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.

The Albert B. Sabin Digitization Project: Ripped from the Headlines!

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Throughout his career, Dr. Sabin was featured in many headlines and articles. Many of his friends and colleagues sent him copies of these newspaper clippings over the years, which Dr. Sabin saved. I wanted to highlight some of them here, in order to give you some perspective as to what he was involved in over the years.

Sabin - Swine Flu Headline

This article on the swine flu vaccine appeared in The News and Courier, July 21, 1976.

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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 →

Civil War History: General Benjamin Franklin Butler

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By Janice Schulz

Our latest installment in the Archives & Rare Books Library’s commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War focuses on Benjamin Butler, a controversial Union general whose command of New Orleans earned him the nickname, “The Beast.” As commander of Fortress Monroe, Butler coined the phrase “Contraband of War” to refer to slaves that had crossed over to Union territory and were retained by the Union Army. His successful protection of Baltimore and command of the Department of Eastern Virginia earned him the command of the Department of the Gulf, where he took control of the captured city of New Orleans early in 1862. But the accolades ended here, and the rest of his military career was marked with controversy and strife. Eventually he was relieved of his command in the Gulf and of his subsequent command of the Department of Virginia and North Carolina. Continue reading →

A Matter of Time

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Robert Marx

Robert S. Marx

By Lauren Fink

The Archives and Rare Books Library was recently delivered a copper box that looked like it had been through a fire. The box, actually a time capsule from 1963, was found on the top shelf of a safe in the College of Law. Curious faculty members then inquired about opening it and were granted permission. The contents were revealed and, regardless of what the time capsule has gone through, all are in excellent condition.

Many of the contents of the 1963 College of Law time capsule commemorate the contributions and achievements of Robert S. Marx (1889-1960). Marx graduated from the University Of Cincinnati College Of Law, where he later became a member of the faculty. While attending the university, Marx was a football captain in 1908 and a member of the wrestling and debate teams. Later, as a professor and a well-respected judge, he created courses and established a lecture and seminar series that helped advance justice education and the College of Law as a whole. Continue reading →

T. M. Berry Project: Civil Rights in Ohio

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By Laura Laugle

Woodward High School Oration Competitors

Theodore M. Berry with his Woodward High oration competitors Charlotte Lightfield, Nelson Murphy, and Aston Welsh, 1924

For those readers who have kept up at all with these blog posts, it will come as no surprise that Theodore M. Berry played a major role in aiding the civil rights movement in Ohio, and more particularly in Greater Cincinnati. What may be surprising to those who don’t know much about his life, though, is the way he went about it – firmly but politely and, most importantly, effectively. This was and continues to be, in this archivist’s humble opinion, one of his greatest contributions to the cause. For many people who were not witness to “the civil rights movement,” that term conjures images of the race riots which took place in Avondale, Detroit, and Watts during the 1960s, or of militant Black Panthers like those depicted in the film Forrest Gump. Berry, however, took a very different tack right from the start, believing the only way to extinguish the fire of discrimination would be to invalidate the prevailing stereotypes about African Americans which fed its flames. Well before he ever had the idea of becoming a city councilman, a personal liaison for a United States presidential candidate, or the director of a federal agency, Berry simply strove to be the best that he possibly could be. He broke down a number of walls in doing so.

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The Albert B. Sabin Digitization Project: Lost in Translation

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Being both a well-known scientist and a world traveler, Dr. Sabin’s collection of correspondence reflects many different parts of the world with letters in Russian, German, Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese, and more. As we move into the next phase of the Sabin digitization project, I will begin to look at the correspondence more closely, determining the important messages within each letter and assigning descriptive data (also known as metadata) to the letters so researchers can more easily search the material. In order to do this, I may need some help with those letters in foreign languages.

Here’s a recent example of a letter in a foreign language, as well as its background:

Letter from Dr. Hallauer to Dr. Sabin, 1957

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Zen in the Archives and Rare Books Library: John Cage and the Van Meter Ames Papers

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By Lauren Fink

Cage and Van Meter Ames

Van Meter Ames (left) with John Cage.

A new collection, documenting the friendship between composer John Cage and UC professor Van Meter Ames, has just been added to the Van Meter Ames Papers in the University of Cincinnati Archives and Rare Books Library. Van Meter Ames was a faculty member in the UC philosophy department, beginning in 1925, and served as its head from 1959 until 1966 when he retired. Ames was a Rockefeller grantee, a fellow of the UC graduate school, and a Fulbright research professor in philosophy, University of Komozawa, Tokyo, 1958-59. Throughout his career, Ames wrote and published on a vast range of topics including aesthetics, the self, ethics, religion, science, freedom, existentialism, and Eastern philosophy. His interest in Zen paralleled Cage’s and solidified their mutual respect for one another, which is evidenced in this collection of documents.

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