Category Archives: ARB Library

Posts related to the archives and rare books category.

A Life in Music and Education: The Eleanor M. Allen Papers

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By Lauren Fink

The Archives and Rare Books Library recently processed a collection containing artifacts of and relating to Eleanor Moore Allen.

Eleanor Allen, originally from Linneas, Missouri, was a student at the Cincinnati College of Music in the 1930s.  She was also a staff singer at WLW Radio in Cincinnati and a record producer at the Victor Record Division of RCA in New York City. In the 1950s, Allen returned to the College-Conservatory of Music, working as an administrator, Dean of Women, and Director of the Preparatory Department. She was a member of the Alumni Board of Governors and the Mu Phi Epsilon Professional Music Sorority. After retirement from CCM in 1980, Allen worked as an assistant to David McLain, Cincinnati Ballet’s artistic director, for four years.  She died in 2003 at the age of 93. Continue reading →

T. M. Berry Project: An Update on the Tuskegee Airmen Court Martial of 1945

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By Laura Laugle

I recently came across a transcription of a deposition which Theodore M. Berry gave after being subpoenaed for the school desegregation case Bronson v. Board of Education of Cincinnati. During that deposition and much to Berry’s annoyance at what he called the “terrific waste” of everyone’s time and money, lawyers from all sides of the case had Berry go into great detail about many aspects of his life. He told of his time at the Stowe School, he told of his work as a young lawyer and he told of the Tuskegee Airman case.

General Daniel “Chappie” James, photo courtesy of the United States Air Force Museum

“There were occasions in the early days during the period of Thurgood Marshall, when he was the special counsel, this goes back before the war, when I have been consulted, but never was a counsel of record in any case, except a very celebrated court-martial, in which I served as chief counsel in representation of a group of Negro officers who were being court-martialed because they protested against the segregated officers’ quarters. I was chief counsel, Lieutenant William T. Coleman, who more recently was Secretary of Transportation, was military counsel associated with me, and one of the defendants who were acquitted became one of the first black Air Force generals, General Chappie Jones (James), he was one of the officers. He later acknowledged had he not been acquitted at that court-martial, he might not have become a general.” Continue reading →

Another Alma Mater Moment

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By Kevin Grace

Following up on the 1935 postcard of the last days of UC’s original building in last week’s ARB blogs, here are a couple more ephemeral treasures.  In this age of various tobacco prohibitions in our culture, we’re a bit surprised when we chance upon the reminders of commonplace tobacco use from a century ago.  For most of its history, the UC community treated smoking as just another part of campus life.  In our not-so-distant past there were “butt huts” scattered around campus where smokers could stand sheltered from the rain and snow, but certainly not from the cold and gloom. Continue reading →

The Albert B. Sabin Digitization Project: Connecting Collections

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Letter from Dr. Walters to Dr. Sabin, March 6, 1960

Among some of Dr. Sabin’s general files is a letter exchange between him and Dr. Raymond Walters, who was President of the University of Cincinnati from 1932 until 1955. These two short letters, dated March 1960, discuss an upcoming engagement where Dr. Sabin was speaking. These letters piqued my interest because the Archives and Rare Books Library on the University of Cincinnati campus has President Emeritus Walters’s manuscript collection (UA-73-20). I thought it would be interesting to take a look at some of Dr. Walters’s diaries to get an outside perspective on Dr. Sabin. Continue reading →

The Ohio Electronic Records Committee

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By Janice Schulz

The Ohio Electronic Records Committee (OhioERC) is a statewide group of records managers, archivists, legal professionals, and information technology professionals devoted to providing guidance for the management of electronic records in Ohio’s state agencies. There are currently twenty members, including representatives from state, county, and local government and Ohio’s public universities. University of Cincinnati Records Manager Janice Schulz has served on the OhioERC since 2006 and was elected as Secretary in 2008. Continue reading →

University Architect Records

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By Janice Schulz

The Archives & Rare Books Library has numerous collections from the Office of the University Architect with records of capital construction, renovation, and special projects dating from 1944 to 2003. The University Architect oversees all aspects of UC’s physical space, and manages the divisions of Planning+Design+Construction, Renovations, Special Projects, Real Estate, Sustainability, Environmental Graphics, and Space Management. The records in our collections document dealings with architects, construction companies, utilities, regulators, and internal planning committees. Included are copies of contracts, proposals, correspondence, meeting minutes, working designs, plans, specifications and drawings, photographs, test and inspection reports, and status reports. Continue reading →

An Alma Mater Moment

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By Kevin Grace

University BuildingOver the years, I’ve gathered a fair amount of UC ephemera from garage sales, flea markets, estate sales, and Ebay, and eventually I’ll end up giving it to the University Archives.  In the meantime, it’s always a nice little surprise when I dig around in my basement boxes and find these odds and ends.  The postcard shown here is of the original University Building, constructed on Charles McMicken’s property in 1875.  That property had been bequeathed to the City of Cincinnati in McMicken’s will when he died in 1858, and after litigation and the Civil War, the city was ready to create a university.  UC initially held classes in the old Woodward High School building in Over-the-Rhine.  With the erection of a permanent building, the university moved to the hillside below present day Clifton Avenue as it winds its way downtown. Continue reading →

Summer 2011 Records Quarterly Now Available

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Records Quarterly Cover

By Janice Schulz

The Summer 2011 edition of Records Quarterly, the newsletter of University of Cincinnati Records Management, is now available on the records management website at http://www.libraries.uc.edu/libraries/arb/records_management/recordsquarterly.html. This issue features articles about managing databases as records, making electronic documents searchable and protected information.  Also included is information about the recent Ohio budget bill’s impact on public records laws.

Records Quarterly is distributed electronically via the Records Management website. Subscribers to the Records Management Listserv will receive notification of new issues automatically. You can sign up for the listserv by going to the subscription page, or by sending an email to Janice.Schulz@uc.edu. Please include your name and email address and use “listserv sign-up” in the subject line.

Domestic Manners of the Americans by Mrs. Frances Trollope

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By Janice Schulz

“We heard on every side, that of all the known places on ‘the globe called earth,’ Cincinnati was the most favourable for a young man to settle in…”

From Domestic Manners of the Americans

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Mrs. Frances Trollope

Mrs. Frances Trollope

London gentlewoman Mrs. Frances Trollope had an idea. She would open a shop – a shop in America where she could offer the residents of that fast-growing country the finer things in life – unique items that they otherwise would not have the chance to purchase. Her middle son Henry could run the store, establish himself in a lucrative business, and take advantage of the opportunities that America had to offer a young man. Although possessed of the highest manners and an impressive family background, the Trollopes were not wealthy by the definition of London society, a fact that seriously interfered with Mrs. Trollope’s plans, especially for her children’s future. So she looked to America, and specifically to Cincinnati, to provide the right economic climate and market for her shop idea. In the end the venture was not a smashing success and her expectations of Cincinnati were far from confirmed, but the trip resulted in what would become Mrs. Trollope’s crowning glory, Domestic Manners of the Americans, a travel log of her adventures in the United States. While the book earned Mrs. Trollope popularity and was hailed as a triumph in her homeland, its revelations of uncultured Americans served to portray her as a snobbish villain in the States, particularly with the residents of Cincinnati. Continue reading →

Music, Naturally

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By Lauren Fink

(Note: This blog by our student worker, Lauren Fink, is one of what will be a series on the volumes from the Robert Clarke Collection.  In 1898, UC board member William A. Procter purchased the private library of Cincinnati publisher Robert Clarke and presented the 6,792 volumes to the university as the founding collection in its modern library system. Over a century, the collection underwent several tribulations and in the past few years we have strived to reconstitute it in the Archives & Rare Books Library.   Individually, the volumes are not as valuable as the aggregate because the Clarke holdings represent a significant period in the history of the University of Cincinnati.  We intend to write more about the Clarke books, both on specific titles and on the history of this gathering of volumes. –  Kevin Grace).

On the shelves of the Archives and Rare Books Library, between a signed copy of New Orleans Jazz Family Album by Al Rose and Edmond Souchon and Del Svono De’tremori Armonici E Dell’ vdito Trattati Del P. Daniello Bartoli, there sits a book entitled, The Music of Nature; or An Attempt to Prove that What is Passionate and Pleasing in the Art of Singing, Speaking, and Performing upon Musical Instruments, Is Derived from the Sounds of the Animated World; with Curious and Interesting Illustrations, by William Gardiner. Continue reading →