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Each year, more than half a million students nationwide participate in National History Day. Students choose topics related to a theme, conduct primary and secondary research, analyze and interpret their sources, and present their work in original papers, websites, exhibits, performances and documentaries. Projects are evaluated in competitions at the local, state, and national levels during the spring.

In Chicago, the process starts in the fall, when the Chicago Metro History Fair begins preparing teachers and students for History Fair competitions in Chicago and suburban Cook, Lake, Kane, and DuPage counties.

Participation in History Fair helps students improve their reading, writing, thinking, and presentation skills as they learn history. It’s also an opportunity for them to use Chicago’s diverse archival collections, in person or online.

CAA encourages local archives, museums, historical societies, and libraries with primary sources related to “Leadership & Legacy in History” to support history education by sharing relevant collection information with Chicago Metro History Fair by 5 September. If you can’t share by that date, becoming familiar with relevant holdings is still a way to for your organization to prepare for potential student researchers later in the school year. Or, use “Leadership & Legacy” as the topic of a staff reference activity or discussion for American Archives Month in October.

Top: Chart illustrating the theory of concentration. In Francis W. Parker’s Talks on Pedagogics: an outline of the theory of concentration (1894). Public domain. See more at https://archive.org/details/talksonpedagogic01park.

Bottom: Dr. Albert Sabin (left) and leaders of Rotary International announce Rotary’s goal of eradicating polio at a press conference in 1985. Copyright Rotary International. All rights reserved.

Registration is now open for SAA’s two-day workshop, “Managing Architectural, Design, and Construction Records,” November 6th-7th at the University of Chicago Library’s Special Collections Research Center. The workshop will be led by Tawny Ryan Nelb and Waverly B. Lowell, co-authors of Architectural Records: Managing Design and Construction Records.

Details and registration information are available on SAA’s website: http://saa.archivists.org/events/managing-architectural-design-and-construction-records-1519/531/

In this two-day workshop, participants will learn how to identify, manage, preserve, and provide access to design and construction records. The first day addresses the process of design, legal issues, appraisal, types of records, arrangement, and description. The second day focuses on media and support identification, preservation, reformatting, reference, and patron use. Taking into consideration the access needs of different types of repositories, as well as the reality of limited space and budgets, participants will learn ideal practices as well as practical solutions.

The minutes from the July 29, 2014 CAA Meeting have been approved and are available to view online here.

The minutes from the June 17, 2014 CAA Meeting have been approved and are available to view online here.

From a release by the director of the Women and Leadership Archives at Loyola University:

The Women and Leadership Archives and the Ann Ida Gannon, BVM, Center for Women in Leadership, Loyola University Chicago, are seeking proposals for an oral history project "The Peace Studies Program:  From Mundelein to Loyola."  The main result of the Peace Studies Oral History Project is to interview key narrators to learn how and why the Peace Studies Program began at Mundelein College and subsequently, how and why it became part of Loyola University Chicago.  The Project will facilitate the creation of materials that share the Peace Studies history with Loyola students, faculty, staff, and administrators.  In addition, information will be used on various Loyola websites that will reach a wider, general audience. 

Funding is available for a contractor to conduct and transcribe 6 interviews, in addition to creating web and brochure content.  The project runs from September 2014 to May 2015, with the understanding the work may be completed sooner.  Travel inside and outside greater Chicago, IL, is required and the contractor will need a car to do so, with mileage reimbursement provided.  Also, a longer (4 hours one way) car trip may be needed for one or more of the interviews and expenses will be covered.

The successful proposer is an experienced interviewer, who can demonstrate oral history skills by prior work of at least one year on an oral history project, completing multiple interviews and accompanying paperwork.  In addition, the contractor must work well with members of a team. 

For more information and/or the complete RFP document, please contact Nancy Freeman at nfreeman1@luc.edu or 773-508-8432.  Proposals are due July 28th. 

The minutes from the May 13, 2014 CAA Meeting have been approved and are available to view online here.

The Robert M. Meyer Archives in the Society of the Divine Word Chicago Province have started publishing their oral histories online. From their newsletter:

The Community Histories Project publication is now titled Communities of the Word: Stories of the Chicago Province, 1895-2012. It is being published serially, one chapter each month, and distributed at the same time as the Chicago Province Newsletter. January began with the “Prelude: Milton, Pennsylvania” followed by “Techny, 1895-2012,” “Girard, 1912-1982,” “East Troy, 1921-2012,” and “Miramar, 1922-2012.” Conesus, 1924-1984 was published this June.

The online serial installments are always available on the Robert M. Myers Archives’ holdings page, Communities of the Word. In addition, a printed version of each installment, addendum materials, photograph captions with identifications, photo credits, and articles from alumni with interesting behind the scenes information and corrections will be available in the SVD Resource Center. The SVD Resource Center is located in the Chicago Province Center next to the archives.

From the press release:

The long, rectangular shape of the Japanese kimono serves as a canvas that has inspired artists and fashion designers for centuries. A new rare book exhibition at the 

Chicago Botanic Garden explores the history of
kimono design through hand-printed books of kimono patterns. The display, Moku Hanga: the Art of Japanese Woodblock Printing, runs from May 16 through August 10, 2014, in the Lenhardt Library.

The elegant hand-inked and hand-bound books first appeared in 1666, and served as reference works for kimono designers and makers centered in Kyoto.

Filled with images of flowers, grasses, water, trees and wildlife, the works reflect the profound influence of the natural world on the arts of Japan. The pattern books, created by some of Japan’s most famous artists and also by complete unknowns, became an established genre closely following changing tastes. By the early 1700s, fashion called for flamboyant patterns sweeping the length of the kimono, and some incorporated symbols of the samurai.

Featured in the Moku Hanga exhibition is a lavish sample book published in 1902 by Yaichiro Ichida for the company Ichida Shoten, a high-end kimono draper. The page opens to a gorgeous woodblock print of peonies that would have decorated the interior of a haori, a kimono jacke

t. Also on display is the first major work of Sekka Kamisaka, considered to be one of the greatest Japanese designers of the twentieth century. The volume, Chigusa: All Kinds of Things, published in 1903, opens to “Snowy Plu

m under the Moonlight” and “Willow and Cherry Blossoms.”

A 1905 book by Tamahiro Shimomura contains images from the first twentieth century fashion craze in Japan, the revival of the Genroku era, the golden age of Japanese culture and the byword for elegance, glamour and sophistication. Art nouveau and art deco sensibilities also resonated with Japanese artists, who incorporated elements of the western art movement into their work. Early twentieth-century volumes by Korin Furuya,  an enormously creative and influential artist, present multiple variations of single themes. His finest,Shasei Soka Moyo, Patterns of Plants and Flowers, shows a special affinity for the natural world.

A library talk on Moku Hanga will take place at 2 p.m. on Sunday, June 29.

Moku Hanga: the Art of Japanese Woodblock Printing is generously supported by the Harriet Kay and Harold R. Burnstein Fund for Exhibits.

Read more about the exhibition! Also note that there will be a library talk on Moku Hanga on Sunday, June 29th at 2pm. The talk is open to the public and registration is not required.

The minutes from the April 8, 2014 CAA Members Meeting have been approved and are available to view online here.