Introducing Six Triple Eight’s Madeleine Coleman Roach

Posted on May 13, 2025 by elg3e

This post, by Manuscripts and Archives Processor Ellen Welch, introduces a new acquisition: the Madeleine Coleman Roach Papers (MSS 16869), documenting the service of a twenty-three-year-old African American woman, Madeleine Coleman, in the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion of the United States Women’s Army Corps during the Second World War. 

The 6888th Battalion was an all-female mostly Black military unit that has been made famous by several books and movies—most recently in a 2024 film, Six Triple Eight, directed by Tyler Perry and filmed in Atlanta, Georgia; Chattanooga, Tennessee; and the United Kingdom (available on Netflix). The 6888th accomplished the near impossible feat of clearing a huge backlog of mail addressed to service members abroad. The women systematically sorted and routed an estimated backlog of 17 million items to over seven million service members in record time, which significantly uplifted the morale of service members in the war. The collection contains photographs, diaries, a memory book, a prayer book, certificates, newsletters, telegrams, menus, and ephemera belonging to Corporal Madeleine Coleman. Watch Six Triple Eight and then visit the Special Collections Library to meet Corporal Coleman and the extraordinary women in this collection.  

Madeleine Coleman Roach

: Madeleine Coleman in her uniform.  Madeleine Coleman Roach Papers (MSS 16869)

: Madeleine Coleman Roach Papers (MSS 16869)

Madeleine Coleman, originally from Milstead, Alabama, and Atlanta, Georgia, moved to New York and enlisted in the Army on January 1, 1943, following the enlistment of her boyfriend and future husband, John Roach, also from New York. She entered active service in September and was promoted to corporal, the same rank as Roach. Coleman was determined to follow him abroad and to achieve equal military rank. She trained in Fort Des Moines, Iowa; Fort Devens, Massachusetts; and Camp Sibert, Alabama, before heading overseas in 1945. John Roach trained at several locations in Texas and was also stationed overseas. They both trained as stenographers and corresponded with each other throughout the war until they married in 1946 in Roen, France. 

The 6888th Battalion

The 6888th Battalion at work. Corporal Coleman was one of 855 African American and Hispanic women (one from Puerto Rico and one from Mexico) in the 6888th who served overseas in Birmingham, England and Roen, and Paris, France.  Madeleine Coleman Roach Papers (MSS 16869)

The 6888th wrote a camp newsletter entitled “Special Delivery.” Two complete issues and four partial issues are in the Madeleine Coleman Roach papers (MSS 16869).

African American women were selected from the Women’s Auxiliary Corps (WAC), the Army Service Forces, and the Army Air Forces to form the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, nicknamed “Six Triple Eight.” First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and civil rights leader Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune successfully advocated for the admittance of African American women as enlisted personnel and officers in the WAC. The response was the creation of the 6888th, a unit assigned to clear the significant backlog of mail for service members abroad. (2) General Eisenhower wanted this mail to be delivered as a means of helping with the morale of the troops. (1) Major Charity Edna Adams Early was selected to command the battalion. She was proud of the work her unit did, performing their tasks in record time. The women were trained to identify enemy aircraft, ships, and weapons and to be prepared mentally and physically for full military operations. In Birmingham, England, and in Roen and Paris, France, they found warehouses stacked to the ceilings with mailbags and rooms filled with packages of spoiled food and gifts, along with rodents. (3) The 6888th tracked individual service members by maintaining about seven million information cards, including serial numbers to distinguish different individuals with the same name. Recently recorded oral history interviews with two surviving 6888th members—Fannie Griffin McClendon and Anna Mae Robertson —provide first-person accounts of their work.

The Assignment

The assignment for the 6888th was to expedite a two-year backlog (17 million letters and packages) of mail to the seven million World War II American service members, government personnel, and Red Cross workers stationed in England and France. (2) 

Warehouse with hundreds of bags of mail.

“Bags and bags of mail. Mission Accomplished.” Courtesy of National Archives via National Museum of United States Army. 

Many pieces of mail and packages from home failed to reach service members because the military units moved quickly to new locations or because names and addresses were incomplete. Some mail had been sitting in bags for two to three years. With no encouragement or news from home, morale became very low. The 6888th Battalion sailed for two weeks from the U.S. to Glasgow, Scotland, on the ship Ile de France amidst threats from nearby German U-boats.  Arriving by train in Birmingham, England, in February 1945, they worked in poorly maintained buildings such as the King Edwards School or airplane hangar warehouses, described as a “cold, dark, dirty warehouse” with broken windows, infested with rats and with mold growing on the mail. They fixed up the school and cleared the mail backlog in 90 days (half of the expected six months). They worked around the clock in three consecutive eight-hour shifts, seven days a week, and learned to become detectives searching envelopes for clues to determine the intended recipient. (3) Their filing system and efficiency made them so successful that they were asked to clear up the Army mail in Roen and Paris, France, which they did in five months. Their motto was “No Mail, Low Morale.” (2) 

Discrimination

Initially the women of the 6888th recognized that the assignment was considered secondary to war efforts performed by white men and women. Despite the discrimination and racism of white officers and fellow soldiers, the women of the 6888th are now recognized for their achievement with awards, monuments, and praise. Their work is valued as being an important component of the World War II military effort. “They fired no shots, and they fought no battles … And yet, their courage and their dedication achieved a different kind of victory. Almost 80 years later, the 6888th continues to stand as a testament to the outstanding achievements of Black women Soldiers throughout U.S. Army history.” (3) 

Coleman describes being forced into a segregated unit in Camp Sibert, Alabama. Madeleine Coleman Roach Papers (MSS 16869)

Coleman often wrote in her diary about the racial discrimination she and her fellow battalion members faced during training and from fellow Americans serving overseas. She described experiences of racism at Camp Sibert, Alabama, particularly from white women or, as she called them, “Southern crackers.” She wrote about segregation and “the appalling lack of democracy and equality in the United States.”  

She also mentioned discrimination against women in the service. According to an article by Melissa Thaxton and Jennifer Dubin, “It is estimated that 150,000 women served in the WAAC/WAC during the war, about 4% of whom were African American.” Segregation practices required African American women in the Army Corps to remain at 10% of the overall force. Even after receiving full military training and extensive education for skilled positions in medicine or education, they would be placed in clerical positions or as manual laborers. While white men in America had served in military combat since the Revolutionary War, no women were allowed to enter military service until 1901 (and only then, as nurses). The military did not accept African American women until World War II—and then only in limited roles. The women in the 6888th were the first female African American unit to serve in World War II. They were successful despite the discrimination they faced. In 2022 they were recognized for their service with the Congressional Gold Medal “…not only for their successful completion of their mission at the end of World War II, but for their sustained collective pursuit of racial and sex equality in the face of significant social and political barriers.” (3) 

Retired Colonel Edna W. Cummings declared, “The Congressional Gold Medal is the nation’s gratitude for the 6888th Battalion and the thousands of African American women who served in the Army during World War II. Their service will never be forgotten as soldiers and trailblazers for gender and racial equality.” (3) 

Alyce Dixon, a former corporal in the 6888th expressed her feelings about her service, “We’re all human — whether Black, white, red or brown, and we all have something to offer.” (3) 

Elaine Bennett explained that she joined the WAC “because I wanted to prove to myself, and maybe to the world, that we [African Americans] would give what we had back to the United States as a confirmation that we were full-fledged citizens.” These pioneer women who had limited opportunities for employment at home sought a life of adventure and patriotism amidst adversity and made a difference in the world. (3) 

Madeleine Coleman’s Diary

Corporal Coleman had an active social life at dances at the service club. Madeleine Coleman Roach Papers (MSS 16869)

Coleman’s diary, written before her service overseas, features excerpts from her daily life of training, marching, drilling, and working in the office and field in the Army from 1943-1944. She wrote about her exhaustion from work, her anxieties about army inspections, and her private thoughts on the harsh treatment against African Americans and women in the Corps, especially at Camp Sibert, Alabama. She often encouraged herself with positive messages, such as “what’s next for you little girl.” She also described her social experiences, with dates and dances at the service club. Her diary entries reflect her commitment to John Roach while she compares him with other men that she dated. 

: Pages in Coleman’s diary about her daily work and school schedule. Madeleine Coleman Roach Papers (MSS 16869)

: Diary entry: “I lived a lifetime today.” Madeleine Coleman Roach Papers (MSS 16869)

Of interest are diary entries which exhibit straightforward curiosity when she learned about women in lesbian relationships for the first time.

Coleman describes her surprise that her friend is a lesbian. Madeleine Coleman Roach Papers (MSS 16869)

Photographs

There are about 35 photos in the collection depicting Coleman’s service and showing women in uniform, many in Rouen and at the French Riviera. Included is a photograph of her commanding officer, Major Charity Adams Early, who was a popular leader and one of the highest-ranking African American female officers in the nation. There are also documents of John Roach’s military service in Texas, Italy, and Army bases in the South Pacific. 

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Notebook open to a spread: "Impressions of Places I Have Seen Overseas."

Coleman’s “Memory Book” highlights the various places she lived and worked during the war. It includes signatures and messages from fellow soldiers. Madeleine Coleman Roach Papers (MSS 16869)

After the War

Postcard featuring Cunard White Star Liner "Queen Mary" at sea.

Sailing home. Madeleine Coleman Roach Papers (MSS 16869)

After the war, Madeleine Coleman Roach became a secretary at the Woodrow Wilson Vocational School (August Martin High School) in New York City. She graduated from York College with honors in African American Studies in the early 1980s. Part of the college library is named for her. John Roach was employed with the postal service. They had two daughters, Rouena and Phoebe, and lived in South Ozone Park, New York.  Madeleine Roach died in 1984 at the age of 65 following the death of her beloved husband, John Roach, in 1983. 

 With an origin story that started with discrimination and segregation as part of the WAC, the  6888th was a precursor to the Civil Rights movement in America.  

 “The Six Triple Eight’s achievements are remarkable considering the fraught social and political climate of the time. Indeed, the women of the 6888th Postal Directory Battalion proved to be pioneers in military service during an era when racial segregation was law, and few opportunities were available to women to work outside the domestic sphere.” (3)

 The current celebration of the 6888th Battalion in films and documentaries as well as in books and archives is well-deserved and long overdue. 

Sources

Chamberlain, J. “African American Women in the Military During World War II” Posted in African American History, Films, Military, Motion Pictures, U. S. Army. The Unwritten Record. National Archives. 12 March, 2020. https://unwritten-record.blogs.archives.gov/2020/03/12/african-american-women-in-the-military-during-wwii/ 
Fargey, Kathleen. “Women of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion” 14 February, 2014. Buffalo Soldier Educational and Historical Committee. Accessed 3/21/25. https://www.womenofthe6888th.org/the-6888th
Thaxton, Melissa and Dubina, Jennifer. “A Different Kind of Victory: The 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion.” National Museum of United States Army. Accessed 3/21/25. https://www.thenmusa.org/articles/a-different-kind-of-victory-the-6888th-central-postal-directory-battalion/

For More Information

Rose, Naeisha. “Remembering a 6888 Veteran”. Queens Chronicle. Queens New York. 13 February 2025. Accessed 2/25/25
https://www.qchron.com/editions/queenswide/remembering-a-6888-veteran/article_0ef47078-4275-5df5-ae74-4fb5f9c1e9f3.html

Lauria-Blum, Julia. “No Mail, Low Morale, The Six-Triple-Eight Delivered” Metropolitan Airport News. 1 February 2025. “No Mail, Low Morale” The Six-Triple-Eight Delivered!

Perry, Tyler, “Triple Six Eight: Everything you need to know. Tudum by Netflix. Accessed 3/17/2025 https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/tyler-perry-new-netflix-movie-six-triple-eight

Analyzing Civil War-Era Correspondence and Portrait Photographs: Lesson Plans for the John L. Nau III Civil War History Collection

Posted on January 10, 2024 by har8n

This post is by Elizabeth Nosari, Project Processing Archivist at the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, who is currently working with the William Faulkner Collection. In her previous role, she served as the Nau Project Archivist for the John L. Nau III Civil War History Collection.

Black and white tintype portrait of two Black soldiers in uniform seated; American flag in background. Tintype portrait is encased in ornate gold frame.

Tintype double portrait of two unknown soldiers, ca. 1861–1865. John L. Nau III Civil War History Collection, MSS 16459, box 166, tray 1, PT0321, Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia.

Lesson plans for the John L. Nau III Civil War History Collection are now available to view and download directly from the collection’s finding aid, under the “External Documents” heading at the bottom of the page. The two lesson plans—Analyzing Civil War-Era Correspondence and Analyzing Civil War-Era Portrait Photographs—engage students with the two most significant record types in the Nau collection in terms of scope. These two mediums also speak to one of the greatest strengths of Mr. Nau’s collection: the documentation of personal, lived experiences during the United States Civil War, 1861–1865.

Yellow envelope with red stamp on upper left corner. Addressed to Miss Sarah A. Platt, Naugatuck, Conn.

Goodyear, Robert B., February 14, 1863. John L. Nau III Civil War History Collection, MSS 16459, box 43, folder 31, DL0006, Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia.

The Nau collection letters, found in Series 1 and written by white men as well as white women, connected men away fighting to loved ones and business associates at the home front; letters reflect their role as wartime lifeline and contain exchanges of everyday news about families, friends, and finances. Letters also offer firsthand accounts of camp life, hospital conditions, battlefield experiences, and political views. The portrait photographs in Series 2—in early photograph formats, including daguerreotype, ambrotype, tintype, and carte de visite—visually capture and document their mid-nineteenth-century subjects, including their wartime roles as evidenced in uniforms, insignia, and weaponry. Digital facsimiles pulled from Series 1 and 2 of the collection are an important part of the lesson plans and encompass a selection of letters written by white men and women as well as portraits of soldiers, including white men, Black men, a Native American man, and a white woman.

Tintype portrait of Frederick L. Rainbow, ca. 1861–1865. John L. Nau III Civil War History Collection, MSS 16459, box 157, tray 2, PT0424.0001, Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia.

The lesson plans engage with letters and photographs from the Nau collection as artifacts of history and material culture that served real and practical functions in the context of war. The reading materials and activities are designed for students to learn about the technologies that made letter writing and portrait photography possible on a mass scale in the mid-nineteenth century as well as their democratizing influences. As both practices increased in popularity over the course of the Civil War, literacy rates rose and a new, larger swath of American society was able to read and write. Portrait photography, which proliferated in part due to its convenience and affordability, allowed Americans across the social strata of the country to participate in portraiture for the first time. Mid-nineteenth century people could readily and self-consciously construct, capture, and memorialize their identities. They could also share their likenesses with friends and loved ones and mail these mementos back to the home front.

The Nau collection lesson plans invite students to read about Civil War-era letter writing and photographic portrait making, look at and analyze real-world examples, and create their own letters and portraits. Designed for grades 9 and up as well as grades K–8, they allow instructors to pick and choose which materials and activities best suit their students’ learning objectives.

Access the lesson plans and explore the John L. Nau III Civil War History Collection here.

If You Did It, Show It: A Confessory Manuscript for Deaf People

Posted on September 26, 2023 by

This post, by Ellen Welch, Manuscript and Archives Processor, is about the recent acquisition: Illustrated Manuscript Confessory for Deaf People (MSS 16803).

A single leather-bound illustrated manuscript for Deaf persons to confess their sins. They could identify their sins by the illustrations and ask to be absolved. Called a Confessory, it was made in Flanders or the Netherlands roughly between 1770 and 1790.

This leather-bound manuscript serves as a confessional aid, containing illustrations depicting a variety of sins from which a Deaf individual could show a picture of their sin to the priest and ask for absolution. The simple drawings depict sins such as being distracted in or late for church, missing confession, gluttony, gossip, theft, gambling, drunkenness, fighting, wishing another person dead, and lust, or “inappropriate libido”! This illustrated confessory was made in either Flanders or the Netherlands, between 1770 and 1790, and was probably created at a school for Deaf people.

Throughout history, societies have misunderstood and mistreated Deaf people because they could not communicate in the same way others could. As long ago as antiquity, influential figures like the Greek philosopher Aristotle (384–322 BC) falsely believed that Deaf people were incapable of reason (1). Legal tradition across Europe barred Deaf people from inheriting property, purchasing land, and getting married. Within Christian communities, Deaf people were often excluded because it was wrongly believed that they were not able to receive the word of God and the sacraments, especially confession, which would absolve them of their sins. In the Bible, Paul reveals in Romans 10:17 “So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ.” (New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Romans, Chapter 10, Verse 17). This type of message alienated Deaf people from collective worship and their religious community and insinuated that without the ability to hear or speak, they could not receive salvation in this life or the next (2).

Illustrated Confessory Manuscript: A Way to Confession and Absolution

The manuscript is composed of ninety-two leaves, with ten leaves left blank (possibly to leave room for sins yet to be illustrated). It contains two sets of drawings composed by different hands: the first set illustrated in black and white featuring a man and Latin captions, and the second in color picturing women with captions in Dutch.

The first set includes thirty-six drawings of sins with a man as the subject, completed in pen and ink with pale washes of black and gray.

Graphite sketch of figure reclining but reaching for a pitcher and cup.

Illustration of a man drinking with the Latin caption “Ebrius” meaning drunk.

Sketch of two figures sitting at a table playing cards.

Illustration of the sin gambling. The Latin word for game is “Ludiem.”

Sketch of two figures sitting and holding hands.

The illustration for too much libido or lust. “Lubido” in Latin.

The second series includes forty-six drawings of similar sins with women as the subjects, done in iron-gall ink and colored with gouache and watercolor.

Sketch of two figures sitting at table playing cards.

Illustration of women playing cards and possibly gambling.

Illustration of three people sitting at table, eating.

Illustration of the sin gluttony.

Illustration of two groups of figures, one talking to the other; the other two pointing at the first group.

Illustration of the sin of gossiping.

Priests and Deaf Educators

In 1519, Protestant reformer Martin Luther (1483–1546) addressed the theological question of how Deaf people could hear God by turning to the teachings of Saint Jerome (347–420 BC), the patron saint of translators and librarians. Saint Jerome recognized Deaf people as God’s children. He said, “…to the word of God nothing is ‘deaf’ if only the inward ‘ears’ are willing to hear.” The answer for Jerome (and later, Martin Luther) lay in the figurative ears of the soul: “Whosoever has these,” Jerome wrote, “will not need physical ears to apprehend the Gospel of Christ.” In one of his sermons on Galatians, Martin Luther expanded upon Jerome’s reasoning: “…the word of God is not heard even among adults and those who hear, unless the Spirit promotes growth inwardly.” (2)

In the 1670s, the French Franciscan friar Christophe Leutbrewer created a confessory manual that featured definitions of sins that were printed on pre-cut paper. This allowed Christians who were Deaf to pull the slips up individually so that they extended over the paper margin, thereby serving as topical reminders for reflection and confession, which could be tucked under the margin again after the confession (3) (4)

Christophe Leutbrewer’s confessory book, with sins defined and printed on pre-cut paper, Leutbrewer, Christophe, “BRB1072,” https://bridwell.omeka.net/items/show/1693.

Hand Gestures and Sign Language (vs. Oralism)

French abbot Charles-Michel de L’Épée (1712-–1789), was the founder of the first free public school for deaf children in the world, the National Institute for Deaf Children of Paris (5). In 1755, he demonstrated that Deaf people could communicate among themselves and with the hearing world through a system of conventional gestures, hand signs, and finger spelling, much like modern French Sign Language. Following L’Épée’s work, there were other educators and theologians, including Roch Ambroise Cucurron Sicard, principal of L’Épée’s school after his death (6), Roch Ambrose Auguste Bébian, who was fluent in sign language (7), Laurent Clerc, a French man who was the first Deaf teacher of Deaf students and taught in America (8), Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, who started the first Deaf school in America (9), and Jean Massieu, a Deaf person who taught Deaf children and formalized French Sign language (10). These educators fought for Deaf people to have their own language of hand signs and were opposed to the teaching method of Oralism, which banned sign language and tried to force Deaf people to conform by making them use lipreading or oral speech. Oralism was an oppressive method, as it infringed on deaf peoples’ ability to use their own language—sign language. Instead of bringing hearing and non-hearing people together, Oralism hindered Deaf people and stripped them of their identity, culture, and community (11).

In 1817, Roch Ambrose Auguste Bébian (1789–1839), the author of an important book of sign language titled Mimographie, wrote, “We do not speak, it is true; but still do you think us unable to express ourselves as well with our eyes, our hands, our smiles, our lips? Our most beautiful discourse is at the tips of our fingers, and our language is rich in secret beauties that you who speak will never know. And have we not our own art of Phoenicia to paint the words that speak into our eyes?” Bébian points out that Deaf people and their use of sign language are resilient. They can see the world more visually and have a sharper focus on communication and listening which gives them a unique and valuable perspective.

In 1850, French author and political activist Victor Hugo (1882–1885) wrote to his close friend, Deaf educator Ferdinand Berthier, who was a student of Bébian and a recipient of the French Legion of Honor for his activism of Deaf peoples’ linguistic rights. Hugo wrote, “You, Sir, who have the rare talent of being at once [Deaf] and eloquent, please tell your friends . . . that in my eyes the accession of the [Deaf] to civic and intellectual life must be counted among the most magnificent and decisive accomplishments in the history of the progress of humanity.” Hugo added, “What matters deafness of the ear, when the mind hears? The only deafness, the true deafness, the incurable deafness, is that of the mind.” Hugo’s message embraces the concept that Deaf people and those with hearing loss can see the world more visually, and have a sharper focus on communication and listening. They can thrive in a hearing-centric world by using other means of communication, embracing new ideas, and accepting different approaches, which can lead to more inclusive engagement with the world (12).

Honor and Awareness of Deaf persons and their Culture

Today, Deaf culture is a vibrant and diverse community that spans the globe. Deaf people have their own unique language, customs, and traditions and are proud of their identity and heritage. From Deaf artists and musicians to Deaf athletes and entrepreneurs, people who are Deaf continue to make important contributions to society and to shape the world around them (13).

Despite these gains, however, there is still much work to be done to fully recognize and honor the contributions of the Deaf community (13). Collections like this manuscript mark a beginning in sharing more materials that include Deaf people. Similar to this acquisition is a manuscript titled Emblems on Christian Doctrine for use by Deaf People (MSS 16804) [Emblemi sulla Dottrina Cristiana ad uso de’ Sordo-Muti Ottavio Giovanni Battista Assarotti (1753–1829), which is another recent addition that represents the identity of Deaf persons in our collections and community.

Deaf Awareness Month, which is celebrated in September, provides an important opportunity to learn more about the history, culture, and achievements of the Deaf community. The Community Services for the Deaf (CSD) website states, “Deaf history is a testament to the strength and resilience of the human spirit. Despite centuries of discrimination and marginalization, Deaf people have persevered and created a culture that is vibrant, unique, and enduring. By celebrating Deaf history and culture, we can honor the contributions of Deaf people and promote a more inclusive and compassionate world for all” (13).

Ways to support Deaf Awareness

Watch Deaf films and documentaries, such as 2021 film CODA by Sean Hader, 2009 film See What I’m Saying by Kaycee Choi, and 2023 film The Hammer about wrestler Matt Hammil
Read books by Deaf authors or that accurately depict Deaf character
Support Deaf-owned businesses in your area
Learn Sign Languages
Donate to organizations that advocate for the deaf community
Advocate for improved accessibility, education, and workplace protections for deaf people
Listen to and share the stories of Deaf creators

Sources:

Gannon, Jack, R. “Deaf Heritage: A Narrative History of Deaf America.” Gallaudet Classics in Deaf Studies Series, Volume 7, June 30, 2012
Oates, Rosamund. “Speaking in Hands: Early Modern Preaching and Signed Languages for the Deaf.” Past and Present. Oxford Academic. Volume 256, Issue 1, August 2022, Pages 49–85 Accessed 7/24/23
Smyth, Adam. “Slicing the Page: Christophe Leutbrewer and Raymond Queneau” Text! April 22, 2022.
Leutbrewer, Christoph. “BRB1072,” Bridwell Library Special Collections Exhibitions, Southern Methodist University. accessed September 19, 2023,
“Charles-Michel de l’Épée.” Wikipedia. Accessed 9/19/23
“Roch Ambrose Cucurron Sicard.” Wikipedia. Accessed 9/19/23
“Roch-Ambroise Auguste Bébian.” Wikipedia. Accessed 9/19/23
“Louis Laurent Marie Clerc.” Wikipedia. Accessed 9/19/23
“Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet” Wikipedia. Accessed 9/19/23
“Jean Massieu.” Wikipedia. Accessed 9/19/23
“Oralism.” Wikipedia. Accessed 9/19/23
The Mind Hears Mission Statement, a blog by and for deaf and hard of hearing academics. The Mind Hears website. Accessed 9/19/23
Community Services for the Deaf (CSD) website. “Exploring the Rich Heritage of Deaf People.” Accessed 7/24/23

A Curator’s Wunderkammer: A Decade of Collecting for UVA

Posted on April 18, 2022 by

On the occasion of his retirement—after a decade of curatorial work at the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library—David R. Whitesell departs the University of Virginia Library having made significant contributions to the collection.

Upon his arrival in 2012, David brought with him deep expertise and experience in acquisitions, bibliography, cataloging, and curation from prestigious institutions, as well as essential knowledge of the rare book and manuscript trade. The Library has benefited from David’s work and has grown in extraordinary ways, all to the betterment of teaching and research.

Our current exhibition, A Curator’s Wunderkammer: A Decade of Collecting for the University of Virginia (on view in the First Floor Gallery of Harrison/Small through July 9, 2022) celebrates and chronicles the stories behind David’s selected acquisitions, opening the door to an insider’s perspective on the work of a curator—where curiosity is always a key to success.

Celebrating a decade’s worth of acquisitions by Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library curator David R. Whitesell on the eve of his retirement: a Wunderkammer, or cabinet of curiosities that illuminates UVA’s current collecting policy, the ins and outs of the unpredictable and highly competitive acquisitions process, and how curators add value to the collection, one acquisition at a time.

Since 2012 I have shared with curatorial colleagues the privilege of augmenting UVA’s truly remarkable rare book and manuscript holdings. My remit has been primarily pre-1900 materials in all formats. As I prepare to hand this responsibility to a new curator, it seems an opportune time to reflect on a decade’s worth of acquisitions. In this exhibition I offer a small selection with comments intended to illuminate UVA’s current collecting policy, the ins and outs of the unpredictable and highly competitive acquisitions process, and how curators add value to the collection, one acquisition at a time.

Even with a healthy budget, UVA curators can acquire only a tiny fraction of the material appropriate for UVA’s diverse research and teaching needs. No precise count is possible, but my purchases for UVA total approximately 15,000 items; the gifts I have helped bring in may exceed 100,000 items. This constitutes less than 2% of a collection that has been abuilding for two centuries. Still, I hope to show that the value I have added is more than negligible, even if ultimately unquantifiable.

Were my acquisitions arrayed in one massive display, they would likely perplex the beholder by their apparent randomness—more akin to a Wunderkammer, or cabinet of curiosities, than a considered, curated selection—until placed within the larger context of UVA’s collection. This is inevitable given the capricious process by which we acquire rare, often unique, materials—a process dependent not only on funding, but especially on knowledge, considered selection, hard work, timing (from lightning response to extreme patience), relationships, market savvy, and luck.

The small sampling on display in the exhibition has been ruthlessly pared by omitting gifts and items representing many areas in which I have collected. Despite having some topical and linear arrangement, it remains more a Wunderkammer than a coherent whole. I encourage you, then, to explore this exhibition in your own way, engaging with those curiosities which attract your gaze and, I hope, some that do not. If I have done the job well, these disparate objects will generate serendipitous connections, insights, and meanings for you, for whom we assemble our collections.

View the full exhibition catalog online here.

Every day—now through mid-June—we’ll highlight one object from A Curator’s Wunderkammer on our social media channels. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and/or Instagram!

The exhibition will be on view through July 9, 2022 in the First Floor Gallery of Harrison/Small.

“Flaming Angel”: Introducing the Papers of Petra Vogt

Posted on November 11, 2021 by

This week we are pleased to present a guest post by English PhD student Annyston Pennington, who works as a curatorial assistant here in Special Collections. Annyston assists with many incoming collections, and we asked them to share their perspective on this fantastic new acquisition after spending several hours unpacking and inventorying its delicate contents. Thanks, Annyston!

Mylar photograph of Petra Vogt by Ira Cohen, ca. 1970-1979. As a performance artist, Vogt contributed to Cohen’s body of work not as a passive subject but as a multimedia collaborator. MSS 16480, Box 6.2-3

Cracking open a binder of photographs, you meet a cool gaze, her sleek center-part and graphic eye-liner placing the portrait somewhere between 1970s fashion editorials and the beauty influencers of your Instagram feed. Her image emerges amid snapshots of skulls and children on the streets of Kathmandu, as if the world were a stage set for the dark, the fanciful, and the extreme. She is the proto-goth girl of your dreams. Within this recently acquired collection, Petra Vogt peers out, unflinching, from a time at once alien to and rhymed with our own.

A round graphic in black pen and ink with red, green, yellow, and brown additions and content below, on white paper.

Astrological chart for Petra Vogt by Alden Taylor Mann, 1974. A detailed manuscript explanation of Vogt’s alignments accompanies the chart. MSS 16480, Box 4.6

The personal archive of Petra Vogt, which covers the years 1966-1978 and was acquired during the summer of 2020, is now processed and prepared for researchers to explore. The UVA Library boasts impressive holdings in the poetry and poetics that arose in the post-war era, particularly in the voluminous Marvin Tatum Collection of Contemporary Literature. Vogt’s papers, however, shed new light on the Beat Generation from the perspective of a multidisciplinary, female interlocutor.

Vogt came of age in Berlin, Germany, developing an artistic and spiritual practice in a world effulgent with the violence, transnational movement, and creative experimentation that mark our contemporary understanding of the twentieth century. In 1962, Vogt joined The Living Theatre, an experimental theatre company, based in New York City, that performed for both American and international audiences. While touring in the United States with The Living Theatre for their performance of “Paradise Now,” Vogt met poet, photographer, and publisher Ira Cohen. One might say, the rest is history, but the papers of Petra Vogt communicate less a traceable narrative than they provide a tantalizing glimpse into the life and mind of an unsung contributor to late-Modernist art.

A page of a magazine, with the left margin torn, and a black and white photograph of a Black man with his mouth open wide, holding a white woman who is upside down with her mouth wide open, accompanied by a column of text on the right.

Magazine clipping featuring review of The Living Theatre’s production of “Paradise Now,” 1969. Petra Vogt performed in the 1968 productions of this play, which Ira Cohen attended. MSS 16480, Box 5.1

In the early 1970s, Vogt immigrated with Cohen to Nepal, where the pair linked up with other creatives and wanderers, such as Nepalese hippies Jimmy Thapa (born Saraj Prakash Thapa), Trilochan Shrestha, and other notable visitors to “Freak Street,” or Jhocchen Tole, a street in Kathmandu dubbed so for its hippie population. While in Nepal, Vogt expanded her artistic horizons from performance art into literature, visual art, and print material. While often footnoted as a “muse” for Cohen, Petra Vogt was, undoubtedly, a maker.

A hardcover book with black endpapers lies open on a surface, open to the title page. The verso is a deep purple, and the recto holds the title information and a black and white photographic image of a man.

Title spread from “Poems from the Cosmic Crypt,” a Bardo Matrix title, which features black and white illustrations by Vogt, 1976. Cataloging in process: record XX(8890369.1)

A hardcover book with black endpapers is open on a table. It is open to a page spread with a mounted print of a drawing on the verso, and a narrow column of verse on the recto.

An interior page spread from “Tales from the Cosmic Crypt.”

In her eleven-box archive, drawings, paintings, and collages by Vogt mingle with hand-made scrapbooks and artists’ books, modified commercial texts, and Bardo Matrix Press woodblock prints. In addition to manuscript items, Vogt’s archive includes select Bardo Matrix titles, such as Poems from the Cosmic Crypt, for which she provided pen illustrations to accompany Cohen’s poetry.

A single sheet of white paper with a printed street map in English in black ink on a pink background, with the title "Patan City" in bright blue ink.

Map of “Patan City,” featuring the Darbar Square area, in a tourist brochure for Patan, 1974. “Freak Street,” a hub for artists and hippies during Vogt’s time, falls south of Darbar Square. MSS 16480, Box 5.13

Vogt and Cohen’s lives in Nepal are documented in romantic grayscale and occasional lush color, if the term “document” can encompass both Cohen’s hallucinogenic Mylar photographs and snapshots of the local community’s domestic, public, and funerary rituals. Her papers are aesthetically shocking, even dark, with images of death and the occult filling almost every folder. But human intimacy and tenderness peek through: affectionate notes penned on the backs of polaroids; postcards conveying enigmatic epigrams and well-wishes; hand-made scrapbooks of jewel tone tissue paper hold pages self-adhered with silver leaf; torn-out magazine pages of 70s fashion and fetish gear; and even casual group portraits (with one shot guest-starring Mick Jagger). Candid and staged, curated and altered, Vogt’s archive pays homage to the oddity and beauty of the bohemian everyday, be it newspaper clippings, lotka paper prints, or pictures of Nepalese market stalls. In these papers, we see her artistic impulse to highlight the sensuality latent in such materials.

Petra Vogt’s presence persists, radiant, in her papers. The eccentricity of her biography alone makes the material worth exploring, but it is the collision of the ephemera of an individual life, lived on the outskirts and in constant motion, with the residue of conflicting identities and politics that produces a collection greater than the sum of its parts.

The text side of a commercial postcard with rippled edges, heavily soiled. Printed text is collaged onto the background, "Flaming angel / Remember that when we walk". The address is in violet ink and there are stamps.

Postcard addressed to Vogt in India, sent care of Banana Joes, 1978. Features Ira Cohen’s glyph in upper-center and reads “Flaming Angel Remember that when we walk” in cut-out print text. MSS 16480 Box 5.9

Note: Thank you to archival processor Sharon Defibaugh of Special Collections Technical Services, who processed and housed the collection and created the magnificent finding aid, all during a pandemic. To see more of the collection, we encourage you to visit our reading room or submit a reference request.

This Just in: The Lewis M. Dabney, III Papers

Posted on May 24, 2021 by

We are proud to announce the acquisition of a major collection of the papers of Lewis M. Dabney, III, the late scholar of American literature and Professor of English at the University of Wyoming. Dr. Dabney is best known for his magisterial 2005 biography, Edmund Wilson: A Life in Literature, and a large body of scholarship on Edmund Wilson.

Lewis M. Dabney, III, undated, courtesy of Elizabeth Dabney Hochman

The UVA Library is now home to three groups of Dabney’s papers: his voluminous and meticulously prepared Wilson archives; a small set of materials documenting his book on William Faulkner, The Indians of Yoknapatawpha (1974); and a collection of papers of Dabney’s mother, Crystal Ray Ross Dabney, documenting her romantic relationship with John Dos Passos in the 1920s.

The earliest letter from Edmund Wilson to Lewis Dabney in the collection (Box 12.7). The correspondence begins with answers to Dabney’s questions about a school periodical from Wilson’s youth, and moves on to many other topics.

Dabney’s heavily annotated copy of William Faukner’s “The Bear” (Box 19), used in his research for “The Indians of Yoknapatawpha.”

Each of these groups of materials individually has significant connections to existing collection strengths at the library: the Faulkner materials join our more than eighty archival collections related to Faulkner, and the Crystal Ross-John Dos Passos collection is an essential complement to the Papers of John Dos Passos. Edmund Wilson’s profound reach across American literary modernism means that Dabney’s research files for this project will have important links throughout the archival collections in the Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature. We are grateful to Dabney’s family for choosing the University of Virginia as a home for these materials: his widow Sarah Dabney, daughter Elizabeth Dabney Hochman, and son Lewis M. Dabney IV (CLAS 1992).

An example of the tantalizing folder headings in just one box of the collection. Dabney worked with a professional archivist to organize his papers in the years leading up to his death in 2015.

Dabney’s scholarship on Edmund Wilson began while he was still a graduate student and came to know Wilson personally. It includes not just the biography but major editions of Wilson’s work, including The Portable Edmund Wilson; The Edmund Wilson Reader; The Sixties: The Last Journal, 1960-1972; and Edmund Wilson: Centennial Reflections. He also edited two Library of America volumes, Edmund Wilson: Literary Essays and Reviews of the 1920s and 30s, and Edmund Wilson: Literary Essays and Reviews of the 1930s and 40s.

File copy of a letter from Dabney to Malcolm Cowley, from an extended correspondence on the structure and contents of Dabney (ed.), “The Portable Edmund Wilson,” 1978 (Box 3.48).

Wilson looms large in the history of twentieth-century literature and culture, and it is no surprise that Dabney’s biography was the work of a lifetime. The biography will never be surpassed due to the access Dabney achieved to the living record of Wilson’s life: his files hold his communications with Wilson himself and Wilson’s friends and colleagues, including figures such as Malcolm Cowley, Donald Hall, and Lionel Trilling; also present are transcripts from his interviews with eminent literary figures such as Wilson’s one-time wife Mary McCarthy, Elizabeth Hardwick, Svetlana Alliuyeva, Isaiah Berlin, Elena Wilson, Roger Straus, and others; in some cases, cassette tapes of the original interviews are present. Much of this material remains unpublished. Dabney’s notes from the interviews offer a taste of Wilson’s dramatic romantic and literary relationships, and like the rest of the collection, offer valuable insight into the biographer’s process.

Dabney’s notes from his multi-day interview with Wilson’s friend Adelaide Walker in 1984, heavily annotated (Box 7.29)

Dabney’s notes from interview with Elizabeth Hardwick regarding Wilson and Mary McCarthy’s relationship, 1984 (7.21)

Among the materials in the collection is Dabney’s prized typescript copy of Edmund Wilson’s journals. This copy was one of two made at the request of Wilson’s longtime publisher Roger Straus since Wilson’s handwriting was apparently nearly indecipherable. Straus gave one copy to Dabney, and the other resides with Wilson’s papers at the Beinecke Library at Yale.

The William Faulkner and Edmund Wilson portions of the collection will be made available to researchers as soon as they have been processed.

Crystal Ross and John Dos Passos

At the time of his death, Dr. Dabney had recently completed a draft of a book on the relationship between his mother and John Dos Passos. The two were briefly engaged in the 1920s, and remained friends their entire lives. Dabney’s family are publishing the book, and once it is released this portion of the collection will become available to scholars. When that happens, we will post again to this space.

If you have questions about any portion of the Dabney papers, please contact curator Molly Schwartzburg at schwartzburg@virginia.edu

Signed with a Kiss: Linnie’s Love Letters to Guy, 1944-1945

Posted on December 13, 2019 by

This week, we are pleased to share a guest post from archival processor Ellen Welch, who, from time to time, shares her processing discoveries with colleagues over email. Posting on the blog for the first time, Ellen shares a collection that provides a glimpse of wartime love-letter conventions in the 1940s.

You are so fine and true and the swellest husband on earth. You just have to come home to me. I’ll wait for you always. Be a good sailor, dear, and take care of yourself for you are precious to me.

Detail of one of Linnie’s letters, signed with her name, numerous “x” marks, and a bright red lipstick kiss. (MSS 15588)

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to read your parents’, grandparents’, or great grandparents’ love letters from World War II? Here at Special Collections, we have many collections of letters from wartime. The latest addition is a collection of 1944-1945 love letters written by Linnie Ethel Davis to her boyfriend (and then husband) Guy Elwood Webb, a sailor in the U.S. Navy. The couple were married when he visited her on leave in Richmond, Virginia in May 1944. Linnie’s letters show her complete devotion to Guy, her constant worry for his safety, and her desperate desire to have him safely at home. She reassures him of her love and encourages him to be strong and learn as much as he can while he is there and tells him that he will back home soon. “You are the sweetest, noblest, finest, darling, sweetheart a girl can have,” she writes; she loves him “more than anything in the whole wide world.”

Linnie’s letters reveal the sacrifices of the “home front”: she makes and sends him care packages and saves most of his monthly earnings for their future. Instead of going out with other young people after work, she goes straight home in case he telephones–and works overtime in order to pay for those long-distance calls. She tries to be brave by not crying in front of anyone, even family. The letters briefly mention air raids, gas rations, and the absence of any young men in town.

Some of Linnie’s many letters, now available for researchers (MSS 15588)

Linnie makes a scrapbook for Guy and fills it with cards from him, newspaper clippings about the war, commercial naval photographs, and postcards from his time in Hawaii. The letters describe her making the scrapbook–and the actual scrapbook is also part of the collection. We follow him from boot camp in the Great Lakes, Illinois to continued service in Haywood and Shoemaker, California, and Honolulu, Hawaii. Linnie writes, “Tis hard being married to a sailor. You never know where he is or where he is going.”

One assumes from the collection that he made it home safely, as the letters stop after he sends a telegram that says that he is departing San Francisco for home in 1945. Indeed, they were reunited, and remained together even after death, as can be seen by their shared gravestone in Richmond, Virginia.

Guy’s final message to Linnie (MSS 15588)

Thanks, Ellen!

John Dunlap, Charlottesville’s First Printer

Posted on June 30, 2017 by

The Philadelphia printer John Dunlap (1747-1812) is best known for having printed the so-called “Dunlap Broadside”—the first printing of the Declaration of Independence—of which the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library is privileged to possess two of the 26 known copies. Less well known is Dunlap’s distinction as the person responsible for bringing printing to Charlottesville, Virginia, in 1781. On the eve of July 4^th, and in celebration of having acquired our very first John Dunlap Charlottesville imprint, here is the story of Dunlap’s brief career as Charlottesville’s pioneer printer.

Title page of U.Va.’s newly acquired 1781 Charlottesville imprint, the first and only item from Charlottesville’s first press to have entered the U.Va. Library collections.

Eighteenth-century American printers were eager for significant business and steady cash flow, which were more easily obtained through newspaper publishing and government printing contracts than through other printing work. John Dunlap did well on both accounts. He immigrated from Ireland to Philadelphia in 1757 and, after serving an apprenticeship in his uncle’s printing establishment, took over the business. In 1771 Dunlap launched the weekly Pennsylvania Packet, or the General Advertiser. Taking advantage of his Philadelphia location and the urgent need for public printing during the American Revolution, Dunlap secured printing contracts not only for the state of Pennsylvania, but also for the Continental Congress.

The two-line imprint crediting John Dunlap and James Hayes as Charlottesville’s first printers. Although undated, this work was printed during September and October of 1781.

In August of 1780, Dunlap expanded his public printing portfolio to Virginia. Directed by Virginia’s House of Delegates to engage a public printer, then-Governor Thomas Jefferson recommended acceptance of the proposal submitted by Dunlap and his business partner (and former apprentice) James Hayes. That fall a press and supply of printing types was dispatched to Richmond, where Hayes was to establish and manage a printing office. But its opening was delayed when the shipment fell into British hands. A second press was sent from Philadelphia to Richmond, and Hayes was at long last able to begin printing in April 1781.

A two-page opening from the Acts Passed at a General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia (Charlottesville, 1781).

The following month, however, the arrival of British forces under General Cornwallis prompted Virginia’s state government to flee Richmond, first to Charlottesville, and then to Staunton. Hayes packed up his printing equipment and followed. But in late June, near Charlottesville on his way back from Staunton, Hayes was captured by the British and then released on condition that he not print “until properly exchanged.” This was soon arranged, and in July 1781 Hayes set up his press in Charlottesville. It remained in operation into October, but by early December Hayes had relocated the press to Richmond. All the while Dunlap remained in Philadelphia.

The list of acts contained in the 1781 Virginia session laws printed in Charlottesville.

In its three months of operation, the first Charlottesville press is known to have printed at least four items: two broadsides, the 52-page Journal of the House of Delegates of Virginia for 1781, and the 1781 Virginia session laws. It is a copy of this last publication—a 20-page folio publication titled Acts Passed at a General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia—that has now been acquired by U.Va. Given the constraints under which Hayes is known to have operated, it is tolerably well printed, bearing the Virginia seal on its title page above the two-line imprint: CHARLOTTESVILLE: Printed by John Dunlap and James Hayes, Printers to the Commonwealth.

John Cook Wyllie’s bibliographical description of the 1781 Virginia session laws (Charlottesville, 1781) with (at bottom) a census of copies known ca. 1960.

All four known 1781 Charlottesville imprints were printed by Hayes in his role as public printer, and all are very rare. It is likely, however, that Hayes printed a few other items, e.g., broadsides, printed forms, and other jobbing work, during his Charlottesville sojourn. Some day we may be able to identify these through careful typographical analysis. The history of Charlottesville’s first press has yet to be written–this précis is based on unpublished research by former U.Va. Librarian John Cook Wyllie, which is available for consultation in the Small Special Collections Library.

Following Hayes’ departure, Charlottesville would remain without a printing press for another four decades, until Clement P. and J.H. McKennie established a newspaper, The Central Gazette, in 1820.

On View Now: Sacred Spaces: The Home and Poetry of Anne Spencer

Posted on September 29, 2016 by

Our latest exhibition, Sacred Spaces: The Home and Poetry of Anne Spencer, offers a glimpse into the exquisite world of Civil Rights activist, librarian, gardener, and poet Anne Spencer (1882–1975). Spencer spent over fifty years turning her house and her garden into a more beautiful and gentle world than the one outside her gates.

Inspired by the photographs taken by noted architectural and landscape photographer John Hall, the exhibition explores how each space was sacred in its own unique way. In “Any Wife to Any Husband, A Derived Poem,” Spencer writes, “This small garden is half my world.” With a myriad of flowers, a lily pool, and a cottage study, Anne’s garden was her own private poetic Eden. At the same time, her house, the other half of her world, was a welcome refuge for African Americans who would have been prevented from finding lodging in Lynchburg because of the color of their skin. The Spencers hosted civil rights activists, writers, and other famous African Americans such as Gwendolyn Brooks, George Washington Carver, Countee Cullen, W.E.B. DuBois, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Thurgood Marshall, and even Martin Luther King Jr.

However, for Spencer, poetic creation and political activism were not separated by the boundaries of architecture. Rather, they were wreathed together by Spencer’s own hand in the house and in the garden. She wrote about politics on seed packets and gardening catalogues in her garden cottage, but at the same time, a poem she wrote about her favorite flower, “Lines to a Nasturtium (A Lover Muses)” is, to this day, painted on the kitchen wall.

Shown here is a packet of seeds that Spencer wrote notes on and a copy of Dreer's Garden Book with an unpublished poem

Shown here is a packet of seeds that Spencer used to take notes and a copy of Dreer’s Garden Book , open to an unpublished poem

The exhibition is broken down into three parts—house, garden, and garden cottage (known as “Edankraal”)— in order to show how politics and poetry, public and private, the past and the present converge in the sacred spaces Anne Spencer created. To compliment John Hall’s stunning photographs of the house and garden, we have tried to fashion each of Spencer’s sacred spaces through the physical artifacts—manuscripts, books, letters, gardening paraphernalia— she left behind.

“Sacred Spaces” is on view through January 27, 2017 in the first floor gallery of the Harrison Small building. Spencer’s home is open to the public today as the Anne Spencer House and Garden Museum. For more information, see annespencermuseum.com. To learn more about John M. Hall’s photography, please visit www.johnmhallphotographs.com.

On View Now: Sisters of the Press: Radical Feminist Literature, 1967-1977

Posted on July 26, 2016 by

This week we are pleased to feature a post by graduate student Kelly Fleming. Kelly is a Ph.D. candidate in English and a curatorial assistant in Special Collections. She writes for us here about her first solo exhibition.

The word “feminist” is lit up in bright lights these days, and not just thanks to Beyoncé. Celebrities use their place in the spotlight to complain about the gender wage gap. Young women wear t-shirts with a crowned Ruth Bader Ginsburg, emblazoned with the words “Notorious RBG.” Students, unprompted, use the word “intersectional” in my classroom, deploying a piece of feminist terminology that was coined the year I was born.

Fifty years ago, in 1966, when Betty Friedan and other feminists formed the National Organization of Women (NOW), their statement of purpose declared, “The purpose of NOW is to take action to bring women into full participation in the mainstream of American society now, exercising all the privileges and responsibilities thereof in truly equal partnership with men.” While we still need to work toward a “truly equal partnership” in this country, feminism has become mainstream. In fact, it has hit mainstream society with such force and such flare that there is debate about the rise of a new wave, as well as new names: “pop feminism” and “marketplace feminism.” At least in part, we are living out Friedan’s dream in this very moment.

Yet in this moment, we are at risk of forgetting the women who wore the word “feminist” like a medal of honor into battle. Perhaps because they did not want to be part of “mainstream” American society, the achievements and work of radical feminists are the most often forgotten. “Sisters of the Press: Radical Feminist Literature, 1967–1977” is an attempt to shed light on this particular history of feminism.

Radical feminists took the second-wave feminist mantra—the personal is political— and made it into a lifestyle. Because they believed that American society was underpinned by a patriarchal system stretching back centuries, they sought to destroy its institutions, hierarchies, and beliefs. To work within the system was to be complicit in the oppression of all American women by men, a fact that the “mainstream” feminist movement, epitomized by NOW, would not formally acknowledge. As a result of this conviction, radical feminists did more than just join consciousness-raising groups. They formed collectives, they lived in non-hierarchical all-female communities, and they dispensed plastic speculums for personal use. But more than anything else, they wrote. They penned scathing critiques in easily disseminated materials, such as manifestos, periodicals, pamphlets, petitions, and flyers, that circulated to sisters nationwide and that provided the basis for radical action.

Detail from the February/March 1973 issue of the radical feminist periodical, Off Our Backs. (HQ1101. O34 v.3 no.6)

While these radical feminists texts may not be as famous as Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (1949), or Betty Friedan’s The Feminist Mystique (1963), their clear, concise messages still inspire change today. I am not alone in having read the Radicalesbian’s essay, “Woman-Identified Woman,” during my undergraduate studies, and imagine my excitement (which was effusive), when I found that we had Rita Mae Brown’s personal copy, complete with editorial marks, in the archives.

Shown here is last page of the essay, with the signatures of co-founder Rita Mae Brown and other members of the Radicalesbians. (MSS 12019)

Another item in the exhibition that I know has impacted women today, and women at UVA in particular, is a letter from a feminist group called the Women’s Alliance. UVA did not admit female undergraduates until 1970 and only did so then because it was court mandated. In response to the “traditional sex stereotyping” female students continued to see in UVA classrooms, the Women’s Alliance demanded in 1977 that the university hire more female faculty members and create a women studies’ program. Even though radical feminists wanted to tear down institutions, their arguments did transform one institution, the university, from within. The UVA Women’s Center and the Women, Gender & Sexuality Program are the result of their efforts.

The letter the Women’s Alliance sent to UVA President Hereford, regarding their petition for a women studies program, which reached nearly 3,000 signatures. (RG-2/1/2.791)

“Sisters of the Press” may not be as powerful as Beyoncé standing in front of the word “feminist” at her concert, but it will remind of us of the women who were feminist before it was cool.

“Sisters of the Press” is on view through August 31st in the First Floor Gallery of the Harrison/Small Building. Come take a look!

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