Monday, December 7, 2009

2009 Annual Women Veterans Luncheon


The 11th annual 2009 Annual Women Veterans Luncheon was a great success! On Saturday, November 14 over 125 people gathered in the EUC ballroom at UNC-G to celebrate women veterans and the Women Veterans Historical Project.





The keynote speaker was Brigadier General Clara Adams-Ender, U.S. Army, Retired. Adams-Ender is a graduate of North Carolina A&T University in Greensboro and served in the Army Nurse Corps from 1961-1993. In 1991 she was appointed commander of Fort Belvoir, Virginia, which made her the first nurse in army history to become the commanding general of a major military base. General Adams-Ender was both very inspiring and funny as she spoke about "The 3 C's: Telling the Stories of Women Veterans."



The program also included a number of other events:

  • A tour of the collection stacks by Betty Carter
  • Presentation of Colors: Army ROTC, NC A&T State University

  • Greetings sent from U.S. Senators Richard Burr and Kay Hagan
  • Remarks from U. S. Representative Howard Coble

  • Musical Entertainment by the UNCG male a cappella group, the Spartones



  • Exhibits of uniforms, hats and recruiting materials


The only note of sadness was that Betty Carter announced that she was retiring in May 2010. Carter founded the Project in 1998 and transformed it into the world renowned repository it has grown into. The WVHP has been a labor of love for Carter and she will be greatly missed by both the veterans and her colleagues.

You can see all of the photos of the luncheon here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/uncgspecial/sets/72157622829925411/


** All photographs taken by Dean Rhoades**

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

One Day Til T-Day

Count Down to T-Day

The first check box says it all : Don't Panic. Swift & Co., owners of the iconic Butterball Turkey brand, offered this guide to help the harried cook survive Thanksgiving preparations.

Great American dinners : turkey with all the trimmings : the Butterball planner, step-by-step directions for a truly great holiday meal.


item facsimile on view :


Holiday Celebrations
an exhibit
November 16, 2009 - January 4, 2010
First Floor Lobby, Main Building
Jackson Library

Monday, November 23, 2009

Two Research Grants Available from SCUA

The University Libraries of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro are pleased to offer two research grants for researchers utilizing the outstanding resources of the Special Collections and Rare Books and University Archives and Manuscripts Department. The goal of the research grants is to promote scholarly research utilizing the resources of this Department. Collections include the Woman’s Collection, Rare Book Collection, Cello Music Collections, Manuscripts Collection, Women Veterans Historical Collection, and University Archives.
More detailed information on the research grants
The 2009 recipient was Joe Sutliff Sanders who utilized the Girls' Books in Series, Early Juvenile, and Woman's collections for his research project.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

T-Day

Count Down to T-Day

In 1983, Swift & Co. owners of the iconic Butterball Turkey, published this guide to surviving Thanksgiving preparations. This guide provides a plan for the cook to follow as well as recipes so that the meal will be a success.


Great American dinners : turkey with all the trimmings : the Butterball planner, step-by-step directions for a truly great holiday meal.

item facsimile on view :
Holiday Celebrations
an exhibit
November 16, 2009 - January 4, 2010
First Floor Lobby, Main Building
Jackson Library

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Celebrate Native American Heritage

Special Collections & Rare Books is pleased to exhibit materials from various collections depicting the history and culture of Native Americans.




The history of the American Indians; particularly those nations adjoining to the Missisippi [sic] East and West Florida, Georgia, South and North Carolina, and Virginia: containing an account of their origin, language, manners, religious and civil customs, laws, form of government, punishments, conduct in war and domestic life, their habits, diet, agriculture, manufactures, diseases and method of cure ... / James Adair. London, E. and C. Dilly, 1775.


James Adair was born in County Antrim, Ireland and journeyed to America by 1735 where he became a pioneer, Indian trader, and author. He lived with and traded with the Catawbas and Cherokees; finally establishing himself among the Chickasaws of Mississippi.

Detail of Map:

original on view :


Celebrate Native American Heritage
an exhibit
November - December 2009
Second Floor Lobby, Main Building
Jackson Library

Monday, October 12, 2009

Trade Binding Images Now Available Through Public Catalog


The American Trade Bindings Digital Library ContentDM database has been up for over a month. [See earlier post.] Users can now access images through the public catalog now that code to the live database is moved to the public catalog. Images are shown in both the brief and full record displays.

If you want to see all trade binding images available in the public catalog, search "American trade bindings" in the "subject begins with" field on the basic search screen.

We’re now beginning the second phase of the project, adding images (and records to ContentDM) from the Girls Books in Series Collection, so the project will be growing over the next few months.

Special message from Paul Hessling :
Heartfelt thanks to the Cataloging Department’s intrepid student assistants, Callie Moss and also Keonna Harrison, for their work with editing the catalog records and adding genre terms, and to Terry Brandsma, SIRSI master, for making this all work in the public catalog.


Happy searching!

Thursday, October 8, 2009

A Cloud of Death Engulfs a Campus: Typhoid Fever and UNCG in 1899



In November and December of 1899, the State Normal and Industrial College [now UNCG] faced a major crisis that almost shut down the school permanently after existing for only eight years. On November 15, 1899, Linda Toms, a student from Shelby NC, died suddenly from typhoid fever. Following her death, twelve more students would contract the illness and die prompting President Charles McIver to shut down the school in an attempt to stop the sickness from spreading.

At the time, the deaths of 13 students accounted for 3% of the total student population. Based on today’s enrollment numbers, a 3% death rate would equal 558 students! Also, roughly 12% of the students became ill in 1899 meaning over 2,234 students would take ill today based on the same percentage. Amidst the current worldwide scare of H1N1, the University Archives invites you to view its newest exhibit A Cloud of Death Engulfs a Campus: Typhoid Fever and UNCG in 1899 and look back at UNCG’s first pandemic and learn about the scare it faced 110 years ago.

- Sean Mulligan
Exhibit Dates and Location
October 7, 2009 - January 4, 2010
EUC Connector

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Robert Watson : Retrospective



An Exhibit
September 14 - November 16, 2009
Hodges Reading Room


Bob Watson was born in Passaic, New Jersey and educated at Williams College (B.A.) and Johns Hopkins University (M.A., Ph.D.) after serving in the U.S. Naval Reserve in World War II; in addition he attended the University of Zurich as a Swiss-American exchange student. In 1952 he married Betty Rean and the next year joined the English faculty at the Woman's College of North Carolina for his first full-time teaching position. He remained on the UNCG faculty until his retirement in 1987, having obtained the rank of Professor in 1964.

An organizer and director of the formal MFA Writing Program at UNCG, he also was co-founder in 1966 (with Lawrence Reynolds) of the nationally acclaimed Greensboro Review.

The author of five collections of poetry, two novels, and two plays, as well as numerous other publications, Watson has received many honors for his work. In 1962 he was the first resident of North Carolina chosen to read on the Poetry Circuit, established by the UNC Press. His 1966 collection of poems, Advantages of Dark, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. In 1972 he was invited by the Library of Congress to participate in their series of Poetry Readings under the auspices of the Gertrude Clarke Whittall Poetry and Literature Fund. In 1974 he received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and in 1977 a grant from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters "for literary excellence and promise of important work to come."

Friday, September 18, 2009

11th Annual Women Veterans Luncheon on Saturday, November 14, 2009



This year our guest speaker is Brigadier General Clara Adams-Ender,U.S. Army, Ret. Adams-Ender is a graduate of North Carolina A&T University in Greensboro and served in the Army Nurse Corps from 1961-1993. In 1991 She was appointed commander of Fort Belvoir, Virginia, which made her the first nurse in army history to become the commanding general of a major military base.

General Adams-Ender will be speaking on "The 3 C's: Telling the Stories of Women Veterans."

Entertainment provided by the UNC Greensboro Spartones!

Schedule:
  • 9:30 Hodges Reading Room, 2nd Floor Jackson Library: Doughnuts and Coffee and Collection Tour
  • 11:30 Cone Ballroom, Elliott University Center: Exhibit and Social, UNCG
  • Noon Cone Ballroom: Luncheon and Speaker

Cost:
— Women veterans: $10 —
(if you can afford it, if not please be our guest!)

— Guests: $15/person —

For information call (336) 334-4045

Friday, August 14, 2009

American Trade Bindings now Online


The American Trade Bindings Digital Library presents over 1100 book covers which chronicle the development of book binding in the United States. The ATB project contains a variety of both fiction and non-fiction titles, primarily from the Charles M. Adams American Trade Binding Collection, published between the 1830s and the 1920s.

American Trade Bindings Digital Library

The American Trade Bindings project primarily contains books from the Charles M. Adams American Trade Binding Collection, named in 1987 for the former UNCG librarian largely responsible for the collection’s establishment. The Special Collections & Rare Books Department of the UNCG University Libraries contains several other collections documenting book arts, include Artists' Books and Livres d'Artiste, Athenaeum Press Collection, and the Way & Williams Publishers Collection. Some selections from the Early Juvenile Literature Collection and the Woman's Collection are also available online through the ATB website. The project was managed and produced by the Digital Projects unit of the University Libraries.

Thank you to all staff who made this project a success!

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

The Ghosts of UNCG

Tales have long circulated about the ghosts that allegedly haunt the campus. UNCG’s most well known ghost reportedly inhabits Aycock Auditorium.

Aycock Auditorium

Raymond Taylor, who taught drama and was the director of dramatic activities on campus from 1921 until 1960, recounts his personal experiences with the ghost of Aycock Auditorium.

According to Taylor, an elderly lady once lived in a large house where Aycock Auditorium now stands. Lonely and unhappy, she one day went up to the attic and hanged herself with a rope from the rafters. When the house was torn down, she haunted the area until Aycock Auditorium was built in 1927, and then she adopted the auditorium as her home. Taylor told of an incident that happened on a hot day when he and the Aycock Auditorium janitor were working on a set for a play.

In order to be more comfortable he and the janitor removed some of their clothes. When Taylor went upstairs to dress he found his clothes disarranged and his watch chain arranged on the table in the form of a cross.

Students have given the Aycock spirit a name, they call her Jane Aycock, and say she is the daughter of the man for whom the auditorium was named; but Governor Charles Aycock had no daughter by that name.

Mary Foust Residence Hall

A ghost also allegedly haunts Mary Foust Residence Hall, which is named for Mary Foust, the daughter of the College’s second President, Julius I. Foust.

Mary Foust died during childbirth in 1925 and rumors have floated around for years about random “unexpected crying” and “funny noises” on the hall’s second floor.

Also, an unproven rumor circulates that in the 1950s, three nursing students hanged themselves from the attic rafters.

In the late 1960s, the Spencer Residence Hall ghost was known simply as “The Blue Ghost” or “The Woman in Blue.”

Bell Towers of Spencer Residence Hall

Students later gave her the name “Annabelle.” Annabelle is supposedly the spirit of a student who hanged herself years ago in one of Spencer Residence Hall’s bell towers; however, no suicide has ever been documented.

In the 1970s, Annabelle allegedly appeared as a blue shadow to staff members in the Spencer parlor, and there have been reports of a blue haze passing by a laundry room and of objects being flung across rooms.

Woodstock 1969 : Photographs by Arnold Doren

Jimi Hendrix, 1969 : Photograph by Arnold Doren
The Arnold Doren Photograph Collection was acquired by the University Libraries in 2009. Doren, an award-winning photographer, was a member of the UNCG art department faculty from 1978 to 2002. Doren died in 2003.

Doren traveled around the world taking photographs of places, people, things and events. Traditional, Polaroid and digital photographs are included. Also there are landscapes, portraits, and still lifes. The Collection consists of over 70 boxes of varying sizes and is proving to be a treasure-trove of artistic and historical images.

The “Woodstock 1969” exhibit includes 20 images. Actually, Doren took 10 rolls of film at the Woodstock Festival and printed just over 35 images. The images of Jimi Hendrix are perhaps the most memorable—although photographs of those attending the Festival are quite revealing. The photographic contact sheets for all of the images are a part of the Collection.

The Woodstock Festival was held on the 600 acre farm of Max Yasgur, located in Bethel, NY, 43 miles southwest of the village of Woodstock. (Some of the photographs are identified as “Bethel 1969.” Only later were they identified as Woodstock.) Thirty two performers sang to approximately 500,000 people during the three-day festival which began on August 15, 1969, at 5:07 p.m. with Richie Havens. Other performers included The Who, Sly and the Family Stone, The Grateful Dead, Arlo Guthrie, Jefferson Airplane and Jimi Hendrix—the last performer of the Festival and perhaps best known for his rendition of the “Star Spangled Banner.”
-Betty Carter

Woodstock 1969 : Photographs by Arnold Doren
August 11 - September 18, 2009
Lobby, Second Floor Main, Jackson Library

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

University Archives Outreach

As part of our outreach at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro’s University Archives, Hermann Trojanowski offers two programs for the University Studies (UNS) students. UNS is a one-semester course designed to help students make a successful transition to the University and covers topics such as adjustment and expectations, time management, learning styles, personal responsibility, goal setting, choosing a major/registering for classes, wellness, leadership and citizenship; and skills such as writing, note-taking, studying, test-taking, and learning about the history of the University.

Jane Aycock, the ghost of Aycock Auditorium

The first program is a presentation titled “The History of UNCG and Campus Ghosts” and is taught in the Hodges Reading Room located on the second floor of Jackson Library, Main Building. During the presentation, UNS students learn about the history of UNCG as well as the three ghosts that allegedly haunt Aycock Auditorium, Mary Foust Residence Hall, and Spencer Residence Hall.
Charles Duncan McIver Death Mask

In addition to the presentation, Hermann sets up a small display for the students consisting of the 1906 Death Mask of our founding president Charles D. McIver and several items from the University Archives Textile Collection such as a 1906 Marshal Dress, 1913 Gym Suit made of black wool, and a 1917 World War I military uniform worn by former campus physician Dr. Anna Gove and made by Abercrombie & Fitch.

UNS Summer Launch Class in front of the Charles Duncan McIver Statue

The second program is a 50-minute historic walking tour of the campus. During the tour, students learn about the founding of the school in 1891, the typhoid epidemic of 1899 during which thirteen students and one staff member died, the burning of Brick Dormitory in 1904, and brief historical facts about the buildings on the tour as well as the three campus ghosts that allegedly haunt Aycock Auditorium, Mary Foust Residence Hall, and Spencer Residence Hall.

Hermann also offers historic campus walking tours to faculty, staff, and visitors as well as parents during the annual Parents Weekend each September.


Wednesday, July 8, 2009

How Does Your Garden Grow


An exhibit featuring gardening trends from
World War I through the 1970s highlighting
materials in the World War I and
Home Economics Pamphlet Collections

July 6, 2009 – January 4, 2010

EUC Connector

WORLD WAR I


Inspired by the devastating food shortages in Europe, Charles Lathrop Pack promoted gardening on the homefront. The National War Garden Commission was established in March 1917. Pack’s essay “Make Your War Garden a Garden of Victory” describes the genesis of the victory garden program.
WORLD WAR II


During World War II, the Victory Garden was promoted as both a patriotic duty and thrift measure. The Office of Defense Health and Welfare Services was joined by such companies as Kerr Glass Manufacturing to advertise the Food For Victory campaign.
1970s

Throughout the 1970s, the energy crisis, inflation, and political upheaval fueled a desire for thrift and self-sufficiency. The individual, or “Victory Garden” returned and the community garden movement took hold in more urban areas. Even the threat of nuclear war was a motivation to learn how to produce, prepare, and store one’s own food.

Take a moment as you pass through the EUC Connector to discover how the War Garden of World War I became the Victory Garden of World War II and how the events in the 1970s inspired a resurgence of the victory garden as well as the creation of the community garden movement.
You can search within the World War I Pamphlet Collection and Home Economics Pamphlet Collection through the library catalog.

Monday, July 6, 2009

Women Veterans Historical Project featured on local NBC affiliate WXII

On July 2, 2009, Curator Beth Ann Koelsch was interviewed live by Wanda Starke, co-anchor of the WXII Channel 12 local NBC affiliate. The station is involved in the "Triad Flight of Honor". Beth Ann set up an exhibit of WWII uniforms and posters and spoke with Starke about women's contributions to WWII and the Women Veterans Historical Project." Wanda Starke also interviewed on of "our" Greensboro-area WWII veterans, WAC/Army Air Force veteran Reva Ingram Fortune.

WASPs Honored by President Obama



(From the Dorothy Hoover Collection)

On July 1, 2009, the WWII WASPs (Women Airforce Service Pilots) were given their long overdue recognition when President Obama awarded the 300 surviving WASPs the Congressional Gold Medal.



Here is the story from CNN: Obama awards WWII-era women pilots congressional medal



NPR interviewed WASP Deanie Parrish and current Air Force Major Nicole Malachowski about the WASPs:



Decades After WWII, Female Pilots Finally Honored.

Monday, June 8, 2009

Kemp Collection Exhibit on Display in Hodges Reading Room




The writings of spiritual author and poet, Roy Zell Kemp, are currently on display in the Hodges Reading Room at Jackson Library. Kemp, a Greensboro native, published thousands of poems in spiritual and inspirational publications, as well as five books solely of his own work. The exhibit will run through September 11, 2009.




Here is an example of one of Kemp's earlier poems from October 1932:









Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Women Veterans Historical Project Travels to Fort Bragg

On March 19, 2009 Beth Ann Koelsch, the Curator of the Women Veterans Historical Project, and Jennifer Motszko, Manuscripts Curator, drove down to Fayetteville, NC to exhibit a selection of our materials at the Women's History Month Celebration sponsored by the XVIII Airborne Corps and Fort Bragg.



This was our second year attending the commemorative event. The WVHP was joined by approximately 20 other organizations and institutions including the American Red Cross, the Women’s Center of Fayetteville and the U.S. Army Women’s Museum. It was great meeting the archivist and education curator of the U.S. Army Women’s Museum (http://www.awm.lee.army.mil/) and we look forward to collaborating with them in the future.

Our exhibit was: “Army Recruiting Materials for Women”, and included uniforms, digitized reproductions of posters and recruiting materials for the Women’s Army Corps (WAC), original recruiting pamphlets from the 1940s-1970, and Gretchen Davis’ (http://library.uncg.edu/dp/wv/collection.aspx?col=80) circa 1970s mint green polyester summer uniform dress (Unbelievably, the U.S. Army Women’s Museum also brought the same uniform!)



A couple of the images from recruiting materials we used:

1952


1964


Over 200 military personnel, their families and members of the local community attended and it was really wonderful to have the chance to meet women veterans and talk about their experiences as well as having the opportunity to teach people about women’s contributions to the U.S. Army and to promote The Women Veterans Historical Project.


Beth Ann and Sergeant First Class Craig B. Tuttle, 108th Air Defense Artillery Brigade Equal Opportunity advisor, who organized and managed the event. We are BIG fans of Sgt. Tuttle. He does an AMAZING job:




Jennifer receiving a 108th Air Defense Artillery Brigade “Certificate of Appreciation” from Command Sergeant Major Richard S. Clem:



A link to more information about the event (since it is still listed as “upcoming”, I’m not sure how long this link will be accurate.): http://www.bragg.army.mil/eo/Upcoming_Events.htm

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Pictures from Cool Jazz Family Fun Day!

Art activities for the kids:



Carole Weatherford spoke to those attending and then graciously signed copies of her books:



Then the UNCG Jazz Quartet played:



Thanks to everyone for making this event a success!

Thursday, February 26, 2009

UNCG Honors Children’s Book Writer … With Jazz!



Press Release by Michelle Hines
2-26-09

Carole Boston Weatherford writes about jazz. Her recent books for kids include “Becoming Billie Holiday” and “Before John Was a Jazz Giant: A Song of John Coltrane.”

Now Boston Weatherford, a University of North Carolina at Greensboro alumna who has given her papers to UNCG’s Jackson Library, is being honored by her alma mater during Cool Jazz Family Day, Saturday, March 28.

Cool Jazz festivities run from 1-4 p.m. at UNCG’s Weatherspoon Art Museum.

Boston Weatherford will read from her books and talk about her writing beginning at 2 p.m. in the Weatherspoon Auditorium. She will sign books afterwards in the museum’s atrium.

A quartet from the UNCG Jazz Band will perform in her honor at 3 p.m.

Boston Weatherford, a Baltimore native, wrote her first poem in first grade. She has written more than 20 books, including “Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom,” winner of a Caldecott Honor, the Coretta Scott King Award for Illustration and an NAACP Image Award.

Her papers, which she recently began transferring to Jackson Library, include manuscripts, proofs, clippings, photographs and cd’s. The collection supplements existing collections on youth literature, alumni authors, creative writing and African-American women.

Boston Weatherford teaches at Fayetteville State University. She lives in High Point with her husband, Ronald, and a college-age son and daughter.

The UNCG University Libraries and the Weatherspoon Art Museum are co-sponsoring the Boston Weatherford celebration.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Kay Hagan Gives N.C. Senate Papers to UNCG


By Dan Nonte, University Relations

Posted 2-16-09

GREENSBORO, NC — U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan has donated the papers from the decade she spent in the North Carolina Senate to UNCG.

The Greensboro Democrat was elected to the state Senate in 1998 and served as co-chair of the powerful Appropriations Committee for four years starting in 2003. She was elected to the U.S. Senate in November and took the oath of office Jan. 6.

The University Libraries received the papers in more than a dozen boxes on Jan. 12. A single stack of the correspondence, schedules and other documents would be about 15 feet tall.

“Senator Hagan’s generous gift further enhances the university’s impressive collections related to the history of the Piedmont Triad,” said Dean of University Libraries Rosann Bazirjian. “We’re extremely grateful she chose to keep these important papers in her hometown by giving them to UNCG.”

Receiving papers from a leader like Hagan raises the profile of University Archives and Manuscripts and should help attract additional historically significant collections, said Betty Carter, university archivist. In addition to this most recent gift, UNCG is home to the papers of businessman Joseph M. Bryan and U.S. Rep. Howard Coble.

Bryan, who died in 1995, was an insurance executive, broadcasting pioneer, philanthropist and hugely influential community leader in Greensboro. The university’s School of Business and Economics bears his name.

Coble, a Greensboro Republican, has represented North Carolina’s 6th Congressional District, since 1985. He announced in 2007 that his papers would be preserved at UNCG. Much of his collection has already been sent to the university; the remainder will be transferred when he retires.

Created in 1942 as the College Collection, University Archives and Manuscripts has grown to about 2,500 linear feet of material. It includes documents related to the university’s history, hundreds of manuscript collections and the Women Veteran’s Historical Project.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Life Magazine Images of Women in the Military

LIFE Magazine has added many of their photographs to the Google Images database. You can enjoy (and copy for your own personal non-commercial use.) There are some REALLY great high-resolution images and hours of time-wasting fun.


LIFE Photo Archive Hosted By Google


If you do a search for "WACS", "WAVES", "SPARS", "Female Marine", "American Red Cross", "Women Air Force", "Army Nurse", etc. you can see some really great images from the 1940s-now. (Plus, if you search for "WAVES", you can also see an image of Frank Sinatra waving.)

New WWI American Red Cross/Army Nurse Uniform

This World War I American Red Cross/U.S. Army Nurse’s Outdoor Uniform is a new addition to the Women Veterans Historical Collection. We are pretty excited about it because these uniforms are very rare.

During World War I, The American Red Cross supplied military service branches like the U.S. Army and Navy with extra nurses during World War I. It was prescribed that military, as well as auxiliary, medical units (such as the American Red Cross), wear some sort of standard wear outside of medical facilities and this uniform was worn by a nurse serving in France. It is constructed of olive green whipcord fabric.




The uniform was made by Abercrombie and Fitch in 1917 or 1918!




The fleur-de-lis patch on the left shoulder indicates that the nurse served overseas in the District of Paris as part of the U.S. Liaison Services to the French Army. The trim on the collar of this nurse’s coat is tan, telling us that as well as being a nurse, she also worked in the capacity of a clerk.



The chevron patch bordered in golden thread at the cuff on the left sleeve indicates that this nurse also served overseas for a period of six months.




And here is the accompanying wide-brimmed felt hat:



Here is a photograph from our Dr. Mary Emily Lapham Letters (WV# 0418) of Miss Correz, American Red Cross, Prague, 1919 wearing a similar uniform: