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What better way to celebrate Women's History Month than announcing the opening of the records of the University of Chicago's first woman president? The presidential administration records of Hanna Holborn Gray are now available for research.
Photo credit: Hanna Holborn Gray in 1981 during her term as President of the University of Chicago. University of Chicago Photographic Archive, [apf1-06504], Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.
Ellen Gates Starr (1859-1940) is perhaps best remembered for co-founding Hull House with Jane Addams in 1889. After establishing a Chicago chapter of Arts and Crafts Society in 1897, Starr traveled to England to study bookbinding with T. J. Cobden-Sanderson of Doves Bindery. Upon returning to Chicago, she started a bookbinding class at Hull House and accepted commissions. The University of Chicago holds a number of her bookbindings in its Rare Books Collection.
Our new exhibit, "Capturing the Stars: The Untold History of Women at Yerkes Observatory," is being installed! It opens September 18th.
Can't wait? You can start brushing up on the history of hidden labor in astronomy at this year's Kathleen A. Zar Symposium, September 14-16.
The symposium will bring together astronomers, historians, librarians, archivists, and scholars of science and tech to present on hidden labor in astronomical research.
Image of Mary Ross Calvert, computer of Yerkes Observatory, operating the Kenwood 12-inch refractor telescope in 1926 from the University of Chicago Photographic Archive, [apf6-01280], Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.
One of these things is not like the other…
The bindings of the books pictured in plastic bags contain arsenic, while the un-bagged books do not.
Copper arsenic compounds were used as a green pigment in textiles and home furnishings during the 19th century. In 2019, Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation embarked on a study of green cloth-covered book bindings from the 19th century and continues to lead the way on research regarding these compounds in library materials. Their current findings suggest that the publication date range for volumes containing arsenic is 1830 to 1880 and that such books are bound in green cloth or green leather. Most green book covers from this period do not contain arsenic. (While books containing arsenic are green, not all green books contain arsenic.) Our best current estimate based on the testing we have done is that less than .03% of the print titles in our collection contain arsenic. As we identify print titles that contain arsenic, we will take measures to provide other options to make the content available wherever possible.
Read more about how the University of Chicago Library is handling these rare green bindings.
Projects Archivist, Weckea Lilly, reflects on the implications of a single folder found while processing the papers of economist and Nobel Prize winner, Gary Becker.
One slightly overstuffed folder in the Becker papers labeled “Really Old Stuff” was extracted from the collection for closer inspection during processing activities last week. Opening the folder and examining its contents, I discovered a series of equations (theorems) and proofs, course notes, a section of an article ripped from an academic journal, short theoretical or response papers, charts and tables, data sheets, correspondence written to Milton Freeman (from Robert Solow, another from someone at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and someone named Phil), and a partial autobiographical sketch.
The material is dated from 1951 to 1955 which include the culminating years of Becker’s graduation from Princeton University with a bachelors in mathematics and the year he finished doctoral studies at the University of Chicago in economics. The inscriptions and penmanship here are that of a seemingly younger, eager scholar (compared to the handwritten documents in other portions of the collection, dated much later in his career).
Much of the work contained here is, by and large, Becker’s toil in mathematical economics. It seems that he was already interested in and influenced by the ideas that analyses in economics could be applied to everyday issues and concerns. This folder also reflects his time with Milton Friedman. In Becker’s essay on Milton Friedman, he wrote, “I had taken several graduate courses in economics and mathematics while an undergraduate at Princeton, and I was preparing two articles for publication when I entered Chicago.” An early version of one of those papers is housed in this folder under the title “On the classical monetary and interest theory.”
Becker also wrote, “When I became an assistant professor in the department in 1954, I spent half my time assisting Friedman in running the [Money and Banking] Workshop. So I was closely involved with it during the early days.” Working so closely together there must have resulted in some mixing and sharing of files and communications that may not have been returned to its original owner.
The papers of physicist James Cronin are now available for research.
Dr. James Cronin was a professor at the University of Chicago who broke new ground in particle physics and the study of cosmic rays. He co-discovered the CP violation, which is the detection of asymmetry between matter and anti-matter, and co-won the Noble Prize in Physics for this discovery in 1980. He also studied the origin of cosmic rays, and directed the construction of the Pierre Auger Observatory in Argentina. Having begun his career during the golden age of physics and having studied under Enrico Fermi, Cronin loved how easy it was to come up with new questions, perform new experiments, and come away with further information about particle physics and cosmic rays.
Performance spaces like the Checkerboard Lounge, Theresa’s, Buddy Guy’s Legends, Club DeLisa, Pepper’s Lounge, Gerri’s Palm Tavern, and the Parkway Lounge have, historically, made the City of Chicago synonymous with the Blues. They were critical neighborhood institutions that also helped to forge local community ties and pathways for global connections. However, extant narratives of the history of Chicago Blues are absent of the part that The University of Chicago has played in that formation. So much so, in 2003, journalist Celeste Garrett wrote that the University was “known more for generating Nobel Prize winners than for being a source of the Blues.” This is true. At present, in fact, there are 97 Nobel Prize winners who are or have been associated with the University. However, what is little known about the institution, as the archive reveals, is that The University of Chicago played a small, but crucial, role in fashioning a space and place for the presence and preservation of Chicago Blues history and culture.
Perchance, the University’s manifold attractions and interests and distractions, along with its perceived distance to African American history and lifeworld’s, we tend to disassociate it with such diasporic cultural attractions and productions such as Blues. Contrary to popular belief, the University, equal to the institutions listed above, held space for the blues, its traditions, and celebrated and prepared for its thriving futurity.
In the 1940s, the campus hosted its first blue’s performance. Then, in 1952, the first major concert was produced, with performances by Chick Heston, Preston Jackson, John Henly, William “King” Colax, Ernest Crawford, and Mammy Yancy, headlined by Mahalia Jackson, and sponsored by the “Student Cultural Clubs.” On campus Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters were among the most favored performers and personalities. Howlin’ Wolf first performed at UC in 1960 and at the end of the decade an advertisement in the classifieds of the Daily Maroon read, “Who the hell wants to go to Washington when Howlin’ Wolf is playing right here on campus, tomorrow nite [sic] for only $1.50 (sure beats $25).” And, in 1962, the Salisbury House hosted a dinner for Muddy Waters, engaging him on the blues, his life story, his artistry and aesthetics and philosophy. These events seemed to cement the Blue’s in the cultural landscape of the institution that no one seemed to be aware of in spite of the festivals that grew up there, including the annual Folk Festival organized by the Folk Society, the Blues and Ribs festival that came later, and the Logan Center Bluesfest and the other concerts that were promoted by Enterprise Productions, the Alumni Association, and the Inter Fraternity Council. Though concerts were put on at Mandel Hall, other spaces around campus were (or became) places for the Blues, including Bartlett Gymnasium, Ida Noyes Hall, and, much later, the Logan Center for the Arts.
The concerts were not exclusively to student or UC associates; the invites were extended to all interested in the music. Many came to the University for those performances to be baptized and delivered in the holy sonic waters of such artists like Chester Burnett, Big Bill Broonzy, Buddy Guy, James Cotton, Elvin Bishop’s Big Fun Trio, Jimmy Johnson, Eddy Clearwater, Corky Siegel, Lil’ Ed, and Melody Angel, Willie Dixon, Elizabeth Cotten, “Mississippi” John Hurt, Roscoe Holcomb, the Stanley Brothers, Paul Butterfield, Louis Killen, Koko Taylor, and Billy Branch, among many others. As with the blues performances scattered about the city, reverberating the blues houses near and far, the clientele that patronized the university concerts, came to lay down the quotidian, the stuff that invented the blues, what Houston Baker surmised as the “world of transience, instability, hard luck, brutalizing work, lost love, minimal security, and enduring human wit and resourcefulness in the face of disaster.”
What’s more, the University of Chicago offered to help preserve the culture of the blues in the city by keeping the Checkerboard Lounge open (that closed in 2003, but reopened in Hyde Park in 2005), while many of the other clubs that helped to place Chicago Blue’s on the map have closed. During the early negotiations of this transition, former UC Vice President for Community and Government Affairs, referring to these historical neighborhood institutions, most notably the Checkerboard, argued for this rescue plan saying, “It’s an important place in history in a city where it’s important to preserve it.” He was right.
The University of Chicago’s influence doesn’t end there: the institution has been acknowledged for its impact on the Nobel Prize winning blues instrumentalist Henry Threadgill, who learned avant-garde classical music attending performances of the Contemporary Chamber Players at the University of Chicago growing up. As well as Elvin Bishop, another Chicago native, of the Elvin Bishop Group, who also attended classes at the University of Chicago, who made the Southside and West Side digs his classroom as well. And there are others, not to mention, Paul Butterfield whose band, as Paul Eisenberg reported earlier this year, The Butterfield Blues Band was formed out of the many activities surrounding the blues festival that was organized at the University of Chicago. The band went on to become a major influence abroad spreading the Chicago-style blues abroad, furthering the legacy of the many blues artists who descended upon the city many years prior.
This dive here is but a brief one; perhaps the start of an archival project to investigate the overall impact that the University has had on the Blues community in Chicago, and, more specifically, the African American community throughout the Southside who favored the institution as their scene for blues performances and have recollections regarding it as a site of memory. Howard Reich noted in 2005 that “. . . Chicago blues are everywhere in this town – if you know how to listen.” It appears that the sonic resonances of the blues are everywhere in the University’s archives. By listening to the archive available at the University, then, where it intersects with the Blue’s scene across the city and, most notably, within the Black community, researchers might find other profound socially based reverberations and hidden histories of the blue’s, reflecting and fomenting other realities and pathways for understanding the past and present conditions of Chicago’s communities.
Literary scholar Steve Tracy reminds us that “. . . the blues provides ‘a structured but expansive place for the individual to relate to and express the community, and for artists to touch home base but still express themselves individually.” We are uniquely positioned to expand with deeper dives into the library’s digitized collections (including the Campus Publications and the Photographic Archives) and University Archives, to discover and institute pathways for transformative community building and public history projects.
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It's Pride Parade Day in Chicago! https://chicagopride.gopride.com/info.cfm. Here is a short clip from the first Chicago Pride Parade in 1970, courtesy of the Alan Amberg Papers. (Video is silent).
Celebrating Black Music Month: Saluting the memory and legacy of Koko Taylor
Koko Taylor moved to Chicago in 1952. That brought her into contact with many other black migrants from the south, namely those of the Mississippi Delta, who came with their guitars and harmonicas in tow. Willie Dixon, in some ways, introduced her to the Chicago music business through the famed Checker Records; much later, in 1975, she signed a recording contract with Alligator Records. A powerful and gritty blues singer, she performed abroad and extensively across the United States, and became well known as “The Queen of the Blues.” She performed at the University of Chicago in 1985, alongside her grandson, Lonnie Brooks, and Albert Collins, a part of the winter concert organized by the Major Activities Board. She won a Grammy Award in 1985 and was inducted in the Blues Hall of Fame in 1997. Koko Taylor passed away in 2009 and her legacy lives on in the Chicago Blues tradition. The memory of that moment is preserved here in the UChicago Photographic Archive, from the Daily Maroon.
Happy Pride Month! Dozens of oral histories about the LGBTQIA experience at The University of Chicago were recently made available online. Have a listen!
Image of the University of Chicago Gay and Lesbian Alliance (GALA) in the 1991 Chicago Pride Parade, Chicago Maroon, University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf7-03416-001.
Today we remember those who died while serving in the armed forces. First celebrated in the years following the #AmericanCivilWar #MemorialDay became an official holiday in 1971. 1: Lincoln Collection, Currier & Ives Lithographs 1844-90. 2: Lincoln Collection Sheet Music 1836-78
This lithograph and sheet music represent only one piece of Memorial Day history. The history of Memorial Day, previously known as Decoration Day, can be traced back to Charleston, SC in 1865. In mid-1864, Confederate forces had converted a Charleston race track into a prison, to hold between 6,000 and 10,000 Union captives who had been evacuated from Georgia prisons. The captives suffered harsh conditions including starvation, disease, and the indignity of being paraded into town, where some Black Charlestonians would sneak pieces of bread to the captives, at risk of being punished for doing so. At least 257 Union soldiers died during their imprisonment there.
In autumn, under a worsening yellow fever outbreak, Confederate officials relocated the prison to Florence, SC, leaving behind the Union dead in unmarked graves. Black Charlestonians worked to build a proper burial ground at the race course, and reconsecrate the soldiers’ graves. They then organized a memorial event held on May 1, 1865. An estimated 10,000 people attended the event which included processions, singing, speeches, and laying of flowers.
Learn more about the role of Black Charlestonians in the founding of Memorial Day in David W. Blight’s book “Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory” (http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/12407286), and “Denmark Vesey’s garden: slavery and memory in the cradle of the Confederacy,” by Kytle and Roberts (http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/11594050). This TIME magazine article includes images of the race track and the burial ground from the Library of Congress: https://time.com/5836444/black-memorial-day/. The event was covered by the “Charleston Daily Courier” on May 2, 1865 and by the “New York Tribune” on May 13, 1865.
While we are unaware of any primary sources within our Special Collections that document this event, we still wish to acknowledge and share this piece of American history that is continually ignored or erased.
New pop-up exhibit in our lobby! Notgeld, German emergency money issued by towns and companies between 1914 and 1923 to counter money shortages during World War I and hyperinflation after. Many feature elaborate color illustrations of local legends or landmarks.
A new guide to the papers of medical geneticist and bioethicist, Dr. James E. Bowman (1923-2011) is now available! Dr. Bowman raised awareness about the ethical and social consequences of genetic testing. He was equally concerned by the ways in which public health policy and the organization of medical care disadvantaged poor and minority communities. He was also the first Black professor to earn tenure in the University of Chicago Biological Sciences Division.
Photograph of Dr. Bowman from the University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-11913.
A large addition to the records of the ACLU of Illinois (156 linear feet more, to be exact!) is now organized and open for research!
Photo by Guilherme Bustamante on Unsplash.
Work has begun to arrange, describe, and make accessible the papers of economist and Nobel Laureate Gary Becker! Projects Archivist Weckea Lilly reflects on the physicality of the job:
“Archives are always in motion, in flight, or on a move. Beginning with the transfer from donor to repository, and within the repository, from storage to processing room shelves and tables, and then back to storage, before they are requested by researchers and are ushered into the reading room.
Collections are always shifting or moving locations; collections, one could say, are uprooted and never really resettle. All this movement means that we’ll have to take considerable care to make sure that we handle them properly, for preservation’s sake.
Much of this is governed by best practices and is often in concert with machinery (Mansueto) doing the bulk of the lifting. With the various hydraulic systems and tech/software programming, the machine makes it look like a light load—the human, not so much.
As the processing of the Gary Becker papers are underway, the shifting and transferring of more than 70 boxes seems a bit daunting and tiring at times, and one wonders if Professor Becker knew that his thought and thinking would someday be such heavy a load to carry.”
We are proud to preserve and provide access to Dr. Janet Rowley's papers here in Special Collections. She donated her papers to the Library anticipating that others might use her papers to further cancer research. https://lib.uchicago.edu/e/scrc/findingaids/view.php...
Work is underway to tell the stories of women at Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin from 1895 to 1940.
