Category Archives: What’s Happening in the Archives

Programming and events sponsored by the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center

Archives to Host Pre-College Digital Media Course

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2013-0052_gm030 Emzon Shung and Chron.Dis. Present, Box 1 Folder 1.

2013-0052_gm030 Emzon Shung and Chron.Dis. Present, Box 1 Folder 1. Joe Snow Punk Rock Collection, Archives and Special Collections, Thomas J. Dodd Research Center at the University of Connecticut.

This summer, Research Assistant of Digital Media & Design Clarissa Ceglio and Archivist Graham Stinnett will be co-teaching two courses on Digital Humanities and Archives. The courses are for junior’s in high school intended to provide them with early education in University tools and resources such as libraries, archives and digital instruction. The course will focus its primary source work on the Joe Snow Punk Rock Collection at the Archives & Special Collections, where students will have a first hand experience with punk flyers, posters, stickers, pins and ephemera within the collection. Students will benefit from a behind the scenes experience with historical records and artifacts in an archives to prepare them for future research access in an academic setting. The archival experience will then be extended into the digital realm, where students will construct portals for digital content and description and analysis of primary resources on the web.  Students will learn about techniques for manipulating digital content and interface tools to build contextual digital media pages.  Providing students the opportunity to engage in archival resources at an early age promotes further investigation into historical documents as education and research continues at the University level and beyond.

Historic University Films

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Archives & Special Collections has recently enhanced access to historic University films through digitization.  In conjunction with the current exhibit, “What’s in a Name?” on display in the Dodd Center Gallery, AS&C is hosting a summer film series.  Selected films will be shown around a theme on Fridays from 12-1 in Room 162 of the Dodd Center.  So bring your lunch and share a brief moment of UConn’s past, memorialized on film!

6/20    Agriculture on Display

  • Title: Eastern States Expo (7m 47s) Film is from the Baby Beef Club auction at the Eastern States Exposition (The Big E) and was taken by Wilifred B. Young, former dean of Agriculture at Connecticut State College. The video begins with beeves being led in the Coliseum. Placards for several beeves are shown, including those for the Storrs, Connecticut 4-H members and the grand champion, reserve champion, highly commended and commended entrants. Placards include the name of the animal, the 4-H Club member who raised them, member’s hometown, beeve’s weight, and auction purchaser. Camera pans over the Connecticut Baby Beef Club’s “Home Grown Feed” exhibit and the fair’s “Buy Your Baby Beef” sign, dairy cows and seconds harness races
  • Title: Chopping 1 (3m 3s) Film documents a wood chopping contest hosted by the Hartford Farm Bureau. The winner recieves a cash prize and runner up participants are awarded new axe heads.
  • Title: Chopping 2 (3m 8s) Film documents a controlled burn demonstration and then cuts to a wood chopping competition in front of the Hawley Armory Building at the Connecticut Agricultural College.
  • Title: Field Day (7m36s) Film depicts a sheep shearing demonstration and competition, possibly the annual field day of the Connecticut Sheep Breeders Association at Avon Old Farms on May 2, 1936. Three methods of shearing are shown: hand shears, a hand crank sheep shearing machine, and a gas-powered, belt driven sheep shearing machine. The video also documents horse jumping. The film was most likely shot by Wilifred B. Young, then head of the sheep program for the Extension Service and faculty member at Connecticut State College.

7/11    Teaching the Land

  • Title: Logging in ME (19m12s) University of Connecticut students in the former town of Davidson, Maine at the location of the Summit Lumber Company. Film documents students involved in surveying, logging, recreation activities and life in camp.
  • Title: Felling Trees (7m5s) Film documents a method for felling trees. A direction cut is made and then a portion of the felling cut. The demonstrator then cuts a notch into the opposite side of the directional cut, inserts a jack and fells the tree using the jack. Film may have been made for classroom or Extension Service work.
  • Title: Tree Planting (10m 10s) Film provides instructions for the planting of conifer seedlings. Two steps are covered, planting seedlings as bunch to allow them to root, and then separating and planting individual seedlings. Camera pans over tools needed at start.
  • Title: Potato Field Tour ( 3m49s)

7/18    Diary of a Student Revolution

  • On-campus industrial recruiting of students at the University of Connecticut resulted in confrontation between student activists and the University president. Two camera crews worked independently to simultaneously show the philosophies and strategies of both sides during the conflict. The students attempt a peaceful protest against recruiters but are met by police who read the riot act and begin making arrests. Elsewhere the president is seen chatting about the action with fellow administrators. The question remains whether the administration’s repressive action in summoning force was an appropriate response to the peaceful demonstrations.

7/25    Yankee Conference Championship game at UConn, 1970

  • UConn vs. URI  (40min) 1970 Yankee Conference Championship between UConn and Rhode Island at Storrs. Final score UConn 35 Rhody 32. Playing for UConn is Doug Melody, Bob Staak, Bob Taylor and Ron Hrubala. Film includes footage of the cheerleaders, crowds, and Jonathan the husky.

8/1      Technology and the Farm

  • Title: Swamp Logging (10m23s) Film depicts the logging of virgin forests of Longleaf Pines throughout the Southeast United States. The exact site is most likely North Carolina or Florida. The Longleaf Pine was valued for lumber and for its resin, which was used in navy stores, and the production of turpentine and rosin. By the time of this film the Longleaf Pine had been almost entirely cleared from North America and replaced with faster growing varieties of pine. The footage includes examples of the use of a steam donkey, or steam driven winch, a geared steam locomotive, a steam skidder, and a variety of hand tools.
  • Title: Sawmill (10m 23s) Film depicts hardwood logging in Connecticut. Several students can be seen in the beginning of the footage measuring tree sizes and taking notes. Trees can be seen being loaded on to a horse-drawn sled.
  • Title: Potato Harvesting, Lee Farm (3m47s) Footage depicts potato harvesting demonstration at the farm of noted jurist Simon S. Cohen in Rockville, Connecticut. Potatoes are unearthed by a digging machine, collected in baskets, and then put in barrels which are picked up by men using small crane mounted to flatbed truck. The film cuts, possibly to Lee Farm, also to potato harvesting.
  • Title: Potato loading machine (3m49s) This short film contains footage of men harvesting potatoes, probably on Lee Farm. The harvester (digger) can be seen, which required twelve men to drive the tractor, sort, bag, and load potatoes on to a second truck. Researchers of the history of agricultural technology may be interested in this video. Albert E. Wilkinson served as the Extension Service’s vegetable gardening specialist as part of his duties in the Horticulture Department at the Connecticut Agricultural College at Storrs starting in 1930. Wilkinson shot over 1000 feet of film documenting vegetable growing and harvesting throughout the country to share with his classes and during community movie nights throughout the Extension Service Program.
  • Title: Machine Plowing (3m47s) Film depicts young men transplanting seedlings and several examples of machine farming at Lee Farm in Coventry, CT.

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Grants for Research: Apply Now For Fall/Winter Travel

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Edwin Way Teale at TrailwoodScholars and graduate students whose research requires use of the collections held in Archives and Special Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center are invited to apply for travel grants.  Applications must be received by June 30, 2014 for travel to the University of Connecticut between September 2014 and February 2015.  Grants up to $500 are awarded to graduate students and post-doctoral students, and established scholars are eligible for awards of up to $1,500.  Grants are awarded on a competitive basis to cover travel and accommodations expenses.  Details and application instructions can be found on the Strochlitz Travel Grant website.

Criteria for selection include the scope and significance of the individual’s research project relative to the subject strengths of the repository collections, his or her scholarly research credentials, and letters of support.  Applications from individuals whose research relates to the following fields of inquiry are strongly encouraged: Alternative and Underground Press in America, American Literature and Poetics, American Political History, Blues and African American Vernacular Music, Latin American and Caribbean Culture and History, Human Rights, Labor History, Public Polling History, and Connecticut and Railroad History, among others.

Contact Greg Colati, Director, with any questions.

Mapping and Understanding the Emergence of the Underground

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Tales of Beatnik Glory by Ed SandersSean Cashbaugh, a PhD candidate in American Studies at the University of Texas Austin and recipient of a 2014 Strochlitz Travel Grant, visited in March to conduct research for his dissertation currently titled A Cultural History Beneath the Left: Politics, Art, and the Emergence of the Underground During the Cold War. “This notion of the underground constituted a distinct political and aesthetic imaginary parallel to, but distinct from, groups like the Beats and movements like the Counterculture and the New Left,” according to Mr. Cashbaugh.  Travel Grants are awarded bi-annually to scholars and students to support travel to and research in Archives and Special Collections.  The following essay was contributed by Mr. Cashbaugh. 

In his short story “The Piano Player,” poet, novelist, publisher, and musician Ed Sanders recounts the life of Samuel Gortz, an idiosyncratic musical genius living in New York City’s Lower East Side during the early 1960s. As Sanders writes, “His piano played such incredible melody lines that sometimes tears were the only response. He was a textbook example of a genius in America who shat upon convention, sell-out, compromise, acceptance.”[1] Sanders’s story is an ode to this pianist’s talents and his refusal to work and live on anyone’s terms but his own, but it is also an elegy. An impoverished musician, one living amongst a community of poor artists, he and any trace of his works disappeared: a leaky roof and a greedy landlord eager to evict an unpaying tenant destroyed his compositions; Gortz vanished. Even the building where he lived, an apartment at 13th street and Avenue C, is gone, razed, likely in the name of “developing” the always changing cityscape.

Though the Gortz Sanders recounts likely never existed, he may as well have. Sanders’s story is a call to remember all those creative figures working in New York City in the late 1950s and early 1960s, a period his novel Tales of Beatnik Glory (1975) recreates in glorious, and at times hilarious, detail.[2] It is a scholarly commonplace that New York City at this time was home to a flurry of political and artistic movements that left a lasting impression on twentieth century American culture. Of course, this was not strictly a New York phenomenon:  this was happening all across the United States, in Los Angeles, in San Francisco, and in Chicago, to name only a few urban bases of wildly creative political and artistic practice. Continue reading →

Whales, Illustrated: Jean Day Zallinger Papers

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whaledrawing1

In March, I curated an exhibit exploring the theme of ocean ecology in children’s literature. While looking for material for this project I stumbled upon a series of whale drawings by Jean Day Zallinger (b. 1918). The Jean Day Zallinger Papers are part of the Northeastern Children’s Literature Collection in Archives & Special Collections. An artist trained at both the Massachusetts College of Art and Yale University, Jean illustrated non-fiction science books for children, including a survey of human evolution, a history of the dinosaurs, and even a chapter book about the camouflaging techniques employed by different species of fish.

The drawings I found were produced by Jean for Helen R. Sattler’s Whales, Nomads of the Sea (1987). Altogether, there are over forty drawings, each a portrait of a different species of whale, dolphin, or porpoise. These illustrations can be found at back of the book in a cetacean encyclopedia. Here, each drawing is pictured alongside information about the range, diet, and behavior of that species.

I included one of Jean’s drawings in my exhibit, which despite my attempts to the contrary began to develop a distinctive whale theme. When we talk about ecology and species preservation, it’s tempting (and fun!), but not representative, to focus on the biggest or most exotic species in an ecosystem. Whales, poster children for the modern environmental movement since the 1970s, have long been the subject of popular ocean imagination.[1] For this reason, I wanted to include books in the exhibit featuring creatures or themes not typically included in public conversations about ocean conservation. I found several of these but I found many more books about whales.

Whales have been a part of my personal imagination for many years. I am completing my University Scholar thesis on the end of the nineteenth-century whaling industry in New London, Connecticut. In my research, I focus on three species of whales: Southern Right Whales, Pacific Sperm whales, and occasionally humpbacks. These were three species typically hunted by nineteenth-century American whalemen. And so when I first whaledrawing2discovered Jean’s drawings, which include illustrations of narwhals next to grey whales, pygmy sperm whales, and Atlantic white-sided dolphins, I was startled. I had forgotten that there were so many species of cetaceans.

While Margaret Waring Buck illustrated many of her books about nature from direct observation, it is likely that Jean Zallinger had to draw many of these images, particularly of the more obscure species, from photographs. It is easy to get up close in personal with a mouse in a hamper, but it’s much more difficult to do this with creatures that spend their entire lives under water. As my advisor Prof. Matthew McKenzie (UConn Avery Point, History) has told me repeatedly, the invisibility of ocean resources makes achieving ocean sustainability difficult. “It is easy to comprehend destruction when you see a clear-cut forest,” he says. “Fish and other ocean creatures we hunt for are cloaked by the ocean. Their invisibility makes them seem fathomless.”

Recently, as I returned to look at Jean’s drawings I immediately envisioned lining them up along one long table. (I didn’t.) But if I were to, the end result would be a striking literal visual illustration of marine mammal biodiversity. Jean’s artwork, and books like the ones featured in the exhibit earlier this semester, inform and entertain. But they also strengthen our relationships with ocean creatures and the likelihood that these relationships will be sustainable ones by illustrating for readers what is otherwise invisible.

This is the final post by Rebecca D’Angelo, a senior undergraduate student in History and Anthropology. She is a writing intern and student curator in Archives and Special Collections at the Dodd Research Center, University of Connecticut.

[1] Motohiro Kawashima, “The Imagined Whale: How the Media Created a Sacrosanct Creature,” The Essex Graduate Journal of Sociology (University of Essex, 2005). http://essex.ac.uk/sociology/research/publications/student_journals/pg/graduate_journal_vol5.aspx.

Hypocrite Lecteur: Final Post – The Moral

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Daniel Allie is a senior undergraduate student in English. This is the final post in his series Hypocrite Lecteur …

I have kept nothing back, nor ought have I extenuated ; neither have I dealt in ornamental flourishes, for to the graces of refined composition I have little title, or indeed ambition, to lay claim. Plain truth I adopted as a polar star, which I intend to pursue invariably without compelling the reader to dance over the fairy land of metaphor, or grope through the darksome vallies of allegory (Tufts 364).

EverythingA fine way to end things. Here as I end this series I’m glad to report that I likely have a better claim on the truth of these words than Henry Tufts did, yet this isn’t enough for an end. I have now traversed the darksome valleys of the novel, autobiography, comedy, biography, oratory, and sermons, roughly between the years 1790 and 1810, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned from these texts, it’s that everything needs a moral. I need to leave you with something you may not have heard before but which is clearly exemplified through what I have been saying all along.

So here’s a moral for you: this literature is important. This literature is worth reading. This literature is good. It can be everything literature today is; it’s funny, sad, and surprising; it can entertain us as much as it can teach us. These texts are preserved in the archives, and they deserve to be there.

When we read Thomas Bellamy’s The Beggar Boy, we get a strangely frenetic and entertaining story, and see early nineteenth-century state of the novel; In Henry Tufts, we get the most ridiculously entertaining narrative I’ve ever read, along with the historical context to make it objectively important, the same way that Deborah Gannett’s life and The Female Review were important, regardless of how unfortunate her own self-repudiation was; In Theodore Hook’s The Soldier’s Return, we see an amusing glimpse of comedy, and the regard towards theater in the United States; and in the execution sermons, the application of capital punishment in the moral and economic life of society. Continue reading →

Sandra Horning’s Blog Post #3

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Blog entry #3 – Meet William Gray

Looking through more than twenty boxes of the James Marshall Collection has made me feel close to this man I will never have the good fortune to meet. Marshall published about eighty books, many with both his illustrations and text. It is hard to imagine how much he would have produced if he had not died at the early age of 50. In fact, many days I have left the Dodd Center feeling a great sense of loss at his death. Through a friend, I was able to meet Marshall’s longtime partner, William Gray. I met William at the home he and James shared for much of Marshall’s career. For my final blog entry, I’ve included a few of William’s answers to the questions he generously and kindly provided. My thanks go out to William Gray for sharing his time and memories of James Marshall.

 

James Marshall giving a presentation (James Marshall Papers Collection File photograph, n.d.)

James Marshall giving a presentation (James Marshall Papers Collection File photograph, n.d.).  All rights reserved.  No reproduction of any kind allowed.

 

As I mentioned in my first blog, James Marshall wrote many of his books under the pseudonym Edward Marshall. William explained that Marshall wanted to work with more than one publisher. In order to not compete with his own picture books, the pseudonym was used and he wrote in a different genre, beginning readers. “They really suited his talent. I wouldn’t say they were easy to do just because they were easy to read.  It was something that just came more naturally to him, the smaller format.”

To clarify that the comments in the margins of the dummies and manuscripts are Marshall’s, I asked about the handwriting and if William knew if anyone else wrote comments on Marshall’s work. William replied that, “He [Marshall] used a Schaefer fountain pen with those plastic capsules to draw with and to write with. He had pretty distinctive handwriting, but no one came near his work.”

I went on to ask specifically about the Harry Allard and Jeffery Allen manuscripts I discussed in my second blog post. William told me that Allard and Allen were both friends of Marshall before each collaborated on books with him. “They would mail a manuscript to him [Marshall]. He would tear it apart limb from limb and then put it back together according to what he thought was best.”

I noted that almost all of Marshall’s changes went to print and William agreed,“Oh, they made every change he suggested. He ran the show….Jim appreciated their inventiveness. I mean Harry came up with The Stupids and with Miss Nelson. But as for shaping a story, that was always Jim’s work.”

William and I talked about Marshall’s ability to critique his own work. “Jim was extremely critical of his own work and any work,” William told me. “Nothing was perfect. Even if it was a masterpiece he would find something to criticize, always. He would very seldom say, ‘I guess this is pretty good.’ He had critical faculties that kicked in and that is what kept him going.”

 This comment came back to me when I went through Maurice Sendak’s bequest of additional James Marshall material. Sendak and Marshall were good friends, and Sendak owned several of Marshall’s book dummies and original artwork, most of which are now with the Marshall Collection. Among these Sendak materials is a book that Marshall created for Sendak’s birthday. The book is extraordinary, with wonderful characters wishing Maurice a happy birthday. Marshall also includes a short story from his future publication Rats on the Roof.  At the end of the story, Marshall is once again critical of his endings, drawing two rats with speech bubbles. The first rat says, “Rather Chekhovian, don’t you feel?” The second rat replies, “He never could come up with decent endings.”

  

A page from the Birthday Book for Maurice Sendak from James Marshall (Maurice Sendak Collection of James Marshall Box 2012.0152.2). All rights reserved. No reproduction of any kind allowed.

A page from the Birthday Book for Maurice Sendak from James Marshall (Maurice Sendak Collection of James Marshall Box 2012.0152.2). All rights reserved. No reproduction of any kind allowed.


I asked William if there was a work that Marshall was most proud of or that achieved what Marshall wanted? William replied,  “I can tell you I really, really appreciate the Fox books. I think his talent went into that in a way that really expressed himself and certainly delights me.”  William went on to say that Marshall “was kind of stuck in the George and Martha books pretty much in the framework of a relation between two people, but with the Fox books there would be all kinds of plots and subplots. None of those characters is two dimensional.  In just a few sentence you know exactly who they are. I even have people say, ‘Oh, well obviously he used me for Carmen.’”

This led me to ask if Marshall was most like Fox.  William said, “I think so… There is a lot of Jim in Fox.” William and I continued on to discuss the brilliant endings and humor in the Fox stories, and the way the humor was not spelled out. William said that was intentional. In fact, it was“his [Marshall’s] number one rule. Never condescend to children. Don’t do it ever.”

Most of Marshall’s sketchbooks and drafts are marked with a place and date. It became clear that he worked constantly, even while traveling. There are often to-do lists in the midst of his sketches. In one list from a trip to Cape Cod on March 10, Marshall is “working on a dummy for Yummers II, driving to Boston, going to lunch, meeting with someone from Houghton Mifflin, doing something at Nickelodeon, driving back to the Cape, picking up lamb shanks, and working in bed on Roberta Molesworthy (an iffy book).”

A page from Marshall's sketches. (James Marshall Papers. Box 8:Folder 170). All rights reserved. No reproduction of any kind allowed.

A page from Marshall’s sketches. (James Marshall Papers. Box 8:Folder 170). All rights reserved. No reproduction of any kind allowed.

 

The year isn’t dated,  but Yummers Too was published in 1986. If Marshall was working on a dummy for this book, I can guess the date would be around 1984. Williams said that Marshall always worked. “Everything was integrated into his work.” He didn’t like to fly and preferred to work on trains. “He’d take a train to Texas or California. He loved to work on the train.”

 

 

 

 

In addition to sketchbooks, William said Marshall also kept extensive diaries. William has kept these diaries, but I did find one trip diary in the collection. The year isn’t dated, however, I can guess from what he was working on that it is probably from around 1990. The diary is all text and details his trip to New Orleans, including what he read each day: “finished a book on Janet Flanner…masterful novel by Nina Berberova, The Accompanist… Editon Wharton.”

A page from Marshall's trip diary to New Orleans. (James Marshall Papers. Box 21:Folder 299). All rights reserved. No reproduction of any kind allowed.

A page from Marshall’s trip diary to New Orleans. (James Marshall Papers. Box 21:Folder 299). All rights reserved. No reproduction of any kind allowed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marshall was also a voracious reader. William showed me the special shelves Marshall had built around his room to hold some of his books.

A list of books from the Marshall Collection. (James Marshall Papers. Box 21:folder 303). All rights reserved. No reproduction of any kind allowed.

A list of books from the Marshall Collection. (James Marshall Papers. Box 21:folder 303). All rights reserved. No reproduction of any kind allowed.

William said he liked “Moliere and Chekhov…and a lot of the British women novelists like Elizabeth Taylor and Jean Rhys.” I found a piece of paper with a list of books in the collection. I am assuming these were books Marshall had read or books he purchased to read.

The page was numbered 67.

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve learned much in going through the Marshall papers and in talking with William Gray. James Marshall was incredibly talented in his ability to do both quality text and illustrations. He worked very hard to achieve the high quality. Going forward, it will be impossible for me to view my own work without giving it a more critical look: What would James Marshall say? He would most likely say “it could be better” and he would probably be right. Achieving the highest quality takes not only talent, but the sweat, tears, and labor of hard work. On that note, with all that I have gleaned from seeing Marshall’s process, it is time that I get back to the hard work of improving my own manuscripts. Thank you James Marshall, and thank you to the Dodd Research Center and the providers of the James Marshall Fellowship.

War, Struggle, and Visual Politics: Art on the Frontlines

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April 21 - April 22, 2014

April 21 – April 22, 2014

The Archives and Special Collections in collaboration with the Dodd Center and Booklyn Artists Alliance, are hosting two days of events on War, Struggle and Visual Politics: Art on the Frontlines.  Events will be held in the Dodd Research Center on April 21st and 22nd in conjunction with the Week In Humanities.  Artists Seth Tobocman, Stephen Dupont, Marshall Weber, Chantelle Bateman and Aaron Hughes will be holding talks, workshops and presenting artwork around the focus of politics and activism in art and war.  Students, community members, veterans and artists are encouraged to attend these events to provide a dynamic facilitation of how we utilize art, activism and memory to cope with war.

Art work will be on display in galleries as follows:Aaron Hughes : Institute for the Humanities : College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Seth Tobocman : Contemporary Art Gallery : School of Fine Art

Stephen Dupont : Coop Bookstore : Downtown Stores

For a full list of events, please follow this link for the Week in Humanities.

Hypocrite Lecteur: Deborah Sampson Gannett

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I cannot desire you to adopt the example of our Heroine, should the like occasion offer ; yet, we must do her justice. (Mann 116)

Thus speaks Herman Mann, the author of The Female Review: or, Memoirs of an American Young Lady (1797), whose opinions in addition to his doubly-masculine name indicate his deep disapproval of his subject, Deborah Sampson Gannett, GannettTitle an unusual woman “whose life and character are peculiarly distinguished—Being a continental soldier for nearly three years in the late American war” (Mann 1).

That’s right, folks—here, after looking at the indomitable Henry Tufts, we have yet another unlikely veteran of the American Revolution, this time a woman, who, finding herself too constrained by society, “determined to burst the bands, which, it must be confessed, have too often held her sex in awe” (Mann 110), and “join[ed] the American Army in the character of a voluntary soldier” (114), “enrolled by the name of ROBERT SHURTLIEFF” (Mann 129).

Sound fascinating? Certainly. Brave? Undoubtedly. Improper? Ask Mann. Mann must ask the question of what to do with this woman war hero, as it is his self-appointed task to tell of Gannett’s actions, but his disapproval is apparent everywhere, beginning with a disclaimer that he writes “not with intentions to encourage the like paradigm of FEMALE ENTERPRISE—but because such a thing, in the course of nature, has occurred” (Mann iii). Get the picture? Don’t anybody get any ideas. You’re only hearing this story because it’s true. It happened, and Gannett did fine, and served her country with honor, but Mann doesn’t want to risk indicating approval.

Mann does, however, intend to influence the conduct of American women, with his text becoming by intention one of instruction. He begins by saying “there are but two degrees in the characters of mankind, that seem to arrest the attention of the public. The first is that of him, which is the most distinguished in laudable and virtuous achievements. . . The second, that of him, who has arrived to the greatest pitch of vice and wickedness” (Mann v), and that “whilst the former ever demands our love and imitation, the other should serve to fortify our minds against its own attacks.” Stories of virtue and stories of vice can all lead you to virtue. Mann doesn’t say which he thinks this story is, though, and when we consider that Henry Tufts speaks in the same way of his criminal autobiography, “that [the life] of the vicious, affords, also, instruction, by showing effects of vice and immorality” (Tufts vii), regard doesn’t seem too high for Gannett in The Female Review. Continue reading →

New Exhibition: “For Young Naturalists: Ocean Ecology in Children’s Literature”

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Explore the diverse ways authors and illustrators use word and image to explain to children the complex relationships between man and the ocean in a new student-curated exhibition “For Young Naturalists: Ocean Ecology in Children’s Literature,” on display from March 27 to April 11 in the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center’s John P. McDonald Reading Room. Featuring artwork and books drawn from the Northeast Children’s Literature Collection in Archives and Special Collections, student curator Rebecca D’Angelo presents children’s books from 1844 to 2012 that illuminate how subjects such as ocean biodiversity, food security, and conservation have been depicted and narrated through time.

An Ocean World by Peter Sis (New York : Greenwillow, 1992). Pg. 8.

An Ocean World by Peter Sis (New York : Greenwillow, 1992). Pg. 8.

This exhibition is on view to coincide with the Edwin Way Teale Lectures “What role will the oceans play in meeting the global demand for food?” by Steven D. Gaines, Thursday, March 27, and “Climate, Weather, Oceans and Biodiversity: Science in Policy and Politics” by Jane Lubchenco, Thursday, April 10, 4:00pm in the Dodd Center’s Konover Auditorium.

Location:  The John P. McDonald Reading Room, Archives and Special Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT

Dates: March 27-April 11, 2014

Exhibition hours: 10:00am to 4:00pm, Monday through Friday

For more information contact:
Melissa Watterworth Batt, Archives and Special Collections, Thomas J. Dodd Research
Center, UConn Libraries, melissa.watterworth@uconn.edu

Out of the Frame: Alternative Arts of the 1980s

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Out of the Frame: Alternative Arts of the 1980s

Out of the Frame: Alternative Arts of the 1980s

A co-curated gallery exhibition of alternative arts of the 1980s is currently on display at the Dodd Center.  This exhibit features selections of dial-a-poems, artists’ books, offset lithography, punk rock, zines, buttons, show flyers, cyberpunk literature, comic books and related ephemera from the Archives & Special Collections.  By focusing on underground visual and aural arts of fringe countercultures, our goal is to demonstrate the range of expression found within these distinct cultural enclaves.  The show offers materials from three distinct curatorial areas, however the threads that tie these materials together become interwoven through their reactions to the dominant modes of production of the era.

March 3-May 11, 2014

Thomas J. Dodd Research Center

Gallery Hours: 8:30-4:30, Monday – Friday

For more information on the libraries ongoing exhibits, please visit the exhibitions page.

Sandra Horning’s Blog Post #2

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Blog entry 2 – Every Word Counts!

All writers are familiar with the concept of “every word counts.” For writers of children’s picture books and beginning readers, every word literally counts. Most picture books published today have about 300 words. Many editors won’t even read a picture book manuscript much longer than that. Level 1 beginning readers are even shorter, with about 100 words. Keep in mind that, despite the low word count, a good story needs an arc, a plot, humor, and character development. It might seem like these stories are written quickly, and perhaps the first idea is written in a short period of time, but getting the text ready for publication can take many days, weeks, months, or longer to get right. Each word and every sentence is reviewed and revised many times. Here are some of the questions an author (and an editor) considers with each word and sentence:

 

Is the word necessary?

Is it the right word to convey the meaning you intend? (Does the word have more than one meaning?)

Do the challenging words have contextual clues to allow the reader to infer the definition?

Is the word count within the guidelines?

 

In an early beginning reader, an author needs to follow additional guidelines:

The words need to be simple enough for an emerging reader to pronounce and understand.

Contractions should be spelled out.

The words should be no more than two syllables.

Complex sentences should not be used.

The majority of the words in the text should be repeated, as you can’t introduce too many new or challenging words to an emerging reader.

 

I’ve been heartened to see that even someone as talented, prolific, and well known as James Marshall didn’t get every word right on his first few drafts. In looking through the dummies and drafts of his stories, I’ve enjoyed seeing his notes and eraser marks as he struggled to search for the best word.

For example, a George and Martha story usually has between 100 -150 words, but there is still much humor and character development packed into each simple story.  In one of my favorites, “The Trick” in George and Martha Back in Town, George can’t resist playing tricks on Martha, so Martha plans a trick of her own. Even at the final galley stage of the book, Marshall was still requesting changes to the text. For example, the sentence

“And when she discovered that the house slippers had been nailed to the floor, she was not amused.”

 was changed at the galley stage to:

age from galley, "The Trick" in George and Martha Back in Town (James Marshall Papers Box 8:Folder 161). All rights reserved. No reproduction of any kind allowed.

Page from galley, “The Trick” in George and Martha Back in Town (James Marshall Papers Box 8:Folder 161). All rights reserved. No reproduction of any kind allowed.

“And when she found her house slippers nailed to the floor, she was not amused.”

The final sentence is much more succinct and flows better, while still maintaining the humor. Every galley page I’ve viewed has author edits similar to this page.

 

 

 

In the picture book The Cut-Ups Carry On, the cut-ups Spud Jenkins and Joe Turner take dance lessons and end up entering a contest with one of them dressed as a girl. In a dummy for the book Marshall describes the scene as Spud and Joe arrive at the studio for the contest:

At the T.V. Studio, Mary Frances and Charles Andrew Frothingham were just finishing up a superb tango.

“Superb” is crossed out and “flashy” is written above it. Then “flashy” is crossed out and “dazzling” is written, which is the final version in print.

At the T.V. Studio, Mary Frances and Charles Andrew Frothingham were just finishing up a dazzling tango.

“Dazzling” is a great choice that combines the essence of both “superb” and “flashy.”

 

Pgs. 28-29, dummy for The Cut-ups Carry On (James Marshall Papers Box 14:Folder 238) All rights reserved. No reproduction of any kind allowed.

Pgs. 28-29, dummy for The Cut-ups Carry On (James Marshall Papers Box 14:Folder 238) All rights reserved. No reproduction of any kind allowed.

                               

In a dummy for The Cut-Ups Crack Up, Marshall describes Spud and Joe as they speed around town in a “borrowed” car.

At the corner of Maple and Elm, they passed by an astonished Mary Frances and Charles Andrews.

In the final version, “passed” was changed to a much better action verb: “sailed.”

At the corner of Maple and Elm, they sailed by an astonished Mary Frances and Charles Andrew.

Again, this is a very simple word change that greatly improves the sentence.

In the dummy for the beginning reader Three Up A Tree, the story begins with the characters looking at a tree house:

Some big kids down the block had made a treehouse.

The final version reads:

Some big kids down the street had built a swell treehouse.

 Three word changes, “block” to “street”,  “made” to “built”, and the addition of “swell” give this sentence a boost. Now the reader can imagine the kids building a treehouse, and adding “swell” shows how much they admire it.

Marshall paid so much attention to words that he even made suggestions on other author’s manuscripts that he was illustrating. His notes and papers make it clear that he shared suggested changes to words and sentences with the authors Harry Allard (of the Miss Nelson and the Stupid series) and Jeffrey Allen (Nosey Mrs. Rat, Bonzini, and the Mary Alice stories).

In Nosey Mrs. Rat the story begins with Mrs. Rat spying on her neighbor in the bath. Allen’s original manuscript read:

“I see that you are using lilac bubble bath,” Shirley Foster said.

“I personally prefer rose.”

Mrs. Davis stepped out of the bath and locked the window.

Marshall’s suggestion for changing the last line was as follows:

Mrs. Davis pulled down the shade.

This sentence was used in the final text. With fewer words Marshall made a funnier sentence and one that also worked better for the humor in the illustration. It is easier and funnier to show a shade being pulled down than to show a window being locked.

 

Pgs. 1-2, manuscript , Nosey Mrs. Rat (James Marshall Papers Box 8:Folder 170). All rights reserved. No reproduction of any kind allowed.

Pgs. 1-2, manuscript , Nosey Mrs. Rat (James Marshall Papers Box 8:Folder 170). All rights reserved. No reproduction of any kind allowed.

 

 

As you can see from the image, Marshall made many suggestions to Nosey Mrs. Rat. Many of them were used, including changing the title and main character from Nosey Shirley Foster to Nosey Mrs. Rat. It is rare for an illustrator to suggest text changes to the author. Most of the authors I know have never had an illustrator suggest changes. It is obvious that Marshall paid just as much attention to words, both his and others’, as he did to his illustrations. Although revising a manuscript over and over again can be tedious, Marshall’s papers and ultimately the success of his books remind me that every revision is worthwhile because every word does count, especially for the youngest readers. That said, I probably could have made this blog post a bit shorter! I will certainly be revising my work again before I send it out.