This Just In: Disability in the Archives

Posted on March 20, 2014 by

“Disability in the Archives,” case 1

On February 27-28 U.Va. hosted “Disabling Normalcy,” an interdisciplinary conference organized by Christopher Krentz, Associate Professor of English and Director of American Sign Language. In conjunction with the conference, Prof. Krentz and graduate student Philip Timmerman prepared an exhibition, “Disability in the Archives,” which is on view in the first floor gallery of the Small Special Collections Library through April 26. Drawn entirely from our holdings, the exhibition features books, manuscripts, and photographs relating to the deaf, blind, physically handicapped, and mentally ill.

“Disability in the Archives,” case 2

The exhibition includes several recent acquisitions, some obtained before Prof. Krentz proposed the exhibition and others acquired since, partly with the exhibition in mind. In this post we feature a few of these items, including several omitted from the exhibition for want of space.

Efforts to educate the blind and vision-impaired received a major boost in the early 19th century with the invention of various tactile reading systems. Although Louis Braille’s dot system has become the international norm, raised letter systems were standard in the United States until the early 20^th century. The first to be introduced was “Boston line,” an adaptation by Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe of a Scottish raised-letter alphabet. Much as a type designer adjusts letterforms for legibility, Howe adapted the shapes of letters and numerals so that, when embossed in paper in high relief, they could be more easily distinguished by touch. In 1835 Howe established a press at the New England Asylum for the Blind in Boston (now the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, Mass.), where he proceeded to print many raised-letter books for the blind.

Cast list for a benefit performance of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, by the “Perkins Players” of the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, Mass., May 1917. This raised-print program was set in Boston line and printed at the school. (HV1796 .M46 P4 1917)

We recently added an unusual Boston line imprint to our Joseph M. Bruccoli Great War Collection: a theater program for two benefit performances of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, held in May 1917 at the Perkins School and featuring Perkins students as actors, musicians, and dancers. Proceeds went to the American, British, French, Belgian Permanent Blind Relief War Fund, which assisted Allied soldiers blinded in battle.

Hans Christian Andersen’s The Ugly Duckling, from Fancies of Child-Life (Louisville, Ky.: American Printing House for the Blind, 1877). (PZ7 .F1997 1877)

Following the Civil War, the American Printing House for the Blind in Louisville, Kentucky, became the leading American supplier of raised-letter texts. The APHB employed a modified form of Boston line for its publications until 1893, when Braille was first introduced. At the Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair we acquired a copy of the 1877 APHB edition of Fancies of Child-Life, a collection of children’s stories by Hans Christian Andersen and Harriet Beecher Stowe. This copy was sent to the Virginia Institute for the Deaf, Dumb, and Blind in Staunton, Va., where in 1893 it was presented as a school prize “For learning to read in one Session” to Edgar Hickam. A blind resident of Maces Spring, Va. (in the extreme southwest region bordering Tennessee), Hickam was well known locally as a musician and piano tuner, though celebrity would fall, not to him, but to his neighbors, the Carter Family.

The Rev. William Moon’s simplified manual alphabet, in Light for the blind: a history of the origin and success of Moon’s system of reading (embossed in various languages) for the blind (London: Longmans & Co., 1873). (HV1678 .M84 1873)

Perhaps Boston line’s primary shortcoming was that it adopted essentially the same rather complex letterforms employed for written and printed texts. Hence publications in Boston line are more easily read by eye than by touch. In 1847 the Rev. William Moon of Brighton, England, invented a simplified alphabet better suited to touch. It consisted of “six of the roman letters unaltered, twelve others with parts left out, and six new and very simple forms, which may be easily learned by the aged, and persons whose fingers are hardened by work.” Moon’s Light for the blind (London, 1873) describes his invention, provides a list of available publications, and chronicles his labors on behalf of the blind.

We know far less about the history of mapmaking for the blind, and embossed maps are very uncommon. Hence we were delighted to acquire at the California International Antiquarian Book Fair a fine copy of a world atlas for the blind published in Germany in the mid-1930s. The challenge was a straightforward one: how to convert two dimensions into three so that cartographic information could be conveyed by touch? Here the solution was to emboss maps in high relief on durable kraft paper. Geographic and topographic features are differentiated as follows: coastlines by dotted lines, political boundaries by dashed lines, rivers by solid lines, oceans by a uniform pattern of small dots in low relief, and so on, with captions added in Braille.

A manual alphabet from a collection of ornamental alphabets, Recueil d’alphabets, dedié aux artistes (Paris & New York: L. Turgis jeune, [ca. 1845?]. (NK3600 .B65 1845)

Last month we acquired a rare mid-19^th century alphabet book, with a dual Paris & New York imprint, consisting of 24 lithographic plates bearing elaborate ornamental alphabets. These were intended as inspiration for artists, signmakers, and others seeking out-of-the-ordinary letterforms. Imagine our surprise to find on the penultimate plate the standard manual alphabet on which various sign languages used by the deaf (including American Sign Language) are based.

“Nervous disorder” conveyed in verse, in Miscellaneous reflections. In Verse (Greenfield, Mass.: Thomas Dickman, 1792) (BD420 .F52 1750 no. 2)

Early autobiographical accounts of battles with mental illness are quite rare, and recently we acquired one for the Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature. In 1792, in the small town of Greenfield, Mass., Thomas Dickman printed Miscellaneous reflections. In verse. Mostly written at sundry times, when under long confinement by a complication of nervous disorders. Only three copies are recorded of this 40-page pamphlet, written “by a valetudinary” (whose identity remains unknown) and “printed by request of friends of that class.” Most of the poems are religious in nature, but the initial poems are extraordinary for attempting to convey, in verse, the author’s experience of being in a state of “nervous disorder.”

Tales from Under Grounds: Women’s Suffrage, Coeducation, and Israeli Statehood

Posted on March 13, 2014 by

The following blog post is the second in a series of four, spotlighting the mini-exhibitions of students from fall semester’s USEM 1570: Researching History. This is the abridged version of the students’ projects, featured at their outreach program, Tales from Under Grounds.

Ally Clement gives her classmates a “tour” of her mini-exhibition in preparation for Tales from Under Grounds.

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Ally Clement, First-Year Student

Photograph of Ally Clement by Sanjay Suchak, November 19, 2013.

Ally Clement presenting her exhibit at the event, November 19, 2013. (Photograph by Sanjay Suchak)

The Fight for Rights: Women’s Suffrage 1886-1912

From one of the first debates on women’s suffrage to why people should or should not advocate for women’s suffrage, this exhibit illustrates the points of view about women’s suffrage from 1886 until 1911. The fight for women’s right to vote was a prominent piece of American history. Women and men across the country joined together in the fight for or against equal voting rights for women.

Suffragettes made newspaper headlines throughout their fight and were the main topics of pamphlets distributed in the early 1900s. The fight for women’s suffrage did not cease until 1920 when the 19th amendment was passed and added to the U.S. Constitution.

Scrapbook regarding World War I and Women’s Suffrage, 1913-1918. Emily Wayland Dinwiddie compiled this scrapbook, which includes history-making headlines from newspapers during the beginning of women’s suffrage to World War I. The headlines of this page are what are most important. They show many different views of how people (editors specifically) felt about women having the right to vote. Some headlines are exciting like “Hurrah for the Suffragette!” while others blame women’s suffrage on issues such as divorce or laziness. (MSS 3194-c. Image by Petrina Jackson)

“Facts and Dates to Remember” (New York: National American Women’s Suffrage Association, 1911). Numerous informative and opposing pamphlets were issued during the time of women’s suffrage but this handout lists other countries and areas that have already allowed women the right to vote by 1911. The earliest suffrage right listed is Wyoming in 1869. It is important to remember that even though it was not legal to do so, some states already allowed women to vote. (Broadside 1911 .N28c. Image by Petrina Jackson)

Verso of “Facts and Dates to Remember” (New York: National American Women’s Suffrage Association, 1911). (Broadside 1911 .N28c. Image by Petrina Jackson)

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Kate Westman, First-Year Student

Kate Westman explains her exhibition to Author Donna Lucey, November 19, 2013. (Photograph by Sanjay Suchak.)

Hoo’s She?

Although the University of Virginia did not become fully coeducational until 1970, calls for coeducation were made many years earlier. When a significant number of universities and colleges had begun providing coeducational opportunities by the end of the 19th century, the University of Virginia was pressured into doing the same. The University held on tightly to its tradition, however, as it took nearly eighty years to become fully coeducational after admitting the first female student.

Women were allowed to study at the University in very limited capacities beginning in the end of the 19th century. They could study privately with professors, take examinations, and earn pass certificates. In the beginning of the 20th century, the summer school began, where women could study but not earn credit. Though these opportunities were far from equal to those of men, these were significant steps toward coeducation in the University that clung so tightly to tradition.

Minute Book of the Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia, 1892. Minutes of the Board of Visitors from June 1892 includes a resolution that was passed in response to Caroline Preston Davis’s request to take math exams. During this time many schools were becoming coeducational, and the resolution that passed was U.Va.’s way of dealing with this issue. With a registration fee and instructor permission, women of good character and preparation could study privately with a professor and take examinations for a specific class in which men were enrolled. However, they were not allowed to attend lectures and received pass certificates instead of diplomas. Though this was a step toward better education for women, U.Va. still held onto tradition, considering itself unprepared to take on the “duties of instruction” for young women at this time. (RG-1/1/1.382. Image by Digitization Services)

Detail of the 1892 entry of the Board of Visitor's Minute Book, regarding women at the University. ()

Detail of the June 1892 entry of the Board of Visitor’s Minute Book, regarding women at the University. (RG-1/1/1.382. Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

Pass Certificate of Caroline Preston Davis. June 14, 1893. After the Board of Visitors passed the resolution about women studying at U.Va., in 1892, Caroline Preston Davis became the first female student and the first woman to have her studies recognized at U.Va. By taking the same mathematics examinations as men (and doing quite well on them), she earned this pass certificate in lieu of diploma. The paper on which this certificate was printed was the same as diploma paper, but parts of the diploma were marked out. Note that “Mr.” was changed into “Miss” and “a graduate” became “entitled to a pass-certificate on all graduating examinations in the School of Pure Mathematics.” This certificate shows how women were simultaneously close to and far from the educational opportunities that men had. (MSS 4951. Image by Petrina Jackson)

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Bethany Ackerman, First-Year Student

Bethany Ackerman discusses one of her exhibition items with Special Collections staff, November 26, 2013. (Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

Bethany Ackerman discusses one of her exhibition items with Special Collections staff members George Riser and David Whitesell, November 26, 2013. (Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

Coeducation at the University of Virginia

The admission of women into the University of Virginia was not without strife and obstacles. With many faculty, alumni, and students clinging to tradition, the idea of admitting women specifically into the College of Arts and Sciences seemed preposterous. However, as times changed so did the mindsets of individuals with authority at the University of Virginia. Through academic and political reflection, leaders at the University decided to wield their power to move the University of Virginia towards a coeducational society.

Nevertheless, the decision to become a coeducational institution was not the end to the road of controversy, change, and acceptance; it was only the beginning. By following a timeline of student and faculty work, we can gain insight into the path women took to become an accepted presence at the University of Virginia.

Grimwood, Steve. “By God I Think They’re Here to Stay.” The Cavalier Daily. 14 September 1970: 3. In February of 1969, U.V.a.’s Board of Visitors passed the resolution admitting women into the College of Arts and Sciences beginning in the 1970 fall term. In its first 1970-71 newspaper, the Cavalier Daily notes and elaborates upon the presence of women at the University. The front page headline “350 Women Fill Out Profile of Entering Class” proves the significance of coeducation to the University. The inside article “By God I Think They’re Here to Stay,” further elaborates on student opinion. The article is flavored with mixed emotions; pleasure and tentative acceptance along with skepticism and underlying uncertainty about the future. (Photograph by Petrina Jackson)

“Coeducation.” Corks and Curls. Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1971. Corks and Curls was the yearbook of the University of Virginia. The 1971 Corks and Curls edition was printed two years after women were admitted entrance into the College of Arts and Sciences. In the 1971 Corks and Curls, a small excerpt, titled “Coeducation” speaks lightly and positively about the impact of women on the University. This passage shows that, although admitting women into the College was an adjustment for many, ultimately the change should be accepted with grace and the diversity women offer, gratefully accepted. (LD 5687 .C7.1971. Image by Petrina Jackson)

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Zachary Krooks, First-Year Student

Zachary Krooks discusses his exhibition with Sharon Defibaugh, Special Collections Archives and Manuscripts processor, November 19, 2013. (Photograph by Sanjay Suchak.)

The Journey to 1948: An American Perspective

Most studies of the relationship between the Jewish and the Arab communities in Palestine and the situation that ensued in 1948 are focused on the two groups themselves and the British involvement. This exhibit’s purpose is to show that these entities were not alone in the conflict; the world’s rising superpower, the United States, closely monitored the situation and in turn had a significant impact on the outcome.

Through publications in American periodicals, pamphlets, and proclamations on the subject, one is able to determine that without American influence, it is possible the Jewish-Arab conflict in Palestine would not have resulted in the creation of the State of Israel.

“Palestine In the Press” [New York, 1946.]. This book is a series of news articles published in the United States concerning the issue of Palestine and the creation of an independent state. From these articles, it appears that American public opinion is on the side of the establishment of an independent Jewish state in the land of Palestine. Many of the articles criticize the British’s handling of the situation and even go as far as to state that the actions of the British are “all too reminiscent of… a Nazi concentration camp.” What is currently displayed is a political cartoon, in which the cartoonist appears to be stating that without the British support, the Palestinians would lose the state to the Jews, depicting the Palestinians as weak and defenseless. (D743.9 .C65 v.4 no.15. Image by Petrina Jackson)

“A Proclamation On the Moral Rights of the Stateless and Palestinian Jews” (New York, 1942). In this proclamation, numerous American military, political, religious, and academic leaders, among others, have expressed their sympathy for the plight of the Jews in Europe and in the Middle East. After detailing the suffering of the Jews in Europe and their unwillingness to give up on their people, the writers of this proclamation state that the Jewish people deserve a nation for which they can fight for and be a part of. (Broadside 1942.P76. Image by Petrina Jackson)

ABCs of Special Collections: W is for…

Posted on March 10, 2014 by

Well, Well, Well, what have we here? But the letter W, of course!

W from the cover of Louisa Venable Kyle’s The Witch of Pungo. Virginia Beach, Va: Four O’Clock Farms Publishing Co., 1988. (PZ7 .K983 Wi 1988. Gift of Edward Gaynor. Image by Anne Causey)

W is for Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward

One of the first American feminist writers, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward gained wide-spread popularity in her day. Her novel The Gates Ajar, published four years after the Civil War, was a best seller, depicting heaven as a place where loved ones reconnect after death. Through her writings, she challenged many of the mores of her day, especially those concerning Calvinist traditions. In her forties, she married a man nineteen years her junior, and famously urged women to burn their corsets.

A search of our online records show over 100 entries for Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward.

Contributed by George Riser, Collections and Instruction Assistant

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward. (MSS 6997-e. Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature. Image by Petrina Jackson)

Title page of the first printing of The Gates Ajar by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward. (PS3142 .G3 1869. Image by Petrina Jackson)

W is for George Washington

George Washington. Legendary General. First President of the United States. Namesake of the nation’s Capital. His iconic image is with us every day, from the quarters in our change purses to the dollars in our wallets.

Contributed by Donna Stapley, Assistant to the Director

On display in the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library is the famous portrait of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart and a bronze bust by Jean Antoine Houdon.

Portrait of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart. (Gift of Mrs. F. Bayard Rives and George L. Rives. Photograph by Donna Stapley.)

Bust of Washington by Jean Antoine Houdon. (Gift of the Class of 1909. Photograph by Donna Stapley.)

Viewing our manuscript and ephemera collection helps change the legend into a man, providing a glimpse into the daily life of George Washington.

Bookplate belonging to George Washington. Copperplate engraving, 1771. (MSS 13483. Photograph by Donna Stapley)

Page from a pocket account book containing an entry for purchase of a periwig for George Washington for a night of “entertainment,” April 1780. (MSS 8136-a. Photograph by Donna Stapley)

Facsimile of letter from dated June 23, 1775, from George Washington to Martha Washington, regarding his departure from Philadelphia and his affection for her: “I retain an unalterable affection for you which neither time or distance can change..” (MSS 38-532. Photograph by Donna Stapley)

W is for Witches!

While Virginia did not experience the witch uproar of Salem, Mass, there was one notable case. In 1706 Grace Sherwood of Princess Anne County (now Virginia Beach) was accused of practicing witchcraft. Among her “sins” was bewitching hogs and escaping through a keyhole as a black cat. She was summoned to court and on July 5, “it was Ordrd . . . by her own Consent to be tried in the water by Ducking.” On July 10, she was tied and tossed in a river. She swam – thus guilty. “Five ancient women” searched her and declared she was “not like them nor noe other woman they knew of” because of two marks on her body. The court kept her in custody for a future trial, but records thereafter are unclear.

Contributed by Anne Causey, Public Services Assistant

One story of Grace Sherwood, a highly embellished children’s story, is found in Louisa Venable Kyle’s The Witch of Pungo. Virginia Beach, Va: Four O’Clock Farms Publishing Co., 1988. (PZ7 .K983 Wi 1988. Gift of Edward Gaynor. Image by Anne Causey)

The earliest printed record of Grace Sherwood’s story is in the Collections of the Virginia Historical & Philosophical Society, Richmond, 1833, presented by Jonathan Cushing (F221 v.95 no. 1. Image by Anne Causey)

From the Collections of the Virginia Historical & Philosophical Society, Richmond, 1833, presented by Jonathan Cushing (F221 v.95 no. 1. Image by Anne Causey).

W is for W.P.A.

The Works Progress Administration (later named the Work Projects Administration) is perhaps the best known of the New Deal agencies created to pull the United States out of the Great Depression. The W.P.A. focused primarily on public works, such as roads, dams, and public buildings but also funded smaller programs for writers, artists, musicians, and actors. Among the W.P.A. materials in Special Collections are original drawings (several unpublished) for Virginia the Old Dominion in Pictures; interviews with former slaves; and an extensive collection of folklore and folk songs from Virginia.

Contributed by Edward Gaynor, Head of Description and Specialist for Virginiana and University Archives

"Laundress" drawn by Ralph W. Lermond for (Photograph by Donna Stapley)

“Laundress” by Ralph W. Lermond for Drawings for Virginia: the Old Dominion in Pictures. (MSS 15372. Photograph by Donna Stapley)

“Forger,” an unpublished work by Ralph W. Lermond for Drawings for Virginia: the Old Dominion in Pictures. (MSS 15372. Photograph by Donna Stapley)

Virginia: the Old Dominion in Pictures. (F231 .W89 1941. Image by Edward Gaynor)

Drawings by Ralph W. Lermond, featured in Virginia: the Old Dominion in Pictures. (F231 .W89 1941. Image by Edward Gaynor)

Now that “W” is complete, we have only three more letters to go. Visit us in a couple of weeks as we explore “X.”

The Media Studies Experience: An Afternoon with Willa Cather

Posted on March 7, 2014 by

We are pleased to feature a guest post by Emily Caldwell, Fourth-Year English major/Media Studies minor and blogger for The Media Studies Experience.

In my second year at UVa, I took Professor Stephen Raillton’s class on Modern American Authors. We read everything from F. Scott Fitzgerald to Richard Wright, but one author I was unfamiliar with up until this point was Willa Cather. That semester, I read her novel O Pioneers! and absolutely fell in love with her storytelling and writing style.

Bust of Willa Cather (Photograph by Emily Caldwell)

Paul Swan, plaster bust of Willa Cather in the Special Collections Reading Room (MSS 10560. Photograph by Emily Caldwell)

A few days ago, I spent the afternoon in the U.Va. Special Collections with some of Cather’s personal items including signed photographs, manuscripts, and letters. It’s safe to say that I fell in love with her even more.

Willa Cather's signature from her letter to (Emily Caldwell)

Willa Cather’s signature from her letter to the Head of the English Department at Mount Saint Mary’s College, February 7, 1940. (MSS 6494. Emily Caldwell)

Envelope and letter of Willa Cather to the Head of the Mount Saint Mary's , February 7, 1940. (Photograph by Emily Caldwell)

Envelope and letter of Willa Cather to the Head of the English Department at Mount Saint Mary’s College, February 7, 1940. (MSS 6494. Photograph by Emily Caldwell)

First of all, the woman can make me laugh. In a letter dated February 7, 1940, to the head of the English Department at Mount Saint Mary’s College in Maryland, Cather defends her religious beliefs, after having apparently received a letter from a student at the college, and instructs him, through the professor, to not believe everything he reads. Cather addresses the letter, “Dear Sir,” and then says, “I hope you will pardon me for addressing you without knowing your name, but I feel sure that you could handle this rather blustering boy better than I.” I could not help but chuckle to myself in the middle of the library’s dead silent reading room. Apparently this “blustering boy” had read somewhere in a book that Cather was a Roman Catholic convert, judging by her obvious praise of the Church throughout her literature. Although Cather claims that the Roman Catholic Church is “certainly the greatest spiritual power this world has ever known,” she claims that the “answer is very simple” and she is “an Episcopalian because [her] mother and father were, and that Church is home to [her].” Not only did she scold the so-called “blustering boy,” but she requested that slips of paper explaining the facts of her beliefs be put in every copy of Vernon Loggins’s I Hear America, which claimed Cather was a convert to the Roman Catholic Church. From this particular correspondence, it is clear that Cather was not only a sassy and particular woman, but truly dedicated to her religion, and I find both traits admirable.

The next treasure I found in this collection was a letter from Cather to a Mrs. Ackroyed dated May 16, 1941. Out of all of the things I looked at from this collection, this was my favorite artifact because of the way Cather fondly reflects on her childhood home in Virginia. I was first referred to this letter after looking at a photograph of that home, in Willow Shade, VA.

Cather’s childhood home in Willow Shade, VA, n.d. (MSS 6494. Photograph by Emily Caldwell.)

I thought it was peculiar that there was a blue circle around one of the windows on the house. After reading the letter, I found out some interesting facts about Cather’s childhood. In the beginning of the letter, Cather writes, “Your letter has awakened many pleasant memories. Your grandmother, Mary Ann Anderson, was a very special favorite of mine when I was a little girl of five to eight years old and lived in Willow Shade on the Northwestern Turnpike.” Cather continues to explain that when she would get sick as a little girl, she would “watch out of the front windows, hoping to see Mrs. Anderson coming down the road” because her family “usually sent some word to her when [she] was sick, because she was so tactful and understanding with a child.” I then made the connection to the photograph, on which Cather had actually circled the front window she used to sit at to watch for Mrs. Anderson. She recalls, “I several times walked up that beautiful Hollow Road, up to Timber Ridge, to see her in her little house where she lived all alone, and where she was as happy as the day was long.”

Cather then goes on in the letter to talk about her Aunt Marjorie, who she used to visit back in Virginia after her family moved out west to Nebraska. She writes, “I used to always spend many hours with Marjorie in the…sunny kitchen or on the shady back porch. She liked to talk about the old times in Virginia.” As I was reading the letter, I felt the emotions and nostalgia she poured into this letter. She writes that she wished to “have the croup again” and she “could watch out of one of those windows at Willow Shade and see Mrs. Anderson coming briskly around the turn of the road.”

When I first started digging into this collection of Willa Cather’s artifacts and materials, I thought I would read into some of her personal relationships and see some interesting photographs. However, I never expected to read a touching letter reflecting on her childhood, and how much she wished she could be a child in Virginia again with the people who shaped her life so much. It is a very special moment and feeling to read one of the most brilliant authors I have ever read gush about their time spent in Virginia, my home state and the place where I, too, spent many magical years as a child, learning about the world. I never believed I could relate to Willa Cather so much, and I feel even more honored than ever to go to the University of Virginia, and call Virginia my home state.

Double-signed photograph of Willa Cather, n.d. (Photograph by Emily Caldwell)

Double-signed photograph of Willa Cather, n.d. (MSS 6494. Photograph by Emily Caldwell)

Detail of Willa Cather photograph, n.d. (Emily Caldwell)

Detail of Willa Cather’s signature on her photograph, n.d. (MSS 6494. Emily Caldwell)

Permission was granted courtesy of Willa Cather’s estate to use quotations from her unpublished letters.

Patron’s Choice: Massive Resistance and Harry F. Byrd

Posted on March 6, 2014 by

This week we are pleased to feature a guest post by researcher Dr. Candace Epps-Robertson, who teaches in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, & American Cultures at Michigan State University. Dr. Epps-Robertson worked with our collections remotely, requesting digital images of materials, mostly from the voluminous papers of Senator Harry Flood Byrd.

As a scholar of rhetoric during the Civil Rights Movement the questions that guide most of my research are usually quite simple: How were arguments made and how did they circulate? These questions drive my work in the area of Virginia’s Massive Resistance period. My research into this bleak moment of Virginia’s history comes as a result of my work on Prince Edward County, Virginia’s five-year public school closures in resistance to Brown vs Board of Education (1954). While Massive Resistance, on the books at least, subsided after 1959, Prince Edward persisted through the refusal to integrate public schools. To better understand how local leaders were able to close schools I trace and examine how segregationists introduced discourse to strengthen connections and mobilize efforts for an audience supportive of the notion that the preservation of segregation was a civic duty. One of the architects of the discourse of Massive Resistance was Senator Harry Flood Byrd whose papers exist in The Albert and Shirley Small Collections.

The late Senator Byrd had a thirty-three year political term in the Commonwealth, serving as governor from 1926 until 1930 and senator from 1933 until 1965. In many ways his position on segregation was no different from that of other supporters; however the power base he held in Virginia’s government secured him a larger audience. My quest to understand the history, context, and arguments made by Byrd brought me to this archive.

Thus far, my research in Byrd’s papers has all been done remotely. As a researcher whose work depends quite heavily on archival work, working entirely from digital copies from U.Va.’s Special Collections was a new adventure for me. I enjoy both the physical hunt for documents as well as the serendipity of the archive, but the detailed finding aid, and helpful assistance of the library’s staff, has made the long-distance research move with ease.

One of the many documents that has helped me understand Byrd’s means of crafting arguments is his April 28, 1961 press release on Prince Edward. In response to Attorney General Kennedy’s attempt to stop state funding being used for tuition assistance for White students to attend segregationists academies Byrd uses this moment to praise Prince Edward as a “gallant” county “fighting against great odds to protect a principle it believes to be right.” He continues by portraying Prince Edward, and Virginia, as victims, citing that Kennedy’s proposal was an “attempt to punish an entire State because the action of one county displease the U.S. Attorney General.”

Harry Flood Byrd’s press release regarding the “intervention by the Attorney General of the United States in the Prince Edward County School District” (MSS 9700, Papers of Harry Flood Byrd. Images by U.Va. Library Digitization Services)

Detail from Byrd’s press release.

While Byrd holds Prince Edward up as a model community for its demonstration, he simultaneously paints the entire Commonwealth as a victim at the hands of an intrusive federal government. Byrd’s press release continues with a somewhat ironic warning against bitterness in what he sees as being a struggle for unity: “Such action will sow the seeds of intense bitterness throughout Virginia and the South when unity is needed as rarely before.” This document, like many of Byrd’s speeches, press releases, and correspondence, serves as a means for helping us to understand both the history and discourse of Massive Resistance. The language was as much about maintaining state’s rights as it was demonstrating the resilience needed to protect the South’s way of life at all costs.

Detail from Byrd’s press release.

When I’m asked why I devote research to a moment in our nation’s history that is so painful and ugly my response is simple: We must understand how race has operated historically through language and having access to archival sources is paramount to this. If we understand how racist discourse has functioned and if we continue to trace how it morphs, we can better prepare ourselves to dismantle and challenge the discourse of race. Archives, especially those with strong digital components and support, can aid us in our quest to dissect words and movements over long distances so that our struggle doesn’t have to be limited by travel funding or leaving campus on a research sojourn across the country.

Detail from the closing page of an anti-integration pamphlet also used by Professor Epps-Robertson in her research. (Broadside 747. Image by U.Va. Libraries Digitization Services)

The Media Studies Experience: U.Va.’s Beta Bridge

Posted on March 4, 2014 by

We are pleased to feature a guest post by Garrett Gottesman, who is a Third-Year, double-majoring in Media Studies and American Studies with a concentration in Social Reform, and a blogger for The Media Studies Experience.

Because I’ve seen messages and artwork come and go almost daily on Beta Bridge over the past three years, oftentimes the words and their meaning are lost on me. But this week, Beta Bridge grabbed my attention and made me momentarily put my day on pause.

Beta Bridge, February 2014 (Photograph by Garrett Gottesman)

Beta Bridge painted in support of Venezuelan protests, February 21, 2014. (Photograph by Garrett Gottesman)

Having followed the news coverage of the political unrest in Venezuela, this visual demonstration arranged by Venezuelan students at U.Va. instantly caught and held my attention. This dramatic appeal resonated with me as images of violence and brutality still lingered in my head from the news the night before. Second-Year Student Henrique Sosa, who is from Venezuela and is a leader of U.Va. students demonstrating support for Venezuela, said that their mission is to increase consciousness about the crisis amongst students and also to send strength to the Venezuelans whose voices are being silenced by the oppressive regime.

(Screen shot taken by Garrett Gottesman)

An example of U.Va. student support for the Venezuelan protests is this picture, which has reached an audience of over 700,000 Venezuelans after it was retweeted by prominent Venezuelan reporter Miguel Henrique Otero, February 23, 2014. (Screen shot taken by Garrett Gottesman)

In addition to accomplishing this mission though, the message also left me questioning the history of Beta Bridge as I realized that I knew so little about it.

Paintings on the bridge commemorating students who have recently died, or the “Hoos for Hokies” message after the Virginia Tech shootings are some of the most memorable Beta messages that resonate with the student body. But largely, the free billboard space is filled with birthday wishes and CIO (student group) advertisements. These more common messages go unnoticed; however, the sanctity of this outlet of expression is worth defending.

Filled with curiosity of the bridge’s history, I visited Special Collections. There, I found dozens of pictures of the bridge over the last 20 years, as well as two Cavalier Daily articles from the 1980s that illustrated Beta’s history and importance.

University of Virginia Beta Bridge, 1969. (RG-30/1/10.11. University of Virginia Visual History Collection. Image by Digitization Services.)

The March 11, 1981 Cavalier Daily article, “Beta: It’s More Than Just a Bridge” explains the history of the bridge. The original wooden bridge was built in 1855 by the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad Company, who owned the railroad below, but it wasn’t until the 1960’s that painting it became such a part of U.Va. culture. As a matter of fact, it was illegal to paint it before this time, and the marks seldom on it, which were usually sports scores, were done under the cover of the night.

This tradition blossomed though, and, by the 1980s, the bridge was painted up to five times a day. Reaffirming my sentiments, the Cavalier Daily articles noted how important this outlet of student expression was. In the September 22, 1986 article entitled “Beta Bridge: Layers of University Tradition Live on Rugby,” former professor Raymond Bice explained, “Once in a while someone paints something that raises eyebrows. But really it’s a harmless activity that is very valuable.” Although the instances that he is talking about are ones like the John Lennon memorial that stayed up for ten days, this act still holds value today as some students use it to reach beyond the University community. The bridge poses as a cornerstone for the symbolic value of student voice, and even though it can often be pointless fun, sometimes its impact leaves a lasting mark on those who see it.

On View Now: The Journeys of Vachel Lindsay

Posted on March 3, 2014 by

We are proud to announce the opening of our new First Floor exhibit, Troubadour, Vagabond, Visionary: The Journeys of Vachel Lindsay, curated by English graduate Student and Special Collections curatorial assistant Elizabeth Ott. Today on the blog, Elizabeth offers some reflections on the curatorial process in the following guest post. Thanks, Liz, and congratulations on your beautiful exhibition!

Poster design by Jeff Hill, U.Va. Library.

If there were a single collection in the Albert & Shirley Small Special Collections library that could represent all of the reasons special collections libraries exist, I think it would have to be the Vachel Lindsay Collection. Lindsay was an American poet of the early 20^th century known for his tramping excursions of hundreds of miles across many states, when he traded poetry pamphlets and performances for food and lodging. He spent much of his life walking the lines between poet, painter, preacher, and philosopher. He’s exactly the kind of writer whose value to the history of literature is most easily lost in the ascetic pages of a Norton Anthology, where his booming vaudevillian voice, syncopated jazz rhythms, and elaborate tongue-in-cheek illustrations are reduced down to plain black ink on a white page.

Exhibition curator Elizabeth Ott and her supervisor, curator Molly Schwartzburg, installing Lindsay’s Bibles in the exhibition. (Photo by Sanjay Suchak)

To understand Vachel Lindsay, you need to see all his stuff. To understand Vachel Lindsay, you need to visit Special Collections. This is because the manuscripts, printed books, and other materials in the stacks of the Small Library tell a vibrant story, one that casts Lindsay in a kaleidoscopic light of colors and shades, speaking of a rich artistic career. Enterprising, energetic, and prolific, Lindsay traveled America as a self-styled troubadour, distributed art and ideas with an earnest faith in the twin powers of Beauty and Art, and made a name for himself reclaiming poetry as the province of performance. The Vachel Lindsay Collection is wildly eclectic, encompassing everything from oil paintings and cherished slippers to folksy illustrated pamphlets and the blocks used to print them.

One of Vachel Lindsay’s Bibles, inscribed with his elegant script, ready to be installed in the exhibition. (Photo by Sanjay Suchak)

Because of Lindsay’s broad interests and the great scope of the collection, deciding what aspect of Lindsay’s career to exhibit was no small task. I wanted to showcase the range of his work while at the same time giving a sense of just how much he dovetailed with the intellectual and artistic concerns of his day. To me, Lindsay seemed so much a part of the American landscape—an America still in the process of building an identity. Lindsay, like many American poets, looked back to create something unique and new, breaking from tradition by invoking an almost transcendental link to a mythic and stylized past.

The exhibition installation process continues. (Photo by Sanjay Suchak)

The decision to focus the exhibition on Lindsay’s journeys, both literal and figurative, grew out of two maps that now hang in the first case of the exhibition. Both maps are fairly ordinary, save that Lindsay has embellished both, labeling them with paint and pen. The first records his tramping journeys between 1904 and 1916. The second divides the country into regions of Lindsay’s devising, with his characteristic penchant for the symbolic over the literal. I wanted to tell the story of these two maps, of Lindsay’s actual treks across the United States, but also of his visions of the journey America, as a country, was to undertake.

Elizabeth supervises Molly as she levels one of Lindsay’s maps. (Photo by Sanjay Suchak)

The resulting exhibition thus tells two stories. The first is the story of what Vachel Lindsay means to America—how his tramping journeys presaged the hobo culture of the 1920s and 30s and influenced generations of poets who drew inspiration from folk culture. The second is the story of what America meant to Vachel Lindsay, his mythopoeic universe with Springfield, Illinois (his hometown) at the center. Though this exhibition barely scratches the surface of his fascinating life and work, it samples a great range of the materials that survive in the Vachel Lindsay Collection, testifying to the life and works of this now obscure but enduringly influential American poet.

Elizabeth puts the finishing touches on her exhibition. (Photo by Sanjay Suchak)

The Media Studies Experience: The Cavalier Daily and Black Culture Week

Posted on February 28, 2014 by

We are pleased to feature a guest post by Susan Gravatt, Fourth-Year Media Studies major/Religious Studies minor and blogger for The Media Studies Experience.

Turn back the clock 40 years, and an edition of The Cavalier Daily appears quite differently from the predominantly online publication that it is today. However, its attention to particular facets of student life is surprisingly similar. Diversity, a regular topic of discussion that I have heard throughout my four years at the University of Virginia, receives a handful of nods in a February edition of the student newspaper from 1974.

I could have spent days mulling through the Special Collections archives of the newspaper that date back to the 1890s. However, I especially wanted to see the paper’s emphasis on race in the 1970s, since universities nationwide were still acclimating to integration.

Black Culture Week appears in an edition of the publication from February 8, 1974. That year marked the Black Student Alliance’s (BSA) 4th annual week-long celebration of encouraging “awareness of the black persons within the University community.” The BSA brought gospel choirs, concerts, and the “Black Ball” to Grounds. A student chairman for the BSA exclaimed Black Culture Week was “the highlight of the year for black students.”

Anderson, Francine and Rosemary Cooney. “Black Culture Week: Week Offers Exposure to Black Experience.” Cavalier Daily, February 8, 1974. (Newspaper VA UVa CD. Photograph by Susan Gravatt)

Fast-forward to the present, and The Cav Daily still has a vested interest in covering issues of race within the student body. But now, there may be a slightly bleaker picture. Just on Valentine’s Day of this past year, Jared Fogel, an opinion columnist for The Cav Daily wrote,

Since…. 1996, University minority percentages have stagnated. According to 2012-2013 statistics, 28.3 percent, or around 6,000, of the over 21,000 students that attend the University are minorities. This does not quite measure up to the around 36 percent of minorities that live in Virginia or the 37 percent of minorities that live in the U.S.” Although The Cavalier Daily is addressing concerns for not just blacks but all racial minorities, the paper’s writers continue to hope to educate and inform their fellow students regarding issues of race and what they mean for the entire University.

After flipping through the 1974 paper, though, I asked myself, “What happened to Black Culture Week?” As far as I could find from the BSA website, the University did not hold a similar event in 2014, though these festivities did take place last February.

Do any readers recall Black Culture Week celebrations during the 1970s? How did they shape student life, for the week and beyond?

Cavalier Daily (Photograph by Susan Gravatt.)

“BSA Sponsors Mandrill Concert.” Cavalier Daily, February 8, 1974. Mandrill is an American band formed in New York in 1968. The band’s music fuses funk with Latin, salsa, rock, blues and soul. (Newspaper VA UVa CD. Photograph by Susan Gravatt.)

This Just In: Brutal Coppers and Queer Floppers: A Glimpse into the Hobo Collection

Posted on February 27, 2014 by

This week we are pleased to feature a guest post by curatorial student assistant Elizabeth Ott, who has written an in-depth account of just one of the many wonderful books in our recently acquired Hobo Collection. Hats off to rare book cataloger Gayle Cooper, who brought to our attention the discrepancy between the two copies discussed here.

Visitors to the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library may find themselves pricking up their ears to catch the far-off, lonesome whistle of a nighttime freight train. The occasion for these phantom whispers is the recent acquisition of the Hobo Collection, comprising 73 books and approximately 40 items of ephemera related to vagrancy, tramping, migrant workers, and hobo life in nineteenth and twentieth-century America.

The collection spans more than 150 years and includes fiction, autobiography, pamphlets, periodicals, photographs, songbooks, and even cookbooks. Some of the highlights of the collection include early issues of the Hobo News, a first edition of Woody Guthrie’s fictionalized autobiography Bound for Glory (1943), and a run of the “A-no.1” series written by famous hobo “Rambler” Leon Ray Livingston.

Three issues of the A-No.1 series of tales of hobo life (HV 4505 .L58 B66, Associates Endowment Fund. Photo by Elizabeth Ott)

Among the many noteworthy items in this rich collection is a copy of the first American edition of West Virginia writer Tom Kromer’s 1935 novel-memoir Waiting for Nothing. Though never a runaway bestseller, Kromer’s hardboiled account of his years as a migrant laborer and itinerant bum was widely lauded for presenting a compelling and unsentimental portrait of hobo life during the Great Depression. Kromer wrote the bulk of the novel in 1933 while working for the Civilian Conservation Corps at Camp Murphy in Jupiter, Florida. He initially struggled to interest a publisher in his manuscript, but gained the attention of the prominent journalist Lincoln Steffens, who encouraged him to pursue Max Lieber as a literary agent. Lieber quickly secured Alfred A. Knopf as publisher.

Kromer became something of a critical darling. His clipped style and aggressive use of slang gained him a reputation as a street-smart Hemingway. Among those who championed the novel was Theodore Dreiser, whose novels Sister Carrie and Jennie Gerhardt, amongst others, explore similar themes of poverty, labor, and class relations. Dreiser was so taken with Kromer’s tale that he convinced his British publisher, Constable & Co., to undertake a British edition and agreed to write an introduction for it.

For many years, this British edition has been the only copy of Waiting for Nothing in Special Collections at U.Va. because of its association with Dreiser, a writer heavily represented in the Barrett Library of American Literature. Now that it is joined by its American counterpart, researchers will have a much more complete picture of the novel’s cultural significance. For while the American edition lacks the preface written by Dreiser, the British edition lacks the book’s entire fourth chapter.

The page opening where chapter 4 is meant to appear in the first British printing of Nowhere to Run.

The page opening where chapter 4 is meant to appear in the first British printing of Waiting for Nothing (PS 3507 .R55 A165 .K7 1935, Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Theodore Dreiser Collection. Photograph by Elizabeth Ott).

Where the fourth chapter should appear in its pages is instead an eight-page insert about the nature of censorship on blue paper titled “To the Reader: in lieu of Chapter IV.” The decision to replace chapter four seems to have been last minute, as described in the appendix of to a 1977 scholarly edition of the novel:

Constable originally seems to have seen nothing especially objectionable in this fourth chapter; the text was typeset and printed with the other chapters in the first impression. Bibliographical evidence indicates that the sheets of this impression were folded and ready for stitching and binding when Constable decided not to risk publication of chapter 4. Pages 75-94 of the unstitched gatherings (all of chapter 4) were cancelled—that is, were razored out—and in their place was inserted an eight-page gathering…

Our newly acquired American edition allows us to finally get a peek at what salacious happenings occur in this objectionable fourth chapter:

“How do you eat?”
He knows how I eat, but we are playing a game.

The selling point of Waiting for Nothing is that it illuminates the unsavory aspects of tramping—desperate men, degenerate women, seedy flophouses and near escapes from brutal coppers—without appearing sensational. It’s tricky to strike this balance; the material must contain calculated shocks without tipping over into sentiment and all the while the narrator must remain sympathetic, above the dirt and grime even as he wades through it.

A passage from the American edition of Waiting for Nothing.

A passage from chapter 4, which appear in full in the American edition of Waiting for Nothing (PS 3521 .R57 W3 1935, Associates Endowment Fund. Photograph by Elizabeth Ott).

Nowhere is this tenuous balance more on display than in the controversial Chapter Four, where Kromer meets and “makes” a transgendered woman, Mrs. Carter, in a park. Kromer flirts with her and obtains money to buy dinner, repeatedly reminding the reader that “we are playing a game.” The two agree to meet later to go to a show together, though we are to understand that the real arrangement is that payment for the meal will be sex. The chapter ends with the fulfillment of this promise: “You can always depend on a stiff having to pay for what he gets. I pull off my clothes and crawl into bed.”

The balance of Kromer’s matter-of-fact admission of prostitution is his insistence on his own revulsion: “A pansy like this, with his plucked eyebrows and his rouged lips, is like a snake to me. I am afraid of him. Why I am afraid of this fruit with his spindly legs and his flat chest, I do not know.” Kromer’s desire to distance himself from Mrs. Carter paradoxically calls attention to his own outsider status, odd in a narrative that theoretically offers an insider’s view of being down-and-out. Rarely at a loss for the right slang to describe his adventures, Kromer here fumbles to correctly categorize Mrs. Carter, identifying her with male pronouns consistently until he is confronted by a local:

“Did you make her?” This skinny stiff next to me at the counter says.
“Make who?”
“Mrs. Carter,” he says. “I see you talkin’ to her in the park.”

When Kromer asks about Mrs. Carter’s roommate, the correction is even more palpable:

“He queer, too,” I say.
“Sure, she’s queer,” he says, “but you will not have a chance with her.”

In the blue paper insert for the British edition, the publishers dither about where the line may be drawn about which “horrors to which helpless vagrants are exposed” can be represented in print. Kromer’s narrative in the chapter, though, insists that he and Mrs. Carter are playing a game in which he is the victor, the one on the make. It is perhaps this, more than any other element of the chapter, that opens it up to censure and moralizing. Unable to subordinate himself to Mrs. Carter, Kromer steps out of the role of helpless vagrant; after all, “A guy has got to eat, and what is more, he has got to flop.”

Kromer’s book is just one example of how the items in this collection will spark new conversations about life on the skids in the twentieth century.

Top is the newly acquired American edition; below is the British edition with Dreiser’s introduction.

The Media Studies Experience: Plantation Tales and Seeds of Change

Posted on February 25, 2014 by

We are pleased to feature a guest post by Emily Caldwell, Fourth-Year English major/Media Studies minor and blogger for The Media Studies Experience.

Although I have not spent an extensive time studying Uncle Tom’s Cabin throughout my academic career or my current course on the literature of the South, in the class, we briefly touched on the cultural significance this work had in sculpting the perception of race and racial relations in American society during the late nineteenth century.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or Life Among the Lowly is an American anti-slavery novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe published in 1852. And yes, I was lucky enough to hold a first edition. The novel was a best-selling book in the 19th-century and is credited with fueling the abolitionist movement in the United States throughout the 1850’s.

Cover of the first edition, first issue of Uncle Tom's Cabin, 1852.

Cover of volume 1 of the first edition, first issue of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 1852. (PS2954 .U5 1852b v.1-2. Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature. Photograph by Emily Caldwell)

Cover detail of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. (PS2954 .U5 1852b v.1-2. Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature. Photograph by Emily Caldwell.)

Spine of the first edition, first issue of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. (PS2954 .U5 1852b v.1-2. Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature. Photograph by Emily Caldwell.)

Being the English Literature book nerd that I am, while I sat holding this text, I thought about how powerful a piece of literature can be as an agent of social change. However, as I looked through the crinkled and age-spotted pages, I noticed many startling passages. Since I’m currently studying Southern Literature, these classic examples racial discourses in America are fascinating to me, and I love studying how these perceptions have changed over time. In the case of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, although the novel was meant to be a force for anti-slavery, itl unfortunately introduced and reinforced many black stereotypes including “mammy,” “pickaninny,” and even “Uncle Tom” himself, who is portrayed as the faithful servant who remains loyal to his master despite his endured suffering as a slave.

Title page image from volume 1 of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. (PS2954 .U5 1852b v.1-2. Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature. Photograph by Emily Caldwell.)

However, I also found many promising excerpts that indicated an undertone of great social change on the horizon. In the preface of the novel, Stowe writes,

The object of these sketches is to awaken sympathy and feeling for the African race, as they exist among us; to show their wrongs and sorrows, under a system so necessarily cruel and unjust as to defeat and do away the good effects of all that can be attempted for them, by their best friends, under it.

I found it interesting that Stowe does not outright condemn the South for these wrongdoings, but instead said, “…Both North and South have been guilty before God; and the Christian church has a heavy account to answer.” Although these words may be familiar to those who have studied the text, it is the fact that this single book, the best-selling book, second only to the Bible when it was published, is a vehicle that planted the seeds for a great shift in American society change. Even Abraham Lincoln joked that Stowe and her revolutionary ideas fueled the Civil War.

As a native Virginian (a designation some might argue today is not truly “southern”), I feel a sense of pride when it comes to where I come from. In my Southern Literature course, we discussed how there is almost a longing for an ideal south that was never really there. There is a sense of pride in what the south represents, yet also a sense of embarrassment and shame for what hateful crimes and prejudices its culture harbored in America. I believe that Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a prime example of cultural and literary history that not only began a discourse about the corrupted sociology of the South, but also reinforced disturbing, harmful and misrepresented stereotypes of African American culture that still resonate in our culture today. Although there are some aspects of our country’s history that we would rather overlook or erase altogether, they still compose our own American story.

I feel honored as a student of U.Va. to have access to first-edition copies of some of the most influential texts in the English language and Southern Literature. Literature and physical books themselves are often overlooked as important agents of exchanged thoughts and ideologies, and I can’t help but wonder where our country would be without this and other published plantation tales.

Title page detail of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. (PS2954 .U5 1852b v.1-2. Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature. Photograph by Emily Caldwell.)