to highlight for today’s blog.  On top is the photograph of a 1906 work crew in Guilford, Connecticut.  Note the goat standing between the legs of the man on the right and the dog with the man up on the pole.  Above are two pages from a 1906 Work Book of Wire Gang No. 31 out of Ridgefield, Connecticut, with details of work done on the line in August 23-29.

For more information about the SNET records see the finding aid at https://archivessearch.lib.uconn.edu/repositories/2/resources/207.