New York Journal-American Photographic Morgue--HRC, UT-Austin

The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin has recently launched a fabulous website designed to expose the holdings of the New York Journal-American photographic morgue, acquired by the center in 1966. The site includes both an image gallery (containing over 900 images) and a database which enables researchers to search the file headings of photo folders within the archive. As the HRC's site notes:

"The photographic morgue consists of approximately two million prints and one million negatives created for publication in the New York Journal-American newspaper. The bulk of the material covers the years from 1937 to the paper's demise in 1966. Earlier decades are represented in the collection, but with decreasing frequency toward the beginning of the twentieth century. Roughly half of the prints are images taken by Journal-American staff. The backs of these prints usually bear the stamped date of publication and a pasted-down clipping from the newspaper. The majority of the other prints come from wire services such as the Associated Press, United Press International, and other syndication entities, and a small portion of the prints are publicity photos from sources such as airlines, public relations firms, movie studios, etc. Many of the prints in the morgue show crop marks and/or heavy retouching with either pencil or ink as evidence of their use in publication"

"Until now, access to the photo morgue collection has been limited, resulting from its uncataloged status. In keeping with the Ransom Center's mission to advance the study of the arts and humanities by preserving and making accessible creations of our cultural heritage through the highest standards of cataloging, conservation, and collection management, the Center has now constructed this website as a portal to the prints in the New York Journal-American photo morgue. It is intended to serve as an introduction to the collection and its imagery and to provide a searchable database of more than 64,000 folder titles by which the prints were organized by the newspaper staff."

Americana--recent acquisitions, antiquarian and ephemera

U.S.S. Boston Photograph album. 7 3/8 X 10 3/4 in. Black fabric over cardboard covers. 96 pp; 148 photographs affixed to all pages including inside back cover. 1888-1907.

Herman, Frederick John, The Forty-second foot; a history of the Forty-second regiment of infantry, United States volunteers, organized for service in the Philippine insurrection. 1899-1900-1901. Arranged and compiled at the request of the survivors of the regiment, organized as the 42nd regt. of inf. U.S.V. association, by Colonel Frederick J. Herman. [Kansas City, Mo., 1942]

Croffut's Trans-Continental Tourist's Guide, Containing a Full and Authentic Description of over Five Hundred Cities, Towns, Villages, Stations...From the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. Fourth Volume, Third Annual Revised. Crofutt, George, pub: New York. 1872.

Souvenirs D'une Mission Aux États-Unis D'amerique. Malézieux, Emile: Paris: Dunod, 1874.

Fooz, Jean Henri Nicolas de. Fundamental Principles of the Law of Mines. Translated from the French, with Introductory Remarks by H. W. Halleck. San Francisco: J. B. Painter, Printer, 1860.

Darrow Bros. Our Encampment. A Humorous Account of the Indianapolis Military Encampment. Highly Illustrated by our own Artist, and rich in Flagrant Falsehood [cover title]. Indianapolis, ca. 1880.

Breed, David T. The Great Trip. A Little Book for Railroad Men and Travellers. NY: American Tract Society, ca. 1850.

Chicago, and North-Western Railway. Summer Resorts of the West, North and Northwest, Showing Routes, Rates of Fare, and Hotels and Boarding Houses. Chicago, 1890.

U.S. Army Air Force. Air Power for Peace. AAF Day—1 August 1947. (Tokyo: Kyodo Printing, 1947.)

Commercial Iron Works. Commemorating the Delivery to the U.S. Navy of Our 100th Vessel. Portland, 1944.

City of Los Angeles. Home Recreation in Wartime. LA: Dept. of Playground and Recreation, ca. 1942?

Sheridan, Sol N. (words) and A. Nelson Adams(music). Beside the Pasig River. Written and composed in the Palace of Malagañan, Manila, after the American Occupation. Manila: Camelo & Bauerman, (1898).

Lunkley, Violet E. Hurray for the Heroes of the Sea. Dedicated to the Navy Boys. Words and Music by…. San Francisco: Gallur, (1914).

Central California Veterans’ Reunion Association. Popular Patriotic Songs. San Jose: Frank M. Eley, 189-?.

Watson, Pond & Riddle. California. A catalogue of country and land property for the investor and homeseeker. San Francisco [1909].

Turlock Land Co. Turlock, California. Turlock Irrigation District. (San Francisco: Western Folder Co., ca. 1910.)

Covina Chamber of Commerce. Covina, An Orchard Paradise in San Gabriel Valley, Los Angeles County, California. (Covina Argus Press, 1928?)

Chamber of Commerce. Fresno County, California. Fresno: Evening Democrat Print, ca. 1905.

Alan T. Tarbell Corp. The Building of an Empire: Crescent City, California. [Los Angeles, 1929.]

North Western—Union Pacific.Introducing—The Streamliner, City of Los Angeles. Omaha:
Medlar, 1936.

Jimmie Rodgers Memorial Celebration,National Country Music Day. Official Program. Meridian,MS, 1954.

Southern Pacific. California Festival Year 1925. [San Francisco? 1925.]

My Partner Souvenir. Boston: Forbes Co., [1880].

Great Migration primary source collections

Isabel Wilkerson's excellent new book, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, has garnered a great deal of press in recent weeks.

Researchers wishing to examine a wealth of primary source material on the living and working conditions of African-Americans in this era might want to take a look at a fascinating microfilm collection titled "Black Workers in the Era of the Great Migration, 1916-1929," housed in Green Library's Media-Microtext. Edited by by James Grossman, the set compiles records from various Federal agencies and departments--ranging from the U.S. Coal Commission and Bureau of Employment Security to the U.S. Children's Bureau and Bureau of Agricultural Economics. A guide is also available, with a short introductory essay.

Additionally, as David Oshinsky noted in the opening paragraph of his review of Wilkerson's book, the Chicago Defender is another invaluable primary source of the African-American migration out of the South. Stanford researchers can access the full-text archive of the Chicago Defender, a title in the ProQuest Historical Newspaper series.

Historical Census Browser and City and County Data Books--UVA Libraries

Following up on last month's post regarding the Newberry Library's Atlas of Historical County Boundaries, I wanted to blog about two exceptional resources provided by the UVA Libraries: Historical Census Browser and County and City Data Books.

Sponsored by the Scholars' Lab at the UVA Library, the Historical Census Browser is one tool in a suite of offerings provided by Spatial and Statistical Data and Services. Drawn from historical volumes of the U.S. Census of Population and Housing, the census browser enables users to "examine state and county topics for individual census years, examine state and county topics over time," and "generate maps of selected data."

Focusing on the mid-late 20th century (1944-2000), the County and City Data Books database provides a wealth of data on local governments, economies, and populations. As the site notes, "The data presented here for the 1944-1983 editions was obtained through ICPSR, the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research. The 1944-77 data for cities came from study #7735 and the 1947-77 data for counties and states came from study #7736. Data for all levels of the 1983 edition came from study #8256."

New African-American historical newspapers

Adding to Stanford's holdings of African-American newspapers in the ProQuest Historical Newspaper series, the library has recently acquired two new titles: The Los Angeles Sentinel (1934-2005) and the Pittsburgh Courier (1911-2002, excludes 1913-1921). Both newspapers are full-text searchable, as well as cross-searchable with other titles in the ProQuest Historical Newspapers line. Both are available on the library's databases and articles page.

Digital Atlas of Historical County boundaries project--Newberry Library

With an increasing interest in spatial history, the Newberry Library's announcement of the completion of its Digital Atlas of Historical County Boundaries comes as welcome news.

From the Newberry's press release:

The Newberry Library is pleased to announce the completion and release of its Digital Atlas of Historical County Boundaries, a dataset that covers every day-to-day change in the size, shape, location, name, organization, and attachment of each U.S. county and state from the creation of the first county in 1634 through 2000.

Nearly every aspect of American life can be described, analyzed, and illuminated through data gathered and organized by county or available in county records, and knowing how and when boundaries changed is often the key to finding and understanding great quantities of historical data. For example, a farm may have been in one family for many generations, but over the decades changes in county lines may have effectively moved that farm from one county to another. When looking for old family records, how does the modern genealogist know which county seat will hold great-grandmother’s marriage certificate? How does an attorney know which county seat recorded the deed to great-great-grandfather’s farm?

In addition, population figures are commonly aggregated at the county level, but comparing statistics from one enumeration to the next may not accurately reveal actual change. Was a change in the figures from census to census due to population movement or to a change in the boundaries of the reporting counties, or to a combination of both?

With the Newberry’s Atlas of Historical County Boundaries, genealogists, geographers, historians, political scientists, attorneys, demographers, and many more now can find accurate county data that will greatly assist them in their research.

The data are organized by state and are available online in four versions:

* Viewable, interactive maps (electronic analogues to printed maps) on which the historical lines have been plotted against a background of the modern county network

* Downloadable shapefiles for use in geographic information systems (GIS)

* Downloadable KMZ files for use with Google Earth

* Downloadable and printable PDF files (each full-page frame shows a map of a different version of each county, with the historical boundaries displayed against a background of the modern county network)

Supplementing the polygons and maps for each state are chronologies, commentary on historical problems, long and short metadata documents, and a bibliography.

The project began in 1988, with principal funding provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, an independent federal agency. Additional support came from the Newberry Library, which also served as headquarters, and from other foundations and individuals. The Newberry Library is the copyright holder; all files of the Digital Atlas of Historical County Boundaries are free for use under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 Creative Commons License. Queries should be addressed to scholl@newberry.org.

Database updates

The Oxford African American Studies Center and the American National Biography, two databases useful to American historians, have both added new content in the last several months.

From the publishers' releases:

For the April 2010 update, the editors of Oxford African American Studies Center have added a group of 25 new primary source documents with accompanying commentary, highlighting the Harlem Renaissance. These fascinating documents include the first excerpt available online from social critic George Schuyler's Black No More, the first book-length satire by an African American. Among other exciting additions are an excerpt from the novel Infants of the Spring by Wallace Thurman, editor of the seminal Harlem literary journal Fire! that published works by such Harlem Renaissance authors as Countee Cullen and Langston Hughes, as well as the Zora Neale Hurston short story Spunk.

This month's update also includes 100 new online-only biographies from the African American National Biography. These brand new entries are only available through the Oxford African American Studies Center.

American National Biography

This latest online release adds 27 entries to American National Biography Online, covering a period of over 300 years. One of the earlier entries looks at the life of Jared Ingersoll, a signatory of the U.S. constitution, which sought to speak for "the People of the United States." Other subjects included in this update spoke on behalf of a different people, in a different way. Métis leader Gabriel Dumont sought redress for the grievances of his people with petitions, delegations and rebellion, while Native American Alex Posey later gave accounts of his own culture in his journalism and poetry. Ernest Hogan played a major role in bringing African American musical styles to Broadway in a career that spanned minstrelsy, vaudeville, and musical theater. Butterfly McQueen made a name for African American women in cinema with roles in such iconic films as Gone with the Wind and Mildred Pierce.

In addition, many of the later lives in this release shaped, or were shaped by, the civil rights movement. Daisy Bates made a stand against segregated education when she guided the Little Rock Nine to their places in the classroom, but the issue of segregated education remained, and both educator Terrel H. Bell and federal judge W. Arthur Garrity became involved in controversial attempts to integrate school pupils through programs of "cross-busing." Support for the civil rights movement came from many quarters, from activists and speakers like Betty Shabazz, to academics like Robert Wiebe.

Americana--Recent acquisitions, antiquarian and ephemera

Green, Ben. E. (Benjamin Edwards), 1822-1907. The irrepressible conflict between labor and capital : a brief summary of some of the chief causes and results of the late Civil War in the United States, as presented in the translator's preface to Adolphe Granier de Cassagnac's History of the working and burgher classes, in which the origin, nature and objects of the much calumniated French Commune are historically explained. Philadelphia : Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger, 1872 (Philadelphia : J. Fagan & Son)

French, L. H. (Leigh Hill), 1863- Seward's land of gold; five seasons experience with the gold seekers in northwestern Alaska, by L.H. French ... New York, Montross, Clarke & Emmons [1905?]

Grinnell, Joseph, 1877-1939. Gold hunting in Alaska as told by Joseph Grinnell. Ed. by Elizabeth Grinnell. Elgin, Ill., Chicago, David C. Cook Pub. Co. [c1901]

Howitt, William, 1792-1879. Land, labor and gold; or, Two years in Victoria : with visits to Sydney and Van Diemen's Land. By William Howitt. Boston, Ticknor and Fields, 1855.

McDermott, Walter. Losses in gold amalgamation / by Walter McDermott and P.W. Duffield. London, 1890.

Williams, Henry T. The Pacific Tourist...second edition. New York: Henry T. Williams, 1877

Stearns, John M. (John Milton), 1810-1898. The rights of man, the true basis of reconstruction : an address delivered at North Springfield, Vermont, July the fourth, 1866 / by John M. Stearns. Williamsburgh, N.Y. : Printed by L. Darbee & Son, 1866.

Collins, Mary C. (Mary Clementine), 1847-1920. Indian children of the prairie. New York : American Missionary Association, 19??

Days of '76 : souvenir program, August 8-9-10, 1929, Deadwood, S.D. : it's wild, it's Western, it's real! / [staged under auspices of the Deadwood Chamber of Commerce]. Sixth Annual "Days of '76" [Deadwood, S.D.] : Deadwood Chamber of Commerce, [1929]

U.B. Phillips, David M. Potter, and Southern history in the Stanford Library

In the process of reviewing titles in the library's American History collection, I've discovered a number of 19th century imprints which once belonged to Stanford historian David M. Potter, and which he had acquired from his Yale dissertation advisor, Ulrich B. Phillips.

A wonderful example of these association copies is Frances Butler Leigh's 1883 memoir, Ten Years on a Georgia Plantation Since the War (London: Richard Bentley and Son, 1883), which Phillips cited at length in his classic 1929 study Life and Labor in the Old South. Additionally, it was inscribed by the author(daughter of memoirist and actress Fanny Kemble), and member of a prominent plantation owning family of Georgia and South Carolina.

David Potter's papers are housed in the Department of Special Collections in Green Library.

Americana--Recent Acquisitions; antiquarian and ephemera

The Tunnels and water system of Chicago: under the lake and under the river / illustrated by Wallis. Chicago: J.M. Wing, 1874.

American Methodist Mission (India). Lucknow Station. First local report of the Lucknow Station of the American Methodist Mission in Rohilkund and Western ... Bareilly : Printed at the American Methodist Mission Press, 1861.

American Methodist Mission (India). Lucknow Station. Second local report of the Lucknow Station of the American Methodist Mission in India. Bareilly: Printed at the American Methodist Mission Press, 1862.

Tindley, E. T. The prince of colored preachers: the remarkable story of Charles Albert Tindley of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Flint, MI : Schultz Printing Co., c1942.

Fisher, Samuel J. Adventuring in brotherhood among the Negroes. New York : Board of National Missions of the Presbyterian Church, [1930?]

Butler, Jessie Allison. Humor in the dark; Coastal Carolina Negroes file applications with the F.E.R.A. [South Carolina]: J.A. Butler, c1935.

Rudd, Dan. A. (Daniel Arthur), b. 1854. From slavery to wealth, the life of Scott Bond; the rewards of honesty, industry, economy and perseverance, by Dan A. Rudd and Theo. Bond; with preface by Hon. J. C. Napier ... Madison, Ark., The Journal printing company, 1917.

Lapin, Eva. Mothers in overalls. [New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1943]

Langdon, Emma F. (Emma Florence), b. 1874. The Cripple Creek strike : a history of industrial wars in Colorado, 1903-4-5 ; being a complete and concise history of the efforts of organized capital to crush unionism. Denver: Great Western Pub. Co., 1904-5.

Kerr, May Walden. Socialism and the home. Chicago : Charles H. Kerr, [190-?]

Harford, Robert L. An itinerant's portfolio: sermons, lectures, and miscellany / by Rev. R.L. Harford. San Francisco: H.G. Parsons, 1885.

Pepper, George W. Personal Recollections of Sherman's Campaigns in Georgia and the Carolinas. Zanesville, OH, 1866.

Pepper, George W[hitfield] Under Three Flags; or the story of my life as a Preacher....Cincinnati, OH: Printed for the Author by Curts and Jennings, 1899.

Pollard, Edward A. Observations in the North: Eight Months in Prison and on Parole. Richmond: E.W. Ayres, 1865.

Shaffner, Tal. P. (Taliaferro Preston). The war in America: being an historical and political account of the southern and northern states: showing the origin and cause of the present secession war. With a large map of the United States, engraved on steel. By Colonel Tal. P. Shaffner ... London, Hamilton, Adams [1862]

Smith, George Washington, 1855-1945. When Lincoln came to Egypt. Herrin, Ill. : Trovillion Private Press, c1940.

Spencer, Cornelia Phillips. The Last Ninety Days of the War in North Carolina. New York: Watchman Publishing, 1866.

Tanner, W[illiam] R. Reminiscences of the War Between the States [Cowpens, SC], 2nd ed., 1931.

[1893 Chicago] Curtis, William Eleroy. The Relics of Columbus. An Illustrated description of the Historical Collection in the Monastery of La Rabida. Washington, D.C.: Lowdermilk, 1893?

[1893 Chicago] Markham, H.H. Resources of California. Sacramento: Johnston, 1893.

[1893 Chicago] Van Deventer, Emma. Against All Odds: A Romance of the Midway Plaisance, by Lawrence L. Lynch, (pseudo.). Chicago and NY: Rand, McNally, [1894].

[1909 Seattle] Northern Pacific Railway. Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition. Seattle June 1 to October 16, 1909 (Chicago, 1909).

[1915 San Francisco] Taylor, Edward R. Being a Souvenir of the eleventh annual Convention of the National Association of Stationers and Manufacturers, held at the Fairmont Hotel, San Francisco, California. September 27-30, 1915. [SF: Crocker, 1915].

[1915 San Francisco] Union Pacific. California and the Expositions. Yellowstone Park. How to Go and What to See Enroute Union Pacific. Omaha: 1914.

[1933 Chicago] Farmers National Grain Corp. Co-operative grain marketing. Century of Progress Exhibit. Chicago: Neeling Printing Co, 1933.

[1936 Dallas] Gulf Oil. The Voice of the Texas Centennial. The Behind the Scenes Story of the Gulf Centennial Network. (N.P., 1936)

[1936 Dallas] Official Souvenir View Book. Texas Centennial Exposition, Dallas, 1936. Dallas: Lithograph-Arts, 1936.

[1939 Golden Gate] Bardell, J.C. Bardell Panorama of Bridges and Exposition, San Francisco-Oakland California, 1939. (SF, 1939)

San Francisco Bay Area Television Archive

The J. Paul Leonard Library at San Francisco State University maintains an excellent moving image collection, the San Francisco Bay Area Television Archive. According to the collection's website:

"Established in 1982 by curator Helene Whitson, this is a unique moving image collection that chronicles sixty landmark years of social history and cultural revolution in the San Francisco Bay Area. Over 4000 hours of local newsfilm, documentaries and other video programs have been donated to the J. Paul Leonard Library by broadcasting organizations, production companies and private individuals, to be preserved as an academic resource.

A long-term, project has begun to digitally remaster and make available online all of the TV Archive's film & video material. The footage is being hosted on a searchable collections page within SF State's digital virtual information archive (DIVA)."

Especially rich is the KQED collection, examples of which can be viewed online. It's well worth checking out.

Americana; recent acquisitions--antiquarian and ephemera

Macdonald, James, 1852-1913. Food from the far West Or, American agriculture : with special reference to beef production and importation of dead meat from America to Great Britain. New York: Orange Judd, [1878].

Coleman, J. Winston. The Beauchamp-Sharp tragedy; an episode of Kentucky history during the middle 1820's. Frankfort, Ky.: Roberts Print. Co., 1950.

Tice, John H. Over the plains, on the mountains; or, Kansas, Colorado, and the Rocky mountains; agriculturally, mineralogically and aesthetically described / By John H. Tice ... St. Louis, Mo.: Printed by the "Industrial Age" Print. Co., 1872.

Miller, Kelly, 1863-1939.The Negro in the new reconstruction. Washington, D.C.: Howard University, 1919.

Americana; recent acquisitions--antiquarian and ephemera

Colton, J. H. (Joseph Hutchins), 1800-1893. Colton's traveler and tourist's guide-book through the western states and territories, containing brief descriptions of each, with the routes and distances on the great lines of travel. Accompanied by a map, exhibiting the township lines of the U.S. surveys, the boundaries of counties, position of cities, villages, settlements, etc. New York: J.H. Colton and Co., 1856.

Russell, William Howard. Skedaddle. London: George Vickers,1865.

Nichols, George Ward, 1837-1885. The sanctuary: a story of the civil war. New York, Harper & Bros., 1866.

Mosby, John Singleton, 1833-1916. Mosby's war reminiscences and Stuart's cavalry campaigns. By John S. Mosby. Boston, G.A. Jones & Co., 1887.

Claudet, F. G. (Francis George), 1837-1906. Gold: its properties, modes of extraction, value, &c., &c. / with an introduction by Neal Harlow. Vancouver : Robert Reid & Takao Tanabe, 1958. Note: Originally published New Westminster, B.C.: Office of the "Mainland Guardian", 1871.

Hall, B. M. (Barnes M.), 1803-1886. The life of Rev. John Clark / by Rev. B.M. Hall; with an introduction by Bishop Morris. New York: Carlton & Porter, 1857.

Oliver, James. A voice from the people. [Washington, D.C.? : s.n., not before 1877]

Murray, W. H. H. (William Henry Harrison), 1840-1904. Continental unity: an address delivered in Music Hall, Boston, by invitation of prominent citizens, December 13, 1888. Boston: C.W. Calkins, 1888.

O'Byrne, John. "Pikes Peak or bust", and historical sketches of the wild West. Colorado Springs, 1922.

Peck, John Mason, 1789-1858. "Father Clark," or, The pioneer preacher : sketches and incidents of Rev. John Clark / by an old pioneer. New York: Sheldon, Lamport & Blakeman, 1855.

Doggett, D. S. (David Seth), 1810-1880. bp., Memorial discourse, on occasion of the death of Bishop John Early, D.D. delivered before the Va. conference, December 2nd, 1873, during its session in the city of Norfolk, Va. Pub. by request of the Conference. Richmond, J.W. Fergusson & Son, 1875.

Hunt, Samuel Furman, 1844-1907. Conscience in public life. An address delivered before the Washington and Jefferson Literary Societies of the University of Virginia, on commencement day, Thursday, July 3, 1879, by Samuel F. Hunt. Charlottesville, Chronicle Steam Book and Job Print. House, 1880.

Lilley, Kader. My life and experience, [by] Kader Lilley. [Williamston, N.C., n.p., 1903]

Stuart, Alexander H. H. (Alexander Hugh Holmes), 1807-1891. A narrative of the leading incidents of the organization of the first popular movement in Virginia in 1865 to re-establish peaceful relations between the northern and southern states, and the subsequent efforts of the "Committee of nine," in 1869, to secure the restoration of Virginia to the Union, by Alex. H.H. Stuart. Richmond, Va., W. E. Jones, printer, 1888.

Keifer, Joseph Warren, 1836-1932. A forgotten battle: Sailor's Creek, April 6, 1865, by J. Warren Keifer. [Cincinnati, 1888]