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Resources for American Studies: Issue 53, January 2002

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Resources for American Studies: Issue 53, January 2002

Contents

  1. BAAS Library and Resources Sub-Committee Meeting June 2001
  2. The Americanisation and the Teaching of American Studies Project
  3. The Manuscripts Collection, Tulane University
  4. The Williams Research Center
  5. Review
  6. Useful Websites
  7. Forthcoming Events

BAAS Library and Resources Sub-Committee Meeting June 2001

Minutes of the Committee Meeting held at the British Library, St Pancras, London 19 June 2001
Present:
Mr R J Bennett (British Library, Boston Spa), Secretary
Miss A Cowden (University of London)
Ms L Crawley (JRULM), Treasurer
Prof P Davies (BAAS)
Mr D G Heyes (British Library, London)
Dr I Wallace (JRULM) Chair

Apologies
Ms K Bateman (USIS Reference Centre)
Dr K Halliwell (National Library of Scotland)
Ms J Kemble (Eccles Centre)

Minutes of the previous meeting
The minutes were signed as a correct record.

Matters arising
(Min 8) Dr Halliwell had submitted a note to the committee saying that his position was still uncertain and he could not therefore commit to becoming Chair of the Sub-committee. Dr Wallace agreed to carry on as Chair in the meantime to ensure continuity.

Treasurer’s report
Ladies and Gentlemen;

We started the year optimistically enough by carrying forward a balance in hand of some £2517.30. Added to this is £275 from the payment of eleven registration fees at £25 each and one payment at £18. On the credit side we have also received a payment of £250 from Chadwyck-Healey’s advertisement in the July 1999 (no.48) Newsletter. As mentioned in my last report, BAAS LARS monetary affairs are administered by BAAS as part of their overall accounting arrangements and I had to wait for Nick Selby, the Hon. Treasurer for BAAS, to confirm that the invoice had been paid before I could add this to my records. Even with these welcomed payments there has been, nevertheless, a slight decrease if £335.12 since the last meeting of 13th February 2001.

The total figure on the expenditure side is £716.94. This covers the cost of issue number 51 of the ASLG Newsletter priced at £208.45. It also incorporates £493.50, the cost of the venue hire for the Images of America seminar at the British Library. Lastly, BLARS has repaid Kevin Halliwell £14.99 for the gift of a book to the placement student who helped on the Newspaper Project.

We still have a number of outstanding invoices totalling £775. This includes £250 from our sponsor – The Gale Group. We are also awaiting a payment of £50 from Thompson Henry for the insertion of a flyer in the delegates’ packs at the seminar. Finally there are nine registration fees at £25 each totally £225 which remain owing.

As on previous occasions, the sum of £463.68 remains earmarked for the Newspaper Project, so that £1879.74 signifies the uncommitted balance in hand.

Lisa Crawley
Hon. Treasurer BAAS LARS, 19th June 2001.

Dr Wallace stated that the accounts were in a healthy state and thanked Ms Crawley for her efforts.

Report from Projects Sub-Committee

Newspaper Project
As Dr Halliwell was unable to be present, he submitted the following report:

US Newspaper holdings in UK & Irish libraries

The bulk of the work on this project was carried out by a placement student, Ute Johnston, earlier this year and most available data has now been entered in the file. Most of the outstanding queries relating to the available questionnaires have now been cleared up and I have contacted the libraries whose responses were unclear. All editorial work proposed at the last meeting (e.g. changing the library ILL codes to library names) has now been done. To save space, a number of ‘obvious’ abbreviations have been used (e.g. L for Library, U for University and so on, based on the abbreviations used in Adams).

However, the report on progress I submitted to the last BLARS meeting now appears to have been a little over-optimistic. On doing a final check against the information from the original list (Adam, 1974), I discovered a number of discrepancies and, worst of all, a number of omissions. The most serious omissions relate in particular to the holdings of John Rylands University Library Manchester (many of them unique), as well as to the Bodleian Library, Oxford and Cambridge University Library. There are no returned questionnaires for these libraries, nor is there any other information on holdings, among the documentation passed to me by Linda Williamson. A total of ten libraries which submitted holdings to the original list are not represented in the present one.

I have contacted the libraries concerned and I have managed to verify some holdings from searching online catalogues, but until these libraries get back to me to confirm the holdings they originally submitted and to notify me of any additions I cannot submit the finalised list to the BAAS website. Having said that, this is very much the final phase of the project and hopefully it will not be long before the information is complete.

On the question of conversion of the file into a database I have been assured by our ICT technical officer that this is by no means an easy task, as the information is not presently held in separate fields. I suggest instead that as the file is not unwieldingly large it should be mounted as a straightforward text file with the addition of alphabetical searching by title, which is not difficult to set up.

I hope all this meets with the approval of the Sub-committee.
Kevin Halliwell
13.6.01

On the question of missing holdings for JRULM, Dr Wallace expresses his regrets. Ms Crawley agreed to follow this up at JRULM. ACTION LC

The Sub-committee agreed with Dr Halliwell’s proposal that the file be loaded as a simple text file.

Dr Wallace commented that it was pleasing to see the project approaching a satisfactory conclusion, and expressed his thanks to Dr Halliwelll for all his work.

It appeared that there might be funds over at the end at the project, but it was agreed to wait until the project was complete before considering how best to allocate these.

Newsletter
The Sub-committee agreed that the papers from the Seminar should be included in the next issue of the Newsletter. Mr Heyes anticipated that it would appear in July/August.

Dr Wallace said that he felt this issue of the Newsletter should be considered particularly important as it would be seen as “outreach” to advertise more widely the Sub-committee’s achievements. Various means of reaching a wider audience were discussed. These included circulating a note to the BAAS email list and including a note with the next BAAS Newsletter. Prof Davies said he would follow these up.
ACTION PD

It was agreed that the print run should be increased by 60
ACTION RB

It was agreed that the Website should include a message indicating that anyone interested in obtaining a hardcopy should contact Mr Heyes.
ACTION RB

Dr Wallace thanked Mr Heyes for his continuing editorial work of the Newsletter.

Seminar
Mr Bennett reported that all the arrangements were in hand for the event on the following day. He thanked Ms Crawley for her help with the invoicing, etc.

It was noted that the Seminar was unlikely to break even, although sponsorship had been received. The number of attendees was not as high as had been hoped, despite extensive “advertising”. It was felt that perhaps the registration fee has been set too low, although Dr Wallace pointed out that the Sub-committee had always sought to achieve value for money. It was suggested therefore that the Sub-committee should undertake a review of the event after it had taken place and discover what lessons could be learned. ACTION ALL

Sub-committee membership
Dr Wallace introduced the discussion by asking members to consider who the Sub-committee’s constituents are. It was noted that pressures on everyone meant that there was less time for “outside” interests such as those represented by the Sub-committee and that this was a cause for regret. Dr Wallace drew the Sub-committee’s attention to the need to consider:
the membership of the Sub-committee itself.
The wider group outside the Sub-committee.

ACTION ALL

On (2) Prof Davies said that American Studies Programmes existed at the following institutions:

Keele
University of East Anglia
Nottingham
Sussex
Birmingham
Swansea

He suggested that the Sub-committee could set up an email reference/discussion group through the auspices of BAAS. It was agreed that Prof Davies should circulate a note to the Heads of the American Studies departments with the aim of setting up a list of their librarians as a starting point.
ACTION PD

Date of next meeting
It was anticipated that the next meeting should be at the beginning of February 2002, again at the British Library, St Pancras. Mr Bennett would try to book 5 February.
ACTION RB
Any other business
There was no other business.
The British Library were thanked for their hospitality.

B.A.A.S. Library and Resources Sub-Committee

 

Notional ACCOUNTS 13/2/01 – 19/6/01
{not confirmed with BAAS}

INCOME £p
Opening balance £2517.30
Registration Fees: 11@£25, 1 @£18 £275.00
£18.00
Chadwyck-Healey advertisement in Newsletter 48 £250.00
TOTAL £3060.30
EXPENDITURE £p.
ASLG Newsletter (No. 51) £208.45
Seminar Venue £493.50
Gift for placement student £14.99
TOTAL £716.94
BALANCE IN HAND £2343.36
BALANCE BREAKDOWN £p.
Closing Balance 19/6/01 £2343.36
Minus Balance held for Newspaper Project £463.62
UNCOMMITTED BALANCE IN HAND £1879.74

 

NB: Invoices outstanding Gale Group £250 for seminar sponsorship and NewsBank Readex £250 for seminar sponsorship. Outstanding registration fees 9 @ £25 – £225.

Invoice Thompson Henry for insertion in the delegates’ packs – £50.

The Americanisation and the Teaching of American Studies Project

By Dr Alan Rice, Project Manager.

Elvis look-alike contests in Australia and Britain, Disney’s theme-park Empire expanding to France and Japan and the worldwide phenomenon of golf star Tiger Woods with the ubiquity of the Nike symbol attached to every item of his attire; all these cultural images show America’s presence in the world is multi-layered and seemingly all-pervasive. The Americanisation Project (AMATAS) has been set up to interrogate these and other transnational phenomena and to analyse the positive and negative effects of Americanisation. It will interrogate relations between America and the world while documenting resistance to American commercial and political power from those unwilling to live under the sign of the mighty yellow arch. Although the project focuses on cultural interactions it does so while paying attention to socio-political phenomena such as globalisation and first world imperialism.

How the Project Works

We want to take our enthusiasm for this vital theme in American Studies out to departments throughout the country. We aim to do this by:

offering workshops on manifold topics in Americanisation that can be slotted into undergraduate syllabi throughout the country by creating dynamic teaching packs/resources (both on paper and on the web) to aid in the delivery of units in curricula which address America’s relation to the world.

Along with our partners at the University of Derby and King Alfred’s College, Winchester, we have devised a series of two hour teaching units that academics can access in their own institutions between September 2001 and November 2002.

The Local and the Global

We hope to open up debates in locations throughout the country as to which sites in specific areas best illustrate Americanisation and the global spread of culture. Thus, in the Midlands American Adventure in Derby offers a good case study, while in the South-West the surfing culture of Cornwall illustrates how Americanisation is often mediated through leisure and sport. When visiting institutions with the workshops we hope to promote debate about local sites and stimulate undergraduate projects in the area of Americanisation.

Website

The best way to keep updated with the project is to keep an eye on our acclaimed website. It includes various resources for teaching, abstracts of the workshops as they become available and a message board. The website is interactive and we hope that the academic community will respond by writing Americanisation diaries and offering
useful links and resources via www.amatas.org

Conference

In Autumn 2002 to culminate the project there will be an international conference at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLAN) on the theme Teaching Americanisation in the Twenty-first Century when both staff workshops and student projects have been running. This will include material on the teaching and intellectual framework of the project, accounts of student experiences and suggestions for case studies in local regions by other universities. We will update material on this and other events associated with the project on the website and through a bi-monthly e-mail bulletin. To subscribe e-mail arice@uclan.ac.uk

The Fund for the Development of Teaching and Learning (FDTL) project under the umbrella of the Higher Education Funding Council (HEFCE) is the first funded teaching and learning project in the area of Area Studies. It is housed in the Cultural Studies Department at the University of Central Lancashire with consortium partners at the University of Derby and King Alfred’s College, Winchester. We aim to spread dynamic curriculum ideas on Americanisation throughout the American Studies community and beyond. The project is also available to other subject areas such as English, Area Studies, Cultural Studies, Languages, Visual Arts, Media Studies and Music.

The Manuscripts Collection, Tulane University

By Leon C. Miller, Manuscripts Librarian.

The Tulane Manuscripts Department is a leading research archive for studying the society and culture of New Orleans, the state of Louisiana, and the Deep South. Its beginnings go back to 3rd May, 1889, when Mrs. L. Dolhonde presented to the Charles T. Howard Memorial Library a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to M. du Plantier of New Orleans. In the years since that inaugural donation, the Manuscripts Department has grown to become New Orleans’ most comprehensive research archive with over 2,000 collections encompassing over three linear miles of documents.

The Manuscripts Department is not concerned exclusively with history nor is it tied to any single Tulane department or programme. Instead, it supports research and learning in almost every discipline, including the arts, humanities, and sciences. It also supports the university’s teaching and research mission at every level, including undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctoral.

The department supports Tulane University’s mission by acquiring, preserving, and making available records and papers pertaining primarily to the social and cultural development of New Orleans, and secondarily to the state of Louisiana as a whole. The department acquires records and papers in most subject areas pertaining to New Orleans and Louisiana, with a special emphasis given to the social, cultural, political, literary, and military development of the region. Most prominent among its collecting interests are Jewish studies, women’s studies, Louisiana politics, the Civil War, waterways, medicine, social welfare, carnival, and Southern literature. Although the department does not actively collect in the areas of African-Americana, jazz, architecture, Catholicism, Acadiana, business, law, Tulane administrative records, and official records of the City of New Orleans, the Parish of Orleans, and the State of Louisiana, it works closely with other archives that specialise in these fields. Exceptions are made when records or papers directly pertain to and strengthen current holdings.

The collection policy of the department is to acquire papers and records in all languages common to Louisiana. The majority of its acquisitions are in English, but French, Spanish, German, Italian, Hebrew, and Yiddish are occasionally acquired. We expect eventually to acquire documents in Vietnamese and other languages of recent immigrants.

The vast majority of acquisitions will be non-published documents with no imprint date. The department accepts published materials only when they are the product of the person or institution whose papers or records the department is acquiring. In such cases the Manuscripts Department often works closely with the Louisiana Collection to ensure the preservation and access of published works rather than preserving and providing access for them through the Manuscripts Department itself. The imprint date of such publications can range from Colonial Louisiana to the present.

Archival documents are created in a wide variety of formats. They include but are not limited to codices, personal papers, institutional records, photographs, individual letters, typescripts, and transcripts. The department avoids acquiring formats for which there are no, as yet, generally accepted preservation procedures, such as computer diskettes and Polaroid photographs. Except in rare cases, we do not accept photocopies.

In the first instance the department acquires documents about the city of New Orleans and secondly about Louisiana as a whole. However, as documents can become dispersed over time, the department actively seeks acquisitions from anywhere Louisiana documents are found, including outside the state and country. The department will occasionally acquire non-Louisiana documents that shed light on Louisiana events or directly pertain to and strengthen current holdings.

The Manuscripts Department supports the research needs of visiting scholars and is an integral part of Tulane University’s commitment to the larger New Orleans community. This flows directly from the nature of its holdings, which are essential for understanding the region. Many of the department’s holdings are international cultural treasures such as the Jefferson Davis papers, the Gettysburg letters of Robert E. Lee, and the John Kennedy Toole papers. Because such collections have cultural significance beyond Tulane, the Manuscripts Department believes it has an ethical obligation to make its holdings available to all researchers on equal terms regardless of affiliation.

The Williams Research Center

By Gerald F. Patout, Jr., Head Librarian.

The Historic New Orleans Collection was established in 1966 by General and Mrs L. Kemper Williams, private collectors of Louisiana materials to keep their collection intact and available for research and exhibition to the public. Housed in a complex of historic buildings in the French Quarter in New Orleans are administrative offices and a museum, which includes the Williams Gallery for changing exhibitions; ten galleries illustrating the history of the city, state and Gulf South; the Williams Residence, a house museum; and a gift shop. The Williams Research Center which opened in 1996, makes available to reseaerchers the Collection’s holdings which comprise approximately 14,000 volumes, 9,000 pamphlets, 5,700 linear feet of documents and manuscripts, a microfilm collection, and approximately 300,000 photographs, prints, drawings and paintings.

The Williams Research Center offers scholars access to extensive collections related to the Gulf South, particularly New Orleans and Louisiana. The Collection regularly adds to its holdings through purchase and tax-deductible donation. Access to the research centre begins with an interview with reading room staff and the consultation of automated catalogues.

Manuscript collections include letters, diaries, land tenure records, financial and legal documents, records of community organisations, and annotated printed items. In addition to original materials, the division has a large collection of microforms, including New Orleans newspapers (1803 – present). Family papers as well as the records of local organisations, such as the YMCA and the Arts and Crafts Club, form a large part of the holdings. Together they illuminate life in urban New Orleans and southern social and cultural history in the surrounding rural area during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Finding aids for catalogued manuscript collections usually provide an inventory or calendar with a chronological listing of each item in the collection. Uncatalogued collections are usually arranged chronologically at the time of accession unless a prior arrangement or inventory exists.

The Survey of Historic New Orleans Cemeteries, a project sponsored by the Collection in conjunction with Save Our Cemeteries, is housed at the Collection. This survey includes inscriptions, photographs, general descriptions, and condition reports of tombs in nine historic New Orleans cemeteries: St. Louis I & II, Lafayette I & II, St. Joseph I & II, Cypress Grove, Odd Fellows Rest, and Greenwood.

Nearly 2,000 reels of microfilm from the Archives Nationales de France (ANF) and the Archivo General de Indias (AGI) make available the bulk of those institutions’ holdings on colonial Louisiana. The ANF materials contain correspondence from Louisiana to the secretaire d’etat de la Marine; within the AGI are large collections entitled the Santo Domingo Papers (1757-1810) and the Cuban Papers (1762-1824), reflecting the Spanish administrative provenance of the documents. The Santo Domingo Papers contain information on commerce, smuggling, religion, immigration, diplomatic relations, financial affairs, government correspondence, and native Americans. The Cuban Papers contain official correspondence between governors and district commandants about Indians, commerce, census records, and Acadians; economic data from reports and account books and maritime information on the port of New Orleans; and correspondence touching all aspects of the colony’s economic life and development.

Census records, passenger lists, Civil War service records, as well as six collections of Louisiana materials in the National Archives microfilmed in 1988 are also available. The latter films are accompanied by descriptive pamphlets (a joint publication of the National Archives and the Historic New Orleans Collection): Records of the Federal Writers’ Project, Works Projects Administration, Relating to Louisiana, 1935-1943 (M1366); Selected Documents from the Louisiana Section of the Works Projects Administration, General Correspondence File (“State Series”), 1935-1943 (M1367); Selected Documents from the Records of the Weather Bureau Relating to New Orleans, 1870-1912 (M1379); Bound Records of the General Land Office Relating to Private Land Claims in Louisiana, 1767-1892 (M1379); Unbound Records of the General Land Office Relating to Private Land Claims in Louisiana, 1805-1896 (M1385); and Records of the New Orleans Field Offices, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865-1869 (M1483).

Curatorial collections include images and three-dimensional objects. Among the images are paintings, maps, vintage photographs and negatives, engravings, lithographs and other prints, and original drawings. Three-dimensional objects include sculpture, decorative arts, and memorabilia.

The Collection’s many city images reflect the growth of New Orleans, one of America’s oldest urban areas. Printed maps deal primarily with southeast Louisiana and New Orleans but include a selection of early maps of the New World, as well as original plats and plans of New Orleans and its surrounding area. Architectural drawings, including some by James Gallier, Sr., and Jacques N. B. de Pouilly, and photographs or slides of most of the drawings in the New Orleans Notarial Archives are also available.

The internationally important collection of photographer Clarence John Laughlin contains more than 37,000 photographs and negatives. These include not only Laughlin’s famous plantation and surrealistic photographs but also images of early buildings in New Orleans and Victorian and commercial structures in Los Angeles, Chicago, Milwaukee, Houston, and other parts of the United States.

The Alfred R. Waud Collection includes about 1,800 drawings made for illustrations in Harper’s Weekly and Every Saturday magazines. Many of these record New Orleans and its social life during Reconstruction; others depict the eastern states and the Midwest.
Extensive holdings of Mardi Gras ephemera include ball invitations and programmes, carnival bulletins depicting parade floats from the mid-1870s to World War II, carnival jewelry and favours, and original designs for floats, sets, and costumes.

Paintings and three-dimensional objects by Louisiana artists are on display throughout the Collection’s buildings and are available for research. The Louisiana artists files contain information on more than 20,000 artists and art organisations of national and local importance. Most of the printed holdings in the curatorial collection are retrievable through forty subject categories that reflect aspects of New Orleans life and history.

The library holds a strong collection of rare materials, including the first printed account of Louisiana, Abbe Hennepin’s Description de la Louisiane (1683); Henri Joutel’s Journal Historique (1713) of the region from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arkansas River; Het Groote Tafereel der Dwaasheid (The Great Mirror of Folly, 1720), satirical prints, prose, and verse describing John Law’s Mississippi schemes; and Les Cenelles (1845), the earliest volume of published poetry by African-Americans in the United States.

New Orleans imprints from the colonial era to the present are an important facet of the library’s holdings. The Collection attempts to acquire all modern monographs about New Orleans and its environs, as well as copies of relevant Ph.D. dissertations. Related ephemera include a large collection of nineteenth-century sheet music, opera libretti from New Orleans premieres, theatre programmes, and broadsides such as official proclamations, auction sale advertisements, and other public announcements.

The Vieux Carré Survey, an archive of some 130 binders, contains information about individual pieces of property in the French Quarter, organised by municipal square numbers and accessible by current street address. Basic information on each address includes a chain of title to the property and one or more photographs; other information may include copies of nineteenth-century drawings from the New Orleans Notarial Archives, architectural drawings from the Historic American Buildings Survey, additional photographs or drawings, business advertisements, and articles from newspapers or other sources.

The library also holds original and microform copies of New Orleans city directories, published more or less regularly since 1822.

Review

The Human Tradition in the American West. Edited by Benson Tong and Regan A. Lutz. ISBN 0842028617. SR Books 2002, $19.95, pp 237.

Reviewed by Duncan Heyes, American Collections, British Library.

The Human Tradition in the American West is the tenth volume in the series The Human Tradition in America from Scholarly Resources, earlier volumes of which have covered topics ranging from Colonial America to the Vietnam era.

We are reminded in the introduction to the series that Thomas Carlyle once remarked that “the history of the world is but the biography of great men” this view remained prevalent up until fairly recent times when historians began to turn their attention to the largely impersonal forces of social and economic developments, and the growth of urbanisation and industrialisation and the impact of these phenomena on the world. However, more recently scholars have returned to a closer view of Carlyle’s argument in that individuals, both high and low, powerful and weak, are brought to the fore to provide a greater understanding of a particular topic or period in American history. In recent times New Western History has remapped the study of the West not only in chronology and geographic boundaries, but also in incorporating race, class, sexuality ethnicity and gender. New Western History has played a crucial part in recovering the narratives of non-Euroamericans and women that have previously been neglected, and illustrates that there have been many “Wests” which no single definition can capture.

The volume on the American West is very much in this vein and comprises 13 biographies of men and women that have been chosen to reflect the diversity of the West. The book provides lively and well-written chapters on a wide range of African Americans, Native Americans, Hispanics, Euroamericans and women who have in some way contributed to the West. The essays take the reader far beyond the popular view of the West with its ideal of the conquest of nature and bring fascinating portraits of the individuals which range in time from an 18th century Spanish Borderlands priest, Francisco Javier Clavijero to the contemporay politician and gay rights activist Harvey Milk of the 1970s.

For those studying the West or for those with just a general interest in American history this volume provides something of value. The scope of the collection is best illustrated by a few examples. In the chapter by Laurie Winn Carlson on the missionary Eliza Hart Spalding we learn that despite the West being a male dominated region ‘frontiering’ could still provide an opportunity for liberating women. In an absorbing account of William O. Douglas, we learn that the best known second youngest justice of the US Supreme Court, was also active as an early environmentalist which was reflected not only through his writings but also through his influence on court decisions. In the chapter on Joseph W. Brown, the Native American politician, author Paul C. Rosier discusses the process of cultural exchange and how this process could be used as a positive force. The books co-editor Benson Tong provides an interesting account of Margaret Chung the first American born Chinese female physician who during a turbulent time in American history struggled to reconcile her ethnicity and Chinese heritage with her American culture and education. This essay highlights a common theme throughout the book that people of colour in the West were constantly adapting to change and that ethnic identity was not fixed but dependent on a process of mediation.

The editors should be congratulated for bringing together such a fascinating collection of essays which place the lives and experiences of individuals at the centre of the debate for an understanding of this complex and fascinating region.

Useful Websites

Michigan State University – American Radicalism Collection

http://www.lib.msu.edu/coll/main/spec_col/radicalism

The American Radicalism Collection holds over 17,000 items. It includes books, pamphlets, periodicals, posters, and ephemeral material covering a wide range of viewpoints on political, social, and economic issues in America. The emphasis in the collection is on materials produced by radical groups – both left and right. The collection, for example, has materials devoted to Timothy Leary, the Black Panther Party, Neo-Nazi Organisations, the Christian Right, and Steve Gaskin, founder of the commune the Farm. While the American Radicalism Collection is strongest in publications from the American Left in the twentieth century, as well as in resources for the study of American Labour History, there is considerable material from the right, most notably the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920’s and 1930’s..

Academic Info : The American West

http://www.academicinfo.net/amwest.html

A directory of resources for the study of the American West that caters for the casual browser to the student and researcher. The site provides links to information and bibliographies on frontier history covering the Romantic West, Westward Movement, the Gold Rush and the Donner Party. New Western History is covered by such topics as African Americans, Chicano and Chicanas and includes primary texts such as treaties as well as secondary texts. The hot links also provide access to visual resources such as the Collection of photographs on the history of the American West held at the Denver Public Library comprising over 30,000 images taken mostly between 1860 and 1920.

Archive of Amistad documents

http://amistad.mysticseaport.org/library/welcome.html

The library at the Mystic Seaport houses the archive of Amistad documents. The collection contains over 500 documents arranged in the following categories, newspapers; personal papers; court papers; government papers; popular media and maps. All the documents are searchable.

Forthcoming Events

LECTURES AT THE INSTITUTE OF UNITED STATES STUDIES

21 February 2002, 6pm. Senate Room, Senate House.
The Paradox of Religion and Democracy: The American Experience.
Hillel Fradkin, American Enterprise Institute for Policy Research.

14 March 2002, 6pm. Chancellor’s Hall, Senate House.
Burbank with a Baedeker, Eliot with a Cigar: American Intellectuals and the Idea of Culture.
Professor Ronald Schchard, Emory University.

19 March 2002, 6pm. Senate Room, Senate House.
Brave New Biology: The Challenge for Human Dignity.
Professor Leon R. Kass, University of Chicago.

Admission free by registration with a reception to follow.
RSVP to the Programme Officer
Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU
Telephone 020 7862 8691 or 8693 Email iuss@sas.ac.uk

University of Sussex, Brighton: March 14-16, 2002.
Massive Resistance: Southern Opposition to The Second Reconstruction
The University of Sussex announces a colloquium on the massive resistance movement against black civil rights. Speakers include Karen Anderson, Tony Badger, Dan T. Carter, Jane Dailey, Adam Fairclough, Michael Klarman, John Kirk, George Lewis, Gerald L. Smith, Lauren Winner.

Anyone interested in attending the colloquium can obtain further details by contacting:
Clive Webb
English & American Studies
Arts B
University of Sussex
Falmer
Brighton BN1 9QN
E-mail: c.j.webb@sussex.ac.uk

University of Stirling, Scotland: March 16-17, 2002
W. E. B. Du Bois and Frantz Fanon: Postcolonial Linkages and Transatlantic Receptions
This international and interdisciplinary conference aims to highlight the significance Du Bois and Fanon hold for contemporary scholarship. Confirmed speakers include: Chester Fontenot, Charles Long, David Macey, Patrick Williams and Robert Young. Some sessions will be devoted to focused studies of Du Bois and Fanon while others will emphasise linkages and metatheoretical issues.

Organisers: Dr. Mary Keller, Religious Studies, in conjunction with the Scottish Forum for Francophone Studies (Dr. David Murphy), Scottish Association for the Study of America (Dr. Colin Nicolson) and the Centre for Commonwealth Studies, University of Stirling, (Fiona Chalamanda).
Website http://www.commonwealthstudies.stir.ac.ukkk/DuBoisFanon.htm

BAAS Annual Conference

The British Association of American Studies Conference 2002 will be held at the Rothermere American Institute, Oxford, from 5-8 April 2002. The annual conference provides an excellent opportunity for librarians to communicate with scholars and postgraduates and keep abreast of developments in the field. For more information please contact Andrea Beighton, BAAS Conference Secretary, Rothermere American Institute, South Parks Road, Oxford OM 3TG.
Email: andrea.beighton@rai.ox.ac.uk

The American Studies Library Newsletter is edited by Duncan Heyes, Curator, The American Collections, The British Library. Correspondence, contributions and enquiries about advertising should be sent to him at 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB, telephone 020 7412 7601.

All views expressed in the Newsletter are those of the contributors or editor, and do not necessarily represent those of the BAAS Library and Resources Sub-Committee.

The Sub-Committee gratefully acknowledges the contribution of staff at the British Library, London and Boston Spa, for typing, proof-reading and editing the Newsletter.

(Copyright BAAS Library and Resources Sub-Committee.

Archive