New and Notable Has Moved!

New and Notable has moved! Please visit us on our Special Collections and University Archives homepage, where you can click on "New and Notable," browse our latest entries , and even subscribe to our blog feed. Our blog entries are now illustrated with photo galleries of each subject, so make sure to scroll down and see all of the great stuff from our collections, now each and every Monday!

Tour SCUA's New Webspace!

Take a tour of SCUA's spot on the Library's dazzling new website! We are excited for the Library's new look, and we want to take you on a tour of our new space. First, take a look at the new lightbox feature at the bottom of each news post. This gallery of images will accompany each post, and allow us to give you a deeper look at some of collections, services, and tools we feature on our blog. On our Home page, you can get a glimpse of some of our featured collections in the revolving image box--just click on "Read more" to see details about that collection. Near the bottom of the Home page, you'll see a feed to this blog--watch this space for frequent new content! Next, check out About the Collections to explore overviews of our Print Collections, Manuscript and Archival Collections, University Archives, Graphic and Ephemera Collections, and Digital Collections. Then take a look at Using the Collections, watch our orientation video, and read over our Reading Room Guidelines before your visit.

Check out our Exhibits section for a glimpse of current exhibits and events, and browse our Online Exhibits for engaging, in-depth, multimedia experiences with some of our collections. Browse our Research Tools to find our materials in the Library Catalog or Finding Aid Database, or by subject in our multiple Research Guides. Our new Online Materials page gathers in one spot all of our content available to you online, including University Publications, Manuscript and Archival Collections (new! More about that next week), extensive Oral Histories, and Online Exhibits. Explore our instruction and duplication possibilities under Services, and use our new webform to Ask a Question without sending an email. To see our current hours, look to the left of the main space, and to see our contact info, scroll to the bottom. We're so pleased to have a new look for the new school year. Please give us your feedback!

(SCUA will continue to post here for a little while, but soon all of our New and Notable content will be featured solely on SCUA's new website.)

The Matter of Front Matter

Last October, Special Collections embarked on a project to improve the "front matter" in the finding aids of some of our archival and manuscript collections. "Front matter" is a term that archivists use to describe the "front" parts of a finding aid, or all the components found before the Box and Folder List. Primarily, the term refers to the Historical or Biographical Note and the Scope and Content Note. These components help researchers understand the context and content of a collection, and are essential to understanding how a particular collection can be used for research.

Many of our collections processed and made available for research in the 1960s through 1990s had front matter that was incomplete, too brief, or even inaccurate. So, we began working to refresh and revise the finding aids of some of the smaller collections, and to date we've completed over thirteen revisions. Browse the list below to discover some new treasures in our collections! We'll continue on this project in the coming year and tackle some front matter in our larger collections.

Associated Students Records
Campus Laboratory School Records
Oscar Kaplan Papers
Lemon Grove Chamber of Commerce Records
Lemon Grove Fruit Growers Association Records
Anthony Sonka Papers
San Diego State Historical Collection
Exploring Family School Records
Agnes Osgood Papers
Allen Dairy Collection
National Conference of Christians and Jews Records
William Egle Papers

Subject Browsing with Style

Did you know you can browse our manuscript and archival collections by subject? Our Finding Aid Database (now newly redesigned--more about that coming up next time!) allows users to see lists of all the subjects covered in our collections, and to filter these subjects by corporate name, geographic name, topical term, and more. The range and diversity of subjects is really quite astounding! 

Just to whet your appetite, here's an A to Z sampling: Alcoholism, Butchers, Cemeteries, Department Stores, Entomology, Folklore, Gerontology, Horse Racing, Indian Pottery, Jewelry, Low-income Housing, Miners, Nursing, Opera, Peace Movements, Race Discrimination, Stagecoaches, Tuna Fishing, Voyages and Travels, World Politics, Youth Movements, and Zines. 

Click here to browse a full list of topical terms. To browse all of our collections by subject, see our complete subject guides, which include print collections, unprocessed archival collections, and graphic and ephemera collections. Stop by Special Collections and University Archives to explore!

Using Finding Aids

Special Collections is proud to share a new tutorial called Using Finding Aids (best viewed with the latest version of Quicktime). Have you ever started a research project, quickly overwhelmed at the idea of working through lots and lots of material to find what you're looking for? If you're using an archival or manuscript collection as part of your research, finding aids can help. Finding aids are tools created by archivists that help users understand and navigate archival and manuscript collections. Finding aids describe and detail the organization and the contents of a collection. We created this tutorial because we know it can be daunting to embark on a project using primary sources or archival collections for the first time, and knowing your way around a finding aid can make the process much easier! 

The tutorial is divided into nine brief sections, and includes a quiz to test your knowledge after you've progressed through the sections. Learn more about these important tools, then stop in to Special Collections to put your knowledge to work!

Welcome, Summer!

Special Collections can't wait to get into the SDSU Summer Session, beginning today! We're very excited for a summer of important projects and events in Special Collections, including: launching our newest video tutorial, called Using Finding Aids; a redesign of the library's website; the release of a suite of major archival collections, including the San Diego Opera Collection; and the launch of our Virtual Reading Room. The Virtual Reading Room (powered by Archon Version 3.14) allows us to embed digital copies of materials in archival collections directly into the collection's online finding aid, so that users can access collections digitally exactly as they would see them in our physical Reading Room.
We are also looking forward to welcoming our new Dean, Dr. Gale Etschmaier, who will be joining the library on June 30!
Stay tuned to hear more about newly processed collections, new acquisitions, upcoming events, and exciting new tools from Special Collections!
Image is from the San Dieguito Boys' and Girls' Club Records.

Founder's Day and the 40th Anniversary of Love Library Dedication

Happy May! The first week of May has always been a special time at SDSU. For many years, students, faculty, and alumni would gather on campus this week for Founder's Day celebrations. Founder's Day (which was also called Dedication Day and May Day at various points in our history) commemorated the passage of the bill creating the San Diego Normal School by California state legislature in 1897, and was marked by festivities, performances, events, demonstrations, and open houses across campus. Programs, ephemera, news clippings, and correspondence related to Founder's Day is now collected in our Founder's Day Collection here in SCUA, as well as in the University Archives Photograph and Topical Files.

The celebration in 1971 was particularly festive, as the campus dedicated our (then brand-new) Love Library with a special ceremony. Though the ribbon-cutting on the new building had already happened in March, and though students had been able to check out materials for some time, the dedication ceremony for Love Library fixed the Library's central place in the campus and in the hearts of faculty and students. Novelist Irving Stone gave the remarks at the ceremony in the Open Air Theatre, and Everett Gee Jackson unveiled his portrait of President Love. Happy Birthday to SDSU and to Love Library!

Sesquicentennial Events in April

Join SCUA this week as we begin our short series of lectures presented in conjunction with our Civil War exhibit, Echoes of the War: The Civil War Sesquicentennial. This Thursday, April 14, at 4 p. m. we will host Ed Blum, assistant professor of history at SDSU as he discusses "Satan and the Civil War: Considering Ultimate Evil in the War that Shaped America." The lecture will be held in Room LL430 of the SDSU Library.

Next Wednesday, April 20, Thomas Bahde will discuss "Neither Historian Nor Novelist: Captain Francis Moore & The Making of Civil War Memory" in Room LL430 at 7:30 p.m. Bahde, who is the curator of the current exhibit, will speak on a Civil War soldier's memoir held in our collection. Join us to hear these terrific speakers!

The Old West in Special Collections: the Annie L. Jobs Photograph Album

One of our newest collections is perfect for study on mining towns, western emigration, and the Old West. The Annie L. Jobs Photograph Album. This album features photographs of Flint, Idaho. Flint was a mining town with a population of fifteen hundred in Owyhee County, Idaho run by the Flint, Idaho Mining Company during the 1880s and 1890s. Native Americans from the surrounding area often made incursions into camp, and eventually the United States Calvary was called in to prevent further disturbances. Today, Flint is a ghost town with only a few buildings still standing.

Compiled by Annie L. Jobs (possibly the wife of Thomas A. Jobs, Esquire) in 1886 and 1887, the scrapbook is a rich resource for the study of mining town life in the Old West. Jobs' scrapbook features photographs of camp holiday celebrations, miner tents and dwellings, the town mill, the boarding house, other camp buildings, surrounding scenery, and much more. Jobs meticulously describes each photograph and lists the names of individuals in the photograph, including the intriguing "Professor Duff."

For other Old West materials, check out the California Stage Company Register, a log of stage coach runs between North San Juan, Sacramento, Nevada (CA), and Virginia City between 1864 and 1868. Also see the J.W. Eighmy Notebook, a doctor's notebook from 1875 containing prescriptions and formulas for ailments like gout, syphilis, snake bites, and more, which can be linked to a northern California town.

Source: http://www.ghosttowns.com/states/id/flint.html

More Newly Processed: San Diego's Jewish History

In a previous post we announced that Special Collections has processed fifteen new archival and manuscript collections over the last few months. Next up in our series of posts describing them are several collections documenting San Diego's Jewish history. In this week's spotlight are the Morris Showel Cottage of Israel Collection, the Gussie K. Singer City of Hope Collection, the Abraham Nasatir Papers, the Ida Nasatir Papers, and the Women's Institute for Continuing Jewish Education Collection. All of these collections were donated to Special Collections by the Jewish Historical Society of San Diego.

Morris Showel Cottage of Israel Collection, 1948-1999 (MS-0462)

Dancing Girls Outside the Cottage of Israel

Balboa Park, 1952

Morris Showel was president of the Cottage of Israel in Balboa Park when it opened in August of 1948 - three months after the founding of the state of Israel. The Cottage's operation was directed by a Board elected at an annual meeting by the general membership. Membership was open to anyone interested in Israel. The Cottage, now known as the House of Israel, is one of the 29 Exposition cottages that make up the House of Pacific Relations located in Balboa Park. The collection consists of documents from promotional events either hosted by the Cottage of Israel or sponsored by other Jewish organizations in the San Diego area. It includes newspaper articles, photographs, flyers, announcements, displays, and invitations which document the public relations efforts of the Cottage of Israel from 1948 to the late 1990s.

Gussie K. Singer City of Hope Collection, 1977-2008 (MS-0463)
Founded in 1912 as the National Jewish Consumptive Relief Association of Southern California in Duarte, CA, the City of Hope offered treatment and services as a sanatorium for tubercular patients of any religious or ethnic background. Local chapters were started across the country to help raise funds for the hospital. The Gussie K. Singer Chapter of the City of Hope was founded in 1928 as the Jewish Consumptive Relief Association of San Diego. It was the second chapter formed, and is the oldest chapter still in existence. The collection consists of tribute books, newsletters, certificates, and other papers, including a 1971 tribute book honoring Harry Bronstein.

Abraham Nasatir

Abraham Nasatir Papers,1939-1995 (MS-0465)
Abraham Nasatir was born in 1906 in Santa Ana, California. He entered UC Berkeley at the age of 14, and received his PhD in History at age 21. While studying at Berkeley he met his future wife, Ida Hirsch, an English student. After marrying in 1929, the couple moved to San Diego where Nasatir began a 50-year teaching career at San Diego State College. Focusing on his fields of Spanish border, Mississippi Valley, and Gold Rush history, Nasatir published 14 books and numerous articles. He also served as vice-consul for Paraguay and Ecuador. As an Orthodox Jew, he was a leader and educator of the Jewish community. Nasatir Hall on the SDSU campus is named for him. The collection consists of correspondence, articles, photographs, newspaper clippings, materials from various Jewish institutions in the area, items about Nasatir Hall, and materials on the destruction of their home by fire and the rescue of their papers.

Ida Nasatir aboard the Isle de France, 1930

Ida Nasatir Papers, 1897-1995 (MS-0466)
Ida Nasatir was born in Denver, Colorado in 1910. She attended UC Berkeley and majored in English. She met her husband, while at Berkeley. They married in 1929, and came to San Diego when Abraham accepted a teaching position at San Diego State College. Ida was an English teacher, specializing in working with emotionally handicapped children at San Diego High School. She also taught adult education programs. She was very active in the Jewish community, where she was well known as a teacher, book reviewer, and writer. She chronicled community members by writing their obituaries. Nasatir traveled widely in Europe and South America with her husband throughout his career. She wrote about their travels in detailed correspondence and articles. She passed away in 2005. The collection consists of press clippings, book reviews, correspondence, obituaries, and a yellow star that reads "Juif" worn by a French Holocaust survivor and given to Nasatir during a visit to Paris.

First Women's Seder in San Diego at the Woman's Institute
for Continuing Jewish Education, Spring 1979

Woman's Institute for Continuing Jewish Education, 1977-2004 (MS-0464)
The Woman's Institute for Continuing Jewish Education was founded in 1977 and existed until 2004. Its mission was to bring women together to study with Jewish female scholars and artists who were accomplishing cutting-edge research and scholarship. The Institute pioneered the teaching of Torah, Talmud, and Midrash by women and established the Shabbat lecture series. The collection contains complete documentation of all the programs and publications of the Institute, including books, newsletters, press releases, clippings, photographs, and a video tape. The collection was created and donated to the Jewish Historical Society of San Diego by Dr. Irene Fine who was co-founder and director of the Institute. The Institute was the first such women's institute in the country.

Newly Processed Collections for the Spring Term

Special Collections is pleased to announce that we have fifteen newly processed collections, open for research for the Spring 2011 semester! We'll be featuring them in groups here on New and Notable for the next few weeks.

First to appear here is a group of collections documenting San Diego local history, including the James B. Pearce Papers, the San Diego Center for Children Photograph Collection, and the San Diego Public Information Office Records.  The Pearce and San Diego Center for Children collections were processed by department staff, while the San Diego IPO Records were processed by an undergraduate intern from the History Department.

James B. Pearce Papers, 1924-1963 (MS-0182)

James Pearce was born in Minnesota in 1896.  He moved to Lemon Grove in 1923 with his family.  When Pearce's father passed away in 1927, he took over the family real estate business, which specialized in the sale of ranches.  Pearce also served as a member of the Lemon Grove Chamber of Commerce.  The James B. Pearce Papers (1924-1963) primarily document the advertising activities and real estate listings of Pearce's real estate company, H. Pearce "Ranches Only."  Of particular interest is the first issue of the Lemon Grove Empire (1928), a rare newspaper about the area's agricultural activities, and scrapbook of Pearce's real estate listings.

San Diego Center for Children Photograph Collection, ca. 1920s and 1930s (MS-0451)

The San Diego Center for Children is San Diego's oldest accredited nonprofit organization serving children and adolescents.  During the first half of the 20th century, the Women and Children's Home was located in Balboa Park, in a building designed by architect Irving Gill.  This small collection consists of sixteen photographic negatives of the San Diego Center for Children.  Photos of the interior and exterior of the Balboa Park building, designed by Irving Gill, are included, as well as photographs of children and their adult caretakers.  The images date from the late 1920s or 1930s.

San Diego Public Information Office Records, 1971-1978 (MS-0450)

In 1970, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors established the San Diego Public Information Office (IPO) which was developed into a public relations firm under the Chief Administrative Office and charged with creating a communications program for San Diego County government.  The San Diego and the daily responsibilities of the Public Information Office (PIO) in the county.  The Collection consists of community liaising program files, correspondence, memorandums, financial reports, and purchase orders documenting the management and daily repsonsibilities of the PIO.

(Above image is from a scrapbook which is part of the James B. Pearce Papers.)

Historical African-American Materials in Special Collections: the John and Jane Adams Photograph Collection

At the close of African American History Month, we want to feature some of the many historical materials related to the African-American experience in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries available in our collections. Special Collections has numerous and compelling collections documenting San Diego's local African-American community, such as the Leon Williams Papers, the Reverend George Walker Smith Papers, the Harold K. Brown Papers and more. Other relevant materials can also be found within many other archival and manuscript collections.

Displayed here is a photograph from a travel scrapbook in the John and Jane Adams Photograph Collection. The photograph shows a group of African-American boys and the caption reads, "Ebony models, who were paid ten cents for posing - Harrisonvill, MO. [sic]" Also from this collection is a fascinating photograph of a group of African-American workers at the Green River House in Louisville, Kentucky, 1896. What can we learn about race in American culture and society at the time these photographs were taken? What questions arise from these images?

A Fitting Football Season Ender

Congratulations to San Diego State University alum Marshall Faulk, elected in his first year of eligibility to the NFL Hall of Fame! One of the most heavily decorated Aztec athletes of all time, Marshall Faulk was the first Aztec named first-team All-American by the Associated Press. He accomplished the feat three times, and left SDSU holding 19 school records, including career rushing yards (4,589). He ran for an NCAA-record 386 yards in one game. Faulk, runner-up for the 1992 Heisman Trophy, holds every SDSU career and single season rushing record but one. He was drafted by the Indianapolis Colts as the number two choice in the first round of the 1994 NFL Draft, and was named AFC Rookie of the Year in 1994. He won a Super Bowl with the Rams in 1999. Faulk is the only player to accumulate 12,000 rushing yards and 6,000 receiving yards in a career. He earned four Pro Bowl trips, three Offensive Player of the Year Awards, and the 2000 NFL MVP Award. To see more about Faulk's amazing career at SDSU, consult the sports pages of the Daily Aztec from the early 1990s. These are available in Special Collections and University Archives, or in Microforms. Coming soon: a keyword-searchable digital version of the full run of Daily Aztecs and the newspaper's predecessors! Be on the lookout here for news of this digital version this spring.

Opening Today!

At long last, we are able to say that our Civil War exhibit is open! Though there have been some delays (due to the arrival of fantastic new exhibit cases for our Donor Hall), this exhibit is worth the wait. “Echoes of the War: The Civil War Sesquicentennial” draws on the rich holdings of Special Collections and University Archives to explore the war’s major themes and to highlight the experiences of ordinary Americans during the conflict. From the debates over slavery and abolition that presaged the onset of the war, to the experiences of both Northern and Southern fronts, the exhibit seeks to move viewers away from the noise of battle and closer to the daily experiences of both soldiers and civilians. Original diaries, letters, documents, and photographs highlight soldiers’ everyday lives, their experiences in camp, and their sometimes-conflicted feelings about the causes of the war. The exhibit also engages the war as it was remembered and commemorated by veterans and later generations, asking viewers to question their own understanding of the war and its consequences. The volunteer guest curator for this exhibit is Thomas Bahde, Ph.D., Visiting Scholar in the History Department at UCSD and editor of the memoir of Civil War soldier Captain Francis T. Moore, forthcoming from Northern Illinois University Press. Stop by the Donor Hall today to peruse this fantastic display!

There are two partner exhibits to "Echoes of the War," and both are in Special Collections, on the 4th floor of the Library Addition. "Sources of Conflict: Researching War in Special Collections" showcases our numerous military-related collections and compelling primary sources related to the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, WWI, WWII, and Vietnam. This is a popular research and writing topic among undergraduates, and this display uncovers some amazing archival content that can be used in papers and research projects for classes in history and other disciplines. Finally, "Dear Doc Post: San Diego State's Aztec News Letter in World War II" displays some fantastic letters from student servicemen written from all over the world during the Second World War. They wrote home to Dr. Lauren Post, who published their letters in the Aztec News Letter and thus united scattered "Staters" during a difficult time. Photographs, ephemera, and university publications are display, and explore areas such as the making of the newsletter, combat reports, the letter as artifact, and travel accounts. Come on up to SCUA this semester and check these out!

Later, we'll have updates on lectures and events related to the Civil War exhibit--check back soon!

Everett Gee Jackson's Christmas Cards

Special Collections is fortunate to have a large selection of holiday ephemera, both in the John and Jane Adams Greeting Card Collection and in the Topical Series of the John and Jane Adams Postcard Collection (now newly reopened after this fall's reprocessing). These collections can be drawn upon for primary sources to service a multitude of research topics and fields, including American Studies, graphic design, the history of advertising, and general cultural history. But tucked within Dr. Adams' personal papers lies a wonderful folder of unique Christmas greetings. These postcards are all addressed to the Adams' by their friend and colleague Everett Gee Jackson, who taught in the SDSU Art Department for over thirty years. One of San Diego's most recognized and respected artists, Jackson nurtured the Art Department through some of its most notable achievements as its chairman, including a 1934-1936 project to paint social realist murals in Hardy Tower (now restored and removed to the library).

Each Christmas, Jackson created a quirky original linocut in his distinctive style to mark the season, and sent these postcards to intimate friends and loved ones. The designs were often poignant--the card from 1944 hopes for peace coming to a war-torn world. In the 1960s, the linocuts frequently allude to the contemporary space race, as this monkey on a rocket (below) from 1961; however, the Cthulhu astronaut from 1968 begs for explanation! Stop by Special Collections for a look at these fantastic greetings from a famous artist.

Beginning today, our hours will be Monday through Friday, 10am to 5pm. We will be closed December 24th through January 2nd. Join us in January for the 2011 Spring Semester!

The WWII Servicemen's Correspondence Collection

Today's anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941 warrants a look at one of our wonderful University Archives collections relating to soldier-students at San Diego State. The World War II Servicemen's Correspondence Collection is an incredible wealth of personal war experiences, written by San Diego State students serving all over the world. During the early months of World War II, geography professor Lauren Post began the Aztec News Letter, a highly popular newsletter sent to dispersed Aztecs serving in all branches of the military. Servicemen and their families wrote to Dr. Post to relate news of themselves, and to tell of the war activities of other "Staters" they had encountered. Many soldiers express, in poignant terms, their personal difficulties in dealing with combat, with suffering, with loss, and with the war atrocities they were seeing.

This letter, written only three months after Pearl Harbor by football player Wally "Mac" McAnulty, likens his experience at Pearl Harbor to a game: "It was really something on the seventh of December. I'll tell you it was just the same as waiting for a kickoff. Your old stomach was just as tight as it could be but when the first gun was fired, boom, it was gone and you were figgering [sic] how to run one through tackle." Wally goes on to say that the one job he dislikes in his service so far is that of censor: "I once thought that reading other folks mail might be fun but boy was I fooled. Reading a hundred to a hundred and fifty letters a day is no fun."

Currently, Special Collections is working on a project to capture data about each of the approximately 3000 letters in this fantastic collection, in anticipation of its eventual digitization. Selections will be on display beginning next Spring in a small exhibit featuring the collection in the Special Collections foyer. This will accompany the Spring display inside the department, called Sources of Conflict: Researching Wars and the Military in Special Collections, which will feature a number of our war-related collections. And watch out for our Spring Donor Hall exhibit, Echoes of the War: The Civil War Sesquicentennial. We're looking forward to these displays in the coming semester!

New Online Exhibit: Unidos por la Causa

Special Collections is proud to announce the publication of our latest online exhibit, Unidos por la Causa: The Chicana and Chicano Experience in San Diego. This fantastic exhibit, prepared by SCUA employees Amanda Lanthorne, Priscilla Lopez, and Kerwin So, is the tenth in our series of exhibits using an open source exhibits tool from the New Media Consortium called Pachyderm. It is our very first bilingual exhibit, and we are excited to release these great selections from our Chicano/a Studies collections in both English and Spanish. We are currently processing several more additions to the Chicano/a Studies Archive--stay tuned to New and Notable for updates! And don't forget to take a look at the physical version of Unidos por la Causa on display in the Reference area of the Library under the Dome, which will be available through December 31.

In other exhibit news, we're busy planning our upcoming Civil War anniversary exhibit for Spring 2011, which will be in the Donor Hall for all of Spring Semester. To complement this exhibit, we'll be showcasing some of our best war- and military-related collections in the foyer gallery outside SCUA in the Spring. And inside the department, have a blast from the past with selections from University Archives in our SDSU A-Z display. Drop by the department to take a look soon!

Soldiers at State: Celebrating Veteran's Day at SDSU

Happy Veteran's Day, San Diego State! In honor of Veteran's Day and our large number of student veterans and servicemen, we are showcasing our newly processed collection, the Robert M. Briggs Papers. Robert M. Briggs was a professor of Secondary Education at San Diego State for thirty years. Prior to this tenure at San Diego State, he served in the army during World War II. He was stationed primarily in the Pacific Theater where he worked as a sharpshooter and communications sergeant. Briggs was also an artist, and during his time in the Pacific, he made sketches and watercolors of other servicemen, battleships, local people, and landscapes, sometimes even while under enemy fire. He also painted insignias on military planes, including the insignia on Bockscar, the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki. The Briggs Papers offers a unique look at war art.

Briggs' artwork reflects the feel and mood of the time, and offers insightful perspective on WWII. He often sketched rapidly while under enemy fire, then added watercolor later, in the safety of his barracks. The image shown here is a sketch of men bathing in a stream. Briggs and several members of his unit went to bathe and unknowingly stumbled upon a group of Japanese soldiers also bathing. Both groups called a temporary truce so that each could finish bathing.

The Robert M. Briggs Papers (1943-2004) document Brigg's military duty during the Second World War and his paintings and personal writings. Highlights include Briggs' scrapbook of photographs, newspaper clippings, sketches, and watercolors of fellow servicemen, local Okinawans, landscapes, and battleships during World War II. The collection consists of newspaper clippings, photographs, sketches, watercolors, poems, essays about WWII and the Rocky Mountains, and an oral history discussing his experiences during WWII.

Other WWII-related collections include the WWII Servicemen's Correspondence, Haakon Maurice Chevalier Diary, Hitler Memorabilia Collection, and the Kramer Rohfleisch Papers. To view our military research guide, click here.

A Halloween Grab Bag

In honor of our spookiest holiday, we offer a selection of our scariest SCUA items!
Happy Halloween!

Pietro Mattioli, De i discoursi ...della materia medicinale. Venice, 1604. Rare Book Collection. Bedbugs!

H. P. Lovecraft, The Dunwich Horror, 1963. Chater Collection of Science Fiction

The Haunted Looking Glass, 1984, signed and inscribed by Edward Gorey. Edward Gorey Collection.

Adams Postcard Collection

German almanac , 1649. Rare Book Collection.

Opening Tonight! "Unidos Por La Causa: The Chicana/o Experience in San Diego"

Tonight, Special Collections and the Library will celebrate the opening of our new bilingual exhibit Unidos Por la Causa: The Chicano Experience in San Diego, a display of photographs, art, and historic documents illustrating the early years of the Chicano movement for social justice and civil rights in San Diego. Among many documents and images that illustrate the movement, the exhibit includes a selection of 62 movement-related posters and broadsides produced in the 1960s and 1970s promoting anti-war marches, UFW protests, student conferences and many other cultural and political events, demonstrating the movement's struggle for equal education and its resistance to injustice.

Unidos Por la Causa celebrates San Diego's Chicana/o community and the Chicana/o movement, and will be a guide to some of the most seminal events in San Diego's Chicana/o history, including those which helped to shape the community during the 1960's and 1970's. The exhibit draws upon materials held in Special Collections and University Archives. These collections, many of which have only recently been acquired, include the Arturo Casares Papers, the Enriqueta Chavez Papers, the Chicana and Chicano Studies Department Records, the Chicano Federation of San Diego County Records, the Leonard Fierro Papers, the Maria Garcia Papers, MANA of San Diego County Records, the Rene Nuñez Papers, and others. In addition, a separate exhibit case displays artifacts and other materials documenting the takeover of Chicano Park in 1970 and includes a video display of film footage of the Takeover in 1970 (illustrated above).

A special reception during the celebration will honor contributors and donors to the Archive, followed by a talk by Martín Gómez, Director of the Los Angeles Public Library, one of the largest metropolitan library systems in the United States. Mr. Gómez’s presentation “Archiving a Movement” will discuss how this particular archive is part of a nation-wide revitalization of libraries reflecting increased Latino patronage. The lecture will take place in Love Library Rm. 430 on Wednesday, October 20 at 7 p.m. and is open to the public. A flyer publicizing the lecture is attached to this message. We hope you will join us Wednesday at 7 p.m. for this important talk.

These events are made possible through the generous support of the President’s Leadership Fund, by contributions from SDSU departments, and support from individuals and organizations in the San Diego community. Please join us!

Inside the SCUA Classroom

This fall, Special Collections has hosted a number of fantastic class sessions from diverse disciplines, including English Literature, Journalism and Media Studies, History, Art, and Theatre. Our latest class session was an energetic group of undergrads in HIST 400: The Historian's Craft, taught by Professor Paula de Vos. These students are studying the complex topic of historiography, and used a visit to Special Collections to test what they have learned so far in class.

Students got to know a primary source by answering a few questions about it (such as: What type of document is this? Who produced this document? When was the document produced? Why do you think it was produced? What research questions might the primary source help answer?). Then, choosing two options from a range of historiographical traditions/frameworks/approaches (such as gender history, political history, Marxist interpretation, cultural history, social history, economic history, legal history), students described how their source might be used and interpreted in each approach. We all had a great discussion to wrap up the class as students shared what they found. We hope to see these budding historians back in SCUA soon!

Documents included a monthly report from the Traveler's Aid Society in 1923; an anti-slavery treatise on flogging from 1835 found in the U. S. Civil War Collection; a report on Un-American Activities in California published in 1943; an underground newspaper from the local Chicano movement in the 1970s; a letter opposed to forced busing for school integration; postcards from the 1935-36 California-Pacific Exposition in Balboa Park; minutes of the Federated Trades and Labor Council; a health officer's report on local garbage disposal practices in 1900; and a logbook from a California stagecoach company in the nineteenth century.

Image: History class in SCUA, 2008

Cabinet Card Curiosities in the Adams Photograph Collection

Interested in photography or photographic history? Or just want to look at some cool stuff? Check out the John and Jane Adams Photograph Collection in Special Collections and University Archives. Donated by Special Collections benefactors, John and Jane Adams (for whom the Adams Humanities building is named), the collection consists of a wide variety of photographic processes and formats, including daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, albumen prints, platinotypes, glass plate negatives, cyanotypes, cabinet cards, carte de visites, photo albums and more! These photographs primarily date from the mid-nineteenth to early twentieth centuries and contain interesting (and sometimes slightly bizarre!) portraits, exotic and familiar landscapes, cityscapes, and amusing scenes of daily life from all over the United States and abroad.

Besides offering scenes from the days of yore, the collection also provides a wonderful glimpse at late nineteenth century advertising. Displayed here is a cabinet card from a local San Diego photographer. Note the that the photographer used an easel and a painter's palette in his advertisement. Photographers in the late nineteenth century often juxtaposed cameras with artist tools, such as paint brushes and palettes, within their advertisements to gain recognition as artists rather than mere tradesmen. These advertisements also document improvements to photographic equipment and processes, and the general progression of technologies during the later nineteenth century. For instance, one photographer boasted his ability to take photographs by electric light, while another advertised his talent for enlarging prints – a difficult and uncommon process during the time.

This collection is one of many Adams collections, including the John and Jane Adams Postcard Collection, the John and Jane Adams Trade Card Collection, and the John and Jane Adams Artwork Collection. Because we are currently processing this gem of a photograph collection, it is not open for research in the Reading Room at this time. We hope to have it available by Spring semester 2011. Stay tuned for more hidden treasures!

Adams Postcard Series Closed this Fall

The Fall 2010 semester is off to a fantastic start in Special Collections!

We have upcoming posts about our new Chicano Studies exhibit, some newly processed collections, and some great new acquisitions, but for now a bit of collection management news: the Topical Series of our wonderful Adams Postcard Collection will be closed this fall for reprocessing. We're combining and categorizing the topics in the series into a more usable form, and finding gems in this series every day. It will be opened again for research later in the fall, but for the next month or so, it will be unavailable to patrons in our reading room. In the meantime, enjoy a few of our many great finds in this collections!