Did you miss our Special Collections Open House on September 3rd? Don’t worry–you have three more chances to join us! Our next event is on Tuesday, October 1, from 5-7pm. You’ll have a chance to view a variety of materials from our collections, talk with an archivist (or two or three!), ask questions about what we do, learn about how we can help with personal and professional research, and even take a behind the scenes tour!
Here’s a few things you might see if you stop by:
Selection of Civil War Diaries
Two works by Langston Hughes: A New Song (1938; signed) and Scottsboro Limited (1931)
A selection of Civil War diaries
A page from Audobon’s The Birds of America
A few items from our History of the American Cocktail Collection
Michael Collins’s flight plan for Apollo 11, with his inscription
We’ll also display items from the University Archives, the International Archives of Women in Architecture, and maybe even a few speculative fiction magazines.
If you can’t join us in October, we’ll have two more open houses this semester: November 5th and December 2nd (both Tuesdays and both from 5-7pm), so be sure to mark your calendar. See you soon!
It’s the start of a new school year here in Blacksburg. The library, like the rest of campus, is seeing plenty of students, both new and seasoned. Our post this week is for those of you still learning your way AND those of you who think you know all the secrets. We’re taking a trip back in time and sharing some photographs of Blacksburg from about 1895-1925. As you’ll see, things have come a LONG way!
Before 1900, Main St. saw its fair share of horse traffic. This photograph was taken from the road, looking at the old Preston and Olin Building/then VPI machine shop.Far in the distance at the center of the frame is the VPI machine shop. This photograph was taken on Main St. looking west, possibly near the Post Office.C. 1900, the Post Office and Hack Depot shared a building on Main St., several blocks away from campus.If you stood smack in the middle of Main St., right past the College Ave. intersection (think: right in front of Moe’s–please don’t try it!) and looked up hill, this is what you’d see before 1900. No Main St. or Alumni Mall entrance to campus.Ellett’s Drugstore was on the corner of Main St. and College Ave., in the current Sharkey’s space.Blacksburg, c.1904. In those days, Main Street ended at College Ave. At the bottom center of the frame are a set of metal gates–essentially the entrance to campus! The brick building on the left is where you’ll see Sharkey’s today. The building on the right is the current Moe’s. And hey, at least VPI won the game!This image is actually the front of a postcard, sent in 1917, but taken before then. By then, the metal gates from the 1904 photograph were actually brick structures with a sign and Main St. was no longer a dead-end, but open to traffic!By 1930, some more familiar surroundings were build in Blacksburg. The 5-10-25 Cent store is at the current site of Moe’s. To the right of it, on College Ave., you can see The Lyric Theatre in current home.
Our historical photograph collection in Special Collections covers a wide variety of University and local history places and spaces. It can show you a lot about how Blacksburg and Virginia Tech have changed. And even if you can’t visit us, you can check out a large selection of images online:http://imagebase.lib.vt.edu/index.php. There’s plenty of history to discover!
Virginia Tech Special Collections may not be known for our literary collections, but we have our fair share of literary surprises among the stacks. And we constantly find new ones. We have a wonderful selection of British and American first editions on our shelves, including a first edition of James Joyce’sUlyssesanda signed Langston Hughes’A New Song. Although I am an archivist at heart, my background is in literature and the long 19th century of British writing. One day, perusing manuscript collections from the days before VT had a Special Collections department, I found a letter written by Victoria Cross. Her name may not sound familiar, but the letter says something about an author who was considered racy and bold in her own time.
July 20, 1909
Dear Mr. Morris
I am sending you an autograph copy of Life’s Shop window and I should be so glad if you will read it through carefully from beginning to end and form your own opinion on it. People who are jealous of me always howl at my writings the reproach that they are immoral From my own point of view I have never written a single immoral line in my life. I am immensely proud of my books and would read them aloud to a jury of Bishops with the greatest of pleasure any time.
It is most important for you to feel the same confidence as I do in them and to know personally the contents of one at least so that you can combat the rediculous [sic] statements made about me. I know how extremely busy you are but if you will make time to read it carefully, I know when you are in the U. S. and can speak with authority on my work, you will feel the time spend in reading it was not wasted.
With so many thanks for all the trouble you have taken for me already
Yours sincerely
Victoria Cross
Victoria Cross was one of several pseudonyms of Annie Sophie Cory (1868-1952), a British writer in the late 19th and early 20th century. She also wrote as Victoria Crosse, Vivian Cory, and V. C. Griffin.Cory was born in India and educated in England. She never married, and traveled extensively– two things that put her outside the normal expectations of her gender and place in society. Both are aspects of her life that influence her writing, likely leading to declarations of her “immorality” mentioned in the letter. And yet she, and a score of other late Victorian “New Women” writers helped to shape the next generation of women authors.
Despite the claims of their scandalous, exotic, or “immortal” nature, Cory’s works were well-read and popular in many circles. After all, how many readers are tempted by the novel that they are told isn’t appropriate reading?Life’s Shop-Window, the book she mentions in her letter, was first published in 1907.You can read itonlinethrough the Internet Archive. In 1914, it was even made into a movie! If you’re seeking a slightly shorter introduction to “Victoria Cross,” I recommend her first published short story,”Theodora: A Fragment” which appeared in The Yellow Book in 1895. Contemporary morals may be different, but you’ll still be in for a treat.
And as for us, well, we get to keep a little piece of that progressive, confident, “New Woman” history in our Special Collections.
Our History of Food & Drink Collection is full of surprises, including recipes, household management guides, books on nutrition and dietetics, advertising ephemera, children’s cookbooks and nutrition publications, and information on the history of cocktails in America. We’re working hard to add some original materials, too, and we now house more than two dozen handwritten receipt books, compiled recipe collections, and faculty papers. This “How to Cook a Husband” was a small manuscript item discovered among a box of publications in 2010. And its catchy title was hard to resist.
Like many manuscript materials, handwriting is always a challenge. In general, if you spend a few minutes with it, you’ll get the hang of it. In the meantime, here’s a transcript:
A good many husbands are utterly spoiled by mismanagement in cooking, and do not turn out tender or good. Some go about the task as if their husbands were balloons. They blow them up, others keep them constantly in hot water, others let them freeze by their carelessness and indifference. Some keep them in a stew by their irritating way and words. Other roast them. Some keep them in a pickle all their lives.
It cannot be supposed a husband will be tender or good so managed but they are truly delicious when properly treated.
In selecting your husband, you must not be guided by a silvery appearance, as in buying mackerel, or by the golden tint as in salmon. Be sure you select him yourself as tastes differ and be sure you do not look for him at market for the best are always brought to the door.
It is far better not to have any unless you patiently learn how to cook them. A preserving kettle lined with the finest porcelain must be used, yet if you have but an earthen pipkin, it will do if carefully handled. See that the linen in which you wrap him is nicely washed & mended and with the required buttons and strings neatly sewed on.
Lie him in the kettle with a strong silken cord called Comfort, as the one called duty is apt to be weak. They are apt to fly out of the kettle and get burnt and crunchy on the edges since like crabs or oysters you have to cook them alive. Make a good steady fire out of love, neatness and cheerfulness. Set your husband as near this as seems to agree with him. If he sputter and fizz, do not grow anxious. Some do this until quite done.
Add a little sugar in the form confectioners call kisses & spice if used with judgement may be added. No sharp instrument must be stuck into him to see if he is tender. Stir him gently and you cannot fail to know when he is done.
If thus treated, you will find him digestible, agreeing nicely with you as long as you do not grow careless and stick him in too cold a place.
The contents are based on a popular story that uses cooking metaphors to instruct young women in treating their husbands well (assuming, of course, that a young lady has already locate and hook a young man). Although the creator of the original story is unknown, the story is thought to have originated in New England in the early 1880s. A finding aid for this collection is available online.
One of the reasons Special Collections launched this blog was to show off some of our cool materials. We can talk about new acquisitions, new discoveries, and old favorites all day! (Curious, just come by and ask us!) Another reason, though, was talk a little about the who, what, where, and why of Special Collections. One of the questions we are frequently asked, in one form or another, is “How to you get stuff?” The short answer is that we acquire books, manuscripts, maps, photographs, and other materials in three major ways: donation, purchase, and transfer (this last is the least common, but is vital to our mission of preserving university history!). The much longer answer continues below…
I’m Kira Dietz (aka archivistkira), and since part of my job as Acquisitions and Processing Archivist is to work with donors & potential donors, book & manuscript dealers, university employees, alumni and more, I thought I might spend a post or two over the next couple months tackling the “How do you get stuff?” query. The best way to do that is to answer a few more specific question potential donors might have.
From the Knox Gelatine: Desserts, Salads, Candies, and Frozen Dishes (1933). This pamphlet is one of a collection of 92 items donated in 2011 that went on to form the basis of the Culinary Pamphlet Collection, Ms2011-002. This collection continues to grow through donations and purchases. http://ead.lib.virginia.edu/vivaxtf/view?docId=vt/viblbv00787.xml
Why donations?
While Special Collections does have a budget to purchase materials (more on that in a future post), we rely heavily on donations. We have just that–a limited budget. Donations make up more than half of our holdings and are the backbone of our manuscripts, university archives, and rare book collection. There are financial costs involved in the acquisition, processing, maintenance, and access of our collections, but donation of materials can help us save a little on the acquisitions part. Donations that come with a financial contribution can help us further reduce some of the processing costs. Basically, without donations, the University Libraries would never have acquired much of the materials that led to the creation of Special Collections, and we wouldn’t be here today!
Where do donations come from?
Donations can come from anyone! We receive materials from staff/faculty and departments on campus, from alumni of Virginia Tech, from community members and organizations, from current students, from professionals active in fields related to our collecting areas, from researchers and scholars, and from people around the world! Sometimes, donors already know who we are. Sometimes, they hear about us at an event or through word of mouth. Sometimes, they have an item or collection that they just want to be available to a wide range of researchers, scholars, and visitors, rather than keeping it in their attic.
The John Newton Carnahan Letters, a series of Civil War letters by Carnahan to his family at home in Wytheville, Va., were donated to Special Collections in 2005. You can see a guide to the collection here: http://ead.lib.virginia.edu/vivaxtf/view?docId=vt/viblbv00485.xml
What kinds of donations do you want?
We’re always on the lookout for new items and collections! While an exhaustive list is tricky to provide, here are some general sorts of formats we seek: Correspondence, diaries, and manuscripts (preferably original documents), logbooks, ledgers, memorabilia, photographs, drawings, architectural collections, and other records of historical importance to the mission of the university and that support existing collections.
We are actively collecting materials in a 7 or 8 major subject areas at present. These include,but are not limited to, local history (SW Virginia and nearby parts of Appalachia), university history, the American Civil War, science and technology, speculative fiction, women & architecture, and food & drink history. You can see more about the kinds of collections we have in all these areas in the individual subject guides listed here.
What do you do with donations once you receive them?
One of the phrases you hear often in archives is, “it depends.” What we do with a donation once we receive it depends on a number of factors: what the donation consists of, how large it is, what condition it’s in, whether further donations may be expected, and more.
In general, the first thing we do is create a record of the donation in our database. Books and other publications that can be cataloged to the University Libraries’ Technical Services, then are returned to our Rare Book Collection. Manuscripts, photographs, drawings, maps, and mixed material collections are placed in acid-free boxes and added to our processing queue. If there are fragile or damaged items, we may do some preservation work like placing torn documents in polyester sleeves, unrolling and flattening rolled photos or documents, or photocopying acid paper. Preservation issues may also be addressed when a collection is processed at a later date.
This drawing of Garvey House, designed by architect Susana Torre, is part of the Susana Torre Architectural Papers, Ms1990-016. The collection includes more than 24 cu. ft. of correspondence, project files, articles, teaching notes, and designs. http://ead.lib.virginia.edu/vivaxtf/view?docId=vt/viblbv00175.xml
What do I do if I have something I want to donate?
Contact Special Collections! Whether your potential donation is a single item or lots of boxes, we’ll talk to you about what you have and how it might fit in with our holdings.We can also talk to you about how we process, house, and provide access to collections (I could write a whole series of posts on that subject, so I won’t cover it today). If you live nearby or are passing through Blacksburg and want to visit us, we’re happy to show you around the department, too.
If we all decide Special Collections is the right place for your donation, we’ll make arrangements to receive the material. It might mean a pick up, a drop off, or something being sent via the mail. As a record of your donation, we’ll ask you fill out and sign our “Deed of Gift” form. We’ll keep a copy and we send one to you, too. We also follow up with a thank you note from us.
On the whole, we try to keep our donation process as simple as possible for everyone.
What if Special Collections at Virginia Tech isn’t the right place for a collection?
That’s one of the main reasons we encourage you to talk to us about your donation. Sometimes, we just aren’t the right home for a book, a letter, or a diverse collection of materials. Whether or not you know it, though, there are LOTS of special collections, archives, historical societies, museums, and other institutions out there. All of them have different interests and collecting areas, and many of them accept donations. If we aren’t the right home, we’ll use our network of colleagues and resources to help you find an appropriate home.
This bridge drawing comes from the William MacFarland Patton Papers, Ms1954-001, donated to Newman Library in 1954, years before Special Collections was born! Patton was a professor at VAMC (now Virginia Tech) from 1896-1905. http://ead.lib.virginia.edu/vivaxtf/view?docId=vt/viblbv00786.xml
I hope this is a helpful introduction to donations at Special Collections. There are plenty more questions I could try to answer here, but each potential donation is different. Each one has its own needs and poses its own challenges. If you have something else you’d like to know, feel free to post a comment below or contact Special Collections. I’ll give you the best answer I can!
It is often true that in our experience of sorrow we discover ourselves to be part of larger communities than we had first realized. Our grief resonates with others and our shared humanity becomes manifest in expressions of common feeling and supportfirst as condolence, and later as remembrance.
In the days and weeks following the events of April 16, 2007, Virginia Tech received over 89,000 cards and letters of support, posters, banners, art, poetry, wreaths, memory books, and other unique items from around the world. Campus visitors often left items at the Drillfield memorial. These were displayed on the Virginia Tech campus for several months before being gathered and inventoried to create the “Virginia Tech April 16, 2007, Archives of the University Libraries.” The collection consists of over 500 cubic feet of materials available to researchers through University Libraries Special Collections. (The finding aid for the collection is available here.)
This year, as part of Virginia Techs remembrance of the April 16, 2007 shootings, an art exhibit of items from the Condolence Archive will be installed in the Special Collections reading room on the first floor of Newman Library from April 13 – 16.
The exhibit,Never Forgotten: A Remembrance Art Exhibit from the April 16 Condolence Archives,is curated by Robin Scully Boucher, art director of Squires Perspective Gallery, and includes some works that have not been publicly shown before.
Hours of the exhibit:
April 13: 9:00am 4:00pm
April 14: 1:00pm – 4:00pm
April 15: 8:00am – 5:00pm
April 16: 8:00am – 5:00pm
A reception will be held April 16 from 2:00pm to 3:00pm
The exhibition and reception are free and open to the public. For more information, please contactTamara Kennellyat 540-231-9214.
We hope you will come by Special Collections to see this selection of the tremendous outpouring of support and love extended to the Virginia Tech community in its time of grief.
Continuing with our Women’s History Month features, this week we’re sharing a single post-Civil War document: A claim for damages filed in Lawrence County, Tennessee, in 1868. While the item itself may seem small, it had no small meaning to Elizabeth Hughes.
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We can’t identify Elizabeth Hughes with 100% certainty, but the claim does give us some clues. We know where she lived during the war. (Lawrence County, TN, is located south and slightly west of Nashville, just on the Alabama border.) We know that she was born around 1818. Her husband, not named, enlisted in the Union army and was killed in service. And, judging by the spaces requiring a signature, she did not know how to write. Her name has been written around an “X,” indicating her mark.
However, these few tidbits can tell us a lot more about her. The U.S. Census in 1860 includes an Elizabeth Hughes who was born about 1817. She lived in a household with an “A W Hughes,” age 40, who we could guess is her husband. If so, they appear to have had five children. The National Part Service’s Civil War Soldiers and Sailors database includes only one Hughes with the initials “A W” who fought for the Union–Anderson W. (4th Tennessee Cavalry). Other genealogy records suggest they were born and married in Alabama, moving their family to Tennessee between 1847 and 1852.
On a side note, there are a few small changes on the claim, presumably made by the county clerk. Even though the form includes the phrases “he (or she)” and “man, (or woman,),” both the “he” and “man” have been crossed out. There’s no question about who this document represents.
The claim is one of many that would have been filed in states around the country following the Civil War, but it also tells an important chapter in one woman’s story. Elizabeth Hughes lost a great deal in a short period of time, including a husband and a household:
By the Burning of my House I lost all of my House hold. Kitchen Furnature Some valuable Papers and many other articles too tedious to mention Supposed to be worth about [1050.00] 6 Six Sides Leather Supposed to weigh about 18 pounds Each 108# at .50 cts per lb. 50 Bushels wheat @ $1.00 per Bushel 1 set wagon Harness for 2 Horses 1 Horse 5 Years old
She survived the war and was presumable compensated for her lost property (the claim was approved, according to the signatures on the last page). Nearly 150 years later, when this copy of her claim surfaced among unprocessed materials at Special Collections, this little piece of Elizabeth’s life gives us new insight into Reconstruction and to what it meant to be a woman reclaiming her household and identity in 1868.
I dont know how much pleasure it affords you to go over these days of the past, but to me they will ever be remembered as days of felicity. And how happy the thought that years increase the affection & esteem we have for each other to love & be loved. May it ever be so, and may I ever be a husband worthy of your warmest affections. May I make you happy and in so doing be made happy in return. A sweet kiss and embrace to your greeting.
But maybe you will say it looks ridiculous to see a man getting grayhaired to be writing love letters, so I will use the remnant of my paper otherwise…
Yours affectionately H Black
Harvey Black (1827-1888) was a physician in Southwest Virginia. When the Civil War broke out, he was attached to the4th Virginia, 1st Brigade, known as the Stonewall Brigade. In 1863, he wrote a love letter to his wife Mary (who he affectionately called “Mollie”)in Blacksburg, recalling their courtship. The quote above comes from the last few lines. You can see a transcript of the letter online, and you can read more about the Black family and their papers at Special Collections here.
Virginia Tech has a long history and the library (or rather, a library) has always been a part of it. When the university opened in 1872, there was only a single building and the library was in a room that served as both a library and an office, with an attached reading room. By 1882, the library had moved to the second floor of the Second Academic Building.
Old Library, 1905
By the mid-1910s, what is sometimes referred to as “the Old Library,” had taken up residence in the former chapel. The chapel was the second structure on the site of the current Newman Library (the first was a lecture and laboratory building).
Old Library, interior, 1930Old Library, exterior, March 1953Old Library, during the fire, August 1953
In August of 1953, the library burned in a fire. Construction of the Carol M. Newman Library began shortly after, and was completed in 1955. The images below show the finished marble staircase on the second floor, and the building from outside. (The pedestrian plaza between the library, the bookstore, Squires Student Center, and the current Graduate Life Center came later.)
Newman Library, entrance interior, c.1953Newman Library, exterior (looking toward the current plaza between the library and bookstore), 1978
The interior of the library, at least in the older part of the building, may not look all that different. Stacks have moved and reference desks have shifted, but those familiar pillars and windows are present today. The addition, which includes the glass wall on the first floor, was completed in 1981 (after the pictures below).
Today’s building has come a long way from a single shared room in the only building on campus, but the goals are still the same: connecting students, staff, faculty, and the larger research community to the resources they need.
The pictures in this post came from the Special Collections’ Historical Photograph Collection. We have thousands of photographs documenting the history of Virginia Tech, from the Corps of Cadets to sports, and from buildings to faculty and staff. There are also lots of photos of Blacksburg and its many changes through the years. So if you’re curious what the corner of Main St. and College Ave. looked like the 1930s, who the first squadron of women were in the Corps of Cadets, or when basketball shorts really were short, we might just be able to help.
