Contents

1. BAAS Library and Resources Sub-Committee Meeting September 2003
2. Chicago Historical Society
3. Early Americas Digital Archive
4. The Ethnography of Lewis and Clark: Native American Objects and the American Quest for Commerce and Science
5. Institute for the Study of the Americas
6. Reviews
7. Obituary
8. Forthcoming events
9. Publications Offer

BAAS Library and Resources Sub-Committee Meeting September 2003

Minutes of the Committee Meeting held at the British Library, St. Pancras, London,
3 September 2003.

Present:
Mr R J Bennett (British Library, Boston Spa), Secretary
Mr D Forster, (American Studies Centre, Liverpool John Moores University)
Dr K Halliwell (National Library of Scotland)
Mr D G Heyes (British Library, London)
Ms J Hoare (Cambridge University Library) Treasurer
Ms J Kemble (Eccles Centre)
Mr I Ralston (Liverpool John Moores University) Chair

1. Apologies
Prof. P Davies (BAAS)
Mr J Pinfold (Rothermere Institute)

Mr Bennett had received an email from Dr Wallace, wishing the committee success in its deliberations. Mr Ralston asked Mr Bennett to convey the committee’s best wishes to him. ACTION RB

2. Minutes of the previous meeting
The last sentence of agendum 6 should read: “Mr Ralston thanked….”
The minutes were signed as a correct record.

3. Matters arising
(5): Newspaper Database: Mr Ralston said that he would be seeing Graham Thompson and would ask him to flag the Newspaper database more clearly on the BAAS website. ACTION IR
Ms Kemble reported that the Eccles Centre had now put up a link to the Newspaper database and the British Library Newspaper Library.
Press release from the Embassy: Mr Ralston asked Dr Halliwell to write the press release for Sue Wedlake at the US Embassy. ACTION KH
Mr Ralston undertook to ask Dick Ellis to give the full URL on BAAS mailshots, asking institutions to post it. ACTION IR
Dr Halliwell was pleased to report that the database was now complete – all JRULM holdings had been added, following conversion. In addition he had added the University of Reading information as well as the TUC holdings at the University of North London.
Mr Ralston enquired as to whether any other institutions’ holdings should be included. Dr Halliwell suggested that the LIS-LINK email discussion list could be used. Mr Bennett agreed to investigate ACTION RB
Dr Halliwell queried whether the updating of the database could be done direct to Graham Thompson. It was agreed that it should be kept to the Committee.
Mr Ralston asked for the committee’s thanks to Dr Halliwell for all his work to be recorded.

(7): IUSS Project. Mr Ralston had received an update from Victoria Robson. She had stated that the project should be up and running by the end of September. Liverpool JMU have included a flyer in their magazine, and it is hoped that BAAS will do the same.

4. Treasurer’s report
Ms Hoare had submitted a written report. It was agreed that the accounts were in a healthy state and the committee’s thanks were conveyed to Ms Hoare.

Ms Hoare had issued all remaining outstanding invoices to advertisers.
In view of the generous support that Thompson Henry had given the committee in the past, it was agreed to write off the outstanding invoices to them.
Ms Hoare was still waiting to hear from Blackwells and Coutts, and Mr Bennett has also chased the latter.
(Secretary’ note: Since the meeting, both Blackwells and Coutts have paid their outstanding invoices, but it appears that only Coutts are likely to continue advertising in the Newsletter.)
The status of the Committee’s “Reserved Fund”, allocated by BAAS, was raised. Mr Ralston agreed to clarify this with Nick Selby, BAAS Treasurer. ACTION IR

5. Projects and future activities

A. Seminar 2004
It was agreed that the Rothermere Institute would be an ideal venue. As an initial step, Mr Bennett was asked to contact Mr Pinfold and ask him about: the best date/time of year; costs of venue; costs of lunch; costs of equipment; availability of exhibition space and its costs. The committee would then make a decision based on this information. ACTION RB/JP
Mr Ralston suggested a theme around general ethnicity and American identity, including the use of artefacts. Four areas and possible speakers were identified:

Native Americans: Speaker from Aberdeen University: Dr Halliwell to contact
OR Speaker from Horniman Museum: Ms Kemble to contact
OR Speaker from Pitt Rivers Institute: Mr Pinfold to contact
Slavery: Speaker from Liverpool Maritime Museum: Mr Ralston to contact
Election Material: Speaker: Professor Davies
Emigration: Speaker: Jenny Calder (retired Museum of Scotland): Dr Halliwell to contact
Mr Ralston suggested that Restitution could be a thread running through some of these papers.
It was agreed that 40 minutes should be allowed for each presentation, followed by a Q&A session with all speakers, open to the floor.
Costs would be defrayed by inviting suppliers, publishers, etc. to have exhibition space, or give short presentations or include delegates’ packs.
Mr Ralston agreed to approach the Embassy and seek sponsorship. ACTION IR
Publicity would be done via websites such as: The American Studies Centre; The Eccles Centre; BAAS’s and BLARS’s Newsletters; LIS-LINK; Transatlantic Studies list; as well as hard-copy mailings.

B. BAAS 50th Anniversary conference, Cambridge, Easter 2005
Mr Ralston suggested that, although there is still some considerable time before the conference, the Committee should come up with a “significant” contribution. Dr Halliwell suggested an exhibition showing how resources have changed over 50 years; to include eg microforms, ‘Banda’ machines, recordings from the BL Sound Archive, etc, and with possibly a link to a local museum in Cambridge. In addition, a speaker could talk on the possible future – OR – the past/present/future of document delivery – OR – obsolescence.
Mr Ralston proposed to raise this with the BAAS Executive and make contact with the conference organisers. ACTION IR

6. Newsletter
Mr Heyes reported that the next issue had been forwarded to Mr Bennett for printing, but it was agreed to defer this until all the issues surrounding advertising had been resolved. Mr Heyes thanked Mr Forster for book reviews and Dr Halliwell for the review of the Alexander Street Press.
Mr Heyes issued a plea for further articles. Mr Ralston suggested that Mr Heyes and Mr Forster work closely together, and could consider re-using relevant articles.
Mr Ralston reported that he had spoken to Pam Wonsek at Hunter College, City University of New York about contributing an article.
Ms Kemble mentioned that she would be updating information on the Eccles Centre’s pamphlets and would be contributing a piece on Lady Eccles, who had died earlier in the week.
Dr Halliwell agreed to contribute a short update on the Newspaper Database to describe recent additions. He also mentioned that he had emailed YBP about possible advertising.
Dr Wallace thanked Mr Heyes for his continuing editorial work on the Newsletter.
Mr Ralston raised the issue of the cover of the Newsletter and suggested that it might be “jazzed up”. He added that he had access to images that could be used which were free of copyright. He proposed that Mr Forster come up with some designs. This was agreed. ACTION DF

7. Date of next meeting
The next meeting will be held at 2:00pm on 4 February 2004, at the Rothermere Institute, Oxford.

8. Any other business
Mr Heyes said that The British Library had sets of US Censuses and Statistical series for disposal. These were not complete sets. Those interested were asked to contact Mr Heyes direct.

The British Library was thanked for its hospitality.

Richard J Bennett
The British Library
29 September, 2003

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Chicago Historical Society

The collections of the Chicago Historical Society (est. 1856) provide a rich source of materials for the study of Chicago’s history, and many aspects of American history. The collections number an estimated 20 million items, including photographs and drawings, diaries and letters, costumes and textiles, sound recordings and films, books and newspapers, furniture and manufactured objects, architectural fragments and renderings, and many other artefacts.

The Chicago Historical Society encourages the use of these materials for the exploration and understanding of the past, and provides access to them through its Research Center and on-line resources.

Books and other published materials

The Historical Society’s collection of published materials is available for study in the Research Center. These holdings include: more than 66,000 books and pamphlets; 14,000 volumes of periodicals; 3,500 volumes of newspapers; 1,500 scrapbooks composed newspaper clippings; 10,000 maps and atlases; 5,700 pieces of sheet music; and 11,000 reels of microfilm that include the major Chicago daily newspapers, city and telephone directories, and dissertations.

In addition, the Research Center houses a substantial collection of items considered ephemeral, including trade cards; theatre, music, dance, and sport programmes; and miscellaneous pieces such as announcements of coming events, menus, and invitations. The Research Center also maintains a newspaper clipping file that was begun in the 1930s and continues through the 1990s. Articles were clipped from the daily papers, photocopied onto acid-free paper and assigned subject headings. Access is by surname in the biography file and by topic in the subject file.

Current collection development in the Research Center focuses on acquiring Chicago materials. The holdings grow daily, primarily through donations from individuals and organisations. In addition, limited funds are available to purchase published materials.

The majority of the published holdings are stored in a four-level, temperature and humidity controlled closed-stack area. Materials are brought from the stacks by staff to researchers in the Research Center. A portion of the newspaper collection has not been microfilmed and is stored off-site. Use of these materials requires prior arrangement. A total of ten per cent of published materials are catalogued in the online catalogue “Archie” which can be consulted at: http://www.chicagohistory.org/collections/search.html

Archives and Manuscripts

The Historical Society’s archives and manuscript collection includes the written, typewritten, and electronic records produced by individuals, businesses, and organisations in the Chicago metropolitan area. These collections comprise nearly eighteen million items, including letters, account books, diaries, journals, certificates, genealogical charts, licenses, log books, membership lists, memoirs, memoranda, minutes, muster rolls, research notes, scrapbooks, scripts, sermons, speeches, subscription lists, and even telegrams.

The collection documents many aspects of life in Chicago from its earliest days to the present and has been used by countless researchers for their work on books, dissertations, theses, college and high school papers, media productions, and various other scholarly and personal studies. The collection is particularly informative on U.S. history through the Civil War era, especially the Chicago area’s early history, Chicago-area social conditions and problems, 20th-century neighbourhood life, community organisations, African American history, ethnic history, women’s history, civil liberties and civil rights, politics, religious-centred social action, labour unions, environmental concerns, teachers, and school reformers.

Major Collections:

Large collections include office files from:
Claude A. Barnett, director of the Associated Negro Press, 1918-67
Board of Lady Managers of the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893
Chicago Division of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, 1925-69
Alderman Leon M. Despres, 1929-82
Senator Paul H. Douglas, 1932-71
Illinois Manufacturers’ Association, 1893-1986
Sterling Morton and the Morton Family, 1814-1953
Northwest Community Organization, 1962-94
Open Lands Project, 1961-75
District 31 of the United Steelworkers of America, 1934-79
University of Chicago Settlement and Mary McDowell, 1894-1968
Wieboldt Stores, Inc., and Mandel Brothers, 1892-1958
Young Men’s Christian Association of Chicago, 1853-1978

Sound Collections

The collection also includes a large number of sound recordings of radio programmes, oral history interviews, speeches, and proceedings. These include:
Oral History Archives of Chicago Polonia interviews done in the mid-1970s
Interviews of Chicago-area journalists by students in Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, 1975-present
“Problems of the City” radio programs, 1970-91
Bill Cameron’s “The Reporters” radio shows, 1978-93

The record of American life and achievement exists in many media, including film, video, and audio. Chicago figured prominently in the early history of American film and television, and was the home of Studs Terkel, a pioneer in American oral history and spoken word radio. Some of the major CHS collections in these media are described below.

The Studs Terkel / WFMT Oral History Archives

The archives include audio-recordings of interviews, readings and musical programmes created by Studs Terkel, CHS’ distinguished scholar-in-residence, and aired during his tenure at WFMT Radio from the early 1950s through 1999. During a radio career spanning five decades, Terkel interviewed individuals from every walk of life – from public figures like Martin Luther King, Jr., and U.S. president Jimmy Carter to the proverbial “man on the street”. As a result, the archives include a wide range of discussions that narrate the cultural, literary, and political history of Chicago and the United States in the second half of the 20th century.

Discussion topics reflect the interests, passions and political leanings of the interviewer. The archives are especially rich in interviews with and performances by jazz, opera and folk musicians, singers, lyricists and composers. Mahalia Jackson, Louis Armstrong, Judy Collins, and many other artists performed on Terkel’s programme. The list of authors and poets represented in the collection reads like a “Who’s Who” of twentieth-century literature. James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, Nadine Gordimer, Toni Morrison, Dorothy Parker, Carl Sandburg, and, of course, Chicagoans Nelson Algren and Mike Royko, are just a few of the authors who read from their works and discussed their craft with Terkel.

Terkel and his guests discussed such diverse topics as nuclear disarmament, the American peace movement, psychology, race relations, ecology and environmental pollution, violence against women, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and labour activism.

Listening copies are available for only a portion of the collection, and these can be consulted in the CHS Research Center only. Excerpts from many tapes can be accessed at www.studsterkel.org. In addition, excerpts of some of the most outstanding Studs Terkel materials are available on Voices of Our Time: Five Decades of Studs Terkel Interviews, a set of six cassettes containing 7-1/2 hours of interviews, issued by the HighBridge Company in 1999, and available at the CHS museum store (shop online at www.ChicagoToGo.org ).

Oral History Archives of the Chicago Polonia Project

The project archives include recorded life histories of 140 Chicago-area Polish-Americans, many of whom emigrated to the United States from Austria, German Poland, and elsewhere in Eastern Europe between 1880 and 1930. The interviews were taken in the mid-1970s and provide firsthand accounts of adjustment to American culture, work and business enterprises, family life, and other experiences. The project was directed by Mary Cygan, and was underwritten by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

WGN Newsfilm Collection

This collection includes aircuts and outtakes from WGN television newscasts from about 1948 to 1977. Chicago news includes accidents, disasters, fires; education; public, cultural, and sports events; the Chicago Transit Authority, mass transit, and O’Hare International Airport; public housing, Mayor Richard J. Daley, politics and government; the civil rights movement, and Martin Luther King, Jr. National news includes NASA and the space programme, primarily related to the Apollo missions. The collection also includes Chicagoland Newsreels from the 1950s and some United Press International (UPI) news footage that is not related to Chicago.

Most of the archives and manuscripts collections may be consulted by researchers, without an appointment, during the Research Center’s regular public hours. The CHS Research Center is open Tuesdays to Saturdays; admittance is free. Access to a few collections is restricted until specified dates according to their donors’ requests. Access to many sound and moving picture collections requires advance arrangements and a fee for the production of a viewing or listening copy.

For more information, please visit: http://www.chicagohistory.org.

Text courtesy of the Chicago Historical Society.

Early Americas Digital Archive

The Early Americas Digital Archive (EADA) is a collection of electronic texts and links to texts originally written in or about the Americas from 1492 to approximately 1820. Open to the public for research and teaching purposes, EADA is published and supported by the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH) under the general editorship of Professor Ralph Bauer, at the University of Maryland at College Park. Intended as a long-term and inter-disciplinary project in progress committed to exploring the intersections between traditional humanities research and digital technologies, it invites scholars from all disciplines to submit their editions of early American texts for publication on this site. Texts may be submitted with or without introductions and annotations, as fully marked-up XML documents or as “plain-text” files. Full credit will be given to contributing guest editors for their work.

The EADA Database and the “Gateway to Early American Authors on the WEB”

EADA consists of two basic components: a) the EADA Database and b) the “Gateway to Early American Authors on the WEB”.

a) In the EADA Database, you can find texts that are housed at EADA itself and that have been encoded using Text Encoding Initiative Guidelines (TEI), which makes it possible for you to search for specific terms, such as author, title, and subject, within and across the texts. EADA vouches for the accuracy of the header information as well as for the authenticity and quality of the texts contained in its database, which is continually and gradually expanding. If you do not find the early American text you are looking for in the EADA database, you may also consult the

b) “Gateway to Early American Authors on the Web”, which allows you to browse a list of early American authors whose texts are available both on sites that others have posted on the World Wide Web as well as texts from this site, the Early Americas Digital Archive. Texts external to the EADA database cannot be searched with the EADA Search Engine; nor can EADA vouch for the authenticity or quality of any of the texts external to its database and referred to in the Gateway.

History

In May of 2002, the Society of Early Americanists launched its initiative in Teaching Early Ibero/Anglo American Studies by hosting the first “Early Ibero/Anglo Americanist Summit” in Tucson, Arizona. This event gathered roughly one hundred scholars from various fields and languages in order to use new research examining early American literatures from a hemispheric perspective, to develop a collection of texts, model curricula, and teaching materials that embody a hemispheric approach to the study of the early Americas, and to generate professional and intellectual exchanges among scholars from various fields. For the purpose of this event, the Program Committee constructed an electronic anthology as an archival basis for discussion and granted restricted access to Summit Participant. The Maryland Institute of Technology in the Humanities (MITH) generously provided the technological equipment and the server space necessary for the construction of this anthology. This Summit Anthology became the foundation for the present Early Americas Digital Archive. However, unlike the password protected Summit Anthology, EADA is accessible to the general public for teaching and research purposes.

Why an electronic archive of early American texts?

The foremost advantages of a digital archive are cost efficiency and accessibility. To date, only a fraction of early American texts is readily available in inexpensive paperback editions. Typically, those early American texts easily available in print have been selected for canonicity from the point of view of the various later literary-historical narratives that have emerged during the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. In order to consult texts not readily available in commercial print media, scholars must physically visit archives and libraries or order items through interlibrary loan. Being less dependent on the economic pressures of commercial publishing in print, an on-line archive such as EADA can thus provide the foundation for truly multiple literary-historical narratives. Unlike several digital archives of early American texts already existing on the internet, EADA is offered as a public service free of charge. For this reason, EADA must limit itself to the electronic publication of printed editions that are in the public domain and, thus, available to EADA free of charge. Although in many cases more recent editions of a given text exist in print than the one published digitally at EADA, first priority has been given to keeping EADA free of charge.

The second advantage is searchability. Texts included in EADA have been encoded in Extensible Markup Language (XML), following the Text Encoding Initiative Guidelines (TEI), “an international and interdisciplinary standard that helps libraries, museums, publishers, and individual scholars represent all kinds of literary and linguistic texts for online research and teaching, using an encoding scheme that is maximally expressive and minimally obsolescent.” The TEI provides for very detailed textual encoding to facilitate multi-faceted document retrieval. For example, not only can documents be searched via plain text, but they can be retrieved through a rich scheme of meta-information contained in the headers of each text. Through EADA’s search page texts can be accessed according to genre type (prose, poetry, drama), format (chronicle, diary, etc.), mode (satire, pastoral, etc.), historical period (by 50-year intervals), geographic location (New England, New Spain, Virginia, etc.), as well as by author, title, and subject headings. For example, one might search for “Georgic” “Poetry” about the “Caribbean” published “1750-1800;” for poems written by “Bradstreet, Anne;” or for texts about “Native Americans”.

Why XML?

Most web pages are created using an encoding language known as HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) which allows viewers to read formatted text using a web browsers. However, all documents in EADA are encoded using XML (Extensible Generalised Markup Language). XML offers opportunities and advantages over both print publication and HTML-encoded text to distribute and store information rich in complexity and ambiguity. The encoding features of the language records information about the content of the text rather than its layout or format. Linguistic features, such as personal and organisational names, titles, and place names are encoded or marked so that they can be easily retrieved by a search engine. XML has proved to be the best long-term media in which to preserve textual material in digital form. It is non-proprietary, in other words, it is not owned by an individual or corporation, so those working in XML have no fear that one day it might be economically out of the reach of the individual user. It provides for unparalleled textual search, navigation and retrieval facilities. And last, but not least, it is possible to display XML-encoded text over the Internet through HTML, albeit with a loss of considerable functionality. XML, which many feel will replace HTML, will create ideal conditions for the publication of highly structured information on the World Wide Web.

EADA Policy Statement

All texts encoded and published by EADA have either been scanned from sources in the public domain or obtained in digital version as plain text by permission from other internet sites, which are given credit in the header. Subsequently, all texts have been proofed against the original source and marked up in XML. Line and paragraph numbers contained in the source text are retained. In cases where the source text displays no numbers, numbers are automatically generated to assist the user’s orientation in the text. In the header, personal names have been regularised according to the Library of Congress authority files as “Last Name, First Name” for the REG attribute and “First Name Last Name” for the element value. Names have not been regularised in the body of the text. For specifics with regard to individual texts, see the colophon information included in the headers. If texts have been included for which no source could be found in the public domain, permission to publish has been obtained from the copyright owner. Contributing guest editors are fully credited for their work on our “List of Guest editors page,” which contains their name, a paragraph of biographical information, and a link to their works on EADA, as well as in the header of the individual text, which makes their names searchable via the EADA search engine.

For more information please visit http://www.mith2.umd.edu/eada/index.jsp

Text Courtesy of the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH).

The Ethnography of Lewis and Clark: Native American Objects and the American Quest for Commerce and Science

By Rubie S. Watson and Castle McLaughlin

On May 22, 1804, Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, and members of the Corps of North West Discovery left St. Louis for what was to become an arduous journey to the Pacific Ocean. They went in search of a water passage that they believed would link the eastern coast of the fledgling American republic to the shores of the Pacific Ocean. In a written communication to Lewis on June 20, 1803, President Thomas Jefferson set forth the primary goals of the Corps: “The object of your mission is to explore the Missouri river, & such principal streams of it, as, by it’s course and communication with the waters of the Pacific ocean…may offer the most direct & practicable water communication across this continent for the purposes of commerce.” Although commerce was central to the expedition, Jefferson had in mind something more than an exploratory trade mission. The expedition was to be a quest for both commercial advantage and scientific knowledge.

During their two year expedition, Lewis and Clark collected, described, packed and sent east plant, animal, and mineral specimens. They made maps, charted hazardous terrain, and described Indian languages. Implements, food, clothing, and housing were studied. Objects of Indian manufacture were obtained from the tribes along their route. Jefferson cautioned Lewis and Clark to “treat [the Indians] in the most friendly and conciliatory manner which their own conduct will admit” and further urged them to invite Indian leaders to visit him in Washington. Lewis and Clark complied with this request. While they were still in the field, a delegation of invited chiefs representing 11 Indian nations toured Philadelphia, Washington, and Boston. Later, the Mandan leader Sheheke (Big White) and trader Rene Jusseaume, along with their families, returned east with the Corps of Discovery, arriving in Washington during December, 1806. These parties were among the first Indian delegations from the Plains area to visit the nation’s capitol.

At least three large shipments of objects collected during the expedition and several smaller ones were packed and sent to Jefferson via St. Louis. Specimens were painstakingly gathered, described, and preserved for their journey east. Many ethnographic objects were included in these shipments. Hide clothing, woven hats, buffalo robes, calumets, feather badges, baskets, bows and arrows, and ornaments, like the natural history specimens, were carefully prepared and loaded on horses, boats, and human backs to make the journey to the nation’s capitol.
Throughout their expedition but especially during their first winter at Fort Mandan (in present-day North Dakota), Lewis and Clark wrote in some detail about the Indians they met. Following Jefferson’s instructions, they made vocabulary lists (fourteen in total, unfortunately no longer extant); described, sketched, and in some cases obtained objects from their hosts; spent hours discussing and directly questioning Indian leaders about tribal political organisation and inter-tribal relations; and made direct observations of everything from important rituals to food preparation.

Throughout their journals one finds many entries describing the material cultures of the tribes located along their route. For example, Lewis wrote in some detail about the battle-axes he saw among the Mandan, and Clark described a variety of Indian implements. Sketches of infant cradles and careful observations of the protocol of meetings with tribal leaders appear throughout their journals. Clark was fascinated by the importance of tobacco in these meetings. “Ceremonial smoking, proper seating, and formal placing of buffalo robes around the shoulders of honored guests were central to tribal diplomacy”, Clark wrote.

The exchange of gifts was also a central ritual in intercultural diplomacy. During formal diplomatic encounters, Lewis and Clark presented tribal leaders with peace medals, wampum, military clothing, and American flags. In return, chiefs and leading men gave the expedition leaders customary diplomatic gifts, such as pipes, robes, and military regalia. Members of the Lewis and Clark party also exchanged gifts and traded with Indian peoples in more informal contexts, offering English cloth, tobacco, metal tools and glass beads for horses, food, moccasins, robes, and services such as horse care. On a number of occasions, Lewis and Clark even commissioned Indian women to make clothing and hats for themselves and crew members. Exchange was crucial to the success of the expedition, enabling the Lewis and Clark party to obtain necessities such as food and horses and to meet Jefferson’s charge that they establish political relations with western tribes.

Many of the objects Lewis and Clark acquired during their expedition were directly transferred to Jefferson in Washington, D.C. or to Charles Willson Peale in Philadelphia, whose museum, often described as the oldest public museum in the United States, served as a national repository before the creation of the Smithsonian Institution. Jefferson transferred some of the expedition materials to the Peale museum, retaining others at his home, Monticello. At Monticello, artifacts from the Corps of Discovery were displayed in Jefferson’s “Indian Hall,” along with other objects given to or collected by Jefferson. After Jefferson’s death, more of these objects may have been transferred to Peale. In 1828 the C.J. Hutter family donated a number of ethnographic objects to the Peale Museum that were collected by Lt. George C. Hutter while he was stationed with the Sixth Infantry in St. Louis. Several of those early Plains objects also survive today in the Peabody Museum Collections.

During 1849-50, the descendants of Charles Willson Peale sold a portion of their ethnographic collection to P. T. Barnum and Moses Kimball. Barnum and Kimball divided the collection and each installed their purchase in their own museums. Fires in Philadelphia and New York destroyed Barnum’s museums, and in 1899 a fire damaged Kimball’s Boston Museum. Members of the Kimball family gave Charles Willoughby, then Assistant Director of Harvard’s Peabody Museum, first pick of the Boston Museum’s ethnographic collection. Willoughby chose 1400 objects that were transferred directly to the Peabody. Among these were, according to Willoughby (1905), “several” Native American objects attributed to Lewis and Clark.

Recent research at the Peabody Museum has identified some sixty objects from the Boston Museum accession that may be linked to the Lewis and Clark expedition. These include six objects that are firmly associated with the expedition, six that were donated to Peale by Hutter, five that were probably collected by either Lewis and Clark or Hutter, and many others that may have been obtained by the Corps, but now lack documentation. These pieces are both rare and extremely important, as few other ethnographic materials from the expedition have survived. They provide valuable evidence of the material culture of many Native American tribal groups. They also provide a tremendously valuable lens from which to investigate the history of early ethnographic collecting, display, and museum building in the United States.

In anticipation of the impending Lewis and Clark Bicentennial, the Peabody Museum initiated new research on the history and formal properties of these materials. The complete result of that research will be presented in a forthcoming book, Arts of Diplomacy: Lewis and Clark’s Indian Collection, and in an exhibit that the Peabody will stage throughout 2003-2005.

For more information please visit:
http://www.peabody.harvard.edu/lewis_and_clark/bicentenial.html

Article reproduced courtesy of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University.

Institute for the Study of the Americas

The Council of the University of London has approved the merger of the Institute of Latin American Studies (ILAS) and the Institute of United States Studies (IUSS) to form an Institute for the Study of the Americas (ISA). The new Institute will be established with effect from 1 August 2004, under the direction of Professor James Dunkerley, currently ILAS Director. ISA will be a member of the federal University’s School of Advanced Study, established in 1994.

Commenting on the merger, Vice-Chancellor, Sir Graeme Davies, said: ‘The combination of free-standing and comparative postgraduate teaching and research on all sections of the hemisphere within a single institution is unique in Europe. It represents a major commitment to American studies by the University. The University has committed new resources to enhance the staffing complement in United States.’

A strong intellectual argument for a new Americas-wide approach has recently been made by Professor Felipe Fernández-Armesto of Queen Mary, University of London. In his recent book The Americas: A History of the Hemisphere, Professor Fernández-Armesto argues that it is impossible to understand the history of North, Central and South America in isolation. ‘From the emergence of the first human civilizations through the arrival of Europeans and up to today, the land mass has been bound together in a complex web of inter-relationships – from migration and trade to religion, slavery, warfare, culture, food and the spread of political ideas.’ The fact that nearly 40 million US citizens are of Hispanic background and culture, the establishment of NAFTA in 1994, and the plan to set up a Free Trade Area of the Americas in the coming period all underline the importance of a regional as well as sectional perspective on the Americas.

Assad Shoman, former Foreign Minister of Belize and current Ambassador to Cuba, welcomed the news: ‘To appreciate how Latin America and the Caribbean are evolving, it is imperative to understand the USA. Studying the USA from a hemispheric perspective is indispensable for gaining a holistic vision of development and security, the interrelationship of which is increasingly being recognised. I applaud the University for taking this bold step, which will greatly enrich the study of our hemisphere’.

Carol Madison Graham, Executive Director of the Fulbright Commission, also welcomed the Council’s decision: `The new Institute will safeguard the teaching of US studies in London, and that is vitally important. But it will also provide a fresh new perspective to supplement – and sometimes to challenge – the established view of America and the Americans as a whole. That also is to be welcomed, and we hope to work closely with the ISA to build a durable and exciting program,’

Professor James Dunkerley, said he was honoured to be appointed as ISA Director: ‘Most importantly, I would seek to ensure the ISA will be energetically inclusive, seeking to involve North Americanist and Caribbeanist scholars throughout the UK in much the same way as ILAS has played a leading role in promoting Latin American studies nation-wide. The aim will be to serve and to strengthen national networks of US scholars. I will actively seek to build close ties with organisations such as the British Association for American Studies, the Eccles Centre at the British Library, and the British Museum, in addition to the American business community in London and the Embassies and High Commissions of the states of the western hemisphere.’ Existing collegial ties with the ISA’s sister Institute of Commonwealth Studies will be expanded to enhance the studies of Canada and the Caribbean in both Institutes.

For more information please see:
School of Advanced Study: http://www.sas.ac.uk/overview.htm
Institute of Latin American Studies: www.sas.ac.uk/ilas
Institute of United States Studies: www.sas.ac.uk/iuss

Reviews

The Human Tradition in America: 1865 to the Present. Edited by Charles W. Calhoun. ISBN: 0-8420-5129-5. Wilmington, Del.: SR Books, 2003, 334pp.

Reviewed by Jean Petrovic, Eccles Centre for American Studies, The British Library.

The Human Tradition in America: 1865 to the Present is part of Scholarly Resources’ The Human Tradition in America series – a series that also includes volumes on the Civil War and Reconstruction, the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era, America between the Wars, World War II and the Vietnam Era.

In his foreword to this volume, series editor Charles W. Calhoun recalls Thomas Carlyle’s description of history as “the essence of innumerable biographies”, and explains that: “In this conception of the past, Carlyle came closer to modern notions that see the lives of all kinds of people, high and low, powerful and weak, known and unknown, as part of the mosaic of human history…”

It is this idea of ‘biography as history’ that forms the foundation for this series. Each volume contains ‘mini-biographies’ of people whose lives shed light on a particular topic or period. Well-known figures are not altogether absent; however, the chapters more often explore individuals “who may be less conspicuous but whose stories, nonetheless, offer us a window on some aspect of the nation’s past.”

According to the publisher, The Human Tradition in America: 1865 to the Present is designed as “a text for the second half of the U.S. history survey course” – a course that features not only on every college campus in the United States, but also in American Studies programmes throughout the United Kingdom. Given its function as a supporting set-text, it is perhaps not surprising that this volume is not a completely new work but rather contains nineteen of the best biographical essays from other works in the series.

Calhoun’s introduction to the volume provides a skilful overview of each person’s background, their life, and their contribution to American society. The biographical essays that follow are written by historians from across the United States – several of whom are working on, or have completed, full-length biographies of the subjects. These subjects include: the wife of a Confederate General, LaSalle Corbell Pickett; the Populist Mary Lease; the Hara family, who were interned during World War II; the ‘mentor’ for the children at the centre of the Little Rock school crisis, Daisy Bates; Bill Weber, a soldier killed during the Vietnam War; feminist activist and author, Alix Kates Shulman; and gay rights activist, Harvey Milk.

For a work aimed at first-year college students, the essays seem uniformly well-pitched: they have enough context to ensure that the subject is familiar, yet enough biographical detail to provide both a new level of understanding and an engaging means of presentation. Indeed, several of the essays are so compelling that one is left astonished that the subject’s courage, commitment or achievements has not rendered them better-known. For example, Annelise Orleck’s essay on Pauline Newman, a Jewish immigrant from Lithuania, powerfully evokes the world of radical union activism in early twentieth century New York. Dubbed the ‘East Side Joan of Arc’ by the New York Times the teenage Newman was instrumental in both the rent strikes of 1908 and the women garment workers’ strike of 1909-1910. Following the fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in 1911, she was appointed an inspector on New York’s Factory Investigating Commission – a move which would eventually lead to appointments on the United Nations Subcommittee on the Status of Women and the International Labor Organization’s Subcommittee on the Status of Domestic Laborers. Honoured in 1974 by the Coalition of Labor Union Women as a foremother of the women’s liberation movement, Newman remained active in the International Women’s Garment Workers’ Union until her death in 1986 at the age of ninety-six. Her death evoked a deep sense of loss in the ILGWU and among women trade unionists. As Orleck writes: “Standing with one foot in the male-dominated labor movement and the other in the cross-class group of women reformers…her contributions as an organizer, a legislative expert, a writer, and a mentor to younger women activists were profound and wide-ranging. Indeed, her historical significance far exceeds any official title she had.” As with all the essays in this volume, Orleck’s contribution is well-referenced and she provides a list of further reading.

Given the diversity of topics in this volume – Reconstruction, the Kansas Exodus, the birth control movement, the rise of labour unions, the Japanese internment camps during World War II, the African American movement for civil rights, American involvement in Vietnam, women’s liberation, the American Indian Movement and the movement for gay rights, among others – and the extraordinarily inspiring stories that are revealed here, there can be no doubt that this work could provide solid support to any course surveying American history since the Civil War. It is also highly recommended to the general reader.

The End of Cinema as we Know it: American Film in the Nineties. by Jon Lewis. Pluto Press, 2002. ISBN hardback 0745318800, paperback 0745318797. pp 424.
List price: Hardback: £50, paperback £16.99.

Reviewed by Yannis Tzioumakis, Lecturer in Screen Studies, Liverpool John Moores University.

In the last 10 years Jon Lewis’s name has become synonymous with critical explorations of what film historians have called “The New Hollywood”. From his (1995) book-length study of Coppola’s “Zoetrope years” and his position within contemporary Hollywood to his influential collection of essays on The New American Cinema (1998) and his monograph Hollywood vs Hardcore: How the Struggle Over Censorship Saved the Modern Film Industry (2000) Lewis has generously contributed to a heated debate and has significantly enhanced our understanding of, among others things, the problems involved in any attempt towards a periodisation of American Cinema. In this respect, a brand new edited volume consisting of thirty-four (mostly original) essays and focusing on American cinema in the 1990s is unquestionably a welcomed addition, especially since a host of key names in the field (including Thomas Elsaesser, Justin Wyatt, Robert Sklar, Dana Polan, Thomas Doherty, Hilary Radner, James Schamus and Murray Smith) feature among the contributors and, more interestingly, because the collection’s title seems to forcefully imply new changes in the massive institution we call American Cinema.

In a rather unusual manner, the structure of The End of Cinema As We Know It has been organised according to the interests of its contributors, who, upon Lewis’s invitation, took “one quick shot at the decade past”(p 4). Thus, unlike the majority of edited collections, which are products of conferences on specific topics or structured along strict thematic sections and concerns, The End of Cinema As We Know It begs to differ, particularly since some of the essays included, bridge the academic discourse with more popular (and therefore more accessible) film criticism. This explains the reasons behind the inclusion of such a large number of essays and the fact that they are rather loosely grouped under nine different sections (Movies Money and History; Things American (Sort Of); Four Key Films; Pictures and Politics; The End of Masculinity As We Know It; Bodies At Rest and In Motion; Independents; Not Films Exactly and Endgames). Such structure and format allow for potential explorations of themes and topics that would otherwise rarely feature within mainstream academic film criticism but, significantly, also imply a lack of a central thesis or an overarching argument that is normally expected from an academic anthology of such proportions, even when its rationale does not involve a presentation of “a comprehensive tour through the decade” (p 4). Still though, the recurring thread of ‘change’ is forcefully conveyed and the overall merits of the collection far outweigh its relative structural weakness.

Apart from the “usual suspects” one would expect rounded up for such a collection (Elsaesser on the blockbuster, Lewis on censorship, Wyatt on marketing, Schamus on independent cinema and Sharrett on narrative), this anthology offers a large number of short essays on topics that have either been under-researched or consistently ignored by academic criticism. Essays such as ‘The Hollywood History Business’ (pp 33-42) and ‘The Man Who Wanted to Go Back’ (pp 43-49) afford the reader a rare opportunity to look into the business of preserving film history on both a corporate and personal level by exploring the drive behind the preservation practices on those two different levels of engagement with Hollywood history. Keil’s ‘American Cinema in the 1990s and Beyond: Whose Country’s Filmmaking Is It Anyway?’ (pp 53-60) advances a very persuasive argument about the problems of speaking of American Cinema when so many film (and television) productions take place in Canada, when IMAX and Cineplex ODEON are Canada-based companies and when, one could add, the “domestic” box-office gross presented weekly by trade publications such as Variety and Hollywood Reporter includes takings of films from the Canadian screens.

The section on Pictures and Politics (pp 139-181) (which follows on from the rather arbitrary Four Key Films: The Matrix, Fight Club, The Blair Witch Project and Saving Private Ryan – all chosen films were released in the last two years of the 1990s and therefore do not convincingly stand for the whole decade) is particularly interesting in terms of the diversity of political issues that are explored. Dana Polan’s piece in particular, entitled ‘The Confusions of Warren Beatty’ (pp 141-149), throws the critical spotlight to the work of one of the most significant figures in The New Hollywood, a filmmaker and star who has nevertheless been consistently ignored by academic criticism. Polan’s discussion of Bulworth (1999), one of the most progressive political films of the last decade, revises a long standing argument that sees auteurism as incompatible with a political approach to film, and counter-argues that “individual creativity can [indeed] be put forward as a political act” (p 142), at least in the case of certain directors. On the other hand, Chon A. Noriega’s essay on John Sayles’ ‘Men With Guns’ (pp 168-174) convincingly downplays the film’s political rigour by addressing the problem in the filmmaker’s decision to deny the film’s narrative a concrete historical context (and to opt, instead, for a fabular framework) despite Sayles’ unquestionable level of political commitment in his body of work. Like Polan, Noriega places particular emphasis on narrative concerns and the implications of the film’s authorial signature, though the latter critic moves towards a larger argument that explores the problematic relationship between fiction and history, allegory and specificity.

Finally I would like to briefly mention two other essays that address under-researched topics. Jerry Mosher’s ‘Having Their Cake and Eating It Too: Fat Acceptance Films and the Production of Meaning'(pp 237-249) examines a series of films (released between 1995 and 1996), which feature over-sized central characters, and explores differences and contradictions in the films’ reception by mainstream, alternative and ‘fat acceptance’ publications in order to demonstrate the different ways that specific audiences consume these films. Central to Mosher’s argument is the fundamental difference in reception between the first and the third type of publications whereby, mainstream reviews relegate questions of fatness to the periphery, opting instead to see the characters as ‘outsiders’ or ‘underdogs’ trying to fit in, whilst fat acceptance publications address the subject directly and therefore push narrative and generic concerns out of the picture.

If Mosher’s work represents research on a topic that is rarely addressed in film journals and other relevant publications, Heather Hendershot’s ‘Waiting for the End of the World: Christian Apocalyptic Media at the Turn of the Century’ (pp 332-341) tackles a subject previously untouched by mainstream film criticism. Largely based on primary research material, the author offers a comprehensive account of the crossover success of ‘The Omega Code’, a religious action-adventure film that was produced and distributed by Christian media organisations, and provides an informative insight to the world of Christian media and film with a strong emphasis on distribution business and practices, which, as she argues, are geared towards capitalising on the increasingly growing evangelical audience.

The above brief examples of topics covered in Lewis’s new anthology is, I believe, indicative of the scope of the book. It seems that the New American Cinema has given way to the New American Cinemas, which only loosely share common elements and characteristics. If this is the case then, The End of the Cinema As We Know It is not just ‘a quick shot at the decade past’. Rather, it is a brief glance to the future of American (sort of) cinema.

Obituary

Mary, Viscountess Eccles died at her home, Four Oaks Farm, New Jersey, on 26th August 2003. She was 91 year old. Mary was a bibliophile and an Anglophile, so it is perhaps not surprising that she gravitated towards the British Library. Through her interest in the Library she met David Eccles, who she married in 1984. David and Mary endowed the Eccles Centre for American Studies at the Library in 1991.

Mary Eccles was a book lover and collector whose interest was underpinned by scholarship. Her Columbia PhD developed into her first book, Playwriting for Elizabethans (1949), and stimulated her initial forays into collecting. Her interests shifted thereafter to the 18th century, and especially to the work of Dr Samuel Johnson. Reputed to contain 80 per cent of the known surviving letters from Johnson, her collection of materials pertaining to the lexicographer is unrivalled. Her collection of Boswell materials is almost equally strong, and she also brought together a remarkable range of items relating to Oscar Wilde. Her purpose-built library contains many other treasures, including such items as individual letters from Jane Austen, Peter the Great of Russia, George Washington, Horatio Nelson, and Elizabeth I.

She maintained a very active interest in the British Library, and in the Eccles Centre. In July 2002 the Library hosted a celebration of her 90th birthday, and 2003 was the first time that failing health prevented her from attending the Eccles Centre’s Bryant Lecture. On 16th August Philip Davies, Director of the Centre, visited the Viscountess to discuss the Centre’s activities. Lady Eccles was clearly pleased, but not content to dwell on existing success: ‘Now, we must consider what we are going to do next!’ The Centre will endeavour to continue that commitment.

Philip John Davies
Director, Eccles Centre for American Studies, The British Library, London
Professor of American Studies, De Montfort University, Leicester
Chair, British Association for American Studies

Forthcoming events

INSTITUTE OF UNITED STATES STUDIES

Conferences

Conference and Recital
Prokofiev in America
In collaboration with Prokofiev Archive at Goldsmiths
With Barbara Nissman
Saturday 8 May 2004, Chancellor’s Hall

Churchill and America Conference
In collaboration with the Churchill Archives at Churchill College, Cambridge and the Eccles Centre for American Studies at the British Library
Keynote address: Professor David Cannadine, Institute of Historical Research
Tuesday 8 June 2004, British Library Conference Centre

Institute of English Studies Conference
Wallace Stevens
Monday 26 and Tuesday 27 July 2004, Senate House. Email ies@sas.ac.uk for registration details.

Lectures

Harry Allen Memorial Lecture
Professor Hugh Brogan, University of Essex
Date tbc (February 2004)

Caroline Robbins Lecture
Professor A.E. Dick Howard, University of Virginia
Thursday 17 June 2004, Senate Room

Seminars

Seminars on American Foreign Policy
convened by Dr Robert McGeehan

American Foreign Policies and International Order: Is the Super-Power above the Law?
Professor Colleen Graffy, Director, Pepperdine University School of Law London Programme
Monday 15 March 2004, 6pm, Room 248, Senate House

Prospects for an Independent Palestine: the Evolution of United States Foreign Policy under President George W. Bush
His Excellency Afif Safieh, Palestinian General Delegate to the United Kingdom
Monday 17 May 2004, 6pm, Room 329, Senate House

Seminar on American Law and Politics
Convened by Dr Johnathan O’Neill

Pursuing Happiness within the Bounds of Natural Law: the American Understanding of Rights During the Imperial Crisis, 1763-1774
Dr Roland Marden, University of Sussex
Tuesday 20 January 2004, 5pm, Room 248, Senate House

John Adams and the Republic of Laws
Dr Richard Samuelson, National University of Ireland, Galway
Thursday 4 March 2004, 5pm, Room 350, Senate House

To register for any of the above events please telephone the Institute on 020 7862 8693, or email iuss@sas.ac.uk (a registration fee will apply for conferences).

BAAS Annual Conference 2004

The British Association of American Studies Conference 2004 will be held at Manchester Metropolitan University on the 15-18 April 2004. The annual conference provides an excellent opportunity for librarians to communicate with scholars and postgraduates and keep abreast of developments in the field. For more information please contact Dr Sarah MacLachlan, Department of English, Manchester Metropolitan University, Geoffrey Manton Building, Rosamond Street West, Manchester M15 6LL. Tel: 0161-247 1755, email s.maclachlan@mmu.ac.uk

Publications Offer

The School of Geography and the Environment at Oxford University has surplus copies of a number of official serials. The titles include Canada. Statistical abstract and record; The Canada year book; The Statistical year book of Canada; Statistical abstract of the United States and items from various US Censuses.

For full details of available issues please contact:

Mrs L. Atkinson,
Librarian,
School of Geography and the Environment
Tel: 01865 271911
Email: linda.atkinson@geog.ox.ac.uk

Contents

1. BAAS Library and Resources Sub-Committee Meeting March 2003
2. The Mark Twain Papers and Project
3. Documenting the American South
4. The David Library of the American Revolution
5. American Studies Research Portal Project
6. Alexander Street Press
7. Reviews
8. Useful Websites
9. Forthcoming Events

BAAS Library and Resources Sub-Committee Meeting March 2003

Minutes of the Committee Meeting held at the British Library, Boston Spa,
4 March 2003.

Present:
Mr R J Bennett (British Library, Boston Spa), Secretary
Dr K Halliwell (National Library of Scotland)
Mr D G Heyes (British Library, London)
Mr I Ralston (John Moores University, Liverpool) Chair, from agendum 7
Dr I Wallace (JRULM), Chair, up to agendum 6.

1. Apologies
Prof. P Davies (BAAS)
Ms J Kemble (Eccles Centre)
Mr J Pinfold (Rothermere Institute)
Ms J Hoare (Cambridge University Library) Treasurer

At the commencement of the meeting, Dr Wallace announced that this was a bitter-sweet moment for him, as it was his last meeting. He recollected that he had attended the very first meeting of the committee in the late 1970s and had been involved in its work ever since – even into his retirement. (See also agendum 7)

2. Minutes of the previous meeting
The minutes were signed as a correct record.

3. Matters arising
10(1). Mr Bennett agreed to check back whether he had in fact contacted Prof Davies about the disposal of the University of London US Collections. ACTION RB

4. Treasurer’s report
Ms Hoare had had to submit her apologies at the very last minute, due to a family illness, so a written report was not available. Dr Wallace asked that the secretary convey the committee’s best wishes to her. ACTION RB
Since the last meeting, Ms Hoare had agreed to be the Treasurer. Documentation had been passed to her via Dr Wallace. It was agreed that the first priority was to chase up outstanding invoices. It was agreed that Mr Heyes would do this. ACTION DH

Suggestions for new advertising included YBP (Cathy Boylan), NewsBank, and a range of appropriate publishers.

5. Report from Projects Sub-Committee
Newspaper Project
Dr Halliwell was pleased to announce that the Newspaper database had been successfully mounted on the BAAS Website. Thanks to the efforts of Graham Thompson, an excellent range of searching facilities was available, which answered many of the requirements of the original project concept.
Dr Halliwell commented that unfortunately it still did not include JRULM holdings information. Dr Wallace commented that he had renewed contact with Bill Simpson (now Librarian at JRULM), and he would pursue this on a personal level. He also undertook to seek a new representative from JRULM for the committee ACTION IRW
Dr Halliwell raised the question of publicity for the database. An announcement had been made in the latest issue of the Newsletter. Dr Wallace suggested that announcements should be included in the main BAAS Newsletter and its website. ACTION IR
Mr Ralston suggested a link from his institute’s American Studies website (ACTION IR), and from the Rothermere institute (ACTION JP).
Mr Heyes undertook to ask JK to make a link from the Eccles Centre ACTION DH/JK
Mr Ralston undertook to ask the US Embassy to publicise the database, and also to ask them to consider sponsoring a formal launch event. ACTION IR

6. Newsletter
Mr Bennett apologised for the delay in printing the January issue. This was because of priorities at the BL. Dr Wallace thanked the BL and Lesley Lister specifically for their efforts.
Mr Heyes reiterated his plea for contributions, including contributions from BAAS members.
ACTION ALL/IR
Mr Ralston suggested that a piece on the Rothermere Institute would be welcomed. In response to a request from Mr Heyes for more book reviews, Mr Ralston suggested that these could be taken from the American Studies Centre’s website/magazine book Reviews section. Dr Halliwell agreed to contact Simon Newman at the Hook Centre, Glasgow, for database reviews ACTION KH
Dr Halliwell commented that the (BLARS) Newsletter was not very well “signposted” on the BAAS website. Mr Ralston undertook to mention this to Prof. Davis. ACTION IR
Mr Heyes raised the question of advertising rates. Mr Ralston replied that Prof Davies’s advice was to contact Nick Selby/Graham Thompson about this. ACTION DH

Dr Wallace thanked Mr Heyes for his continuing editorial work on the Newsletter.

7. Hand-over
Chair of the Sub-committee: Dr Wallace formally handed over to Mr Ralston at this point.
In taking over the role, Mr Ralston expressed the wish to formally record the committee’s deep debt of gratitude for the enormous effort and fine work that Dr Wallace had contributed over many years. He commented that it would indeed be a hard act to follow.

Dr Wallace proposed that, in order to maintain the thread of librarianship, Dr Halliwell become Vice-chair of the Committee. This was unanimously supported and Dr Halliwell stated that he was pleased to accept.

8. Future activities
It was agreed that if a further seminar were to be proposed, then it would be wise to seek input from as wide a range of potential attendees as possible, although it was considered important to continue to emphasise the “Resources” direction of the committee. Mr Bennett agreed to draft an email, for consideration by the committee, to be sent to former attendees and other colleagues. ACTION RB
Mr Ralston suggested that the time might be ripe to approach the US Embassy again for support. ACTION IR

9. Date of next meeting
The next meeting will be held at 2:00pm on 3 July 2003, at the American Studies Centre,
Aldham Robarts Centre, Liverpool.

10. Any other business
There was no other business.

The British Library were thanked for their hospitality.

Richard J Bennett
The British Library
9 June, 2003

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The Mark Twain Papers and Project

The Mark Twain Papers contain the private papers of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain) that he himself segregated and made available to his official biographer, Albert Bigelow Paine. From Paine’s death in 1937 until 1979, they were under the care of four successive editors who were also literary executors for Clemens’s estate: Bernard DeVoto at the Houghton Library of Harvard University, Dixon Wecter at the Henry E. Huntington Library in San Marino, California, and later here at Berkeley, followed in turn by Henry Nash Smith and Frederick Anderson, both at Berkeley. This basic core of original documents by and about Mark Twain was deposited at Berkeley in 1949 and bequeathed to the University of California upon the death in 1962 of Mark Twain’s sole surviving daughter, Clara Clemens Samossoud. Since 1949 the Library has added, and continues to add, original documents to that basic core: letters, manuscripts, a dozen scrapbooks kept by Clemens and his brother Orion, first editions and other rare printings, photographs, and various important collateral documents, such as the diaries of Mark Twain’s secretary, Isabel V. Lyon. Since 1980 the expanding archive and the editorial project based in it have been under the direction of Robert H. Hirst.

As a result of intensive, ongoing editorial work since the mid 1960s, and with the co-operation of hundreds of institutions and individuals around the world, a working archive of photocopies and transcriptions has also been assembled – chiefly of letters by Clemens, his wife, and three daughters, but also letters to them, all the major literary manuscripts (published and unpublished) that are known to survive, books from his personal library, photographs, drawings, and so forth. This combination of original and photocopied documents now makes it possible to read virtually every document in Mark Twain’s hand now known to survive, here at Berkeley: some 50 notebooks kept habitually by Clemens between 1855 and his death in 1910; approximately 11,000 letters by him or his immediate family, and more than 17,000 letters to them; about 600 literary manuscripts left unpublished (and often unfinished) in his lifetime; manuscripts ranging from mere fragments to complete drafts (including chapters Clemens later deleted) for almost all of the books he published and for perhaps a tenth of his published short works (sketches, essays, editorials, speeches, poems); working notes, typescripts, and proofs for various titles; first editions and other lifetime editions, including American, English, Australian, Canadian, and German or Continental printings of his various books; about 150 books from his library, usually with marginalia; uncounted business documents, clippings, scrapbooks, interviews, bills, cheques, photographs, and a handful of objects originally owned by him.

The Project maintains separate, chronological files of all known letters by Clemens or his immediate family, and all known letters to or about Clemens and his immediate family. It is possible to see any of various selections from these files (all letters to Bret Harte, for instance, or all letters from Harte to Clemens); it is also possible to read every letter in chronological order for any given period between 1853 and 1910. Catalogues of both files have been published and are for sale by the University of California Press: The Union Catalog of Clemens Letters (1986) and The Union Catalog of Letters to Clemens (1992), both edited by Paul Machlis. These catalogues constitute an index to the letters, with fields such as “addressee” and “date,” not a reading file of the letter texts themselves. A regularly updated on-line version of both catalogues is also available. The texts of Clemens’s earliest letters, dating from 1853 through 1873, have been published in the first five volumes of the Mark Twain Project’s Letters series. A searchable electronic file (as yet in rough, uncorrected form) of all other known letters by Clemens, encompassing the years 1876 through 1910, is now available. In addition, all the original letters owned by the Mark Twain Papers are available on microfilm.

The notebooks Clemens kept between 1855 and June 1891 have been edited and indexed by the Project and published by the University of California Press, in Mark Twain’s Notebooks & Journals, volumes 1-3. Notebooks kept after June 1891 are available in typescripts, and have been indexed by card file in the Mark Twain Papers offices. All of the original notebooks are available on microfilm.

Both published and unpublished manuscripts together with related documents such as drafts, typescripts, or proofs may be accessed through a card-file index at the Project. An analytical index of all original manuscripts that are available on microfilm has been prepared by Paul Berkowitz, an independent Mark Twain scholar, and may be searched, either in its hard copy or in electronic form. Both the published and the unpublished portions of this sprawling work may be consulted in a photocopy of the original manuscripts and typescripts, the latter dictated and sometimes revised by Clemens. An incomplete card-file index is available; published forms of the Autobiography are also indexed. All of the original documents are available on microfilm.

More than three dozen scrapbooks, some of which are Clemens’s own patented design, contain miscellaneous clippings and documents saved by Clemens or his family. Some hold unique documents, such as the only surviving clippings of letters and stories Mark Twain published in the early 1860s in the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise. Clemens himself mined a few of the scrapbooks for printer’s copy while writing The Innocents Abroad and Roughing It. An electronic finding guide to the scrapbooks is now available.

The Project maintains an extensive working library of Mark Twain’s books in various editions, as well as contemporary and foreign language reprints. The archive includes about 150 books from Mark Twain’s home library. A searchable electronic inventory of the titles is available, and the books are also catalogued on Pathfinder the University’s Online library catalogue. In addition, photocopies of marginalia from about 140 books owned by other institutions and private collectors are also held.

An electronic finding aid for the pictorial collection, including digital images of over 2000 items, is available for searching at the Project. An online version will be available shortly. Visitors to the archive may also access this collection (mainly photographs, but also including cased miniatures, drawings, caricatures, and engravings) through several albums of viewing prints, arranged chronologically, and segregated by subject: (1) Clemens; (2) the Clemens family; (3) photographs taken by Clemens’s youngest daughter, Jean, between 1900 and 1905; (4) photographs taken by Clemens’s secretary, Isabel V. Lyon, between 1904 and 1908; and (5) photographs of people and places associated with Clemens, arranged alphabetically. Our collection of cased photographs and miniatures may be viewed online, along with full descriptive notes.

The archive’s holdings range from original documents that belonged to Clemens himself, including mining deeds, book contracts, and financial records, to countless photocopies gleaned from contemporary newspapers reporting on Clemens and his associates. This body of information grows on a daily basis as the editorial project identifies and adds materials. Much of this documentation is filed and indexed alphabetically by subject. There are also extensive files of unindexed miscellaneous materials arranged chronologically.

For further information please see http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/MTP/index.html

Text by permission of the Mark Twain Project

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Documenting the American South

Documenting the American South (DAS), an electronic collection sponsored by the Academic Affairs Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, provides access to digitised primary materials that offer Southern perspectives on American history and culture. It supplies teachers, students, and researchers at every educational level with a wide array of titles they can use for reference, studying, teaching, and research.

Currently, DAS includes six digitisation projects: slave narratives, first-person narratives, Southern literature, Confederate imprints, materials related to the church in the black community, and North Caroliniana.

“North American Slave Narratives, Beginnings to 1920” documents the individual and collective story of the African American struggle for freedom and human rights in the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. When completed, it will include all the narratives of fugitive and former slaves published in broadsides, pamphlets, or book form in English up to 1920 and many of the biographies of fugitive and former slaves published in English before 1920. The Editor of this series, William L. Andrews, E. Maynard Adams Professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, selects the texts for this project, while the Editorial Board for Documenting the American South guides its development. The texts come from the Academic Affairs Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Duke University, North Carolina Central University, and from other repositories around the United States. The project is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities with additional support from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation.

“First-Person Narratives of the American South” documents the American South from the viewpoint of Southerners. It focuses on the diaries, autobiographies, memoirs, travel accounts, and ex-slave narratives of relatively inaccessible populations: women, African Americans, enlisted men, labourers, and Native Americans. “First-Person Narratives of the American South, 1860-1920” was a 1996/97 Award Winner of The Library of Congress/Ameritech National Digital Library Competition, which funded the digitisation of 101 texts.

The “Library of Southern Literature” documents the riches and diversity of Southern experience as presented in one hundred of its most important literary works. The bibliography was compiled by the late Professor Robert Bain, based on suggestions from colleagues in Southern studies around the country. The texts for this project come primarily from the Academic Affairs Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“The Southern Homefront, 1861-1865,” documents Southern life during the Civil War, especially the unsuccessful attempt to create a viable nation state as evidenced in both private and public life. “Homefront” includes over four hundred digitised and encoded contemporary printed works and manuscripts, accompanied by ca. 1,000 images of currency, manuscript letters, maps, broadsides, title pages, illustrations, and photographs. As Scholarly Advisor to the project, William Barney, Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, selected the texts for this project.

“The Church in the Southern Black Community” traces how Southern African Americans experienced and transformed Protestant Christianity into the central institution of community life. Coverage begins with white churches’ conversion efforts, especially in the post-revolutionary period, and depicts the tensions and contradictions between the egalitarian potential of evangelical Christianity and the realities of slavery. It focuses, through slave narratives and observations by other African American authors, on how the black community adapted evangelical Christianity, making it a metaphor for freedom, community, and personal survival. Selection of texts is guided by a trio of scholarly advisors to the project: Reginald Hildebrand, Associate Professor of Afro-American Studies and History; Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp, Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Adjunct Professor of American Studies; and Donald G. Mathews, Professor of History and American Studies

“The North Carolina Experience, Beginnings to 1940″ is an ongoing digitisation project that tells the story of the Tar Heel State as seen through representative histories, descriptive accounts, institutional reports, fiction, and other writing. It comprises digitised and encoded printed works, images, and oral history interviews and workplace songs. Selection of texts is guided by scholarly advisors James L. Leloudis, Associate Professor of History, and Harry L. Watson, Professor of History, both faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill.

North Carolinians and the Great War” examines how World War I shaped the lives of different North Carolinians on the battlefield and on the home front as well how the state and federal government responded to wartime demands. The site focuses on the years of American involvement in the war between 1917 and 1919, but it also examines the legacies of the war in the 1920s. It uses a variety of digitised and encoded texts and images drawn from the North Carolina Collection, the Rare Book Collection, and the Southern Historical Collection of the Academic Affairs Library at UNC-Chapel Hill.

As of July 1, 2003, DAS includes 1,240 books and manuscripts. Most are accompanied by a full bibliographic record. We invite libraries to include bibliographic information on texts of interest in local online catalogues. Catalogue records for these electronic texts are available in OCLC’s Worldcat and in UNC-Chapel Hill’s OPAC at: http://web2.lib.unc.edu/

For further information please see http://docsouth.unc.edu/index.html

Text by permission of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library.

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The David Library of the American Revolution

The David Library of the American Revolution is a privately endowed, non-profit foundation devoted to the study of American history circa 1750 to 1800. The library’s mission is the collection and dissemination of information on the period and the support of related programmes. It was founded by Sol Feinstone (1888-1980), a businessman, philanthropist, and collector of Americana who emigrated from Lithuania in 1902 at age fourteen.

The library was established in 1959 and opened on its present location in 1974. For years, Feinstone had been passionately interested in educating the American public about the early history of their country. He contemplated several options for displaying his collection of books and original eighteenth-century manuscripts on the Revolutionary period that he had amassed over five decades. While in his early eighties, Feinstone conceived and brought to fruition an idea to construct on his farm in Washington Crossing a library devoted to the study of the American Revolution.

The David Library is primarily a microform archive of approximately 10,000 reels that contain an estimated 8 million pages of documentation. The collection is supported by a reference collection of 40,000 books and pamphlets in both bound volumes and microcards. Although the main focus is on the American Revolution, in recent years the library has been augmenting its materials on the French and Indian War and the early national periods. Microfilm holdings currently include over 200 collections from domestic and foreign repositories. The collections also hold a wealth of material on women, families, African Americans, and Indians. Facilities include the research library, a conference centre, and a residence facility for visiting fellows.

The library is particularly strong in materials from British sources, some of which are not available elsewhere in the United States. It has underwritten the microfilming of collections that are relatively inaccessible. Significant collections from Britain include: American Loyalist Claims; Sir Jeffrey Amherst Papers; Lord Cornwallis Papers; Sir Frederick Haldimand Papers; Sir Guy Carleton (British Headquarters) Papers; Admiralty Secretary’s Letters; Colonial Office Correspondence; Annual Army Lists; War Office Papers; Foreign Office Papers; and Home Office Papers. In addition to the complete Loyalist claims series, the library also has other materials from Canada and Britain on Americans who opposed the Revolution such as American Loyalist Muster Rolls; Ward Chipman Papers; and Documents Relating to Refugees. Information on German troops may be found in British records and Hessian Documents of the American Revolution.

The David Library also has an extensive collection of American government records on the state and national levels from the U.S. National Archives, the Library of Congress, and other repositories. Notable among these microforms are: Records of the States of the United States (executive, legislative, and constitutional records); Papers of the Continental Congress; Records of Pennsylvania’s Revolutionary Governments; Treasury records; the 1790 and the 1800 Censuses; and assorted financial and diplomatic materials. Letters of Delegates to Congress is available for patron use on CD- ROM.

Another strength is military service records. The library has the entire Revolutionary War Pension Application and Bounty Land Warrant Files; Compiled Service Records; Early American Orderly Books; Naval Records Collection; Quartermasters’ Returns; Forbes Headquarters Papers; New Jersey Revolutionary War Service Records; and U.S. Numbered Record Books Concerning Military Operations.

A wealth of documentation on frontier and Indian history may be found in the Draper Manuscript Collection; Amherst Papers; U.S. Ratified Indian Treaties; Baynton, Wharton, and Morgan Papers; and Winthrop Sargent Papers. Other material on the frontier and missionary activity can be found in records of the Moravian Church and the Anglican Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.

Important personal and official papers include those of Aaron Burr; Benjamin Franklin; Nathanael Greene; the Hancock Family; Henry Knox; Henry Laurens; the Lee Family; Gouverneur Morris; Robert Morris; Timothy Pickering; Joseph Reed; Arthur St. Clair; Baron von Steuben; Jonathan Trumbull Jr.; George Washington; and Oliver Wolcott Jr. In addition, the collection has a large number of letters, diaries, account books, and journals of other prominent and lesser-known people.

We are implementing our goal of acquiring every American newspaper available on microfilm that relates to our period of specialisation. Currently, the library has over 140 newspapers that span most of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries from Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont, and Virginia. Some major titles are Connecticut Courant, Boston Gazette, Rivington’s Gazette, Pennsylvania Packet, and Gazette of the United States. The Pennsylvania Gazette is available in CD-ROM format.

Many doctoral dissertations from American and British universities are on file. Also available are the Early American Imprints of Charles Evans’ American Bibliography, which contain over 36,000 books, broadsides, and pamphlets. Supplementing this collection is the American Periodical Series I, 1741-1800. Finally, the Library’s own Sol Feinstone manuscript collection of approximately 2500 original items, which are significant in content, contains information pertinent to many research projects. A comprehensive indexed guide to the Feinstone Collection is available from the library.

For more information please see http://www.dlar.org

Text by permission of The David Library of the American Revolution

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American Studies Research Portal Project

http://www.sas.ac.uk/iuss/ASRP.htm

The AMERICAN STUDIES RESEARCH PORTAL (ASRP) will be a free online resource for researchers working on topics related to the United States. The Portal will allow users to search a database of links to UK American Studies experts, researchers, university departments and UK research library collections and archives with a significant United States focus. The site will also provide access to a range of electronic research resources.

Research areas covered by the ASRP will include both humanities and social science subjects. The Portal will contain a mixture of created content and links to other UK American Studies sites. The Portal will offer a keyword search facility which will allow the researcher to explore the site and access a range of resources on a specific topic, for example ‘African-American History’ or ‘Women Writers’.

The ASRP and information resources

The ASRP PROJECT was established in March 2003 and is being developed by the Institute of United States Studies at the University of London in co-ordination with the University of London Library. Gathering collection level descriptions and information on library holdings related to the US in the UK is central to the development of the ASRP. Ultimately, the site will offer a searchable collections/archives database, with details of holdings including content description, types of resources, strengths, size, location and availability. This database will be useful to researchers and information specialists alike. To that end, we are keen to liaise with librarians working in the field of American Studies or the United States, and to collaborate with US focused institutions in the UK.

Your involvement

If you are a librarian or information specialist
If you look after or know of a collection or archive you would like to see on the site, please let us know. Send us your comments and suggestions. Your input regarding the site’s content or suggestions are very valuable to us and will be gratefully received. To contact us or for further information see the address below.

If you are an academic or researcher
It would be great to hear from you if you are an academic, postdoctoral researcher or postgraduate student studying the United States and would like your details to appear on the ASRP ‘experts list.’ You can request a form by email, or visit: http://www.sas.ac.uk/iuss/ASRP.htm to complete an online form.

If you want to make a contribution or enquiry, please contact Victoria Robson (Project Officer, ASRP), ASRP, Institute of United States Studies, Senate House, Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HU, Tel 020 7862 8689, Fax 020 7862 8696, victoria.robson@sas.ac.uk

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Alexander Street Press

A review by Simon P. Newman, Sir Denis Brogan Professor of American Studies, University of Glasgow

Alexander Street Press was founded in 2000, and has rapidly emerged as one of the leading producers of digitised collections in the humanities. It is increasingly common for publishers and libraries to digitise collections of manuscripts and printed materials, but for both teaching and research the Alexander Street Press publications are amongst the best I have encountered.

It is the scholarly approach to digitisation and indexing that makes a difference here. For example, the North American Women’s Letters and Diaries: Colonial to 1950 database contains approximately 150,000 pages of women’s letters and diaries. But while the quantity of materials is impressive, it is the quality of indexing and the user-friendly search engine that makes this material so exciting. The Alexander Street Press editors have gone through each and every document, carefully indexing the contents: thus, for example, one can search for all diary entries by white Southern women, written between 1789 and 1861, mentioning slavery. Such a search generates a lot of results, but could be further narrowed to all diary entries mentioning inter-racial sex, or any of a variety of other topics. The indexing is very thorough – it is quite appropriately termed “semantic indexing” by the Alexander Street Press staff – so that a search will pick up references to something like childbirth even if that precise term is not used in the diary or letter.

There are a growing number of excellent databases available in this series, including Early Encounters in North America: Peoples, Cultures, and the Environment; North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries, and Oral Histories; The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries; American Film Scripts Online; and British and Irish Women’s Letters and Diaries. Once your library has purchased access, there is tremendous research and teaching potential. One colleague of mine used the American Civil War database to locate evidence for his study of clinical depression in nineteenth-century America, while a postgraduate student employed the Early Encounters database for a superb M.Phil. dissertation based on early Indian-European meetings chronicled in the Jesuit Relations. I have used the North American Women’s Letters and Diaries database in my honours course on U.S. Women’s History, including certain documents as required reasons, and encouraging students to employ the database in researching their essays.

More information about Alexander Street Press and its products is available
from http://www.alexanderstreet.com/

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Reviews

What’s A Commie Ever Done To Black People? Curtis J. Morrow. McFarland. ISBN:0-7864-0333-0 Reviewed by Ian Ralston, American Studies Centre.

Although the title of What’s A Commie Ever Done To Black People: A Korean War Memory clearly suggests that this book will be about the war recollections of a young African American soldier, this work is in fact more far reaching. In the first section the author recounts his experiences of training and eventual combat in Korea, in almost forensic detail. The horror of the conflict and its impact on American soldiers, Korean civilians and Korean troops (both North and South) is portrayed in vivid and often disturbing detail. The many and detailed verbal exchanges the author recounts also highlight the contradictions many African Americans troops faced whilst ‘fighting for freedom’ but at the same time (mainly recounted by the conversations with soldiers from the American deep south) the inequalities and racism faced (back) in America.

In later sections the author recounts his growing awareness of the world outside the USA. Consequently, the text could also be considered a personal rite of passage, yet despite this the reader is often left with the feeling of wanting to know more about the author’s life, family and aspirations before joining the military. The sections dealing with his recuperation from injury, court martial and service in Japan, add weight to the author’s views regarding the nature of military life. Particularly of significance are the recollections of Japan that seem to draw together both his ability to ‘play’ the system in order to survive, and to find purpose. His increased awareness of ‘place’, his extensive sexual activities (that say much about male attitudes, particularly at a time of war) and growing sense of awareness brought on by the experience of war and the military culture are also apparent, though not often ‘comfortable’ for the reader. This is particularly the case regarding attitudes to women. The point of awareness and sense of identity is highlighted in his discussions with a fellow (African American) soldier over their African heritage and history.

“I first took it as a racist insult. How dare he connect me with Africa, me, an American soldier that had proven myself on the battlefield…..later during that night….I thought of my grandfather….telling us small kids that his father had told him he was an African…..then I too was of African descent. The realization startled me. How could I be so stupid? Then I realized it wasn’t so much stupidity as ignorance…” (page 126)

There is also, in the later section of the text, some ominous foreshadowing when the author recounts his service with an airborne unit dropping supplies to the French in Vietnam.
Overall, this text makes a valid contribution to not only the study of oral history of war, (particularly the too often neglected area of Korea) but also to studies of masculinity and African American identity. This is achieved essentially through the strongly narrative driven nature of the text.

Review courtesy of the American Studies Centre

Bodily and Narrative Forms: The Influence of Medicine on American Literature, 1845-1915 Cynthia J. Davis, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000. ISBN 08047 3773 8. £35.00. Reviewed by Stephen C. Kenny, PhD candidate, Department of American Studies, School of Media, Critical and Creative Arts, Liverpool John Moores University

Bodily and Narrative Forms is a bold attempt to both reconstruct and examine the interplay between modern medical and literary ideas of embodiment. In terms of precise chronology and location, the book spans the period of orthodox medicine’s professionalisation in the United States, from the founding of the American Medical Association in 1845 through to 1915, the latter historical moment marking the allopaths’ arrival as the dominant force in the American medical marketplace. However, as Davis emphasises in her Introduction, while this era of American history undoubtedly witnessed not only the economic, but also the eventual social and cultural triumphs of regular medicine, this was also a period of turmoil for the profession during which clinical, materialist and physiological beliefs were “challenged either by members of the lay public or by other members of the healing professions” (p.2).

Using a selective sample of the literary productions of this period, Davis asks how a small number of middle-class American authors grappled with these problems of changing notions of embodiment brought on by the increasing influence and authority of science in American medicine and society. In the process of this analysis, Davis also re-evaluates the strange career of sentimentalism in American fiction. For example, the first case study in Bodily and Narrative Forms analyses the medical and literary works of physician and author Oliver Wendell Holmes, who, for the most part, employed a writing style that mirrored the clinical gaze then fashionable in orthodox American medicine. Davis notes that despite using an objective and disembodied form of narration for the majority of his first novel, the proto-realist Elsie Venner (1861), at the close of this tale Holmes reverts to the sentimental mode, investing the physician-narrator with a sympathy and sensitivity absent from the clinical perspective and almost certain to appeal to a mid-nineteenth century readership. By contrast, chapter two examines the work of Louisa May Alcott, Harriot K. Hunt, and Margaret Fuller, and their defiance of the standard formulas of sentimental fiction, with its female stereotypes of “precarious physicality” and “excessive emotionalism” (p54).

I believe Bodily and Narrative Forms is at its most rewarding and engaging in providing stimulating and original close readings of the individual American authors who comprise the text’s case studies. However, I also feel that both the choice and small number of texts selected by Davis limits the scope and utility of her inquiry. While the five case studies examined here do include the voices of women and African-American writers, there is no sustained consideration of slave, Native American, immigrant or working-class perspectives on embodiment, literary form, orthodox or ‘irregular’ medical beliefs and practices. In addition to being an era of professionalisation and intense industrialisation (as acknowledged by Davis), the period 1845 to 1915 in the history of the United States also witnessed Southern slavery’s apogee and demise, the Civil War, Reconstruction, the first great migration of African-Americans to the Northern states, massive European immigration (from Northern and then Southern Europe), Westward expansion and the destruction of the Plains Indians, large-scale urban growth and the rapid expansion of networks of transportation and communication, the development of mass entertainment, sport and leisure, and legalised racial segregation. Listing just a handful of the possible historical moments contained in a broad survey of this time-frame immediately suggests, to me at least, the absolute necessity for a wider variety of texts and voices in the construction of a critique examining “the heterogeneous and complicated ways in which physical existence was both lived and understood” in the United States in this period (p6). For example, had Frederick Douglass’s Narrative (1845) or Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) been included in Davis’s fifth chapter on ‘Black Aesthetics,’ then we might have gained some sense of a range of African-American experiences of embodiment in relation to changing historical circumstances in both medicine and society. Bodily and Narrative Forms is likely to be of greatest use to graduate students and researchers engaged in the field of nineteenth-century American literary studies.

Review courtesy of the American Studies Centre

American Film and Society Since 1945. Leonard Quart and Albert Auster. Praeger, 2002. Reviewed by Brian Neve.

This much revised and expanded edition of a book that first appeared in 1984 is very welcome. The book does not offer any elaborate theoretical apparatus for investigating the interaction of film and society, and neither is it a book that delves deeply into the production context of American film. What the book does provide, and in good measure, is thoughtful, morally aware criticism of the social and aesthetic qualities of key American films since World War II, together with a related survey of the main social and political currents and events of the era. The third edition achieves a stature and overall persuasiveness that deserves wider recognition and use in American Studies programmes dealing with film and society.

It is significant that the authors cite James Agee, Robert Warshow and Raymond Williams in their introduction. Although written reflectively, the treatments of individual films read with a freshness and spontaneity, while the treatment of their moral and political implications is never simple or didactic. Surveying American film decade by decade from the forties, with the eighties and nineties being given slightly more space, the writers concentrate on what Michael Wood calls the ‘public classics’, examining the way the films convey their social and cultural values and commitments. To Quart and Auster the book ‘is based on the anachronistic idea that a passion for and a personal commitment to the imaginative life of films can be an integral part of the critical process, and the critique can be conveyed in a language that any intelligent person who cares about film can understand.’

Some slightly overblown claims have recently been made for the influence on Hollywood film of the Popular Front generation, but the writers here provide judicious treatment of the ‘culture of liberalism’ that had become established in the film industry in the thirties, and the way that this surfaced in forties work. There is a good assessment, in particular, of the post-war cycle on race, of Abraham Polonsky’s striking, and immediately pre-blacklist, Force of Evil, of the problematic classic of the McCarthy era, On the Waterfront, and of the emerging film image of Sidney Poitier. The authors are clearly particularly concerned with the cultural and political developments of the sixties and seventies, and also they explore the developing conversation between film and the social movements of the time, particularly in relation to the Vietnam War. As well as the usual suspects, freshly assessed, there are also recommendations of less well-known films – The Americanisation of Emily for example. There is a particularly illuminating and trenchant analysis of Bonnie and Clyde. The film is celebrated for vindicating the judgement of audiences over film critics, but subjected to a morally searching examination of the way it at times drifts into a ‘simplistic and even dangerous’ presentation of the outlaws as political rebels. There is no undue respect to received opinions, bestowed by critics or audiences.

Each chapter begins with a survey of the main political developments of the decade, and there is also some treatment of changes in the structure of film production. But the bulk of each chapter assesses, and reassesses, a range of the most resonant films of the era. One can always make criticisms of studies based around decades, and perhaps there are sometimes too many references to such notions as the ‘spirit of the sixties’ and the ‘me generation’. There are also occasionally films where the plot summary is too central. But overall there is an awareness of these difficulties, and a complex sense of changing currents in film, culture and society that is likely to prompt teachers, students and general readers alike to thought about film in all its contexts and implications.

The new edition is especially strong on the eighties and nineties. This is also a refreshing liberal perspective that is happily under no obligation to push the data into any overall conspiratorial frame. The extra space on the last two decades of the century allows some particularly insightful discussions of films as varied as Reds, Full Metal Jacket (with Kubrick’s ‘Hobbesian view of human nature’), Saving Private Ryan, Schindler’s List, Nixon, and American Beauty. One can pick arguments here and there, but Quart and Auster are to be congratulated on a survey that is constantly lively and stimulating – a humanistic view of the development of post-war American film that never sacrifices considerations of aesthetics to ideology (carefully considering how films work and how and why they don’t) but stands up for the importance of political and social values in our critical understanding of cinema.

Review courtesy of the American Studies Centre

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Useful Websites

Governor’s Office of Indian Affairs Washington State

http://www.goia.wa.gov

This site provides access to a regularly updated directory of Washington State tribes. It also contains histories about specific tribes including information on tribal treaties and government relations. Links are provided to other Washington State Government sites, regional tribes and native resources.

The Crisis of the Union: An electronic Archive of Documents about the Causes, Conduct, and Consequences of the US Civil War

http://dewey.library.upenn.edu/sceti/abolitionism

This site provides researchers and students access to “pamphlets, books, broadsides, cartoons, clippings, paintings, maps and other printed memorabilia from circa 1830 to 1880. Items are drawn primarily from the collection of the Library Company of Philadelphia. The site is searchable by author, title, subject and date.

Southwest Jewish Archives

http://dizzy.library.arizona.edu/images/swja/

“The Bloom Southwest Jewish Archives at the University of Arizona Library is a research collection dedicated to collecting and recording the dramatic history of pioneer Jews in the Desert Southwest, covering Arizona, New Mexico, and West Texas. It is a repository for major collections of primary materials on Jewish families from these areas — including the Fred and Harriet Rochlin Collection and Rabbi Floyd Fierman Collection. The Bloom Archives has family histories, original memoirs and historic photographs”.

French Volunteers and Supporters of the American Revolution

http://xenophongroup.com/mcjoynt/volunt.htm

A continually developing website containing biographical information on French military volunteers. These officers pre-date the official French military and naval participation in the revolutionary war. The site will later include information on French civilian supporters.

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Forthcoming Events

INSTITUTE OF UNITED STATES STUDIES

Conferences

American Studies Postgraduate Conference
In collaboration with the British Association for American Studies
25 October 2003, Senate House

Conference and Concert
To Celebrate the Centenary of Bix Beiderbecke
Co-hosted with the Royal Academy of Music
13-14 November 2003, Senate House and Royal Academy of Music

Book Launch

Susan-Mary Grant and Peter J. Parish (eds.), Legacy of Disunion: The Enduring
Significance of the American Civil War (Baton Rouge; Louisiana State
University Press, 2003)

and

Peter J. Parish, Adam I.P. Smith and Susan-Mary Grant (eds.) The North and the Nation in the Era of the Civil War, (New York: Fordham University Press, 2003).

Tuesday 28 October 2003
6 pm, Senate Room

For more information please contact:
Institute of United States Studies
University of London
Senate House
Malet Street
London WC1E 7HU
Tel: 020 7862 8692
Fax: 020 7862 8696
http://www.sas.ac.uk/iuss

Contents

1. BAAS Library and Resources Sub-Committee Meeting June 2002
2. The National Security Archive
3. Native American Studies Collections
4. Newspaper Holdings Database goes live!
5. Kansas State Historical Society
6. Review
7. Useful Websites
8. Forthcoming Events

BAAS Library and Resources Sub-Committee Meeting June 2002

Minutes of the Committee Meeting held at the British Library, St. Pancras, London, 18 June 2002

Present:
Mr R J Bennett (British Library, Boston Spa), Secretary
Miss A Cowden (University of London)
Dr K Halliwell (National Library of Scotland)
Mr D G Heyes (British Library, London)
Ms J Hoare (Cambridge University Library)
Dr I Wallace (JRULM), Chair

1. Apologies
Ms K Bateman (USIS Reference Centre)
Ms L Crawley (JRULM), Treasurer.
Prof. P Davies (BAAS)
Ms C Hodkinson (JRULM)
Ms J Kemble (Eccles Centre)
Mr I Ralston (John Moores University, Liverpool)

2. Minutes of the previous meeting
Min.3. Seminar. Dr Wallace said that he had agreed to progress a future event by email discussion rather than a meeting.

The minutes were signed as a correct record.

3. Matters arising
No matters arising, not otherwise covered in the agenda.

4. Treasurer’s report
Ms Crawley had submitted a written report.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

This is my final report as Treasurer of BLARS and I would like to begin by thanking members for their support. In particular I wish to thank both Iain Wallace and Richard Bennett whose encouragement and support throughout my time on the committee has proved invaluable. Both my work and research commitments prevent me from carrying on in the post as Treasurer, hence I wish to resign and give someone else the opportunity to give the position the enthusiasm and time that it deserves.

Turning to the statement of accounts: This has been a slow period for BLARS. On the income side we have carried forward an opening balance of £1544.68 from the last meeting of the 5th February 2002. This figure should increase considerably by the next meeting. As you are aware there are a number of outstanding invoices from advertisers in our Newsletter. We have received no payments since issue 50. To rectify this I have prepared three invoices to be sent to Blackwells, Coutts and Thompson Henry by the next treasurer for issues 51 to 54 of the Newsletter. This will add an extra £1000 to our account – giving a considerable boost to our income.

The total figure for the expenditure side is £103.94 which covers the cost of issue number 54 of the Newsletter.

The balance in hand is currently £1440.74. As on previous occasions, the sum of £463.68 remains earmarked for the Newspaper Project. An amount that has been suggested we could use for a database conversion, if indeed this is deemed necessary. This means that a total of £977.06 signifies the uncommitted balance in hand.

Lisa Crawley
Hon. Treasurer BAAS LARS
18th June 2002

Dr Halliwell asked what the trend was in the Committee’s accounts. Dr Wallace explained that the Committee’s accounts are really a written account of transactions, and that they are managed and underwritten by the BAAS Treasurer, Nick Selby.

Dr Wallace thanked Ms Crawley for all her work to date.

5. Report from Projects Sub-Committee

US Newspaper Holdings in UK & Irish Libraries
Report by Dr Kevin Halliwell.

As of February 2002 all information on US newspaper holdings had been received and entered into the wordfile, with the exception of information from John Rylands University Library Manchester. There was still some information outstanding from the TUC Library on its discontinued titles (the collection is now at the University of North London). Since then I have heard from Christine Coates that it is not likely to be able to commit any time to researching this material, which is uncatalogued. I recently contacted Diana Leitch at JRULM but as yet have had no reply.

Meanwhile I contacted Graham Thompson, who manages the BAAS website, in order to discuss with him mounting the list on the site, preferably as a database. He confirmed that the list could and should go on the BAAS site, preferably in database format. He also said he could see no problems in converting the present tabular wordfile into a database, and that he should be able to do this at the end of June. Adding the JRULM information to the database will not pose any problems as long as it is submitted in the same tabular form.

Dr Wallace commented that he would speak to Diana Leitch at JRULM and emphasise the urgency of the request. ACTION IRW

Dr Halliwell enquired as to the content of the introduction. Dr Wallace proposed that Dr Halliwell draft an introduction for him to check. ACTION KH

It was agreed that Dr Halliwell would ask G Thompson (BAAS Website) for keyword searching of the file by field. ACTION KH

It was proposed and agreed that a note should be included on the database, at the end of the introduction, thanking all the sponsors for their contribution. ACTION KH

Ms Cowden suggested that, as a follow-up to the database, a future seminar should be themed around newspapers and “the media.”

Dr Wallace acknowledged Dr Halliwell’s major contribution to the success of the project and offered him the Committee’s heartfelt thanks.

6. Newsletter

Mr Heyes reported that the next issue No. 54 would be published in August. Mr Bennett was asked to ensure it was mounted on the BAAS website as usual. ACTION RB

Charges for advertising were discussed. Mr Heyes was asked to seek advice from Prof Davies about other journals’ advertising prices. ACTION DH

Dr Wallace proposed that the revenue for issues up to and including No. 54 be chased, and new rates be agreed for No. 55 onwards. He asked Mr Heyes to ask Ms Crawley to forward to him all outstanding invoices. ACTION DH

Following the action from the last meeting, it had been confirmed that funding of the Newsletter should continue on the present basis, and that BAAS had agreed to underwrite it.

Dr Wallace thanked Mr Heyes for his continuing editorial work on the Newsletter.

7. Sub-Committee membership

Chair of the Sub-committee: Dr Wallace reiterated his comment that he is now retired, has other interests to pursue and receives no financial support to attend Sub-committee meetings. He also stressed that he felt that it is not in BAAS’s interests for him to continue as chair. He committed to convening the next meeting, but emphasised that this would definitely be his last. It was also suggested that a role of vice-chair could be taken on by a librarian on the committee. ACTION ALL

Treasurer. Dr Wallace announced to the group that Ms Crawley had communicated to him her resignation as Treasurer to the committee. A volunteer to take over the role was sought. ACTION ALL

Dr Wallace wished to convey the committee’s gratitude to Ms Crawley for her work as Treasurer.

Further new members. Dr Wallace suggested that John Pinfold, now Librarian at the Rothermere Institute, be invited to rejoin the committee. He asked Mr. Bennett to draft a suitable letter. ACTION RB/IRW

Projects sub-committee. Dr Halliwell proposed that this sub-group be abandoned upon the completion of the Newspapers project. It was agreed that working groups would be convened on an ad hoc basis, as required.

8. Next Seminar
It was agreed that it would be unfair to commit the new Chairperson to an event s/he had no part in organising. It was agreed that all members should consider topics, etc, before the next meeting. ACTION ALL

9. Date of next meeting
The next meeting will be held on 4 March 2003, at the British Library, Boston Spa. ACTION RB

10. Any other business
1. Miss Cowden raised the issue of dispersal of the US collection at the University of London, which she said should be a matter of grave concern for BAAS. It is used by a wide range of researchers. Dr Wallace asked Mr Bennett to alert Prof Davies in both his roles, as chair of BAAS and head of the Eccles Centre, and to ask him to contact the Vice Chancellor and the Chairman of the University Library Board. ACTION RB

2. Miss Cowden also stressed the need for a representative from ULL on the Sub-committee, once she had retired. ACTION IRW

3. At this point Dr Wallace expressed the Sub-committee’s regret that Ms Cowden would be unable to continue as a representative on the Sub-committee, and offered his own and the Sub-committee’s thanks for the continuous valuable contribution Ms Cowden had made to its work. Dr Wallace pointed out that, apart from himself, she was the only remaining founder member of the group.

The British Library were thanked for their hospitality.

The National Security Archive

The National Security Archive combines a unique range of functions in one non-governmental, non-profit institution. The Archive is simultaneously a research institute on international affairs, a library and archive of declassified U.S. documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, a public interest law firm defending and expanding public access to government information through the FOIA, and an indexer and publisher of the documents in books, microfiche, and electronic formats. The Archive’s approximately $1.8 million yearly budget comes from publication revenues and from private philanthropists such as the Carnegie Corporation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Ford Foundation. As a matter of policy, the Archive receives no government funding.

The National Security Archive was founded in 1985 by a group of journalists and scholars who had obtained documentation from the U.S. government under the Freedom of Information Act and sought a centralised repository for these materials. Over the past decade, the Archive has become the world’s largest non-governmental library of declassified documents. Located on the seventh floor of the George Washington University’s Gelman Library in Washington, D.C., the Archive is designed to apply the latest in computerised indexing technology to the massive amount of material already released by the U.S. government on international affairs, make them accessible to researchers and the public, and go beyond that base to build comprehensive collections of documents on specific topics of greatest interest to scholars and the public.

The Archive’s holdings include more than two million pages of accessioned material in over 200 separate collections. Supporting some 30 terminals, the Archive’s computer system hosts major databases of released documents (over 100,000 records), authority files of individuals and organisations in international affairs (over 30,000 records), and FOIA requests filed by Archive staff and outside requesters on international affairs (over 20,000 records). Despite the Archive’s non-traditional role (since the originals remain inside the government – hopefully), Archive staff have developed extensive expertise with all levels of archival record keeping, ranging from basic collection description to box and file level inventories to individual document cataloguing.

The Archive reading room is open to the public without charge, and has welcomed visitors from 32 foreign countries and across the United States-some of whom stay for weeks. The Archive fields more than 2,500 public service requests for documents and information every year. Archive staff are frequently called on to testify before Congress, lecture at universities, and appear on national broadcasts and in media interviews on the subject of the Freedom of Information Act and various topics in international affairs for which the Archive’s collections provide documentation.

The Archive’s financial affairs are administered by The National Security Archive Fund, Inc., a not-for-profit District of Columbia-based corporation established exclusively to promote research and public education on U.S. governmental and national security decision making and to promote openness in government and government accountability through making government information more widely available to the public. Audited financial reports for the National Security Archive’s activities prior to 1999 are included in the annual audits performed by the CPA firms of Keller Bruner & Company (1993-1998) and Deloitte & Touche (1985-1992) for the Fund for Peace, Inc., a New York-based tax-exempt corporation which served as the Archive’s fiscal sponsor from 1985-1998. As an operating division of the National Security Archive Fund, Inc., the Archive receives tax-deductible funding from foundations, and approximately 20% of the Archive’s annual budget from publication royalties.

The first major publication of the Archive was a 678-page mass-market paperback published by Warner Books in 1987, The Chronology, on the Iran-contra affair. Time magazine called the book “must reading,” and Ted Koppel of ABC News Nightline praised it for including “every known fact about the Iran-contra scandal.”

The second Archive publication project has produced a series of large microform collections of documents on U.S. foreign policy as well as a CD-ROM index to the entire series co-published by the scholarly micropublisher Chadwyck-Healey, Inc. These collections include an average of 16,000 pages of documents released through the FOIA and other governmental processes, accompanied by finding aids which average over 1,700 pages for each collection indices, catalogues, chronologies, glossaries, bibliographies and introductory essays. More than 400 copies of these microfiche collections have been purchased by universities and research libraries and in ten foreign countries. Microform Review stated, “The NSA series is unusual in public document publishing… it makes documents available from the twilight zone between currently released government information, and normal declassification after the elapse of the statutory period.” Government Publications Review wrote, “NSA collections are almost universally praised for adding a new and invaluable research tool to national security studies.”

The Archive publishes document readers for classroom and general public use. One of these series is published by The New Press and distributed by W.W. Norton & Company. The first volume, The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962 (415 pp.), appeared in October 1992 (the 30th anniversary of the Crisis), with a foreword by former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara; the second reader, The Iran-Contra Scandal: The Declassified History (412 pp.), appeared in May 1993 with a foreword by Theodore Draper. The Washington Post Book World recommended the Missile Crisis book to “the reader who wishes to gain a sense of involvement in the travails of the crisis managers;” and the Tampa Tribune described the Iran-contra reader as a “Rosetta Stone” for deciphering the scandal. The third volume, South Africa and the United States: The Declassified History, was published in March 1994. The fourth volume, White House E-Mail: The Top Secret Computer Messages the Reagan-Bush White House tried to Destroy (254 pp.), reached bookstores in November 1995, and included a floppy disk containing 260 e-mail messages in addition to the 256-page paperback. The New York Times hailed the book as “a stream of insights into past American policy, spiced with depictions of White House officials in poses they would never adopt for a formal portrait.” The most recent of the documents readers include Bay of Pigs Declassified and The Kissinger Transcripts: The Top Secret Talks with Beijing and Moscow. The second set of readers includes The Prague Spring 1968, published by the Central European University Press in Budapest.

In the process of developing its extensive collections, the Archive has become the leading non-profit user of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. The Archive has inherited more than 2,000 requests from outside requesters who donated their documents and their pending requests to the Archive, and initiated more than 20,000 other FOIA requests over the past fifteen years. The Archive’s work has set new precedents under the FOIA, including more efficient procedures for document processing at the State Department, less burden on requesters to qualify for waivers of processing fees, and the archival preservation of electronic information held by the government. Archive lawsuits under FOIA have forced the release of previously secret documents ranging from the Kennedy-Khruschev letters during the Cuban Missile Crisis to the diaries of Oliver North during Iran-contra.

The Archive’s expertise in the U.S. FOIA, as well as in archival and library practices, has brought delegations from South Africa, Russia, Hungary, Germany, Pakistan, India, the Philippines, and various Latin American countries to the Archive to learn from this innovative model of a non-governmental institutional memory for formerly secret government documents and the Freedom of Information Act. The Archive is currently working with non-governmental institutions in more than a dozen countries to expand open government laws and practices both here and abroad.

Text courtesy of The National Security Archive.

For more information please see http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/

Native American Studies Collections

Ethnic Studies Library, University of California, Berkeley.

The Berkeley Native American Studies Collection was founded in 1970 as the Native American Studies Library. Linked to the Native American Studies Department at Berkeley, the library became an integral part of the project to interrupt mainstream dominant histories, with research by Native American scholars and their allies in order to produce educational resources meaningful to Native American communities. Since then it has grown into a repository for a number of collections increasingly important to Native American Studies scholars in the United States and Canada. It also provides services on a regular basis to visiting researchers from Europe and elsewhere who are particularly interested in materials on contemporary Native American communities.

Reflecting our collection’s close relationship with the growth of Native American Studies as an academic discipline, we collect materials pertinent to the growth of the field. Because of its location in the Oakland-San Francisco Bay area it is also a repository for a wide range of books, reports, graphics, and vertical file ephemera representing one of the largest urban Indian communities in the United States.

In addition, the Native American Studies Collection is now home to the California Indian Library Collections (CILC). The California Indian Library Collections was created to provide interested people with access to rare materials at their county main libraries. The CILC located materials on Native Californians in archives and museums and duplicated them to allow access. The collections consist of sound recordings, photographs, books, journal articles, unpublished field notes, and other information relating to Native Californians such as the Lake Miwok, Pomo, Wappo, Western Mono, Yokuts and Sierra Miwok Indian peoples. Although funding ended for the main project, CILC decided UC Berkeley’s Native American Studies Collection was the most suitable place for access and opportunities for its further development.

The Native American Microfilm Collection comprises roughly 1,000 dissertations and eighteen different microfilm series encompassing a broad range of materials relevant to the field of Native American Studies that includes Akwesasne Notes, American Indian Quarterly, The John Collier Papers, Indian Rights Association Papers and North American Periodicals 1923-1982.

The Native American Studies Collection also houses about 15,000 monographs. There are representative copies of approximately 1000 serials with about 200 subscriptions active at any point. The Collection subscribes to a large number of American Indian community newspapers and has one of the largest collections of archival community newspaper collections in the United States.

Future directions and opportunities.

Collection Building:

Because we have an association with the University of California at Berkeley, the Native American Studies Collection could utilise an impressive array of connections and resources to build one of the most useful and exciting collections on the West Coast. Berkeley’s founding position in the fields of Anthropology and Archaeology has made it a repository for a vast array of American Indian materials, more than can be described here. Establishing relationships and links between communities, scholars, and materials at Berkeley is an intriguing prospect that could enhance and facilitate respectful conversations on repatriation. The opportunities are large to augment the growth of the scholarship in the field by locating and providing information about access to first class materials. Berkeley’s Native American Studies Department was one of the first in the country. This collection could easily be a natural home for Native American Studies scholars’ papers, thus creating an important opportunity for research. The time has come to begin to reflect and learn the importance and difficulties of establishing NAS in the United States. Such a focus could be of extreme importance.

CILC: The California Indian Library Collections:

There is considerable need to take the wonderful materials gathered in this collection and make them further accessible. This project only did about an eighth of the work that was proposed for it before it was de-funded by the wave of library funding cuts experienced in the last decade. This collection should remain a vital resource to the hundreds of Native American communities in California.

Native American Studies Database:

Thousands of articles, journal essays, newspaper articles, etc., are published yearly about Indian Country. There is a strong need to build a database for scholars in Native American Studies similar to the one available to Chicano/a scholars who have a specialised on-line resource, the Chicano Database. Extremely important information is being buried in the archives or never noticed because there is no cross-referencing or adequate access.

Cross-Cultural Connection:

American Indians and Native American Studies have unique histories in the United States. Yet, Native American peoples have suffered from the same racialisation and prejudice as other people-of-colour communities in the United States. The Native American Studies Collection is housed with and shares support services with the Asian American Studies Library and the Chicano Studies Collection. The opportunity to learn about the triumphs and the struggles of other communities is an enriching and exciting experience.

Text courtesy of the Ethnic Studies Library, University of California, Berkeley.

For more information please see http://eslibrary.berkeley.edu/

Newspaper Holdings Database goes live!

By Dr Kevin Halliwell, National Library of Scotland.

A database containing details of all the US newspapers held in UK and Irish libraries, produced by the BAAS Library & Resources Subcommittee, has now gone live on the BAAS website, at http://http://www.baas.ac.uk/resources/newspapers/newspapers.asp.

The listing of holdings of US newspapers in UK and Irish libraries was initially planned by the American Studies Library Group in co-operation with BAAS, as an updating of D.K. Adams: American Newspaper Holdings in British and Irish Libraries (Keele: BAAS, 1974). Some initial funding was received from UMI, for which we were extremely grateful. The Project Officer at that time, Linda Williamson, sent out questionnaires, asking for confirmation of holdings, additions and deletions from the original list, to all libraries which had notified holdings for the original volume, in Winter 1994, and plans were made for collation and bibliographical research to be carried out at Rhodes House Library by Linda Williamson and Silvia Hildebrand.

The initial intention was to collate the information and to verify all bibliographical details of every title submitted. In the end such detailed research proved impossible with the limited resources available. In the meantime the Eccles Centre at the British Library published a list of its US and Canadian newspaper holdings, (Jean Kemble and Pam Das: United States and Canadian Holdings in the British Library Newspaper Library, London: The Eccles Centre for American Studies, 1996) and a survey carried out by the Scottish Confederation of University and Research Libraries (SCURL) North American Studies Group mounted a Scottish union list of US and Canadian newspaper holdings in Scottish libraries on the website of the National Library of Scotland. The BAAS Library and Resources Sub-committee, successor to the American Studies Library Group, decided that these two listings might form a useful basis for carrying forward the project.

Following the departure of Linda Williamson the project was taken over by Dr Kevin Halliwell at the National Library of Scotland, who had produced the Scottish listing. The information on Scottish holdings was merged into the basic file from the British Library. The decision was taken not to undertake detailed bibliographical research on the titles and as far as possible to accept the information as provided by the individual libraries. Equally, it was decided not to impose a definition of ‘newspaper’ on the libraries that submitted titles and always to include information in cases of doubt.

It was not possible to reflect some of the changes in holdings that have inevitably taken place during the life of the project. Notably, a change in the British Library’s retention policy means that the information on holdings of original copies may now be out-of-date. Also, it was not possible to include information on access to electronic versions of newspapers, now frequently provided by university and research libraries. Limited resources available in some libraries sometimes made the provision of detailed information difficult, and it was not possible, for example, to include details of ceased titles in the TUC Collections at the University of North London.

It is hoped that the present format will provide a useful research tool. Graham Thompson, BAAS webmaster, kindly agreed to convert the original file submitted into a searchable database, and as a result the holdings list can be browsed by newspaper title, by town/city of publication, by state or by holding library. There is a simple title keyword search and an advanced search combining title, location and state.

The database is being constantly updated and corrected and the Project Officer of the BAAS Library and resources Sub-committee, Dr Kevin Halliwell (k.halliwell@nls.uk), would be grateful to hear of any corrections, clarifications, additions and deletions, or any comments on the database.

Kansas State Historical Society

The Kansas Editors’ and Publishers’ Association founded the Kansas State Historical Society in 1875 to save the State’s present and past records. Since that date we have continued to enjoy the support of the state’s newspaper publishers and have built one of America’s most comprehensive state-wide newspaper collections.

For nearly forty years the Society occupied a succession of quarters in the statehouse as its holdings steadily grew. In 1914 the collections were moved to the grand and newly constructed Memorial Building in downtown Topeka. In 1984 the Kansas Museum of History moved to an eighty-acre site in west Topeka near the Potawatomi Mission leaving the remaining agencies still housed in the Memorial Building. The historic Stach School later joined the complex, and in May 1995 the mission was reopened as the Koch Industries Education Center. During July and August 1995 the vast collections of library, archival, manuscript, and archaeological materials were moved to new facilities in the Center for Historical Research on the west Topeka site. Designated as the Kansas History Center, this complex reunited the Society at one location. The Kansas State Historical Society operates both as a non-profit membership organisation and as a specially recognised society supported by state appropriations. More than a half million individuals benefit from our programmes and services each year. All activities and programmes are conducted by the private organisation and the Society’s six divisions; Administration, Cultural Resources, Education/Outreach, Historic Sites, Kansas Museum of History, and Library and Archives.

The state agency operates with an annual appropriation of approximately six million dollars and 140 employees. The non-profit corporation’s ninety-nine-member board of directors and fifteen-member executive committee are responsible for the Society’s overall governance. The corporation also offers membership to the public and institutions, manages grants for the state agency, operates the museum and historic sites stores, and provides fiscal support for various programmes, including the Society’s award-winning magazine, Kansas Heritage, and its scholarly journal, Kansas History: A Journal of the Central Plains.

The Library and Archives Division of the Kansas State Historical Society collects materials about the history of Kansas and the West. Subject areas include railroad development, trails, westward expansion, frontier and pioneer life, western forts and military life, Indian wars, the Civil War, and western Native American tribal histories and bibliographies. General American historical topics also are included. Our collections also focus on genealogy. Material is available for states east of the Mississippi River, particularly New England and the states immediately surrounding Kansas.

The library collection includes books, magazines, pamphlets, church and school histories, yearbooks, atlases, family histories, genealogical and historical periodicals, published records of state government, poetry, music, and newspapers. The library is a depository for selected federal documents. Access to these materials is through card catalogues, indexes, and finding aids. The library collection is catalogued by Kansas and non-Kansas holdings into the Kansas card catalogue and the general card catalogue, respectively. Stack areas are closed to the public. Researchers fill out call slips and request materials at the retrieval desk. Books do not circulate on interlibrary loan.

In addition, the Kansas State Historical Society Library and Archives Division collects the unpublished private papers of individuals, firms, and organisations in Kansas and the surrounding region. The term papers may include bound and unbound letters, diaries, ledgers and other books of account, reminiscences, articles, business records, minutes, and membership lists. Papers and records in the manuscripts collection are typically created by individuals, businesses, clubs, churches, associations, and other groups. Contrary to what many believe, you don’t have to be famous or notable for us to have or be interested in your papers; in fact, some of our best collections are from ordinary people who wrote down their feelings, experiences, and observations and kept what they had written. We hold over 4,200 catalogued collections totalling over 7,000 cubic feet of material.

The manuscript collections are as varied as Kansas itself. Diaries cover many topics from the territorial to the modern periods including Native Americans, homesteading, agriculture, the military, immigrant colonies, and social life. Items relating to Native Americans include the papers of missionaries, mission school reports, reminiscences, and records of the Saint Louis Superintendency of Indian Affairs. Territorial Kansas is represented by the papers of John Brown, the New England Emigrant Aid Company, settlers, and politicians. Several collections document railroad expansion in the state. The files of The Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway and its predecessors is the largest. The records of the Kansas Town and Land Company, the land sales subsidiary of the Rock Island Railroad, are also available. Businesses are represented by the records of funeral homes, financial institutions, and retail stores. The papers of writers make up many collections. These include both newspaper people and literary figures. Papers of military leaders complement the records of military units and collections relating to the Spanish-American War and World War I veterans.

Papers of politicians form some of the largest collections. These include personal papers of governors (their official papers are located in State Archives holdings) and personal and official papers of members of the Kansas Legislature and the United States Congress. Other occupations represented include educators, doctors, religious leaders, women’s rights activists, and scientists. The division also holds papers of organisations such as fraternal societies, literary guilds, churches, ethnic groups, and clubs.

During the past century, the Historical Society’s role has expanded beyond its original emphasis on collecting and publishing research. Today we continue these fundamental activities and have added a broad array of interpretive and educational programmes that combine with historic sites, technical assistance, and field service programmes. Through collections, exhibits, programmes, and services, we enrich the lives of thousands and serve in understanding and valuing the heritage of Kansas.

Text courtesy of the Kansas State Historical Society.

For further information please see http://www.kshs.org/

Review

War and Ruin: William T. Sherman and the Savannah Campaign by Anne J. Bailey. SR Books, $19.95. pp 152, 2003. ISBN 084202851X.
Reviewed by Duncan Heyes, American Collections, British Library.

War and Ruin is volume ten in The American Crisis Series from SR Books, an earlier volume, The Men of Secession and Civil War was reviewed in this newsletter (No. 51 January 2001). In War and Ruin Anne J. Bailey takes the reader on the journey that began in Atlanta and ended 300 miles away in Savannah. She challenges much of the folklore and myth that surrounds the events and provides a lively narrative of the Savannah campaign that has become known as the ‘March to the Sea’.

Against the background of falling Northern morale and a coming presidential election, Sherman dealt a significant blow to Southern morale by defeating and occupying Atlanta. At the time, Atlanta was an important centre of communications and an area of important industrial production for the Confederate war effort. What Sherman did next, was an act that captured the popular imagination. Sherman understood that to remain in Atlanta too long would condemn himself to impotence. Biding his time, Sherman waited until after the re-election of Abraham Lincoln by a landslide victory, before he acted. Then in the autumn of 1864 with an army of 60,000 soldiers he began his advance across the Georgia heartland to the Atlantic. By bringing the effects of war to the homes of civilians, Sherman intended to “make Georgia howl”.

Bailey’s book examines the significance of this event not only in terms of military strategy, but also from a human-interest perspective. The march to the sea, unlike many other key events during the Civil War is not characterised by battles. This was a different way of waging war. Sherman knew that his route to Savannah would meet with very little resistance, but more significantly he understood the effect on Southern morale his actions would have. Bailey argues that it was the psychological fear rather than the activities of Sherman’s army that had the greatest impact on Southern morale.

Supporting an army of 60,000 soldiers on the move posed considerable logistical problems. The army had to live off the land for which foraging parties were detailed. These foraging parties were the basis of the folklore, which built up around Sherman and the destruction of which he was accused. Bailey argues that although it is true that destruction of civilian property occurred, and undoubtedly looting took place, Sherman did not intend a strategy of total war. However, Sherman was well aware of unsanctioned activities and largely turned a blind eye to these actions knowing that unsanctioned acts would cause the greatest fear to civilians. He also recognised the impossibility of policing 60,000 soldiers, and was aware that all the plunder did not get turned over to the commissaries. If exaggerated reports of destruction fuelled the fear of Sherman’s army, conversely, towns which had been spared also added to the myth. Each town that had been by-passed contributed to the folklore surrounding Sherman. One of the best-known stories recounted here, is Sherman’s affection for Cecilia Stovall, a local society beauty and the supposed reason why he spared Augusta.

Sherman mostly ignored military targets during his advance, he needed to get to the inland port of Savannah in order to link up with the Union navy to organise regular supplies. After the battle and occupation of Fort McAllister in December, Savannah was within his grasp and the rapid military evacuation by Confederate soldiers meant that little resistance was offered and Savannah was easily occupied. News of the occupation arrived in Washington on Christmas Eve and Lincoln wrote to the General, “Many, many thanks for your Christmas gift, the capture of Savannah.” The march of 300 miles had served its purpose and dealt a below from which the South would not recover – within four days of the occupation 700 citizens voted to rejoin the Union.

Bailey’s book will appeal to the general reader and student alike, fully indexed and for those wishing to delve deeper, it contains an excellent bibliographical essay. This concise book provides a lively account not only of the military strategy behind the campaign but by including some fascinating contemporary accounts from soldiers in the field provides a personal side to a what was an extraordinary military feat.

Useful Websites

Information Resources on African American Studies.

http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/ssrg/adams/shortcu/afam.html

Hosted at Stanford University this website is aimed primarily at undergraduates and for those just beginning research on African American studies. The site does not provide full text access to works but comprises lists of resources and links to other sites. The site is arranged by type of material such as encyclopaedias; biographical sources; bibliographies and statistics. The site covers not only broad subject areas such as history, culture and biography but also specific topics ranging from music to Black Nationalism.

Center for Oral History, University of Hawaii at Manoa.

http://www2.soc.hawaii.edu/css/oral_hist/

“COH preserves the recollections of Hawaii’s people through oral interviews and disseminates oral history transcripts to researchers, students, and the general community.” This site covers a range of oral history projects covering communities; ethnic groups; government; historical events; individual lives and occupations. Full transcripts are available some of which include sound files. The site includes links but these are to other oral history projects rather than to further information on Hawaii.

Alexander Hamilton on the Web.

http://www.isidore-of-seville.com/hamilton/

This site provides a comprehensive guide to the life and works of Alexander Hamilton first Secretary of the Treasury and author of the Federalist Papers. The site includes biographies and images of Hamilton as well as a large number of Hamilton’s writings, including the complete Federalist Papers. The site also provides over 150 links to other related resources.

Mapping Census 2000: The Geography of US Diversity.

http://www.census.gov/population/www/cen2000/atlas.html

This report presents the basic patterns of changes in US population distribution in the last decade. It gives detail at county level of the 50 States, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. This full text report also includes useful maps contrasting the changes in population diversity from the 1990 census to the results of the 2000 census.

Forthcoming Events

LECTURES AT THE INSTITUTE OF UNITED STATES STUDIES

The T.S. Eliot Lecture in American Studies.
New Occasions Teach New Duties: Preserving Ordered Liberty in a New Era.
The Hon William H. Webster, Former Director of FBI and CIA.
Tuesday 16 January 2003, Chancellor’s Hall.

Institute of United States Studies Lecture.
A Conversation with Elliot Schwartz.
With Professor Peter Dickinson, and Professor Elliot Schwartz, Bowdoin College.
Wednesday 22 January 2003, Senate Room.

The John M Olin Programme on Politics, Morality & Citizenship.
The Decline of Marriage.
Professor James Q. Wilson, Pepperdine University.
Tuesday 28 January 2003, Chancellor’s Hall.

The Cleanth Brooks Lecture on American Literature and Culture.
Huckleberry Finn and T.S. Eliot.
Professor Denis Donoghue, New York University.
Thursday 6 March 2003, Chancellor’s Hall.

Harry Allen Memorial Lecture.
America and Europe: Shoulder to Shoulder?
Professor Robert Worcester, MORI.
Thursday 20 March 2003, Senate Room.

Caroline Robbins Lecture.
Title tbc.
Professor Gordon Wood, Brown University.
Wednesday 26 March 2003, Senate Room.

Conference.
New Challenges for the American Presidency.
Monday 12 and Tuesday 13 May 2003, British Library.

Conference.
Marbury v. Madison.
Thursday 29 and Friday 30 May 2003, Lincoln’s Inn.

Lecture Series on Classic American Poetry

“We’d Rather Have the Iceberg Than the Ship”: Readings in Classic American Poetry from Walt Whitman to Bob Dylan by Grey Gowrie.

O Taste and See! Marianne Moore and Elizabeth Bishop.
Wednesday, 15 January 2003, Senate Room.

You Cannot Stand in the Middle of This? English Eliot, American Auden.
Tuesday, 4 February 2003, Senate Room.

Heartbreak Hotel: Ezra Pound and Robert Lowell.
Tuesday, 25 February 2003, Senate Room.

Dream Songs: John Berryman, Bob Dylan and Mr Bones.
Tuesday, 18 March 2003, Senate Room.

For more information please contact the Institute on tel: 020 7862 8693 or visit the website at www.sas.ac.uk/iuss

BAAS ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2003

The British Association of American Studies Conference 2003 will be held at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, on the 11-14 April. The annual conference provides an excellent opportunity for librarians to communicate with scholars and postgraduates and keep abreast of developments in the field. For more information please contact Dr Tim Woods, BAAS Conference Secretary, Department of English, Hugh Owen Building, Penglais, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, SY23 3DY.
Email: tww@aber.ac.uk

Contents

1. BAAS Library and Resources Sub-Committee Meeting February 2002
2. Salem Witch Trials
3. The Joseph N. Nathanson Collection of Lincolniana
4. The Massachusetts Historical Society Manuscripts Collection
5. New Publications
6. Useful Websites
7. Forthcoming Events
8. Journal Offer

BAAS Library and Resources Sub-Committee Meeting February 2002

Minutes of the Committee Meeting held at the British Library, St. Pancras, London, 5 February 2002

Present:
Mr R J Bennett (British Library, Boston Spa), Secretary
Miss A Cowden (University of London)
Ms L Crawley (JRULM), Treasurer.
Prof. P Davies (BAAS)
Dr K Halliwell (National Library of Scotland)
Mr D G Heyes (British Library, London)
Ms J Hoare (Cambridge University Library)
Ms C Hodkinson (JRULM)
Mr I Ralston (John Moores University, Liverpool)
Dr I Wallace (JRULM), Chair

1. Apologies
Ms K Bateman (USIS Reference Centre)
Ms J Kemble (Eccles Centre)

2. Minutes of the previous meeting
(Min. 8) Prof. Davies wished to emphasise that the list of institutions was not exhaustive, but represented the major institutions only. He confirmed that he will follow up the action. ACTION PD

The minutes were signed as a correct record.

3. Matters arising
It was pointed out that the introduction to the Newsletter still contained reference to an “annual conference”. This should be deleted. ACTION DH

Seminar, June 2001: Review
Dr Wallace commented that the Seminar had been a success in every way but one, the financial aspect, but equally he felt that this must be balanced against the value of promulgating so much valuable information in the American Studies field. He said it was an impressive contribution, raising awareness of the range of material available in electronic form. Miss Hoare added that, as a newcomer, she had found the day very informative.

Dr Wallace thanked Mr Bennett for his tenacity in trying to obtain the discount on the venue costs.

Miss Cowden commented that the low numbers probably reflected the fact that it was a difficult time of year for many people. This needs to be borne in mind for any future seminars – mid-term, e.g. November, was suggested.

It was generally felt that the committee should consider further events to extend the committee’s outreach, but Prof. Davies commented that the theme needs to be new and “sexy”. Other locations should be considered. Mr Ralston suggested approaching library schools within the universities to try and extend the target audience.

Dr Wallace, Miss Hoare, Mr Heyes and Mr Ralston all volunteered to form a working party to plan a future event, with Mr Heyes as ad-hoc Secretary. Dr Wallace agreed to arrange a preliminary meeting before the next committee meeting. ACTION IRW

4. Treasurer’s report
Ladies and Gentlemen:

Turning to the statements of accounts: in brief, on the income side, we have carried forward an opening balance of £2343.36 from the last meeting of the 19th June 2001. Added to this is £300 from the payment of twelve registration fees at £25 each for the June seminar held last year. On the credit side we have also received payments of £250 from the Gale Group and £250 from NewsBank for seminar sponsorship. Thompson Henry has also paid £50 for the insertion of a flyer in the delegates’ pack at the seminar.

The total figure on the expenditure side is £1646.68. This covers the cost of issue number 52 of the ASLN Newsletter priced at £183.74 and issue number 53 of the Newsletter priced at £202.86. It also incorporates the equipment and catering expenses for the seminar priced at £1124.28 and also £137.80 for speakers’ expenses.

We have only one outstanding invoice of £25 for one registration fee for attendance at the seminar.

The balance in hand is currently £1544.68. As on previous occasions, the sum of £463.68 remains earmarked for the Newspaper Project, so that £1081.00 signifies the uncommitted balance in hand.

In terms of the seminar, BLARS made a loss of £558.58. Hire venue, speaker costs and equipment and catering charges came to a total of £1755.58 whilst we received a sum of £1168 from sponsorship and registration fees.

Lisa Crawley
Hon. Treasurer BAAS LARS, 5th February 2002.

In addition to her written report, Ms Crawley reported that the BAAS Treasurer had informed her that the balance at 11 January 2002 was £1,121.14. She said she would follow this up. ACTION LC

Dr Wallace thanked Ms Crawley for her continuing work.

5. Report from Projects Sub-Committee

Newspaper Project

US Newspaper Holdings in UK & Irish Libraries

A lot of work has been done in this list since the last BAAS L&RS meeting, mainly with the help of an Italian student, Francesca Bettelli, on placement at the National Library of Scotland for five months. Extensive holdings information has been added to the list, including the holdings of the Rothermere Institute, University of Oxford (information supplied by John Pinfold), and the holdings of Cambridge University Library (information supplied by Jayne Hoare).

In the case of the latter, a total of 107 pages of titles, with approximately 12 titles per page, were submitted. As it turned out, this list contained all pre-1900 American periodicals as well as newspapers, so decisions have had to be made about which titles to include and which to exclude. In order to avoid getting bogged down in the notoriously difficult area of newspaper definition, we decided if in doubt to include the titles in the list. In order to complete the project, verification of bibliographical detail has been kept to the minimum, except in a few cases of obvious error or inconsistency. Online access to newspapers has been ignored, and of course much may have changed since the project began (the BL retention policy, for example). It is hoped that suitable disclaimers can be added to an appended introduction.

As a result of the additions, the list has now grown to approximately 110 pages with approximately 23 titles per page (the original BL publication totalled approximately 60 pages). Most (about 90 per cent) of the Cambridge University Library information has now been added. There only remains the information on the John Rylands University Library Manchester holdings, which should be received shortly (from Lisa Crawley).

There still remains the question of changing the word file into a database, which would presumably introduce the possibility of searching by title, place of publication, state, and possibly by library (one of the original intentions of the project was to offer the information organised by state). There are obvious advantages here, as all we can offer as a text file is, I think, the possibility of an alphabetical browse facility by title. This might be something the subcommittee would like to consider using the outstanding funding for, if the work involved could not be undertaken by Dick Ellis or someone else from BAAS.

Another question to consider is the production of printed versions of the list, or even publication (presumably with sponsorship).

It is gratifying to report that the project is reaching a stage of ‘closure’, and it should be possible to submit the final listing to the BAAS website within the next few months.

Dr Wallace enquired as to the timescale for completion. Dr Halliwell thought there was a couple of months’ work yet to do.

Format: Electronic was preferred, although it was felt that there was great PR value in having a print version – perhaps printed on demand. A sponsor would be needed for this, and the US Embassy was suggested. It was agreed that the database should first be mounted on the BAAS website, left for a year for corrections and feedback to be received, and then approach the Embassy with a properly costed project.

Dr Wallace commented that it was pleasing to see the project approaching a satisfactory conclusion, and expressed his thanks to Dr Halliwell for all his work.

Dr Halliwell informed the committee that he would be unable to continue serving on the Projects Sub-committee once the Newspaper project was complete. Dr Wallace approved this.

6. Newsletter
Mr Heyes reported that issue No. 53 was produced in January. He reiterated his plea for contributions, e.g. recent acquisitions, reviews, holdings, websites, etc.
Dr Wallace thanked Mr Heyes for his continuing editorial work on the Newsletter.

Following the withdrawal of British Library support for mailing, the question of the financing of the Newsletter was discussed.

Prof. Davies commented that the Newsletter was well produced and the costs for printing and for distribution were reasonable.

There was some confusion as to the advertising revenue, and it was agreed that this should be better tracked in future.
ACTION LC

Prof. Davies reiterated BAAS’s support for the Newsletter, but suggested that a report showing costs and projected revenue be put together and presented to the BAAS Executive with a formal request for support. ACTION LC/RB/IRW

The Sub-committee agreed that the Newsletter should continue to be published in print format, and that The British Library at Boston Spa should continue to distribute it (but on a charged basis). Dr Wallace agreed that he, Ms Crawley and Mr Bennett should put together the current scale of charges for discussion at the next meeting. ACTION IRW/LC/RB

7. Sub-Committee membership
Dr Wallace stated that it was incumbent on the sub-committee to review its membership at the February meeting, as this was formerly the date of the AGM. Prof. Davies mentioned that the Library and Resources Sub-committee has a unique relationship with BAAS, since (a) it is normally expected that sub-committee members must all be members of BAAS; (b)L&RSC has the right to choose its own chair-person, whereas all other sub-committees’ chairs are chosen by the BAAS Executive. The chair of each sub-committee automatically becomes a member of the BAAS Executive. As it is compulsory for all officers of sub-committees to be members of BAAS, it was recommended that Ms Crawley and Mr Bennett ensure that they are. ACTION LC/RB

Chair of the Sub-committee: Dr Wallace pointed out again that he retired in September 2000, and that he was only currently acting as Chair, pending the selection of a successor. He stated that he was willing to continue for one more meeting and convene the meeting after that, but that he felt it was not in the committee’s interests for him to continue after that. This was agreed.

All members of the sub-committee were strongly encouraged to offer themselves as chair. ACTION ALL

Ms Crawley and Mr Bennett confirmed that they were prepared to continue as Treasurer and Secretary respectively.

9. Date of next meeting
The next meeting will be held on 18 June 2002, again at the British Library, St. Pancras. ACTION RB

10. Any other business
1. Dr Wallace asked Mr Bennett to produce an up-to-date listing of sub-committee members’s adresses. ACTION RB

2. Mr Bennett was asked to send a list of the sub-committee members to the BAAS Secretary, Jenel Virden ACTION RB

3. Prof. Davies recommended to the sub-committee the BAAS Annual Conference, to be held this year on 5 – 8 April at the Rothermere Institute.

The British Library were thanked for their hospitality.

Salem Witch Trials

By Professor Benjamin C. Ray, Project Director.

The Salem witchcraft events began in late February 1692 and lasted through April, 1693. All told, at least twenty-five people died: nineteen were executed by hanging, one was tortured to death, and at least five died in jail due to harsh conditions. Over 160 people were accused of witchcraft, most were jailed, and many deprived of property and legal rights. Accused persons lived in the town of Salem and Salem Village (now Danvers) and in two dozen other towns in eastern Massachusetts Bay Colony. Nearly fifty people confessed to witchcraft, most to save themselves from immediate trial. Hundreds of other people in the Bay Colony — neighbours, relatives, jurors, ministers, and magistrates — were caught up in the legal proceedings of the trials. In October 1692, Governor William Phips ended the special witchcraft court in Salem. Accusations soon abated and eventually stopped. In January, the new Superior Court of Judicature began to try the remaining cases and eventually cleared the jails. After the Salem trials, no one was convicted of witchcraft in New England. During the Salem trials, more people were accused and executed than in all the previous witchcraft trials in New England. In 1711, the courts of Massachusetts Bay began to make monetary restitution to the families of those who were jailed. The names of some of those condemned and executed were cleared; and the process of clearing names of the condemned from the court records continues today.

The Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription project consists of an electronic collection of primary source materials relating to the Salem witch trials and a new transcription of the court records. The transcription project is supervised by Professor Bernard Rosenthal of the University of Binghamton, who together with a team of scholars, is undertaking a new transcription of the original court records, to be published by Cambridge University Press under the title Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt.

All the main events of the witchcraft trials are documented in the Archive’s collections of primary resources. These resources include court records, contemporary books, and record books, as well as images of the original court documents, indexed according to various archival collections. Users of the Archive may search the court records, contemporary books and letters for names of people involved, aided by a list of notable people and by a large alphabetical list of everyone mentioned in the court documents.

The Archive’s collection of historical maps of Salem Village, Salem, and Andover show the locations of the houses of many of the people involved in the trials. The Regional Accusations Map displays the chronology of the accusations from February through November 1692 and shows the spread of the accusations across the towns of Massachusetts Bay. The Salem Village Accusations Map shows the day-by-day accusations during the month of March, 1692. It also displays the names of the accusers and the accused, and their household locations, as recorded in the court documents. The Archive’s collection of literary works includes works by Hawthorne, Longfellow, Whittier, and Freeman.

The Archive also contains educational information, such as biographical profiles, a collection of images containing portraits of notable people involved in the trials, pictures of important historic sites, and published illustrations taken from 19th and early 20th century literary and historical works. As well as a searchable database of information about people, social groups, events, structures, and bibliography the Archive will also contain some of the classic scholarly studies such as, Charles Upham’s Witchcraft in Salem Village, and Sidney Perley’s History of Salem.

The project draws heavily upon the manuscript and rare book collections of several participating libraries, archives, and historical societies such as the Boston Public Library and the Peabody Essex Museum. Funding has been provided by several foundation grants and the computing centre at the University of Virginia provides ongoing technological support.

For more information please see http://etext.virginia.edu/salem/witchcraft/home.html

The Joseph N. Nathanson Collection of Lincolniana

By Dr Kathleen Toomey, McGill University Library.

Lincoln North is the virtual home to one of the most unusual research collections housed in the Rare Books and Special Collections Division, of McGill University Library. In 1986, Dr. Joseph N. Nathanson (1895-1989) donated to his alma mater, the contents of his eclectic Abraham Lincoln collection. For almost fifty years, Dr. Nathanson avidly collected Lincolniana from his base in Ithaca, New York where he taught Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Cornell University for five decades. The collection comprises approximately, four thousand items including books, pamphlets, prints, manuscripts, and ephemera.

The website at http://digital.library.mcgill.ca/lincoln/cover.htm comprises two sections: the collection and a virtual exhibition. In the case of the collection, students and researchers can now search the bibliographic records of the Nathanson Lincoln pamphlet collection and selected images of title pages.

Joseph Nathanson was born in New York City on April 24, 1895, the son of Benjamin Nathanson and Fanny Bach. His father died when he was an infant, and left the family in such dire straits that his widow had to rely on the New York Jewish Community to inter him according to the prescribed rites. His mother remarried a rabbi from Ottawa, Ontario. Her situation was so desperate that she could only afford to bring Joseph with her to her Ottawa home, his siblings being “adopted” by members of the family.

In his early teens, Joseph determined to become a physician and to earn his tuition fees, he translated documents for newly arrived immigrants from Eastern Europe in Ottawa. In time, he accumulated some $600 – enough to get him into his chosen medical school – McGill University in Montreal.

Dr. Joe’s story is the epitome of the American dream – literally – from rags to riches. He recounts his days as a student at McGill – so destitute, that had it not been for the kindness of a Baptist minister turned professor, who invited him to his home every weekend for a least two solid meals, he would have starved to death.

After graduating from McGill, he returned to Ottawa where he married Harriet Dover. He practised medicine there for four years after which he moved to New York City where he became an obstetrician and gynaecologist as well as a professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at Cornell University Medical School. In time, he established himself on New York’s Park Avenue as a renowned physician. He had two children – a son Bernard, and a daughter, Marion – and it was in his role as father that Dr. Joe first became aware of Abraham Lincoln.

“Daddy,” Marion said one day, “I have to write an essay on Abraham Lincoln. Can you help me?” Unperturbed by her father’s solution that she use the school library collection, she opted for papa’s insights. Unfamiliar with Abraham Lincoln’s life story, Dr. Joe went to his favourite bookstore, and purchased Abe Lincoln Grows Up by Carl Sandburg, as he has recounted inside the cover of the monograph itself. This is “The first Lincoln item which I purchased in 1937, and started me on the road to become a collector of Lincolniana, and a student and great admirer of the beloved martyred Abraham Lincoln. I purchased this volume in order to assist my darling daughter, Marion Enid Nathanson with writing a composition on Abraham Lincoln. She was then a little girl, charming, vivacious and with beautiful blue eyes, seven and one-half years of age.” What followed was an unrelenting quest to acquire monographs, pamphlets, memorabilia, sculptures and prints, which lasted for the rest of his life.

The collection accumulated by Dr. Nathanson numbers some 3500 monographs, in forty languages, including 1050 pamphlets, several periodical runs, including Lincoln Lore and the Lincoln Herald, over 250 images of Lincoln, some serious, some rather defamatory, several paintings, at least 30 sculptures, smaller items such as mourning badges, medals, memorabilia, etc., complete sets of Lincoln motif china, and chairs from Lincoln’s office and home.

The unique item held by McGill is surgeon Charles Sabin Taft’s Diary. In this small notebook the twenty-three year-old surgeon in charge of the Signal Corps Camp of Insurrection at Red Hill, Georgetown, recorded his account of Lincoln’s wounding at the Ford Theatre, where he too was in attendance, and continues into the early hours of April 15th, 1865, when the President breathed his last. According to one researcher, “even though Surgeon Taft’s recollections have been published many times”, he had not been able to locate any publication that gave these notes verbatim. “They are more complete than anything I’ve yet seen and they contain a few surprises”.

Although there are many great collections of Lincolniana housed in the United States, most notably the Library of Congress, in Canada the Joseph N. Nathanson Collection of Lincolniana shines as a unique and valuable resource for those interested in American history and culture.

The Massachusetts Historical Society Manuscripts Collection

The Massachusetts Historical Society (MHS) is a major research library and manuscript repository. Its holdings encompass millions of rare and unique documents and artefacts vital to the study of American history, many of them irreplaceable national treasures. A few examples include correspondence between John and Abigail Adams, such as her famous “remember the ladies” letter; manuscript copies of the Declaration of Independence by both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams; and the pen that Abraham Lincoln used to sign the Emancipation Proclamation. However, the true strength of the collection lies in how millions of pages of manuscript documents and diaries “weave together” as primary sources for the study of the entire course of American history right up to the present.

The Historical Society has wonderful and in some instances very large collections of other research materials, such as books, pamphlets, maps, newspapers, and photographs. While the MHS is not a museum, it nonetheless also owns works of art and historical artefacts. Many of these items came to the Society along with collections of personal papers; all are here to support research on the manuscript collections.

However, the library is primarily, a manuscript repository. It holds more than 3,200 manuscript collections comprising in excess of 10 million document pages. Personal and family papers constitute the core of the manuscript collection, augmented by institutional and early business records. While the MHS collects documents from all eras up to the present, the bulk of the collection represents the periods from the beginning of European settlement through the early decades of the 20th century.

The manuscript collection is an unparalleled resource for the study of the history of Massachusetts and America through the colonial and early national periods. Manuscript collections cover diverse subjects such as the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony; the history of religion, law, medicine, education, diplomacy, international commerce (the China Trade in particular), state and national politics; and Native American, African American, and women’s history. Diaries, orderly books, and thousands of letters document the lives of those who served in the French and Indian, Revolutionary, and Civil Wars. The Society also holds institutional records for churches, schools, clubs, and philanthropic organisations.

Two of the most important MHS manuscript collections are the papers of the Adams family and the Coolidge Collection of Thomas Jefferson Manuscripts.

The Historical Society is home to the second largest collection of Thomas Jefferson manuscripts (primarily his “private” papers) thanks to the generosity of several generations of Jefferson descendants; the Library of Congress holds the largest single collection of Jefferson manuscripts (primarily his “public” papers). In 1898, Jefferson’s great-grandson, Thomas Jefferson Coolidge (1831-1920) of Boston, presented a large number of Jefferson papers to the Massachusetts Historical Society. This material included correspondence (nearly 8,800 pages of both incoming correspondence and Jefferson’s retained copies of outgoing correspondence), manuscript volumes including; Garden Book, Farm Book, almanacs, accounts, law treatises, and the manuscript volume listing the books in Jefferson’s personal library. Coolidge’s son, Thomas Jefferson Coolidge (1863-1912), of Manchester, Massachusetts, obtained additional family manuscripts and made it possible for his son, Thomas Jefferson Coolidge III (1893-1959), to donate these Jefferson manuscripts (including architectural drawings and family correspondence) to the MHS in 1937. Twenty years later, in 1957, Thomas Jefferson Coolidge III donated another group of manuscripts (additional Jefferson family correspondence) to the MHS.

The Adams Papers Collection was given to the Massachusetts Historical Society by the Adams family in 1956. The papers comprise over a quarter million manuscript pages of the letters and diaries of generations of Adams husbands, wives, and children including John Adams (1735-1826) and Abigail Adams (1744-1818); John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) and Louisa Catherine Adams (1775-1852); and Charles Francis Adams (1807-1886) and Abigail Brooks Adams (1808-1889).

The papers cover every major political development from the 1750s to the 1880s—the events which precipitated the American Revolution and the diplomatic negotiations of peace; the formation of the new government in 1789; the international and internal crises at the end of the century; the founding of a permanent navy; the Louisiana Purchase and the policy of neutrality by embargo; the War of 1812; the establishment of U.S. policy in this hemisphere by the terms of the Monroe Doctrine, largely written by John Quincy Adams; the expansion of the nation to continental proportions, complicated by the slavery issue; the Civil War, both in its military and diplomatic spheres; and the problems of reconstruction and party struggles that followed the war.

The Adamses were involved in all these momentous political developments. Yet they were an affectionate family as well as a succession of public figures. In whatever part of the world they found themselves, they corresponded with their wives and husbands, their parents and children, discussing everyday incidents, amusing or annoying, as well as significant issues.

The entire collection is available on microfilm (608 reels), sets of which are in over ninety libraries in the United States and abroad. The Society also sponsors The Adams Papers Editorial Project, which is preparing a comprehensive documentary edition of the papers.

Among the other highlights of the collection are the journal of John Winthrop, Sr., the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony; the diary of Salem witchcraft trial judge Samuel Sewall; the family business papers of Paul Revere; documents related to the Massachusetts 54th Volunteer Infantry Regiment, the first African American regiment raised in the North during the Civil War; and the papers of Massachusetts senators Henry Cabot Lodge (1850-1924), his grandson Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. (1902-1985), and Leverett Saltonstall (1892-1985).

Text courtesy of The Massachusetts Historical Society

For more information pleased see http://www.masshist.org/index.html

New Publications

The first issue of Comparative American Studies: An International Journal will be published by Sage Publications in 2003. It is an exciting new journal that will extend scholarly debates about American Studies beyond the geographical boundaries of the United States, repositioning discussions about American culture explicitly within an international, comparative framework.

The main disciplines covered in the journal will be: literature, film, popular culture, photography and the visual arts. Attention will also be given to history, the social sciences and politics, particularly insofar as these fields impact cultural texts.

We are currently seeking international book reviewers to contribute to the journal. If you are interested please send your contact details and area of speciality, preferably by email to:

Graham Thompson
Review Editor, Comparative American Studies
Department of English
De Montford University
Leicester LE1 9BH
UK
Email: gthompson@dmu.ac.uk

For more information about the journal visit:
http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journals/Details/j0487.html

The Slave trade. (Canterbury Sources 3)
128 pages, illustrated. ISBN 0950 139246
Price £12.00 (+ £1.75 p&p).
Canterbury Cathedral Library, The Precincts, Canterbury CT1 2EH.

The most recent publication in the Canterbury Sources Series is a bibliography of the books and pamphlets on slavery and its abolition held at the Canterbury Cathedral Library. The Slave trade is a welcome expanded revision by David Shaw of the typewritten booklet Slavery compiled by Clare Gatherpole which was originally published in 1988.

The collections at the Canterbury Cathedral Library are formed around the library of Sir Robert Harry Inglis MP (1786-1855) who was a vigorous campaigner for the abolition of the slave trade. The collection dates from the mid-eighteenth century to the end of the nineteenth century and includes works from North America.

Fully indexed the book also includes illustrations and a new introduction by David Turley a specialist in American History at the University of Kent.

Useful Websites

FirstGov

http://www.firstgov.gov/

Launched in June 2000, this award-winning website, FirstGov.gov, is the official US portal to all government information and services. On FirstGov one can search 51 million web pages from federal and state governments, District of Columbia, and US territories. Most of theses pages are not available on commercial websites. FirstGov claims to be the most comprehensive website of government anywhere on the internet.

InfoUSA

http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/

If FirstGov is primarily aimed at American citizens, InfoUSA is the authoritative resource for foreign audiences seeking information about official U.S. policies, American society, culture, and political processes. By organising, and disseminating materials about the United States, Information USA seeks to promote better understanding of the principles and institutions that shape American values.

African American Literature Online

http://www.geocities.com/afam_literature/

This annotated bibliography is intended to provide “a comprehensive guide to African American Literature during the twentieth century. Here you will find over 75 novels, poems, autobiographies, and essays along with summaries of the selected literature…some significant events of each decade and the literary themes that African American authors were writing about during that decade.”
Created by: dlm.

The Valley Forge Muster Roll

http://www.nps.gov/vafo/mropening.htm

About 30,000 men spent all or part of the winter of 1777-1778 with General Washington at the Valley Forge encampment. This database from the National Park Service attempts to list all those men. In addition to the searchable Muster Roll, this site contains an organisational chart of the Continental Army at Valley Forge and brief biographical information on Washington, his generals, and his aides-de-camp.
Created by: dlm.

Forthcoming Events

LECTURES AT THE INSTITUTE OF UNITED STATES STUDIES
Lecture (John M. Olin Programme on Politics, Morality & Citizenship)
Wednesday 3 October
James Q. Wilson – The Marriage Problem
Admission free by registration (tel: 020 7862 8693). Reception to follow.

The Sunny Side of Life: The Carter Family and America’s Music A concert and conference to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the discovery of the Carter Family, the first family of American country music.

Friday 11 October – Conference
The conference will explore the Anglo-Celtic roots of traditional American music and the contribution and continuing influence of the Carter Family

Saturday 12 October – Concert
The concert will feature established US bluegrass performers: Janette Carter, Bill Clifton, Hazel Dickens and Mike Seeger

Registration fee applies. Contact the Institute, or see their website:
http://www.sas.ac.uk/iuss/events_sunnyside.htm for more information.

In addition, the Institute of United States Studies will be hosting a series of six lectures by Lord Gowrie on American poets, including Robert Lowell and John Berryman. The lectures will take place between October 2002 – February 2003. Contact the Institute for more information tel: 020 7862 8693.

Journal Offer

The New Yorker

The following is a list of the holdings available from the Fashion Research Centre. If any libraries are interested in acquiring these issues please contact the Fashion Research Centre direct at; Fashion Research Centre Library, 4 Circus, Bath, Somerset, BA1 2EW. Tel 01225 477752/54. Or email Gill Huggins: gill_huggins@bathnes.gov.uk

1948 January – December (bound)
1949 January – December (bound)
1950 January – December (52 issues)
1951 January – December (52 issues)
1952 January – December (52 issues)
1953 January – December (51 issues)
1954 January – December (52 issues)
1955 January – December (51 issues) 19 March – 3 April missing
1956 January – December (52 issues)
1957 January – December (52 issues)
1958 January – December (51 issues) 12 July missing
1959 January – December (52 issues)
1960 January – December (53 issues)
1961 January – December (51 issues) 16 December missing
1962 January – December (52 issues)
1963 January – December (51 issues) 7 December missing
1964 January – December (51 issues) 29 August missing
1965 13 February; 27 March; 3 and 10 April; 8; 15; 22;29 May; 19 and 26 June; 3, 10, 17, 24, 31 July; 7, 14, 21, 28 August; 25 September; 2, 9, 16 October; 6, 13, 20, 27 November; 4, 18, 25 December
1966 12 and 26 February; 5, 12, 19, 26 March; 7 and 14 May
1967 28 January; 21 October
1968 27 July
1969 4, 11, 18, 25 January; 1, 8, 15, 22 February; 1, 8, 15, 22, 29 March; 5, 12, 19, 26 April; 2, 9, 16, 23 August; 13 and 20 September; 18 October
1970 5, 12, 19, 26 September; 3, 10, 17, 24, 31 October; 7, 14, 21 November

Also available from the American Museum in Britain, Claverton Manor, Bath but available through the Fashion Research Centre:

1980 2 June; 14 July; 10 November
1982 22 March; 10 May; 24 May; 26 July; 23 August; 6 September; 22 November; 6, 13 December.
1983 10, 17, 24 January; 7, 14, February; 21, 28 March; 13 June; 4, 11 July; 22, 29 August; 12 December
1984 Full run apart from following missing editions 1-23 January; 19 March – 2 April; 21 May – 4 June; 16 July – 30 July; 30 July – 13 August; 13 August – 27 August. 27 August – 19 September; 17 September – 1 October; 12 November – 26 November; 3 December – 17 December.
1985 Full run except between 21 January – 4 February; 25 March – 8 April; 24 June – 8 July; 8 July – 22 July; 22 July – 12 August; 30 September – 14 October; 14 October – 4 November; 11 November – 25 November.
1986 Full run except up to 13 January and between 3 February – 24 February; 10 March – 24 March; 14 April – 28 April; 28 April – 10 May; 14 July – 1 August.
1987 Full run except between 23 February – 9 March; 30 March – 13 April; 27 July – 10 August; 19 October – 2 November.
1988 Full run except between 29 February – 21 March; 11 April – 25 April; 11 July – 1 August; 29 August – 12 September.
1989 Full run except between 6 February – 20 February; 27 March – 10 April; 17 April – 1 May; 1 May – 13 June; 13 June – 10 July; 10 July – 24 July; 31 July – 14 August; 21 August – 4 September; 13 November – 27 November; 27 November – 11 December.
1990 Full run except between 19 February – 5 March; 23 July – 6 August; 10 September – 24 September; 1 October to year end..
1992 27 January; 3 – 24 February; 9, 23 March; 6 April – 27 April; 11 May; 8, 15, 29 June; 19 October; 9 November. All other issues missing

Contents

1. BAAS Library and Resources Sub-Committee Meeting June 2001
2. The Americanisation and the Teaching of American Studies Project
3. The Manuscripts Collection, Tulane University
4. The Williams Research Center
5. Review
6. Useful Websites
7. Forthcoming Events

BAAS Library and Resources Sub-Committee Meeting June 2001

Minutes of the Committee Meeting held at the British Library, St Pancras, London 19 June 2001
Present:
Mr R J Bennett (British Library, Boston Spa), Secretary
Miss A Cowden (University of London)
Ms L Crawley (JRULM), Treasurer
Prof P Davies (BAAS)
Mr D G Heyes (British Library, London)
Dr I Wallace (JRULM) Chair

Apologies
Ms K Bateman (USIS Reference Centre)
Dr K Halliwell (National Library of Scotland)
Ms J Kemble (Eccles Centre)

Minutes of the previous meeting
The minutes were signed as a correct record.

Matters arising
(Min 8) Dr Halliwell had submitted a note to the committee saying that his position was still uncertain and he could not therefore commit to becoming Chair of the Sub-committee. Dr Wallace agreed to carry on as Chair in the meantime to ensure continuity.

Treasurer’s report
Ladies and Gentlemen;

We started the year optimistically enough by carrying forward a balance in hand of some £2517.30. Added to this is £275 from the payment of eleven registration fees at £25 each and one payment at £18. On the credit side we have also received a payment of £250 from Chadwyck-Healey’s advertisement in the July 1999 (no.48) Newsletter. As mentioned in my last report, BAAS LARS monetary affairs are administered by BAAS as part of their overall accounting arrangements and I had to wait for Nick Selby, the Hon. Treasurer for BAAS, to confirm that the invoice had been paid before I could add this to my records. Even with these welcomed payments there has been, nevertheless, a slight decrease if £335.12 since the last meeting of 13th February 2001.

The total figure on the expenditure side is £716.94. This covers the cost of issue number 51 of the ASLG Newsletter priced at £208.45. It also incorporates £493.50, the cost of the venue hire for the Images of America seminar at the British Library. Lastly, BLARS has repaid Kevin Halliwell £14.99 for the gift of a book to the placement student who helped on the Newspaper Project.

We still have a number of outstanding invoices totalling £775. This includes £250 from our sponsor – The Gale Group. We are also awaiting a payment of £50 from Thompson Henry for the insertion of a flyer in the delegates’ packs at the seminar. Finally there are nine registration fees at £25 each totally £225 which remain owing.

As on previous occasions, the sum of £463.68 remains earmarked for the Newspaper Project, so that £1879.74 signifies the uncommitted balance in hand.

Lisa Crawley
Hon. Treasurer BAAS LARS, 19th June 2001.

Dr Wallace stated that the accounts were in a healthy state and thanked Ms Crawley for her efforts.

Report from Projects Sub-Committee

Newspaper Project
As Dr Halliwell was unable to be present, he submitted the following report:

US Newspaper holdings in UK & Irish libraries

The bulk of the work on this project was carried out by a placement student, Ute Johnston, earlier this year and most available data has now been entered in the file. Most of the outstanding queries relating to the available questionnaires have now been cleared up and I have contacted the libraries whose responses were unclear. All editorial work proposed at the last meeting (e.g. changing the library ILL codes to library names) has now been done. To save space, a number of ‘obvious’ abbreviations have been used (e.g. L for Library, U for University and so on, based on the abbreviations used in Adams).

However, the report on progress I submitted to the last BLARS meeting now appears to have been a little over-optimistic. On doing a final check against the information from the original list (Adam, 1974), I discovered a number of discrepancies and, worst of all, a number of omissions. The most serious omissions relate in particular to the holdings of John Rylands University Library Manchester (many of them unique), as well as to the Bodleian Library, Oxford and Cambridge University Library. There are no returned questionnaires for these libraries, nor is there any other information on holdings, among the documentation passed to me by Linda Williamson. A total of ten libraries which submitted holdings to the original list are not represented in the present one.

I have contacted the libraries concerned and I have managed to verify some holdings from searching online catalogues, but until these libraries get back to me to confirm the holdings they originally submitted and to notify me of any additions I cannot submit the finalised list to the BAAS website. Having said that, this is very much the final phase of the project and hopefully it will not be long before the information is complete.

On the question of conversion of the file into a database I have been assured by our ICT technical officer that this is by no means an easy task, as the information is not presently held in separate fields. I suggest instead that as the file is not unwieldingly large it should be mounted as a straightforward text file with the addition of alphabetical searching by title, which is not difficult to set up.

I hope all this meets with the approval of the Sub-committee.
Kevin Halliwell
13.6.01

On the question of missing holdings for JRULM, Dr Wallace expresses his regrets. Ms Crawley agreed to follow this up at JRULM. ACTION LC

The Sub-committee agreed with Dr Halliwell’s proposal that the file be loaded as a simple text file.

Dr Wallace commented that it was pleasing to see the project approaching a satisfactory conclusion, and expressed his thanks to Dr Halliwelll for all his work.

It appeared that there might be funds over at the end at the project, but it was agreed to wait until the project was complete before considering how best to allocate these.

Newsletter
The Sub-committee agreed that the papers from the Seminar should be included in the next issue of the Newsletter. Mr Heyes anticipated that it would appear in July/August.

Dr Wallace said that he felt this issue of the Newsletter should be considered particularly important as it would be seen as “outreach” to advertise more widely the Sub-committee’s achievements. Various means of reaching a wider audience were discussed. These included circulating a note to the BAAS email list and including a note with the next BAAS Newsletter. Prof Davies said he would follow these up.
ACTION PD

It was agreed that the print run should be increased by 60
ACTION RB

It was agreed that the Website should include a message indicating that anyone interested in obtaining a hardcopy should contact Mr Heyes.
ACTION RB

Dr Wallace thanked Mr Heyes for his continuing editorial work of the Newsletter.

Seminar
Mr Bennett reported that all the arrangements were in hand for the event on the following day. He thanked Ms Crawley for her help with the invoicing, etc.

It was noted that the Seminar was unlikely to break even, although sponsorship had been received. The number of attendees was not as high as had been hoped, despite extensive “advertising”. It was felt that perhaps the registration fee has been set too low, although Dr Wallace pointed out that the Sub-committee had always sought to achieve value for money. It was suggested therefore that the Sub-committee should undertake a review of the event after it had taken place and discover what lessons could be learned. ACTION ALL

Sub-committee membership
Dr Wallace introduced the discussion by asking members to consider who the Sub-committee’s constituents are. It was noted that pressures on everyone meant that there was less time for “outside” interests such as those represented by the Sub-committee and that this was a cause for regret. Dr Wallace drew the Sub-committee’s attention to the need to consider:
the membership of the Sub-committee itself.
The wider group outside the Sub-committee.

ACTION ALL

On (2) Prof Davies said that American Studies Programmes existed at the following institutions:

Keele
University of East Anglia
Nottingham
Sussex
Birmingham
Swansea

He suggested that the Sub-committee could set up an email reference/discussion group through the auspices of BAAS. It was agreed that Prof Davies should circulate a note to the Heads of the American Studies departments with the aim of setting up a list of their librarians as a starting point.
ACTION PD

Date of next meeting
It was anticipated that the next meeting should be at the beginning of February 2002, again at the British Library, St Pancras. Mr Bennett would try to book 5 February.
ACTION RB
Any other business
There was no other business.
The British Library were thanked for their hospitality.

B.A.A.S. Library and Resources Sub-Committee

Notional ACCOUNTS 13/2/01 – 19/6/01
{not confirmed with BAAS}

NB: Invoices outstanding Gale Group £250 for seminar sponsorship and NewsBank Readex £250 for seminar sponsorship. Outstanding registration fees 9 @ £25 – £225.

Invoice Thompson Henry for insertion in the delegates’ packs – £50.

The Americanisation and the Teaching of American Studies Project

By Dr Alan Rice, Project Manager.

Elvis look-alike contests in Australia and Britain, Disney’s theme-park Empire expanding to France and Japan and the worldwide phenomenon of golf star Tiger Woods with the ubiquity of the Nike symbol attached to every item of his attire; all these cultural images show America’s presence in the world is multi-layered and seemingly all-pervasive. The Americanisation Project (AMATAS) has been set up to interrogate these and other transnational phenomena and to analyse the positive and negative effects of Americanisation. It will interrogate relations between America and the world while documenting resistance to American commercial and political power from those unwilling to live under the sign of the mighty yellow arch. Although the project focuses on cultural interactions it does so while paying attention to socio-political phenomena such as globalisation and first world imperialism.

How the Project Works

We want to take our enthusiasm for this vital theme in American Studies out to departments throughout the country. We aim to do this by:

offering workshops on manifold topics in Americanisation that can be slotted into undergraduate syllabi throughout the country by creating dynamic teaching packs/resources (both on paper and on the web) to aid in the delivery of units in curricula which address America’s relation to the world.

Along with our partners at the University of Derby and King Alfred’s College, Winchester, we have devised a series of two hour teaching units that academics can access in their own institutions between September 2001 and November 2002.

The Local and the Global

We hope to open up debates in locations throughout the country as to which sites in specific areas best illustrate Americanisation and the global spread of culture. Thus, in the Midlands American Adventure in Derby offers a good case study, while in the South-West the surfing culture of Cornwall illustrates how Americanisation is often mediated through leisure and sport. When visiting institutions with the workshops we hope to promote debate about local sites and stimulate undergraduate projects in the area of Americanisation.

Website

The best way to keep updated with the project is to keep an eye on our acclaimed website. It includes various resources for teaching, abstracts of the workshops as they become available and a message board. The website is interactive and we hope that the academic community will respond by writing Americanisation diaries and offering
useful links and resources via www.amatas.org

Conference

In Autumn 2002 to culminate the project there will be an international conference at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLAN) on the theme Teaching Americanisation in the Twenty-first Century when both staff workshops and student projects have been running. This will include material on the teaching and intellectual framework of the project, accounts of student experiences and suggestions for case studies in local regions by other universities. We will update material on this and other events associated with the project on the website and through a bi-monthly e-mail bulletin. To subscribe e-mail arice@uclan.ac.uk

The Fund for the Development of Teaching and Learning (FDTL) project under the umbrella of the Higher Education Funding Council (HEFCE) is the first funded teaching and learning project in the area of Area Studies. It is housed in the Cultural Studies Department at the University of Central Lancashire with consortium partners at the University of Derby and King Alfred’s College, Winchester. We aim to spread dynamic curriculum ideas on Americanisation throughout the American Studies community and beyond. The project is also available to other subject areas such as English, Area Studies, Cultural Studies, Languages, Visual Arts, Media Studies and Music.

The Manuscripts Collection, Tulane University

By Leon C. Miller, Manuscripts Librarian.

The Tulane Manuscripts Department is a leading research archive for studying the society and culture of New Orleans, the state of Louisiana, and the Deep South. Its beginnings go back to 3rd May, 1889, when Mrs. L. Dolhonde presented to the Charles T. Howard Memorial Library a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to M. du Plantier of New Orleans. In the years since that inaugural donation, the Manuscripts Department has grown to become New Orleans’ most comprehensive research archive with over 2,000 collections encompassing over three linear miles of documents.

The Manuscripts Department is not concerned exclusively with history nor is it tied to any single Tulane department or programme. Instead, it supports research and learning in almost every discipline, including the arts, humanities, and sciences. It also supports the university’s teaching and research mission at every level, including undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctoral.

The department supports Tulane University’s mission by acquiring, preserving, and making available records and papers pertaining primarily to the social and cultural development of New Orleans, and secondarily to the state of Louisiana as a whole. The department acquires records and papers in most subject areas pertaining to New Orleans and Louisiana, with a special emphasis given to the social, cultural, political, literary, and military development of the region. Most prominent among its collecting interests are Jewish studies, women’s studies, Louisiana politics, the Civil War, waterways, medicine, social welfare, carnival, and Southern literature. Although the department does not actively collect in the areas of African-Americana, jazz, architecture, Catholicism, Acadiana, business, law, Tulane administrative records, and official records of the City of New Orleans, the Parish of Orleans, and the State of Louisiana, it works closely with other archives that specialise in these fields. Exceptions are made when records or papers directly pertain to and strengthen current holdings.

The collection policy of the department is to acquire papers and records in all languages common to Louisiana. The majority of its acquisitions are in English, but French, Spanish, German, Italian, Hebrew, and Yiddish are occasionally acquired. We expect eventually to acquire documents in Vietnamese and other languages of recent immigrants.

The vast majority of acquisitions will be non-published documents with no imprint date. The department accepts published materials only when they are the product of the person or institution whose papers or records the department is acquiring. In such cases the Manuscripts Department often works closely with the Louisiana Collection to ensure the preservation and access of published works rather than preserving and providing access for them through the Manuscripts Department itself. The imprint date of such publications can range from Colonial Louisiana to the present.

Archival documents are created in a wide variety of formats. They include but are not limited to codices, personal papers, institutional records, photographs, individual letters, typescripts, and transcripts. The department avoids acquiring formats for which there are no, as yet, generally accepted preservation procedures, such as computer diskettes and Polaroid photographs. Except in rare cases, we do not accept photocopies.

In the first instance the department acquires documents about the city of New Orleans and secondly about Louisiana as a whole. However, as documents can become dispersed over time, the department actively seeks acquisitions from anywhere Louisiana documents are found, including outside the state and country. The department will occasionally acquire non-Louisiana documents that shed light on Louisiana events or directly pertain to and strengthen current holdings.

The Manuscripts Department supports the research needs of visiting scholars and is an integral part of Tulane University’s commitment to the larger New Orleans community. This flows directly from the nature of its holdings, which are essential for understanding the region. Many of the department’s holdings are international cultural treasures such as the Jefferson Davis papers, the Gettysburg letters of Robert E. Lee, and the John Kennedy Toole papers. Because such collections have cultural significance beyond Tulane, the Manuscripts Department believes it has an ethical obligation to make its holdings available to all researchers on equal terms regardless of affiliation.

The Williams Research Center

By Gerald F. Patout, Jr., Head Librarian.

The Historic New Orleans Collection was established in 1966 by General and Mrs L. Kemper Williams, private collectors of Louisiana materials to keep their collection intact and available for research and exhibition to the public. Housed in a complex of historic buildings in the French Quarter in New Orleans are administrative offices and a museum, which includes the Williams Gallery for changing exhibitions; ten galleries illustrating the history of the city, state and Gulf South; the Williams Residence, a house museum; and a gift shop. The Williams Research Center which opened in 1996, makes available to reseaerchers the Collection’s holdings which comprise approximately 14,000 volumes, 9,000 pamphlets, 5,700 linear feet of documents and manuscripts, a microfilm collection, and approximately 300,000 photographs, prints, drawings and paintings.

The Williams Research Center offers scholars access to extensive collections related to the Gulf South, particularly New Orleans and Louisiana. The Collection regularly adds to its holdings through purchase and tax-deductible donation. Access to the research centre begins with an interview with reading room staff and the consultation of automated catalogues.

Manuscript collections include letters, diaries, land tenure records, financial and legal documents, records of community organisations, and annotated printed items. In addition to original materials, the division has a large collection of microforms, including New Orleans newspapers (1803 – present). Family papers as well as the records of local organisations, such as the YMCA and the Arts and Crafts Club, form a large part of the holdings. Together they illuminate life in urban New Orleans and southern social and cultural history in the surrounding rural area during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Finding aids for catalogued manuscript collections usually provide an inventory or calendar with a chronological listing of each item in the collection. Uncatalogued collections are usually arranged chronologically at the time of accession unless a prior arrangement or inventory exists.

The Survey of Historic New Orleans Cemeteries, a project sponsored by the Collection in conjunction with Save Our Cemeteries, is housed at the Collection. This survey includes inscriptions, photographs, general descriptions, and condition reports of tombs in nine historic New Orleans cemeteries: St. Louis I & II, Lafayette I & II, St. Joseph I & II, Cypress Grove, Odd Fellows Rest, and Greenwood.

Nearly 2,000 reels of microfilm from the Archives Nationales de France (ANF) and the Archivo General de Indias (AGI) make available the bulk of those institutions’ holdings on colonial Louisiana. The ANF materials contain correspondence from Louisiana to the secretaire d’etat de la Marine; within the AGI are large collections entitled the Santo Domingo Papers (1757-1810) and the Cuban Papers (1762-1824), reflecting the Spanish administrative provenance of the documents. The Santo Domingo Papers contain information on commerce, smuggling, religion, immigration, diplomatic relations, financial affairs, government correspondence, and native Americans. The Cuban Papers contain official correspondence between governors and district commandants about Indians, commerce, census records, and Acadians; economic data from reports and account books and maritime information on the port of New Orleans; and correspondence touching all aspects of the colony’s economic life and development.

Census records, passenger lists, Civil War service records, as well as six collections of Louisiana materials in the National Archives microfilmed in 1988 are also available. The latter films are accompanied by descriptive pamphlets (a joint publication of the National Archives and the Historic New Orleans Collection): Records of the Federal Writers’ Project, Works Projects Administration, Relating to Louisiana, 1935-1943 (M1366); Selected Documents from the Louisiana Section of the Works Projects Administration, General Correspondence File (“State Series”), 1935-1943 (M1367); Selected Documents from the Records of the Weather Bureau Relating to New Orleans, 1870-1912 (M1379); Bound Records of the General Land Office Relating to Private Land Claims in Louisiana, 1767-1892 (M1379); Unbound Records of the General Land Office Relating to Private Land Claims in Louisiana, 1805-1896 (M1385); and Records of the New Orleans Field Offices, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865-1869 (M1483).

Curatorial collections include images and three-dimensional objects. Among the images are paintings, maps, vintage photographs and negatives, engravings, lithographs and other prints, and original drawings. Three-dimensional objects include sculpture, decorative arts, and memorabilia.

The Collection’s many city images reflect the growth of New Orleans, one of America’s oldest urban areas. Printed maps deal primarily with southeast Louisiana and New Orleans but include a selection of early maps of the New World, as well as original plats and plans of New Orleans and its surrounding area. Architectural drawings, including some by James Gallier, Sr., and Jacques N. B. de Pouilly, and photographs or slides of most of the drawings in the New Orleans Notarial Archives are also available.

The internationally important collection of photographer Clarence John Laughlin contains more than 37,000 photographs and negatives. These include not only Laughlin’s famous plantation and surrealistic photographs but also images of early buildings in New Orleans and Victorian and commercial structures in Los Angeles, Chicago, Milwaukee, Houston, and other parts of the United States.

The Alfred R. Waud Collection includes about 1,800 drawings made for illustrations in Harper’s Weekly and Every Saturday magazines. Many of these record New Orleans and its social life during Reconstruction; others depict the eastern states and the Midwest.
Extensive holdings of Mardi Gras ephemera include ball invitations and programmes, carnival bulletins depicting parade floats from the mid-1870s to World War II, carnival jewelry and favours, and original designs for floats, sets, and costumes.

Paintings and three-dimensional objects by Louisiana artists are on display throughout the Collection’s buildings and are available for research. The Louisiana artists files contain information on more than 20,000 artists and art organisations of national and local importance. Most of the printed holdings in the curatorial collection are retrievable through forty subject categories that reflect aspects of New Orleans life and history.

The library holds a strong collection of rare materials, including the first printed account of Louisiana, Abbe Hennepin’s Description de la Louisiane (1683); Henri Joutel’s Journal Historique (1713) of the region from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arkansas River; Het Groote Tafereel der Dwaasheid (The Great Mirror of Folly, 1720), satirical prints, prose, and verse describing John Law’s Mississippi schemes; and Les Cenelles (1845), the earliest volume of published poetry by African-Americans in the United States.

New Orleans imprints from the colonial era to the present are an important facet of the library’s holdings. The Collection attempts to acquire all modern monographs about New Orleans and its environs, as well as copies of relevant Ph.D. dissertations. Related ephemera include a large collection of nineteenth-century sheet music, opera libretti from New Orleans premieres, theatre programmes, and broadsides such as official proclamations, auction sale advertisements, and other public announcements.

The Vieux Carré Survey, an archive of some 130 binders, contains information about individual pieces of property in the French Quarter, organised by municipal square numbers and accessible by current street address. Basic information on each address includes a chain of title to the property and one or more photographs; other information may include copies of nineteenth-century drawings from the New Orleans Notarial Archives, architectural drawings from the Historic American Buildings Survey, additional photographs or drawings, business advertisements, and articles from newspapers or other sources.

The library also holds original and microform copies of New Orleans city directories, published more or less regularly since 1822.

Review

The Human Tradition in the American West. Edited by Benson Tong and Regan A. Lutz. ISBN 0842028617. SR Books 2002, $19.95, pp 237.

Reviewed by Duncan Heyes, American Collections, British Library.

The Human Tradition in the American West is the tenth volume in the series The Human Tradition in America from Scholarly Resources, earlier volumes of which have covered topics ranging from Colonial America to the Vietnam era.

We are reminded in the introduction to the series that Thomas Carlyle once remarked that “the history of the world is but the biography of great men” this view remained prevalent up until fairly recent times when historians began to turn their attention to the largely impersonal forces of social and economic developments, and the growth of urbanisation and industrialisation and the impact of these phenomena on the world. However, more recently scholars have returned to a closer view of Carlyle’s argument in that individuals, both high and low, powerful and weak, are brought to the fore to provide a greater understanding of a particular topic or period in American history. In recent times New Western History has remapped the study of the West not only in chronology and geographic boundaries, but also in incorporating race, class, sexuality ethnicity and gender. New Western History has played a crucial part in recovering the narratives of non-Euroamericans and women that have previously been neglected, and illustrates that there have been many “Wests” which no single definition can capture.

The volume on the American West is very much in this vein and comprises 13 biographies of men and women that have been chosen to reflect the diversity of the West. The book provides lively and well-written chapters on a wide range of African Americans, Native Americans, Hispanics, Euroamericans and women who have in some way contributed to the West. The essays take the reader far beyond the popular view of the West with its ideal of the conquest of nature and bring fascinating portraits of the individuals which range in time from an 18th century Spanish Borderlands priest, Francisco Javier Clavijero to the contemporay politician and gay rights activist Harvey Milk of the 1970s.

For those studying the West or for those with just a general interest in American history this volume provides something of value. The scope of the collection is best illustrated by a few examples. In the chapter by Laurie Winn Carlson on the missionary Eliza Hart Spalding we learn that despite the West being a male dominated region ‘frontiering’ could still provide an opportunity for liberating women. In an absorbing account of William O. Douglas, we learn that the best known second youngest justice of the US Supreme Court, was also active as an early environmentalist which was reflected not only through his writings but also through his influence on court decisions. In the chapter on Joseph W. Brown, the Native American politician, author Paul C. Rosier discusses the process of cultural exchange and how this process could be used as a positive force. The books co-editor Benson Tong provides an interesting account of Margaret Chung the first American born Chinese female physician who during a turbulent time in American history struggled to reconcile her ethnicity and Chinese heritage with her American culture and education. This essay highlights a common theme throughout the book that people of colour in the West were constantly adapting to change and that ethnic identity was not fixed but dependent on a process of mediation.

The editors should be congratulated for bringing together such a fascinating collection of essays which place the lives and experiences of individuals at the centre of the debate for an understanding of this complex and fascinating region.

Useful Websites

Michigan State University – American Radicalism Collection

http://www.lib.msu.edu/coll/main/spec_col/radicalism

The American Radicalism Collection holds over 17,000 items. It includes books, pamphlets, periodicals, posters, and ephemeral material covering a wide range of viewpoints on political, social, and economic issues in America. The emphasis in the collection is on materials produced by radical groups – both left and right. The collection, for example, has materials devoted to Timothy Leary, the Black Panther Party, Neo-Nazi Organisations, the Christian Right, and Steve Gaskin, founder of the commune the Farm. While the American Radicalism Collection is strongest in publications from the American Left in the twentieth century, as well as in resources for the study of American Labour History, there is considerable material from the right, most notably the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920’s and 1930’s..

Academic Info : The American West

http://www.academicinfo.net/amwest.html

A directory of resources for the study of the American West that caters for the casual browser to the student and researcher. The site provides links to information and bibliographies on frontier history covering the Romantic West, Westward Movement, the Gold Rush and the Donner Party. New Western History is covered by such topics as African Americans, Chicano and Chicanas and includes primary texts such as treaties as well as secondary texts. The hot links also provide access to visual resources such as the Collection of photographs on the history of the American West held at the Denver Public Library comprising over 30,000 images taken mostly between 1860 and 1920.

Archive of Amistad documents

http://amistad.mysticseaport.org/library/welcome.html

The library at the Mystic Seaport houses the archive of Amistad documents. The collection contains over 500 documents arranged in the following categories, newspapers; personal papers; court papers; government papers; popular media and maps. All the documents are searchable.

Forthcoming Events

LECTURES AT THE INSTITUTE OF UNITED STATES STUDIES

21 February 2002, 6pm. Senate Room, Senate House.
The Paradox of Religion and Democracy: The American Experience.
Hillel Fradkin, American Enterprise Institute for Policy Research.

14 March 2002, 6pm. Chancellor’s Hall, Senate House.
Burbank with a Baedeker, Eliot with a Cigar: American Intellectuals and the Idea of Culture.
Professor Ronald Schchard, Emory University.

19 March 2002, 6pm. Senate Room, Senate House.
Brave New Biology: The Challenge for Human Dignity.
Professor Leon R. Kass, University of Chicago.

Admission free by registration with a reception to follow.
RSVP to the Programme Officer
Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU
Telephone 020 7862 8691 or 8693 Email iuss@sas.ac.uk

University of Sussex, Brighton: March 14-16, 2002.
Massive Resistance: Southern Opposition to The Second Reconstruction
The University of Sussex announces a colloquium on the massive resistance movement against black civil rights. Speakers include Karen Anderson, Tony Badger, Dan T. Carter, Jane Dailey, Adam Fairclough, Michael Klarman, John Kirk, George Lewis, Gerald L. Smith, Lauren Winner.

Anyone interested in attending the colloquium can obtain further details by contacting:
Clive Webb
English & American Studies
Arts B
University of Sussex
Falmer
Brighton BN1 9QN
E-mail: c.j.webb@sussex.ac.uk

University of Stirling, Scotland: March 16-17, 2002
W. E. B. Du Bois and Frantz Fanon: Postcolonial Linkages and Transatlantic Receptions
This international and interdisciplinary conference aims to highlight the significance Du Bois and Fanon hold for contemporary scholarship. Confirmed speakers include: Chester Fontenot, Charles Long, David Macey, Patrick Williams and Robert Young. Some sessions will be devoted to focused studies of Du Bois and Fanon while others will emphasise linkages and metatheoretical issues.

Organisers: Dr. Mary Keller, Religious Studies, in conjunction with the Scottish Forum for Francophone Studies (Dr. David Murphy), Scottish Association for the Study of America (Dr. Colin Nicolson) and the Centre for Commonwealth Studies, University of Stirling, (Fiona Chalamanda).
Website http://www.commonwealthstudies.stir.ac.ukkk/DuBoisFanon.htm

BAAS Annual Conference

The British Association of American Studies Conference 2002 will be held at the Rothermere American Institute, Oxford, from 5-8 April 2002. The annual conference provides an excellent opportunity for librarians to communicate with scholars and postgraduates and keep abreast of developments in the field. For more information please contact Andrea Beighton, BAAS Conference Secretary, Rothermere American Institute, South Parks Road, Oxford OM 3TG.
Email: andrea.beighton@rai.ox.ac.uk

The American Studies Library Newsletter is edited by Duncan Heyes, Curator, The American Collections, The British Library. Correspondence, contributions and enquiries about advertising should be sent to him at 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB, telephone 020 7412 7601.

All views expressed in the Newsletter are those of the contributors or editor, and do not necessarily represent those of the BAAS Library and Resources Sub-Committee.

The Sub-Committee gratefully acknowledges the contribution of staff at the British Library, London and Boston Spa, for typing, proof-reading and editing the Newsletter.

(Copyright BAAS Library and Resources Sub-Committee.

Contents

1. Welcome: Carol Lynn MacCurdy, the Cultural Attaché, Embassy of the USA.
2. Web Art from the USA
3. Envisioning America: the manner and means of researching film
4. American Elections
5. City Sites: an electronic book
6. Legal image: copyright issues in the visual world
7. Digital America – online images
8. NewsBank
9. Primary Source Microfilm
10. Review

Welcome: Carol Lynn MacCurdy, the Cultural Attaché, Embassy of the USA.

It’s a pleasure to be here with you all today, especially in these gorgeous surroundings.  The new British Library is really a national treasure, and I’m sure everyone is pleased to have this seminar here today – thanks to Richard Bennett and Dr Iain Wallace.

As I was trying to think of a few words to say to you I was struggling to come up with something about American culture that you haven’t heard before.  Because of the size of our population and the global reach of our economy, images of America are everywhere – and in massive quantities.  And I imagine that most of you have spent your entire careers with your eyes firmly trained on America and all things American.  For you then the problem is sorting these ubiquitous images for quality and meaning.

Perhaps what I can usefully lend to this gathering are a few personal insights I have gained from my tours abroad about how other cultures view my own.  The American writer Anais Nin once said “We don’t see things as they are; we see things as we are”.  Therefore, what images or bits of American culture another country’s people choose to import from our rich melange says a great deal about the importers.  Judging by what America imports from Britain, and vice versa, it seems that we have a great deal in common in our cultural tastes.  We buy your lowbrow humour like Benny Hill and you buy our trash talk shows like Jerry Springer.  We buy your up market BBC documentaries and you buy some of our PBS documentaries and better TV serials like West Wing or Frazier.  So I think UK citizens get a fairly balanced, albeit superficial, portrait of America.

In the developing world, however, it’s a different story.  Visions of America are really distorted where movie distributors, television companies and book publishers have budgets too low to afford quality cultural imports.  When I was stationed in Moscow in the early 90’s, the most popular images of America were based on a combination of TV shows like Dallas and pop singers like Michael Jackson.  They were actually surprised that American women didn’t all look like the bikini-clad babes of “Baywatch”.  I always felt a little conspicuous as they made this latter sort of statement looking pointedly at me.

But there are times when these misconceptions can become destabilising or even dangerous.

One international relations theorist developed a notion he called Mirror Imaging – that is, he said that we anticipate that other nations will react similarly to our own given completely identical circumstances.  This phenomenon may explain all sorts of spectacular international miscalculations.  One possible example is the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Did Nikita Khrushchov calculate that the Americans would acquiesce to Soviet missiles within range of Washington as the Soviets had done with NATO missiles based in Turkey?

Another famous miscalculation born of misunderstanding and a misreading of American polity was the Falklands War.  I remember being amazed that the Argentines believed that the US would either support them or at least remain neutral in the face of their military move to quote “reclaim their territory”.  Argentine military leaders believed that treatise, trade ties, hemispheric solidarity, and the ever-increasing Latino population in the US would cause the American government to discount our predominantly Anglo cultural and political roots.  Our own current-day lack of interest in territorial aggrandisement, and our sense of fair play were not taken into account by Argentina’s military leaders.

The problem with being a melting pot culture is that we seem to be all things to all people.  In his book America; the View from Europe, J Martin Evans said “America has probably stood for more things to more people than any other nation on the face of the globe”.  That being the case, it is not an easy nation to comprehend.  A few weeks ago, at the opening of the Rothermere American Institute at Oxford, Vere Rothermere said “America is a country that takes a great deal of knowing,” and further added “America holds many pitfalls for Britain””.  Although I’m not sure what these pitfalls are, I do think he’s right about the complex nature of our United States.

The British Association for American Studies has helped put Britain at the forefront of those nations that can interpret the US to the benefit of your own people and for those other countries open minded enough to listen, as well as to bare their bottoms.  Our new President on his current tour was joking with a European official saying that he should let him (i.e. President Bush) know when the official had figured America out.  I think most of us would agree – myself included – that he could only be half joking.

I’m going to step down now to leave you to the people that you really came here to listen to and I hope you all have a very productive and enlightening day.

Web Art from the USA

Two exhibitions earlier this year –010101: art in technological times at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, sponsored by Intel, and Bit streams and its web version, Data dynamics, at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York – introduced American digital artists such as Jeremy Blake, Leah Gilliam, Marek Walczak and Martin Wattenberg to the mainstream museum system.  Here in London, the blue chip avant-garde gallery, Anthony d’Offay, is showing the American artist, Bill Viola with an array of LCD and plasma screen works and the extraordinary Catherine’s Room (2001), with its Vermeer-like interiors.

‘Web art’ is a subset of digital art.  The web is – perhaps above all things – a mode of distribution; and in the art world the distribution of images and of digital art.  American art students use the web as the primary source of art historical images; most American museums and galleries sell images of works in their collections over the web; galleries and individual artists sell downloadable digital prints and other artworks through websites.  But I would like to concentrate on art that exists only on the web.

My use of the word, American, perhaps also needs clarification.  Where the web is an agent of globalisation and where anything can be hosted anywhere, ideas of nationality become unstable.  Am I referring to domain.usa?  Yes, any web art hosted or created in the USA by anyone of any nationality, but also, any web art by an American which happens to be hosted elsewhere.

Of particular concern to me are those artists that exploit the formal qualities of the Web.  I suppose – and perhaps deservedly – formalism has had a bad press: we associate it in England with Roger Fry, Clive Bell and Adrian Stokes; and in the USA with Clement Greenberg’s Art and culture and his championing of a particular variety of abstract expressionism.  But, this apart, it is a useful hermeneutic device, or, if you would prefer, metaphor: a painting is a flat shape, sculpture is inherently three-dimensional.  It can also be used permissively: each ‘type’ or ‘style’ of work can be seen to have its own aesthetic, on which criteria it can be judged as successful or otherwise, but it would relegate the choice of one type as superior to another to the realms of prejudice.

The formal constituents of the Web are: HTML coding, Browser Windows, Forms, Buttons, Links, Error Codes, Menu Bars, Email Icons, Viruses and Bugs, Refresh Buttons, Mouse-overs, Web Cams etc.  Benjamin Weil – who along with Steve Dietz and Jon Ippolito constitute the three main American impresarios of web art – wittily describes this as the net.scape.

This tendency for the Web to inscribe itself on itself – the term in heraldry is mise en abyme as in the depiction of a small shield on a shield – is intensified in another group of work which exploits the ‘content’ of the Web through ‘browsing’ or ‘searching’.  It is also emblematic of the ‘resistance’ tendency in contemporary art, following on from Situationism and such theoretical writings as de Certeau’s Practice of everyday life.

Mark Napier, creator of the infamous Webstalker and Digital Landfill, where you can dump unwanted emails, spam, urls, files etc or the similar Shredder (www.potatoland.org/shredder).  His Riot ( www.potatoland.org/riot ) is premised on the transgression of the normal translation of code into content, enabling a collaborative collage.  Maciej Wisniewski’s netomat (1999-2001), a contribution to Data Dynamics offers a downloadable ‘meta-browser’ which responds to inputted words and phrases with a random display of results in an audio-visual collage.

Interactivity (sometimes equated with democracy) is another characteristic. In Marek Walczak and Martin Wattenberg’s Apartment, typed in words are inter-related to the layout and design of apartments, populating a zoned, virtual city: you can review your own or other previously created apartments. Unfortunately, many of these artworks require downloads of Flash or Quicktime VR, which runs against any democratic desire – where everyone would see the same thing.

Another feature of the Web is the Virus.  Is something like last years ‘Love Bug’ an artwork?  Say, comparable, with Maciunas and his Fluxus friends attempting to overthrow the US State and the institutions of art by clogging up postal boxes with thousands of packages of heavy bricks, addressed to galleries and artists, without stamps, complete with the return address of other museums and galleries.  A benign ‘virus’ has been created by JODI, the collaboration from 1994 of Joan Heemskerk and Dirk Paesmans, who also featured in Documenta X (1997): http://www.jodi.org, This Morning, launches a mad cascade of windows invading you PC’s memory.

Despite the expansion of web use in the USA – 168 million adults are now connected to the Web there – a disproportionate number of web artists – IOD (Matthew Fuller, Simon Pope, Colin Green), Jake Tilson, Heath Bunting, Mongrel, Tom Corby (of Reconnoitre), Thomson and Craighead (of CNN interactive just got more interactive), Nick Crowe, and Vuk Cosic are British or European.  The geographical hegemonies of previous art movements – from mannerism to abstract expressionism or arte povera – do not seem to apply to web art.  And my title, ‘Web Art in America’ may ultimately be futile.

How do we know what’s out there?  Traditionally art librarians have used publishers’ catalogues, national bibliographies (a very retrospective way of doing things), visits to booksellers, suppliers listings, suggestions or citations.  But to get that obscure exhibition catalogue you had to ring up the gallery or go there yourself.  The Web is not very different, and in fact can be easier to keep track of.  There are gateways (like the now defunct ADAM) or ‘pointing’ sites e.g. the London Institute ‘I’ page with its web guides, and OPACs which point from a related entry to appropriate web resources; there are printed magazines – specialist ones like Mute or adverts in more traditional ones (for the last five years I think that the adverts in Artforum or frieze for that matter have been the most interesting and useful parts of the magazine); private view cards, flyers.  In addition we have helpful museum/gallery/organisation sites e.g. Guggenheim or Dia Center for the Arts, or the Walker Art Gallery’s Gallery 9 which also commission digital works.  You can subscribe for $1 to the mailing of The Thing etc. etc.  Anyone with access to the Web can be a flaneur of the digital art scene.

Every librarian is a secret archivist.  What should we do with the material?  Take heart from this cautionary tale: in 1967 Aspen MagazineSchema for a set of pages:

No.5-6, edited by Brian O’Doherty (alias the artist Patrick Ireland) included Dan Graham’s

(number of) adjectives

(number of) adverbs

(percentage of) area not occupied by type

(percentage of) columns

(number of) conjunctions

This, although probably derivative of Oulipo experimentation, is one of the first ‘variable’ artworks, a term employed by John Ippolito and Benjamin Weil of Ada-Web fame: this was founded by Weill in May 1995, named after the ‘first computer programer’, and daughter of Lord Byron, Ada Byron King, and now ‘housed’ on the Walker Art Center website.  The ‘variable artwork’ is a work that could exist in any media, anywhere, any time: indefinitely reproducible.  As librarians we have failed it.  I do not know of any library that owns Aspen that has indexed this contribution.  There is a lot out there on the Web, but that does not necessarily mean that we should not archive anything.

There are many levels of archiving – bookmarking, print-outs – from the DIA site you can download your own Susan Hiller artist’s book ‘dream screens’ (www.diacenter.org); you can do screen-dumps, using Tucows software or use web-whacking software like Bluesquirrel; the San Francisco based Internet Archive attempted to grab the entire content of the Web on particular days, using crawler software – and now through Alexa’s Wayback Machine technology, some of its past sites are starting to become retrievable – from June 18th the 2000 election (a work of art or performance in itself) is available at http://archive0.alexa.com/collections/e2k.html.  As a rule, archiving proposals however fall into four categories – and these come from the CEDARS project: a lot of the research behind these studies is interestingly reliant on experiments to recover the Challenger Disaster materials.

1. Technology Preservation: you archive the ‘original’ hardware and software platforms – do not throw out those Classic Series Macs. One would need to archive technology at the same rate of the development of sites.  Incidentally, the Web, being a selling mechanism par excellence, provides good sites for old software, hardware, browsers etc. etc.  Its own history is also available on such sites as The Computer Preservation Society (ftp://ftp.cs.mam.ac.uk/pub/CCS-Archive/public_html/ccs_info.htm#menu or the Dead Media Project
2. Refreshment: the copying of content from one medium to another.
3. Emulation: imitation of characteristics of the original software and hardware in future platforms
4. Non-imitative Migration: transfer of data from one platform to another Cf. Web to print out.  And perhaps not surprisingly quite a common strategy.

As none of these strategies is really in place for web based materials, we must have lost quite a lot already.

And then there is an ethical dimension. Perhaps again, this is nothing new.  Remember Gustav Metzger’s Auto-destructive manifesto (1961), influential on the Who scene in Michelangelo Antonioni’s film, Blow up (1966): it is on cheap, mechanical wood-pulp paper with all its acidic qualities, should we conserve/preserve it?  Is it not against the very spirit of the thing?  The Web is a very strange, peculiar, phenomenon: it is a peculiar combination of the commercial, educational, and personal – a few years ago I did a web-search on the term ‘Sooty’ (looking of course for the Sooty Fanclub) and came upon rather poignant homepages devoted to pet snakes etc. – this touching banality, quotidian-ness, for me, is fascinating; there is also the libertarian-anti-vivisection, animal liberation, cook your own nuclear bomb etc. and the fascist and anti-Semitic, holocaust denial or right-wing militia sites.  In short, the Web is not and cannot be a White Cube, and to divorce a site of its context, by web-whacking it into a museum or gallery, diminishes its meaning: no website is an island: Mark Napier objected to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art ‘snapshot’ ing his website for this very reason.  This immediately invalidates the four ‘preservation’ strategies outlined previously.  Moreover, the ‘democratic’ ‘ownership’ of art works on the web – a real museum without walls, that André Malraux thought that photography had brought about – runs against institutional ‘collecting’.

In the 18th Century, Diderot, writing for a select group of enlightened despots, unable to see the Parisian salons for themselves, describes works on the walls of the salon:

“I continue along the bank of the lake formed by the waters of the stream to a point halfway between the two chains; I look about me, I see the wooden bridge at a prodigious height and a great distance.  In front of this bridge I see the stream’s waters arrested in their course by kinds of natural terraces; I see them fall into as many pools as here are terraces and form a marvellous waterfall; I see them arrive at my feet, spread out, and fill a vast reservoir.  A loud noise causes me to look to my left” (Diderot on art pp.92-3).

Diderot has entered the picture: he is describing a Vernet landscape as if he was in it – this is the foundation of art criticism (perhaps perfected by Ruskin in Modern Painters and his invention of ‘the pathetic fallacy’, where nature takes on the mood of the observer).  If art criticism is predicated on the absence of the artwork, the omnipresence of artwork on the Web could lead to the end of criticism – of the museum and gallery (and perhaps art library), and perhaps a more successful attempt than the Russian revolutionists distribution of museum pictures to ordinary households in the early 1920s.  If we preserve the web works are we not preserving the institutions of art?

I would like to make two points in conclusion.  The first is that just because an artist uses new technology – it might be laser, hologram, CD-ROM or the Web – it does not mean that it is necessarily avant-garde, experimental, or even art.  Secondly, there is an increasing overlap of digital art, design, music, text etc. Bit streams / Data dynamics has David Gamper, John Hudak (www.slack.net/~jhbk) and Paul D Miller (DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid) who could be described as musicians, DJs or sound artists.  If, with the digital, the total work of art – Gesamtkunstwerk – becomes possible, – and I think of Beryl Korot and Steve Reich’s eirenic The Cave (1994), combining live music, digital sampling, text and multichannel video – the very notion of ‘the artist’ becomes unstable. Anybody can be an artist.  We began by looking at how American artists and other artists working in America have been using the web.  But we could start the other way round: will the Web make its own art and artists?

010101 exhibition: http://010101.sfmoma.org/

Bit streams: www.whitney.org/

Data dynamics: www.whitney,org/datadynamics

Dia Center: www.diacenter.org/

Walker Art Gallery: www.walkerart.org/gallery9

Ada Web: www.adaweb.walkerart.org

Individual artists:

Napier: www.potatoland.org/shredder

www.potatoland.org/riot

www.potatoland.org/point

Superbad: www.superbad.com/1/meta4/desktop.html

Walczak & Wattenberg: www.turbulence.org/Works/apartment/

Hudak and Bradley ‘manray project’: www.slack.net/~jhbk/

Seilbo: http://opensource.walkerart.org/

Others:

London Institute ‘I’ page webguide: http://www.linst.ac.uk/library/webguides/digital.htm

Dead Media project: www.deadmedia.org

Alexa Wayback Machine – Election 2000 http://archive0.alexa.com/collections/e2k.html

JODI: www.jodi.org

Envisioning America: the manner and means of researching film

I really wanted to do two things today with my talk and they are somewhat reflected in the title you have in front of you.  I wanted to say something about the sources of film, how I research films and where I get information from, and how that information might be collected in libraries and databases.  But I also wanted to say something about the kind of work that I do on film.  I think this is important because how one regards film is very predetermined by one’s view of cinema/film/screen studies as an academic discipline.  Cinema studies has been around a long time of course, but research into film history, audience reception, semiotics and the like has been a major growth area in British academia over the last ten years or so and it would be remiss of me not to recognise that that growth has coincided with my own, and many others, interest in cinema as research and scholarship.  Hence we should recognise that film studies is subject to fierce debate in its own right.  How should film be regarded, is it the domain of theoretically driven, esoteric, pure scholarship, or should it rightly be opened up to the study of mainstream, very populist work, most obviously emanating from Hollywood, but elsewhere as well?  Is film studies still (even more so!) regarded as a soft option for students who can have movies inserted into courses as a substitute for any involvement in textual or critical summary; and more generally how is film “taught” at undergraduate and graduate level?

I cannot offer you easy answers to any of these questions but I do think the questions are absolutely critical to the textual, research and archival material on offer in university and public libraries.  Just to give you one example of this – the mainstream/populist versus the critical/esoteric – if you were to do a survey of holdings in British universities I wonder which film magazine would come out on top, Empire or Sight and Sound?  Actually I know the answer but why?  One is the top selling magazine in this country for film fans, the other is acknowledged as a leading critical forum for cinema and TV internationally, but sells only a fraction of the amount and features work that often never sees the light of day in your local multiplex.  If I am going to offer any view about research today in this discipline I feel this is a fundamental question to address.  The research of film has changed substantially and the access to information now comes from a plethora of sources, some traditional and recognised, others newer and more experimental.  It is this increasing diversity that has changed the nature of film scholarship and which in my own work I would like to give you some flavour of.

But what of my own research into Hollywood?  Am I qualified to pontificate on the subject of film as scholarly necessity?  In one sense no I’m not!  I am trained as a historian and political scientist and though I have some background in being taught film (and a small portion of my original undergraduate degree was in Art History, another visual medium) I have no film degree qualifications or background.  But for these very reasons, I might also be in a good position to judge film as a discipline from a different angle.  I say that because my own inspiration for wanting to study film more closely was the fact that I found it hard to read about cinema from the subject area I originated in.  While there were historians who researched film, English specialists, linguists, sociologists, philosophers, even mathematicians, I came across hardly any political scientists who had worked on cinema.  For that reason I guess I wanted to test the waters of film scholarship, its multi- and interdisciplinary nature, particularly in American Studies, and the depth of its critical analysis in relation to politics.

When I was thinking about what I may say to you today I remembered an article I had culled from the Internet, as it happens, a couple of years ago.  The “article” (it was really a chunk from a Ph.D. unpublished, a good example of what is around on the Net!) was entitled “Why Worry about the Movies?”  Its subject was film and politics but the article also made a clear and well-accepted statement about the role of movies in society. “They become part of our way of seeing the world,” it stated.  “Part of our mental yardstick by which we measure the meaning of events and ideas that we encounter.”[1] All fair enough and seemingly straightforward you might think.  But the premise of the article was what really interested me, and has continued to interest me about film over the last few years or so.  It was this focus that also helps to display the variety of methodological directions cinema studies has travelled in, and might give you a guide to the ways in which it can be approached.

The ideological premise on which the article’s statement was made was not directed at audiences (gullible or otherwise), who were/are willing to be sucked in by the “message” of certain films, which then went on to say something pertinent to them about their personal lives.  No, it was directed at public figures, politicians, who believed that film, Hollywood film especially in this case, had important lessons for us the masses to take on board.  The article’s chief example was this.  In December 1994 the new speaker of the House of Representatives, Newt Gringich, placed the ongoing debate over health reform in cinematic terms.  Attacking the plans of First Lady Hillary Clinton, Gingrich suggested she should go and watch the 1938 Spencer Tracy, Mickey Rooney classic, Boys Town, and learn about the ways in which disadvantaged youths may be cared for in orphanages (the story follows the real life attempts of a catholic priest, Father Flanagan (played by Tracy), to help wayward youngsters in a small town outside Omaha, Nebraska).

Gingrich obviously felt that his example had social reform policy down to a tee, and this involved the moral guidance of a Hollywood film made fifty-six years previously!  But he didn’t stop there.  Three months later Gingrich publicly urged the warring owners of Major League Baseball to settle their six-month-old pay dispute by watching one movie.  That movie was Phil Alden Robinson’s Field of Dreams starring Kevin Costner.

Now Gingrich’s strategy was not quite as cloying as it sounds for Field of Dreams does have a discernible ideology about baseball history (it is mythologised in the film by the ghostly apparition of the legendary “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, a figure disgraced in the 1919 World Series Chicago “Black” Sox scandal, but who innocently played in the beginning because it was the purity of the game that mattered; and baseball was ultimately corrupted, so the film posits, because the owners built floodlights to attract more spectators and the intrusion of the capitalistic system proliferated from there).  But what Gingrich also spotted, cleverly or otherwise, was the fact that sport as mythological statement is a more resonant discourse about American society than any political party platform or philosophy could ever be.

Film has thus become more than a reflection of hopes and dreams, more than simple fantasy or escapism, it has virtually become government policy and historical legacy in the United States.  It is a point well brought out in film historian Lary May’s new book, The Big Tomorrow.  May pointedly remarks on the fact that for a generation in the United States, commentators, politicians and public figures have confidently assumed that the mass media – and certainly Hollywood – are involved in defining what it means to be a good American.  Why wouldn’t Gingrich then choose to couch public policy in the realms of entertainment fiction?  It is, after all, a battleground for political culture and has been, May persuasively asserts, since the 1930s.[2] It is a battleground, in effect, concerned with the very meaning of national identity, but since the ‘30s it has been increasingly tugged back and forth by the rigours of political moral attrition.  By the 1996 election, for example, the presidential candidate for Gingrich’s own party, Bob Dole, could assert that,  “We have reached the point where our popular culture threatens to undermine our character as a nation” with “nightmares of depravity.”[3]

Even in Britain, the reach and perspective of cinematic culture has hit home, particularly with the current administration.  In my own work I quoted Tony Blair speaking about the crisis that engulfed his now sacked Foreign Secretary Robin Cook in January 1998.  Cook, you will recall, had left his wife Margaret and had gained a divorce, whereupon he remarried his private secretary.  Blair, addressing the delicate question of Cook’s private life, said that he was disturbed by the way the media in this country was casting politics in American terms.  “Britain could be heading for the same type of political agenda as they’ve now got in the United States, where everything is an extension of Hollywood.  I don’t think it is very sensible for us to go in that direction,” he was quoted as saying.  This from a Prime Minister who felt compelled, in 2000, to answer questions in the House and publicly dismiss a Hollywood portrayal of American, when it should have been British, war time heroism in the stealing of the enigma code machine with the submarine movie, U571.  It is the very same government that then, in the General Election of 2001, attacked the Conservative opposition with billboards proclaiming Economic Disaster II, configured in the manner of a blockbuster Hollywood film.  Politics that rhetorically, and consistently, returns to that mantra of “talking about the issues”, nevertheless cannot help but be guided by propagandist images, more often than not, retranslated from Hollywood.

In America, the utilisation of film doesn’t stop with the imagery, for politicians it also becomes a signal of a lifetime experience.  In the preface to his recent book, Politics and Politicians in American Film, Phillip Gianos opens with the now infamous story of Ronald Reagan recounting the tragic sacrifice of a World War Two bomber pilot staying with his injured co-pilot as the plane crashed, and his being posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.  Gianos also tells of Reagan’s encounter with the Israeli Prime Minister in 1983 when he stated that he had visited the Nazi concentration camps soon after the war.  Both tales were untrue.  The bomber pilot story had come straight from the narrative of the 1944 film, Wing and a Prayer, and Reagan had watched films of the death camps but never been there; he spent the whole of the war making movies in L.A.![4]

Film has achieved, therefore, a dramatic poignancy and intimacy with modern social values and beliefs and this has helped to spread the potential for examination and research investigation.  It is also Reagan that brings this particular part of the talk to its natural climax.  We have so far looked at film as political statement, movies as historical re-writes, and cinema as reinterpretation of memory.  But what of cinema as tangible exposition of historical ideas and progression, phraseology passed into the vernacular of modern usage?  Well in relation to this point there is one more film to comment on.

Writing about the extreme popularity of George Lucas’s seminal 1977 sci-fi adventure, Star Wars, Peter Kramer has recently explained that research has led scholars to pick up varieties of meaning from the narrative, characters and setting.  One of these sources of meaning is Star Wars passing into political language.  Ronald Reagan’s use of the term “evil empire” (the Empire of the film being the evil conglomerate led by the Emperor and his sidekick, Darth Vader) for his description of the Soviet Union, allied to the title of the film being attached as a simplified codeword for the US Strategic Defence Initiative, brought film into the mainstream of political cultural parlance during the 1980s.[5] Reagan encapsulated the ongoing Cold War battle of wills into a spiritual dimension – “The Soviet Union is the focus of evil in the modern world” – that had its lineage in the dark motivations of the empire in Lucas’s film, suggests Kramer.  As if to emphasise the point, Reagan’s speech, made in March 1983, came exactly one month after Star Wars’ first appearance on Pay TV (cable) in the States and one month before the release of the franchise’s second sequel, Return of the Jedi.[6] The film was, therefore, a signifier of symbolic meaning for many different generations of Americans.  In its wake during the late ‘70s came a tidal wave which of course helped the regeneration of Hollywood itself, and thus there should be little wonder that cinema has received a much more prominent profile in academic circles as this era, and others that followed, passed into subjective scrutiny.[7]

So these stories are all very interesting, I hear you cry, but does it say anything to us about the study of film and the ways in which it is researched?  Well, the thing we should be reminded of with these examples is that one aspect of the study of film is increasingly wrapped up in cultural and political history, and as such the arguments and information that I have briefly set out for you here are extrapolated from a variety of sources.  The books cited are themselves as much political and social histories as they are film devoted texts.  Studies of American political culture and questions about the state of nationalism, democracy, liberalism and freedom of speech are as much tied up in cinematic analogies as they are in core political texts.  Publications as diverse as American Historical Review and The Nation magazine have both in recent years devoted special editions or sections to film.  So film texts, documents and archive material is expanding at quite a prodigious rate.  If you are searching and scrutinising material for possible inclusion in library catalogues or part of special collections or are just interested in research, it is becoming more worthwhile to take advice from people who have been to internet sites or seen archives on offer, before you spend a lot of time glancing through the material to hand.

Increasingly, even in the mainstream academic market for texts, diversity has been the watchword.  Texts devoted to, for example, studies of the Vietnam War have increasingly used interdisciplinary routes towards an assessment of historical images.  Examples here are Jeff Walsh’s edited collection, Vietnam Images and Linda Dittmar and Gene Michaud’s From Hanoi to Hollywood.  Works devoted to the study of history in films have expanded considerably since the 1970s, most notable might be the edited collection Hollywood as Historian by Peter Rollins, (Rollins also edits Film and History, a journal devoted to a very diverse range of film scholarship) Lary May’s own Screening out the Past, and work by the likes of Robert Rosenstone, Robert Sklar and Robert Brent Toplin.

I said in the introduction that there were few political scientists working in film but some mention ought to be given to notable interdisciplinary work that informed my own writing and which helps to exemplify the diversity of scholarship into the discipline, especially Philip Davies and Brian Neve’s Cinema, Politics and Society as well as Neve’s own Film and Politics in America: A Social Tradition.  Here are two British texts that provocatively drew attention to cinematic influence on society and politics through the twentieth century without major recourse to film theory.

Traditional journals which have been the lifeblood of cinema research, such as Cineaste and Cahiers du Cinema have been joined by the likes of Screen, Literature and Film Quarterly and the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television.  The Journal of Popular Film, The Journal of Modern History, Critical Studies in Mass Communication, Film Historia and American Quarterly are all learned and well-respected publications carrying film articles. I should not also forget our own Journal of American Studies which, as well as carrying many film articles, devoted a whole edition to film only a few years ago.  The amount of online journals looking at film is a topic that should have a whole talk devoted to it.  There is too much to mention in one go at this moment.  Suffice to say that here is one area where care and attention is needed in investment of materials.  As a whole, web sites have more and more information now and online articles can be good, but still many are not refereed and quality tends to patchy.

The Web as a whole has obviously been the other major growth area of research and archival information.  How good is the Web?  A difficult question to answer.  On archives, one might cite the burgeoning amount of material emanating out of film schools at, for instance, the University of Southern California (USC) and Berkeley (UC).  Particular articles still need to be paid for but a list of the archival collections and availability is an important resource.  There is, I have to say, still an awful a lot of rubbish out there on the Web.  Often engine searches for films, directors, stars etc, will produce the personal website of Wayne from Idaho who thinks Wynona Ryder is really cool.  It is here where film reference books can be, and still are, invaluable sources of information and background.  Variety, Halliwell’s and the Macmillan International Film Encyclopaedia are excellent routes to discovering titles, directors, biographical details and awards.

Organisations like the British Film Institute (BFI) and also groups like Film Education are putting film on the academic agenda at secondary level as well as degree standard, an important development for students who come to university often without any real recall to ways of reading film material.  I would also strongly and finally urge careful consideration of film screenings and actual hard copies of the movies.  It has been increasingly useful for us at Manchester University to have multi-region videos so as to play US material.  There is also far more material in the US than here.  The same is true of the ever-expanding DVD market.  It has been an open secret for too long that the amount of material available in this country pails into insignificance compared with the films distributed to video (primarily still) in the States.  The cost of the hardware (previously video players and now DVD machines) is also well in advance of what it should be, and needs to be, in order to promote film, especially in the financially strapped university sector.  If you represent a university, library or archive that is thinking of investing in screen rooms or large screen projectors, I would urge you to go for multi-region models and good quality ones.  British released DVD films are generally poor; in the US you tend, more often, to get a variety of features from trailers and interviews to key scene and plot analysis, even production notes.

I began this account by stating that the kind of publications that now competed in the marketplace for readership suggested something significant about the scholarship and the accumulation of film material being done.  Among magazines, Sight and Sound has obviously been around for a number of years and its status and importance to the presentation and discussion of cinema in this country remains unquestioned.  But, along with publications like Film International, it has tended to be one of the few marketed cinema magazines that has made its way onto the library shelves of universities.  Publications such as Premiere (now only available in Britain in its American form) and Empire are magazines that have led the populist charge towards coverage of mainstream, mainly Hollywood, cinema in recent years.  But their sense of tabloid journalistic presentation (in the eyes of some) rather more than critical perception should not detract from the valuable information that is often enclosed if one looks deeply enough.

What I’ve attempted to summarise here is the radically diverse landscape on offer to the film scholar.  Accessibility to film is more attainable then ever before and it calls for a balanced weight in academic circles between intellectual film criticism and more mainstream cinema reviewing and publicity.  Each has their place for different purposes. In my own field two scholars have neatly articulated why this plethora of sources is now more crucial than at any time in American film history.  Richard Maltby in his excellent general analysis, Hollywood Cinema has said that Hollywood’s engagement with the real America is indirect and therefore needs unravelling.[8] Ronald Brownstein, in his book, The Power and the Glitter really sums up the impact of cinema. “Hollywood is too deeply embedded in America’s culture to be isolated from its politics.”[9]

Cinema is pervasive and the roots of its discourse are multifarious.

Notes

[8] Richard Maltby Hollywood Cinema (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995) p.361.

[9] Ronald Brownstein The Power and the Glitter: The Hollywood-Washington Connection (New York: Pantheon, 1990) p. 391.

American Elections

In any long term relationship with American Studies one is likely to acquire a small selection of souvenirs and mementoes that have, or develop a cultural significance, and that, however serendipitously, may sometime become useful in teaching, learning and research.  Two battered ‘Food Coupons’ that were lost or discarded years ago in Washington DC still manage to focus the minds of class discussing welfare policy in the USA.  A personal artefact lends power to the idea that real people go through the process of being ‘authorized … to participate in the Food Stamp Program’.  And the vouchers are identified all over as issued by the US Department of Agriculture, which leads easily into a discussion as to how a congressional coalition was formed to pass this programme, and whether the welfare recipients are those poor Americans paying for their food in coupons, or those food-producing Americans finding a government-subsidised market for their product.

My first live contact with US politics was on the streets of Chicago during the 1968 Democratic National Convention.  I was in Chicago at the time entirely by coincidence, merely spending a few hours sight-seeing between Greyhound bus journeys from Toronto, and to Minneapolis, but the city was tense with a political rage that affected even the innocent bystander.  On the overnight trip to Chicago a black American my own age told me some of his interpretation of what was going on, and in Minneapolis I watched the politics on TV, and, passing a political stall, picked a small Nixon button from a goldfish bowl full of give-aways.

Over the years a few more political odds and ends were dropped indiscriminately into my desk drawers, until a few years later I was teaching at Lanchester Polytechnic (now Coventry University).  On a whim I took my small collection of a dozen or so buttons and bumper stickers into a class.  Some of the students appeared to take a little more interest, and certainly the items generated some questions: what was the meaning of ‘I’m a Shriver Driver’, and who was ‘Scoop’?  The following year, teaching at Manchester University, I brought a few things to another class, and again the physical presence of the artefacts, even those only tangentially related to the precise detail of the day’s lecture, seemed to lend reality and focus to the topic for some participants.
From that time I started to collect materials with some care and purpose.  Help came from unexpected sources.  Congressman James Scheuer of New York circulated a ‘Dear Colleague’ letter to his friends in Congress asking them to send me materials, and many did so.  Friends helped me then and some have had the patience to continue and do so ever since.  A small minority of candidates respond to direct requests for sample materials, most do not, but occasionally a candidate or staffer will take to heart the task of informing the British professor, and generous quantities of unusual items and documentation will arrive.  One US professor supplied slides from his own collection of rare 18th, 19th and early 20th century campaign items that I could never expect to add to the archive, but which could now form part of presentations on the history of campaigning.  Some state elections offices have been exceptionally helpful with official papers.  And minor parties often react with considerable energy to an explanatory letter and a donation of a few dollars.  On the other hand one grant awarding body turned down an application for research funds on the grounds that this was merely a personal hobby.

The archive has grown significantly.  It contains ballots from many states of the Union, official state elections material from different parts of the USA, and neutral ‘get out the vote’ and information literature from various sources.  Candidate campaigns are represented by posters, leaflets, handouts, bumper stickers, and hundreds of buttons.  Internal campaign documentation includes endorsement letters, guidance to phone bank operators, press passes, convention passes.  Unorthodox campaigning items include dolls, noisemakers, jewellery, a watch, domestic items, clothes, flower seeds, confectionery, document cases, bubble-gum cigars, and a condom.  Campaigns covered range from president to county commissioner, register of deeds and school board member.  Recall elections, initiatives and referenda are represented.  Materials form pressure groups and PACs are included.  And while the archive does not have examples from all the states, or even from all the variety of offices that Americans elect, it certainly gives an insight into hundreds of races in many locations.

In my own work I have used the archive for research and teaching.  In the classroom quite simple materials can bring life into debates.  At De Montfort University, Leicester the presentation of a ballot from Leicester, Vermont (see illustration 1), with its ten presidential and vice-presidential candidates, and the opportunity to write-in, plus opportunities to vote for US Senator, Representative in Congress, Governor, Lieutenant Governor, State Treasurer, Secretary of State, Auditor of Accounts, Attorney General, two State Senators, State Representative, High Bailiff, and (on a separate ballot) five Justices of the Peace, provides a remarkable contrast to the ballot the students will face in any UK elections.  And the information that Leicester, Vermont has a population of only a few hundred increases the impact, and stimulates discussion further.  Leicester, Massachusetts provides another stark example, but offers less choice on its ballot – it is harder for minor parties to get on the ballot in Massachusetts than in its neighbouring New England state – an opportunity to discuss the role of state differences in the management, conduct and design of elections in the USA.  I have been unable to obtain a ballot from Leicester, North Carolina so far, but I am sure that it will throw up other entirely legitimate points for discussion when it comes along.
Ballots come in many difference designs, voter instructions come with many different details, petitions to get on the ballot come with many different criteria, get out the vote materials come in many different languages (see illustration 2 and illustration 3).  Given the closeness of the 2000 US presidential elections, and the peculiarities of the result, an image of the much debated ballot used in West Palm Beach, Florida (see illustration 4) can generate an especially lively debate.  But each example can lead into discussion of electoral organisation, the federal system, the range and nature of US political parties, the candidates, access to the system, the nature of electoral choice in the USA, the connection that every act of voting in the USA has with that nation’s constitutional principles of separation of power, checks and balances, federalism and popular sovereignty, and the potential problems that are inherent in all these systemic and behavioural aspects of US democracy in action.

Examples and images from an archive of campaign materials can also be used to illustrate the development of democratic campaigning in the USA.  Brass buttons designed and sold to celebrate the selection of George Washington as the first president, in 1789, exist in collections in the USA.  They can be used to illustrate the themes of the time (celebration, nationalism, unity of purpose and mutual dependence between the states), as well as to examine the commercial origins of these first campaign items – produced by the button makers of New York and Connecticut to capitalise on the new nation’s enthusiasm for its independence, its leaders, and its political process.

Samples of many other items can be found from campaigns through over 200 years of American elections.  As well as illustrating the campaigns from which they come, these items form a history of artisan produced materials, and of the development of mass-production, as campaigners looked for viable media with which to project their messages.  Any manufactured goods in the late 1700s and early 1800s could rarely be described as cheap, but accessible formats were found: a drawing of John Adams, printed on paper, is mounted in a glass brooch; a late eighteenth century Wedgwood plate carries the image of a slave in chains, and the slogan ‘Am I not a Man and a Brother’.  Simple printed materials were most used, of course, and a handbill from 1828 shows the early emergence of vigorously negative campaigning, picturing, as it does, a series of coffins symbolising the soldiers that it accuses Andrew Jackson of having illegitimately executed.  Early paper ballots printed by the campaigns indicate the way that elections were conducted before the neutral (in America, the ‘Australian’) ballot was introduced.

A sample of materials from the 1840 campaign shows the value of a theme.  An article in the Baltimore Republican claimed that candidate William Henry Harrison was an unworthy figure who would be content with cider and a log cabin, and should be left to spend his life in these conditions.  It was an unwise accusation in a nation where the franchise was expanding rapidly, and much of that expansion was taking place in the self-sufficient frontier states.  The Harrison campaign printed log cabins on fabric, flags and medals.  Log cabin ceramic pots were created, and real log cabins were put on wheels and used in parades.  A campaign theme, and a lasting presidential myth, were firmly established.

By the 1860 election the modern campaign button came a step closer, with the production of metal-framed brooches containing tin-types of the candidates.  As in earlier cases, entrepreneurs were producing versions of these picturing each of the candidates, and selling direct to the public for profit.  Artefacts can be found to illustrate the important minor candidacies for the presidency – for example the 1872 announcement by Victoria Woodhull that she would challenge for the presidency, and items from the various significant Socialist campaigns for president by Eugene Debs.  Changing technology and taste are indicated by the shift from messages printed on silk ribbons, most popular in the early and mid nineteenth century, to ornamental torches used in street parades in the later nineteenth century, and decorative household items popular into the twentieth century.  The modern campaign button emerges in the 1890s, invented by Whitehead and Hoag, and first used extensively in the McKinley election of 1896.

There is still a bewildering variety of campaign items produced, by candidate campaigns, interest groups, and by entrepreneurs.  As well as the ubiquitous lapel button, there are buttons that flash, video tapes delivered door to door, sweets, bubble gum cigars, tee shirts, jewellery, hats, and, in a recent election in Boston, small bags of carrots (to indicate the candidate’s ‘vision’).  The non-perishable items among these can help recall and give life to campaigns by losers, winners and also-rans, to minor parties as well as major, to issues of the time, to the emergence of women, black and ethnic candidates – and to campaigns at all levels of government, throughout the history of the USA.

Archival items can also be put together to explore the resonance of a particular theme over time in US democracy.  The problem of US involvement in Vietnam was present as only a background shadow in the campaigns of Eisenhower and in the 1960 competition between John Kennedy and Richard Nixon, but items relating to Barry Goldwater and Lyndon Johnson in 1964 vibrate with the issue – especially the video tapes of probably the most famous TV campaign ad of all time, Tony Schwartz’s ‘Daisy Girl’.  The resistance and anti-war movement begins producing large amounts of powerful material in the 1960s, and all the candidates in 1968 – including minor party candidates like Dr Spock and Dick Gregory – provide artefacts that give depth to our vision of the times.

There is a continuing wealth of material that provides witness to the continuing echoes of this issue in American elections.  I shall mention just a few examples.  Campaign material exists from the elections of Father Bob Drinan, elected to a congressional seat from Massachusetts on a platform solely directed against the war, who stood down after several terms in office when the Pope insisted that Catholic priests should not pursue elected office.  Paul McCloskey stands in the primaries against Nixon in 1972, as a Republican peace candidate, but fares no better against the incumbent than does the Democratic candidate George McGovern.  The campaign literature of minor parties of the left through the rest of the twentieth century stress their candidates’ origins in the anti-war movement, while one right-wing candidate of the late twentieth century, ‘Bo’ Gritz, claimed in his literature that he had been the inspiration for the Rambo series of movies.  Bumper sticker and poster warnings against Ronald Reagan (‘In Your Heart You Know He Might’), and against US operations in Central America (‘Remember Vietnam’) draw on the cultural memory of the war in South East Asia.

Returned veterans such as Admiral Denton, John McCain, Al Gore, John F. Kerry, Bob Kerrey and other candidates of both major political parties learn to use their Vietnam experience in different ways in their campaign literature – looking for the spin that allows their experience to give credibility to their current positions.  Vietnam veteran campaign literature is not confined to major national candidates, nor to major parties.  A recent Green Party candidate for local office in New Mexico referred to her experience as an Army Nurse in Vietnam.  And Vietnam veterans have organised into political groups to encourage campaign activity.

In 1988 the nomination of J. Danforth Quayle as Republican vice presidential candidate brought Vietnam experience to the fore.  Political intervention by his family ensured that Quayle served out the war by joining the Indiana National Guard and spending occasional brief periods on domestic training programmes.  The campaign buttons express the division of public opinion that resulted, supporters producing ‘Weekend Warriors for Quayle’ badges, while opponents sent out biting the lapel-message ‘I fought the War in Indiana’.  In the 2000 election another Republican whose parents helped him find a war berth in the National Guard, George W. Bush managed to see off a genuine Republican Vietnam War hero, John McCain, and a sceptical, but participating Vietnam Veteran, Al Gore.  Both McCain and Gore used their records in campaign materials, while the situation of George W. gave reason for reflection on the reaction of his father George H.’s reaction to the Quayle affair, 12 years earlier.  It may be that this signals the end of Vietnam echoes in US elections, but future campaign materials will tell whether this is so.

In 2001 the UK election exposed another value in a US election archive.  There has been a great deal of talk about the trans-Atlantic transfer of campaign methods, but this election appeared to provide a clear example of this influence in the modelling of a Conservative election broadcast on advertisements from the Republican anti-Dukakis campaign of 1988.  The Conservatives used two of their five TV slots to deliver the same three-minute long party election broadcast alleging the government’s failure to tackle crime, and properly to enforce punishment.  In particular the broadcast concentrated on early release of criminals, and the numbers of these who re-offended, listing the violent crimes and rapes that had been detected among this group.  The broadcast appeared to draw heavily on two much briefer advertisements from the 1988 US campaign.  The ‘Revolving Door’ ad used images of prisoners entering a corrections facility and then apparently leaving unimpeded through a gate similar to that used in sports stadia.  The Bush/Quayle campaign used this ad to attack a prisoner furlough programme that operated in Massachusetts during Dukakis’ gubernatorial term.  A parallel spot ad in the 1988 campaign was financed by a Political Action Committee, supposedly independent of the official Bush/Quayle campaign, and concentrated in particular on the furlough given to Willie Horton, who committed assault and rape while on leave from his Massachusetts prison.  The Conservative 2001 broadcast seemed to be based firmly on these two spot ads, and the Conservative media campaign seemed committed to the attack and negative style exemplified by these.  The use of archived tape material to examine these broadcasts back to back can stimulate vigorous debate on the nature of elections both in the USA and UK, and on the potential Americanisation, or perhaps globalisation, of campaigning.

The archive that I use is the result of three decades of fairly undisciplined acquisition.  It is planned that the archive will eventually be lodged at the Rothermere Institute for American Studies at the University of Oxford, where is will be accessible to researchers and teachers of US elections.  It is nonetheless not difficult to create a small pedagogical collection of items from current and recent elections that can prove extremely valuable in focusing the attention of a study group, help direct discussion of matters theoretical, practical, administrative, and policy-oriented, and generally give life to a distant democratic process.

Illustration 1

Illustration 2

Illustration 3

Illustration 4

City Sites: an electronic book

City Sites is part of the 3 Cities research project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Board, and is based at the University of Birmingham and at the University of Nottingham.  It is an inter- and multi-disciplinary study of the iconography, spatial forms and visual and literary cultures of New York and Chicago in the period 1870s to 1930s.  City Sites is the result of collaborative research by scholars from Europe and the U.S.A and presents a pioneering approach to American urbanism utilising analytical possibilities offered by new multimedia technologies.

The electronic book consists of the following elements:

1. a welcome page, which provides initial navigational guidance for the user;
2. a short introduction to the project and the governing methodological principles of the work.  This overview section introduces users to the navigational pathways which structure the book and also introduces the contributors to the project, our sponsors and situates the project within the context of the larger Three Cities collaboration.
3. ten essays, written by academics from Europe and the U.S.A.;
4. a set of nominated pathways to facilitate non-linear navigation of the electronic book;
5. hyperlinks that allow movement across essays following individual topics and hyperlinks to external sites dealing with American urbanism;
6. interactive annotated maps of New York and Chicago;
7. an annotated bibliography.

The overall intention is to demonstrate that multimedia technology can enhance traditional methods of analysis of urban culture, rather than simply using the technology to archive research materials or make the research ‘look good’.

It hardly needs saying that work on urban space and representation is at the forefront of research in the broad area of Cultural Studies.  Consequently, the individual ‘essays’ offer interpretative arguments that are comparable with those which would appear in a regular quality academic journal or groundbreaking collection of essays but which take advantage of the technology to develop innovative ways of analysing visual and textual material.  This electronic book is not simply inter-disciplinary but stays ‘live’ and provides links to the resources and other research upon which the authors have drawn in their essays and upon which their readers – it is hoped – can draw in their subsequent research.

The whole book can be read and used in a relatively conventional way – text, illustrations and cited works are introduced and used sequentially; but it works just as well through its non-linear forms of analytic engagement with the materials: the reader can follow one of several ‘pathways’ through the e-book (for example, along a ‘transportation’ or an ‘architecture’ pathway). These pathways connect different essays and different city sites, promoting exploration of the multimedia environment and suggesting alternative engagements with the city sites in each contribution.

The Essays

These are accessible from an overall content page  (anchored by images of the city sites) from which the user may enter each individual essay.  Each essay commences from an establishing image of an individual site, which focuses the analysis on the visual dimension of the piece while allowing an outward movement to larger urban concerns (economic, political, technological, cultural, and aesthetic as appropriate to each essay).  Each essay is rich in visual material, and develops new ways of studying urban culture through interactive engagement with essay analysis.  This is facilitated through the use of ‘live’ bibliographical links to ongoing external web projects on American urbanism, through supplementary material such as graphs, charts, statistics and historical information which can be integrated within the multimedia essay form and through the use of moving image and sound. Even when readers go to an external site, a new City Sites mechanism keeps them within the overall framework of the book, so they can return easily after exploration of the external resource.  Illustrations are also raised to new levels of fitness and usefulness: for example, annotated maps are supplemented by viewable images of important areas and buildings.  The ‘sites’ dealt with in the book are also marked on the maps, so locating individual essays within geographical and historical contexts.  A ‘live’ annotated bibliography, detailing printed and online resources, serves all ten essays.  It can be accessed from any point in the book – viewed in a pop up – or browsed as an autonomous section.

Each essay may be read as a whole, or the user may choose to begin the essay at any one of its subsections and move back and forth between essay sections and across different essays.  Within the argument of each essay there is likely to be an opening out: for example, from the particular image and site to the general; from the visual to the social/quotidian; from the spatial to the historical; and from the American to the comparative European dimension.  The essays combine the specificity of historical analysis, based upon archival sources, with a theoretical awareness of such current issues as spatial/cognitive mapping.

Essay titles

New York

Dr Maria Balshaw, ‘From Lenox to Seventh Avenue: the Visual Iconography of the “Negro Capital of the World”‘
Dr Anna Notaro: ‘Constructing the Futurist City: The Skyline’.
Professor Douglas Tallack, ‘The Rhetoric of Space: Jacob Riis and New York City’s Lower East Side’.
Professor Eric Sandeen, ‘Signs of the Times: Waiting for the Millennium in Times Square’.
Mr John Walsh, ‘The Attraction of the Flatiron Building: construction Processes’.

Chicago

Dr William Boelhower, ‘The Mysteries of Chicago: Floating in a Sea of Signs’.
Dr Jude Davies, ‘Meeting Places: Shopping for Selves in Chicago and New York’.
Dr Christopher Gair, ‘Whose America? White City and the Shaping of National Identity, 1883-1905’.
Dr Liam Kennedy, ‘Black Metropolis: The Space of the Street in the Art of Archibald Motley Jr’.
Prof Max Page, ‘Maxwell Street and the Crucible of Culture’.

Like all successful monographs, City Sites connects with other resources and other scholars’ work, not least on the associated 3Cities project web site at www.3cities.org.

The electronic book was published by the University of Birmingham Press in December 2000 as a dedicated web site.  To mark the publication there was an official launch on 11 December in the Mason Lounge, Arts Building, The University of Birmingham.  The entire electronic book is available in CD-ROM form, as a ‘published’ outcome.

If you would like to view City Sites go to

www.citysites.org.uk

Legal image: copyright issues in the visual world

Introduction

The copyright issues surrounding visual images vary from country to country so it is worth taking a look at the laws in both the UK and the USA to see what the differences are and how far they overlap sufficiently to prevent unnecessary misunderstanding.   However, it must be remembered that copyright law is national in character so that the law of the country where actions take place or the material is held is the important issue.  So a photographer taking photos in the US will be controlled by US law but, if those photographs are then exported to the UK, it will be UK law that determines what may be done with them within the UK.  This can lead to a mismatch of expectations and often causes misunderstandings.

Basic principles

A work cannot be copyright unless it is (a) original and (b) fixed in some way so that it could be reproduced.  So, for example, a photocopy of a document does not attract copyright because it is merely a “slavish” copy, not original.  This can cause real problems in the case of photographs of paintings.  Although many experts would say that a photograph of a painting is a separate copyright work, because it has taken skill and technical knowledge to create the photograph, there has been a case where the judge ruled that such a photograph did not attract copyright because it was simply a copy.  He further ruled that the more like the original painting the photograph became, the less likely it was to be copyright because it became simply an exact copy.  This topic has given rise to much argument!

In the case of fixation, this is more obvious.  If an object does not exist long enough to be copied or in a form which can be copied then it cannot be copyright.  Although it is hard to imagine an image which is not fixed, one example could be emails with artistic attachments which, once viewed, are permanently deleted.  Although they may have been copyright for a few moments the rights are lost  when the work is deleted.  However, if there is a proper record of the work then it will still be in copyright even if the original has been destroyed.  A famous example is the portrait of Sir Winston Churchill painted by Sir Graham Sutherland.  The Churchills hated the painting and burnt it but, because photographs of the painting still exist, so does the copyright.  It is called the Cheshire Cat Syndrome!  Another example of a visual image which would not be fixed might be a hologram projected onto a wall but which has not been photographed (or recorded on video).

Definitions

The two main elements of visual recordings are photographs and films.  They are defined differently in the two countries:

For photographs

UK

Recording of light or other radiation on any medium on which an image is produced or from which an image may by any means be produced, and which is not part of a film

US

No legal definition

For films (and videos)

UK

A “film” as a recording on any medium from which a moving image may by any means be produced.

US

“Motion pictures” are audiovisual works consisting of a series of related images which, when shown in succession, impart an impression of motion, together with accompanying sounds, if any.

Duration

Copyright rarely lasts forever and is generally linked to the death of the author.  Both countries now offer 70 years from the end of the year in which the author died (.i.e. always 31.12 of any given year). However, this means we need to know who is the author.  In US law this is defined as Under the copyright law, the creator of the original expression in a work is its author but under UK law the author is the photographer in the case of photographs and the producer and the principal director in the case of films.  But life is never simple in the Copyright World.  For under UK law, the duration of copyright in a film is determined, not by the death of the Producer and Principal Director but by the death of the last to die of the following:

The principal director

The author of the screenplay

The author of the dialogue

The composer of music specially created for and used in the film.

The trick is, therefore, if you are a very elderly Principal Director to find a very young author for the screenplay to ensure copyright lasts for a very long time after you die.

When a work is anonymous then more complex rules come into force depending on if, and when, the work was first created or published.  In the UK copyright lasts for

70 years from year of creation but, if published in that time, 70 years from first publication (giving a possible maximum of 139 years).  In the US such copyright lasts for 120 years from creation or 95 years from publication whichever expires first.

Government publications

The situation is totally different in each country.  In the US the Copyright Acts specifically states “Copyright protection” is not available to any work of the Government of the United Sates of America”.  This mean just what it says – any work created by the US Government is not liable for copyright protection.  This does not mean that other works owned by the US Government as part of a contract, gift or legacy cannot be protected – they can.  But US Government originated works cannot.  So they can be freely reprinted, downloaded, used in websites or anything else provided their integrity is maintained.

In the UK a different approach prevails but it is becoming less and less rigorous.  The Crown owns all copyright in material created by employees of the Crown (i.e. Her Majesty and Her Government and all ministerial departments).  This right lasts for 125 years from creation but for 50 years from the date of publication with a maximum of 125 years.  Crown photographs published before 1.8.89 are protected for 50 years maximum.  Unpublished Crown photographs taken before that date are protected until 2039.

Owner’s rights

Although the author has been defined, it is the owner who is really important in both legal traditions.  Copyright is essentially a property right so establishment of ownership is vital.  Although the author is usually the first owner s/he may transfer the rights by sale, gift or licence to anyone else they choose.  On the other hand, the rights in any work created as part of employment in either country is owned by the employer.  The rights given to the owner are exclusive and are defined in each country as follows

Note that in the UK authors have no rights to prevent display of a work, whereas they do in the US.

It is also worth noting that personal images are carefully protected in the US but not in the UK.  For example, it would not be allowed to use a photo of someone as background to an advertisement in the US but this is perfectly legal in the UK.  In the US is a famous case of a man seeing an advertisement for a product to reduce cellulite which used a photograph of his wife’s buttocks (which he recognised, so he said, by their dimples).  He complained that the image had been used without her permission.  Such a case would not work in the UK although how the image was obtained without the wife’s permission remains a mystery.

Use of copyright images

Although copyright is an exclusive right of the copyright owner, legislation usually makes allowances for other people to use such material in limited ways provided it does not damage the interests of the copyright owner.  In the UK this is broadly referred to as “fair dealing” and in the US as “fair use”.  The purposes are defined slightly differently in each country.

* Photographs are specifically excluded from use for reporting current events.

** Films and videos are excluded from use for research or private study.

In the US there are four texts for fair use which the court would use – (a) amount taken; (b) use to which it is put; (c) the nature of the material; (d) the damage to the economic expectations of the owner.  Fair dealing in the UK is not so tested and each case would be viewed on it merits.

Recent cases in the UK have shown that the courts consider “current events” to be a much wider term than was thought.  They have upheld this defence in two cases where the actual events took place nearly two years before the use of the copyright material took place.  However, the court ruled that the content of the material (a security video in one case and a TV interview in the other) was still of current interest because it shed light on other issues currently before the public.

Copying by libraries and archives

Copying by libraries or archives on behalf of their users, for interlibrary purposes or for preservation is allowed in the US but UK law specifically excludes artistic works from any of the privileges extended to libraries or archives.

Conclusion

As can be seen, there are considerable differences in some aspects of UK and US law relating to the copyright of images.  However, the rule about national law needs to be remembered because this will lead to disparity in practice and can often result in misunderstandings.  Provided everyone remembers that different countries approach these issues independently a lot of unnecessary irritation as well as time and energy can be avoided.

Digital America – online images

The intention of this presentation is to raise questions rather than give answers, questions about the relationship between American Studies, Images, and the Internet, that you may want to think about.  And, more usefully, to direct you to resources and ways of using resources that will help you to create your own answers to those questions.

This talk is somewhat anecdotal, rather than technologically flashy or theoretically academic, because hype about the Internet often conceals the ‘nuts and bolts’ of using it and can be off-putting to both novices and the experienced (who have tended to hear it all anyway).  What this talk offers is some practical advice based on actual experience of using the web in learning and teaching, for those who wish to give it a go.

My first anecdote, then, stretches back to the dark ages of 1994 – when I first began using the Internet for research as part of an MA in American Studies at the University of Maryland.  This was a pre-Netscape era.  The web browser then, as some of you may also remember, was Lynx, a Unix program; menu-based and arrow, rather than mouse, controlled.  Most pertinent to this talk, it could not download or display images.  December 1994 saw the first release of Netscape, and thereby the Internet was transformed into a visual medium.  In the six years since this first release a visual, aural and textual revolution has taken place of which few can be unaware.  The Internet foisted upon us the need to consider new forms of evidence other than the written, to become critically aware of non-textual evidence and develop expertise in analysis of images outside of the disciplines of art history or material culture studies.  (Proof that it is a visual medium: who has ever read a book online? Despite the much hyped end of the book in the early days of the Internet, there’s little evidence that people prefer reading online to printed text).

But to place this in another perspective, if we compare the development of the Internet with the development of television, we are still only in 1934.  My point is, that we cannot ignore or underestimate the potential influences of the Internet – on America, the World, and the way we learn about, or teach that world – and that we are still at a stage of very early development.  At this early stage, it may greatly benefit our future educational development, to consider the ways in which the Internet may change or transform our teaching and learning strategies, and by doing so, help to shape the medium still in its infancy.

The Whys and Hows of Using the Internet for American Studies

(Please see http://www2.mistral.co.uk/velocity/digital/whys.html )

American Studies are positioned to benefit greatly from the use of the Internet; for the study of a geographical area and culture the Internet can provide immediate access to local news, cultural events, inaccessible archives, and statistical information that was previously unavailable from within the UK.  American Studies particularly “suits” use of the Internet, a medium which “propels” the user into interdisciplinarity and encourages independent primary source research.  A multi-media medium which demotes the text as the primary source of “evidence”.

At its best (and why many of us were attracted to the discipline) American studies is devoted to multiple forms of evidence, interdisciplinarity, non-hierarchical learning and deconstructive methodologies which make its relationship with the Internet, if not a marriage, then at least an engagement.

At the same time, the Internet may change some of the ways we teach and learn about America.  For many non-US students, the Internet may be the primary way that they access and see images of the United States.

Equally, American Studies within the US higher education system has been changed by the Internet.  Many American Universities are now incorporating the Internet into undergraduate and graduate seminars.  The technology is being utilised in a variety of ways – according to student numbers, the subject, the resources and technology available, faculty training, and varying student levels and skills.  It appears then, that most universities are individually tailoring the use of the Internet to fit their usual course needs and requirements.  This “tailoring” takes as much preparation as any new course and does not just consist of tapping the Internet or adding a few relevant web sites to a reading list.  American Studies students outside of the US need to have equal access and support using the resources available to their American counterparts, if they are to produce scholarship of international standing on a par with their American equivalents.

Much has been said and written about the Internet, yet little of practical use for teachers, researchers, students and librarians, about how we can incorporate this potentially explosive resource.  This presentation has the simple aim of illustrating how practitioners in American Studies may utilise and benefit from the Internet – and will show you where to go next to find out more.

Please see American Studies workshop page at http://www2.mistral.co.uk/velocity/baas/baaswork.html. Indicates a self-guided 40 minute workshop at http://www2.mistral.co.uk/velocity/digital/instructions.html.

See also the Crossroads site – the main American Studies resource on the Internet, available at: http://www.georgetown.edu/crossroads.

The following list indicates some of the more popular ways that the Internet is being used as a learning and teaching resource:

1. Email. Course listservs (discussion groups) are set up so that groups of students can contact each other about the course content, problems they are having, findings they have made or to make queries about possible sources.  A course instructor can moderate, observe or add comments to the discussion just as they would in a seminar.  Students can also email essay proposals or full essays to the course instructor – these essays could be multimedia presentations which include images, film clips or sounds.  Moderated academic discussion groups also exist for many topics/fields, most of these have searchable archives that anyone can access without joining the mailing list – making available the discussions of specialists and experts in the field. (For collections of US based discussion groups click on http://www.n2h2.com/KOVACS/ UK lists can be found at http://www.mailbase.ac.uk )

2. Comparative & Evaluative. Students are given similar sources in print and electronic forms and are asked to compare the different information sources available.  This is usually an entry level course that attempts to sharpen critical awareness as well as give some familiarity with online information sources.

3. Electronic Archives. The Internet is used as an archive of information sources – key sites are given alongside reading lists and the students are encouraged to explore further for their assigned essay topic.  Some courses have taken this a bit further and give an online reading list, with links to information sources, online essays, lectures or other hypertext-style presentations.  The Internet also makes available non-print learning materials: photographs, moving images, advertisements and sound recordings.  For many students and teachers this makes for more exciting and dynamic teaching resources.  As a researcher, the digitisation of non-print resources has made them more accessible and easy to find via word searches on Internet databases.

4. Online Exhibitions. This type of use of the Internet is particularly suitable to interdisciplinary courses – where students are encouraged to explore a topic of their choice from a multi or interdisciplinary perspective.  Students write their essays in basic html (taught over a few hours in the classroom) and present their ideas as web sites.  They are allowed to include, or quote, information they find online, but must include a minimum amount of their own writing (for example, 6 pages).  The web sites enable the students to link to other related or interdisciplinary subjects, include graphics or sound, and to present their ideas in non-linear format.  This type of course normally requires group work, often in pairs, and requires some technological instruction in using html.  (This can be learned quite quickly in a computer workshop or with a handbook of instructions).  The final paper, or online exhibition, can be posted on a web site for all course participants to view at their leisure – comments on each others’ work can be posted on a listserv.  Educators have noted that this type of presentation encourages students to become aware of their responsibilities as creators of publicly accessible information or images (as opposed to information or image recipients).

5. Overseas communication and collaboration. The Internet is also being used to establish contact with foreign scholars and institutions so that studies can be placed in a global context.  Time spent abroad can be made less daunting or lonely, and can become more fruitful by arranging prior contact and communication between the visitor and the host institution or students – this could be in a variety of forms from web-based postings, email discussions, joint institution web sites, to live web-conferencing.

My own experience of using images from the Internet is illustrated by the web-page I’ve created for this talk, and includes a few other resources which may become of interest to scholars in the future.

Please see: http://www2.mistral.co.uk/digital/digital.html

The first set of images are images I used in my own doctoral research on leisure during the 1930s (three of the 27 were pivotal to my argument – which was mainly based on printed resources).

The first image provided me with evidence which contrasted with the written sources I had been using which indicated that the primary concern over leisure was concern with adult use of leisure – whereas many Work Projects Administration (WPA) images focused on more “propagandistic” children’s use of leisure.  Located by using the National Archives search facility this image is one of many thousands available as primary source research material.

The second image is one from the Duke University collection of advertisements – AdAccess – which I used to corroborate my argument that eugenic thinking was behind developments in leisure which promoted education, personal management, and self-help counselling, all of which promised to fit, or streamline, citizens to their modern surroundings.

The third image, found at the WPA poster collection at the Library of Congress, corroborated my argument that there was a new “Taylorizing” of leisure in place of work during the 30s – illustrated by the compartmentalising of various activities, and with a clock placed centrally within the leisure poster. Again, one of millions of visual resources available to non-US based researchers.

The next two images are illustrations from a course I taught at Sussex, titled ‘Women in North American Society’.  I was a tutorial fund tutor and didn’t create the course, but this page enabled me to overcome some of the practical problems I encountered with student numbers and access to materials (too many students, not enough books, the course was not to be run again).  I was able to bypass the problem that the library only had a handful of books on Emily Carr, the Canadian painter, as resources on the web about her were teaming.  By pointing them to the art of their contemporaries, the page also enabled students to make deeper contextual analysis of the paintings of Georgia O’Keefe, and the not so well-known Emily Carr, placing them in relation to the art movements which had impacted their work.  In addition, many students (not art history majors) learned how to download, cite and incorporate images into their essays for the first time.

The other links I’ve created also take you to other kinds of multimedia images and evidence, which you can examine at a later date.  Technical problems (may need a RealPlayer) and time of download may still be a problem for some – most obviously with the CNN site, which is clunky and of low visual quality.  But seeing as this is only 1934 in development terms – many things can be expected from these resources yet!

Some Conclusions

The Internet is not being used solely as a new type of encyclopaedia – many course tutors are using the Internet as a communications tool between students and researchers, or as a site to disseminate information and new ideas as well as a point to access them.  With this in mind, the end goal of many Internet projects is the presentation of findings to a community of scholars (for example, in the form of an online exhibition) as much as the discovery of previously inaccessible information sources.

As well as becoming a teaching tool, the Internet has introduced new topics for consideration by the academic community in all disciplines – these include issues of pedagogy, information technology and power, the analysis of visual culture, electronic communities and hypertextual narratives.  Debates concerning the influence of the Internet as a new mass media are of interest to scholars from literature to the social sciences.  One promising use made of the Internet in American university courses include critical methods of evaluating the Internet as an information source and discussions on the construction of “truth” and “information”.

Apart from the case of some distance learning style courses (not covered here), the use of the Internet has not yet greatly changed the role of the university instructor – the new medium has been incorporated into the traditional classroom quite easily where the instructor has made adequate preparation, has access to IT resources, and has some technological awareness.  Large class sizes are a particular problem in American universities – some courses have utilised the Internet as a way of supplementing communication between the instructor and the class members and as an arena of mass presentation.  Some course instructors use the Internet to spoon feed students the required amounts of information in an online lecture format.  However, the nature of the Internet means that if adequate hyperlinks are given, students will inevitably follow a trail not designed by a course instructor.  While there is a need to teach some computer skills, the skills are more easily learned as part of a research paper exercise that relates to the students’ field of interest, than as a computer course per se.  Alongside these technical skills, however, is the need to develop visual literacy and critical awareness – so that students of American Studies develop a sophisticated approach.  For this, we need to ask and answer such questions as: how visual materials are used to negotiate cultural authority, what are the strengths and weaknesses of using visual materials as evidence of the American experience, what do images tend to obscure or distort?  And on a more practical level, what are the pedagogical approaches to analysing graphic images, and how do we conduct or guide research in electronic image archives for American Studies.

The speaker began by explaining that all information and links mentioned in this talk are available as part of the website she created for the talk at http://www2.mistral.co.uk/velocity

NewsBank

I would like to draw brief attention to NewsBank’s most important America Studies materials.

Chicago Tribune Archive.  This is our newest, exciting, web delivered, resource.  The Chicago Tribune, one of the premier US newspapers, has been continuously published since 1849.  It is now the first newspaper to digitise its entire back file.  It will offer 56,000 front page, fully searchable images, from 1849, plus 15,000 significant articles from 1900 and 1,000,000 obituaries and death notices all in fully searchable image.  The project is now half way through its three-year programme and considerable pre-publication discounts are presently available.

Newsfile.  A full text web database that offers regional, state-wide and national perspectives on US issues and events.  With a back file to 1992, 90,000 articles are taken and indexed each year from 500 US newspapers.  These give a unique insight into the facts and broad range of US opinion from back yard to White House on every significant issue.  Newsfile also covers theatre, film and book reviews.

Early American Imprints. This landmark collection has two parts: Evans which contains the full text in microform of virtually every non-serial title published in America between 1639 and 1800 as listed in the Evans Bibliography.  The second, Shaw-Shoemaker, offers all non-serial titles published during the period of tremendous US growth from 1801 and 1819.  You get much more than books, pamphlets and broadsides, you get published reports, letters, messages from Presidents; Congressional, state and territorial resolutions.

Four Centuries of American Plays. Every American play is included in this superb collection, full text in microform from the fledgling American theatre in 1714 to the end of the nineteenth century.  The collection contains some 5,500 plays represented in the first edition, all-important subsequent editions plus acting editions and prompt books.

American Women’s Diaries. This is a collection of ” history in the making” as expressed in personal accounts.  These diaries, written during the formative years of the US, have over 800 items in three segments, rich in invaluable perspectives of the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries.  ‘New England Women’, ‘Southern Women’ and ‘Western Women’ reflect the major issues of their day: movements, social upheavals and national and international developments as well as a women’s role in society, marriage, family and illness.

Early American Newspapers. An almost exhaustive set of US newspapers from the beginning of newspaper publication to the early twentieth century, full text on microfilm.  A full title list is available and titles may be purchased separately.

European Americana. Six printed volumes setting out a chronological guide to every work printed in Europe relating to the Americas from 1493 to 1750.  It is generally acknowledged that this work will, for most purposes, supersede Joseph Sabin’s European bibliotheca, which is alphabetically arranged and has no indexes.  European Americana includes many more works than Sabin, in part because of research areas of Americana that Sabin neglected such as literature and natural science.

David Newman, NewsBank can be contacted at: dnewman@newsbank.com

Primary Source Microfilm

Primary Source Microfilm, an imprint of the Gale Group, has spent the last 35 years building one of the world’s largest microform archives of exclusive primary source materials and to provide access to rare, valuable source materials for subjects including humanities, social sciences and international news.

Primary Source Microfilm is pleased to present selected titles from our Primary Sources for North American History catalogue offering our unique collections focusing on specific regions of North America.

The Sabin Collection

From Joseph Sabin’s Bibliotheca Americana: A Dictionary of Books Relating to America from its Discovery to the Present Time’.

• Declassified Documents Reference System – microfiche and online
  DDRS has become a major and highly respected source of information about United States post-World War II domestic policy and international relations.
• Slavery
  Anti-Slavery Propaganda Collection from Oberlin College, 1835 to 1863.
  Slavery: A subset of the Sabin Collection.
  Slavery, Source material and Critical Literature.
• Native Americans
  Iroquois Indians: A Documentary History.
  Indians of North America: A subset of the Sabin Collection.
  Papers of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.
  Records of the Moravian mission among the Indians of North America.
• Early American History
  Travels in the Old South 1607 – 1860.
  Sources of Massachusetts Legal History, 1628 – 1839.
  Western American Frontier History 1550 to 1900.
  Witchcraft in Early New England.
  America, Britain and the War of Independence.

Partnership Purchasing: In order to make some of our larger microform collections more easily accessible to a greater number of libraries, Primary Source Microfilm are happy to discuss ‘Partnership Purchasing’ schemes, whereby a small group of libraries making a purchase of a given collection would have duplicate copies available to all group members at consortium style rates.
For further information on this and to confirm pricing for the above collections, please contact a Primary Source Microfilm sales representative

Robert Jacobs
Sales Manager
Northern England, Scotland and Northern Ireland
Tel: 0207 2572988
Fax: 0207 2572940
E-Mail: robert.jacobs@galegroup.com

Duncan Powell
Regional Sales Manager
Southern England and Wales
Tel: 0207 2572989
Fax: 0207 2572940
E-Mail: duncan.powell@galegroup.com

Visit us on www.galegroup.com/psm

Review

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture. Edited by Gary W. McDonough, Robert Gregg and Cindy H Wong. ISBN 0415161614. Routledge, £85.00, 839pp.

Reviewed by Jean Kemble, Eccles Centre for American Studies, The British Library.

Well aware of the ever-increasing number of scholarly monographs and reference sources devoted to this subject, the editors of this Encyclopedia sensibly regard their work as a “clearinghouse” on contemporary American culture.  It is their intention that this intermediary guide should provide concise, open information, outline debates and resources, and give multiple readings of the American enterprise.  Not surprisingly, they define their subject carefully: “American” means the United States; Contemporary means post-1945; while “Culture” embraces facets of “high culture,” including the arts, sciences and academic studies and “mass culture” associated with mass media and consumption.

Enlisted to this project are American and non-American contributors living in the US and abroad.  They include not only academics but also business people, doctors, clergy, journalists, workers, poets and students.  Their articles have been categorised by length and breadth, reflecting topical complexity as well as a rough gauge of their importance to an understanding of American culture.  Articles of 2000 words are designed to provide comprehensive overviews of analytic categories such as gender, race and class as well fundamental spaces and issues of American culture including the city, religion, food and popular culture.  Those of 1000-1500 words cover both issues in the study of America and primary topics – homelessness, popular culture, and institutions of government feature here.  Finally, 200 articles of 500-1000 words ‘provide critical tools for the reader in making sense of events, processes, periods and personages of the American century.’

Inevitably, any work of this type will at some time prompt the reader to exclaim: why is this in here, or why was that excluded.  Yet, the editors’ parameters will surely answer most such cries robustly: as a single volume it is perfectly acceptable that only the cultural key players can be included; on a broad-canvas Barbie may certainly follow Samuel Barber, and horror films may come right behind Bob Hope.  Indeed, the juxtaposition of such subjects is perhaps one of its best, albeit incidental, assets.

To help the reader fully utilise the Encyclopedia’s potential, extensive cross-referencing is provided throughout, thereby facilitating the editors desire that multiple perspectives be explored.  Likewise, the thematic entry list allows the reader to see at a glance which topics have been chosen to illuminate thirty-four broad subject areas including education, crime and police, mass media and journalism, and urbanism and suburbs.  Without exception, the long thematic articles provide the reader with comprehensive overviews of their subjects as well as pertinent if sometimes short bibliographies to enable him to pursue his interest further; short bibliographies are also provided with many of 1000 word articles too.

In all this work, although clearly open to some debate as to inclusion and exclusion, is a useful guide to the rapidly changing landscape that is contemporary American culture.

Contents

1. BAAS Library and Resources Sub-Committee Meeting June 2000
2. Imaginative Representations of the Vietnam War
3. The Chicago Jazz Archive
4. Review
5. Useful Websites
6. News

BAAS Library and Resources Sub-Committee Meeting June 2000

Minutes of the Committee Meeting held at the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 15 June 2000.

Present

Dr J Beer (BAAS)
Ms L Crawley (JRULM), Treasurer
Dr K Halliwell (National Library of Scotland), Acting Secretary
Mr D G Heyes (British Library, London)
Dr I Wallace (JRULM), Chair

1. Apologies

Ms K Bateman (USIS Reference Centre)
Mr R J Bennett (British Library, Boston Spa)
Miss A Cowden (University of London)
Ms J Kemble (Eccles Centre)

1a. Welcomes
Dr Wallace welcomed Dr J Beer, who was standing in for Prof. P Davies on behalf of the BAAS Executive.

2. Minutes of the previous meeting
These were signed as a correct record.

3. Matters arising
Dr Wallace had not contacted Peter Fox but still intended to do so.

Dr Wallace reported he had still not retrieved the documentation for the Newcastle bequest, but hoped it would turn up.

In view of the small turn out, the question of the most suitable venue for meetings was discussed. It was again felt that the best attendance always occurred when the group met in London. Dr Beer reported that BAAS sometimes made use of the Institute of United States Studies (the British Library proving too expensive), and that a list of other venues could be had from Jenel Virden, BAAS Secretary. It was thought still important to retain links with the US Embassy. Dr Wallace undertook to pursue, along with Mr Bennett, the use of the Embassy as a venue for future meetings, to contact Jenel Virden and to talk to Prof. Davies about the new Cultural Attaché at the Embassy, who had earlier expressed enthusiasm for BAAS.

Nick Selby had been elected Treasurer of BAAS.

4. Treasurer’s report

Ladies and Gentlemen:

This is my initial report as Hon. Treasurer of BLARS, and in so doing I have merely followed Linda Williamson’s format in producing the current balance sheet. There have been no significant developments since my predecessor’s last statement for the Sub-committee prepared on the 3rd February 2000. This, I feel, is a good thing since I am still finding my way around the post at the moment.

Turning to the statement of accounts: in brief, on the income side, we have carried forward an opening balance of £2974.12 from the last meeting of the 3rd February 2000. We have as yet added nothing to this figure.

The total figure for the expenditure side is £121.70, which covers the cost of issue 49 of the ASLG Newsletter.

The balance in hand is currently £2852.42, showing a decrease of £121.70 owing to the above payment to the British Library of this amount to cover production costs of issue number 49 of the Newsletter. Also, at the present time we have two invoices still outstanding. We are waiting for a payment of £250 for Chadwyck-Healey’s advertisement in the July 1999 (no. 48) Newsletter. As I am unable to find a copy of the invoice in any if the files left by my predecessor I have contacted and I am waiting upon Nick Selby, the newly appointed Hon. Treasurer for BAAS, to forward me a copy of the invoice. When he does so, I can begin chasing Chadwyck-Healey for payment. Nick tells me that he is still finding his feet, as treasurer at the moment but will hopefully send me the invoice later this week.

We are also still waiting to be invoiced by the British Library for issue number 48 of the Newsletter. I have contacted Richard Bennett about this and hope to be invoiced soon. As on previous occasions the sum of £463.68 remains earmarked for the Newspaper Project, so that £2388.74 signifies the uncommitted balance in hand.

I have carried on from Linda Williamson, negotiations with Douglas McNaughton, of Edinburgh University Press, about distributing a 20-page A4 American Studies brochure through our mailing list. I am afraid that nothing as yet has come of this but dialogue is still ongoing in terms of any further possible advertisements. Linda forwarded my details to Norman Williams of Readex but he has yet to contact me. I plan to get in touch with him myself after this meeting and follow on from Linda to negotiate for future advertisements.

Lisa Crawley
Hon. Treasurer BAAS LARS
15th June 2000.

5. Report from Projects Sub-Committee

Dr Halliwell reported that work on the US newspaper holdings list was held up by the lack of placement students able to work on it. The anticipated placements from the Library School in Stuttgart had not materialised. The question of paying a student to work on the project was again raised, but Dr Beer pointed out that after tax, the funds available were not really adequate. It was thought that a direct approach to a library school (initially in Scotland) would be best, as the project was of potential interest to students of librarianship and information science. Dr Halliwell undertook to approach the Library School at the University of Strathclyde. If help was not forthcoming from there, details of the project could then be disseminated more widely.

6. Newsletter

Mr Heyes was presently working with Ms Kemble on issue No. 50, which would hopefully be produced in July. Any details of large or significant acquisitions or contributions on any other subject would be gratefully received.

7. Seminar

Dr Halliwell reported on his communication with Judith Elsdon, Curator at the American Museum in Bath. The Museum had offered speakers on the museum’s Dallas Pratt Collection of Historical Maps and on its holdings in general. However, since the former was a collection of 15th- and 16th-century maps and there was no available visual documentation of either the former or the latter it was felt that the content of such a talk would not suit the theme of the seminar. Dr Halliwell would contact the museum.

Dr Wallace mentioned that Mr Bennett had expressed some reservations about his being able to handle all practical arrangements for the September seminar without some help. After some discussion it was felt that a September seminar would in any case be difficult to arrange in time, given present progress, the need still to find speakers, the need to contact suppliers and other interested commercial parties, and the forthcoming intervening summer. Dr Wallace therefore proposed, with some regret, that the seminar be moved to June 2001. The proposal was accepted. He also proposed that the seminar subcommittee should meet if possible in September to review progress.

8. Sub-Committee membership

Dr Wallace noted that after recent departures, he and Miss Cowden were now the only two original surviving members of the Sub-Committee, and he felt positive steps were needed to recruit new members. He suggested that although it was dated, the Directory of American Studies Librarians in U.K. Libraries (London: American Studies Library Group, 1992) could be used as a list of likely institutions, and that he, together with Mr Bennett and Dr Halliwell, should formulate the text of a letter to be sent to the chief librarians. It was further suggested that Professor Davies, who also, helpfully, has a list of current American Studies departments, could be asked to write a covering note.

9. Date of next meeting

The next meeting would be in February 2001. Dr Wallace undertook to contact Mr Bennett about establishing suitable dates and venues.

10. Any other business

Dr Halliwell noted that the National Library of Scotland were not for the present going ahead with the purchase of the online records for the Sabin Collection because of technical difficulties with bulk downloading. This was however a temporary situation and it was still felt worthwhile to pursue this as a method of increasing usage of this full-text microfiche collection. There was some further discussion of the underuse of microform collections and Dr Beer suggested that publicising information about these collections would be of enormous benefit to researchers. Dr Halliwell undertook to look into compiling and disseminating this information.

The John Rylands University Library of Manchester were thanked for their hospitality.

B.A.A.S Library and Resources Sub-Committee

Notional ACCOUNTS 3/2/00-15/6/00 (not confirmed with BAAS)

NB: Invoices outstanding: Chadwyck-Healey for advertising in Newsletter 48 – £250 British Library for the production of the July 1999 (no.48) issue of the Newsletter

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Imaginative Representations of the Vietnam War

By John Baky, Library Director.

A collection of material entitled Imaginative Representations of the Vietnam War is preserved in the Department of Special Collections at La Salle University’s Connelly Library. The fundamental aspiration of the collection operates under a dual intention: firstly, to discover how a discrete body of creative literature becomes mythopoeic. That is, how a complex event may be interpreted through creative means; and secondly, to discover how creative treatments of an event use aesthetic values to reveal both the fact and emotional essence of traumatic cultural phenomena.

The primary resources for studying the above two processes are gathered in a collection presently consisting of about 9,000 books of fiction and poetry together with 600 non-print items. Additionally, more than 600 films and videos are available. These films include narrative, commercial (Hollywood), pornography, and art films, as well as documentary films, curricular production, taped seminars, and extensive TV-generated material. The collection is limited intentionally to imaginative literature and the visual arts. The collection is focused on fictive writing in the form of novels, short stories, poetry, drama, filmscripts, extensive examples of graphic art, painting, video, TV productions, and sound recordings.

Contained in this collection, and additional to the published written material itself, are unpublished manuscripts, corrected manuscripts, shooting scripts, galley proofs, page proofs (corrected and uncorrected), holograph copies, limited editions, variant editions, runs of comic books, and cartoon art.

The remainder of the collection consists of carefully catalogued items of ephemera such as poetry broadsides, dealer’s catalogues of Vietnam War fiction, published strategy games, published software, vanity publications, and curriculum guides for teaching the war through its literature across many educational levels and curricula. The collection is intentionally strong in material produced after 1980, though virtually every earlier title that appears in the 3rd edition of John Newman’s Vietnam War Literature also exists in the La Salle Collection. In view of that comparison, it is a fundamental goal of the collection to make available literature that demonstrates the evolution of the perceptions of the war experienced after the event had actually ended. The collection is particularly committed to illuminating the process by which fictional narrative becomes mythopoeic. In using this collection, it is possible to both question and document the sources of developing myths about the war experience. For example, one may examine and measure the impact of the original event by seeing how the experience is presented to the public through imaginative renderings. Using hundreds of examples, one can compare systematically how the post-1975 presentations and perceptions of war differ qualitatively from pre-1975 material. The more than 600 films and videos are of seminal utility in this connection. A growing sector of the collection is composed of imaginative representations of Vietnamese refugees during and after the American conflict. As well, there is material representing the growing influence of the Vietnamese émigré community as it establishes itself in American culture. This would include typical hybrid mythic constructions such as the “the Vietnamese Mafia,” rags-to-riches narratives similar in spirit and naivete to the Horatio Algeresque tales of early 20th-century America, young adult fiction, and thinly veiled (mostly) right-wing political diatribes posing as fiction.

More globally, serious scholarly inquiry can be conducted concerning the elusive distinction between fictional narrative and autobiographical perception. The interrogation of this Coleridge-like chimera that mocks and distorts the reflexive distinctions between narrative memory and interpretive imagination fuels the enduring intellectual vigour of this collection.

In direct support of the written and cinematic dimensions of the collection are actively developed collections of graphic arts (posters, prints, collage, ephemera, etc.) featuring such material as ten original silk screen propaganda posters presented to Denise Levertov during the poet’s trip to Hanoi in 1972. Additionally, artefacts of a musical/sound recording nature include tapes of Hanoi Hannah, recordings of Armed Forces Radio broadcasts from Saigon and Danang, tapes of attacks in progress recorded during the onslaught of Tet, underground tapes of GI music broadcasts in-country, and sound tracks of most films released about the war.

Comments so far made by the scores of visiting scholars who have examined the collection indicate that the collection is unique in its depth, peerless in its breadth, and that it is the largest subject collection of its kind in the world.

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The Chicago Jazz Archive

By Deborah L. Gillaspie, Curator of Jazz.

The Chicago Jazz Archive is a special collection of the University of Chicago’s Regenstein Library. The Chicago Jazz Archive was established in 1976, the inspiration of two members of the Visiting Committee to the Department of Music. After a lecture by Chicagoan Benny Goodman for a campus series entitled “The Art of the Conductor,” Mrs. Peter Wolkonsky and Mr. Robert Semple suggested founding a jazz archive. A planning committee was appointed, and Professor Richard Wang of the University of Illinois at Chicago became the first Chair of the Archive’s Executive Committee. In 1977, Dr. John Steiner, a distinguished collector and historian of Chicago jazz, joined the Visiting Committee for Music and the Executive Committee of the Archive. His initial donation to the Archive was a large collection of sheet music imprints, most of which were published in or related to Chicago. He has since donated recordings, sheet music, ephemera and realia to the Archive’s John Steiner Collection.

The Archive was originally intended to collect and preserve materials from the late 1910s through the 1920s, documenting the birth of “Chicago style” jazz. While the original donations concentrated on this period and on musicians born here or who spent significant creative time here, the Archive now takes into account the ease with which musicians and influences travel. All jazz styles from oldest to newest are regularly played in Chicago, and the Archive collections reflect this diversity.

Jazz is documented at the Archive with oral histories; sound recordings in 78rpm, 45rpm, LP, and CD formats; audio and video tapes; printed and manuscript parts for stock arrangements; piano sheet music; correspondence; interviews; scrapbooks, photographs, books, periodicals, artwork, and realia; and other jazz-related materials. As collections are processed, finding aids are developed and made available on the Archive website at http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/su/cja/findingaids.html

The Archive supports the research and instructional mission of the University in music, history, anthropology, and sociology, and provides reference services to academic researchers all over the world via its website, electronic and standard mail, telephone, and research visits. In addition to academic patrons, users of Archive reference services include other jazz archives, museums, historical societies, city agencies, musicians, authors, jazz educators, filmmakers, radio and television producers, publishers, club owners, booking agents, jazz organisations, musicians’ families, primary and secondary school students, and the general public.

In 1982, the Chicago Jazz Archive became home to portions of the Don DeMicheal Archives of the Jazz Institute of Chicago, which include taped oral histories of Chicago musicians, videotapes, and ephemera and recordings from the Chicago Jazz Festivals. The Institute and its members have also facilitated the Archive’s acquisition of many personal collections of jazz material, including donations from Ed Crilly, Don DeMicheal, Jimmy Granato, Harvey Lang, Richard Manning, Jimmy and Marian McPartland, Robert Peck, and many other musicians and collectors.

Archive holdings for the “Chicago” period consists mostly of printed piano sheet music, stock arrangements with manuscript additions, recordings, and a few photographs. Non-sound materials from the 1910’s to the 1930’s can be found in the John Steiner Collection, the Frank Gillis Donation, the Jimmy and Marian McPartland Collection, and the Richard Manning Collection.

Various collections cover the 1940’s to the present. The Jimmy and Marian McPartland Collection contains photos and ephemera from the 1940’s to 1990, with the majority dating from the 1940’s-1960’s. The complete McPartland finding aids is available on the CJA website. The Jimmy Granato Donation consists of scrapbooks of career memorabilia belonging to Chicago clarinettist Granato, and the Harvey Lang Collection of scrapbooks documenting the career of Chicago drummer Harvey Lang. These two collections are of particular interest due to the meticulous identification of people in photographs, and to the wealth of autograph material they contain. The Paul Zuccarello Donation contains stock arrangements and music manuscript used by a working Chicago band in the 1930s-1960s. The Robert Peck Donation contains ephemera from the 1940s-60s, such as concert postcards, reviews, and clippings. The Jamil B. Figi Donation is almost exclusively materials from the early days of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) in the 1960’s and 1970s. The Jazz Institute of Chicago Collection documents the Institute’s history and that of the Jazz Fair and Chicago Jazz Festival.

In the summer of 1996 the Archive inaugurated two projects designed to document the current jazz scene: the Musicians’ Project and the Women in Jazz Project. The Archive solicits press kits, reviews, URLs for official artist web sites, recordings, and other biographical information from all jazz musicians, not just those from Chicago or who regularly play here. These projects ensure that a body of reliable biographical information about jazz musicians will be available to researchers now and in years to come. The jazz community has been generous in its support of the Project; some of the materials donated were used in the Archive’s 20th Anniversary exhibit, From Dreamland to Showcase: Jazz in Chicago, 1912-1996.

For more information see http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/su/cja/

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Review

The Men of Secession and Civil War, 1859-1861. By James L. Abrahamson.
ISBN 0842028196. SR Books $17.95. pp186.
Reviewed by Duncan Heyes, American Collections, British Library.

The Men of Secession is the first volume in a series from SR Books on the Civil War period in American history entitled The American Crisis Series. This volume is aimed at the student and general reader alike and provides a comprehensive and well-written account for those wishing to explore the origins of the civil war in greater depth.

From the standpoint of the individual, the author focuses on the men who shaped the events that led to secession and eventual civil war. The cast of characters includes, amongst others, secessionists Jefferson Davis, Roger Taney and Barnwell Rhett, and abolitionists John Brown, Salmon Chase, Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas. The author’s purpose is to demonstrate that in order to fully understand the Union’s drift into civil war, one needs to look beyond circumstances and impersonal forces and consider the behaviour of individuals. He draws a parallel with the revolutionary period in America when individuals justified independence by condemning Parliamentary legislation and vilifying George III. In the case of the civil war, Abrahamson argues that it required individuals to interpret events and intensify sectional hostility in order to prepare citizens for either secession or resistance. The resulting work provides the reader with a fascinating and compelling account into the hopes and fears of the individuals who were behind the events that led to this turbulent period in American history.

The present volume includes a useful chronology; bibliographical essay; recommended further readings, and an index.

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Useful Websites

The Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies
http://www.balchinstitute.org/index.html

The Balch Library houses the largest multi-ethnic collection in the United States and supports student study, advanced research, and genealogical investigation. Balch holdings contain material on more than 80 ethnic and racial groups, primary sources on more than 30 groups, including resources virtually undocumented elsewhere, and a body of research materials on multiculturalism, immigration, and diversity in the United States. The library contains approximately 60,000 volumes, 6,000 serial titles, 5,000 linear feet of manuscript collections, 6,000 reels of microfilm, 12,000 photographs, and other resources.

The American Museum of Photography
http://www.photographymuseum.com

The American Museum of Photography is an award-winning Virtual Museum dedicated to educating and informing. Exhibitions are drawn from the Museum’s Collections, started by Wm. B. Becker over 30 years ago. The Collection contains more than 5,000 photographs, from the earliest daguerreotype portraits to the work of Ansel Adams, landscapes, architectural images, art photography and pioneering photojournalism.

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
http://www.nypl.org/research/sc/sc.html

Part of the New York Public Library, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture provides access to books, serials and microform collections by and about people of African descent in the United States and throughout the world. The collections are particularly strong in personal papers; records of institutions and organisations; and literary and scholarly typescripts and playscripts. The site contains ‘The Digital Schomburg’ which provides access to full text and images of, ‘African American Women Writers of the 19th Century; Images of African Americans from the 19th Century; Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division Finding Aids; and Studies Dedicated to Fernando Ortiz (18880-1969): A Bibliography of Afro-Cuban Culture. Also of interest are two current online exhibitions Harlem 1900-1940: An African American Community and The Schomburg Legacy: Documenting the Global Black Experience for the 21st Century.

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News

New Centre for American Culture

In November 2000 a new centre for the study of American culture opened, The Henry Luce III Center for the Study of American Culture is based at the New York Historical Society and contains a unique display of almost 40,000 works of art and artefacts drawn from two centuries of American life that have the power to evoke the past and ‘convey the physical reality of history’. The Luce Center houses collections that were formerly kept off site but which are now available in the newly renovated building encompassing 21,000 square feet. In making the collections accessible in this way the Center hopes to provide an important new resource for scholars, students and the general public alike. For more information see http://www.nyhistory.org/luce/

BAAS 2001

The British Association of American Studies Conference 2001 will be held at the Department of American Studies, Keele University, from 6-9 April 2001. The annual conference provides an excellent opportunity for librarians to communicate with scholars and postgraduates and keep abreast of developments in the field. For more information please get in touch with John Dumbrell, Department of American Studies, Keele University, Keele Staffs ST5 5BG, or asa09@ams.keele.ac.uk

Seminars at The Institute of United States Studies

Seminars on the United States Presidency, all in room 358 Senate House at 4pm:

February 15, 2001
Congressional ‘Oppositions’ to the Presidency:Two Centuries of Perspective.
Professor David Mayhew, Yale University and Olin Visiting Professor, Nuffield College, Oxford University.

March 1, 2001
The Prospects for the New Presidency.
Professor David Mervin, Warwick University.

March 22, 2001
The Scandalised Presidency?
Professor Robert Williams, Durham University.

May 10, 2001
Making Sense of the Game: Football Heroes, Poker Players and Styles of Presidential Leadership.
Dr Jon Roper, University of Wales at Swansea.

Seminars on US Literature and Culture, all at 2.30pm: Room 358 Senate House.

Wed 17 January 2001
Broken Heads and Bloated Tales: Quixotic Fictions of the U.S.A., 1792-1815.
Sarah F. Wood, UCL.

Wed 31 January 2001
An Aesthetics of Memory: Phillis Wheatley and Atlantic Crossings.
Carol Watts, Birkbeck College.

Wed 14 February 2001
That’s Entertainment: The Visual Culture of the Mass Participation Lynching in Late-Nineteenth-Century America.
Michael Hatt, The American International University in London, Richmond.

Wed 28 February 2001
Reagan, Roswell and the Reptilians: UFOlogical sub-cultures in 1980s America.
Ben Mumby-Croft, Southampton University.

Wed 14 March 2001
Faulkner, Fussell and World War I
David Rogers, Kingston University.

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Contents

1. BAAS Library and Resources Sub-Committee Meeting February 2000
2. The Whitney Museum of American Art
3. Western Americana at Yale
4. Useful websites
5. Library acquisitions
6. News

BAAS Library and Resources Sub-Committee Meeting February 2000

Minutes of the Sub-Committee Meeting held at the British Library, St Pancras, London, 3 February 2000

1. Present

Mr R J Bennett (BL, Boston Spa) Secretary, Miss A Cowden (U. of London), Ms L Crawley (JRULM), Dr K Halliwell (National Library of Scotland), Mr D G Heyes (BL, London), Ms J Kemble (Eccles Centre), Mr J Pinfold (Rhodes House Library – for first item only), Dr I R Wallace (JRULM) Chair, Ms L Williamson (Rhodes House Library) Treasurer. Apologies: Ms K Bateman (USIS Reference Centre), Dr K Boddy (UCL)

1a. Welcome and Farewells

Dr Wallace welcomed Prof. P. Davies (Chair, BAAS) to the meeting. Prof. Davies explained that Dr Boddy had taken a new post at Dundee University. He was standing in for her and a new representative from BAAS would be selected in due course.

Dr Wallace explained that he had invited Mr Pinfold to the meeting so that the Sub-Committee as a whole could express its gratitude for the huge contribution that Mr Pinfold had made to the work of the Sub-Committee during its lifetime. In reply, Mr Pinfold commented that he had very much enjoyed being part of the group and paid tribute to the ‘can-do’ approach of its members, who, despite carrying on their full-time jobs, had given time and effort to achieve many notable successes. He also emphasised the importance of the links with BAAS. Mr Pinfold also added that the Oxford Institute was regrettably about 4-5 weeks behind schedule, but still expected to open later this year. Mr Pinfold invited the Sub-Committee to visit the Institute and to hold a meeting there. In addition he commented that no decision had yet been made on Ms Williamson’s replacement (see 4, below) but he was confident that her successor would be in post by the time the Institute opened and that s/he would be closely associated both with the Sub-Committee and BAAS.

2. Minutes of the previous meeting were signed as a correct record

3. Matters Arising

Dr Wallace suggested that all Sub-Committee members consider any other institutions with strong American Studies collections that might be interested in having representation on the Sub-Committee. He also reported that at the recent BAAS Executive Committee there had been a strong welcome for the idea of the 2000 seminar.

4. Treasurer’s Report

Before Ms Williamson gave what constituted her final report, Dr Wallace paid tribute to her outstanding contribution to the work of the Sub-Committee, both in her official capacity as Treasurer and Projects Sub-Committee Chair, and also by her overall enthusiasm, commitment and vitality.

Treasurer’s Report for 1999/2000

Ladies and Gentlemen:

Regretfully, as I am leaving England to return to the United States, my participation in this group will come to an end with today’s meeting. So, this is my final report as Hon. Treasurer of BLARS, having served in this capacity for the past couple of years. Looking back, it is pleasing to note that the times have been good to us. Our accounts show an increases balance in hand of some £1200 (£2974.12 today vs. £1760.04 on 9th February 1998). This happy state of finances can be attributed largely to the profits made on Looking to the Future, our seminar of 18th June 1998 (£651.87), as well as to catching up on payments due from advertisers in our Newsletter. Coutts, Thompson Henry, and Blackwell’s have all made payments through the forthcoming issue no.50 of the American Studies Library Newsletter.

Turning to the statement of accounts for just this past year, from 2nd March 1999 through 3rd February 2000: in brief, on the income side, we have carried forward an opening balance of £1775.80 from the March 1999 meeting (historically, the AGM, hence an annual reckoning at this time). Added to this are credits of £1260.00 from advertisers in the American Studies Library Newsletter and £10.99 for bank account interest earned, bringing the total credit balance to £3046.79.

The total figure for the expenditure side is £72.67, which covers catering costs for two Sub-Committee meetings and travel expenses for one committee member.

The balance in hand, then, is £2974.12, showing a gratifying increase of £1198.32 over March 1999. However, I’m afraid that this increase will be quickly depleted when the British Library catches up with billing us for two issues of the Newsletter! It should be noted that the sum of £463.68 continues to be earmarked for the Newspaper Project, so that £2510.44 represents the uncommitted balance in hand. This will be augmented by £250.00 when Chadwyck-Healey’s payment for advertisements in the July 1999 (no. 48) Newsletter is credited to our account. Nic Sinclair, of Chadwyck-Healey, is looking into the question of payment of our 26th August 1999 invoice, and I will pass the results of the inquiry (hopefully, a cheque) on to my successor.

There are two further matters that the new Treasurer may wish to follow through with. First, I have been negotiating with Douglas McNaughton, of Edinburgh University Press, about having an A4 flyer advertising the BAAS paperbacks series inserted inside copies of a forthcoming issue of the Newsletter. He is now thinking along the lines of distributing a 20-page A4 American Studies brochure, due out in March. As our Newsletter is A5 size, the possibility of a separate mailing was suggested, for which EUP would pay the cost of envelopes and postage. We would presumably charge more than the £250 which was quoted for distributing the A4 insertion. He would appreciate being given a ring by my successor sometime in March to discuss possibilities.

In closing, then, I want to say that I have enjoyed my role as Treasurer of the group, made easier through the help of Dr. Janet Beer, Hon. Treasurer of BAAS, in verifying our account details. She tells me that her term of office ends in April, so my successor in this post will be working with her successor, but I trust that these transitions will not cause undue problems. My very best wishes to all members of the Sub-Committee for the continuing success of the group.

Linda Williamson

Hon. Treasurer BAAS LARS
3rd February 2000.

5. Report from the Projects Sub-Committee

Dr Halliwell said that there was little new to report since the last meeting. He reported that he had arranged for two placement students to do three weeks work each, and that in the longer term he was hoping to have a German student to do a longer stint on the project. He was confident that work, as agreed at the last meeting, would be done.

6. Newsletter

Mr Bennett reported that issue No. 49 had just been distributed. Ms Kemble announced that she would be leaving the Eccles Centre and that issue No. 50 would be her last as editor. She added that she hoped to be able to complete the index to the entire run of Newsletters

7. Seminar

All members agreed to the detailed proposal drawn up at the previous meeting. Dr Wallace suggested that a small committee take this forward. He proposed Prof Davies, Dr Wallace, Dr Halliwell and Mr Bennett who agreed.

8. Sub-Committee Membership

1. Vice-Chair: Dr Wallace reported that he had discussed the proposal to nominate a Vice-chair of the group with Prof. Davies. Dr Halliwell was proposed. The Sub-Committee agreed.
2. Treasurer: Ms Crawley had indicated her willingness to serve in this capacity. The Sub-Committee agreed.
3. Newsletter Editor: Ms Kemble proposed Mr Heyes as her successor. The Sub-Committee agreed.

It was noted that Dr Beer was standing down as Treasurer of BAAS.

9. Updates from Members’ Libraries

Mr Halliwell reported that the National Library of Scotland was contemplating buying catalogue records for the Sabin Collection and enquired whether other libraries had experience of doing this. Mr Heyes reported that the British Library was buying the Early American Imprints Collection complete with catalogue records.

Ms Kemble reported that the Eccles Centre was hosting a new Fellow: Anne Sharp Wells from the Virginia Military Institute. She is working on three guides to the BL’s collections: the 1930s, Colonial America in the 17th Century, and Anglo-American diplomatic relations.

Mr Bennett and the British Library were thanked for their hospitality.

B.A.A.S
Library and Resources Sub-Committee

Notional ACCOUNTS 2.3.99-3.2.00 (confirmed with BAAS)

N.B. Invoice outstanding: Chadwyck-Healey for advertising in Newsletter – £250.00

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The Whitney Museum of American Art

The Whitney Museum houses one of the world’s foremost collections of twentieth-century American art. The Permanent Collection of some 12,000 works encompasses paintings, sculptures, multimedia installations, drawings, prints and photographs, and is still growing.

The Museum was founded in 1931 with a core of 700 art objects, many of them from the personal collection of founder Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney; others were purchased by Mrs Whitney at the time of the opening to provide a more thorough overview of American art in the early decades of the century. Mrs Whitney favoured the art of the revolutionary artists derisively called the Ashcan School, among them John Sloan, George Luks, and Everett Shin, as well as such realists as Edward Hopper and American Scene painters John Steuart Curry and Thomas Hart Benton. Her initial gift, however, also comprised many important works by early modernists Stuart Davis, Charles Demuth, Charles Sheeler, Max Weber, and others. Virtually all the works collected by the Museum for the next twenty years came through the generosity of Mrs Whitney.

Although Mrs Whitney’s acquisition budget was rather modest, the Museum made the most of its resources by purchasing work of living artists, particularly those who were young and not well known. It has been a long-standing tradition of the Whitney to purchase works from the Museum’s Annual and Biennial exhibitions, which began in 1932 as a showcase for recent American art. A number of the Whitney’s masterpieces came from these exhibitions, including works by Arshile Gorky, Stuart Davis, Reginald Marsh, Philip Guston, and Jasper Johns. Even today, the Museum continues to enrich the Permanent Collection via the Biennial; among recent acquisitions are works by Mike Kelley, Matthew Barney, Louise Bourgeois, Zoe Leonard and Matthew Richie.

Following Mrs Whitney’s death in 1942, and the death of the Museum’s first director, Juliana Force, in 1948, it became evident that to keep pace with the burgeoning artistic activity in the United States, the Whitney needed to substantially augment its acquisition funds. In 1956, a group of supporters formed Friends of the Whitney Museum of American Art. This organisation became responsible for acquiring some of the most spectacular paintings and sculptures represented in the collection. In addition the collection has also been greatly enriched through the generous gifts of other major collectors. These included the gift of over one hundred sculptures by Howard and Jean Lipman, and Lawrence H. Bloedel’s bequest of paintings by Georgia O’Keeffe, William Baziotes, Milton Avery and Fairfield Porter.

The Frances Mulhall Achilles Library

The Whitney’s Frances Mulhall Achilles Library is the most comprehensive research collection in the field of twentieth century American art. It currently houses more than 30,000 books and exhibition catalogues and more than 10,000 archival files on American artists. Originating as the personal collection of the Museum’s founder, the Library has been adding research materials on American artists for the past seventy years. Its special collections include a repository for the extensive documentation of American art compiled by thirty museums and college art departments between 1942 and 1948 under the auspices of the American Art Research Council.

Museum Archives

The Whitney Museum’s Archives represent a unique collection of artists correspondence, curators’ research notes, exhibition records, photographs, Trustees minutes, the Edward Hopper Archives, the papers of Gloria Vanderbilt Whitney and the Museum’s early administrators, and other institutional papers to the present time. These records document the evolution of the leading institution of twentieth century American art and, in so doing, contribute to the broader story of American art.

Library Fellows

The Library Fellows of the Whitney comprise some fifty bibliophiles who support the research collections and programs of the Frances Mulhall Achilles Library. Members meet two to three times per year for readings and lectures at public and private libraries.

A special feature of the Library Fellows is its publishing program. Since 1983 the Library Fellows has published one fine press book per year in its Artists and Writers Series. Each book combines original artwork by a living American artist with new writing by a distinguished American author. The most recent title is Notes on a Room (1998), with etchings by Richard Artschwager, offset lithographs by Louise Lawler, woodcuts by Sol LeWitt, essays by Gini Alhadeff and the late Brendan Gill, and poems by Daniel Halpern.

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Western Americana at Yale

By George Miles, Yale University Library.

In the last forty years the Western Americana Collection has become the focal point for western history resources in the Yale Library. But just as the library collected western material before there was a Western Americana Collection, so too, today, many departments within the library remain interested in specific aspects of western history. The co-ordination of these efforts with those of the Western Americana Collection greatly expands the library’s coverage of western history and culture in general. For instance, although the Western Americana Collection features a small belles lettres collection, the chief responsibility for western literature remains with the Yale Collection of American Literature, which contains not only an extensive collection of penny dreadfuls and dime novels but also the manuscripts of such figures as James Fenimore Cooper, Mabel Dodge Luhan, Vardis Fisher, Paul Horgan, A. B. Guthrie, Georgia O’Keeffe, Elizabeth Shepley Sargeant, and Leslie Marmon Silko. In similar fashion, the general collection of modern books and manuscripts at Beinecke Library complements the Western Americana Collection’s interest in frontier history with its coverage of early European exploration and settlement of North America and of eastern Native Americans and their encounter with European culture. The Pequot, Franklin, Vanderbilt, and Taylor collections all contain important rare material that help illuminate America’s frontier heritage.

Other examples of co-operative collection development and public service practices can be seen in Sterling Memorial Library. For example, although the Western Americana Collection aggressively acquires material documenting the scientific exploration of the West, the department of Manuscripts and Archives in Sterling Library remains the principal repository at Yale for the papers of former faculty members. Thus the correspondence and papers of figures like James Dwight Dana, Benjamin Silliman, Jr., Othniel C. Marsh, and William Brewer (among others) are to be found there. Manuscripts and Archives also preserves the papers of Yale alumni active in national affairs, among them George Bird Grinnell, Francis Newlands, and William Kent, all three of whom were major figures in the American conservation movement. Finally, Manuscripts and Archives is home to the John Collier papers and to the letters and papers of Henry Roe Cloud, the first Native American to graduate from Yale.

Another example of collaborative effort can be seen in the handling of western cartographic resources. Manuscript maps and most early western atlases are housed in the Western Americana Collection, but western sheet maps, however acquired, are routinely transferred to the Map Collection in Sterling Library for cataloguing, storage, and use. The Map Collection has also assembled a significant number of early automotive maps from around the country, including many of early western roads. A similar division of responsibility by format occurs in the case of newspapers. The Beinecke Library houses most of Yale’s original files of early American newspapers (defined, in general, as those printed before the introduction of acidic paper stocks in the years after the Civil War), but the Microtext Reading Room, in conjunction with the Newspaper Room, co-ordinates the acquisition and distribution of microfilm files for newspapers of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Some of the University Library’s specialised collections also offer important western resources. The Government Documents Collection at Seeley G. Mudd Library contains a complete run of the Congressional serial set that began with the publications of the Fifteenth Congress as well as extensive files of other government publications, all of which document the federal government’s role in promoting and assisting in the exploration, settlement, and development of the West. Documents of the first fourteen Congresses, which were never controlled by Congress in the fashion of the serial set, are part of the general collection of modern books and manuscripts at Beinecke Library. The collections of the Law Library include not only the various local court reports, but also virtually complete runs of early legislative journals, session laws, and codes for western states and territories as well as for Indian Territory. The Divinity Library has extensive runs of local ecclesiastical publications and many biographical studies of western churchmen. The Forestry and Geology libraries provide important scientific and natural history texts that complement the holdings of the Western Americana Collection.

As Western history has become an increasingly interdisciplinary process, it also seems appropriate to mention that the Yale University Art Gallery, the British Art Center, and the Peabody Museum all have collections that touch upon the American West. Among the Art Gallery’s collections are a series of Titian Ramsey Peale sketchbooks created during Philip Long’s expedition across the Great Plains, a group of John Mix Stanley watercolours made during the Pacific Railroad Survey under the direction of Isaac Ingalls Stevens, a fine collection of Hudson River School landscape paintings that reveal America’s fascination with the process of settlement and its implications for nature, and a small collection of western scenes by artists such as Albert Bierstadt and Frederick Remington. An introduction to Yale’s western art collections can be gleaned from Discovered Lands/Invented Pasts: Transforming Visions of the American West (New Haven, 1992), a collection of essays that accompanied an exhibition of the same name. The British Art Center would appear to be an unusual source for Western Americana, but its collection of British illustrated books includes many rare accounts of travel through western North America. Finally, the Peabody Museum contains not only extensive collections of Native American artefacts, including clothing, tools, and ceremonial objects, but also vintage photographs from early western surveys.

As the Western Americana Collection celebrates over four decades of service to Yale and to the international community of scholars, many parts of the university continue the centuries-long tradition of identifying, describing, and preserving America’s western past.

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Useful websites

Women Artists of the American West:
http://www.sla.purdue.edu./waaw/

Women Artists of the American West (WAAW) features the contributions that women have made to the art and history of the American west. The site is designed as an interdisciplinary resource and archive which currently contains 17 collections, arranged according to four themes: community, identity, spirituality and locality. The individual collections include an illustrative essay many of which have been written specifically for WAAW by recognised art historians, curators and artists.

“California as I Saw It:” First-Person Narratives of California’s Early Years, 1849-1900:
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/cbhtml/cbhome.html

Part of the American Memory digital program of the Library of Congress, California as I Saw It, consists of the full texts and illustrations of 190 works documenting the formative era of California’s history through eyewitness accounts. The collection covers the dramatic decades between the Gold Rush and the turn of the twentieth century. It captures the pioneer experience; encounters between Anglo-Americans and the diverse peoples who had preceded them; the transformation of the land by mining, ranching, agriculture, and urban development; the often-turbulent growth of communities and cities; and California’s emergence as both a state and a place of uniquely American dreams.

American Indian Resources
http://jupiter.langosaka-u.ac.jp/~krkvls/naindex.html

The American Indian Resources website reviews wesites on all aspects of Native American culture. An introductory index is laid out to aid navigation to a particular area of interest. The site is intended for students and teachers, and the general reader alike. The site is a library of Native American literature, culture, education, history issues and language, with the literature links providing access to full text documents of modern prose and poetry, as well as traditional texts.

First Nations Histories
http://www.dickshovel.com/Compacts.html

This site for the study of Native Americans contains 240 tribal ‘histories’ of First Nations. They are limited to the lower 48 states of the U.S. but also include those First Nations from Canada and Mexico that had important roles. The ‘histories’ themselves contain information on location, population, language, cultural practice, and detail the history of the nations concerned. At the end of each ‘history’ there are links to those Nations referred to. The histories are organised geographically. The site also contains a bibliography and numerous links to other sites of similar interest.

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Library acquisitions

British Library, London.

A collection of material relating to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormon Church) has been presented to the British Library. The material was donated to the British Library by Elder M. Russell Ballard, a member of The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and a worldwide leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, who flew in specially to make the presentation.

Comprising books, videos and CD-ROMs dealing with the history, beliefs and lifestyle of the Church the collection includes the Encyclopedia of Mormonism (1992), Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism (1984) and the CD-ROMs Latter Day Saint Library and Faith in Every Footstep. The material will be available to readers in the St Pancras reading rooms shortly.

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News

The Eccles Centre for American Studies at the British Library

The Eccles Centre has recently published a guide to the North American collections at the British Library, African American History and Life, 1878-1954 and will publish two further guides this summer, The American Colonies, 1584-1688 and The Anglo-American ‘Special Relationship’ during the Second World War. The guides will be distributed free to academic and major public libraries. Additional copies can be purchased from the Centre for £5.00 each. For further information please contact Jean Kemble, The Eccles Centre, telephone 020 7412 7757 or email jean.kemble@bl.uk. The complete list of guides published by the Eccles Centre is given below.

An Era of Change: Contemporary US-UK-West European Relations

American Slavery: Pre-1866 Imprints

United States Government Policies Toward Native Americans, 1787-1900

Mormon Americana

United States and Canadian Holdings at the British Library Newspaper Library

Imagining the West

Conserving America

Mining the American West

The Harlem Renaissance

The Civil Rights Movement,

Women in the Trans-Mississippi West, 1840-1900

The United States and the Vietnam War

The United States and the 1930s

African American History and Life, 1878-1954

The American Colonies, 1584-1688

The Anglo-American ‘Special Relationship’ during the Second World War

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Contents

1. BAAS Library and Resources Subcommittee News
2. The Museum of the City of New York
3. The John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising and Marketing History
4. The University of Mississippi Blues Archive
5. The Sophia Smith Collection
6. News

BAAS Library and Resources Subcommittee News

A Sub-Committee meeting was held at the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, 13 September 1999. The meeting was chaired by Dr Kevin Halliwell. 

Newsletter
The Secretary noted that the latest issue of the Newsletter had been mounted on the BAAS website, complete with hyperlinks to the advertisers’ websites. All future issues will be mounted here.

Scottish Association for the Study of America
Dr Halliwell noted that the newly formed Scottish Association for the Study of America is to have its own newsletter.

Seminar
The content and the timing of the next Sub-Committee seminar were discussed and the following decisions reached:

1. The seminar will be held in mid/late September 2000.
2. The subject will be ‘Visual Resources in American Studies’.

The following topics were suggested:

1. Images in US government documents
2. Documentary films
3. Artefacts
4. Major photographic collections
5. The internet
6. Copyright

It was also agreed that there should be space allocated for small exhibition and display stands.Further suggestions/contributions should be forwarded to the Newsletter’s Editor (see back page for contact details).

Updates from libraries

Mr Pinfold reported on the Oxford Institute. Work is slightly behind schedule, although the site is above ground level now.

Dr Halliwell reported that the Scottish Association for the Study of America would be holding its inaugural meeting in October, beginning with a post-graduate seminar on American Studies resources at the National Library of Scotland.

There is a new American Studies centre at the University of Glasgow — the Andrew Hook Centre for American Studies, and there is to be increased American Studies teaching at Dundee, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Stirling.

John Pinfold

Mr Pinfold announced his resignation from the Sub-Committee. This is due to extra work relating to the Oxford Institute and his acceptance of the chair of the Canadian Studies committee. Dr Halliwell expressed the Sub-Committee’s deep regret, but added that his reasons were fully appreciated. He wished to record the Sub-Committee’s huge debt of gratitude to Mr Pinfold for all of the work that he had contributed over many years.
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The Museum of the City of New York

Situated on Manhattan’s Museum Mile, at Fifth Avenue and 103rd Street, the Museum of the City of New York is a non-profit, private educational organisation established in 1923 to collect, preserve and present original cultural materials related to the history of New York City. Today the Museum continues to fulfill its original mission with a wide range of exhibits, educational programs and six curatorial departments, several of which are described below.

Photographs
The photography collection consists of more than 500,000 prints and negatives that document New York City and its inhabitants from the mid-nineteenth century to the present’some of New York’s earliest photographic views are represented in the waxed-paper negatives of Victor Provost, and the proliferation of the medium is exemplified by the Byron Collection of more than 22,000 images chronicling New York life from 1892 through 1942. The well-known Jacob Riis photographs reveal the Lower East Side’s poverty and squalor in the late nineteenth century. Berenice Abbott’s stunning Changing New York, a WPA photographic project, documents New York City in the 1930s. Other WPA-sponsored Federal Art Project negatives add another 900 images of New York in the 1930s. The Museum’s voluminous holdings of commercial photography firms include the work of Irving Underhill, the Wurts Brothers and Gottscho-Schleisner, as well as photographic work commissioned by the renowned architectural firm of McKim, Mead and White.

Prints and Drawings
The Clarence J. Davies collection of approximately 12,000 views of New York City from the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries is the cornerstone of the Museum’s collections of prints and drawings. Another major component of the collection is the definitive Harry T. Peter Collection of 2,885 lithographs — most hand-colored — by the nineteenth century New York firm of Currier and Ives. Smaller print holdings include a number of late nineteenth century and early twentieth century fine art prints depicting New York through the 1930s. This department also holds early architectural drawings by A.J. Davis, political cartoons executed between the two world wars and the archives of the Planning Board of the 1939 New York World’s Fair.

Vertical Files
Material in the vertical files consist of newspaper clippings and pamphlets. These are organized by street location and subject. Almost every street in Manhattan and many streets in the outer boroughs are represented. The subject files cover such diverse topics as accidents, churches, elevated railroads, immigration, parades, retail trade and shipping. Material in the files is not a comprehensive look at these topics but rather represents a compilation of items acquired and clipped over the years by Museum curators.

Theatre Collection
The Theatre collection is recognised as one of the world’s preeminent performing arts collections. The heart of the collection is the John Golden Archive, which consists of approximately 40,000 folders, organised by production, personality and theatre building. This archive presents a virtually complete chronology of theatre in New York City from the late eighteenth century to the present. The folders contain such materials as photographs, contracts, correspondence, playbills, manuscripts, advertising materials, reviews, obituaries, clippings, sheet music, autographs, souvenir programs, and prompt books with marginalia on blocking and performance. The collection of drawings and caricatures numbers approximately 5,000 and includes often incisive interpretations of theater personalities and productions. Several thousand window cards and posters record the shifting trends in theatrical advertising from 1834 to the present. The photographic holdings of the Theatre Collection provide a visual chronicle of New York theatre from cartes-de-visite of the 1860s through production stills of the 1990s. Sizable donations from several New York photography studios which specialized in theatrical work — the Byron Co., Arnold Genthe, and Carl Van Vechten constitute a century of realistic visual records indispensable to scholars, writers and designers. Special categories (beyond the main Broadway Theatre holdings) include material on burlesque, minstrelsy, vaudeville, and Yiddish theatre.

For more information contact:
The Museum of the City of New York, Fifth Avenue at 103rd St., New York, NY 10029, tel: (212) 534-1672, http://www.mcny.org/
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The John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising and Marketing History

It would be almost impossible to imagine American society without the apparatus of marketing and sales to move goods and services from producers to consumers. Yet until recently the history of these fields had been preserved in a haphazard way, leaving only limited resources for scholarly research.

At Duke University, however, a unique and exciting endeavour is now underway to preserve the records of the businesses that have been so influential in shaping modern America. As a means to this end, the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising and Marketing History was established at Duke’s Rare Book, Manuscript and Special Collections Library in 1992. Through documentation and programming the Center stimulates interest in and study of the roles of marketing, advertising and sales. The Center also seeks to provide leadership in building national and international networks among institutions that document these fields.

The most extensive collections at the Center are those of the J. Walter Thompson Company, a major international advertising agency founded in 1864, and the Archives of the Outdoor Advertising Association of America, the trade organisation for the billboard and other out-of-town advertising industry. Other ad agency records include those of D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles, Wells Rich Green, and Charles W. Hoyt Company. The OAAA Archives are complemented by many individual collections relating to outdoor advertising, including the papers of the R.C. Maxwell Company and files of commercial artists Howard Scott and Garrett Orr. Specialized collections include the Wayne P. Ellis Collection of Kodakiana, the Nicole di Bona Peterson Collection of Advertising Cookbooks, and the McGraw-Hill Marketing Information Center files. Archival holdings now total well over 3,000,000 items, including such diverse material as meeting minutes, correspondence, research reports, publications, advertisements, films, photographs, and billboards (especially in slides and photographs). The Center’s book and journal collections are growing steadily, in support of the unique archival material.

Ad*Access
Ad*Access is a pilot project funded by the Duke Endowment ‘Library 2000′ Fund under the auspices of the Hartman Center. At present the project presents images and database information for over 7,000 advertisements printed in U.S. and Canadian newspapers and magazines between 1911 and 1955. Ad*Access concentrates on five main subject areas: Radio, Television, Transportation, Beauty and Hygiene and World War II. The advertisements are from the “Competitive Advertisements Collection (pre-1955 files) within the J. Walter Thompson Company. This collection was created at JWT as an in-house resource over the period of many decades. Like other advertising agencies, the J. Walter Thompson Company had employees who clipped advertisements from magazines and newspapers and filed them according to the type of product and service advertised. The files could then be used for reference by agency staff. The clippings at JWT appear to have begun in the early 1910s and continues to this day. Although many agencies have created similar ”tearsheet’ files, the JWT collection is one of the few that has been preserved over so many decades. Ad*Access may be found at: http://scriptorium.lib.duke.educ/access/

For further information about the Center contact: The John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising and Marketing History, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708.
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The University of Mississippi Blues Archive

The University of Mississippi Blues Archive was opened in September 1984. As a branch of the University Libraries, the Archive houses an extraordinary collection of records, books, photographs, clippings and memorabilia. For the blues scholar, musician or fan, the Blues Archive is indispensable. Among the Blues Archive’s holdings are the following:

The B.B. King Collection
Blues legend B.B. King’s personal record collection is one of the Blues Archive’s largest. It holds over 7,000 albums, 45s and 78s, and stands as testimony to Mr. King’s eclectic taste in music. Jazz, blues, soul, R&B, rock, pop, and country are all represented.

The Living Blues Collection
Jim O’Neal and Amy van Singel, founding editors of Living Blues magazine, donated the Living Blues collection to the Archive in 1983. It covers a wide spectrum of music, but is primarily concerned with post-war Chicago Blues. Included in the Living Blues collection is a vast quantity of 45s which have been added to the University Library’s main computer catalog.

The Kenneth S. Goldstein Collection
The Goldstein collection, comprised of over 12,000 books and magazines, 5000 albums and 1000 78s and 45s is unmatched in size and scope as one of the premier folklore resources in the United States.

The Blues Archive Photograph Collection
Housing over 20,000 photographs from decades of Living Blues magazine, as well as from top blues photographers, the Photograph Collection serves as an important clearinghouse for publications and institutions around the world. The archive contains some of the only known existing photographs of many musicians.

Other notable collections include the Trumpet Record collection (containing the files and business records of the Jackson, Mississippi record label), the Periodicals collection (housing a rare number of blues magazines and newsletters), the Percy Mayfield collection of memorabilia, the Harmonica and Blues Guitar Projects, and the Blues Archive Subject Files, which track the careers and lives of performers through various clippings and articles.

For further information contact: The Blues Archive, Farley Hall, University of Mississippi, University, MS 38677; http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/general_library/files/music/bluesarc.html
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The Sophia Smith Collection

The Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, is an internationally recognised repository of manuscripts, photographs, periodicals and other primary sources in women’s history. The Collection was founded in 1942 to be the Library’s distinctive contribution to the college’s mission of educating women. Under the inspired leadership of its first director, Margaret Storrs Grierson, the Sophia Smith Collection evolved from a collection of works by women writers into a historical research collection of material documenting the lives and activities of women. In 1946 it was named in honor of the founder of Smith College.

Today the Collection consists of 6000 linear feet of material in manuscript, print, and audio-visual formats. The holdings document the historical experience of women in the United States and abroad from the colonial era to the present. Subject strengths include birth control, women’s rights, suffrage, the contemporary women’s movement, US women working abroad, the arts (especially theatre), the professions (especially journalism and social work), and middle-class family life in nineteenth and twentieth century New England. Many of these collections are rich sources of visual, as well as manuscript and printed material.

Manuscripts

Over 300 manuscript collections consist of papers accumulated by individual women or by families. They include such materials as letters, diaries, scrapbooks and photographs. Among the most widely used collections are those of the birth control crusader Margaret Sanger; Ellen Gates Starr, co-founder with Jane Addams of the Chicago settlement, Hull House; Mary van Kleeck, social researcher and reformer; and the Garrison, Hale, and Ames families. More recent acquisitions include the papers of broadcast journalist Pauline Frederick and author and activist Gloria Steinem.

Organisations Records

The Organisations’s Records are the archives of women’s associations – minutes, correspondence, reports, publications, and related material. Among the more than 60 organisations represented are Sorosis, one of the oldest women’s clubs in the US, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and the National Board of the YWCA. Recent acquisitions still being readied for research include the records of MS magazine and the Women’s Action Alliance.

Periodicals and Serials

Among the 600 periodical titles of current and historical women’s magazines, newspapers, newsletters and other serials are Ladies Companion (1840-44), Women’s Journal (1870-1916), Lucifer: the Light Bearer (1897-1901), Eugenesia (Mexico, 1943-45), Church Woman (1943-49), and Black Sash (South Africa, 1956-72). Early women’s liberation periodicals, such as Shrew, and Velvet Fist are also well represented. There are approximately fifty current subscriptions.

For more information contact: The Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, MA 016063, tel (413) 585-2970, email ssc-wmhist@smith.edu, http://www.smith.edu/libraries/ssc/home.html
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News

In Memoriam

Geoffrey Thompson

Geoffrey Thompson of the leading Micromedia suppliers Thompson Henry, who died in October 1999, was a staunch and generous long term supporter of the aims and activities of that particular group of American Studies Librarians which is now known as the BAAS Library and Resources Subcomittee.

Geoffrey was an influential business leader in his own field and was widely known and liked by his colleagues within the Library world many of whom were proud to claim him as a personal friend.

His informed professional knowledge and his unfailing warm bonhomie together with the great civilised gusto of his love of life will sadly be missed by all who came into contact with him.

BAAS 2000
The British Association of American Studies Conference 2000 will be hosted by the Department of American Studies at the University of Wales Swansea, 6-9 April. The annual conference provides an excellent opportunity for all librarians with American Studies responsibilities to keep abreast of changes in the field. For more information contact: Michael McDonnell, Conference Secretary, Department of American Studies, University of Wales Swansea, Swansea SA2 8PP, or m.mcdonnell@swansea.ac.uk

Announcement of Civil War Maps Collection to be Added to American Memory at the Library of Congress
Maps documenting battles, troop movements, reconnaissance efforts and locations of fortifications are a part of the most recent addition to the American Memory historical collections of the Library of Congress. The Civil War Maps collection contains approximately 2240 Civil War maps and charts and 76 atlases and sketchbooks that are held within the Library’s Geography and Map Division. A selection of these maps, based on Civil War Maps: An Annotated List of Maps and Atlases in the Library of Congress, will be made available through American Memory. Updates will be made to this collection on a monthly basis.

Though the large majority of these maps were created during the time of the Civil War, a number were created afterwards to illustrate or explain certain events or battles. Publishers in the North and South created maps included in this collection by both Union and Confederate forces. An introductory essay provides a discussion of mapping during the Civil War highlighting materials that are within the Geography and Map Division of the Library.

Of special interest are maps created by Major Jedediah Hotchkiss, a topographical engineer for the Confederate Army. Hotchkiss’s granddaughter donated these maps to the Library of Congress in 1948. Generals Lee and Jackson used a number of his maps as they planned strategy for various battles. Future updates will include images from his notebooks, which contain detailed notes about his various map projects. Also included are maps that were owned by General William Tecumseh Sherman. Some of these maps, which were donated by members of his family, document Sherman’s military campaigns in Tennessee, Mississippi, Georgia and the Carolinas. Users may also be interested in maps that were created as propaganda items to encourage support of one side or the other during wartime and maps that were published in various newspapers. Panoramic maps and city plans are included within the collection.

The Civil War Maps collection compliments many of the American Memory collections currently online including the Selected Civil War Photographs, Pioneering the Upper Midwest, California as I Saw It, Historic American Sheet Music and the WPA Life Histories. Images from these and other collections are used to highlight the material within the Civil War Maps collection and to provide links to these related collections.

The Civil War Maps collection can be found at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/cwmhtml

For questions please send email to maps@loc.gov

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Contents

1. Minutes of the Subcommittee Meeting, 2 March 1999
2. The Photographic Collections, The British Library
3. The Winterthur Museum, Delaware
4. The Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Washington DC
5. Useful Websites
6. Useful Microform Collections at the British Library, Boston Spa
7. Book Reviews

Minutes of the Subcommittee Meeting, 2 March 1999

Treasurer’s Report

Ms Williamson presented the following accounts for the BAAS L&RSC to 2 March 1999. She noted that a further sale of a Directory had added £10.00 and interest of £33.07 had been received. The invoice for the January 1999 Newsletter (£171.00) was also included. The current uncommitted balance stands at £1,312.12, plus the balance for the Newspaper project (£463.68).

Notional Accounts 9.2.98–2.3.99 (confirmed with BAAS)

NB Invoice outstanding: BNA £310.00 (Advertising NL 43-46)

Newsletter

A discussion was held regarding the future format of the Newsletter. It was agreed that both printed and online versions should be made available and that the online version would be the whole text, but, with the advertisers. permission, should include links to their websites. The editor proposes to compile an index to the Newsletters, which should be included in the online version. A complete set of Newsletters will be gathered and held at the BAAS archive in Birmingham.

NB the BAAS website can be accessed at http://human.ntu.ac.uk/baas/

Advertising

The Treasurer had previously circulated a note, upon which discussion was based. The new advertising rates are as follows:

Four-issue pricing scheme:
full page (A5) £300; half page £150; full page inside front or back cover £325

Single-issue pricing scheme:
full page £100; half page £50

Single issue inserts pricing scheme:
per A4 sheet, printed one or both sides £250; per A5 sheet, printed one or both sides £125

The Chair and Treasurer agreed to draft a note to accompany invoices sent out to advertisers by Janet Beer (BAAS Treasurer).

Future Seminars

The Chair confirmed that the earliest likely date for the next seminar will be 2000. He suggested Manchester as a possible venue. Professor Davies stated that the June 1998 Seminar had been very well received and commented that the more active the Sub-Committee is, the more visibility it obtains both for itself and for BAAS. It was suggested that future seminars should cover themes rather than formats and the following themes were proposed for consideration: photography, cartography, sound/video/images, immigration. The Chair asked all Sub-Committee members to consider these ideas with a view to making a decision at the next Sub-Committee meeting. (NB: At the Sub-Committee meeting on 3 June 1999 it was agreed that the next seminar will examine visual resources in American Studies, and will, hopefully, be held in June 2000.)

Newspaper Project Update, by Linda Williamson, Chair, Projects Sub-Committee

The aim of the Newspaper Project is to produce a successor to the 1974 BAAS publication American Newspaper Holdings in British and Irish Libraries, by D.K. Adams. This is a ninety-four page union list to which thirty nine libraries contributed details of their US newspaper holdings. It is ordered by name of newspaper with indexing by state and city. The intent of the new listing has been to update the BAAS list, expanding it to include the holdings of additional libraries, and to reorder the entries by state and city with indexing by title. Planned output has been both a printed list and an electronic file.

The project began with the scanning of the original BAAS list, followed by the posting of two tranches of questionnaires. It was estimated that £2200 would be needed to accomplish inputting and editing of records. Donations totaling approximately £850 were received to help toward those costs: $1000 from UMI and £200 from International Herald Tribune.

The British Library, having by far the largest number of records to contribute, decided to produce its own newspaper holdings list and submit an electronic version to the project. This was received subsequent to the publication by the Eccles Centre of United States and Canadian Holdings in the British Library Newspaper Library, by Jean Kemble and Pam Das.

Reordering of theserecords by state and city, and the addition of data on publication dates, frequency, language, and notes for title changes then began. Based at Rhodes House Library, this work proceeded in fits and starts, depending on Linda Williamson’s other work commitments and the availability of student volunteers. Verification and addition of data proved to be very time-consuming, such that only one-fifth of the British Library’s file had been reordered by the time it became necessary to suspend the project. Associated costs for work accomplished to that point totaled approximately £400.

Meanwhile, the Scottish Consortium of University and Research Libraries. North American Studies Group, under Kevin Halliwell’s direction, put together its own union list for release in 1998. Entitled US & Canadian Newspaper Holdings in Scottish Libraries, it is mounted on the web and is searchable alphabetically by title.

Kevin Halliwell is now exploring whether the SCURL list, the British Library list, and details from the questionnaires returned by other libraries can be merged and mounted on a website. Because the British Library holdings file is so extensive and is organised along the same lines as the SCURL list, it would seem most efficient to use the former as the base, with details from the latter and from the questionnaires added to it.

The straightforward nature of this merged list would allow librarians and scholars to look up newspapers by title and find which libraries within the UK and Ireland have holdings of them. It would essentially be an update of the BAAS list, having the same format, with the added advantage of being accessible online and updatable in an ongoing fashion. Regrettably, without the enhanced bibliographic information which was being added to the original project, it will not be possible to identify newspaper holdings for a given century, nor will it be possible to scan those of a given city or state.

However, the original BAAS list has certainly proved useful as it is, so this new merged product should be very well received–especially for its updated information and for its online accessibility. From donations received, approximately £450 remains to see the project through to completion. Again, further work on the project will be dependent on other work commitments of the BAAS L&RS members involved and the availability of student help.
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The Photographic Collections, The British Library

“With respect to foreign literature, science and arts the library ought to possess the best editions of standard works …”.

“The old and the rare as well as critical editions….ought never to be sought in vain…” ¹

The significance and value of any collection are, in part, based on the relationship between the scale and method of acquisition and public accessibility. The principal architect of the British Library’s acquisition policy was Sir Antonio Panizzi who, on his appointment in 1837 as Keeper of Printed Books of the British Museum Library, wrote his first memorandum to the Trustees. The result of this was the endorsement of an acquisitions policy, based on the vision of Panizzi; three methods of acquisition were secured – legal deposit, purchase and donation.

The foundation of the British Library’s acquisition policy was laid at the time the advent of photography was announced in 1839. The dove-tailing of these two highly significant events has resulted in the accumulation of one of the world’s most in-depth and comprehensive collections of photographically illustrated books, photographs and texts relating to the development and history of photography written by inventors, pioneers and practitioners of photography in many languages from every continent.

The history of North America and the evolution of photography as a means of documentation and illustration of the continent and its inhabitants is well represented in the collections of photographically illustrated books and albums containing most genres of photographic and photo-mechanical processes in the directorate of Reader Services and Collection Development of the British Library. Two complete volumes of photographs documenting the American Civil War, Gardner’s Photographic Sketch Book of the War (1865) were purchased in the same year by the British Museum Library. These volumes contain original photographs taken by Timothy O’Sullivan, A & J Gardner, W Pywell et. al. the negatives were printed by Andrew Gardner and are fine examples of documentary photography.

Many descriptive catalogues of photographic surveys have been donated; Photographs of the United States Geological Survey of the Territories for 1869 to 1873 (1874) was donated in 1879 and contains lists of photographs by William Henry Jackson. Extracts from a Narrative Privations and Sufferings of United States Officers and Soldiers, was published in 1865 and received via legal deposit in the same year. This work contains photographs taken at the United States General Hospital, Division No 1, Annapolis, Maryland.

As a result of copyright legislation in Canada, and a copyright exchange system, the British Library holds a collection of some 5,000 photographs taken from 1895 to 1924. The photographs represent many cultural, social and historical aspects of Canada and are a testimony to the value and significance of documentary photography as a resource for research and study.

Access to the collection of photographically illustrated books and photographs will be served by means of a comprehensive database. The R.S.C.D directorate of the British Library is in the process of identifying all works containing original photographs and early photo-mechanical processes and transferring information onto a specially designed database. The result of this project will provide access to the photographic collections – well befitting the vision of Sir Antonio Panizzi.

For more information about this project please contact Annie Gilbert, Curator of Photographs, Early Printed Collections, The British Library, 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB, tel: 0171 412 7598, e-mail: annie.gilbert@bl.uk

References

1. DPB, DH/1 12 October 1837; Weimerskirch, Philip John. “Antonio Panizzi’s Aquisitions Policies for the Library of the British Museum”, (DLS, Columbia University,1977)
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The Winterthur Museum, Delaware

While visiting his friend Electra Webb in Vermont, Henry Francis du Pont was captivated by both the history and design of an American dresser belonging to his host. Inspired, du Pont began collecting objects that had been used in American homes between 1640 and 1840. The dates was subsequently extended to 1860 and today this collection, based at du Pont’s former country estate in Winterthur, Delaware, contains 89,000 objects in 175 period rooms.

As well as the Museum the estate also houses a superb library which contains the four distinct collections described below.

The Printed Book and Periodical Collection: This Collection holds more than 80,000 bound volumes of current and antiquarian monographs, periodicals, exhibition catalogues, and trade catalogues. Strengths of the collection include works on decorative arts and design; architecture; American painting, graphics and photography; travel literature; children’s books; women’s magazines and the literature of domestic economy and etiquette; garden history; and the material culture of everyday life in America from the seventeenth through the early twentieth centuries. The collection also selectively covers British, Continental, Chinese and Japanese arts and material culture as they relate to the United States.

The Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera: The Downs collection consists almost exclusively of primary research material. Approximately half of its 2,500 record groups are either personal or business accounts in the forms of diaries, family papers, and records maintained by American craftspeople. In addition, the Downs collection counts among its holdings drawings (architectural, artistic, and amateur alike), household inventories, children’s toys and games, scrapbooks, and fabric swatch books. An important complement to the Downs collection is the Edward Deming Andrews Memorial Shaker Collection, named to honor America’s pioneer scholar on the Shaker religious sect. It features manuscripts, books, and visual materials on the Shakers as well as the research archives compiled by Dr. Andrews.

The Decorative Arts Photographic Collection: This collection is a unique study and research collection containing more than 115,000 photographs of decorative arts objects made or used in America prior to 1920 and located in both public and private collections throughout the United States. This ever-expanding collection is a visual file that documents the works of individual craftsmen, workshops, and manufactories. Particular strengths of the collection are its images of furniture and silver. A retrieval system allows rapid Boolean access by form, material, construction, provenance, style, ornamentation and date. Indexes in the collection provide basic bibliographic and biographical information–culled from newspapers advertisements, city directories, and major secondary sources–on woodworkers, silversmiths, jewelers, clock- and watch-makers, and potters. The Photographic Index of American Art and Design (PIAAD) is the fine arts counterpart to the DAPC and contains 50,000 photographs of American paintings, sculpture, graphic arts, drawings, gravestones, and architecture.

The Winterthur Archives: The Archives of the Winterthur Library hold the personal and business papers of Henry Francis du Pont and his immediate family. The focus of the papers in the development of the Winterthur estate and the creation and development of the museum. The approximate date range of the material is 1860 to 1970.

For more information contact: The Librarian, The Winterthur Museum and Gardens, Winterthur, DE 19735, tel.: 00 1 302 888 4600.
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The Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Washington DC

Since early in its formative years, Howard University has collected materials documenting the historical experiences of people of African descent. In April 1867, shortly after the university was chartered, a committee was established to select books for a library. Some of the first books were titles on Africa, and General Oliver Otis Howard, the University’s founder, donated several books and photographs related to Blacks. Many individuals donated materials dealing with the abolitionist movement and the Civil War, including Lewis Tappan, a noted abolitionist, who, in 1873, bequested more than 1,600 antislavery books, pamphlets, periodicals, newspapers, letters, pictures and clippings.

Despite these positive beginnings the Black history collections grew slowly during the nineteenth century. Then, in 1914, the Reverend Jesse E. Moorland, an alumnus and trustee of Howard who served as general secretary of the YMCA, announced his gift of 3,000 books, pamphlets and other historical items. In accepting the donation, the University’s board of trustees created The Moorland Foundation, a Library of Negro Life and housed it as a special collection in the new library building recently donated by Andrew Carnegie.

Responses to the establishment of the Foundation were positive and wide-ranging and Howard University moved to the forefront of institutions documenting Black history and culture. During the 1930s, the Moorland Foundation served as a clearinghouse for materials documenting the Black experience which were generated by a project of the Works Progress Administration. This project resulted in the compilation of A Catalogue of Books in the Moorland Foundation and the preparation of a card file on . all publications by or about the Negro made known to the project workers by cooperating librarians in public, university and private libraries scattered throughout the country.. Cooperating institutions included the Library of Congress, the Houston Public Library, and the libraries at Prairie View I & N College, Hampton Institute, St. Augustine College, and Drew University.

A landmark in the Moorland Foundation’s history came in 1946 with the purchase of the private library of the learned bibliophile Arthur B. Spingarn, an attorney who, while in the Army during World War I, had spoken out against the discriminatory treatment of Blacks in the military. He chaired the NAACP’s legal committee for many years, and served as the Association’s president between 1940-65. Spingarn was a widely read scholar of Black history and literature who consulted with numerous editors, writers, scholars, diplomats and booksellers throughout the world as he assembled a collection of works by Black authors that was unique in its depth, breadth and quality.

The collection is particularly strong in its coverage of Afro-Cuban, Afro-Brazilian, and Haitian writers and contains many rare editions. Perhaps the rarest pieces of early Americana are Phillis Wheatley’s broadside An Elegiac Poem on the Death of that Celebrated Divine…George Whitfield (1770) and Poems (1773). The collection also contains Armand Lanusse’s Les Cenelles (1845) the first anthology of Black poetry in the United States and has many important works by early Black authors, including Jupiter Hammon, Benjamin Banneker, Richard Allen, Daniel Coker and Absalom Jones. An inscribed volume of Gustavus Vassa (Olaudah Equiano) is also among the treasures. In 1958, the Moorland Foundation also acquired Spingarn’s collection of Black music, at the time one of the largest such collections in the world.

It was about this time that the Moorland Foundation became known as the Moorland-Spingarn Collection and in 1973 the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center (MSRC) was created. Today the Center comprises four units: the Library Division, the Manuscript Division, Howard University Archives, and Howard University Museum. The Library Division houses the Center’s secondary sources including the Moorland and the Spingarn Collections. The Division is particularly strong in first editions and first works by early 20th century contemporary writers, including W.E.B. DuBois, Richard Wright, Alice Walker, Wole Soyinka, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Chinua Achebe and Amiri Baraka.

The Manuscript Division is organised into four departments: manuscripts, music, oral history and prints and photographs. The Manuscript Department currently houses more than 180 collections, including the correspondence, writings, diaries, and scrapbooks of notable Blacks, including educators, writers, attorneys, architects, musicians and scientists. The Music Department’s holdings document Black participation in and contributions to the development of jazz, folk, spiritual, popular and classical styles. Its collections are rich in sheet music, songbook albums, and instrumental concert material. The department contains work by more than 400 composers. The Oral History Department contains the Ralph J. Bunche Collection of more than 700 tapes and television transcripts documenting the Civil Rights Movement, and the Votings Rights Oral History and Documentation Project. Finally, the Prints and Photographs Department houses more than 50,000 graphic images, including slides, postcards, paintings, print, maps, broadsides, illustrations and photographs from the 1770s to the present day.

For more information contact: The Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University, Washington, DC 20059, tel. 00 1 202 806 7239.
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Useful Websites

SiteScene: the Monthly Review of New Electronic Resources in American Studies

Established in 1998 this website reviews websites and CD-Roms dealing with all aspects of American culture. The volunteer review staff includes both subject specialists and enthusiasts and each edition aims to direct attention to key new resources in a way that subscribers will find both useful and manageable. The new SiteScene series comes out once a month and is free upon subscription to Roadsign. To join Roadsign, send a Subscribe Roadsign Your Name message to listserv@listserv.georgetown.edu. There are three past editions of SiteScene archived at: http://www.georgetown.edu/crossroads/asw/sitescene.html

The latest edition of Sitescene features ten websites including: Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1830-1930 http://www.binghamton.edu/womhist/; The American Museum of Photography http://www.photographymuseum.com; The Material History of American Religion Project http://www.materialreligion.org and Documenting the American South http://www.metalab.unc.edu/docsouth/aboutdas.html. Two of these sites are highlighted below.

Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1830-1930:
http://www.binghamton.edu/womhist/

This Worldwide Web site is intended to serve as a resource for students and teachers of U.S. women’s history. Organised around the history of women in social movements between 1830 and 1930, the website makes the insights of women’s history accessible to teachers at universities, colleges, and high-schools. The website provideslearning modules organised around a specific question about a single social movement. Each module contains fifteen to twenty documents entered as word-processed hypertext files that permit students to address the question. The modules draw upon microform collections of the papers of such women’s reform organisations as the Women’s Trade Union League, the National Association of Colored Women, the National Consumers’ League, Henry Street and Hull House settlements, the National Woman’s Party, and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.

Current Modules Include:

Women and the Freedmen’s Aid Movement, 1863-1870; Minnesota Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, 1878-1917; African-American Women and the Chicago World’s Fair, 1893; Illinois Factory Inspection, 1893-1897; Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Woman Suffrage, 1900-1915; Local Branches of the American Association of University Women, 1900-1940; Workers and Allies in the New York City Shirtwaist Strike, 1909-1910; Women and the Lawrence Textile Strike, 1912; Women’s Peace Mission to European Capitals, 1915; Lobbying for Passage of the National Suffrage Amendment, 1917-1920; Middle-Class Women Provide Maternity Health Services for Immigrant Women, 1917-1920; National Woman’s Party and the Enfranchisement of Black Women, 1919-1924; Women Suffragists and Partisan Politics, New York, 1920; Pacifism vs. Patriotism in Women’s Organizations in the 1920s; Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and Right-Wing Attacks, 1923-1931.

Documenting the American South:
http://www.metalab.unc.edu/docsouth/aboutdas.html

This electronic collection is based upon the premier Southern collections at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and provides unique access to primary materials that offer Southern perspectives on American history and culture. It supplies teachers, students, and researchers at every educational level with a wide array of titles they can use for reference, studying, teaching, and research. Currently, DAS includes the five digitization projects listed below:

Southern Literature, beginnings to 1920: this project is based on a list of the 100 most important works of Southern literature prepared by the late Robert Bain, Professor of English at the University.

First Person Narratives, 1860-1920: Autobiographies, diaries, and memoirs form the basis of collection.

Slave Narratives, beginnings to 1920: A recent grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities will enable the Library to digitize all the narratives of fugitive and former slaves published in broadsides pamphlets or book forms in English up to 1920, and many biographies of former slaves as well.

The Southern Homefront, 1861-65: This project documents non-military aspects of Southern life during the Civil War, especially the unsuccessful attempt to create a viable nation state as evidence in both public and private life.

The Church in the Southern Black Community, beginnings to 1920: This project traces how Southern African Americans experienced and transformed Protestant Christianity into the central institution of community life.
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Useful Microform Collections at the British Library, Boston Spa

In recent years the British Library, Boston Spa has acquired many microform collections of interest to Americanists.

American Culture. Series 1: 1493-1806; Series 2 1807 -1875. UMI. 669 reels; hardcopy indexes held for each MFR number. MFR 3008-3019.

This series covers books and pamphlets from 1493-1875 and includes items such as Benjamin Franklin’s Experiments and Observations on Electricity made at Philadelphia, (1751-53); William Penn’s A Brief Account of the Province of Pennsylvania lately Granted by the King, (1682); George Custer’s My Life on the Plains or Personal Experiences with Indians, (1874); David Crockett’s A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett of the State of Tennessee (1834).

American Periodicals, 1741-1900. Xerox University Microfilms. 2770 reels. MFR 2740

UMI’s three collections of American Periodicals on Microfilm together include more than 1100 periodicals with publishing dates ranging from 1741-1900.

Series 1: Eighteenth century periodicals; this consists of 88 periodicals on 33 reels of microfilm, tracing the evolution of American magazines from 1741 through the increased activity after the revolution.

Series 2: 1800-1850. This series consists of 923 periodicals on 1,966 reels. Westward expansion and nationalist spirit is reflected in the vagaries of this period, which marked the beginnings of a distinctly American literature. The years 1825-1850 are often referred to the . golden age of periodicals. because of the extraordinary outpourings of magazine activity.

Series 3: Civil War and Reconstruction. This series consists of 117 periodicals on 771 reels. Philosophical, social and literary backgrounds of the civil war and reconstruction eras can be traced through these magazines. The variety and scope of the periodical genre was greatly enlarged in this period and the earliest published works of many outstanding American writers can be found in this collection.

American Prose Fiction, 1774-1905. UMI. 1400 reels. MFR 3050-3053

Some of the items included in this collection are: Adsonville: or, Marrying Out – a Narrative Tale (1824); A Journey to Philadelphia or, Memoirs of Charles, (1804); Sam Squab – The Boston Boy (1844); The Young Schoolmistress (1848).

American Statistics Index. Microfiche Library. Complete Collection. CIS. 278,000 m/f. 1742.171F

This series of US government statistics is still in progress.

Anti-Slavery Collection, 18th-19th Centuries, from the Library of the Society of Friends. World Microfilms. 25 reels. Hardcopy index. MFR 2667

Items included in this collection are letters, essays, sermons, poems and debates from the House of Commons regarding the abolition of the slave trade.

British Pamphlets relating to the American Revolution, 1764-1783. EP. 49 reels. Hardcopy index. MFR 1700

This series comprises over 100 titles covering many aspects of American history. Materials range in time from the colonial period to the twentieth century, and in locations from Quebec to the West Indies. It includes records relating to trade, industry, plantations, agriculture and ranching, immigration and settlement, the anti-slavery movement, politics, religion and military affairs. There are personal papers and diaries as well as state documents and the records of industrial and commercial concerns. Primary printed materials (newspapers, pamphlets, guides etc.) as well as manuscript collections are included.

British Records Relating to America. EP. 176 reels of microfilm. Hardcopy indexes held. MFR 2834-2891

Some of the items included in this collection are: American materials from the Tarleton Papers in the Liverpool Record Office; material relating to the American Revolution from the Auckland Papers.

Current Urban Documents. 1986-1989. Greenwood. Approx. 900 m/f. Hardcopy index. 3504.96F

This is a collection of local government documents issued by the largest cities and counties in the United States and Canada. The index is arranged by both geographic location and subject.

Index to American Design. Chadwyck-Healey. 291 colour m/f. 10 parts. Hardcopy index. DSC MFE 569

The Index of American Design will be available to scholars, collectors, artists and designers interested in American material culture and the decorative arts. The colour microfiche cover: Textiles and costumes; domestic utensils; silver, copper, pewter and toleware; toys and musical instruments; woodcarvings and weathervanes.

The Official Papers and Correspondence of Sir Jeffrey, 1st Baron Amherst, 1740-1783. World Microfilm. 202 reels. Hardcopy index. MFR 2736

This collection consistsof the official papers and correspondence of Sir Jeffrey, 1st Baron Amherst, Commander-in-Chief of the British forces in North America, 1758-64, Governor General of British North America, 1760, absentee Governor of Virginia, 1763-68.

Radical Periodicals in the US, 1890-1950. Greenwood. M/f.

Held as individual series.

Social Welfare Periodicals in America. Greenwood. M/f

Held as individual series.

United States Army in the World War, 1917-1919. Library of Congress Duplicating Service. 5 reels. MFR 1030-1034

This collection of 17 volumes consists of documents relating to the participation of the U.S. Army in World War I.

United States Presidential Papers. Library of Congress. 2695 reels. Hardcopy index for each President. MFR 2735 and MFR 2792-2813

Presidents included in this collection and the number of reels of material on each are as follows: Washington (124); Jefferson (65); Madison (28); Monroe (11); Jackson (78); Van Buren (35); Harrison (3); Tyler (3); Polk (67); Taylor (2); Pierce (7); Lincoln (92); Johnson (50); Grant (32); Garfield (177); Arthur (3); Cleveland (164); Harrison (151); McKinley (98); Theodore Roosevelt (485); Taft (658); Wilson (540); Coolidge (90).

Western Americana Collection. UMI. 5622 m/f. Hardcopy index. (MFE 33)

This is a collection of over 1000 published works, which are mainly books and government documents covering the 18th-20th centuries. Many titles are written by historians or professional writers, but the majority are accounts of ordinary people who participated in, or directly observed, the early Western scene. Examples of the items included in this collection are: George F. Ruxton, Life in the Far West (1849); Randall H. Hewitt, Across the Plains and Over the Divide (1906); Josiah F. Gibbs, Lights and Shadows of Mormonism (1909); Walter Hough, The Hopi Indians (1915); The Life and Adventures of Nat Love, better known in the Cattle Country as “Deadwood Dick,” by Himself, (1907).

Archives of British and American Publishers, Series 1, 2 and 3. Chadwyck-Healey. 413 reels of m/f.

Includes the records of George Allen & Company, 1893-1915; Richard Bentley & Son, 1829-1898; Cambridge University Press, 1696-1902; Harper & Bros., 1817-1914; House of Longman, 1794-1914; Elkin Mathews, 1811-1938; Grant Richards, 1897-1948; George Routledge & Company, 1853-1902; Swan Sonnenschein & Company, 1878-1911; Kegan, Paul, Trench, Trubner and Henry S. King, 1853-1912.

Items include: ledgers, registers, bound records, commission ledgers, miscellaneous publication expenses ledgers and impression books.

Congressional Information Service Microfiche Library, Complete Collection, 1970-present. CIS. 150,000 m/f. Items are purchased on demand. 3267.638F and 3267.636F

This series is a collection of all the publications of Congress (except the Congressional Record) including publications of the Congressional Budget Office and the Office of Technology Assessment. Items include: the investigation of Kennedy’s assassination; an investigation into the Shuttle Explosion; and the Desert Storm Operations.

For more information on using these collections, contact:

Janet Woods
Reports and Microform Store
The British Library
Boston Spa
Wetherby
West Yorkshire LS23 7BQ

Tel 01937 546174
Fax 01937 546659
E-Mail: janet.woods@bl.uk

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Book Reviews

George T. Kurian, Ed. A Historical Guide To The U.S. Government. (New York; Oxford, 1998). Pp.741. ISBN 0-19-510230-4

Based on the premise that: A history of U.S. government is part of the history of the American people,A Historical Guide to the U.S. Government will doubtless be of great assistance to all those interested in the ways in which the growth, evolution and often demise of federal departments, agencies and bureaus have been influenced by the social, cultural, intellectual and economic ideas and movements that have shaped US history as a whole.

The Guide is arranged alphabetically by entry-term, and most of the signed, essay-style entries are written by historians, political scientists or federal employees. A significant proportion of the entries are upwards of ten pages long, and most conclude with a selected bibliography of approximately ten to twelve sources, as well as references where necessary. Overall the entry-terms themselves are obvious and straightforward, however, ones such as Advising the President can seem a little awkward. However, the excellent index makes up for any shortfall in this area, and enables one quickly and easily to locate the appropriate information. Finally, an appendix consisting of many of the most important documents of public administration is included at the end.

Not surprisingly, the vast majority of information in the Guide concerns the evolution and activities of the federal government in the twentieth century. Indeed, George Washington ran the affairs of state with only four assistants, and, due to peculiarly American circumstances–the open frontier, the strength of private enterprise, fear of big government, among others–the establishment of government structures in the nineteenth century was relatively slow. However, the Great Depression brought the federal government into American public life in an unprecedented way and today, despite the backlash of the Reagan years, it employs nearly three million civilians and is one of the largest public institutions in the world. The story of this incredible expansion is well-documented by this useful, illuminating work.

Jean Kemble
The Eccles Centre, The British Library

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