Preservation Specialist Audrey Sage Honored by the Staff Senate

Preservation Specialist Audrey Sage was honored by the Staff Senate for her many contributions to Service Committee, including her work with the Angel tree, the UNCG garden plot, the Spartan Open Pantry food drive, the Teacher Supply Warehouse drive, the Veterans Day card signing event, and her volunteer efforts with Out of the Garden and the Family Room.

KATHELENE McCARTY SMITH IS OFFICIALLY APPOINTED HEAD OF SCUA

We are excited to announce that as of July 2023, Kathelene McCarty Smith has been awarded tenure and was appointed the Department Head of the Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives.

KIN Ed Visits SCUA

In June, SCUA hosted a group of KIN Ed students who were visiting campus for their in-person orientation. They viewed a pop-up exhibit and heard a presentation by Kathelene McCarty Smith related to the history of physical education at UNC Greensboro. The exhibit included early gym suits, artifacts, and images, as well as several important books from SCUA’s collections; De Arte Gymnastica, written by Giovanni Mercuriali (1530-1606), which is one of the earliest books to discuss the therapeutic value of gymnastics and sports, and several books on the history of physical education and dance for women and girls, originally part of the Homans Collection at Wellesley College which was purchased in the 1940s by the University Libraries. They also toured several archives spaces, including the Preservation Lab where they had their picture taken with the famous Bindery Doughnut!

SCUA Staff Participate in Welcome Back Luncheon!

On Tuesday, August 8th, Scott Hinshaw, Erin Lawrimore, and Audrey Sage represented SCUA at UNCG’s Faculty and Staff Welcome Back Luncheon in Moran Commons. Faculty and staff from across campus were able to learn more about University history and take postcards featuring historical University photos. One staff member even found a photo of his grandmother in one of the Pine Needles yearbooks on display!

Flashback to the 1940’s at the Greensboro History Museum

SCUA staff was on hand at the Greensboro History Museum’s 1940s Flashback event, held on Saturday, July 8. Women Veterans Historical Project Curator, Beth Ann Koelsch, gave a talk about Greensboro women veterans and UNCG University Archivist Erin Lawrimore presented on the Woman’s College student swing band, the Darlinettes, that entertained the campus and community during World War II.

The Greensboro History Museum featured baking contest using recipes from a 1940s-era North Carolina cookbook, Kitchen Kapers, housed in SCUA’s Rare Books Collection. The Kitchen Kapers cookbook was printed in December 1942 by the Viola Grant Collier Circle of the Woman’s Society of Christian Service, the First Methodist Church in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina. One aspect that makes this cookbook unique is that it is one of the few community cookbooks which were created during World War II food rationing and incorporated those constraints into the recipes. Beginning in May 1942, the US government began rationing certain foods. Sugar was first on the list, later joined by coffee, meats, fat, cheese, and canned milk by March of 1943. Interestingly, macaroni and cheese required few ration points and so became a nationwide sensation. By 1946, the rationing of food products had ended.

Museum staff selected three recipes for the Bake-Off: Cheese Biscuits, Baker’s Chocolate Chip Cookies, and War Cake. With multiple entries for each, judging was both a fulfilling and tough assignment!

Link to Kitchen Kapers on Gateway: https://gateway.uncg.edu/islandora/object/sc%3A23118#page/1/mode/1up

Media Spotlights on SCUA Collections

SCUA has been in the news!

• The local Fox affiliate station interviewed Carolyn Shankle and Patrick Dollar about the North Carolina Cookbook collection. Watch HERE!
• To commemorate July 4th, UNCG Communications wrote a story about…the Cookbook Collection!
• Stacey Krim was interviewed about the Cello Music Collection. Read HERE!
• O. Henry Magazine featured an article about the Burgin Ross Collection.

Digitizing Grant Awarded

UNCG Libraries was awarded a $92,000 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services/LSTA for the “March for Justice: Documenting the Greensboro Massacre” project. The project will provide digital access to approximately 50,000 pages of material related to the 1979 Greensboro Massacre, an event in which five protestors were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis.  

This project grant from the State Library of North Carolina will enable UNCG and Bennett College to collaborate on digitization of thousands of records relating to the 1979 Greensboro Massacre and the subsequent work of the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Manuscripts Curator Stacey Krim and Digital Projects Coordinator David Gwynn are taking the lead on this digitization project.

The collections span roughly 48 years, from 1973 to 2021 and document events, actions, and persons connected with the Greensboro Massacre and the short and long-term consequences. 

The collection includes documents and artifacts from the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission as well as the detailed personal papers of activist and author Signe Waller Foxworth, whose husband, James Waller, was killed in the confrontation on November 3, 1979. 

Learn more about the Greensboro Massacre HERE.

Livestock Theater Exhibit

The latest exhibit on the first floor of Jackson Library highlights the Livestock Playhouse and Greensboro Children’s Theatre Collection, donated by Barbara Britton. The collection contains photographs, programs, posters, and ephemera related to the Livestock Playhouse and Greensboro Children’s Theatre. The exhibit is a small portion of the collection, which includes 36 boxes and three oversized folders of posters.

SCUA is excited to present the collection to students, faculty, staff, and the general public. Livestock and the Greensboro Children’s Theatre impacted so many lives in the communities, including performers, parents, and audience members! The exhibit will be up through October 2023.

History of Livestock

The City of Greensboro hired Carole Lindsey (now Lindsey-Potter) to expand the city’s arts programs. She then brought Barbara Britton on board, then 24 and an alumna of UNC Greensboro (1969), to reinvigorate the Greensboro Children’s Theatre (serving grades four through nine). In 1971, Lindsey-Potter and Britton started the Greensboro Youth Theatre (serving ninth graders through young adults). Initially, the group performs at the Greensboro Coliseum Complex. Soon after, the pair begin summer productions in the old Guilford County agricultural arena on Burlington Road, also known as “the barn.” The Livestock Playhouse begins in this barn in 1971-1972. Livestock became a Greensboro institution for over 40 years, performing musicals, plays, and revues in the barn and, later, the Carolina Theatre in downtown Greensboro. Following budget cuts from the city in 2002 and 2015, Livestock Playhouse/Players ended. Britton retired in 2005, after 34 years with the company.