Author Archives: Suzanne Reller

Memories of Shakespeare and the Lyric Theatre

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By: Sydney Vollmer, ARB Intern

Ad for Shakespeare seriesLook what we found! CCM students of days gone by customarily made a scrapbook of their experiences while they were in school. The scrapbook of Cincinnati Conservatory of Music (one half of what has become UC’s College-Conservatory of Music) student Virginia Inez Day recently came into our hands just in time for us to start our Shakespeare celebration! For those of you who have been in the cheap seats, 2016 is the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death and we are commemorating it with a year of promoting our Shakespeare holdings in the Archives & Rare Books Library and documenting the history of Shakespeare productions in Cincinnati. Continue reading →

In Memoriam: Edgar Slotkin, Ardent Friend of the Archives & Rare Books Library

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Edgar SlotkinOn June 21st, the Archives & Rare Books Library lost a friend. Edgar Slotkin, professor emeritus of English, died at the age of 72. Edgar was a remarkable folklorist and Celtic scholar, but most of all he was a man generous of his time and knowledge. At his retirement in 2011, he donated his local folklore collection to us and it became the Southwest Ohio Folklore Archive. Additionally, several years ago Edgar worked with Jerry Newman, our Associate Dean for Collections at the time, to acquire and catalog two wonderful rare book collections of Irish and Welsh literature. Of the former, much of it is from the early 20th c. Celtic Revival period in Ireland and represents a physically fragile gathering of books that might otherwise have been lost. Edgar Slotkin was a kind and learned man, and someone who is greatly missed.

48 Years in the Making

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This post was originally published on the UC Magazine website.

UC Graduate Samuel Ochiel Obura is greeting on campus by Richard Harknett, head of UC's political science department, 48 years after Mr. Obura finished his degree requirements. photos/Joseph Fuqua II.

UC Graduate Samuel Ochiel Obura is greeted on campus by Richard Harknett, head of UC’s political science department, 48 years after Mr. Obura finished his degree requirements. photo/Joseph Fuqua II.

UC graduate waited nearly a half century to walk in his commencement and finally receive his lost thesis.

By:  John Bach

Samuel Obura

Samuel Obura Stands during the ceremony when recognized by UC President Santa Ono. photo/Joseph Fuqua II

Samuel Ochiel Obura’s journey to today’s commencement ceremony at the University of Cincinnati took him nearly 8,000 miles and 48 years.

A native of Kenya, Obura finished his master’s degree requirements in political science at UC in 1967. But due to an upheaval at the African Students Association, which helped sponsor his education, he had to cut short his pursuit of a doctorate degree to leave campus and return to Africa or risk losing his return ticket to his wife and children in east Africa.

Obura, then 34, had already spent several years away from his young family back home to pursue his bachelor’s degree in Canada followed by his master’s at UC.

Though he would go on to a long and successful career as a government official in Kenya, Obura left Cincinnati in such a rush that he never even took his trunk full of books, or —even more disheartening — the  dissertation he had written on the “Constitutional Development in Kenya.” His thesis had been sent away for binding when he departed, so he was forced to leave it behind and would spend the next half century longing for the important document.

Continue reading →

The Very Personal Side of a World Famous UC Archaeologist

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By:  Dawn Fuller
Photos Courtesy of UC Classics
Reposted from UC Magazine

Carl Blegen with UC Archaeologist Marion Rawson in the Land Rover at Pylos, July 1961

Carl Blegen with UC Archaeologist Marion Rawson in the Land Rover at Pylos, July 1961

Researchers mine through a ‘treasure trove’ of resources in Cincinnati and Greece to reveal the character, patriotism and unconventional lifestyle of famed American archaeologist Carl William Blegen.

From the 1930s to the 1960s, the discoveries of archaeologist Carl William Blegen made headlines around the world as well as here in the Queen City, where he was on the faculty at the University of Cincinnati. But the personal side of Blegen, publicly revealed for the first time, is the stuff that could be splashed across the celebrity tabloids.
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William and Me

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By: Sydney Vollmer, ARB student assistant

shakespeare2

William Shakespeare

We all know who Shakespeare is. He lived in London, wrote some plays and poetry, died and became really famous.

In the ninth grade, my English teacher at Cincinnati’s Seton High School introduced my class to Shakespeare. We all knew who he was. He wrote plays and poetry sometime around 1600. Not really understanding anything about literature, plays, or poetry at the time, all I knew was that Shakespeare was brilliant and well respected, which meant that if I wanted to be smart and scholarly, I would like and respect him the way proper people do. Then I read Shakespeare. Continue reading →

Spring 2015 Issue of Records Quarterly Now Available

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By:  Eira Tansey

Records QuarterlyThe current UC Records Management newsletter shares information on upcoming spring workshops, an announcement about Box@UC, program updates, and records in the news.

Click on the link to get the latest: http://www.libraries.uc.edu/
content/dam/libraries/arb/docs/records-management/rq-spring2015.pdf and if you have any questions about UC records, just contact me in the Archives & Rare Books Library at 556-1958 or at eira.tansey@uc.edu.

For more information on the Archives & Rare Books Library and its holdings, please contact us by phone at 513-556-1959, by email at archives@ucmail.uc.edu, or on the web at http://www.libraries.uc.edu/arb.html.

Final ARB "50 Minute" Talk of the Academic Year is Set

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By:  Kevin Grace

Music Hall LadiesOur 2014-2015 “50 Minutes” series wraps up this month with a fascinating look at Cincinnati’s “Frail Sisterhood”: Nineteenth-Century Prostitutes of the Queen City

Throughout Cincinnati’s first 100 years, prostitution was common and leading prostitutes and madams were well known. Although labeled the “Frail Sisterhood,” these “Women of the Town” were anything but frail, carving out a transgressive community run by women, providing resources and services unavailable in the male-dominated society of the time.

Ladies of the TownAt noon on Thursday, April 16, Greg Hand will provide an overview of Cincinnati’s Victorian demimonde, highlighting some of the city’s most notorious brothels and introducing some of the colorful and infamous characters.  Hand retired in 2014 as associate vice president for public relations at the University of Cincinnati. He was a reporter and editor for several weekly newspapers in Cincinnati and has co-authored three books on UC history. He currently operates the “Cincinnati Curiosities” blog at handeaux.tumblr.com

Please join us for what promises to be a wonderfully unusual Cincinnati experience.  Bring your lunch, bring your friends!

 

Adventures in Tutus

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By:  Sydney Vollmer, ARB Student Worker

I have never been to a ballet in my life. Why? Simply put: everyone in my family (excluding one aunt) has told me it’s boring and weird.  Indeed, I have let the opinions of others shape my own experiences (or lack thereof). I was perfectly happy never thinking to attend a ballet…until I started working at the Archives and Rare Books Library.

As the student worker here, part of my role includes sorting, inventorying, and processing collections so they can be properly stored in the archives for future research. The project I am currently working on is sorting everything that was recently given to us by Cincinnati Ballet Company (CBC).

We hold the collections of CBC that were acquired before I was hired, so the material I’m working on is a recent addition to the archive.  From what I hear, the last round was much more manageable. Below, you can see some pictures of the room where I am working. This is the collection AFTER a preliminary sorting. I’ve probably spent about 12 hours in there over the past few weeks and I’ve even had help and supervision. Even if it doesn’t look like it, this is progress!

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“In the Service of the Eye”: Georg Bartisch’s 16th Century Textbook On Ophthalmology

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By:  Kevin Grace

bartisach reader-smallA new exhibit has been mounted in the 8th floor hallway of Blegen Library.  Reproduced from a volume in the Archives & Rare Book Library, this exhibit features fourteen woodcuts from a 16th century science book.   One of the seminal medical texts of the Renaissance, Georg Bartisch’s volume on the eye, Ophthalmodouleia Das ist Augendienst, was a remarkably detailed guide to surgical techniques on ocular diseases.  Published in 1583, this “service of the eye” would build the foundation for ophthalmology research for the next 300 years. Continue reading →