2015 Research Travel Award Winners

The Eberly Family Special Collections Library is pleased to announce the winners of the 2015 research travel awards program. All winners will visit the Special Collections Library between June and August.

Albert M. Petska Eighth Air Force Archives winner:

• David Cain, 2nd Air Division Memorial Library & the University of East Anglia. Mr. Cain will be researching the social interaction of the 8th USAAF with local British people in the East of England between 1942 - 1945, with special focus on the relationship of 8th USAAF service persons to landscape and local people in Britain.

Dorothy Foehr Huck award winners:

• Bob Hodges, University of Washington. Mr. Hodges will be researching 19th and 20th century utopian literature in support of his dissertation Figurations of Modernity in Antebellum U. S. Romances.  His work wagers that reckoning with New Americanist revisionist criticisms of the romance offers a chance to reconstruct the romance’s reparative and sometimes utopian compensations for its imbrication with antebellum U.S. economic and technological modernizations.
• J. Wesley Leckrone, Widener University. Prof. Leckrone is writing a book entitled "Governing the Commonwealth: Politics, Policy and Executive Power in Pennsylvania.”  The primary topic is the use of gubernatorial power by the five executives elected since 1980.
• Angelique Szymanek, SUNY Binghamton. Ms. Szymanek’s topic is “Representations of Rape in Visual Culture.” Her dissertation focuses on the relationship between feminist art production and the anti-rape movement in the U.S. throughout the 1970s and she will be using the Judy Chicago Art Education Collection to support her work.

Helen F. Faust Women Writers award winners: 

• Amanda Stuckey, College of William & Mary. Ms. Stuckey  will be researching bodily behavior in the nineteenth-century boy book. She studies the female authorship of children's books in order to understand how the genre of the boy book emerged alongside mid to late nineteenth-century understandings of what constituted able-bodied, self-controlled, disciplined children's bodies and behavior.
• Arielle Zibrak, University of Wyoming. Prof. Zibrak’s topic is “Writing Against Reform: Aesthetic Counter-Traditions in the Age of Progress.” Her research focuses on current criticism of late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century transatlantic fiction emphasizes its connection to the political reform movements (abolition, suffrage, temperance, etc.) that so dominated our conception of the period. Her book project attempts to dislodge the critical myth that popular literature and political reform were wholly coherent movements by highlighting significant writers like Rebecca Harding Davis, Kate Chopin, and Edith Wharton who, while committed to social change, wrote against reform, and its underrepresented externalities.

During their research visit, the winners will be invited to give a short, informal presentation about their research that will be open to the public.

Behind-the-scenes look at the Special Collections Library

Chip Kidd with sketch of his iconic image for 
Jurassic Park book cover.
Image credit: Wilson Hitton for the Eberly Family Special
Collections Library

Discover what's so special!

The public is invited to discover What’s “special” in the Special Collections Library, from 2:30 to 4 p.m. Friday, April 11, in The Eberly Family Special Collections Library, 104 Paterno Library, Penn State University Park.

Ever wonder what is so “special” about the Special Collections Library? Join us to find out. Rare book curator Sandy Stelts will show attendees rare and unique children’s “flap books” also known as “metamorphoses” or “harlequinades” and also demonstrate how Penn State faculty are studying and digitizing them. University Archivist Jackie Esposito will introduce visitors to the sports archives and explain Penn State's athletic history is preserved. Huck chair and head of the special collections Tim Pyatt will give a preview of the newly acquired Chip Kidd collection, which includes everything from book jacket designs to nearly one terabyte of digital records. Staff also will be available to guide visitors through the current exhibit, “Challenge Yourself: Judy Chicago’s
Studio Art Pedagogy.”


For more information or questions about the physical access provided, contact LuAnn Shifter at lus7@psu.edu or 814-867-0290.

-Article originally appeared at news.psu.edu

Penn State Special Collections Research Travel Awards

The Eberly Family Special Collections Library on the University Park campus of Penn State offers travel awards of $1,500 for researchers whose work would benefit from access to the collections held at Penn State. Currently, three travel grants are available:

• The Dorothy Foehr Huck Research Travel Award: Supports one award for researchers using any collection from the Special Collections Library.

• The Helen F. Faust Women Writers Research Travel Awards: Supports two awards for researchers working on a project including women writers that would benefit from use of the Eberly Family Special Collections Library’s collections

• The Albert M. Petska Eighth Air Force Archives Research Travel Award: supports one award for researchers working on a project pertaining to history of the Eighth Air Force during World War II.

Researchers receiving the awards would be expected to use the collections during the period of June to August of 2014. They will also be expected to participate in an informal public talk with library staff about their research project.

Who is eligible?

• Any faculty member, graduate student, or independent scholar with a research project requiring the use of materials held by the Special Collections Library is eligible to apply. All applicants must reside outside of a 100-mile radius of State College, Pennsylvania.
• Research topics should be strongly supported by the collections of the Special Collections Library. We encourage each prospective grant applicant to discuss his or her research project and the collections that might support it with Special Collections staff before submitting an application.
• For information about the collections, please visit our website.

What expenses does the award cover?

• There is no restriction on how the award may be used as long as the researcher visits Special Collections Library during the prescribed period. Please note that depending on how the award is used there may be tax implications for the recipients.

How do I apply?

• Complete an application 
• E-mail C.V. as an attachment (Word document or PDF) to LuAnn Shifter with “TRAVEL GRANT- (Enter Last Name)” in the subject line. We will send you an e-mail confirming that your application was received.

What dates do I need to remember?

• The deadline for applications is February 28, 2014 by 5:00 PM EST.
• Grant recipients will be announced by March 31, 2014.
• Grants must be used between June 1 and August 31, 2014.

For questions about the program, please contact:
Doris J. Malkmus djm51@psu.edu

Archive Adventures: What's On Your Plate?

We may wish for a "Grandma's Thanksgiving" and instead get family fights. We may spend the day with strangers, at work, or even alone, but the one thing we all share on Thanksgiving is...FOOD. Thanksgiving's roots are tightly woven into the harvest season of the agricultural cycle, and thus is celebrated at different times, in many different countries, and in many different ways across the world. Despite all those differences it's still all about food and sharing! So, in preparation for the holiday and since there's so much to harvest in our own field, I'm going to share the bounty of cookbooks we have in Special Collections. Yes, our cups and minds overfloweth!

The one I'd like to focus on visually today is the Susan Frierson Cookbooks and Advertising Pamphlets collection. Thanks to her generous donation of material from her grandfather's business--the L.C. Marts General Store--in Nowrytown, Pennsylvania, we have an excellent example of early 20th century food ephemera. Let's dig in...

Gelatin was a big deal in the early to mid 20th century. Today, we mostly know it as a sweet dessert, like the ones pictured here from the Knox Gelatine recipe pamphlets...

The illustrated pictures are just darling! Notice the bowl of cakes with little frosting flowers in the back

Haute cuisine? Simple lemon jello may not seem like it, but the way they present it--set on gold-trimmed china, surrounded by blackberries, and accented with a vase of lavender-- you might think twice!

But Jell-O wasn't just about the sweet. There's a recipe in the Knox Gelatine pamphlet for a tomato jelly creation and both the Knox and Jell-O books we have mention "salads" on the cover. Yup. Fruit and nuts aren't the only additions to add to Jell-O in these recipes. You've got peas, carrots, mayonnaise... Sometimes, there is a reason for certain food fashions falling to the wayside. I love my Jell-O, but I'll take it without the veggies, please! 

Appealing to the nostalgia of the Antebellum!

A young mother's dream. Jell-O was, and still is, cheap, fast, and easy to make!

Besides many of these having gorgeous little illustrations that make your mouth water (similar results at home not guaranteed), they all have a common theme...

Uneeda Bakers

Heinz

Land O' Lakes

American Stove

 They are published almost exclusively by food/appliance manufacturers! Now, the first one blew my mind (and might surprise people of my generation). Back then it was known as Uneeda Bakers, aka National Biscuit Company. Nabisco! You can officially go to bed tonight because you learned something new if this tidbit rocked your world .

Food chart for seven course meals! For the extremely dedicated housewife or hostess.

 

While this is a concentrated collection of ephemera that covers a wide range of food styles, we also have a large holding of cookbooks that are closer to home. Do you like Scrapple and Shoo Fly Pie? We have shelves of books that are dedicated to the tasty joy of PA Dutch/Amish/Mennonite cooking.  Thanks to the Chris Gaines Collection, you won't run short on delicious recipes from our devout friends!

We do have a few cookbooks that really hit home for those of us at the University. There are six that come specifically from PSU: Salt of the Earth, by the College of Earth and Minerals; How to Serve Patrons, by the University Park Libraries Employee Association; Penn State Student Athlete Cookbook;  Just What the Doctor Ordered, by the Resident Wives Club of the Hershey Medical Center; Cooking with the Nittany Lion Athletic Department; and Cookin' with the Lion, by the Alumni Association. Though I haven't checked them out yet, all the ones with puns instantly get my nerdy approval.

And, last but certainly not least, we have a sprinkling of other cookbooks in our holdings. You may want to check out our various African Americana cookbooks and recipes in Blockson if you're feeling like ditching the turkey in favor of some new soul food. Strangely enough, our Utopia collection also has an offering, The Futurist Cookbook, which is just...surreal. I would not suggest this cookbook if you're looking for meals to make for the family dinner, let's just put it that way. Also, it doesn't have turkey. Or cranberry sauce. I think I'll just put that one down, back away, and head for that cocoa recipe from Catharine Maria Sedgwick (1840).

Though that's the end of my spiel about what's on our plate at Special Collections, I do have one more thing. We'd like you to share something of your own! Leave a comment describing your favorite or least favorite Thanksgiving food memory. Did you run into any awful creations or food fads? What about plans gone awry? We'd love to hear from you!

Best wishes for a happy, safe, and filling holiday from Special Collections!
-Alex

Flickr and YouTube Host The Julia L. Maietta and the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America Collection

This Flickr exhibit highlights Julia L. Maietta's life and career as a labor and political activist and also documents many social and political issues confronting the American workforce from the late 1930s to the late 1970s. The images selected have been drawn from several archival and personal paper collections within the Historical Collections and Labor Archives, most notably the Julia Maietta Papers and the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, Joint Board of Pennsylvania collection. The source is listed for each displayed image. The digital exhibition represented here focuses on the central theme of Maietta and her lifetime devotion to aiding working people. Items on display include groups of letters, cartoons, pamphlets, workers' complaint forms, union meeting minutes and historical photographic images. Collectively, these aid our understanding of how the labor movement shaped the lives of working women and their families from the 1930s to the 1970s. Julia Maietta's remarkable story of rise from factory girl to labor representative can now be shared with those willing to view and listen.


This online exhibition was created by Amanda Masullo, Archival Assistant, Historical Collections and Labor Archives and Jim Quigel, Head of Historical Collections and Labor Archives.

For the Julia L. Maietta Oral History and Campaign Advertisements click here for the Penn State Historical Collections and Labor Archives YouTube playlist.

YouTube editor: T. Babcock.
Metadata editor: G. Johns.

Special Collections Travel Grant Recipient Visits Penn State!

Rachel Pierce of the University of Virginia, recipient of a Special Collections Huck Research Travel Grant, will describe her research about the contested nature of feminism in the 1970s, in an informal talk entitled, "Feminist Republicans?: The Pursuit of Women's Equity within the Nixon and Ford Administrations."


The event will be held at the Paterno Library Mann Conference Room at 4pm on Monday, May 7 th . Don't miss this timely opportunity to join a conversation about women's issues and politics

PBS' "The Amish" Utilizes University Archives Materials

The Amish . American Experience- PBS

An intimate portrait of contemporary Amish faith and life, this film examines how such a closed and communal culture has thrived within one of the most open, individualistic societies on earth. What does the future hold for a community whose existence is so rooted in the past? And what does our fascination with the Amish say about deep American values?

The production was assisted by utilizing the John Hostetler and Gertrude Huntington collections held within the Penn State University Archives. The program is also expected to feature an interview with Gertrude Huntington.

For more information about Penn State's Amish collections email University Archivist Jackie Esposito at jxe2@psu.edu

University Archives Announces New Exhibit!

"Penned by Penn Staters: books by alumni authors," an exhibit from the Penn State University Archives, will be on display from Jan. 18 to June 10 in the Hintz Alumni Center on Penn State's University Park campus. This exhibit, which features 33 books authored by Penn State alumni, is a mere sampling of the creative endeavors fostered by former Penn State students. Among the authors and titles featured in this exhibit are:

• Joan Chittister (Class of 1971 doctorate) "The Gift of Years"
• Sandra Spanier (Class of 1976 master's degree, 1981 doctorate) "The Letters of Ernest Hemingway, 1907-1922"
• David Morrell (Class of 1967 master's degree, 1970 doctorate) "The Shimmer"
• Valerie Plame Wilson (Class 0f 1985) "Fair Game"
• Robert McKinnon (Class of 1990) "Actions Speak Loudest: Keeping Our Promise for a Better World"
• Charles Jacques (Class 0f 1962) "Cincinnati’s Coney Island"
• Chip Kidd (Class of 1986) "The Cheese Monkeys"
• Charles Blockson (Class of 1956) "The Underground Railroad"
• Steve McCurry (Class of 1974) "The Unguarded Moment"
• Cecilia Tichi (Class of 1964) "Civic Passions"
• Rosey Grier (Class of 1956) "The Gentle Giant"
• Erin Bried (Class of 1996) "How to Build a Fire"
• Rae Hallstrom (Class of 1976) "Places of the Underground Railroad"
• Jennifer Storm (Class of 2002) "Growing Up and Drying Out in America"
• Ronald L. Mallett (Class of 1973, doctorate) "Time Traveler"
• Jon Nese (Class of 1983 bachelor's degree, 1985 master's degree, 1989 doctorate) and Glenn Schwartz (Class of 1972) "The Philadelphia Area Weather Book"
• Michael Weinreb (Class of 1994) "Bigger Than the Game"
• Manfred Kroger (Class of 1963 master's degree, 1966 doctorate) "Trends in Food Science: History at Penn State"
• Stuart Patton (Class of 1943) "Milk"
• Mindi Kirchner (Class of 2002) "Song of the Rest of Us"
• Greg Taylor (Class of 1973) "Killer Pizza"
• Tammy Miller (Class of 1993 B.A., 1995 master's degree) "My Life is Just Speech Material…And, So is Yours"
• Stanley Weintraub (Class of 1954 doctorate) "Charlotte and Lionel: A Rothschild Love Story"
• Louis Astorino (Class of 1969) "Fallingwater"
• Richard C. J. Somerville (Class of 1961) "The Forgiving Air"
• Syed Mohammed Farouq Ali (Class of 1962 master's degree, 1964 doctorate) "Petroleum Reservoir Simulation"
• Charles Fergus (Class of 1973) "The Wingless Crow"
• Paul Levine (Class of 1969) "Lassiter"
• Jean Craighead George (Class of 1941) "Goose and Duck"
• Dale Brown (Class of 1978) "A Time for Patriots"
• Diane Ackerman (Class of 1970) "One Hundred Names for Love"
• Vance Packard (Class of 1936) "Hidden Persuaders"

For more information, contact Penn State University Archivist Jackie Esposito at 814-863-3791 or jxe2@psu.edu.

Political protest art focus of University Libraries exhibit

An exhibit featuring political protest art from the Thomas W. Benson Collection, will be on display from Nov. 18 to Feb. 1, 2012, in the Diversity Studies Room, 203 Pattee Library. The collection captures the intensely political climate and emerging student engagement with war, patriotism and anti-imperialism in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The exhibit is open during standard library hours. Call 814-865-3063 to confirm times.

Benson will give a gallery talk at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 29, in the Foster Auditorium, 102 Paterno Library and also on MediaSite Live at www.libraries.psu.edu/mtss. No login required.

The Benson Political Protest Poster Collection began in August 1969, when Thomas W. Benson on sabbatical from Penn State arrived as visiting professor to spend the year in the Department of Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley. Political activity on campus was common though a fairly quiet presence, but the climate on the Berkeley campus changed dramatically in 1969 when the public learned of the 1968 My Lai Massacre, a murder of more than 350 innocent victims by U.S. troops. This massacre, combined with then Governor Ronald Reagan’s anti-University campaign and fiscal cuts, along with President Nixon’s April 1970 Cambodian invasion, fueled emotional demonstrations and strikes by faculty and students.

Benson noted, “The university became a sort of teach-in about the war.” Student design artists and activists banded together and created the Berkeley Political Poster Workshop that designed, printed, and distributed hundreds of political protest posters in support of the anti-war movement.

The Eberly Family Special Collections Library acquired the political protest posters in 2009 as a gift from Benson, the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Rhetoric, Communication Arts and Sciences, Penn State College of the Liberal Arts, and the editor of the series in Rhetoric and Communication for the University of South Carolina Press.

To view the full online Thomas W. Benson Political Protest Digital Collection, go to http://www.libraries.psu.edu/psul/digital/benson.html online.

To access the original Berkeley protest poster prints within the Thomas W. Benson Political Protest Collection, contact Historical Collections and Labor Archives, The Special Collections Library, 104 Paterno Library, Penn State University Park. For more information, or if you anticipate needing accommodations or have questions about the physical access provided, contact James Quigel at 814-865-1793.

Looking at French Revolution Pamphlets on Bastille Day

Observations de quelques patriots sur la nécessité de conserver les monuments de la literature et des arts. Paris, [1793]. Pamphlet #556, French Revolution Pamphlet Collection

On July 14, the French celebrate Bastille Day. The Bastille was a medieval fortress and prison located in the center of Paris, which during the French Revolution represented royal authority. The storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789 is held as a symbol of the uprising of the modern nation of France and the reconciliation of all French citizens. Festivities, including fireworks and parades, are held all over France on Bastille Day.

In honor of Bastille Day, Sandy Stelts, Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts, is showcasing our collection of French Revolution Pamphlets:

The pamphlet pictured above is a plea by several moderates who call themselves the sons of Renouard (the printer), of Chardin (the painter), and of Charlemagne, in which they argue strongly for the preservation of France’s heritage. For a time the Republic called for the destruction of landmarks of the past, most notably the cathedral of Notre Dame. Collections of paintings and furniture were sold off, and religious objects were melted down for their gold and silver in order to raise funds for warfare. As one among a number of protests, this pamphlet is interesting as it cites the losses in past conflicts when great manuscripts and books were destroyed or mutilated and collections scattered. The plea is made that such collections are a part of the national patrimony and far more than symbols of tyranny and repression.

Rare Books and Manuscripts’ collection of 720 French Revolution pamphlets, ranging from 1789 to 1796, includes both private and government publications that deal with virtually all aspects of the Revolution, but there is a particular emphasis on political and military issues, financial matters, the position of the clergy, and legal and social conditions throughout France. Among the authors represented are many major Revolutionary figures, including Lucien Bonaparte, Danton, Lafayette, Marat, Mirabeau, Robespierre, and Talleyrand. The collection represents only a few of the almost overwhelming number of pamphlets and books that appeared when the events were current and that were part of an enormous production of paper and ideas—including polemics, cruel edicts, new constitutions, pleas for sobriety, demands for justice, excoriations of the past, and justifications for legal murder.

New Digital Collection: Thomas W. Benson Political Protest Posters

The Thomas W. Benson Political Protest Digital Collection is a unique educational and scholarly resource documenting and exploring themes associated with the student anti-war movement and campus unrest in America during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Consisting of 75 iconic political protest posters and accompanying memorabilia—the core produced by student activists affiliated with the University of California (UC)-Berkeley’s Political Poster Workshop—the collection was assembled by Professor Thomas W. Benson, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Rhetoric, Department of Communication Arts and Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University during his early years as a faculty member affiliated with UC-Berkeley and the State University of New York at Buffalo.

The visually compelling agitprop posters aided in mobilizing faculty and student participation in campus demonstrations and sit-ins in opposition to the Vietnam War and the military-industrial complex. As an eyewitness to the events of that tumultuous era and later a nationally recognized scholar in the field of communications theory and political rhetoric, Professor Benson occupies a unique vantage point to assay the organic relationship of the posters to mass movement political action. His included oral history interview and scholarly paper presentation on the subject of polemical poster artwork of the late 1960s and early 1970s richly contextualize the digital collection.

This digital gallery is organized and arranged by thematic series and preserves for posterity the rare and fragile political graphic artwork that shaped the social, political, and cultural discourse of the Vietnam War era. The digitized political protest posters serve as an important vehicle to generate classroom discussion and educational projects devoted to the study of the American anti-war movement and the counterculture. Moreover, the Thomas W. Benson Political Protest Digital Collection is interdisciplinary in nature and can be used by researchers in a number of academic fields—political science, history, sociology, communications and rhetorical theory, art education and history—to facilitate research and scholarship on the history the New Left and the role of political graphic art as visual rhetoric.

See images from the collections here:
http://www.libraries.psu.edu/psul/digital/benson.html

Penn State receives Judy Chicago feminist art education collections

Artist, author and educator Judy Chicago has given Penn State University Libraries the Judy Chicago Art Education Collection, one of the most important private collections of feminist art education. In collaboration with Chicago's gift, the Through the Flower organization (TTF) has given The Dinner Party Curriculum Online Project to Penn State's College of Arts and Architecture for its art education program to be sustained in conjunction with the Libraries' archive collection.

Read the full story on Live: http://live.psu.edu/story/53694#nw63

Hidden Gems in the Rare Books Unit: LGBT Utopias

From the Arthur O. Lewis Utopia Collection description:

In his British and American Utopian Literature, 1516-1985, an Annotated, Chronological Bibliography, Lyman Tower Sargent credits Penn State with "having established the best Utopia Collection in the world"... Our collection is indeed wide-ranging and includes communal studies, the works of utopian theorists, and fabulous voyages. The collection gathers together as many utopias and dystopias in major languages as we can find. Works written in England and America predominate.

Rare Books and Manuscripts Curator Sandy Stelts informed me about these LGBT utopias for our diversity-related outreach.

Worlds apart : an anthology of lesbian and gay science fiction and fantasy / edited by Camilla Decarnin, Eric Garber, and Lyn Paleo. Boston : Alyson Publications, 1986.

Contents:
Harper Conan and Singer David, by Edgar Pangborn
Houston, Houston, Do You Read? by James Tiptree, Jr.
To Keep the Oath, by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Do Androids Dream of Electric Love? by Walt Liebscher
Lollipop and the Tar Baby, by John Varley
The Mystery of the Young Gentlemen, by Joanna Russ
The Gods of Reorth, by Elizabeth A. Lynn
Find the Lady, by Nicholas Fisk
No Day Too Long, by Jewelle Gomez
Full Fathom Five My Father Lies, by Rand B. Lee
Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones, by Samuel R. Delany

Lesbian land / edited by Joyce Cheney. Minneapolis, Minn. : Word Weavers, c1985.

This book contains interviews, essays and photographs from women-only communities in the 1980s.

Luis Alberto Sanchez Latin American Literature Collection

From our Rare Books and Manuscripts unit:

Dr. Luis Alberto Sanchez (1900-1994) was a Peruvian politician, author, and founding member of the left-leaning American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA) party. In addition, he was a leading authority on American and Latin American literature. His academic career included years as a professor, and later as a rector, at Universidad de San Marcos, Peru; he also taught at the University of California-Berkeley, Columbia University, colleges in Florida and Oklahoma, the Sorbonne in Paris, and universities in Madrid and Jerusalem. Dr. Donald C. Henderson and Grace P. Perez translated and compiled Sanchez's correspondence in Literature and Politics in Latin America: An Annotated Calendar of the Luis Alberto Sanchez Correspondence, 1919-1980 (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Libraries, 1982).

The Luis Alberto Sanchez Collection forms an integral part of the holdings of the Pennsylvania State University Libraries, which has been collecting materials that deal with the literature of Central and South America since the 1930s. Sanchez's library, which includes many extremely rare works of literary authors published by small presses, was purchased by the Penn State Libraries in 1969. The subjects range from history and politics to Latin American criticism, poetry, and theater. Imprint dates of the literary works range from 1890 to the 1960s, with a majority of them being published in the 1920s through the 1950s. In a study made to determine their uniqueness among research libraries in North America, only thirty percent of the titles were reported held in other libraries in the United States and Canada. The rarest of the Sanchez books are shelved in the Rare Books Room; the Sanchez Papers are housed in Historical Collections and Labor Archives.

More about the Luis Alberto Sanchez Latin American Literature Collection:
http://www.libraries.psu.edu/psul/speccolls/rbm/sanchez.html

Robert Joyce Papers, 1952-1973: documenting acts of social disobedience in America

"Joyce captured history in the making," March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Washington DC (August 29, 1963)

"I Have a Dream," March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Washington, DC (August 28, 1963)

"Burn Baby Burn," H. Rap Brown (October 27, 1967)

"Young Freedom Riders" (c. 1960s)

From the Historical Collections and Labor Archives unit:

Robert Joyce was a self-taught art illustrator and photojournalist from a Wooster, Massachusetts, working-class background.  As a young man, he began a 25-year photojournalism career with the National Guardian in New York, covering progressive causes, social protest, and acts of civil disobedience and producing a large archive of images of the 20th century American left.

The Robert Joyce papers include photographs of acts of social disobedience, including Civil Rights Movement sit-ins, riots, Cold War peace demonstrations, and anti-Vietnam War protests. Depictions include the Cuban Missile crisis, a “Kill a Commie for Christ" counter-protest, a “Wall Street is War Street” demonstration, and activities of the Bread and Puppet Theater. There are approximately 500 rolls of negatives and 500 prints and contact prints, as well as 83 contact sheets, and 125 photo prints.  The collection also holds 28 mounted photos used by Kurt Wamfried and Ed Leos for a Robert Joyce exhibit in April 1976. The collection includes a 1973 oral history interview with Joyce and issues of Working Artist magazine, March 13, 1961-July 15, 1970.

Finding aid: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/dam/psul/up/digital/findingaids/1620.htm

Amish Diversity in Pennsylvania, encore presentation

Josh Brown will offer a reprise of his popular talk "Amish Diversity in Pennsylvania" on Thursday April 7, from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m.. in Foster Auditorium at University Park. The presentation will also be streamed via MediaSite Live.

Exhibit highlights history of women's athletics at Penn State

Women's track and field, taken in 1919.

From Penn State Live:

"From High Heels to High Hopes: Women’s Intercollegiate Athletics at Penn State," a Penn State University Archives exhibit, is on display from Jan. 18 to June 7, in the Hintz Alumni Center on the University Park campus.

Women at Penn State were participating in sporting events as early as the 1900s in their physical education classes. From the early 1920s until the early 1960s, women participated in the Women’s Athletic Association (WAA), then the Women’s Recreation Association (WRA), which emphasized social recreation and the development of skills in various sports and activities. Women’s intercollegiate athletics began in 1964, with the first field hockey game played against Susquehanna University. Over the next few years, women’s teams were formed in golf, basketball, fencing, gymnastics, lacrosse, riflery, tennis, softball, bowling, swimming and diving, track and field, cross country and volleyball.

The passage of Title IX of The Federal Aid to Education Amendments in 1972 changed women’s sports. It prohibited sexual discrimination, resulted in the elimination of the rule forbidding scholarships and aid for women’s sports, and assisted in the formation of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW). The NCAA took over women’s athletics in 1982. There are presently 13 Penn State women's teams playing in the Big Ten Conference. Women’s ice hockey, currently a club sport, will begin varsity play in the 2012–2013 season.

Penn State individuals and teams have enjoyed much success through the years, resulting in conference championships, tournament appearances and national championships. A number of women have gone on to participate nationally and internationally on professional teams and at the Olympics.

From the high-heeled women at the beginning of the 20th century to the finely tuned athletes of today, women’s athletics at Penn State has seen tremendous progress, giving women the opportunity to compete at the college level as well as national and international levels.

This exhibit features photographs from the Penn State University Archives collections. For additional information, contact Paul Dzyak at 814-865-2123 or Paul Karwacki at 814-863-9870.

Exhibit: African-American Music in the Charles L. Blockson Collection of African-Americana and the African Diaspora

"African-American Music in the Charles L. Blockson Collection of African-Americana and the African Diaspora," an exhibit, is on display from Jan. 14 to March 13, in the main exhibit hall on the first floor of Pattee Library, and also in the Diversity Studies Room, in room 109 of Pattee Library. A collection rich in materials relating to African-American, African, Latin-American, and Caribbean history and culture, the exhibit highlights musical resources with the display of album covers, sheet music, posters, and books related to spirituals, slavery songs, emasculation songs, blues, jazz, barbershop songs, vaudeville songs and piano rags.

Full press release here.
Blockson Collection overview here.
Blockson Blog here. 

Presentation: Amish Diversity in Central Pennsylvania

12 to 1pm on Feb. 4 in the Mann Assembly Room, 103 Paterno Library

Mainstream depictions of the Amish often portray them as a monolithic, unchanging religious society. Tourism and popular media paint an Amish portrait of a farming sect with plain clothes and dark-colored buggies. However, Amish groups vary considerably and engage in a constant negotiation of cultural change. More than three centuries after their founding in Europe, defining the Amish is an ever more challenging enterprise. This presentation will highlight some of the differences within a single Amish settlement in nearby Kishacoquillas "Big" Valley, Mifflin County, Pennsylvania. By showing how cultural identity partially relies on separation from outsiders, we will explore the education, language, dress, rituals, and other social and cultural identifiers of the Amish groups in Big Valley. Additionally, the presentation will show how cultural boundaries are formed and move throughout time as a group’s or individual’s identification changes. The presentation will rely on information contained in the John A. Hostetler and Gertrude E. Huntington Papers housed at the University Archives, as well as original research gleaned from the Big Valley Oral History Project, sponsored in part by the University Libraries. By exposing the university community to these Amish cultures, we can greater appreciate the diversity and lifestyles of our "plain" neighbors in Central Pennsylvania.

Joshua R. Brown is the Candace and Patrick E. Malloy graduate assistant in the University Archives and a doctoral candidate in the Department of Germanic & Slavic Languages & Literatures. He is the author and editor of several articles and books about the Amish and Pennsylvania Dutch. His current book project with co-editor Julia Spicher Kasdorf (Associate Professor of English and Women’s Studies) will produce an annotated edition of Fred Lewis Pattee’s local color novel The House of the Black Ring through Penn State Press. Brown’s interests are primarily in minority languages, language death, and language & gender / sexuality.

Talk features film footage, audio clips from the civil rights movement

Selma, ""Bloody Sunday,"" March 7, 1965

From Penn State Live:

"Lifting the Veil: The Jack Rabin Collection on Alabama Civil Rights and Southern Activists," will be presented by Barry Kernfeld at 2 p.m. on Jan. 17, in Foster Auditorium, room 102 of the Paterno Library. Highlights will include rare security surveillance photographs from the files of the Alabama Department of Public Safety, audio clips of previously unreleased speeches by Martin Luther King Jr. and Rev. Ralph Abernathy, and archived film footage featuring civil rights activist Stokely Carmichael and the 1964 Voting Rights movement.

Kernfeld is a staff archivist in Historical Collections and Labor Archives, The Special Collections Library in the University Libraries. The presentation is free and open to the public.

The presentation will also be available for viewing through MediaSite Live at http://www.libraries.psu.edu/mtss/ online. For more information on the collection, go to http://www.libraries.psu.edu/psul/digital/rabin/alabama.html online. For questions, contact Shirley Davis at 814-863-5449.

For more information about events at Penn State related to Martin Luther King Jr. Day, visit http://live.psu.edu/tag/MLK online.