As another semester begins at Temple University, we’d like to remind you about the range of instruction services provided by Temple’s Special Collections Research Center (SCRC) and introduce a new tool for requesting a class instruction session with us.
A primary mission of the SCRC is to provide or support instruction for students at Temple University and other area institutions. We are always delighted to expose students to the rare books, archives, manuscripts, photographs, film and digital media that make up our holdings. In the past year the SCRC hosted 66 instruction sessions in a range of disciplines, including History, English, Geography and Urban Studies, Art, Architecture, Intellectual Heritage, Social Work, Education, Film and Media Arts, Journalism, and Criminal Justice.
SCRC staff offer instruction in a variety of formats, including research orientations and specialized sessions that incorporate course- or assignment-based resources and activities. These sessions are geared toward engaging with primary source materials and teaching students primary source and archival literacy, as well as enhancing research, critical thinking, and writing skills. Over the course of the semester, students often make return visits to the reading room to conduct their own research and put into practice what they learned during their instruction session.
If you’re a Temple Faculty member, or an instructor from any institution from middle school to college, and you are interested in arranging an instruction session at the SCRC please use our new Instruction Session/Visit Request Form. We’ll work with you to tailor the session to your course’s subject matter and learning objectives. You can direct any questions regarding class visits to Josué Hurtado, Coordinator of Public Services & Outreach, or to SCRC@temple.edu.
The task of acclimating to a new environment can be daunting for anyone relocating or settling in a new city or country. In addition to establishing a home, finding work, accessing health care and other services, and possibly learning a new language, developing friendships is an important part of feeling connected to a new community. In an increasingly technologically-dependent world, social networking tools and friend finder apps like Wiith, Hey! VINA, LykeMe, and Meetup can make easy work of connecting to like-minded individuals with similar interests. The challenges associated with establishing a social network in an unfamiliar place are certainly not new.
Recently, while processing and cataloging the records of the Philadelphia based social service agency Jewish Family Service held in the Special Collections Research Center, I discovered a card file containing profiles of WWII refugees. The profile cards were created by the Philadelphia Refugee Resettlement Committee, a committee established in February 1937 by the Jewish Welfare Society (later renamed the Jewish Family Service) to support the economic and social adjustment of individuals and families displaced by the war.
The Refugee Resettlement Committee saw one of the most basic social skills—the ability to make friends—as a necessity for the positive adjustment of refugees arriving in Philadelphia. To aid this process, the committee created a service staffed by volunteer “friendly visitors.” The committee would interview these “new Americans” after their arrival, creating a profile card summarizing the individual or family’s background and social preferences. Volunteers were then matched with refugees based on shared interests in the hopes of fostering a friendship.
Lauer family profile card, 1939
Max and Fridericka Lauer and their two sons were just one of the many families who were matched with Refugee Resettlement Committee volunteers between 1938 and 1941. The Lauers’ profile card indicates the eldest son, Lothar, immigrated to Philadelphia in September 1938 and enrolled as a student at Temple University prior to his family’s arrival in March the next year. Described as a cultured family, the following excerpt from the Lauers’ profile provides some insight into the challenges they faced in creating a social network on their own:
“Mr. and Mrs. Lauer have always been interested in music, the theatre, the opera–but have been unable to partake of these activities in this country because of a financial inability, and a lack of friends with whom to share these interests. Mrs. Lauer is also interested in bridge but states that the women she has met in her neighborhood are old Jewish women whose sole interest is the house, thus giving her very little in common with them. Mrs. Lauer does not speak English at all, Dr. Lauer speaks quite poorly. It would therefore be necessary to find a German-speaking volunteer for this family.”
From An Historical Essay Concerning Witchcraft…. London: Printed for R. Knaplock and D. Midwinter, 1718 This illustration is “Matthew Hopkins Witchfinder general,” a 1793 reproduction of a well-known 1647 woodcut. The image was inserted as a frontispiece in the book after its publication.
Philip Gardiner Nordell (1894-1976), graduated from Dartmouth College in 1916, where he was an All-American in the running broad jump. He claimed to have invented the predecessor to boxed cake mixes in the 1920s—founding a business that combined the dry ingredients for muffins, allowing the baker to simply add water. Nordell’s primary research interest was early American lotteries, which he studied for over thirty years. His personal collection of early lottery tickets and related newspaper announcements, brochures, and broadsides, is now at Princeton University.
Nordell also assembled an extraordinary collection of books documenting religion, politics, and science in Britain and New England in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Temple Special Collections acquired this collection from Nordell in 1965. It contains more than 250 books, including a significant number of rare British and American imprints on religion from the 17th and 18th centuries. The collection documents the predominant and often conflicting ideas during this period, particularly related to religion, religious liberty, and rationalism in England and the New England colonies. Included in the collection are many books on “fringe” groups, such as Anabaptists, Levellers, Ranters, and atheists, as well as many works on witchcraft. Authors represented include Francis Bacon, John Cotton, Thomas Edwards, Joseph Glanvill, Thomas Hobbes, John Lilburne, Cotton Mather, and William Prynne.
Of particular interest are the books on witchcraft which represent a very comprehensive view of the topic. Originating on both sides of the Atlantic, they document the conversation that old and new worlds were having about sources, causes, and cures for witchcraft–and the eventual repudiation of the belief that witches exist.
In a 1965 letter, Nordell said: “My central aim in gathering the collection has been to furnish important source material helpful in appraising the comparative mental patterns in old and New England.… In different words, the collection furnishes much of the basic source material to form a sound judgment as to the truth of an observation made in the 1640′s, that while New England was becoming old, old England was becoming new.”
–Margery Sly, Director of Special Collections, and Katy Rawdon, Coordinator of Technical Services, Special Collections Research Center
In February 2016, as a part of The Free Library’s One Book, One Philadelphia program, Temple University Libraries’ Book Club read Cold Mountain. In this epic novel, author Charles Frazier details the love story of Ada and Inman, southerners, and their respective journeys to survive the Civil War and reunite with each other.
Reading Cold Mountain piqued my interest in the Civil War. It turns out we have a few Civil War collections right here in the Special Collections Research Center. My favorite one is a collection of seventeen letters written by Morris Manderbach, of Berks County, Pennsylvania, to his mother. Writing home whenever he could, Morris chronicled his experiences in the Union Army, seemingly without censorship, from February to November 1864.
The letters provide a glimpse into the harsh realities of war in a very personal way–different than that garnered from our small collection of United States Army Medical Records. Morris’s letters also show how the fictionalized account of Inman in Cold Mountain is realistic in many ways–his character and reminiscences of battles could easily have been drawn, at least in part, from Morris’ reflections of his experience in the war. Both Morris and the fictional Inman are documented in the areas near Richmond and Petersburg, Virginia, during the summer of 1864, where several important battles were fought, including the Battle of Cold Harbor and the Battle of the Crater.
As a drummer, Morris did not fight, although he endured the dangers, hardships, and sorrows of the battlefield like any other soldier. Several of his letters include graphic descriptions of skirmishes with Confederate troops, peppered with horrific descriptions of injuries. While he never outright mentions his fear or frustration, it comes through in his retelling of events. On June 4, 1864, he writes, “…I went out to the Reg’t with rations because they had nothing to eat for two days…. it was about ten miles to where they were we had an awful time to find them and at last we found them and when we found them the bullets came so fast we could hardly get to them…”.
In addition to descriptions of battle, he expressed genuine sorrow over the sick, injured, and dead, some of whom he knew well from back home: “…They are many wounded out of our com[mand] but you don’t know them. Peter [illegible] is wounded in the head and Abraham Hackman is shot dead. I am very sorry I cried more than I can’t tell what Tell grand mother and all the rest as soon as you can It is an awful sight to see these wounded Some die so happy That [is] what makes me cry they sing so nice and [illegible] there was two capts that I seen die yesterday that died very happy, they looked so nice and smiled there were manny there that cried…”. (June 4, 1864)
Manderbach journal, page 8
The diversity of Morris’s experience and the ebb and flow of emotions reflected in his letters are compelling. On July 24, after a very long, detailed passage about his new job cooking for the captain and lieutenants, which afforded him many appreciated luxuries, Morris’ mood changes as he explains, “…we have everything like home only it aint home that’s all the difference I spose this cruel war will soon be over.” He then goes to share that his best friend died. “Dear mother I have lost my dear and best school companion ever I had we miss him very much out here he was true and brave to his country I hope he died happy.”
Morris’s devotion to and need for his mother and news from home is perhaps the most telling part of his story. It is particularly evident in his final letters. In the weeks leading up to his death, he described his suffering in detail and looked for comfort from his mother. On October 26, he wrote from the hospital, “I now seat myself for a few moments to let you know that I aint well for about three weeks…. If you could please send me some thick licorice of the best kind for tea…”. Then, on November 10, in his last letter, “…I am alive but not well I have been very sick and can not help myself…”. He again requests licorice for tea and also a photograph, “I want you to send me your likeness for I want to see how you look…”.
I was sad to learn from a Civil War genealogy site that Morris died a few days later, on November 14 in the hospital at Point of Rocks, Virginia, after a prolonged, but unidentified illness.
If you would like to see the Morris Manderbach Letters you may do so by contacting the SCRC. To learn more about our Civil War and other military holdings, use our new Research Guide on Military History. This guide made it easy for me to identify and explore our Civil War related collections.
The class visited SCRC several times for introductions to using special collections materials and various collections, students returned individually to conduct research on their own. They each selected two zines from the collection and wrote an essay on themes found within them, and completed a timeline and report on an event in Philadelphia LGBTQ history using LGBTQ resources available in the SCRC and the John J. Wilcox, Jr. LGBT Archives.
Worksheet used by students for the metadata assignment.
During one visit, the students were given an introduction to metadata by SCRC staff, and completed an assignment to create their own metadata for a zine in the SCRC collection. The class included an explanation of what metadata is and does, both generally and in a library; what makes metadata important; and some issues related to creating metadata.
The issues discussed were directly relevant to the purpose of the course, including how metadata is inherently about the problematic act of applying labels to things; standardized metadata requires the use of terms determined by someone with their own biases; and applying labels to information resources puts the metadata creator in a position of power and authority. Issues related specifically to zines were also discussed, including how they’re often about sensitive, personal topics; they are frequently created by people from underrepresented groups; and they are occasionally written by people who do not want to be identified.
Class handout on metadata.
The students then completed an assignment to create their own metadata. They selected one zine from the collection, and completed a metadata form based on the ZineCore elements. SCRC staff and Dr. Shaw answered questions about how to describe a zine with, for example, no author or title; what to do if a zine listed no author but the student knew the name of the author; and how to come up with subject descriptions for sensitive topics.
In the Broadway musical Hamilton, George Washington tells Alexander Hamilton, “You have no control … who tells your story.” In archives and special collections, stories are preserved and told every day, whether they are the stories of presidents and politicians or those of everyday people. While the Special Collections Research Center is better known for its collections documenting modern day people and events, we do hold some materials related to our founding fathers, including those represented in Hamilton.
Alexander Hamilton. Order on First Bank of United States, May 16, 1794. Cochran History of Business Collection
Alexander Hamilton’s own handwriting can be seen in the original 1794 document “Order on First Bank of United States,” which shows Hamilton in his capacity as Secretary of the Treasury authorizing the Secretary of State, Edmund Randolph, to be paid $900 for “certain expenses which have occurred in the West Indies in relation to public service.” His work is also represented by his publication The Soundness of the Policy of Protecting Domestic Manufactures (Philadelphia: printed by J. R. A. Skerrett, 1817).
Eighteenth century printed materials in SCRC demonstrate that the personal attacks shown in the musical were just as vindictive in real life: the pamphlet Letters to Alexander Hamilton, King of the Feds (New York: orinted by Richard Reynolds, 1802), attributed to expert scandalmonger James Thomson Callender (the man credited with revealing Hamilton’s affair with Maria Reynolds), attacks Hamilton for 64 pages.
Cover of An American Colonel: A Story of Thrilling Times During the Revolution and the Great Rivalry of Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton, by Jeremiah Clemens (Akron, Ohio: Wolfe Pub. Co., 1900)
Multiple books in SCRC detail the life and death of Hamilton, including Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton’s The Conqueror: Being the True and Romantic Story of Alexander Hamilton (New York: Macmillan, 1902) and William Coleman’s 1804 publication A Collection of the Facts and Documents, Relative to the Death of Major-General Alexander Hamilton (Boston: Reprinted by Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1904).
Aaron Burr’s troubles did not end after he killed Alexander Hamilton in an 1804 duel. In 1807 he was arrested for treason at the behest of President Jefferson. The trial is extensively detailed in the two volumes of Reports of the Trials of Colonel Aaron Burr (Philadelphia: published by Hopkins and Earle. Fry and Kammerer, printers, 1808). For Burr apologists, the book An American Colonel: A Story of Thrilling Times During the Revolution and the Great Rivalry of Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton, by Jeremiah Clemens (Akron, Ohio: Wolfe Pub. Co., 1900) tells the story of Hamilton and Burr’s rivalry in pro-Burr fashion.
Marquis de Lafayette letter to “My dear sir,” December 19, 1784. Jay Edwin Sturgis Nagle Papers.
Marquis de Lafayette is represented in SCRC collections by a handwritten 1784 letter from the Jay Edwin Sturgis Nagle Collection, as well as multiple printed eulogies given upon his death in 1834. An unusual take on the Marquis is given in Walt Whitman’s short publication, Lafayette in Brooklyn (New York: George D. Smith, 1905), in which he describes being picked up and kissed by Lafayette as a small child.
Thomas Jefferson, of course, is well documented in many resources, including two letters from the Alexander James and George Mifflin Dallas Papers. SCRC also holds an early edition of Jefferson’s only full-length book, Notes on the State of Virginia(Philadelphia: R.T. Rawle, publisher, John Thompson, printer, June, 1801). The Dallas Papers also contain one letter by James Madison.
Letter, James Madison to George Mifflin Dallas, June 23, 1821. Alexander James and George Mifflin Dallas Papers
George Washington, like Jefferson, is extensively documented. One particularly beautiful Washington-related book is an 1858 publication of his farewell address upon his retirement from the presidency–the basis for the song “One Last Time” (Washington’s Farewell Address to the People of the United States: Embellished with Arabesque Designs & Illuminations. Philadelphia: Devereux & Company, 1858).
–Katy Rawdon, Coordinator of Technical Services, SCRC
Monument at 16th and Benjamin Franklin Parkway, April 27, 1964
As we enter the Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust and Yom Hashoah, the Special Collections Research Center asked Natasha Goldman, Research Associate and Adjunct Lecturer in Art History at Bowdoin College, to share her recent experiences at the SCRC and the connections she made that led to Temple’s acquisition of a previously “hidden collection.”
Goldman writes: “In 2011, I started research on Nathan Rapoport’s Monument to the Six Million Martyrs (1964), arguably the first public Holocaust memorial in the US, located in Philadelphia at the corner of 16th St., Arch St. and Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Designed by artist Nathan Rapoport, famous for his Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Monument (1948), the sculpture has largely been ignored in the literature of Holocaust memory in the US.
Abram Shnaper, a Holocaust survivor, had initiated the monument’s commission on the behalf of the Association of Jewish New Americans, a Philadelphia survivor organization that he had founded in 1954. Together with the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, the groups raised $47,000 for the monument. Shnaper painstakingly documented the entire process, from raising funds, to writing letters to the artist, to sending telegrams to Israel to invite Israeli officials to the dedication ceremony. When I visited him in his home in 2011, Shnaper conveyed to me his wish that the documents stay in Philadelphia, close to the monument.
After Shnaper’s passing, I visited his collection once again, this time at the offices of his son-in-law. I also visited the Temple University Libraries’ Special Collections Research Center, where I found the documents of the Jewish Community Relations Council—including files relating to the committee responsible for the monument in the decade after its installation. When Shaper’s son-in-law asked me where he should donate Abe’s papers, I immediately knew that Temple University would be the best home for his collection. It was Shnaper’s greatest wish that young people learn about the Holocaust so as to pass on the legacy of the six million and of the survivors. Finally, students at Temple University and scholars from near and far have direct access to these rich primary documents. They demonstrate the dedication of diverse Jewish communities to create one of the earliest US Holocaust monuments in public space.”
Selections from the Shnaper papers
Acquired by the SCRC in 2014, the Abram Shnaper Papers on the Monument to the Six Million Jewish Martyrs are open and available for research. View the online finding aid or catalog record for a description of the collection’s contents and to request access to the materials in the SCRC reading room.
Natasha Goldman’s article on Rapaport’s memorial, “Never bow your head, be helpful, and fight for justice and righteousness: Nathan Rapoport and Philadelphia’s Holocaust Memorial (1964),” will be published in the Summer 2016 in the Journal of Jewish Identities, issue 9, number 2. The article will also appear in her forthcoming book, Holocaust Memorials in the United States and Germany: From Grass-Roots Movements to National Debates (under advance contract; Temple University Press, Spring 2017).
Stu Goldman, an award winning syndicated editorial cartoonist, produced illustrations for the Philadelphia newspaper, The Jewish Exponent, from 1981 until his retirement in 2009. For many years, Goldman also served as a regular and feature cartoonist for a variety of periodicals: Centre Democrat (Bellefonte, PA), Prince George’s Sentinel (Hyattsville, MD), and the predecessor to the alternative press publication, Philadelphia Weekly, previously known as Welcomat, which featured “Eavesdrawing,” a cartoon illustrating eavesdropped true-life conversations heard throughout the city.
[Jewish Voter Roll] political cartoon, 1988
At the height of syndication, Goldman’s editorial cartoons were featured in over 70 publications. Similar to the work of fellow Philadelphia newspaper cartoonist Samuel R. Joyner, also held by the Special Collections Research Center, Goldman’s cartoons used political satire to comment on issues that affected his own community as well as those of national and international importance. During the 1988 presidential campaign season, for example, Goldman drew a number of cartoons depicting the struggle between then Massachusetts Governor Michael S. Dukakis and then Vice President George Herbert Walker Bush to attract the Jewish vote.
Dr. Who Convention, February 23, 1985
In addition to his editorial cartoons, Goldman’s papers also includes his sketchbooks, many of them produced during his travels in the United States and abroad. His sketchbooks contain images on a range of subjects from the 1984 annual meeting of the American Jewish Press Association in Washington D.C. to a 1985 Dr. Who Convention at the Valley Forge Convention Center.
To learn more about Stu Goldman’s Editorial Cartoon Collection, contact the Special Collections Research Center at scrc@temple.edu .
Born in Philadelphia in 1924, Samuel R. Joyner is among a small number of early African-American cartoonists in the United States. His pioneering work influenced many generations of African American comics and commercial artists. While working as a paper boy for the Philadelphia Tribune, his artistic talents were first recognized by publisher E. Washington Rhodes. Following his service in the United States Navy during World War II, Joyner enrolled in the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art (now known as the University of the Arts) to pursue a career as a commercial artist. He graduated in 1948.
After some difficulty finding employment, Joyner succeeded in selling his work to the Philadelphia Inquirer and Pittsburgh Courier. However, he soon realized that he was not fully valued for his creations at these papers because he was not allowed to attach his name to his art work or draw any non-white characters. In the 1950s, Joyner secured employment as an art director for the African American magazine Color. The magazine was originally based in Charleston West, Virginia, but moved its headquarters to Philadelphia in 1954. While working there Joyner gained national attention for his social and political commentary and satire and used it to encourage other African Americans to engage in activities and dialogues toward the defeat of discrimination and injustice.
Philadelphia Tribune, 2/1/94
In the 1960s, Joyner operated a print and graphics shop with his wife and four children. He continued to further his education by taking classes at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and Temple University. From 1974 until his retirement in 1990, he taught art classes and graphic communications at Rhodes Middle School, and Bok Technical High School in Philadelphia. His work was published in over 40 different publications, and he received awards and recognitions from Temple University, The National Newspapers Publishers Association, and the Houston Sun Times, among other organizations.
Houston Sun, March 28, 1994.
Located in the Special Collections Research Center, the Samuel R. Joyner Artwork Collection includes photographs, original artwork and sketches, posters, news articles, publications, and ephemera, dating from 1947 to 2005. Joyner’s art work reveals how greatly influenced he was by the sociopolitical happening in society ,and how he used his talents to challenge racism, discrimination, exploitation, and American political culture in order to give a critical “visual voice” to a range of frustrations in the African American community.
The AIDS Library, located in Center City, Philadelphia, was founded in 1987. The mission of the library is to provide information and support to those infected by HIV/AIDS as well as to caregivers, other AIDS service organizations, medical practitioners, case managers, hospitals, family members, partners, and friends of those infected with and affected by the virus. The library is a part of Philadelphia FIGHT, a local health services organization working with people with HIV/AIDS, provides resources, internet access, educational programs, and one-on-one assistance to the public.
The AIDS Library Records in the Special Collections Research Center came to Temple in 2007. Byron Lee, a volunteer, processed the records. The collection contains administrative records as well as materials previously used but now withdrawn from the library’s collection–monographs, serials, pamphlets, collections of article and newspaper clippings, collections of community newsletters, and information files. The majority of the collection covers the early years of the AIDS epidemic and early activist and political activities from around 1986 to 1997. Additional transfers from the library are in process.
The Poetry of AIDS
The collection documents one of the earliest organizations founded to educate those affected by HIV/AIDS and their communities and families. Materials detail the evolution of the library as an organization, and the many pamphlets, reports, and other publications document resources available about the AIDS epidemic. Materials by and about other Philadelphia-area organizations, as well as newspaper clippings, photographs, pins, and other ephemera, provide a glimpse of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community in Philadelphia during 1980s and 1990s.
The Special Collections Research Center is fortunate to hold a number of other collections related to the history of the Philadelphia LGBTQ community. These include the Philadelphia Lesbian and Gay Task Force Records which contain organization records, educational program records, and videotapes and audio cassettes documenting public service announcements, news reports, and events. The Scott Wilds Papers include articles, clippings, correspondence, magazines, newsletters, and reports from this Philadelphia gay activist, and include information related to political organizations, candidates, and various Philadelphia elections.
Lesbian Tide Sept 1972
The SCRC also holds a variety of newspapers and magazines published by and for the LGBTQ community both in Philadelphia and further afield, including: Philadelphia Gay News, 1973- today; the PLGTF Bulletin, 1978-82; Gayzette, 1974-75; G.L.A.D. Briefs, 1979-1986, New Gay Life, 1977-78, The Baltimore Gay Paper, 1984-87; Common Lives, Lesbian Lives, 1983-1996; The Lesbian Tide, 1971-75 and 1978-80; and Kater Street, 1978-83.
–Katy Rawdon, Coordinator of Technical Services, SCRC
