Binghamton University Libraries Special Collections

Check out Commencement 2013!

jgreen — Thu, 23 May 2013 13:59:20 +0000

Cynthia Amoah, left, Anita Matey, center, and other students celebrate their graduation from Binghamton University during the Harpur College of Arts and Science’s social sciences ceremony in the Events Center on May 19.
Photo by Wayne Hanson

Eight ceremonies, 3,000 graduates and some incredible speeches. Check out all of the Commencement highlights and remarks online.

‘Using the SUNY Records Disposition Schedule to Manage Your Records’

jgreen — Thu, 16 May 2013 16:30:19 +0000

Is your desk or office piled high with paper? Are your file cabinets full? Are you confused about which records to keep and which to toss? Then come to this workshop from 10 a.m.-noon Wednesday, May 22, in Bartle Library, Room 2523. Suzanne Etherington, New York State Archives Region 6 records advisory officer, will provide an overview of the new schedule and how to use it.

Yvonne Deligato, Binghamton University Archivist, will discuss guidelines for depositing archival materials in the University Archives. To register, visit http://uctd.binghamton.edu or call the University Center for Training and Development at 777-6362.

Binghamton University to hold Commencement ceremonies May 17-19

jgreen — Thu, 16 May 2013 16:28:06 +0000

Binghamton University will confer more than 3,000 degrees for bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral candidates during Commencement ceremonies this weekend.

The University is introducing a new model for Commencement this spring, with each school and college, as well as the three divisions of Harpur College of Arts and Sciences, holding its own ceremony. Honorary doctorates and doctoral degrees will be awarded during the first-ever Doctoral Hooding Ceremony, at 3 p.m. Friday, May 17, in the Events Center.

Honorary doctorates will be awarded to pioneering pilot, educator and philanthropist Marilyn C. Link; scientist and inventor Voya Markovich; preeminent social worker and champion of the homeless Nancy Wackstein; and scientist and scholar George Whitesides.

Congrats to all of the BU graduates and to the folks receiving honorary degrees!

Hockey in Broome County is Our Featured Book for May 2013

jgreen — Tue, 14 May 2013 20:53:25 +0000

In honor of the Stanley Cup playoffs, Hockey in Broome County (2005) is Special Collections’ Featured Book for May 2013. The Binghamton Senators, AHL-affiliate and farm team for the Ottawa Senators, may not have gotten far in the Caldor Cup playoffs but you can still read all about Broome County hockey in this book!

Written by Marvin A. Cohen and Michael J. McCann and part of our Local History Collection, this book covers hockey in our county from the Broome Dusters through the Binghamton Senators. An exhibition game attended by 4,620 fans played in the new Broome County Veterans Memorial Arena in September of 1973 followed by a newly formed Broome Dusters team of the North American Hockey League started a love affair with hockey in Broome County.

The Dusters were followed by the Binghamton Whalers (AHL), the Binghamton Rangers (AHL), the B.C. Icemen (IHL), and, currently the Binghamton Senators (AHL). Hockey in Broome County follows this history with more than 200 photographs and engaging text. Relive the heroics of the Dusters’ Rod Bloomfield, “the little guy that everyone picked on.” Then skip ahead to the crowd-pleasing toughness of the Whalers’ Randy MacGregor and the more recent brilliance of the Senators’ Jason Spezza.

To see Hockey in Broome County (the book version of course!), visit Special Collections located on the second floor of the Glenn G. Bartle Library.

Green Wood Cemetery Exhibition

bkilmarx — Tue, 14 May 2013 14:10:24 +0000

Green-Wood Cemetery In Brooklyn, State’s Largest Cemetery, Celebrates 175th Anniversary

By ULA ILNYTZKY

30th May 1899: Several people stroll up a path at the Green-Wood Cemetery, located at Fifth Avenue and Twenty-Fifth Street in Brooklyn, New York. (Photo by Museum of the City of New York/Byron Collection/Getty Images)

NEW YORK — Decades before New York’s Central Park was created, Green-Wood Cemetery’s ponds, hills and winding paths provided not only a pastoral final resting place for the nation’s elite but also a recreational spot for picnics and horse-drawn buggies.

The still-active cemetery in Brooklyn was the largest cemetery in the world at the end of the 19th century. It was also the second most-visited tourist destination in New York behind the Niagara Falls.

The 478-acre site is celebrating its 175th anniversary this year with an exhibition opening Wednesday at the Museum of the City of New York. While it cannot replace a visit to the cemetery grounds, “A Beautiful Way to Go: New York’s Green-Wood Cemetery” provides historical context for one of only four U.S. cemeteries to be granted National Historic Landmark status.

Founded in 1838 in what was then the City of Brooklyn, Green-Wood was an early example of the “rural cemetery.” In contrast to the somber church graveyards in lower Manhattan that were rapidly filling up, it offered vistas of the New York Harbor and a new view of death that essentially said: “If you live a good life, this is the kind of afterlife you will have. It will be a place like this,” said curator Donald Albrecht.

Visitors enter Green-Wood through the soaring spires of Gothic Revival-style gates designed by Richard Upjohn, the architect of Trinity Church in lower Manhattan who is buried there.

“It became THE place to be buried because of the varied features that it has,” said Green-Wood historian Jeff Richman, and it attracted such luminaries as actress Laura Keene, who was on stage when President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, New York Tribune founder Horace Greeley and “The Father of Baseball” Henry Chadwick.

“There was no Metropolitan Museum of Art or Brooklyn Museum, so you went to Green-Wood,” he said. The scenic place offered an escape from crowded and unsanitary streets and an outdoor museum of hillside mausoleums, obelisks, statues and tombs designed by leading architects of the day.

Decades later, Green-Wood’s natural topography became the model for the creation of Central Park, Brooklyn’s Prospect Park and Llewellyn Park, N.J., America’s first planned suburb.

By 1890, the cemetery encompassed 478 acres. Today, it is the largest New York City cemetery in terms of acreage with 560,000 people interred under or within 100,000 monuments or tombs. Among them are Cooper Union founder Peter Cooper; “The Father of the Erie Canal” and New York Gov. DeWitt Clinton; composer-conductor Leonard Bernstein; and graffiti artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.

The exhibition, which runs through Oct. 13, transplants visitors to the cemetery via a giant Green-Wood map superimposed on the gallery’s floor and walls. Important gravesites are marked by illuminated glass cases.

It addresses five major themes: Green-Wood and popular culture; the Hudson River School painters buried there; Green-Wood’s architecture; Green-Wood’s influence on American parks and suburbs; and Green-Wood and mourning, which includes such 19th-century objects as a locket containing the hair of the deceased.

In the early days, when the combined population of Brooklyn and Manhattan was 1 million, 500,000 people a year visited Green-Wood. Today, it has 200,000 to 300,000 annual visitors.

Souvenirs and prints with Green-Wood imagery were wildly popular. People bought them to hang on their walls or view them through 3-D stereographs. Two vintage clocks decorated in Green-Wood motifs are among the artifacts in the show.

One thing visitors won’t see at the exhibition is a singing docent.

On a recent cemetery trolley tour, volunteer guide and professional singer Marge Raymond regaled a group at Bernstein’s gravesite with a rendition of his “Somewhere” from “West Side Story.”

The graves of Bernstein and Basquiat are simple and among the most visited. Basquiat’s, located in a row of small gravestones, stands out for the paintbrushes, stuffed animals and other souvenirs left by fans.

The cemetery also houses 30 catacombs, built because of the Victorians’ fear of being buried alive. Since a coma could mimic death, they were equipped with skylights, air vents, safety caskets with buttons that flipped open the lids and bells that would sound above ground.

Battle Hill, the highest point in Brooklyn and the first major Revolutionary War battle fought after the Declaration of Independence, also is found in Green-Wood. A statue of the Roman goddess of wisdom, Minerva, marks the spot, positioned to face the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor.

From the gravesites of 5,000 Civil War soldiers to the handsome chapel designed by the same architects of Grand Central Terminal, the cemetery is a symphony of art, architecture, history and nature. Yet today, there are New Yorkers who have never set foot in Green-Wood or know of its rich history.

“The goal of the exhibition,” Albrecht said, “is to convince people that this incredible national treasure is sitting in plain sight.”

Marilyn C. Link to receive honorary degree

jgreen — Wed, 08 May 2013 13:28:27 +0000

Four honorary degrees will be awarded during Binghamton University’s Doctoral Hooding Ceremony at 3 p.m. Friday, May 17, at the Events Center on campus. Marilyn C. Link, Voya Markovich, Nancy Wackstein ’73 and George Whitesides will each be honored.

Marilyn C. Link

A pioneering pilot, educator, philanthropist, and managing director of an oceanographic institute, Marilyn C. Link’s illustrious career has given her a breadth of experience and inspired generations of students at Binghamton University and other educational organizations.

She attended Syracuse University and graduated from the aviation and flight training program at Stephens College. She earned her bachelor’s degree in education from New York University and her master’s degree from the University of Illinois-Champaign.

The first managing director of the Harbor Branch Foundation, now the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute (HBOI), she is now director emerita. HBOI recovered remains of the Challenger and promotes exploration, protection and wise use of the oceans’ resources.

Link has been integral to carrying out the mission of the Link Foundation which has provided grants totaling more than $13 million to universities, including Binghamton University, and non-profit organizations since its inception.

Her personal support in six figures, coupled with Link Foundation donations, has endowed the Edwin A. Link Organ Professorship, the Marion Clayton Link Endowment Fellowship in Creative Writing and the Marilyn C. Link Endowed Scholarship for Women in Finance, as well asf the Edwin A. Link and Marion Clayton Link Collections at the Binghamton University Libraries.

Through the Link Foundation, Link supported establishment of the Edwin A. Link Instructional Laboratory for the Thomas J. Watson School of Engineering and Applied Science.

She is a member of Binghamton University’s Esther W. Couper Heritage Society, a Leadership Society member, recipient of the Alumni Association Award for Distinguished Service and the Watson School Founders Award, and an honorary life member of the Binghamton University Forum.

Items from Hemingway’s Cuba home go to JFK Library

bkilmarx — Mon, 06 May 2013 20:06:09 +0000

Published – May 06 2013 01:54PM EST

BRETT ZONGKER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new partnership will allow U.S. scholars and the public
to get a fuller view of the trove of books and records Ernest Hemingway left
at his home in Cuba where he wrote some of his most famous works.
Cuba and a private U.S. foundation are working together to preserve more of
the novelist’s papers and belongings that have been kept at his home near Havana
since he died in 1961. On Monday at the U.S. Capitol, U.S. Rep. James McGovern of Massachusetts and the Boston-based Finca Vigia Foundation are scheduled to announce the digitization of 2,000 Hemingway papers and materials. The digital copies will be transferred to Boston’s John F. Kennedy Library.

This is the first time anyone in the U.S. has been able to examine these
items from the writer’s Cuban estate, Finca Vigia. The records include passports
showing Hemingway’s travels and letters commenting on such works as his 1954
Nobel Prize-winning “The Old Man and the Sea.” Jenny Phillips, the granddaughter of Hemingway’s editor, Maxwell Perkins, founded the Finca Vigia Foundation in 2004 after a visit to Havana. She saw Hemingway’s home falling into disrepair and became aware of the many records kept in a damp basement at the estate. She worked to get permission from the U.S. Treasury and State
departments to send conservators and archivists to Cuba to help save the
literary records. “This is the flotsam and jetsam of a writer’s life — it’s his life and his work,” Phillips said. “All these bits and pieces get assembled in a big
puzzle.”

The newly digitized files include letters from Hemingway to the actress Ingrid Bergman, letters to his wife Mary, passports documenting his travels and bar bills, grocery lists and notations of hurricane sightings. It does not include any manuscripts. An earlier digitization effort that opened 3,000 Hemingway files in 2008 uncovered fragments of manuscripts, including an alternate ending to “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and corrected proofs of “The Old Man and the Sea.”
Restoration work continues at Hemingway’s Finca Vigia estate in Cuba. A new
building is being constructed with library-quality atmospheric controls to house
the writer’s books and original records.

“Scholars have been trying for years to see what’s there, and because of the
political situation between the two countries, the Cubans held on very fast to
what they had there,” said Phillips, who spent time negotiating on both the
Cuban and American sides to gain access to the Hemingway collection. “I think
this is an extraordinary, one-of-a-kind collaboration between the two
countries.” McGovern, an advocate of normalizing relations between the U.S. and Cuba, has called the collaboration over Hemingway historic. In 2009, he said it was “a turning point toward a more rational, mature relationship.”

The Kennedy Library holds a large Hemingway collection of more than 100,000
pages of writings and 10,000 photographs because Jacqueline Kennedy
helped arrange a place for the items. Hemingway’s wife, Mary Welsh Hemingway,
returned to Cuba in 1961, after the writer’s death, hoping to retrieve his
belongings. Because of Fidel Castro‘s rise to power, President John F. Kennedy helped arrange for her visit to take Hemingway’s possessions back to the United
States. Mary Hemingway took a boatload of materials back to the U.S., burned some records deemed sensitive and left thousands of other volumes and documents at the home near Havana.

Digitizing history: 82,000-manuscript collection Vatican Library goes online

jgreen — Fri, 03 May 2013 19:40:21 +0000

Credit: FILIPPO MONTEFORTE / AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Little things slow down the process of putting 40 million pages of ancient manuscripts in the Vatican Library online: gold or silver in the illuminations, bindings that disintegrate if you open them, getting the synergy right.

“It is important to realize if there is gold or silver in a manuscript. That requires a very particular process because the light will be different,” said Luciano Ammenti, who is in charge of IT at the Vatican and the project to digitize the storied library’s 82,000 manuscripts.

The project, finally up and running a year after its announcement, uses an armada of equipment to capture the vast range of pages amassed by the Vatican over five or six centuries into one of the world’s most valuable collection of books and manuscripts.

Researching New York 2013 Call for Papers

jgreen — Fri, 03 May 2013 15:20:57 +0000

November 14 & 15 – University at Albany – SUNY – Researching New York 2013: Perspectives on Empire State History

The organizers of Researching New York 2013 invite proposals for presentations on any aspect of New York State history -in any time period and from any perspective. This annual conference brings together historians, archivists, public historians, graduate students, teachers, documentarians, and multimedia producers, to share their work on New York State history. We especially encourage submissions that reflect on the long and complicated history of religion in New York, including the intersections of religion and church history with the secular, civic, and public life of its citizens.

While welcoming submissions on all aspects New York State history, we also seek proposals that examine any aspect of religion and spirituality in the long history of New York. Religion, religious practice, and expressions of spirituality infuse the history of New York State in myriad ways. Numerous events in American religious history originated or unfolded in the churches, schools, courts, and legislative bodies, as well as in the streets and communities across New York.

Proposals are due July 1, 2013. Complete panels, workshops, media presentations, or sessions are preferred; partial panels and individual submissions will be considered. For complete sessions please submit a one-page summary of your session and a one-page abstract and curriculum vita for each individual participant. For individual submissions, include a one-page abstract and one-page curriculum vita. Submissions must include name, address, telephone number, and e-mail address. Submit electronically to resrchny@albany.edu. All proposals must include all anticipated audiovisual needs and time constraints.

For further information, visit the Researching New York Web site at http://nystatehistory.org/researchny/

We also seek commentators for panels. Please indicate your interest by contacting us at resrchny@albany.edu, indicating your area of expertise, along with a one-page vita.

Upstate Early American History Workshop on Friday – May 3

jgreen — Thu, 02 May 2013 21:03:34 +0000

“Our Former Neighbors: Creating and Recreating Community After the American War of Independence, 1783-1791″ will be presented by Dan Pearson, Binghamton University, from 3:30-5 p.m. Friday, May 3, in LN-1106, the IASH Conference Room.

The paper presented at this Upstate Early American History Workshop was pre-circulated and given a formal comment before open discussion. Anyone who would like to receive an electronic copy or needs directions should e-mail Kellie Hasselwander atkhassel1@binghamton.edu or Douglas Bradburn at bradburn@binghamton.edu.