News

  • 02 Feb 2013 11:24 AM | Deleted user

    A star on both the stage and screen, Northwestern alumna Patricia Neal was best known for her film roles in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), and Hud (1963), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. A new exhibit at Northwestern University Library explores her legacy, based on the extraordinary collection of personal papers, Hollywood souvenirs, photos, and other memorabilia now held by the Northwestern University Archives.

     

    Curated by Benn Joseph, Manuscript Librarian for Special Collections and Archives, the exhibit is packed with artifacts from Neal’s childhood, school life, career, family, legacy, philanthropy and celebrity. Among them are a baby book with a lock of Neal’s hair; intimate letters from Gary Cooper, whom she met while starring with him in The Fountainhead; and her Academy Awards tickets from 1964, the year she was nominated for best actress.

     

    Her marriage to Roald Dahl, the celebrated author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and other beloved children’s books, is chronicled in photographs of Dahl and their five children; a letter Neal wrote about Dahl’s work on James and the Giant Peach; and a profile Dahl wrote for Ladies Home Journal about Neal’s struggle to recover after her stroke. And there are letters from friends and colleagues including Paul Newman, Gene Kelly, Ronald Reagan, Anne Bancroft, Kirk Douglas, and Andy Griffith.

     

    The collection, established at University Archives by Neal’s daughters Lucy and Ophelia Dahl, is “an exceptional collection, the largest collection of personal artifacts ever given to the university by a celebrity alumna,” according to University Archivist Kevin Leonard. “She made lifelong friends here who played an important role in her life,” says Leonard. “She was very fond of Northwestern.”

     

    Northwestern University Library is located at 1970 Campus Drive on Northwestern’s Evanston Campus. The exhibit is free and open to the public through 22 March 2013 during the library’s regular public hours: Monday–Friday, 8:30 AM–5:00 PM and Saturday, 8:30 AM–12:00 PM.

  • 29 Jan 2013 4:39 PM | Morgen MacIntosh Hodgetts

    CAA Members - Candidates needed for Steering Committee Openings

    Four positions on the Steering Committee of two year terms beginning in March 2013 and ending March 2015 are open.  Candidates will be elected by a vote of CAA members at the Annual Meeting on Tuesday, March 19th.

    Service on the Steering Committee is open to all CAA members in good standing, anyone with an interest in the profession, from students to retirees, professionals and paraprofessionals in all types of archival repositories.

    Qualifications include enthusiasm, initiative, and a commitment to the profession.

    The Steering Committee meets monthly at a location determined by the members of the Steering Committee to:

    • Establish programmatic goals for the organization
    • Circulate information to and responds to the needs of the CAA members
    • Represent CAA within the larger profession and to the general public
    • Sets standards to ensure the sustainability of CAA

    Interested CAA members should submit a brief (1-2 paragraph) Statement of Interest that will be distributed in advance of the Annual Meeting to inform the voters about your background and motivation for serving on the Steering Committee.  Send the Statement of Interest to info@chicagoarchivists.org and be sure to include your full name, title and place of work if applicable, and preferred contact phone and email address.

    The Deadline to submit your Statement is Monday, February 11th at 5pm.

    Please send questions or comments to info@chicagoarchivists.org

  • 29 Jan 2013 4:21 PM | Morgen MacIntosh Hodgetts

    CAA Members Meeting

    Date: Tuesday March 19th

    Time: 5:30pm-7:30pm

    Location: DePaul University, John T. Richardson Library, 2350 N. Kenmore Ave., Room 400

    Stay tuned for the full agenda but please note that CAA Members in good standing will have the opportunity to vote on the following at the meeting:


    CAA members to serve on the Steering CommitteeTerms for four members of the Steering Committee are ending in March 2013.  Vote for CAA members who will serve a two year term (March 2013-March 2015).  Candidates’ Statements of Interests will be shared with CAA members by February 19th, one month prior to the Annual Members Meeting.

     

    Changes to the by-lawsIf approved these changes would take effect at the close of the 2013 Members Meeting.

    The CAA Steering Committee proposes the following changes to the by-laws.  The changes are all in reference to expanding the members’ ability to vote. Currently, voting can only be done in person at the Annual Meeting.  Our new membership software opens up the possibility for online voting, so we propose to change the by-laws to take advantage of options other than voting in person into account.

    A pdf of “By-laws proposed changes January 2013” is posted on the CAA Website: http://chicagoarchivists.org/reports


    An increase in dues. 

    The last dues increase CAA members experienced was in 2004 when dues were raised from $5.00 to $10.00.  The Steering Committee is proposing to increase dues to $15.00 as we have begun to incur the following regular monthly and annual expenses: bank account fees, Wild Apricot Membership Software/Website fees, and State of Illinois annual report filing fees.  If approved this change will be take effect with payment of 2014 dues.

    Please send questions or comments to info@chicagoarchivists.org


  • 26 Jan 2013 8:47 AM | Deleted user

    Continuing its 125th anniversary celebration, the Glessner House Museum presented The Glessners and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on 16 January. Executive Director and Curator William Tyre spoke about the relationship between the Glessner family and the Orchestra and its first two music directors, Theodore Thomas and Frederick Stock.

     

    Attendees had the opportunity to view the Glessner Doll Collection, on loan from the CSO’s Rosenthal Archives. On 1 January 1913, Frances Glessner Lee presented her mother with a unique and memorable birthday gift: a meticulously crafted model of the members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. On 17 January, the Glessners welcomed the entire orchestra to their home for dinner and the chance to view the model.

     

    To commemorate the centennial of that event, the Glessner Doll Orchestra will be on exhibit at the Glessner House Museum through Sunday, 24 February 2013. You can see the miniatures on the Rosenthal Archives blog and in an ABC7 Chicago story. Even if you’re not interested in miniature dolls, you should check out the video for the interview with Frank Villella, Archivist at the Rosenthal Archives!

  • 21 Jan 2013 9:57 AM | Morgen MacIntosh Hodgetts
    Please join me in welcoming Audra Adomenas to the CAA Steering Committee.  Audra responded to our September call for CAA members to volunteer to fill the open 2012-2014 term of service position created when our colleague Heather Stecklein resigned to take a new job as University Archivist at the University of Wisconsin-Stout in Menomonie, Wisconsin. Audra is the Project Director of the Lithuanian Archives Project and brings a suite of skills, new ideas, and fresh enthusiasm to the Steering Committee.  Thank you Audra for joining us as we work to fulfill the mission of the CAA. 

    CAA Members stay tuned for a call for volunteers to step up to fill Steering Committee positions for 2013-2015 terms of service.  Voting will take place at our Annual Members meeting in March (date, time, and location TBD). 
    Questions or comments can be sent to info@chicagoarchivists.org

  • 15 Nov 2012 12:20 PM | Anonymous member

    The minutes of the October 2nd meeting of the CAA Steering Committee have been approved and are available to view online here.

    If you have questions about the Steering Committee's activities, or any other CAA business, please contact us at info@chicagoarchivists.org.

  • 18 Oct 2012 12:36 PM | Deleted user

    Just in time for the kick-off of the celebration of the centennial of the American College of Surgeons, the description of the papers of ACS founder Franklin H. Martin, MD, FACS and his wife Isabelle, is now available online at www.facs.org/archives. The Martins’ memoirs, essentially scrapbooks with photos and memorabilia from 1901 to 1934 have been described and available to researchers for several years, with a sampling of the contents available online. Now a description of the entire collection is available online as a 54-page PDF describing 95 boxes of materials.

     

    Doctors Narhwold and Kernahan consulted many of these records in their research for the centennial history of the College, while the records were still being processed. They were privy to records about the first two decades of the history of the College, to which no other historian of the College over the century has had access. However, the sheer volume of the collection ensures that it will be essential reading for all those intending to write biographies of Franklin Martin, and will yield many more insights about the founding and early years of the history of the College.

     

    With over ten years of work by the ACS Archives staff, from the time the papers were discovered in 2001 in old rusty metal filing cabinets stored at the College’s historic Murphy Memorial Auditorium, to the completion of their full description in standard archival format, the description of the papers is now accessible by any researcher and free-text searchable. Over the course of the decade, the brittle memoirs were given de-acidification treatment and rehoused in polypropylene preservation-friendly sleeves for safe and easy handling by researchers. Archivists Susan Rishworth and Dolores Barber then completed a thorough inventory of the records allowing for item level description of all Martin’s correspondence. An arrangement scheme became more clear as more and more records were uncovered and the inventory grew.

     

    Among the items in the inventory are records of Martin’s early career as a gynecologist, including casebooks from 1891 to 1917; original records from the now defunct Chicago medical schools and hospitals which he was instrumental in founding dating from the 1890s; the full collection of memoirs which includes documentation of Martin’s service as Medical Director of President Woodrow Wilson’s civilian arm of the Council of National Defense during World War I and on which he served with other luminaries, such as Samuel Gompers, Bernard Baruch, Julius Rosenwald, Howard Coffin and Hollis Godfrey; item level description of correspondence from 1885 to 1935; background on his publications; photos, both formal and snapshots; hundreds of sympathy letters after he died; and much more.

     

    Please celebrate the ACS Centennial by delving into a description of the papers of its founder, Franklin H. Martin. For more information on accessing the papers themselves, contact Susan Rishworth, Archivist, American College of Surgeons, srishworth@facs.org.

  • 14 Oct 2012 9:28 AM | Deleted user

    In honor of Archives Month, the Outreach committee looked into the early history of CAA. Using past newsletters from our archives, Jeanie Child prepared an overview of CAA activities in its first few years.

     

    In the early 1980s, concerns were growing about the massive stores records created by the City of Chicago and Cook County, stored in leaky warehouses and inaccessible to the public. Working to rectify this disregard for the area’s documentary heritage was one of the driving forces behind the creation of CAA. Members assisted with the State Archivist’s inventory of these records and promoted the creation of a central urban repository to house the materials. By 1985, it was clear that a city or county-run repository would not be created. Instead, Chicago and Cook County would become part of the Illinois Regional Archives Repository (IRAD) system. Today, the records that once languished in damp warehouses can be accessed at the IRAD facility at Northeastern Illinois University.

     

    Around the same time, CAA compiled a directory of 183 archival repositories using information from questionnaires sent to about 900 entities in the eight-county Chicago metro area. In the days before online resources such as the Illinois Archival Repositories Directory, this printed directory provided locations, hours, fees, description of holdings, and services descriptions for the diverse listings. Entries in Archival and Manuscript Repositories in Metropolitan Chicago and the Calumet Region of Northwest Indiana (1986) include the Salvation Army, Sears Roebuck and Co., Ft. Sheridan Museum; numerous local public libraries, historical societies, and religious repositories; and many institutions that are no longer in existence or are now under new management. Energetic CAA members obtained a $1000 grant from the Illinois Humanities Council, and several private gifts, that covered not only the costs of production and mailing but also two related workshops.

     

    In addition to promoting archives and professional activities, CAA built strong social traditions. The April 1985 newsletter notes, “CAA members have proven in the past that they never need a reason to celebrate with food and drink.” For the annual spring meeting of the Midwest Archives Conference, held in Chicago that year, CAA planned an open house to welcome archivists from around the region. Showing that they indeed were ready to dialogue, these professionally-minded CAA’ers announced “We will supply (the first) three cases of beer and some snacks.”

     

    CAA continues to offer opportunities for professional development and socializing. Please join us at one of our upcoming events and check out news from the community.

  • 05 Oct 2012 12:14 PM | Anonymous member

    The minutes of the August 16th meeting of the CAA Steering Committee have been approved and are available to view online here.

    If you have questions about the Steering Committee's activities, or any other CAA business, please contact us at info@chicagoarchivists.org.

  • 02 Oct 2012 2:33 PM | Deleted user

    After forty years of service, Kathryn DeGraff retired from DePaul University in August. DeGraff was most recently Special Collections and Archives Department Head. In her time at DePaul, she expanded the Special Collections & Archives’ instruction program and was instrumental in increasing the number of social justice manuscript collections at DePaul. You can read more about her work at http://news.library.depaul.edu/news/post/2012/08/After-Forty-Years-of-Service2c-Special-Collections-and-Archives-Department-Head-Kathryn-DeGraff-Retires-From-DePaul.aspx.

     

    Have you changed jobs, published an article, or presented at a conference? The CAA Outreach Subcommittee would like to spread the good news in a future edition of Member News. Send information about your professional achievements to info@chicagoarchivists.org; subject line “CAA Member News.”

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