Records of the Student Government Association, 1912-2010

The Martha Blakney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives invites researchers to learn more about history of student self-governance at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG) by looking through the recently processed records of the Student Government Association (SGA).  The first instances of self-government began in 1910 when a student council, comprised of three elected officials from each class, was created to act as an advisory group for student issues.  In 1914, school president Julius Foust agreed to the students’ proposal for a more official organization and allowed for the creation of the Self-Government Association.  This new organization, consisting of four elected officers (president, vice president, secretary, and treasurer) would become the SGA in 1921.  Over the next several decades, the SGA would grow into a respected and active organization on campus. This collection helps to document the SGA’s growth and progress by providing a variety of historical materials including correspondence, flyers, memorandums, manuals, meeting minutes, newsletters, notes, reports, and speeches. 

More information about the collection can be found though the collection’s finding aid at:

https://libapps.uncg.edu/archon/index.php?p=collections/controlcard&id=508

The Martha Blakney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives is open Monday through Friday, 9am until 5pm.  The collection is open to the public.  We encourage researchers to make appointments ahead of time by contacting us at 336-334-5246 or at SCUA@uncg.edu.

New pieces join the Hansen Collection

Costume design for The Duchess of Malfi  by Leslie Hurry

Professor Robert Hansen recently donated an additional fifteen pieces of theatrical artwork to the Robert C. Hansen Performing Arts Collection housed at the Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives in the Jackson Library.

The Robert C. Hansen Performing Arts Collection dates from 1753 to 2011, with most items dating from the 1800s, and contains programs, heralds, guidebooks and periodicals, playbooks, sheet music and songbooks, correspondence and autographs, original costume designs and scenery designs, posters, photographs, postcards, tradecards, scrapbooks, subject files, and other visual materials and memorabilia which document the history of the performing arts, mainly theatre, in many countries, mainly the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Further geographic foci within the United States include New York City, Minnesota, and North Carolina.

While the majority of the collection focuses on theatre, other performing arts genres represented include circus, concert, dance, film, minstrelsy, opera, and vaudeville.

Some noted 19th century American stage actors/actresses represented in the collection include Edwin Booth (brother of John Wilkes), Charlotte Cushman, Fanny Davenport, Edwin Forrest, Joseph Jefferson, Julia Marlowe and E.H. Sothern. Famous 19th century European stage actors/actresses represented in the collection include Sarah Bernhardt, Dion Boucicault, Henry Irving, Helena Modjeska, Adelaide Ristori, Tommaso Salvini and Ellen Terry. Other notable personages include theatrical manager and playwright Augustin Daly, costume and set designer Leslie Hurry, and caricaturist Al Freuh.

Theatres, troupes and festivals highlighted in the collection include Minnesota's Guthrie Theatre, the United Kingdom's Royal Shakespeare Company, the Classics in Context and Humana festivals from the Actor's Theatre of Louisville in Kentucky, North Carolina's Shakespeare Festival, and Canada's Shaw Festival and Stratford Festival.

Included in the donation are several large 19th-century theatrical posters and framed broadsides which currently hang in the reference area on the first floor of Jackson Library.  Prints and original costume designs make up the remainder of the gift.  The Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives is pleased to welcome these additions to this extensive collection.