Primary Sourcery

While processing the Robert Bly collection I was drawn into his correspondence with Donald Hall. Their letters are sarcastic and funny and include charming nicknames for each other. When compared to the other letters of Bly’s other regular correspondents and many of the letters from fans, the letters from Don Hall are sometimes irreverent or biting.

Guest author Matthew Reza shares his recent experience with the Immigration History Research Center Archives staff and collections. Reza is a tutor, lecturer, and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford.

Each May is Jewish American Heritage Month, a month where we celebrate Jewish Americans who have helped weave the fabric of American history, culture, and society. This year, the theme is Jewish contributions to American music, which provides the Upper Midwest Jewish Archives an opportunity to shine a light on a unique local group of musicians in St. Paul, Minnesota who have been making music for 90 years.

From 1938-1979, the Minnesota School of the Air brought educational programs into the classrooms of Minnesota and beyond over radio airwaves and through tape transcription. This episode takes listeners to Metropolitan Stadium to learn how to stay dry on a rainy day. 

Guest author Amy King is a final year Ph.D. candidate in the Italian department at the University of Bristol. She was awarded the Immigration History Research Center Archives (IHRCA) Grant-in-Aid Award this year, and visited us to study the commemoration of Giacomo Matteotti in the Italian communities of the United States.

Lisa Vecoli is retiring as curator of the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies. She talks with Kris Kiesling, director of Archives and Special Collections at the University of Minnesota Libraries, about her tenure at Tretter, which included winning two national awards, adding, the Michael McConnell Papers, and developing and managing the Tretter Transgender Oral History Project.

This past fall, the Upper Midwest Jewish Archives received a new donation of the papers of local rabbi Kassel Abelson. The papers are now organized and ready for researchers to peruse, standing as a testament to Abelson’s career as rabbi of Beth El Synagogue for 40 years.

Historical material documenting the lives and culture of African Americans is represented in a new exhibit at the University of Minnesota’s Elmer L. Andersen Library. The exhibit, which runs through May 18, includes photographs, manuscripts, slave manifests, letters, and works of art from more than 160 collections at the University of Minnesota Libraries.

Pubs in July 2018, Disney/Hyperion Every once in while there is a book that I see in a booth and I just want to read...

Maryanna Manfred is known as a prolific editor, journalist, and contributor to the literary communities in Minnesota and South Dakota. She is the former wife of Frederick Manfred and mother to Marya Manfred, Frederick Manfred Jr, and Minnesota writer Freya Manfred-Pope. Her writing and correspondence can be viewed via the Upper Midwest Literary Archives in Elmer L. Andersen Library.

As the Twin Cities prepares for the 2018 NFL championship game many locals are busily planning their party menus. We’re taking an old approach to current favorites with some historical recipes that are ready for a comeback: chicken wings, cheese straws, pretzels, and bacon-wrapped shrimp. 

Lisa Von Drasek talks about the 2017 Marion Vannett Ridgway Award winners in this episode of Read This Book! from the University of Minnesota Libraries. "Hannah and Sugar," written and illustrated by Kate Berube was the 2017 winner, with Honor Awards going to Bethan Woollvin for "Little Red" and Dori Kleber for "More-igami."

Anthony Comstock is well-known as the instigator of the Comstock Law, which was passed by the United States in 1873 in an effort to stop the shipment and sale of “obscene materials” through the U.S. mail. Less well known is the role played by the Young Men’s Christian Association of the City of New York — now the YMCA of Greater New York — in making Comstock’s vision a reality.

By the time the exhibit went up in August, the topic had been with us for three years and I had completely lost perspective. Would anyone else find A Campus Divided interesting? We had built it, would they come? It turned out that attention for the A Campus Divided was beyond anything we had experienced before, as thousands of people flocked to Andersen Library to view the exhibit.

A new residency program at the University of Minnesota Libraries aims to highlight historical collections to create new art, deepen connections between artists and archivists, and deliver art to larger audiences.