Manuscripts
Dr. Thomas K. Fitzgerald addition
Artifacts donated by Dr. Thomas K. Fitzgerald to the Anthropology Department have been transferred to Dr. Fitzgerald’s manuscript collection in the Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections & University Archives.
Stylized Carved Wooden Head Polynesian grass and shell necklace and bracelets
Louanne Watley Collection
Louanne Watley is a visual artist and writer based in Chapel Hill, NC. Recently, SCUA was fortunate to acquire a collection of Watley’s photographs, artists’ books, collotype printing plates, and prints. Characteristic of Watley’s prolific and iterative creative process, there are varied editions of multiple photographic series. Watley’s work is documentary in nature, yet her images are often cropped, manipulated, collaged, resampled, and reinvented into entirely new works. Inherent in the work of this collection is a prime example of not just the work or product of an artist but the process of an artist. Not every attempt resulted in a successfully finished piece, which is partly what we are particularly excited to share with students. In Watley’s work, students will find the importance and value of the process.
Rare Books
From Log Cabin to the Pulpit; or, Fifteen Years in Slavery / Reverend W.H. Robinson
Born enslaved in 1848 in Wilmington, North Carolina, Reverend Robinson describes his life there and in Tennessee, his service with the Union Army toward the end of the Civil War, various jobs held afterwards, and finally life as a pastor in the Midwest.
Movement in Black / Pat Parker
Movement In Black is a collection of poetry by Black lesbian feminist Pat Parker. The poems featured in the collection center around Parker’s experiences as a Black woman, lesbian, feminist, mother, writer, poet, and activist. This book provides an intimate glimpse into the intersectionality between life as a Black woman and life as a Lesbian in the 70’s. Also featured is a foreword by Black lesbian poet, Audre Lorde.
Black Lesbian Newsletter, scattered issues, 1982
Published in Berkeley, California, the Black Lesbian Newsletter featured poems, drawings, political perspectives, photographs, book reviews, event listings, personals, and business listings.
Printing in the Time of COVID-19 : March – May 2020 / Lauren Emeritz
Just before the Pandemic lock-down started in March 2020, Lauren Emeritz participated a letterpress workshop with Amos Paul Kennedy. Inspired to print, but not able to use the press in the studio due to the Pandemic, Emeritz began printing in a makeshift print studio in her home. Using wood type, a Vandercook 99, and hand-inking, she printed on chipboard, an inexpensive and accessible substrate. The prints include words and phrases from during that time early in the pandemic (March to May 2020).
Rule of Thumb / Ellen Knudson
From the artist’s website and colophon: “Rule of Thumb is a moveable book about the historical human obsession with ourselves and with approval from others. In the last 10 years, we have become obsessed with living online instead of actual living. We seem to only care about how many “thumbs up”, likes, or hearts we can accumulate on social media platforms. We practice a psychological social separation. We live virtual lives. Now, with the proliferation of the COVID-19 virus, we are living with the physical reality of “social-distancing”. How will we make it back? Can we make it back? I hope we will realize how much we don’t want to live without one another.” Rule of Thumb considers the ways in which humans have used our thumbs to, at best, twist reality, and at worst, ruin ourselves.
Women Veterans Historical Project
More Nurses are Needed!
1944 Recruiting poster for the U.S. Army Nurse Corps. Artist Henry McAlear.
Unknown WAC’s 1950-1951 Photograph Album
This photograph album was compiled by a Women’s Army Corps enlisted soldier from 1950-1951. The photographs were taken at basic training at Fort Lee (now Fort Gregg-Adams), Virginia and Fort Riley, Kansas. The WAC (who identifies herself in captions as “me”) trained as a clerk-typist.
Stella Minnie Mahler Pace Scrapbooks
Two scrapbooks documenting her time as a U.S. Navy WAVE during WWII. Mace (1909-2007), of Matteson, Illinois, did her boot camp training at the University of Wisconsin Madison and was stationed at The Naval Air Training Center Corpus Christi, Texas from 1943-1944 where she was a radioman 3rd class.
1958 U.S. Women’s Army Corps Center Fort McClellan, Alabama Yearbook
In September 1954 General Matthew B. Ridgeway, Chief of Staff of the Army dedicated the Center. The Center conducted basic training, clerk-typist, stenography, personnel specialist, leadership, and cadre courses for enlisted personnel and basic and advanced courses for officers.
Recruiting material for the WAF and WAVES 1950s-1973