November 2010 Item of the Month

Posted on November 1, 2010 by Jean Cardinale

Las Hijas de Eva, Puerto Rican women magazine

An issue of Las Hijas de Eva, Semanario consagrado al bello sexo: Literatura, Música, Teatro, Noticias, Modas y Anuncios.

The Thomas J. Dodd Research Center through the years has developed a very unique collection of Latin American and Caribbean materials that support the research of the Latin American and Caribbean studies program on campus. One of the collecting areas has been on Puerto Rico. The Puerto Rican Collection consists of two different acquisitions– the Geigel family library and the Puerto Rican Civil Court Documents. The Geigel family library, which is the core of the Puerto Rican Collection, includes over 2,000 volumes of books, pamphlets, government documents (mainly from the US government) and some periodicals, that document the social, economic, political and literary history of Puerto Rico during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century.

The collection was acquired from the Geigel Family from Puerto Rico in the early 1980s by the recommendation of the then UConn history professor Dr. Francisco Scarano. Owed privately by Doña Luisa Geigel de Gandía, resident of Santurce (San Juan, Puerto Rico), this library represents the collecting efforts of three generations of Geigel family members.

A pictorial riddle

The collections time span covers from 1800 – 1977 but the bulk of the collection is from 1850-1950. The collection includes many first editions of literary books and rare printing of newspapers and magazines from the late 19th century.

For the item of the month, I am showcasing a very unique title, the periodical Las Hijas de Eva (1880), a late 19th century women magazine edited by many well-known Puerto Rican writers and intellectuals, both men and women, such as Alejandro Tapia y Rivera, Lola Rodríguez de Tío, Manuel Tavárez, etc… The magazine followed the same stylistic format found in 19th century Spanish women magazines and it was digitized as part of a bigger project, the Spanish Periodicals and Newspapers: Women’s Magazine Digital Collection. What make this magazine unique is the fact that it had many women contributors writing articles and poetry which was unusual in late 19th century Puerto Rican society. This weekly magazine includes articles (written by men and women authors), poems, travel accounts and word games and puzzles.

Another type of word game, Salto de Caballo.

To find the books and periodicals in the Puerto Rican Collection, you can search for individual titles using the UConn Library catalog HOMER.

For further information about these materials, contact Marisol Ramos, Curator for Latin American and Caribbean Collections. More information about the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center and using the archival collections can be found here.

The “Vault” of UConn Basketball

Posted on October 15, 2010 by Jean Cardinale

This afternoon, Ken Davis will be signing copies of his new book University of Connecticut Basketball Vault, The history of the Huskies, published by Whitman Publishing. Davis will sign copies of the book at the UConn Co-op on Friday, Oct. 15, beginning at 4:30 p.m., just before the 2010-11 basketball season kicks off with First Night activities at Harry A. Gampel Pavilion.

University of Connecticut Basketball Vault, The history of the Huskies

The book is part of The College Vault series and features a “time capsule” approach, including historic images and reproductions of ephemera that are part of the team’s history, such as game programs, statistics sheets, and other items that enhance the comprehensive narrative about each team. A considerable portion of the research was conducted in the University Archives and items from the collection have been reproduced as part of the publication. More information about the author and the book in the UConn Today article by Kenneth Best (10/15/2010). Details about the book signing are available on the Co-op website. A copy of the publication has been added to the collection in the University Archives.

Little Magazines of the Mimeo Revolution: Poetry, Exhibition, Film!

Posted on October 14, 2010 by Jean Cardinale

Long before the photocopier, desktop computers, and blogs, the mimeograph machine put inexpensive printing technology in the hands of poets and artists. The Mimeo Revolution of the late 1950s brought about an explosion of DIY printing and independent literary magazines. Although many of the mimeo magazines and small presses were short-lived, poetry superstars emerged from the mimeographed pages, including poet and little mag publisher, Ed Sanders.

The revolution was spawned by the youthful, counterculture poet-publisher, cranking out 100 copies of an outlandishly titled magazine on cheap paper. The image of the iconoclastic and self-motivated poet, breaking the chain of convention, heading out for the territories with a sack full of magazines and making it new, formed and solidified in our common imagination as a direct result of the mimeo explosion. (M. Basinski from An Author Index to Little Magazines of the Mimeograph Revolution)

Join us for an afternoon as we explore the Mimeo Revolution and celebrate the poets and presses that made it flourish. Events are free and open to the public.

October 26, 2010, 3:00pm to 6:00pm, Dodd Research Center

Program:

3:00pm Gallery Talk Little Magazines in the Archives with Melissa Watterworth, Curator of Literary Collections (McDonald Reading Room)

3:45pm Unveiling of special re-issue of the 1968 limited edition book Krulik Ksiega or Book of Rabbits by Cleveland poet Tom Kryss

4:00pm Poetry reading with Ed Sanders! (Konover Auditorium)

4:45pm Film showing If I Scratch, I Write: d.a. levy and the Mimeograph Revolution

6:00pm Reception with refreshments

For more information contact melissa.watterworth@uconn.edu

Let’s talk toilet paper

Posted on October 7, 2010 by Laura Smith

Ah, we’ve stooped to this. The talk always turns to potty humor, doesn’t it?

As odd as it sounds, we here at Archives & Special Collections have toilet paper in one of our archival collections. That’s right — ARCHIVAL toilet paper. In a business collection, if you can believe it. Let me explain…

Cardboard cover for toilet paper manufactured by C.H. Dexter Company of Windsor Locks, Connecticut

The Dexter Corporation began in 1767 as a small, family-operated mill on land in Windsor Locks, Connecticut. Originally a saw and grist mill, the business added a paper mill and began marketing specialty papers in the mid-nineteenth century. In its third generation of family ownership, under the direction of Charles Haskell Dexter, the company established itself as the C. H. Dexter Co. and developed products for a well-defined market of papers and tissues. Their Star Mills Medicated Manila Tissue was the first commercially-manufactured tissue. Together with his son, Edwin Dexter, and his son-in-law, H. R. Coffin, C.H. Dexter moved the company into the twentieth century as C. H. Dexter and Sons, Co. In 1914 the company was incorporated and was headed by A. D. Coffin, the son of H. R. Coffin.

The years of the depression in the 1930s saw the company’s further evolution with the development of the Long Fiber Papers, and through mergers and divestments. In addition to its specialty tissues and paper covers, the company began producing tea bags and meat casings.

By the mid-twentieth century, having established the quality of its specialized papers, C. H. Dexter and Sons, Inc., began production of industrial finishes and laminates. The company renamed itself the Dexter Corporation in 1966 to reflect its expansion and development.

In 1999-2000, when a hostile takeover threatened to displace over 200 years of operations, the Dexter Corporation dismantled, leaving only a trail of toilet paper in its wake (not really. I was kidding about that).

Shown here is a cardboard cover for a package of toilet tissue, circa 1896. For more information about the C.H. Dexter Company, and to see the cover and the toilet paper up close and personal, look at the finding aid at https://archivessearch.lib.uconn.edu/repositories/2/resources/343 and come view it in the reading room. I’ll warn you, though — toilet paper from 1896 is NOT as soft as a baby’s bottom. Not by a long shot.

Great American Pastime at CAC

Posted on October 5, 2010 by Jean Cardinale

It’s the top of the eighth inning. The Yankees lead the Giants 3-0 in the second game of the 1922 World Series, and students at Connecticut Agricultural College listen to the game on radio on the lawn in front of the Mechanic Arts Building.

It was the first time that the entire World Series was on radio, and this second game would end in a 3-3 tie after a controversial call “on account of darkness” in the tenth inning.

Radio was relatively new for the campus – WABL, the first student radio station at CAC, began broadcasting that fall from studios in the Mechanic Arts Building. The station’s equipment was probably the source of the hook up to a speaker that was placed outside the front door of the building.

Students kept track of the game with a box score on a blackboard placed in front of the building

The winner of the “subway” series was the Yankees. They beat the Giants in five games.

Students of Connecticut Agricultural College listen to Game 2 of the 1922 World Series on October 5, 1922. Freshmen can be identified by their beanies, and just to the left of the photo center is a lone co-ed joining the boys for the afternoon of baseball. The Mechanic Arts Building on North Eagleville Road is now the Islamic Center on the main campus in Storrs.

October 2010 Item of the Month

Posted on October 1, 2010 by Jean Cardinale

Wwe’ve selected materials from the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) Records pertaining to oil exploration and expansion in the Ecuadorian Amazon. These materials have been selected in conjunction with the our ongoing Human Rights Film Series, which continues with a screening of the documentary film, Crude, directed by Joe Berlinger. The film will be shown on Wednesday, October 13, at 4 pm in Konover Auditorium, and is free and open to the public.

The North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) was founded in response to the April 1965 U.S. invasion of the Dominican Republic. This armed intervention by the United States against a popular uprising–classic gunboat diplomacy–preempted the restoration to power of freely elected president Juan Bosch. It also paved the way for the thirty year dictatorship of caudillo Joaquín Balaguer. NACLA’s founders were especially struck by the Johnson administrations’ ability to disseminate its version of events virtually unchallenged, while mainstream opinion makers set the tone of a limited public debate. Moreover, as the U.S. intervention in Vietnam began in earnest, progressive critics and opponents of U.S. policy, both abroad and at home, began seriously to consider questions about the nature of public education, the role of independent media, and how to make critical analysis of the U.S. power structure accessible to a broad and interested public.

NACLA, which took shape from these questions, was founded in October and November of 1966 in a series of meetings of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the University Christian Movement, and returned Peace Corps volunteers, along with assorted other individuals and organizations. According to its articles of incorporation, NACLA’s role was “to encourage, produce and distribute information designed to identify and explain those elements and relationships of forces in the United States and Latin America which inhibit and frustrate urgently needed profound social and economic change.” The “congress” in NACLA’s name was suggested by the “Congress of Unrepresented People,” a contemporary group of civil rights, antiwar, and labor activists who came together to challenge elite conceptions of the national interest as fundamentally opposed to the real interests of the majority of the American people.

Most of the materials contained in this NACLA Collection were collected during the first twenty years of NACLA’s history (1966-1986). The special reports, newsletters, and eventually, magazines appearing under the NACLA imprint were the outcome of research and writing done by members of the collective. The materials that they amassed in their files ranged from newspaper clippings to original government documents to revolutionary communiques to corporate proxies. As NACLA established fraternal links with publications, political parties, and nongovernmental organizations across the region, it also acquired a substantial and varied collection of periodical publications, many of which can now be found only in this collection.

The item of the month below is a selection from the periodical holdings from the NACLA Collection, from August 2, 1987 (NACLA Box 125, Folder 5).

Action Bulletin from Survival International USA, a non-profit organization that aims to protect the human rights of indigenous peoples worldwide.

First page from the Survival International USA Urgent Action Bulletin.

Constitution Day and Congress Week

Posted on September 23, 2010 by Jean Cardinale

The 2010 University of Connecticut Constitution Day observance highlighted the anniversary of the ratification in 1920 of the Nineteenth Amendment: The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. This year’s presentation included a panel discussion and a keynote lecture on September 16, 2010. The keynote speaker was Pamela S. Karlan, Kenneth and Harle Montgomery Professor of Public Interest Law and Co-Director, Supreme Court Litigation Clinic at Stanford University.

In addition, the Dodd Research Center observed Congress Week (September 13-17, 2010) with an exhibition in the McDonald Reading Room that will be available for viewing through the end of September. The theme this year was “Main Street to Capitol Hill” and the exhibition illustrates the activities of the Connecticut Congressional delegation in representing the transportation concerns of their constituents. From the grading and widening of roads in Meriden to renovations of the docks and bridge in Mystic and the revitalization of Broad Street in New Britain to highspeed rail in Hartford, the concerns of state and town officials, as well as the taxpayer are reflected in the congressional collections housed in Archives & Special Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center. The Center actively collects the records of the state’s Congressional delegation and the materials date from the 1930s to the present supporting the research interests of scholars investigating the work of the state’s representatives over time and across political parties. The collections represented in this exhibit include: Prescott S. Bush, Sr. (Republican, Senator 1951-1962), William Cotter (Democrat, Representative 1971-1982), Thomas J. Dodd (Democrat, Representative 1953-1957, Senator 1958-1971), Robert N. Giaimo (Democrat, Representative 1959-1980), Nancy L. Johnson (Republican, Representative 1983-2006), Barbara B. Kennelly (Democrat, Representative 1981-1998), Francis Maloney (Democrat, Representative 1933-1934, Senator 1935-1946), Stewart B. McKinney (Republican, Representative 1971-1988), Bruce Morrison (Democrat, Representative 1983-1990), Robert Simmons (Republican, Representative 2001-2006).

Congress Week, September 13-17, 2010

Mark Your Calendars!

Posted on September 15, 2010 by Jean Cardinale

Lots has been going on in Archives & Special Collections lately as the semester reaches full swing! Curators are teaching classes, researchers are filling the tables in the reading room, and a variety of events are happening in Konover Auditorium.

A few upcoming events of note:

Album cover by praCh, who will be performing at the Dodd Research Center on September 16 at 4 pm.

Lecture and Performance by Cambodian American rapper praCh
Thursday, September 16, 2010
4 pm
Konover Auditorium

Named by Newsweek as the “pioneer of Khmer Rap” and the “first Cambodian rap star” praCh first received international acclaim with his debut hip hop album, Dalama…The End’n is Just the Beginnin’ (2000). Over the course of a decade, he has emerged as a multimedia force, releasing two sequels to Dalama, in 2003 and 2010. Born in the farmlands of Cambodia but raised on the mean streets of America, praCh is a committed transnational activist. He battles oppression via rhyme and lyrics, and by example, and makes clear the reasons why hip hop is global and will continue to matter.

Ed Dorn and son, March 1960, photofinisher’s date. From the Charles Olson Papers, Thomas J. Dodd Research Center.

If hip hop is not your speed, on September 21, 2010, our visiting Strochlitz Researcher Justin Katko, will give a talk entitled, “The Archive’s Other Fiction: Alternatives to Edward Dorn’s Gunslinger.” Katko is a writer and PhD candidate in English Literature at the University of Cambridge, and recipient of a Strochlitz Travel Grant.

Where does a text end and its archival footprint begin? Can a text be built to rely upon previous, archived versions of itself? Can coherency be claimed for a text which intentionally relegates component aspects of itself to the archive? These questions will be addressed through the lens of Gunslinger, a modernist quest narrative by American poet Edward Dorn (1929-1999). Gunslinger is a long narrative poem which exceeds the bounds of its own printed text in a number of manifest ways, including a rare secret installment printed as a standalone newspaper. This talk will address the way in which archived versions of a single poem from the Gunslinger epic both clarify and complicate the work’s fragmented and difficult narrative. Interpretation of Dorn’s masterpiece is only just beginning to be impacted by the archival materials which constitute the Edward Dorn papers.

The 2010-2011 Human Rights Film Series at the Dodd Center

Posted on September 7, 2010 by Jean Cardinale

Please join the Human Rights Institute, the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, and the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies for the opening film of the Human Rights in the Americas Film Series.

: Screenshot of a restavek girl from Karen Kramer’s film, Children of Shadows.

Film: “Children of Shadows”
Directed by Karen Kramer

Wednesday, September 15, 2010
4:00 pm, Konover Auditorium
Filmmaker Karen Kramer, who has recently returned from Haiti, will join us for a Q & A and reception following the film, moderated by Samuel Martinez, Associate Professor of Anthropology at UConn.

In Haiti, many parents are forced by destitution and desperation to give away their children. The children, who may be as young as four years old, then go to live and work for other families as unpaid domestic servants, or slaves. They are known as “restavek” children. Children of Shadows follows the children as they go through their daily chores – the endless cycle of cooking, washing, sweeping, mopping, going to the market, or going to run errands. In heartbreaking interviews, the children speak openly and shyly about the lives they are forced to lead. Their “aunts” (adoptive caretakers) speak openly and proudly of the vast mountain of work that “their” restavek does for them. The camera goes deep into the countryside to interview the peasant families as to what kind of situation would force them to give away one or more of their children.

Connecticut Agricultural College welcomes new President

Posted on September 1, 2010 by Jean Cardinale

: Dr. Charles Chester McCracken, 6th President of the University of Connecticut

On September 1, 1930, Connecticut Agricultural College welcomed Dr. Charles Chester McCracken as President. A former professor of school administration at Ohio State University, McCracken led the small agricultural institution through the tumultous early years of the Great Depression. Although he was not a successful administrator, McCracken presided over the accreditation of the college in 1930 by the New England Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, the introduction of courses of study leading to the Bachelor of Arts degree (1933), and the renaming of the institution to Connecticut State College (1933). McCracken resigned in 1935 to accept the position of educational counselor for the Board of Christian Education of the Presbyterian Church. In accepting McCracken’s resignation, Governor Wilbur Cross stated that McCracken “will now be able to devote his whole attention to educational problems without the worry of finances or the details in the administration of a college.” Additional information regarding Dr. McCracken’s tenure as President is available in the University Archives and in Red Brick in the Land of Steady Habits, a narrative history of the University of Connecticut by Dr. Bruce Stave published in 2006.

The End of a Railroad Line

Posted on August 19, 2010 by Laura Smith

New York, Westchester & Boston Railway station at Port Chester, New York, 1930

On August 21, 1937, service ceased on the New York, Westchester & Boston Railway line, which despite its reference to Boston actually ran just from lower Manhattan to Port Chester, New York. It was incorporated in 1872 (as the New York, Westchester & Boston Railroad) but the charter lay dormant until 1900, when investors formed the New York & Westchester and reorganized in 1904 as the NYW&B Railway. The line was in direct competition with the omnipresent New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad (better known as the New Haven Railroad), which controlled almost all railroad, trolley and steamship traffic in southern New England into New York City from 1872 to 1969, so the New Haven Railroad bought up all of the fledgling company’s stock and made it into a showcase of elegant stations, bridges and viaducts. Unfortunately such opulence was unsustainable and the line was never able to turn a profit. It closed in 1937, its property was auctioned off in 1942, and its locomotives and cars were scattered to the four winds.

A fantastic website giving the full history of this line is at http://nywbry.com/index.php.

Archives & Special Collections has Board of Directors minutes and financial records of the NYW&B Ry., as part of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Records, an enormous collection of administrative, real estate, financial and legal records of the railroad and its predecessor companies.

Alfred Gulley Dies

Posted on August 16, 2010 by Jean Cardinale

Alfred Gulley, seen in a photo from the 1917-1918 Nutmeg Yearbook, was a professor of horticulture at Connecticut Agricultural College for 23 years.

Just one month after turning 69, Alfred G. Gulley died on August 16, 1917. He had been a professor of horticulture at Connecticut Agricultural College for 23 years.

Born July 15, 1848 in Dearborn, Michigan, by the time of his passing Gulley was in charge of the campus grounds, including supervisions of ornamental plantings and devising the layout of walkways and roads throughout the campus

Writing of Gulley in his annual report to the State Legislature, CAC President Charles L. Beach said he “was loved and respected by the faculty and students alike and … his life and character were an inspiration and example to the students with whom he came in contact and his judgment and council had much influence in shaping the development of the institution during its formative period.”

Soon after Gulley’s death, the Horticultural Building in which he taught was named in his honor.

The 1917-1918 Nutmeg Yearbook is dedication to Gulley:

“As a token of our regard for him as a friend and in testimony of our admiration for him as a man and a scientist, this volume is respectfully dedicated by The Editors.”

Horticulture Hall and the ornamental gardens near it are seen in a photograph from 1917, the year Alfred Gulley died. The building was named for Gulley after his death.