Journal of Transnational American Studies; inaugural issue

A new peer-reviewed online journal of American Studies, The Journal of Transnational American Studies, has recently been launched. Edited by Stanford English Professor Shelley Fisher Fishkin and sponsored by the American Studies Program at Stanford and the American Cultures and Global Contexts Program at the University of California, Santa Barbara, the journal is available free online. More about its launch can be found in this article from the Stanford Report.

The inaugural issue features an essay by Stanford historian Gordon Chang, titled "Emerging from the Shadows: The Visual Arts and Asian American History", excerpted from Chang, Gordon H., Mark Johnson, and Paul Karlstrom, eds. Asian American Art: A History, 1850-1970. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2008.

The Mike Wallace Interview--Harry Ransom Center

The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin has digitized 65 interviews from The Mike Wallace Interview, a pioneering interview program of the late 1950s. The Ransom Center's site provides video (several are in audio/transcript format only) along with transcripts of interviews conducted in 1957 and 1958. Featuring a wide range of guests from politics, entertainment and the media, the digitized interviews include discussions with Henry Kissinger, Earl Browder, Governor Orval Faubus, Kirk Douglas, Malcolm Muggeridge, Frank Lloyd Wright, Eleanor Roosevelt, and many others. According to the Ransom Center's website:

"Mike Wallace rose to prominence in 1956 with the New York City television interview program, Night-Beat, which soon developed into the nationally televised prime-time program, The Mike Wallace Interview. Well prepared with extensive research, Wallace asked probing questions of guests framed in tight close-ups. The result was a series of compelling and revealing interviews with some of the most interesting and important people of the day.

The Mike Wallace Interview ran from 1957 to 1960, but the Ransom Center collection includes interviews from only 1957 and 1958. In the early 1960s, Mr. Wallace donated to the Ransom Center kinescopes of these programs and related materials, including his prepared questions, research material, and correspondence."

In addition, the School of Information at the University of Texas at Austin hosts a companion site, which features "a searchable, annotatable, rich-media version of The Mike Wallace Interview Collection."

Americana; recent acquisitions--antiquarian & ephemera

The library consistently acquires antiquarian, ephemeral and out of print publications in all areas of U.S. history. The following list is a sampling of recently added titles:

Ye A.E.F. Hymnal; a collection of the doughboy lyrics that smoothed the road from Hoboken to the Rhine. Nancy: Berger-Levrault, 1918. Drawings by Henry Mayers.

Cumming, John P. More Yank talk: a review of A.E.F. humor: trench and billet. Paris: Lafayette Pub. Co., 1919.

Bailey, Seth Thomas. Henry's pal to Henry; a book of letters to Henry.[Paris] The Stars and stripes, 1919.

Brine, Mary Dow. Bessie, the Cash Girl. New York: Hunt & Eaton; Cincinnati: Cranston & Curtis, 1878.

Breed, David Riddle. The Locust-Scourge in Minnesota. New York: American Tract Society, 1878.

Maryland General Assembly. Correspondence relating to the Insurrection at Harper's Ferry, 17 October, 1859. Annapolis: B.H. Richardson, 1860.

Feval, Paul. The Golden Daggers: A romance of California. Translated from the French...By a Gentleman of Louisiana. Columbia, S.C.: Evans and Cogswell, 1864.

Bradley, Lawson. Official Guide to the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition, Portland, Oregon, June 1 to October 15, 1905. Portland, OR: Lewis and Clark Centennial and American Pacific Exposition and Oriental Fair, 1905.

Georgia Writers' Project. Atlanta, a city of the modern South. Compiled by workers of the Writers' Program of the Work Projects Administration in the State of Georgia. Sponsored by the Board of Education of the City of Atlanta. New York, Smith & Durrell [1942]

Georgia Writers' Project.Augusta; compiled and written by Augusta Unit, Federal Writers' Project in Georgia, Works Progress Administration. Sponsored by City Council of Augusta. Augusta, Ga., Tidwell Printing Supply Co., 1938.

Mountain View (Calif.). Board of Trade. A region of health and prosperity, Mountain View, issued by Board of Trade, Mountain View, Santa Clara County, California. San Francisco,Printed by the Stanley-Taylor Co.,under the direction of "The Register" [1903?]

International Christian Endeavor Convention. "California '97." Sacramento City and County Christian Endeavor Union. [Sacramento: The Union,[1897]

Campbell, Helen. Life story of Helen Campbell, the child evangelist, nine years of age, started preaching July 1924 in San Francisco. Long Beach, CA : [n.s.], 1924.

Cotton Valley, Alabama: a school in the Black Belt. Boston: Woman's Home Missionary Association, [1901?]

Gardner, John Endicott. American-Chinese calendar for 65 years, 1849-1914. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904.

U.S. Sanitary Commission. Information for Army meetings: January 1865. Philadelphia: James Rogers, 1865].

Magnum Photos in ARTstor

ARTstor has recently made the first installment of the Magnum Photos Collection available online. According to the ARTstor announcement,

"We are pleased to announce that the Magnum Photos collection is now available in ARTstor. This first launch of more than 73,000 high-quality photographs of major world events and personalities provides the academic community with access to a selection of Magnum's iconic images. The ARTstor and Magnum Photos collaboration will showcase a total of 80,000 images by this world-renowned group of documentary photographers.

This collection relates to courses of study across the arts, humanities, social sciences, and beyond. The ARTstor community will now be able to access high-quality photographs from around the world, covering industry, society and people, places of interest, politics, news events, disasters and conflict, from the late 1930s to the present day. From the Spanish Civil War to the Gulf War, from Marilyn Monroe to Paul Newman, from John Updike to Toni Morrison, from Christian Dior to Oscar de la Renta, from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the crisis in Chechnya, these images capture wars, celebrities, authors, fashion designers, and defining moments in our shared history."

Lincoln Bicentennial

The Bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth (1809-2009) has prompted a wealth of new works and commentary on the life of the sixteenth president.

The Library of Congress has produced a wonderful website detailing many events and exhibits surrounding the bicentennial. The site also includes an interactive time-line and a wealth of links and suggestions for further reading and study.

Oxford University Press maintains an interesting blog and has devoted a number of recent posts to Lincoln. The first is an excerpt of a new biography by Princeton historian James M. McPherson. McPherson was recently at Stanford and delivered a talk in a symposium on Abraham Lincoln and the West, sponsored by the Bill Lane Center for the Study of the North American West. McPherson will return to deliver the Presidential Lecture on April 13, 2009.

Additional posts on the OUP blog include a series of FAQ’s with Allen Guelzo, author of LINCOLN: A Very Short Introduction, and a look at how Lincoln almost failed by Jennifer Weber author of COPPERHEADS: The Rise and Fall of Lincoln’s Opponents in the North.

The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois, also maintains a wonderfully informative website, while the Newberry Library in Chicago also hosts a number of excellent online exhibits dealing with Lincoln.

At Stanford, the library is very fortunate to have an endowed book fund dedicated to collecting materials dealing with Lincoln and the Civil War era. The fund was established by Mrs. Virginia Fehrenbacher, in honor of her late husband, esteemed Lincoln scholar and Stanford History Professor, Don E. Fehrenbacher. Here are a few recent titles of Lincoln scholarship purchased with the Fehrenbacher Fund:

James M. McPherson, Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief (New York: Penguin, 2008)

Eric Foner, ed. Our Lincoln: New Perspectives on Lincoln and his World (New York: Norton, 2008)

Rodney O. Davis and Douglas L. Wilson, eds. The Lincoln-Douglas Debates: The Lincoln Studies Center Edition (Urbana: Knox College and University of Illinois Press, 2008)

John Stauffer, Giants: The parallel lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln (New York: Twelve, 2008)

Gerald J. Prokopowicz, Did Lincoln Own Slaves? And other frequently asked questions about Abraham Lincoln (New York: Pantheon, 2008)

Guide to historical research

A colleague at Yale forwarded this great link, a guide to research composed by historian William Cronon.

It's well worth a careful look.

Online exhibit: The Church Awakens: African-Americans and the Struggle for Justice

The Archives of the Episcopal Church USA has a fascinating new web exhibit that chronicles the relationship between the Episcopal church and African-Americans.

The exhibit contains a wealth of textual, visual and audio-visual material, including an in-depth look at the Episcopal Society for Cultural and Racial Unity (ESCRU) and its participation in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s.