One of the most enjoyable aspects of my job as a digital collections specialist is creating displays of the interesting materials held in Special Collections. Recently Ive been digitizing our collection of Appalachian Postcards. There are some great pictures of small towns, coal mines, railroads, and beautiful scenery, and some interesting correspondence on the back too. One card also has an R.P.O. postmark indicating that it was processed on board a moving railroad car.
Well be sharing some of our Appalachian postcards in a slideshow on Wednesday, April 17th at Appalanche a celebration of Appalachian culture in Newman Library. Come join us for music, dancing, food, and displays between 5:00 and 7:00 p.m on the first floor. Special Collections will host a display of selected local collections in their Reading Room and members of our Technical Services department will display and demonstrate quilting techniques. There will be old time music and square dancing in the Study Caf, and Appalachian food will be served–including pinto beans, greens, and corn bread. Itll be a shindig you wont want to miss!
As they passed the rows of houses they saw through the open doors that men were sweeping and dusting and washing dishes, while the women sat around in groups, gossiping and laughing.
What has happened? the Scarecrow asked a sad-looking man with a bushy beard, who wore an apron and was wheeling a baby carriage along the sidewalk.
Why, weve have a revolution, your Majesty as you ought to know very well, replied the man; and since you went away the women have been running things to suit themselves. Im glad you have decided to come back and restore order, for doing housework and minding the children is wearing out the strength of every man in the Emerald City.
Hm! said the Scarecrow, thoughtfully. If it is such hard work as you say, how did the women manage it so easily?
I really do not know, replied the man, with a deep sign. Perhaps the women are made of cast-iron.
-L. Frank Baum; The Marvelous Land of Oz
The patchwork girl of Oz by L. Frank Baum; illustrated by John R. Neill (1913)
The release of the blockbuster film Oz: The Great and Powerful earlier this month has sparked a renewed interest in the life and work of L. Frank Baum. Best known for his children’s masterpiece The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and the 1939 screen adaptation starring Judy Garland, Baum authored more than a dozen different novels set in the magical Land of Oz, which took its name from the bottom drawer of the file cabinet in Baums office, labeled for files beginning with the letters O-Z.
Of course Baum was much more than just a juvenile fiction author. As we celebrate women’s history month, it should be noted that the cause of women’s suffrage was supported and advanced byprominentmale figures of the era. Baum, who publicly lobbied for women’s right to vote and served as the secretary ofhis town’s Woman’s Suffrage Club, was deeply affected by his beloved, spirited wife, Maud, and her mother, Matilda, an eminent feminist who collaborated with Susan B. Anthony andpublicized the idea that many “witches” were really freethinking women ahead of their time. In Oz, Baum offers a similarly corrective vision: When Dorothy first meets a witch, the Witch of the North, she says, “I thought all witches were wicked.” “Oh, no, that is a great mistake,” replies the Witch of the North. In sequels, Oz’s true ruler is discovered; it turns out to be a girl named Ozma, who spent her youth under a spell – one that turned her into a hapless boy.
Baum’s contact with suffragists of his day seems to have inspired much of his second Oz story,The Marvelous Land of Oz. In this story, GeneralJinjurleads the girls and women of Oz, armed with knitting needles, in a revolt; they succeed, and make the men do the household chores. Jinjur proves to be an incompetent ruler, and a female who advocates gender equality is ultimately placed on the throne. His Edith Van Dyne stories, including theAunt Jane’s Nieces,The Flying Girland its sequel, and his girl sleuth Josie O’Gorman fromThe Bluebird Books, depict girls and young women engaging in traditionally masculine activities.
The Wonderful Wizard of Ozand its sequels were obviously shaped by Baums wishful revisions of social conflict and are now almost universally acknowledged to be some of the earliest feminist childrens books in America, because of Dorothy and similar characters: girls who are enterprising, ingenious, adventurous, or imposingly self-reliant.
Located within Special Collections at Virginia Tech are several Baum titles that can be found by searching the University’s online catalog, Addison. Among the results are two first editions: The Patchwork Girl of Oz (1913) and The Enchanted Island of Yew (1903). You are invited to visit us and examine these texts to discover more about the inspiring heroines of Oz.
Hokies know that each year their activities are chronicled with a Bugles call, but how many know that The Bugle, Virginia Tech’s yearbook, was once accompanied by a Tin Horn.
The first women graduates of Virginia Tech were (l-r) Mary Brumfield, 1923. and Ruth Terrett, Lucy Lancaster, Louise Jacobs, and Carrie Sibold, 1925
Women were formally approved by the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College and Polytechnic Institutes Board of Visitors to be admitted to all courses of study excluding the military on January 13, 1921. This motion was approved, unanimously, due in large part, to VPI president, Julian A. Burruss persuasive arguments that VPI was in a unique position to economically provide the technical and agricultural training needed by Virginias women in the new arenas available to them in the post-World War I society.
Although, the motion to allow women to attend VPI was accepted unanimously by the Board acceptance among the cadets (and some professors) took a bit longer. The co-eds who arrived ready for classes in September 1921 faced cadets whopubliclyprotested their admission and professors who actively doubted the womens intelligence. Acceptance in extra-curricular activities was nonexistentso the co-eds organized their own groups: a basketball team (at various times called the Sextettes and the Turkey Hens); a Womens Student Organization; special science, chemistry, business, and biology clubs; the Coed Dramatics Club; and their own yearbook The Tin Horn.
The Tin Horn’s (1925) charge.
Tin Horn 1925, Underclassmen
First page of feature in 1929 Tin Horn titled “A Co-Ed’s Diary.”
By 1930 the co-eds established a Women’s Student Organization with Sally Ann Linkous serving as president. Tin Horn 1930
One of the special subject clubs established by the women due to their exclusion from the traditional academic clubs. 1931 Tin Horn
The 1925 Tin Horn, published when the women who entered in 1921 would be seniors, consisted of hand-drawn pages and pasted-in photographs dedicated to the spirit of fun. Although, billed as the first and only volume, subsequent publications of The Tin Horn followed in 1929, 1930, and 1931. The latter two were professionally printed. It would not be until 1941, 20 years after the arrival of the first female students on campus, that The Bugle would represent women equally alongside the men in their pages.
Special Collections has digitized all four volumes of The Tin Horn. They have also been pulled as part of our celebration of Womens History Month and are available for viewing in our Reading Room. Whether you visit with The Tin Hornonline or in Newman Library make sure to spend some time with Virginia Techs leading ladies.
Page from the 1925 self-published, co-ed yearbook The Tin Horn.
March is Womens History Month and in honor of this commemorative month Special Collections is hosting an interactive exhibit-celebrating women. Stop by the exhibit cases located on the first floor of Newman Library to see some representative materials from our collections featuring women in literature, the domestic arts, and science and technology. If you have a few extra minutes (or hours, seriously this is great stuff) then come on in and we will let you loose on a cart full of collections created by women. Our archivists have pulled womens travel diaries from 1840-2000s, speculative fiction magazines, literary first editions, architecture collections, items from Virginia Techs history, and much more.
If you are visiting with us through the magic of the Internet dont despair for each Tuesday in March we will be spotlighting a collection here on this very blog.
Mark your calendars for next Tuesday’s profile on the short-lived, co-ed yearbook, The Tin Horn, published by the first female students at Virginia Tech.
Want an opportunity to win $2500 and take a road trip to Virginia Tech Special Collections? (Airlines, cruise ships, or a brief walk across the Drillfield are other forms of acceptable transportation.)
Milka Bliznakov, IAWA founder
Well, you are in luck because proposals are now being accepted for the 13th Annual Milka Bliznakov Research Prize sponsored by the International Archive of Women in Architecture Center, Virginia Tech.
The Board of Advisors of the International Archive of Women in Architecture Center (IAWA) presents this Annual Prize of $2500 (with an additional $500 available for travel) in honor of IAWA founder Milka Bliznakov.
The Prize is open to architects, scholars, professionals, students, and independent researchers with research projects that would benefit from access to the IAWAs collections.
More details and submission guidelines can be found here. The proposal must be submitted by May 1st, 2013. The winner will be announced by June 15th, 2013.
Exhibit case with Black Panther and American Communist Party pamphlets
Exhibit case with Black Panther newspapers
In celebration of Black History Month, the Special Collections reading room is currently displaying an exhibit on the Black Panther Party and the Black Power movement. The exhibit includes Black Panther newspapers and pamphlets published in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as earlier civil rights literature from the American Communist Party.
The Black Panther Party (originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense) was an African-American revolutionary socialist organization active in the United States from 1966 until 1982. It was founded in Oakland, California by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. The partys inflammatory speech and advocation of violence for political gain made it extremely controversial, even within the Black Power movement. The Panthers were famous for organizing armed citizens patrols to evaluate behavior of police officers. Chants such as The Revolution has come, it’s time to pick up the gun. Off the pigs! pitted them against the establishment and increased racial tensions. The Panthers took advantage of a California law that permitted carrying a loaded rifle or shotgun as long as it was publicly displayed and pointed at no one. In their most famous incident, in May, 1967, 30 members entered the California State Assembly carrying their armed weapons- an event which was widely publicized, and which prompted a major overhaul in gun legislation. Despite the social program work performed by the Panthers, including the creation of a community school and free food programs, the criminal activities of Black Panther members and their confrontational, militant, and violent tactics against police caused the party to lose support in the civil rights community. To this day, the Black Panthers are infamous figures, representing a violent turn in the Black Power movement.
Black Panther newspaper back covers by Emory Douglas
Police as a pig cartoon in the Black Panther newspaper
Pipe Bomb instructions in the Black Panther newspaper
Special Collections owns six original issues of the Black Panther Partys official newspaper, The Black Panther, which are featured in this exhibit. The issues contain stories of injustice and police brutality, cartoons and information on how to carry out guerrilla attacks against the people and institutions the Black Panthers considered oppressive. Additionally, the front and back covers are adorned with the iconic art illustrations made by artist and Black Panther Minister of Culture Emory Douglas.
The pamphlets in the exhibit feature essays by important Black Panther leaders, including co-founder and self-appointed Minister of Defense Huey P. Newton. There is also a comic book titled The Adventures of Black Eldridge recounting the mythical exploits of Eldridge Cleaver. As Minister of Information, Cleaver was editor of the The Black Panther newspaper and exerted a lot of influence on the message and direction of the party.
Also included are pamphlets of earlier Black Power literature, all of which was affiliated with the American Communist Party. From the 1930s through the 1950s, the American Communists were at the forefront of promoting equal rights for African Americans and were intimately connected with the Black Power movement. One such pamphlet, entitled Equality, Land and Freedom: A Program for Negro Liberation, was published by The League of Struggle for Negro Rights, a group organized by the American Communist Party in 1930. The League campaigned for a separate black nation in the South, as well as against police brutality and Jim Crow laws. Langston Hughes, the famous Harlem writer and activist, became its President in 1934. Published between 1934 and 1935, this pamphlet sets out a Bill of Civil Rights for the Negro People decades before the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Another pamphlet, The Road to Liberation for the Negro People, was published in 1937 by the Daily Worker, a Communist newspaper. The Meaning of Black Powerwas written by James E. Jackson Jr., an official in the American Communist Party. During the McCarthy era in the early 1950s, he was indicted on charges of conspiracy and spent five years in hiding. In this pamphlet, published in 1966, Jackson works to define Black Power as a movement to bring about equal rights for African Americans by mobilizing these populations to vote and secure their rightful share of government power.
These are artifacts from a volatile period of American history as we struggled to achieve equality, documents that demonstrate the intensity and passion of those working for African American freedom and recognition.The exhibit will be up through the end of the month, so come take a look!
Title Pages from Love, Life & Work by Elbert Hubbard (East Aurora, NY: The Roycrofters, 1906.)
At the turn of the 20th century, America was in the throes of a remarkable transformation. The great agrarian society was quickly becoming a mechanically driven economy. Some, however, spoke out against the advances of industrialization, arguing that mass production subjugated workers to machines and that no machine could match the quality of craftsmanship that came from an artists hand. It was this reaction that gave rise to the Arts and Crafts Movement.
Elbert Green Hubbard (June 19, 1856 May 7, 1915) was an American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher. Raised in Illinois, he met early success as a traveling salesman with a soap company but dropped out of this lucrative career to become a writer and soon discovered the idealized world of Arts and Crafts. Hubbard is most famous for founding the Roycroft artisan community in East Aurora, New York, an influential exponent of Arts and Crafts in the United States.
During his lifetime, Hubbard became well known throughout the nation as a writer, a philosopher and a lecturer. His eccentric and flamboyant style and seemingly non-conformist ideology endeared him to many readers. He was both a reflection of and a reaction to his times, taking center stage in American thought and becoming an icon of popular culture. Hubbard described himself as an anarchist and a socialist. He believed in social, economic, domestic, political, mental and spiritual freedom and his philosophies are clearly evident in his publication: Love, Life & Work; Being a Book of Opinions Reasonably Good-Natvred Concerning How to Attain the Highest Happiness for Ones Self with the Least Possible Harm to Others, a copy of which is held in Special Collections.
Although the text of this novella is readily available in ebook format, there is something special about examining the physical work. Virginia Tech is home to a first edition, published in 1906, bound in soft leather with the title embossed on the cover and representative of the simplified illustration style and handcrafted appearance that characterized the era.
Bookmaking played an important role in the Arts and Crafts Movement. Like other decorative arts, there was a rising concern over the detrimental effects of mass production on book design. Hubbard and his fellow Roycrofters sought to rectify this through their own private press, which emphasized high quality hand production: handmade papers, heavy inking, original typefaces, and designs that looked back to medieval illuminated manuscripts and incunabula and often included elaborate wood engravings.
The text itself is a compilation of thirty short essays on a variety of topics ranging from Mental Attitude to Love and Faith and although Hubbard makes many references to contemporary issues and personalities, a vast majority of his advice is still relevant in modern times. The following are just a few of the bits of wisdom and insight that Hubbard shares with readers:
Character is the result of two things, mental attitude, and the way we spend our time. It is what we think and what we do that make us what we are.
The world bestows its big prizes, both in money and honors, for but one thing. And that is Initiative. What is Initiative? Ill tell you: It is doing the right thing without being told.
To do your work well to-day, is the certain preparation for something better to-morrow. The past has gone from us forever; the future we cannot reach; the present alone is ours. Each day’s work is a preparation for the next day’s duties. Live in the present–the Day is here, the time is Now.
Members of the Virginia Tech community are invited to come visit us at Special Collections to examine Love, Life & Work, other influential texts by Elbert Hubbard, and additional examples of Arts and Crafts style printing and illustration.
The world of architecture lost a passionate and opinionated voice when Ada Louise Huxtable, architecture critic for The New York Times (1963-1982) and The Wall Street Journal (1997-), died earlier this month at the age of 91. How opinionated was she? Check out this New Yorkercartoon by Alan Dunn that appeared in 1968. And although the Pulitzer Prize-winner was the first full-time architecture critic at an American newspaper when she started at The New York Times in 1963, she was actually following a tradition of women who wrote about extant architecture.
Americas first decorator. Elsie de Wolfe’s seminal book that banished Victorian gloom. Special Collections call number: SPEC Large NK2115 D6 c.2
In the mid-to-late 19th century architecture was a relatively new profession engaged in a public campaign to separate itself from common builders. Authors such as Louisa C. Tuthill, Mariana Van Rensselaer, Mary H. Northend, Edith Wharton, and Elsie de Wolfe served as intermediaries between the lay audience (i.e. potential client base) and architects. Though not trained in architecture per se, these women were often from privileged backgrounds that afforded them the highest levels of private education, an early knowledge of art and culture, and the ability to travel often abroad. They published primarily in general periodicals aimed at the emerging middle class: Century, House and Garden, and American Homes and Gardens, although some such as Van Rensselaer did contribute to the trade publication American Architect and Building News (AABN).
Embracing the 19th-century notion of the cult of domesticity, they served as style dictators endorsing particular aesthetics and architects, and instructing the new glut of middle class homeowners on how to create a domestic sanctuary. Subjects such as the history of architecture and general principles of architecture were also perennial topics during this period.
Page from Louisa C. Tuthill’s “The History of Architecture from the Earliest Times: Its Present Conditions in Europe and the Unites States (1848). Special Collections call number: SPEC LARGE NA200 T8 1848
Their writings did not go unnoticed by the professional architecture establishment. Van Rensselaer was praised by the profession and even had her essay Client and Architecture recommended for reprint and distribution at an American Institute of Architects (AIA) meeting (1890). She was made an honorary member of the AIA that same year. The tables could quickly turn, however, as they did in 1892 when the AABN panned Van Rensselaers book English Cathedrals saying that it smacks of the magazine and so, almost of the literary hack.
The entry of women into an architecture practice that did not center around the domestic sphere would be a gradual one that would eventually make way for renowned critics such as Huxtable and Pritzker-winning starchitects.
Want to know more about women in architecture? Special Collections is home to the International Archive of Women in Architecture. Visit the IAWA page or come see us in person!
Over the course of a few years in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Virginia Tech Special Collections acquired the William J. Heron Collection of Speculative Fiction. The Heron collection includes approximately 5,000 issues of American, British, and Australian science fiction magazines. These magazines are notable not just for their content, but also have enduring appeal as cultural objects. Many early science fiction stories, especially magazine material from the 1940s and 1950s, have been variously reprinted, anthologized, expanded into book length, or otherwise modified for commercial re-use. So, seeing the original published setting of a story, or knowing that a given setting is not the first, provides a context for understanding its readership. And the cover art, which was usually original work, is always different and interesting in one way or another. As this is likely the first in an ongoing series of installments on science fiction magazines and their art and artists, the following images are all “firsts” from the great magazines, and all are from our collection. Of the four magazines represented here, both Astounding (which was retitled Analog in 1960) and Magazine of Fantasy (now know as Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction) are still in publication. Astounding/Analog has been in continuous publication for almost 100 years!
Amazing #1, April 1926, Experimenter Publishing (cover by Frank Paul)
Astounding #1, January 1930, Clayton Magazines (cover by H.W. Wessolowski, aka Wesso)
Magazine of Fantasy #1, Fall 1949, Mystery House (cover by Bill Stone)
Galaxy #1, October 1950, World Editions (cover by David Stone)
Among the materials in the Robert R. Gilruth Papers (Ms1990-053) is his 1936 Master’s thesis from the University of Minnesota, “The Effect of Wing-Tip Propellers on the Aerodynamic Characteristics of a Low Aspect Ratio Wing.” Gilruth, who would move on to work, first, as a flight research engineer at Langley Aeronautical Laboratory of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), and then for NASA, became the first director of that agency’s Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston in 1961. The Master’s paper, however, was what interested the folks at the Vought Aircraft Historical Foundation, who contacted Special Collections as they were preparing a history of the company’s V-173 and XF5U-1 “Pancake” series of aircraft.
Photos of model #1 from Gilruth’s Thesis
A look at the model used in this early work of Gilruth’s and the prototypes built by Vought in the 1940s suggests the significance of his work for the company’s engineers at the time. So, how does a pancake fly? For those of you who want to know, check out Gilruth’s Thesis for all the theory, specs, charts, and diagrams.
Aviation and Aerospace define an important collecting area for Special Collections. The Gilruth Papers, for example, contain research articles, speeches, photographs, agency and professional papers, and more that span a fifty year career in aerospace.
