Join us on Thursday, September 10 at 4:00pm for “‘Also a Poet’: Frank O’Hara” a special presentation by Jesse Johnson, PhD candidate in the Department of English, UCLA, and recipient of the Strochlitz Travel Grant sponsored by the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center.  Mr. Johnson will present on his recent research in the Allen Collection of Frank O’Hara Letters housed at the Dodd Center and their relevance to his studies of portraiture and self-representation in the work of the poets John Ashbery and Frank O’Hara, and the visual artist Larry Rivers.    

The presentation, and discussion immediately following, will take place from 4:00 to 5:00pm in Room 162 of the Dodd Research Center and is free and open to the public.  Staff, faculty, students, and interested friends are welcome!

We were honored to have Senator Ted Kennedy join us for the first Thomas J. Dodd Prize in International Justice & Human Rights in 2003. As the nation comes together to mourn the passing of Senator Kennedy through the sharing of our collective experiences, we would like to share ours with you.

 

Valerie Love, Curator for Human Rights and the Alternative Press Collection at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, is witnessing human rights work first hand in Kigali, Rwanda, as a participant in a human rights delegation through the organization Global Youth Connect.  Fifteen years ago, between 800,000 and 1 million people were killed in a horrific genocide that attempted to destroy the Tutsi minority and also targeted moderate Hutus in Rwanda.  “The new government has made extraordinary progress in restoring stability and security to a ravaged society; however the many scars of genocide are still visible and the work of justice and reconciliation is ongoing,” she writes in an email.

Watch for details in an upcoming issue of the Libraries’ newsletter and the University’s new news website.

In this morning’s Hartford Courant there is a great article on the Nutmeg Yearbook project.

“Forget about digging your musty, old University of Connecticut yearbook out of the attic — a trip to yesteryear in Husky Land is just a click away. ” Read More

The Dodd Research Center is proud to be a part of the efforts to honor UConn alumni who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our country. “The Ultimate Sacrifice” Memorial was dedicated on November 10, 2008 at a moving ceremony on the Great Lawn, where faculty, staff, alumni and families of our veterans gathered to reflect on the lives lost.

As part of the project, University Archivist Betsy Pittman is working with the Alumni Association to document the “Roll of Honor”, a comprehensive listing members of the UConn community who lost their lives while serving in the armed forces. For more information on the honor roll, contact Betsy Pittman at betsy.pittman@uconn.edu

“How Picturebooks work: the dynamics between visual and verbal narratives in modern picturebooks.”

Join the 2009 Billie M. Levy Travel Grant Recipient, Claudia Rueda to learn more about her research in the development of the dynamics between words and images in traditional picturebooks and how the interaction in modern works can generate new meanings and interpretations to involve the reader’s imagination.

Today – June 18 – 2:30pm
Dodd Research Center, Conference Room 162

On June 18, 2009, Claudia Rueda will present the results of her research in the Northeast Children’s Literature Collection at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center’s Conference room 162 at 2:30pm. Ms. Rueda is the second recipient of a Billie M. Levy Travel/Research Grant for 2009 and will give a presentation entitled “How Picturebooks work: the dynamics between visual and verbal narratives in modern picturebooks.”  A native of Colombia, Ms. Rueda is the author and illustrator of nine picture books and has illustrated five others. After attending law school and art school in Colombia, she moved to the U.S. in 1997 to study illustration at the University of California at Berkeley.  Ms. Rueda has won multiple awards for her work and is currently in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Lesley University.  Ms. Rueda will talk about the development of the dynamics between words and images in traditional picturebooks and how the interaction in modern works can generate new meanings and interpretations to involve the reader’s imagination.  

Ms. Rueda’s talk is free and open to the public.  For more information, contact Terri J. Goldich, curator for the Northeast Children’s Literature Collection at 860.486.3646 or terri.goldich@uconn.edu.

Tomorrow marks the 65th anniversary of D Day, the Allied Invasion of Normandy and we will use the opportunity to talk about the Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP) at UConn.  Based out of the School of Engineering, the U.S. Army’s ASTP program was implemented in early 1944 due to the impending invasion.  The goal of the program was to increase the number of army trained engineers across the country.  More than 1,500 soilders were stationed at UConn.  The Kodachrome exhibit on display has several images of the training these soilders received while on campus.  For more information about the ASTP, please see their website at http://www.astpww2.org/

According to Carl Brandt, the post World War II era was a great time for UConn’s football program.  Many of these “mature males” played teams that seemed to be made up of “kids” just out of High School.  The score below is an indication of one such game.  Mr. Brandt recalls another score of something like 105 to 0, but doesn’t have an official photo of it.  

 

And it was a time when women played football also, as you can see in this rare color photograph from the collection.

The University of Connecticut’s history is rooted in the traditions of agriculture.  This was still a prevalent field in the 1940’s and 1950’s.  In our latest tribute to alumni weekend this June 5th & 6th, we are sharing two of the many wonderful photos taken by Jerauld Manter that show how enjoyable a glass of fresh milk can truly be.  

The second of our two exhibits focuses on the history of UConn through Kodachrome Film.  The innovation of Kodachrome in 1935 gave photographers the ability to capture the world around us in living color. 

It is likely that Jerauld Manter, faculty member and unofficial college photographer, took the color photographs in this exhibit in and around the University of Connecticut between 1939 and 1959. The prints on display were made from his original Kodachrome 35mm color slides and reflect the remarkable stability of this film over time.

Manter’s photogarphs capture a period of significant growth in UConn’s history, beginning with its establishment as the multi-campus University of Connecticut in 1939. The next two decades saw the development of the Hartford, Stamford, Torrington and Waterbury regional campuses and the Schools of Law, Nursing and Social Work. The student body expanded by 300% after World War II, growing from 1,265 in 1939 to 9,761 in 1959.

As we promised, we will continue to highlight some of the great images on display in the Dodd Center from the Carl Brandt Collection.  

Carl Brandt joined the Aviation Club as photographer and took numerous photos for use in the school newspaper.    His pilots were usually World War ll vets who had flown bomber or fighter aircraft over Germany.

“Several of us would rent aircraft early on a Sunday mornings — and then fly for about half an hour to another airport that had a restaurant.  After a good breakfast, we would fly back to the original airport. ”