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!

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

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